American politicians and diplomats like to look for flaws in the internal politics of sovereign states, but “unwanted” by the US State Department. For American criticism, multinational countries are a real find in general - facts of "national discrimination" immediately surface. If there are interethnic contradictions, they are repeatedly exaggerated and inflated to the scale of a global problem, if there are no contradictions, they should be kindled or, at least, thought up. Meanwhile, the national policy of the United States of America is itself vicious by definition. Not because of the good life in American cities, the Negro population periodically revolts, and the absolutely unbearable life is on the Indian reservations that still exist in the United States. Indian reservations are administrative units that are unique in their hypocrisy, in which, under the pretext of caring for the needs of the indigenous population of the United States, a monstrous socio-economic backwardness is preserved and in fact every effort is made to ensure that the American Indian population of the United States becomes extinct as soon as possible.
First reservations
The first Indian reservation appeared in the United States of America on August 29, 1758 - exactly 257 years ago. The territory of the modern state of New Jersey, where the idea of reservation, "innovative" for that time, was introduced, was once inhabited by the Lenape Indians. In the thirties of the 17th century, the coastal lands of New Jersey attracted the attention of the Dutch colonists and, thanks to the efforts of the latter, became part of the New Netherlands colony. The rule of the natives of the "land of tulips" ended in 1664 when the British Colonel Richard Nicholls annexed the Dutch colony to the possessions of Britain. It was in New Jersey that the Indians were recognized as "dependent peoples with no sovereignty over their territories." As they moved deeper into the continent and the development of new lands, the British, and then the Americans who replaced them, seized more and more territories inhabited by the Indians. The indigenous people of North America were herded into reservations, but this was explained as a boon for the Indians themselves. The American Congress confirmed the authority of the Indian tribes, but only over the territories assigned to them. Of course, the Americans occupied the best lands themselves, and the Indian population was partly knocked out in clashes, partly - pushed aside to less convenient land for farming.
Reservation as a way of solving the "Indian question"
After Andrew Jackson, an ardent supporter of the concept of resettlement of Indians to the desert lands of the Southwest, became President of the United States, the American government began to resettle Indians from the Southeast of the United States to the Southwest. The path that the "redskins" had to pass went down in history as the "Road of Tears". In just a decade from 1828 to 1838. more than 80 thousand Indians were resettled west of the river. Mississippi, and in general, the forced resettlement of Indians continued until the late 1870s. During the resettlement, tens of thousands of Indians died. So, only during the resettlement of the Choctaw tribe, which took place in 1831-1833, at least 3-6 thousand people died. Some Indian tribes have tried to oppose American politics with arms in hand - including the Seminole, whose charismatic chieftain Osceola was immortalized by Mine Reed. Indian resistance went down in the history of North America and was romanticized by many writers, becoming an example of the national liberation struggle for other countries, continents and peoples. Of course, the Indians behaved extremely cruelly during the wars with the American government and settlers, but they can be understood - they defended their own land, on which they lived for thousands of years and which they had been taken away from them by newcomers unknown to them, who thought only about their own political and economic benefits.
In the policy of arranging reservations, the American leadership acted according to the principle of "divide and conquer." So, small tribes were herded into one reservation, and since they did not understand each other (the languages of the Indians of North America, still poorly studied, include a number of language families), they were forced to switch to English as the language of interethnic communication. On the other hand, several reservations were created for large tribes at once in order to separate them as much as possible and prevent the possible emergence of centers of national liberation struggle. Thus, the Dakotas were placed on 11 reservations, and the Iroquois - on 9 reservations.
Until the end of the First World War, all the Indians of the reservation did not have US citizenship, and only in 1919 those of them who served in the army, received the right to become American citizens. Five years later, in 1924, the American leadership was ripe to grant citizenship to the entire Indian population of the country. However, the socio-economic situation of the Indian reservations remained extremely unsatisfactory. Actually, even now the Indian reservations represent the most economically, socially, and culturally backward territories of the United States. Reservations face a wide range of problems, which are generally not typical for the developed countries of the modern world, even for their peripheral regions. The reason for this is the specifics of the American national policy towards the indigenous population of the United States.
