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RESUMEN
En este artículo, se examina la historia y
las políticas relacionadas con los pueblos
indígenas en Colombia, Paraguay,
Bolivia, Canadá, Perú y Estados Unidos.
Se abordan temas como la colonización,
desposesión de tierras, violencia estatal y
resistencia indígena. Colombia enfrenta
confictos armados y la lucha por los
derechos indígenas. En Paraguay, se
destaca la colonización y las actuales luchas
contra la explotación y deforestación.
Bolivia avanza en el reconocimiento de
derechos indígenas, mientras que Canadá
enfrenta desafíos, incluidas las secuelas
de las escuelas residenciales. Perú adopta
enfoques multiculturalistas, y en Estados
Unidos, se exploran tensiones históricas. A
pesar de la diversidad de contextos, resalta
la resistencia indígena como respuesta
persistente a la colonización y la opresión
estatal, concluyendo con las razones de
la lucha de estos pueblos indígenas y el
impacto de la política y el desarrollo en
la historia de cada uno de estos países en
relación con sus pueblos originarios.
INDIGENOUS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: DEMOSPRUDENCE
AND POLICY IMPACT IN THE AMERICAS
ABSTRACT
This article examines the history and
policies related to Indigenous peoples in
Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Canada, Peru,
and the United States. It addresses topics
such as colonization, land dispossession,
state violence, and Indigenous resistance.
Colombia faces armed conficts and the
struggle for Indigenous rights. In Paraguay,
colonization and current struggles
against exploitation and deforestation are
highlighted. Bolivia is making progress
in recognizing Indigenous rights, while
Canada faces challenges, including the
aftermath of residential schools. Peru
adopts multicultural approaches, and
in the United States, historical tensions
are explored. Despite diverse contexts,
Indigenous resistance stands out as a
persistent response to colonization and
state oppression, concluding with the
reasons behind the struggle of these
Indigenous peoples and the impact of
politics and development on the history of
each of these countries in relation to their
indigenous people.
RECIBIDO:
21/02/2023
ACEPTADO:
16/12/2023
DOI:
10.26807/rfj.vi14.484
Hannah Feyen
Cornell University
Sam Marie Ross
Cornell University
KEY
WORDS:
Indigenous people, Indigenous land, social movements, resistance,
demosprudence, human rights, native.
PA
LABRAS CLAVE:
Pueblos indígenas, Tierras indígenas, Movimientos sociales,
Resistencia. Demojurisprudencia, derechos humanos, nativo.
JEL
CODE:
N460, N56
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Indigenous Social Movements
INTRODUCTION
Indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere hold a rich history
of collective action and social movements as they have fought for their
communities under the settler-colonial states. In a 2020 article on Indigenous
collective action, the University of Alberta’s Pascal Lupien claims that, even
today, “Indigenous peoples have remained among the most marginalized
population groups in the Western Hemisphere” (Lupien, 2020, p.). Although
only 8% of Latin America is Indigenous, they comprise about 14% of the poor
and 17% of the extremely poor, according to the World Bank (World Bank,
2023). In the United States, 1 in 3 Indigenous people live in poverty, according
to a 2020 Northwestern University study (Redbird, 2020). Since European
contact beginning in the 15th century, the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples
has been continuously encroached upon by settler governments. These eforts
aim to strip them of their land, self-governance, spirituality, and culture,
among other human rights. However, this oppression has also been met with
resistance from Indigenous communities since the beginning. The histories
of communities indigenous to the Western Hemisphere chronicle not only
the tragic efects of settler-colonialism and oppressive government but also
the hope for radical change that can be found through collective action.
Yale Law professors Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, in a 2011 Law and
Social Movements class, presented their ideas in a 2014 essay for the Yale Law
Journal titled “Changing the Wind: Notes Toward a DemosPrudence of Law
and Social Movements”. In their essay, Torres and Guinier introduce a new
concept they term “demosprudence”. They explain that “demosprudence
is the study of the dynamic equilibrium of power between lawmaking and
social movements” and “focuses on the legitimating efects of democratic
action to produce social, legal, and cultural change” (Guinier et al., 2014, p. ).
The essay underscores the signifcance of collective action in empowering the
masses and driving progress. Specifcally, it emphasizes the need to integrate
lawyers and politicians as fellow advocates in social movements rather than
treating them as a separate class within a governed vs. governor’s dynamic.
In this paper, we aim to show the ways in which Torres and Guinier’s
concept of demosprudence has been showcased in the context of Indigenous
movements across North and South America. In particular, we will analyze
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the histories and policy impacts of movements in Peru, the United States,
Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Canada. Torres and Guinier argue that
to understand and implement demosprudence, we must change “the people
who make the law and the landscape in which that law is made” (Guinier
et al., 2014, p.). Through this framework, we will explore the presence and
causes of varying levels of success among Indigenous social movements.
We argue that Indigenous population size, national political landscape
favorability, and degree of movement organization are all major determining
factors achieving change in a country’s lawmakers and landscape.
1. Peru: State Racial Policies
Today, Peru is home to 51 Indigenous peoples, constituting about 45%
of the total population, with the largest portion residing in the highland
Quechua communities (Minority Rights Group, 2008). While Peru initially
legally recognized these Indigenous groups, there was simultaneous
belittlement, de facto disenfranchisement, and abuse of them. This laid the
foundation for a nation-state in which an anti-Indigenous culture informs
institutionalized racism (Merino, 2021).
In 1535, a Spanish-style municipal government was established in
Cuzco, followed by Lima (Britannica, 2022). Despite the presence of a
plurinational legal system technically deferring to Indigenous “customary
law”, Native peoples were efectively controlled by “human and divine law”,
restricting their culture and customs (Kania, 2016). The encomienda system,
demanding tribute from Indigenous people in the form of labor or gold to
land-owning Spaniards, was instituted. In 1536, Indigenous people, led by
Manco Capac II, rebelled unsuccessfully against the Spaniards, leading to
subsequent conficts among the conquerors over the spoils (Britannica, 2022).
The king of Spain enacted the New Laws in 1542, aiming to eliminate the
encomienda system due to fears of promoting feudalism and mistreatment
of Indigenous people. However, during Francisco de Toledo’s administration
in 1569, the frst large-scale control of the Indigenous population was
attempted, with Native chiefs tasked with collecting tribute and forced labor
for the conquerors. In 1780, Indigenous peoples across Peru and Ecuador
revolted against the Spaniards, but their eforts were largely unsuccessful in
achieving lasting change (Britannica, 2022).
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When Peru gained independence in 1824, caudillos began vying for
power. In 1825, Simon Bolivar abolished special rights for
pueblos de indios
,
including communal property rights, leading to the rapid expansion of the
hacienda system (Kania, 2016). Indigenous people endured slavery and
degradation, such as rubber expeditions in the Amazon and forced servitude
in Andean farms. Concurrently, elites utilized the mestizaje discourse to
syncretize cultures and consolidate the ideal nation-state (Merino, 2021). The
ruling class strategically sought to include Natives in the Peruvian identity to
garner support, all while expanding the exploitation of their communities.
