Make no mistake, Thomas King’s book
The Inconvenient Indian: A
curious account of native people
in North America (2012) is
special. It uses his special
communication gifts to put
devastating facts into light-hearted
jokes. King gives a history of all
of us “treaty peoples” from the
perspective of a native person. I
cannot do justice to his
readability, humor and painful
information. As he says, this is not
a formal history. But it’s a good
read with lots of hard information.
Chapter 1, Forget
Columbus leaps from
Columbus and all that to Almo, Idaho
where a plaque tells of an 1861
massacre of 300 immigrants (“Whites”
– King lumps all non-Indians
together as the non-Indians have
lumped all Indians together.). Only
5 survived. Other massacres included
an 1813 Fort Mims Alabama massacre
of 400 Whites by Creek Red Sticks.
We notice numbers are much higher
for Whites massacring Indians (his
terms) from 1598 to 1980. King then
reveals that no evidence supports
the Almo massacre – it’s just a
convenient story! King
moves to other stories – Pocahontas,
for example. Then there are stories
gathering mythic cults: the 1885
rebellion led by Louis Riel, a Metis
Indian in Canada; and White General
Custer’s last stand in the 1976
Battle of Bighorn, Montana,
inspiring poets and painters. Other
players in these events get little
mention. Crazy Horse and Sitting
Bull beat Custer. Dumont was
alongside Riel in the last battle.
Riel was hanged but Dumont escaped
to Montana and continued Metis
resistance.
Chapter 2, The End of
the Trail The second
chapter examines the mythical Indian
of the Hollywood screen, the many
important roles played by a
surprisingly large number of Indian
actors in Hollywood movies - and the
like – many giving us archetypical
Indians like Tonto in the Lone
Ranger rather than members of named
peoples.
Chapter 3, Too Heavy to Lift shifts the
thinking into Dead Indians,
Live Indians and Legal
Indians.
The Dead Indians are not deceased
but stereotypes and clichés – with
war bonnets, beaded shirts,
loincloths and the like. Phil
Fontaine (Ojibway) appeared in Dead
Indian leathers and feather
headdress on the floor of the House
of Commons in 2008 to receive the
Canadian Government’s apology for
the abuses of residential schools.
King cites a quote from Theodore
Roosevelt 1886 who didn’t go so far
as to say the only good Indian was a
Dead Indian! Place names include: Dead
Indian Canyon CA, Dead Indian Pass
WY and Dead Indian Lake, Oklahoma.
Products promote Dead Indians: Big
Chief Jerky; Tomahawk missiles and
the egregious Crazy Horse Malt
Liquor. There are Cherokee
underpants and there is Land O’Lakes
butter. There are remedies like
White Beaver’s Cough Cream; Kickapoo
Indian Sagwa. “You might think that
Native people were a significant
target for sales. We’re not, of
course. We don’t buy this crap.”
He turns to Live Indians. Yes,
diseases and the like from White
arrivals killed upward of 80% of
Indians on the Eastern seaboard.
However there are still Live Indians
– but seen transparently. Since
Whites view Indians as Dead Indians,
contemporary Indians appear unreal
or phony. Tribal
names, Blackfoot, Navajo etc. don’t
counter this authenticity gap
because Whites can’t deal with the
600 Canadian and 550 US “recognized”
tribes – they use one collective;
aboriginals; natives; first nations.
Not all Live Indians are Legal
Indians! In the 2006 Canadian census
there were 565,000 Status Indians
and 1,200,000 Status Indians plus
Inuit and Metis - about 50% of
Indians in Canada. In the 2006 US
census there were 564 “recognized”
tribes accounting for about 950,000
Indians. The total US Indian
population is likely 2.4 million, so
those in recognized tribes account
for about 40% of Indians. The
Legal Indians result from hard-paid
peace treaties which granted them
certain rights.
The Indian Act controlled Legal
Indians in Canada from 1876 – adding
restrictions over the years: 1881
preventing sale of agricultural
produce; 1885 restricting religious
songs and dances; 1905 removal from
reserves too close to White
settlements; 1911 allowing
appropriation for public works like
roads; and so on. Until 1968 Legal
Indians could be “enfranchised” –
involuntarily stripped of status and
given Canadian Citizenship instead
-- by getting a degree, serving in
the military or becoming a lawyer or
a clergyperson.
