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Saturday, July 5, 2025

AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES: “First Voices Radio’s” Final Broadcast will be Sunday...

AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES: “First Voices Radio’s” Final Broadcast will be Sun...:   “

(Stone Ridge, N.Y, July 3, 2025) — “First Voices Radio” will have its final broadcast on Sunday, July 6, 2025.  The program, which was founded in 1992 by Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Cheyenne River Lakota) has explored global topics and issues of critical importance to the preservation and protection of Mother Earth presented in the voices and from the perspective of the original peoples of the world. 

 

“First Voices Radio” has been airing weekly for the past 33 years and has most recently been heard on Sundays from 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Radio Kingston WKNY 1490 AM and 107.9 FM in Kingston, New York. The final episode will air on Radio Kingston and will stream live at https://radiokingston.org/.

 


 

The Sioux Chef by Sean Sherman ::: This Land Was Never F*cking Yours

 HIS-STORY has changed since Natives started writing  like Sean:


July 4th, 2025, here we go again…

Today, America celebrates Independence Day, another 4th of July.

Images of kid rock and ted nuggets offspring drunkenly filling backyards BBQ parties with American flag themed swag, beer guts, store bought buckets of processed mayonnaise salads, cheap American beer and ending with a display fireworks made in China exploding over stolen land.

The Sioux Chef by Sean Sherman is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Cue the collective amnesia wrapped in red, white, and blue with matching Target apparel.

fuck this guy...

But let’s call out the hypocritical bullshit. This holiday was never about freedom or to celebrate a country where “All Men Are Created Equal”.

On this day in 1776, a bunch of privileged, land and money hungry white dudes, most of them slaveowners, declared independence from a king who was, frankly, getting in the way of their expansionist wet dreams. They wanted free land, labor, and power and King George was keeping from that vision by policing their illegal land surveying and their penchant for inciting violence with the Indigenous communities which the king was tired of funding.

So they wrote a breakup letter to the Mr George, aka the Declaration of Independence. And in it, they conveniently left out a key few things, like slavery, genocide, and the fact that most of what they were pissed about was not being able to steal more land fast enough.

The Real Grievance was that Land Theft Was on Pause

Here’s the part they won’t teach you in school and distract with well funded fireworks shows. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, passed by King George III, recognized that Indigenous nations were sovereign and owned the land west of the Appalachian Mountains. This wasn’t generosity, it was damage control after the Seven Years’ War. But it really meant colonists couldn’t just run around with rifles and manifest destiny their way across Turtle Island.

That document super pissed off the Founding Fathers. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and such weren’t revolutionaries, they were actually just real estate investors with violent tendencies that leaned towards scorched earth tactics to get their way. The Proclamation was like zoning laws for thieves. So they got mad enough to write 1,458 words of dramatic colonial fan fiction about freedom and being equal while holding human beings in chain, forcing labor, and planning how to divvy up the West after they un-alived all the “savages”.

When they wrote the line in the Declaration of Independence that says “merciless Indian savages,” they meant people like my ancestors, Lakota, Cherokee, Shawnee, Muscogee, and countless more, who dared to defend their homes and cultures from violent settler immigrants and their relentless encroachments.

Canada recognized Royal Proclamation as part of it’s constitution in 1982 and the land rights of Indigenous citizens (to an extent), but the U.S. has always ignored this proclamation and has instead based all of it’s land ownership laws instead on the Doctrine of Discovery, which is the 1493 papal decree that gave Christian Europeans the divine right to claim any land not ruled by other Christians. This colonial doctrine was codified in Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823), where the Supreme Court declared that “discovery” by Europeans gave them ultimate title to Indigenous lands, reducing Native nations to mere occupants without ownership. This notion just solidifies our perspective that sovereignty has never mattered in the eyes of U.S. law, and settler colonialism remains the foundation.

(I've wrote about this before in my previous Substacks, but it’s important.)

Slavery: The Economic Engine of the Founding Fathers

The other thing missing from the Declaration? Any mention of the enslaved Africans who were literally building this country while being beaten, sold, raped, and worked to death.

The truth is that U.S. Independence meant an economic explosion in the business of slavery. Once they kicked out the Brits, there were no more restrictions on how big, brutal, and profitable the system could get. Cotton, sugar, rice, all booming industries built on stolen labor and the bodies of Black people.

