Schenken Suzanne O’Dea. From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics (2 Volumes)
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Women of Sovereign Nations
Americans live in a culture so dominated by European traditions and laws that it is of-
ten difficult to recognize the ways in which other cultures coexist with American life. It
is important to realize that while some women in the United States struggled for the vote
and equality with men, Native American women have participated in their own polit-
ical systems, often on equal terms with men, and have ruled their sovereign nations.
At this book goes to press, the United States has not had a woman president,
but a sovereign nation that was annexed by it once had a queen. The Hawaiian Is-
lands, sovereign until 1895, were ruled by Queen Liliuokalani from 1891 to 1893,
years when colonial interests competed with the throne for power and for control over
the islands. Confronted with a provisional government and threats of violence,
Queen Liliuokalani sought a strategy that would avoid the loss of life and preserve
the option of maintaining her country’s sovereignty. She sought assistance from Pres-
ident Grover Cleveland, but ultimately her attempt failed and led to her abdication
from the throne in 1895.
Native American Zitkala-S
ˇ
a, a Yankton Sioux also known as Gertrude Sim-
mons Bonnin, was a leader in the Society of American Indians in the 1910s and was
the founder and president of the National Council of American Indians from 1926 to
1938. Dedicated to Native American self-determination, she worked to find a bal-
ance between “Americanizing” her people and preserving Native American culture
and tradition. Bonnin’s convictions emerged from her childhood experiences in a
mission school, as described in her article.
In the last decades of the twentieth century, Native American women have es-
tablished themselves as national leaders with compelling agendas. Anishinabe Winona
LaDuke has focused her efforts on the synergy between environmental and women’s is-
sues; she ran for Vice President of the United States on the Green Party ticket in 1996.
Ada Deer, the first woman to direct the Bureau of Indian Affairs, testified in Congress
about proposed amendments to the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which recog-
nized the harm done to Native American children when they were removed from their
communities and acknowledged the right of tribal governments to determine tribal
membership and to serve the best interests of their children.
Appeal to President Grover Cleveland, Queen Liliuokalani, 1893
I, Liliuokalani, by the Grace of God and under the Constitution of the Hawaiian
Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done
against myself and the Constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by
certain persons claiming to have established a Provisional Government of and for
this Kingdom.
That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America whose
Minister Plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States
troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the Provi-
sional Government.
Now to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do
this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time
as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it,
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undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I
claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.
The School Days of an Indian Girl, Zitkala-S
ˇ
a, 1900
The first turning away from the easy, natural flow of my life occurred in an early
spring. It was in my eighth year; in the month of March, I afterward learned. At
this age I knew but one language, and that was my mother’s native tongue.
From some of my playmates I heard that two paleface missionaries were in
our village. They were from that class of white men who wore big hats and car-
ried large hearts, they said. Running direct to my mother, I began to question her
why these two strangers were among us. She told me, after I had teased much, that
they had come to take away Indian boys and girls to the East. My mother did not
seem to want me to talk about them. But in a day or two, I gleaned many won-
derful stories from my playfellows concerning the strangers.
“Mother, my friend Judéwin is going home with the missionaries. She is go-
ing to a more beautiful country than ours; the palefaces told her so!” I said wist-
fully, wishing in my heart that I too might go.
Mother sat in a chair, and I was hanging on her knee. Within the last two
seasons my big brother Dawée had returned from a three years’ education in the
East, and his coming back influenced my mother to take a farther step from her
native way of living. First it was a change from the buffalo skin to the white man’s
canvas that covered our wigwam. Now she had given up her wigwam of slender
poles, to live, a foreigner, in a home of clumsy logs.
Judéwin had told me of the great tree where grew red, red apples; and how
we could reach out our hands and pick all the red apples we could eat. I had never
seen apple trees. I had never tasted more than a dozen red apples in my life; and
when I heard of the orchards of the East, I was eager to roam among them. The
missionaries smiled into my eyes, and patted my head. I wondered how mother
could say such hard words against them.
