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Title: Decolonizing British Columbia
Author: /
Date: 2020-11-06
Language: en
Topics: decolonization, Canada, indigenous, indigenous anarchism, anarcha-indigenism, anarcho-indigenism, Eco Anarchism

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Decolonizing British Columbia

Decolonizing British Columbia:

The Importance of Settler Relationalities

Territorial Acknowledgement

This essay was written on the unceded traditional territories of the

WSANEC Nation, specifically the Tsawout and Tseycum peoples. The

thoughts herein have been developed through spending time on many

nations’ territories, including the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht, T’souk,

Songhees, Esquimalt, Cowichan, Tseshaht, Sinixt and many more. This

essay is meant to be distributed far and wide and will hopefully pass

through all of these territories and more, as it seeks to build

relationships and understanding between settlers, Indigenous people, and

the Land. I thank these nations for allowing me to learn from the Land,

and all of the connections therein. I thank them for preserving these

beautiful places for thousands of years. I thank them for never ceding

their responsibilities to the Land and for the example they set for

settlers to live up to. The debt will always be mine.

This essay is by no means a complete strategy guide to decolonization,

and in fact leaves out many fundamental tenets, such as the liberation

of women, prison and police abolition, questions of power dynamics and

hierarchy, and many more.

Rather than being a comprehensive manual for decolonization, it is meant

as an attempt to begin reconciling Western revolutionary traditions with

Indigenous worldviews, and to frame decolonization as not only the

foundation, but also as the method and end goal of the environmental,

feminist, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist struggle across Turtle

Island.

Introduction

The world is currently in an ecological crisis, not only in terms of

climate change, but also in terms of biodiversity loss, air pollution,

ocean acidification, and many other environmental issues. Ecology is the

holistic study of a system and all of its relationships, not only to the

natural world, but also to the social world. In this sense, the current

ecological crisis is also caused by stark inequalities between rich and

poor, colonialism, corporate greed, patriarchy, and other social issues.

When examining our current state of affairs through an ecological lens,

we can begin to see the many ways that the social and natural spheres

interact with each other.

In North America, the dispossession of Indigenous land, the outlawing of

ceremony and language, the kidnapping of children for residential

schools, the 60’s scoop, MMIWG2S, and more are among the social factors

that have contributed to the devastation of the natural world. In order

for the environmental crisis to be solved, the ecological crisis needs

to be solved. This involves critically examining our relationship to

Indigenous peoples, and identifying ways in which we can move forward

together. This process is called decolonization.

In order for decolonization to be fully understood by settlers as a

concrete process, and not as some abstract metaphor, there needs to be a

basic understanding of Indigenous culture, social structure, and

worldview. As the original inhabitants of the New World, Indigenous

North American cultures have been separated from the Old World cultures

for at least ten thousand years before the dawn of “civilization” in the

western sense. Because of this early separation, which took place before

the Neolithic revolution (or agricultural revolution), Indigenous

society is fundamentally different from Old World societies. This

difference in world view can be difficult for settlers to grasp,

especially because the English language is poorly equipped to talk about

Indigenous concepts.

One important thing to understand is that each Indigenous nation is

different, not only culturally, but also politically, economically, and

socially. Although we have a modern tendency to group Indigenous peoples

according to their language family, this by no means guarantees cultural

uniformity, or even similarity. This is not to say, however, that there

are no similarities between cultures, just that they are not homogenous,

and defy easy classification based on language group, geographical

location, or any other single identifier.

Despite these differences, there are some broad similarities that can be

drawn from just about every nation across Turtle Island (although there

are always exceptions). Some of these similarities include the tendency

towards matriarchy, a family-based clan structure, hereditary forms of

government, and a world view that placed humans along-side animals as

part of the natural world.

The hereditary government structures today are represented by

“hereditary chiefs”, although this is a grossly simplified translation

of hundreds of different words from hundreds of different cultures, each

with their own nuanced meanings. This simplified translation is just one

example of the English languages short comings when discussing

Indigenous concepts. To overcome this, I will attempt to outline the

general meaning of “hereditary chief”, although it should be noted that

there is no singular definition; this is merely for the purpose of a

better understanding of Indigenous worldviews through examining a widely

misunderstood aspect of their cultures.

