����vlog����

The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.

Recently that the Trump administration flags as inappropriate for use by federal agencies. We are talking about hundreds of terms that capture major challenges (“climate crisis”), allow society to harness the talent pool of the whole population (“stereotype”), name social-justice agendas (“racial justice”), designate groups with special needs (“disability”), and more. It is the vocabulary needed for visions of society that offer dignity to everyone and enable us to assess how we are falling short. That the Associated Press was for refusing to drop one term that is also on this list (“Gulf of Mexico”) highlights the Orwellian long-term ambitions the administration is pursuing. (We notice such long-term ambitions also, when it comes to abilities of investigative journalism , all of which is happening while JD Vance is gaslighting European allies for failing to protect free speech.) There is much to say about how this list of banned words advances a domestic agenda that on human-rights terms is about as morally bankrupt as  Trump’s foreign policy.  What I would like to discuss, however, is how striking it is to see one particular item on this list of alleged woke vocabulary: “indigenous community.” Even those who – for whatever reason and with whatever understanding of what such agendas are – oppose “woke” agendas should know better than to put this term on their list. Doing so reveals a profound lack of understanding of American history.  Let me explain why and then make a plea for solidary with Indigenous people.   

Even those who – for whatever reason and with whatever understanding of what such agendas are – oppose “woke” agendas should know better than to put this term [Indigenous Community] on their list. Doing so reveals a profound lack of understanding of American history.

Worldwide, are Indigenous, and in the U.S. about depending on how one counts, so much less than 3% of the population even for highest estimates. Etymologically, “indigenous” means “sprung from the land.” Indigenous people are originally “from here,” in contrast to others whose ancestors have come from elsewhere. (“My people have come over from Norway,” says a denizen of Sioux Falls, SD, to her neighbor. “How about yours?” “We are from here,” says the neighbor, who is Lakota.) Typically, we are talking about people whose ancestors were already present when European colonization started, which is definitely what is meant in the U.S. context when we reference “Indigenous communities.” Currently 574 such communities are federally recognized tribes. What it means to be so recognized is to stand in a particular relationship to the federal government based on the fact that until 1871, the way first Europeans empires and later the U.S. dealt with Indigenous nations was as a matter of foreign policy.  Over time, were ratified between the U.S. and Indigenous nations that leave a legally binding legacy. Indigenous rights understood as rights of Indigenous Americans are grounded in this history.  

To be sure, North America was taken by conquest. Over several centuries, cultures that had developed entirely separately from European cultures were supplanted by invaders from the other side of the Atlantic. The title of famous 1997 book Guns, Germs, and Steel captures well why colonialism succeeded in many places. In North America the germs were especially important in facilitating conquest. Indigenous Americans had limited defenses against European diseases. As a result, for instance in parts of Massachusetts, the lion’s share of the Indigenous population had already perished from European diseases through sporadic encounters before large-scale arrivals started in the 1620s (see e.g., Charles Mann’s 2005 book 1491).  As part of this conquest many treaties were concluded and quickly broken. The conquest was completed in the late 19th century.  

For decades afterwards federal policies sought to assimilate Indigenous nations into mainstream society by dividing up communal lands () and by forcing Indigenous children into . It was only as part of New Deal legislation in the 1930s that the federal government for the first time thought of how to put resources and administrative capacities in the service of what was left of Indigenous communities. Part of this New Deal that brought more effective and fair-minded public administration to Americans was the that meant to do just that for Indigenous people. Much of this agenda was dismantled again in the postwar period, an era known in Indigenous affairs as . During the , however, federal policies towards Indigenous Americans were put on a new foundation guided by ideas of tribal self-determination. As part of this framework, for instance, the has provided support for Indigenous nations across the U.S. and beyond to help them run their own affairs. And it is also as part of this framework that those 374 binding treaties continue to constrain federal policies. Federal programs and regulatory mechanisms deliver support to these 574 federally recognized tribes and thereby facilitate tribal self-determination, all of which are expressions of legally binding obligations.  

There is nothing “woke” in any of this. Defenders of “woke” agendas have not typically claimed these matters as theirs, nor have opponents of such agendas targeted them.  

, an organization working on behalf of self-determination of Indigenous peoples, recently published a by the Trump administration that are matters of great concern among Indigenous communities and their allies (“allyship” also being a term on ). In his , did  Trump renamed Denali, the highest Mountain Peak in North America, reintroducing the name Mount McKinley that Obama had dropped in favor of its original name. This measure aligns with broader efforts at renaming that in this Address already included the Gulf of Mexico. Renaming efforts should be seen as part of a long-term strategy of oppressing competing political visions. Moreover, the administration has applied funding cuts also to Indigenous communities (to which the government is beholden in ways sketched above), suspending or delaying support in the domains of health, education, and economic development. Thousands of federal employees in these fields have been laid off or face layoff. To mention just one example in the domain of education, Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas to cuts.  

