November is Native American Heritage Month, dedicated to remembering and acknowledging Indigenous American history and recognizing past wrongdoings against Indigenous communities. However, these issues should not be minimized as being left to history; they remain pertinent and pressing to Native nations today.
Tatanka-Iyotanka, commonly known as Sitting Bull, a 19th-century leader of the Lakota tribe, once wrote:
“They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own and fence their neighbors away; they deface her with their buildings and their refuse…we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that away from us. My brothers, shall we submit or shall we say to them: 'First kill me before you take possession of my land’"
These words lay bare the historical mistreatment of Native American nations and their land.
Sitting Bull is most known for his association with the Battle of Little Bighorn, or Custer’s Last Stand, an 1876 battle against Lakota and Cheyenne members who refused to cede territory to government reservation treaties. He devoted his life to protecting Native land and possession.
The modern issue of Native land rights stems from The Dawes Act of 1887. This act was intended to amend previous actions against Indigenous peoples that included forced removal, violent wars and reservation treaties that limited Native nations to harshly defined sectors of land. In contrast, this act broke up reservation land, allotting small parcels to individuals and families.
Supposedly, this was to protect individual property rights, but the exclusion of some tribes and uneven distribution of unsuitable land made The Dawes Act detrimental to Indigenous communities. The Dawes Act also was meant to encourage Native Americans to assimilate into White America through the adoption of typical American settlement models, like individual farms.
The breakup of reservation land also allowed non-Natives to purchase “surplus” land, often the most desirable land for farming and ranching. This fractured previously established reservation land, removing tribal ownership and sovereignty over their ancestral land and dividing jurisdiction between federal, state and tribal government.
This has led to disproportionate poverty rates within reservations and mass government withdrawals of tribal recognition in the mid-20th century that are still being fought to be regained today.
56 million acres of Native American land is held under Trust Land Acquisition, which purports to benefit tribes by supporting tribal sovereignty and implementing specific tax policies.
However, trust lands are still federal-owned territory, and red-tape bureaucratic policies create difficulty for communities to improve economically and make necessary improvements to reservations. Additionally, eligibility for Trust Land Acquisition is limited to federally recognized tribes, unavailable to over 400 tribes that are not recognized.
Land sovereignty is not simply about ownership or geography. For Indigenous communities, it often concerns a deeper connection to culture, history and spirituality. However, even with sovereignty, Native tribes, like the Standing Rock Sioux, still suffer from pervasive federal action that threatens sacred Indigenous land conservation and public health within communities.
The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) for example, a transport for crude oil from the North Dakota Bakken region into Illinois, sparked powerful protests in 2016 from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. In addition to potentially being constructed on ancestral burial grounds and other sacred sites, a major concern about the pipeline is the environmental impact.
DAPL’s parent company, Energy Transfer Partners, has a long record of oil-spills from other projects which raises major environmental concerns, like water contamination and property damage. While activists were able to push back and delay its construction, the fight against the DAPL continues today.
The mixture of environmental concerns and religious liberty infringement seen in the DAPL conflict are just several examples of the intersection of prolific environmental injustice and infrastructural racism that affects Indigenous communities.
These issues shouldn't just concern Native populations. In the context of myself writing this, navigating these issues as a White individual is complex. In a modern America that has become increasingly Westernized, it can be challenging to productively discuss issues that diverse communities face. However, it is important for everyone to be aware of how these topics impact those communities.
A way to effectively discuss Native issues is to listen to Indigenous people themselves, and decentralize our own experiential worldview when educating ourselves on them. Viewing Native American culture through the language and lens of Western civilization can flatten the depth of the issues and minimize the importance of honoring Indigenous rights and history.
For example, a prominent social issue is the future of climate change and environmental protection. The conversation surrounding these topics dominates political and advocacy narratives, but often ignores the vital role that Indigenous communities play in conserving the environment.
Historically, Native American and Indigenous groups across the globe, have practiced generational systems of land management that have proven incredibly effective. This is not only because of a deep understanding of ecology but also because of a profound spiritual connection to the earth.
However, Indigenous communities have been largely left out of environmental movements, to those movements’ detriment. Ignoring the contribution of Natives is a grave mistake; methods like regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty could revolutionize how we approach environmental protection.
Regenerative agriculture describes farming systems that are designed not only to produce crops for profit, but benefit the land by regenerating soil and promoting biodiversity to increase plant health. Food sovereignty is a concept that encourages giving communities the power over local food systems and the ability to control production and distribution.
Not only do these practices impact the environment, they also benefit individual communities by allowing self-sufficiency and autonomy in how land is managed.
Indigenous and Native groups must be brought into the conversation. Acknowledging their presence and the erasure of Native injustices throughout history is vital in repairing the land and solving greater national issues like poverty, food insecurity and infringements on rights.
Native American nations are still fighting for recognition and rights to their land, and efforts like recognizing Native American Heritage Month offer opportunities to become educated and honor their history while working to protect their future.
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