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NEW BOUNDARIES No. 5 January 1981
ON NATIVE PEOPLESCONTENTS
I "Return Indian Land to the Indian People!" . . 1
II Since 1492 7
III Marxist Errors on Native Peoples ........ 23
IV The Legacy of Land-Stealing 31
V New Boundaries for Native Peoples 39
Send printed material to Send letters to:
H 4R4
G. SMITH
Box 102, Lakeside, Novo .'Canada BOJ 1Z0
A list of New Boundaries publications is inside the back cover.
-1-
"RETURN INDIAN LAND TO THE INDIAN PEOPLE!M
This was the startling revolutionary chant of Iranian anti-
imperialists in January 1980. Like the nationalities of Iran under the
Shah, the Native Peoples suffer because giant U.S. companies control the
wealth of their land, especially energy sources. The logic is clear:
common enemy—U.S. imperialism; common goal—control of their own land;
therefore, mutual support.
By taking an interest in the Native People, Iranian revolutionaries
have emphasized what Iran and Native People have in common and made the
possibility of taking large chunks of land from within U.S. boundaries
a concern of all anti-imperdalisHj-s. Self-determination for Native
Americans—i.e., state power and economic control in a large part of the
present U.S.A.—will not exterminate the U.S. nation, but will help
destroy its imperialist capability. On the other hand, continued U.S.
domination of Native land will lead to the extinction of Native People.
That some of the world's oppressed are contained within the borders of
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the dominant imperialist country is an important geopolitical peculiarity,but it is never an excuse for denying those people their rights.
It was through extermination of Native People that a powerful U.S.
white nation developed. Ironically, the genocidal beginnings of U.S.
imperialism are frequently used in attempts to justify the status quo for
Native People: because they are relatively few, it is argued that self-
determination is not possible. Anti-imperialists who support independencefor the majority Black population of South Africa find it harder to consider
breakup of the United States.
But the origin of the U.S. really weakens U.S. whites1 claim to the
land. England has occupied Scotland, Ireland and Wales for centuries but
we still uphold the rights of these nations to separation. Further, while
England (and most nations) developed from groupings which had long livedon English territory, the U.S.A. developed in the act of taking the land
it now claims from people whom it did not absorb. Not only is the originof the U.S. shady, but its claim to land is shaky compared to that ofmany nations.
U.S. whites have enshrined their westward invasion as a great epic,
emphasizing their labor, expertise and enterprise—which we assert came
into play mainly as a result of the conquered land base.
For anti-imperialists the fact that the U.S. white nation is a
historically recent development and an intrusion in the continent should
promote the idea of rolling back U.S. borders and cutting the U.S.A. down
to size so that Native Peoples, the Afro-American nation, Puerto Rico,
Polynesians and others can control land and develop.
Land and its natural resources is the main stake. Colonialism and
imperialism at first exploited the labor of oppressed peoples on their own
land and away from it (as in the African slave trade). Today, minerals
and especially oil, which need less labor, have outpaced agriculture in
economic importance and mechanization has replaced much labor in agriculture.
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More than ever before, imperialism can afford to let the conditions of
oppression kill off millions of people and can strengthen its grasp by
genocidal measures against real or potential opposition. More than ever
before, to view national oppression mainly in terms of exploitation of
labor is to disguise land-stealing and the danger to which its victims are
exposed.
Those who question this grim conclusion need only look at the deliberate
use of massacre, starvation and disease against Native Peoples whose land
(not labor) was always the main target; nor should we assume that the
Native Peoples are now relatively safe simply because they are few
compared to whites and scattered on small parcels of land. The seizure
of land no matter what treaties, agreements or reservations were formally
in effect is a constant feature of Native history.
U.S. government estimates vastly understate the territories right
fully belonging to Native Peoples but even these biased figures show the
value of Native land to the imperialists:
The tribes are estimated to hold title to as much as 25 to 50% ofall uranium in the country, one-third of the low sulfur strippablecoal in the West and roughly 2 percent of all domestic oil.andnatural gas, according to the Department of the Interior.
The imperialists will never willingly slacken their grip on Native
land, though they belittle its importance in contrast with capital and
industrial labor. Native People, however, have always recognized land as
a principal source of economic values, the keystone to their survival.
Selected excerpts from Navaho history illustrate our point.2
The ancestors of the Navahos were immigrants from Asia who settled
in the Pacific Northwest around 500 A.D. Approximately 500 years later,
their descendants migrated to settle in what are now the states of Utah,
New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. There they developed an agricultural
economy and gave up the nomadic life. Concentration on farming lasted
into the late 1600fs when the Spanish drive for control sparked a war
between Spanish forces and the neighboring Pueblo tribe unsettling the
Navaho economy. The result was a conversion from agriculture to herding
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sheep and horses as the main economic activity. Although Spanish authoritiesplayed one tribe against the other and conducted sporadic warfare, theNavahos remained independent. And, as Spain1s power waned in the early1800fs, "the Navahos emerged as the most impressive pastoral culture inaboriginal America and one of the dominant military powers in the Southwest."3
When the U.S. seized the Southwest from Mexico in 1846, the Navahos
were not consulted. A military stalemate prevailed up to the Civil War.
But, in 1863, U.S. forces arrived from California and, finding noConfederates to fight, turned against the Native Peoples. The leader of
the U.S. forces planned to remove the Navahos from their land and force
them onto a reservation. When the tribe resisted, Navaho territory wasinvaded by a combined force of Union soldiers and local volunteers which
destroyed crops, rounded up sheep and shot Navaho men on sight. The U.S.hero Kit Carson oversaw part of this operation. In 1864, some 8,500 Navahoswere forced on the "Long Walk" to a reservation in New Mexico. Conditions
reflected the brutality of the whites and casualties were high. On thereservation at Bosque Redondo, conditions were little better than on the
Long Walk; the white Indian agent himself termed them inhumane. The land
was unsuited for farming and alien to the people. After the Navahos refused
to plant crops in 1867, the government gave up and allowed them to return
to a new reservation which encompassed part of their traditional homeland.
The treaty of 1868 gave the Navahos control over a reduced, but still
relatively large, region in which they were able to survive as sheep herdersuntil 1900 when mineral and oil development threatened their land tenure
once more.
The Navahos are the most energy-rich of all Indian peoples—the 17million acre reservation contains a wealth of resources: 1.5 billionboard feet of commercial timber, 4 billion tons of recoverable coal,80 million pounds of uranium, 23 billion cubic.feet of gas and watersufficient to irrigate about 5 million acres.
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Like other oppressed nations, the Navahos benefit little from the
exploitation of their resources.
The Navaho tribe...gets a royalty of 15 cents a ton for coal minedby Peabody Coal—later sold by the company for $30 a ton. That coalgoes to generate electricity for Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, LasVegas and Los Angeles, while on the Navaho reservation only 39 percentof the homes-have electricity (compared to 99 percent of the homesnationally).
Like the Navaho, other Native Peoples throughout the U.S. have
consistently waged battles both military and political for land. Their
focus on controlling and regaining their land in the face of tremendous
opposition is a major strength. Yet their location within the borders of
the U.S. makes the goal seem a distant one.
All oppressed peoples would benefit if the Native People captured a
large chunk of U.S.-claimed territory. The sprawl of U.S. imperialism
makes mutual aid short of armed struggle a present possibility. For
example the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and the present drive for "domestic"
oil have intensified drilling on Navaho land. The Navaho have retaliated
by shutting down the Aneth oil field, strengthening the effect of the
OPEC embargo. The Reagan administration plans to increase "domestic"
exploration and production even more.
About half of U.S. crude consumption comes from within U.S. borders,mostly from land rightfully part of the Afro-American or Indian nations.
A Native People's embargo would be important support to an Iranian or
OPEC embargo and vice versa. That is why Iranian students chanting
"Return Indian land to the Indian people!" is an important straw in thewind, as was their earlier denunciation of persecution of Blacks.6
Marxism's influence is a major obstacle to anti-imperialist thinking.The Marxist labor theory of value echoes white supremacists1 insistence
that their efforts alone created the U.S.A. It assigns no value to land.