In the US Legal Indians are in
tribes recognized by the Federal
Government. Generally tribes define
their membership and it is generally
on the basis of blood quantum. Once
enrolled in a tribe one is a Legal
Indian. In the 50’s the US removed
107 tribes from the federal
register. The 1953 Termination Act
and Relocation Act allowed
unilateral removal of tribes from
the federal register and
“encouraged” the relocation of the
Indians involved to cities. North
America cares about Dead Indians.
Having Live Indians is problematic.
Chapter 4 One
Name to Rule Them All
begins with the sometimes heard “why
didn’t we kill you all” and the
western historical orthodoxy: In the
beginning were Europeans who were
enlightened and Indians who were
not. They fought and traded and
traded and fought. After
the 7 years war, the American
Revolutionary War and the War of
1812 a hideous wilderness became two
nation States – Canada and the US.
There was a big line across the map
dividing the lakes and trees – and
Indians were in there rather like
furniture.
Initial Indian/White relations were
around commerce and military
alliances where the Indians
understood themselves to be
sovereign. By
the late 1700s as European military
forces gained the upper hand, Whites
began to reimagine the place of
Indian nations. Beginning in 1823
three US Supreme Court decisions
confirmed unilateral decisions the
US government had made, taking power
from the Indians: Indians could only
sell land to the US federal
government; Indian tribes were not
sovereign but domestic dependent
nations; responsibility to regulate
Indians was with the federal
government. Canada formalized a
similar relationship via the Indian
Act 1876. Distinct tribes were
ignored. There was one name to rule
them all: Indian.
Post 1800 gunboat diplomacy was
replaced by “Plan A”: gunboats &
treaty & removal &
displacement. The US stopped signing
treaties in 1871 and Canada began.
The last Canadian treaty was with
the Nisga in 2000.
The rationale for removal and
relocation was Indian welfare. The
assault on Indian land was greater
in the US on account of large scale
settlement. In 1802 Jefferson
arranged to give Georgia
Indian land in the East in
return for some Louisiana land
purchase area in the West. In 1804
Governor Harrison of Indiana somehow
got a small cohort of Sauk chiefs to
cede all the tribe’s land in
Illinois and Wisconsin. The Choctaw
were bullied into the 1820 Treaty of
Doak Stand and the Big Bear Cree
bullied into signing Treaty Six in
1876.
The Removal Act was signed by US
President Andrew Jackson in 1830. In
1831 the Choctaw were hustled out of
Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana
into Indian Territory. The Shawnee
were dragged out of Ohio. In 1832
the Ottawa and the Wyandot followed,
leaving Ohio free of Indians. By
1840 the majority of tribes East of
the Mississippi had been moved West
of the river into what would become
Oklahoma. The Cherokee call the
removal from Georgia the trail where
they cried – some 4,000 out of
17,000 died on the trail. There were
more removals with uncertain numbers
in the range 75,000 – 100,000. They
had massive impacts – breaking the
backs of communities.
Canada did relocation for
protection, civilization and
assimilation. Most treaties were
post 1940. In 1836 the Newash and
Saugeen Ojibway were forced to give
up 600,000 hectares south of Owen
Sound and move to the Bruce
Peninsula. Forever! But there were
then further forcible moves to
smaller parcels of land in 1851,
1857 and 1861. Similarly, in 1850
the Hudson’s Bay Company signed a
treaty with the Songhees of Victoria
Island. The Indians gave a large
parcel of land for a smaller one –
forever. But in 1859 citizens of
Victoria wanted the Indians moved
and in 1911 governments moved them
to a reserve near Esquimalt. In
1935, the Metis of Ste Madeleine,
Manitoba were removed following the
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act –
their houses burned and their
community destroyed with no
compensation.
In 1942, two thousand Mi’kmaq
in scattered locations in Nova
scotia were relocated into the two
largest settlements . By 1944 10
news houses had been built there. By
1948 unemployment was rampant.
Nonetheless other relocations
continued into the 1950s and 60s.
After WWII the growing North
American economy called for
hydro-electric projects which caused
more relocations. The 1975 agreement
with Cree and Inuit for the James
Bay Project was the best of a bad
situation for the Indians.