“Mother, ask them if little girls may have all the red apples they want, when
they go East,” I whispered aloud, in my excitement.
The interpreter heard me, and answered: “Yes, little girl, the nice red apples
are for those who pick them; and you will have a ride on the iron horse if you go
with these good people.”
I had never seen a train, and he knew it.
“Mother, I’m going East! I like big red apples, and I want to ride on the iron
horse! Mother, say yes!” I pleaded.
My mother said nothing. The missionaries waited in silence; and my eyes
began to blur with tears, though I struggled to choke them back. The corners of
my mouth twitched, and my mother saw me.
“I am not ready to give you any word,” she said to them. “Tomorrow I shall
send you my answer by my son.”
With this they left us. Alone with my mother, I yielded to my tears, and cried
aloud shaking my head so as not to hear what she was saying to me. This was the
first time I had ever been so unwilling to give up my own desire that I refused to
harken to my mother’s voice.
There was a solemn silence in our home that night. Before I went to bed
I begged the Great Spirit to make my mother willing I should go with the
missionaries.
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The next morning came, and my mother called me to her side. “My daugh-
ter, do you still persist in wishing to leave your mother?” she asked.
“Oh, mother, it is not that I wish to leave you, but I want to see the won-
derful Eastern land,” I answered.
. . . My brother Dawée came for mother’s decision. I dropped my play, and
crept close to my aunt.
“Yes, Dawée, my daughter, though she does not understand what it all
means, is anxious to go. She will need an education when she is grown, for then
there will be fewer real Dakotas, and many more palefaces. This tearing her away,
so young, from her mother is necessary, if I would have her an educated woman.
The palefaces, who owe us a large debt for stolen lands, have begun to pay a tardy
justice in offering some education to our children. But I know my daughter must
suffer keenly in this experiment. For her sake, I dread to tell you my reply to the
missionaries. Go, tell them that they may take my little daughter, and that the
Great Spirit shall not fail to reward them according to their hearts.”
Wrapped in my heavy blanket, I walked with my mother to the carriage that
was soon to take us to the iron horse. I was happy. I met my playmates, who were
also wearing their best thick blankets. We showed one another our new beaded
moccasins, and the width of the belts that girdled our new dresses. Soon we were
being drawn rapidly away by the white man’s horses. When I saw the lonely fig-
ure of my mother vanish in the distance, a sense of regret settled heavily upon me.
I felt suddenly weak, as if I might fall limp to the ground. I was in the hands of
strangers whom my mother did not fully trust. I no longer felt free to be myself,
or to voice my own feelings. The tears trickled down my cheeks, and I buried my
face in the folds of my blanket. Now the first step, parting me from my mother,
was taken, and all my belated tears availed nothing.
Having driven thirty miles to the ferryboat, we crossed the Missouri in the
evening. Then riding again a few miles eastward, we stopped before a massive
brick building. I looked at it in amazement, and with a vague misgiving, for in our
village I had never seen so large a house. Trembling with fear and distrust of the
palefaces, my teeth chattering from the chilly ride, I crept noiselessly in my soft
moccasins along the narrow hall, keeping very close to the bare wall. I was as
frightened and bewildered as the captured young of a wild creature.
The first day in the land of apples was a bitter-cold one; for the snow still
covered the ground, and the trees were bare. A large bell rang for breakfast, its
loud metallic voice crashing through the belfry overhead and into our sensitive
ears. The annoying clatter of shoes on bare floors gave us no peace. The constant
clash of harsh noises, with an undercurrent of many voices murmuring an un-
known tongue, made a bedlam within which I was securely tied. And though my
spirit tore itself in struggling for its lost freedom, all was useless.
