gord hill - 500 years of indigenous resistance

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500 YEARS OF INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE

GORD HILL



500 years of Indigenous Resistance © Gord Hill 2009

Tis edition © PM Press 2009

All rights reserved. No part o this book may be transmitted in any orm

by any means without permission in writing rom the publisher.

Cover and interior design by Daniel Meltzer

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library o Congress Control Number: 2009901389

ISBN 978-1-60486-106-8

Published by:

PM Press

PO Box 23912

Oakland, CA 94623www.pmpress.org

Printed in the USA on recycled paper.



Table of Contents

4 Foreword

6 Introduction

7 Te Pre-Columbian World

11 Te Genocide Begins

15 Expansion, Exploitation, and Extermination

18 Te Penetration o North America

24 Te European Struggle or Hegemony

27 ragedy: Te United States is Created

30 Revolutions in the “New World”

35 Maniest Destiny and the U.S. Indian Wars

37 Arikan Slavery, Arikan Rebellion, and the U.S. Civil War

40 Black Reconstruction and Deconstruction

43 Te Colonization o Canada

50 Extermination and Assimilation: wo Methods, One Goal

58 Te People AIM or Freedom

63 Te Struggle or Land

66 In otal Resistance



4

FOREWoRDSixteen years afer it was originally published in the first issue o the revo-

lutionary Indigenous newspaper OH-OH-KIN, 500 Years of Indigenous

Resistance remains an important and relevent history o the colonization

o the Americas and the resistance to it. It begins with the arrival o Co-

lumbus and finishes with the resistance struggles that defined the early

nineties; the Lubicons, the Mohawks, and the Campaign For 500 Years

O Resistance that occurred all over the Americas, and was a historical

precurser to the well-known Zapatista uprising o 1994.Tis pamphlet also includes artwork by the author, native artist,

activist and ormer OH-OH-KIN member Gord Hill.

4



55

500 YEARS

OF INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE Tis article is intended as a basic history of the colonization of the Americas since1492, and the Indigenous resistance to this colonization continuing into 1992. Teauthor admits to not having a full understanding of the traditions of his own people,the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka’wakw); as such the article lacks an analysis based in anauthentic Indigenous philosophy and is instead more of a historical chronology.



6

INTRODUCTIONTroughout the year 1992, the various states which have profited rom the

colonization o the Americas will be conducting lavish celebrations o the

“Discovery o the Americas”. Spain has spent billion o dollars or celebra-

tions in conjunction with Expo ’92 in Seville. In Columbus, Ohio, a $100

million quincentennial celebration plans on entertaining several million

tourists. CELAM, the association o South America’s Catholic bishops, has

organized a gathering to celebrate the “fifh centenary o the evangeliza-

tion o the Americas” to be presided over by the Pope. As well, there isa wide selection o museum exhibits, films, V shows, books and many

other products and activities ocusing on Columbus and the “Discovery”,

all presenting one interpretation o the 500 years ollowing 1492. Te main

thrust o this interpretation is that the colonization process—a process o

genocide—has, with a ew “bad spots”, been overall a mutually beneficial

process. Te “greatness” o European religions and cultures was brought

to the Indigenous peoples, who in return shared the lands and afer “acci-

dentally” being introduced to European disease, simply died off and whosedescendants now fill the urban ghettos as alcoholics and welare recipients.

O course, a ew “remnants” o Indian cultures were retained, and there are

even a ew “proessional” Indian politicians running around.

Tat was no “Discovery”—it was an American Indian Holocaust!

Until recently, commonly accepted population levels o the Indigenous

peoples on the eve o 1492 were around 10–15 million. Tis number contin-

ues to be accepted by individuals and groups who see 1492 as a “discovery”

in which only a ew million Indians died—and then mostly rom diseases.

More recent demographic studies place the Indigenous population at be-

tween 70 to 100 million peoples, with some 10 million in North America, 30

million in Mesoamerica, and around 50 to 70 million in South America.

oday, in spite o 500 years o a genocidal colonization, there are

an estimated 40 million Indigenous peoples in the Americas. In Guate-

mala, the Mayan peoples make up 60.3 percent o the population, and

in Bolivia Indians comprise over 70 percent o the total population. De-spite this, these Indigenous peoples lack any control over their own lands

and comprise the most exploited and oppressed layers o the population,

characteristics that are ound also in other Indigenous populations in the

settler states o the Americas (and throughout the world).



7

THE PRE-COLUMBIAN WORLDBeore the European colonization o the Americas, in that time o lie

scholars reer to as “Pre-history” or “Pre-Columbian”, the Western

hemisphere was a densely populated land. A land with its own peoples

and ways o lie, as varied and diverse as any o the other lands in the

world. In act, it was not even called “America” by those peoples. I

there was any reerence to the land as a whole it was as urtle Island, or

Cuscatlan, or Abya-Yala.

Te First Peoples inhabited every region o the Americas, livingwithin the diversity o the land and developing cultural lieways depen-

dent on the land. Teir numbers approached 70–100 million peoples

prior to the European colonization.1

Generally, the hundreds o different nations can be summarized

within the various geographical regions they lived in. Te commonality

o cultures within these regions is in act a natural development o people

building lieways dependent on the land. As well, there was extensive in-

teraction and interrelation between the people in these regions, and they

all knew each other as nations.

In the Arctic region live(d) the Inuit and Aleut, whose lieways revolve(d)

around the hunting o sea mammals (Beluga whales, walruses, etc.) and cari-

bou, supplemented by fishing and trading with the people to the south.

South o the Arctic, in the Subarctic region o what is today Alaska,

the Northwest erritories, and the northern regions o the Canadian

provinces, live(d) predominantly hunting and fishing peoples. Te varia-Sources or the population o Indigenous peoples prior to 1492 include:1.

Henry F. Dobyns,• Native American Historical Demography: A CriticalBibliography , University o Indiana Press, 1976; “Estimating AboriginalPopulation: An Appraisal o echniques with a New Hemispheric Esti-mate”, Current Anthropology , No. 7, 1966.Pierre Chanu,• Conquête et Exploitation de Nouveaux Mondes (XVIeSiecle), Paris, 1969 (estimates population at 80–100 million).William R. Jacobs, “Te ip o an Iceberg; Revisionism”, in• William and

Mary Quarterly , No. 31, 1974 (estimates population at 50–100 million).Woodrow Wilson Borah, “America as Model: Te Demographic Impact•

o European Expansion Upon the Non-European World”, in Actas y Memorias XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Mexico, 1962(estimates population at 100 million). Source: Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz,Indians of the Americas, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1984.



8

G O R D H I L L

tions o these lands range rom open tundra to orests and lakes, rivers,

and streams. Te Cree, Chipewyan, Kaska, Chilcotin, Ingalik, Beothuk,

and many other nations inhabit(ed) this region, hunting bear, goats, and

deer in the west, musk oxen and caribou urther north, or buffalo urthersouth in the prairies.

Altogether in the Arctic and Subarctic regions there lived perhaps as

many as 100,000 people.

On the Pacific Northwest coast, stretching rom the coasts o Alas-

ka and British Columbia (BC) down to northern Caliornia, live(d) the

lingit, Haida, simshian, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk,

Salish, Yurok, and many others. Tese peoples developed a lieway re-

volving around fishing. Te peoples o this region numbered as many

as our million.

Between the Pacific coastal mountain range and the central plains

in what is today southern BC, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Mon-

tana, live(d) the Sahaptin (Nez Perce), Chopunnish, Shoshone, Siksikas

(Blackeet), and others. Tese peoples numbered around 200,000.

o the east were people o the plains, encompassing a vast region

rom exas up to parts o southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba,eastward to North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Mis-

souri, and Arkansas. Here, the Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne,

Arapaho, plains Cree, Siksikas (o the Blackeet Coned-

eracy, including the Blood and Peigan), Crow, Kiowa,

Shoshone, Mandan, and many others, numbered up

to one million, and the buffalo as many as 80 million

beore their slaughter by the Europeans.

Further east, in the lands stretchingrom the Great Lakes to the Atlantic coast,

live(d) hunting, fishing, and arming

peoples; the Kanienkehake (Mohawks),

Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Sen-

eca (these five nations ormed the

Haudenosaunee—the People o

the Longhouse—also known as the

Iroquois Conederacy), Ojibway,

Algonkin, Micmac, Wendat (Huron),

Potowatomi, uscarora, and others. In



500 Years of Indigenous Resistance

9

this woodland region, stretching rom Ontario, Quebec, and New York,

down to the Carolinas, lived up to two million peoples.

South o this area, rom parts o the Virginias down to Florida, west

o the Gul o Mexico including Mississippi and Louisiana, live(d) theMuskogee-speaking Choctaw, Creek, and Chikasaw, the Cherokee, Nat-

chez, onkawa, Atakapa, and others. One o the most ertile agricultural

belts in the world, arming was well established supplemented by hunting

and fishing. Tese peoples numbered between two and three million.

East o this area, in the southwestern United States, extending down

to northern Mexico and Caliornia, live(d) agrarian and nomadic peo-

ples: the Pueblo, Hopi, Zuni, the Yumun-speaking Hualapai, Mojave,

Yuma, and Cocopa, the Uto-Aztecan speaking Pimas and Papagos, and

the Athapascans consisting o the Navajo (Dine) and Apache peoples.

Tese peoples, altogether, numbered about two million.

In the Mesoamerican region, including Mexico, Guatemala and Be-

lize, live(d) the numerous agricultural peoples, whose primary staple was

maize: the Aztecs, exacoco, lacopan, and the Mayans—in the Yucatan

peninsula. Here, large city-states with stone and brick buildings and pyr-

amids, as well as extensive agrarian waterways consisting o dams and ca-nals were built. Written languages were published in books, and the

study o astronomy and mathematics was well established. A

calendar system more accurate than any in Europe during

the 15th century was developed. Altogether, these peo-

ples numbered around 30–40 million.

In the Caribbean basin, including the coastal ar-

eas o Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica,

Honduras, and the many small islandssuch as Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico

etc., live(d) hunting, fishing, and agrar-

ian peoples such as the Carib, Arawak,

Warao, Yukpa, Paujanos, and

others. Tese peoples numbered

around five million.

In all o South America

there were as many as 40–50

million peoples.



10

G O R D H I L L

In the Andean highlands o Peru and Chile live(d) the Inca peoples,

comprised o the Quechua and Aymara. In the south o Chile live(d) the

Mapuche, and in the lowland regions—including the Amazon region—

live(d) the Yanomami, Gavioe, xukahame, Kreen, Akarore, and others.South o the Amazon region, in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, live(d)

the Ayoreo, Ache, Mataco, Guarani, and many others. In the southern-

most lands live(d) the Qawasgar, Selk’nam, Onu, and others.

With a ew exceptions, the First Nations were classless and commu-

nitarian societies, with strong matrilineal eatures. Te political sphere

o Indigenous lie was not dominated by men, but was in many cases

the responsibility o women. Elders held a position o importance and

honour or their knowledge. Tere were no prisons, or the First Nations

peoples had well developed methods o resolving community problems,

and there was—rom the accounts o elders—very little in anti-social

crime. Community decisions were most requently made by consensus

and discussions amongst the people.

But the First Nations were not perect, being humans they had, and

still have, their inconsistencies and practises that are not positive.

Some examples can be seen as the armed conflicts between nationsthroughout the Americas, and practises o slavery amongst the Pacific

Northwest coast peoples and in the Mesoamerican region. However, even

here the orms o warare reflected similar developments throughout the

world, and in any case never approached the genocidal methods devel-

oped, in particular, in Europe. Warare was the practise o explicitly war-

rior societies. Te accounts o slavery, although there is no way to explain

it away, differed sharply rom the Europeans in that it was not based on

racism, nor was it a undamental characteristic which ormed the eco-nomic basis o these societies.

Te history o the First Nations must always be analyzed critically;

those who tell us that history are rarely ever o the Indigenous peoples.



11

“Teir bodiesswelled with greed,

and theirhunger wasravenous.”

–Aztec testimonial

THE GENOCIDE BEGINSOn October 12, 1492, sailing aboard the Santa

Maria under finance rom the Spanish crown,

Cristooro Colombo stumbled upon the island

o Guanahani (believed to be San Salvador), in

the Caribbean region. Initially charting a new

trade route to Asian markets, the outcome o

Colombo’s voyage would quickly prove ar

more lucrative than the opening o new traderoutes, as ar as Europe was concerned.

It was on Guanahani that Colombo first

encountered aino Arawaks, whom he titled

‘Indians’, believing he had in act reached Asia.

For this initial encounter, Colombo’s own log

stands as testimony to his own greed:

No sooner had we concluded the ormali-ties o taking possession o the island than people began to cometo the beach... Tey are riendly and well-dispositioned peoplewho bear no arms except or small spears.

Tey ought to make good and skilled servants... I think they caneasily be made Christians, or they seem to have no religion. Iit pleases Our Lord, I will take six o them to Your Highnesseswhen I depart. (rom Colombo’s log, October 12, 1492)

rue to his word, i little else, Colombo kidnapped about 9 aino during

his journey through the Bahamas, and anticipated even more kidnap-

pings and enslavement,

...these people are very unskilled in arms. Your Highnesses willsee this or yourselves when I bring you the seven that I havetaken. Afer they learn our languages I shall return them, unlessYour Highnesses order that the entire population be taken toCastille, or held captive here. With 50 men you could subjecteveryone and make them do what you wished.

(Colombo’s log, October 14, 1492) 3

Robert H. Fuson,2. Te Log of Christopher Colombus, International Marine Publish-ing Co., Maine, 1987, pg. 76.Ibid, pg. 80. Colombo was inconsistent on the actual number o aino he kidnapped.3.



12

G O R D H I L L

Ibid, pg. 107.4.5. Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1977

Troughout Colombo’s log o this first voyage, there is constant reerence

to the notion that the aino believe the Europeans to be descended rom

heaven, despite the act that [neither] Colombo nor any o his crew un-

derstood Arawak. Another consistency in Colombo’s log is the obsessionwith gold, to which there are 16 reerences in the first two weeks alone,

13 in the ollowing month, and 46 more in the next five weeks, despite

the act that Colombo ound very little gold on either Guanahani or any

o the other islands he landed on.