In the western imagination, “hereditary chief” invokes images of an

all-powerful tribal leader who has the final say on any decision, and

will pass his authority and power on to his son. This is very different

from the many iterations of the position in Indigenous culture, and in

fact stands in stark contrast to many Indigenous traditions. Hereditary

chiefs are not all powerful, but in fact largely provisional, mostly

making decisions regarding warfare and international relations, rarely

exerting any authority over the clan. In most cultures they never make

any decisions by themselves, but always seek the council of their

advisors, the elders, and most importantly, the matriarchs. In addition

to this, their position wasn’t so much about power and authority as it

was about rights and responsibilities. They didn’t hand their power and

land down to their heir, instead they handed down the hereditary name,

along with the rights and responsibilities that came with it. If a chief

no longer fulfilled his responsibilities to the people and to the land,

they were no longer fit for the hereditary title, and the matriarchs had

the right to remove the title and confer it upon someone more capable of

fulfilling the duties, whether or not they were related to the previous

chief.

Each clan had a hereditary chief, a clan mother, a council of elders, a

council of matriarchs, and a law to live by. Although there were many

variations among them and the specific responsibilities that each would

hold, these positions made up the basic units of most Indigenous

governments.

Just as the western view of hereditary chiefs is vastly oversimplified,

so is the western view on Indigenous relationships with the land, which

portrays indigenous relationality as irrational mysticism with no

grounding in reality. This is not so, and in fact is a major barrier in

a settler understanding of Indigenous worldviews.

Although spirituality is of major importance to Indigenous peoples, it

should not be assumed that their spirituality is detached from reality.

Rather, their spirituality can be better viewed as the ceremonialization

of real-life events and relationships. For example, the people of the

Northwest Coast believed that salmon bones had to be returned to the

river, or the salmon people could not properly reincarnate themselves

and provide more food for the people. On the surface, this seems like

superstition, but when the effect that salmon bones have on the forest

is examined, it becomes clear that there is a scientific basis to this

story. Each year, millions of salmon swim upstream to lay their eggs,

and then immediately die and start to decompose. The decomposing salmon

represent millions of pounds of nutrients transferred from the ocean to

the forest. The trees take in the nutrients from the decomposed fish,

and cycle them through the ecosystem, eventually releasing them back

into the river to return to the ocean. The Northwest Coast tradition of

returning salmon bones to the river reflect a deep understanding of the

nutrient transfer cycle, as well as an acknowledgement of responsibility

to keep that relationship in balance.

Most Indigenous laws, ceremonies and practices can be understood through

the lens of relationships. This is what Indigenous ethics and law is

based around; relationships to the land, which in an Indigenous

conception, includes everything that’s a part of the land, including

plants, animals, rivers, rocks, and people. From here on out, “Land”

with a capital will refer to not only the soil, but the trees, plants,

mushrooms, rocks, rivers, birds, bugs, animals and people contained

therein, as well as all of their interconnecting relationships with one

another.

With a basic understanding of Indigenous governance and worldview, we

can begin to discuss the process of decolonization.

Decolonization is Not a Metaphor

Decolonization takes different shapes depending on where the process is

happening, precisely for the reason that colonization took different

shapes wherever it happened. In order for the process to be effective,

the local historical circumstances that produced the colonial system

need to be examined, as well as the mechanisms that allow that same

system to continue today. In so called british columbia, this process

started about two hundred and fifty years ago.

Small Pox arrived on the west coast in 1782, killing up to 95% of the

population in certain communities, less than ten years later Europeans

would cross the Rocky Mountains and enter the province from the east,

bringing with them over two hundred years of conflict with Indigenous

peoples of the prairies and the east. Despite the widespread practice of

entering into land use agreements (treaties) with Indigenous nations,

the Europeans did no such thing west of the rockies, and instead opted

to take advantage of the devastation caused by the small pox virus by

forcibly removing Indigenous people from their lands, stealing their

children for residential school, and enforcing illegitimate settler law

wherever they were able.

Over two hundred years later, in 1997, a landmark decision in the BC

Supreme Court over the Delgamuukw Gisday’wa v British Columbia case

affirmed that Indigenous peoples in british columbia have never ceded

their rights and title to their land. The court, however, failed to

identify a single boundary for any traditional territory, and as such,

has failed to provide Indigenous people the power over the BC government

that so many had hoped.

