Breaking the borders: Citizenship questioned by American Indian tribes feeling like strangers in their own land
By: Paloma Esquivel
Issue date: 11/9/05 Section: Pulp
On July 14, 1928, members of the Indian Defense League of America met to march across the U.S.-Canadian border. The marchers, made up of Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Indians, hoped the event would force the issue of free passage for all North American Indians across the border.
Before the Europeans arrived, said the Haudenosaunee, members of the six nations (the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscarora Nations) traveled freely across the Northeast, without borders and without restriction.
But today, borders that were imposed by others, including the United States-Canada border and the borders that outline Indian reservations, continue to affect the everyday lives of the Haudenosaunee, said speakers who gathered yesterday as part of the semester-long "Borders" symposium.
Invited speakers, all members of the Haudenosaunee nations, gathered in Grant Auditorium with SU students and faculty members. They were there to discuss how the issue continues to force members of these nations to accept a premise they did not accept in the first place.
"When we first came together, we had a difficult time with the idea of land and borders," said Chief Brad Powless of the Onondaga Nation. "We came with the idea that land was shared."
While most of the world has abandoned this idea, members of the six nations continue to hold on to it, said Audra Simpson, assistant professor of anthropology at Cornell University.
"We still see ourselves as caretakers of this land," said Powless. "That is our duty here, to take care of this land."
In March of this year, the Onondaga nation filed a federal lawsuit claiming ownership of an area of land that stretches more than 3,000 miles, from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border. The land was taken in illegal negotiations between individual tribe members and state representatives, said Powless.
For him and other members of the Onondaga nation, the pollution of Onondaga Lake is at the heart of the suit.
"The water is dirty; it has been polluted," said Powless. "But water does not recognize borders. The pollutions affect out community without regard to the borders."
For Simpson, the issue of imposed borders takes on a new meaning at the United States-Canada border.
"Every time we cross the border, we are forced to define ourselves," Simpson said. "Are we American citizens; Canadian citizens? But we are not Canadian and we are not American, and they don't get that."
Simpson told the audience when she crossed the border into the United States a few years ago, a border guard told her she should apply for a green card.
"I am not an immigrant," she said. "I am a member of a first nation."
"Well, then you are an American," said the guard.
"No, I am a Mohawk," she replied.
For her, and for many others, it is the right to be recognized as a member of a sovereign nation the Haudenosaunee continue to struggle for.
Jolene Rickard, an artist and member of the Tuscarora nation whose grandfather, Chief Clifton Rickard, founded the Indian Defense League in 1926, spoke about her grandfather's involvement in the League's first march across the United States-Canada border.
"(At the time) my grandfather and the others with him had the great courage to continue to be Indian," Rickard said. "He was criticized for asserting his traditions and demanding the rights of the Haudenosaunee to cross the border freely."
Despite the criticisms, the march across the border grew in size and took place every year without fail. But after Sept. 11, 2001, many doubted that a march that included hundreds of participants crossing the border without interference could be accomplished, Rickard said.
"I told them, we are supposed to be the people of the dream," she said. "We believe that if we can imagine it then perhaps it will be so. That's the goal of this march; we want to be able to move freely. On that day, for one walk, once a year, we can do that." And so again, despite its detractors, the march continued after Sept. 11, and continues to this day.
"To be a Haudenosaunee person today means that nothing has ever been given to us," said Rickard. "You have to work at it every day."
Link to Report
Indian Defense League Website
Special thanks to Lu for passing this on!
Jay Treaty 1928
Indian Affairs Laws and Treaties
Contents
November 2005 Reports
Last updated on November 15, 2005