In a final reerence to Colombo’s log, one can also find the dual mis-

sion Colombo undertook:

...Your Highnesses must resolve to make them [the aino—Oh-oh-Kin ed.] Christians. I believe that i this effort commences, ina short time a multitude o peoples will be converted to our HolyFaith, and Spain will acquire great domains and riches and all otheir villages. Beyond doubt there is a very great amount o goldin this country... Also, there are precious stones and pearls, and aninfinite quantity o spices. (Colombo’s log, November 11, 1492) 4

Te duality o Colombo’s mission, and the subsequent European invasion

that ollowed, was the Christianization o non-Europeans and the expro-

priation o their lands. Te two goals are not unconnected; “Christianiza-tion” was not merely a program or European religious indoctrination,

it was an attack on non-European culture (one barrier to colonization)

and a legally and morally sanctioned orm o war or conquest. “Even his

name was prophetic to the world he encountered—Christopher Colum-

bus translates to ‘Christ-bearer Colonizer’.” 5

Still on his first voyage, Colombo meandered around the Caribbean

and eventually established the first Spanish settlement, ‘Natividad’, on the

island o Hispaniola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Leaving

about 35 men on Hispaniola, Colombo and his crew returned to Spain to

gather the materials and men needed or the coming colonization, and to

report to the crown on his journey.

In September, 1493, Colombo returned to Hispaniola with a fleet o

17 ships and 1,200 men. Te detachment that had been lef on Hispan-

iola had been destroyed ollowing outrages by the Spaniards against the

aino. Te resistance had already begun.




13

Colombo would make our voy-

ages in all, the remaining two in 1498

and 1502. His voyages around the Ca-

ribbean brought him to what is nowrinidad, Panama, Jamaica, Venezu-

ela, Dominica, and several other is-

lands—capturing Native peoples or

slavery and extorting gold through a

quota o a hawk’s bell o gold dust to

be supplied by every Native over the

age o 14 every 3 months. Failure to

fill the quota ofen entailed cutting

the ‘violators’ hands off and leaving

them to bleed to death. Hundreds o

Carib and Arawak were shipped to

Spain as slaves under Colombo’s gov-

ernorship, 500 alone ollowing his

second voyage. Indeed, the absence

o a “great amount o gold” in the Ca-ribbean had Colombo devising another method o financing the colonization:

“Te savage and cannibalistic Carib should be exchanged as slaves against

livestock to be provided by merchants in Spain.” (Letter to Queen Isabella)

Colombo died in 1506, but ollowing his initial voyage to the Ameri-

cas, wave upon wave o first Spanish, then Portuguese, Dutch, French and

British expeditions ollowed, carrying with them conquistadors, merce-

naries, merchants, and Christian missionaries.

Hispaniola served as the first beachhead, used by the Spanish as astaging ground or armed incursions and reconnaissance missions, justi-

fied through the ‘Christianization’ program; one year afer Colombo’s first

voyage, Pope Alexander VI in his Inter Cetera Divina Papal Bull granted

Spain all the world not already possessed by Christian states, excepting the

region o Brazil, which went to Portugal.

While the Spanish laid the groundwork or their colonization plans,

other European nations began to send their own expeditions.

In 1497, Giovanni Caboto Motecataluna (John Cabot), financed by

England, crossed the Atlantic and charted the Atlantic coast o North

America. Under the commission o Henry VII to “conquer, occupy, and

possess” the lands o “heathens and infidels”, Cabot reconnoitered the

Newoundland coast—kidnapping three Micmacs in the process.



14

G O R D H I L L

At around the same time, Gaspar Corte Real, financed by Portugal,

reconnoitered the Labrador and Newoundland coasts, kidnapping 57

Beothuks to be sold as slaves to offset the cost o the expedition.

Meanwhile, Amerigo Vespucci—or whom the Americas werenamed—and Alonso de Ojedo, on separate missions or Spain, reconnoi-

tered the West Indies and the Pacific coast o South America. Ojedo was

actively carrying out slave raids, and was killed by a warrior’s poisoned

arrow or his efforts.

From the papal bull o 1493 and a subsequent reaty o ordesillas

(1494), Portugal had been given possession o Brazil. In 1500, the Por-

tuguese admiral Pedro Alvares Cabral ormally claimed the land or the

Portuguese crown.

Now that the initial reconnaissance missions had been complet-

ed, the invasion intensified and expanded. In 1513, Ponce de Leon, fi-

nanced by Spain, attempted to land in Florida, but was driven off by 80

Calusa war canoes.

From 1517 to 1521, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes laid

waste to the Aztec empire in Mexico, capturing the capital city o eno-

chtitlan and killing millions in a ruthless campaign or gold.Shortly aferwards, in 1524, Pedro de Alvarado invaded the region o

El Salvador, attacking the Cuscatlan, Pipeles, and Quiche peoples. In Gua-

temala Alvarado conducted eight major campaigns against the Mayans,

and while he and his men were burning people alive, the Catholic priests

accompanying him were busy destroying Mayan historical records (that

is, while they weren’t busy directing massacres themselves). Alvarado’s

soldiers were rewarded by being allowed to enslave the survivors.

In 1531, the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro invaded the region o theIncas (now Peru). aking advantage o an internal struggle between two

Inca actions led by the brothers Huascar and Atahualpa, Pizarro suc-

ceeded in subjugating the Incas by 1533.

en years later, Pedro de Valdivia claimed Chile or the Spanish

crown, although fierce resistance by the Mapuche nation restricted the

Spanish to the northern and central regions. Valdivia was eventually

killed in battle by Mapuche warriors.

During this same period, Jacques Cartier, financed by France in 1534,

was reconnoitering the eastern regions o what would become Canada,

and Spaniards such as Hernando de Sotos, Marcos de Niza and others

began penetrating into North America, claiming the lands or their re-

spective countries, as was their custom.



15

EXPANSION, EXPLOITATION,

AND EXTERMINATIONTe ormulative years o the colonization pro-

cess were directed towards exploiting the lands

and peoples to the ullest. o the Europeans, the

Americas were a vast, unspoiled area suitable

or economic expansion and exploitation.

Te primary activity was the accumulationo gold and silver, then a orm o currency among

the European nations. Tis accumulation was first

accomplished through the crudest orms o thef

and plunder (i.e. Colombo’s and Cortes’ methods).

Eventually, more systematic orms were developed,

including the encomiendas—a orm o taxation

imposed on Indigenous communities that had

been subjugated—and the use o Indigenous slaves

to pan the rivers and streams. By the mid-1500s,

the expropriation o gold and silver involved in-

tensive mining. Entire cities and towns developed

around the mines. Millions o Indigenous peoples

died working as slaves in the mines at Guanajuato

and Zacatecas in Mexico, and Potosi in Bolivia. By

the end o the 1500s, Potosi was one o the largestcities in the world at 350,000 inhabitants. Peru was

also another area o intensive mining. From the

time o the arrival o the first European colonizers

until 1650, 180–200 tons o gold—rom the Amer-

icas—was added to the European treasury. In to-

day’s terms, that gold would be worth $2.8 billion.6

During the same period, eight million slaves died

in the Potosi mines alone.

“I amSmallpox... Icome from faraway...wherethe great wateris and then farbeyond it. I ama friend of theBig Knives who

have brought me; they are my

people.”

–Jamake Highwater,

Anpao: an Indian Odyssey

Jack Weatherord,6. Indian Givers, Ballantine Books, New York, 1988.



16

G O R D H I L L

Slavery was another major economic activity. Not only or work in the

mines, but also or export to Europe. In Nicaragua alone, the first ten years o

intensive slaving, beginning in 1525, saw an estimated 450,000 Miskitu and

Sumu peoples shipped to Europe. ens o thousands perished in the ships thattransported them. Subsequently, the slave trade would turn to Arika, begin-

ning in the mid-1500s when Portuguese colonists brought Arikan slaves to

Brazil to cut cane and clear orest area or the construction o settlements

and churches. An estimated 15 million Arikan peoples would be brought as

slaves to the Americas by 1800, and a urther 40 million or so perished in the

transatlantic crossing in the miserable conditions o the ships holds.

In areas such as the highlands o northern Chile, Peru, Guatemala,

and Mexico, where the climate was more suitable, the Spanish were able to

grow crops such as wheat, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, radish, sugar cane,

and later grapes, bananas, and coffee. By the mid-1500s, using slave labour,

many o these crops—particularly wheat and sugar cane—were large-scale

exports or the European markets.

In other areas, sprawling herds o cattle were established. Herds which

rarely exceeded 800 or 1,000 in Spain reached as many as 8,000 in Mex-

ico. By 1579, some ranches in northern Mexico had up to 150,000 heado cattle.7 Te effects o extensive land-clearing or the crops and ranches

and intensive mining culminated in increasing deorestation and damage to

the lands. More immediately or the Indigenous peoples in the region, par-

ticularly those who lived on subsistence agriculture, was the dismantling o

destruction o agrarian ways replaced by export crops.

In order to carry out this expansion and exploitation, the subjugation

o the First Nations was a necessity, and the task o colonizing other peoples

was one in which the Europeans had had plenty o experience.

In a sense, the first people colonized under the profit motivation bythe use o labour...were the European and English peasantry. Ireland,Bohemia and Catalonia were colonized. Te Moorish nation, as wellas the Judaic Sephardic nation, were physically deported by the Crowno Castille rom the Iberian peninsula... All the methods or relocation,deportation and expropriation, were already practised i not perected.8

Prior to Colombo’s 1492 voyage, the development o a capitalist mode o

production emerging rom eudalism had dispossessed European peasantso independent production and subsistence agriculture. Subsequently, they

Alred W. Crosby, “Te Biological Consequences o 1492”,7. Report on the Americas, Vol. XXV No. 2, pg. 11.Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz,8. Indians of the Americas, Praeger Publishers,New York, 1984.




17

were to enter into a relationship o orced dependence to land-owners and

manuacturers, leading to periods o intense class struggle, particularly as

the Industrial Revolution (ueled by the expropriation o materials rom the

Americas and Arika) loomed ever larger.Indeed, the majority o Europeans who emigrated to the Americas

in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were impoverished merchants, pe-

tit-bourgeois traders, mercenaries, and Christian missionaries all hoping

to build their ortunes in the ‘New World’ and escape the deepening class

stratification that was quickly developing. However, the first permanent

settlements were limited, their main purpose being to acilitate and main-

tain areas o exploitation. During the entire 16th century, only an estimated

100,000 Europeans were permanent emigrants to the Americas.Teir effects, however, were overwhelming; in the same 100-year peri-

od, the populations o the Indigenous peoples declined rom 70–100 million

to around 12 million. Te Aztec nation alone had been reduced rom around

30 million to 3 million in one 50-year period. Te only term which describes

this depopulation is that o Genocide; an American Indian holocaust.

Apologists or the Genocide attribute the majority o deaths to the

introduction o disease epidemics such as smallpox and measles by

unknowing Europeans.

While attempting to diminish the scale and intensity o the Geno-

cide (other orms o this diminishment are claiming the population o the

Americas was a much smaller portion than generally accepted demograph-

ic numbers), such a perspective disregards the conditions in which these

diseases were introduced. Conditions such as wars, massacres, slavery,

scorched earth policies and the subsequent destruction o subsistence ag-

riculture and ood-stocks, and the accompanying starvation, malnutrition,and dismemberment o communally-based cultures.

Tese conditions were not introduced by “unknowing” Europeans;

they were parts o a calculated campaign based on exploitation in which

the extermination o Indigenous peoples was a crucial actor.

European diseases introduced into these conditions came as an afer-

effect o the initial attacks. And their effects were disastrous. Once the e-

ects o the epidemics were realized however, the use o biological warare

was also planned in the orm o inected blankets and other textiles sup-

plied to Indigenous peoples. 9

Francis Jennings,9. Te Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cantof Conquest , University o North Carolina Press, 1975. Jennings documentsthe activities o these first colonies, requently relying on period manuscripts.



18

THE PENETRATION

OF NORTH AMERICAWhile the Spanish were destroying the Caribbean and Mesoamerican re-

gion, the Portuguese were carrying out similar campaigns in Brazil. Te

patterns established by the Spanish would be repeated by the Portuguese

during the 16th and 17th centuries in Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

By the beginning o the 17th century, the Spanish and Portuguese

had penetrated virtually every region in the southern hemisphere, estab-lishing numerous settlements acilitated with the help o Jesuit and Fran-

ciscan missionaries, as well as mines, ranches, and plantations. Despite

all this, there were still large areas in which European claims to lands

remained a theoretical proposition; these areas remained outside o Eu-

ropean control with fierce Indigenous resistance. Tis was particularly so

in the southern regions.

During this period, French, Dutch, and advance elements o the

British also established settlements in the Caribbean.In 1604, the French occupied the island o Guadaloupe, ollowed by

the island o Martinique and various smaller islands in the West Indies.

In 1635 they occupied what is now French Guiana.

Meanwhile, the Dutch occupied a coastal region that would eventu-

ally become Surinam (Dutch Guiana) as well as settlements established

by the Dutch West India Company in the area o Belize (which would

later become a British colony).

Te Dutch, French, and British were relatively limited in their ex-

ploits in the South Americas, and it would be in North America where

their main efforts would be directed.

As has already been noted, French expeditions had penetrated the

north-eastern regions o what would become Quebec and the Atlantic prov-

inces, in the 1530s. In 1562 and 1564, the French attempted to establish set-

tlements in South Carolina and Florida, but were driven out by the Spanish

(who had claimed Florida in 1539 during de Soto’s perilous expedition).In 1585 the British also attempted settlements, on Roanoke Island

in North Carolina, and again in 1586. Both attempts ailed when the set-

tlers-to-be were unable to survive.




19

In the period up to 1600, more recon-

naissance missions were conducted; in 1576

Martin Frobisher charted the Arctic coasts

encountering Inuuk, and in 1578 FrancisDrake charted the coast o Caliornia.

Meanwhile, the Spanish were pushing

into North America rom their bases in

southern Mexico, encountering resistance

rom Pueblos and others.

In the beginning o the 1600s, as the

horse spread throughout the southwest

and into the plains, Samuel de Champlain

expanded on Cartier’s earlier expedition,

penetrating as ar west as Lake Huron and

Lake Ontario. His attacks on Onondago

communities, using Wendat (Huron)

warriors, would turn the Haudenosaunee

against the French.

In 1606, the British finally succeededin establishing their first permanent settlement in North America at

Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620, Pilgrims (English Puritans) landed on the

east coast also, establishing the Plymouth colony.

Meanwhile, Beothuks in Newoundland had retaliated against a French

attack in clashes that ollowed killed 37 French settlers. Te French respond-

ed by arming Micmacs—traditional enemies o the Beothuks—and offering

bounties or Beothuk scalps. Tis is believed to the origin o ‘scalp-taking’

by Native warriors; the stereotype o Native ‘savagery’ was in act introducedby the French and, later, the Dutch. Te combined attacks by the French and

Micmacs led to the eventual extermination o the Beothuk nation.

In 1624, the Dutch established Fort Orange (later to become Albany,

New York) and claimed the area as New Netherland.

While the Atlantic coast area o North America was becoming quickly

littered with British, French and Dutch settlements, substantial differences

in the lands and resources orced the ocus o exploitation to differ rom the

colonization process underway in Meso- and South America.

In the South, the large-scale expropriation o gold and silver fi-

nanced much o the invasion. As well, the dense populations o the In-

digenous peoples provided a large slave-labour orce to work in the first

mines and plantations.



20

G O R D H I L L

In contrast, the Europeans who began colonizing North America

ound a lower population density and the lands, though ertile or crops

and abundant in ur-bearing animals, contained little in precious metals

accessible to 17th century European technology.Te exploitation o North America was to require long-term activi-

ties which could not rely on Indigenous or Arikan slavery but which in

act which required Indigenous participation. Maintaining colonies thou-

sands o miles away rom Europe and lacking the gold which financed the

Spanish armada, the colonial orces in North America would have to rely

on the gradual accumulation o agricultural products and the ur trade.

In this way, the initial settlements relied largely on the hospitality

afforded them by the Native peoples. Earlier attempts at European settle-

ments had ailed or precisely this reason, as the Europeans ound them-

selves almost completely ignorant o the land.

Te growing European colonies quickly set about acquiring already

cleared and cultivated land, and their expansionist policies led to fierce

competition between the colonies. Tis bitter struggle or domination o

land and trade requently began and ended with attacks against Indig-

enous communities. One o the first o these ‘strategic attacks’ occurredin 1622 when a orce rom the Plymouth colony massacred a group o

Pequots. In retaliation, Pequote warriors attacked a settler village at Wes-

sagusset, which was then abandoned and subsequently absorbed into the

dominion o the Plymouth colony, which had coveted the trade and land

enjoyed by the Wessagusset settlers.

By 1630, the Massachusetts Bay colony had been established, and

‘New England’, once only a vague geographical expression, came to apply

in practise to the colonies o New Plymouth, Salem, Nantucket, RhodeIsland, Connecticut, New Haven and others.

Te expansionist drives o the Massachusetts colonists consisted o

massacres carried out against first the Pequot and eventually the Narra-

gansetts between 1634 and 1648.

It was in this period that the transition between European depen-

dence on Native peoples began to be reversed. Trough the establishment

and expansion o European colonies, increased contact with First Nations

brought extensive trading, as well as disease epidemics and conflict.

rade gradually served to break up Indigenous societies:

Indian industry became less specialized and divided as it enteredinto closer relations o exchange with European industry. For the




21

Indians, intersocietal commerce triumphed by subordinating andeliminating all crafs except those directly related to the Europe-an-Indian trade, while intertribal trading relations survived onlyinsoar as they served the purposes o intersocietal trade. 10

Tus, trade with European industry developed a relationship o growing

dependence on the European colonists. Te items traded to Natives—

metal pots, knives, and occasionally rifles—were o European manuac-

ture and supply. Te trade also disrupted and changed traditional Native

methods in other ways, with the introduction o alcohol and extermina-

tionist orms o warare—including torture—under the direction o the

colonialists, as well as an overall escalation in warare in the competition-

driven ur trade and introduction o European rifles.While disease epidemics began to spread throughout the Atlantic

coastal area, the colonialists also relied to a large extent on exploiting

and exaggerating already existing hostilities between First Nations, as the

Spanish and Portuguese had also done in their campaigns,

Te grim epics o Cortes and Pizarro, not to speak o Colum-bus himsel, testiy to the military abilities o Spanish soldiery,but these need to be compared as well with the great ailures o

Narvaez, Coronado and de Soto... (Te conquistadors) did notconquer Mexico and Peru unaided. Native allies were indispens-able... North o New Spain, invasion started later, so Frenchmen,Dutchmen, and Englishmen ound native communities...alreadyreduced by epidemic rom base populations that never ap-proached the size o Mexico. 11

It was at this time that the concept o treaty making began to take hold.

In keeping with the English colonists early plans o keeping some level o

peace with the Natives, as in 1606 when,the Virginia Company o London instructed its colonists to buya stock o corn rom the ‘naturals’ beore the English intention tosettle permanently should become evident. Te Company’s chieswere sure that ‘you cannot carry yourselves so towards them butthey will grow discontented with your habitation’. 12

Ibid, pg. 85.10.Ibid, pg. 33.11.Ibid, pg. 76.12.



22

G O R D H I L L

Te initial English (and Dutch) settlers began the process o purchasing

land, supplemented as always with armed orce against vulnerable Indig-

enous nations (such as those decimated by disease or already engaged in

wars with more powerul First Nations).It remains unclear as to what the First Nations understood o the

local purchasing process, but some points are clear; there was no prac-

tise o private ownership o land, nor o selling land, among or between

the Peoples prior to the arrival o the colonialists; there were however

agreements and pacts between First Nations in regards to access to

hunting or fishing areas. Tis would indicate treaties were most likely

understood as agreements between First Nations and settler communi-

ties over use o certain areas o land, as well as nonaggressiveness pacts.

In either case, where First Nations remained powerul enough to deter

initial settler outrages the treaties were o little effect i they turned out

to be less than honourable, and there was enough duplicity, raud, and

thef contained in the treaties that they could not be considered bind-

ing. Practises such as orally translating one version o a treaty and sign-

ing another on paper were requent, as was taking European proposals

in negotiations and claiming that these had been agreed upon by all—when in act they were being negotiated. As well, violations o treaty

agreements by settlers was commonplace, particularly as, or example,

the Virginia colony discovered the profitability o growing tobacco (in-

troduced to the settlers by Native peoples) and began expanding on

their initial land base.

Gradually, First Nations along the Atlantic ound themselves dis-

possessed o their lands and victims o settler depredations. One o the

first conflicts that seriously threatened to drive the colonialist orces backinto the sea broke out in 1622, when the Powhatan Conederacy, led by

Opechancanough, attacked the Jamestown colony.

Clashes continued until 1644, when Opechancanough was captured

and killed. By the mid-1600s, clashes between Natives and settlers be-

gan to increase. ensions grew as the Europeans became more obtuse

and domineering in their relationship with the First Nations. In 1655

or example, the so-called ‘Peach Wars’ erupted between colonialists o

New Netherlands and the Delaware Nation when a Dutchman killed a

Delaware woman or picking a peach tree on the colonies ‘property’. Te

settler was subsequently killed and Delaware warriors attacked several




23

Dutch settlements. Te fighting along the Hudson River lasted until 1664

when the Dutch orced the Delaware nation into submission by kidnap-

ping Delaware children as hostages.

In 1675 the Narragansetts, Nipmucs, and Wapanoags, led in partby Metacom (also known as King Philip by the Europeans) rebelled

against the colonies o New England ollowing the English arrest and

execution o three Wapanoags or the alleged killing o a Christianized

Native, believed to be a traitor. Te war ended in 1676 afer the English

colonialists—making use o Native allies and inormers—were able to

deeat the rebellion. Metacom was killed, and his amily and hundreds

o others sold to slavers in the West Indies. Te military campaign car-

ried out by the colonial orces decimated the Narragansett, Nipmuc,

and Wapanoag nations.

Meanwhile in 1680, a Pueblo uprising led in part by the ewa Medi-

cine man Pope succeeded in driving out the Spanish rom New Mexico.

By 1689, Spanish orces were able to once again subjugate the Pueblos.

By the late 1600s, the competition between European states would

dominate the colonization process in North America.



24

THE EUROPEAN STRUGGLE

FOR HEGEMONY Although colonial wars had been ought in the past between France,

Spain, the Netherlands, and England, and conflicts had erupted between

their colonies in the Americas, the late 1680s and the ollowing 100 year

period was to be a time o bitter struggle between the Europeans or

domination. Tis period o European wars was to be played out also in

the Americas, “o a great extent, the battle or colonies and the wealth

they produced was the ultimate battlefield or state power in Europe.” 13

Beginning in 1689 with King William’s War between the French and the

English, which evolved into Queen Anne’s War (1702–13), to King George’s

War (1744–48) and culminating in the so-called ‘French and Indian War’

(1754–63), the battles or colonial possessions in the Americas mirrored those

raging across Europe in the same period, except that in North American and

in the Caribbean, the European struggle or hegemony in the emerging worldtrade market would employ heavy concentrations o Native warriors.

While the British emerged victorious rom the ‘Great War or Empire’,

and the French deeated ceding Hudson Bay, Acadia, New France and other

territories in a series o treaties, those who were most affected by the Europe-

an struggles were the Native peoples o the Atlantic regions. Te allout rom

those wars was the virtual extermination o some Indigenous peoples, includ-

ing the Apalachees in Florida, the establishment o colonial military garrisons

and outposts, a general militarization o the region with heavier armamentsand combat veterans, and the subsequent expansion o colonial settlements,

extending their rontiers and pushing many First Nations urther west.

During the period o the colonial wars, Indigenous resistance did

not end, nor was it limited to aiding their respective ‘allies’.

In 1711, the uscaroras attacked the English in North Carolina and

ought or two years, until the English counter-insurgency campaign lef

hundreds dead and some 400 sold into slavery. Te uscaroras fled north,

settling among the Haudenosaunee and becoming the Sixth Nation in 1722.

Ortiz, op. cit.13.




25

In 1715, the Yamasee nation rose up against the English in South Car-

olina, but were virtually exterminated in a ruthless English campaign.

In 1720, the Chickasaw nation warred against French occupation,

until France’s capitulation to England in 1763. Similarly, Fox resistance toFrench colonialism continued rom 1720 to around 1735.

In 1729, the Natchez

nation began attacking

French settlers in Louisi-

ana afer governor Sieur

Chepart ordered their main

village cleared or his planta-

tions. In the ensuing battles,

Chepart was killed and the

French counter-insurgency

campaign lef the Natchez

decimated, although guer-

rilla struggle was to continue

along the Mississippi River.

In 1760 the Cherokeenation began their own guer-

rilla war against their ‘allies’

the English, in Virginia and

Carolina. Led by Oconosto-

ta, the Cherokee ought or

two years, eventually agree-

ing to a peace treaty which

saw partitions o their landceded afer the English colo-

nial orces had razed Chero-

kee villages and crops.

In 1761, Aleuts in Alaska attacked Russian traders ollowing depre-

dations on Aleut communities off the coast o Alaska (the Russian colo-

nizers eventually moved into the Pribilo and Aleutian islands in 1797,

relocating Aleuts and virtually enslaving them in the seal hunt).

Against British colonization, the Ottawa leader Pontiac led an alli-

ance o Ottawas, Algonquins, Senecas, Mingos, and Wyandots in 1763.

Te offensive captured nine o twelve English garrisons and laid siege



26

G O R D H I L L

to Detroit or six months. Unable to expand the insurgency or draw in

promised French assistance, Pontiac eventually negotiated an end to the

conflict in 1766.

Added to this period o warare was the continuing spread o diseaseepidemics. In 1746 in Nova Scotia alone, 4,000 Micmacs had died o dis-

ease. With the deeat o France, the British had acquired vast regions o

ormerly French territory, unbeknownst to the many First Nations who

lived on those lands, and with whom the French never negotiated any

land treaties nor recognized any orm o Native title.

At this time,

...the British government seized the opportunity to consolidateits imperial position by structuring ormal, constitutional rela-tions with...natives. In the Proclamation o 1763, it announced itsintention o conciliating those disgruntled tribes by recognizingtheir land rights, by securing to them control o unceded land,and by entering into a nation-to-nation relationship. 14

Te Royal Proclamation o 1763 provided or a separate ‘Indian erritory’

west o the Appalachians and the original Tirteen Colonies. Within this

territory there was to be no purchasing o land other than by the crown.

In the colonies now under British control, including Newoundland, Lab-

rador, Quebec, Nova Scotia, as well as the Tirteen Colonies, settlers oc-

cupying unceded Native lands were to be removed, and private purchases

o lands occupied by or reserved or Natives was prohibited—these lands

could only be purchased by the crown in the presence o the First Nations.

As grand as these statements were, they were routinely violated by

colonialists and rarely enorced. Indeed, one year ollowing the proclama-

tion, Lord Dunmore—the governor o the Virginia colony—had alreadybreached the demarcation line by granting to veterans o the ‘French and

Indian War’ who had served under him lands which were part o the

Shawnee nation. Te Shawnee retaliation was not short in coming, but

Dunmore’s challenge to British control was to precipitate in orm and

substance another period o conflict that would see the colonization pro-

cess expand westward. And that period o conflict would underline the

real intent o the Royal Proclamation as a strategic document in the de-

ense o British colonial interests in North America.

John S. Milloy, “Te Early Indian Acts: Developmental Strategy and Constitu-14.tional Change”, As Long As Te Sun Shines and Water Flows, University o BCPress, 1983, pg. 56.



27

TRAGEDY: THE UNITED

STATES IS CREATEDWith the dominance o British power on a world scale, the European

struggle or hegemony in the Americas was nearing its end. Subsequent-

ly, the 18th and 19th centuries were to be a period o wars or indepen-

dence that would orce the European states out o the Americas. Fore-

most among these wars was the independence struggle that would lead

to the birth o the United States.

Emerging rom the ‘Great War or Empire’, Britain ound itsel victori-

ous but also heavily in debt. o deray the cost o maintaining and deend-

ing the colonies, Britain substantially changed its colonial policies. Large

portions o the financial costs o the colonies were placed directly on the

colonies themselves through a series o taxes. Te imposition o the taxes

incited the settlers to demand taxes be imposed only with their consent.

In act, the question o taxes was part o a wider debate about who shouldcontrol and profit rom colonialism, the colonies or the colonial centres.

By 1775, settler protests and revolts had culminated in a general war

or independence that continued until 1783, when the British capitulated

and ceded large portions o its territories along the Atlantic.

Tat the British colonial orces did not lose more territory can be

attributed much to the participation o numerous First Nations on the

side o the British; the Royal Proclamation was thus a strategy to damp-

en Native resistance to British colonialism (as in the eruption o King

George’s War in 1744 when Micmacs allied themselves with the French

and, ollowing the reaty o Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, continued fighting

the British, who then concluded a treaty o “Peace and Friendship” with

the Micmacs), as well as a method o orming military alliances with First

Nations, i not at least their neutrality in European conflicts.

As in previous European struggles, Indigenous peoples were used as

expendable troops, and the extensive militarization urther consolidatedsettler control,

Te end o the war saw thousands o Whites, United EmpireLoyalists, flock to Nova Scotia. Tey came in such numbers andspread so widely over the Maritime region that it was considered



28

G O R D H I L L

necessary to divide Nova Scotia into three provinces to ease ad-ministrative problems; New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Nova Sco-tia...and Ile St.-Jean, soon to be renamed Prince Edward Island. 15

o the south, the rebellious settlers were establishing their newly-createdUnited States. For the First Nations in this region, the war had been par-

ticularly destructive; the colonial rebels had carried out scorched-earth

campaigns against the Shawnee, Delaware, Cherokee, and the Haudeno-

saunee (who had suffered a split with the Oneidas and uscaroras allying

themselves with the revolutionaries). Here again the Royal Proclamation

remained a useul tool in reinorcing the British colonial rontier and

retaining Native allies,

Adherence to the principles o the...Proclamation...remained thebasis o Britain’s Indian policy or more than hal a century, andexplains the success o the British in maintaining the Indians asallies in Britain’s wars in North America... Even when Britain lostmuch o its North American territory afer 1781, and its Indianallies lost their traditional lands as a result o their British alli-ance, the Crown purchased land rom the Indians living withinBritish territory and gave it to their allies who moved north... 16

Having consolidated the Tirteen Colonies along the Atlantic seaboard,the independent United States quickly set about expanding westward,

launching military campaigns to extend the rontiers o settlement.