The Indigenous people who live in so called british columbia are in a

unique situation in terms of potential for decolonization, as the

highest court in the province has already asserted their rights to their

traditional territory. The next step in this process is for Indigenous

people to revitalize their traditional governance structure so that the

matriarchs of each clan can make sure there is someone to hold the

hereditary name and claim responsibility for the land.

I, as a settler, am unable to determine exactly what a fully

revitalized, decolonized Indigenous government would look like, but I

can make a case for the importance of the hereditary chiefs and

traditional governance, rather than the Band Council system. The Band

Council system was created under the Indian Act for the purpose of

controlling Indigenous communities and rendering their traditional forms

of government without authority. The band council, by law, only has

jurisdiction over reserve land, which accounts for a resounding 0.35% of

the 944000km2 land base of BC, as opposed to the traditional territory,

which covers every square inch of the province.

The band council is also a mimicry of western democracy, and contributes

to the silencing of hereditary chiefs, elders, and matriarchs, as well

as enforces a uniform system upon each unique nation, regardless of

their nuanced traditions of government.

To decolonize means not only to return the land, but also to

relegitimize Indigenous law. This involves reviving Indigenous forms of

government, including hereditary chiefs, elders, and matriarchs. The way

in which these systems are revived however, remains up to Indigenous

people. It is their right, just as the right of any other

self-determining people, to decide how they want to be governed, and

which reforms they wish to make.

To take another example from the Northwest Coast, many of these nations

were fierce warrior societies who engaged in frequent raiding of their

neighbours and kept many slaves. It is beyond unlikely that a revived

Nuu-Chah-Nulth politic would involve slave trading or raids on

neighbouring communities. Just as the Nuu-Chah-Nulth have the right to

choose which cultural practices to revive and which to discard, so too

do they have the right to choose which political traditions they wish to

keep.

Again, I cannot decide for them what traditions to revive, but I can

point out the necessity of hereditary leaders reclaiming their rightful

stewardship over their lands. This is the only path forward under

Indigenous law, all other methods rely on Canadian law, and will never

result in true freedom or self-determination.

Settler Roles in Decolonization

As settlers, we need to understand the process of decolonization, and we

need to be actively involved in the struggle to return the land to

Indigenous people. We also need to understand how the completed process

of decolonization will impact our lives, and how we can begin our own

cultural paradigm shift to better fit into that world.

All politics need to be grounded in the time and place in which they

exist; classical Marxism, which was designed for the world of the

industrial revolution, has little relevance in North America today –

with a shrinking industrial proletariat and comparatively few factories

left in operation, it is a relic of the past. It either needs to be

revised, or rendered completely useless. So too with other classical

revolutionary theories, they are only as useful as they are connected to

the time and place in which they exist.

This is precisely why we need to build a new politic, from the ground

up, firmly rooted in an Indigenous worldview and commitment to

decolonization. We need to recognize that the New World before

colonization was fundamentally different from the Old World – where all

of our political theories have come from – and commit to building a new

politic rooted in the history and traditions of Turtle Island.

For this project, it becomes absolutely necessary to understand politics

from the Indigenous perspective, where it is not so much about laws and

structure as it is about relationships. As settlers, we need to examine

our relationships with every aspect of the web of life, and maintain an

ecological viewpoint. We need to comprehensively understand our myriad

relations, and begin to rework them within the parameters of Indigenous

law, meaning we need to build and maintain relationships with each part

of the Land.

As settlers, we need to understand that we will never be Indigenous; the

sun dance, potlatch, medicine wheel, and other cultural practices will

never be ours, but that doesn’t mean that we are incapable of connecting

to the land in the same capacity. Those ceremonies will never be ours

because we will never have the Indigenous relationship with the Land

that those ceremonies were built on, but we can have our own

relationships, and our own “ceremonies”. As part of building this new

politic, and shifting our worldview, it is important to emancipate

ourselves from the traditions and institutions of the “West”, and

instead seek to ground ourselves in Indigenous worldviews.

