The Algonquin are a First Nations group from southern Quebec and eastern Ontario, in Canada. They are one of the tribes within the much larger group of Algonquian-speaking peoples, which includes Cree, Mi’kmaq, Innu and Blackfoot, among others. Today, t

Sarayaku (Kichwa for “river of corn”) is an Indigenous Ecuadorean tribe numbering 1,200 people. Their self-reliant way of life includes fishing, farming, hunting and more recently, ecotourism. Located in the heart of the Amazon, this small community m

Some of the world’s most interesting oil and gas deposits are found in tropical rainforests. If you managed to catch Konnected.tv’s episode on the Sarayaku community in the Ecuadorean Amazon, you learned about a little village’s struggle to fend off

THE CAYARA MASSACRE

In May 1988, during Pope John Paul II’s visit to Peru, military troops reportedly killed at least 80 peasants who were corn harvesting in Cayara, in the department of Ayacucho. According to a statement from the Ayacucho Provincial

CIVIL WAR IN PERU: Atrocities in the Andes

From 1980 to 2000, around 70,000 Peruvians, the majority of them Indigenous, lost their lives in the fight between government forces and guerillas. In addition, nearly half a million of Peru’s poorest citize

In the late 1990s around 300,000 Peruvian women, mostly Quechua peasants in the Andes, were forcibly sterilized by the government. This crime against humanity occurred after President Fujimori liberalized Peru’s strict contraception laws to let women ha

THE INCA EMPIRE: A source of inspiration for the Quechuas

Tucked away high in the Andes Mountains, the Inca Empire was one of the largest empires in the world with its centre in Cusco, modern-day Peru. In little more than 300 years, the Inca Empire str

Guatemalan Revolution – Ten Years of Spring
The Guatemalan Revolution is the 10-year period in Guatemalan history between the popular uprising that overthrew dictator Jorge Ubico Castañeda in 1944 and the United States-orchestrated coup d’état in 1954 that unseated President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The Ten Years of Spring are the only years of representative democracy in Guatemala from 1930 until the end of the Civil War.

From the late 19th century, Guatemala was governed by a series of author...

The Spanish Conquest of Guatemala – Centuries of fighting, enforced religion and legalized slavery
The Spanish conquest of Guatemala was a prolonged affair, the Maya kingdoms resisted integration to the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two hundred years. The Conquistadors arrived in Guatemala in the early 16th century led by Pedro de Alvarado, one of Hernán Cortés’ top lieutenants. He arrived with less than 500 Spanish soldiers and just some Mexicans, but by making a...

The Long Walk – The Navajo’s Trail of Tears
In the early 1860s, Americans of European descent began settling in and around Navajo lands, leading to conflict between the US and the Navajo. Believing that the Navajo were causing unrest in the area, Brig. Gen. James Carlton, commander of the Department of New Mexico announced his plan to relocate them to a desolate area close to Fort Sumner. His plan was to assimilate them to “white America”, by teaching them to farm, instructing them in Christian ...

Church Rock Spill – A toxic legacy
On July 16, 1979, the tailings disposal at United Nuclear Corporation’s Church Rock uranium mill, in New Mexico, breached its dam. Over 1,000 tons of solid radioactive mill waste and 93 million gallons of acidic, radioactive tailings solution flowed into the Puerco River. These contaminants then travelled 130 kilometres downstream to Navajo County, Arizona, and onto the Navajo Nation, wreaking havoc and leaving a toxic legacy.

Shortly after the breach, radioact...

The Nasa people, also known as the Paez, are an Indigenous people who have lived in the Cauca state of southwestern Colombia for centuries. With an estimated population of some 120,000 members, their name comes from the Spanish version of the word pats, m

THE ARRIVAL OF THE MENNONITES: A painful experience for the Ayoreo

The Ayoreo remained largely uncontacted until the arrival of the Mennonites in the 1920s from the Ukraine, Russia, Canada and Mexico. They were invited by the Paraguayan president to ta

UNCONTACTED TRIBES: The most vulnerable people on earth



Uncontacted tribes are communities who have little to no contact with the outside world. According to FUNAI, there are 77 groups of uncontacted people who mostly live in the depths of the forest in South America, New Guinea and India. In the very rare event that they are encountered, the isolated groups make it clear that they want to be left alone. Regions currently inhabited by uncontacted tribes are under great threat from oil exploration a...