One o the first o these campaigns began in 1790 under the order o

President George Washington. Consisting o about 1,100 Pennsylvania,

Virginia, and Kentucky militiamen led by Brigadier General Josiah Har-

mar, the orce was quickly deeated by a conederacy o Miami, Shawnee,

Ojibway, Delaware, Potawatomi, and Ottawa warriors led by the Miami

chie Michikinikwa (Little urtle). A second orce was dispatched and

deeated in November, 1791. Finally, in 1794, a large orce led by Gen-

eral Anthony Wayne deeated the conederacy, now led by urkey Foot,

near the shores o Lake Erie. Warriors who survived made their way

to the British Fort Miami garrison. But the British—ormer allies o

many o the First Nations in the conederacy during the revolutionary

war—reused them shelter, and hundreds were slaughtered at the gates

George F. G. Stanley, “As Long as the Sun Shines and the Water Flows: An15.Historical Comment”, ibid. pg. 5–6.John L. obias, “Protection, Civilization, Assimilation: An Outline History o16.Canada’s Indian Policy”, ibid. pg. 40.




29

by Wayne’s soldiers. Although the conederacy was es-

sentially broken, the Miami would continue armed

resistance up to 1840.

he ‘Indian Wars’ launched by the U.S.continued or the next 100 years, ollowing

an exterminationist policy that was aimed at

destroying Native nations and securing those

remnants who survived in (what was then be-

lieved) barren and desolate reserves. Once the

People were contained in these Bantustans,

the next step was the destruction o Na-

tive culture under the auspiceso then-emerging governmental

agencies.

As the U.S. moved to a higher

level o war against First Nations,

it also began moving against com-

peting European powers still pres-

ent in the Americas.In 1812, using the pretext o Native raids along its northern ron-

tier rom British territories, U.S. orces attempted to invade British North

America. Here again, Britain’s colonial policies proved effective; an alli-

ance o Native nations (who had their own interests in ull implementa-

tion o the 1763 Proclamation) and European settlers succeeded in repuls-

ing the U.S. expansion. Among those who ought against the U.S. invasion

were the Native leaders ecumseh—a Shawnee chie who worked to orm

a Native conederacy against the Europeans (and who argued that no oneindividual or grouping could sell the lands, as it belonged to all the Native

peoples); Black Hawk—a leader o the Sauk who would also lead uture

Native insurgencies; and Joseph Brant—a leader in the Haudenosaunee

who was rewarded with a large territory by the British and promptly be-

gan selling off partitions to European settlers (in history, he is regarded as

a “hero” by Euro-Americans but a traitor by his people). ecumseh was

killed in battle in the Battle o Moraviantown in Ontario in 1813.

In 1815, hostilities between Britain and the U.S. were ormally ended

in the reaty o Ghent, though neither the U.S. war on Natives, or Native

resistance, subsided.

ecumseh



30

REVOLUTIONS IN THE

¨NEW WORLD¨Following the American Revolution, movements or independence

began breaking out in South and Central America.

Despite the seemingly monolithic appearance o Spanish or Portu-

guese colonialism in the first three centuries ollowing the European in-

vasion, and despite the genocidal policies o the conquistadors, Nativeresistance continued. Particularly in, or example, the interior region o

the Yucatan Peninsula, the lowland orests o Peru, the Amazon region,

and even in the Andean highlands—which had suffered such a severe

depopulation; between 1532 and 1625, the population o the Andean

peoples is estimated to have declined rom 9 million to 700,000. In these

regions, colonial domination was continually challenged and ormed the

base or resistance movements that began even in the 1500s.

Among the first o these revolts was the Vilacabamba rebellion o1536 led by Manqu Inka. Although the insurgency was unable to expand

and ailed to drive the Spanish out, the rebels were able to establish a

“liberated zone” in the Vilacabamba region o present-day Bolivia or the

next three decades. 17 Te ending o the initial revolt is recognized as the

execution o another leader, upac Amaru I in 1572.

Other major insurgencies also broke out in Ecuador in 1578, 1599,

and 1615. Te Itza o ayasal in the Yucatan Peninsula remained unsub-

jugated until 1697.

“Europeans ound it particularly difficult to establish effective trans-

portation and communication acilities in the orest lowlands o the Maya

area... Tough the Spaniards achieved ormal sovereignty over Yucatan

with relative ease, many local Maya groups successully resisted effective

domination...or centuries.” 18

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, “Aymara Past, Aymara Future”,17. Report on the Ameri-cas, Vol. XXV No. 3, pg. 20.John S. Henderson,18. Te World of the Ancient Maya, Cornell University Press,1981, pg. 32.




31

Keeping pace with colonial developments in North America, the

Spanish introduced a series o laws in the 17th century known as the

Leyes de Indias. Similar to the later 1763 Proclamation introduced in

British North America, the laws partitioned the Andean region into a‘Republic o Spain’ and a ‘Republic o Indians’—each with its own sepa-

rate courts, laws and rights. Te Leyes de Indias were, “rom the point o

view o the colonial state...a pragmatic measure to prevent the extermina-

tion o the [Indigenous] labour orce...” 19

Despite its seeming “liberalism”, orced labour accompanied by tax

laws remained in place, and the regulation was never ully enorced.

In 1742, Juan Santos Atahualpa led an Indigenous resistance movement

in Peru comprised largely o Yanesha (Amuesha) and Ashaninka (Campa)

peoples that ought off Spanish colonization or more than a century.

In the 18th century, Indigenous resistance broke out in a major revolt in

the colony o Upper Peru (now Bolivia), led by Jose Gabriel upac Amaru.

Much has been written about the 1780 Indian rebellion led byJose Gabriel upaq Amaru and his successors; less is knownabout the Chayanta and Sikasika revolts which occurred at thesame time, the latter led by Julian Apasa upaq Katari. For more

than hal a century, colonial tax laws had provoked a groundswello protest... In mid-1780, an apparently spontaneous revolt brokeout in Macha, in the province o Chayanta, to ree an Indiancacique, omas Katari, jailed afer a dispute with local mes-tizo authorities... Ten in November 1780, Jose Gabriel upaqAmaru led a well-organized rebellion in ungasuca, near Cuzco.Julian Apasa upaq Katari, an Indian commoner rom Sullkaw(Sikasika) rose up and laid siege to La Paz rom March to October1781 during which one ourth o the city’s population died. Afer

the deeat in April 1781 o upaq Amaru in Cuzco, the rebel-lion shifed to Azangaro, where his relatives Andres and DiegoCristobal led the struggle. Andres successully laid siege to Soratain August o that year, but by November he and Diego Cristobalwere orced to surrender to the Spanish authorities. Te rebellionwas crushed by the beginning o 1782. 20

Te leaders, perceived or real, were captured and executed; they were

quartered, decapitated, or burned alive.

Sylvia Rivera Cusicanqui, op. cit.19.Ibid. pg. 21.20.



32

G O R D H I L L

While Indigenous resistance continued and requently sent shock-

waves throughout the ranks o the colonialists—including Spaniards and

Creoles (descendants o Spanish settlers in the Americas)—the colonies

themselves began to experience movements or independence comprisedo Creoles and Mestizos.

Te backgrounds to the movements or independence—like in the

U.S.—are ound in the oppressive taxation and monopolistic trade laws

imposed by the colonial centers, both o which constrained the economic

growth o the colonies. As well, Creoles were generally by-passed or co-

lonial positions which went to agents born in Spain.

Te first major settler revolt was in 1809 in the colony o Upper Peru

(Bolivia), which succeeded in temporarily overthrowing Spanish authori-

ties. In 1810 Colombia declared its independence, ollowed one year later

by Venezuela. In 1816, Argentina declared its independence, and the next

year General Jose de San Martin led troops across the Andes to “liberate

Chile and Peru rom the Royalist orces”. Wars or independence spread

quickly, and Spanish royalist orces lost one colony afer another in decisive

conflicts, culminating in the Battle o Ayacucho in 1824 in Peru, which

effectively diminished Spain’s domination in the Americas (which was al-ready dampened by Napoleon’s invasion o Spain in the same period).

Although the independence movements succeeded in overthrowing

Spanish and Portuguese orces, they were led by, and in the interests o,

Creole elites—with the assistance o land-owners and merchants,

...the revolutions or independent state ormation in the Americasin the late 18th and early 19th centuries must be seen as being inthe mode o European nation-state ormation or the purpose o

capitalist development. Although they were anti-‘mother coun-try’, they were not anti-colonial (just as the ormation o Rhodesiaand South Arica as states were not anticolonial events). 21

Te present-day Conederation o Indigenous Nationalities o Ecuador

(CONAIE) describes the independence o Ecuador, or example, as

not mean(ing) any change in our living conditions; it was nothingmore than the passage o power rom the hands o the Spaniardsto the hands o the Creoles. 22

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, op. cit.21.Quoted in Les Field, “Ecuador’s Pan-Indian Uprising”,22. Report on the Ameri-cas, Vol. XXV No. 3, pg. 41.




33

As in the U.S. example, the newly-independent states quickly set about

consolidating their positions politically and militarily and pursuing

economic expansion.

Te result was an eruption o wars between the independent states overborders, trade, and ultimately or resources. In 1884 the War o the Pacific

began, involving Bolivia, Chile, and Peru in a dispute over access to nitrate

resource. From 1865–70, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay allied themselves

against Paraguay in the bloody War o the riple Alliance—a war in which

Paraguay lost a large amount o its male population—primarily Guarani.

As in North America, these and other conflicts most adversely affect-

ed the First Nations peoples. Te majority o those who died in the War o

the riple Alliance were Native. As well, the militarization that occurred

created large reserves o well-equipped, combat-experienced troops. In

Argentina and Chile, these military reserves were directed against invad-

ing then unsubjugated regions where Mapuche resistance had persisted

or centuries. Between 1865 and 1885, a militarized rontier existed rom

which attacks against the Mapuche were conducted. ens o thousands o

Mapuche were killed, the survivors dispersed to reservation areas.

In the 1870s, the development o vulcanization in Europe led to an invasion o the Upper Amazon regions o Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru,

and Bolivia—where rubber trees would eventually supply the world market.

In the Putumayo river region o northern Peru and Colombia alone, 40,000

Natives were killed between 1886 and 1919 (by 1920, it’s estimated that the

depopulation o the rubber areas had reached 95% in some areas). 23

It was in this post-independence period that—arising rom the com-

plete transition rom Feudalism to capitalism in Europe—new orms o

European domination were being introduced. Briefly, this consisted othe introduction o bank loans directed primarily at developing inra-

structures or the export o raw and manuactured materials: roads, rail-

ways, and ports, particularly in the mining and agricultural industries.

In the 1820s, English banks loaned over 21 million pounds to ormer

Spanish colonies. Trough the debts, and the subsequent import o Eu-

ropean technology and machinery necessary or large-scale mining and

agribusiness—necessary to begin repayment o the loans—dependence

Andrew Gray, “Te Amerindians o South America”,23. Minority Rights GroupReport No. 15, London, 1987, pg. 8.



34

G O R D H I L L

was gradually established (and continues today in the orm o the Inter-

national Monetary Fund and the World Bank, controlled by the G-7). 24

During the same period, the U.S. was also setting ootholds in the re-

gion. In 1853, five years afer gold was discovered in previously unknownareas in Central America, U.S. marines invaded Nicaragua. In 1898, ol-

lowing the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico and Cuba were annexed

to the U.S. (Puerto Rico remains today as the last U.S. colonial nation). As

well, U.S. orces occupied the Philippines—carrying out massacres o men,

women, and children—and Hawaii came under U.S. control in 1893. With

these actions the U.S. established itsel as an emerging capitalist power, and

the eventual extent o U.S. imperialism was beginning to take shape.

On a global scale, the development o imperialism had now estab-

lished itsel internationally; the ull division o the world between pre-

dominantly European powers and the U.S. was complete (and would

subsequently lead to two world wars).

G-7: the grouping o the seven most advanced industrialized countries at the24.time: Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the USA. In 1998the Group was joined by Russia, and is now known as the G-8. Te Groupmeets annually to determine world economic policies; together they holddominant positions in the world economic order.



35

MANIFEST DESTINY AND

THE U.S. INDIAN WARSWhile the U.S. was in the process

o establishing itsel as an impe-

rialist world power, it was still

struggling to consolidate itsel as

a continental base and countering

armed resistance by First Nations.

Prior to the U.S.-British War

o 1812, Louisiana was purchased

rom France, in 1803, and Spain

had ceded Florida in 1819. By

1824, the Bureau o Indian Affairs

was organized as part o the War

Department. Military campaignswere launched against First Na-

tions, rom the Shawnee o the

Mississippi Valley to the Semi-

nole in Florida. At the same time,

the legalistic instruments or oc-

cupation were being introduced.

In 1830 the Indian Removal Act

was implemented, and in 1834

Congress reorganized the various

departments dealing with Indian

repression by creating the U.S.

Department o Indian Affairs, and the Indian rade and Intercourse Act

which redefined the ‘Indian erritory’ and ‘Permanent Indian Frontier’. Te

‘Indian erritory’ had been previously defined in 1825 as lands west o the

Mississippi. Following the ormation o the territories o Wisconsin andIowa, the rontier was extended rom the Mississippi to the 95th meridian.

Te Indian Removal Act was directed at orced relocation o Natives east

o the 95th meridian to the west o it. In 1838, U.S. troops orced thousands o

atanka Yotanka (Sitting Bull)



36

G O R D H I L L

Cherokee into concentration camps, rom which they were orced westward

on the rail o ears. In the midst o winter, one out o every our Cherokees

died rom cold, hunger, or diseases. Many other nations were orcibly relocat-

ed: the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Shawnees, Miamis, Ottawas, Wendatsand Delawares. Te ‘Permanent Indian Frontier’ was a militarized line o U.S.

garrisons, similar to that in Argentina and Chile during the same period.

But the ‘Indian Frontier’ was not to hold. Like the British Royal Proc-

lamation o 1763, the restrictions on Europeans settling or trading in these

regions were routinely ignored. With the U.S. annexation o northern Mexico

in 1848, the U.S. acquired the territories o exas, Caliornia, New Mexico, Ar-

izona, Utah and Colorado. Te same year, gold was discovered in Caliornia.

