Leanne Simpson's Breaking The Roots

This paper will discuss how the negatively impacted relationship with the land bleeds to other factors, such as the individual’s relationship with their communities, and the individual’s ability to self-determinate. The impacts are depicted by the authors through stories and through self expression, be it in a form of artwork or an interview. This method is to highlight the fact that settler colonialism still exists now, and is affecting the lives of the people living in the present.

Breaking the Roots.
The Indigenous peoples have always had a peaceful relationship with the land, coexisting well with both animals and nature. The mutual respect that was shared between the Indigenous peoples and the land was absent in the minds of settlers. Though treaties and agreements were made, the settlers kept taking more than their fair share of land. Leanne Simpson beautifully illustrates these treaties as a relationship between two beings sharing the same bowl of food. She talks about the relationship that the Nishanabeeg have with their land as one that is more deeply spiritual. Opposite to settler colonialist views, the land is not an empty space that is claimed for the purpose of development, but a living entity that we co-exist with in order to sustain each other’s livelihood. Settler colonialism brought about with them dispossession of lands for the native people for Turtle Island. …show more content…
Indigenous learning happens from the land and with the land. Western education system that is brought about by colonialism sets its focus on forcefulness and authority. By only emphasising one form of pedagogy, the western one that is, the Aboriginal peoples risks losing the opportunity to learn the theories and wisdom that is fundamental to their