In the early 20th century, a paternalistic
indigenismo
policy gained
popularity, stripping Native people of their power in national territory
‘disputes’ and leaving their fate to the elite and middle class (Merino,
2021). The Constitution of 1920 included two articles ofcially recognizing
Indigenous communities and guaranteeing them special state protections,
although these were rarely enforced. In 1924, the “Aprista movement”
originated in Mexico City, spreading its ideology among Peruvians and
advocating for the unity of Indigenous people and an end to nationalized
foreign-owned industry. That same year, a Penal Code was introduced,
categorizing Peruvians into four groups: civilized (Creoles/mestizos),
Indigenous, semi-civilized, and wild peoples—a classifcation system that
persisted until the 1990s. “Civilized” people were explicitly granted legal
and cultural dominance, while Indigenous peoples were made subordinate.
Thus, although Native communities were technically recognized, they were
concurrently facing extermination and assimilation (Kania, 2016).
During the 1960s and 1970s, the government, led by General Velasco,
introduced agrarian and social reforms. Velasco advocated for educational
and agrarian reform in Indigenous communities, reinstating linguistic and
cultural practices. He expelled foreign companies and nationalized the
natural resource industry. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1969 marked the end
of serfdom, granting haciendas to Indigenous people and providing internal
confict resolution for Indigenous communities. However, a series of laws
from 1974 onwards recognized their territorial rights as comunidades nativas
but also fragmented and relegated them to smaller areas. A new Constitution
drafted in 1979 incorporated some of the Velasco-era Indigenous provisions
(Kania, 2016).
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In the 1980s and 1990s, the Peruvian government shifted to a
multiculturalism strategy, promoting tolerance of Indigenous communities
and recognizing human rights. However, it did not necessarily acknowledge
their identity as a social collectivity. This efort aimed to suppress Indigenous
opposition to national policies that adversely afected them and occurred
during the horrifc Shining Path attacks on Andean communities (Merino,
2021). In 1994, Peru ratifed ILO Convention No. 169, seeking to grant
Native people increased respect and autonomy (Kania, 2016). During
Alberto Fujimori’s authoritarian rule (1990-2000), however, the neoliberal
economy took precedence over Indigenous rights, leading to the sale of
Native-owned lands to transnational corporations and the dispossession of
communities. Particularly after the violence of the Shining Path, an aggressive
protectionism policy also emerged: Native communities were placed under
military control, and more than 260,000 Quechua women were forcibly
sterilized (Kania, 2016).
Since the end of Fujimori’s dictatorship and the beginning of the 21st
century, Peruvian democracy and the neoliberal economy have been closely
intertwined, signifcantly impacting Indigenous peoples as their lands are
degraded for the extraction of raw materials (Carrasco, 2020). In 2007
(Naciones Unidas, 2007), Peru adopted and ratifed the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as part of an efort to enhance recognition
and multiculturalism. Although Peru has made progress in the legal
recognition of rights for Native communities, such as adopting UN and ILO
conventions, they also persistently encroach upon and dispossess Indigenous
peoples in a neo-colonial cycle. This contradiction between recognition
and abusive actions highlights that the Peruvian government consistently
prioritizes economic progress over human rights (Kania, 2016).
2. Peru: Indigenous Social Movements
The Ashaninka people of the Peruvian Amazon in particular have a
rich history of resistance from the beginning of Spanish exploration. Their
frst European contacts were missionaries, and the Ashaninka killed some
infringing Fransiscans fathers in the mid 1600s. The missionaries brought with
them alien rules, epidemics, and “freebooters”. In 1742, a Black man entered
Ashaninka forests, and he was christened Santos Atahualpa and was accepted
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as the Lord Inca. He urged the people to reject the Europeans and create
an independent society, a movement that lasted for 15 years. He was (and
still is) a major fgure in Ashaninka resistance and was a sort of mythological
savior showing that Indigenous Amazonian myth mobilizes action against
colonization and development eforts (Brown and Fernandez, 1991).
However, the Peruvian Amazonian movement is generally considered
to be “several steps behind its regional counterparts”, largely due to the
lack of unity in Indigenous political movements in Peru, a consequence
of the Shining Path guerrilla movement in the 1980s (Culver, 2011). This
movement, founded by Professor Abimael Guzman, advocated for the
complete replacement of Peruvian society with a Maoist state. The Shining
Path employed armed tactics against the state and Amazonian Indigenous
groups, particularly the Ashaninka, and exerted signifcant infuence over
the political left. This dominance left no room for a unifed Indigenous
movement and cast a shadow over future left-leaning movements, serving as
a reminder of the Shining Path.
Peru’s election day on May 18, 1980, marked the beginning of the
Manchay Tiempo. The Shining Path movement emerged with the burning
of ballots in a village in Ayacucho. The immense violence of the Manchay
Tiempo turned many Peruvians against any kind of leftist movement,
including those led by Indigenous people. During the intense persecution of
the Manchay Tiempo, the Ashaninka were displaced, and many migrated
to urban areas, including Lima, where they had to live in slums. Their new
community size was much larger than their traditional communities, causing
a signifcant shift in culture and a need to focus on daily survival rather
than collectivizing. Additionally, the initial nationalization of the petroleum
industry and subsequent privatization caused environmental degradation on
Indigenous lands due to a lack of environmental and social accountability. In
the 1989 Geneva Convention, Peru became one of the frst countries to ratify
Convention 169, which protected Indigenous cultures under international
law. This granted more autonomy for Indigenous people socially, but these
communities remain exploited by oil companies (Culver, 2011).
On June 5th, 2009, the Awajun and Wampis were protesting the “Law
of the Jungle”, which would allow oil companies more reign over Indigenous
lands. 500 ofcers of the state and helicopters massacred between 30 and
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100 Indigenous protesters that morning. The Bagua massacre was a wake-
up call for many Peruvian conservatives of the wildly imperfect state of their
government. This tragedy illustrates the enemy-of-the-state, second-class,
animalistic nature of Indigenous peoples in the eyes of the Peruvian state.
This attitude prevents actual enforcement of laws protecting native peoples.
Following the Bagua massacre, Indigenous people in Peru collectivized under
organizations like CONAP to demand citizenship rights and plurinationality
(Culver, 2011).
Today, due to Peru’s extensive Amazonian territory, the Peruvian
government has been allocated hundreds of millions of dollars in climate
protection funding, specifcally for areas encompassing communal
Indigenous lands. In 2018, the Minister of Environment emphasized, “Land
titling for indigenous communities is a fundamental right and a priority”
(Ministerio del Ambiente, 2018, p. ). In the Cordillera Escalera, conficts
arise between the titling objectives of the Native people and the conservation
goals of environmental groups. The naming of Yaguas as a National Park
excludes indigenous peoples outside the conventional “steward” norm.
Overall, it is crucial to prioritize social justice for Indigenous peoples in
conservation movements.
3. The United States: State Racial Policies
At the outset of European contact in North America in 1492, settlers
sought to establish amicable relationships with the Indigenous peoples
and drafted treaties with the First Nations, recognizing them as sovereign
nations because they lacked the resources to overpower them. As Europeans
fought amongst themselves for infuence in the Americas, the Indigenous
people sufered greatly in the crossfre and various alliances. In 1789, the
Northwest Ordinance prohibited non-Natives from settling on native land,
and the 1790s brought more treaties and protections for Indigenous people
that ended up being ignored and unenforced. This ostensible protection
of Indigenous rights began to shift when the 1823 Johnson v. McIntosh
Supreme Court case included the concept of the Doctrine of Discovery in
case law. The ruling set a precedent for the federal government to curtail the
rights of Indigenous nations when it was deemed to be in the United States’
best interest (Dziak, 2021).
