SJS 287: Native American Activism

 

SJS 287: Native American Activism

I)                    Occupation of Alcatraz Island nov. 20, 1969 19 months

1.      Group occupied the island with the intent of reclaiming the rock in the name of all American Indians..

2.      Proclamation stated Alcatraz more suitable for an Indian reservation as determined by white man’s standard

a.      It is islolated from modern facilities without adequate means of transportation

b.      It has no fresh running water

c.      It has inadequate sanitation facilities

d.      There are no oil or mineral rights

e.      There is no industry and so unemployment is very great

f.        There are no health care facilities

g.       Soil is rocky/non productive and land does not support game

h.      There are no educational facilities

i.        Population has always exceeded the land base

j.        Population has always been held as prisoners and kept dependent upon others

3.      Occupiers’ list of demands included the return of Alcatraz to the American Indians and sufficient funding to build, maintain, and operate an Indian cultural complex and a university

  

II. 1970: Activists Occupy Mount Rushmore

1.      Members of the United Native Americans with support form American Indian Movement occupied Mount Rushmore

a.      To reclaim the land that had been promised to the Oceti Sakowin (the Great Sioux Nation) in the 1868 treaty of Fort Laramie in perpetuity

b.      When gold was found in the mountains, prospectors migrated there in 1870s

c.      Feeral government forced the Sioux to relinquish the Black Hills portion of their reservation

d.      When park officials asked protestors how long they intended to stay UNA president Lehman Brighton replied -as long as the grass grows, the water flows, and the sun shines

                                                i.      A reference to President Jackson’s, then General, promise to protect the life and land of the Native People of Mississippi before his massive campaign to exterminate them.

III. 1970: first National Day of Mourning Occurs after speech censorship\

1.      On Oct. 26, 1970 -American Indian Movement (AIM) activist occupied Plymouth rock, Massachusetts

a.      Became known as National Day of Mourning 

                                                              i.      Annual event sparked after Commonwealth of Massachusetts officials censored a speech given by Frank James (Wamsutta)an Aquinnah Wampanoag on the 350^th anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims

1.      The reasons FOR THE BAN given the theme of the anniversary celebration is brotherhood and anything inflammatory would have been out of place 

2.      James Speech included harsh truth's “History gives us facts and there were atrocities

a.      Loss of language, clulture, land, and he closed speech with call for new beginning

                                                              i.      Our spirit refuses to die…We are united…Standing tall and proud before too many moons have passed we must right the wrongs

                                                             ii.      Lands stollen by the aggressors

                                                           iii.      Allowed the white man to keep us on our knees

                                                           iv.      What happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards more humane America

                                                             v.      A more Indian America where men and nature once again are important

                                                           vi.      Where Indians values of honor, truth and brotherhood prevail

                                                         vii.      Where white man celebrates Plymouth we the Wampanoags will help you celebrate the concept of a beginning

                                                        viii.      A new life for the pilgrims.

                                                           ix.      One ..after 350 years a new determination for the original Americans: the American Indian

                                                             x.      Thus began the National Day of Mourning -a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.

IV. 1972: Trail of Broken treaties Caravan Arrives in Washington, D.C.

1)      On Nov.  3, 1972 protestors occupied Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices in Wahington for six days

a.      Presented a 20-point manifesto which begins:

                                                              i.      We seek a new American majority  -a majority not content with merely to confirm itself by superiority in numbers, but which by conscience is committed toward prevailing upon the public will in ceasing wrongs and in doing right

                                                       

2)      1972 -American Indian Movement (AIM) Opens survival Schools

a.      Organizers and parents in the Minneapolis area started their own community schools as an alternative to public and Bureau of Indian Affairs (now Bureau of Indian Education) schools with their high dropout rates

                                                              i.      Known as survival schools their focus was basic learning and living skills strongly promoting Indian culture

                                                             ii.      The schools operated for over 30 years, until a series of power struggles and funding misappropriations led to their demise.  

V). 1973: Activists Occupy wounded Knee

1) 250 Sioux Indians, Feb. 27, converge on south Dakota’s Pine ridge Reservation launching 71 day occupation of Wounded Knee               

                a) set in same impoverished village as the 1890 wounded Knee Massacre

                b) The occupation called global attention to unsafe living conditions and generations of mistreatment from federal and local agencies

                c) occupation hailed as one of AIM’s greatest successes

                d) The occupation ended when U.S government agreed to discuss the state of treaties with the groups

                e) the Movement called for everything from control of reservation lands and mineral rights to restoration of ancient tribal customs and the power to specify curriculums in Indian grade schools.

                f) at the height of the protests over 300 FBI agents and U.S. marshals were stationed around Wounded Knee with M-16 rivals and gas masks

                g) three people died, dozens were wounded during occupation.

                h) more than 1,200 arrests, and 275 court cases at federal, state and tribal courts.

                i) leaders -russel Means, Clyde Ballecourt, and Denis Banks initially faced 11 criminal charges, but cases eventually dismissed.

                j) occupation drew unprecedented attention to issue of indigenous rights

                k) the Native American Activists were galvanized by the 1960 civil rights movements and protests against the Vietnam war. (History of the Wounded Knee Occupation | TIME)

 

1)      1975: Protesters Take Over of Bonneville Power administration

a)      Booneville Power Administration building in Portland Oregon taken over by 100 Native American Protestors

b)      In Response to killing of joseph Stuntz, member of AIM movement

c)      A form of civil disobedience -office takeovers.

VII)  1978: Longest Walk -July 15 -might have been coopted

·         Peaceful transcontinental trek for Native Americans justice

·         Began few hundred departing Alcatraz Island..ended when they arrived in Washington

·         Over 30,000 marchers.

