Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: This is Mia from the Future. The whole crew is
Speaker 2: off this week, so you'll be getting a series of
Speaker 2: episodes from our past, and this episode in particular, I
Speaker 2: wanted to rerun for Indigenous People's Day, but it is
Speaker 2: also from before I came out, So hope you all
Speaker 2: enjoy and we will be back next week.
Speaker 3: Welcome to I Could Happen here, a podcast that is
Speaker 3: on the cycle of being sort of okayly introduced. When
Speaker 3: this episode goes out, it will be Indigenous People's Day,
Speaker 3: and so to talk about that more where we're going
Speaker 3: to talk to Dalia Killsback, who is a member of
Speaker 3: the Northern Cheyenne or has a Northern Cheyenne tribal citizenship
Speaker 3: and has studied and worked in Federal India tribal policy. Dahlia, Hello,
Speaker 3: how are you doing?
Speaker 4: I am doing well. Thank you for inviting me here today.
Speaker 3: Of course Garrison is also here. Garrison Hello, Hello.
Speaker 5: I'm currently also doing writing about indigenous stuff, but within
Speaker 5: the context of Canada, which people should we'll probably hear
Speaker 5: later this week.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I guess first thing I wanted to talk
Speaker 3: about is a little bit is about what Indigenous People's
Speaker 3: Day is and why it is that and not the
Speaker 3: other thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Indigenous People's Day, as many people know, is
Speaker 4: replacing I'm gonna say it, Chris Christopher Columbus Day. That
Speaker 4: is still like a federal holiday, but multiple cities and
Speaker 4: states have opted to use Indigenous People's Day instead, And
Speaker 4: the reasoning for that is acknowlogy the atrocities that were
Speaker 4: committed by Christopher Columbus, who first of all, did not
Speaker 4: discover America, but continue to not only use slavery but
Speaker 4: commit different forms of genocide, rape, et cetera, all of
Speaker 4: these terrible atrocities. And so rather than celebrating somebody like that,
Speaker 4: Indigenous People's Day has been implemented in order to recognize
Speaker 4: the people who were actually here first, and indigenous peoples
Speaker 4: across the America's their histories, cultures, and contributions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Columbus, real piece of shit, worst Christopher, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it really cannot be overstated how bad that guy was,
Speaker 3: even you know, even people in that era who had
Speaker 3: committed their own genocides like Isabelle and Ferdinand, who you know,
Speaker 3: expelled the Jews from Spain, where it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: if once you've reached the sentence expelled the Jews from
Speaker 3: X like you're you're already in the shit list of
Speaker 3: the worst people in human history. And even they saw
Speaker 3: what Columbus was doing, it was like what on Earth Earth,
Speaker 3: bad bad guy, bad name. Things are going to continue
Speaker 3: to go badly. And yeah, that was another thing that
Speaker 3: I've wanted to talk about, which is federal Indian policy.
Speaker 3: And you know, this is an incredibly broad it's an
Speaker 3: incredibly broad area spanning like three hundred years, So we're
Speaker 3: not gonna be able to go into like an enormous
Speaker 3: amount of depth in it, but I think it's important
Speaker 3: that people have an understanding of, I mean a just
Speaker 3: what the US did and how everyone else has had
Speaker 3: this sort of deal with it, and then also the
Speaker 3: fact that this is something that changes over time and
Speaker 3: has has looked different, It's looked it's been bad in
Speaker 3: different ways.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so in talking about federal Indian policy, I
Speaker 4: always like to contextualize it within a larger sort of
Speaker 4: like Euro American like teleology of colonial conquests and then
Speaker 4: moving on to setwlare colonialism and where we are with
Speaker 4: federal federal Indian policy currently. So how do we connect
Speaker 4: Christopher Columbus to where we are currently, and this is
Speaker 4: the history of federal Indian policy and Western legal discourse
Speaker 4: and how European powers throughout history have defined what it
Speaker 4: means to be an Indian person and relationship to Indigenous
Speaker 4: people's rights to their own land and to self governance.
Speaker 4: So when we're looking at the different periods of federal
Speaker 4: Indian policy prior to their being a United States government,
Speaker 4: we have the colonial period, which is fourteen ninety two
Speaker 4: to seventeen seventy six. This is how federal Indian policy
Speaker 4: legal scholars divide that, and it's really important to kind
Speaker 4: of give the difference between what is a colonial state
Speaker 4: versus a settler colonial state when you're talking about not
Speaker 4: just the United States government, but also the Canadian government
Speaker 4: and different governments globally. But I want to talk just
Speaker 4: a little bit about what I mean by the difference
Speaker 4: between a colonial government and a settler colonial government, because
Speaker 4: they're tied together. So by a sutler colonial government, I
Speaker 4: mean what I mean is that it is defined by
Speaker 4: the de territorialization of indigenous population populations, and so rather
Speaker 4: than in a colonial government as you had with Christopher
Speaker 4: Columbus and the Spanish and with the English et cetera.