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Under the notoriously anti-Indigenous President Andrew Jackson, the
1830 Indian Removal Act forced Indigenous peoples westward to make
room for white settlers. While the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Native
peoples as sovereign nations, the Jackson administration was unafected and
created the treacherous Trail of Tears, resulting in the deaths of thousands
during a forced westward march for relocation. In the latter part of the
19th century, the state gained more control over Native reservations and
systematically stripped the people of their culture, forcibly assimilating them
into U.S. culture, language, and law. For instance, the 1868 Peace Policy
under President Grant replaced “Indian agents” with Christian missionaries
to oversee reservations. Although intended to curb corruption, it ended up
imposing assimilation to Christian values because missionaries-controlled
reservation resources and law. The Dawes Act of 1887 further opened
reservations to settlement by non-Natives (Dziak, 2021).
In 1924, Indigenous people were granted U.S. citizenship, and the
Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934 promised improvements in education,
healthcare, fnancial aid, restoration of local government on reservations,
and employment assistance. However, in 1953, Congress passed House
Concurrent Resolution No. 108, which terminated federal funding for
reservations. In 1968, the Indian Civil Rights Act pledged protection for
Native peoples under the U.S. Constitution, and subsequent rulings reinstated
federal funding for reservations (Dziak, 2021). Unfortunately, by then, almost
all of the original indigenous people from that territory (United States) had
already been eliminated.
4. The United States: Indigenous Social Movements
Indigenous peoples in the United States have resisted colonization
since the beginning, exemplifed by the Cherokee Nation’s struggle against
the Trail of Tears. Contemporary activism, as we recognize it today, began
in Indigenous communities in the 1960s through movements like the
Red Power movement, AIM (American Indian Movement), and various
demonstrations. In 1969, 90 Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Island
in an efort to reclaim it. Their demands included the return of Alcatraz,
funding for its rehabilitation, and the establishment of a university. In 1970,
members of the United Native Americans occupied Mount Rushmore to
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reclaim the land granted to the Great Sioux Nation in the 1868 Treaty of
Fort Laramie (Cooper, 2016).
In 1970, the frst National Day of Mourning took place after the speech
censorship of Indigenous peoples voicing their struggles at Plymouth Rock,
Massachusetts, on the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday. In 1972, protesters
from the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan occupied the Bureau of Indian
Afairs ofces for six days, armed with a 20-point manifesto. In the same
year, the American Indian Movement (AIM) and parents in Minneapolis
initiated community schools as an alternative to BIA and public schools
with high dropout rates, promoting Indigenous culture strongly. In 1973,
250 Sioux members occupied South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation in
the 71-day Wounded Knee occupation, the same site as the 1890 Wounded
Knee Massacre, drawing global attention to unsafe living conditions and
generations of mistreatment. In 1975, Native protesters took over the
Bonneville Power Administration in response to the FBI’s murder of Joseph
Stuntz; the protesters demanded restitution for Stuntz’s widow and an end to
the undeclared state of martial law in South Dakota (Cooper, 2016).
In 1978, the Longest Walk, a transcontinental march for Indigenous
justice, commenced at Alcatraz Island and concluded in Washington, D.C.
with 30,000 marchers. Their aim was to draw attention to the sufering of
Indigenous communities and the U.S. government’s avoidance of treaty
obligations. In 1981, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation of Arizona won a
decade-long battle protesting the construction of the Orme Dam when the
Interior Secretary announced that the dam wouldn’t be built. In 1992, the
National Coalition of Racism in Sports and Media was formed to protest the
use of native imagery in logos/symbols in sports, marketing, and media. This
movement gradually gained traction, leading many schools and sports teams
to change their imagery (Cooper, 2016).
In 2004, the Save the Peaks Coalition was formed to address human
and environmental rights concerns regarding Arizona Snowbowl’s proposed
developments on the San Francisco Peaks. Despite their eforts, the ski resort
was allowed to expand. In 2011, a massive protest was launched against the
Keystone XL Pipeline, which was planned to traverse tribal lands, resources,
and sacred sites. The petition was rejected by President Obama in 2015. In
2013, the Havasupai Tribe fled a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service for
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permitting uranium mining operations near Grand Canyon National Park
without consulting the tribes, and a District Judge ruled in the mine’s favor in
2015. In 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux initiated protests against the Dakota
Access Pipeline (Cooper, 2016).
Native peoples in the U.S. have remarkably inspired national organization
and garnered support for their causes through powerful public speaking,
impactful demonstrations, engaging debates, and infuential written media.
This success has been particularly evident in the 20th century, as the Red
Power Movement, AIM, and other national groups fully developed, enabling
them to efectively combat government abuses and defend their rights.
5. Colombia: State Racial Policies
Colombia’s Indigenous population, constituting a mere 2% of the total
population, faces an alarming decline, edging closer to extinction. Despite
this small demographic share, Indigenous territories command a signifcant
one-third of Colombia’s land area, a recognition only recently granted
(WWF, 2005).
Centuries before Columbus’s arrival, Indigenous peoples inhabited
present-day Colombia. The advent of conquest, however, brought slavery
and widespread devastation to Native communities, leading to a staggering
90% decline in the Indigenous population within a century. Displacement
from ancestral lands and degradation of territories ensued. Concurrently,
the Spanish introduced thousands of enslaved Africans yearly to work on
plantations and mines. These communities, such as San Basilio, organized
revolts, culminating in the establishment of the frst free town in the Americas,
which remains intact today. Afro-Colombians and Indigenous communities
fnd themselves disproportionately susceptible to poor treatment, meager
wages, and substandard living conditions. This can be attributed, in part,
to the State’s inclination to delineate its population along ethno-racial
lines, infuencing legal frameworks and spatial organization. The concept
of mestizaje in Colombia further exacerbates the challenges, as it implies
the destined disappearance of Indigeneity and perpetuates a capitalist order
that systematically dispossesses Indigenous communities (Minority Rights
Group, 2008).
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Following Colombia’s independence in the 19th century, the
government initiated the privatization of land and a “civilizing” agenda,
dividing reservations and displacing Native communities from their lands.
The political landscape became further complex with the founding of the
conservative and liberal parties in 1849, sparking a political battle between
Simon Bolivar and Francisco de Paula Santander. This tension eventually
led to the War of the Thousand Days in the early 1900s, during which Native
peoples took up arms to defend their rights and interests. Post-war in 1904,
elites imposed stringent policies in Cauca, promoting capitalism through
measures such as fencing territories, prohibiting mountain crop cultivation,
and modernizing haciendas (Vanegas, 2008).
