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Settler Colonialism, Genocide & Healing in California

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Settler Colonialism, Genocide & Healing in California Reed: We Are a Part of the Land and the Land Is Us: Settler Colonialism We Are a Part of the Land and the Land Is Us: Settler Colonialism, Genocide & Healing in California Dr. Kaitlin Reed Abstract This essay proposes that the history of California includes the intended destruction and decimation of native cultures, including their forced removal, illegal land acqui- sition, slavery, separation of families, and outright murder enacted by the private cit- izenry and governmental agencies during European contact can be defined as geno- cide as outlined by the United Nations Geneva Convention, 1948. The lasting legacy of contact on aboriginal lifeways and tradition, as well as the recent resurgence of native traditions and culture is addressed to suggest that the health and healing of native communities lies in reconciling the past to make passage into the future. Introduction In 1979, Hupa and Cherokee scholar Jack Norton lamented over both the conse- quences and unfinished business of the California Indian genocide. While the state sanctioned killing of California Indians occurred well over a century ago, the impacts of that violence continue to be felt in Indian Country. Norton (1979) writes: In two hundred years of brutal occupation they have repeatedly committed genocide in one form or another. Its patterns, its pervasiveness, its massive conspiracy is so common and well understood that its horror is diffused. It is so embedded in clichés of white manifest destiny, that the magnitude of the crime is transformed into inevitability or high moral principles… The American citizens have inherited the patterns, the scheme and the business of making America great. And to accom- plish this task, the policies of two hundred years of white supremacy and destiny have been embraced and accepted by society (125, emphasis added). The genocide that founded California is erased from state curricula and the con- sciousness of its settlers. However, Norton understands genocide, much like settler colonialism, as a process that is often ongoing and that can take many forms. The building of the American nation-state and the State of California were fundamentally dependent upon violence against Indigenous people -- and continue to be so. In other words, the United States was born out of genocide. The ‘business of making America’ great, as Norton phrases it in 1979, was a business of Indian killing and the plunder of natural resources justified by white supremacy and manifest destiny. Published by Digital Commons @ Humboldt State University, 2020 27 Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, Vol. 1, No. 42 [2020], Art. 4 28 Reed Thirty-seven years later, in 2016, the ing structure of Indigenous land dispos- Trump administration came into power session. Scholars have varied viewpoints -- relying on the campaign slogan “Make on the relationship between settler co- America Great Again.” Embodying Amer- lonialism and genocide. Historian Rox- ican exceptionalism, this slogan perpet- anne Dunbar-Ortiz (2014) argues settler uates an American mythology predi- colonialism is “inherently genocidal” cated on the ideological construction of because it is predicated on the elimi- the United States as morally righteous nation of Native peoples (p. 9). Patrick and divinely ordained. This narrative Wolfe (2006), however, argues settler co- also erases the violence required to cre- lonialism is “not invariably genocidal” ate the United States -- and the ongoing as elimination can occur without consti- structural violence of U.S. occupation on tuting genocide (p. 387). While we can- stolen Indigenous land. Historian Ned not conflate these terms, I argue settler Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) argues, colonialism produces what Tony Barta in his award-winning book Violence Over calls “relations of genocide” (2000). Spe- the Land, that American exploration and cifically, I understand these “relations of conquest required violence to organize genocide” as settler colonial orientations economies and settlements. This is be- to land and environmental destruction. cause “people do not hand over their Throughout my analysis, I suggest that land, resources, children, and futures the kinship-oriented relationships to without a fight, and that fight is met with land held by Indigenous peoples, as well violence” (Dunbar-Ortiz 2014:8). This vi- as the theorization of land within Indig- olence must then be institutionalized to enous Studies, works to complicate and maintain systems of domination over expand contemporary notions of geno- Indigenous peoples. In other words, cide. “violence and American nationhood, in The State of California epitomizes short, progressed hand in hand” (Black- settler colonial genocide as its very ex- hawk 2006:9). The United States, as we istence emanated from the genocide of know it today, would not exist without Native peoples. And recently -- on June genocidal measure inflicted upon In- 18, 2019 -- California Governor Gavin digenous peoples and the expropria- Newsom