Native Americans

Information on indigenous peoples, who are on the front lines of green issues because they are often first and most affected by damage to ecosystems, and have long and deep connections to them.

See also Category: Native Americans and Environmental Justice as well as Activism

Overviews and Research Resources

Indigenous Environmental Network ***

Dynamic dataviz map.

Yes magazine coverage example includes Idle No More, a native occupy/spring.

Profiles and information about California's indigenous Native American Tribes.

Indian Country has environmental and human rights news.

Lists Native American tribes in California and provides descriptions of their location and diet.

Native American news quarterly also AlterNative

Nativeamericans.com

International Indian Treaty Council works on food sovereignty, climate etc.

A brief history of Native Americans in California

Ohlone tribe

History of Ohlone tribe.

Ethnic NewsWatch: Full-text newspaper and journal articles focusing on news, culture and history from the ethnic, minority and native press. (university login).

Native American Studies

News

Native people resist Dakota Access pipeline 9/16. 12/16 UPDATE: WIN! Reporters arrested; military tactics deployed images,women leaders 10/16. Remarkable Video Shows How to Turn Art Into Activism see Backbone Campaign (Ecotopians join it to support Native Ppl resistance to Dakota Access pipeline) 11/16. Also supporting electric rail.Dakota Access pipeline’s private security unleashed attack dogs and sprayed mace on protesters. 9/16

Researchers Around the World Are Learning From Indigenous Communities—Here's Why That's a Good Thing 6/16.

Jihan Gearon, Navajo and African American, has been diligently working to introduce the idea of renewable energy systems to tribal members. 1/16 Grist 50.

Native Americans face sea level rise 1/16.

Fight to save last Canadian forest. 9/15.

US mines Grand Canyon Havasupi fight. 8/15.

Idle No More: Indigenous-Led Protests Sweep Canada for Native Sovereignty and Environmental Justice, also in Oakland 1/13 Bill McKibben's take. Update and background 1/13. 5/13 ,LOE.org Audio. 2/13 update. Anthem (rap video).

Indigenous in North Dakota fights fracking 11/14.

Native tribe challenges Keystone XL pipeline 12/11. Lakota Sioux update 4/13. Lakotas block the XL Pipeline 3/12 Canadians too. Lakota Hunger Strike4/12. Eriel Deranger, Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation interview on tarsands/XL. 10/14 update including coal and gas exports.

Willie Nelson and Neil Young, whose Farm Aid concerts have been raising money for family farmers since 1985, performed at Harvest the Hope to call attention to the destruction the Keystone XL pipeline would wreak on farms and nearby tribal lands. Young wrote a new anthem: Who's Gonna Stand Up? 10/14.

Winona LaDuke 2012 PowerShift talk video Honor the Earth, food and energy independence.

Native Americans moving to wind.

Building Better Forests: Scientists in Wisconsin are drawing on both new research and traditional Native American knowledge to create forests that will be more resilient in the face of climate change.

Natives Fight Coal 2/14.

Native People and British Columbia stop big tar-sands pipeline

6/3

The Canadian province of British Columbia has come out in formal opposition to a plan for a massive pipeline system that would carry bitumen from Alberta's tar-sands fields to a coastal port, pointing out the significant dangers of oil spills. But we're not talking about the Keystone XL pipeline here. We're talking about Enbridge's Northern Gateway project, a pair of pipelines proposed to carry tar-sands oil west across B.C. to a port in the town of Kitimat -- effectively a backup system in case America rejects Keystone XL. A new shipping terminal in Kitimat would feed oil onto ships headed for Asia.More

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Canada Fracking Protests Turn Violent; 40 Arrested After Police Cars Set On Fire 10/13.

Peru Declares Oil Contamination Emergency In Remote Amazon Region 3/13.

Land Grab Cheats North Dakota Tribes Out of $1 Billion, Suits Allege 2/13.

Third National Assessment of global warming (summary) has chapters on what will happen with water, forests, native ppl etc.

Ecuador’s Kichwa people have asked for our help to stop the government turning their forest home into an oil field. A massive scandal in the global media challenging President Correa to act on his environmental principles could persuade him to pull back and stop the Amazon oil rush. Sign the petition now 1/13. Children of the Jaguar is a campaign documentary.

Rebecca Solnit reflects on 2012: Who foresaw that the silly misinterpretations of Mayan prophesy would be overtaken by the Mayan Zapatistas, who rose once again last Friday? (Meanwhile, Canada's Native people started a dynamic movement around indigenous rights and the environment that has led to everything from flash-mob dances in an Edmonton Mall to demonstrations in Ottawa.)

Tribes take on coal 10/12. why it matters (video).

Action on climate change: Congressional testimony, PBS NewsHour video part 1 part 2 on Northwest coast salmon. 7.12

Louisiana tribe loses land to sea level rise 6/12.

Native villages in Alaska.

Caroline Cannon has won the prestigious Goldman Award for bringing the voice and perspective of her Inupiat community in Point Hope to the battle to keep Arctic waters safe from offshore oil and gas drilling, and successfully halted numerous oil and gas leases in the region.(audio) transcript.