Efforts at eliminating DEI initiatives within agencies have affected training programs to address historical injustices faced by Indigenous people. the of Indigenous Peoples' Day and Native American Heritage Month have been circulated across agencies. Vance once dismissed Indigenous Peoples’ Day After Trump declared an energy emergency in his Inaugural Address, Secretary of the Interior Douglas Burgum announced a without tribal consultation.  The obvious purpose is to open Indigenous lands to resource extraction under Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” approach to energy policy. Trump has also questioned .  Ever since the citizenship in Indigenous nations has been compatible with U.S. citizenship, reflecting the history of their encounters with European empires. This compatibility has been essential to Indigenous rights in the U.S. Whatever will come of this issue, uncertainty and yet more broken trust will remain.  

Trump’s policies also affect Indigenous communities outside of the U.S., especially its . The agency’s largest initiative in Brazil has been the Partnership for the Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity,  focused on conserving the rainforest and in the region. USAID has pursued such initiatives as part of the U.S. commitment to the 2007 . UNDRIP protects Indigenous communities around the world, focusing on self-determination, rights of peoples and individuals not to be coerced into assimilation or see their culture destroyed; rights to a particular type of governance and economic development; protection of specific subgroups such as the elderly, women, or children; health-related rights; and rights related to land ranging from spiritual importance to environmental issues. When UNDRIP first passed, the U.S. did not support it, but Obama . Many themes in UNDRIP had been goals of American policies towards Native Americans since Nixon.  

There are many reasons to support Indigenous communities, partly as a matter of rectifying past injustice, as a way of creating societies in which everyone can live with dignity, and partly in recognition of their to preserving the environment and combatting climate change. We have much to gain from Indigenous thought in our efforts to address the ecological crisis and the technological disruptions characteristic of the 21st century. In that spirit much of my own research in recent years has been on Indigenous philosophies and represented in my class, called “Indigenous Philosophies for the Technological Age.” I have learned that most people know almost nothing about Indigenous cultures, their history and their philosophies. I sometimes start classes or talks by asking the audience if they have heard of any of the following four major events in Indigenous American history that are of immense importance in the history of the U.S. Typically almost nobody has. If this is true of you, the reader, my hope is that you would spend a little bit of time learning more about Indigenous history using these themes as a starting point. Learning more about Indigenous people in our country is one important step in expressing solidarity with them as they too come under attack from the present administration.  

There are many reasons to support Indigenous communities, partly as a matter of rectifying past injustice, as a way of creating societies in which everyone can live with dignity, and partly in recognition of their considerable contributions to preserving the environment and combatting climate change.

1. What was This was a devasting conflict in 1675-76 that killed more than 3,000 Indigenous people and more than 2,000 settlers, substantial proportions of the populations back then. It was named after Wampanoag leader Metacom, known to the English as King Philip. Many towns in New England were burned, but in the end it was a defeat for the Indigenous. Just 35 years after the arrival of Pilgrims, this conflict basically ended Indigenous resistance to English settlement in the Northeast and set the stage for how the English related to the Indigenous. (See e.g., Jill Lepore, The Name of War.)  

2. How might the have influenced constitutional design in the U.S.? The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy – consisting of the Cayuga, Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida (later also Tuscarora) – was a powerful alliance believed to have been founded by the Great Peacemaker, who unified belligerent nations in the southern Great Lakes area. According to the Influence Thesis, encounters between leaders of this Confederacy and colonial representatives, including Benjamin Franklin, had an impact on the constitutional design of the American Republic. Apparently Indigenous leaders persuasively suggested to colonials to adopt the Haudenosaunee system of governance. This was part of a broader cultural encounter with Indigenous cultures that proved unsettling for Europeans accustomed to hierarchical structures. (See e.g., David Graber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything.)  

3. What was the California Genocide? In the late 1840s, the U.S. absorbed California, and then the Gold Rush happens. These events caused a population decline among Indigenous people steeper than any other in U.S. history. Between 1848 and 1860, the native population fell from an estimated 150,000 to about 30,000.  More people died from diseases, malnutrition, or demoralization from dispossession, confinement, or forced labor, but many were shot. In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom . Nonetheless, this remains a strangely unknown episode of American history. (See e.g., Ned Blackhawk, The Discovery of America.)  

4. What happened at Wounded Knee in 1890? Wounded Knee is on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In late 1890, the U.S. army killed about 300 Lakota there, many of them women and children shot while they were feeling. Often described as a massacre, this event marks the end of large-scale resistance against the conquest. (See e.g., David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee.)  

The history of Indigenous people is much more a history of accomplishments than of victimization: it is in that spirit that we should turn to them for insights about the crises of this century. But it is also a history of devastating encounters with colonial conquest, which continues to cast shadows on current policies vis-à-vis Indigenous people. American policies around self-determination implemented since Nixon and UNDRIP at the international level set us on a good path. Much of that is now threatened.  

Mathias Risse, Faculty Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy