In her book Recovering The Sacred: The Power Of Naming And Claiming LaDuke gives a damning account of current and past injustices committed against the indigenous tribes of North America. She uses a combination of personal testimony and interviews mixed with historical research and government records to make the case that racism and stealing is still occurring, but in new forms such as biopiracy and historical revisionism. She writes with a lot of passion – at times her anger is clearly evident, but in other sections she uses humor and reveals a hope for the future and in reconciliation.
This is an important book for anyone to read – many contemporary issues are highlighted that should be receiving more notice. Too often people think of Native people in the past tense, and think that government injustices carried out against them are a troubling but long gone aspect of our history.
An example of this is the chapter “Wild Rice, maps, genes, and patents”. LaDuke describes how the Anishinaabeg of Minnesota harvest rice as a way of life, as a food source, and as a source of income. Even when they ceded land, they retained the legal right to harvest on it. An 1837 treaty specified that they woud keep “the privilege of hunting, fishing, and gathering the wild rice upon the lands, the rivers and the lakes included in the territory ceded.”
Beginning in the 1950s, researchers at the University of Minnesota have slowly cut into the ability of the Anishinaabeg to make a living off wild rice harvesting. First through hybridizing rice and selling strains that could be farmed on California rice paddys. Even though this rice only partially resembled true wild rice, it was marketed as such and became a source of profit for both the University and large corporations like Uncle Ben’s. Even worse, the University in 2000 took out a patent on wild rice, and developed a sterile version of it. There is now evidence that the sterile variety has contaminated wild rice stands and threatens the future of the wild rice crop in Minnesota.
Who has a right to claim ownership of a plant? Can a scientist claim that they have no ethical obligations because what they are doing is “only science”? As LaDuke illustrates in this and many of the chapters of this book, when it comes to issues of Native rights, it can be a matter of profit vs. people.
Race and Place 