Initially, the American government ousted the Indians from areas significant for agriculture, but the development of the extractive industry made it necessary to pay attention to those lands that had not previously attracted much interest from the federal authorities. It turned out that the land allocated in the 19th century for Indian reservations hides rich natural resources. However, the well-being of the Indian population from the exploitation of natural resources on the lands of the reserves does not improve. The development of natural resources also brings additional problems - the environment is deteriorating, agriculture is damaged, and the number of cancer patients is growing. "Reservations were originally nothing more than advertised concentration camps," said (https://ria.ru/world/20150807/1168843710.html) in an interview with RIA-Novosti the elder of the Birds clan of the Cherokee tribe Masha White Per, who noted that according to his data, policy towards indigenous peoples is much better established in the Russian Federation than in the United States. Indeed, despite the numerous socio-economic problems that Russia has faced over the past decades, there is no open discrimination against ethnic minorities by the authorities of the Russian state in the country. National minorities of Siberia and the Far East, the Volga region and the Urals, the North Caucasus and Crimea have the opportunity to develop successfully, use their languages, develop and promote culture. That is, they have what the American Indians and other indigenous peoples of North America - the Eskimos, Aleuts, Hawaiians - are practically lacking.
The most problematic areas of the United States
Today, there are 550 Native American tribes in the United States that are officially recognized by the federal government. The total population of American Indians is about 5 million, 2/3 of whom live on 275 Indian reservations. Formally, American law recognizes the rights of the states for reservations, but for some reservations there are certain benefits and concessions - in particular, gambling is allowed. The latter is, to a large extent, the main source of income for residents of many reservations, along with tourism. In addition, the Indians have the right to excise-free trade in alcohol and tobacco products on the territory of the reservations. But these measures, seemingly designed to help raise the standard of living of the indigenous population of the United States, at the same time bring a lot of evil to the inhabitants of the reservations. It is well known about the colossal problem of alcoholism among the American Indian population.
The Indian Reservation is a complete set of social problems. First, the Indians of the Reservation, due to the preservation of remnants of the traditional way of life, still have a larger number of children than the inhabitants of the United States as a whole. The average age of an Indian is 29.7 years, and of an American is 36.8 years. But this is due not only to the large number of children and youth, but also to the early mortality of the Indian population. On Indian reservations, infant mortality is five times the average for the United States as a whole. Almost every fourth Indian child dies. Indians die from diabetes, pneumonia and influenza at twice the rate of other Americans. On the reservations adjacent to which uranium mines are located, cancer is becoming one of the main causes of death. Almost a quarter of Indian families live below the poverty line, among them there is a high level of illiteracy, and those with higher education - only 16%, despite the possibility of free admission to universities for representatives of the indigenous population. What can we say about the preservation of the national culture, which has become only a commodity for sale on those reservations that are visited by tourists. 72% of Indians do not speak their national languages, which indicates the gradual extinction of the American Indian languages of North America and Indian culture. Indian community activists are trying to fight for the rights of their fellow tribesmen and constantly remind the world of the many problems faced by the inhabitants of the reservations. But the level of protest mood among the Indian population is still significantly lower than among African Americans. And this is explained not by the more favorable conditions for the existence of the Indians, but by the social isolation of the latter from the "big America", combined with the habit of idleness at the expense of tourists and state benefits, alcoholization of a significant part of the male population of the reservations.
Attempts to consolidate the Indians within the framework of modern political structures began in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1944, the current organization was created - the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which aims to protect the rights and interests of American Indians, Aleuts and Alaska Eskimos. As its goal, it proclaimed a response to the US government's policy of assimilation, which violates all treaty obligations of the American state with respect to indigenous peoples. The organization is a political union of federally recognized American Indian tribes and Alaska Native peoples. The main goals of the organization's activities are proclaimed: guarantee of the rights and freedoms of US Indians; expanding and improving education in the Indian regions of the country; improving the employment situation of the Indian population; improving the quality of medical care; protection of Indian cultural property and languages; ensuring a fair approach to the consideration of the claims of representatives of the indigenous population of the United States. In 1950, the NCAI succeeded in creating reservations for the indigenous population of Alaska, and in 1954 it won the campaign against the transfer of civil and criminal jurisdiction over the Indian population to the states. However, later, within the NCAI, a struggle began by a more radical part of the Congress, represented by Indian youth, against the moderate line of the leadership of the association, which included traditional tribal leaders. As a result of this struggle, the American Indian Movement and the National Council of Indian Youth in the United States emerged, speaking from more radical positions and repeatedly resorting to protests, including violent ones, against the American government and its policies on Indian reservations.
