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A pro-Palestinian demonstration encampment is seen at the Columbia University, Friday, April 26, 2024, in New York. (AP, Yuki Iwamura)
A wave of highly charged student protests sweeping college campuses around the nation this week include Indigenous students protesting Israel’s killing of Palestinians.
Kianna Pete, Diné and a Columbia University graduate student from New Mexico, said she and other Native American peers stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
She has taken part in a protest encampment at Columbia – which ignited the fast-spreading student movement – in New York City since last week when 100 students were arrested. Student protesters’ ranks have swollen nationally with reportedly mostly peaceful protests.
Kianna Pete (Courtesy photo)
“All of those things that we’ve experienced as Indigenous peoples here on Turtle Island, the same thing is happening in Palestine and has been happening in Palestine for the past 75 years,” Pete said. “But through this movement, I’ve begun to learn a lot more about it and to offer support.”
Pete, who’s studying politics and education, sees parallels between American colonization and what she considers to be inhumane acts of war by Israel against everyday Palestinians.
“Similar to settler-colonial projects we’ve experienced here in the United States as Indigenous peoples – that being the justification of land grabs and that is done through stealing Indigenous land and displacing them, (we are) being super highly surveillanced,” Pete said.
She said police are using drones to monitor the student encampment.
A student pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia University in New York City is shown here. (Photo courtesy of Kianna Pete)
Like students across the country, Columbia’s student protesters are demanding that their administration stop doing business with companies linked to Israel and are also calling on the U.S. government to stop providing military aid to Israel.
“I’ve been in a stage of solidarity with our pro-Palestinian movement here on campus,” Pete said. “And that encompasses a huge plethora of different organizations, different people inside and outside of the community … supporting the Columbia University’s divestment from Israeli apartheid.”
According to Gaza health officials, at least 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing war between Palestine and Israel since the Hamas resistance group retaliated against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed about 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages. As of Nov. 2023, Israel help nearly 7,000 Palestinians, many of them children, according to the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.
The United Nations reports that two million Gazans are trying to survive near-famine conditions. At least two-thirds of the 34,000 killed reportedly are women and children.
Columbia alumni have donated money to and provided on-the-ground necessities like food, water and shelter to student protesters.
Indigenous people see many similarities between the U.S. government’s seizure of Native lands and murder of of Native people and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, said Nick Tilsen, Lakota and president of the NDN Collective, a Rapid City, S.D.-based nonprofit.
NDN Collective has been documenting the student protesters’ efforts and supporting them.
Nick Tilsen, NDN Collective president (Photo by Arlo Iron Cloud courtesy of NDN Collective)
“We have been in deep solidarity with the Palestinian Liberation over the past few years,” said Tilsen. “One of the real important reasons why we as an organization supports … the movement for cease-fire and for Palestinian liberation is specifically because if you look at the amount of resources that the United States of America, which is a settler-colonial government, is sending over to Israel, it’s in the billions. Before October 7, it was annually about $3.4 billion a year.”
The NDN Collective is dedicated to building Indigenous power, he said. It invests in the self-determination of Indigenous people across Turtle Island, as well as in Canada, Mexico, American Samoa, Guam and Puerto Rico. They focus on grant-making, loans, community development, advocacy, policy development and public relations support. https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/3tZkdbfvVqI
Although not directly involved in the current University of Minnesota student protests, NDN Collective sent staff to document the protests. But Tilsen said while his organization supports the protesters, it’s not NDN Collective’s role to lead the student movement.
“And so the work that they have done to extract our resources from our lands and to impose violence and settler-colonialism on a whole other people in Gaza is not something that we stand for,” he said. “We’re part of the ant-militarization movement. We do not believe that military violence is the solution.
“And we do not believe that U.S. imperialism is the solution.”
In the face of what protesters describe as overly aggressive police response to the peaceful protests, students have persevered – even as end-of-semester final exams and spring graduations loom. At the University of Southern California, main-stage graduation ceremonies were canceled after authorities cited safety concerns due to protests.
