Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance

“Our lands, and lives, were targeted not because they held precious resources or labor to be extracted. In fact, the opposite was true: our lands and lives were targeted and held value because they could be wasted—submerged, destroyed.”

The book provides numerous examples of how the US government failed to recognize the humanity of Indigenous peoples or the importance of nonhuman relatives. The US government felt no need to declare war on Indigenous nations because doing so would acknowledge their humanity. Estes notes that the only value the government saw in Indigenous peoples was that—given their perceived lack of humanity—they could be wasted like the land.

“Settler narratives use a linear conception of time to distance themselves from the horrific crimes committed against Indigenous peoples and the land. This includes celebrating bogus origin stories like Thanksgiving. But Indigenous notions of time consider the present to be structured entirely by our past and by our ancestors. There is no separation between past and present, meaning that an alternative future is also determined by our understanding of our past. Our history is the future.”

At the heart of Estes’s book is a concept of time in which the past and the present are intrinsically interwoven. The book itself uses a structure that shows how the past influences the present and how the present mirrors the past. The cyclical nature of history supports this conception of time.

“Mni Wiconi and these Indigenous ways of relating to human and other-than-human life exist in opposition to capitalism, which transforms both humans and nonhumans into labor and commodities to be bought and sold. These ways of relating also exist in opposition to capitalism’s twin, settler colonialism, which calls for the annihilation of Indigenous peoples and their other-than-human kin.”

Estes denies the viability of a world in which Indigenous peoples can exist within a structure of colonialism or capitalism—two forces, he claims, that create a foundation of evil on which to perform atrocities in the greedy pursuit of wealth. The goals of imperialism—such as conquering land and exploiting natural resources for profit (which colonialism and capitalism support)—fundamentally conflict with the goals of Indigenous peoples, who seek to live in harmony with the land and its resources.

“A tradition is usually defined as a static or unchanging practice. This view often suggests that Indigenous culture or tradition doesn’t change over time—that Indigenous people are trapped in the past and thus have no future. But as colonialism changes throughout time, so too does resistance to it. By drawing upon earlier struggles and incorporating elements of them into their own experience, each generation continues to build dynamic and vital traditions of resistance.”

Estes repeatedly criticizes the reliance on Indigenous stereotypes or colonial understandings of Indigenous history and culture. The images of Indigenous culture that white settler narratives perpetuate for their own benefit portray unsophisticated, even primitive, traditions and a lack of intellect. Here, Estes explains that Indigenous culture and its practices—including Indigenous resistance to what it regards as disrespectful and unsophisticated—evolve.

“Much as it has been for centuries, this conflict was about the land: who stole it, who owned it, and who claimed it. On the High Plains, land is a matter of race, class, and colonialism. KXL was possible only because Indigenous genocide and removal had cleared the way for private ownership of land.”

The connection between capitalism and Indigenous peoples is an interwoven tapestry of capitalists exploiting resources for profit. The book reveals how the treatment of Indigenous nations was based on convenience and whether their existence stood in the way of monetary gain. Like the Keystone XL Pipeline project, the DAPL project ignored treaty agreements and prioritized capitalist pursuits.

“Capitalism arose under a racist European feudal system. It used ‘race’ as a form of rule—to subordinate, to kill, and to enslave others—and used that difference for profit-making. Racial capitalism was exported globally as imperialism, including to North America in the form of settler colonialism. As a result, the colonized and racialized poor are still burdened with the most harmful effects of capitalism and climate change, and this is why they are at the forefront of the resistance.”

The treatment of Indigenous peoples within the structure of US capitalism falls in line with the historical relationship between capitalism and race. Race was always used as a tool to advance wealth, and Estes claims here that the same is true of Indigenous peoples in the US. Through legislation, loopholes, and social program structures, the US government systematically subordinates people of color and ensures the best opportunities, resources, and land for the individuals and corporations that drive capitalism.

“#NoDAPL was also a struggle of the meaning of land. For the Oceti Sakowin, history is the land itself: the earth cradles the bones of the ancestors. As Tasunka Witko, Crazy Horse, once said, ‘My land is where my dead lie buried.’ For others, however, the earth had to be tamed and dominated by a plow or drilled for profit. Because Native people remain barriers to capitalist development, their bodies needed to be removed—both from beneath and atop the soil—therefore, eliminating their rightful relationship with the land.”

Estes draws a distinction between Indigenous perceptions of land and those purported by capitalist thought. For Indigenous peoples, land is a relative and an interwoven part of the present and the past. For capitalism, land is a means of profit—all history is unimportant and removable. This attitude, which has its roots in imperialism and conquest, disrespects and disregards Earth’s natural resources as well as its Indigenous populations.