The American Indian Movement was founded in July 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As its goal, the movement proclaimed the protection of the rights of the indigenous population of the United States, including the economic independence of the Indian population, the protection of the traditional culture of the Indians, the fight against manifestations of racism against the Indian population by the authorities and police structures, and the restoration of the rights to use the tribal lands that were illegally transferred to the ownership of whites. The American Indian movement, which has existed since 1968, has never been as large as the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers and other social and political organizations and movements of black citizens of the United States. The main goal of the American Indian Movement was to prevent the illegal use by American companies of the land assigned to the Indians for the purpose of economic enrichment. On this basis, there were constant conflicts between Indian activists and American security forces.
Later branches of the movement also appeared in Canada. Since the late 1950s. activists of the American Indian Movement moved to radical protests. So, from November 1969 to July 1971, the capture of Alcatraz Island was carried out, and in October 1972 a march on Washington was undertaken. In the mid-1970s. The influence of the AIM on the Indian population of the states increased, and at the same time, ties with African American political organizations were strengthened. However, in 1978, the central leadership of the AIM ceased to exist due to internal contradictions, but separate groups of the movement continue to function in various American states. In 1981, activists of the movement captured part of the Black Hills in South Dakota, demanding that the US leadership return this territory to the Indians. The American intelligence services regard the American Indian Movement as an extremist organization and periodically carry out repressions against Indian activists.
Capture of Wounded Knee
The most famous action of the American Indian Movement was the capture of the Wounded Knee (Wounded Knee) settlement on February 27, 1973, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. For the Indian population, Wounded Knee is a significant place. Here, on December 29, 1890, the last major battle of the Indian Wars took place, called the Slaughter of the Wounded Knee Brook. Among the Indians, a new religion, the Dance of the Spirits, appeared, according to which Jesus Christ must return to earth again in the form of an Indian. The spread of this religion alerted the American authorities, who saw in it a potential danger of a new Indian armed resistance. Ultimately, the authorities decided to arrest the leader named Sitting Bull. However, as a result of a shootout with the police, Sitting Bull was killed. Then his supporters left the Cheyenne River Reservation and headed to the Pine Ridge Reservation, where they were supposed to take refuge. On December 29, 1890, a detachment of 500 American soldiers from the 7th Cavalry Regiment attacked the Minnekozhu and Hunkpapa Indians, who were part of the Lakota people. The operation killed at least 153 Indians, including women and children. According to other estimates, about 300 Indians were killed at the hands of the American military - mostly unarmed and unable to provide serious resistance to the military.
In turn, the Indians, even taking into account the incomparability of forces, managed to destroy 25 soldiers of the American cavalry regiment. Hugh McGinnis, who served as a private in the 7th Cavalry Regiment, later recalled: “General Nelson Miles, who visited the massacre after a three-day blizzard, counted approximately 300 snow-covered bodies in the vicinity, including at considerable distances. He was horrified to see that defenseless children and women with babies in their arms were pursued and mercilessly killed by soldiers at a distance of up to two miles from the scene of the shooting …”. As it turned out, the formal reason for the massacre was the fact that an Indian named Black Coyote did not surrender his rifle to the American soldiers. The commander of the regiment, Colonel Forsyth, decided that there was armed disobedience and ordered the shooting of the Indian camp, in which there were only women, children and a small number of men exhausted as a result of the long transition. Meanwhile, Black Coyote was just a deaf person and could not hear the order to surrender the weapon. Subsequently, General Miles accused Colonel Forsyth, who was directly in command of the operation, of the shooting, but then the latter was reinstated in office and even later received the rank of Major General. In the memory of the Lakota Indians, the massacre in Wounded Knee remained as another manifestation of cruelty by the American government, especially since unarmed women and children were its victims. The perpetrators of the tragedy were never punished, moreover, about twenty soldiers and officers of the American army who participated in the operation received government awards. Moreover, the white public in the United States took the tragedy quite positively, since it had long disliked the Indians and considered them a potential source of crimes against the white population. American propaganda also played a role in this, portraying the incident as the liquidation of an extremist religious sect that posed a danger to American society. In 2001, the National Congress of American Indians demanded the abolition of the acts of awarding American soldiers who participated in the operation against the Indians at Wounded Knee, but the US leadership did not respond to this appeal.
