Indigenous America Awakens

On December 17th of last year, a deligation went to Washington D.C. to formally notify the government of the United States that all past and existing treaties between the United States Government and the Lakotah people have been legally terminated. Last month a deligation was sent seeking formal diplomatic recognition of continued Lakotah sovereignty from the nations of the world. As we speak today, a free provisional government of the republic of Lakotah exists and operates out of trailers in Porcupine, North Dakota. How was this government formed? What is it’s source of authority? How does it send a deligation to Washington D.C. to withdraw from treaty on behalf of all the people of Lakota? These are all rather interesting and important questions, and the answer is actually rather simple.

One has to step outside of western concepts of power, authority, and government, to understand how the provisional government of Lakota has come into being. One must instead travel back some 30+ years to the treaty conference held soon after the Pine Ridge massacres. This treaty conference was held by the then still surviving children of the last free-born Lakota, and as such, they were also the surviving children of the Lakota genocide. This was the conference of elders and tribal leaders that the Lakota freedom delegation actually refer to and mean.

This is the conference where the declaration of continuing sovereignty was introduced and adopted by the then still surviving children of the last free Lakota. It is also this council of recognized elders that committed ALL those attending to bring about full national sovereignty as their mission and purpose.

The original document on “continuing sovereignty” today represents why to this day no Lakota has accepted the dane’s gold the U.S. government has tried offering for “compensation” for their genocide and being driven from their lands. To do so they would loose the ability to be sovereign. As such, it also demonstrates the continued legitimacy of the original elders of the treaty conference remains in force even today. If this remains true, then what of the other thing the treaty conference did? Would it not also then be considered in force as well?

Here we are some 30+ years later. Many of the surviving people that attended the treaty conference are now in their 60’s themselves, elders themselves of the Lakota. These are the people who formed the new provisional government and authorized the delegation to withdraw from treaty. They are the ones who now keep the dream of a Lakota free again alive today.

But the Lakotah are not alone in this journey. The Haudenosaunee, or more commonly known as the Iroquois Confederacy, have inspired western thought from Ben Franklin to Karl Marx, the latter whom choose to overturn much of his earlier works based on what he learned at the very end of his life. Most American history books today speak of the Iroquois tribes in the past tense, as they do with all Americans Indians, as if they were a people that was at one time present and are currently no more.

The peoples of the Iroquois Confederacy have never really left either. They are declaring the formation of a new confederacy of indigenous nations, along with indigenous peoples ranging from Canada to Mexico, and even beyond. They are holding an international sovereignty conference to bring together the leaders of all these indigenous nations and to formally sign a new charter later this month, joining the Lakotah in seeking immediate sovereignty and full international recognition.

I have already read the draft declaration that will be signed by Chief’s of the Algonquin, Squamish and Mi’gmaq Nations in a signing ceremony that I believe will be formally announced as early as tomorrow. I hope to be able to share this wonderful document with everyone very soon.