Political turmoil heightened in the 1940s and 50s, marked by the
assassination of left-wing presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. This
event triggered El Bogotazo, a violent confict between political parties,
resulting in mass urban fight and the establishment of the “National
Front” agreement that provided fertile ground for guerrilla groups. The
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), founded in the 1960s,
became the largest guerrilla group until the 2000s. The 19th of April
Movement emerged in 1970, utilizing coercive tactics, including recruiting
minors, raping women, and intimidating communities. Their power grew,
leading to nationwide attacks and checkpoint seizures, culminating in the
1985 Palace of Justice siege that claimed 101 lives. Simultaneously, drug
prohibition escalated, contributing to drug cartel violence and increased
urban fight, forcing some to leave Colombia altogether (MRM Story,
Unknown). The rural campesinos, including Indigenous peoples, bore the
brunt of these challenges. In 1989, Covenant 169 was enacted, granting
Indigenous peoples the right to be consulted in government decisions
directly afecting them. The new Constitution in 1991 included provisions
for Indigenous rights, introducing a nuanced tension between Indigenous
and universal rights (Vanegas, 2008).
In the early 2000s, the notorious cartel leader Pablo Escobar was
assassinated, and the largest paramilitary and guerrilla groups negotiated
peace talks, reducing violence and insecurity in the country. During the
demobilization, Indigenous communities in Cauca had recovered 75% of the
lands that had once belonged to their reservations. In 1996, the Colombian
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Court decided that the government’s decision to allow the Occidental
Petroleum Company to exploit felds within the U’Wa people’s territory was
unconstitutional and violated Covenant 169/1989. However, in 1997, the
Court did not uphold this same recognition of Native rights and compensated
them monetarily for the damages done to their land instead of consulting
with them (Vanegas, 2008).
As a whole, racial policy concerning the rights of Indigenous peoples
in Colombia includes not only government-sanctioned dispossession and
violence but also violations of rights by guerrilla and paramilitary groups.
Colombia’s fragmented history prioritizes the interests of corporations and
capitalist progress over the rights of Indigenous peoples, even though their
own Constitution grants them protections.
6. Colombia: Indigenous Social Movements
Colombia’s history of Indigenous disenfranchisement and abuse began
with the arrival of European explorers and has since evolved to beneft
a neoliberal capitalist state aflicted by the “resource curse” of oil. While
the initial genocide of Native peoples was very successful, the remaining
communities have fought back against their oppressors for centuries, even
amid the political fragmentation and violence that has plagued Colombia
since its founding in the 19th century. Their numerically small but strategic
resistance has allowed them to gain legal recognition at a national level but
has kept them in a neocolonial relationship with the Colombian government.
In response to the division and privatization of reservations and
subsequent exploitation of Indigenous communities, the Nasa people of
Cauca organized themselves against the colonial elites. Deprived of voting
rights, political representation, and avenues for political participation,
Indigenous people participated in the War of the One Thousand Days in an
attempt to defend their interests, but lasting change eluded them. Post-war, as
restrictive economic policies were enforced, Indigenous peoples once again
rallied under “Quintin Lame” to protect their land and people from the
white elites. Lame urged the people to persist in the struggle until their land
titles were respected by the government, aiming to establish an Indigenous
republic. While Lame initially used Colombian law to bring about change, he
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faced heavy criticism for putting faith in colonial institutions. Unfortunately,
his critics were proven right when he experienced limited success. Faced
with the failure of the legal strategy, Lame and his supporters resorted to
taking up arms against white landowners to reclaim their land, marking
the establishment of the frst known Indigenous guerrilla group in 1914.
This organized revolt prompted suggested changes to legislation regarding
political participation for Natives, but these proposals were rejected as the
government persisted in its belief in the need for white control. Lame’s
fxation on using the legal system ultimately led to the demobilization of his
movement and the triumph of white elites (Vanegas, 2008).
In the early 20th century agrarian conficts and reforms were prominent,
which caused mass exploitation of rural peasants. The ANUC was formed to
organize these peasants against exploitation, and although it did not achieve
legal results, it symbolized an important moment of mass organization. At
the same time, the Nasa people began their own organization eforts, in 1963,
the Guambiano and Nasa leaders created the
Sindicato del Oriente Caucano,
which vindicated their right to land and autonomy. This organization also
failed because it did not fully represent the needs of all Indigenous peoples.
To remedy this, the
Consejo Regional Indigena del Cauca
was founded in 1971.
They encompassed both Indigenous and peasant advocacy while also
recognizing the specifcity of the oppression of Natives, so they were very
successful in recovering lands. The Movement Quintin Lame was formed
to defend Native people from attacks from landowners and paramilitary
groups, and it was eventually dismantled in 1991 in a peace agreement,
and gained representation in drafting the 1991 Constitution. Today,
Native peoples in Colombia continue to have very low levels of political
participation because of local divisions and lack of access to voting places
and resources (Vanegas, 2008).
7. Paraguay: State Racial Policies
Paraguay’s Indigenous communities, like those throughout the Western
Hemisphere, have confronted the challenges of settler colonialism since the
frst contact. The state’s racial policies, refecting this historical context,
employ mechanisms such as erasure, exclusion, eradication, infantilization,
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and exploitation. It is within these conditions that Indigenous peoples have
responded through various forms of engagement with and resistance to the
state. Gaya Makaran classifes these responses into three characterizations:
the
Indio montés
or wild Indian, the
Indio encomendado
or encomienda
Indian, and the
Indio reducido
or reduction Indian (Makaran, 2016). These
categories highlight the diverse approaches taken by the Paraguayan state
and Indigenous communities in their interactions.
The
Indio montés
refers to those who fercely resisted conquest,
continuously evading settlers by retreating into increasingly inhospitable
regions. The
Indio encomendado
primarily denotes the Guaraní people who
experienced the encomienda regime established as early as 1555, compelling
them to become part of the colonial systems as a labor force (Makaran, 2016).
Lastly, the
Indio reducido
describes the Guaraní residing in Jesuit missions from
1609 to 1767, avoiding exploitation under the encomienda system but facing
the imposition of Christianity. These three distinctions illustrate the varying
degrees of integration of Indigenous peoples and underscore the violent
and pervasive nature of settler colonialism. The subtext suggests that the
state’s preferred strategies were dispossession, exploitation, and conversion
(Makaran, 2016).
These mechanisms of colonization persist through the state’s
policymaking over the next few centuries. Carlos Antonio Lopez, the state’s
leader from 1844 until 1862, initiated legal erasure with the enactment of
the Decree of 1848, leading to the lawful “disappearance” of Indigenous
peoples for 133 years. Articles 1 and 11 were pivotal in this regard; the
former dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their land “in exchange for
illusory citizenship” (Makaran, 2016, p. ), while the latter declared that
“the assets, rights, and actions of the aforementioned twenty-one nations of
native peoples are property of the state” (p. ). Consequently, the indigeneity
of communities was erased and disregarded as they were forcibly assimilated
into the Paraguayan settler identity. Moreover, it is essential to note the
patronizing nature of relegating an entire people to the status of “property of
the state”. Following this decree, the only Indigenous peoples recognized as
such were those who chose voluntary isolation and resisted integration.
The communities that voluntarily isolated themselves from contact with
the state were considered primitive, uncivilized, and threats to the nation-
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state: Marakan writes that they were “closer to being enemies of the country
than citizens” (Marakan, 2016, p. ). Thus, the state continued their attacks
on Indigenous autonomy throughout the twentieth century via attempts at
tribal reductions -
Ley de reducciones de tribus indigenas
(reductions of Indian
tribe’s act) in 1907, and via the state’s agenda of assimilation, specifcally
under the nationalist government of 1936-1947.