With these two events, the large-scale invasion o the ‘Indian erritory’ was

underway. Under the ideology o Maniest Destiny, the U.S. was to launch a re-

newed period o genocidal war against those regions and First Nations which

remained unsubjugated. Te theatre o war extended rom the Great Lakes

region around Minnesota, south o the Rio Grande, and west to Caliornia,

extending north to Washington state. It was a period o war which involved

many First Nations: the Lakota, Cheyenne, Commanche, Kiowa, Yakima, Nez

Perce, Walla Walla, Cayuse, Arapaho, Apache, Navajo, Shoshone, Kickapoos,and many others. It was also a war rom which many Native leaders would

leave a legacy o struggle that, like those struggles in South and Mesoamerica,

would remain as symbols o resistance to the European colonization: Crazy

Horse, atanka Yotanka (Sitting Bull), en Bears, Victorio, Geronimo, Quanah

Parker, Wovoka, Black Kettle, Red Cloud, Chie Joseph, and so many others.

Although the ‘Indian Wars’ o this period were by no means one-sided—

the U.S. orces suffered many deeats—the U.S. colonial orces succeeded in

gradually and ruthlessly gaining dominance. Various actors contributed tothis, ollowing the patterns o previous campaigns against Native peoples:

the continuing spread o diseases such as measles, smallpox, and cholera

(between 1837–70, at least our major smallpox epidemics swept through

the western plains, and between 1850–60 a cholera epidemic hit the Great

Basin and southern plains); the use o inormers and traitors; and the over-

whelming strength o U.S. orces in both weaponry and numbers o soldiers.

Combined with outright treachery and policies o extermination, these ac-

tors continued to erode the strength o once-powerul First Nations.

One o the major turning points in this period can be seen as

the U.S. Civil War.



37

AFRIKAN SLAVERY,

AFRIKAN REBELLION,AND THE U.S. CIVIL WAR Ostensibly a moral crusade to “abolish slavery”, the U.S. Civil War o

1861–65 was in reality a conflict between the commercial and industrial

development o the North against the agrarian stagnation based on Ari-

kan peoples’ slave labour o the South.By the 19th century, 10 to 15 million Arikan peoples had been

relocated to the Americas by first Portuguese, then English, Spanish,

and U.S. colonialists.

Tese peoples came rom all regions o Arika: Sen-

egal, the Ivory Coast, Angola, Mozambique, etc.—and

rom many Arikan Nations: the Yoruba, Kissi, Seneu,

Foulah, Fons, Adjas, and many others.

Enslaved, these peoples were orced to labour in themines, textile mills, actories, and plantations that served

first the European markets and, afer the wars or indepen-

dence, the newly-created nation-states o the Americas.

Te slave-trade in both American and Arikan Indige-

nous peoples was absolutely necessary or the European colo-

nization o the Americas. Te orced relocation o millions

o Arikan peoples also introduced new dy-

namics into the colonization process, not

only in the economics o European oc-

cupation, but also in the development

o Arikan peoples’ resistance.

As early as 1526, Arikan

slaves had rebelled in a short-lived

Spanish colony in South Carolina,

and afer their escape took reugeamongst First Nations peoples. In

the Caribbean and South America,



38

G O R D H I L L

where Arikan slavery was first centered, large revolts requently broke

out and escaped Arikan slaves took reuge amongst Caribs and Arawaks.

In Northeast Brazil, an Arikan rebellion succeeded in organizing the ter-

ritory o Palmares—which grew to one-third the size o Portugal.Probably one o the most amous Arikan and Native alliances was

the example o the escaped Arikan slaves and the Seminole in Florida.

Te escaped Arikans had “ormed liberated Arikan communities as a

semi-autonomous part o the sheltering Seminole Nation”. 25 ogether,

these two peoples would carry out one o the strongest resistance strug-

gles against the U.S. Te so-called Seminole Wars began in 1812 when

Georgia vigilantes attempted to recapture Arikans or enslavement, and

continued or thirty years under the U.S. campaign o relocations. Te

Seminole Wars, under the anatical direction o President Jackson, were

the most costly o the U.S. ‘Indian Wars’; over 1,600 U.S. soldiers were

killed and thousands wounded at the cost o some $30 million. Even

afer this, the Seminole-Arikan guerrillas remained unsubjugated. Te

solidarity between the Arikans and the Seminoles is most clear in the

second Seminole War o 1835. Te Seminoles, under Osceola, reused to

accept relocation to Oklahoma—one o the key disagreements also be-ing the U.S. insistence on separation o the Arikans rom their Seminole

brothers and sisters. Te U.S. orces relaunched their war, and were never

able to achieve a clear victory.

By the mid-1800s, slavery was viewed by some parts o the U.S. rul-

ing class as an obstacle to economic growth and expansion. Te anti-

slavery campaign, led by the North, was a practical effort to ree land and

labour rom the limitations o the closed system o plantation agriculture

based on slave labour;Slavery had become an obstacle to both the continued growth osettler society and the interests o the Euro-Amerikan bour-geoisie. It was not that slavery was unprofitable itsel. It was,worker or worker, much more profitable than white wagelabour.Arikan slaves in industry cost the capitalists less than one-thirdthe wages o white workingmen... But the American capitalistsneeded to greatly expand their labour orce. While the plantersbelieved that importing new millions o Arikan slaves wouldmost profitably meet this need, it was clear that this would only

J. Sakai,25. Settlers: Te Myth of the White Proletariat , Morningstar Press, 1989,pg. 27.




39

add uel to the fires o the already insurrectionary Arikan colony.Profit had to be seen not only in the squeezing o a ew more dol-lars on a short-term, individual basis, but in terms o the needs oan entire Empire and its uture. And it was not just the demand

or labour alone that outmoded the slave system. Capitalismneeded giant armies o settlers, waves and waves o new Europeanshock-troops to help conquer and hold new territory, to developit or the bourgeoisie and garrison it against the oppressed. 26

Te “insurrectionary fires” had already dealt the occupation orces a

shocking blow in 1791 in the Haitian Revolution. Arikan slaves, led in

part by oussaint L’Ouverture, rebelled and deeated Spanish, English,

and French orces, establishing the Haitian Republic that offered citizen-

ship to any Native or Arikan peoples who wanted it.

Tere were also increasing revolts within the U.S., including the 1800

revolt in Virginia led by Gabriel Prosser, and Nat urner’s revolt in 1831

which killed sixty settlers.“Te situation became more acute as the de-

veloping capitalist economy created trends o urbanization and indus-

trialization. In the early 1800s the Arikan population o many cities was

rising aster than that o Euro-Americans.” 27 Te revolts led by Gabriel

and urner had caused discussions in the Virginia legislature on endingslavery, and public rallies had been held in Western Virginia demanding

an all white Virginia.

Combined, these actors led the North to agitate or an end to slavery

as one specific orm o exploitation. In turn, the Southern states, led by

plantation owners and slavers, threatened to secede rom the Union. Te

Civil War began.

Ibid, pg. 25.26.Ibid, pg. 31.27.



40

BLACK RECONSTRUCTION

AND DECONSTRUCTIONTe beginning o the U.S. Civil War in 1861 posed various problems or

the northern Union ruling class. Not only was the war or the preserva-

tion o an expanding continental empire, but it also opened up a sec-

ond ront: that o a liberation struggle by enslaved Arikan peoples. With

a population o our million, the rising o these Arikans in the South

proved crucial in the deeat o the Conederacy. By the tens o thousands,Arikan slaves escaped rom the slavers and enlisted in the Union orces.

Tis massive withdrawal o slave-labour hit the Southern economy hard,

and the Northern orces were bolstered by the thousands.

owards the end o the War in 1865, those Arikans who did not

escape began a large-scale strike ollowing the deeat o the Conederacy.

Tey claimed the lands that they had laboured on, and began arming

themselves—not only against the Southern planters but also against the

Union army. Widespread concerns about this ‘dangerous position’ o A-

rikans in the South led to ‘Black Reconstruction’; Arikans were prom-

ised democracy, human rights, sel-government and popular ownership

o the land. In reality, it was a strategy or returning Euro-American

dominance involving:

1. Te military repression o the most organized and militantArikan communities.

2. Paciying the Arikan peoples by neocolonialism, using ele-ments o the Arikan petit-bourgeoisie to lead their people intoembracing U.S. citizenship as the answer to all problems. Insteado nationhood and liberation, the neo-colonial agents told themasses that their democratic demands could be met by ollowingthe Northern settler capitalists... 28

Ibid, pg. 39.28.




41

Following this strategy, Union army orces attacked Arikan communities

who were occupying land, orcing tens o thousands off collectively held land

and arresting the “leaders”. Arikan troops who had ought in the Union army

were quickly disarmed and dispersed, or sent to fight as colonial troops in theongoing “Indian Wars”. White supremacist terrorist organizations ormed,

one o the most inamous—but not the only—being the Ku Klux Klan.

Under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Arikans be-

came U.S. citizens, including the right to vote. Trough the neo-colonial-

ist strategy o Reconstruction, Arikans were able to push through re-

orms including integrated juries, protective labour reorms, divorce and

property rights or women, and an involvement in local government.

However, even these small reorms were too much or Southern

Whites. Reconstruction was vigorously resisted—not only by ormer

slaves and planters but also by poor Whites who flocked to organiza-

tions such as the KKK, White Caps, White Cross, and the White League.

Tousands o Arikans were killed during state elections as the White

supremacist groups conducted terrorist campaigns aimed at countering

the gains o Reconstruction and preserving White supremacy.

In 1876–77, the final accommodation between Northern capitaland the Southern planters was reached in the ‘Hayes-ilden deal’.Te South promised to accept the dominance o the Northernbourgeoisie over the entire Empire, and to permit the Republi-can candidate Rutherord B. Hayes to succeed Grant in the U.S.Presidency. In return, the Northern bourgeoisie agreed to let theplanters have regional hegemony over the South, and to withdrawthe last o the occupying Union troops so that the Klan could takecare o the Arikans as they wished. While the guarded remnants

o Reconstruction held out here and there or some years (Ari-kan Congressmen were elected rom the South until 1895), thecritical year o 1877 marked their conclusive deeat. 29

Not insignificantly during this same period, Northern working class

Whites were engaged in a vicious class struggle or an 8 hour work day,

even as Arikans were under attack by the KKK and other racist orga-

nizations. And, at the same time, little notice was made o the military

extermination campaigns being carried out against Native peoples.

Ibid, pg. 41.29.



42

G O R D H I L L

During the War, many First Nations attempted to remain “neutral”

in the South, although some promises by the Conederacy or land stimu-

lated some First Nations to side with the South. But “neutrality” is not the

same as passive; Native peoples continued their own resistance to coloni-zation. From 1861–63 the Apaches led by Cochise and Mangas Colorado

ought occupation orces, a resistance that would continue until 1886 when

Geronimo was captured. Te Santee also engaged the U.S. military rom

1862–63 led by Little Crow. In 1863–64, this war would shif to North Da-

kota under the eton. In 1863, the Western Shoshone ought settlers and

attacked military patrols and supply routes in Utah and Idaho. Tat same

year, the Navajo rebelled in New Mexico and Arizona.

With the completion o the transcontinental railroad in 1869, set-

tlement o the West increased rapidly. Te militarization rom the Civil

War, and the ability to supply and acilitate large-scale military opera-

tions, opened up the final period in the “Indian Wars”. In the post-Civil

War period, the genocidal process o colonization was to enter a new

phase, even at the price o thousands o U.S. troops dead and wound-

ed, and each dead Indian coming at the price o $1 million. By 1885,

the last great herd o buffalo would be slaughtered by Euro-Americanhunters—this also orming a part o the counter-insurgency strategy o

depriving the Plains Indians o their primary ood source. Five years

later, 350 Lakotas would be massacred at Chankpe Opi Wakpala, the

creek called Wounded Knee.



43

THE COLONIZATION

OF CANADAIn contrast to the U.S. campaign

o extermination, the colonization

process in Canada lacked the large-

scale military conflicts that char-

acterized the U.S. “Indian Wars”.

Although many Euro-Canadians

30

would like to believe that these di-

erences in colonization lie in un-

damentally different values, cul-

tures, etc., they are no more than

the result o differences in colonial

practises rooted in basic economic

needs and strategies. As can be seen

in the afermath o the U.S. War orIndependence, there ollowed a pe-

riod o rapid expansion and settle-

ment. Following the consolidation

o the “13 British colonies along the

North Atlantic, and armed with a

pre-imperialist thrust (the Monroe

Doctrine and the ideology o ‘maniest destiny’), the entrepreneurs control-

ling the new state machinery dispatched their military orces rapidly across

North America”. 31

Canada, on the other hand, did not fight a war or independence and

remained firmly a part o the British Empire.

As previously discussed, the first major colonization o what would

become eastern “Canada” was carried out by France. Between 1608 and

1756, some 10,000 French settlers had arrived in Canada. Te “French

Euro-Canadian: a term used to distinguish between descendants o Europeans30.in the U.S. and those in Canada.Ortiz, op. cit.31.



44

G O R D H I L L

and Indian Wars” o the 18th century resulted in the deeat o the French

orces; the subsequent reaty o 1763 established British rule over New

France (now Quebec). With the Quebec Act o 1774, the province o

Quebec was expanded, British criminal law established, and the eudaladministration implemented by France remained largely unchanged.

Conflicts related to civil matters and property remained regulated under

French civil law. Te seigneurial system, a eudal system in which the

land o the province was given in grant rom the King to seigneurs (usu-

ally lower nobility and rom the Church), who, in turn, rented the land

to peasants in return or an annual rent (called tithes, payable in goods

o products raised on the land), was continued. As with the 1763 Royal

Proclamation, the Quebec Act secured the loyalty o the French clergy

and aristocracy in the U.S. War or Independence.

As a result o the wars o the 18th century, French settlement had

grown to 60,000 as soldiers employed by France swelled the French pop-

ulation. Te expansion o the province under the Quebec Act had seized

a large portion o the “Indian territory” and placed it under Crown juris-

diction. Following the U.S. War or Independence, some 40,000 loyalists

fled the ormer British colonies and settled in Canada, occupying moreNative lands—particularly that o the Haudenosaunee. British colonial

authorities went to some lengths to acquire land while placating the still

geo-militarily important Indians. 32

While the colonialists were busy consolidating the administra-

tion o “British North America”, the Paciic Northwest was coming

under increased reconnaissance.

