Table Of ContentSTANDING
WITH
STANDING
ROCK
VOICES
FROM THE
#NODAPL
MOVEMENT
Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon, Editors
STANDING WITH STANDING ROCK
INDIGENOUS AMERICAS
Robert Warrior, Series Editor
Chadwick Allen Scott Richard Lyons
Trans- Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native X- Marks: Native Signatures of Assent
Literary Studies
Aileen Moreton- Robinson
Raymond D. Austin The White Possessive: Property, Power, and
Navajo Courts and Navajo Common Law: Indigenous Sovereignty
A Tradition of Tribal Self- Governance
Jean M. O’Brien
Lisa Brooks Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of
The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in Existence in New England
the Northeast
Shiri Pasternak
Kevin Bruyneel Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere
The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Lake against the State
Politics of U.S.– Indigenous Relations
Steven Salaita
Glen Sean Coulthard Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America
Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial and Palestine
Politics of Recognition
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
James H. Cox As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom
The Red Land to the South: American Indian through Radical Resistance
Writers and Indigenous Mexico
Paul Chaat Smith
Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong
Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the
Lisa Tatonetti
#NoDAPL Movement
The Queerness of Native American Literature
Brendan Hokowhitu and Vijay Devadas
The Fourth Eye: Ma–ori Media in Aotearoa New Gerald Vizenor
Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point
Zealand
Robert Warrior
Daniel Heath Justice
The People and the Word: Reading Native
Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary
Nonfiction
History
J. Ke–haulani Kauanui, Editor Robert A. Williams Jr.
Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court,
Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with
Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in
Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders
America
Thomas King
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative
STANDING WITH
STANDING ROCK
Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement
NICK ESTES AND JASKIRAN DHILLON
EDITORS
INDIGENOUS AMERICAS
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Copyright 2019 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
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http://www.upress.umn.edu
ISBN 978-1-5179-0536-1 (pb) — ISBN 978-1-5179-0535-4 (hc)
A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Prologue ix
Introduction: The Black Snake, #NoDAPL, and the Rise
of a People’s Movement 1
Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon
PART I. LEADING THE RESISTANCE
1. Badass Indigenous Women Caretake Relations: #Standingrock,
#IdleNoMore, #BlackLivesMatter 13
Kim TallBear
2. In the Beginning 19
Mark K. Tilsen
3. “This Fight Has Become My Life, and It’s Not Over”:
An Interview with Zaysha Grinnell 21
Jaskiran Dhillon
4. Traditional Leadership and the Oceti Sakowin:
An Interview with Lewis Grassrope 24
Nick Estes
5. Taking a Stand at Standing Rock 37
David Archambault II
PART II. LIVING HISTORIES
6. “They Took Our Footprint Out of the Ground”:
An Interview with LaDonna Bravebull Allard 43
Nick Estes
7. Mnisose 56
Craig Howe and Tyler Young
8. Mni Wiconi: Water Is [More Than] Life 71
Edward Valandra
9. The Great Sioux Nation and the Resistance to
Colonial Land Grabbing 90
Roxanne Dunbar- Ortiz
10. The Supreme Law of the Land: Standing Rock and the
Dakota Access Pipeline 96
Jeffrey Ostler and Nick Estes
PART III. LEGAL AND SOCIOPOLITICAL LANDSCAPES
AND STATE VIOLENCE
11. Striking at the Heart of Capital: International Financial
Institutions and Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights 103
Michelle L. Cook
12. Beyond Environmentalism: #NoDAPL as Assertion of
Tribal Sovereignty 158
Andrew Curley
13. Resolutions 169
Layli Long Soldier
14. Centering Sovereignty: How Standing Rock Changed
the Conversation 172
Elizabeth Ellis
15. Counterterrorism Tactics at Standing Rock 198
Alleen Brown, Will Parrish, and Alice Speri