Marxism cannot be reconciled with reality in which imperialism seeks land
and destroys oppressed peoples rather than exploit their labor.
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U.S. and foreign Marxists have considered the U.S. exceptionally democraticbecause forms of democracy are well-developed. They have, withoutexception, failed to connect the exceptionally genocidal origins of theU.S. with the danger facing Native People and other oppressed from U.S.imperialism today. As U.S. whites we are responsible for fighting whitesupremacy in all its forms, including its Marxist variety.
As understanding increases of the importance of land to U.S. imperialism,the Native Peoples and all oppressed nations, the Native Peoples willreceive further support from nations both outside and within U.S. boundaries.
The present study of the Native Peoples seeks to promote understanding fromwhich support will grow.
* * *
1. New York Times, August 7, 1979, pp. Dl, D14.
2. Lawrence G. Kelly, The Navajo Indians and Federal Indian Policy,University of Arizona Press, 1968.
3. Kelly, p. 4.
*• Akwesasne Notes, Mohawk Nation, via Rooseveltown, N.Y. 13683, Summer1978, p. 26.
5. Ibid.
6« Chronicle Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, January 12, 1980, p. 1.
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II
SINCE 1492
No one could explain all the important events of Indian history in
just a few pages. This brief history is meant to amplify what most
people already know; what the Europeans wanted and still want from the
Indian is his land and that land-stealing is basic to the existence of
the U.S. nation.
The English and their U.S. successors are the main focus of this
study for several reasons. Not the least is that the U.S. has become the
main imperialist power in the world. It is the most dangerous enemy of
the Native Peoples of all the Americas. Another reason is that, contraryto Marxist expectations, it was the most capitalist and least feudal
forces who were most interested in land rather than labor.
The French were primarily concerned with the fur trade and itwas to their advantage to make use of the Indianfs special skillsas a hunter. The possibility of precious metals lured theSpaniards into the area that now comprises the United States,but for the Indians the mission became the principal Spanish
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institution. The English sought Indian land, although thefur trade also attracted some....The net effect of the evolvingpolicies was most-disastrous for those Indians in contactwith the English.
Rationalizations
Many rationalizations have been made for stealing Indian land. One
is that North America was virtually an empty continent with a few Indian
tribes scattered here and there. Historians and anthropologists have
tried to defend this view by providing "scientific" evidence of very low
population densities. Recently there has been some effort to counter
this trend. Henry F. Dobyns gives good evidence that at the time of
Columbus there were 90-112 million people in the Americas with 9.8-12.252
million north of present-day Mexico. In other words, there were about
as many Native Americans as there were Europeans in 1492. While the
10 to 12 million still implies a low population density for North America
it is very different from an empty continent and the figure of one
million used in many popular histories. Even if Dobynfs figures are too
high there is certainly no justification for landstealing when we con
sider that hunting and shifting agriculture were part of the lives of
many of these peoples. There was no empty land where Europeans could
settle without stealing land from the Native Americans.
Another rationalization for stealing Indian land was that it was not
used properly. This view, often credited to the Swiss jurist Vattel,
holds that agriculture is the land use favored by God so that Europeans
had the right to take land from Indians who used it only for hunting.
Beside the obvious questions that could be raised about VattelTs know
ledge of God's intent, this theory ignores the considerable agricultural
accomplishments of the Indian peoples.
All southern Indians depended for their subsistence on agriculture and every town and village had around it its cultivated fields....The favorite crop, and the largest, was everywhere corn....They raised melons...beans, potatoes ("Irish"and sweet), squash and pumpkins.
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In the Northeast the Iroquois cultivated 15 varieties of corn,
60 types of beans and 8 kinds of squash.^ Indians of the Southwest
raised cotton in addition to food crops.
Farming was not the only way in which the Eastern Indians differed
from the usual stereotype of a cluster of teepees in a trackless forest.
Cotterell says of the Southeast that roads were marked to give directions,
There was such a volume of trade that there was a professional class of
traders carrying salt, farm products (the Choctaw produced a surplus),
shells for wampum and decoration and flint for arrows. Traders had a
jargon (called Mobilian), a sort of "pidgin" Indian language...and everywhere well enough understood to make trade possible.It was the Indians1 familiarity with the benefits of trade thatmade them accept the white trader so.avidly as to affect theirdevelopment and alter their destiny.
In the Midwest, Indians built large structures not only for burial
monuments but also to enclose grounds for ceremonies and ball games.
The English Colonies
Every American knows about that first Thanksgiving feast where the
Indians supplied the meat and the Pilgrims supplied the pumpkins that
the Indians had taught them how to grow. Less well-known are the Pequot
War of 1637 and King Philip's War of 1676. Similarly Pocahontas is much
better known that Chief Opechancanough who led his people against the
Virginians in 1622 and again in 1644. After the Pequot War Increase
Mather called upon his congregation to thank God "that on this day we
have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell."6 Subsequent history
shows that this is the true tradition of how Europeans have thanked God
and the Indians for the land they took.
King Philip was one of the great Indian leaders who united people
from various tribes against the English and later American invaders.
Like many others he won some important battles but lost the war. As
usual there were some Indians who fought against him. This was not
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because they failed to see who their most dangerous enemy was but because
they were not convinced that they could defeat the Europeans. The main
factor was that the Europeans had a monopoly on the manufacture of gunsand ammunition.
Guns were the .decisive weapon but other means were used to take
Indian land. Lord Amherst, the English governor for whom the Massachusetts
city is named, advocated the use of smallpox. "Officers at Fort Pitt did
distribute among the Delawares at least two handkerchiefs and two blankets
from the smallpox hospital at the fort. Whether or not this early attempt
at biological warfare was responsible, a smallpox epidemic was soon raging
among the Delawares."
Even when the Indianfs labor appears to be of interest to the English
settlers the desire for land usually overshadows it.
Contrary to popular belief Indian slavery was not an isolatedincident during our colonial period rather they played animportant role both in colonial trade and in the exterminationof most of the southeastern tribes [our emphasis] reducing thedozens of tribes to-five durable ones later known as the
"Civilized Tribes".
The fur trade is another example. Huge fortunes were made employ
ing Indian labor. The primary purpose was to gain political control.
Nowhere did the desire for furs prevent white settlement. In fact, it
helped clear the way by promoting war and destroying the traditional
livelihood of the Indians. The English traded hardware and cloth for
hides and slaves. The intensified competition for hunting grounds led
to war which the British encouraged by buying captives as slaves.
While the British were encouraging the Cherokee and Creeksin a policy of mutual destruction the French had been openlypromoting a revival of the Choctaw-Chickasaw "hereditary1feud. The Choctaw-Chickasaw war (1690-1702) resulted in 500Choctaw captives, 1800 Choctaw dead and 800 Chickasaw dead....Since even in colonial days the Indian tribes rarely foughteach other except in wars fomented by white allies, it maybe doubted whether there ever existed among them anyqof those"hereditary feuds" to which reference is often made.
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Wars among the Europeans gave some hope to the Indians but usually
did not help them much. The Cherokee, for example, lost 5000 men in the
"French and Indian" war.
The East
The "Fathers" of the republic had about the same attitudes as the
Pilgrim "Fathers". "George Washington and Patrick Henry were among the
many busily dispatching surveyors into Kentucky and lobbying for land
grants in the area presumably off limits to whites." Ben Franklin
said, "Rum might be the agent of Providence to extirpate these savages
in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth."
The Declaration of Independence charged George III with tryingto loose on the frontiersmen "the merciless Indian savageswhose known rules of warfare is an undistinguished destructionof all ages, sexes and conditions." That most of the red menwould remain loyal to the English was apparent immediately.The English could pose as defenders of Indian land against theavarice of settlers.