From 1776 until the Civil War, the enslaved population ballooned from under a million to nearly four million enslaved humans (men, women, elderly, children and babies) and with that, so did the profits. By 1860, enslaved people were worth more than $3 billion, more than the value of every railroad, factory, and bank in the U.S. combined. And if you take that value with inflation today, the value of enslaved and abused humans were over $100 billion USD. Commodities like cotton, hand picked from the fields by Black hands, made up 60% of U.S. exports and powered the global economy. Northern banks, insurance companies, and shipping firms got filthy rich underwriting and insuring that system. Enslaved peoples weren’t just free labor, they were financial collateral, used to secure loans and expand empires. So when people talk about America being built on hard work and elbow grease, let’s be honest about whose work they’re really talking about.

Enter the Northwest Ordinance

11 years after writing the Declaration of Independence, in 1787, the newly formed U.S. government passed the Northwest Ordinance, a sterile-sounding name for one of the largest land-grab legislations in history. It opened up massive territories like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, all for white settlement. And spoiler alert, those lands were already full of Indigenous nations who had been stewarding those spaces for countless generations..

The Ordinance pretended to be “orderly” and “moral”, it even banned slavery in those territories (not out of compassion, but so that white settlers didn’t get nervous, think of it like the start of white suburbia). Meanwhile, it laid the groundwork for displacement, removal, broken treaties, and outright warfare against Indigenous communities because of greed. It’s the legal ancestor of the Trail of Tears, Indian boarding schools, and today’s pipeline projects and selling off of National park lands to the fossil fuel and lumber industries (aka the billionaires).

From 1776 to 2025, Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Let’s fast-forward to today, exactly 249 years from the date of the Declaration of Independence. And guess what? Colonialism has never ended. It just got better PR, state controlled media, an army of red Chinese hats, and a shit hairpiece in the lead.

We’ve been hearing about Project 2025 for a while now, it started as a little-known (but very real) blueprint being pushed by right-wing think tanks and Trump’s allies. But this isn’t just a policy proposal. It’s a modern-day Declaration of Authoritarianism. And with Trump’s political momentum and court-packed backing, it’s already a reality.

We’re witnessing in real time:

  • The dismantling of federal agencies (goodbye EPA, hello climate collapse)

  • The erasure of LGBTQ+ rights

  • The shredding of reproductive protections

  • The militarization of ICE into a obscenely funded domestic Gestapo (to use at the every whim of our senile orange fascist in power)

  • The purge of civil servants and installation of loyalist lapdogs in every corner of government

And now, with the passing of Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill”, we’re seeing the final lock click into place. Buried under patriotic soundbites and media distraction is a sweeping expansion of executive power, funneling billions into ICE and border militarization, stripping regulatory checks, slashing judicial independence, and giving the President unprecedented control over federal agencies. This bill isn’t governance. It’s a coup for a fascist regime.

It’s not just about deportations, weak borders, or who’s eating the pets, it’s about remaking America into an ethno-nationalist surveillance state where dissent is punished, history is rewritten, and democracy is reduced to a media stage prop.

Let’s be clear: this bill, alongside Project 2025, is a direct threat to the very idea of the U.S. Constitution. It paves the road toward the collapse of the so-called “great experiment” in democracy and replaces it with a Christian nationalist, corporate-backed, climate-denying police regime.

Billions are being shoveled into ICE and border enforcement, not to solve real problems, not to reunite families, but to criminalize brown and Indigenous bodies and feed the beast of white supremacy with new uniforms, newer cages, and the newest surveillance tech to match.

This was never about “securing the border,” it was always about securing a vision of America where white Christian men call the shots, everyone else obeys, and the only history that matters starts in 1776 and ends with them in power. Forever…

So What Does Freedom Mean Now?

Freedom as absolutely nothing to do with grilling fucking hot dogs under a flag stitched with violence, stolen land, and stolen bodies. “Liberty” for billionaires and prison for the rest of us is a more accurate description of where we are now. We have to stand together and stop pretending this country started with democracy when it was actually born with genocide in one hand and slavery in the other.

So let’s flip the script.

Let’s talk about creating a modern day model and Declaration of Interdependence. One where:

  • LANDBACK: Indigenous nations get their land back. (I say start with the Black Hills and all National Parks and move from there)

  • Black communities receive real lasting reparations—not as guilt payouts, but as overdue justice with free education (not Eurocentric education), healthcare, housing justice, and of course healthcare.

