United Houma Nation

As the indigenous peoples of North America look to our icons of the past, leaders like Tecumseh, Dragging Canoe and Red Eagle, we see the light reflected from their lives of honor and sacrifice reflected back on our own lives. What do those shinning beacons of truth reveal in the hearts of Indigenous America?

With our voices raised for sovereignty and self-determination, what does our actions as Indigenous Nations say about us? Can we say with any sincerity of heart that we are still pursuing Tecumseh’s vision?

That we ask these questions of ourselves shows that the desire to continue the struggle is still in some of us. Among us the voices of resistance still resonate from the likes of Ward Churchill and Taiaike Alfred and others of their mold.

Unfortunately, there are also the haunting voices of the appeasers, the hang-around-the-forts chiefs who long for the glory and gold of attak nahollo, the white man.

Examples abound of the centuries' old tactic of divide and conquer working with great effect through the ever present apple indian. Apples are bright red on the outside but under that thin red surface they are white thru and thru. Not so much in a racial context this is more of a mindset, with red being the perspective of indigenous man while white is the Eurocentric worldview of the colonizer.

As our brothers the Lumbees battle the government for, long overdue, recognition we see a cadre of native voices rise up in opposition to them. Though they make ludicrous claims about the legitimacy of Lumbee history and culture it is the size of the Lumbee Nation that drives their effort to stop the bid for Federal Recognition.

The apple logic is that the more tribes recognized the smaller the portion of federal funds there are for each. The avarice for a larger portion of Uncle Sam’s pie is more important than the health and well being of our brothers and sisters, this is apple logic.

Pontiac and Tecumseh gave their lives in the struggle to unite the indigenous peoples against the march of the colonial invaders. They recognized that only the strength of our united numbers could stand against the armies of the settler state. Apple logic forgets that struggle; it forgets sovereignty and accepts the status of dependant ward of the Americans as long as they can have their perceived share of the American pie.

If we satisfy ourselves with this dependant relationship can we, with any sense of sincerity, call ourselves a Nation? Do we honestly believe we can be partially sovereign? This the lie the United States tells the world about their intentions in Iraq to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people while retaining most of the economic and security functions for themselves. Ladies and gentlemen sovereignty is like pregnancy, either you are or your not.

Not only are Indigenous Nations battling each other like this but apple logic has also turned them on themselves, tribes are actually attacking their own members.

For years the indigenous peoples of California have battled against the lingering effects of the genocidal policies that almost annihilated them. Through sheer strength and tenacity a few tribes have made it, intact, into the twenty-first century.

For some of these the advent of Indian Gaming brought economic recovery and a measure of success. In traditional culture this prosperity would be shared so that all the people would benefit, indigenous culture was never about hording wealth it has always been about the well-being of the people collectively.

Unfortunately, in some tribes, apple logic has struck. Those in positions of authority have moved to strip scores of tribal members of their citizenship assuring that those who remain have a larger share of the casino profits. This particular strain of apple logic has shone itself in tribes from California to Michigan.

Consider the plight of the Freeman, descendants of slaves who sought refuge among the southeastern tribes in the turbulent years before the Civil War. Great leaders like Osceola fought the American forces across the southern frontier to protect their way of life and the Africans who had joined their communities. Today the apples would spit on the native blood spilled in those wars and erect a wall of separation between themselves and their Afro-Indian brothers and sisters.

It is time for Indigenous America to take stock of ourselves, to look honestly at the conduct of our Nations. Yes Indian gaming and the economic development that comes with it has brought us some success, but where are we headed? what are the fruits of our labor?

Today a handful of tribes are spending millions of dollars to lobby the halls of American government so they can continue to make millions from Indian gaming to pay for a continuing lobbing effort, can anyone say catch 22.

The tragedy of this struggle to maintain wealth is that many tribes have left behind their indigenous roots to travel this path of greed and gain. Hear the words of Ohiyesa (Charles Alexander Eastman), written over a century ago by the wise Lakota elder and still so relevant today.

“…Once we had departed from the broad democracy and pure idealism of our prime, and had undertaken to enter upon the world’s game of competition, our rudder was unshipped, our compass lost, and the whirlwind and tempest of materialism and love of conquest tossed us to and fro like leaves in a wind.”

More and more tribes are stepping into the white world of greed, glamour and adversarial politics and leaving behind the ways of the old ones.

We’ve forgotten that this is our land but this is not our country. Indians were arbitrarily made citizens of the United States by a congressional fiat in 1924, not to benefit us but to aid the Americans in their further attempts to assimilate native peoples. We, however, were born Shoshone, Apache, Choctaw, Houma or to any of over five hundred Nations and it is to our own Nations that we truly belong.

The colonial government works to suppress that force of indigenous nationalism. Their goal is for you to become a Native-American, just another hyphenated minority whose allegiance is pledged to the Settler State. An individual Indian is no threat to the system, it is a strong, vibrant Indigenous Nation that is feared and hated.

To keep any real resistance contained we are manipulated into useless battles over who is a real Indian or how can we keep our casinos legal or if we can get our favored politician elected. We trade our resources and our votes for a seat at the table of the American political system and still we call ourselves sovereign. Is this really sovereignty? Are we to be a bit players within the same government that has oppressed, robbed and killed us for two hundred years?

The real struggle has always been for the survival of Indigenous Nations. If we are domestic dependant wards it is only because the colonizer has stolen the resources that should rightfully go to our Nations. These United States were built atop Indian land and financed with the natural wealth taken from Indian Peoples.

While we cannot turn back history’s clock we can learn from the lessons history has provided us. We can see that the apple logic of appeasement and compromise can only bring, in the long term, the death of our Nations. Genocide is not only the physical act of killing a people, it is the death of a people or a culture purposely brought about by any means; assimilation is genocide.

The vision of Tecumseh was of strong Indigenous Nations united in their opposition to colonization and assimilation, that vision still lives in the heart of Native America. For every apple there are a dozen indigenous people whose hearts long for the power and peace of the old ways.

Our call to arms is to rise up and embrace our culture and language, to call on our leaders to embrace our traditions and not look to America for inspiration. To effectively fight assimilation we look to our own Nations for that guidance that we seek.

George Washington is not our father, if we want examples of how to live as indigenous people then we need to look to Black Hawk, Red Cloud, Louis Riel and others like them, these are our spiritual fathers. Turn your gaze away from those lies taught to you in the colonizers indoctrination centers, that he call the public school system. Instead look down to the earth, to the path tread by your grandparents and those before them. Follow the paths of the old ones and rediscover who we rally are.

Apple logic must be overcome by a wave of indigenous nationalism; the Indian Nations of America must be united in their resistance to assimilation. They must be united, in support of one another as we pick up the mantle of the five hundred-year struggle of indigenous resistance. I am reminded of a great statement I saw on a T-shirt recently..Homeland Security, fighting terrorism since 1492.

Haiti and the Empire;
An Indigenous perspective

by T.Mayheart Dardar

“ The French Revolution became Americanized in it’s purest and most dramatic form in St. Dominque, where the free people of African descent rose up for equality, and in August, 1791, the slaves revolted en masse. After many years of civil and international war, slavery was definitively abolished and Haiti established herself as the second independent nation in the America’s.”

