Radical Friendship and the Transatlantic Alliance for Native American Sovereignty

Citation

Toth G (2020) Radical Friendship and the Transatlantic Alliance for Native American Sovereignty. History Workshop Online [Website/online magazine/blog] 20.08.2020. https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/radical-friendship-and-the-transatlantic-alliance-for-native-american-sovereignty/

Abstract
This piece is part of History Workshop Online’s feature on Radical Friendship. The feature is an exploration of different configurations of friendship, both intimate and symbolic, and the radical potential of these relationships. After several dramatic protest confrontations with the U.S. government, by the mid-1970s radical Native American sovereignty activists like those in the AIM had begun to regularly travel to Europe to build alliances in order to pressure the United States government from the outside to adopt a policy of Indian sovereignty. American Indians and Central Europeans on both sides of the iron curtain were at once enabled and constrained in their alliance by their personal motivations, attitudes, and emotions. Older cultural fantasies about “Indians” both spurred and interfered with Europeans’ building of relationships with Native Americans for an alliance for social justice. Ultimately, the transatlantic coalition for Native American sovereignty relied on personal trust and radical friendships that endured in providing the nodes for a network of activism across continents.

Keywords
Radical friendships; transatlantic; Native American; sovereignty; coalition building; ally

People

Dr Gyorgy Toth

Lecturer, History