Speaker 4: Is rather than a state, and sovereignty being conceived as
Speaker 4: all these resources are going back to the metropol, all
Speaker 4: these resources are going back to England or to Spain,
Speaker 4: et cetera. And colonial occupation is in is conceptualized within
Speaker 4: this way. In Setlic colonial governments, the colonists come to
Speaker 4: these lands and stay and they're what they define as
Speaker 4: sovereignty is within this land that they define now as
Speaker 4: their own. So and in order for that process to happen,
Speaker 4: there needs to be different forms of genocide of the
Speaker 4: indigenous populations. And so that's what we saw with Christopher
Speaker 4: Columbus and throughout history was just the depletion of a
Speaker 4: lot of our indigenous populace. And so when I mean
Speaker 4: about the United States being a Setlic colonial state, I
Speaker 4: mean that this is current and ongoing. And so when
Speaker 4: we talk about federal Indian policy, federal Indian policy, he
Speaker 4: is always in this conversation with what started with Christopher
Speaker 4: columb This as the doctrine of discovery, and so that's
Speaker 4: how we define the colonial period and feel free to
Speaker 4: like stop me and ask me questions. Also just going
Speaker 4: to try to move quickly because there's a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we probably should briefly talk about what
Speaker 3: the doctory discovery is, at least before we get to
Speaker 3: the Marshall trilogy and stuff for sure. So what does
Speaker 3: that actually mean legally?
Speaker 4: So legally, it's the discovery of a quote unquote newfound
Speaker 4: Land by European colonial forces. And the reason why it's
Speaker 4: called the doctrine of discovery was that indigenous peoples on
Speaker 4: these lands were deemed unable to govern themselves and they
Speaker 4: did not know how to utilize their land up to
Speaker 4: the definition of what the European powers thought land use.
Speaker 4: Was that indigenous peoples didn't have the same concept of
Speaker 4: property and same with their relationship with resources and resource extraction.
Speaker 4: So when Christopher Columbus and all of these other colonizers
Speaker 4: Conkystick Doors came to the quote unquote New Land, they
Speaker 4: saw all of this rich, plentiful resource and thoughts of themselves, well,
Speaker 4: obviously these people don't know what they're doing because there's
Speaker 4: just so much they have not done anything with it.
Speaker 4: And we're going to take this back to two hours
Speaker 4: because obviously their inferior beings and don't know what property is.
Speaker 4: So legally, the adoptionne of Discovery conveyed legal title to
Speaker 4: and ownership of the American soil to European nations, a
Speaker 4: title that devolved to the United States, and so this
Speaker 4: definition is expansive and expansive Discovery implies that Native nations
Speaker 4: have a right to lands as occupants or possessors, but
Speaker 4: they are incompetent to manage those lands and need a
Speaker 4: quote unquote benevolent guardian such as a federal government who
Speaker 4: holds legal title. And so when we're talking about this
Speaker 4: legal title, it devolves to the United States later on
Speaker 4: in history after the American Revolution, and so rather than
Speaker 4: being colonial states as the United States like thirteen original colonies,
Speaker 4: given the American Revolution and its own constitution and its
Speaker 4: creation of itself as a nation state, then that turns
Speaker 4: into a settler colonial government.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we can. Yeah, we can get to
Speaker 3: what happens next then, because yeah, yeah, you have this
Speaker 3: elaborate label or framework that lets you steal people's land
Speaker 3: and murder them and then control it. And then the
Speaker 3: outgrowth of that is this sort of weird event where
Speaker 3: the colonies go into rebellion and suddenly, yeah, there's not
Speaker 3: a colony. They're not colonies. Anymore, they just are the state.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, what happens next after the sort of
Speaker 3: formation of the United States.
Speaker 4: So after the formation of the United States, so we
Speaker 4: have this period the American Revolution, that's all not really
Speaker 4: dive that into. It is seventeen seventy six to seventeen
Speaker 4: eighty nine, and it's called the Confederation period. But next
Speaker 4: we have the Trade and Intercourse Act era, which is
Speaker 4: from seventeen eighty nine to eighteen thirty five. And so
Speaker 4: this is defined with the United States Constitution and Congress's
Speaker 4: exclusive right to regulate trade relations and make lands and
Speaker 4: land secessions, and enter into treaties with tribes. So this
Speaker 4: is a treaty making era with the tribes that only
Speaker 4: the United States federal government is able to And there's
Speaker 4: a distinction there because there had been a lot of
Speaker 4: contestation between states and the federal government as to who
Speaker 4: is going to now deal with these nations that are
Speaker 4: within our own settler colonial borders. So whose job is
Speaker 4: that to solve this issue? So within the United States Constitution,
Speaker 4: there are three clauses that define the United States legal
Speaker 4: relationship to American Indians, and so these are the treaty
Speaker 4: making clause, the commerce clause, and the property clause. And
Speaker 4: so this movement from just lying on the doctrine of
Speaker 4: discovery and treaty making processes between different European powers now
Speaker 4: is between the United States federal government and tribes. And
Speaker 4: so what this does is now tribes are located within
Speaker 4: the United States territory, and this places Indians within the
Speaker 4: boundaries and jurisdiction of the United States, and now they're
Speaker 4: a matter of domestic.
Speaker 2: Interest something at last.
