The American Legacy of Destroying, Marginalizing & Ignoring Our Indigenous Peoples

 Enough with the those old, often black and white, “cowboys and Indians” movies and TV programs. Or “Western” art as pictured above. White settlers, US calvary to the rescue, corrupt general store managers selling alcohol to “resettled Indians,” profiteers trading rifles for precious metals and fur… and aside from a couple of “loyal scouts and trackers,” those “Indians” were always the bad guys. “Indians” because the early European immigrants to the Americas were in search of a shortcut to spice-rich India. They found Native Americans and gave them that name. We don’t produce those kinds of films anymore, but they are readily available on so many digital platforms. 

Older Americans got to view those films and TV programs when they were first released, forming the racial stereotypes that so many of us carry about these indigenous peoples we call “Native Americans” today. The truth about how we killed and decimated these peoples who were so one with their land? So many of our children may never learn the truth of the massive theft of Native American lands, the killing forced migration of tens of thousands of our indigenous peoples living in the eastern part of the United States to vastly less valuable parcels in the West (the Trail of Tears) and how out-and-out genocide and cultural destruction of “Indians” was both sanctioned and even mandated by our legal system. As the red state wave against the teaching of “critical race theory” sweeps across the country, the truth about our historical and present treatment of our indigenous peoples is swept under our ethnically European-culturally biased rug.

Today, the World Population Review tells us: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the current total population of Native Americans in the United States is 6.79 million, which is about 2.09% of the entire population. There are about 574 federally recognized Native American tribes in the U.S… Fifteen states have Native American populations of over 100,000. Additionally, 15 states have relative Native American populations below 1.00%... Los Angeles County in California has the highest number of Native Americans, with a total of 233,000. Oglala Lakota County in South Dakota has the highest percentage of Native Americans of any county at 93.9%.” 

Many live on “pueblos” or “reservations,” land that legally belongs to them… usually, isolated and particularly exposed to extreme environmental degradation from climate change. Notwithstanding the proliferation of casino gambling on many of these Native American holdings, substandard poverty, horrible schools (even one-room schoolhouses), and often a lack of modern plumbing, electrical power and Internet access is more than common. The dearth of solid education and opportunity leaves a disproportionate number of residents in these forced enclaves with severe drug addiction and alcoholism… and rampant diabetes. Without hope.

An article published by the Yale School of the Environment (YSE), October 28th highlights a study that begins to provide missing statistics about the contemporary impact of our historical mistreatment of Native Americans: “In a first-of-its-kind study, a team of researchers — led by Yale School of the Environment Professor Justin Farrell — attempted to quantify the massive loss of historical lands by Indigenous Nations across the U.S. since European settlers first began laying claim to the continent. They also found historical land dispossession was associated with current and future climate risks as Indigenous peoples were forced to lands that are more exposed to a range of climate change risks and hazards and less likely to lie over valuable subsurface oil and gas resources. 

 

“‘Everyone who’s read history — or a true version of it — knows this story,’ Farrell says. ‘But this is the first scholarly study that has looked at the full scope of change and tried to quantify it, to systematically geo-reference it at scale.’” The study – Effects of land dispossession and forced migration on Indigenous peoples in North America – is published in the October 28th edition of Science, authored by Farrell and other academics from Yale and Colorado State University. The headlines from that report are deeply troubling and profoundly sad. They attest to the shame we should all feel, not just from the history of how we got here… but from our continued failure to correct the continuing legacy of the past into the present day:

 

“To date, we lack precise estimates of the extent to which Indigenous peoples in parts of North America were dispossessed of their lands and forced to migrate by colonial settlers, as well as how the lands that they were moved into compare to their original lands. Farrell et al. constructed a new dataset within the boundaries of the current-day United States and found that Indigenous land density and spread in has been reduced by nearly 99% (see the Perspective by Fixico). The lands to which they were forcibly migrated are more vulnerable to climate change and contain fewer resources….

“Statistical analysis shows that aggregate land reduction was near total, with a 98.9% reduction in cumulative coextensive lands and a 93.9% reduction in noncoextensive lands. Further, 42.1% of tribes from the historical period have no federally- or state-recognized present-day tribal land base. Of the tribes that still have a land base, their present-day lands are an average of 2.6% the size of their estimated historical area. Additionally, many tribes were forced onto new lands shared by multiple Indigenous peoples, even in cases in which nations are culturally dissimilar and have separate ancestral areas. Many present-day lands are far from historical lands. Migration dyad analysis shows that forced migration distances averaged 239 km, with a median of 131 km and a maximum of 2774 km…

“Tests related to climate change risk exposure, land conditions, and potential economic value reveal substantial differences between tribes’ historical and present-day areas. First, tribes’ present-day lands are on average more exposed to climate change risks and hazards, including more extreme heat and less precipitation. Nearly half of tribes experienced heightened wildfire hazard exposure. Second, tribes’ present-day lands have less positive economic mineral value, being less likely to lie over valuable subsurface oil and gas resources. Agricultural suitability results were mixed. Last, about half of tribes saw an increase in their proximity to federal lands in the present day…

“This research suggests that near-total land reduction and forced migration lead to contemporary conditions in which tribal lands experience increased exposure to climate change risks and hazards and diminished economic value. The significance of these climate and economic effects reflect aggregate changes across the continent, but there is an urgent need to understand the magnitude of place-specific impacts for particular Native nations resulting from settler colonialism in future research.” We maintain those highly inferior Native American “settlements,” ignore and underfund them… and simply do not want to know the truth or teach that to our children. Which just perpetuates the horribles into a permanent abused underclass.

I’m Peter Dekom, and our shame from our past treatment of our indigenous peoples is simply being compounded by a contemporary failure to rectify the current exposure and substandard living conditions we still impose on these fellow Americans… and even refuse to let our children know there is still very much a problem.