Struggle for the Land
Encyclopedia
Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...
. It is a collection of essays on the efforts of Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
and in Canada
Aboriginal peoples in Canada
Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....
to maintain their land tenure
Land tenure
Land tenure is the name given, particularly in common law systems, to the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land . The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants...
claims against government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
and corporate
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
infringement. Equating colonization with genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
and ecocide
Ecocide
The neologism ecocide can be used to refer to any large-scale destruction of the natural environment or over-consumption of critical non-renewable resources...
, the author provides examples of resistance
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
.
Beginning with an overview of the impact of legal doctrines established by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
on Native peoples, and moving on to explore a series of case studies indicative of the effects of domination "by North America's settler-states," the book concludes with a discussion paper offering a scenario for an alternate future.
Publishing information
It was first published with the subtitle Indigenous Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Expropriation in Contemporary North America by Common Courage Press in 1993 (hardcover: ISBN 1-56751-001-9, paperback: ISBN 1-56751-000-0). In 1999, it was resubtitled and released in a revised and expanded edition by Arbeiter Ring PublishingArbeiter Ring Publishing
Arbeiter Ring Publishing is a worker-owned and operated independent book publisher and distributor that specializes in progressive, radical and anarchist literature . Founded by Todd Scarth and John K...
(Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, ISBN 1-894037-04-9). City Lights Publishers (San Francisco) published it in 2002 as a 460-page hardcover (ISBN 0-87286-415-4) and paperback (ISBN 0-87286-414-6).
Synopsis
As its foreword, the book features a poem by Jimmie DurhamJimmie Durham
Jimmie Durham is an American-born sculptor, essayist and poet, currently living in Europe.-Life and work:Durham was born in Washington, Arkansas and became active in theatre, performance and literature related to the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. His first solo exhibition as a visual...
. The preface is by Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke is a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president as the nominee of the United States Green Party, on a ticket headed by Ralph Nader. In the 2004 election, however, she endorsed one of Nader's opponents, Democratic...
and poems from John Trudell
John Trudell
John Trudell is a Native American-Mexican author, poet, actor, musician, and former political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz...
's Living in Reality appear as preludes to each section. Russell Means
Russell Means
Russell Charles Means is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage...
' 1982 platform for president of the Oglala people is included as an appendix. Maps of Indian land claims/treaty areas are included. The book is dedicated "for my mother."
The mostly previously published essays collected provide a history of Native American struggle for decolonization provided through the examples of the Haudenosaunee in upstate New York, the Lakotas on the northern Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
, the Lubicon Cree in northern Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, and the Diné
Dine
-People named Dine:* Jim Dine , an American pop artist* S. S. Van Dine, an art critic and author* Tom Dine, an American government worker-Other meanings:* Beit ed-Dine, a town in Lebanon* Diné, name for the Navajo Nation in the Navajo language...
and Newe (Western Shoshone
Western Shoshone
Western Shoshone comprises several Shoshone tribes that are indigenous to the Great Basin and have lands identified in the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863. They resided in Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. The tribes are very closely related culturally to the Paiute, Goshute, Bannock, Ute, and...
) in the upper Sonoran. The case is made that uranium mining
Uranium mining
Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. The worldwide production of uranium in 2009 amounted to 50,572 tonnes, of which 27% was mined in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three producers and together account for 63% of world uranium...
, coal stripping
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
, hydropower
Hydropower
Hydropower, hydraulic power, hydrokinetic power or water power is power that is derived from the force or energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as...
generation, and water diversion are ecocidal as well as genocidal, and that the ecological damage poses a threat to all North Americans.
Churchill also discusses the Native North American diaspora caused by their displacement.
- "Not only the people of the land are being destroyed, but, more and more, the land itself. The nature of native resistance to the continued onslaught of the invading industrial culture is shaped accordingly. It is a resistance forged in the crucible of a struggle for survival." —from the introduction
Contents (to the revised edition)
Foreword by Jimmie DurhamJimmie Durham
Jimmie Durham is an American-born sculptor, essayist and poet, currently living in Europe.-Life and work:Durham was born in Washington, Arkansas and became active in theatre, performance and literature related to the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. His first solo exhibition as a visual...
- Buying Time
Preface by Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke is a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president as the nominee of the United States Green Party, on a ticket headed by Ralph Nader. In the 2004 election, however, she endorsed one of Nader's opponents, Democratic...
- Succeeding into Native North America
- A Secessionist View
Introduction by Ward Churchill
- The Indigenous Peoples of North America
- A Struggle Against Internal Colonialism
-
- Part I: The Law
- The Tragedy and the Travesty
- Part I: The Law
- The Subversion of Indigenous Sovereignty in North America
- Part II: The Land
- Struggle to Regain a Stolen Homeland
- Part II: The Land
- IroquoisIroquoisThe Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
Land Rights in Upstate New York- The Black HillsBlack HillsThe Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, USA. Set off from the main body of the Rocky Mountains, the region is something of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of...
Are Not For Sale
- The Black Hills
- The Lakota Struggle for the 1868 TreatyTreaty of Fort Laramie (1868)The Treaty of Fort Laramie was an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota, and Arapaho Nation signed in 1868 at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further...
Territory- GenocideGenocideGenocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
in ArizonaArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
- Genocide
- The "NavajoNavajo NationThe Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering , occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico...
-HopiHopiThe Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
Land Dispute" in Perspective- The Struggle for Newe Segobia
- The Western ShoshoneShoshoneThe Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
Battle for Their Homeland- Last Stand at Lubicon LakeLubicon Lake Indian NationThe Lubicon Lake Indian Nation is a Cree First Nation in Northern Alberta, Canada. They are commonly referred to as the Lubicon Lake Nation, Lubicon Cree or the Lubicon Lake Cree. The Nation has been embroiled with the Government of Canada regarding disputed land claims for decades...
- Last Stand at Lubicon Lake
- Genocide and EcocideEcocideThe neologism ecocide can be used to refer to any large-scale destruction of the natural environment or over-consumption of critical non-renewable resources...
in the CanadianCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
North- Part III: Other Fronts
- Geographies of Sacrifice
- Part III: Other Fronts
- The RadioactiveRadioactive contaminationRadioactive contamination, also called radiological contamination, is radioactive substances on surfaces, or within solids, liquids or gases , where their presence is unintended or undesirable, or the process giving rise to their presence in such places...
Colonization of Native North America- The Water Plot
- Hydrological Rape in Northern Canada
- Like Sand in the Wind
- The Making of an American Indian DiasporaDiasporaA diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
- Part IV: An Alternative
- I Am Indigenist
- Part IV: An Alternative
- Notes on the Ideology of the Fourth World
- Appendix by Russell MeansRussell MeansRussell Charles Means is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage...
and Ward Churchill - TREATY
- Appendix by Russell Means
- The Platform of Russell Means' Campaign for President of the Oglala People, 1982
- Index
Controversy
Churchill has been accused of "mischaracterization" of historical fact in an essay in the original edition http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3838645,00.html. For the contents of "The Water Plot," accusations of plagiarismPlagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
have been leveled against Churchill http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42834.
External links
- Struggle for the Land at the publisher's site.