Speaker 3: It's one of the sort of complicated questions that that
Speaker 3: changes through this whole era, which is about what does
Speaker 3: sovereignty mean for these tribes and to what extent they
Speaker 3: even continue to possess it, and how does that even
Speaker 3: sort of how does that work if when you have
Speaker 3: this new state that sort of just has his clean control.
Speaker 4: Here, right, And also during this period, well later on
Speaker 4: when we have, sorry jumping ahead of myself, when we
Speaker 4: have the extermination of the treaty making process, and this
Speaker 4: completely removes seeing tribes as independent sovereign nations. So I
Speaker 4: think that will kind of get more into that later.
Speaker 4: But the thing with federal Indian policy is that it's
Speaker 4: sort of self prophesizing. So as settlers are moving across America.
Speaker 4: The United States government also has to create these policies
Speaker 4: in order to legalize these land cessations and movements. And
Speaker 4: a pattern that we do see here throughout history and
Speaker 4: throughout time is that the United States federal government, as
Speaker 4: a settler state, is over the rights of over the
Speaker 4: rights to land and rights of indigenous peoples themselves. You
Speaker 4: have a priority of the settler state in order to
Speaker 4: acquire land. So a lot of the reason I later
Speaker 4: these treaties will be broken, et cetera, is because suttlers
Speaker 4: are moving into these lands and the United States is
Speaker 4: then breaking these treaties in order to have more more land,
Speaker 4: more land successions. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the law sort of just following the
Speaker 3: violence and it just becomes a sort of retroactive justification
Speaker 3: for yes, just looking everything.
Speaker 4: It's a self justifying sort of sovereignty. Yeah. So this
Speaker 4: is the Removal period and what a lot of people
Speaker 4: may have heard of. So it's from eighteen thirty five
Speaker 4: to eighteen sixty one, and what we have is the
Speaker 4: extinguishment of Indian title to eastern lands and the removal
Speaker 4: of Indian tribes westward. So one of the most notable
Speaker 4: acts is the Removal Act, which was authorized by President
Speaker 4: Andrew Jackson, which moved Indians from the east to the
Speaker 4: west of the Mississippi River into what is was called
Speaker 4: Indian Territory. And what brought about this federal federal act
Speaker 4: was a series of three foundational statutes within federal Indian
Speaker 4: policy dictated by Chief Justice John Marshall. So first we
Speaker 4: have Johnson B. McIntosh, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, and Worcester v. Georgia.
Speaker 4: And I won't go into too much detail, but what
Speaker 4: this these essentially did and legally defined tribes as being
Speaker 4: domestic dependent nations. And so it clarified more that again
Speaker 4: tribal nations are underneath the federal government's overview, not the states.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it placed tribes above state jurisdiction. And what
Speaker 4: this was trying to do was solved some issues that
Speaker 4: tribes such as the Cherokee Nation had with different states
Speaker 4: when it came to land and jurisdiction overstaid land. But
Speaker 4: that is kind of the basis of a lot of
Speaker 4: federal Indian policy and soilarmage truth day. And what is
Speaker 4: notable in each one of these statutes, I believe particularly
Speaker 4: in Worcester v. Georgia, although it seems that it was
Speaker 4: supporting tribal sovereignty in them in that they were above
Speaker 4: state jurisdiction. A lot of these statutes cited racist President
Speaker 4: and the Doctrine of Discovery. So what you see for
Speaker 4: federal Indian policy is that a lot of the founder,
Speaker 4: well all the foundation for a federal Indian policy based
Speaker 4: on President is the Doctrine of Discovery, which is reliant
Speaker 4: on the idea that American Indians savages and needed federal
Speaker 4: benevolence and paternalism in order to regulate their own affairs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that's well, okay, we should probably
Speaker 3: not just immediately get to allotment, but yeah, because there's
Speaker 3: there's there's there's also Yeah, this is also the period
Speaker 3: we used. Yeah, the thing you were talking about earlier,
Speaker 3: the thing you helped me know about, which is, okay,
Speaker 3: it's not true to say this is when this starts,
Speaker 3: but this is Indian Removal Act, Trail of Tears territory.
Speaker 3: And one thing that you know, I think one of
Speaker 3: the sort of running themes of this is that, you know,
Speaker 3: the the law in this context is just sort of
Speaker 3: it becomes a sort of retroactive excuse to do whatever
Speaker 3: like needs to be done from the perspective quote unquote
Speaker 3: of the sort of of the settler state to just
Speaker 3: take all of this land. Yeah, and I think maybe
Speaker 3: like one of the keystones of this is Andrew Jackson
Speaker 3: just straight up telling of in court to fuck off
Speaker 3: so that he can do so he can do a
Speaker 3: trail tears.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So the Removal Act happened after all of these
Speaker 4: statutes that you already had that supported federal Indian sovereignty,
Speaker 4: and so the Cherokees in Georgia were one of the
Speaker 4: tribes that were removed. And so you kind of see
Speaker 4: what you talked about, the the retrograde kind of justifications
Speaker 4: for said removal despite the statutes that are there. So
Speaker 4: although that like Marshall in Worchester fed Georgia determined that
Speaker 4: the state of Georgia did not have jurisdiction over Cherokee
Speaker 4: territory all this although this territory was in the state's borders,
Speaker 4: later on you see with the Removal Act that although
Speaker 4: these statutes are still president in federal Indian policy, those
Speaker 4: were null in order for there to be more expansion
Speaker 4: of settlers within these areas. So when it was decided that, oh, wait,
Speaker 4: we do need this land and we don't actually want
Speaker 4: these Indians here, let's put them to the side overpast
Speaker 4: the Mississippi so that they're out of mind. Right, So
Speaker 4: we see more of this justification for settler expansion, and
Speaker 4: so again we bring back to these themes of like
Speaker 4: settler colonialism in order to kind of gain more of
Speaker 4: this land. And a lot of these statutes are still
Speaker 4: cited the doctrine of discovery in them, and rather than
Speaker 4: supporting tribal policy, the relationship between the United States federal
Speaker 4: government and American Indians was not based on the rights
Speaker 4: of Indians, but more that they can't they can't govern themselves,
Speaker 4: right and so so and that's the whole issue is
Speaker 4: like people were like they don't know what they're doing,
Speaker 4: so we're gonna push them and like take their land again.