83 years later, Wounded Knee became the site of another clash between the Indians and the American security forces. Wounded Knee was invaded by approximately 200-300 American Indian followers led by Russell Means and Dennis Banks. Indian activists introduced traditional tribal rule in the settlement and declared the village a free Indian state from Europeans. The activists took 11 local residents hostage, seized a church and dug trenches on the hill. After that, the activists put forward claims to the US government - checking all the agreements concluded between the American authorities and Indian tribes at different times, investigating the relationship of the US Department of Internal Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Oglala tribe, replacing members of the tribal council was announced by the activists of the American Indian Movement. The next morning began by blocking all access roads to Wounded Knee by over 100 US police officers. Two US senators flew into the settlement and entered into negotiations with the rebels. The action turned into a 71-day gun conflict. Police, FBI and army forces engaged in firefights with the invading activists. The lawyer William Kunstler arrived in the settlement, who at one time defended such cult figures of the American left movement as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Seal, Stokely Carmichael. The events in Wounded Knee were widely publicized throughout the United States and were described by many contemporaries as a "new Indian war" of the indigenous people of the States against the American government.
- Leonard Peltier
In the end, on May 8, the resistance of Indian activists ended - a large role in this was played by the National Council of Churches, through which an agreement was reached on the surrender of the rebels. After the agreements reached, the American authorities decided to satisfy the accusations made by the activists against the members of the Indian Tribal Council and to revise the agreement at Fort Laramie, concluded in 1868, according to which the Sioux tribe received a large territory of North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana. Rebels Buddy Lamont and Frank Clearwater fell victim to clashes in Wounded Knee, and rebel leader Dennis Banks was forced to spend ten years in hiding from justice. Another rebel leader, Russell Means, ran for president of the Oglala Sioux tribe in 1974, rivaling Dick Wilson. Wilson received 200 more votes, but Means disputed the election results, accusing his opponent of falsification. Means was acquitted in the Wounded Knee Incident, but was tried again in 1975, this time on murder charges. But he was acquitted.
But another Indian activist, Leonard Peltier, was convicted. A native of the Turl Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota, Peltier was born in 1944 to an Ojibwe father and a Sioux mother. On June 26, 1975, a shootout took place in Wounded Knee that killed FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams and Indian Joseph Kilzwright Stanz. According to the materials of the investigation, the cars of the FBI agents came under prolonged shelling on the territory of the reservation, as a result of which they were killed. It was found that the rifle from which the special services were fired belonged to a local 31-year-old resident, Leonard Peltier. A squad of 150 FBI agents, police officers and commandos detained thirty Indians, including women and children. Peltier managed to escape and only on February 6, 1976, he was arrested in Canada and extradited to the United States. The grounds for the extradition were the testimony of the Indian woman Myrtle Poor Bear, who introduced herself as Peltier's friend and accused him of killing FBI officers. Peltier himself called the woman's testimony a forgery. However, in April 1977, Peltier was sentenced to two life sentences. Since then, the Indian activist has been imprisoned - despite the intercession of a number of prominent public figures around the world, from Mother Teresa to the Dalai Lama, from Yoko Ono to Naomi Campbell. In his time, even Mikhail Gorbachev spoke in support of Peltier. Nevertheless, Peltier, though over 70 years old, is in prison and, apparently, will end his life in the dungeons of the American regime.