In the early 1790,s Henry Knox, Secretary of War, was one of the
first to advocate private ownership of land for Indians, in order to
allow whites to gain legal title to all the rest after Indian families
received small farms. Always resisted by the Indians, this scheme was
forced on them finally in the Dawes Act of 1887.
However, the good citizens of the frontier did not wait for the
workings of government. In the words of an army officer around 1785:
The people of Kentucky will carry on private expeditionsagainst the Indians and kill them wherever they meet themand I do not believe that there is a jury in all Kentuckywho would punish a man for it.^-3
The Indians did not give up their land without a fight. Some
Indians insisted on the Ohio River as a boundary. In 1791 Little Turtle
attacked Major General St. Clair on the Maumee River. St. Clair's army
"dissolved in panic and fled south after suffering over 900 casualties
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in one of the worst defeats ever inflicted by the Indians on a whiteArmy."14
Tecumseh tried to use the English-American division which led to the
War of 1812 to carve out an Indian nation. He travelled from Florida tom
Michigan seeking and finding many allies. He might have succeeded but the
English, worried about their Canadian colony, quickly patched things up
with their American brothers leaving the Indians to suffer the consequences,
In 1832 Black Hawk waged a war in Illinois. Abraham Lincoln joined
the army that pursued him. No doubt that helped make him a popular local
politician.
In the South some of the Creeks and Cherokees tried the path of
individual ownership:
Grist mills, schools and well-cultivated fields abounded inthe Cherokee country. By the late 1820's a newspaper printedin the Cherokee alphabet was appearing.^
Then the President (of the U.S.) forgot about the virtues of agriculture
and began to laud the hunting out in Arkansas. Persuasion wasn't enough.
The Treaty of Echota in 1835 provided for Cherokee removal. Three years
later most were removed by force to Oklahoma, the new "Indian Territory".
Four thousand dies on the forced march.
The Seminoles lasted a little longer by waging war. They held out for
seven years supported by Blacks who had escaped from slavery. Although
the Spaniards had committed atrocities the Indians remained a force in
Florida during 200 years of Spanish rule. As soon as the Spaniards left
the Americans moved to crush the Indians. With the French, English and
Spanish staying out of the way things went very badly for the Indians.
Indians removed from the East depleted game in the Eastern plains leading
to warfare between plains Indians and removed Indians.
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The West
In the late 1840's settlers and cavalry came to the West. From 1835
to 1860 there were four smallpox epidemics. Of 1600 Mandans only 100
survived the smallpox. One-half of the Blackfeet died of the smallpox.
One-half of the Kiowas and Comanches died in a cholera epidemic in
1849. In 1854 alone twelve treaties resulted in the cession of 18 mil
lion acres to the U.S. The Indians involved retained only 1.5 million
acres.
By the Civil War, eastern and southern Indians had been annihilated,
broken or forced further west. Mexico had been forced to cede California
and the Southwest. The seemingly insatiable greed for land and resources
pushed whites ever westward. The Native Peoples represented the final
barrier to total and undisputed U.S. supremacy in the West.
The Civil War brought no respite from military or civilian attacks on
Natives since both sides intended to occupy the land with whites. It was
during the war, in 1862, that Congress passed the first Homestead Act to
attract white settlers westward. From the early years of the Civil War
until about 1886, when the last group of Apaches was finally conquered,
history shows a continuous string of massacres, treachery, deception,
broken promises and arbitrary laws, all designed to remove the Natives
from their land.
During that time, Hollywood and U.S. history schoolbooks notwith
standing, the Natives were remarkably restrained toward white civilians
who intruded on their land and provoked their anger. The relatively
few times they did vent their hostility on these invaders, it was out of
frustration and retaliation for the numerous and widespread attacks by
white soldiers and civilians. For the most part, Native soldiers
reserved their combat for defending their women and children and land
from bloodthirsty U.S. troops. Custer's Last Stand was not a massacre
but a Sioux military victory over U.S. troops who had committed atrocities
against the Sioux.
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In contrast, there were at least seventeen well-documented, large-
scale white massacres of Natives during that period, all involving
mostly women and children. These were not the inadvertant actions of
a few overzealous soldiers but the results of a deliberate plan of geno
cide. The strategy used by the U.S. on the Great Plains in the nine
teenth century and again 100 years later in Vietnam was terrorist and
genocidal: concentrate maximum firepower on the entire population—men,
women and children; and simultaneously destroy the food supply. General
W. T. Sherman expressed the U.S. genocide policy: "We must act with
vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination,16
men, women and children." Despite resistance struggles that are docu
mented in history books, the Sioux, Cheyennes, Kickapoos, Apaches, Utes,
Nez Perces and others did not have the population size or weapons to
prevent the conquest. Leaders like Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Mangas
Coloradas, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Little Wolf and Dull
Knife distinguished themselves during these struggles. A Native popula
tion estimated at close to 10 million in 1492 was reduced to a small
fraction of that by 1870.
The railroad, considered by many historians to be a great civilizer
and tool of progress in developing the West, actually contributed greatly
to the destruction of the Native Peoples. It permitted white settlements
to develop and became their supply lifeline. In the wake of the railroad
came companies eager to exploit minerals, timber and buffalo. At first,
the buffalo were slaughtered to provide meat for the railroad construction
crews. The well-known "Buffalo Bill" Cody directed these operations. He
also volunteered on many occasions to join in attacks on Indians. Once
the railroads were built, the demand for hides in the East spurred mass
killing until the herds were virtually wiped out by 1883. By 1870 only
15 million were estimated to remain on the Plains. In 1873 alone, five
million were slaughtered. The destruction of the buffalo deprived the
plains Indians of their main supply of food, hides and other necessities.
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The government encouraged this process, hoping that the promise of food
rations would persuade the Indians to leave their land and submit to
placement on reservations.
A recurring pattern in the landstealing was military defeat, then
removal to a reservation accompanied by a treaty and solemn promises of
eternal ownership of the reservation land. Invariably, farmers, pros
pectors or government surveyors would encroach on reservation land; the
treaty would be ignored and the Natives would lose more of their dwin
dling land. The army was nearby to protect the whites. An example isthe Oklahoma Indian Territory:
This land was promised for "as long as the grass shall grow". Oil
was discovered, however, and soon the oil companies swindled much of
the land away from the Indians. From 1890 to 1930, the Indian populationof Oklahoma dropped from 180,000 to 72,000. Many of these people wereforcibly removed, kidnapped or murdered to make way for the oil companies.To paraphrase Winona LaDuke writing in Akwesasne Notes, it is not sur
prising that as the Native land base decreases, there is less land to
grow food, and the Native population diminishes.17
The Dawes Act
By 1886 the U.S. military had done its job. With the surviving people decimated and broken, the government legalized theft of Native landin the Dawes Act of 1887. Under the pretext of "civilizing" the survivors by turning them into farmers, the Act allotted plots of 40, 80 or120 acres to Indian families. The effect was to leave much of the reservation land unallotted so it could be sold to whites. As a consequenceof the Dawes Act, Indian landholdings dropped from 138 million acres(excluding Alaska) in 1887 to 48 million in 1934. But these figures aremisleading since not all reservations were allotted. The desert holdingsof the Navaho actually increased in that period. It is more significantto consider that the "Five Tribes" holdings in Oklahoma went from 19.5
million acres to 1.5 million, most of the latter considered worthless.
-16-
The Dawes Act generated strong opposition from all Indian groupswho recognized immediately that it was nothing but legalized land-theft.
Numerous councils were held before and after the passage of the Act and
from their protests were born a kind of united front of all Native groupsin the U.S. So widespread was the opposition that U.S. Commissioner Atkins
forbade Indians leaving the reservations without permission, hoping toprevent leaders from travelling among the tribes to agitate against the
Dawes Act. Despite Atkins' attempts, leaders like Sitting Bull, Lone
Wolf, Chief Jake and others travelled extensively, arguing the cause of
unity and some even the formation of a U.S.-wide united Indian government.
