Disrupt (v) : to interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem; to drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something)
This document, written by Native American Warriors from South Dakota, was addressed to Prairie Fire, the Weather Underground, and all third world and anti-imperialist allies. The Native American Warriors called on these groups to help them liberate their homelands and connected the Vietnamese victory in Vietnam to their struggle against US empire and imperialism.
In Chile, the Machupe people are an indigenous group that have been fighting off outsider invaders to their land and livelihood for years. The Lafchenke Machupe groups are a resistance group that use tactics like sabotage, arson, and violent resistance to push out the Chilean government, who they now see as invaders to their ancestral land, and protect their forests/land from destructive practices. Below, there is a statement the group released in which they take responsibility for sabotage and arson against corporations and government efforts.
In this document, Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief and warrior, details a message of both resistance and spirituality. He writes to a community larger than just the Shawnee, calling on all the “red men” to unite and to reclaim the land that has been stolen from them by the “white people.”
“The way, and the only way, to check and to stop this evil, is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet; for it never was divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.”
On February 6, 2020, Indigenous youth in Canada began their occupation of the ceremonial gates and steps to the B.C. Legislative Assembly in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation, who were resisting an encroachment on their sovereign territories by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP sought to seize the land to allow for the construction of Coastal GasLink’s new fracked gas pipeline. The Indigenous youth issued a statement on February 26, 2020, laying out their demands for Canadian officials and calling on them to stop the human and indigenous rights violations by the RCMP happening in Wet’suwet’en territory.
This document was produced by the same group that wrote the Alcatraz Proclamation. In this piece, the occupiers demanded ownership of Alcatraz Island in the name of the Indians of All Tribes. They described the many injustices forced upon them by the “Whitemen” and made it clear that they are there to stay on the island. Through this piece, the authors redefined both what it meant to be “Indian” as well as their subsequent place within society.
These excerpts come from a Native Women’s Liberation Front newsletter published in 1970. Four different cases of direct action land struggles waged by various Native American groups are described, including the occupation of Fort Lawson military base, Stanley Island, Alcatraz Island, and the southern tip of land previously belonging to the Pit River Indians. In each of these cases, Native American activists are seeking to reclaim the land that belongs to them and are calling on readers to join them in their fight.
In 1972, AIM activists and members of the Rosebud Sioux organized the Trail of Broken Treaties and Pan American Native Quest for Justice. This demonstration brought caravans of Native Americans from across the country to Washington D.C. where they occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for six days. The group drafted a 20-point position paper that outlined major issues that needed to be addressed. All of their points centered around recognizing Native American sovereignty and restoring Indigenous rights, as set forth in previous treaties. Additionally, the paper called for the abolishment of the BIA and the creation of an Office of Federal Indian Relations and Community Reconstruction instead.
This piece was published in the 1992 program of the International Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nations in the USA. Bobby Castillo, the author of the mandate as well as the coordinator of the International Tribunal, challenged the 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus, demanding that myth be destroyed. Furthermore, he demanded the release of political prisoners/prisoners of war and the ability of oppressed national movements to exercise their rights to self-determination. This document serves to raise awareness to the new resistance of the American Indian Movement and to reaffirm the basic human rights of indigenous groups to determine their own destiny. Additionally, both the document and the tribunal are evidence of efforts by indigenous groups to redefine themselves within the current system.
This piece describes the conflict between sundancers of the Shuswap First Nation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) during August and September of 1995. Members of the Shuswap Nation were engaging in their annual sundance ceremonies when individuals from the RCMP SWAT team began encircling the camp. More Shuswap sundancers as well as other nations soon arrived to defend those already there from violence. Throughout the coming weeks, the RCMP began painting these individuals as “terrorists,” blaming them for recent shootings in the area, and cutting off all communication to and from the camp, including that of the media. Those in the camp demand that an impartial third party tribunal be set up to decide on the question of jurisdiction over unceded Native American territories. They have refused to leave their defensive position until their petition has been forwarded from the Governor General of Canada to the British Privy Council and the Queen, as stipulated in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The piece includes information on how to contact the various governments, lawyers, and other groups involved in the situation to apply pressure in support of the Shuswap, Mohawk, and all other indigenous nations.