Speaker 4: So I don't know if you want me to go
Speaker 4: too much into the trail of tears, but you're seeing
Speaker 4: a lot of patterns here, I think, different forms of genocide,
Speaker 4: different forms of taking land.
Speaker 5: This was this is all around the same time as
Speaker 5: the Indian Act in Canada as well, which was a
Speaker 5: very similar thing, especially starting in the nineteen hundred. It's
Speaker 5: starting in the twentieth century as well with the expansion
Speaker 5: of the like assimilation programs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think I guess one other thing I
Speaker 3: want to point out about this is that, you know,
Speaker 3: so one of the things that happens to trailers tiars
Speaker 3: is that the Supreme Court like tells Jackson that he
Speaker 3: can't do this, and Jackson just does it anyways. And
Speaker 3: I think that's a very interesting important moment because you know,
Speaker 3: this is this is this thing right where the federal
Speaker 3: government can tell there is the Supreme Court to fuck off, right,
Speaker 3: and there's nothing the Supreme Court could do about it.
Speaker 3: And if you look at what they did it to do,
Speaker 3: the thing they did it to do was genocide. And
Speaker 3: it's I think it's it's just I think this is
Speaker 3: very sort of I don't know, this incredibly grim, like
Speaker 3: you know, encapsulation of like what this state actually is,
Speaker 3: which is this sort of genocide machine and whatever sort
Speaker 3: of you know, this is what sovereignty is, right, the
Speaker 3: ability to break your own rules to sort of or
Speaker 3: to maintain the system. So you you know, you break
Speaker 3: your own laws, and you know, as we're going to
Speaker 3: get to in a second, like you break your own
Speaker 3: treaties continuously, and you do this because you know, the
Speaker 3: genoicide machine has to keep moving, right.
Speaker 4: And there's a couple of federal Indian policy theorists Bendelari
Speaker 4: Junior who's one of the most famous ones, and David E.
Speaker 4: Wilkins who talks about how there is no need for
Speaker 4: checks and balances within the federal Indian policy system. So
Speaker 4: you have Congress that is able to pass whatever they want,
Speaker 4: and then you also have the Supreme Court, and then
Speaker 4: you also have executive action. But it wasn't really delineated
Speaker 4: that well within especially when it comes to this period
Speaker 4: as to who is going to be dealing with the
Speaker 4: Indians kind of thing. And so this kind of confusion
Speaker 4: and not really completely defining what it means to be
Speaker 4: a domestic dependent nation, I think really just goes to
Speaker 4: show how much of a fragile edifice like settler colonial
Speaker 4: policy is for it is within the system. But again
Speaker 4: moving on, it comes back again to land. So the
Speaker 4: reservation area era in eighteen sixty one to eighteen eighty
Speaker 4: sevens you have a lot of westward expansion of non
Speaker 4: Indians settlers specifically to California. You also have the creation
Speaker 4: of Indian reservations and resulting Indian wars. So during this era,
Speaker 4: what you see a lot of are different types of
Speaker 4: attents that assimulation and a lot of warfare. So you
Speaker 4: have a lot of the plains tribes might tribe for instance,
Speaker 4: that are going through all of these battles fighting forced
Speaker 4: removal onto reservations. One of the most famous ones was
Speaker 4: the Battle of Greasy Grass, was a little big horn
Speaker 4: where General Custer was killed by Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapahos,
Speaker 4: and different instances of battles such as those, and also
Speaker 4: where a lot of tribes were forcibly removed to areas
Speaker 4: that there were weren't originally from. So like how the
Speaker 4: Sheriffes were moved to Oklahoma, there was a terms of
Speaker 4: my tribe, for instance, Northern Cheyenne to being moved down
Speaker 4: to Oklahoma as well, and that's why there's some Southern
Speaker 4: Cheyennes in Oklahoma and then my tribe, the Northern Schance
Speaker 4: in Montana. Another another thing that is happening during this
Speaker 4: period are boarding schools the boarding school era, so this
Speaker 4: attempt at assimilation through education and assimilation is also within
Speaker 4: within the settler colonial kind of structure. It's it's defined
Speaker 4: as a process where indigenous people end up conforming to
Speaker 4: different constructed notions of settular norms. So if they're not
Speaker 4: absorbed within the state completely, then their attempted attempt to
Speaker 4: be assimilated culturally through education, through languages, in terms of economics.