The first allotments, however, were made in 1887, and others proceeded
steadily thereafter. The Indians refused to cooperate with government
agents but many were jailed or beaten until they signed their agreements.
Others fled into the hills to hide so that even today their descendents
have not allotted their land. In Oklahoma,..while Indian people held out
against allotment,. thousands of whites massed on the border of che Indian
Territory waiting for a signal to enter and claim the unallotted land.
Even after the allotment took place, the Indians refused to vacate the
unallotted land, but the reservation was opened on May 18, 1895, causing
a stampede of whites in what is now known as the Oklahoma Land Rush.
Twentieth Century
The steady loss of land following implementation of the Dawes Act
took its toll on the whole Indian population. The government encouraged
more white settlement with Homestead Acts in 1900 and 1909. As late as
1930, the Native death rate exceeded the birth rate. The Depression hit
hardest those people who had the least, namely the Native Peoples and
Afro-Americans.
As the older Native leaders from the pre-Dawes Act days died, others
tried to take their places. The former leaders were veterans of the strug
gles against annihilation and relatively uninfluenced by white culture.
-17-
In the first quarter of the twentieth century, groups were formed by
white-educated middle-class Indians to develop policies to promote
Indian welfare. These reform-oriented organizations, such as the
Society of American Indians, were mainly concerned with changing govern
ment policies. Although these organizations ceased functioning by the
mid-1930's, the National Congress of American Indians, founded in 1944,
continued their work with greater grassroots representation.
Following World War II, U.S. imperialism vigorously sought to
control raw materials worldwide. Agriculture was expanding too. In
addition to new penetration in Asia and Africa the imperialists wanted
to expand their holdings within the U.S. so Indian land became a prime
target. During 1947 and 1953 numerous so-called termination bills were
introduced and some passed in Congress. They purported to improve the
lot of Natives by terminating their special status in the U.S., inclu
ding their claims as Indians to land. These bills meant "extermination"
in practice. From 1952 to 1956, 1.6 million acres, 12% of allotted
Indian lands, were sold outright or fell into white hands without pay
ment. Six tribes or groups were terminated, i.e., taken over by state
governments in 1954. These tribes, such as the Menominees in Wisconsin,
were left with few resources for self-sufficiency and suffered severely.
The termination policy was strongly opposed by Indians, including the
recently-formed National Congress of American Indians.
Impatient with the slow pace at which Indians were being assimi
lated into white society, the Bureau of Indian Affairs began a reloca
tion program in the 1950's to move Indians from reservations into cities.
As a result many Indians were left destitute in the cities and no longer
able to claim their land rights legally.
The Native Peoples of Alaska suffered from similar policies as their
more southerly relatives. (Because we are focussing on Native Peoples
of the continental U.S., we do not discuss Hawaiians and other Natives
whose land was taken.) Because of the severe climate and rugged terrain
-18-
and because they were busy killing Indians in the U;S. states, U.S.
soldiers did not commit atrocities in Alaska as they did further south.
Prior to the sale of Alaska to the U.S. in 1867, Russians did commit
several massacres. The U.S. took the land away in more "benign" ways.
In the early 1900's, then again in 1936 and the early 1940's, reservations
were set aside for the Indians, Inuit and Aleuts, "guaranteeing" Native
ownership of a fraction of the land.
Statehood in 1959 transferred Federal ownership of over 100 million
acres, more than one quarter of the state, to the state government. Com
pare this to the total reservation area in 1959 of less than 2.6 million18
acres. An influx of land-hungry whites was accommodated by the Bureau
of Land Management which doled out land to any whites who wanted it without consulting the Natives.
Homesteading is not, however, one of the major means of strengtheningU.S. control of land in Alaska as it was in the lower forty-eight states.Whites cannot live off most of the land surface of Alaska and U.S. imperialism does not need dense white settlement to produce oil, its main
interest, as long as the Natives can be kept from interfering. On theheels of the discovery of huge oil deposits on the Arctic Slope in 1968came the Native Land Claims Settlement Act of December 1971.
The Act "gave" Natives 40 million acres and $962 million in return
for extinguishing all claims to 89% of Alaska. The conditions for selec
tion of the lands allowed the Government to proceed with the proposedAlaska Pipeline by precluding any land claims along its route.19 Fortymillion acres is only 11% of Alaska for the 17% of the state's populationwhich should have all of it.
When the Natives only had 2.6 million acres in reservations, they
actually used far more than that in their traditional ways. This helpedmaintain a degree of economic self-sufficiency and cultural integrity.Under the Claims Settlement Act, the 40 million acres and most former
reservation land will not be tribally owned, but organized into corporations
-19-
which will take title to the land and conduct business for a profit,20
opening the way to dependence on outside "developers". In 1980 one
hundred million acres of Alaska were designated to become national parks21
or wildlife refuges, undeveloped but closed to traditional Native use.
Through the 1960's and 1970's until today governments and large oil,
mining and agricultural companies have conspired to further the decline
of Native land-holdings in the continental U.S. But they have encoun
tered an upsurge in resistance. Increasing numbers of Native groups
have strengthened their efforts to defend land-holdings and regain land
taken in the past.
Black Power forces among the Afro-Americans influenced and supported
Native forces. With its emphasis on the oppression of a whole people,
the Black Power movement had a much greater impact on Native Peoples than
Marxism, which emphasizes the oppression of a class.
The National Indian Youth Council, closely paralleling for Indians
the civil rights movement for Afro-Americans, in 1961 began to raise
demands more militant than those of the more established Native groups.
In an attempt to move away from the goals of assimilation the NIYC pushed
for greater self-reliance for Indians including Indian control of
education.
The national liberation struggles in Vietnam and other areas in Asia,
Africa and the Americas confirmed the correctness of Native American re
solve to struggle for control of land. The American Indian Movement
founded in 1968 has raised such just demands as return of stolen Native
land, honoring of treaties by the U.S. government, and self-government by
Native Peoples. Their position was dramatized in 1973 when AIM members
temporarily seized control of Wounded Knee Reservation in South Dakota.
AIM members today are involved in numerous land and rights struggles, one,
for example, to stop uranium mining in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Alcatraz Island, near San Francisco, site of a former U.S. prison,
was taken over for a period in 1969 by Native forces determined to
-20-
publicize their demands for return of land and guarantees of Native rights.
They pointed out that a Siouz treaty gives Indians the right to unused
Federal land.
In 1978 the Longest Walk, a 3000-mile, six-month cross-country march
to Washington, again spotlighted Native grievances. The march demonstrated
opposition to proposed Federal legislation that would nullify treaties
and thereby sever even those tenuous legal guarantees to land. It also
commemorated the forcible removal of many tribes to reservations long dis
tances away.
In 1977 a delegation of Native leaders sought to present a case at
the U.N. charging U.S. violations of human rights and of the Geneva Con
vention on genocide. Strong U.S. pressure prevented serious consideration
of the Native position. This effort at the U.N. was but one of many actions
designed to internationalize the Native struggle and to forge closer links
with other Native peoples, particularly in Central and South America.
Forming international alliances is an important part of resurgent Native
nationalism and a step toward the support they need to win back land.
Small as:.their forces are, Native Peoples ?-n the U.S. are-among"the"-
majority..in: the world of suffering oppressed people who together have the
potential strength to destroy their main enemy, U.S. imperialism, and con
trol their own lands.
* * *
1. W. T. Hagen, American Indians, University of Chicago Press, 1961, pp. 7-8,
2. Henry F. Dobyns, Current Anthropology, No. 7, 1966, pp. 395-449.
3. R. S. Cotterell, The Southern Indians, University of Oklahoma Press,Norman, 1954, p. 10.
-21-
4. W. R. Jacobs, Dispossessing the American Indian, Charles Scribner &Sons, New York, 1972.
5. Cotterell, p. 15.
6. Hagen, p. 13.
7. Ibid., p. 25.
8. Larry French and Jim Hornbuckle, "The Historical Inflence of theEastern Indians on Contemporary Pan-Indianisms," The Indian Historian, Vol. 10, No. 2, September 1977, p. 5.