PART IV. ENVIRONMENTAL COLONIZATION
16. Heal the People, Heal the Land:
An Interview with Freda Huson 210
Anne Spice
17. The Financing Problem of Colonialism: How Indigenous
Jurisdiction Is Valued in Pipeline Politics 222
Shiri Pasternak, Katie Mazer, and D. T. Cochrane
18. What Standing Rock Teaches Us about Environmental Justice 235
Jaskiran Dhillon
PART V. EDUCATION AND CRITICAL PEDAGOGIES
19. Red Praxis: Lessons from Mashantucket to Standing Rock 245
Sandy Grande, Natalie Avalos, Jason Mancini, Christopher Newell,
and endawnis Spears
20. For Standing Rock: A Moving Dialogue 261
Tomoki Mari Birkett and Teresa Montoya
21. A Lesson in Natural Law 281
Marcella Gilbert
22. Standing Rock: The Actualization of a Community and
a Movement 290
Sarah Sunshine Manning
23. #NoDAPL Syllabus Project 301
The New York City Stands with Standing Rock Collective
PART VI. INDIGENOUS ORGANIZING AND SOLIDARITY
IN MOVEMENT BUILDING
24. Lessons from the Land: Peace through Relationship 307
Michelle Latimer
25. Wake Work versus Work of Settler Memory: Modes of Solidarity
in #NoDAPL, Black Lives Matter, and Anti- Trumpism 311
Kevin Bruyneel
26. Threats of Violence: Refusing the Thirty Meter Telescope and
Dakota Access Pipeline 328
David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu Maile
27. Decolonize This Place and Radical Solidarity:
An Interview with Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain 344
Jaskiran Dhillon
28. Death of Hydra 352
Joel Waters
29. Mapping a Many- Headed Hydra: Transnational Infrastructures
of Extraction and Resistance 354
Katie Mazer, Martin Danyluk, Elise Hunchuck, and Deborah Cowen
Acknowledgments 383
Contributors 387
Publication Information 393
Index 395
Prologue
One evening in October 2016, before the violent eviction of the 1851 Treaty Camp
on Highway 1806 on October 27, Nick Estes was invited to a strategy session at
Prairie Knights Casino, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Phyllis Young, a former
Standing Rock councilwoman and a longtime member of the American Indian
Movement, led the meeting. She played an audio recording from a meeting on
September 30, 2014, between the Standing Rock Council and representatives of
Energy Transfer Partners and the Dakota Access Pipeline. The meeting took place
when the Oceti Sakowin, the Great Sioux Nation, led historic resistance against
the Keystone XL Pipeline, which cut through the heart of the 1868 Fort Laramie
Treaty territory. At that time, the focus was on defeating KXL; few had heard of
DAPL. Those who had took it seriously as an existential threat to Indigenous sov-
ereignty and the future of not just Standing Rock but also the downriver Indig-
enous nations, non- Native peoples, non- Native life, and other- than- human life.
The audio clip played at the meeting begins with Tribal Chairman David
Archambault II unequivocally declaring that Standing Rock opposed DAPL
and all pipelines trespassing through the 1868 treaty territory and concludes
with Phyllis Young’s prophetic words and warning to DAPL. Her words have
informed the spirit of #NoDAPL and this book. We share them here in honor
and respect for this Standing Rock elder and dignitary. As history was being
told, history was unfolding. And it has not stopped.
We will put our best warriors in the front. We are the vanguard. We are
Hunkpapa Lakota. That means the horn of the buffalo. That’s who we are. We
are protectors of our nation of Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires. Know
who we are. We will put forward our young people, our young lawyers who
understand the weasel words of the English language, who know one word
can mean seven things. We understand the forked tongue that our grand-
fathers talked about. We know about talking out both sides of your mouth,
smiling with one side of your face. We know all about the tricks of the wasicu
[the fat- taker, the capitalist] world. Our young people have mastered it. I have
mastered your language. I can speak eloquently in the English language. My
grandmother taught me. But I also know the genetic psyche, and I also have
the collective memory of the damages that have occurred to my people. I will
never submit to any pipeline to go through my homeland. Mitakuye Oyasin. ix
