Mackey (2012) Reading
What was the European idea of "resources"?
The idea of “resources” fits with the European drive for exploitation and extraction for profit, resulting in the dispossession and destruction of Indigenous lands. Indigenous people were a barrier between resources and profit for Europeans. (Q1)
Ojibwe people see the wolf (Ma’iingan) as their brother, due to teachings in their creation stories. They believe that the well-being of the wolf reflects the well-being of the people. (Q3)
What was the Western definition of "property"? How did colonizers think about ownership?
Ownership of things, from a Western standpoint, is really about relationships between people, in regard to things with which they interact. In this view, ownership is about domination, and about being the first to claim control over something.
What are some examples of "legal arrangements" that have further exploited Native land?
1) Treaties: Treaties were fundamentally based in misunderstandings because Native peoples did not see these agreements as about transferring “ownership” of land.
2) Laws: Colonizers’ sense of rightful entitlement to land was enshrined and protected in the laws that colonial governments created, and which attributed all power over land to the colonial government.
3) Rights
What are "green proposals"? What is one tribal nation (mentioned in the reading) that has taken green initiatives?
Green proposals refer to policy frameworks, investment strategies, and projects designed to foster economic growth while significantly reducing environmental risks, ecological scarcities, and carbon emissions. For example, the Navajo Nation has aimed to transition to non-fossil-fuel-dependent processes on its reservation. (Q2)
What legal rights to the Ojibwe have in relation to wolves in Wisconsin?
In 2011, the tribes and state agreed that Ojibwe people should participate in any wolf management plan. The Ojibwe tribes maintained treaty-reserved, usufructuary rights to manage and harvest natural resources in the ceded territory. These rights include consulting on management and, based on federal court rulings, holding a right to 50% of the harvestable quota for wolves, which they manage for protection.
What is the current benchmark for negotiations over land rights in Canada? (What is legally trying to be established in relation to land and ownership?)
Currently, the point of negotiations over land rights in Canada is to establish "certainty." In the current interpretation of the law, "certainty" is often correlated with legal titles.
How have "resource-based" tribal economies been challenged in the past?
In the 1970s, Indigenous activists were pointing to the environmental damage caused by extractive industries, challenging their tribal governments’ embrace of resource exploitation as a means of economic development. Examples of activism at the intersection of tribal governance and natural resources are the occupation of Alcatraz (1969) and the Wounded Knee Standoff (1973). This activism led to policies like the Indian Mineral Development Act (1982), which were a step in the right direction for sovereignty over land and resources.
What happened in 2021? Were the Ojibwe tribes' rights respected here?
Although the Ojibwe people were supposed to consult on wolf-related policies and hunting, this did not happen in 2021. The hunt effectively took a significant portion of the wolves that should have been managed by the tribes. Also, the DNR badly mismanaged the hunt, resulting in an extreme exceedance of the set quota of wolves killed.
What idea does the author claim was "alien" to Native peoples?
Native people did not see treaties as transferring "ownership" of land (which was an alien concept to them), but as "sharing" the land and maintaining a relationship to it.
What were the differences between the British and the Spanish's justification of Native land ownership>
The Spanish acquired land through “conquest” (killing those who stood in their way); the British acquired it by “planting” (claiming land by occupying and farming it). British colonizers did not see Native nations as nations because they did not have private property nor a centralized authority structure. This justified taking their lands in the name of “progress” and “civilization.”
Define the idea of "relationality" from the reading.
Relationality refers to recentering thinking to classify the land as relational rather than as an extractive resource. (Q2)
What is an example of how the health of the wolf (Ma'iingan) reflects the health of the Ojibwe population?
1) Correlation of wolf hunting and population eradication in the lower 48 states and the American Indian population falling to 250,000 during the Termination Era.
2) Both populations (people and wolf) were healthy before European contact.
3) From the 1960s onward, the fates of both improved with legal rights and changed societal attitudes.
(Q3)
What does Mackey suggest that land claims in Canada be handled?
Rather than requiring Indigenous people to demonstrate their “title” to the land, perhaps the federal government should be required to demonstrate its relationship to the land in terms of Indigenous concepts of rights.