Page 10 - Mar Apr 2021-REV

LAND BACK

A Movement, A Spirit, A Practice

By Erin Poor | Citizen of Cherokee Nation; Land was, is, and forever will be stew- ancestral knowledges of land stewardship,
temporary visitor on Pawnee and UMÓⁿHOⁿ arded by Indigenous peoples. And it is these assert self-sovereignty, and achieve collec-
and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Land. relationships of stewardship, beneficence, tive liberation.
reciprocity, exchange, respect, and reverence How does LAND BACK happen? In
In recent years the phrase LAND BACK that undergirded centuries of Indigenous many ways. For one, Indigenous people are
has gained popularity in mainstream culture knowledge of the land. Under Indigenous using legal means to pursue their right to
thanks to the work of Indigenous activists. stewardship the land flourished. Animals and lands granted by the United States through
But it is so much more than a contemporary ecosystems were celebrated for their biodi- treaties. For example, “NDN Collective”, a
movement. It is a spirit that has endured and versity. Balance was, is, and will be forever nonprofit led by Lakota community leaders
strengthened over generations, informed a core value. Since the dominant practice has recently reignited the fight for recognition
by the multiplicity of Indigenous resistance has become land ownership and resource of Lakota land rights and Tribal sovereignty
practices across the globe. It is a movement, in the Black Hills. Promised to the Lakota
To better understand the LAND BACK issue, (federally recognized as the “Sioux Nation”)
in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the U.S.
it is important to first call out different ideologies broke their treaty when gold was found in the
Black Hills. That region, known to the Lakota
of human-land relations. In the current Western as the Hesápa, is their sacred homelands.
society, land ownership and ownership of Though the Lakota never ceded that land, the
United States claims ownership and American
private property is a key component to life, citizens occupy the land. Lakota leaders have
engaged in several direct actions to claim their
policy, and economic prosperity... legal right to that land, some of which have
ended with violence by law enforcement and
arrests of Lakota people on their own land.
but it does not answer to one leader. It is the extraction, this world has seen genocide and LAND BACK strategy also includes
coalescing of generational efforts, executed forced removals of people, the destruction of engaging with individual landowners and
using a diversity of tactics, with one goal: habitat and biodiversity, climate change, and encouraging them to deed their land to
getting the land back. what some scientists have termed the sixth the Native Nation of that region, or to indi-
To better understand the issue, it is im- mass extinction. vidual Native Americans and their families.
portant to first call out different ideologies of Though Indigenous people believe in Families who benefited from policies like the
human-land relations. In the current Western land stewardship over ownership, we are Homestead Act of 1862, directly benefited
society, as has been the case since the be- forced to negotiate our rights and existence from state-sanctioned genocide and forced
ginning of the United States, land ownership in terms more familiar to settler colonialism, removal of the Indigenous inhabitants of that
and ownership of private property is a key i.e. ownership. LAND BACK as a movement land. Today, white people in America benefit
component to life, policy, and economic pros- seeks to transfer the ownership of land from from generational wealth and property that
perity. To Indigenous peoples, the concept non-Native to Native hands so that Indigenous is only possible because of Indigenous
of land ownership did not exist before the people can resume their ancestral land- genocide, removal and allotment policies of
United States. Rather, Indigenous peoples based practices and ceremonies, apply their
believed in land stewardship. This form of conclusion on page 14
relationship indicates kinship between land,
human, and other-than-human inhabitants. To Indigenous peoples, the concept of land
Many Indigenous peoples consider the land
to be a part of Mother Earth, and one cannot ownership did not exist before the United
own their Mother. Instead, Tribal peoples States. They believed in land stewardship.
worked with the land in a collective way, with
no one person having more of a right to the The land is part of Mother Earth, and
land than another.
MARCH/APRIL 2021 NE REPORT, P. 10 one cannot own their Mother.