A paleface woman, with white hair, came up after us. We were placed in a
line of girls who were marching into the dining room. These were Indian girls, in
stiff shoes and closely clinging dresses. The small girls wore sleeved aprons and
shingled hair. As I walked noiselessly in my soft moccasins, I felt like sinking to
the floor, for my blanket had been stripped from my shoulders. I looked hard at
the Indian girls, who seemed not to care that they were even more immodestly
dressed than I, in their tightly fitting clothes. While we marched in, the boys en-
tered at an opposite door. I watched for the three young braves who came in our
party. I spied them in the rear ranks, looking as uncomfortable as I felt...
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. . . Late in the morning, my friend Judéwin gave me a terrible warning.
Judéwin knew a few words of English; and she had overheard the paleface woman
talk about cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only un-
skilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among
our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards!
We discussed our fate some moments, and when Judéwin said, “We have to
submit, because they are strong,” I rebelled.
“No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!” I answered.
I watched my chance, and when no one noticed I disappeared. I crept up the
stairs as quietly as I could in my squeaking shoes,—my moccasins had been ex-
changed for shoes. Along the hall I passed, without knowing whither I was going.
Turning aside to an open door, I found a large room with three white beds in it.
The windows were covered with dark green curtains, which made the room very
dim. Thankful that no one was there, I directed my steps toward the corner far-
thest from the door. On my hands and knees I crawled under the bed, and cud-
dled myself in the dark corner.
From my hiding place I peered out, shuddering with fear whenever I heard
footsteps near by. Though in the hall loud voices were calling my name, and I
knew that even Judéwin was searching for me, I did not open my mouth to an-
swer. Then the steps were quickened and the voices became excited. The sounds
came nearer and nearer. Women and girls entered the room. I held my breath, and
watched them open closet doors and peep behind large trunks. Some one threw
up the curtains, and the room was filled with sudden light. What caused them to
stoop and look under the bed I do not know. I remember being dragged out,
though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was car-
ried downstairs and tied fast in a chair.
I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the
scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then
I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme
indignities. People had stared at me. I had been tossed about in the air like a
wooden puppet. And now my long hair was shingled like a coward’s! In my an-
guish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to comfort me. Not a soul rea-
soned quietly with me, as my own mother used to do; for now I was only one of
many little animals driven by a herder....
. . . Now, as I look back upon the recent past, I see it from a distance, as a
whole. I remember how, from morning till evening, many specimens of civilized
people visited the Indian school. The city folks with canes and eyeglasses, the
country men with sunburnt cheeks and clumsy feet, forgot their relative social
ranks in an ignorant curiosity. Both sorts of these Christian palefaces were alike
astounded at seeing the children of savage warriors so docile and industrious.
As answers to their shallow inquiries they received the students’ sample
work to look upon. Examining the neatly figured pages, and gazing upon the In-
dian girls and boys bending over their books, the white visitors walked out of the
schoolhouse well satisfied: they were educating the children of the red man! They
were paying a liberal fee to the government employees in whose able hands lay the
small forest of Indian timber.
In this fashion many have passed idly through the Indian schools during the
last decade, afterward to boast of their charity to the North American Indian. But
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few there are who have paused to question whether real life or long-lasting death
lies beneath this semblance of civilization.
Excerpted from “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” “The School Days of an
Indian Girl,” and “An Indian Teacher among Indians” by Zitkala-S
ˇ
a, Atlantic
Monthly 85 (January, February, and March 1900):45–47, 186–187, and 386.
The Indigenous Women’s Network: Our Future, Our Responsibility,
Winona LaDuke, 1995
I am from the Mississippi Band of Anishinabeg of the White Earth reservation in
northern Minnesota, one of approximately 250,000 Anishinabeg people who in-
habit the great lakes region of the North American continent. Aniin indinaway-
mugnitok. Me gweich Chi-iwewag, Megwetch Ogitchi taikwewag. Nindizhinikaz,
Beenaysayikwe, Makwa nin dodaem. Megwetch indinawaymugunitok.
I am greeting you in my language and thanking you, my sisters, for the
honor of speaking with you today about the challenges facing women as we ap-
proach the 21st century.