Misinformation in the mainstream media has led many to believe the protests are not peaceful, Pete said.
“There’s a lot of rhetoric saying that these are not peaceful, or that these protests are funded by terrorists,” she added. “A lot of these different stories aren’t capturing what exactly is happening in these different encampments.”
She suggested the public pay attention to independent news sources to get the real stories of what’s happening in Gaza.
“So (we’re) making sure we’re getting verified information that is from people on the front lines, that is from independent journalists who have been at these encampments from the very beginning, listening to students, organizations, newspapers and outlets who have been covering this since October, when many of the protests started.”
Pete remains adamant that Indigenous people stand up for the vulnerable people of Gaza.
“We are protesting for the right to life, the right for Palestinian people to live and to exist,” she said. “Right now, there are no more universities left in Gaza. We have an extreme privilege to be able to protest and to use our voice for those who don’t have them right now.”
Columbia University students protest the war in Gaza. (Photo courtesy of Kianna Pete)
By now, you’ve no doubt become familiar with ongoing legal battles over the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL). You may recall that I, myself, was targeted and faced years in prison. Fortunately, all serious charges against me were dropped as I prepared to present a comprehensive necessity defense outlining why I had no choice but to resist the pipeline and its threat to my homelands, our people, and Unci Maka, our Grandmother Earth. You might remember the Standing Rock Nation’s lawsuits to prevent the pipeline, and you also recently heard from me about my testimony in the trial between North Dakota and the federal government regarding who will split the costs of over-policing our peaceful protest camps.
Did you know that Energy Transfer, which operates the pipeline, has also targeted nonprofit organizations in the courts of law? Specifically — and preposterously — the oil company has gone after Greenpeace USA with a pair of lawsuits. Energy Transfer’s tactic is, unfortunately, increasingly popular. Extractive industry corporations seeking to suppress opposition to their exploitative projects file what’s known as a Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP). To give you another example, the lithium mine company operating at Thacker Pass is using SLAPP in an attempt to silence tribal activists, elders, and allies resisting the company’s destruction of Unci Maka and sacred sites on Paiute and Shoshone homelands.
A sign from a NoDAPL resistance camp perfectly sums up one reason why lawsuits against Greenpeace and other nonprofits are way off the mark. They discredit the Indigenous agency involved in frontline resistance movements.
Frankly, the latest lawsuit against Greenpeace is of a different magnitude — both in terms of the exorbitant amount of damages Energy Transfer is seeking and the specifics of the case. Greenpeace (and other entities resisting DAPL, including Standing Rock and other tribal nations) have evidence of clear legal violations committed by Energy Transfer in its rush to complete DAPL. Aware of the gravity of those violations and wanting to cast doubt on their veracity and rewrite the narrative, Energy Transfer has attacked Greenpeace with false allegations of defamation.
As Greenpeace has highlighted in this piece — which I strongly encourage you to read — none of the nine statements Energy Transfer claims as defamatory were originally made by Greenpeace. Rather, they were circulated publicly (and endorsed widely). I commend Greenpeace for hearing the call to join Native nations on the frontline of this fight and for accurately summarizing the problems with Energy Transfer’s SLAPP effort. Honestly, from our perspective, if you’re being sued for defamation by a major extractive industry corporation, you’re probably doing something right!
Of course, Native water protectors and land defenders are all too familiar with the oil company’s modus operandi. Our ancestors witnessed similar tactics when Indian agents exerted control over their lives in the wake of the Dawes Allotment Act. More recently, my parents, aunties, and uncles remember well the FBI’s attempt to infiltrate and destroy the American Indian Movement in the 1970s. Native Peoples understand deeply that a commitment to truth telling and justice invites backlash from wealthy and powerful interests — government, corporate, or both.
