An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

treatment with white men, . . . [they are] discriminated against and denied
the common rights due to human beings for no other reason than their race
and color.” 22
Land was central to their indictment of global antiblackness. Number
three in the list of complaints reads, “European nations have parceled out
among them and taken possession of nearly all of the continent of Africa,
and the natives are compelled to surrender their lands to aliens and are
treated in most instances like slaves.” 23 The UNIA made sure to
acknowledge that African land—from which all Africans and their
descendants derive their roots—was under European colonial occupation,
and that the Africans were treated like slaves on their land. As historian
Robin D. G. Kelley observes, in a statement referring specifically to the
Dutch colonization of South Africa but that could apply to colonization in
general, “Yes, the expropriation of the native from the land was a
fundamental objective, but so was proletarianization. They wanted the land
and the labor, but not the people—that is to say, they sought to eliminate
stable communities and their cultures of resistance.” 24
In the declarations, the first four assert that African peoples were human
and should be treated as such. Africa’s freedom remained key in the
declaration’s idea of freedom. “We believe in the freedom of Africa for the
Negro people of the world, and by the principle of Europe for the
Europeans and Asia for the Asiatics, we also demand Africa for the
Africans at home and abroad,” reads the thirteenth declaration. They
believed that each race—albeit limited—should have its own land. Number
fourteen reads, “We believe in the inherent right of the Negro to possess
himself of Africa and that his possession of same shall not be regarded as
an infringement of any claim or purchase made by any race or nation.” And
finally, number fifteen reads, “We strongly condemn the cupidity of those
nations of the world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have
seized the territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we
place on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and
possession of the vast continent of our forefathers.” 25
The reclamation of land is a contested thing, given the historical
precedents of US Blacks trying to return to their ancestors’ homeland and
settling on land in order to colonize those already there. Nevertheless,
returning home, and creating place, both the idea and desire for it, have
always been among the many core tenets of Africans, diasporic social and