Speaker 4: So now you have a bunch of different sort of
Speaker 4: bureaucratic structures on these reservations trying to make tribal governments
Speaker 4: appear to be or constructed as settler colonial governments are.
Speaker 4: So maybe it's the three branches in ways that aren't
Speaker 4: just compatible with different tribes culturally, and you also have
Speaker 4: the attempted eradication of different kind of spiritual and cultural practices,
Speaker 4: and a lot of Christianity be forse not to different people,
Speaker 4: and just kind of terrible things that I think more
Speaker 4: and more people are becoming aware of due to current movements.
Speaker 4: But we'll get into that mode later. Ye.
Speaker 3: Do we want to talk about a lot of pace,
Speaker 3: because if this is in the.
Speaker 4: Same period, yes, a lotment period and force assimilation. So
Speaker 4: this is like eighteen seventy one to nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 4: and so this is the end of the treaty making process.
Speaker 4: So the whole idea of trying to force tribes onto
Speaker 4: reservations and sign these treaties were to again take land
Speaker 4: and make sure that the United States has more land
Speaker 4: and all the land, et cetera that they possibly have.
Speaker 4: So at this end of treaty making and federal allotment
Speaker 4: of Indian lands also happened in the DAWs Act. And
Speaker 4: so what this was was an attempt to further shrink
Speaker 4: the reservation lands that tribes are already guaranteed with than treaties.
Speaker 4: So during this period, I think somewhere like nine million
Speaker 4: acres were taken from tribal reservations during the allotment process.
Speaker 4: So what the allotment process did was it counted each
Speaker 4: in every individual Indian that was eligible. I think there
Speaker 4: were adults, yeah, adults that were eligible, and each one
Speaker 4: of them were given a certain parcel of land, a
Speaker 4: certain number acreage. And once all of this land was calculated,
Speaker 4: what you had was an excess of land quote unquote
Speaker 4: excess of land that the tribes obviously didn't need because
Speaker 4: they had still to too many people. And so what
Speaker 4: the excess of land was utilized fors for pioneers and
Speaker 4: for settlers if it didn't go to the federal government.
Speaker 4: It was to incentivize settlers to colonize especial specil on
Speaker 4: Indian lands. So trying its hardest to not stay true
Speaker 4: to it's treaty making practices.
Speaker 3: I think the every thing that was interesting to me
Speaker 3: about this is that, like, because one of the other
Speaker 3: goals of this is to sort of like, oh, it's
Speaker 3: the civilizing mission. It's like, yeah, we're going to turn
Speaker 3: them into We're gonna turn these people into like like
Speaker 3: yeoman farmers, like true American frontiersmen or whatever. And it's
Speaker 3: just like it just doesn't work because economically it doesn't
Speaker 3: make any sense. Like breaking up all these like lands
Speaker 3: is like it doesn't you can't just give someone like
Speaker 3: a small patch of like shitty land and have them
Speaker 3: farm like this doesn't like this, it doesn't. It doesn't.
Speaker 3: Like they certainly tried, and.
Speaker 5: Then yeah, yeah, yeah, Like that was one of the
Speaker 5: main things. One of the main things in Canada was
Speaker 5: about getting them to adopt like like European farming practices,
Speaker 5: which which they they they already knew how to like
Speaker 5: get their own food, right. They were trying to change
Speaker 5: this whole system of of of like of food growth
Speaker 5: to this like to this European way of farming, and
Speaker 5: it just and they were just forcing them to and
Speaker 5: there's yeah, it's it's yes, it gets it gets, it
Speaker 5: gets super, it gets super like dark and horrible. Once
Speaker 5: you like look at like the letters that were being
Speaker 5: written by like the heads of these programs, like you know, instructing,
Speaker 5: like these agents were stationed at these like reservations to
Speaker 5: like force people to be doing this horrible farming for
Speaker 5: like all day every day.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, the sign that this was
Speaker 3: like like this is this is so bad that even
Speaker 3: the US government eventually is like wait this this like
Speaker 3: this is fucked up and doesn't work. So I think
Speaker 3: that's yeah, you transition to sort of like the next phase.
Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, a very short phase. Yeah. So the
Speaker 4: next phase is the Indian Reorganization Act. And so this
Speaker 4: only lasted six years from nineteen thirty four to nineteen forty.
Speaker 4: So this is when a lotment ended. As you said,
Speaker 4: the United States government was like, wait, this isn't working.
