Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands

393 Pages·2017·4.55 MB·English

by  Zoltán Grossman

Praise for Unlikely AlliAnces
“ Unlikely Alliances offers a prescription about how cooperation between rural
Native and non-Native communities and environmental organizers can be ex-
tended and encouraged. It is intended as a roadmap for the future, based on past
experience.”
— David Rich Lewis, author of Neither Wolf nor Dog: American Indians,
Environment, and Agrarian Change
“ A broadly comparative work that will be helpful for identifying approaches that
lead to workable alliances between neighbors, and for highlighting recent success-
ful Native strategies to assert control over significant natural resources.”
— Lisa Blee, author of Framing Chief Leschi: Narratives and the Politics
of Historical Justice
“ When Indigenous peoples united with ranchers and farmers to stop the Key-
stone XL pipeline, they blazed an electrifying new path away from climate
catastrophe. Such alliances to defend land and water have been taking shape
for decades—and they have much more to teach us. Grossman draws out the
key lessons from these stories with great skill and care.”
—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine
“U nlikely Alliances demonstrates that our ongoing fights for climate justice are
not isolated struggles, but are founded upon a legacy of collaborative resistance.
This book is an essential read for all organizers, water protectors, and land
defenders who wish to build healthier, more sustainable communities and
native nations.”
— Dallas Goldtooth, national organizer, Indigenous Environmental
Network
“ Tribal nations’ fight for treaty rights has always been on the frontlines. We
will build bridges with our neighbors to find common ground, but cannot
compromise our future. As place-based societies, we can no longer allow busi-
ness as usual.”
—Brian Cladoosby (Spee-Pots), chairman, Swinomish Tribe
Charlotte Coté and Coll Thrush
Series Editors
U n l i k e ly
A l l i A n c e s
Native Nations and White Communities
Join to Defend Rural Lands
Zoltán GrossmAn
Foreword by Winona LaDuke
University of WAshinGton Press
Seattle and London
This book was supported by a generous grant from the Tulalip Tribes Charitable Fund,
which provides the opportunity for a sustainable and healthy community for all.
Copyright © 2017 by the University of Washington Press
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Composed in Charter, typeface designed by Matthew Carter
21 20 19 18 17 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
University of Washington Press
www.washington.edu/uwpress
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, Ansi Z39.48–1984. ∞
The author’s proceeds from sales of this book are being donated to the 
Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, Inc. (www.7genfund.org).
Cover photo: Reject and Protect rally of the Cowboy Indian Alliance in Washington, DC,
April 22, 2014. Courtesy Bold Nebraska.
Opposite: Quileute canoe in the flotilla at the “Shared Waters, Shared Values” rally opposing
the Grays Harbor oil terminal in Hoquiam, July 8, 2016. (Courtesy Emma Cassidy / Survival
Media Agency).
“Things of Intrinsic Worth,” by Wallace McRae, from New Cowboy Poetry, ed. Hal Cannon
(Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 1990) used by permission of the poet.
To Debi,
and all those who have worked hard to build
treaty alliances to protect the land and water.

Contents
Foreword by Winona LaDuke ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
List of Maps xxi
List of Interviews xxiii
introdUction 3
Part I: rUnninG UPstreAm 33
chAPter 1. Fish Wars and Co-Management:
Western Washington 37
chAPter 2. Water Wars and Breaching Dams:
Northwest Plateau 64
Part II: militAriZinG lAnds And skies 99
chAPter 3. Military Projects and Environmental Racism:
Nevada and Southern Wisconsin 103
Part III: keePinG it in the GroUnd 135
chAPter 4. Resource Wars and Sharing Sacred Lands:
Montana and South Dakota 139
chAPter 5. Fossil Fuel Shipping and Blocking:
Northern Plains and Pacific Northwest 170
Part IV: AGreeinG on the WAter 205
chAPter 6. Fishing and Exclusion: Northern Wisconsin 209
chAPter 7. Mining and Inclusion: Northern Wisconsin 239
conclUsion 273
Notes 291
Index 347

foreword
Winona LaDuke
As the Indigenous people, we have watched. We have watched
this thing happen on our hemisphere. We have seen what
has happened. We have seen the community confused and
attacked. We understand that the issue is the land, the issue
is the Earth. We cannot change the political system, we cannot
change the economic system, we cannot change the social
system, until the people control the land, and then we take
it out of the hands of that sick minority that chooses to
pervert the meaning and the intention of humanity.
—John Trudell
in the AnishinAAbe ProPhecies this is seen As the time of the
Seventh Fire. In this time, it’s said that our Oshki Anishinaabeg, our people,
who would be aware, conscious human beings, would look about and have a
choice between two paths. One path would be well worn, the other scorched.
It would be our choice.
This book is about that choice. In the time we are in, ecosystems are crash-
ing, our people have become sedated and contaminated, many of us, with the
accoutrements, and, well, poisons of the Predator Economy, the Wasichu
way. . . . Indigenous people have a long history of being oppressed, and some-
times that oppression sticks, and you remain oppressed, and other times it
does not. You wake up and shake off the fog, the accoutrements, and you re-
member who you are and what are your instructions.
As much as Anishinaabeg and other Indigenous peoples wake and take
action, or deepen and continue the action of the past five hundred years, we
find that there are many who have come to live on this land who understand
and feel the same. This, of course, makes sense, because our Mother Earth,
this land, Anishinaabe Akiing, the land to which we belong, speaks to us and
speaks to those who come to live here. That is, if you are able to listen and hear.
ix