Nick Estes' OUR HISTORY IS THE FUTURE: STANDING ROCK VERSUS THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE, AND THE LONG TRADITION OF INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE

"In a very real sense, the founding of the United States was a declaration of war against indigenous peoples."

From now on, I demand that Nick Estes' exceptional contextualization of the #NoDAPL protests, Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, be taught alongside whenever classics like Frances Parkman's The Oregon Trail, Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage, to which this book is a necessary foil and reply, and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which Estes both amplifies and magnifies, are on a syllabus. You don't need to have read any of these other books to appreciate this book, mind, but if you aren't at least interested in having a look at one or two of them after reading it, I'm going to wonder if you even read, bro.

With its vast, 400+ year, scope and its long, scholarly title, Our History is the Future may seem like it's going to be a dry and academic study, but it's actually one of the most readable and emotionally affecting books of its kind I've ever encountered, full of candid interviews (wherever possible) with witnesses to and participants in, not only the protest named in the title, but the entire history of interactions between the Indigenous peoples of North America's Great Plains region and the waves and waves of mostly white settler colonists who came to take their land and water, kill them and their non-human relatives (especially the bison herds), infect them with diseases, sell them guns and alcohol, condescend and proselytize to and massacre them. So in addition to the scenes most of us saw on television in 2016, at which Estes (a member of the Oceti Sakowin nation who recently and proudly sent a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. The guy speaking on behalf of the Seven Council Fires? That means the Oceti Sakowin, which most of us know as the Sioux) was present, he also has much to share about the original contact, conflict and forced migrations that characterized most of the 19th century, the United States unending history of breaking treaties with Indigenous peoples, the Ghost Dance, lesser known efforts to enforce or insist on treaty rights in the early 20th century, the humongous negative impact of the Army Corps of Engineers' post-World War II Pick-Sloan plan that created several large reservoirs in the Dakotas but flooded out thousands of acres of productive Indigenous lands that were helping to feed several reservations' worth of people, and yes, both battles at Wounded Knee, in 1890 and in 1973.

He also saves a whole chapter for something that many of us -- me, for example -- never knew a thing about: continuing efforts to achieve international recognition of North American Indigenous sovereignty via the United Nations and through shared programs of solidarity with Palestinians, South American Indigenous Groups, and other ethnic and cultural minorities striving to regain or retain their rights all over the world. Estes pays special attention here with the Oceti Sakowin and other groups' joint efforts with the Palestinians -- many Palestinian activists have acted as Water Protectors since the #NoDAPL actions started, partly in reciprocation for North American Indigenous help with Palestinian protest actions over the years. As this book was published before the current genocidal war between Israel and Hamas that is killing Palestinians right and left every day, the current tragedies are not mentioned here but are impossible not to think about and weep over through every page of this chapter. I wonder if there are Oceti Sakowin or other peoples over there trying to help the Palestinians right now; I'm sure some are out there lending their voices to protests against the killing.

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 non-human relatives, and with the earth.

Estes isn't nearly as interested in documenting the United States' (and some of Canada's) crimes against Indigenous peoples, though, as he is in telling the stories of those who tried to stop them, both well known ones like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull but also Moving Buffalo Robe Woman and Deskaheh and Madonna Thunder Hawk. There is much more pride in Estes' tellings than there is sorrow.

Read this.