9. Cotterell, p. 17.
10. Hagen, p. 27.
11. Ibid. p. 89.
12. Hagen, p. 31.
13. Ibid., p. 40.
14. Hagen, p. 51.
15. Ibid, p. 73.
16. Robert C. Athearn, William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement ofthe West, University of Oklahoma Press, 1956, p. 99.
17. Winona LaDuke, Akwesasne Notes, Mohawk Nation, via Rooseveltown,N. Y. 13683, Summer 1979, p. 25.
18. World Almanac 1978, Newspaper Enterprises Association, Inc., NewYork, 1977, p. 464, note 2.
19. New York Times Index, 1971.
20. World Almanac 1978, p. 464, note 2.
21. New York Times, November 13, 1980, p. 1.
-23-
III
MARXIST ERRORS ON NATIVE PEOPLES
In reality, the consequences [ofthe conquest of the hemisphere byEuropeans] have been revolutionaryfor the Indians, inasmuch as itfundamentally undermined their oldtribal communism and literallycatapulted them into the higher,feudal-capitalist regime.
...Indians must be brought fullyinto the broad stream of industri
alization. ..one of the greatesttriumphs of the Russian Revolutionhas been precisely the thoroughindustrialization of some of themost primitive peoples and areas inAsia, situated within the bordersof the U.S.S.R.
—William Z. Foster, U.S.Communist leader, 1951.
You can only judge [a European revolutionary doctrine] by the effectsit will have on non-European peoples.This is because every revolution inEurope's history has served to reinforce Europe's tendencies and abilities to export destruction to otherpeoples, other cultures and the environment itself...
The only manner in which AmericanIndian people could participate in aMarxist revolution would be to jointhe industrial system, to become..."proletarians" as Marx called them...we Indians would have to accept thenational sacrifice of our homeland,we'd have to commit cultural suicide.We would have to totally defeat ourselves ...
I look to the process of industrialization in the Soviet Union...I seethat the territory of the U.S.S.R.used to contain a number of tribalpeoples and that they have beencrushed to make way for the factories...they decided the tribalpeoples were an acceptable sacrificeto industrial needs. I look to Chinaand I see the same thing. I look toVietnam and I see Marxists...rootingout the indigenous tribal mountainpeoples.
—Russell Means,20glala Lakotapatriot, 1980.
-24-
The "Incomprehensible" Value of Land
Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin wrote very little about American
Native Peoples and Marxism is not influential among Native Peoplestoday. Yet it is important to consider its relationship to theNative Peoples because Marxism is an obstacle to the overall anti-
imperialist struggle of which the Native Peoples are a part. Thehistory and aspirations of Native Peoples contrast sharply withMarxist tenets and in the comparison the flaws of Marxist theory areexposed.
Leading Marxists both expected and approved the total elimination
of Native Peoples from North America. They held that capitalist devel
opment by whites would lead to socialist revolution providing mankind
with food, clothing, shelter and positive culture. The truth is that
the surviving Native People along with other oppressed peoples will
destroy imperialism and move toward meeting man's needs. Capitalism
and socialism have both led to corruption of whole oppressor nations.
The Marxist hierarchy of classless society, slavery, feudalism,capital
ism, socialism breaks down. The victims of capitalism turned out to be
not the industrial workers but whole nations and peoples.
Why does Marxism champion the "exploited" industrial worker when
it was clear in Marx's time as now that the Native People are far
worse off? Marxists hold that only labor produces value. In this
view, the industrial worker is a potential revolutionary because the
capitalist does not pay him for the full value produced by his labor.
Native People labored in a classless society; with no exploitation
there could be no revolution, according to Marxism.
Marxist thought favored introducing exploitation to the hemi
sphere in order some day to end it. To introduce it, however, cap
italism had to replace Native economic life. When English imperialism
overturned the economy of India, it turned part of the population into
-25-
wage laborers. While wrongly predicting English colonialism would
produce a developed capitalist nation, Marx regarded the developmentof India's oppressed workers as positive. North America, however,was different. Whites flooded in and brought slaves from Africa.
Native labor was of little importance but clearing the land was
imperative. Natives were eliminated or moved as fast as settlementby whites required.
In Marxian economics, the Native People were never exploited,yet they have lost nearly a continent. We have to look to land to
understand the position of the Native People. There is no such thingas pure labor without land or its products to be labored upon.(The term, land, includes soil, minerals, plants, animals and bodiesof water.) Land and natural resources also contribute to the valueof goods men produce. The Native People are oppressed because whiteNorth Americans control the land. They are robbed of immense values inaway that is incomprehensible to Marxists. The lack of comprehensionis clear in Marxist writings:
1. Marx wrote on the expulsion of Scots by English landownersin the 1700s and early 1800s:
The clearance and dispersion of the [Scottish] people ispursued by the proprietors as a settled principle, as anagricultural necessity, just as trees and brushwood arecleared from the wastes of America and Australia.3
There is no mention of the dispossessed Scots' emigration toAmerica where they participated in the genocidal clearance anddispersion of the Natives along with the trees and brushwood; toMarx, their land and society are part of the "wastes" of America.
2. Engels wrote:
In my opinion the colonies proper, i.e., the countries occupiedby a European population—Canada, the Cape [South Africa]Australia—will all become independent; on the other hand'thecountries which are simply subjugated—India, Algeria, the
-26-
Dutch, Portugese and Spanish possessions must be taken over forthe time being by the proletariat...Once Europe is reorganized[i.e., socialist], and North America, that will furnish suchcolossal power and such an example that the semi-civilizedcountries will of themselves follow in their wake...4
The claims of the Native North Americans, Australians and south
Africans do not exist for Engels and the success _pf land theft in
these new capitalist territories makes them more revolutionary.
Lenin continued the sad tradition of support to destruction
of Native Peoples. His analysis of capitalist development in U.S.
agriculture discussed free land in the U.S. West without mentioning
the destruction of Native Peoples.
Stalin put a seal of resprctability on Marxist support to U.S.
control of Native lands with his definition of a nation which requires
that a nation have a capitalist economy to enjoy the right to self-
determination. Although it was used in 1928-1937 (with grave errors)
to support Afro-American self-determination (land and state power
in the Black Belt) Stalin's definition abandons all non-capitalist
peoples to assimilation. The definition opposes a separate country
for Native Americans and does not challenge the claims of the U.S.
government to Native lands.
In History of the Communist Party of the United States, U.S.
Communist leader William Z. Foster admitted: "The story of labor's
[positive] relations with the Indians is practically a blank."6Foster included material on Indians in Outline Political History of the
Americas but his analysis follows directly from the earlier Marxist
writings.
Engels the Anthropologist
That Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin supported the destruction
of Native Peoples is clear from what they wrote and how little they
wrote. One theoretical work by Engels takes up Native Peoples at some
length.
-27-
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
was an attempt to use new anthropological data on Native Americans
to confirm Marxist theories on the development of society.^ Attempt
ing to prove that societies change as the mode of production is
altered by technological developments, Engels showed similarities
between Native American and ancient Greek social organization.^
Engels concentrated on internal features of Native life, then
jumped to comment on the greater revolutionary potential of the
bourgeois-proletarian struggle the Europeans were bringing to America.
He missed the true decisive factor, the relationship between the
Native People and the Europeans embodied in the Native struggle for
land. After all, Engels had data on the Iroquois largely because
Europeans were busy "discovering" and destroying Native Peoples.
