Summary Of The Fight For Land Tariro

The story begins with a recounting of the story of Tatica, Reyita’s grandmother, and her trial of being abducted from her native Africa and brought to Cuba to be sold into slavery. Tatica’s story sets a precedent that is upheld by the next generations of her family of racial discrimination, struggle for survival and equality, and political activism. Reyita explains that her grandmother’s love of Africa instilled in Reyita a

“the black culture emerged from the ragged edges of a European society. This was the real necessity that was historically constructed by the white supremacist to bring us down. We learned to live and deal with whatever came our way. The ragged edges of not being able to eat, having a place to live, or health care developed our culture into what it is today.” (Kruger and Mariani, pp 93). Blacks, along with other people of color, have always been always been oppressed for how they looked. If one goes back in history, they will find that the Native Americans who first inhabited this land were also subjected to oppression, genocide, rape, killing etc. It was a five hundred year struggle that decimated a cultures to the point where they are almost extinct. One would think that with the changing of eras actions like this would stop, but they do not. The genocide of Native Americans is still on going. On Pine Ridge reservation, in South Dakota, the murder rate is seventy percent higher than the national average. This is easily one of the most dangerous places in America today.

During this time, the American Colonists were ravaging the Native American crops and villages in hopes that they would surrender their land. They did everything in their power to rid the land of Indians by not only destroying their crops, but by killing herds of buffalo as well. To give an example of the terror that had occurred, a Native American tribe surrendered themselves to an American colony to avoid death and torture, but they were murdered and mutilated by the White man. Men, Women, and children were shot from all sides of the village. extent of violence did not stop there for the American soldiers as they continued to desolate even more Native American tribes.

Indigenous people went through a lot from white brutality, alcoholism, the killing and driving off of game, and the expropriation of farmland, but all of these things added together explained the degree of their defeat.

I was also dismayed at the ruthless massacre in 1864 of over one hundred Indian men, women, and children, particularly when these people “talked of peace with the white men” (LaDuke 1999, 78). Looking back, it is indeed very easy to understand the sense of hopelessness and powerlessness the native Indians feel when they wake up every day with the knowledge that the fight is not yet

Imagine you, a 12 year old girl, are weaving baskets in your beautiful village along the river when you see settler's wagons coming over the hills. Along with them is a strange man with a piece of paper eagerly running towards to you exclaiming words to your family in a foreign language. You ask your mother what is happening, while the strange white man is rambling on to your father the chief. Within weeks, half your tribe is slaughtered and forced onto a reservation where no one is safe.

Since the beginning of westward migration from England, the indigenous Indians who occupied these lands were treated poorly. These people had survived

white invaders and the suffering they brought with them brought terror and sadness to the native

Europeans feared and discriminate Africans but that didn’t stop them from selling them and making them work in plantation for a certain period of time. In addition, white blames the African for things they did not do – ““the living image of primitive aggressions which they said was the Negro but was really their own” (50). This statement proved that white colonizers get away with things by blaming the blacks, insisting that blacks are going to gore the life of them and denying the fact, blacks to be their own.

The native american reservations were growing smaller due to the rebellious acts of the natives. If the natives did not cooperate with white men laws they would see and untimely death. The cannons went off and 150 native americans were killed and, 25 Us soldiers were killed. The tragic history demonstrated the need for further resolution.

During the latter half of the 19th Century, lives of the Native Indians who lived on the plains was affected from technological developments and government actions. Some of these developments and actions involved cutting off the Indians from their herds, innocent lives being taken away from Indian men, women, and children who had nothing to do with the whites, and the movement of Natives into reservations. The way government treated the Natives played a large role in the Indians lives, and it’s clear that it affected them in an unjust way.

They were forced to work for no or little or minimum wage owned, their life choices were controlled/dictated by government and government-approved missions, they were dehumanised and treated as a commodity. Indigenous people were subjected to cruel treatment and abuse, control of sexuality and forced

They saw it only on the flat, two-dimensional world of paper” (279). To the government, the land is a never ending supplier with the sole purpose to be consumed by them. They have allowed themselves to believe this thus creating no feelings of guilty as they extort the land, whereas the natives see something else entirely. The government doesn’t seem to understand that “Getting through the crisis requires understanding our impact on nature as precisely as possible, but even more, it requires understanding those ethical systems and using that understanding to reform them.” The natives maybe in a fight over land but they understand that the true battle is over perception.

There had been many chances to leave over the years but the tribes, and particularly the Anuak wanted to stay, to farm, to worship. They had not asked for this help, and yet they were being forced to move. According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, "Waiting Here for Death," the evictions were definitely not voluntary, unless voluntary means arrests, beatings, rapes and killings.(1)

Living in the same region for an extended period of time will endow the human inhabitant with a sense of pride in their homeland. When this idea is extended to a certain group of people living in the same area, pride turns into nationalism. The residents not only feel like they geographically own the land, but their history of culture in that given area lends them an emotional connection as well. When people of elsewhere come to take the land from the native inhabitants, many changes occur. In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon gives his insight into how the process of colonization and decolonization happens, and the resulting physical and mental effects on both groups of people. Telling this from a strictly historical and