Meanwhile, the state also implemented a practice of intense infantilization
as it aimed to “civilize” Indigenous communities. Throughout the 20th century,
the government sent Indigenous children to live with wealthy families under
the guise of civilization, which often resulted in semi-slave labor. In this way,
infantilization and exploitation frequently went hand in hand. Joel Correia
(2021) introduces the idea that, just as patron-peon relationships occur on
an interpersonal level, similar power dynamics take place between the state
and Indigenous communities.
Patr
ó
n-pe
ó
n
is the term used to comprehend
the relationship between cattle ranchers and their workers. Patrons control
resources and labor, perpetuating the imbalance of power between themselves
and their workers, which Correia argues is an efective understanding of the
Paraguayan state’s stance towards Indigenous communities.
Exploitation occurs in both of these patron-peon dynamics as the state
encouraged the racialized labor that took place on cattle ranches. Until 1961
with Law 729, Paraguay “did not prohibit using indigenous labor without
monetary compensation” (Correia, 2021, p. ). Moreover, the state’s land
reforms, beginning with the sales of many landholdings in the Paraguayan
Chaco after the Triple Alliance War that left the Paraguayan state with debt
after its end in 1870, perpetuated the settler colonial trend of dispossession.
Foreign investors bought land without consulting the Indigenous communities
that inhabited it and were thus enclosed in new “properties,” becoming
a “reserve labor force” for the ranches (Correia, 2021, p. ). As seen here,
colonization is inextricable from the exploitation of the land and people:
settler states seek power through land control.
Thus, as cattle ranching surged throughout the Bajo Chaco, the industry
required labor, which was secured through foreign land sales and consequent
enclosures. Low pay and poor working conditions were rampant on such
ranches and state ofcials denied rights to the Indigenous peoples living and
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working there (Correia, 2021). In another example of the state’s disregard
for Indigenous wellbeing, throughout the 20
th
century, multicultural
policies that supposedly ofered new forms of recognition ultimately created
“‘governable spaces of Indigeneity’ that advance capital expansion while
limiting autonomy” (Correia, 2021).
Trends of state-sanctioned exploitation can be explicitly observed in
the interactions between the Mbyá people and the Mennonite settlers of the
20th century. While Mbyá communities successfully avoided direct contact
with the Paraguayan state, as will be discussed further later on, they were,
nonetheless, displaced by Mennonite families. This dynamic involved a cycle
of dispossession and exploitation, where complaints of mistreatment resulted
in empty promises of investigation and retribution. Initially, the Mbyá
people lodged complaints with the DAI (
Departamento Asuntos Indigenas
),
and the subsequent request for a police investigation yielded no results
(Reed, 2015). Over the next twenty years, complaints led to minimal actual
change; any investigations, limited as they were, backfred with increased
Mennonite aggression. The state’s response was to ofer Mbyá communities
land for relocation. However, the Mbyá refused these ofers, deeming the
land invariably infertile and inadequate. They believed in their right to their
original homelands, despite being invaded and deforested. In summary, the
Paraguayan state has consistently demonstrated its unwillingness to defend
Indigenous peoples from violence and, in fact, has actively perpetuated such
violence through its policies.
In addition to the exclusion, infantilization, and exploitation
characterized within the Paraguayan state’s racial policies, there were also
genocidal impacts. The Stroessner regime of 1954-1989 facilitated the deadly
eradication of many Indigenous peoples via agricultural expansion and
colonization of El Chaco, which can be understood as a second conquest.
Such decimation was enabled through the spread of deadly and unfamiliar
disease and the destruction of homelands. These actions had a particularly
fatal impact on the Ache people in Eastern Paraguay due to the intense
deforestation concentrated in that region. Recorded at 75% forest in 1973,
Paraguay’s east soon ranked fourth in the world’s rates of deforestation with
3.5% removed each year. By 2015, only 14% of the original forest remained
(Reed, 2015). Such environmental devastation was made possible since the
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government considered it to be a kind of collateral damage necessary for the
country’s progress and modernization.
Three central reasons explain the aggressive territorial dislocation
and deforestation in Paraguay. Firstly, the expansion of the cattle ranching
industry necessitated more land for pastures. Secondly, as Stroessner’s
power weakened in the 1980s, he distributed acreage along the eastern
border to poor mestizo campesinos in an attempt to “mollify the landless
masses” (Reed, 2015, p. ). Thirdly, the growing demand for soy, initiated by
Paraguay’s soybean industry in 1967, contributed to these trends. By 2012,
the country’s soy industry had experienced signifcant growth, with 3 million
hectares planted. Importantly, these pursuits took advantage of the “lack of
legal property titles and regulations” (Makaran, 2016, p. ), resulting in the
extreme dispossession of Indigenous communities.
New rights were granted in the 1980s and 1990s, but it is crucial to
emphasize the disparities between text and context. In 1981, there was ofcial
recognition of Indigenous communities for the frst time since the Decree
of 1848, as discussed earlier in relation to legal erasure. The aim was “at
the social and cultural preservation of indigenous communities” (Makaran,
2016, p. ). However, this recognition was sparingly and inefectively enforced
due to a “lack of political will and penalties” (p. ). In 1992, ethnic rights
were granted constitutional status: the state recognized Indigenous peoples
as citizens and guaranteed their rights on paper, but this, too, had limited
impact. The discrepancies between newfound law and practice are evident in
the continued usurpation of Indigenous land and the disproportionate rates of
poverty among Indigenous communities. According to Makaran (2016), 77%
of Indigenous peoples in Paraguay live in poverty, and 63% live in extreme
poverty, compared to 38% and 15%, respectively, of the whole population.
These numbers underscore the inadequacy of any new progressive reforms
and point to the economic exclusion of Indigenous communities. The state’s
solutions have focused on disappearing Indigenous peoples rather than
addressing poverty, highlighting the idea that legal recognition does not
guarantee substantive change.
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8. Paraguay: Indigenous Social Movements
Indigenous communities have taken it upon themselves to enact the
change and resistance necessary for their survival. With strategies of selective
refusal and engagement with the state, the Xákmok Kásek community in
el Chaco, comprised of Sanapana and Enxet-Sur peoples, have “shown
that settler state power is not total but can be disrupted” (Correia, 2021, p.
). Indeed, Guinier and Torres (2014) write of social movements as arising
“when
ordinary people join forces in confrontation with elites, authorities,
and opponents to change the exercise and distribution of power” (
Guinier &
Torres, 2014). The Xákmok Kásek community, specifcally, was characterized
by Correia (2021) as employing dialectics of refusal and engagement of the
Paraguayan state. The Marandú Project helped to provide a framework from
which to legally advocate for their rights and communities. This organization
sought to inform communities about their rights and to cultivate leaders with
knowledge of the law so as to better resist the state’s manipulative violence
(Correia, 2021). It was short-lived—established in 1974 and ended by the
Stroessner government in 1976, but it was successful in creating the
Consejo
Indigena del Paraguay
(Reed, 2015).