Arboretum celebrates partnership with Amah Mutsun tribe on native plants.

Eagle controversy 3/12.

Uranium mining and Native people.

More than ten percent of the potential for clean energy in the US sits on land owned by Indian tribes.

Video

Documentary Remembers Standing Rock in Beauty and Catastrophe "Awake, A Dream from Standing Rock" includes Josh Fox who did the amazing fracking documentary Gasland. trailer *** 10/17 see Native Americans see Films

Standing On Sacred Ground:In this four-part documentary series, native people share ecological wisdom and spiritual reverence while battling a utilitarian view of land in the form of government megaprojects, consumer culture, and resource extraction as well as competing religions and climate change.

America's native prisoners of war: Aaron Huey's effort to photograph poverty in America led him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the struggle of the native Lakota people -- appalling, and largely ignored -- compelled him to refocus. Five years of work later, his haunting photos intertwine with a shocking history lesson in this bold, courageous TEDtalk.***

See One Woman's Amazing Project to Save a Vanishing Native American CA Language 12/16.

‘Vanishing World’ Explores the Realities of Climate Refugees: Marianne Hougen-Moraga from Denmark explores in her short film Vanishing World—part of the Action4Climate video competition—how people from the remote Alaskan village of Newtok are directly affected by climate change. Their village is literally sinking and now they are starting to build America’s first climate-change refugee camp. 9/14. See Global Warming and Sea Level Rise.

Quileute 'Twilight' Tribe Deals With Rising Sea Levels That Threaten Way of Life Nov. 26, 2012 PBS Newshour.

Sacred Poison shows the devastating toll past uranium mining has had on the Navajo people and discusses the potential risks posed by a renewal of uranium mining. It lays out the complex and conflicting economic, political, environmental and spiritual issues involved. However, this documentary in no way portrays the Navajo as victims of outside forces, but rather agents of change within their community and beyond. Yvonne Latty 2011. excerpt) Related article

The Moapa Band of Paiutes continues to fight the pollution from the nearby Reid Gardner coal plant in Southern Nevada, and the Sierra Club stands with them. Today, we are releasing this powerful new video that features members of the tribe telling moving personal stories about the devastating effects of pollution from Reid Gardner. 6/12

We Shall Remain, a provocative PBS multi-media project that establishes Native history as an essential part of American history.

Children of the Jaguar is a campaign documentary about the struggle of the Sarayaku indigenous community of Ecuador in order to defend their human rights and the right of many other communities across the Americas. A few years ago, the government authorised an oil company to enter Sarayaku's land and drill for oil. Neither the government nor the company consulted with Sarayaku whether the project was in line with their traditions and way of life. Since then, Sarayaku has been campaigning for justice and redress, including the removal of 1.4 tons of explosives which are still buried on their ancestral land. They are also defending their right to be consulted regarding further development projects which may affect them in the future. Having exhausted all judicial avenues at home, the Sarayaku have taken their case to the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Children of the Jaguar follows the Sarayaku delegation as they make their way to the highest regional court in the Americas.

Audio

Bay Native Circle KPFA 2 pm Weds. Hosts Janeen Antoine, Lakota Harden, Mark Anquoe, Ras K'Dee and Morning Star Gali bring you today's Native issues, people, culture & events.Bay Area Native Community Calendar.

Music: Idle No More Anthem "Red Winter" (rap video) Lyrics. Bullet Proof.

John Trudell was the spokesman of the American Indian Movement during the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, where he set up a radio broadcast called Radio Free Alcatraz. Trudell later served as the head of the American Indian Movement for most of the 1970s. He was also a poet who combined spoken word and music for more than a dozen albums. Trudell died in December at the age of 69. song “Time Dreams”–a collaboration between the Minneapolis folk band The Pines.

Junipero Serra role in colonialism’s intrinsic brutality. He is due to be canonized by Pope Francis.audio talk. Elias Castillo, Author, A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California's Indians by the Spanish Missions.review.

An indigenous tribe in the Amazon is trying to protect its forest by selling carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market. 9/12.

Tribe Called Red music.

Uprising Radio Dunbar-Ortiz PPL's History 11/24/15.

Non-fiction Books

The Sacred Headwaters by Wade Davis.

Literature

List of writers

Sherman Alexie is a younger writer whose stories about the Rez are darkly funny. Smoke Signals (1998) is a film of his screenplay based on "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven".

Paula Gunn Allen is a great poet, Feminist and scholar.

Louise Erdrich's novels include Love Medicine (1984), The Beet Queen (1986), Tracks (1988).

Joy Harjo Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a great poet (and plays sax too Eagle Song). A new autobiography Crazy Brave is about the dreams, visions and heartache that led her to find her voice as a poet and musician.(audio interview).

N. Scott Momaday, a Native American author of Kiowa decent. His work House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, is considered the founding author in what critic Kenneth Lincoln has coined the Native American Renaissance.

Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony and Almanac of the Dead are cultural critiques that have environmental aspects.

History

Readings

Roxanne-Dunbar-Ortiz (bio) An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States excerpt. 2014 interview. 2014 talk video. Uprising Radio Dunbar-Ortiz PPL's History 11/24/15.

Cronon, William Changes in the Land documents how Native Americans related to nature, and what happened when the market was introduced. Ch. 8 is the summary/conclusion.

Charles Mann, author of 1491(book exploration on how Native Americans used the land) has also written about interactions between colonists and Native peoples. Atlantic Monthly excerpt; (audio interview) (1491) discusses the voyage of Christopher Columbus and the birth of globalization in terms of world trade and ecological collision. "1492 Before and After":2012 video talk 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Knopf, 2011 Charles Mann, "Living in the Homogenocene: The First 500 Years" (video) LongNow 2012 talk.

Another account of megafauna extinctions.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown video excerpt.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen is more recent history.

Vine Deloria, Jr. wrote Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto.

NAFTA effect on worker safety in Mexico. Overall effect (video) 12/13 20th anniversary report (which could have lessons for current TPP). NAFTA sparked indigenous Zapatista uprising in Mexico.

Steve Inskeep talked about his book, Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab.10/15 booktv video.

California

A brief history of Native Americans in California. Another by Park Service. Cabrillio College.

Junipero Serra role in colonialism’s intrinsic brutality. He is due to be canonized by Pope Francis.audio talk. Elias Castillo, Author, A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California's Indians by the Spanish Missions.review.

Ohlone tribe.History of Ohlone tribe, see esp here.

Dr Tad Beckman's, The View from Native California (extensive; thanks Wayback machine!).

The Ohlone Way by Margolin, Malcolm, book about Spanish and Indian contact (video interview).

Indians of California: The Changing Image by James J. Rawls University of Oklahoma Press, 1986 - History - 293 pages McHenry E78.C15R35 1984 excerpt. When the first Anglo-Americans visited California early in the nineteenth century, the future state was still a remote province of the Spanish empire. Early visitors, filled with a sense of American’s Manifest Destiny, described the missionary priests and their Indian converts in terms of the Black Legend of Spanish abuse of native peoples. Later, when the Anglos settled in California and assumed the life-style of the Mexican rancheros, they viewed the Indians as a primitive laboring class, docile and exploitable. Finally, after 1849, the gold rush brought hundreds of thousands of new white immigrants, who treated the primitive "diggers" simply as threats to their own prosperity and security.

Digger: The Tragic Fate of the California Indians from the Missions to the Gold Rush by Jerry Stanley available via InterLibrary loan from SJSU (highly recommended, though this particular history ain't pretty).summary notes.

Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873 by Brendan C. Lindsay. excerpt.

Ishi lived at UCSF], Ishi in Two Worlds, (50th Anniversary Edition): A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America by Theodora Kroeber (not the last?)video documentary (1992)UC library resources, (short video).

Images

Images.

Projects and Funding

Erika Zavaleta, environmental studies, conceived new Conservation Scholars Program will partner with other organizations including Santa Cruz-based SACNAS: Advancing Chicano/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science. 11/15.

Every year South Dakota blatantly violates the Indian Child Welfare Act by removing over 740 Native children from their families and community and putting into non-Native foster care. In 2005, the Lakota People’s Law Project was founded with a mission to end this tragedy and win the return of thousands of children that were illegally taken from their families and tribes by creating foster care for Lakota, by Lakota. The Lakota People’s Law Project is working with tribal leaders; emerging Lakota leaders; grassroots organizers; and federal officials in the Department of Justice, Department of Interior, and Health and Human Services to finally end this genocide and create the permanent solution of tribal sovereignty. UCSC students needed. 5/15.

Udall Scholarships and internships To students who have demonstrated commitment to careers related to the environment including policy, engineering, science, education, urban planning and renewal, business, health, justice, economics, and other related fields; or to Native American and Alaska Native students who have demonstrated commitment to careers related to tribal public policy, including fields related to tribal sovereignty, tribal governance, tribal law, Native American education, Native American justice, natural resource management, cultural preservation and revitalization, Native American economic development, and other areas affecting Native American communities; or who have demonstrated commitment to careers related to Native health care.

Friends Foundation Internations supports the U’wa Defense Project/Amazon Watch and Mujer U’wa supporting the U’wa fight to preserve their indigenous territory in Colombia from oil exploitation. FFI funding over the years has gone toward a collaborative legal action to protect U’wa land from Occidental Petroleum’s massive oil drilling project in northeastern Colombia. In August, 2001, the oil company withdrew its plan to drill in the first exploratory well site on U’wa ancestral territory. Despite this victory, the State petroleum company is now exploring for oil on U’wa territory. FFI has supported leadership trainingsfor U’wa women and women’s workshops on human rights/environmental rights. FFI has provided financial assistance to the first U’wa women ever to study law at a Colombian University and for post degree international and human rights law training program.