Republic of Lakota: the leader is dead, but his cause lives on
Pine Ridge is an Oglala Lakota reservation with an area of 11,000 square miles (about 2,700,000 acres). It is the second largest Indian reservation in the United States. About 40,000 people live in an area roughly the size of Connecticut in eight boroughs - Eagle Nest, Pass Creek, Vacpamni, La Creek, Pine Ridge, White Clay, Medicine Route, Porcupine and Wounded Knee … The population of the reservation is predominantly young people, 35% of residents are under 18 years of age. The average age of the residents of the reservation is 20.6 years. However, the responsibility for raising young generations of Indians lies with grandparents - many parents suffer from alcoholism or drug addiction, are in prison, or have died prematurely. Natural disasters cause great damage to the reservation. There are no banks, shops, cinemas on the reservation. There is only one grocery store on the reservation, in the village of Pine Ridge. Only in 2006 a motel was opened on the reservation, designed for no more than 8 people. There is only one public library on the reservation, located at Oglala Lakota College. Residents of the reservation are often the victims of fraudulent activities, including by representatives of banks working in the localities of the state close to the reservation. Taking advantage of the illiteracy and gullibility of the Indian population, the propensity of many Indians to abuse alcohol and drugs, selfish bankers involve the Indians in fraudulent schemes, as a result of which the indigenous people owe large sums of money to the banks. The vast majority of Indians are unemployed and forced to live on government benefits. Thus, the American government keeps them on the "financial needle" and turns them into dependent parasites who drink themselves out of idleness or "go on a needle." Naturally, not all of the thinking part of the Indian population likes this situation of the indigenous people of the United States. Moreover, the United States openly mocks the national feelings of the Indians. So, on the Black Mountains taken from the Indians, images of four American presidents are engraved - exactly those who took land from the indigenous population of North America.
- Russell Means
On December 17, 2007, a group of Lakota Indian activists proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Lakota in several tribal areas that are part of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. It was announced that he renounced US citizenship and paid taxes. At the head of the supporters of Lakota independence was the aforementioned Indian public figure Russell Means (1939-2012), a former activist of the American Indian Movement, famous for capturing the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation with a group of armed associates and introducing a tribal governing body. The confrontation with the police and the army lasted 71 days and cost the lives of almost a hundred Indians, after which the remaining 120 people surrendered to the authorities. In the mid-1980s. Means went to Nicaragua to fight against the Sandinistas, whose policies were dissatisfied with the local Indians - Miskito. However, Means' detachment was quickly surrounded and neutralized by the Sandinistas, and the Indian activist himself was not touched and quickly enough was released back to the United States. A trip to Nicaragua to fight on the side of the Contras caused a sharply negative reaction from the American radical left and left public, who admired the Sandinista revolution and accused Means of conniving at bourgeois imperialism. Means also had a ruptured relationship with many of the leading Indian movement activists who held pro-Sandinist positions.
Then Means did not get involved in politics for a while and focused on a career as a film actor. He has starred in Western films, including the role of Chingachgook in the adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans. Means also wrote the book "Where White People Are Afraid to Tread" and recorded two audio albums of "Indian Rap". As journalist Orhan Dzhemal recalls, “Already middle-aged Means was persuaded by friends to act in films (he was friends with Oliver Stone and Marlon Brando). This is how the real Chingachgook appeared. It wasn't hard for Minns, he just played himself. And yet the final touch of his biography does not indicate that his blood cooled with age and he became a "useful member of society." In 2007, he declared the independence of the Lakota tribe. This demarche had no political consequences, just Means and his supporters burned their American passports. And yet this allowed him to die not as a banal American citizen, but as the Leader of the Redskins "(Quoted from: Dzhemal O. The Real Chingachguk // https://izvestia.ru/news/538265). In the 2000s. Russell Means re-established himself as a politician - this time with a plan to create the Lakota Indian state. The Republic of Lakota gained worldwide fame, but caused an ambiguous reaction in the United States itself, especially from the American authorities and special services, who saw in this project another threat to the national security of the American state, emanating from Indian separatists. On the other hand, Means' activities have always provoked a negative reaction from the Indian traditional leaders, who closely cooperate with the federal authorities, and in fact were simply bought by Washington. They accused Means and his supporters of extremism and Maoism, considered him a dangerous left-wing radical, whose activities more likely harm the Indian population of the reserves.
