On 10 Aug 98 at 16:17, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> It seems to me that lost in the invective of this debate is some
> of the history of the 'expropriation of the aboriginal commons', at
> least as I understand it in the NA context.
>
> First, with regard to the intermingling of the (mercantile) capitalist
> mode of production with the aboriginal domestict mode of production during
> the period of the fur trade, the conclusion of most of the recent
> research work (as expressed by the 'articulation of modes of production
> literature') is that the process of the subjegation of native economies
> and social structures (including European technology) came quite late in
> the contact period, largely after the European began the forceful
> expropriation of land (and resources) with the spread of settlement and
> the agricultural frontier. For Canadian plains indians, the end of
> the buffalo economy came quite late -- between the first and second
> Riel Rebellions, the end result of which was the final movement
> (outside BC) of the Indian population onto reserves (but not the
> Metis, Innuit or Dene).
>
> Even then, a year or two ago I finished supervising a superb thesis
> on the economic fortunes of the Indians on reserves in the period
> from the 1870s to the 1940s. Through much of this period, the
> natives population did adjust to the market economy and, while
> hardly prospering or growing rich, did actually quite well; so
> much so that the government and local business conspired to buy,
> seize, expropriate or otherwise dislodge Indian land because, in
> many cases, the Indians were out competing white farmers (such as
> in hay markets.) Indeed, the federal government in canada denied
> the Indians their money to buy farm machinery
> because the government argued that, to maintain their way of
> life, the Indians had to use traditional, labour intensive,
> non-machinery mathods. That is, the natives were denied the
> right to chose to adopt modern technology and when they did and
> out competed the whites, they had their land and/or resources
> restricted.
> The real collapse of the native economies came, according to
> this thesis on Saskatchewan (and a similar book on Manitoba)
> during the depression when the aboriginals suffered the same
> fate as the white farmers. The difference was that the native
> economies never recovered with the war and the rise of paternal
> welfarism led to the dependency of the reserve structure which
> was not (the reserve resource base) sufficient to maintain or
> increase the income level.
>
> Nevertheless, Bhoddi is right in the sense that even if we
> restored to all the aboriginals all that we have expropriated
> since the original treaties, and even allocated all or most of
> the unallocated crown lands, it would do little now to bring
> the native peoples up to a decent standard of living. Just to
> give an example, Canada is now overrun with Beaver -- aboriginals
> can catch as many as they want and most of us wish that they
> would as they have become a nuisance and a hazard -- but the
> price of beaver pelts is so low (thanks in large part to the
> so-called animal rights activists) that the cost of catching
> beaver is greater than the revenue. Look at what has happened
> in BC with the salmon fishery. The combination of overfishing
> by US and Canadian fishers, pollution from logging and mining,
> etc. has driven the salmon dangerously close to extinction such
> that, even returning the exclusive fishing rights to the Indians
> on most rivers would barely provide for a subsistence fishery,
> etc. etc.
>
> Plus, the fact that many Native people don't want to live by
> the traditional ways -- i.e. want to come to the cities, get
> good educations, become doctors and even economists, or get
> good trades jobs. The preservation of traditional (and in
> many cases isolated) economies denies those kids who want
> to integrate the tools (social and educational) to do so.
>
> I certainly don't have the answer to this problem -- but
> it surely is not as clear cut as either Louis or Bhoddi make
> out.
>
> Paul Phillips,
> Economics,
> University of Manitoba
Response:
The wholesale "expropriation" (never using laws of "eminent domain
even as that would open up a whole host of contradicitons and
constraints of "sacred" private property institutions protecting
non-Indian capitalism) of Indian lands was an essential part of and
yet a metaphor for a wider totality of genocide.
At the Tribunal in Vancouver BC, we heard case after case--supported
by irrefutable documentation from inside the Canadian government and
Churches--that processes of "Enfranchisement" along with the
Residential Schools and other mechanism were directly intended to
destroy Indians as recognizable Indians; there was never any intent
however, to "assimilate" Indians on any other level of Canadian
society other than the degraded margins.
