Shoshone Human Rights

“Accountability for the United States’ ongoing violations against Indigenous Peoples is an issue of concern that has plagued Indigenous Nations and communities like the Western Shoshone for many years.” – Julie Ann Fishel, United States Called to Task on Indigenous Rights: The Western Shoshone Struggle and Success at the International Level, 619 Fishel’s statement illustrates the ongoing attempt of the United States to encroach on Indian lands, especially the Shoshones in order to take advantage of the bountiful land that these Natives own. This proves as an example of the ongoing settler colonialism of the United States despite of its stated adherence to human rights and equality among its citizens. Its actions toward the Shoshone demonstrates
The concepts of settler colonialism, landownership, and survivance were prominent throughout the reading. The reading states that the United States government were using legal means to remove the Shoshones from their lands so the United States can sell the lands to non-indigenous individuals and foreign mining companies as well as for their own goal of extraction and exploitation of natural resources. In 1934, the United States established “indirect” colonial rule through the system enforced by the Indian Reorganization Act. With this, the United States government can interfere or influence the actions of the Shoshones and other Indigenous tribes, limiting their sovereignty and power to resist the gradual encroachment of the
The difference of the definitions of landownership between the United States and the Shoshone greatly shines in the reading as it portrays that for the Shoshones, “people do not have a dominating relationship with the land, but rather have responsibilities to protect the land areas from which they originate” (Fishel 622) while the government believes that the land is “a resource for human consumption and dominion” (Fishel 622). The difference in perspective about the land is one of the underlying factor regarding the dispute between the groups not only about the rights on whom the land belongs to, but also the way the land is being