In Our History Is The Future, Nick Estes documents the #NoDAPL resistance movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, and connects it to the centuries of struggle for indigenous liberation that preceded it. Although Estes is an academic, he is also an activist, and this book reads as if it were written for training up the next generation of activists. This sets this work apart from others that might otherwise be competing in the same niche of US indigenous history. For example, Estes connects the struggle of indigenous nations in the US with the anti-imperialist writings of Lenin and Amilcar Cabral, figures too controversial for more mainstream audiences. Estes also does not seem to feel the need to sternly disapprove of militant protests while uplifting only lawfare. Because the book assumes little prior knowledge, it’s a reasonable entrypoint into indigenous liberation.
However, the book fell a bit flat for me. The historical sections are often dry, and while each chapter is centered on a broad theme, they tend to jump between topics without clear structure or chronology, making it hard to follow the argument or use the book as a reference. I would also have appreciated a more philosophical lens at times. For a book about national sovereignty, I was surprised how little development there was of what self-determination and nationhood mean. At several points, Estes emphasizes the difference between radical Indigenous internationalism and mere striving for status as a nation state, however how these goals differ in practice was more implied than defined. For example, in the passage below, Estes enticingly hints towards the difference between becoming a nation-state and ending imperialism, but it’s unclear how the nationhood sought by the Treaty Council varies from “the freedom associated with nation-states”:
Indigenous nationhood is often misunderstood as an exclusive project—the sole aspiration of just Indigenous peoples—or as confined within narrow definitions of the nation-state. This is similar to the way the “Indian problem” is treated as solely an Indian problem. According to the International Indian Treaty Council that first met at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 1974 and drafted the “Declaration of Continuing Independence,” the problem was not Indigenous peoples; the problem was, and always has been, imperialism. The aspiration for nationhood set the Treaty Council apart from other Red Power movements that sought the freedom associated with nation-states.
There are many indigenous nations, and it's possible Estes avoided precise definitions of nationhood and related terms out of fear of collapsing many diverse ideals into one. Still, the history of a struggle is also the history of a class coming to understand the struggle from a theoretical perspective, and this part of the history was lacking.
These shortcomings aside, the book is valuable in telling the stories of many of the key figures in indigenous liberation movements, and demonstrating both its connection with other movements and its internal diversity of thought. As Estes documents, #NoDAPL found support from #BlackLivesMatter and socialist parties. The indigenous struggles before it were closely connected to the USSR , to countries that overthrew their colonizers, and to Palestine, which still wages its war against its colonizer. The fall of the USSR and the decline of the Non-Aligned Movement slowed indigenous liberation movements, and allowed Western aggression to run rampant.
One interesting example of internal struggle was the Treaty Council’s decision to file for non-governmental organization (NGO) status within the UN. As Estes describes, “To some, the channeling of energy into an NGO—arguably a non-revolutionary and non-sovereign entity—seemed in contradiction to their larger project.” The Treaty Council’s response remains an important reminder for our current movements too: “Decolonization, or a better term, liberation is a slow, painstaking process. What the colonialists accomplished over the past four centuries cannot be overcome easily.” The Council used their position as an NGO to push forward recognition of indigenous issues through events such as the 1977 Conference of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas (which the US boycotted) and the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (which the US voted against).
Our History is the Future focuses on history, but there’s a few glimpses of what Estes believes the future might be. He points to the mutually supportive, non-hierarchical and non-commodified structure of resistance camps, and he ends his book on the note “For the earth to live, capitalism must die.” There’s a very, very long path between protesting pipelines and the abolition of commodity exchange, and I am left with many, many questions about what that road looks like.