Beginning in 1774, the first recorded colonizers into the area o British

Columbia came aboard the Spanish ship Santiago. Four years later, an ex-pedition led by James Cook descended upon the area, leading to the estab-

lishment o a large and profitable ur trade. Te dominance o the ur trade

Negotiations with the Mississaugas o southern Ontario were conducted as32.early as 1781, providing land or communities rom the Haudenosaunee,whose lands were supplied to British loyalists in a strategic deensive linealong the U.S. border. Between 1781 and 1836, 23 such land cessions were

conducted. Not treaties but instead “simple real estate deals” in which theBritish paid with goods and later money. In 1818 the practise was adopted opaying annuities. By 1830 these annual payments were directed at buildinghouses and purchasing arm equipment—in line with changing colonial prac-tises. “Tis was then ollowed by the establishment o the band und system”,see As Long as the Sun Shines, op. cit., pg. 9.




45

would last until around 1854 when European

settlement began to increase rapidly along

with the mining and logging industries. As a

result o the early dominance o the ur trade,which relied on Native collaboration, British

colonizers curtailed their military operations.

Nevertheless, conflicts did erupt, primarily

against British depredations. As more ships

requented the area, clashes spread with at-

tacks on colonial vessels and the shelling o

Native villages.

Even beore European settlement in BC,

the impact o the traders was disastrous. For

example, rom 1835 when the first census

was taken o the Kwakwaka’wakw nation,

to 1885, there was between a 70 to 90 per-

cent reduction in population (rom around

10,700 to 3,000). 33 In an all too amiliar pat-

tern, the intrusion o European traders hadset into motion disease epidemics, even as

early as the 1780s and ’90s. In 1836, a small-

pox epidemic hit the northern coast, and the

ur trade was “depressed all that winter and

the ollowing spring”. 34 Following an inva-

sion o gold hunters into the region in 1858,

one o the most devastating epidemics struck

in 1862, killing at least 20,000 Indians. 35

Meanwhile, in British North America,

the geo-military importance o the First

Nations was quickly being eroded. With

the influx o loyalists afer the U.S. War or

Independence, the European population

had grown and was strategically garrisoned

Dara Culhane Speck,33. An Error in Judgement , alonbooks, Vancouver, 1987, pg. 72.Wilson Duff, “Te Indian History o BC, Vol. 1: Te Impact o the White Man”.34. An-thropology in BC , Memoir No. 5, 1964. BC Provincial Museum, Victoria 1965 (FirstEdition), pg. 42.Ibid, pg. 42–43.35.

Lil’Wat nation protestor,British Columbia



46

G O R D H I L L

in key military areas—conflicts with the U.S. were predicted. As well as

urther increasing the European population in the region, the War o

1812 and U.S. policies o moving Natives rom the northern rontier had

broken up conederacies and greatly diminished the power o the FirstNations in the area. Afer this, British colonial policies changed rom

essentially orming military alliances to a higher level o colonization

through policies o breaking down the collective power o First Nations.

Christianization and an overall Europeanization o Native peoples was

developed as official policy. By the 1850s, an instrument had been created

to this end: “Te Gradual Civilization Act o 1857”.

Te Act was based upon the assumption that the ull civilizationo the tribes could be achieved only when Indians were broughtinto contact with individualized property... Any Indian...adjudgedby a special board o examiners to be educated, ree rom debt,and o good moral character could on application be awardedtwenty hectares o land... 36

Here, the “civilization o the tribes” should be read as the elimination o

the basis o Native cultures and de acto the First Nations as nations. Te

twenty hectares o land were to be taken rom the reserve land base, sub-

sequently breaking up the collective and communitarian land practises o

Native peoples and replacing these with individual parcels o land; all the

easier, rom the viewpoint o the colonizer, to achieve the long-term goal

o completely eliminating First Nations as nations and leaving nothing

but dispersed, acculturated, peoples to be assimilated into European so-

ciety. Te patriarchal dimensions o orced-assimilation were also clear:

only males could be so enranchised.37 A Commission o Inquiry had ur-

ther recommended that reserve lands be restricted to a maximum o 25acres per amily, and that Native organization be gradually replaced with

a municipal orm o government.

At the same time, new methods in acquiring land were developed. Be-

ginning in 1850 and continuing into the 20th century, a series o treaties

were “negotiated” in which Native nations ceded immense tracts o land in

return or reserve land, hunting and fishing rights, education, medical care,

and the payment o annuities. Te first such treaties were the Robinson

treaties, which would be renegotiated in 1871 as reaties No. 1 and No. 2.

John S. Milloy, op. cit., pg. 58.36.Kathleen Jamieson,37. Indian Women and the Law in Canada: Citizens Minus,Advisory Council on the Status o Women, Indian Rights or Indian Women,Canada, 1978, pg. 27–28.




47

Te relationship between the immediate requirements o theinternal imperialist expansion and the treaties is remarkable.Te first o these treaties was sought, according to a 19th centuryhistorian’s first-hand report, ‘in consequence o the discovery o

minerals on the shores o Lake Huron and Superior’... Te prairietreaties were obtained immediately in advance o agriculturalsettlement, and the treaty which includes parts o the Northwesterritories was negotiated immediately upon the discovery o oilin the Mackenzie Valley. 38

While the colonizers knew what they wanted in proposing the trea-

ties, Native peoples were unprepared or the duplicity and dishonour o the

treaty-seekers. When a commission journeyed to the Northwest erritories

to investigate unulfilled provisions o reaties 8 and 11, they ound that

At a number o meetings, Indians who claimed to have beenpresent at the time when the reaties were signed stated that theydefinitely did not recall hearing about the land entitlement in thereaties. Tey explained that poor interpreters were used andtheir chies and head men had signed even though they did notknow what the reaties contained. 39

Te treaties were important aspects o the plan or the expansion o Canada

westward and economic development based on resource extraction and ag-

riculture. Indeed, the Conederation o Canada in the British North Amer-

ica Act o 1867 was aimed primarily at consolidating the then-existing

eastern provinces and acilitating in this westward expansion; the primary

instruments o this were the trans-Canada railway, telegraph lines, and

roads. Tis expansion was seen not only as economically necessary but also

politically urgent as the U.S. was expanding westward at the same time.

Te invasion o the prairie regions was not without conflict. Temost significant resistance in this period was that o the Metis peo-

ples—descendants o primarily French and Scottish settlers and Cree—

in what would become Manitoba. Te Red River Rebellion, also known

as the First Riel rebellion afer Louis Riel, a Metis leader, erupted ol-

lowing an influx o Euro-Canadian settlers and the purchase o the ter-

ritory rom the controlling Hudsons Bay Company, by the government

Donald R. Colborne, Norman Ziotkin, “Internal Canadian Imperialism and38.the Native People”, Imperialism, Nationalism, and Canada, Marxist Instituteo oronto, Between the Lines and New Hogtown Press, 1987, pg. 164.Ibid, pg. 167. Quote rom Report o the Commission appointed to investigate39.the unulfilled provisions o reaties 8 and 11 as they apply to the Indians othe Mackenzie District, 1959, pgs. 3–4.



48

G O R D H I L L

o Canada. Te rebellion was directed against the annexation o the

territory over the Metis—who numbered some 10,000 in the region. A

orce o 400 armed Metis seized a small garrison and demanded dem-

ocratic rights or the Metis in the Conederation. Te ollowing yearthe Manitoba Act made the territory a province. However, fifeen years

later in 1885 the Metis along with hundreds o Cree warriors under the

chies Big Bear and Opetecahanawaywin (Poundmaker) were again en-

gaged in widespread armed resistance against colonization. For almost

our months the resistance continued against thousands o government

troops which, unlike in 1870, were now transported quickly and en

masse on the new Canadian Pacific railway. Afer several clashes the

Metis and Cree warriors were eventually deeated; the Cree and Me-tis guerrillas imprisoned, killed in battles or executed. Another Metis

leader, Gabriel Dumont, escaped to the U.S.

Te Metis and Cree resistance o 1885 was the final chapter o armed

resistance in the 19th century. However, the use o military orce in con-

trolling Native peoples was already being bypassed by the Indian Act o

1876, itsel a reaffirmation and expansion on previous legislation con-

cerning Native peoples. Tis Act, with subsequent additions and changes,remains the basis o Native legislation in Canada today.

Under the Indian Act, the ederal government through its Depart-

ment o Indian Affairs is given complete control over the economic, so-

cial, and political affairs o Native communities. More than just a legisla-

tive instrument to administer “Indian affairs”, the Indian Act was and is

an attack on the very oundations o the First Nations as nations. Besides

restricting hunting and fishing, criminalizing independent economic

livelihood (i.e. in 1881 the Act made it illegal or Natives to “sell, barter ortraffic fish”), the Act also declared who was and who was not an Indian, it

removed “Indian status” rom Native women who married non-Natives,

and criminalized vital aspects o Native organization and culture such as

the potlatch, the sun-dance, and pow-wow. Everything that ormed the

political, social, and economic bases o Native societies was restricted;

the culture was attacked because it stood as the final barrier o resistance

to European colonization. In the area o political organization,

Te Indian Act (o 1880) created a new branch o the civil servicethat was to be called the Department o Indian Affairs. It onceagain empowered the superintendent general to impose the elec-tive system o band government... In addition, this new legisla-




49

tion allowed the superintendent general to deprive the traditionalleaders o recognition by stating that the only spokesmen o theband were those men elected according to...the Indian Act. 40

In 1894, amendments to the Act authorized the orced relocation o Na-tive children to residential boarding schools, which were seen as superior

to schools on the reserves because they removed the children rom the

influence o the Native community. Isolated children in the total con-

trol o Europeans were easier to break; Native languages were orbidden

and all customs, values, religious traditions and even clothing were to be

replaced by European orms. Sexual and physical abuse were common

characteristics o these schools, and their effects have been devastatingly

effective in partially acculturating generations o Native peoples.Te Indian Act ollowed earlier legislation in that the long-term ob-

jective was the assimilation o Christianized Natives, gradually removing

any “special status” or Native peoples and eliminating reserves and treaty

rights; all o which would make the complete exploitation o the land a

simple task. As part o this strategy o containing and repressing Native

peoples who did not assimilate, and who were thus an obstacle to the

ull expansion o Canada, the Indian Act also denied the right to vote toNative peoples and implemented a pass system similar i not the orerun-

ner to the Pass Laws in the Bantustans o South Arica (it should also be

noted that Asian peoples were denied the right to vote as well and were

subjected to viciously racist campaigns in BC by both the government

and the labour movement; only in 1950 were Native and Asian peoples

given this “illustrious” right).

John L. obias, op. cit., pg. 46.40.



50

EXTERMINATION AND ASSIMILATION:TWO METHODS, ONE GOAL

In the early 1900s, the population o Native peoples in North America

had reached their lowest point. In the U.S. alone this population had

declined to some 250,000. As in Canada, Native peoples had been con-

signed to largely desolate land areas and the process o assimilation beganthrough government agencies such as the Bureau o Indian Affairs. Here

too, residential schools, criminalization o Native cultures, and control o

political and economic systems were the instruments used. Native peo-

ples, like those in Canada, were viewed as obstacles to be crushed in the

drive or profits.

In both countries, resistance to this assimilation continued in vari-

ous orms: potlatches and sun-dances were continued in clandestinity

and the elected band councils opposed. As well, Native peoples beganorming organizations to work against government polices. In 1912, the

Alaska Native Brotherhood was ormed by the lingit and simshian at

Sikta. Tat same year, the Nishga Land Claims Petition was presented

to the Canadian government concerning the recognition o aboriginal

title; no treaties had or have been signed with First Nations in BC [as o

1991]—with the exception o a north-eastern corner o BC included in

reaty No. 8 and some minor treaties on Vancouver Island. Yet Natives

in BC had ound themselves dispossessed o their territory and subjected

to the Indian Act. In 1916 the Nishga joined with the interior Salish and

ormed another inter-tribal organization, the Allied ribes o BC. Funds




51

Indigenous Land Within United States, 1492-1977

were raised, meetings held, and petitions sent to Ottawa. In 1927, a spe-

cial Joint Committee o the Senate and House o Commons ound that

Natives had “not established any claim to the lands o BC based on ab-

original or other title.” 41 Tat same year Section 141 was added to the

Indian Act prohibiting raising money and prosecuting claims to land or

retaining a lawyer.

While the European nations would lead the world into two great

wars or hegemony, political instability and economic depredationsormed the general pattern in South and Central America. Military

regimes backed by U.S. and British imperialism carried out genocidal

policies and severe repression against Indigenous peoples. As in North

America, Indigenous peoples were consigned to desolate reserve lands

where the state or missionaries retained control over political, economic,

social and cultural systems. However, in contrast to the colonization o

North America, where Native peoples were viewed as irrelevant to eco-

nomic expansion, the Indians o South and Central America remained assubstantial sources o exploited labour. With the large-scale investments

rom the imperialist centres in the orm o loans, the export o primary

resources took priority. Te ‘rubber boom’ was one example, with tens o

thousands o Indians dying in orced labour, relocations, and massacres

carried out by major land owners, companies, and hired death squads.

In the wake o the rubber boom, Colombia, Ecuador and Perubecame battlegrounds or a war between oil companies. Sub-sidiaries o Shell and Exxon ought or exploration rights in theAmazon, even to the extent o becoming involved in a border war

Quoted in Wilson Duff, op. cit., p. 69.41.



52

G O R D H I L L

between Ecuador and Peru in 1941... In Brazil...87 Indian groupswere wiped out in the first hal o the 20th century rom contactwith expanding colonial rontiers—especially rubber and miningin the northwest, cattle in the northeast, agriculture in the south

and east, and rom road building throughout all regions. 42

While policies o orced assimilation were occasionally articulated, mil-

itary and paramilitary orces were to remain an essential part o con-

trolling Native communities and opening up territories to exploitation.

Te most violent maniestation o this repression came in El Salvador

in 1932, where as many as 30,000 people, primarily Indian peasants,

were massacred ollowing an uprising against the military dictatorship

that took power the year prior. While the massacres were carried outunder the guise o “anti-communism”, U.S. and Canadian naval ves-

sels stood offshore, and U.S. Marines in Nicaragua were put on alert.

However, as the U.S. Chie o Naval Operations later testified beore

Congress, “it was ound unnecessary or the U.S. ...and British orces

to land, as the Salvadorian government had the situation in hand.” 43

During the same period in Colombia, the Indian leader Quintin Lame

helped initiate struggles or land and developed an Indigenous philoso-

phy o resistance; in the early 1980s, his legacy would live on in the In-

dian guerrilla group “Commando Quintin Lame”. Gonzalo Sanchez was

another leader who helped organize the Supreme Council o Indians in

Natagaima, Colombia, in 1920.

Afer World War II, significant changes in the world capitalist econ-

omy would see increased penetration o the Amazon and other low-

land orest regions in South America. In the post-War period, the U.S.

emerged in a dominant position in the world economy and would sub-sequently move to open up markets or economic expansion. In Western

Europe and Japan, as part o the Marshall Plan, some $30 billion in loans

and aid was pumped into the economies to rebuild these countries as

U.S. markets and, not insignificantly, as a base o containment against the

USSR (military alliances were also created through NAO and SEAO,

positioned against the East Bloc).