The Xákmok Kásek began their state engagement by advocating for
labor rights to combat the labor exploitation and poor working conditions,
and then moved onto land rights. In 1986, they leveraged their new legal
status to claim 20,000 hectares from the Estancia Salazar landholdings, but
resulted in a stalemate, as the ranch owners refused to sell or subdivide, and
the Xákmok Kásek refused their counter ofer for diferent land, holding out
for their ancestral lands (Correia, 2021). Similar to the cyclical dynamics of
the Mbyá and Mennonite ranchers, they refused to drop their claims and
stayed on the Estancia Salazar ranch as conditions worsened until they were
eventually evicted by the ranchers to relocate nearby. A law outlined a process
for land restitution but did little to resolve the Xákmok Kásek land dispute.
Since “relying solely on legal remedies reasserts state and settler colonial
power” (Correia, 2021, p. ), Indigenous communities turned to direct action
and enacted road closures in 2015. A framework of demosprudence is
particularly apt here, as it “explores the ways that political, economic, or
social minorities cannot simply rely on judicial decisions as the solution to
their problems” (Guinier & Torres, 2014, p. ). The communities demanded
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compliance with the Interamerican Court’s 2010 judgment that found
that the state had violated the community’s “rights to life, property, and
dignity” and called for reparations within three years (Correia, 2021). The
idea of such a demonstration was to aggravate the Mennonite ranchers, the
patrones, by closing roads and disrupting their business ventures because
the state was more likely to comply with the landholder’s needs since power
always listens to power. In these ways, the Xákmok Kásek enacted a dialectic
of both legal engagement on the state’s terms and refusal on theirs to posit
themselves as citizens with rights rather than “subjects of labor exploitation
and dispossession” (Correia, 2021, p. ).
However, this has not been the only approach to resistance. The Mbyá-
Guaraní of eastern Paraguay have unfalteringly enacted complete refusal to
engage with the state. As forest people, they were hugely afected by the
deforestation that accompanied the state’s expansion of cattle ranching and
soybean farming. In the three decades following 1980, forests were felled,
and the country moved to the fourth-largest soybean producer in the world.
Mbyá people bore the brunt of the deforestation (Reed, 2015). Due to the
loss of home, many were forced to migrate to cities and found themselves
unmoored in the new urban landscape. Still, once there, the Mbyá refused
to assimilate. Up until this point, they had successfully isolated themselves
within the forest, avoiding state legal processes such as the census and land
titles, believing that paper trails could be used against them (Reed, 2015).
They traveled to the city only as a last resort and there established an urban
identity once again in opposition to the state (Correia, 2021). They refused
to take part in any organizations that provided healthcare or legal services,
including
the Asociación de Parcialidades Indigenas
(API) or
the Marandú Project’s
Consejo Indigena del Paraguay.
The Mbyá-Guaraní opposed any eforts to establish colonies or join
any established enclaves in the city due to their previously mentioned
moral opposition to titling land. This constant opposition is unique from
other Indigenous communities in Paraguay’s cities, such as the Maká,
who established themselves as a cohesive unit in 1985, and other Guaraní
communities who have transitioned more easily into urban life. The Avá-
Guaraní, for example, elected a leader, petitioned for urban land, and are
recognized as an Indigenous community. The Mbyá-Guaraní, on the other
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hand, confront state agencies and assert their opposition to the state even through
displacement. They occupied Plaza Uruguaya, a park in La Asunción, in 2007 to
press their claims for land. Their occupation lasted for four years until conservative
politicians in ofce removed them from the plaza in 2011. Still, they continued
to demonstrate under the imperative of acquiring land in forests to return to:
dissatisfed with anything besides large parcels of adequate land. Reed (2015) writes
that the Mbyá “wield their presence in the city as a challenge to state authority”,
embodying an admirably stubborn form of resistance. Their maintenance of
opposition and insistence on independence and autonomy represent one of the
strategies of resistance and social movements.
9. Bolivia: State Racial Policies
Bolivia’s Indigenous communities have also faced a slew of exclusionary
policies from the state under the guise of land reform and multicultural policies
throughout the second half of the 20th century. Prior to then, the country’s
Indigenous-state dynamics were defned by a largely feudal style of productive
relationships that supported hacienda production. Indigenous peoples were denied
citizenship and rights, excluded from inhabiting cities and instead serving in “semi-
feudal conditions as peasants or miners” (Horn, 2018). They were thus separated
from the economies, politics, and societies of other Bolivian ethno-racial groups
(Horn, 2018). Moreover, the attempted destruction of their cultural practices,
facilitated and perpetuated by the exploitative labor dynamics, designated them
as a low social rank (Tockman, 2016).
The national revolution of 1952 ended 70 years of oligarchies and gave all
Bolivians, including Indigenous peoples, the right to vote. It also ushered in an era
of agrarian and education reform. In 1953, the president Víctor Paz Estenssoro,
signed of on the “frst large-scale land distribution” (Fontana, 2014), which sought
to end this system of bondage and supported the peasant unions (Fontana, 2014).
As with Paraguayan policies, these new reforms did not translate into realized
implementation. Bolivia’s Indigenous peoples were still marginalized as their
political agency was withheld (Tockman, 2016) and the state’s formal granting
of land did not result in much actual change. Indigenous peoples were allocated
land but the plots were small, specifc, and all in all unsustainable for traditional
lifeways that depended on communal and fertile land.
However, nearly forty years later in 1989, the 169 Convention of the
International Labor Organization (ILO) ruled that Indigenous peoples were
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entitled to “special territorial, cultural, and self-determination rights” (Fontana,
2014), which was then ratifed by Bolivia in 1991. In 1994, the Law of Popular
Participation (LPP) was enacted, granting more opportunity for local political
participation by Indigenous and peasant groups. The 1995 elections led to
29% of public ofces being flled by Indigenous and peasant candidates across
200 municipalities (Tockman, 2016). Law 1715 in 1996 was constructed under
the neoliberal government of Sanchez de Losada, which distinguished between
individual and collective land tenure rights (Fontana, 2014). Introducing the Tierra
Comunitaria de Origen (TCO), it institutionalized the “collective titling of large
areas of land to social organizations formally recognized as Indigenous” (Fontana,
2014). Fontana (2014) also notes that this form of collective tenure allowed for a
more efcient titling process due to issuing a single property title for a large area
of land. Indigenous communities in the lowlands predominantly opted for these
collective land titles, and as of 2014, 18 municipalities have begun converting into
Indigenous autonomous territorial units (Fontana, 2014).
Despite these successes, which were indeed long overdue, urban Indigenous
peoples face disproportionate rates of poverty (Horn, 2018). “Indigenous” has long
been considered a synonymous of “rural” and so urban Indigenous communities are
excluded from Indigenous rights-based development (Horn, 2018) and recognition
of rights only take place in rural areas, “places conventionally associated with
indigeneity” (Horn, 2018). Of course, this trend has its roots in colonialism as
settler conquest established indigeneity as confated with primitivism and as an
“antithesis to urban life” (Horn, 2018). So, policies that were successful in granting
collective land titles to many Indigenous peoples excluded those in the cities: urban
legislation recognizes only individual property rights (Horn, 2018).