It’s extra important for us to have our allies’ backs now, as all of this is occurring against a stark backdrop: not only has DAPL already leaked many times, but it continues to operate without a valid Environmental Impact Study or easement to cross under the Missouri River upstream of Standing Rock. Furthermore, in 2022, Energy Transfer was convicted of criminal charges in connection to its disastrous operation of pipelines in Pennsylvania and Ohio. In other words, it’s essentially a criminal corporation committed to shifting blame onto activists fighting for environmental justice and tribal sovereignty. That’s why we’ll keep battling and shining the light of truth. We hope that despite all spurious and costly legal attacks, Greenpeace will, too. We are all in this fight together.
Wopila tanka — thank you for protecting water and advancing environmental justice! Chase Iron Eyes Director and Lead Counsel The Lakota People’s Law Project
The future is now, and it’s looking brighter by the day. Recently, a youth group from the Oglala Lakota Nation — all members of the Lakota Tech High School Student Council — attended a meeting of the Great Plains Tribal Water Alliance (GPTWA) to learn and talk about their inspiring efforts to uplift their community. I was honored and encouraged to witness that powerful interaction, the culminating event in a series of activities the students undertook early this year as leaders of their school and future leaders of the Oceti Sakowin (Sioux Nation). You can watch our new video to see them in action!
Watch: future leaders of the Lakota Nation detail their vision. Opening musical track provided by Hundred in the Hand (featuring Tokata Iron Eyes).
My son, Zaniyan Iron Eyes, was joined by fellow student leaders Derrick Merrival, Antoine Running Bear, Wazilya Fuller, Marcel Swallow, Keldon Weston, and advisor Marlin Kingi to address Doug Crow Ghost, Reno Red Cloud, Syed Huq, and Mary J. Gourneau of the GPTWA. The students’ words are eloquent, so again, I urge you to see for yourself what they had to say.
Highlights include recaps of the students’ various community projects, their plans for their own futures, Marcel’s frank and poignant reference to the hurdles faced by young people on the reservation, and his gratitude for the mentoring provided by GPTWA. In turn, the leaders of the alliance, whose membership is composed of people from seven Sioux tribes, conveyed their concerns for all waters in the Oceti Sakowin, from the Big Horn Mountains to east of the Missouri River. I can confidently report that the students took to heart the necessity to protect Unci Maka (our Grandmother Earth).
Many of these same young leaders from Lakota Tech also presented to Lakota Law members at our Membership Event in February. That was such a special interaction, and I’m grateful to every member who listened in. On that note, I’m elated to report that our March membership drive was a huge success! 100 of you signed up, helping us shatter our goal of 60 new members, and I can’t wait to introduce members to other inspiring people from our community at subsequent events. In the meantime, please stay tuned right here, because I’ll have updates to share with you soon about further plans to engage with and support our youth leaders.
Wopila tanka — thank you for supporting us, and my enduring gratitude to you for lifting up our next generations! Chase Iron Eyes Director and Lead Counsel The Lakota People’s Law Project
I was finally able to put together the book about my climate alteration exhibit in Second Life for Burning Man 2, back in October 2019. The years between 2019 and now have been totally chaotic, so much has happened. The topic is still appropriate and the points I made are still valid, even more so.
In 2015, Pope Francis published Laudato Si’, his encyclical acknowledging the climate crisis and extolling his flock to consciously act in accordance with Unci Maka, our Grandmother Earth. Then, in 2022, he visited Canada and apologized for the genocide of First Nations peoples in residential schools at the hands of the Catholic Church. Finally, in 2023, the pope denounced the Doctrine of Discovery, 15th century papal bulls responsible for underpinning centuries of colonization of Indigenous lands under European banners in the name of the Christian God.
The pope’s apparent desires to make recompense for the Church’s historic role in the genocide of Indigenous People and have his flock live with more respect for the Earth go hand in hand. As you well know, we have always known how to live in harmony with our natural surroundings, with a deep understanding of our own relationship to all living things. My ancestors fought the colonizers, and with respect for their sacrifice, I have stood up to Big Oil and all who disrupt the natural balance or threaten our communities. I also take the stance that we must build alliances — even unlikely ones — to create the future we want for our next generations.