We must not have a desire to “save the trees”, but instead a desire to

build a relationship with the forest. We must not desire to “save the

oceans”, but instead develop relationships with each member of the

marine ecosystem. In this way, we begin to decolonize our thought

patterns before the physical process of decolonization has taken place.

Building relationships between us and the natural world is the most

important step we can take as settlers towards decolonization. If we

fail to build these relationships, we will continue the destruction of

the Land regardless of whose stewardship it is under. It is only through

these relationships that we can properly conceptualize our relationship

with Indigenous people, who are themselves a part of the Land.

We cannot build any meaningful relationships with them while we continue

to cut down the forests, over fish the salmon and pollute the rivers.

Any relationship built on these practices will be one of violence and

domination, just as we have today. If we have any desire for building a

lasting relationship with Indigenous communities, we need to understand

how each act of violence towards the land affects them.

Perhaps the most important example of this in so called british columbia

is the settler relationship to salmon. Salmon, for the Northwest Coast

peoples, was not only a staple food source, but a pillar of their

culture, economy, and politics. The abundance of salmon is what has led

to the development of the globally unique hunter-gatherer societies of

the Northwest Coast, with their rich material culture and their

developed sense of private property. Just as the destabilization of

salmon populations by settler activity was one of the main contributing

factors for their downfall, so too, will the revitalization of salmon

populations be a fundamental prerequisite for a decolonized Northwest

Coast.

Starting in the late eighteenth century we began to log the old growth

trees on vancouver island, by the early twentieth century we were clear

cutting vast tracts of land, with no regard for riparian zones or

critical animal habitat, causing soil destabilization, landslides, and

pollution of river systems. Likewise, with the first goldmine on Haida

Gwaii in the mid nineteenth century, we started to pollute the rivers

with slag and run-off. After that we started to dam our rivers,

preventing salmon from getting to their spawning grounds. By the 1970s

fish farms had found their way to our coast, and by the mid-1990s they

had proliferated and already began to have a serious impact on salmon

populations; infestations of sea lice and other diseases were rampant in

these farms, situated on the mouths of rivers as if to have the greatest

possible effect on spawning salmon swimming out from their birth rivers.

The vast quantities of wild salmon that we remove from the oceans each

year, as well as the constant tanker traffic along the west coast also

contribute greatly to the diminishing populations.

All of these actions and more need to be examined when attempting to

build a relationship with the salmon. It becomes clear that in order to

build a relationship with the salmon, we need to halt clear cutting –

old growth and otherwise. We need to ban fish farms, reduce tanker

traffic, stop building dams, stop polluting our rivers with mining

waste, and much more. As a keystone species of the Northwest Coast, our

relationship with the salmon will lead us to our relationship with the

rest of the Land, including the Indigenous people.

By building a relationship with the salmon, we not only halt our

ecologically destructive activities, but we remove the pressures and

strains we placed on Indigenous relationships with the salmon, taking a

massive step towards decolonization.

As these relationships are built, it becomes important to discuss the

nature of the relationship between settlers and Indigenous people. From

the earliest contact with Europeans, no Indigenous nation intended to

dominate and rule over the European populations, rather, they sought

mutual understanding and shared use of the Land. The pre-contact

Haudenosaunee and Nishnaabeg tradition of Gdoo-naaganinaa, meaning “our

dish”, outlines an example of Indigenous political relations, and should

serve as a conceptual basis for future settler-Indigenous relations

Gdoo-naaganinaa is the understanding that both the Haudenosaunee and the

Nishnaabeg were eating out of the same dish due to overlapping hunting

territory and the ecological connections between their territories. As

both nations ate out of the same dish, it was both of their

responsibilities to take care of that dish, and to not abuse that

relationship. It is important to note that sharing hunting territory did

not presuppose political interference; rather, it fostered a sense of

interconnectedness and harmony between the two peoples.

This is the model that settlers need to be using. Once the land is

decolonized, we must make sure that we do not become a burden to the

Indigenous governments or a competing force. Instead, we need to be a

complimentary force, politically autonomous but still respectful of

Indigenous law, as well as our “shared dish”.

It is clear that neither the canadian government, nor the british

columbian government have any intention of becoming this complimentary

autonomous government, instead they seek to complete the colonization

process and keep Indigenous lands and resources for their own. For this

reason, we must look beyond our current government structures when

seeking to build this new politics. Because relationships with the Land

are the basis of our new settler politic, the individuals and

organizations who are building those relationships represent the most

important political process taking place today.