Africans in Colonial Louisiana
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

It is of great interest to note the reaction to Haitian independence by the first independent nation in the Americas.

Thomas Jefferson, the great father of democracy, refused to recognize the emergence of a new democratic government in the Caribbean. In fact it was not until 1862 that the United States formally recognized the government of Haiti.While Toussaint L’ Ouverture was leading the overthrow of the French masters of St. Dominque, Thomas Jefferson was busy attempting to expand the new American Empire. The main impediment to American expansion was the Indigenous Nations of North America, the rightful owners of the land so eagerly sought by the new nation. Jefferson’s solution, born of racist notions of European superiority, was for Indigenous Americans to forsake their culture and identity and become yeoman farmers in an American Utopia.

American history calls Jefferson’s policies benevolent, suggesting that he simply wanted to meld the Native population into what would become the great melting pot of American culture. In fact what little benevolence that is found in Jefferson’s Indian policy is due to the reality that, at the time, the United States did not have the military strength to simply take what they wanted. Given his situation Jefferson sought ways to take Indian land that avoided direct military action. One method he used to acquire land was to establish trading houses in tribal territory and encourage tribes to run up debts that they could not possibly pay without selling off huge portions of their land. Another method was to appoint political chiefs to by-pass the traditional Indigenous governments. Indian agents, sent from Washington, would only deal with these chiefs. Often both strategies would work hand-in-hand with the political chiefs running up debts for their personal benefit and pushing the responsibility for the debt off on the tribe.

“…Even so, Jefferson’s Indian policy was neither equitable nor humane, and it’s legacies of dispossession, poverty and isolation remain on Indian reservations in the American west in the twenty-first century.”

The Indian Frontier in the age of Jefferson
R. Douglas Hurt
Purdue University

The real legacy of Jefferson’s Indian policy is the foreign policy used today, by the United States, in places like Haiti. Concepts in today’s terminology, such as regime change, can trace their roots back to the dealings between America and the Indigenous Nations in the years following the revolution.

The United States began its policy of intervention in Haiti in 1888. By 1891 American troops were occupying parts of the island to protect American interest. Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to the island in 1914 and again in 1915. The intervention and occupation continued through the administrations of four Presidents. In 1934 Franklin Roosevelt, using the Jefferson model of a political chief, appointed Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier via a staged military coup.

“Papa Doc created a brutal dictatorship backed by the Tontons Macoute, a Haitian Praetorian Guard. Upon his death, Jean Claude or Baby Doc Duvalier replaced his father until his overthrow in 1986. Both mouthed the anti-communist line, brutalized their own people and received U.S. support.”

Haitian Redux
Saul Landau
Znet 26 Feb. 04

Though it is front-page news today, Haiti is by no means the only sovereignty in the Americas affected by U.S. foreign policy. Indeed the real purpose on the Monroe Doctrine was not so much to protect the Western Hemisphere from European intervention but rather to reserve the Americas for strictly U.S. intervention.

The Spanish-American War, sold to the public as fought to protect American and Cuban interest, was about nothing more than American Imperial ambitions in Cuba and the Philippines. In 1900 American and European troops fought Chinese insurgents during the Boxer Rebellion. In reality the rebellion was an attempt by the Chinese to save their country from foreign exploitation.

In our more enlightened times, since the end of world war two, America has been involved, either directly or indirectly, in intervening in Italian elections (1947-1948), attempting to overthrow a sovereign government in Albania (1949-1953), supporting a series of repressive governments in Guatemala (1953-1990’s) and many other interventions for the sake of U.S. interest. (see A Brief History of U.S. Interventions; 1945 to Present by William Blum)

Jefferson’s trading house debt strategy has matured into the strongest weapon used by the Industrial West to subjugate the Third World. Capitalist institutions like the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank are backed by the military and economic might of the United States and are able to dictate their terms in any trade agreement. Agreements like NAFTA and FTAA have nothing to do with free trade but are codified treaties that continue to shift wealth and resources into the hands of the West’s financial elite.

To trap Third World countries within their system massive amounts of money and capital are funneled to dictators and repressive governments (none of which finds its way to the poor and needy of those countries). These regimes faithfully repress their populations in support of American policy, adhere to the anti-communist or anti-terrorist rhetoric and are hailed by the West as progressive. If their people happen to rise up in some sort of populist revolution the West still holds them liable for the debt accrued by the government who repressed them.

With the strangle hold of debt the Empire demands concessions from the new government, concessions that are euphemistically called liberalizing the economy by the American government. Among these concessions are opening up markets to foreign investors (in Haiti this meant reducing tariffs on U.S. grown rice, bankrupting thousands of Haitian farmers), privatizing state run resources (such as utilities and water, in some cases making these basic needs unavailable to the poor), and control of labor (suppression of union activity and maintenance of below subsistence minimum wage).

Thus when Jean Claude Duvalier fled Haiti in 1986 the forces of Empire used debt service and CIA-backed subversion to keep the Haitian people under the control of Western capitalist interest. Finally, in 1990, the unthinkable happened. A charismatic priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected to the Haitian Presidency by an overwhelming majority of the people. Preaching Liberation Theology he came to power with a commitment to the poor and downtrodden. For almost nine months he worked to re-channel the wealth and resources of the country to its poor majority. This of course made enemies for him among the rich minority (about 1%) of Haiti, as well as international capitalist entities and the government of the United States.

On September 29th, 1991 a military coup sent Aristide into exile and plunged Haiti back into chaos. When the U.S. government had decided that the suffering Haiti would now accept economic liberalization they brought Aristide back in 1994. Since his return Aristide has been prevented, by the dictates of the IMF and the United States, in implementing many of the reforms to uplift the poor that he had begun in 1991. Trying to work his way around these impediments and delay implementation of the worst of the liberalization programs Aristide again drew condemnation from the Empire.

In the 2000 elections Aristide was given the Presidency, again winning a huge majority of the popular vote. The people of Haiti looked to their brave priest who stood between them and the avarice of the corporate elite.

The American government called the election flawed despite the fact that several international observers called it a fair election. The issue was seized by the opposition party, who immediately began to call for Aristide’s resignation.

The United States has a massive amount of resources at its disposal to deal with Third World Nations so it does not have to rely on its Department of State. Using the International Republican Institute and funds channeled through the National Endowment for Democracy the U.S. established, funded and trained an opposition party to counter the popularity of Aristide. Ex-Duvalier era thugs and killers were recruited, armed and trained to become a rebel force.

An example is a rebel leader prominently featured in the national press, Louis Jodel Chamberlain. Shown amid victorious rebel forces after fall of Aristide’s government on February 29th, with a brand new M-16 in his hand (part of a large shipment of arms sent to the Dominican Republic prior to the uprising of anti-Aristide forces, who were also near the Dominican border). Chamberlain was convicted of murder in asthenia for killing an Aristide supporter. He was a leader of army death squads and after the 1991 coup was responsible for the deaths of thousands of his fellow Haitians. It would seem that those people who kill for causes contrary to American interest are terrorist while those who kill in line with American interest become freedom fighters.