Therefore it makes perfect sense for us to take the lead in encouraging the pope to work with Native nations to return sacred lands to Indigenous stewardship — and also with state governments who have benefitted through the centuries from their affiliation with the Church. Let me be clear about those benefits: it is no overstatement to say that the Doctrine of Discovery underpins both Federal Indian Law and property law here in the United States. Virtually every aspect of the legal system we encounter as Native People has been set up to keep us down — from day one into the foreseeable future.
But we won’t be kept down. Let us be united, creative, and diligent in seeking remedies that can benefit not just Indigenous communities, but everyone who shares space with us in this world.
Wopila tanka — thank you for your care and advocacy! Chase Iron Eyes Director and Lead Counsel The Lakota People’s Law Project
As you know, very few things matter to me — and to this organization and to the planet we all hope our future generations can continue to inhabit — as much as a just transition to clean energy. That’s why we support communities fighting on the frontlines against harmful extractive projects, like the Standing Rock Nation and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony as they resist the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) and Thacker Pass lithium mine, respectively. It’s also why we continue to ally with Native-led groups promoting climate solutions which encompass Indigenous knowledge and respect tribal sovereignty.
To that end, this week I traveled to the Muscogee Nation near Tulsa, OK, to attend the second annual Tribal Energy Equity Summit. I was honored to speak at this important gathering, hosted by the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy. It brought leaders from tribes and organizations across Turtle Island together with representatives from the federal government to share our viewpoints and advance equitable clean energy solutions. As part of my attendance, I sat down with Chéri Smith, the alliance’s president and CEO, to talk about the importance of Indigenous agency in creating a clean energy future for tribes. Please watch our short video, meet Chéri, and learn more about her organization’s mission.
Watch: I sat down with Chéri Smith, President and CEO of the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, to talk about the importance of Indigenous agency in creating a clean energy future for tribes.
It’s been — if you’ll pardon the pun — an energizing week! The summit afforded me a great opportunity to network with like-minded people and organizations, meet new friends, and reconnect with old ones. I was especially happy to share space with Dennis “Bumpy” Pu‘uhonua Kanahele, head of the Nation of Hawai’i, which maintains its status as a sovereign government under international law, independent of the United States.
As our presence at the same summit that also hosted a pair of representatives from the White House indicates, this was a diverse gathering which welcomed a multitude of perspectives on how we can solve tribal energy issues in a just way and begin to remediate the climate crisis. As you know — and as exemplified by DAPL’s violation of our treaty lands, which hold so much potential for renewable energy development — those two issues are inextricably linked. I’m excited to see where we’ll go from here!
Speaking of DAPL: many of you have reached out to us after reading about my participation in the ongoing trial to determine whether the federal government should reimburse the State of North Dakota for exorbitant costs it alleges it incurred by over-policing our peaceful NoDAPL movement in 2016 and 2017. This article and this one can provide you a bit more of my perspective. I’ll also plan to report back to you with further thoughts once we hear of a judgment.
Wopila tanka — as always, thank you for supporting environmental justice! Chase Iron Eyes Director and Lead Counsel The Lakota People’s Law Project
CINCINNATI, Ohio — They came to protect the water.
Nearly 200 people traveled from Michigan to Cincinnati on Thursday, March 21, to support the state of Michigan’s efforts to stay out of federal court with its legal case calling for a partial shutdown of Enbridge Line 5.
Several citizens and leaders of Michigan tribes were among those who joined the rally at Fountain Square, a major public space in downtown Cincinnati near the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The crowd waved banners and signs calling for the shutdown of the Line 5 pipeline, with some calling for “people and planet over profits.”
Inside the courthouse, Michigan officials asked the federal appeals court to allow the lawsuit filed by the state attorney general’s office to remain in state court – a move supported by a coalition led by the Bay Mills Indian Community of more than 60 tribes from the Great Lakes region and beyond.