A primary and central challenge impacting women as we approach the 21st
century will be the distance we collectively as women and societies have artifi-
cially placed ourselves from our Mother the Earth, and the inherent environ-
mental, social, health and psychological consequences of colonialism, and subse-
quently rapid industrialization, on our bodies and our nations. A centerpiece of
this problem is the increasing lack of control we have over ourselves, and our long
term security. This situation must be rectified through the laws of international
institutions, such as the United Nations, but as well, the policies, laws and prac-
tices of our nations, our communities, our states, and ourselves.
The situation of Indigenous women, as a part of Indigenous peoples, we be-
lieve is a magnified version of the critical juncture we find ourselves in as peoples,
and the problems facing all women and our future generations as we struggle for
a better world. Security, militarism, the globalization of the economy, the further
marginalization of women, increasing intolerance and the forced commodifica-
tion and homogenization of culture through the media.
The Earth is our Mother. From her we get our life and our ability to live. It
is our responsibility to care for our mother, and in caring for our Mother, we
care for ourselves. Women, all females are the manifestation of Mother Earth in
human form. We are her daughters and in my cultural instructions: Minobi-
maatisiiwin, we are to care for her. I am taught to live in respect for Mother
Earth. In Indigenous societies, we are told that Natural Law is the highest law,
higher than the law made by nations, states, municipalities and the World Bank.
That one would do well to live in accordance with Natural Law, with those of our
Mother. And in respect for our Mother Earth of our relations—indinaway-
muguni took.
One hundred years ago, one of our Great Leaders, Chief Seattle, stated
“What befalls the Earth, befalls the People of the Earth.” And that is the reality of
today, and the situation of the status of women, and the status of Indigenous
women and Indigenous peoples.
While I am from one nation of Indigenous peoples, there are millions of In-
digenous people worldwide. An estimated 500 million people are in the world to-
day. We are in the Cordillera, the Maori of New Zealand, we are in East Timor, we
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are the Wara Wara of Australia, the Lakota, the Tibetans, the peoples of Hawaii,
New Caledonia and many other nations of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peo-
ples. We are not populations, not minority groups, we are peoples, we are nations
of peoples. Under international law we meet the criteria of nation states, having
common economic system, language, territory, history, culture and governing in-
stitutions. Despite this fact, Indigenous Nations are not allowed to participate at
the United Nations.
Nations of Indigenous people are not, by and large, represented at the
United Nations. Most decisions today are made by the 180 or so member states to
the United Nations. Those states, by and large, have been in existence for only 200
years or less, while most Nations of Indigenous peoples, with few exceptions, have
been in existence for thousands of years. Ironically, there would likely be little ar-
gument in this room, that most decisions made in the world today are actually
made by some of the 47 transnational corporations and their international fin-
anciers whose annual income is larger than the gross national product for many
countries of the world.
This is a centerpiece of the problem. Decisionmaking is not made by those
who are affected by those decisions, people who live on the land, but corpora-
tions, with an interest which is entirely different than that of the land, and the
people, or the women of the land. This brings forth a fundamental question.
What gives these corporations like Conoco, Shell, Exxon, Diashawa, ITT, Rio
Tinto Zinc, and the World Bank, a right which supercedes or is superior to my
human right to live on my land, or that of my family, my community, my nation,
our nations, and us as women. What law gives that right to them; not any law of
the Creator, or of Mother Earth. Is that right contained within their wealth? Is
that right contained within their wealth, which is historically acquired immorally,
unethically, through colonialism, imperialism, and paid for with the lives of mil-
lions of people, or species of plants and entire ecosystems? They should have no
such right, that right of self determination, and to determine our destiny, and that
of our future generations.
The origins of this problem lie with the predator/prey relationship indus-
trial society has developed with the Earth, and subsequently, the people of the
Earth. This same relationship exists vis-a-vis women. We collectively find that we
are often in the role of the prey to a predator society, whether for sexual discrim-
ination, exploitation, sterilization, absence of control over our bodies, or being
the subjects of repressive laws and legislation in which we have no voice. This oc-
curs on an individual level, but equally and more significantly, on a societal level.
