The indian removal act was in 1830. Agriculture was a factor leading to removal because Jackson was into cotton as well as slavery. In 1814 Jackson and the treaty of Fort Jackson cause a land grab of 23 million acres from the Creek. The Indian removal act displaced tribes westward into other tribe’s territories causing conflicts with tribes like the Osage and Dakota. False scarcity keeps indigenous people fighting each other as long as we fail to unite. Removal is when many “immigration” companies were formed. This makes it clear that the very concept of immigration in the so-called u.s was created around Indian removal. For what its worth the Indian Removal Act was ruled unconstitutional and Davey Crocket a congressman spoke against it. It caused the Trail Of Tears land grab in 1938 which was never even ratified by colonial congress. Natives were removed at bayonet point to prison camps, many of which were in present-day so-called Tennessee. White settlers looted Cherokee homes and towns. Over 8000 people died. It also caused the Trail Of Death and the forced removal of Potowatomi and other tribes from the Midwest in 1938. Chief Menominee refused to leave, and troops rounded up over 800. Chief Menominee had a rope put around his neck and was bound. He was never seen again. Soldiers set fire to Potowatomi homes. Christianity torturing us with the cross the entire way to Kansas and later some Potowatomi went to Oklahoma. I recall being in a inipi ceremony with A.I.M in Menominee that was broken up by the police. It makes sense now being the town named after the chief who wouldn’t sell out and wouldn’t leave his ancestral homeland. This is where revival would come from.
“I have not sold my lands and will not sell them. I have not signed any treaty and will not sign one. I am not going to leave my lands and i don’t want to hear anything more about it”.
Chief Menominee
The loss of the physical presence of indigenous peoples although some of us have migrated back are still causing ongoing effects. Although some of us have returned to our ancestral homelands it remains a vast lack of our presence east of the Mississsippi. In addition to losing proximity to colonial government making it harder to challenge their government attacks against us which is what they always wanted that’s why Geronimo was shot at when he visited Washington D.C. The ongoing effects of removal make it hard to get numbers to mobilize at demonstrations in a situation where we are already only 1.3 percent of the u.s population. Removal is still affecting our ability to reach the people making it hard to get control over our destinies on our own land. We are invisibilized even more then we normally are because of the ongoing effects of removal. For non-indigenous organizers east of the Mississippi would political pressure not be different if you were in between two reservations and a city with an indigenous population of 3000? Are you organizing on top of us against our will or at our expense? Unless your organizing under indigenous rule then the answer is yes. Your organization is benefiting from our erasure and a power dynamic that is never in the favor of this continent’s original inhabitants. The land issue is foremost. Once we reclaim our authority and organize for power, we will get respect and not until then. This requires that it is mandatory for indigenous peoples to participate in their own anticolonial liberation struggles. Nonnatives should unite under indigenous rule giving them authenticity as anticolonial revolutionaries or turn their attention to the continents of their origin. There have been many forced marches and the empire still chases us around like bison. Some of us have barely known rest. Homeless on our own lands. We must overturn capitalism by turning to its only alternative and that is communism. Pan indigenous government. I.S.R.
“Indigenous rule will unite the races on Turtle Island”
Invisible Warrior
Illahee Spirit Runners 