“Though not without its faults, the reunification of the Oceti Sakowin reawakened an Indigenous movement intent on making and remaking, a world premised on Indigenous values, rather than on private ownership and heteropatriarchy. While Indigenous peoples committed themselves to caretaking relations, the police had also taken up their familiar role as caretakers of violence, attempting to snuff out the fires of resistance before they burned too hot or spread too far.”

This passage mirrors later references to the place of #NoDAPL among other resistance movements against the US government’s mistreatment of and violence toward non-white peoples, including Black Lives Matter. Estes provides multiple examples of how law enforcement exists to defend corporate interests, not people, and to protect capitalism at any humanitarian cost. Curtailing protests and silencing protesters before they can gain broad attention and support is central to defending capitalist goals.

“There is one essential reason why Indigenous peoples resist, refuse, and contest US rule: land. In fact, US history is all about land and the transformation of space, fundamentally driven by territorial expansion, the elimination of Indigenous peoples, and white settlement.”

White settlers view land as something to use for capitalist gain. However, Indigenous peoples have a different view of the land, which regards and respects it and its resources as relatives; Indigenous thought holds that people belong to the land—not the other way around.

“The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism—the specific form of colonialism whereby an imperial power seizes Native territory, eliminates the original people by force, and resettles the land with a foreign, invading population. Unlike other forms of colonialism in which the colonizers rule from afar and sometimes leave, settler colonialism attempts to permanently and completely replace Natives with a settler population.”

Estes provides a counternarrative to the US historical treatment of Indigenous peoples, emphasizing that the US government was never interested in coexisting with or protecting Indigenous peoples. Rather, reservations and relocation were short-term solutions to a larger plan to eradicate and assimilate them.

“The process is never complete, and the colonial state’s methods for gaining access to new territories change over time, evolving from a program of outright extermination to one of making Indigenous peoples ‘racial minorities’ and ‘domestic dependent nations’ within their own lands, and of sacrificing Indigenous lands for resource extraction.”

Outright violence toward Indigenous peoples transitioned to the use of law to extract Indigenous land and contribute to the genocide of Indigenous peoples. Viewing time as interwoven and the present as an extension of the past creates a basis for understanding current legislation and decisions about treaties concerning reservation and unceded land within the context of Indigenous eradication.

“Indigenous elimination, in all its orientations, is the organizing principle of settler society. Unlike the European Holocaust, which had a beginning and an end, and targeted humans alone, Indigenous elimination, as a practice and formal policy, continues today, entailing the wholesale destruction of nonhuman relations.”

This passage supports three major claims: first, that colonialism cannot exist without the elimination of Indigenous peoples; second, that Indigenous genocide is ongoing and without resolution; and third, that the destruction of land and animals is a secondary component of Indigenous genocide. Capitalism and Indigenous genocide are interwoven—and climate change is a major example of the results of that deadly connection.

“In a very real sense, the founding of the United States was a declaration of war against Indigenous peoples. But to formally declare war would have been to acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ status among the ‘civilized’ or ‘Christian’ nations. On the other hand, an undeclared war was a ‘savage war,’ in which the rules of ‘civilized war’ were suspended.”

One way that the government was able to operate outside the confines of treaties or the accepted treatment of people was by failing to recognize Indigenous individuals as human. Violence and abuse were acceptable as long as it was socially accepted that Indigenous peoples were not in the same category as white settlers—and this idea perpetuates the unhealthy relationship between race and capitalism.

“The simple truth is that Indigenous nations, like all nations, possess the right to defend themselves, and how a people choose to defend themselves cannot be placed neatly into categories of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Survival by any means necessary is an act of resistance.”

Estes rejects thinking about resistance within the polarizing categories of “right” and “wrong.” Instead, he advocates for thinking about resistance within context and with an understanding of the cyclical nature of history.

“Over the course of the mid twentieth century, the United States increasingly used its powers of eminent domain to seize Indigenous lands for large public works projects, especially for Army Corps of Engineers dams. For the Oceti Sakowin along the Missouri River, dispossession through eminent domain emerged in the form of floods and dams.”

The book connects the Pick-Sloan Plan—and its use of eminent domain to consume and waste reservation land, as well as unceded territory—to the same exploitation by the DAPL project. Additionally, the use of Indigenous land for capitalist gain serves a second purpose: to eliminate or relocate Indigenous peoples (or force their assimilation).

“Pick-Sloan might not have been an explicit attempt to overthrow tribal governments, but it nevertheless perpetuated ‘slow violence’ on Indigenous people as sovereign nations—not simply as cultures. These are nations of people who need food, shelter, warmth, safety, and care, without which the nations cannot reproduce themselves or live as they choose. And this is far more than a question of cultural survival; cultural revitalization, while important, cannot bring back the stolen lands that once offered up food, clothes, materials for shelter, and medicines. Any cultural and spiritual connection to Mni Sose was also accompanied by a material connection: the river kept people from starving or freezing to death.”