I think back to the Creek War in the early eighteen hundreds when the Red Stick Creeks rose up against the continued encroachment on their territory by the United States. To fight against this force (Creek and other tribal warriors united against the Americans) Andrew Jackson recruited William McIntosh, a Creek Chief, and Pushmataha, Chief of the Choctaws as well as a band of loyal (loyal to the U.S. not their tribes) Creek, Choctaw and Cherokee warriors. The force of loyalist Indians had no reservations about killing their own in support of American policy. Divide and conquer was a strategy used to perfection against the Indigenous Nations of North America and it still works today, in Haiti.

With all these weapons at their disposal the Americans were able to produce a regime change in Haiti and come away, in the world press, with no blood on their hands. The democratically elected President of a sovereign nation has been deposed and a band of killers has been given a seat at the table of the new government. In the name of freedom and democracy another repressive U.S. client state arises. Unfortunately this is not a new or uncommon event, studies have shown a direct correlation between U.S. aide and human rights abuses. The most repressive regimes, as long as they go along with the Western capitalist agenda, can count of Favored Nation status.

So what does all this mean to the Indigenous Nation within the United States? What does the Haitian situation tell us about American plans and goals for this hemisphere?

The goal of U.S. foreign policy is a receptive, compliant government in Haiti that will not only bend to U.S. economic interest but who will also support a U.S. military and intelligence presence in their country. Situated between Cuba and Venezuela (two countries at the top of the regime change list) Haiti would be a vital base for the ongoing war against real sovereignty and democracy in Central and South America. With the rise of the Zapatistas in Mexico, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and leaders like Evo Morales in Bolivia the rights and aspirations of Indigenous People have been championed in new and progressive ways. The indigenous and poor populations have been given a renewed sense of hope. Land and resources have begun to return to the people of the land and away from the privileged elite. This, of course, is in direct opposition to the plans and schemes of the wealthy nations and their multi-national corporations who continue to bleed the Third World of its resources and capital.

The comparison between U.S. Indian policy in the days of Jefferson and the Foreign policy of today that it gave birth to is made here to show us that the Indian Wars never ended. Wounded Knee was not the last battle in the war against Indigenous America, it continues today.

Thousands of Mayan Indians have been killed in Guatemala by a succession of U.S.-backed governments, in the Amazon many tribes are pushed to the edge of extinction by the demands of foreign investors, in Canada the Lubricon Cree fight for their survival as a people against the petroleum and timber industries, while here in the United States the Shoshone people battle the Federal Government’s continued attempts to take Shoshone land.

Meanwhile we continue to hear about tribes who want to become politically active, by which they mean that they want to become involved with the Democrat or Republican political process. This last year several tribes spent millions of dollars on lobbyist, as they became major players of the American political game.

Is the future of tribes and tribal governments to be linked to political contributions? Must we become part and partial to the political system that has devastated Haiti and dozens of countries like it? Would this be the strategy of Tecumseh, Osceola or Dragging Canoe if they were alive today?

Before Tribal Government decides on Democrat or Republican they need to consider how many administrations, from both parties, have been in power since 1954. Then consider the death and destruction visited on the Mayan people of Guatemala by American interest during that time.

“…Let me tell you first our experience as indigenous people and peasants in Guatemala, and as Mayans. The people of Guatemala have been subjected to the cruelest trials in history….It was not until 1944 that a small democratic space opened for the first time in history, allowing the organization of different sectors of society. More importantly, for the first time the law recognized the right of indigenous people to be paid for their labor and to have access to social security. However, this did not last long because agrarian reform of 1952 to 1954 provoked acceleration of North American intervention, which, through the CIA, deposed the government of Jacobo Arbenz. We indigenous people benefited from land reform and from the provision of various social services, but that all ended in 1954 when counterinsurgency programs directed against indigenous peoples began…”

Juan Tiney, Mayan Indian
Latin American Coordinator of Peasant Organizations
(CLOC)

The civil conflict, that began after American intervention in the late fifties, has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans. Like the Haitian people, their lives are considered a small price to pay for corporate profits. In September of 2002, Indigenous leader Manuel Garcia de la Cruz was brutally tortured and murdered. Since February of 2003 Juan Tiney has received constant threats against his life. The war against the people of the land continues.

Are we, the Indigenous Peoples within the United States, going to become part of this American dream with our cultures and traditions burned away by the fires of the great melting pot? There has always been those among us who advocated this path, William McIntosh, Keokuk, Ross Swimmer and Dickie Wilson to name but a few. These and others like them are apples (red outside but white within), descendants of the hang-around-the forts of the colonial days. They arise at every conflict looking to the BIA or the Attorney General for a resolution instead of looking to their elders or their traditions. If we as Indigenous Nations look to the Federal Government to rescue us then how can we speak of sovereignty and self-determination with any sense of sincerity?

For the Indigenous world the geopolitics of the Haitian situation has again showed us the heart of the American Empire. It shows us that the tactics and inspirations that fueled the Indian Wars are still alive today in the heart of America. If we can rise above the mind-numbing effects of assimilation we can see that the freedom and democracy preached today in the pulpit of American politics are just hollow, empty words. Joining ourselves to the political machine is not the way to become politically active. The battle is against five hundred years of Euro centric domination that has killed our people, stolen our land and now clouds our judgment.

Our heritage is not written in the words of Thomas Jefferson, it is reflected in the lives of Pontiac, Black Hawk and Red Eagle. If we want to speak, write or act on issues then we need to look at the issues of the indigenous world and not those of American politics. Monies donated to Democrats, Republicans or lobbyist are better given to organizations like Friends of the Lubricon or the Western Shoshone Defense Project. If we are to speak of sovereignty, self-determination and Native American rights then we need to think as indigenous people. We must see the world through indigenous eyes, hear with indigenous ears and judge issues with an indigenous heart and an indigenous mind.

Haiti is a wake-up call; the geopolitics of imperialism that struck Iraq has now taken down a democratic government in the Americas. It has its sight set on Venezuela and any other nation that resist its will; the Empire is at war…where do we stand?

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Minority Status

T.Mayheart Dardar

“Why don’t you want to be Americans, like everybody else?”

It was a legitimate question in the mind of my friend as he tried to understand the Houma quest for Federal Recognition. Like so many others he equated “Recognition” with “minority status” and see it as just some attempt to gain a socio-economic advantage.

Indeed this is not a unique perception, as you step outside of Indian country into American society, these impressions and others like these are common. When we begin to demand our rights as a sovereign people we are constantly faced with accusations and innuendoes.
What gives us the right to demand things not allocated to every American? What is all this talk of sovereignty and self-determination, just who do you think you are?

To frame this argument in the context of the Houma I answer the accusations with and affirmation of the very notion in question, the question is not who I am but rather what I am. The basis for making the demands we make is the fact that we are Houma, members of a sovereign Houma Nation.

Being Houma, like being a member of any other Indigenous Nation, is an existence (in the context of this subject) based on a political relationship between the Houma Nation and the American settler state that annexed Houma territory in 1803. Understanding that principal is key to understanding the place of the Houma, both as individuals and as a tribe, in modern American society.

Many misinterpret the Houma petition for Federal Recognition as the tribe seeking the American government’s assistance in gaining legitimacy. They believe that a tribe cannot be a viable political entity without approval of the appropriate federal agency.
From a Houma perspective Federal Recognition is an attempt to motivate the government of the United States to live up to it’s obligations to the Houma people.