It is also critical to point out at this time that most matrilineal societies, societies
in which governance and decisionmaking are largely controlled by women, have
been obliterated from the face of the Earth by colonialism and subsequently in-
dustrialism. The only matrilineal societies which exist in the world today are
those of Indigenous nations. We are the remaining matrilineal societies, yet we
also face obliteration.
On a worldwide scale and in North America, Indigenous societies histori-
cally, and today, remain in a prey/predator relationship with industrial society,
and prior to that, colonialism and imperialism. We are the peoples with the
land—land and natural resources required for someone else’s development pro-
gram and the amassing of wealth. The wealth of the United States, that nation
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which today determines much of world policy, easily expropriated from our
lands. Similarly the wealth of Indigenous peoples of South Africa, Central and
South American countries, and Asia was taken for the industrial development of
Europe, and later for settler states which came to occupy those lands. That rela-
tionship between development and underdevelopment adversely affected the sta-
tus of our Indigenous societies, and the status of Indigenous women.
Eduardo Galeano, the Latin American writer and scholar, has said: “In the
colonial to neocolonial alchemy, gold changes to scrap metal and food to poison;
we have become painfully aware of the mortality of wealth which nature bestows
and imperialism appropriates.”
Today, on a worldwide scale, we remain in the same situation as one hun-
dred years ago, only with less land, and fewer people. Today, on a worldwide scale,
50 million Indigenous peoples live in the world rainforests, a million Indigenous
peoples are slated to be relocated for dam projects in the next decade (thanks to
the World Bank, from the Narmada Project in India, to the Three Gorges Dam
Project, here in China, to the Jasmes Bay Hydro Electric Project in northern
Canada). Almost all atomic weapons which have been detonated in the world are
also detonated on the lands or waters of the Indigenous, like the proposal to det-
onate atomic weapons this upcoming month. This situation is mimicked in the
North American context. Today, over 50 percent of our remaining lands are
forested, and both Canada and the United States continue aggressive clearcutting
policies on our land. Over two thirds of the uranium resources in the United
States, and similar figures for Canada, are on Indigenous lands, as is one third of
all low-sulfur coal resources. We have huge oil reserves on our reservations, and
we have the dubious honor of being the most highly bombed nation in the world,
the Western Shoshone Nation, on which over 650 atomic weapons have been det-
onated. We also have two separate accelerated proposals to dump nuclear waste on
our reservation lands, and similarly over 100 separate proposals to dump toxic
waste on our reservation lands. We understand clearly the relationship between
development for someone else, and our own underdevelopment. We also under-
stand clearly the relationship between the environmental impacts of types of
development on our lands, and the environmental and subsequent health impacts
in our bodies as women. That is the cause of the problems.
We also understand clearly that the analysis of North versus South is an er-
roneous analysis. There is, from our perspective, not a problem of the North dic-
tating the economic policies of the South, and subsequently consuming the
South. Instead, there is a problem of the Middle consuming both the North and
the South. That is our situation. Let me explain.
The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is one acre every nine sec-
onds. Incidentally, the rate of extinction of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon is
one nation of Indigenous peoples per year. The rate of deforestation of the boreal
forest of Canada is one acre every twelve seconds. Siberia, thanks to American
corporations like Weyerhauser, is not far behind. In all cases, Indigenous peoples
are endangered. And there is frankly no difference between the impact in the
North and the South.
Uranium mining has devastated a number of Indigenous communities in
North America. Uranium mining in northern Canada has left over 120 million
tons of radioactive waste. This amount represents enough material to cover the
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trans-Canada highway two meters deep across the country. Present production of
uranium waste from Saskatchewan alone occurs at the rate of over 1 million tons
annually. Since 1975, hospitalization for cancer, birth defects, and circulatory ill-
nesses in that area have increased dramatically—between 123 and 600 percent in
that region. In other areas impacted by uranium mining, cancers and birth de-
fects have increased to, in some cases, eight times the national average. The sub-
sequent increases in radiation exposure to both the local and to the larger North
American population are also evidenced in broader incidences of cancer, such as
breast cancer in North American women, which is significantly on the rise. There
is not a distinction in this problem caused by radiation whether it is in the Dene
of northern Canada, the Laguna Pueblo people of New Mexico, or the people of
Namibia.