Indigenous resistance to the Pick-Sloan Plan, DAPL, and other actions by the US government that encroach on Indigenous land is about far more than a failed agreement or a fight over land. Rather, the seizure and destruction of Indigenous land contributes to Indigenous genocide, destroying important resources for survival and denying recognition of the land and its entities as part of the Indigenous family.

“We are not free. We do not make choices. Our choices are made for us; we are the poor. For those of us who live on reservations these choices and decisions are made by federal administrators, bureaucrats, and their ‘yes men,’ euphemistically called tribal governments. Those of us who live in non-reservation areas have our lives controlled by white power elites. They are called social workers, ‘cops,’ school teachers, churches, etc., and now OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity) employees.”

This quotation from Clyde Warrior in 1967 acknowledges the enslavement of Indigenous peoples within the US government through white control. Despite great strides, the US government fails to accept responsibility or recognize the seizure of land from Indigenous peoples to create a settler nation.

“The only way to deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota is to put a gun to the AIM leaders’ heads and pull the trigger.”

South Dakota attorney general William Janklow made this violent remark in 1974. This quote is one among myriad examples of racism and anti-Indigenous violence that Estes highlights in the book. The passage conveys the military’s lack of respect toward Indigenous peoples and implies that trying to communicate with them is useless. However, white people have often made such statements before even attempting meaningful communication because regarding Indigenous people as incapable of communicating expedites fulfillment of capitalist goals.

“Buried in the 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which Obama signed into law in 2010, is an official ‘Apology to Native Peoples of the United States’—what has been called ‘the world’s quietest apology.’ More importantly, the ‘Apology’ stipulated, ‘Nothing in this section (1) authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or (2) serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.”

Although Obama’s presidency was monumental because he was the first person of color to fill that office, his failure to acknowledge the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples is a resounding insult. Estes claims that the seizure of Indigenous lands and the genocide of Indigenous peoples are integral to the advancement of global imperialism as well as US capitalist society—and a genuine apology would be the public admonishment of those systems.

“The theft of Indigenous lands and the subdual of Indigenous nations is an essential part of global imperialism. Recognizing this, the international Indigenous movement continues its work today (though often quietly). This is necessary because the Indian Wars have never truly ended. The Treaty Council saw its sacred duty as ending imperialism abroad by ending it at home, and at Standing Rock in 2016, this spirit of internationalism was visible once again as a parade of Indigenous nations from around the world showed up in solidarity.”

Again, Estes asserts the relationship between global imperialism and the subjugation of Indigenous nations. In addition, he points to the cyclical nature of the history between the US government and Indigenous peoples. This passage speaks to Estes’s proposed conception of time, in which the past and present are interwoven.

“Indigenous resistance is not a one-time event. It continually asks: What proliferates in the absence of empire? Thus, it defines freedom not as the absence of settler colonialism, but as the amplified presence of Indigenous life and just relations with human and nonhuman relatives, and with the earth.”

Estes paints a picture of a future that is not reliant on capitalism or colonialism. Rather, he offers a space in which Indigenous life is not perceived as being at odds with the status quo and is respected and uplifted. This picture alludes to Indigenous culture evolving rather than being mired in ancient tradition and ignorant of advancement, as the white settlers’ narratives often portrayed Indigenous peoples and their culture.

“The #NoDAPL camps didn’t just imagine a future without settler colonialism and the oppressive institutions of the state, but created that future in the here and now. They were a resurgent geography that reconnected Indigenous peoples with the land. Unlike the cynical and exclusive world of the settler, who had removed, confined, erased, and dispossessed Indigenous peoples from place, this place capaciously welcomed the excluded, while also centering the core of an Indigenous lifeworld--relationality.”

The movement opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline represents an entire history of Indigenous resistance and symbolizes the relationality between human and nonhuman kin as recognized by Indigenous peoples. Estes shares how the Oceti Sakowin Camp became the embodiment of the kind of future that uplifts the Indigenous way of life rather than settler colonialism.

“Mni Wiconi, as much as it reaches into the past, is a future-oriented project. It forces some to confront their own unbelonging to the land and the river. How can settler society, which possesses no fundamental ethical relationship to the land or its original people, imagine a future premised on justice? There is no simple answer. But whatever the answer may be, Indigenous peoples must lead the way.”

DAPL symbolizes the relationship between settler colonialism/capitalism and the persistent threat of climate change. For Estes, the way to move forward is to accept and defer to Indigenous knowledge and a respectful relationship with the land.