Andrew Gray, op. cit., pg. 8.42.Quoted in Noam Chomsky,43. urning the ide: Te U.S. and Latin America,Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1987, pg. 44.




53

South and Central Amer-

ica were to be brought firmly

under U.S. control, a process

begun during the early 1900sas the U.S. moved to replace

Britain as the dominant im-

perialist nation in the region,

even paying off debts owed

to Britain. As part o the U.S.

post-War plans, South and

Central America would also

receive billions o dollars in

direct financial aid rom the

U.S. and rom private trans-

national banks. Tis aid al-

lowed the “underdeveloped” countries to industrialize by importing

modern technology rom the U.S. (in act, as part o U.S. financial aid,

the loans had to be spent in the U.S.). Te enormous debts incurred in

this process guaranteed dependence and opened up these countries tomultinational corporations. As well, international organizations such

as the World Bank, International Bank or Reconstruction and Devel-

opment, and the Agency or International Development (AID) were

ormed to provide multilateral unding aimed largely at the agro-export

sectors, resource extraction, hydro-electric projects and inrastructure

(roads, communications, etc.) necessary or the development o those

industries. Linked to this “aid” scheme is the International Monetary

Fund, which doesn’t und specific projects but instead steps in with bal-

ance o payments support when a country is unable to pay its debts.

Tese projects and the overall industrialization opened up areas or

urther exploitation; penetration o areas such as the Amazon and large-

scale expropriations accelerated in the 1960s, urther devastating Indig-

enous peoples and leading to renewed campaigns o extermination.

O course, all this economic restructuring did not occur without

growing resistance. With growing movements against imperialism, in-cluding peasant unions, students, workers, guerrillas and Indians, a sub-

stantial part o the “aid” included military training, weapons, and equip-



54

G O R D H I L L

ment. U.S. Special Forces troopers were not only in Southeast Asia, they

were also quite busy in Central America, training death squads and di-

recting massacres. As part o an overall counterinsurgency campaign, the

militarization precipitated an upward spiral o violence. In Guatemalaalone, between 1966–68, some 8,000 people were slaughtered by Gua-

temalan soldiers under the direction o U.S. Green Beret advisors; U.S.

pilots flew U.S. planes on bombing missions. Paramilitary groups/death

squads hunted down “subversives” in collaboration with the government,

military, multinationals, and land-owners.44 Te main targets o this cam-

paign, dubbed “Operation Guatemala”, were the Mayan peoples.

Another aspect o the counter-insurgency plans was that o population

control. Primarily the ocus o U.S. state-unding, the Agency or Interna-

tional Development (AID) was established in 1961. Using the alse pre-

text o “over-population problem”, instead o imperialism, as the cause o

mass poverty and starvation, population control came to be championed as

the most important dilemma acing the “modern world”. Under the guise

o “amily planning”, AID began unding or a wide-range o public and

private organizations, oundations, and churches who provided training,

equipment, and clinics or birth control programs. Between 1968 and 1972,“unds earmarked or population programs through legislation and obligat-

ed by AID amounted to more than $250 million”.45 South America received

the largest percentage o this unding. Besides educational material, birth

control pills, IUDs, and other pharmaceuticals developed by a profitable

gene and biotechnology industry in the imperialist centres, the main thrust

o population control remains sterilization. Between 1965–71, an estimated

1 million women in Brazil had been sterilized.46 In Puerto Rico, 34% o all

women o child-bearing age had been sterilized by 1965.47 Between 1963–65, more than 40,000 women in Colombia had been sterilized.48 In contrast

to these programs in the “Tird World”, the imperialist centres see restric-

tions on abortion and struggles or women’s reproductive choice. But even

here there is a double standard or non-European women:

om Barry, Deb Preusch, and Beth Wood,44. Dollars and Dictators, Grove PressInc., New York, 1983, pg. 122.

Bonnie Mass,45. Te Political Economy of Population Control in Latin America, Edi-tions Latin America, Montreal, 1972, pg. 8.Ibid, pg. 19.46.Ibid, pg. 41.47.“Growing Fight Against Sterilization o Native Women”,48. Akwesasne Notes Vol. 11No. 1, Winter 1979, pg. 29.




55

Lee Brightman, United Native Americans President, estimatesthat o the Native population o 800,000 (in the U.S.), as many as42% o the women o childbearing age and 10% o the men...havebeen sterilized... Te first official inquiry into the sterilization o

Native women...by Dr. Connie Uri...reported that 25,000 Indianwomen had been permanently sterilized within Indian HealthServices acilities alone through 1975... According to a 1970ertilization study, 20% o married Black women had been steril-ized, almost three times the percentage o white married women.Tere was a 180% rise in the number o sterilizations perormedduring 1972–73 in New York City municipal hospitals whichserve predominantly Puerto Rican neighbourhoods. 49

Similar results were ound in Inuit communities in the Northwest er-ritories. Clearly, “overpopulation” is not an issue in North America, nor

is it in South or Central America. Rather, it is a method or reducing

specific portions o the population who would organize against their op-

pression and who have no place in the schemes o capital. In other words,

“It is more effective to kill guerrillas in the womb”.

O all the South American countries that underwent massive indus-

trialization afer World War II, Brazil is probably the most well known.

Following a 1964 coup backed by the U.S., IMF and multinationals, or-eign investment rose steadily. Between 1964–71, over $4 billion had been

pumped into Brazil through the World Bank, AID, IDB, and others. 50

Between 1900–57, the Indigenous population o Brazil had declined

rom over 1 million to less than 200,00051 through the rubber boom,

ranching, and mining industries. Following the 1964 coup and the rise

in oreign investment, the penetration o the Amazon region in particu-

lar was increased. As these industries invaded even more Indian lands,

a renewed campaign o extermination accompanied them. Indians were

hunted down by death squads, their communities bombed and massa-

cred, and disease epidemics purposely spread through injections and in-

ected blankets. In the 1960s alone,

O the 19,000 Monducurus believed to have existed in the 30s,only 1200 were lef. Te strength o the Guaranis had beenreduced rom 5,000 to 300. Tere were 400 Carajas lef out o

Ibid, pg. 29.49.50. Supysaua: A Documentary Report on the Conditions of Indian Peoples in

Brazil , Indigena Inc. and American Friends o Brazil, Nov. 1974, pg. 48.Ibid, pg. 6.51.Norman Lewis, “Genocide”,52. Supysaua op. cit., pg. 9.



56

G O R D H I L L

4,000. O the Cintas Largas, who had been attacked rom the airand driven into the mountains, possibly 500 had survived outo 10,000... Some like the apaiunas—in this case rom a gif osugar laced with arsenic—had disappeared altogether.52

All these atrocities were part o a “pacification” campaign aimed at elimi-

nating the Indians, who here too were seen as obstacles to “development”.

Te government agencies responsible or “Indian affairs” were some o

the worst agents in this campaign, so much so that the poorly-named In-

dian Protection Service had to be disbanded and replaced by the National

Indian Foundation (FUNAI). Not surprisingly, the only real changes were

in the names. By 1970, plans or building an extensive road system or all

the industries that had recently invaded the Amazon were announced.Te ollowing year, the president o FUNAI signed a decree which read

“Assistance to the Indian will be as complete as possible, but cannot ob-

struct national development nor block the various axes o penetration

into the Amazon region.”53 Te rans-Amazonic road system resulted in

the orced relocation o some 25 Indian nations and thousands o deaths.

Te struggle against the roads continues today.

Brazil is only one example; similar developments occurred in other

South American countries.

Seemingly in contrast to these extermination campaigns, Canada ap-

peared to be moving towards a much more “liberal” epoch; why, Natives

had even been given the “right” to vote, the pass laws had been scrapped,

and potlatches were once again permitted! In act, the Indian Act itsel was

being viewed by some as an impediment to the assimilation o Native peo-

ples. Te combined effects o the Indian Act, the residential schools, etc. had

so debilitated Native peoples that they were almost no longer needed; oncepowerul cultural bases, such as the potlatch, were reduced to near spectacles

or the enjoyment o Euro-Canadians similar to rodeo shows. By 1969, the

government went so ar as to articulate its goals in the aptly-named “White

Paper”; the intent was to end the special legal and constitutional status o

Natives, and to deny the relevancy o treaty rights. Ostensibly a policy to

“help” the Indian, the paper even suggested a total revision o the Indian Act

and a gradual phasing out o the Department o Indian Affairs over a five

year period. In the denial o treaty rights and land claims, the paper stated,

“Te Politics o Genocide Against the Indians o Brazil”,53. Supysaua op. cit., pg. 35.Government o Canada,54. Statement of the Government of Canada on IndianPolicy , 1969, pg. 11.




57

Tese aboriginal claims to land are so general and undefined thatit is not realistic to think o them as specific claims capable oremedy except through a policy and program that will end injus-tice to Indians as members o the Canadian community. 54

During the same period, Canada was moving towards increased re-

source extraction. Tis had begun in the 1950s especially in the min-

ing o uranium or nuclear energy and as export or the U.S. nuclear

energy and weapons industry. Uranium mining was centred primarily

in Saskatchewan and in the U.S. southwest. As well, there was increased

oil and gas exploration in the North and the development o hydro-

electric projects. What better way to push through these dangerous and

damaging projects than by accelerating the government’s long-term as-similation policy and denying Native land title? Clearly, extermination

campaigns in Brazil and assimilation policies in Canada are two sides

o the same coin: destroying Native nations and opening up the lands

to urther exploration. What these governments didn’t count on was the

continued resistance o Native people.



58

THE PEOPLE AIM FOR FREEDOMAlong with an explosion o international struggles in the 1960s, including na-

tional liberation movements in Arika, Asia, and in the Americas, there was

an upsurge in Native people’s resistance. Tis upsurge ound its background

in the continued struggles o Native peoples and the development o the

struggle against continued resource extraction throughout the Americas.

In South and Central America Native resistance grew alongside the

student, worker, women’s and guerrilla movements, which were com-

prised largely o Mestizos in the urban centres.In Ecuador, the Shuar nation had ormed a ederation based on re-

gional associations o Shuar communities in 1964, and was influential in

the development o other Indigenous organizations; it would also be the

ocus o government repression as in 1969 when its main offices were

burnt down and its leaders attacked and imprisoned. In 1971, the Indig-

enous Regional Council o Cauca (CRIC) was ormed in Colombia by

2,000 Indians rom 10 communities. CRIC quickly initiated a campaign

or recuperating stolen reserve lands. In Bolivia, two Aymaran organiza-

tions were ormed: the Mink’a and the Movimiento upac Katari. Na-

tional and international conerences were held in various countries, and

by 1974 a conerence in Paraguay drew delegates rom every country in

South and Central America rom a large number o Indian nations.

A primary ocus o these Indigenous movements was recuperating sto-

len lands, and widespread occupations, protests, and road blockades were or-

ganized. In Chile, Mapuches began “ence-running”—moving ences whichseparated reserve lands rom arm lands and extending the reserve territory.

In Mexico, Indigenous peasants carried out large-scale occupations: by 1975

there were 76 occupations in Sinaloa alone, and some 25,000 acres o land oc-

cupied in Sinaloa and Sonora. By December o 1976, tens o thousands occu-

pied land in Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, and Coahuila.55 O course, these and

many other occupations and protests did not occur without severe repres-

sion. Assassinations, massacres, destruction o communities, and scorched

earth policies were directed against the Indigenous movements.

Jane Adams, “Mexico—Te Struggle or the Land”,55. Indigena Vol. 3 No. 1, Sum-mer 1977, pg. 28, 30.




59

Similarly, the reclaiming

o traditional Indian lands

was also a primary ocus o

struggle in North America.One o the first o these oc-

cupations in this period was

the seizing o the Seaway In-

ternational Bridge in Ontario

by Mohawks, in December

1968. Te action was to pro-

test the Canadian state’s de-

cision to levy customs duties

on goods carried across the

international border by Mo-

hawks, despite a treaty which

stipulated this right and the act that the border area was on Mohawk land.

Te occupation ended when RCMP and Ontario Provincial Police stormed

the bridge and arrested 48 Mohawks. However, the struggle o the Mo-

hawks was to precipitate occupations which were to ollow as a “Red Na-tionalism / Red Power” movement swept across both Canada and the U.S.,

alongside Black, Chicano, and Puerto Rican liberation movements.

In 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was ormed in Min-

neapolis-St. Paul. At first an organization modeled afer Euro-American

Lef groups and inspired in part by the Civil Rights struggles o the 1950s

and 60s, as well as the Black Panthers, AIM organized against police vio-

lence, racism, and poverty. Initially urban-based and predominantly cen-

tred in the Dakotas and Nebraska, AIM quickly became a widespreadmovement represented in both urban ghettos and rural reserve areas.

Although AIM members would be involved in many o the struggles

that would develop—partly because AIM was an international movement

and not regional—AIM itsel was only one part o the “Red Nationalist”

movement. In 1968, the National Alliance or Red Power had ormed on

the West Coast, and the ollowing year Indians occupied Alcatraz Island in

San Francisco harbour, claiming they had “discovered” it; the occupation

would last 19 months and would become known as the first major event

in the struggle or “Red Power”. Another aspect o this period was the con-

tinuing local and regional daily struggles, independent though not totally

unrelated rom the emerging Native liberation movement, in communi-



60

G O R D H I L L

ties fighting thef o land, poverty, pollution, etc. In 1970, or example, 200

Metis and Indians occupied the Alberta New Start Centre at Lac La Biche,

protesting against the ederal government’s cancellation o the program.

Tat same year, AIM participated in the occupation o PlymouthRock and the Mayflower ship replica on “Tanksgiving Day”, as well as

organizing protests and actions against the BIA (Bureau o Indian A-

airs). In South Dakota, a protest at the Custer Courthouse was attacked

by police, leading to a riot in which the court and several buildings were

burned down. In 1972, AIM organized the “rail o Broken reaties

Caravan”, and prepared a 20 point position paper concerning the general

conditions o Native peoples in the U.S. Te rail ended in Washington,

DC, where demonstrators occupied and destroyed the offices o the BIA.

Te ollowing year, traditionalists in the Pine Ridge reservation in South

Dakota requested AIM support afer a campaign o terror led by ribal

President Dick Wilson and BIA thugs. On February 27, a caravan o people

went to Wounded Knee or a council—the site o the 1890 massacre. Te

area was almost immediately surrounded by police, and a one day meeting

turned into a 71 day armed occupation in which 300 people resisted a large

military and paramilitary orce consisting o FBI agents, BIA police, localand state police, and military personnel. wo Natives were shot dead, two

wounded, and one Federal Agent wounded. Tree weeks into the liberation

o Wounded Knee, the Independent Oglala Nation was established.