  • Borders get abolished as colonial scars. People deserve to move, live, and thrive without ICE at their door. All Black, Indigenous and People of color should get special passports enabling them to live and work in any fucking country in the Americas they choose.

  • Food, water, and housing become basic human rights, not just luxury items.

  • Education Sovereignty to take the place of whitewashed textbooks and patriotic gaslighting.

And while we’re at it, let’s declare independence from Project 2025, Trumpism, and every system that treats human beings like collateral damage.

We can make this Project 2026.

Still Here. Still Fighting.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Almost Dead Indians: Book 5 Lost Children book series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact Only:

Liz Hill; liz@lizhillpr.com

 

Adoptee Activist and Author Trace Hentz Announces “THE COUNT 2024,” a New Project to Coincide with the Release of a New History Book “Almost Dead Indians”

GREENFIELD, Mass., Dec. 27, 2023 — Adoptee activist, award-winning journalist and author Trace Hentz, who created the American Indian Adoptees website in 2009, has announced a new project, “THE COUNT 2024.” It will coincide with the release of a new history book, “Almost Dead Indians,” Book 5 in the Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects series.

When Hentz moved to Massachusetts in 2004 she began to tirelessly investigate numerous adoption programs, such as the Indian Adoption Projects and ARENA (The Adoption Resource Exchange of America). Both involved moving Native American babies and children across North America into adoptions with non-Native families.

After her 2009 memoir, “One Small Sacrifice” and a second edition, which followed in 2012,  Hentz met more adoptees and asked them to write their personal narratives, which resulted in three anthologies: “Two Worlds: Lost Children” (2012), “Called Home: The RoadMap,” (updated second edition, 2016), and “Stolen Generations: Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop” (2016).  A poetry collection on the same topic, “In The Veins,” the fourth book in the series, was published in 2017.

“In these closed (sealed) adoptions, adoptees are unable to access the vital information they need to find their tribal families and communities,” Hentz said. “This new history book, “Almost Dead Indians,” with a lengthy chapter I wrote, titled “Disappeared,” which is about our history, ties in how these government-funded programs were run by churches and charities and were meant to erase children permanently from tribal rolls, making us dead Indians — almost.”

“Most people have heard how the governments of Canada and the United States ran residential boarding schools like the first U.S. school, which was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania,” Hentz said. “Today, tribes are finding unmarked graves at these schools. I realized after 20 years that we deserve to see the numbers on these various federal and state-run adoption programs. We need “THE COUNT 2024” of Native American and First Nations adoptees to solidify facts and see actual numbers of adoptees in these government-funded projects that crisscrossed the U.S. and Canada.”

“Neither government has been forthcoming and some academics who looked at available reports claim nearly 13,000 children were adopted in the U.S., some by force and some by gunpoint,” Hentz said. “In Canada, they have already settled a class action lawsuit with adoptees called the Sixties Scoop.”

Hentz recommends the new PBS series “Little Bird” to understand what happened in Canada also happened in the U.S.

“Before first grade, I knew I was adopted, that these people were not my birthparents,” Hentz said. “I wasn’t sure what happened but it took me a lifetime to open my adoption file and finally meet my relatives.” Hentz had a reunion in 1994 with her birthfather Earl Bland in Illinois when she was 38 years old. Since then, she has found her ancestry includes Shawnee and Anishinaabe.

Hentz got the idea of a count when she could not find reliable information. “I set up a new website: https://thecount2024.blogspot.com. Native American and First Nations adoptees simply fill out a comment form and I will send them a survey.” She hopes people will share this link and get the word out. “The COUNT” begins January 1, 2024.

Hentz’s new book, “Almost Dead Indians,” will be available soon at Bookshop and for sale on Amazon. Visit: www.blueindianbooks.com or https://blog.americanindianadoptees.com

 

About Blue Hand Books:

Blue Hand Books, based in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on Pocumtuckland, celebrated its 12th anniversary on November 11, 2023. To date, the collective has published 28 book titles. Founder and award-winning journalist Trace Hentz (formerly DeMeyer) embraced and adopted the idea to decolonize book publishing for other Indigenous writers with a collective that supports each writer, helping them to produce a paperback book, providing proofing and editing and allows them to keep 100% of their book royalties.  Blue Hand Books was created to be community and a collective for Indigenous authors.  For more information, contact: Blue Hand Books, Trace L. Hentz, Publisher, 25 Keegan Lane, Suite 8-C, Greenfield, MA 01301. 

