Person
Winona LaDuke
Also known as: Winona LaDuke
(b. 1959) Anishinaabe (White Earth Ojibwe) economist, environmentalist, food-sovereignty advocate, and author. Founder and former executive director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project (1989) — the Anishinaabe land-back organization that has reacquired thousands of acres of White Earth Reservation land sold off through 19th- and 20th-century allotment-and-dispossession policy. Founder of Honor the Earth (with the Indigo Girls, 1993) — an Indigenous-led environmental advocacy organization. Two-time U.S. vice-presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket (1996, 2000, with Ralph Nader). Foundational voice in Indigenous food-sovereignty work in North America; her books *All Our Relations* (1999) and *Recovering the Sacred* (2005) are central texts in contemporary Indigenous environmentalism.
Cultural
Winona LaDuke was born on the White Earth Reservation in [[duluth|Minnesota]], where her father, Vincent LaDuke (Sun Bear), was an Anishinaabe activist and writer. She graduated from Harvard with a BA in rural economic development (1982) and earned a master’s in community economic development from Antioch University. Returned to White Earth in 1985 to begin the work that would define her career.
The White Earth Reservation in [[duluth|Minnesota]] was established in 1867 and originally covered 837,000 acres. Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the General Allotment Act period of federal Indian policy — the reservation was systematically dismembered through allotment, fraudulent transfer, tax-forfeiture, and outright theft. By 1990 the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people of White Earth held title to less than 10% of the original reservation. LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in 1989 to reverse this dispossession through buying back land — primarily through philanthropic fundraising and a sliding-scale willing-seller process. The organization has reacquired thousands of acres of reservation land.
Honor the Earth, founded 1993 with the Indigo Girls’ Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, is the broader Indigenous-environmental-advocacy organization LaDuke has continued to lead. Honor the Earth supports Indigenous-led environmental advocacy across continents, with substantial focus on pipeline opposition (Standing Rock, Line 3, Line 5), [[food-sovereignty|food sovereignty]], and renewable-energy development on Indigenous lands.
LaDuke has written across many forms — academic, journalistic, and popular. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999) and Recovering [[spirituality|the Sacred]]: The Power of Naming and Claiming (2005) are her central books. The two U.S. vice-presidential campaigns (1996 and 2000, on the Ralph Nader Green Party ticket) gave her an unusual public-political platform from which she has continued to advocate for Indigenous environmental and food-sovereignty work.
See also
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- Shares approach with: [[food-sovereignty]] · [[indigenous-foodways]] · [[leah-penniman]]
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