Chapter 5, We
are Sorry, is about
assimilation initiatives. Indian
tribes were ignored at the signing
of the 1783 Treaty of Paris which
established the US. Yet the Treaty
of Ghent which ended the 1812 war
required the US to restore “all the
possessions rights and privileges
enjoyed in 1811 previous to such
hostilities.” This was ignored. King
says the Indian/White history was
dominated by impulses to exterminate
for natural law or manifest destiny
or to assimilate for salvation and
improvement.
In the 19th century extermination
and assimilation came together –
force of arms, deception, and
missionary zeal. In the late 19th
century Education was the tool to
feed Indians to White civilization
and in 1982 Pratt opened the first
residential school in Carlisle.
Catholics and Protestants battled to
establish schools on reserves and
reservations. Pratt wanted
residential schools off reservation
– as far off as possible. The school
forbade native traditions and
languages and trained Indians for
vocations – baking and the like.
In 1909 there were 25 residential
schools in the US plus 157
on-reservation boarding schools and
307 day schools. At age 15 King went
to a Christian Brothers Catholic
school in Sacramento California with
harsh discipline. He has no fond
memories from 2 years there, but it
was not the typical bad experience.
In Canada schools appeared in the
1840s and by 1932 there were more
than 80 -- 60% of them Catholic, 30%
Anglican. From 1850 attendance was
compulsory ages 6 to 15, with no
family or home community contact and
no native languages. In both
countries schools were overcrowded.
There was disease and sexual and
physical abuse. In 1907 a mortality
rate of 30% was reported for BC and
50% for Alberta. In 1928 a damning
report was issued on US boarding
schools – diet, disease,
overcrowding and poor medical
services.
Canada’s Hawthorne Report addressed
the same questions in 1966 and
concluded that whether Indians
remained culturally separate
depended on what it was worth to
them. And the report measures
critically Indians’ use of the
resources available to them by White
capitalist standards. King points
out that the schools were not a
“tragedy”, they were a policy. The
conditions were known and nothing
was done. Measured like a virulent
disease, the mortality rate ranks
the schools with Ebola. The 1918
Spanish flu had only a 20% mortality
rate.
The end of the 20th century brought
a rash of apologies: churches; the
Federal Minister; the Pope expressed
“sorrow” and the Prime Minister
apologized in parliament in 2008 –
just for the residential schools,
not for the treaty violations. In
the US, Congress issued an apology
resolution in 2009, but there was no
ceremony - and a rider says no
liability. There is no firm purpose
of amendment. Paternalism towards
Indians continues. They are told to
stand on their own without
government generosities. King
supposes this should be in the same
way Air Canada, AIG, Bombardier,
Halliburton, General Motors and the
Alberta Tar Sands Project manage on
their own. Enron,
World Com, Bre-X and Bear Stearns
too - but then these were more greed
than incompetence, “Weren’t they?”,
he says.
Chapter 6 Like
Cowboys and Indians
looks at institutionalized injustice
towards Indians. The 1887 US General
Allotment Act aimed at assimilation.
Whites own land individually –
Indians own it collectively. The Act
aimed to break reservations into
pieces – for individual Indians. It
liquidated the reservations in
Oaklahoma and many in Kansas,
Nebraska, North and South Dakota,
Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon
and Washington and gave surplus land
to white settlers. They decided what
each Indian “needed” of the land and
took the rest! The US 1934 Indian
Reorganization Act aimed
to return surplus land to the tribes
and aimed to allow Indians a measure
of self-governance, but was never
fully effective and with WWII in
1939, things began to revert.
“Termination” became the US policy
with the 1953 House Concurrent
Resolution 108 which aimed to
abrogate all treaties and abolish
federal supervision of the tribes.
Public Law 280 allowed states to
assume control. Before the policy’s
end in 1966, 109 tribes had been
terminated and another million acres
of Indian land lost. Canada explored
this approach. But it did not become
law.