Te Independent Oglala Nation was more than just a bravegesture by a band o besieged Indians. It represented the gravestthreat in more than a century to the plans o the U.S. governmentto subdue the Native people o the U.S. and to deprive them otheir lands or the exploitation and profit o white interests.56

As supplies dwindled and the military prepared or a final assault, the

deenders decided to withdraw. On May 7, about hal the people filtered

through the enemy lines, and the ollowing day about 150 who remained

laid down their arms. In the period ollowing, the FBI, BIA, and Wilson’s

regime conducted a campaign o terror; by 1976 as many as 250 people

in and around Pine Ridge were dead, including 50 members o AIM.

Shootings, firebombings, assaults, and assassinations were carried out by

Wilson’s goons and in conjunction with the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence

Program (COINELPRO). On June 26, 1975, an FBI raid on an AIM en-

“On the Road to Wounded Knee”,56. Indian Nation Vol. 3, No. 1, April 1976, pg. 15.




61

campment resulted in a fire-fight in which

two FBI agents and an Oglala, Joseph

Stuntz, were shot dead. Although

Stuntz’ death was never investi-gated, nor were the many other

killings o Oglala traditional-

ists and AIM members during

this period, the FBI launched

a campaign to imprison AIM

members or the two dead

agents. Eventually Leonard

Peltier would be convicted o

the killings in a trial that showed

nothing more than that the FBI had

abricated evidence and testimony.

In the same year as the liberation o

Wounded Knee, AIM was also established in Canada ollowing the Cache

Creek highway blockade in BC. Te blockade was against poor housing

conditions on a nearby Native reserve. In November o that year, the IndianAffairs office in Kenora, Ontario was occupied or one day by Ojibways.

Te ollowing year, members o the Ojibway Warrior’s Society and AIM

initiated an armed occupation o Anicinabe Park, near Kenora, rom July

22 to August 8. wo months earlier, Mohawks rom Akwesasne and Kah-

nawake had occupied Moss Lake in upper state New York, reclaiming and

renaming the area Ganienkeh—Land o the Flint, the traditional name or

the Kanienkehake, People o the Flint. Afer a shooting incident between

White vigilantes and Mohawks, police insisted on entering Ganienkeh toinvestigate but were reused entry. As the threat o a police raid increased,

Natives, including some veterans rom Wounded Knee, rushed to Ganien-

keh. Bunkers were built and deensive lines established. In the end, police

withdrew (in 1977, the Mohawks agreed to leave Moss Lake in exchange or

land in Clinton County, which is closer to Kahnawake and Akwesasne).

On September 14, 1974, the “Native People’s Caravan” lef Vancou-

ver, initiated by Natives who had participated in the Anicinabe Park oc-

cupation. Similar to the rail o Broken reaties, the Caravan demanded

recognition and respect or treaty and aboriginal rights, settlement o

Native land claims, an end to the Indian Act, and an investigation o the



62

G O R D H I L L

Department o Indian Affairs by Natives aimed at dissolving it. By Sep-

tember 30th, the Caravan had brought around 800–900 Natives to Parlia-

ment Hill in Ottawa. Instead o a meeting with parliament, the protest

aced riot police and barricades. As police attacked the demonstration,clashes broke out, leaving dozens o Natives and nine police injured.

In 1976, the “rail o Sel-Determination” let the west coast o

the U.S. as one o many anti-Bicentennial protests organized by Native

peoples. Its purpose was to get the government’s answer to the points

raised by the 1972 caravan. As in that protest, government oicials

reused to meet with the people and 47 demonstrators were arrested

at the BIA oices in Washington, DC.

It was also during this period that Native peoples began organizingaround international bodies. In the U.S., members o AIM and numer-

ous traditional leaders and elders ormed the International Indian reaty

Conerence, in 1974.

he thrust o the reaty Conerence is or recognition otreaties by the U.S. as a means o restoring sovereign relationsbetween the native nations and that country. hen, there willbe moves to control exploitation, return control o native lands

to...the native nation, and a return o orms o government ap-propriate to each nation. 57

Te IIC was the first Indian organization to apply or and receive UN

Non-Governmental status. Delegates rom the IIC, CRIC, and other

South and Central American Indigenous organizations ormed the basis

or developing legalistic rameworks based on international laws aimed at

restoring sovereign nation status or First Nations. Conerences such as the

1977 UN-sponsored NGO meeting on “problems o Western HemisphereIndigenous Peoples” or the Fourth International Russell ribunal in 1980,

were organized to examine and document the continuation o genocidal

practises, and to develop policies concerning these issues. Te end result o

these conerences appears to be a orum or documenting genocide, and, at

best, exerting some level o international pressure on particular countries.

As AIM member Russell Means has stated, “It appears useless to appeal to

the U.S. or its legal system to restore its honor by honoring its treaties.” 58 In

light o the recent UN role in the U.S.-led Gul War, and its recent repeal othe condemnation o Zionism as racism, the UN itsel seems useless.

“North American Sovereign Nations”,57. Akwesasne Notes Vol. 8 No. 4, pg. 16. 58. Akwesasne Notes Vol. 8 No. 6.



63

THE STRUGGLE FOR LANDAs previously discussed, the

world economic system un-

derwent proound changes

ollowing and as a result

o the Second World War.

In the post-War economic

boom, plans or new energy

policies began to be ormu-lated in the U.S. and Canada.

As already noted, one aspect

o these plans was based on

uranium mining and its ap-

plication in nuclear energy

and weapons systems. As

well, plans or diverting

water and/or hydro-electric

power rom Canada to the

U.S. were also ormulated

in 1964 through the North

American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA). Following the 1973 “Oil

Crisis”, plans or developing “internal” energy sources were intensified. In

the U.S., this energy policy was dubbed “Project Independence”.

It seems clear that the U.S. government has anticipated thatAmerican natives—like those o other colonized areas o theworld who have tried to resist the thef o their natural resourc-es—might put up a fight... []his seems the most logical conclu-sion to draw rom Senate Bill 826, an expansion o the FederalEnergy Act o 1974 into a U.S. centred ‘comprehensive energypolicy’. Section 616 o this Bill proposes that the Energy Admin-istrator ‘is authorized to provide or participation o military per-sonnel in the perormance o his unctions’ and that armed orces

personnel so assigned will be, in effect, an independent ‘energyarmy’, under the direct control o the Department o Energy. 59

Paula Giese, “Te Last Indian War: For Energy”59. Report on the Tird InternationalIndian reaty Conference, June 15–19, 1977.

Cree child opposed to James Bay 2hydro development in Northern Quebec



64

G O R D H I L L

As well, in 1971 a group o electrical power generation companies and

government resources bureaucrats issued the North Central Power Study,

“which proposed the development o coal strip mining in Montana, Wy-

oming, and the Dakotas...”60

In Canada, these plans can be seen in the hydro-electric projects

built in Manitoba and in James Bay, northern Quebec. here was also

the penetration o the Canadian north with oil and gas exploration,

the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, uranium mining in Saskatchewan, etc.

In the U.S., the new energy policies precipitated various attacks on

Native nations.

In 1974, Public Law 93-531 was passed authorizing the partition o

joint Hopi and Navajo lands in northern Arizona and the orced reloca-tion o some 13,000 people. Te purpose o the relocation was ostensibly

to resolve a alse “Hopi-Navajo land dispute”. In act, there are some 19

billion tons o coal in this land. Another example is that o Wounded

Knee. During World War II, a northwestern portion o the Pine Ridge

reservation was “borrowed” by the ederal government or use as an aeri-

al gunnery range. It was to be returned when the war ended.

Well, the war ended in 1945 and along about 1970, some o thetraditional people on the reserve started asking ‘Where is ourland? We want it back’. What had happened was that a certainagency...NASA, had circled a satellite and that satellite was circledin co-operation with...the National Uranium Research andEvaluations Institute... What they discovered was that there was aparticularly rich uranium deposit within...the gunnery range. 61

Dick Wilson was put in place as ribal Council President, financed,

supplied and backed by the government, with the purpose o having

him sign over the gunnery range lands to the U.S. government. On June

26, 1975, Dick Wilson signed this 10 per cent o the Pine Ridge reserve

land to the ederal government on the same day that the FBI raided the

AIM encampment.

In a period barely exceeding 200 years, the 100% o the territorywhich was in Indigenous hands in 1600, was reduced to 10%and over the next 100 years to 3%. We retain nominal rights

Ibid.60.Ward Churchill, “Leonard Peltier, Political Prisoner: A Case History o the Land61.Rip-Offs”, Red Road #2, June 1991, pg. 6.




65

to about 3% o our original territory within the USA today.Native peoples were consigned to what was thought to be themost useless possible land... Ironically, rom the perspective othe Predator, this turned out to be the land which contained

about 2/3 o what the U.S. considers to be its domestic uraniumreserve. Perhaps 25% o the readily accessible low-sulphur coal.Perhaps 1/5 o the oil and natural gas. Virtually all o the copperand bauxite... Tere is gold. Tere are renewable resources andwater rights in the arid west. 62

Similar comparisons can be ound in Canada and the countries o

South and Central America. With massive changes in industrialization

and in energy demands, along with new technologies in locating and ex-

tracting resources, the colonization process has, since the Second WorldWar, entered a new phase. Along with these flashpoints arising rom the

“Last Indian War: For Energy”, there are the daily demands o capital in

other industries such as orestry, fishing, rubber, agriculture, ranching,

etc. and in land or military weapons testing, training, etc.

aking into account these developments since World War II, and

the colonization process prior to it, an understanding o the history o

Indigenous resistance becomes more clear. Most importantly, however,

this resistance continues today.

Ibid, pg. 6.62.



66

IN TOTAL RESISTANCE In March 1990, the Mohawks o Kane-

satake occupied the Pines—traditional

lands which also contain the peoples

cemetery and a lacrosse field—against

the Municipality o Oka’s plans to ex-

pand an adjacent gol course over the

Pines. Te gol course expansion was

part o Oka’s plans to expand a lucra-tive tourist industry. On July 11, over

100 members o the Quebec Provin-

cial Police (SQ) attacked the barri-

cades, opening fire on mostly women

and children and firing tear-gas and

concussion grenades. Members o the

Kahnawake Warrior’s Society and war-

riors rom Kanesatake returned fire. In

the exchange o fire, one SQ officer was

killed. Following the fire-fight in the

Pines and the retreat o the police, War-

riors rom Kahnawake seized the Mer-

cier Bridge—a major commuter bridge

into Montreal—to deter a second SQ

attack. More barricades were erected onroads and highways around both Kane-

satake and Kahnawake by hundreds o

Mohawk women and men—setting into

motion one o the longest armed stand-

offs in North America in recent history.

Te stand-off, which saw hundreds o

police and over 4,000 troops rom the

Canadian Armed Forces deployed, ini-tiated widespread solidarity rom Native

peoples across Canada; road and rail-

“Now that war isbeing forced uponus, we will turn ourhearts and minds to

war and it too wewill wage with all ourmight... Our Spiritsare strong. We aretogether at last with

ourselves and theworld of our ancestors;we are proud beforeour children and our generations unborn...

We are free. No yokeof white governmentoppression can containus. We are free.”

–Mohawk Nation Office, August 27, 1990




67

way blockades were erected, Indian Affairs offices occupied, demonstra-

tions held, and sabotage carried out against railway bridges and electrical

power lines. Te vulnerability o such inrastructure was well known, and

in act this possibility o an escalation o Native resistance was a mainpart o why there was no massacre carried out

against the Natives and supporters who held

out in the reatment Centre. On Septem-

ber 26, the last remaining deenders made

the collective decision to disengage—not

surrender—and began to move out o the

area. Tey were, in theory, walking home,

reusing to surrender or they had com-

mitted no “crimes” in deending sov-

ereign Mohawk land. Needless

to say, the colonialist occu-

pation orces disagreed and

captured the deenders,

subjecting some o the

Warriors to torture in-cluding beatings and

mock executions.

At the same

time, members o

the Peigan Lone-

fighter’s Society had

diverted the sacred

Oldman River awayrom a dam system in

Alberta and conronted

the RCMP. Milton

Born With A ooth

would subsequently be

arrested or firing two

warning shots into the air.

He has since been sen-

tenced to 18 months.



68

G O R D H I L L

As well, the Lil’wat nation in BC erected road blockades on their

traditional land in an assertion o their sovereignty and as part o the soli-

darity campaign with the Mohawks. Four months later the RCMP would

raid the blockade and arrest some 50 Lil’wat and supporters, on Novem-ber 6. On November 24, a logging operation on Lubicon Cree land in

northern Alberta was attacked and some $20,000 damage inflicted on

vehicles and equipment. Tirteen Lubicon Cree including Chie Bernard

Ominayak were subsequently charged with the action but have yet to be

put on trial. Tey have reused to recognize the trial as having any juris-

diction on Lubicon Cree land.

During the same period, Indigenous peoples in South America were

carrying orward their struggles.

In Bolivia in October 1990, some 800 Indians rom the Amazon re-

gion—Moxenos, Yuracares, Chimanes and Guaranies—walked 330 miles

rom the northern city o rinidad to La Paz in a month-long “March

or Land and Dignity”. When the march reached the mountain pass that

separates the highlands rom the Amazon plains, thousands o Aymaras,

Quechuas and Urus rom across the Bolivian highlands were there to greet

them. Like the struggles o their sisters and brothers in North America,this march was against logging operations as well as cattle ranching on

Indian land.

In Ecuador, rom June 4th to 8th, 1990, a widespread Indigenous up-

rising paralyzed the country. Nearly all major roads and highways were

blocked, demonstrations and estivals o up to 50,000 spread throughout

the country, despite massive police and military repression. Demonstra-

tions were attacked, protesters beaten, tear-gassed and shot. Trough

the coordination o CONAIE (Conederacion de Nacionalidades delEcuador)—a national Indian organization ormed in 1986—a 16 point

“Mandate or the Deense, Lie, and Rights o the Indigenous Nation-

alities” was released. Te demands included control o Indian lands,

constitutional and tax reorms, and the dissolution o various govern-

ment-controlled pseudo-Indian organizations. Te government agreed

to negotiations on the demands; the uprising had restricted ood supplies

to the urban areas, disrupted water and electricity supply, closed down

schools, and occupied oil wells, airports, and radio stations. Te Indig-

enous uprising had effectively shut down the country.




69

In this way, the Campaign or 500 Years o Indigenous Resistance in

1992 orms an important point in this history: “In our continent, history

can be divided into 3 phases; beore the arrival o the invaders; these five

hundred years; and that period, beginning today, which we must define and

build” (Campaign 500 Years o Resistance and Popular Resistance).

IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSEIN THE SPIRIT OF TUPAC KATARI

IN TOTAL RESISTANCE



70

G O R D H I L L



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gord hill - 500 years of indigenous resistance

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