When the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory it obligated itself, under the terms of the purchase agreement, to “…execute such treaties and articles as may have been agreed between Spain and the tribes and Nations of Indians…” Of course after all was said and done the Americans did their best to suppress the Houma’s land rights, refusing them the ability to even claim land as a tribe.
From that point on the Houma have fought a continuous battle to this very day for their land and resources. Over the last century the land of the Houma has produced a tremendous amount of income that in one way are the other has strengthened and enriched the American settler state.

As the riches continued to flow from Houma land the Houma people were forced to contend with a smaller and smaller land base and continually diminishing resources. At the turn of the twentieth century the Houma were still a prosperous and independent people, in their secluded settlements, in the wilderness of LaFourche-Terrebonne. After a century of land thefts by politicians, land speculators, fur interest and oil companies the Houma find themselves in a precarious position atop a fast disappearing wetlands.

Federal Recognition is just an attempt to level, in a very small way, the playing field. In no way would it ever return what was stolen but it would give the tribe access to more resources than it currently has. Recognition is not a handout but rather it is a small deposit on a large debt.

With or without Federal Recognition we are still the Houma Nation. We have been oppressed but we are not “the oppressed”. It is not the forces that fight against us that give us our identity. Those things do not define us; our identity and our sovereignty are inherent. We are born Houma!

Though years of hardship, discrimination and attempted assimilation have suppressed expressions of Houma sovereignty the reality of it’s existence has not changed.

Like the sword of a warrior, sovereignty awaits the call to arms and like a sword it grows dull and rusty sitting in it’s scabbard. Only with use will it become brighter and sharper.

The call today is to push the envelope, to take the issue of sovereignty and self-determination and drive forward to a new dawn for the Houma people.

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The Voice of the Houma

T.Mayheart Dardar

Democracy; (Greek demos, the people + kratein, to rule) government by the people, directly or through representatives.

Though democracy is a well used description of American government it is, at best, a representative republic. On a Federal level Americans elect their politicians who then go to Washington to supposedly represent those voters. As we all know however, the voice of the common man is rarely heard in the corridors of power.

It should never be like that with Native government. The concept of democracy that is supposed to be America’s foundation was not birthed in the minds of those “founding fathers” rather it was inspired by the League of the Iroquois.

It was the indigenous man who first understood a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It was native Sachems and Chiefs who gave those early colonist examples of “public servants.”

So it is important that we hold on to those traditions of Native government. The new Tribal Constitution is an attempt to make Tribal government more accessible to the Houma people. For it to fulfill its purpose however, it has to be empowered by the voice of the Houma people. So we, the Tribal Council, encourage all Tribal Members to enjoy fully the benefits of their government.

Come to the Council meetings, register to vote, call your Tribal Councilperson and lets us hear your thoughts and opinions. This United Houma Nation is not about the Council or Principal-Chief it is about you, the Houma people.

It is your voice that we are waiting to hear, let the Houma be heard.

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Houma Politics

T.Mayheart Dardar

In 1921 Jean Charles Dion, a Houma community leader from lower Dulac, led a delegation of Houmas as they traveled by boat to Thibodaux. The purpose of the two-day trip was to meet with Congressman W. P. Martin and lobby for a school for the Indian children on Bayou Grand Calliou.

The effort brought no assistance to the Houma but the Congressman was good enough to forward the request to the Federal Office of Indian Affairs. It would seem that there was no interest among local politicians in aiding the tribe, if a school were to be built for the Indians it would have to be financed from Washington.

The meeting with Congressman Martin generated some official correspondence on the subject of the Houma people. Among these is an enlightening description of the tribe from this political perspective.

“They are poor it is true, but they are devout Christians, loyal citizens and staunch Republicans. At the last Presidential election their undivided votes aided in carrying the 3rd Congressional District solidly for President Harding and Congressman Martin”.

Coycault, 1921

As we can plainly see the value of the Houma, in the political realm, was in the power of their block vote. The reality was that during those years of loyalty to various politicians there were no solutions to the educational, economic are social problems of the tribe.

It has been two hundred years since the stars and stripes were raised over Louisiana and the Houma were engulfed within the American Empire. Through all these years the politics of imperialism have remained consistent and the Houma have remained “on the outside looking in.”

In the past few years the struggle for Federal Recognition has confirmed the reality of our political position. What Jean Charles Dion and the other tribal leaders learned in their day are the lessons we are forced to continue taking.

For the good of the people we fight these long, protracted battles to gain the “ear” of the elected officials. Eventually they meet with us, they appear to listen, they smile and tell us of their concern but as soon as we are out of sight they forget we were even there.

For the Houma, as with all Indigenous Nations, we have no direct representation in American government. We must appeal to politicians whose loyalties are with the municipalities, communities and corporations that surround us. Because the government has never defined the political status of tribes with any consistency we exist with a vaguely defined position that changes with every political wind. While our votes help build political careers and our tax dollars fund political machines we derive little or no representation in return.

The question would then be what will the Houma do? Do we continue on this path of political deceit and subterfuge or do we chart a new course?

The key to the survival of the tribe has always been the strength and tenacity of the Houma people, we had but a few loyal friends over the years and any aide that has come from the government, such as de-segregation, has been something forced upon it. There is no benevolent agency coming to our rescue, the future of the tribe is in the heart and mind of the Houma people. This is the realization we must all come to.

There are many who still believe that Federal Recognition will somehow set aright two centuries of American repression. Others still feel the need to be “validated” by the Bureau of Indian Affairs or who look around and see the limited success of Indian gaming and lay their hopes on some future casino royalty.

Is this the vision that drove Rosalie Couteau, Jean Baptiste Parfait or David Billiot? Is there no more to tribal existence than a government-approved council, a certificate of Indian blood and economic development that is dependent on the whims of an American Congress?

The answer is a resounding no! despite the lingering effects of centuries of colonization there is, within the heart of the Houma, an Indigenous Nation! The Houma Nation stood long before 1776 and it does not need “Federal Recognition” to validate that existence.
What is needed today is the vision of a Houma Nation that drove our leaders on during those dark years. When our priorities center on the perpetuation of our Nation then we will begin to see the future we desire for our children and grandchildren. We have to come to the realization that our fate is not part of George Bush’s crusade or Howard Dean’s vision. There is no place for us as a part of this American Empire, no matter who is in power. The well being of an Indian tribe in the bayous of south Louisiana will never be priority of the powers that be. Our loyalty, our strength, our lives are best dedicated first, to our Houma Nation. Only those efforts that arise from within ourselves will be dedicated to our own future.

Today we face critical issues as a tribe, economic development, land restoration, educational reform to name but a few. We have a core of leaders who have dedicated themselves to the welfare of the people and some progress has been made. We stand at the door to our future but to move through the doorway we need a wellspring of dedication and effort from all of us. When we see clearly that there is no salvation in the programs and politics of government, that the hope of the Houma rest in only one place…in the Houma.

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Istrouma; A Houma Manifesto

T.Mayheart Dardar

Introduction

“ A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talents, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.”

Malcolm X

The definition of a manifesto is.. “a public declaration of motives and intentions”. This work is that, in the sense that, it declares much of my personal motives and intentions as a tribal leader but it is my hope that it will go well beyond that. My hope is that these words will inspire a new dialog among us that will eventually produce a Houma Manifesto reflective of all of our voices. We, as a people, need to speak out fully on who we are and where we are going. The strength of the United Houma Nation is the Houma people. The future of the tribe lies in the hearts and minds of all of us.

