Declaration of Indian-pendence
Declaration of Indian-pendence
By Emily Clarke
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to reclaim the rights, culture, land, ancestors, and sovereignty that another nation has stolen from them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
We hold these truths to be self evident; that all colors, shades, and hues of people are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights is a government-supported exercise that strengthens radical inclusion and national camaraderie. Entitlement is a colonial concept no matter the justification put in place to warrant or vindicate the action in which an individual or government exercises their often self-declared privilege. Historically, we, as American Indians, had no concept of privilege. My ancestors did not practice the common and intoxicating hierarchy of entitlement. But that should not have excluded them from being considered human. My ancestors understood existence, duty, and the moral differences between right and wrong. They were people. They were human beings despite their seemingly “primitive” cultural practices and mindsets. American Indians today are not their ancestors. Yet we are still being treated as relics from the past. American Indians are still being treated like our ancestors.
The time has come for American Indians to redefine entitlement in tribal settings. It is time for American Indians to allow ourselves to become entitled through the enlightened and justifiable demand for the rights we deserve. Native peoples today have patiently conformed and suffered under the American government in order to ensure our own post-genocidal survival. Native nations have been ravaged, stereotyped, murdered, raped, erased, and excluded, and such is now the necessity to command the equal station to which we are entitled.
The history of humanity, American humanity specifically, is a history of violent injustices on the part of the privileged, often European nations, toward the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. To prove this, let facts be presented to a candid world in which audience members allow themselves to take, at the very least, a single step in the shoes of the American Indian.
He, the privileged American, has invaded our lands and claimed, colonized, and destroyed the fruitful and vital earth in which we, the Native Americans, have lived peacefully, rightfully, and harmoniously for hundreds of generations.
He has hunted, raped, murdered, beaten, starved, exploited, skinned, claimed, and colonized the tribal peoples whom had done no wrong other than being living, breathing, human beings in the way of his own personal, political, governmental, cultural, and industrial ambitions.
He, the privileged American, has offered a cash prize for the blood-drenched heads of our Native sisters and brothers to anyone who joined in his endless, vicious crusade.
He, the privileged American, has enslaved us to build his churches and missions so he is able to worship a god we don’t believed in and buried our bones in their walls.
He, the privileged American, has committed the largest mass shooting in American history in which 300 Native people including women and small children were murdered in cold blood and then proceeded to ignore the effects of his numerous attempted genocides.
He, the privileged American, has forced us out of our homes, forced many of us to journey across America against our will, only to force us to claim a home he himself has chosen and determined free of any resources he may need for himself in the future.
He, the privileged American, has stolen our children and force them into residential schools in which the policy “Kill the Indian save the Man” has falsely given him the authority to cut their sacred hair, rape and beat them if they dare speak their traditional languages, and keep them separated from their families and important tribal ceremonies.
He, the privileged American, has erased our existence from government, academia, media, and the minds of American people in order to erase the living, breathing proof of his own malice.
He, the privileged American, has labeled us as “other” on every governmental form and questionnaire in order to remove any thought of our existence from the common, colonial mind.
He, the privileged American, has named his mascots, vehicles, sports teams, and butter after the people and cultures in which he has attempted to eradicate.
He, the privileged American, has stolen sacred headdresses, feathers, dream-catchers, music, prayer, and language for the “enrichment” and development of his own (pop) cultural practices.
He, the privileged American, has allowed us, Native American citizens, to live, starving, in poverty-stricken communities without running water, electricity, or healthcare.
He, the privileged American, has robbed our ancestors’ graves of sacred baskets, pottery, and bones and placed them in museums for the casual pleasure of American citizens descending from the same colonizers who skinned and beheaded our ancestors.
He, the privileged American, has constructed pipelines beneath our sacred areas and water sources and shot us with rubber bullets and freezing water when we have attempted to protect and nurture said areas.
He, the privileged American, has stolen, raped, and murdered thousands of our women and encouraged non-Native media and news-sources not to report on the epidemic.
He, the privileged American, has written and praised a governmental document that refers to American Indians who are simply trying to survive his demolition as “merciless Indian savages whose only known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions,” and allowed it to delude the minds and influence the actions of future generations whom resemble his likeness.
As a community, we have survived the horrific injustices inflicted onto our people time and time again. We have reclaimed and decolonized our lifestyles and experiences as modern, 21st-century American Indians in order to reverse the havoc he has wreaked onto our communities and to encourage regrowth of and in our tribal nations. There has been and will be a resurgence of Native voices despite his refusal to listen. This document is a form of that resurgence. We have endured genocide. We have endured colonization. We have endured erasure. We have endured silence. We, therefore, the American Indians of this Nation, assembled, in the voice of myself, a Cahuilla Tribal Member, appealing to the American government and all its’ citizens who are birthed into privilege and entitlement, and by the authority of our humanity, solemnly publish and declare, that we are of right to be free and safe. We are of right to practice sovereignty, cultural exclusivity and ceremony, and our post-colonial traditional lifestyles. We are of right to be considered people, despite what his sacred governmental document declares. Finally, we are of right to live. Beginning during the time in which this country was conceived, Native peoples have been exterminated for the betterment of mythic American progress. This document has only briefly outlines said extermination. In order to reconcile attempted and continued genocide, he must consider Native Americans as a vital part of the fabric of America, rather than “merciless savages” who need to be eliminated. We are of right to our own existence in both a national and tribal atmosphere.
We hope this convention will be followed by a series of conventions, embracing every part of the country. And for the support of this declaration, we mutually pledge to each other and to our fellow Americans, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. In the words of a Cahuilla tribal member, mu chem kal. We are still here. We are still here.
