In light of the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest – and in the extreme importance of winning this fight against transnational corporate power (more on this in a moment) – I thought it important to remind everyone of another similar situation not long ago (and the overall critical implications of both of these situations) documented in the vital documentary American Outrage (2008, Beth Gage, George Gage).
This important documentary documents an “American outrage” that is just one in a long history of American violations of Native American rights, going back to the founding and forming of this country, e.g., the American government stealing Native American tribal lands, reneging on treaty after treaty after treaty, and ultimately committing an act of genocide on Native Americans. (Of course there is tons of scholarly work on the long history of these Native American violations; if I were to only recommend one, I would recommend Ken Burns’ amazing documentary The West for its outstanding contextualization of how the “settling” of the west also meant the oppression and genocide of Native Americans.) One would think that after such a history of atrocities and violations, Americans would go well out of their way to make sure such violations never happen again, not to mention that they might actually work toward an amelioration of such past sins!
This beautiful fade speaks to both Native Americans’ oneness with the land AND how their way of life is disappearing
As we see in the film American Outrage, this is simply not the case. In this film we see how the American government again attempts to strip the land rights of the Western Shoshone, here represented by the Dann Sisters (Mary and Carrie Dann).
Carrie and Mary Dann, still living off the land
Why? The film argues that this colonization of Western Shoshone land is due to the discovery of gold, e.g., Western Shoshone land is the second largest gold producing area in the world, and it is implied that mining corporations Newmont Mining Corporation and Barrick Gold Corporation have lobbied the American government into this drive to appropriate Shoshone land.
Striking gold coincides with the American government attempting to appropriate Western Shoshone land
What the film depicts is the strong armed tactics of the government, the confiscation of horses and cattle, a heavy armed law enforcement presence physically and psychologically intimidating protesters, and government agencies constantly harassing the Dann Sisters with threats of penalization (e.g., confiscation of animals and fines).
Law enforcement’s oppressive and abusive actions
We also see the extreme degradation of land by the mining corporations, the stripping of land, leaching of soil, the creation of enormous waste, and the spoiling of the sensitive water table. As Carrie Dann powerfully conveys: “Their pumping this virgin water so that we as human beings can enjoy wearing gold. Ladies and gentlemen you’re killing the Earth. The Earth is dying because of the way people act. U.S. consumers they asked producers of gold and we as indigenous people were yelling stop that you’re killing our mother. Who’s going to hear us, stop that you’re killing the Earth. You’re killing mother of all life for God’s sake. Can’t you wake up and listen to what we’re saying to you… [treat Earth] with tender loving care because it is our only mother.”
Destroying the land for gold
In short, as is all too often the case, our government and transnational corporations pursue profits and unsustainable growth and expansion at the cost of (indigenous) people and the environment. In the case of the Dann Sisters and the Shoshone, they put gold before Native American rights; in the case of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Yankton Sioux Tribe, transnational corporate power puts oil before Native American rights, in this case, putting a priority on oil over the very livelihood of human life, water. As Jane Fonda recently conveyed: “I came away with the belief that what is happening at Standing Rock is an existential confrontation between two opposing world views. One is represented by the Indigenous Water Protectors and their allies who believe our future depends on respecting the land and water on which human life depends…. The aggressor side, with militarized police defending their interests is represented by those who insist on unfettered extraction of non-renewable fossil fuels no matter the consequences. Greed versus a habitable planet.”
Dakota access pipeline protest (Peg Hunter–Creative Commons)
In other words, this protest over oil versus water (or Native American rights) is an existential moment in human history, where we as a species have to decide which direction we are going to go, in the direction of transnational corporations’ pursuit of unsustainable profits, growth, and expansion, to the detriment of our very species being or in the direction of standing in solidarity with life (e.g., water, Earth) and Native American (human) rights (a standing that extends to all indigenous people everywhere). That is what was at stake with the Dann Sisters fight (and still is as I believe this case has still not been resolved) and that is what is at stake in the Sioux tribes’ Dakota pipeline fight.
Click here for the various ways that you can stand in solidarity with the Sioux tribes.