“I’m from the Bear Clan. My job is to protect the forest and make sure our water is safe,” Andrea Pierce told the crowd Thursday. Pierce, of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, is part of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition.
Nicole Keyawbiber and Joe VanAlstine of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians in Michigan join a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 21, 2024, supporting Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s efforts to keep her office’s lawsuit seeking shutdown of Enbridge line 5 in Michigan state court. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember/ICT)
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who filed the legal action to shut down the pipeline, addressed the crowd during the rally at Fountain Square on why she wants to keep the issue in state court.
“This is a Michigan case brought under Michigan law by Michigan’s chief law enforcement officer on behalf of the people of Michigan on behalf of our Great Lakes and it belongs in a Michigan court,” she told the cheering crowd.
The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Wisconsin, which is litigating to keep Line 5 off of reservation lands, also signed onto the brief. All 12 of Michigan’s federally recognized tribes passed resolutions calling to decommission Line 5.
‘Public nuisance’
Line 5, constructed in 1953, runs 645 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, east through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and under the Straits of Mackinac before it terminates in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.
In the original 2019 lawsuit filed in Michigan circuit court, Nessel sought a shutdown of four miles of Line 5 pipeline that ran under the Straits of Mackinac. The lawsuit contends that the pipeline is a public nuisance and that allowing Enbridge to continue operating it is a violation of the public trust doctrine and the Michigan Environmental Protection Act.
The Straits of Mackinac link Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and constitute one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world, according to Oil and Water Don’t Mix, an advocacy organization based in Michigan.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel tells a crowd of supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 21, 2024, that her case seeking shutdown of Enbridge Line 5 belongs in Michigan state court rather than federal court. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember/ICT)
Nessel won a restraining order from a state judge in June 2020, but Enbridge successfully moved the case into federal court in December 2021.
Nessel asked U.S. Circuit Judge Janet Neff to shift the case back into state court, but Neff refused, prompting Nessel to appeal to the Sixth Circuit appeals court.
Enbridge filed a separate federal lawsuit in 2020 arguing the state’s attempt to shut down the pipeline interferes with federal regulation of pipeline safety, and could interfere with interstate and international trading of petroleum, driving up oil prices. That case is still pending in Neff’s court.
Enbridge has insisted the section of pipeline that runs beneath the Mackinac Straits is in good condition and could operate indefinitely. Enbridge has proposed encasing the pipes in a protective tunnel.
Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bock told the three-judge panel of the court in Cincinnati Thursday that the challenge to Enbridge’s Line 5 deals with the public trust doctrine, a legal concept in which natural resources belong to the public. He said that concept is rooted in state law.
Water protector Nicole Keyawbiber wears a “Water not War” button on her hat at a rally on March 21, 2024, in Cincinnati, Ohio, supporting efforts to keep a Michigan state lawsuit seeking shutdown of Enbridge Line 5 out of federal court. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember/ICT)
Bock went on to assert that Enbridge, the Canadian company that owns the pipeline, missed its deadline to shift the case from state to federal court.
Enbridge attorney Alice Loughran countered that the case should remain in federal court because it affects international trade. She said the company didn’t have to comply with the standard 30-day deadline for requesting removal to federal court because it lacked enough information to formulate the request.
In an email sent to ICT, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy accused Nessel of forum-shopping in an effort to secure a favorable outcome.
“We are confident that ultimately the Sixth Circuit Court will agree with the lower court’s decisions from August 2022 and November 2021 that this dispute—which has generated a US foreign policy controversy—properly belongs in federal court,” Duffy wrote.
Protests continue
The protesters outside the courthouse were among thousands in recent years to protest the pipeline in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and even in Canada.
“Near and far, Anishinaabe people have united to protect the Great Lakes,” said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community, in a statement released Thursday to Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization.
“We stand behind Attorney General Nessel because we know that shutting down Line 5 is the only way to protect everyone who depends on the land, water, and natural resources within the Great Lakes,” Gravelle said, “including Anishinaabe people exercising our treaty rights.”
