Anarchism and Native Americans
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The number of tribes who organized without a government structure are numerous, though it should be noted that the absence of political or class stratification does not always result in the absence of all hierarchies, such as disparity in the freedom and power of genders or age. Of course, Native Americans are not a monolithic, universally same grouping of people but instead many distinct nations. The ways in which anarchy was realized and lived out varied from tribe to tribe. Some peoples were matrilineal with women taking very prominent and active roles in the decision-making process while others saw definite rights and privileges afforded only to men.
While certainly each tribe is unique, there are some general trends which can be commented on. The first is a general absence of formal authority. There were indeed many societies which had a Chief. This position, however, has been misunderstood by non-natives. As David Graeber explains, "the position [of chief] was so demanding, and so littlerewarding, so hedged about by safeguards, that therewas no way for power-hungry individuals to do much with it." (Graeber 23) Additionally, it was much more common for land and goods to be held in common rather than parcelled out to individuals. In some societies the capitalist notion of respect and prestige deriving from the amount one possesses is turned squarely on its head. In the case of Native Americans in the Northwest a person gained prestige by how much they gave, done in the form of the potlatch. The general relationship to nature was being a part of it rather than over it. Still, it is important not to create caricatures of Native American cultures or adopt a "noble savage" viewpoint of the indigenous. To avoid painting broad strokes of Native Americans simply as anarchists and understanding better how some of the many indigenous anarchies manifested themselves, here a few examples examined in greater depth.
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[edit] Iroquois
The Iroquois are one of the most prominent examples of a tribe that did have a clear political structure but lacked the coercive properties to consider it a governing force. Gary Nash describes the way the Iroquois conducted themselves,
- "No laws and ordinances, sheriffs and constables, judges and juries, no courts or jails--the apparatus of authority in European societies--were to be found in the northeast woodlands prior to European arrival. Yet boundaries of acceptable behavior are firmly set. Though priding themselves on the autonomous individual, the Iroquois maintained a strict sense of right and wrong." (Nash)
They did have a confederacy linking the six nations together, but the structure honored each tribes autonomy with each group free to back out or opt not to support a resolution if they were so inclined.
Their way of life also strongly reflected those principles held up by anarchists. Howard Zinn writes in People's History of the United States,
- "In the villages of the Iroquois, land was owned in common and worked in common. Hunting was done together, and the catch was divided among the members of the village. Houses were considered common property and were shared by several families. The concept of private ownership of land and homes was foreign to the Iroquois. A French Jesuit priest who encountered them in the 1650's wrote: 'No poorhouses are needed among them, because they are neither mendicants nor paupers.... Their kindness, humanity, and courtesy not only makes them liberal with what they have, but causes them to possess hardly anything except in common.'" (Zinn)
The Iroquois were also matrilineal, women owned all property and determined kinship. Women played a particularly significant role in the decisions of the people, overseeing the village while the men were hunting or fishing. Additionally, they chose the forty-nine chiefs on the council of the Five Nation confederacy. They sat in on clan meetings and had the power to remove people from office who failed to meet the needs of the women.
The tribes were linked by a confederacy but the structure always allowed tribes full power over their own affairs and all agreements were made on a voluntary basis.
[edit] Inuit
The Inuit are the indigenous people of the North American arctic. They have responded to the harsh climate and great need for adaptability by organizing themselves in a non-hierarchical fashion with an emphasis on self-reliance.
The anthropologist Kaj Birket-Smith observed that,
- "among the Inuit there is not state which makes use of their strength, no government to restrict their liberty of action. If anywhere there exists that community, built upon the basis of the free accord of people, of which Kropotkin dreamnt, it is to be found among these poor tribes neighboring upon the North Pole." (Birket-Smith).
The Inuit traditionally organized themselves into local communities or bands. The numbers varied from just a few dozen to over one hundred. Each band delegated a person to speak for the others, in some areas called isumataq meaning he who thinks. This person gained such status by proving themselves as a strong hunter and successfully surviving the extreme climate. It should be noted that the delegates did not have political force to carry out their opinions, that was left for the community as a whole to decide.
The other position of power found amongst the Inuits were shamans. They held considerably more influence in the society because their derived from their special relationship with the supernatural. Shamans could invoke powers both to help or hurt people.
It is important to note that while the Inuit did indeed have people who wielded special privileges, there was no one who could be considered a ruler. Leadership was never formal nor did anyone hold the power to enforce their beliefs. People could ignore decisions given by the isumataq or shaman. However, in the case of the shaman one could risk becoming the victim of a malevolent shaman.
Major disputes were resolved by informal community-wide discussions. Consensus was sought and oftentimes achieved though if unanimity was not possible the disagreeing parties could simply go their separate ways.
The shaman certainly held powers which elevated him above the others, but this title, like that of the isumataq was earned and was also not immutable. A shaman alleged of wrong-doing could be stripped of his status if found guilty.
Overall, the Inuit show a society which respects the individual to a great deal and respects the importance of striving for consensus in decisions. The group certainly is not without hierarchy, especially in the case of shamans who can use their supernatural status to frighten others but does serve as an important example of a stateless, generally non-hierchical society.
[edit] Subjugation of Native Americans
Almost immediately upon arrival, Native American tribes were met by brutality, indoctrination and outright genocide by Spanish conquistadors, English colonists and other European groups. The anarchist qualities of the various indigenous peoples were almost always seen as signs of backwardness and quelled by whatever means possible by colonizers. Some tribes were met by either complete annhilation or reduction to barely recognizable levels. Those who did survive were relegated to small parcels of land and little access to resources or rights.
For those tribes who did survive war, forced assimilation and other attacks their way of life and autonomy was undermined by the United States government. These actions took the form of several institutional policies.
In 1887 the US passed the General Allotment Act which authorized the government to abolish collective landholdings, replacing them with the more "advanced" and "civilized" form of private property. The notion of individuals holding their own land instead of working the earth communally was foreign and often outright contradictory to the relationship that many Native Americans held with their landbase. The government parceled out the areas in a rigid formula ignoring the particular realities of each nation. After the land was portioned out any "surplus" land was appropriated by the US government. This effectively reduced indigneous landbase by approximately two-thirds (Churchill 48).
Another law passed by the government was the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934 which did away with Native American's traditional forms of decision making and organizational forms, typically reflecting anarchist values of consensus, direct democracy and autonomy. In their place the government imposed "tribal councils" mostly modeled after corporate boards. All of their constitutions were written by the United States government via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The US government also picked the people who would occupy the tribal councils, typically those Native Americans who had been assimilated into white dominant culture and reflected the interests of the US government and ruling class.
These two acts alone did away with two major tenets reflecting the way many Native American tribes organized along principles of anarchism- voluntary communalism and rejection of a central state mechanism. While the US government has done much to subdue these anarchist tendencies and in their place promote corruption and high concentrations of power in the hands of a few, many tribes still fight to maintain their traditional ways of self-governance and communal approach to the land. In some instances traditional forms of organization are still in competition with the US government imposed tribal councils, such as the case of the Hopi between the traditional kikmongwi and corrupt tribal council.
[edit] References
- White, Roger Post-Colonial Anarchism.
- Graeber, David Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology p.23
- Birket-Smith, Kaj The Eskimo, Methuen, 1959.
- Churchill, Ward Struggle for the Land
- Zinn, Howard People's History of the United States
