In an age of rapid and vast migrations, political polarization, and uncertain and severe weather events, American Indians seem to be a calm in the middle of many storms. Maybe indigenous peoples in other countries sit at their own centers, with the same continental and global turmoil surrounding them. Or maybe they are all conditioned to turmoil around them, resilient and ready for the impacts on them and the lands.
It’s an interesting place to be—at the vortex. Interesting because, in the Americas at least, it follows five hundred years of relentless assault on homes and homelands by occupying intruders. Now those one-time intruders and colonizers consider the lands theirs, and argue with each other and work to bar the door to those that came later, and those still trying to get into the United States of America.
These new peoples—new over the last 500 years, include religious refugees from greater Britain; Norwegians forced from farms diluted over generations; Germans fleeing conscription in Kaiser’s armies; Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe and annihilation in Western Europe; Arabs fleeing harsh regimes in the Middle East and endless war in Palestine; Indians, Chinese, and others from around the world seeking economic and intellectual opportunity. This large and diverse population of North America has long dominated Tribal remnants. Who have, remarkably, survived it all.
Now, watching from the Center, watching and listening to one group trying to push other groups back to supposed homelands—or just away from a country their faction claims to have orchestrated or done the backbreaking labor of building—it must be dizzying. But it must also be troubling, as some of the “new” people have claimed friendship with and a kind of natural succession from Native peoples, while others have always been hostile to originals, to the indigenous.
There was a recent call to deny Native Americans birthright citizenship. Because, some in our White House argued, Native Americans were not recognized “generally” as citizens, because they were citizens of their tribes, “semi-sovereign” nations in their own rights. In a great tie-in between the colonists’ emphasis on land ownership, the Dawes Allotment Act, which offered individual Indians private pieces of their government recognized homelands, those who took up allotments could be citizens, AND pay taxes! At any rate, in 1923 all American Indians became US citizens. Today, those who wanted to deny Native Americans birthright citizenship have quieted.
There was a streak of good things for Tribes and Tribal peoples during the Biden-Haaland years, with exposure of the boarding school tragedies, land-back and salmon back efforts, co-management of natural resources programs, etc. etc., etc.
And now, direct and indirect assaults on those gains, and on Tribes in general. Cuts to the BIA, although not as deep or onerous as to some other agencies—AID disappears completely! but cuts also to the Bonneville Power Administration, which has been entwined with Native fisheries programs in saving salmon, steelhead, and lamprey, and in improving upstream habitat in ways that do that while providing an abundance of more general improvements to the environment. Ironically, the BPA was a net money-maker for the government. I do not know the current status.
And then this, as reported in the “Oregon Capital Chronicle” by Alex Baumhardt:
An “historic” deal made two years ago between the U.S. government, four tribes, Northwest states and environmentalists to put legal battles aside and invest in restoring endangered Columbia River fish runs is now off. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a presidential memorandum withdrawing the federal government from a December 2023 agreement to help restore salmon, steelhead and other native fish being decimated by federal hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin. Trump’s memorandum refers to the commitments as “onerous,” “misguided” and placing “concerns about climate change above the nation’s interests in reliable energy resources.”
Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribe, said in a statement that Trump’s decision is a denial of the truth. “This action tries to hide from the truth. The Nez Perce Tribe holds a duty to speak the truth for the salmon, and the truth is that extinction of salmon populations is happening now,” he said. “People across the Northwest know this, and people across the nation have supported us in a vision for preventing salmon extinction that would at the same time create a stronger and better future for the Northwest. This remains the shared vision of the states of Washington and Oregon and the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce tribes, as set out in our Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.”
Once again, there is federal takeaway from Tribes, but this time the takeaway is aimed at state governments in Washington and Oregon as well. And once again, the logic is strained. The long-term benefits to the lands, waters, and peoples of the Northwest
At the same time we have news of the Yuroks in California gaining 70 square miles of land, redirecting land management towards wildlife, education, and traditional foods, and embarking on the revegetation project on the Klamath River. Their homeland includes the river mouth.
Four dams on the Klamath River were removed, two of them after more than 100 years, and salmon are finding their way to ancient spawning grounds. We in the Pacific Northwest, Tribal people and the rest of us, will be keeping our eyes on the Klamath as we mark time, diminishing fish runs, and the impacts of executive orders on the lower Snake River’s four dams. Counting on resilience.
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