Our History is the Future: On Indigenous peoples' central role in overcoming capitalism!

In the autumn of 2016, a large alliance of Indigenous peoples and their non-Indigenous supporters blocked the path of yet another oil pipeline in North America, the Dakota Access Pipeline. At Standing Rock, people opposed the fossil fuel industry and protected water as the essential source of life. It is this moment of contestation, which is at the heart of Nick Estes' book Our History is the Future (Verso, 2019). In this blog post, I will outline several of Estes' key contributions.

 

First, when analysing the resistance at Standing Rock, Estes successfully places this particular moment of contestation in the much wider history of Indigenous peoples’expropriation in North America and their resistance over the centuries of settler colonialism. He outlines well how the slave plantations of the 19^th century were closely related to relentless genocide of Indigenous peoples during the push of the USA towards the West in North America. ‘The expansion of the plantation system coincided with Indigenous dispossession and removal’ (P.76). Capitalism as a mode of exploitation has always been closely intertwined with racism and this included both black slave labour on the cotton plantations in the Southern USA and the expropriation and extinction of Indigenous people. ‘White settlers want Indigenous lands, but they don’t want Indigenous Peoples’ (P.165).

 

Second, settler colonialism is not only an attempt to replace Indigenous people with settlers, but it is equally a war on nature. The disregard for water, expressed in the construction of pipelines, the leaks of which result regularly in pollution of ground water sources is one expression of this. The relentless hunting of buffalos in the late 19^th century is another. ‘An attack on the land and the buffalo was an attack on Indigenous subsistence practices and the ability to resist encroachment’ (P.98). In turn, resistance by Indigenous peoples is not only a defence of themselves, but equally a defence of nature. Unsurprisingly, activists at Standing Rock called themselves ‘Water Protectors’.

 

Third, Estes highlights how the war against Indigenous peoples is an ongoing process. While the Indian Wars characterised the 19^th century, it was through large dam constructions in the Missouri River, part of the so-called Pick-Sloan plan, that Indigenous peoples were attacked in the mid-20^th century. ‘The Pick-Sloan Plan destroyed more Indigenous lands than any other public works project in US history, affecting twenty-three different reservation communities’ (P.139). Depriving Indigenous Peoples from the free goods of natures forcefully transformed them into potential wage labour.

 

Importantly, Estes’ account illustrates well the internal relations between different forms of exploitation. ‘Many Indigenous activists today have identified “man camps”, the transient all-men communities of oil and gas workers, as hubs for the exploitation of Indigenous women through trafficking and sex work’ (P.79). Thus, the man camps in Alberta/Canada full of male workers, who are exploited in the tar sands industry, are at the same time locations of hyper violence against women. In turn, the tar sands industry pollutes local water supplies and not only causes environmental destruction but also undermines the very living conditions of Indigenous populations. Elsewhere, pipelines transporting tar sands oil result in expropriation of Indigenous land (see the Dakota Access Pipeline).

 

And yet, this book is not about defeats. It is about hope! Again and again, Estes highlights how Indigenous peoples successfully resisted exploitation and embarked on the development of alternative futures. Whether it is the Red Power movement of the 1970s, preserving Indigenous culture and fighting for Indigenous liberation, or the successful struggles for the 2007 UN declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, North American activists have successfully fought back creating international alliances with Third World movements and Indigenous peoples elsewhere.

 

A different understanding of time and nature underpins Indigenous resistance. ‘There is no separation between past and present, meaning that an alternative future is also determined by our understanding of our past’ (P.14). Rivers are not something external to human beings, which can be used. They are nonhuman, alive relatives with their own rights. The struggle against exploitation is, therefore, also automatically a struggle for nature.

 

‘Mni Wiconi – water is life – exists outside the logic of capitalism. Whereas past revolutionary struggles have strived for the emancipation of labor from capital, we are challenged not just to imagine, but to demand the emancipation of earth from capital. For the earth to live, capitalism must die’ (P.257). With these words, Estes concludes his remarkable book. A must read for everyone interested in understanding Indigenous peoples’ central role in shaping a future beyond capitalism.    

Andreas Bieler

Professor of Political Economy

University of Nottingham/UK

Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk

Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net

26 September 2021