Indigenous Food Systems: Je:ved/Je:wed - Land

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In the year of 1887, the federal government of the United States ratified the Dawes General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Severalty Act, displacing thousands of Indigenous Americans and allowing settler colonials to “legally” occupy sovereign lands. This act by the federal government has had a significant impact on all Indigenous Peoples and their cultural ties to land and place.  

Related Resources: 

• Crooked Paths to Allotment is a valuable resource to look at land allotment from an Indigenous perspective, focussing on Indigenous Peoples’ political efforts to regain land sovereignty
• Unearthing Indian Land: Living in Legacies of Allotment is a book that “offers a comprehensive examination of the consequences of more than a century of questionable public policies.”
• A History of Indian Policy is the first authoritative account of Federal Indian policy from the Colonial period to the present

As you may have learned within the Indigenous Food Sovereignty in AZ tab of this resource guide, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (hereafter TEK) “consists of the body of knowledge, beliefs, traditions, practices, institutions, and worldviews developed and sustained by Indigenous, peasant, and local communities in interaction with their biophysical environment (Corbera et al., 2013).” Within this tab, TEK will be presented through the lens of traditional land management and food production with a focus on Native tribes within the Southwest.

Related Resources: Here is a compilation of various websites that provide insight into traditional land management and food production within different tribes in the Southwest: 

• This resource provides insight into 4,000 years of farming and the changes native peoples have faced due to introduced species and different cultures, leading to present times and food scarcity, a changing environment, and high intensity farming of mono-crops. 
• This resource discusses issues with Navajo food insecurity, heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic and how the native nation has taken advantage of these times to promote traditional food systems within the Navajo Nation. 
• This resource speaks to native nations reintegrating traditional crops into their diets. Specifically, in this article, the story of tiny potatoes is told. 
• This article explores Indigenous permaculture for land management strategies and focuses on the intersection of population, food, and sustainable land usage within the Southwest

(Click to see Tribe Allotment Legislation interactive map)

For Native tribes living within the borders of what we call Arizona, the impacts of colonialism and displacement were felt just the same. The O’odham peoples have produced many efforts in resistance to US displacement policies. Even today, with Indigenous land flowing over the borders drawn by colonial nations, the O’odham people still fight against establishing colonial boundaries that separate and displace Indigenous Peoples from culture and land.

Related Books: 

• Borderlands of Modernity and Abandonment: The Lines within Ambos Nogales and the Tohono O'odham Nation. This article examines the connections between Indigenous tribes whose borders conflict with state and national boundaries and the issues that these colonial boundaries have had on native nations.
• At the Border of Empires. This book speaks on impacts of colonialism and the assimilation of the Tohono O’odham people

“Land Back is a movement that has existed for generations with a long legacy of organizing and sacrifice to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands. Currently, there are LANDBACK battles being fought all across Turtle Island, to the north and the South (Land Back).”

Indigenous perceptions of land management and ownership contrast heavily with western laws and institutions, which provided settlers with an upperhand for “lawfully” removing Indigenous Peoples from their sovereign lands.

Related Resources: Here is a compilation of various resources that provide deeper insight, history, background, orientation, and political programming of Land Back movements. 

• This article speaks to the leadership and organization of Indigenous Peoples to create a strong foundation and a successful policy platform 
• This article comes from the NDN collective, the Indigenous organization that founded the Land Back movement speaking to how Land Back is a movement for all Indigenous Peoples
• This article is focused around Indigenous tribes in what we call Arizona and their own advances toward returning indigenous lands 
• This article speaks to Indigenous food security, relating the Land Back movement back to Indigenous food sovereignty and the intersection of them, the importance of land sovereignty for Indigenous food sovereignty

• Indian Land Tenure Foundation: Publications Resource Guide 
• Racial, Ethnic and Gender Inequities in Farmland Ownership and Farming in the U.S., by Megan Horst & Amy Marion (Springer Nature, 2018)
• Resetting the Food System from Farm to Fork Video
• Farmers of Color Land Trust Reparations Map
• Interview with Miguel Altieri (UC Berkeley) at the Agroecology Symposium Youtube Video
• Agroecology Knowledge Hub Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
• The Problems of Industrial Agriculture, Now and for the Future by Elizabeth Ridlington (Frontier Group, 2018)

For a more extensive list of resources and to learn more about how to serve and support Indigenous Peoples, communities, and organizations, go to the Solidarity & Resources and Ecosystem tabs.