Speaker 4: What else can we do? The Indians aren't dying off,
Speaker 4: They're not assimilating, they're not a culturating. We don't know
Speaker 4: what to do with them, so maybe we'll have them
Speaker 4: adopt these constitutions. And a lot of them were just templates,
Speaker 4: so regardless of whether or not they were I think
Speaker 4: compatible with tribal different tribes way of life, they were like,
Speaker 4: you have these constitutions. Now, now you're a tribe, and
Speaker 4: this is what each tribe has to look like in
Speaker 4: order for us, the federal government to recognize you as
Speaker 4: a legitimate entity. And then so you have the establishment
Speaker 4: of these tribal governments that consist of tribal councils and
Speaker 4: big business committees, et cetera. However, this period is fleeting,
Speaker 4: very fleeting. And next you have the termination era. So
Speaker 4: this is the period of time where the federal government
Speaker 4: essentially even more so, wants to just get rid of
Speaker 4: the quote unquote Indian problem, which is the existence of
Speaker 4: indigenous peoples that are reminders to the government essentially that
Speaker 4: they are a setlar colonial force and they don't know
Speaker 4: what to do with us because they tried to commit genocide,
Speaker 4: they tried to remove us, et cetera, et cetera. It's
Speaker 4: still not working. They decided that our tribal governments aren't legitimate,
Speaker 4: and they just decide, well, it's too much to try
Speaker 4: to keep up with our treaties and what we promised
Speaker 4: them when it comes to health care, education, housing, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera. How about we terminate our federal responsibility, our
Speaker 4: trust responsibility that are delineated in federal Indian policy and
Speaker 4: in our treaties and give them off to this to
Speaker 4: the states to decide what to do with. And so
Speaker 4: during this period you see sort of the federal dissolution
Speaker 4: of some tribes such as the monogamy and other ones.
Speaker 2: As well.
Speaker 4: So this is another dark time there. The dark times
Speaker 4: just keep on coming. And what Federalian policy scholars have
Speaker 4: characterized federal learn policy as a pendulum, so swing swinging
Speaker 4: from side to side between this termin this termination of tribes,
Speaker 4: so the federal Indian government as trying to get rid
Speaker 4: of tribes, especially as you can see in this era,
Speaker 4: and then the pendulum of the other side of self determination.
Speaker 4: But both of these are held within the context of
Speaker 4: goals of assimilation. So this is just another phase of terribleness.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this this phase also like one thing.
Speaker 3: I think that also, like is important people understand is
Speaker 3: it like like it's not like people aren't fighting this
Speaker 3: like the whole time. I mean even going like even
Speaker 3: going back to the stuff the seventh Cavalry, like the
Speaker 3: stuff of cavalry lose like bores, they lose bells all
Speaker 3: the time. People are fighting constantly. And this is this period.
Speaker 3: Determination period is also where you see the rise of
Speaker 3: the American Indian movements.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of these periods can be like dove
Speaker 4: into more and all of these different things. In every instance,
Speaker 4: in every instance of federal Indian policy, you have resistance,
Speaker 4: which we are not covering here right now, but you
Speaker 4: have instances throughout history where indigenous peoples have fought for
Speaker 4: their rights to land, for their community, to being sovereign nations,
Speaker 4: et cetera. And that's why the federal Indian the federal government,
Speaker 4: not federal Indian government, the federal government has not been
Speaker 4: able to eradicate us, much to their dismay. And so
Speaker 4: now I'm going to switch into the era that we
Speaker 4: are considered to be in, which I had mentioned when
Speaker 4: I talked about the pendulum of federal Indian policy. So
Speaker 4: now we are in the self determination era. Which began
Speaker 4: in nineteen sixty two, and we have the right. It's
Speaker 4: characterized with the revitalization of tribal entities. So going kind
Speaker 4: of back to when there was the Indian Reorganization Act,
Speaker 4: that we have our tribal councils. There's restoration of some
Speaker 4: tribes under federal recognition who were terminated, again not all
Speaker 4: of them. We also have the Indian Civil Rights Act,
Speaker 4: so this this kind of guaranteed individual Indians some rights
Speaker 4: not just characterized by their tribes. Also the self Determined
Speaker 4: Nation policy, so this is when Nixon condemned the termination
Speaker 4: policy and gave more control to Indians rather than the
Speaker 4: Bureau of Indian ferris which just a federal bureau, and
Speaker 4: just kind of like other policies that have given the
Speaker 4: tribes more rights to determine for themselves and their own trust,
Speaker 4: their own people to a certain degree underneath the federal
Speaker 4: government as se message dependent nations. And again I think
Speaker 4: that we have seen a lot more movement, but within
Speaker 4: the context of being within a settler colonial state. It's
Speaker 4: always I think a possibility that the federal Indian government
Speaker 4: or the federal government I keep saying Indian, the federal
Speaker 4: government will try to take more and more. And I think,
Speaker 4: for instance, when it comes to issues of fishing rights,
Speaker 4: issues of hunting rights with states, not even just with
Speaker 4: the federal government. So you have a lot of states
Speaker 4: throughout throughout history but still ongoing that attempt to encroach
Speaker 4: on tribal treaties. And again, treaties are the basis of
Speaker 4: federal Indian policy. Without these treaties, the lands would have
Speaker 4: never been seceeded to the United States. And so there's
Speaker 4: this sort of like legal legal conundrum, I would say,
Speaker 4: of where all these all treaties in the history of
Speaker 4: the United States with Indian with Indian tribes have been
Speaker 4: broken in some way, shape or form. But still American
Speaker 4: Indians have to live on their reservations instead of having
Speaker 4: their their land back. And so nowadays a lot of
Speaker 4: movement has been towards land back. What this means, what
Speaker 4: is this process? And I think it means a lot
Speaker 4: of different things for different people, Indigenous people, because again
Speaker 4: there's there's five hundred and seventy four federally recognized tribes
Speaker 4: and so it's not one monolith of ideas, the monolith
Speaker 4: of beliefs. But by just by saying land back that's
Speaker 4: like recognition that this is our this was our land first,
Speaker 4: and you're not keeping your side of the deal and
Speaker 4: never have been.
