The new U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, is the first indigenous person to hold that position and the first to serve in a U.S. presidential cabinet. The significance of this achievement is emblematic of the mining struggle of indigenous peoples in the north and will have significant consequences in the defense of their rights and the fight against the climate crisis.
To discern the historical scope of this appointment, we must first understand the colonial roots of the Secretary of the Interior and his role in the genocide of indigenous peoples and dispossession of their ancestral lands. In 1849, Congress passed legislation to form the Secretary of the Interior as a separate branch of the Department of State to deal with “internal affairs” related to colonialist westward expansion, control of water sources, management of “public lands” under state control, the “colonization of free slaves in Haiti” and all matters pertaining to indigenous peoples, their lands and forced “civilization”.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, which until then had been part of the Secretary of War, came under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior. The BIA was created in 1824 to formalize treaties with indigenous peoples for the control of lands but, if necessary, to forcibly dispossess them, or vice versa. Historical documents clearly indicate that their mission was a “civilizing” or genocidal project. The BIA was formed by then Secretary of War and slaveholder, John C. Calhoun, who would present a plan to Congress to “remove and relocate” Indian peoples to lands west of the Mississippi River. A few years later, this plan would be transformed into the Indian Removal Act of 1830, under President Andrew Jackson (Calhoun was his vice president). Under this scheme, boarding schools or schools of forced assimilation were also created for indigenous children, where an estimated 40,000 minors were affected ( read more on this subject here).
Throughout the peoples’ decolonial struggle, the BIA has changed significantly and, for example, it should be noted how on September 8, 2000, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Kevin Gover, a member of the Pawnee Nation, offered apologies for the crimes committed during the past 175 years of colonization:
On several occasions, this agency has deeply wounded the communities it was supposed to serve. From the beginning, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was an instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against indigenous nations and peoples who stood in its way … As the nation looked westward for more land, this agency participated in the ethnic cleansing of those tribes … After the devastation of tribal economies and the deliberate creation of tribal dependence on the services provided by this agency, the agency set out to destroy all things indigenous … This agency banned the speaking of Indian languages, prohibited the performance of traditional religious activities, outlawed traditional government and made people ashamed of who they were … These wrongs must be acknowledged if healing is to begin … We accept this legacy, this legacy of racism and inhumanity. And in accepting this legacy, we also accept the moral responsibility to rectify things.
Today, the Secretary of the Interior continues to be in charge of the BIA, Indian Health Services, the Bureau of Indian Education (public schools and colleges) and the administration of all Indian lands (reservations) under state trust.
The naming of Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Nation and 35th generation of her family in what is now New Mexico, therefore, has profoundly decolonial meanings–an achievement brought about by centuries of peoples’ struggle. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is a versatile leader who came to politics recently, working for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and then heading the Democratic Party in New Mexico in charge of local election campaigns. In 2018, she was one of the first indigenous women to be elected as a legislator in the House of Representatives. She tells how her grandfather and grandmother were taken against their will to “re-education” boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their language or any cultural expression–her grandmother was not allowed to see any of her family members for 5 years (from the age of 8 to 13) and yet she managed to survive and pass on her knowledge to her descendants. In this video he explains:
I am the person my grandparents dreamed of. They worked very hard to preserve our culture and traditions, so that it is here, and we all have that responsibility. Because at that time, just surviving was difficult.
Haaland was a single mother, but she made ways to advance her career and her daughter’s future, first as a business owner and then in politics. As a legislator she was able to pass several laws related to the sovereignty of indigenous peoples (Progress for Indian Tribes Act), their economic advancement (Native American Business Incubators Program Act), the prevention of violence against indigenous women (Savanna’s Act and the Not Invisible Act) and was an important axis for the protection of the environment.
The 30 by 30 Resolution to Save Nature (Thirty by Thirty Resolution to Save Nature), which it promoted as a bill in Congress, aims, for example, to conserve at least 30 percent of the seas and the land, fauna and flora that inhabit them, by 2030. At the helm of the Secretary of the Interior, his most important role in environmental justice will be to rule on the future of state lands and territorial seas, national parks and the exploitation of resources therein. For this same reason, Republican senators with connections to oil and mining companies diametrically opposed her nomination, designating her as a “radical” environmentalist. In his first week, Haaland made his priorities clear:
Today I pledge, on the shoulders of my ancestors, ready to serve as the first Native American Cabinet Secretary…Follow me @SecDebHaaland & @Interior for updates on how we are building back better, protecting our public lands and creating an equitable clean energy economy for all Americans.
In Awasqa we will be attentive to the positive changes that are surely to come.