This was a proclamation issued by the group of indigenous peoples who occupied Alcatraz Island beginning on November 20, 1969 and lasting until June 11, 1971. In the proclamation, Natives demanded the reclamation of the land based on historical precedents and called attention to the poor conditions of Indian Reservations across the country. The proclamation was addressed to the “Great White Father and All His People” with the intended audience being both the US government and the American people.
“We, the native Americans, re-claim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery.”
This piece describes the direct action tactics used by the Ava Guaraní indigenous peoples of Argentina and their allies against Tabacal Sugar, a subsidiary of the Seaboard Corporation. Tabacal Sugar owns the ancestral land of the Ava Guaraní, which is found in Salta, a northern province of Argentina. Despite being displaced from their land over five decades ago, members of the Ava Guaraní community have occupied the land in their ancestral homeland to harvest native fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs. In addition to the actions taken by the indigenous community themselves, activists from the Worcester Global Action Network, on behalf of the Ava Guaraní, disrupted Seaboard Corporation’s annual shareholders meeting to demand the corporation address the displacement of the indigenous peoples in Salta.
This letter, written in December of 2023 by the President of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, John Johnson Sr., to the Chairman of the Town of Lac du Flambeau, Matt Gaulke, communicated that the tribe would be enacting a Road Access Permitting Ordinance applying to all roads that cross tribal land. This would allow legal access to the roads in exchange for a fee, and came after months of contentious dispute over road access on the reservation. In January of 2023, the northern Wisconsin tribe barricaded four reservation roadways they argued were being illegally used. In this letter, the tribe president demanded nearly $10 million to resolve past trespass violations, and required payment of these damages before issuance of any road permits under this new ordinance.
An interview with the California Valley Miwok Tribe in response to their occupation of their foreclosed home in Stockton, California. The group had planned to stand their ground and barricade themselves in the house until their problems were addressed by the Department of the Interior.
“We had to make our point clear that we were no longer going to be pushed out and forgotten like yesterday’s trash! We are human beings. We are not just names and/or numbers on a piece of paper.”
The Manukan Declaration was signed by seventeen different organizations across North America, South America, Asia, and Africa that make up the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network in 2004. Generally, it advocates for indigenous voices. It highlights the importance of indigenous women in particular to indigenous culture, tradition, and environmental biodiversity.
“As Indigenous women, we have a fundamental role in environmental conservation and preservation throughout the history of our Peoples. We are the guardians of Indigenous knowledge and it is our main responsibility to protect and perpetuate this knowledge. Our weavings, music, songs, costumes, and our knowledge of agriculture, hunting or fishing are all examples of some of our contributions to the world. We are daughters of Mother Earth and to her we are obliged. Our ceremonies recognize her and we return to her the placentas of our children. She also safeguards the remains of our ancestors.”
This document was written by the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy in 1973. It states their solidarity with the occupation of Wounded Knee. It is written for the United States government. It addresses the destruction and violence that indigenous people face at the hands of the United States government.
“We have not asked you to give up your religions and beliefs for ours. We have not asked you to give up your language for ours. We have not asked you to give up your ways of life for ours. We have not asked you to give up your government for ours. We have not asked that you give up your territories to us. Why can you not accord us the same respect?”
In 1978, a group of about 2,000 marchers – indigenous and not -, marched from Alcatraz Island, California to Washington, D.C. to protest bills that threatened indigenous rights. This document was their statement.
“Today we address you in the language of the oppressor, but the con- cepts predate the coming of the invaders. The injustice we speak of is centuries old, and has been spoken against in many tongues. We are still the original people of this land. We are the people of The Longest Walk.”
This poem was written by Lyla June Johnston, a Diné activist, in 2015. It explores the meaning of “America” through a reflection of history. It can be found below and as a PDF.
“from birth we etch these lines
engrave them inside your mind
by the rockets red glare
the bombs bursting in the air
the war it begins
to make the imaginary country
as real as your skin.
America doesn’t exist
it’s an idea men have obsessed over since 1776.
an excuse we use to manifest a reality that
destroyed the destiny of Native civilization.
they always told me I was an American
and so I said to them,
“can you show me America?”
can you tell me where it is?