King describes his attempt to stay
in New Zealand in the late 1960s,
and also relates his experience with
activism. He was part of the 1969
occupation of Alcatraz. Alcatraz,
the media event, became an emblem of
Native resistance and pride. On June
10, 1971 federal agents and police
removed the last 15 people. The
American Indian Movement, AIM,
continued. From its beginning in the
Twin Cities, it was a loosely
managed group of Native men and
women who had had enough. None of
the major confrontations or
occupations was planned as such. In
1972 a car caravan went to
Washington DC for sovereignty and
treaty rights, and to draw attention
to poverty on reservations just
prior to presidential elections. The
Indians marched on the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, took over the
building and for 7 days ransacked
it. In early 1973 AIM went to a
Lakota reservation in internal
conflict – Pine Ridge – and occupied
the village of Wounded Knee. A siege
followed. Support was more grass
roots and more militant. Supplies
were dropped in. Others, including
King, tried to help. The siege
lasted 71 days. AIM has been seen as
the first militant Indian body and
it got international attention.
In Canada there were a series of
short lived pan-Canada Indian
associations from 1919 up to the
current Assembly of First Nations
which, like the National Congress of
American Indians in the US, has many
but not all tribes as members. These
are the biggest groups.
AIM
peaked. By 1990, most of its
leadership was in jail or had had
their lives destroyed by government
sanctions – legal and illegal. “Were
there ways to frame Native concerns
other than with demonstrations,
confrontations, and, on occasion,
violence? No.”
Chapter 7 Forget
about it says to set
aside any issues before 1985, but in
doing so manages to name a few! He
acknowledges Indians are not fault
free – and he gives insight into the
Cherokee and the place of Freedmen.
In 1985 Bill C31 amended the Indian
Act so that Native women who had
lost status through marriage could
have it re-instated. Whom you
married no longer affected your
status, but it affected your
children. If you married out of
status for two generations the
children would not be status
Indians. The 1991 Royal Commission
made good recommendations, but was
shelved. Meech Lake in 1987 ignored
First Nations and was defeated – by
Elijah Harper, an Indian MPP in
Manitoba who refused to join a
needed unanimous vote to allow it to
be dealt with before the June 1990
deadline. In 1992, the Charlottetown
Accord did include Native peoples,
but was narrowly defeated in public
referendum – 49.6% : 50.4 %.
In the US the 1990 North American
Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act restored cultural artefacts, and
post 1985 a slew of land claims were
settled and Native gaming became an
issue. The Supreme Court ruled
states couldn’t tax Indians on
reservations nor regulate activities
there. Other cases confirmed tribes
could develop gambling on tribal
land. However states, federal
government, and private interests
ganged up to ensure “compromise” and
Congress passed the 1988 Indian
Gaming Regulatory Act – basically
adding control to casino- type
gambling. King is ambivalent. There
are 15 Native-run casinos in Canada
and 359 casinos and bingo halls in
30 states bringing in $25 billion a
year, and
states get some of that. But there
has been White reaction – groups
like CERA attack federal Indian
policy to protect the supposed
injured group – Whites.
In 2007 a young woman at Tim
Horton’s Lethbridge put a notice on
the window “No drunk Indians.” She
said it was a joke. Drunks are a
problem but there were more White
drunks than Indian drunks in
Lethbridge on Friday and Saturday
nights. Whites are invisible and
some drunk Whites are accepted:
James Stewart, Marilyn Monroe,
Britney Spiers, Winston Churchill,
John A Macdonald, Boris Yeltsin.
They can make their mistakes as
individuals not as representatives
of an entire race.
Racism is endemic and it is in
institutions which should protect. It
took 16 years for police to
investigate the 1971 beating, rape
and stabbing of a 19 year old Cree
woman in Le Pas Manitoba. In 1990 a
young Indian man was found frozen to
death by the road on the outskirts
of Saskatoon; he had been seen
handcuffed inside a police cruiser.
In 2000, another Indian man was
dropped similarly but he managed to
walk to a power plant and survived.
Another two young Indian men were
found dead in 2000. They too had
been dropped off in extreme cold
outskirts by Saskatoon police. After
an investigation, two officers were
fired, two were put in jail for 8
months but released early. This
recalls the “disposable” attitude in
the early history of the treatment
of Indians.