We know that history lives within the present and shapes the future;
historical inequalities, disenfranchisement and marginalization only
produce increasing inequalities, disenfranchisement and
marginalization unless addressed by very radical measures. Not only
was the commons exporpriated, but as well, were whole ways of living
(not so "primitive" as one would imagine; an example of "primitive"
would be the CIA MKULTRA program or the operations of the REsidential
Schools under the banner of civilization), whole societies, whole
Nations, Tribes, Clans and families. Cumulative spirals of sexual and
physical abuse in Indian families--begun with Residential Schools
experiences--continue today and erode Indian Families, Clans, Tribes
and Nations. Forced, unconscionable, total-cost-minimizing and
genetically devastating diets were forced on Indians that are a
major factor in present-day illnesses and medical conditions in
Indian Country--obesity, diabetes, renal failure etc. Various forms
of drugs and deleterious substances were imported into Indian
country--in violation of existing laws nominally enforced--to divide
and rule and as an instrument of land expropriation; these legacies
continue today.
The present-day conditions of Indians are not simply an indictment of
the past such that we can say "that was tragically then, but then
again, this is now." The then, lives within the now and destroys any
chance for any kind of future other than living on the most degraded
margins of the now which means gradual extinction and and no future
as a separate people. And of course, in all of this, no real
Indians--only a few token sell-outs--were ever consulted or gave
"informed consent" to be assimilated--read destroyed as sovereing and
indentifyable Peoples.
What is so dangerous about present-day Indian claims is not the
threat to expose hidden histories not included in the conventional
history books--although that threat is real also as a threat to
de-mystify--rather, present-day Indian lands claims, along with
exposure of the Residential/Boarding School "syndromes" and various
Governmental documental policies and intentions,.threaten the very
sacred foundations and institutions of bourgeois property upon which
the present Capitalist properties and power structures have been
erected and protected. Under private property institutions and laws,
I cannot keep stolen property once the true story has been told as to
how the property has been acquired. Property is "lawfully" acquired
through: a) discovery; b) conquest through war; c) gift; d) legal
purchase and sale through legal contracts; e) inheritance through
bloodline; f) declaration of "eminent domain"; g) Treaties
ex-post-facto Treaties are only now being considered after the land has already
been effectively exporpriated; you cna't "dicover" land with
occupants already there; many purchases and sales were under clear
unconscionable and illegal contracts where contracts were even
involved; many of the Nations never fought any war against Canada or
the Crown; there were no "gifts" involved in many of the lands
expropriated; attempts to exterminate Indian bloodlines of succession
and inheritance have not been completely successful.
The bottom line: By virtue of the same "sacred" rights, privileges,
laws, responsibilities, myths, traditions etc that make up "private
property" institutions, that protect and expand present-day private
proerty, they dialectically call into question and indict the very
same private property they protect. This is why pushing bougeois rights and
institutions can be a resolutionary act: to expose the inner hypocrisy and
contradictions that indict and call into question the very properties
protected and expanded by those very same institutions, laws and
rights. It involves pushing bourgeois sacreds to their own limits
(like reduction ad absurdum) in order to undermine them and
tactically use their own internal contradicitons and mystifications.
This is why the Canadian Government wants a blanket settlement for
victims of the Residential Schools (no details please as the details
indict the system and its inner logic and inexorable trajectories and
ugly consequernces) and this is why these quicky sell-out Treaties
are imperative at this juncture of history; this is also why the U.S.
Government wants no part of what is going on in Canada with respect
to Boarding Schools in the U.S. land claims etc.
Jim Craven
James Craven
Dept. of Economics,Clark College
1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tel: (360) 992-2283 Fax: 992-2863
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"The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians; their land and
property shall never be taken from them without their consent."
(Northwest Ordinance, 1787, Ratified by Congress 1789)
"...but this letter being unofficial and private, I may with safety give you a more
extensive view of our policy respecting the Indians, that you may better comprehend
the parts dealt to to you in detail through the official channel, and observing the
system of which they make a part, conduct yourself in unison with it in cases where
you are obliged to act without instruction...When they withdraw themselves to the
culture of a small piece of land, they will perceive how useless to them are their
extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to time in exchange
for necessaries for their farms and families. To promote this disposition to exchange
lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries which we have to spare
and they want,we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good and
influencial individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these
debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off
by cession of lands...In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and
approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens
of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi.The former is certainly the
termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course
of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that
our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to
shut our hand to crush them..."
(Classified Letter of President Thomas Jefferson ("libertarian"--for propertied white
people) to William Henry Harrison, Feb. 27, 1803)
*My Employer has no association with My Private and Protected Opinion*
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