This article contains material from The Associated Press.
Joe Heath, a lawyer for the Onondaga Nation, at Onondaga Creek, south of Syracuse, N.Y., Nov. 30, 2023. (Lauren Petracca/The New York Times)
ONONDAGA NATION TERRITORY, N.Y. — Four or five years ago, Sidney Hill’s young son came to him with a question that Hill didn’t know how to answer.
The boy had learned that day about the millions of acres of land that his people, the Onondaga, had once called home, and the way that their homeland had been taken parcel by parcel by the state of New York, until all that was left was 11 square miles south of Syracuse.
“We lost all this land,” Hill recalled his son saying. “How can that be?”
In many ways, Hill was the best person to answer that question. As Tadodaho, the spiritual leader of the Onondaga Nation, he was responsible for protecting its legacy and guiding it into the future. He was one of a handful of elders who have worked for decades on a legal and diplomatic strategy to fight back against the historic wrongs his son now sought to understand.
Even so, it caught him off balance.
The younger generation needed to know, he said. “But it doesn’t make much sense to them.”
Hill tried to reassure his son that all that injustice was in the past.
But he knew how hard it was to accept past wrongs, particularly when their consequences so informed the present. It was why he had spent so long pushing — first Onondaga elders, then the U.S. justice system and, finally, an international human rights commission — for a correction to that history.
The Onondaga claim that the United States violated a 1794 treaty, signed by George Washington, that guaranteed 2.5 million acres in central New York to them. The case, filed in 2014, is the second brought by an American Indian nation against the United States in an international human rights body; a finding is expected as soon as this year.
Even if the Onondaga are successful, the result will mostly be symbolic. The entity, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, has no power to enforce a finding or settlement, and the United States has said that it does not consider the commission’s recommendations to be binding.
“We could win against them, but that doesn’t mean that they have to abide by whatever,” Hill said in an interview.
The 2.5 million acres have long since been transformed by highways and utility lines, shopping malls, universities, airports and roller rinks.
The territory encompasses the cities of Binghamton and Syracuse, as well as more than 30 state forests, dozens of lakes and countless streams and tributaries. It is also home to 24 Superfund sites, the environmental detritus of the powerhouse economy that helped central New York thrive during the beginning and middle half of the 20th century.
Most notorious of these is Lake Onondaga, which once held the dubious title of America’s most polluted lake.
Industrial waste has left its mark on Onondaga territory, leaving the nation unable to fish from its streams and rivers. The history of environmental degradation is part of what motivates the Onondaga, who consider it their sacred responsibility to protect their land.
One of their chief objectives in filing the petition is a seat at the table on environmental decisions across the original territory. The other is an acknowledgment that New York, even if only in principle, owes them 2.5 million acres.
Across the nation, government officials have grappled with the notion of reparations to address historical injustices. In 2022, officials in Evanston, Illinois, began distributing $25,000 to Black descendants of enslaved people as reparations for housing discrimination.
In New York, people who were once imprisoned for marijuana crimes received preference for licenses to sell cannabis; Gov. Kathy Hochul last year also created a statewide task force to examine whether reparations can be made to address the legacy of racial injustice.
Some Native nations have been willing to drop land claims in exchange for licenses to operate casinos. But the Onondaga say they are not interested in cash. Nor are they interested in licenses to sell cannabis or operate a casino — which they consider socially irresponsible and a threat to their tribal sovereignty.
There’s really just one thing that Hill says would be an acceptable form of payment: land.
The Onondaga insist they are not looking to displace anyone. Instead they hope the state might turn over a tract of unspoiled land for the nation to hunt, fish, preserve or develop as it sees fit. One such repatriation effort is underway: the return of 1,000 acres as a part of a federal settlement with Honeywell International for the contamination of Onondaga Lake.
The United States has not contested the Onondaga’s account of how the nation lost its land. Indeed, the lawyers representing the United States in the Onondaga case have centered their argument on legal precedence, noting that courts at every level — including the U.S. Supreme Court — rejected the Onondaga’s claims as too old and most remedies too disruptive to the region’s current inhabitants.
