Dear Readers,
This morning I sent a brilliantly edited manuscript (thank you Jennifer Sahn) of the book you supported to its publishers at Inkshares. It will now move on to proof, design and then to the printer, soon after which you will have your copy.
In the meantime, here’s a teaser: The Preface.
Why This Book and Why Now
I decided to write this book while researching it’s predecessor Conservation Refugees, an investigative history of the hundred year conflict between global conservation and native peoples. Quite frequently, in remote communities around the world, I would be asked by a shaman, elder or chief: “Do you know the Haida?”
I had heard of the Haida, and seen their remarkable art in museums. But that was about it. “Why do you ask?” I responded. “Because we want what they have,” was the general response. And by that it turned out they meant “aboriginal title,” a form of land tenure that gives indigenous occupants of a traditional homeland final say over who lives there, who is and is not a citizen of that land, and how and by whom resources will be extracted and used.
How did a small remote band of seafaring aboriginals who had lived for millennia on a remote archipelago in the north Pacific get all those things back from a British colony that had usurped them, one by one, in the eighteenth century?
This book is the answer to that question. It’s not a simple answer, but I have tried to make it as clear and understandable as possible. Nor was it an easy path for the Haida. It took fifty years of political strategizing, legal maneuvering, alliance building, information gathering, public campaigning, blockading, media manipulation, land use planning and astute negotiation alongside long hours of self-examination, deliberation, historical reassessment, debating, careful planning and finding common cause with rivals. And for the Haida, the struggle ain’t over yet. But they’re a lot closer to their goals than most other indigenous communities around the world. Their story is not only a lesson, it’s an inspiring tale of resilience and determination in the face of two centuries of persistent rudeness, oppression and exploitation.
***
There is an endless debate amongst historians, anthropologist, journalists and indigenous peoples about what to call the original inhabitants of the New World. “Indians” is insulting to some, as is “Indios” and “Amerindian”. The main problem with “Indian” is that it overlooks the enormous diversity and ignores the true names and wildly differing cultures of native Americans on two continents. “Native” has been coopted by nativists. “Aboriginals” tend to be identified as Australian natives, although aboriginal (literally: “from the origin”) pretty much describes “First Peoples” everywhere, and the word is used quite frequently in international law. “Indigenous peoples” seems to offend no one, but is rarely used for self-description of specific “tribes” or “tribals” (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked not to use those terms.)
Although it is almost exclusively a Canadian term, I use “First Nation(s)” to describe indigenous communities around the world, because no matter where they are, that term pretty much describes what many, although be no means all of them were before contact, a legitimate and sovereign nation that preexisted the arrival and occupation of European settlers. They were there first. Not all of them had laws, a constitution, or what we would today regard as a national government, but they all had land, bordered territories and hunting grounds that, along with a culture, language and a distinct peoples they defined as a “nation.”
Another term I’ll use a lot, because Canada does so in most of it’s legal proceedings is “the crown” or “the Crown.” It can mean the state, the federal or provincial government or in early colonial history it can mean the royal place at the capital of an empire or it can literally mean the sovereign imperial monarch who wears the crown — George of Britain, Ferdinand of Spain, Louis of France or Maria of Portugal. However it is defined, “the crown, as I use it, is the power with which First Nations have had to and still have to contend.
***
You will notice that I have used very few proper names in telling this story. That will seem strange to many readers, particularly those who enjoy reading about colorful personalities or have read enough Haida history to know that there were definite heroes, men and women who sacrificed much in their long battle for freedom and self-determination. But I have minimized using names and profiling heroes because the Haida are a profoundly modest and anti-narcissistic culture, and it’s their story that the indigenous world wants to know, a story of collective leadership not individual heroism, of patient determination not celebrity biopics or amusing anecdotes about colorful elders, warriors and hereditary chiefs. This does not mean that they’re aren’t creative, selfless, tireless Haida leaders, who have served faithfully in key positions of power. In fact while traveling the islands and researching this book I found some of the most remarkable people I have ever met.
But one of the characteristics that stood out for me about Haida leaders, men and women alike, is that they do not strive for reverence, fame or name recognition. What they do, they do for their community, not just for themselves, their immediate family or historical recognition. As one former Haida Council President observes: “Focusing on the individual is not the Haida way.” OK, I’ll tell you his name. It’s Guujaaw, an affable, mischievous, humorous and brilliant man, a talented artist and drummer, who inspired and shepherded many of the decisive Haida battles of the past half century, and served as President of the Haida Nation from 2000 to 2012. We had two long conversations while I was in Haida Gwaii, one sitting, one walking. I still have cramps in my right hand from taking notes.
Of course the Haida are acutely aware of what Guujaaw and other leaders have accomplished, and those men and women are held in high esteem. But their goal is not fame. It is, in a word, independence, which they know is something that cannot be won by one or even a handful of people. It is won by a nation, as the story in this book attests. What the Haida would like the world to know is what they have accomplished … the how of it, not the who. They know that what was said or written or done is more important and relevant to other indigenous peoples than their names and personal stories.
So I tell their story as a series of well-timed decisions and actions because it is those events, not the colorful individuals who designed, executed or led them that needs to be understood by native leaders around the world who asked that pressing question: “How did they do it?”
***
While the Haida created a strategy for self-determination that worked, there are scores, if not hundreds of First Nations around the world for whom these tactics would not be appropriate, at least not yet. Their situations are so dire, so uncertain and their oppressors so aggressive and potentially violent that blockades and litigation would simply be futile, even dangerous.
However, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of indigenous communities, some larger, some smaller, that exist entirely under the sovereignty of a nation state that absorbed them, without consultation, assuming complete tenure and title over their land and licensing its use and extraction of resources to anyone they pleased. It is for them this book is written.
Dear Friends
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