Speaker 5: Could you maybe go a bit more into land back
Speaker 5: as the topic, because like specifically, like the past five years,
Speaker 5: it has really gain a lot more like popularity as
Speaker 5: like a slogan, but I think for a lot of
Speaker 5: a lot of people who you like chanted and hear
Speaker 5: it don't always really know exactly what it means. There's
Speaker 5: a lot of like mixed opinions on what it means.
Speaker 5: Of course, on like the more like reactionary side, it's
Speaker 5: like people will be like, what you're gonna like kick
Speaker 5: white people out of these areas? Like that's kind of
Speaker 5: that's what a lot of like the reactionary takes on
Speaker 5: land back is. And I'm sure most people are listening
Speaker 5: to this podcast that's not what they think, but they
Speaker 5: may not really know exactly what it means either. They
Speaker 5: may think it sounds a good idea, but they're not
Speaker 5: quite sure what it is. Do you mind kind of
Speaker 5: talking about how land back has like developed as as
Speaker 5: an idea and what like what like you mean by
Speaker 5: it personally?
Speaker 4: At least, Yeah, I think I could talk about more
Speaker 4: about like what I mean by it personally and what
Speaker 4: I've understood it to mean to other people, because I
Speaker 4: think land back itself, it means like a lot of
Speaker 4: different things, and I don't think that there has been
Speaker 4: a concrete kind of idea of what it means. But
Speaker 4: I think a lot of the movement I want to
Speaker 4: like contextualize it within a lot of the sort of
Speaker 4: activism that we've seen in their recent years. So for instance,
Speaker 4: no Daffle the Dakota Access Pipeline in twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 4: kind of I think that's one of the more recent
Speaker 4: events that have really illustrated on a wide scale, like
Speaker 4: globally about indigenous movements, sovereign movements, and especially when it
Speaker 4: comes to environmental justice. But what you saw there was
Speaker 4: encroachment on tribal treaty land within what it had to
Speaker 4: do with the Dakota Access pipeline. So although it didn't
Speaker 4: cross some of the current reservation borders, it was in
Speaker 4: treaty land, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: The same thing with Stop line three, how it encroached
Speaker 5: on like the hunting land and the farmland that was
Speaker 5: not technically in that like residential like not in like
Speaker 5: the reservation area where people live, but it's in the
Speaker 5: surrounding area that is for hunting that is specified in
Speaker 5: the treaty. Keeople trying to use these loopholes to get
Speaker 5: the pipelines.
Speaker 4: Through right, right, And so I think what you see
Speaker 4: is a lot of solidarity across tribes because this is
Speaker 4: not new. This has never been new, and a lot
Speaker 4: of tribes can relate to that. And what you've seen
Speaker 4: and what I've hoped that I've highlighted throughout this kind
Speaker 4: of very brief overview of vetereral new policy is the
Speaker 4: different ways that Indigenous rights to land and sovereignty has
Speaker 4: been attacked in different forms by settler and colonial governments.
Speaker 4: And I think that the day and age that we
Speaker 4: live in now has allowed for sort of more widespread solidarity,
Speaker 4: especially over social media. And so when we say land
Speaker 4: back for me, how I interpret it as what people
Speaker 4: mean when they're saying it is recognition of our tribal sovereignty,
Speaker 4: of our right to this land that has not been respected.
Speaker 4: And then I also think that it means, well, if
Speaker 4: these treaties aren't being respected, then how is this treaty
Speaker 4: still valid? Right? How Come we aren't getting our land
Speaker 4: back because you're not upholding your end of the deal.
Speaker 4: While some people also might mean and recognize that this
Speaker 4: whole United States government is a settler state right based
Speaker 4: on the doctrine of discovery, which is based on denying
Speaker 4: tribes and American Indians of their rights to this land.
Speaker 4: So some people might take it to this whole other
Speaker 4: context of yeah, well maybe this is this is all
Speaker 4: of our land, et cetera, et cetera. But in practice,
Speaker 4: what does this look like? And I think in practice
Speaker 4: a lot of people are seeing it with reparations or
Speaker 4: people buying land back for tribes and giving it back
Speaker 4: to tribes, and we have seen some of that, or
Speaker 4: also just people interrupting the narrative in their own mind
Speaker 4: of their euro American identity, so not non American Indians
Speaker 4: and primarily European settlers and their history of their own
Speaker 4: families taking part of the settler colonial process, and how
Speaker 4: has that what about their lands. There's everyone who descends,
Speaker 4: I guess, from these these settlers, and I want to
Speaker 4: be specific when I'm talking about Euro American settlers and
Speaker 4: how they currently benefit from these systems. And I think
Speaker 4: by saying land back, it's we're able to highlight this
Speaker 4: movement for tribal sovereignty and recognition on a global scale
Speaker 4: instead of searching for justice within the quote unquote, like
Speaker 4: searching for justice within the courts of the conqueror, How
Speaker 4: do we expect for the conqueror to be held accountable
Speaker 4: for all of these atrocities, attempts of genocide, assimilation, et cetera.
