Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-4

Chapters 5-7

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 5-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “Red Power”

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) was founded in 1944 and spent much of the next decade successfully fighting termination legislation that targeted Indigenous peoples. However, many young people who followed NCAI’s movements were frustrated by its irresolution concerning colonial administration. Young activists protested the NCAI’s conservative policies and actions and began “a new era of Indigenous protest that called itself ‘Red Power’” (173). Vine Deloria, one such activist, advocated for Indigenous liberation, believing that the interest of Indigenous peoples was at direct odds with US culture and values. Red Power rejected assimilationism and instead embraced tribalism.

Estes draws a connection between the Red Power movement and the centuries of abuse from the US government that led to widespread poverty among Indigenous nations. Promises of payment or equality almost always meant assimilation. Vine Deloria suggested that poverty was merely a symptom of a much larger problem that threatened Indigenous peoples: colonialism. The fight was against colonialism itself. Red Power gained momentum and marked many significant protests, including those at Alcatraz, Mount Rushmore, and Wounded Knee. New groups, such as United Native Americans and the American Indian Movement (AIM), provided support for protests, offered legal advocacy, and established survival schools in which Indigenous students could learn about their culture and traditions—and resist the institutions that had oppressed them. Women were an important part of creating and leading AIM, but their contributions are largely forgotten.

AIM had chapters all over the country and Canada, and the Oceti Sakowin chapter became nationalistic in nature, especially regarding the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. AIM’s growth led to the occupation of Mount Rushmore—a monument built on Indigenous land without permission. The Trail of Broken Treaties—a caravan protest including AIM and other movements—went to Washington to protest the lack of fidelity concerning treaty rights. AIM investigated the torturous murder of Oglala man Raymond Yellow Thunder at the hands of white men from a border town near Pine Ridge Reservation, leading to a manslaughter charge for two of the four men. Meanwhile, journalists criticized AIM as a radicalistic and militant group, suggesting that Yellow Thunder deserved his fate for leaving the reservation. “Off the reservation” then became a term that meant Indigenous peoples who had gone rogue and were somehow criminals.

Although the government wanted to remove Indigenous peoples from reservation lands, many states developed laws to limit Indigenous peoples from moving into them. The FBI followed AIM and Red Power closely and spread smear campaigns to discredit and dismantle the movements. Anti-AIM and “Anti-Indianism” attitudes continue to pervade white culture, especially in states like South Dakota. However, white working-class people and farmers allied themselves with Indigenous peoples through the Black Hills Alliance, finding a common enemy in major corporations.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Internationalism”

In 1977, Indigenous elders from many different nations led a march to seek a seat at the United Nations. Before this gathering, 97 different Indigenous nations represented the International Indian Treaty Council, which drafted the “Declaration of Continuing Independence.” This declaration invited other nations to prosecute the US for violating the human rights of Indigenous peoples and for its refusal to sign the United Nations 1948 Treaty on Genocide. These movements represented a history of Indigenous resistance and “global Indigenous identity” (203). The Treaty Council rejected colonialism and imperialism entirely and invited those whom the nature of colonialism made outsiders to join in the opposition. They were seeking sovereignty.

In the minds of many colonial settlers, Indigenous peoples should and did become assimilated and dissolved into the culture of US whiteness. They viewed Indigenous culture as a thing of the past and contributed to its erasure. However, Estes argues that this represents a blindness to the truth—that Indigenous peoples have maintained their identity and continue to fight for it. Many rejected US citizenship altogether, perceiving it as assimilationist and an acceptance of colonialism. For example, Zitkala-Ša, an Ihanktonwan writer and activist, was an important figure in the Red Power movement. Her writing challenged the oppressive history of colonialism and its effects on Indigenous peoples, using strong language and bold calls to action. Because of the efforts of Indigenous resisters, the 1977 International NGO Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas outlined the “Draft Declaration of Principles for the Defense of the Indigenous Nations and Peoples of the Western Hemisphere,” which urged the UN to recognize Indigenous groups as nationhoods. After voting against it, the US adopted this declaration four decades later, in 2007. In 2009, Congress passed a defense bill that issued a quiet apology to Indigenous peoples in the US while simultaneously accepting no responsibility for its actions against them.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Liberation”