Engels focussed on the similarities between ancient Greeks and
the Iroquois when the dissimilarities were the main feature; at the
time of writing (1884) the Iroquois had fallen victim to invaders
who replaced them on their own land. This is a clear example of the
external force of European capitalism on Native life. Engels
emphasized social change in Native life over the invasion of whites
which caused it and made the brutal deportation westward sound like
a Sunday School picnic:
How easily it [the shift from mother right to father right]was accomplished can be seen from a whole number of Indiantribes, among whom it has only recently taken place and is stillproceeding, partly under the influence of increasing wealth andchanged methods of life [transplantation from the forests tothe praires], and partly under the moral influence of civilization and the missionaries.^
The Future
While the loss of land was especially clear from the beginningfor Native Peoples, it is important everywhere. The economies of
Europe, North America and Japan require a land base bigger than their
-28-
own oppressor nations to feed industry. The imperialists use the oppressed
peoples' land to provide the minerals and agricultural products which serve
their industry, pauperizing and starving the rightful owners. The Marxists
claim that industrialization under their auspices could provide for every
one, but industry in Marxist states also requires oppressed peoples' re
sources .
Capitalist and socialist states also provide their oppressor peoples
with a false high standard of living through abusing the earth, lessening
its capacity to support people. They do the greatest damage to oppressed
peoples and their land. Their apparent domination of nature is based on
profit-mad brute force whose consequences are accumulating. This is another
reason why industrialization cannot support everyone as the Marxists claim.
It cannot even continue to support its present beneficiaries in their
current style.
The economic life of the oppressed awaits the regaining of their land.
Little can change until the relationship between the oppressed and imperi
alist countries, between the Native People and U.S. changes, and this means
struggle over land.
In the future, anti-imperialist control of much of the world's land
will render much of the physical capital in industrial powers useless, yet
the oppressed will live better almost immediately with their land, labor
and lower level of technology than they do now. Perhaps the newly-liberated
peoples can use captured imperialist machinery to manufacture quickly some
of the things they need.
That is just the beginning. As the imperialist camp is weakened, new
forces and directions of technology and economic development will come into
play among the oppressed. The Native People and other peoples whose culture
enshrines the idea of living as part of, rather than superior to, nature
are well qualified to find ways to combine technology and nature in new
forms of production which support human life without robbing half the world
-29-
and the future.
The Native Peoples represent the antithesis of what Marxism supports—
they are small in population, stateless, unindustrialized, little proletar-
ianized and already within the strongest imperialist country's borders.
Support to the demands of Native Peoples for land and political and economic
independence are important not only to relieve Native Peoples' suffering
and to damage U.S. imperialism, but as part of an essential effort to break
Marxism's influence on anti-imperialist thought.
* * *
1. William Z. Foster, Outline Political History of the Americas,International Publishers, New York, 1951, pp. 54 and 582.
2- Akwesasne Notes, August, 1980, p. 17.
3. Karl Marx, Capital, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow,1961, Vol. I, p. 731.
4. Frederick Engels, "Letter to Kautsky, September 12, 1882", in SchlomoAvineri, ed., Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernization. Doubleday& Co., Garden City, N.Y., 1968. ~"
5. See New Boundaries. No. 3, July 1979, pp. 68-71.
6. William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States.International Publishers, New York, 1952, p. 35. ~"
7. Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and theState, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in Two Volumes.Vol. 2, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1962.
8. Ibid., p. 216.
-31-
IV
THE LEGACY OF LANDSTEALING
The first several centuries of contact with Europeans resulted in vast
decimation of Native Peoples and the extinction of some tribes. For the
last century the Native Peoples have been allowed to increase their populationsomewhat. This does not mean their numbers are anywhere near those of two
or three centuries ago. However, with the refusal of the U.S. to decrease
its energy use, with the increased resistance of oppressed nations and
imperialists to the U.S.' use of their resources, the U.S. is concentratingmore on "domestic" supplies to maintain its "energy independence". Native
Americans who have survived on these agriculturally barren but mineral-rich
lands again face genocide—both physical and cultural—as the imperialistsliterally move mountains to get these resources.
The U.S. has denied Native Americans any independent economy by first
taking their land, then interfering with their efforts (agricultural or
industrial) toward an economy on what land is left. As a result, large
numbers of Native Americans are forced onto welfare programs on the
reservations. In addition, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has a special
-32-
program to pay for Native Americans to move off the reservations and get
jobs in the cities. As this process draws in more and more Native Americans
and continues for a longer period of time, the U.S. hopes to acculturate
or eliminate them all. In other words, it hopes to eliminate all legal
barriers or open opposition to U.S. takeover of Native lands and the minerals
under them.
What Are The Mineral Resources?
A Native Americans' Confederation (as an example) would possess mineral
resources comparable or superior to those of half the countries currently
belonging to the U.N. Whether or how they use them is up to them. But the
removal of these resources from U.S. imperialist control would be significant.
The U.S. Department of the Interior estimates that Indian tribes hold title
to 25 to 50 percent of the uranium in the U.S. The Department of the
Interior considers only resources on land to which tribes currently hold
title. Because reservations will be greatly expanded as Native People gain
international support and U.S. imperialism declines, government estimates
of resources are understated. For this reasdn, we will use the higher
figure of 50%.
In the accompanying Table, 50% of U.S. uranium production and reserves
are expressed in metric tons. If production from Native land were that of
a sovereign people it would make them third-ranked producer in the world.
If Native Americans could withdraw their uranium from the market, the U.S.
would need to step up imports by 360% to maintain present use. Such a
drastic increase in imports would place world uranium production under a
great strain.
The Table develops parallel analyses for petroleum, natural gas and
coal. The Native Peoples' petroleum, natural gas and coal are about average
for all U.N. members. Equal or superior to those of just under half the
world's countries, the endowments of a Native Confederation would be
significant.
-33-
TABLE: SELECTED RESOURCES OF NATIVE AMERICANS
Resource Annual Production ReservesPercent of Total
U.S. Figures
-Uranium 5600 metric tons 262,000 metric tons 50% of use
360% of imports
•Petroleum 61 million barrels 610 million barrels 3% of imports
r 16% of importsAlaska* 169 " "
Oklahoma* 156 " "9616 " "
1121 " "
-Natural gas 400 billioncubic feet (not available)
-Low-sulfur,strippablecoal
18 million
short tons
* not present reservation land
5 billion tons
45% of imports
Not applicable;U.S. importslittle coal.
Sources: New York Times. August 7, 1979, p. D14; Statistical Abstractof the U.S., 1979. pp. 751, 753, 758, 605-6, 618; 1978 Statisttical Yearbook. United Nations, 30th edition, p. 194; L. T.Ruffing, "The Navajo Nation: A History of Dependence andUnderdevelopment," Review of Radical Political Economics,Vol. II, No. 2, (Summer 1979), p. 27.
-34-
Further, we show that for petroleum and natural gas, production on
Native land is significant in comparison to present U.S. imports—45% of
U.S. imports for natural gas. Three percent of U.S. petroleum imports
represents the oil the U.S. presently receives from Venezuela or roughly
one-fourth of imports from Iran in 1978.
While U.S. whites accidentally left Native People considerable mineral
resources when they were looking mainly for farmland, U.S. imperialism does
control most of the mineral wealth of Alaska and .Oklahoma, two states which
we would argue belong to Native Peoples entirely. They are big oil
producers. The oil production of Alaska and Oklahoma combined equals 16%
of U.S. imports orone and one-half times what the U.S. imported from Iran
in 1978! They are included in the Table for comparison.
The Native Peoples themselves do not have at present an industrial
capacity with which they could use these resources. The Native Peoples do
not have a population or armed force which can prevent the imperialists
from taking or using these resources. The most the Native People can do
at present is bargain for a better financial exchange for these resources
or try to slow the imperialists from taking them with hopes of developing
more power.
Native People on the Land
The imperialists are destroying reservation land with mining and are
working to take away legally as much land as possible. Even aside from
these threats to reduce the land base, present day reservations do not have
enough good land and water for the Native Peoples to feed themselves and
exist in peace. Farming on reservations is mostly marginal. Nearly one-2
half of Indian-owned land is desert or semi-desert.