Chapter 8 What
do Indians Want begins
- “a future” and continues
“predicated by sovereignty.” Jeffrey
Simpson argued in the Globe
and Mail that sovereignty made
little sense for small groups of
people. Yet sovereignty with all its
uncertainties is embedded in the US
constitution and two centuries of
law. It is the hand dealt to Indians
in North America. Moreover, Navajo
in the Southwest, Blackfoot in
Alberta and Mohawk in Canada and the
US have been running their affairs –
health, education and housing – for
some time. Ottawa
and Washington have been happy to
download – keeping control of the
budgets and regulations and avoiding
the liabilities.
There are many contrary White
voices. US Senator Gorton, R
Washington, tried to get amendments
along the lines of abrogating
treaties, and Fleming made such a
position part of the Washington
State Republican platform. In
Canada, Thomas Flanagan of U of
Calgary and an adviser to Stephen
Harper called for dissolution of
reserves and treaty status. The
reasoning is as attractive as it is
simplistic – it avoids negotiation.
Historically, the treaty abrogation
approach was bad for Whites and
Indians.
Focusing on a practical and crucial
sovereignty King suggests membership
and resource development are the
keys for today. He discusses how
granting band membership, a right
which most bands have, is given by
various bands based on “blood
quantum.” King notes the tendency to
limit membership. He hopes this
sovereignty will be used wisely.
With respect to resources, land use
has been limited and sometimes
disquieting – use as garbage dumps
for example. Much of their land is
desert, but since the 1940’s the
Navajo have been involved in Uranium
mining for the US Atomic Energy
Commission and coal mining. Costs to
health and environment were known,
but not made clear to the Navajo. In
July 1976 a dam of the United
Nuclear Corporation at Church Rock,
New Mexico on the edge of the Navajo
reservation collapsed, and 1,100
tons of radioactive waste and 93
million gallons of mine effluent
poured into the Puerco River
contaminating the river and water
supply. This was a bigger ecological
disaster than 3-mile Island. When
the Navajo stopped processing on the
reservation in 2005, they had a
deadly legacy from their efforts to
create an economy from Uranium. Coal
accounts for a huge fraction of
their budget and provides jobs. The
Four Corners power plant is an
ecological nightmare – no other US
power plant puts so many pollutants
into the air.
King has great concerns about land
use for mining and landfills because
they are short-lived projects. A
number of tribes are engaged in
demonstration projects around
renewable energy and some are in
transition to industries – which
brings us to gaming and tourism.
King notes the downside to gaming
and resorts, but adds an unexpected
“upside.” Members of tribes are
investing – but they are also buying
land and asking the US government to
add the purchased land to their
reserve, for example the Oneida in
upstate New York, the Shakopee in
Minnesota and the Cherokee in
Oklahoma. Local reaction has been
largely negative. So far reserves in
Canada have not followed this
pattern.
Chapter 9, As
long as the grass is green,
begins with the question: what do
Indians want? King says the better
question is: what do Whites want?
They want gold from the Black Hills;
hydro-electric power from James Bay;
in a word – the land. All the
removals, terminations, relocations
were about relieving Indians of
their land base. King says Indians
have a special feeling about land
whereas White society sees it as a
commodity. The Alberta Tar Sands
project reflects a non-Native view
of land. It is the dirtiest, most
environmentally insane energy
project in North America. When money
is involved, no one comes forward to
say “enough.” So there are toxic
tailing ponds waiting to empty into
the Athabasca River, and slowly
decomposing towers of blocks of
sulphur. The projects go on and
pipelines are built to ship out the
crude.
In 1868 the Lakota signed a treaty
that the army would ensure the Black
Hills remained Lakota territory. In
1874, gold was found in the Black
Hills. In 1875 the Lakota called on
the President to enforce the treaty.
Instead, they were offered $25,000.
The offer was never accepted. Yet
the gold was mined. The Six
Grandfathers peaks became a tourist
attraction – Mount Rushmore –
sculptured to resemble US
presidents. In 1980 the Supreme
Court ruled the Black Hills had been
illegally taken – but ordered that
the purchase price plus interest
($106 million) be paid. The Lakota
still want the Black Hills back and
the money remains un-transferred,
bearing interest. True, the Navajo
and Crow have leases to strip mine
coal, the Cree in Quebec agreed to
the hydroelectric dam, tribes in NW
BC have used their fishing rights.