To the Onondaga, the logic required to square these contentions seems unfair. Why should the United States be allowed to steal their land and face no obligation to give some back?
Joe Heath, a lawyer representing the Onondaga, said the refusal to acknowledge the past stands in the way of healing the future.
“If we don’t admit that those things have happened, how do we move forward together?” he said. But Heath understood that such an admission would have serious legal and practical implications.
“The problem is that all of the land in New York, in the United States, is stolen Indian land,” he said. “What does that mean in terms of U.S. property law?”
‘All of Our Country and for a Very Trifle’
There was a time when the United States worked with the Haudenosaunee, the confederacy that includes the Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, Tuscarora, Mohawk and Seneca nations, as the fledgling government sought to defuse conflicts in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War.
The federal government entered into three treaties that affirmed the confederacy’s sovereignty and ownership over much of the northern part of New York state. Critically, those treaties guaranteed that no one but the federal government would have the authority to deal with the Haudenosaunee.
But as early as 1788, New York state had started to chip away at the Haudenosaunee land and sovereignty. Over the next 34 years, the state would come to control nearly all of the Onondaga land — as well as most of that owned by the other Haudenosaunee nations — because of a series of transactions that the Onondaga say were illegal.
“The [New] York people have got almost all of our Country and for a very trifle,” Onondaga chiefs told federal officials in 1794, according to the papers of U.S. Indian Commissioner Timothy Pickering.
For the next two centuries, the Onondaga continued to fruitlessly press their case in numerous face-to-face meetings with presidents, members of Congress and governors of New York.
Legal options were limited: In New York, for example, Native people were not considered to have standing to sue on their own behalf until 1987.
When Indian nations did make it into the courtroom, many claims were dismissed.
The Onondaga’s decision to go to court was decades in the making, with the first discussions beginning more than 40 years ago. For the next 20 years, the council debated in the long house — a long, low structure made of whole logs used for ceremonial events and Haudenosaunee gatherings.
Hill is one of 14 chiefs on that council, each of whom represents a different clan. In the Onondaga tradition, these chiefs are male, but they are appointed by the clan mothers.
The chiefs did not initially embrace the idea of a lawsuit, seeing it as another venue for broken promises.
“Our elders were always afraid of going into courts,” Hill said. Many were concerned that losing in court could lead them to lose what little land they had left.
“We finally said: We have to do something,” Hill said.
In 2005, the Onondaga filed a version of their current claim in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of New York, naming as defendants the state of New York, its governor, Onondaga County, the city of Syracuse and a handful of the companies responsible for the environmental degradation over the past centuries. A similar case filed by the Oneida Nation was, at the time, pending before the Supreme Court.
But just 18 days after the Onondaga filed their petition, the Supreme Court rejected the Oneidas’ case. The decision referenced an colonial-era legal theory known as the Doctrine of Discovery, which holds, in part, that Indigenous property claims were nullified by the “discovery” of that land by Christians.
The “long lapse of time” and “the attendant dramatic changes in the character” precluded the Oneida nation from the “disruptive remedy” it sought, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the majority decision.
The ruling appeared to doom the chances of any Native nation seeking recompense through the courts. The history seemed settled.
‘Disruptive to Who?’
Of the more than 1,600 words in the Supreme Court’s ruling, one stood out to Hill: “disruptive.”
“When I heard that, I said, ‘Well, OK, disruptive to who?’” he recalled. “It’s already been disruptive to us, as Indigenous people.”
Some might have left it at that: an admission that Native people could never be made whole for the profound wrongs perpetrated on them.
Instead, lawyers for the Onondaga used the rejection as the premise for a new argument. They contended that the U.S. court system’s refusal to find in their favor proved that they could not find justice in the United States.
The petition filed before the international commission amounts to the most direct challenge of the United States’ treatment of Indigenous people to date in terms of human rights — and the first to apply the lens of colonialism.
