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Local Indigenous History: United Houma Nation


By Isabella Moraga-Ghazi

Strength and resilience is exhibited throughout Houma history.

The Houma people were first “discovered” by white settlers living in the area we now call Baton Rouge. Thanks to the Indian Removal Act, signed into law by Andrew Jackson in 1830, Houma people were forced out of their homelands and into diaspora. Many were pushed to the west on the Trail of Tears. Houma people who were caught escaping the removal were sent as slaves to Cuba. The remaining Houma people settled on the Louisiana Gulf Coast and began to build their communities back up. Some Africans who escaped their slaveholders found refuge with Houma people.

Houma children did not have access to education until the late 1940’s because under Jim Crowe law, they could not go to school with either Black or white children. Schools only went to 7th grade, and there were no certified instructors. Subsequently, native children had to let go of any cultural identity they had. Having long hair, wearing anything related to one’s tribe, and practicing tribal spirituality were all prohibited. “Kill the Indian, save the man” was the government’s genocidal mentality.

Louisiana’s booming oil industry hit Houma people hard. Rich settlers profited off of the resources that this land offers. However, Houma people couldn’t get any of those jobs because most of them didn’t speak English. Houma people mostly spoke French with small bits of their native language.

Right now, Houma people still face a plethora of issues. The effects of Katrina can still be seen in many native communities. Environmental racism penetrates the lives of Houma people. The erosion of wetlands caused by climate change threatens their communities, and clean drinking water is scarce for many native households. The proposed Bayou Bridge Pipeline will further coastal and wetlands erosion and directly affect native people along the coast.

The federal government refuses to recognize United Houma Nation as a sovereign people. This allows the oil companies to extract oil from Houma land without compensation further impoverishing the Nation.

This is only a summary of Houma history. There is hope for the future because we, as Houma people, will continue to protect and defend our homelands. If we don’t, then who will?

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“La Vida es Lucha Toda”: Revolutionaries in the fight for Puerto Rican Independence

by A.M.P.

Pedro Albizu Campos, Oscar López Rivera, Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Miranda, and Andrés Cordero: these are a few names of Puerto Ricans who have taken up the struggle for Puerto Rican Independence. Many discount their valiant efforts because of their use of violence; however, we must evaluate the violence that the U.S. has committed against the Puerto Rican people for over a century.

When your country has been deemed “Rich Port” by colonial conquest, when your native people were murdered, raped and enslaved, when your country experienced independence for only 8 days before the U.S. invaded and seized control, deeming your currency worth only 60% of the U.S. dollar and sending your population into poverty: you and your ancestors have been victims of continuous violence.

In 1937, policemen with tommy guns massacred 19 people while hundreds more were shot in the back while attending a peaceful march in Ponce. The U.S. conducted sterilization surgeries on over 33% of Puerto Rican women between 1936 and the 1970s as an attempt to control population growth. For over 60 years, the U.S. Navy used the eastern half of Vieques, an island off the coast of P.R., to test billions of tons of bombs and chemical weapons. This resulted in alarmingly high rates of cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and infant mortality among Vieques. In addition to these atrocities, the U.S. holds P.R. under its thumb as a de-facto colony. They are not allowed to have representation in the U.S. government, therefore having no control over their own destiny. When the U.S. executes these actions, your people are the victims of incessant violence.

This is the most malicious type of violence; an abusive relationship in which your people are helpless against the deviant acts of an imperialist state that feeds you propaganda to make you believe they are helping you. Unless your people recognize their power. Unless your people accept a call to action and unite in the struggle for independence by any means necessary. The only relief from egregious violence is self-determination.

¡Que viva Puerto Rico libre!

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“¡Viva Puerto Rico!” Part 1 of 2

by A.M.P.

With a debt of over $74 billion dollars, Puerto Rico has been in financial trouble for decades. Over half of Puerto Rico’s children live in poverty, and the unemployment rate is over 12%. Since 2010, the island has experienced the greatest migration since WWII, with a 10% population decrease. Thousands have fled the debt-ridden country in hopes of a better life on the US mainland.

The origins of this crisis can be attributed to the abuse that the U.S. has inflicted upon the island over the past century. Currently, the island’s commonwealth status stymies any hopes of recovery. The only answer is liberation for Puerto Rico.

The beautiful island has only known 8 days of independence since the Spanish invaded the Caribbean. Although Spain granted the island a Charter of Autonomy in 1897, 16,000 U.S. soldiers invaded the southwestern portion of Puerto Rico in 1898 as part of the Spanish-American War. This was only a little over a week after PR had begun its first autonomous government. The U.S. annexed P.R. after the signing of the Treaty of Paris without any elections, even though it was no longer a Spanish Territory. As a result, the people of Puerto Rico have been subjected to over 100 years of suffering under the weight of U.S. imperialist violence. Since the very beginning, US-Puerto Rico relations have been drenched in oppression and violations of civil rights. This comes as no surprise as the U.S. has a colorful history of committing atrocities against nations to satisfy imperialist interests.

Following WWII, the US developed several economic programs that would boost the financial gain of corporations and the rich ruling class. Among these initiatives were federal tax breaks given to US companies, such as Section 936, which was implemented in 1976. This brought in a wave of companies (largely pharmaceutical companies) seeking immense profits, turning what was once a majority rural society into a manufacturing powerhouse. Fast forward 20 years and the greedy U.S. realizes that the tax break incentives were costing them money, Congress repeals Section 936, companies no longer have interest in profiting off the backs of Puerto Ricans, and the result was the plummeting of Puerto Rico’s economy. Left in the dust, the bourgeois government began to borrow large sums of money to sustain life for its citizens.

Currently, the major issue lies within the search for a solution. Puerto Rico is de facto an American colony and in effect has no input in U.S. Congress. The island is not protected by U.S. bankruptcy codes and is therefore unable to declare bankruptcy in order to restructure its crippling debt. The only hope for Puerto Rico is independence.

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The Brotherhood of Timber Workers (BTW)

By Malcolm Suber

Many of our readers will be surprised to learn the history of a militant, multi-national, anti-capitalist, industrial union active in Louisiana over 100 years ago. At its high point the BTW had 30,000 members who openly challenged the capitalist class and fought to achieve working class unity. The BTW was a union of sawmill workers from east Texas and southwest Louisiana that was organized by Arthur Lee Emerson and Jay Smith in 1910. The BTW was best remembered for the Grabow uprising when the workers went on strike against the Galloway Lumber Company in Grabow, Louisiana. The BTW was also notable for the fact that they were an anti-racist union in the deep South, where segregation and Jim Crow were the order of the day.

The BTW was created because of the terrible working conditions at the sawmills in the southern piney woods region. The sawmill work was dangerous and depended on the ability of the worker to keep up with the machinery. In 1909, there were a reported 125 deaths and 16,000 accidents in the southern lumber industry.

In 1910, Emerson and Smith began to recruit members for the BTW. They moved from camp to camp to recruit hundreds of black and white sawmill workers. Interest grew rapidly and workers flocked to the BTW. The BTW held its first convention in Alexandria, La. At the conference they adopted their constitution that extended membership to all races and sexes.

The creation of the BTW immediately drew the attention of the capitalist owners of the Southern Lumber Operators Association. They vowed to kill the BTW in its infancy. In 1911, the SLOA shut down 11 mills in De Ridder, LA. Members of the BTW were blacklisted. In order to work again, they would have to sign an anti-union card. Most workers refused and the BTW became stronger.

In 1912, the BTW held its second annual convention in Alexandria, LA. “Big Bill” Haywood of the International Workers of the World (IWW) was the main speaker. Haywood noticed that the black and white workers were meeting separately in accord with Jim Crow law. He called for breaking the segregation law and having one joint meeting. It was here that the BTW voted to affiliate with the IWW.

The SLOA criticized the BTW as an anarchistic, race-mixing organization in an attempt to weaken support among white workers. After affiliation with the IWW, the BTW presented the lumber operators with a list of demands concerning higher wages and improved safety that led to more lockouts and the importation of scab labor. The SLOA brought armed guard along with the local sheri s to protect the scabs. This set the stage for the Grabow uprising.

On July 7, 1912 A.L. Emerson led a group of strikers toward the King-Ryder Mill. Upon hearing about an assassination attempt on H.G. Creel, a socialist organizer, they changed course toward the Galloway Mill in Grabow , LA. On arriving, Emerson began to speak to the strikers when shots were red from the company office. This sparked a gun fight between the company gunmen and the armed union members. It was reported that 4 workers were killed and 37 others wounded as a result of the battle.

Following the incident, 49 union men and their officers were arrested and faced charges of rioting. After a vigorous campaign to declare their innocence, all 49, including Emerson, were acquitted. This victory was the high point in the history of the BTW. However, the trial depleted their finances and drained their membership.

The BTW was a step forward for the working class struggle against the capitalist class. It was a fundamental challenge to the rule of capital as it championed working class unity, racial and sexual equality in a time when racism and sexism were widely accepted by the US working class.

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Notes on Louisiana: The Colfax Massacre

By Malcolm Suber

One of the bloodiest incidents in the struggle of the newly freed African people in Louisiana occurred in Colfax, LA (Grant Parish) on Easter Sunday, 1873. This assault is one of the largest racist massacres in US history. The Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists organized by the Democratic Party as the White League sought to destroy the political rule of the Black majority Republican Party that controlled Grant Parish. More than 150 Black men were murdered by the white supremacists, 37 of whom were executed after surrendering.

In the wake of the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and for local offices, a group of white Democrats armed with rifles and small cannons outgunned Black Republican freedmen and the Black militia of Grant Parish who were trying to defend Black office holders in the Courthouse. The white supremacists had sworn they would execute any Black elected official they apprehended.

Historian Eric Foner described the masscre as the worst instance of racial violence during Reconstruction. According to Foner, “every election [in Louisiana] between 1868 and 1876 was marked by rampant violence and pervasive fraud.”

Under the 1870 Enforcement Act, federal prosecution and conviction of a few Colfax perpetrators was appealed to the Supreme Court. In a key case that led to the abandonment of the freedmen by the federal government, the court ruled in United States v. Cruikshank (1876) that protections of the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to actions of individuals, but only to actions of state governments. After this ruling, the federal government could no longer use the Enforcement Act to prosecute paramilitary groups such as the White League, which had begun forming chapters across Louisiana in 1874. Intimidation and Black voter suppression by white supremacist organizations were instrumental to the Democratic Party regaining political control of the Legislature in the elections of 1876.