As the 1990s gave way to the 21st century, Bolivian policy transitioned from
multiculturalism, which, similar to Paraguay’s approach, combated outright legal
erasure but otherwise served as a means for further exploitation, to plurinationalism.
In 2009, the constitution was updated with articles 17 and 18 to recognize cities
as intercultural communities whose needs should be met through “an intercultural
education and healthcare system” (Horn, 2018). In 2010, new Indigenous rights
and developmental principles were established. Overall, the Bolivian state has
seen some success in transforming its policy towards Indigenous communities and
supporting Indigenous autonomy.
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10. Bolivia: Indigenous Social Movements
This success was not without signifcant pressure from Indigenous
communities. Indigenous land claims are founded in a “strong ethno-identitarian
narrative” (Fontana, 2014, p. ), which was often at odds with the class-based identity
structure that tends to prevail. Peasant and
campesino
unions of the second half of
the 20
th
century were a dominant form of organization and were contingent upon
the class aspect of their identities. Peasants opposed the TCO format of collective
land titles, preferring individuality and emphasis on their roles in production
while Indigenous peoples primarily sought to restore their homelands and
traditional lifestyles (Fontana, 2014). The divisions between identity articulation
and priorities solidifed separate categories of Indigenous and peasant. Amidst
changing political climate of the 1980’s, as neoliberalism rose following the end of
a dictatorship, the ethno-cultural organization of
Confederación de Pueblos Indigenas
de Bolivia
(CIDOB) gathered speed in the lowlands. The
Cosejo Nacional de Ayllus
y Markus de Qullasuyu
(CONAMAQ) followed ten years later in the highlands.
Both Indigenous organizations protested the disproportionately low numbers
of Indigenous circumscriptions and representatives (Tockman, 2016). As the
concept of demosprudence seeks to explore, social movements and organizations
such as these “en
able those who are shut out of a majoritarian political process,
to nonetheless open up nodes in the decision-making practices of a democratic
society”
(Guinier & Torres, 2014, p. ).
In the late 1980s, amidst an economic crisis and failed land reforms, rural
Indigenous movements exerted pressure on both national governments and
international organizations, following a rights-based approach to development
and the recognition of Indigenous rights (Horn, 2018). This organized pressure
resulted in the aforementioned 1989 ILO 169 Convention on Indigenous and Tribal
Peoples. In 1994, Bolivia began its process of recognizing languages and respecting
ancestral territory (Horn, 2018). The demands for territorial self-governance were
acknowledged when the plurinational state of Bolivia incorporated Indigenous
autonomy into its 2009 constitution.
Still, Tockman (2016) notes that relatively few Indigenous communities
have taken advantage of the opportunity for increased territorial autonomy and
explains the inadequacies of colonial cartography. Though an important space
for self-governance, the municipalities are often inconsistent with ancestral
territory and must follow a liberal design of governing structure. Conversions
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to autonomous municipalities are most likely to happen in the highlands, where
85% of the municipalities (215 of 252) are majority Indigenous (Aymara and
Quechua peoples) while the collective land titling is more popular in the lowlands
(Tockman, 2016).
Despite the high rates of poverty and exclusion from legislation, Indigenous
communities have developed their own forms of politics within neighborhood
organizations. In El Alto-Bolivia, communities have “reproduced rural Indigenous
governance principles, such as leadership rotation or collective work schemes in
the context of their neighborhoods” (Horn, 2018). In Santa Cruz, Bolivia, urban
Indigenous communities have both utilized rural governance and claimed ofcial
recognition and representation (Horn, 2018). In these ways, urban Indigenous
peoples are also constantly revitalizing their identities and practices in some cases,
and developing a political voice and agency. Not because it was handed to them,
but because they have made it so.
Finally, not all Bolivian Indigenous resistance has stayed in the realm of legal
pressure. Disruption and demonstration are also a key method of protest and have
been seen used in several instances. This kind of social outcry was used in the face
of the 2000 Water War in Cochabamba-Bolivia and the 2003 Gas War in La Paz
and El Alto-Bolivia. The fght over natural resources, with one side extractive
and the other protective, also demonstrates that Bolivia, with its more radical and
efective reform, still maintains trends of disregarding the wellbeing of land and
people in the name of proft. In response to such ideologies,
vivir bien
suggests a
framework for post neoliberal and pro indigenous development and it emphasizes
harmony between human and nature. Therefore, the impacts of social movements
extend beyond the law, as Guinier and Torres (2014) articulate their capacity to
“
narrate new social meanings, often through their interaction with, and resistance
to, more conventional understandings”.
11. Canada: State Racial Policies
Canada, despite being socially perceived by many as historically and presently
“raceless” and “innocent of racism” (Haque, 2015), is decisively neither and never
has been. This is particularly evident in its settler colonial past and present, starting
with the “doctrine of discovery”, which declared conquest to be righteous and
justifed the colonization of the Americas along with the genocide of its Indigenous
people. Settler colonial violence took various forms, and as it spread from east to
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Indigenous Social Movements
west, it manifested as deadly diseases. By the 1860s, when settlers reached western
North America, unfamiliar diseases had signifcantly reduced the Indigenous
populations (Canning, 2018). Another frequently employed strategy involved the
intentional destruction of food sources. Settlers, hunting for sport, decimated the
bison population, which had been a crucial resource for Indigenous communities
that used the meat and hides. The colonial project hinged on acquiring land and
resources, employing tools such as the outright murder of Indigenous peoples
through bounty ofers, deceitful treaties destined to be broken, assimilationist
agendas, and the imposition of new religions (Canning, 2018).
Canada’s residential schools, operational from the 1870s through the 1990s,
perpetuated colonial violence by facilitating the assimilation of Indigenous children
into the dominant settler culture, aiming to “civilize” Indigenous populations. These
schools also sought to sever the tie between land and people, serving the state’s
interests by vacating the land for white settlers (Haque, 2015). Children in these
schools endured various forms of abuse, including malnutrition, beatings, sexual
exploitation, medical malpractice and experimentation, and even death (Canning,
2018). An essential component of the “cultural invasion” was the “breaking down
of Indigenous spirituality, family relationships, and cultural practices” (Canning,
2018), and the residential schools embodied this agenda. The forced attendance at
understafed and underfunded boarding schools, rampant with psychological and
physical abuse, exemplifes Canada’s state-sanctioned violence towards Indigenous
populations. In contemporary times, these patterns persist through high rates of
incarceration for First Nations and Indigenous peoples (Canning, 2018).
Attacks on language and education were also a principal component of
assimilationist attempts. The Canadian state used language policies and racial
exclusion in an efort to preserve the national unity of the white settler state (Haque,
2015). They posited Indigenous languages as primitive and “barriers to civilization
and modernity” (Haque, 2015, p. ). The constitution act of 1982 recognized certain
treaty rights but failed to make any reference to language rights. Canada, along
with most settler states, drags its feet when it comes to making any real change
as its government ofcials were slow to sign UNDRIP and consequently slow to
implement it. Canning writes of Canada’s policies towards Indigenous peoples,
saying they are that of “refusing necessary change, and therefore of allowing, or
mandating by policy, the resulting chaos” (Canning, 2018, p. ).
