RIGHTS AIPP
AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP
145 EXAMPLE:
THE CHOCTAW TRAIL OF TEARS
The first removal of Native Amer- icans was the relocation of the Choc-
taw Nation from their territory in the deep South of the present United
States Alabama, Arkansas, Missis- sippi, and Louisiana to lands west of
the Mississippi River now the state of Oklahoma. A Choctaw chief was
quoted in a newspaper saying that the removal was a “trail of tears and
death.”
The Choctaws were very much against removal, but their fifty del-
egates were bribed with money and land to sign the Treaty of Dancing Rab-
bit Creek, which ceded the remaining 45,000 sq km of their formerly much
larger territory to the United States. The Choctaw emigrated in three
stages in 1831, 1832 and 1833. Near- ly 15,000 Choctaws were forced to
leave. About 4,000 died along the trail of tears from exposure, disease, and
starvation. Approximately 5,000 to 6,000 Choctaws remained in Missis-
sippi in 1831 after the initial removal effort, and became objects of increas-
ing legal conflict, harassment and in- timidation. The removals continued
well into the early 20th century. In 1903, 300 Mississippi Choctaws were
persuaded to move to Oklahoma.
EXAMPLE THE RESETTLEMENT PROGRAM IN LAOS
A modern example of forced migration is the resettlement program of indigenous communities in Laos.
In Laos, the Lao people make up about half of the population and are both cultur- ally and politically dominant. The other half of the population are usually called “ethnic
minorities” and are considered Laos’s indigenous peoples. Most of them live in small, of- ten remote villages in the mountains. The Lao state has a policy to integrate indigenous
peoples into the mainstream society. One strategy is resettlement, which in most cases happens against the will of the people.
Choctaw Village Near the Chefuncte by Francois Bernard, 1869, Peabody Museum, Harvard
University The women are preparing dye to color cane strips for
making baskets.
Choctaw Sharecroppers photo taken near Philadelphia, Mississippi, USA in the
early 1900s Smithsonian Insituion
Module-7
RIGHTS AIPP
AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP
146
At the beginning of the 1990s, the Lao government planned to resettle 180,000 households totalling 1.5 million people, of which 60 should be resettled before the
year 2000. The target has not been achieved, but two new resettlement plans have been made. Approximately 211,125 people were included in the first resettlement plan
for 2001 to 2005. As of 2005, 59,947 people had already been resettled, and another 151,178 people still had to be resettled during the implementation of the second plan
for 2006 to 2010.
Forced resettlement is not an official policy but part of the overall “development” program of the government. The government is supposed to provide access to services
and the market, and to improve the standard of living, health, food productivity and food security of the resettled people.
However, studies have shown that in most cases the contrary happens. Resettle- ment programs have led to increased poverty, malnutrition, a higher mortality rate and
a general deterioration in the health of affected villagers. Furthermore, they often have a negative impact on the environment, running counter to another stated objective: the
conservation of forests.
2. Voluntary migration
Different patterns of voluntary migration have been identified:
a. Temporary migration
This is a pattern of people moving to a place and staying there for only a limited period of time, like for the duration of their work contract or until the end of their studies abroad;
b. Seasonal migration
This is a special form of temporary migration. It is common among indigenous peoples who live on hunting and gathering, pastoral activities, and swidden cultivation. Communities shift
their settlements in accordance with the availability of resources game, wild plants, grazing for livestock, cultivable land that has been sufficiently fallowed, etc.. In some regions of the
world, indigenous pastoralists cross national borders during their annual migration cycle, and this brings them in conflict with the states that wish to exercise control over those borders.
Seasonal migration is also common in areas where modern agriculture has remained dependent on manual labor, such as in plantations where fruits need to be harvested by hand. In the US, for
example, migrant workers provide much of the manual labor required in picking apples, oranges, grapes etc. Many of the fruit pickers come from abroad and are hired through labor contractors.
c. Permanent migration
This involves people moving to another place to stay there permanently. Permanent migration can happen within a country, such as in the examples provided be-
low.
Module-7
RIGHTS AIPP
AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP
147 • Rural to urban migration: people moving from the countryside to the cities. It is
more common in developing countries where urban construction and industrialization cre- ate jobs, thus attracting people.
• Urban to rural migration: people moving from the cities to the countryside. It is more
common in developed countries where the higher cost of urban living forces poor people to move to the fringes of the city, to suburban areas.
• Rural to rural migration: This takes place when people seek a better life in another
part of the country. Often, this “other part of the country” are indigenous peoples’ territories, to which settlers are attracted. Many settlers migrating to indigenous peoples’ territories do
it on their own. They are called spontaneous settlers. In other cases, it is indigenous people who move spontaneously into frontier areas, where they live with other settlers from other
areas, to form mixed-ethnic communities.
Often, however, it is the state which promotes migration to indigenous peoples’ territories. In such cases, the migrants can be called state-sponsored settlers. Large-scale state-sponsored
migration often happens within the framework of explicit programs, which can be called trans- migration programs.
Examples for transmigration programs involving indigenous peoples’ territories are those that have been implemented in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh; the Central Highlands of
Vietnam; various parts of the Philippines, but especially on the islands of Mindoro, Palawan and Mindanao; and West Papua in Indonesia.
Even where no explicit state program for settler colonization of indigenous peoples’ ter- ritories exists, government at least tolerates it. Settler colonization of indigenous peoples’ ter-
ritories within the borders of a particular country is an aspect of internal colonialism. Other as- pects of internal colonialism are the massive exploitation of natural resources by logging, mining
and power corporations, and large-scale land conversion for plantations, again either under the sponsorship or with the toleration of the state.
EXAMPLE THE TRANSMIGRATION PROGRAM IN THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS
Mainly as part of its anti-insurgency strategy, the government of Bangladesh launched a large-scale transmigration program in 1979. Over the ensuing years, between
200,000 and 450,000 Bengali-speaking migrants from various parts of Bangladesh were resettled in all the three districts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts CHT. The majority of the
migrants were Muslims.
One of the key objectives was to increase the proportion of Muslim Bengalis living in the CHT. The presence of Bengali settlers loyal to the state would allow the state security
forces to exert more effective control over the CHT. Naturally, turning the indigenous people into a minority in their own land would weaken them and their support to the
armed resistance movement. Thus, while in 1951 the indigenous peoples accounted for 90.01 of the population of 287,688, by 1991 they made up only 51.43 of a popula-
tion of 974,445.
Module-7