Speaker 4: By taking it more towards a global scale, such as
Speaker 4: no adaptable, highlighting these to other people as these are injustices,
Speaker 4: this is, this is ongoing genocide. I think that land
Speaker 4: back has many, like a plethora of meanings in that sense. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I hope that answers your question. I myself might use
Speaker 4: it in in some some different ways because land as
Speaker 4: we conceive it to be property kind of grew. That
Speaker 4: concept grew in conversation with Euro.
Speaker 2: American Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 4: Conceptions of property. So I think that moving forward, when
Speaker 4: we talk about decolonization as a process and not like
Speaker 4: a metaphor, that thinking of land back not within that
Speaker 4: whole idea of your American property as well. That's that's
Speaker 4: kind of another thing to consider.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think land back would just be
Speaker 5: a whole other thing that will pay someone more qualified
Speaker 5: than our team to talk about on this show, because yeah,
Speaker 5: it's definitely, like you know, like all of the things
Speaker 5: we've we've discussed, they deserve their own deep dives by
Speaker 5: people that are uh not to meet Robert and Chris.
Speaker 5: Let's see. Is there any kind of resources, either books
Speaker 5: or stuff online that you would recommend for people wanting
Speaker 5: to learn more about this history and then any kind
Speaker 5: of ways to I don't know. I I guess show
Speaker 5: support in these and these kind of like efforts that
Speaker 5: are going on.
Speaker 4: For sure. So in terms of resources and reading, I
Speaker 4: have read Lorenzo Vercini's Settler Book on Settler Colonialism. That's
Speaker 4: really helpful when you're trying to understand that framework in
Speaker 4: terms of getting to know kind of more of the
Speaker 4: basics of like current issues impacting tribes. The National Congress
Speaker 4: of American Indians does a lot of work on the
Speaker 4: federal level. If you want to talk more about kind
Speaker 4: of lived current lived experiences of American Indians, there's illuminatives
Speaker 4: and getting more involved in those as well. I think
Speaker 4: that they have some tips, but I would recommend everyone
Speaker 4: getting more familiar with the land that they are on
Speaker 4: currently the tribes within their state and what they can
Speaker 4: do not just on the local level, but on the
Speaker 4: state level to support tribal sovereignty because a lot of issues.
Speaker 4: For instance, I worked on the state policy level in
Speaker 4: Washington and in Montana, and both of those have a
Speaker 4: significant amount of tribes, but you have a lot of
Speaker 4: legislation that's trying to happen that infringes on tribal treaty rights.
Speaker 4: And the thing is is as ugly as it may
Speaker 4: be to say, but sometimes voices of non indigenous peoples
Speaker 4: are listening to you more within those contexts, So you
Speaker 4: need to get more involved on those levels. What sort
Speaker 4: of like at nonprofit organizations work with your tribes, and
Speaker 4: what sort of issues are impacting tribes, And again, these
Speaker 4: are all going to probably be surrounding tribal sovereignty, so
Speaker 4: maybe it's fishing access, hunting rights, et cetera. I think
Speaker 4: that's a really good way to make some more tangible change,
Speaker 4: to feel like you're doing something to support tribal sovereignty
Speaker 4: while you're also educating yourself and making sure that their
Speaker 4: voices are at the forefront. And that's also applicable to
Speaker 4: the federal level, especially with as you already said, like
Speaker 4: stop line three in Minnesota, contacting your legislators, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera. And I think also with when it comes
Speaker 4: to one of one of the larger issues besides environmental
Speaker 4: justice for Indigenous peoples such as pipelines, you have right
Speaker 4: now missing a murdered Indigenous women, So looking in looking
Speaker 4: into that a little bit more and who you can
Speaker 4: support who's addressing those issues. Along with there is another
Speaker 4: movement with boarding schools right now because there's been a
Speaker 4: lot of bodies of young children that have been uncovered,
Speaker 4: and this is not an issue that happened a long
Speaker 4: long time ago, like for instance, my grandmother went to
Speaker 4: a boarding school. There's still schools that although they're not
Speaker 4: called boarding schools right now that we're boarding schools but
Speaker 4: are an operation under different names, et cetera. So kind
Speaker 4: of familiarizing yourself with those histories. And then also there's
Speaker 4: a national I think it's called the National Boarding School
Speaker 4: Healing Coalition based out of Minnesota, and looking into them
Speaker 4: and supporting their efforts with this issue is also a
Speaker 4: good place to start.
Speaker 5: Is there anywhere that people can find you online?
Speaker 4: Yes, I don't. I don't really use social media that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I try not to.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: If I want people to find me, don't do it.
Speaker 5: It's better that people don't find anyone online. It's better
Speaker 5: we're all just just posting into the void. There's nothing
Speaker 5: just avoid well. That that is I think gonna wrap
Speaker 5: up what we have today, Chris, do you want to
Speaker 5: close us out with a funny bit?
Speaker 1: I light your local gas station on fire. Wow, Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ killing it here? Oh my god, geez wow. All right,
Speaker 1: goodbye for buddy.
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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.