The rapid increase in dioxin, organichlorides, PCBs (poly-chlorinated
byphenots) chemicals in the world, as a result of industrialization, has a devas-
tating impact on Indigenous peoples, Indigenous women, and other women.
Each year, the world’s paper industry discharges from 600 to 3,200 grams of
dioxin equivalents into water—sludge and paper product—on the United States
Environmental Protection agency statistics. This quantity is equal the amount
which would cause 58,000 to 294,000 cases of cancer every year, based on the En-
vironmental Protection Agency’s estimate of dioxin’s carcinogenicity. According
to a number of recent studies, this has increased significantly the risk of breast
cancer in women. Similarly, heavy metals and PCB contamination of Inuit
women of the Hudson Bay region of the Arctic indicates that they have the high-
est levels of breast milk contamination in the world. In a 1988 study, Inuit women
were found to have contamination levels up to 28 times higher than the average
of women in Quebec, and ten times higher than that considered “safe” by the gov-
ernment. It is also of great concern to our women, and our peoples, that polar
bears in that region of the Arctic have such a high level of contamination from
PCBs, that they may be facing total sterility, and forced into extinction by early in
the next century. As peoples who consider the Bears to be our relatives, we are
concerned also, significantly, about the ability to reproduce, as a consequence of
this level of bio-accumulation of toxins. We find that our communities, like those
of our relatives, the Bears, are in fact, in danger of extinction. Consequently, it is
clear to us that the problems also found in the south like the export of chemicals,
and bio-accumulation of toxins, are also very much our problems, and the prob-
lems clearly manifested in our women. These are problems which emanate from
industrial societies’ mistreatment and disrespect for our Mother Earth, and sub-
sequently are reflected in the devastation of the collective health and well being
of women.
In summary, I have presented these arguments for a purpose: to illustrate
that these are very common issues for women; not only for Indigenous women,
but for all women. What befalls our mother Earth, befalls her daughter—the
women who are the mothers of our nations. Simply stated, if we can no longer
nurse our children, if we can no longer bear children, and if our bodies them-
selves are wracked with poisons, we will have accomplished little in the way of de-
termining our destiny, or improving our conditions. And, these problems, re-
flected in our health and well being, are also inherently resulting in a decline of
the status of women, and are the result of a long set of historical processes which
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we as women will need to challenge if we will ultimately be in charge of our own
destinies, our own self determination, and the future of our Earth our Mother.
The reality is that all of these conditions, those emanating from the military
and industrial devastation of our Mother the Earth, and subsequently, our own
bodies, and the land on which we live are mimicked in social and development
policies which affect women.
It is our belief, at Indigenous Women’s Network, the following:
1) Women should not have to trade their ecosystem for running water, ba-
sic housing, health care, and basic human rights.
2) Development projects, whether in the North or in the South, whether fi-
nanced by the World Bank, or by the coffers of Rio Tinto Zinc and Exxon, often
replicate patriarchy and sexism, and by and large cause the destruction of matri-
lineal governance structure, land tenure, and cause a decline in the status of
women. By denying us the basic land on which we live, and the clean food and
streams from which to eat, and instead offering us a wage economy, in which
privilege is often dictated by class, sex, and race, Indigenous women are fre-
quently moved from a central role in their societies to the margins and refugee
status of industrial society.
3) The intellectual knowledge systems today often negate or deny the exis-
tence of inherent property rights of Indigenous people to our cultural and intel-
lectual knowledge, by supplanting our knowledge systems with industrial knowl-
edge systems, calling us “primitive,” while our medical knowledge, plants, and even
genetic material are stolen (as in the Human Genome Project) by transnational
corporations and international agencies. This situation affects Indigenous women,
as a part of our communities, but on a larger scale, has affected most women.