The Lakota Republic project was conceived by Means as an attempt to draw attention to the problems of the residents of the reservations. Indeed, in the territories inhabited by the Lakota, as Means noted, unemployment reached 80-85%, and the average life expectancy for men was 44 years - less in the New World live only in Haiti. Of course, alcohol is primarily to blame for the early deaths of Indians - men, but the activists of the Lakota Republic see this as the result of the purposeful policy of the US leadership to finally resolve the "Indian question" by slow and smooth self-destruction of the Indians. Alcoholism is a problem for 8 out of 10 Native American families, 21% of prisoners in South Dakota are Native Americans, and teenage suicide rates are 150% higher than the US average. The incidence of tuberculosis is 800% higher than the United States average, the incidence of cervical cancer is 500%, and diabetes is 800% higher. Diabetes and heart disease are spreading through the supply of high sugar foods under the Federal Food Program. The general standard of living of the population is also much lower - at least 97% of the Lakota live below the poverty line, and some families are in such a dire situation that they still have to heat their houses with stoves. As a result, many old people who are unable to take care of heating for health reasons die from hypothermia. Drinking water and sewerage are absent in 1/3 of the houses on the reservation, 40% of the houses do not have electricity, 60% have no telephone service. Each house is home to about 17 people, while the number of rooms does not exceed two or three. The Lakota language is dying out, which today only 14% of Indians speak, and even then - almost all of them are over 65 years old. It turns out that the indigenous population of one of the most economically powerful powers in the world lives at the level of the most backward states, literally on the brink of survival. Even the high birth rate in Indian families does not save them from extinction as a result of disease and the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs. Naturally, the plight of the Indian population causes the desire of the most politically active part of the Indians to put forward political demands. Moreover, otherwise, the people simply risk extinction, like many other Native American ethnic groups in the United States. However, the American government does not seek to solve the problems of the Indian population, and presents political activists as separatists, extremists and terrorists, subjecting them to criminal prosecution, at best, an information blockade.
In the fall of 2008, Means tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to run for president of the Oglala tribe, but won only 45% of the vote, losing the election campaign to Teresa Two Bulls, who won 55% of the vote. In many ways, Means' loss was due to the fact that his supporters lived outside the Pine Ridge reservation and did not have the right to participate in the elections. In 2012Russell Means died of throat cancer, but his brainchild - the Republic of Lakota - continues to exist today, as a kind of virtual community, which is increasingly taking on real features, "materializing" in the socio-political life of the United States. On the territory of the Pine Ridge Reservation, where the Lakota tribe lives, activists of the Republic are trying to improve agriculture, have created a school where Indian children are taught the national language and culture. By the way, the official leaders of the Lakota tribe did not dare to support the project of the "madman" Means. In 2008, they declared the continuity of the treaty with the United States, presenting the existence of the Republic of Lakota as the activity of a "small handful of extremists."
The Republic of Lakota has to some extent become one of the symbols of anti-American resistance. The very fact of the emergence of Indian separatism in the United States attracted the attention of radical circles from around the world. Moreover, among the supporters of the republic there are not only and not even so much Indians as white Americans, dissatisfied with the policy of their state and considering the project of the late Means an excellent way to state the pressing problems of American domestic policy. In 2014, in an interview with the NTV television company, the representative of the Lakota Indians Payu Harris said that the population of the reservation supports the people of Crimea in their choice and joining Russia. Payu Harris is known for creating his own money for the Lakota - Mazakoins. According to Payu Harris, money provides an opportunity to fight the American government. Although, of course, the American authorities, represented by the FBI, have already managed to warn the Lakota Indians that printing their own money in the United States is illegal. The Lakota Indians do not support the power of Washington, since they consider the activities of the American government to be openly hostile to the indigenous population of North America. The Republic of Lakota evokes sympathy not only among the American Indians themselves, but also among very many caring residents of various states.