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12. Canada: Indigenous Social Movements
As the Canadian state has enabled and encouraged continuous attacks on
Indigenous sovereignty, specifcally via environmental destruction, Indigenous
groups rise up in resistance. Many battles are fought in both the courtrooms
and in the streets, such as with the trans mountain pipeline. Initially, Indigenous
communities sought to be part of the environmental review and consultation
processes but when that had little efect, they went to court. Construction continued
while it was still being legally disputed and so Indigenous protestors blockaded
streets in response. In 2017 and 2018, the construction was slowed and then
stopped, which is a testament to the grit and savvy of the protestors. Nonetheless,
the federal government has claimed to eventually continue construction, in a
promise that disregards Indigenous sovereignty (Canning, 2018).
The trend of mass mobilization and organizing gained momentum in 1969
with protests aimed at blocking the passage of the White Paper. This federal
legislation posed a signifcant threat to “Indian status” by seeking to eliminate treaty
rights, transfer federal responsibility to provinces, and abolish the Department
of Indian Afairs (Haque, 2015). However, Indigenous scholars responded by
releasing publications such as Harold Cardinal’s
The Unjust Society
, which declared
the policies to be a mechanism of cultural genocide, and the National Indian
Brotherhood’s
Indian Control of Indian Education
, which advocated for Indigenous
agency over education (Haque, 2015). These responses represent a several-pronged
approach to resisting state oppression: legal arguments as with the trans mountain
pipeline, blockades, and academic responses.
In the spirit of complete refusal, many of Canada’s Indigenous social
movements have achieved success through large-scale blockades. Blockades
prove to be an efective strategy as they garner the attention of policymakers by
disrupting society without requiring vast numbers of people. Additionally, as noted
by Canning, they subvert the norm of the state enclosing and policing Indigenous
peoples because, in this context, Indigenous communities are restricting mobility
instead of being restricted. A notable example occurred in 1984 when the Tla-o-
qui-aht and Ahousaht First Nations in Clayoquet Sound, BC confronted a logging
corporation whose operations posed a threat to their land. The court granted
injunctions to both parties, preventing Indigenous blockades and the corporation’s
plans to clear-cut (Canning, 2018).
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Blockades are a very popular strategy. There were thirty Indigenous-led
protests and blockades in the summer of 1990, most of which were in response
to the Oka Crisis, which was a confict at Kanesatake in Ontario over the
municipality’s attempt to build a golf course on sacred burial grounds. In a
“serious and widespread shut down of economy and society” (Canning, 2018, p.
), protestors across the country enacted blockades in solidarity. In 1995, there was
the Stoney Point Ojibway First Nation’s occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park
in Ontario as a last resort for reclaiming their land. In 2012, there was another
mass mobilization in response to legislation against environmental laws, under
the banner “Idle No More”, Indigenous peoples took to the streets following
Indigenous women and grassroots First Nations leaders (Canning, 2018). Despite
being unsuccessful in blocking the legislation, this is an example of the unwavering
commitment to resistance. A year later, Mi’kmaq people opposed the drilling and
fracking projects planned for Elsipogtog, New Brunswick and won their fght
(Canning, 2018).
Blockades serve as an outlet for protest and resistance against the state. They
are one strategy of what Guinier and Torres (2014) consider “popular and
purposive
mobilizations” seeking “signifcant, sustainable social, economic, and/or political
change”
. Blockades also call into question the nature of trespassing. Can Indigenous
peoples ever really be trespassing on their own land while the government forces
roads and pipelines through their homes? As Canning writes (2018), direct action
becomes “unavoidable, and inevitable, when people who are negatively afected by
something are denied the power to change it” (Canning, 2018, p. ).
CONCLUSIONS
All six of these countries share histories of settler colonialism in which the
imposition of statehood dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their homelands and
lifeways. Their timelines take diferent forms: for example, Paraguay’s land reforms
don’t reach their devastating peak until the late 20th century with the infux of
cattle ranching and soybean farming, during which time Bolivia had begun its slow
and initially inefective process of recognition, Peru looked to multiculturalism and
neoliberalism, Colombia introduced new rights-based laws but also faces unrest
from guerrilla groups, and the governments of Canada and the United States had
turned to assimilation as its primary prerogative. We have identifed four major
characteristics of a settler colonial state’s approach to its Indigenous population:
eradication and genocide, land theft, assimilation and cultural corrosion, and
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labor exploitation. The six countries of our focus incorporate these characteristics
into their colonial projects to varying degrees.
Paraguay’s genocide of Indigenous people came in two waves: frst, with the
birth of the nation-state, and second, with the complete deforestation of its eastern
border. In the 1900s, Paraguay began its agricultural expansion in earnest, and by
the late 1900s, the government had efectively transformed the landscape from that
of Indigenous homelands to the sites of environmental violation. The eradication
of Indigenous peoples in Colombia, Bolivia, Canada, and the United States was,
like in Paraguay, the result of extractive projects and displacement. The genocidal
attempts in Canada and the United States were extensive and nearly immediate, as
the states explicitly required land for settlement. Land theft and displacement are
perhaps the defning characteristics of settler colonialism, as that was the purpose
of the states’ genocidal attempts. In this way, the governments of all six countries
centered their need for land—for natural resources, for agricultural ends, for
settlement—in their policies concerning Indigenous peoples. Assimilation and
cultural corrosion were and are principal components of the United States and
Canada’s racial policies, while Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, and Bolivia instead
leaned on exclusion. Canada’s legacy of residential schools clearly illustrates
its assimilationist and “civilizing” agenda as it attempted to purge Indigenous
communities of their cultural heritage and replace it with the settler language
and practices. Finally, labor exploitation was most central to Paraguay’s policies
as they required the Indigenous inhabitants to work their new ranches and felds.
While all six governments were and are exploitative, it is particularly apparent in
Paraguay’s history.
There are rich histories of Indigenous resistance in the face of this state-
sanctioned injustice. Resistance manifests as small- and large-scale organization,
activism, and protest, inside and outside of legal frameworks. The racial policies
of colonial states are cause for protest but also inform the states’ reception to such
protest. Population size and access to resources are consequences of colonial states’
various unjust racial policies and have impacts on the possible scale and scope
of social movements. Still, our fndings have shown that Indigenous resistance
is persistent and enduring. As Guinier and Torres (2014) outline in their work
on demosprudence, people cannot rely entirely on courts to introduce necessary
change or redress harms and so must challenge “unfair laws through the sounds
and determination of their marching feet.
160
Indigenous Social Movements
Indigenous people everywhere resist colonial states. Indeed, the very continued
existence of Indigenous communities proves the failure of settler colonialism. Yet,
it is a pervasive project that persists today. Diferent communities opt for diferent
forms of resistance: many choose to engage with the state for recognition and legal
rights, while others opt for voluntary isolation, as with Paraguay’s Mbyá people, or
partial integration, as with Bolivia’s urban Indigenous populations. Others choose
direct action, as with Canada’s pattern of Indigenous-led blockades. Many do a
mix of all three—state engagement, degrees of withdrawal, and direct action or
protest—and also resist in their day-to-day revitalization of traditional and cultural
lifeways. All in all, despite the undeniable successes, such as Bolivia’s plurinational
status, this is a fght that will continue indefnitely - until people can live in peace
and without the oppression of a settler state.
161
Revista Facultad de Jurisprudencia No.14
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