By participating in logging and pipeline blockades, fish farm

occupations, mining shutdowns, and other forms of disruptive direct

action, we begin to transform our violent, domineering relationships

with the Land into sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships.

Likewise, by participating in equally revolutionary creative projects

like small scale organic farms, selective logging and value added

manufacturing, small scale fisheries, decentralized renewable energy

research, and more, we start to build the positive aspects of those

relationships, rather than just halting the negative aspects.

With these two methods, both disruptive and constructive, we can begin

to build autonomous settler institutions that can operate alongside

Indigenous government systems to care for the Land, which, after

decolonization, will include both Indigenous peoples and settlers.

Relational Institutions

It is important here to note that these settler relationships are a

prerequisite to decolonization. Any attempt to decolonize without

addressing our own relationship to the Land will not have the desired

results. As we address our relationship to the Land and start to rebuild

certain aspects of it, we need also to institutionalize those

relationships, and ensure that there are a group of settlers, a “clan”

if you will, that will always care for that relationship, and will

safeguard it against the actions of other settlers.

Those who are currently dedicating their lives to the protection of the

old growth would form the basis of the “Tree Clan”, those who are trying

to stop the hollowing out of our mountains would form the “Rock Clan”,

and those who dedicate their lives to stopping the construction of mega

dams would form the “Water Clan”. These are, of course, major

simplifications for illustrations sake, and the actual “clans” would

need to develop out of organic action, both disruptive and creative, and

be formed by those who are putting the time and effort into building

relationships with each aspect of the Land.

Under this system, both the federal as well as the provincial and

municipal governments will be dissolved and replaced by autonomous

settler governments, or “clans”. As such, settlers will be responsible

for providing themselves with food, water, healthcare, education, power,

defense, transportation, justice, and every other service necessary for

society to function.

To visualize how this would work in practice, we will draw on real world

examples. Take Port Alberni, a moderate sized coastal city of about

seventeen thousand, containing a paper mill and a few saw mills, as well

as a commercial fishery and a large hospital that services many

surrounding areas.

As the location of the first sawmill in BC, Port Alberni has been seeing

ecological devastation for over one hundred fifty years. Fish farms in

Barkley Sound as well as a commercial fishing industry caused fish

stocks to crash in the 90’s, and most old growth in the valley has long

since been cut down. Due to the loss of resources the city has been

aggressively campaigning for an eco-tourism industry, but with no real

nature left, it’s hard to imagine it would generate any real revenue

without some major changes to the way the people relate to the Land.

To decolonize port alberni, the first step would be to start blockading

all clear cut operations in the forest around the city, or simply the

mills that process and ship the wood. At the same time, local residents

need to be starting small scale mills that are designed to process

selectively harvested second growth into value added products. These

small scale operations begin to build relationships with the forests,

and all of the people who take up the practice of sustainable, selective

logging, as well as those who have built a relationship through

protecting the forests, will form the “Tree Clan” and work out a

relationship with the local forests. Maybe they determine that in order

for the harvest to not only be sustainable, but to allow for the forests

to rejuvenate and mature, they can’t harvest their full capacity each

year. Perhaps they also decide that certain areas of the forest are

completely off limits, even for selective logging. Under this system, if

any member of the settler community wanted to cut a tree down or source

some lumber, they would go to the “Tree Clan” for approval. Likewise, if

a settler were to clear cut, or to take more than is sustainable, the

“Tree Clan” would be the ones who decide how to rectify the

transgressors relationship with the forest.

As settlers start to organize into the “Tree Clan”, other settlers need

to be shutting down industrial fishing operations, and instead obtaining

fish from Nuu-Chah-Nulth fishers who have maintained a relationship with

the fish for thousands of years. As these commercial fishing operations

are halted, the settlers need to form the “Fish Clan” to protect their

relationship to the fish, and to handle matters pertaining to settlers

and fish.

Halting commercial fishing and clear cutting are important steps, but

aren’t a solution by themselves. Settlers need to form “clans” around

the protection of all resources – our water, air, soil, minerals,

animals, plants, mycelial networks, and more. We need to have

institutions safe guarding each resource and relationship, and teaching

the rest of settler society how to act in accordance with those

relationships.