It is said that “without a vision a people perish”. It is of the utmost importance that we all, individually, help develop our common vision for the future of our people. Like links in a chain there is no one of us more important than another. We are, collectively, the United Houma Nation. As we move into this new century we should have a renewed sense of confidence in the collective ability of the Houma people to face the challenges of our future. We have lived in the shadows as a hidden nation far too long, it is time we express ourselves to the extent of this collective ability. The message is to appreciate who we are, what we’ve been through as a people and to draw from that the strength and inspiration needed to push for the empowerment of the Houma people. The common goal is the perpetuation of the United Houma Nation.

Part One

Anumpa nan anoli Houma
(The Houma Story)

Most researchers universally accept the early history of the Houma (1682-circa 1765). The tribe enters the historical record in the journal of LaSalle in 1682 when the explorer notes that he passed their village but does not visit them. They were visited by Tonti in 1686 and D’Iberville in 1699 beginning a friendship with the French that continues to this day.

In 1706 the Houma left their village, located at the site of the modern-day Angola Penitentiary, and began a southward migration that brought them to the area of the LaFourche Post in the mid-1700’s.

Conflict arises when we attempt to connect these historic Houma with the United Houma Nation of today. Indeed the gist of the Bureau of Indian Affairs decision to not Federally Recognize the UHN is tied to this one point. In the opinion of this bureaucracy the tribe can not make this all-important historic tie-in.

Presented here in this chapter is a simple presentation of facts that I feel were overlooked. They show a clear link between the United Houma Nation and the historic Houma Tribe.

In 1793, Judice ( 3 June 1793 PPC ) reports a Houma population that remained relatively stable over the preceding ten years;

“ All the body of this ( Houma ) Nation forms no more than ninety persons.
15 in a village at Cantrelle’s
17 in a village at Verret’s
58 in a village at Judice’s
( 13 men, 22 women, 23 children )whose places were all located near the confluence of Bayou LaFourche an the Mississippi River at Donaldsonville.”

Just downriver from the LaFourche at Cabahanoce ( St. James ), situated side by side, were the resident plantations of Judice, Cantrelle and Verret. In the forested backlands of these landholdings were the three Houma villages listed by Judice. These settlements had existed at least since 1783, corresponding with the end of Galvez’s campaigns against the British.

These types of settlements and their relationship to the colonial plantation system are well documented.

“ By the nineteenth century….they moved to isolated areas-swamps and pinewoods-not in demand by the expanding plantation economy of the time. Planters used Indian hunters to augment their meat supplies, to track down runaway slaves and to provide entertainment. Stickball games and even traditional dances were held on the plantations to amuse the planter’s guest….The bands of Choctaw and other Indians were permitted to live in the back-swamps or in hill areas of plantations. Creole planters became patrons of these groups and frequently attempted to protect them from Anglo-American intruders.”

The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana
Kniffen, Gregory and Stokes 1987

By tracking the Houma references in the PPC and correlating the leaders most associated with the different planters ( Judice, Cantrelle and Verret ) I believe we get a clear picture of which tribal leader lead which band. The 15 at Cantrelle’s were lead by Mico-Houma or Chac-Chouma, at Judice’s was the remnant of Calabe’s band, numbering 58, now lead by Mingo Oujo, while at Verret’s was the band of 17 lead by Natiabe. It is this band at Verret’s that would become the ancestors of the UHN.

With Nicolas Verret and the PPC reference to a Houma village on his plantation comes a firm historic link. Nicolas Verret had a liaison with a woman named Marianne (parentage unknown), a free woman of color. From this union two sons are born, Zenon and Paulin Verret. These two eventually marry into the UHN ancestral community and have extensive documented relationships with known UHN ancestors.

It is not, therefore, unreasonable to assume that Marianne, her sons and the UHN ancestors were all part of the Houma settlement at Verret’s in 1793.

The Houma village on Bayou Cane, called Whiskey Point by the local settlers [ a corruption of Ouisky the Houma word for cane ] was initially established as a seasonal settlement, probably while they were still at Verrets.

“ From all indications, Indians moved freely from plantation to plantation to hunt and possibly raise crops for themselves and their patrons.”

Bill Starna 1996

It is important to note that Verret had a large land grant on Bayou Terrebonne that encompassed the Bayou Cane area. Bayou Terrebonne and the surrounding area at this time was a vast wilderness virtually uninhabited by any save the Indians.

“ ….Finally, few Acadians dared to explore, and only seven families actually occupied lands in the densely forested, natural levee along Bayou Terrebonne.”

The Founding of New Acadia
Carl Brassaux 1987

The early church records of the UHN ancestral community such as the 1808 marriage of Jacques Billiot and Rosalie Courteau and the 1809 marriage of Michel Dardar and Adelaide Billiot were witnessed by landowners from upper Bayou Terrebonne such as Thibodaux and Malbough.

It is the Bayou Cane village and the Indians that lived there that became the namesake of the town founded in 1834.

“ Court, in the early days of the Parish, was held in a little building on Bayou Cane. On May 10th, 1834, Richard H. Grange and Hubert M. Belanger donated to the Parish of Terrebonne the property on which the present Courthouse and other public buildings are situated. This land was valued at the time at $ 150. The land on each side of this was laid off into town lots and the town of Houma came into existence, bearing the name of the Indian tribe that lived and loved and worshipped among its groves, the ancient Houmas, which means the sun….”

Directory of the Parish of Terrebonne
E.C.Wurzlow 1897

Also of note are the oral histories of the tribe that tell of the Houma Courthouse being built on Rosalie Courteau’s land. The misunderstanding has been that it was not the modern courthouse but rather the original one on Bayou Cane.

Sometime after the American takeover in 1803 the Houma tribe filed a claim to twelve sections of land, 7680 acres, on Bayou Black/Boeuf.

“ The Houma tribe of Indians claims a tract of land lying on Bayou Boeuf or Bayou Black, containing twelve sections. We know of no law of the United States by which a tribe of Indians have a right to claim land as a donation.”

ASP 1834 3:265 ( 1817 )

This appears to be an attempt by the Houma to secure a land base in the face of a growing White population. Likely, they hoped the American Government would honor the Louisiana Purchase Agreement in which they promised to continue the Louisiana Colonial land policies that respected, for the most part, tribal landclaims. Unfortunately the claim was rejected but it stands as evidence of a Houma presence in the area during this period. At this time Bayou Black ( called Bayou Boeuf on its western end ) flowed from the swamplands northwest of the town of Houma. The bayou cut through the backlands of the tribes Bayou Cane settlement, hence it would be logical to assume that the tribe at Bayou Cane and the tribe that filed the landclaim where one in the same.

It is the contention of the BIA’s Branch of Acknowledgement and Research that the ancestors of the UHN were not a tribe at the beginning of the nineteenth century but rather a few Indian individuals who married into the surrounding population and eventually produced a separate community. This theory is clearly contradicted by the following chart (1) of baptisms. The initial perception has been that they took place within a white community but a closer examination of the dates ( Monday July 7th and Tuesday July 8th, 1817 and Wednesday Dec. 16th and Thursday Dec. 17th, 1818 ) revel these to be mid-week services taking place within the UHN community.
The White sponsors of the baptisms were, for the most part, a single extended family that lived near the Houma’s lower bayou settlement.It may have been in there house that the actual service was held, the nature of the service was describe a couple generations later.