“What the Onondaga litigation is doing right now is to force a political dialogue with the colonial occupier,” said Andrew Reid, a lawyer representing the Onondaga, adding that a favorable finding could prompt a political conversation about the United States’ treatment of native people on the world stage.
Representatives for the State Department declined to be interviewed and did not respond to requests for comment. But in legal documents, the United States contended that the Onondaga’s central claims have been rejected in prior cases; that they have had “abundant opportunity” for their case to be heard; and that they are merely unhappy with the outcome. It also contended that the commission has no jurisdiction, given that the bulk of the nation’s losses took place two centuries before it was established.
“The judicial process functioned as it should have in this matter,” the United States wrote in legal papers.
The commission’s decision could come at any time, but Hill is trying not to focus on it.
Most days he is glad to have tried.
“We aren’t sure how it’s going to go,” he says. “But at least it won’t be hanging there for the next generation.”
51 years ago last week, my relatives powerfully announced themselves on the world stage. In response to the ongoing subjugation of our people, more than 200 Oglala Lakota and American Indian Movement (AIM) activists occupied the town of Wounded Knee, right down the road from me, here on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. You probably know some of what happened next. The armed standoff with federal government agents lasted more than two months, garnering regular coverage on the nightly news and waking people across the planet to our struggle in a new way.
Today, I encourage you to become more familiar with what this occupation meant at the time and explore its lasting legacy. Please read my article on Last Real Indians from a few years back and watch this video from my daughter, Lakota Law spokesperson and organizer Tokata Iron Eyes, who was on the ground (and horseback) for the anniversary last week.
More than 50 years after the fact, I still have questions — some similar to those my relatives must have asked at the time they rose up in 1973. How could the U.S. government expect traditional people to live under the conditions colonialism forced upon us? How could such treatment escape the accountability of the law, and how could we be expected to forgive it? And, now, as we continue to fight for basic things like clean water and meaningful input — and as we continue, too often, to question one another — what will be the legacy of AIM, and of our resistance decades later against the Dakota Access pipeline?
Those are hard questions to answer, but I do know one thing. Without a doubt, the United States is responsible for all of it. This is how colonization works. An occupying force gains by instigating, arming, funding, and providing legal cover for murder. It gains by dividing and conquering. It gains land, minerals, and wealth. Our continued subjugation and our infighting are good for the colony.
About two years after the occupation ended, on the very day that FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were killed on the Jumping Bull compound (for which AIM activist Leonard Peltier was later falsely convicted), the Oglala Sioux Tribe signed over a huge chunk of land containing mineral deposits to the United States. Consider that colonizers often use diversionary tactics and counterinsurgency measures to lower the cost of extracting whatever minerals the corporations want — and to eliminate opposition.
In the 1970s, that opposition was coming domestically from hippies, Black nationalists, the Brown Berets, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Weathermen, AIM, the National Indian Youth Council, and so forth. America was still openly racist, people were dying, and BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/People of Color) had no choice but to take public stands to shed light and call attention to the conditions we faced, regularly enforced by a government that either didn’t care or wanted us gone.
Thus, in our lexicon, we say that AIM liberated Wounded Knee. We celebrate Feb. 27 as “Liberation Day.” To this day, we remember the liberators with pride — and we remember that we are always susceptible to manipulation by outside forces. That’s exactly why we rose up once again at Standing Rock in 2016. And while it’s troubling that we continue to have to make such stands, I also see reason for hope.
More and more Americans are beginning to understand that most of their elected leaders have little interest in defending our country from extractive and/or war-profiteering corporations. Many Americans find themselves on our side now; they see corporate encroachment invading every aspect of their lives. I’m grateful that you recognize we must celebrate liberation, celebrate a patriotism which defends sacred lands and waters — and, by extension, ourselves, our birthrights, and our constitutional rights.
Wopila tanka — thank you for supporting Indigenous sovereignty! Chase Iron Eyes Director and Lead Counsel
Water is Life 