But the Tar Sands is still hard to
imagine as an Indian development.
Indian land is viewed as federal
land on indefinite loan to Indians,
but the early treaties were clear
about Indians and land and they were
associated with the old promise “as
long as the grass is green and the
waters run.” This ancient line was
used at least by Andrew Jackson.
King muses on creating a possible
“Treaty Day” since treaties have
been successful in getting Indians
off their land- but notes that the
problem is less the treaties
themselves than the honoring of
them. Canada has claimed artic land
as Canadian on the backs of native
peoples. He gives six stories to
illustrate the history of land.
One. In 1942
Canada looked for a military
training place – and found Stony
Point Ojibway reserve in Ontario –
the government confiscated the land
promising to return it – Ipperwash.
In 1996 35 Ojibway took over the
park which among other incidents led
to Dudley George’s death. In a
discussion with a government
official he was given a lecture on
why the land wouldn’t
be given back – when all that was
needed was for the government to
clean the place up from military
leftovers and return it. Efforts to
do that were begun in 2007 but as of
2012 the land had not been given
back.
Two.
The Kinzua Dam in Allegheny National
Forest, Pennsylvania was built
1960-1965 on Seneca treaty land
without their permission or
consultation. The Seneca used the
courts. Then they hired an engineer
to find an alternative site – but
the army corps of engineers did not
want to change their plans. And
Congress let the dam flood the
Seneca.
Three. In
1717 France sold land which was
Mohawk territory to the Sulpician
Missionary Society. In 1868 a Mohawk
chief asked for the return. In 1936
the Supicians sold the land and
left. In 1959 a 9-hole golf course
was built on the land next to the
Mohawk cemetery. During protracted
court proceedings the golf course
opened and finally in 1977 the
Mohawk submitted a land claim which
was rejected 9 years later. In 1989
the mayor of Oka announced an
expansion to an 18-hole golf course
and condominiums requiring more of
their land plus a forest known as
the Pines. In March 1990, Natives
began occupying the Pines and the
cemetery. In July, with a dead
policeman and a dead Mohawk and an
extra 2,500 Surete forces, the Oka
crisis was underway. In 1997 the
federal government quietly purchased
the land and “gave” it to the
Mohawks.
Four.
In 1854 the Treaty of Medicine Creek
took good farming land for $32,500
from the Nisqually, Puyallup,
Steilacoom and Squashik under
pressure and with conflict. They had
continuing treaty rights to fish,
and rights from 1905 and 1919 court
decisions. In 1945 an Indian youth
was arrested for fishing and for 29
years Washington ignored the treaty
and court rulings. The Indians began
“fish-ins.” State courts questioned
any Native rights. Actors and
celebrities weighed in. By 1970 a
Native fishing village had been
bulldozed and the federal government
moved in with America
v Washington State. The
Supreme Court ruled
the Indians had fishing rights plus
the right to half the fish. However,
salmon have subsequently been in
decline.
Five.
Another golf course story was set
near Vancouver where the federal
government leased the land for a
desired golf club – but at a lower
rate than surrounding land so the
Indians made less. When the lease
was up, Whites who had bought into
the development with cheap leases were
angered by efforts to move to market
value. The controversies ended up at
the Supreme Court, which ruled that
for leases the land is worth 50% of
market but it sells at market. More
fireworks can be expected when the
leases expire and the land reverts
to the Musqueam around 2033.
Six. Carson National
Forest, New Mexico, was created by
Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 by
confiscating 50,000 acres of Taos
Pueblo land which included the
sacred Blue Lake. The lake was then
stocked with trout and a trail was
made to it. The Taos protested. In
1924 the Taos were offered cash, but
they asked for the lake and adjacent
land. In 1934, the Indian
Reorganization Act granted them
that, but the bureaucracy stalled
and only issued permission for 3
days annually in August. Finally, in
1970, Nixon gave them back most of
their land.
Chapter 10 Happily
Ever
After aims to describe
the two largest land claim
settlements, but begins with a third
recent positive outcome for Indians.
In 1983 BC logging interests got a
permit to log Meares Island, which
led to resistance and a court
injunction on logging until land
claims were resolved. Logging then
turned to Haida Gwaii and Lyell
Island. Again there was a blockade –
for 21 months. Then in 1987 Ottawa
and BC signed an agreement creating
the Gwaii Haanas National Park
Reserve and Haida Heritage Site.