As we systematically protect each resource and aspect of Land from the

exploitation of the colonial system, we begin to chip away at its power

base. No nation-state can exist without a land base to exploit, and so,

we must chip away at the ways in which canada can use its land base

until finally it lacks the power to stop a complete Indigenous takeover.

As canada weakens, and as the relationships between settlers and the

Land grows, we will begin to understand that we have an abundance of

everything we need, so long as we aren’t shipping raw materials

over-seas or engaging in wasteful behaviours.

Keeping with the example of Port Alberni, imagine the forestry industry

has been transitioned to selective harvesting, which is watched over by

the “Tree Clan”, the fishing Industry is handled by the “Fish Clan”, who

make sure no settlers harm the Indigenous harvest by over fishing, and

most of the food for the community is provided by local farms overseen

by the “Animal Clan” and “Plant Clan”, which are made up of locals who

began to create small scale organic farms, utilizing modern technologies

as well as traditional knowledge and local organic waste to create a

greater yield without harming the soil. At this point the city of port

Alberni is still ran by the municipal government, and still answers to

the provincial government, but every time the province or the city

issues a licence to a corporation to start a fishery, clear cut a

forest, or harm the local ecology in any way, the people simply block

the corporation, making it too expensive to operate in the area, and

thus forcing them to move somewhere else, where they would hopefully be

met with the same kind of opposition.

While all of these relationships and clans are being developed, it is

also important to kick out state corporations like BC Hydro and PetroCan

as well. In order to do this the community will need to develop

alternative power grids, such as equipping each house with its own small

windmill, fitting all new buildings with geothermal heating, installing

tidal energy infrastructure, and more. As each house becomes more power

and food self-sustainable it will become more and more expensive for the

state corporations to operate in the area, thus further weakening the

colonial powers.

As these new relationships start to have positive impacts on the local

ecology, Indigenous communities in the area will begin to regain their

economic strength, and with their hereditary leadership, will reclaim

their traditional territory.

Of course it won’t happen all at once across the province, rather, it

will happen nation by nation, slowly creating a checkerboard of

sovereign nations across british columbia. Once individual nations like

the Tseshaht of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth have claimed authority over their

territory, like the Unist’oten and Gidtimden of the Wet’suwet’en are in

the process of doing, others will soon follow. As these nations make

ties with each other and increase their strength, so too will settler

institutions need to form relationships with eachother to provide some

sort of government for themselves, presumably based around Indigenous

models of autonomous nations “sharing a dish”

The different “clans” would form an important part of the settler

government, but by themselves are an incomplete system. Rather than

being a cohesive system of government, these clans instead represent a

practical way towards decolonization, and will form an important basis

for political organizations, for no settler government will be able to

dictate to the “Tree Clan” what is an acceptable way to behave towards

the forest, rather the “Tree Clan” will be an important balance of power

to ensure the settler government doesn’t transgress its relationship

with the forest.

The physical constitution of these settler governments will likely

contain as much variation from community to community as the Indigenous

nations do amongst themselves; as such is impossible to describe exactly

what it would look like or how it would function. We can, however,

examine western revolutionary theories in addition to Indigenous

governance systems, and begin to formulate a system of governance that

can operate within the parameters of the decentralized autonomous

nations of the newly decolonized Indigenous people. This project,

however, will need to be covered in another essay.

Conclusion

Decolonization will be a long, complex process, with many steps forward

and many steps back, but it is a process, with concrete physical gains.

Indigenous peoples have been working at this process since contact, and

will continue to work at it until their goals are realized. We as

settlers have a responsibility to join in that fight and to help

dismantle the oppressive colonial systems that we all benefit from.

Disruptive and creative activities as described above represent real

progress, and as settlers continue to participate in forestry blockades,

pipeline blockades, fish farm occupations, mine shut downs and more, we

begin to systematically dismantle the power structures that hang over

us, replacing them with liberatory institutions that care for the

natural world around us.

Together with Indigenous warriors, chiefs, women, 2 spirits, matriarchs,

elders, medicine people and knowledge keepers, we will shift the

paradigm, and build settler relationalities with the Land.