Films in the US often portray a flipped version of reality in which white settlers are attacked by Indigenous peoples and serve as the heroes of colonialist narratives. Estes argues that, while these films are false, they contain truth in that white settlers are surrounded. Indigenous resistance is strong and powerful, and while these films suggest that Indigenous peoples fought against white heroes, the reality is that Indigenous resistance is about fighting for Indigenous lives and the familial relationships between human and nonhuman kin. The dances at the Oceti Sakowin Camp to oppose the DAPL mirrored the dances at Greasy Grass, where Custer made his alleged “last stand,” and those at Wounded Knee.

Similarly, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed dams that flooded Indigenous land and killed and relocated Indigenous peoples just as they fast-tracked the construction of DAPL, in both cases directly defying treaty agreements between Indigenous peoples and the US. The DAPL project mounted its own attack, using law enforcement, military resources, and private security companies and nonlethal but extremely harmful tactics to combat unarmed, peaceful protesters.

Meanwhile, the Oceti Sakowin camp became a monument to what an anti-colonialist culture could look like. Campers had access to “free food, free education, free health care, free legal aid, a strong sense of community, safety, and security”—services that Estes argues are unavailable to the average US citizen. The #NoDAPL camps represented what the future could be, free from the existence of oppression and exclusion. Estes compares the #NoDAPL movement to other anti-pipeline and culturally responsive movements across the globe, especially Black Lives Matter. Estes asserts that the fact that the Black Lives Matter movement arose during Obama’s presidency is proof that it does not matter who heads a system if the system itself is broken. Estes explains that the relationship between human and nonhuman relatives holds the key to Earth’s survival and the eradication of violence and oppressive colonialism.

Chapters 5-7 Analysis

These final three chapters exemplify the book’s title and emphasize the theme The Legacy and Prophecy of Indigenous Resistance. Estes sends a clear message: Indigenous peoples aren’t going away. The pursuit of capitalism, Estes claims, is linked to its desire to eradicate Indigenous peoples. The history of settler colonialism is founded on the following idea: Assimilate—or else. The book ties US colonialism to global imperialism, showing how imperialism has always been connected to the subjugation of people of color. It also connects imperialism to capitalism, presenting one as the other, merely in a different coat. This directly correlates to the theme Capitalism and Colonialism as Forces of Evil. Estes suggests that no path exists for Indigenous peoples to thrive within a capitalist society—and that a movement of resistance must therefore continue.

Since the Red Power movement, the US has used alternative tactics to continue the genocide of Indigenous peoples. Overt wars gave way to behind-the-scenes policies and shady dealings that depleted resources, reallocated land, and diminished rights. However, these covert dealings empowered outward violence toward Indigenous peoples. Capitalism and colonialism became the fuel for this violence, as evident in the stories of Yellow Thunder, DAPL, and countless others. Each action is an attempt to continue the work of a war that began when colonists set foot on American soil, seeking to establish a new society to advance capitalist gain through the pursuit of gold and tobacco farming. That war continues. For the Oceti Sakowin and other Indigenous nations, the victories have been hard-won in the face of adversity.

Our History Is the Future is a manifesto of Indigenous resistance—a refusal to assimilate or go away. Indigenous women who sought to disrupt a cycle of violence and abuse led movements that saw astounding gains, such as in their establishing AIM. The Trail of Broken Treaties united Indigenous nations, much as the Oceti Sakowin resistance against DAPL did. Estes asserts that time is interwoven—that the history, present, and future are so intertwined that they are indistinguishable. The violence against Indigenous peoples in the past is the same violence that perpetuates today. The Indigenous resistance against opposition in the past is the same as the resistance today. Traditions evolve to meet new challenges, but the cycle continues. Estes suggests that a future in which Indigenous peoples can thrive outside of capitalism can exist—that the cycle can be broken.