Anyone who bases their image of the original inhabitants of North America (or more accurately: the area we now call North America) on stories such as Pocahontas and Winnetou might well think that ‘the Indians’ are a single people. With a single language and a single way of life. But nothing could be further from the truth: ‘On the continent where the colonists arrived, there were more than a thousand diverse societies, speaking languages as varied as Arabic, Dutch, and Chinese,’ explains Laura De Vos, Assistant Professor in Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies at Radboud University. This is just one of many misconceptions that have arisen over the last five centuries regarding these peoples.
That misconceptions about Indigenous peoples exist is one thing. What is worse is that these stereotypes still contribute to the marginalisation of Indigenous communities today. ‘This happens, for example, by dismissing Indigenous people as “less modern” or “less developed”. For the settler colonists, this is a convenient excuse to take over their land under the guise of “bringing progress”.
This also means that Indigenous people living today are often not understood as Indigenous, because ‘real Indigenous people’ supposedly only exist in the past, preferably living in a teepee. Today, 75% of Indigenous people in the US live in cities, even though ties with their home community on the reservation are often still actively maintained. This line of thinking leads, among other things, to calls for the abolition of the treaties with Indigenous nations. These treaties established not only that certain tracts of land were granted to Indigenous communities but also that the federal government had clearly defined responsibilities towards those communities in exchange for all the land they had ceded.
Colonial structures still exist
‘The colonial structures still exist. Over time, the approach shifted from war and genocide to ethnic cleansing (forced displacement) and then to a focus on assimilation and the undermining of Indigenous nations,’ says De Vos. ‘But every day, Indigenous communities continue to resist these structures. It is about seizures of their lands, but just as much about police violence. Research shows that interactions between the police and Native Americans are, relatively speaking, the most likely to result in violence. They also denounce the high number of missing and murdered Indigenous women.’
De Vos explains that women of every ethnicity are victims of femicide, but that violence against Indigenous women is especially rampant. The simple fact of being an Indigenous woman or girl means you are at least three times more likely to experience violence and at least six times more likely to be murdered than any other woman or girl in Canada. In the US, research has shown that murders of Indigenous women and girls occur ten times more frequently than among all other ethnic groups.’
The misconceptions about and marginalisation of Indigenous communities were De Vos’s motivation for highlighting their stories in the book Voorbij Winnetou & Pocahontas (Beyond Winnetou & Pocahontas), published by EPO. The book gives a voice to seven Indigenous people who are protagonists of the struggle: Dian Million, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Marcella Gilbert, Tanya Eison, Yvonne Swan, Karla Tait, and Nick Tilsen. De Vos enlisted the help of Katrien Demuynck, an experienced historian and author, as well as De Vos’s mother. Together, they spent six weeks travelling through what we now call the US and Canada to interview them in their own homes.
‘I wanted to apply the principles inherent in the Indigenous paradigms straight away, to show how they can contribute to our own work. Take, for instance, the importance of intergenerational collaboration. We both have different experiences, prior knowledge and instincts. As a result, we have learnt a great deal not only from the people we interviewed, but also from each other, and the book as a whole is stronger than what I could have written on my own.’
Voorbij Winnetou & Pocahontas not only describes how settler colonialism in North America continues to marginalise Indigenous communities. The book also offers potential solutions for the situation of Indigenous peoples in North America and for problems we face globally, such as wars and growing climate crises.