I’ve been looking for it all my life!
looking for the reason why my people had to die.
but the only place I can find America is inside of your mind.
they said, no don’t worry… just
stand up
put your hand right there on your heart
now turn just a little bit towards the flag.
there it is. Right there. Don’t you see it?
there you go.
okay ready?
Go
I pledge allegiance to an illusion
called the United States of America
and to the non-existent boundaries
for which it stands
one deception
under a Christian god
with which we legitimize the genocide
of its indigenous peoples
America doesn’t exist
but it is a psychological sickness we catch with years
of exposure to our public schools to baseball games
and once we believe that America is real we believe that we have a
reason to steal a reason to kill.
the Long Walk 1965
9,000 Navajo are marched with barrels at their backs
herded like sheep for over 400 miles
to their own special concentration camp.
in the name of America
Wounded Knee Massacre 1890
U.S. Calvary descend on a Lakota camp
with 530 women and children
and with “America” in their minds
and red and white stripes blinding their sight
they sunk bullets into the chests of children
that could have been their own
in the name of America
look on the twenty dollar bill my friends, see the man who
marched 15,000 Cherokee–
pregnant women, their children, the elderly–
marched from Georgia to Oklahoma
in the name of America.
do we remember what has been done in the name of an abstract nation
or has it all been buried along with our hearts and our tongues.
and I should not hate fireworks on warm summer nights
and I should not hate a combination of colors
and I should not hate dead men on paper money
and I should not hate.
so let me tell you that I love you
dear soldiers
dear president of the imaginary states of America
dear school teachers
dear man behind the curtain
let me tell you that I love you
and that I am leaving it in the past
let me tell you that I too am in love with my motherland
but know that this Earth is the foremother of your forefathers
she existed before Hancock and before Nixon
before money before America
and that she will exist long after America is forgotten.
raising hands to our hearts for a fairytale
that America is anything more than a word
we’ve drawn so many maps, we’ve put so many flags in the ground
we’ve labeled all the land
we’ve drawn imaginary lines all around the sand
but people hear me and separate your fact from fabrication
this is the projection of our imagination onto
the holy earth.
and today we unite to remember what is real
to remember that humanity is real
a beating heart is real
the earth beneath us is real
but America is a thought that
has turned us against ourselves
history into myth
entire cultures into forgotten languages
and the free mind into a society, deceived
so please do not call me an American
please do not even call me a Native American
please, I beg you, call me human
and do not call this land America
if you listen hard she will tell you her true name
This document is a letter to President George Washington from Chiefs and Counsellors of the Seneca Nation – Big Tree, Cornplanter, and Half-Town. In this letter, the Chiefs and Counsellors address violence and deceit from the government.
“We could bear this confusion no longer and determined to press through every difficulty, and lift up our voice so that you might hear us, and to claim that security in the possession of our lands, which your commissioners so solemnly promised us; and we now entreat you to inquire into our complaints, and to redress our wrongs.”
John Trudell, an active member of the indigenous struggle, gave this speech on July 18, 1980 at the Black Hills Survival Gathering. In his speech, he speaks of oppression, power, and liberation.
“We have to understand that when our oppressor treats us this way and do these things to us, we allow him to do it so long as we accept his lies. As long as we make excuses for his lies, as long as we tolerate his brutality, then we allow him to mistreat us. We have been allowing it too long. That’s genocide… It’s not revolution we’re after; it’s liberation. We want to be free of a value system that’s being imposed upon us. We do not want to participate in that value system. We don’t want to change that value system. We want to remove it from our lives forever. Liberation. We want to be free.”
This letter – written on January 1, 2021 – includes a description of what unites the people of the Zapatista movement and agreements to keep the struggle active.
Only very few things unite us:… The understanding that a system is responsible for these pains. The executioner is an exploitative, patriarchal, pyramidal, racist, thievish and criminal system: capitalism… The commitment to fight, everywhere and at all times – each and everyone on their own terrain – against this system until we destroy it completely. The survival of humanity depends on the destruction of capitalism. We do not surrender, we do not sell out, and we do not give up.