·         A week of demonstrations, lobbying, tribal ceremonies and workshops

·         After first day, busses brought them to each days events

o   Paid for by federal government

o   Also provided Army field kitchens, tents, water tanks and logistical support

§  Cost taxpayers $250,000

§  None of the proposed bills ever passed by congress.

VIII) 1981: Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Celebraes the Orme Dam Victory

·         After 10 years of organizing and protesting the building of the Orme damn, on Nov 12, 1981, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation of Arizona won the struggle when Interior secretary James Watt announced that the Orme Dam would not be built

·         The damn would have flooded more than half the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation reservation

o   Which is most of their farmland and remnants of ancestral homeland

o   Each year the people have a weeklong celebration called the Orme Dam Victory days to commemorate the event.

VIII) 1992: National Coalition of racism in Sports and Media Forms

·         Was established to organize against the use of Indian images and names for logos, symbols or mascots in professional and collegiate sports.  

·         The mascots and symbols serve to miseducate all youth by perpetuating an inaccurate history and encouraging a suspension of logic and reason.

·         School  teachers, and students become culturally illiterate in the realm of Native history and culturally insensitive with respect to teaching tolerance and celebrating diversity.

IX) 2004: Coalition forms to “Protect the Peaks” -feb. 2 -Save the Peaks formed

·         Address environmental and human rights concers with Arizona Snobowl’s proposed developments on the San Francisco Peaks

o   Land has spiritual and cultural significance to at least 13 nearby tribes

o   This coalition (comprised of tribal and spiritual leaders, citizens, agencies, business, and conservationists) rallied to protest clearcutting of close to 30,000 trees that would threaten species, making new runs and lifts, and mor parking lots, building 14.8 mile buried pipeline that would transport up to 1809 million gallons (per season) of wastewater to make artificial snow on 205 acres

§  Despite decades of protest, the U.S forest Service and other government agencies still permitted the Snowbowl ski resort to expand, the coalition continues to protests with calls of boycotts.

X) 2011: Keystone XL Pipeline Protestors Launch Massive Campaign -August

·         Environmental and indigenous groups campaigned to press President Obama not to approve Phase IV of Keystone XL Pipeline Project

o   Runs through and near tribal lands, water resours, and place of spiritual significance

o   Nov. 6, 2015 President Obama rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal

o   They issued a statement saying that their efforts, Lakota, Dakota, Ponca, Cre, Dene and others effots to defend Mother Earth and sacredness of water were validated with rejection of Keystone XL.

XI) Havasupai tribe Files Lawsuit to stop the Opertion of Uranium Mine -March 7

·         Filed against U.S. Forest Service over its decision to allow Energy Fuels Resources, Inc. to begin operating uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park without initiating or completing formal tribal consultations and without updating an outdated 1986 federal environmental review.

o   In April 2015, District Judge ruled on this suit and decided uranium mining could continue in Northern Arizona

o   Uranium mining on or near tribal and ceremonial lands has raised concerns about tribal rights, and environmental impact and safety issues for decades.

o   In collaboration with the Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi, Navajo, Zuni Paiute, and Yavagai leaders  Arizona Congressman Paul Grijalva announced bill designed to permanently ban uranium mining in Grand Canyon watersheds -did not pass

o   The protest continues -also they are currently protesting the shipment of uranium across their lands..

XII) 2016: Standing Rock Sioux Oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline -April 1

·         One of the greatest organizing efforts to protect loand, human rights, and the future of this planet began in North Dakota

·         Tribal citizens of Standing Rock Lakita Ntion and ally Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota citizens under the name of Chante tinsa kinanzi Po -founded a Sprit Camp along the proposed route of the bakken oil pipeline, Dakota Access

·         The sprit Camp is dedicatd to stopping and rasing awareness of dangers associated with pipeline spills, and necessity to protect water rsources of Missouri river

·         Dakota Access Pipeline proposed to transport 450,000 barrels per day of Crude oil (which is fracked and highly volatile) from th elands of North Dakota to Patoka Illinois

·         The threats pose environmental, human health and human rights similar ot those associated with Keystone XL

·         It will cross over the Ogalla Aquifer (one of largest aquifers in the world) and under the Missouri river twice (the longest river in the U.S.

o   Possibility of water contamination poses national threat.

o   Over 200 other native American tribes and allies have joined in this protest. Standing

o   It continues to this day 

XIII) 2018: Ancestral Land Returned to Ponca Tribe -June 10

                Along the Trail of tears in Neligh, Nebraska a farmer signed a deed to return ancestorial land to the Ponca Tribe

Nearby by is the gravesite of White Buffalo Girl -a 18-month-old Ponca girl who died during the forced removal of the Ponca Nation

1877 -Ponca Nation forced by federal government to leave their home of Nishude ke (also known as Missouri) and relocate 600 miles south into present day Oklahoma

Took 55 days and killed several  Native Americans - including White Buffalo girl

This is known ass the Ponca trail of tears.

When Art Tanderup retired on his wife’s farm outside Neligh in 2013 he discovered that the Keystone XL Pipeline would be built right across their property

Tanderup and others formed a coalition with farmers, ranchers, and Native Peoples -called on the governor of Nebraska to oppose the decision.

During this protest Tanderup learned of a member of the Ponca Nation named Makasi whose grandfather  had worked this farm as an eight year old boy during this forced relocation.

Tanderup and Horinek decided to plant corn in the middle of the Keystone Pipelines proposed route

They used 137-year-old kernels, which were both successful and ceremonial. Becoming an annual event of the Ponca nation and non-Ponca alike

The Tanderup family decided to formally deed the portion of the farm back to the Ponca Nation. Wanting this to be a form of reparations for the wrong’s done their ancestors.