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act managed a somewhat conventional
Treaty but with a more generous
settlement in share of land (44
million acres) and cash ($973
million). In 1971 the Alaska
Federation of Natives agreed to
support the Act and to take the land
as fee simple. The paternalism of
the Bureau of Indian Affairs had
been resented, yet fee simple brings
the danger of loss of land and
scattering of the people. This is in
part addressed by collective
controls in the agreement. The land
and money was put into 12 Native
regional corporations. The land came
with surface and subsurface rights.
By 2011 some Indians did not
remember their tribe but they knew
their corporation – the new
reservation! The danger of
corporations is that there is
pressure to act like other
corporations in raising capital by
mortgaging land yet this is not
possible for such Native
corporations. In
his book about this settlement
Canadian Thomas Berger wrote in
favour of returning village
corporations to tribal ownership of
the land. King
agrees.
The Nunavit Land Claim Agreement was
passed by Ottawa in 1993 and in 1999
a new Territory came into being.
Typically, Inuit relinquish all
rights in return for those in the
agreement – which gave them the
Territory status they had worked
towards. Only 10% of land is fee
simple, the rest is held by the
crown in trust for Inuit. Inuit are
85% of the population and they are
the government. There is an issue
about the language, which is
supposedly of equal status to
English. There are problems with
education and enough professionals
to fill high level positions of
government and the like.
King concludes noting that both the
Alaska and Nunavit agreements could
be revisited if they don’t work, and
concludes by rejecting the simple
notion that history happened and you
can’t blame me for what my
grandfather did. Those making the
decisions had information and knew
potential outcomes and were not
gambling with their money and their
children. The problem is an
unexamined confidence in Western
civilization, an unwarranted
certainty of Christianity, and
arrogance. He rises to an
uncomfortable heroic climax with
“native cultures have already proven
themselves to be remarkably
tenacious and resilient,” but then
climbs down to join us at an
Indians-are-human-too level: “We
live in modern lives informed by
traditional values and contemporary
realities … we wish to live those
lives on our terms.”
So there - I read it! I’m
sure another perspective is possible
on all the stories that make up the
history King has given, but his is
the Indian perspective I wanted and
it stands. King suggests those
reacting to his account should not
protest that it wasn’t they and they
can’t just say “what’s done is done
let’s get on.” Presumably they can’t
object as I do that their frame of
reference is different, that they
are individual persons belonging to
the place where they happen to live,
and that they are not just another
member of the one White tribe seen
by the Indian.
Yet truth to tell I really don’t
feel part of things that were done
by non-Indian people to Indian
peoples in North America any more
than I feel responsible for the BP
Gulf oil spill because I was born in
the UK. I do feel some sense of
guilt. But I have trouble knowing
why, or where to go and what to do
about that. I am linked by my
birthplace but I don’t feel it ties
me to what British and then Canadian
dominant groups did with Indian
peoples. My family history indicates
that my family had little say in the
affairs of the State. Rather my
family was among those nameless
people pushed around rather than
among those named and doing the
pushing. In my lifetime I have
opposed much of what the dominant
forces in my so called White society
did. As can be seen, I have trouble
responding to the book’s
information.
Yet neither King nor I can just say
bygones are bygones let’s all move
on. At the same time I don’t feel I
can be held personally accountable
for what happened either. I can
imagine how from an Indian
perspective I belong to the category
of non-Indian and so I am seen as
one of “them.” But
from my side I can’t feel I belong
to that tribe which took those
actions. King recognizes some
individual Whites care about the
land. But I don’t think it’s enough.
I
feel some empathy with Indians as
one of a small community of
homeowners whom developers forced to
sell their houses in North York to
build high rises to make money. It’s
hard to feel a share of blame for
all that “Whites” – that one name to
shame them all - have done. And I’m
at a loss as to what I can do about
it.
Perhaps
we might begin to understand each
other a bit. But our predicament
seems to be one of those human
situations that we run into with our
nuclear families, where there is
just no quick fix. We just have to
find ways of living on with
unresolvable wrongs and shame.
