Justice for Indigenous Peoples
Before the European settlers arrived, it was the Wampanoag who drank from the life-giving Pocahontas Spring in Lynnfield, Massachusetts.
They saw the spring as a sacred part of nature to be venerated for the gift it so freely provided.
The name of the spring still calls to mind the Native Americans who first drank its waters and stands as a positive example of reconciling with the past to create a future that honors indigenous rights
Pocahontas Spring, which was once the site of a massacre of indigenous people, provides a clear example out of thousands of what happened when the Europeans colonized the Americas. History is always personal, so focusing on this example helps to us to better envision and acknowledge the injustices that occured in our own backyard and how many similar instances occurred across the United States.
Boston Clear Water Company (BCW), which currently stewards the spring, has not forgotten these injustices, and has taken its water (now labeled vortex energy due to the energetic properties of its mineral content) to Native tribes like the Mohawk. BCW has also aided protestors at Standing Rock to fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline and most recently aided the efforts to stop the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota. Pocahontas Spring is so much more than just a place; it is a symbol of the water which flows and beats like a heart below the earth to sustain life. BCW’s mission is to support the well-being of all by protecting all the waters of the world.
Respecting indigenous peoples and their stewardship for mother nature is a deeply held value at Pocahontas Spring. Indigenous cultures around the world have lived sustainably for millennia. While no culture is without its conflicts, it can be said that the Native Americans lived in greater harmony with the land than their European counterparts. When the Europeans came to America, they claimed the lands of indigenous people through the doctrine of terra nullius. This Latin expression translates to "land belonging to nobody" and is used in international law to describe territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished. However, the Native Americans were sovereign over their lands and waters.
They saw it as their duty to be faithful stewards and respect the Earth. But by invoking terra nullius, the new European settlers were using a convenient legal fiction to seize indigenous lands. The racism inherent in terra nullius land claims goes back to Pope Urban II’s 1095 Papal Bull called Terra Nullius, which approved the seizure by European princes of land belonging to non-Christians. So since indigenous people were not Christian, they were seen as subhuman and any manner of harm could be done to them. Moreover, they spoke different languages and had browner so they were not afforded rights or any legal protection.
Even the positively named laws affecting natives were horribly devastating to them. For example, the California Legislature passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians in 1850 that enabled whites to legally enslave Native people including children.
At this time, Peter Hardeman Burnett, a former slaveholder and the first elected governor of California stated in a speech to the legislature “that a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected.
While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.” The roots of white supremacy are still firmly entrenched in our country. It is up to us to undo the damage done by virulent racism and create a more just world that provides restitution to indigenous people for the injustices perpetrated against them in the past.
The legal persecution of has a long, tragic history. From massacres, land seizures, and broken treaties to the Trail of Tears and Broken Treaties to Indian Boarding schools that assimilated native children into the dominant white culture. As Cherokee Elder Dhyani Ywahoo states, “In these times, Native American people are confronted daily with cultural and physical genocide. At this very moment, the Native People of this hemisphere are pawns in the multinational corporations’ concept of progress and profits. May you consider the mass relocations of Native Americans in North America and the frightening genocide of the Native people in Central America, and recognize this cruelty could also happen in your neighborhood if we as human beings allow our hearts to be hardened to the suffering of any of our relatives.” She described the Trail of Tears as “An indication of dark times for the mind of all human beings, the beginning of a final cycle of purification. In this era, illusions of domination over the natural world and materialism in place of ethics have choked the lifeline of all.” This is a sober reminder of what is happening now, and the need to protect the native way of life that preserves nature and life over profits and materialism.
While there is much more history to be discussed here, the most pressing consideration is where Native Americans are currently faring the worst and how we can support them. We need to stand with indigenous people to help them protect not only their language and culture, but also retain ownership of their own future.
We advocate working toward this goal in accordance with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ principle of free, prior, and informed consent and respect the right of Indigenous peoples to say no to development on their territory.
This Declaration serves as a legal basis for asserting indigenous rights. Amidst many other concerns, there are many battlegrounds where Native American and their allies are fighting to stop dangerous oil and gas pipelines that threaten their water supply such as Line 3 in Minnesota and the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline in Michigan.
Save A Spring is committed to ensuring clean fresh water for indigenous people and all people for generations to come.
