25-4 Maroons in the Americas

World Bank Denies Indigenous Peoples' Right to Prior Informed Consent

On October 23, 2001, the World Bank Governing Board denied the right of prior informed consent to indigenous peoples threatened with involuntary resettlement. Bank President James Wolfensohn recommended that the Bank Board ignore the pleas of scores of non-governmental organizations, tribes, and activists. In a September 28 letter, he wrote: [The new involuntary resettlement policy does] not…

Why Warriors Lie Down And Die

By Richard I. Trudgen Aboriginal Resource and Development Services Inc., 2000 (Paperback) ISBN: 0 646 39587 4 Author Richard Trudgen is a communications specialist who has spent more than 20 years consulting with, and working for, the Yolngu, the Aborigines of Australia's northeast Arnhem Land. His work on behalf of the Aboriginal Resource and Development Services (ARDS) has centered on…

Tourism In Global Society: place, culture, consumption

By Kevin Meethan Palgrave, March 2001 (Paperback) ISBN: 0333760581 Tourism in Global Society: place, culture, consumption approaches the complex problem of tourism from a purely theoretical standpoint. It presents a criticism of current sociological methods in tourism analysis and suggests a new methodology. While it lacks useful examples for a researcher studying tourism, the book does contain a…

Tijah Chopil of Malaysia: A vision of one heart

Tijah Chopil invented the phrase Sinui Pal Nanuk Sngik (SPNS) -- "New Life One Heart." It signifies that solidarity among Orang Asli will ensure a future for them. Tijah established SPNS as an organization in 1995, when she was 17 years old, to improve the life of the Orang Asli in West Malaysia. Tijah is the sixth of 10 children. When her father died she was 12 years old, and her ailing mother…

Tibet & CS: Building a Residential Primary School in Chungba Valley: A new project for Cultural Survival

One fine morning earlier this year, more than 100 Khampa horsemen, laden with juniper incense and prayer flags, made their way up the sacred mountain of Chubum. This was no ordinary gathering. According to local custom, the people of Chungba meet at this, the holiest of sites, only twice a year -- once in the spring and once in the fall. But on this early summer day, they climbed the mountain a…

The Unapologetic Pursuit of Self-Interest

At the recent World Conference Against Racism (where indigenous peoples had a particularly strong showing), Canada's National Chief Matthew Coon-Come reiterated his call for indigenous peoples to enjoy just and equitable treatment within the states they now live in as vulnerable and threatened nations. Said Coon-Come: "We have been deprived of our means of subsistence and our lands, and are being…

The Rights of Maroons In International Human Rights Law

The vast majority of American states have ratified international human rights treaties that obligate them to respect the rights of individuals and certain groups. Some have also ratified International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 (ILO 169), which deals exclusively with the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. The rights of Maroon individuals and collectivities are also protected…

The Ndyuka Treaty Of 1760: A Conversation with Granman Gazon

For Maroons in Suriname, treaties are hard-won symbols of freedom consecrated by the blood and power of our most powerful ancestors -- blood that guaranteed our existence as free peoples with autonomous territories and institutions. The treaties were and still are -- at least from the Maroon perspective -- the basis for defining our relationship with the Surinamese state. During the course of a…

Rights Talk, Respect Talk

A Walk to Protect the Earth The snow was compact and my toboggan slid across it more easily than I'd expected. I pulled a plastic sled mounted on an unwaxed snowboard, and more than 120 pounds in gear and supplies enclosed by a tarp and secured with a thin nylon cord. The Innu walk participants pulled wooden or aluminum toboggans that held belongings twice as heavy as mine and tightly roped down…

Reservation X: The Power of Place in Aboriginal Contemporary Art

In Reservation X: The Power of Place in Aboriginal Contemporary Art, seven artists demonstrate how their native communities influence their work. But the seven installation pieces that compose the exhibition, now showing at Dartmouth College's Hood Museum of Art, go beyond the exhibition's title. The artists combine both traditional aboriginal techniques they learned while living in their native…

Maroons under Assault In Suriname And French Guiana

The Maroons of Suriname and French Guiana (formerly known as "Bush Negroes") have long been the hemisphere's largest Maroon population. They are at once the most culturally, politically, and economically independent of all Maroon peoples in the Americas and, since the 1970s and 80s, the most heavily under assault. Historical Origins Between the mid-17(th) and late 18(th) centuries, large numbers…

Racism...at the World Conference Against Racism

At the time of this writing, participant governments still have not reached consensus on the final documents of the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). The conference, dominated almost exclusively by the political division over the Palestine/Israel conflict and the issue of apology and reparations sought by African Americans for slavery, was plagued by discord and a lack of political will.…