“I went to visit all those families who cannot come to church. These visits took me two weeks…to see those who are in the islands neighboring Bayou Terrebonne. The people are not able to come to church. I go from time to time among them for baptisms and communions. These are practically all decent well-disposed Indians. I have already given communion to a good many of them. When I arrive among these people they gather ( from ) all the islands to attend Mass. I say in the house most suitable. One sees that the sight of a priest makes them happy and it is with sorrow that they see me leave them. The day of departure ( having ) come, they take great pleasure in taking me to the embarkation.”

Fr. Dene’ce to Monsignor
10 Dec. 1868

With these records we see a single Houma community in the early nineteenth century, with no distinction between Billiot, Courteau or Verdin. As the community continues we see it again in 1836 (chart 2) as the tribe attempts to secure another land base, this time in the wilderness west of Pointe Coupee near the town of Fordoce.

Perhaps it was the efforts of the American Government at the time to remove tribes to the Indian Territory that persuaded the Houma to abandon this area but it does serve to show the continuation of a Houma community.

Lastly, we consider the history of Abbe Rouquette and the St. Tammany Choctaw. Father Rouquette was a missionary to the Choctaw community centered around Bayou LaCombe in the mid to late 1800’s. Twice in the text is mention of the Indians of Barataria who are invited to the annual Feast of the Dead and are also invited to the funeral of Abbe Rouquette in 1887. At this time the ancestors of the UHN are known to inhabit the Barataria area.

By tying these scattered documents and references into a single narrative we see a single Houma community from 1783 on into the late nineteenth century. A community that links directly to the modern United Houma Nation. This clearly contradicts the Branch’s assertion that the Houma of Bayou Terrebonne between 1809 and 1820 “….did not live in a distinct, identifiable Indian community-geographically, socially or politically.” And it shows that their decision to not recognize the UHN was based on bias and ignorance.

Part Two

Atokowa
(Identity)

“Defining for itself the composition of its membership (citizenry), in accordance with whatever standards it freely chooses, is, of course, the very bedrock of self-determination by any nation or people.”

The Crucible of American Indian Identity
Ward Churchill

“Indigenous people have the collective and individual right to maintain and develop their distinct characteristics and identities, including the right to identify themselves as indigenous.”

Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Operative paragraph 3, United Nations,1993

The question at hand is how do we, the Houma, define ourselves as individuals and as a people at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
There continues to be individuals who press forward the idea of blood quantum, believing this method the only assurance of maintaining documented or real Indians. It is truly amazing to see how some Indians have internalized this racist concept and make it their own.
The idea of somehow measuring the degree of Indian blood has always been a popular concept with the American Government. In one form or another it has been around since the late eighteenth century. It has really taken on a life of its own since the 1887 General Allotment Act.

“The main ingredient of the Act ( 1887 General Allotment Act ) was that each Indian, recognized as such by the U.S., would be assigned an individually-deeded parcel of land within existing reservation areas….Once each Indian had received his/her personal allotment, becoming a U.S. citizen in the process, the law prescribed that the balance of each reservation be declared surplus and opened up to homesteading by non-Indians, corporate usage, or placed in some sort of perpetual Federal Trust status…..In this manner, some 100 million of the approximately 150 million acres of land still retained by Indigenous Nations for their own exclusive use and occupancy at the outset passed to whites by 1934”

The Crucible of American Indian Identity
Ward Churchill

To implement this Act the American Government compiled rolls of tribal members for each tribe or reservation affected by the Act. To qualify for these rolls a blood standard or quantum was set, usually one-half or more. The result of this blood quantum was fewer Indians qualified for land allotments and more land was then declared surplus. The long term goal of blood quantums was the eventual extinction of tribes and the relieving of the United States of it’s Indian problem. Over time tribes, themselves, adopted this method of identification and so fully participate in their own destruction.

Traditional Indian communities relied on genealogy and not genetics in determining their membership. The concept of mixed blood is foreign to traditional thinking; to those elders you either belonged to the people or you did not. Who you descended from and whom you identified with was more important than the unmeasured degree of descent. History provides us with heroic examples such as Red Eagle, John Ross and Quannah Parker who, though not technically full bloods, were patriots and icons to their people.

So how do we define ourselves as Houma and how does that definition align with our traditions?

“Any person who establishes direct lineal descendancy from the following persons ( Chart 3 ) and who has significant relationship with the United Houma Nation:”

Constitution of the United Houma Nation
Article 3, Section 1(c)

The concept of Houma identity and the refusal of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to recognize it was the catalyst that formed the splinter groups.

What actually took place in 1994 was a group of dissatisfied tribal leaders took the Proposed Findings at face value. They left behind their Houma identity and culture and began to remake themselves into the Indians that the BIA wanted them to be. It was not just a question of semantics but also rather a deeper, more disturbing question; what price will you pay for Federal Recognition?

The answer given by these splinter groups was the total rejection of their identity as Houma in hopes of being recognized. Over seven years later they are no closer to their goal and they pay a high price for following the U.S. Government’s lead. They have turned their backs on their people and have given up a most cherished thing, their identity.

Where we “missed the boat” is in framing the discussion of identity in terms of race. While the reality of our genetic makeup is always with us it does not, in itself, define who we are. Our identity is Houma, we are an individual expression of a tribal identity.

Our identity and our place in society is based on the relationship of our tribe to the government that occupies our land. Our identity as Houma is a reality based on the political relationship of the Houma tribe to the United States and the international community.

Our struggle is not for “civil rights” or “equal rights,” our struggle is about the protection of tribal existence, the repatriation of tribal lands, and the advancement of tribal sovereignty. The government would like to frame the argument around your identity as “Indian” when the reality of your identity is “Houma.”

Part Three

Yakni Houma
(Houma Land)

“We are engaged in a struggle for the liberation of ourselves as people. In this, there can be neither success nor even meaning unless the struggle is directed towards the liberation of our land, for a people without land cannot be liberated. We must reclaim the land, and our struggle is for the land-first, foremost and always. We are a people of the land.”

Kwame Toure ( Stokley Carmichael )
At Yellow Thunder demonstrations
Rapid City, SD 1 Oct. 1982

The issue of Yakni Houma or Houma Land goes back to the advent of American occupation of the Louisiana Territory. Under the colonial administration of the French and Spanish Governments the Houma’s right to land and self-determination were officially acknowledged. Though they had their own agenda the colonial governments were respectful of Houma sovereignty.

“ …claims of the Indians were always recognized by the Spanish Government and no act thereof was ever considered necessary to their validity.”

Louis C. DeBlanc
( DeBlanc 1777 21:285 PPC )

This policy was reiterated by the Spanish Governor Miro when he intervened on behalf of the Tunica tribe in a conflict with local settlers.

“ Tell Mr. Bordelon and Vitrine to look out for some other place themselves, as the lands they demand belong to the Indians and that they have rights which ought to be respected everywhere.”

Report on Terminated…Indians
Ernest C. Downs pg. 201

The oral history of the Houma people is full of references to a Spanish Grant to the LaFourche-Terrebonne valley. The validity of this claim is unquestioned by the Houma elders, and though no written record exist to substantiate it an examination of the above policy makes clear its truthfulness. The desire of the Spanish Government to settle the Houma at the LaFourche ( the Fork ) during the late 1700’s is documented in the following correspondence.

“…if Your excellency approves that these tribes ( the Houma ) retire to the LaFourche area, where they will do very well, out of harm’s way, and too distant to cause numerous disorders. Your Excellency, if you decide that my intentions regarding this tribe are just, I ask you, when they will be in the city, to order them to retire to the LaFourche, be it one league and a half or one-half league as Your Excellency will deem proper. The lands there are immense and it is one of the most beautiful regions of the colony.”

Judice to Gov. Unzaga
1 Oct. 1775 ( 189B; 284-5 PPC )

Since the intent of Judice was to move the Houma away from the growing population along the river it is obvious that his reverence to the LaFourche was not the fork at Donaldsonville. The LaFourche here refers to the fork of the bayou at what today is the town of Thibodaux. At that time this was where Bayou Terrebonne forked off of Bayou LaFourche. The relationship between the Houma and the Acadians had become very tense during the 1770’s so the Spanish sought to ease this problem by encouraging the tribe to resettle in the wilderness of LaFourche-Terrebonne.

The area was already well known to the Houma, having been inhabited by them seasonally for quite some time. The Houma Chief Natiabe was very knowledgeable of the entire region all the way to the Gulf.

When the Louisiana Purchase was arranged between France and the United States in 1803 the French Government attempted to assure the continuation of tribal sovereignty in Louisiana. Written into the purchase agreement was language that was meant to protect the Indian policies put in place by the Spanish and French Colonial Governments.

“The United States promise to execute such treaties and articles as may have been agreed between Spain and the tribes and nations of Indians, until, by mutual consent of the said tribes and nations, other suitable articles shall be agreed upon.”

Louisiana Purchase
Article 6 ( 1803 )

At this time the ancestors of today’s Houma were living between their village on Nicholas Verret’s plantation at Cabahanoce and their Bayou Cane village near Bayou Terrebonne.

As the American occupation began the white population began to grow, especially on the river near Cabahanoce ( St. James ). The Bayou Cane settlement soon became the tribe’s principal village with a lower Bayou Terrebonne location being a second, seasonal, settlement. Eventually immigrant settlers began to pour into the Bayou Cane area and the Houma would have to make an effort to secure their land rights.

In previous years the tribe appealed to the Colonial Governments to affirm their land rights so as their situation grew worse they made an appeal to the United States Territorial Government.

“The Houmas tribe of Indians claims a tract of land lying on Bayou Boeuf, or Black Bayou, containing twelve sections. We know of no law of the United States by which a tribe of Indians have the right to claim lands as a donation.”

American State Papers
( 1834, 3:265 [1817] )

The Houma were claiming a tract of land on Bayou Black that would have bordered their village on Bayou Cane. This would have given the tribe a secure land base and hunting ground in the face of a growing colonial population. The Houma were well experienced in international affairs, having dealt with Europeans at this point (1803) for over one hundred years. They knew their position in the colonial system and expected comparable treatment from the Americans. In refusing to recognize the tribes right to claim the land promised to them by the Spanish, the United States was reneging on the commitment it made in article six of the Louisiana Purchase Agreement.

Without Federal Recognition of their land rights the Houma would eventually have to abandon the principal village at Bayou Cane. With no protection from the United States Government the Houma were forced to rely on individual land grants on lower Bayou Terrebonne.

“…its trading center is a town called Houma, established a few generations ago by whites. Though the Indians say they once occupied its site, there is no proof of the fact nor of their statement that they once had a Spanish Grant of all the land in the parishes of LaFourche and Terrebonne. Individual Indians did, acquire land patents near the present Houma….These patents have, by now, thirty or forty descendants apiece, and the inheritance difficulties would be bad enough if there were accurate records. Since Indians did not marry and baptize, there are no records. This automatically disqualifies the heirs since, by Louisiana law, illegitimate children cannot inherit. Assurance is made doubly by the legal requirement known as opening of succession which demands that any new owner, on taking possession of land, must register the fact. The illiterate Indians did not do this, nor did they pay taxes. The Louisiana law has indeed a recent provision in the nature of squatter’s rights which guarantees possession to anyone residing on land unquestioned for thirty years. Indians who had been doing this did not register the fact while the whites moved in and by this law of prescription have clinched title to former Indian patents. Heirs of Indian land owners have thus been disposed by 'entirely legal means.'”

The Houma
Ruth Underhill 1938

What the phrase entirely legal means translates to is the fact that the people who were stealing the land were the ones who were making the laws that allowed them to. But, even today, the question of Indian land and its place in Spanish colonial law continue to be an issue.

“Additional problems arose in the Floridas over the legality of Indian titles to lands they inhabited. The question in American law was did the Indians ever posses title to the lands? Clearly they hunted, fished and used the lands, however, as they were nomadic by nature, no title was ever recognized by the United States. This argument was the basis for Richard K. Call’s opinion expressed in the United State’s position in the famous Mitchell v. U.S. regarding the Forbes Purchase. The counter argument was simple, Spain recognized the title in the land as being held by the Indians. Regulations regarding Indian titles were an integral part of Spain’s colonization of the Floridas and Louisiana.”

The Impact of Spanish Land Grants on the
Development of Florida and the Southeastern United States.
Dr. Joe Knetsch

Any records that would have supported a Houma claim have long since vanished, perhaps because of a correlation between the caretakers of the records and those who claim they own the land. For two hundred years the Houma have struggled in the land of the free for the very basis of tribal existence, land. With tenacity and the help of a few friends through the years the Houma are still present on those same bayous. But the battle is far from over, the commerce of American society has raped the land with pollution, logging, dredging and drilling. The resulting coastal erosion threatens what little land that remains in Houma hands. As always, the future of the Houma people is linked to the future of Yakni Houma.

We cannot deal with the issue of Houma land and land claims without dealing with the issue of Houma identity. This issue is key to the Federal Government’s refusal to formally recognize the Houma. It is also the issue that pushed the notion that the Indians of LaFourche-Terrebonne were not Houma but rather were a remnant of various other tribal and non-Indian groups.

The Houma lived here, it was a Houma village at Bayou Cane, it was the Houma who claimed those twelve sections of land on which they hunted, farmed and lived. It was these Houma who were the namesake of the town that bears their name. It was from these Houma that the land was stolen so that others could be enriched by the bounty that rightfully belongs to the tribe.

So what is the significance of the conflict over the tribe’s name and identity and how does that relate to the land? Simply put if the Government can get the tribe to deny it’s identity as Houma then they are not heirs to Houma land. They become a vagabond tribal group with little more rights than the colonial settlers.

A tribal existence is about belonging to a people and a place. The Houma and the land are one, they have a joint history. If they deny their identity as Houma then what do they have? Their connection is severed and they become caricatures parading about in beads and feathers with no real cultural roots because indigenous culture is rooted in the land.

When the British agent, Hutchins, was investigating the LaFourche delta it was described to him in detail by the Houma Chief Natiabe. His knowledge of the land came from an existence with the land; he was part of it. When the Federal Government refused to accept the Houma land claim in the early 1800’s they knew they were taking Houma land. When the land speculators began to seize, with government assistance, vast sections of swampland in the early 1900’s those who took the LaFourche-Terrebonne delta knew it was Houma land. When the oil companies began their land acquisitions in the 1930’s they were well aware that it was Houma land. The voices that were raised in opposition to all these crimes were Houma voices; reviewing the records of their struggle will not produce long-destroyed documentation but the passion of their fight lends to the validity of their battle.

So how does the government at present deal with the centuries of theft and abuse perpetuated on the Houma people? They continue to try and make the Houma disappear by denying their existence as a people. When the United Houma Nation filed for Federal Recognition the response of the United States was to attack the core of Houma identity. Their notion was that they, the Indians of LaFourche-Terrebonne were Indian but that they were not Houma. And if there are no Houma then there will be no need to redress the crimes committed against the Houma.

The Federal Governments refusal to recognize the Houma land claim two hundred years ago and their continued refusal to grant the tribe Recognition today has empowered the tribes enemies and prevented the Houma from achieving the level of sovereignty and self-determination they deserve. This is not an isolated case but rather a reflection of a Federal policy of repression.

“The result of nonrecognition upon Indian communities, and individuals has been devastating, and highly similar to the results of termination: the continued erosion of tribal lands, or the complete loss thereof; the deterioration of cohesive, effective tribal governments and social organizations; and the elimination of special federal services, through the continued denial of such services which the Indian communities in general appear to desperately need. Further, the Indians are uniformly perplexed by the current usage of Federal Recognition and cannot understand why the federal government has continually ignored their existence as Indians”.

Report on Terminated and Non-Federally recognized tribes
( Washington: GPO, 1976 ) pg.1695

A people and a place; separate the people from their place and their identity and they no longer have the moral authority to condemn the abuses of colonialism and imperialism. The question of Houma identity and the international characteristics of the Houma tribe are linked to the questions revolving around Houma land.

“For all beings on our planet there is no greater pull on the body and the soul than the attraction felt for the earth itself. It is in this place that each precious being develops its community, its way of consuming and producing, its spiritual life. This intimate relationship between being and place, the evolving oneness, that each community of beings has is what we all know as culture—the worship of land, of place.”

On Place
Rudolph C. Ryser 1994
Center for World Indigenous Studies

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 brought an end to European colonization of Louisiana and an end to the international relationship between the Houma and France and Spain. The freedom and self-determination the Houma had was replaced with the more repressive Indian policies of the United States. Though both French and Spanish Indian policy had the best interest of the colonial governments as a priority they still recognized the inherent sovereignty and identity of the tribal governments. The Houma continue to press for formal Federal Recognition, though informal acknowledgment by the Federal Government has been present through the years.

“Houma; A Choctaw tribe living on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, during the 17th century. Later they established themselves at the site of New Orleans. At present (1950), they live along Bayou LaFourche in the neighborhood of the present Houma, La.”

House subcommittee on Indian Affairs
Committee on Public Lands
House of Representatives
Resolution #66, serial no. 30 13 June 1950

In fact recognition by the U.S. government has been acknowledged since the beginnings of the territorial period. When the Houma land claim on Bayou Black was denied it was denied because the Federal government did not recognize the tribe’s right to claim the land. What was implied in the decision was the fact that the U.S. was dealing with “the Houma tribe of Indians”.

Recently the tribe has begun to renew its relationship with the Government of France, pressing forward the Houma claim to its international indigenous identity.

“Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that develop on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of societies now prevailing in these territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.”

Mr. J. Martinez Cobo
United Nations Special Rapporteur
Study of the Problems of Discrimination
Against Indigenous Populations
( E/CN.4/ Sub. 2 / 1986/ 7 and add. 1-4 )

So as the waters of Bayou LaFourche and Bayou Terrebonne continue to flow through the heart of Yakni Houma, the Houma people continue their stuggle for the security of their land and culture.

Part Four

LaNation Unie Houmas

The International Identity of the Houma

“Each Indigenous Nation has the inherent collective and individual right to maintain and develop its distinct characteristics and identities, including the right to identify or define itself;”

International Covenant on the Rights of Indigenous Nations
Part II; Paragraph 7, 28 July 94

In September of 1999 the Houma hosted a reception for the Group d’Amitie France-Amerigue (France-America friendship group). M. Paul Girod, a Vice-President of the French Senate, presented a medal commemorating their visit to Brenda Dardar Robichaux, Principal-Chief of the United Houma Nation.

What took place there, on the banks of Bayou LaFourche, was a formal renewal of the relationship between the government of France and that of the Houma. Three hundred years earlier the French soldier and explorer d’Iberville smoked the calumet with the Houma Chief at their village near present day Angola. What was being acknowledged by the French delegation in 1999 was the fact that they were renewing their ties to the same nation, these Houma of 1999 were the same Houma of 1699.

It has been many generations since a Houma Chief had been acknowledged as a “Medal Chief” by a European power. The Houma had, briefly, stepped out from under the shadow of American domination to reclaim the friendship of their ancient ally. Since that meeting several other events in Franco-Houma relations have come about, including meetings between Tribal leaders and the Duke d’Orleans, members of the French Navy and the Mayor of Nice France. All of these meetings have been positive expressions of the international identity of the United Houma Nation. For over one hundred years the tribe had figured prominently in the French and Spanish colonial administration of Louisiana. We were valued allies and, in some respects, strategic partners in the defense of the territory. After the American purchase of Louisiana that position declined rapidly.

In 1811 Houma Chiefs meet with the American colonial governor and in 1815 individual Houma warriors fought with General Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. By the 1820’s, however, the Americans had secured their position in Louisiana and no longer needed the “petit nations” that had been steadfast allies of the previous colonial governments. The United States Government then refused to honor the tribe’s land rights and began to list the Houma as extinct in all official documentation. Since that time the Federal strategy of “non-recognition” continues, giving the Houma nothing to rely on but our own strength and determination.

Hidden in their lower bayou settlements the Houma clung to their culture and identity. Away from the turmoil of mainstream society our community cohesiveness remained intact, we were a people apart, a Nation. In the late 1930’s, when oil industry workers began to encroach on Houma territory, the Houma referred to these “outsiders” as “Americans”. To the Houma, America was a world outside their own.

When Houma children were finally allowed in public schools in the 1960’s the tribe had achieved a victory in the long struggle for education. It also marked the beginning of a more active role in white society for the Houma. The Federal policy of non-recognition and the intense discrimination of local government had long denied the Houma their rights to education, land, resources, etc. What had remained during those days of discrimination and isolation was the culture and identity of our people, we are Houma.

So today the Houma seek a balance between the opportunities of the modern world and the values and traditions of the old ways. The renewal of Franco-Houma friendship is a reflection of that balance, bringing an Old World friendship into the present. We are not defined by another nation, we are not a “non-recognized” ethnic group, we are the United Houma Nation. We are heirs to a history and culture that we rightfully claim. We have seen many things since we first joined hands with our French brothers three hundred years ago. Through all the adversity we have survived and grown stronger, the tenacity and determination of the Houma people still insure our future we are and will continue to be …Houma.

Part Five

Himmak pilla
(The Future)

The individual Houma has an assortment of forces working against his/her economic success. Higher operating