Efforts to maintain or improve this situation are being defeated by
further encroachments by the white nation through diversion of Native
American water to farms off the reservations, to cities, or for development
of resources by energy companies. For example, a study of the Upper
-35-
Missouri River Basin, an area that affects the Native Americans of the
Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana, reveals that the Powder River has been divided
among industrial users so drastically that the (energy) companies have3
permits to use over seven times as much water as flows in the Powder River.
Obviously Native Americans won't be irrigating crops with it. The Colorado
River is similarly divided into parts greater than the whole; none reaches
the "sea and not enough reaches the Navaho.
Native land is not totally barren, however. The Bureau of Indian
Affairs grossed roughly $170 million from agriculture on all reserves
in 1966. The Native Peoples realized $38.6 million including an estimated
$19.6 million from hunting and fishing for their own consumption, about
$40 per person. This means $127.4 million or 75% went to non-Indians.
This does not include profits for white farmers from crops grown or cattle
raised on leased reservation land. In addition, 803 million board feet
of lumber were cut of which only 12% were processed in tribal sawmills.4
Perhaps Native Peoples could do somewhat better if they could gain
more control over agriculture on the reservation, exclude outsiders, or
raise the rent. Most certainly when Native Peoples regain Oklahoma which
has cash receipts of $1,881 million from agriculture and ranks 17th in the
production of cattle, wheat, milk and cotton, they will be very able to
feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and thus be very independent.5 Likewise when they regain Alaska, Native Peoples will be more than self-sufficient
in fish. Alaska grosses over $300 million annually from fisheries.6
The Consequences
Denied a land base on which they could feed, clothe and shelter them
selves independently; denied control of the natural resources which they
could exchange for a decent land base, how are the Native nations faring?The only answer: "Poorly".
Despite the health care that is supposedly being provided to Native
Peoples through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and largely because of the
-36-
poor diet, the life expectancy of the Navaho in the 1960's was 45 years.Gastroenteritis, frequently a result of poor diet and a killer of young,killed 16 Native Americans per 100,000 population as opposed to 3.7/100,000for the white nation. Tuberculosis killed 16 per 100,000 compared to
2.2/100,000 in the white nation. Mortality rates from infectious diseases
have decreased but the incidence of pneumonia, influenza and trachoma has
increased considerably. This means that a deterioration in standard of
living could easily result in a much higher death rate from these illnesses.7Unemployment on reservations ranges to 75%. A large percentage of housing
is considered substandard. Only 2 in 5 Navaho houses have electricity.
Forty percent of Native Americans have moved to the cities in search
of employment—finding the unemployment or welfare of the reservations
unacceptable. In the cities unemployment is lower, life expectancy is some
what higher at 60 years.. The level of formal education is twice that of
the reservation. Housing is still substandard. Services which are provided
on the reservations, however poor, are not legally required in the cities.
Therefore, the Native person has to fight along with other oppressed peoplesg
in the cities for limited medical care, housing, etc.
U.S. imperialism has made it very difficult for Native People to live
at all. In these circumstances alcohol, introduced early by whites for
its demoralizing effect, and suicide take a further toll.
Genocide
Culture and economy are inseparable. A lot of people today have cometo accept the BIA definition of culture as referring to music, dressand language. But cultures are inconceivable without an economic base.Even spiritual life revolves to a considerable extent around the waysthat people see their lives supported. Indeed, it is arguable thatpeoples' personal relationships and their relationships to theirenvironment are molded by the ways in which they meet their needs,and the manifestation of those ways is what we call culture. In theabsence of culture, there can be no economy. In the absence ofeconomy, there is no culture. All that remains is the memory ofculture. People who promote music and costume-making in urban cultural
-37-
centers are not promoting culture, they are promoting the memory ofculture. One of the alarming aspects of the loss of culture (ofacculturation) is that in the absence of processes which meet peoples'needs, social disintegration occurs...The destruction of the Nativeeconomy has been one of the stated goals of the federal bureaucracieswhich deal with Indian people since the foundation of the United States.9
But the oppression goes far beyond neglect. .Not only do the
imperialists deny Native Americans their land and control of the resources
of the land they do "own" but they go one step further to a direct attack
on Native Americans. These attacks are not comparable to the Indian Wars
or to the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans in the Amazon Basin but
they are increasing. Those Native Americans who resist further loss of
their land are removed—Wounded Knee, Red Lake and more recent events atAkwesasne are examples.
As more and more mining, refining and dumping of minerals and wastes
take place on or near reservations, the cancer rate will rise astronomically.This will affect not only the life span of the Native wage earner in thesemines and factories but also through pollution of air, water and food, itwill affect the milk of mothers and the survival of children.11 Pollutionwhich might be small in scale and effect on the white nation can be
devastating to a tribe whose only source of water, only nearby employmentor sole place to live becomes poisoned. The pressure of white environmental
groups against repetitions of Three Mile Island or the Love Canal will resultin more poison being dumped on the oppressed nations within the U.S.
A more subtle but many times more damaging attack is that directed
against the unborn. It is estimated that 42% of Indian women are sterilized.In addition, a report by the General Accounting Office indicated that
some women were being convinced by the Indian Health Service that they hadto submit to sterilization or lose their children or their welfare benefits.
The number of men, amount of materiel, and paragraphs of newspaper spaceneeded by the imperialists to squash Wounded Knee partisans is much greaterthan that needed to squash an equivalent number in the Indian HealthService hospitals.
* * *
-38-
1. Anne Crittenden, "Rich U.S. Tribes Call on Iranian," New York Times,August 7, 1979, p. D14.
2. Akwesasne Notes, Mohawk Nation, via Rooseveltown, N.Y. 13683, Spring1979, p. 16.
3. Akwesasne Notes, July 1977, p. 19.
4. Jack 0. Waddle and 0. Michael Watson, The American Indians in UrbanSociety, Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1971, pp. 81-82.
5. Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 1977.
6. World Almanac 1979, Newspaper Enterprises Association, New York, 1979,p. 678.
7. Alan L. Sorkin, "The Economic and Social Status of the AmericanIndian, 1940-1970," The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 45, Fall1976; Murray L. Wax, Indian Americans, Unity and Diversity, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1971, p. 225.
8. Sorkin, 1976.
9. Akwesasne Notes, Autumn 1978, p. 5.
10. Akwesasne Notes, Early Spring 1978, p. 3.
11. Akwesasne Notes, Early Spring 1978; July 1977, p. 9; and Summer 1979,p. 22.
-39-
V
NEW BOUNDARIES FOR NATIVE PEOPLES
Native Peoples in the U.S. and Canada are resisting encroachments on
their reservations and at the same time claiming large amounts of land
throughout the continent. Native control of land is not an abstraction
but a necessity. Whites have brought them almost 500 years of genocide.
For the Natives who survived, they have brought untold misery, both
physical and mental. Today, the imperialist drive for oil, minerals and
other resources combined with deeply-entrenched white chauvinism threaten
the Native Peoples with more landstealing, more population control and
more cuts in government welfare payments. The very survival of Native
Peoples is at stake.
The fundamental value of land derives from its use as provider of the
necessities of life. The Native Peoples need to control land, productive
land, to provide these necessities, free from intrusion by white Americans
or others who might covet the resources. This means Native government of
territory.
-40-
It is difficult to be precise about which territory should return to
Indian control. They have a very real claim to both North and South
America. On the other hand the power of U.S. imperialism especially with
in U.S. borders makes the preservation of present reservations appear
nearly impossible. We propose the pre-Dawes-Act reservations (138 million
acres which include the entire state of Oklahoma) plus the states of Alas
ka and Hawaii as a minimum land base for Native Peoples in the U.S. This
would include all water, hunting and fishing rights stolen since that
time.
We realize that this proposal is far from perfect or complete. It
does not provide enough for the largest nation, the Navaho, whose reser
vation has grown since the Dawes Act but still does not cover much of
their traditional land. Nor does it sufficiently cover the eastern In
dians, for example in the state of Maine. Still we think it is useful
to have something concrete from which to start discussion. It would pro
vide land at or near the places where most Native People are living today.