acknowledged and apologized tion of Indigenous lands; indeed, what for the genocide against California In- Norton points out – and Trump misses dians. Specifically, he stated: “It’s called completely – is that the construction of a genocide. That’s what it was. A geno- America’s ‘greatness’ rests on racial cap- cide. [There’s] no other way to describe italism, land theft, and settler colonial it and that’s the way it needs to be de- violence. scribed in the history books. And so I’m This essay seeks to understand the here to say the following: I’m sorry on interconnections between settler colo- behalf of the state of California” (Luna nialism and genocide – with an explicit 2019). While this is certainly an improve- focus on land dispossession and envi- ment over the American exceptionalist ronmental destruction -- and what that rhetoric of the Trump administration -- means for California Indians today. Set- especially considering that the United tler colonialism is a historical and ongo- States Federal Government has never https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hjsr/vol1/iss42/4 28 Reed: We Are a Part of the Land and the Land Is Us: Settler Colonialism 29 We Are a Part of the Land and the Land Is Us acknowledged genocide against Native of Native lands continues to be justified Americans in any form (Gilio-Whitaker through the legal fiction of the Discovery 2019) -- acknowledgements and apolo- Doctrine and ideological constructions gies must come with action. In line with of Manifest Destiny. The destruction of Gilio-Whitaker’s critique of acknowl- Native lands continues in the name of edgement, Hupa scholar Stephanie capitalistic resource extraction and eco- Lumsden tweeted the following shortly nomic development. The ongoing proj- after Newsome’s acknowledgement of ect of settler colonialism -- aimed at the genocide. dispossession of Indigenous lands and With humor and wit, Lumsden ar- erasure of Indigenous people -- is found- ticulates a connection between the his- ed on genocide. toric land dispossession of California This article is organized into three Indians, genocide and the ongoing proj- key sections. The first section examines ect of settler colonialism. Contemporary the consistent denial of the California In- inequalities experienced by California dian genocide by both historians and the Indians -- and, indeed, Native peoples broader American public. The second throughout Turtle Island -- can all be section provides a brief historical narra- traced back to land and the disposses- tive of the California Indian genocide for sion thereof. Or, as Hupa scholar Brittani the potentially unfamiliar reader. This Orona phrases in the short documenta- section does not set out to prove that a ry History of Native California: “we are a genocide did occur, as this has already part of the land and the land is us.” In- been rigorously documented by numer- digenous studies scholar and political ous scholars. The third section makes a ecologist Clint Carroll (2015) argues that significant departure and explores the all contemporary social, political, eco- theoretical underpinnings of settler co- nomic issues in Indian Country “come lonialism and genocide. Here I explore back to the issue of land and the degree the notion that healing from the Califor- of our connection to it” (p. 12). The theft nia Indian genocide requires both land Figure 1 Published by Digital Commons @ Humboldt State University, 2020 29 Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, Vol. 1, No. 42 [2020], Art. 4 30 Reed reparations and ecological restoration. ticism she faces by students when they Put simply, we must call for decoloniza- finally learn that a genocide occurred in tion. Decolonization, as Tuck and Yang California and that the very formation (2012) argue, is not a metaphor, nor does of the state is tied to this genocide. And it have a synonym; decolonization “in yet, even professors of history deny that the settler colonial context must involve such a genocide occurred. When Maidu/ the repatriation of land… that is, all of Navajo student Chiitaanibah Johnson the land, and not just symbolically” (p. spoke up in a history course with Mau- 7). And thus, one cannot talk about heal- ry Wiseman, a history professor at CSU ing without talking about land; that con- Sacramento, to argue that a genocide oc- nection is deeply rooted. To heal from curred in California, Wiseman allegedly the genocide, California Indian commu- claimed that genocide was not an appro- nities need land reparations. That isn’t priate word to describe what happened to say that communities without land in California because Native people pri- bases are incapable of healing from the marily died of disease.1 Historians cling traumas of settler colonial genocide, to this narrative, referred to by historian but rather that the theft of land was an Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (2014) as a termi- important component of genocide and nal narrative. “Commonly referred to as therefore the restitution of lands must the most extreme demographic disaster be an important component of healing -- framed as natural -- in human histo- from genocide.
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