4) Subsequently, our women find that the basic rights to control our bodies
are impacted by all of the above, through development policies aimed at non-
consensual or forced sterilization, medical testing, invasive genetic sampling, and
absence of basic facilities and services which would guarantee us the right and
ability to control the size of our families safely and willingly. These same devel-
opment policies often are based on tourism which commodifies our bodies and
cultures (the Pacific and Native America as prime examples), and cause the same
with women internationally.
Collectively, we must challenge this paradigm, and this international arena.
I call on you to support the struggle of Indigenous peoples of the world for recog-
nition, and to recognize that until all peoples have self determination, no one will
truly be free, free of the predator, and free to control our destiny. I ask you to look
into the charter of the United Nations, Part One, Article Three, which provides
that “All peoples have right to self determination. By virtue of that right they may
freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social,
and political development.”
All peoples should be construed to mean Indigenous peoples have that right
to self determination. And, by virtue of that right, they may freely determine their
political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and political develop-
ment. Accord us the same rights as all other nations of peoples. And through that
process, allow us to protect our ecosystems, their inherent biodiversity, human
cultural diversity, and those matriarchal governments which remain in the world.
And with the Unrepresented People’s Organization (UNPO), we reaffirm that
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definition of self determination provided in an article of The International
Covenant on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights, further recognizing that the
right to self determination belongs equally to women and to men. We believe that
the right of all peoples to self determination cannot be realized while women
continue to be marginalized and prevented from becoming full participants in
their respective societies. The human rights of women, like the human rights of
Indigenous peoples, and our inherent rights to self determination, are not issues
exclusively within the domestic jurisdiction of states. For further discussion of
these, please see the international agreements and accords struck by hundreds of
Indigenous nations, such as the Karioka document and the Matatua document.
Finally, while we may, here in the commonness of this forum, speak of the
common rights of all women, and those fundamental human rights of self deter-
mination, it is incumbent upon me to point out the fundamental inequalities of
this situation. So long as the predator continues, so long as the middle, the tem-
perate countries of the world continue to drive an increasing level of consump-
tion, and, frankly continue to export both the technologies and drive for this level
of consumption to other countries of the world, there will be no safety for the hu-
man rights of women, rights of Indigenous peoples, and to basic protection for
the Earth, from which we get our life. Consumption causes the commodification
of the sacred, the natural world, cultures, and the commodification of children
and women.
From the United States’s position, consider the following. The United States
is the largest energy market in the world. The average American consumes seven
times as many wood products per capita as anywhere else in the industrialized
world, and overall that country consumes one third of the world’s natural re-
sources. In Canada, by comparison, per capita energy consumption is the highest
in the world. Levels of consumption in the industrial world drive destruction of
the world’s rainforests, and the world’s boreal forests, drive production of nuclear
wastes, and production of PCBs, dioxin, and other lethal chemicals, which devas-
tate the body of our Mother Earth, and our own bodies. Unless we speak and take
meaningful action to address the levels of consumption, and subsequently, the
exports of these technologies, and levels of consumption to other countries (like
the international market for nuclear reactors), we will never have any security for
our individual human rights as Indigenous women, and for our security as
women.
If we are to seek and struggle for common ground of all women, it is essen-
tial to struggle with this issue. For it is not, frankly, that the women of the domi-
nant society in so-called first world countries should have equal pay, and equal
status, if that pay and status continues to be based on a consumption model which
is not only unsustainable, but causes constant violation of the human rights of
women and nations elsewhere in the world. It essential to collectively struggle to
recover our status as Daughters of the Earth. In that is our strength, and the secu-
rity, not in the predator, but in the security of our Mother, for our future genera-
tions. In that we can insure our security as the Mothers of our Nations.
This speech was given at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on
Women in Beijing, China, August 31, 1995. Reprinted by permission.
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