Quilombos and Land Rights in Contemporary Brazil

The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 for the first time recognized the right of descendants of slave-era quilombos to receive lands from the state: "The definitive property rights of remanescentes ["remnants"] of quilombos that have been occupying the same lands are hereby recognized, and the state shall grant them title to such lands." (Art. 68) In the political context of 1988 -- the year Brazil…

Quilombo: Brazilian Maroons during slavery

The slave trade to the Americas, which consumed the lives of at least 12 million African men and women, represented one of the most important commercial and cultural ventures in the formation of the modern world and a fundamental element in the creation of a socioeconomic world system. It is estimated that 40 percent of the Africans imported to the Americas ended up in Brazil. Despite the…

Miners & Maroons: Freedom on the Pacific Coast of Colombia and Ecuador

Slaves freed themselves by means other than escape to fugitive communities. In certain contexts, they also gained freedom through a mix of precious metals mining, subsistence cultivation, livestock raising, and participation in the market economy. Slaves in Iberoamerican mining areas, which were generally quite different from plantation zones in terms of both geography and political economy,…

Maroons In The Americas: Heroic Pasts, Ambiguous Presents, Uncertain Futures

Maroons -- descendants of escaped slaves -- still form distinct peoples (sometimes, "states within a state") in several parts of the western hemisphere. Their situations as minorities within nation-states varies but is everywhere severely threatened -- by multinational logging and mining operations and by other assaults on their territories and cultural identities. This special issue brings…

Maroon Autonomy In Jamaica

In hemispheric context, the early Maroon communities of Jamaica -- those formed in the 17(th) century, during the late Spanish and early British periods -- were hardly unique. But those that made treaties with the British crown in Jamaica in 1739 were destined for special fame (or infamy, depending on the perspective). Though hugely outnumbered and poorly equipped, they launched a highly…

Made In Indonesia: Indonesian workers since Suharto

By Dan La Botz South End Press, 2001 (Paperback) ISBN: 0-89408-642-9 Since 1974 Indonesia has surfaced on the international news front as a place of turmoil. In 1998, for example, broadcast and print media briefly covered the people's uprising to overthrow the dictatorship of President Suharto with images of student protests and street riots and with descriptions of the atrocities attributed to…

Inter-American Court of Human Rights Rules in Favor of Nicaraguan Indians

On September 17, 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the highest tribunal in the Americas, released its decision in a case concerning the small Mayagna (Sumo) community of Awas Tingni, located on the forested area of Nicaragua's Caribbean coastal regional. In so doing, the Court affirmed the existence of indigenous peoples' collective rights to their land, resources, and environment.…

Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination

By Shari M. Huhndorf Cornell University Press, 2001 (Paperback) ISBN: 0 8014 8695 5 Native Americans figure heavily in the European American cultural imagination and Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination is a detailed examination of the Euro-American predilection for scopophilia -- taking other people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze. Author…

Genocide, Ethnocide, Or Hyperbole? Australia's "Stolen Generation" and Canada's "Hidden Holocaust"

A decade awash in genocide and deadly conflict has passed since Jason Clay lamented that "it is impossible for concerned activists and scholars to agree on which cases constitute genocides, much less how interested people would go about documenting them." (Clay, 1988) While this statement holds true today, a vast array of relevant scholarship on genocide has nonetheless arisen, informed by events…

Endangered Peoples Of The Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive

Edited by Milton M. R. Freeman Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000 (Cloth) ISBN: 0313306494 Endangered Peoples of the Arctic is the second in the "Endangered People of the World" series published by Greenwood Press. It is a celebration of northern cultural diversity. Circumpolar in its coverage, the volume is geared for an undergraduate audience, with each article organized into five sections:…

Creating Huaorani Discourse on Tourism

The Hunter and the Hunted I heard his rustlings somewhere ahead, the snap of branches beneath his feet. Mima and Lowentoke were pointing into the thick forest greenery, whispering "oré." We had been moving, sometimes crashing, through the forest for hours. I stood, dripping sweat, chest heaving, and doubtful. I had resigned myself to observing the plentiful tracks the herd had left behind in the…

Black Mesa Weavers for Life and Land

The Diné (Navajo) people of Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona are among the most traditional indigenous peoples within the United States and their history is one of ongoing struggle to preserve their culture, land, water, and way of life. Among the Diné, sheepherding and weaving are primarily women's activities, and are vital in defining and maintaining cultural identity and health. They are…

Spiritual Reawakening in Siberia: Indigenous delegates visit Cultural Survival

On October 29, Cultural Survival welcomed five visitors from Siberia as part of a cultural exchange organized by the Massachusetts-based NGO, the Sacred Earth Network. (www.sacredearthnetwork.org) Founded almost 15 years ago, the Network aims to develop cooperative partnerships and cross-cultural learning opportunities for indigenous communities in Russia and North America. Exchange participants…