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Note to Editors Only: Photos are available. All photos provided courtesy Blue Hand Books.

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

IN THE VEINS | Poetry in Indian Country



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Indigenous Native Poetry collection IN THE VEINS gives power to words


Greenfield, Massachusetts [2017]  --  “These poet’s words jumped off the page and made their way under my skin, into the chambers of my heart,”  said Editor Patricia Busbee (Cherokee) who has edited the new Native prose and poetry book, IN THE VEINS  (Vol. 4,  ISBN: 978-0692832646, Publisher: Blue Hand Books, Massachusetts). 

“It’s a transformative collection of poetry, truly Medicine for the Soul,” Busbee said, who has contributed poetry and prose to this collection and is Poetry Editor for Blue Hand Books.  I thought about the iron infused blood that flows thru our veins and how our bones, blood and skeletal systems house our history, our stories and our ancestors.”

“Reading these poems I recognized how poetry affects all generations and how it bypasses our cautious minds and relates to us on an intimate soul level. Poetry is a vehicle that transports us from the outer world to the inner,” Busbee said.  Twenty-eight poets from across Turtle Island contributed, including First Nations poet David Groulx (Anishinabe Elliott Lake), Assiniboine playwright William Yellow Robe, Ojibwe scholar Dr. Carol A. Hand who wrote an introduction, North Carolina’s past Poet Laureate MariJo Moore (Cherokee), and many more.

“These poets come to us from across Turtle Island.  Some are very well-known, even famous, and many will be in the future,” Busbee said.  “Their poetry offers exquisite interpretation of life and story, personal perceptions, and their views on issues of historical trauma, land-taking, loss of identity and culture, and child theft/adoption projects in the name of Manifest Destiny in North America.” 

This highly-anticipated collection is part of a history-making book series Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects.  This series includes TWO WORLDS (Vol. 1), CALLED HOME: The Road Map (Vol. 2), and STOLEN GENERATIONS: Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop (Vol. 3).  IN THE VEINS (Vol. 4) will share part of its proceeds with Standing Rock Water Protectors.  All books were published by the Blue Hand Books in Massachusetts, a collective of Native American authors.

Blue Hand Books founder Trace Lara Hentz, Busbee’s friend and co-editor on the book series, has also contributed to this collection. “These word warriors take us with them to the outer reaches of Indian identity and history.  Reading could not be more powerful,”  Hentz said, adding that she recommends the entire book series and hopes to reach new readers, both Indian and non-Indian.  

“These poems do make clear that words do have power, word by word by word… With the current political climate, we need good thoughts as we all are standing with the Standing Rock Water Protectors to end the Black Snake and Dakota Access Pipe Line.” [www.bluehandbooks.org]

ABOUT THE EDITOR:
Patricia Busbee is a writer, author, editor, devotee of outsider art and poetry. She is also a soup maker and bread baker. She believes that nourishment is found not only in food but in stories. Patricia is a strong believer in blood memory. She can be found in her kitchen cooking for her family—both the living and the deceased or in her too small office that is over-run with geriatric cats and hand crafted altars, writing about family dynamics, multiculturalism, adoption, ancestry or whatever else is clamoring for her attention. Most likely she is scrolling thru her Twitter feed pretending to be busy. She enjoys adding poetry, proverbs, folklore, recipes and snippets of conversations to her work. Her heart's desire is to write a magical realism novel in 2017.  She is the co-editor of Two Worlds, Called Home: The RoadMap and editor of IN THE VEINS.  Her noir-fiction “Remedies” was published in 2013. Her website: singingthemoon.me

IN THE VEINS contributors and their poems:
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ISBN: 978-0692832646 (Blue Hand Books)
Paperback $9.99   Kindle ebook $3.96
IN THE VEINS: Poetry (Vol. 4)
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Blue Hand Books Collective is a small Native American-owned publishing company based in western New England.  Website: www.bluehandbooks.org
 

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  • https://blog.tracehentz.com/
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  • www.bluehandbooks.org