Allotment Stories: Indigenous Responses to Settler Colonial Land Privatization

CO-EDITED WITH JEAN M. O’BRIEN (WHITE EARTH OJIBWE), UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA (UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, 2022) 

The driving force behind settler colonialism has been the expropriation of Indigenous lands through warfare, displacement, incarceration, and—especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—the fracturing of collective Indigenous land tenure into individually owned parcels alienable through the workings of the market. The General (Dawes) Allotment Act of 1887 is the most infamous US example of such land privatization, but similar policies have been implemented in other settler states, continuing to the present day, for example, with reinvigorated focus by governments and extractive industries in the US and Canada. And while privatization and land severalty policies have had profoundly negative impacts on many communities, Indigenous peoples have nevertheless found creative ways of sustaining collective ties, kinship relations, and cultural commitments to their territories through the very legal regimes intended to destroy them.

This collection considers allotment and its analogous settler privatization policies across the globe by centring Indigenous voices, perspectives, and experiences from multidisciplinary, multi-genre perspectives, bringing scholarly analysis, family and community history, first-person testimony, and creative expression into critical conversation. The chapters illuminate the many ways that Indigenous peoples have demonstrated agency in the face of often overwhelming state and corporate pressure, and how they have variously resisted, embraced, and navigated the relentless settler colonial demands for land privatization, while offering insights into ongoing efforts to ensure community continuity and territorial integrity.

Awards

Winner, Carter Revard Legacy Award for Best Edited Collection – Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures