500 Years of Indigenous resistanceThe PeOP le a Im F Or FreeDO m
Along with an explosion of international struggles in the 1960s, including na-
tional liberation movements in Afrika, Asia, and in the Americas, there was
an upsurge in Native people’s resistance. This upsurge found its background
in the continued struggles of Native peoples and the development of the
struggle against continued resource extraction throughout the Americas.
In South and Central America Native resistance grew alongside the
student, worker, women’s and guerrilla movements, which were com-
prised largely of Mestizos in the urban centres.
In Ecuador, the Shuar nation had formed a federation based on re-
gional associations of Shuar communities in 1964, and was influential in
the development of other Indigenous organizations; it would also be the
focus of government repression as in 1969 when its main offices were
burnt down and its leaders attacked and imprisoned. In 1971, the Indig-
enous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC) was formed in Colombia by
2,000 Indians from 10 communities. CRIC quickly initiated a campaign
for recuperating stolen reserve lands. In Bolivia, two Aymaran organiza-
tions were formed: the Mink’a and the Movimiento Tupac Katari. Na-
tional and international conferences were held in various countries, and
by 1974 a conference in Paraguay drew delegates from every country in
South and Central America from a large number of Indian nations.
A primary focus of these Indigenous movements was recuperating sto-
len lands, and widespread occupations, protests, and road blockades were or-
ganized. In Chile, Mapuches began “fence-running”—moving fences which
separated reserve lands from farm lands and extending the reserve territory.
In Mexico, Indigenous peasants carried out large-scale occupations: by 1975
there were 76 occupations in Sinaloa alone, and some 25,000 acres of land oc-
cupied in Sinaloa and Sonora. By December of 1976, tens of thousands occu-
pied land in Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, and Coahuila.^55 Of course, these and
many other occupations and protests did not occur without severe repres-
sion. Assassinations, massacres, destruction of communities, and scorched
earth policies were directed against the Indigenous movements.
- Jane Adams, “Mexico—The Struggle for the Land”, Indigena Vol. 3 No. 1, Sum-
mer 1977, pg. 28, 30.