It also gives an idea of the amount of land we are talking about (three
times the present reservation area in the lower forty-eight states plus
all of Alaska and Hawaii). We do not know whether such groups as AIM
have concrete proposals on what land the Native Peoples should claim.
A land base is a necessity for any independent nation. By itself it
is not sufficient. The people must develop an economy and a culture
which can use the land to provide the necessities of life. At one time
all of the Native Peoples were independent. Groups in many of these
nations are trying to preserve and develop their culture. We think it is
a good thing that they reject integration with U.S. imperialism and op
pose accepting money for land.
Will the Native Peoples really be able to win back large pieces of
territory and develop them independently? We would like to express com
plete optimism but it is not possible. Because of their small numbers
and the direct power of U.S. imperialism within its own borders complete
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or nearly complete genocide remains a threat to all Native Peoples.
Therefore revolutionary ideology must be combined with cautious tactics.
The best defense is international support.
The revolutionary forces in Iran have taken concrete steps to op
pose U.S. power. They have attempted to internationalize their anti-U.S.
struggle through appeals to other peoples to follow their lead and by
convening a conference of liberation movements. One of the most impor
tant outcomes of their actions has been declarations of support to Afro-
American and U.S. Indian liberation. This shows that the oppressed peo
ples of the world such as the Iranians will be the most reliable allies
of the Native Peoples in their quest for freedom. As we discussed
in New Boundaries No. 4, oppression of Kurds and other nations limits
Iran's anti-imperialist role.
Crippled by poverty, huge debts to the imperialists and reliance on
the industrial countries for food and other necessities, the oppressedcountries will inevitably tear themselves away from the imperialist
stranglehold following the lead of Iran and others. In this way U.S.
imperialism will be weakened. Moreover, it is also possible that various
imperialist countries, contending among themselves for oil and mineral
supplies, could go to war in the near future.
U.S. imperialism will use any means including nuclear weapons to insure its oil supplies and other economic interests. The peoples of the
world must be mobilized to defeat this dangerous enemy. Native Peopleswithin the U.S. will contribute to anti-imperialist struggles as well as
receive aid. At present their contribution is mainly ideological. Their
emphasis on land, culture and sovereignty rather than on class strugglemay help other nations for whom the situation is not so clear. The his
tory of U.S. imperialism and the genocide of the Native Peoples is probably the clearest example of the failure of Marxist analysis to under
stand imperialism. Land, not labor, was and is the main thing the imperialists sought.
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A sizable minority of whites may support Native People on a particu
lar issue such as stopping uranium mining or electric power lines seen as
threats to their quality of life. Unfortunately many of these same peo
ple would be happy to see Indian land taken over to make another park
where they can get back to nature once in a while. The whites who will
consistently demand land and self-determination for Native Peoples are a
tiny minority indeed. We consider ourselves as part of this minority and
our efforts are aimed at helping it grow to its maximum potential.
Today U.S. whites enjoy a high standard of living that results from
the original Native land theft. The overwhelming majority must realis
tically be seen as obstacles to Native liberation for some time to come.
Reagan's recent electoral victory reflects the wide-spread support in the
U.S. for his belligerence and threats to "safeguard the vital interests
of the U.S." through military force. The fact that whites elected the
more openly chauvinistic candidate shows where they stand.
In the final crisis of U.S. imperialism, Native Peoples will be able
to switch from heroic defensive actions such as those taken at Wounded
Knee in 1973 and today at Akwesasne to sabotage and all-out military
efforts to gain victory. They will be aided by the fact that their popu
lation is largest where the white population is relatively sparse. When
U.S. armies are tied down in many places and its oil-burning transporta
tion system begins to break down, Native peoples will be able to take con
trol of such areas as: the Southwest, where they can link up with the
struggle of the Mexicans and Mexican Indians; Oklahoma, which is between
the Southwest and the Black Belt ; the Dakotas, close the the large Indian
and Metis population of western Canada; and Alaska, where they would link
up with the Dene and Inuit of northern Canada. 2
The Afro-American people are undoubtedly a key ally of the Native Peo
ples. We support their right*to land and state power in the Black Belt
of the southeastern U.S. The establishment of such a state would be such
a blow to U.S. imperialism that all Native Peoples would be in a much
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stronger position to fight for their own independence. We trust that
Native Peoples in the Black Belt will fight with the Afro-Americans on
the basis of guarantees that they too will get land.
In the past we advocated the return of the entire Southwest to Mexico
We based this on the pre-1848 boundaries and the large number of Mexicans
who live there. Much of this land really belongs to the Native Peoples.
Mexico's claim was no more valid than the U.S.'s. The Spanish and Mexi
can governments committed many atrocities against Native Peoples. Still
it seems possible that a strong alliance may be formed between Mexicans
and Native Peoples against U.S. imperialism. Mexico is an oppressed
nation whose people suffer greatly from U.S. imperialism. In addition,
most Mexicans and especially the poor are themselves Native Peoples al
though their language and culture have changed greatly. Finally there
are many millions of Native Peoples in Mexico who have retained their
language and culture. We hope that Mexico will become a defender of '
Native Peoples rather than an oppressor. Then perhaps the Native Peo
ples of the Southwest will become part of Mexico. Whether or not that
happens it seems likely that Mexico will be a corridor through whichNative Peoples and other oppressed peoples of Central and South America
will march against U.S. imperialism and aid their brothers within the borders of the U.S.
Until they have substantial support from other powerful national
liberation struggles and perhaps other imperialists, the Native Peopleshave no choice but to pursue legal actions. Limited as they are, theserepresent steps toward developing more powerful forms of struggle inclu
ding armed struggle. Legal land struggles have in some cases prevented^ oil or mining companies from stealing Native land, at least immediately.
But history has demonstrated that U.S. imperialism will desregard legal^ agreements or treaties, especially those that concern Native Peoples.
Land stolen from Natives is too valuable and too symbolic of U.S. con
quest for the imperialists to give it up without a bitter fight.
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U.S. imperialism tries to convince its own population and foreigncountries that it is generous and willing to redress old wrongs. Thenewspapers portray the recent settlement in Maine as a great Indian victory. Actually, the U.S. is trying to extinguish all legal claims by Indians while giving them very little of anything, especially land. TheFederal government will give them some money in exchange for land whileat the same time subjecting them to state jurisdiction and local taxation.3
To speed and guide the struggle against imperialism a world-wide coalition must develop. In addition to providing organizational leadership, itmust develop theoretical weapons necessary to destroy imperialism. As recent events in Iran and southeast Asia also show, a theory is needed whichcan stop the fighting between oppressed peoples and unite them against imperialism. This can only be accomplished through consistent support forthe right of all peoples to control their own land. A concerted strugglemust be made against Marxism which gives the interests of the industrial
working class priority over the rights of oppressed peoples. The majorMarxist governments are making that job a little easier. They are abandoning the pretense of being revolutionary in favor of open imperialistor pro-imperialist action.
The Native Peoples of North America have the majority of the world's
people objectively on their side, including oppressed peoples within the
Soviet Union, China and the U.S. When the oppressed peoples unite againsttheir powerful enemies the Native Peoples will have a chance to win theirland and freedom.
* * *
1. New Boundaries No. 4, "Iran", December 16, 1979. Available on request.2. New Boundaries No. 3, "the Afro-American Nation: A Case for Liberation
of the Black Belt", July 1979.
3* Akwesasne Notes. Mohawk Nation, via Rooseveltown, N.Y. 13683, Early spring1980, p. 6. B
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NEW BOUNDARIES PUBLICATIONS:
-"New Boundaries", March 1978, unnumbered.
-New Boundaries No. 2, "Indochina", April 1979.
-New Boundaries No. 3, "The Afro-American Nation: aCase for Liberation of the Black Belt", July 1979
-New Boundaries No. 4, "Iran", December 16, 1979.
-New Boundaries No. 5, "On Native Peoples", January1981.
Copies of New Boundaries publications are available free
of charge on request.
