nativist millennial movement (656 words)

A nativist millennial movement consists of people who feel under attack by a foreign colonizing government that is destroying their traditional way of life and is removing them from their land. Nativists long for a return to an idealized past golden age. Numerous nativists have identified themselves with the oppressions and deliverance of the Israelites as described in the Christian Old Testament. Nativist millennial movements have often been termed "revitalization movements."

Nativist millennialism can take the form of either catastrophic millennialism or progressive millennialism. Catastrophic nativist millennialists may either await divine intervention to remove their oppressors and establish the millennial kingdom, or they may become revolutionaries who fight to eliminate their oppressors.

Just a few examples of nativist millennial movements include the Xhosa Cattle-Killing movement in South Africa, the Israelites who were massacred by police at Bulhoek, South Africa, the Native American Ghost Dance movement which was related to the massacre of a Lakota Sioux band at Wounded Knee by American soldiers, and the Taiping revolutionaries in China. Additionally, the German Nazis and American Neo-Nazis can be considered nativist millennialists. The Freemen who engaged in a standoff with FBI agents in Montana in 1996 are part of a diffuse Euro-American nativist millennial movement, which includes Neo-Nazis, Identity Christians (believers in a racist and anti-Semitic religion called Christian Identity), Odinists, and other racist and anti-Semitic white Americans, who feel threatened by increasing diversity in the United States. These white Americans feel oppressed by the unresponsive bureaucracies of the federal government such as the Internal Revenue Service and agencies originally designed to serve farmers. In rural America, particularly, numerous families and individuals have lost their farms and businesses related to agriculture. They see their traditional way of life disappearing due to pressure from federal agencies and multi-national corporations. White Americans are certainly not the original natives, but those who participate in this Euro-American nativist movement regard themselves as the natives of this land. In Christian Identity, this is expressed in the conviction that whites are the true Israelites given the promised land of America by Yahweh.

Nativist millennial movements often involve the utilization of magic and sacrifice as methods to help accomplish the millennial kingdom. Magic is the use of words of power and rituals that are believed to cause changes in the physical world. Sacrifices are offerings to propitiate powerful unseen beings.

The Freemen’s "Common Law" legal interpretations used to wage "paper warfare" against the federal government is an example of imitative magic. The Freemen seek to steal the power contained in the words and documents of attorneys and bankers for their own benefit. The spectacular pageants staged by Hitler and the Nazis can be seen as magic rituals to accomplish the millennial kingdom, the Third Reich. The Native American Ghost Dance and the Xhosa Cattle-Killing can be seen as sacrifices to the ancestors to eliminate the oppressors and to bring protection and well-being.

Because of their challenge to civil authority, it is not uncommon for nativist millennial movements to become involved in violence. The Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee and the Israelites at Bulhoek, South Africa, are examples of nativist millennial groups that are assaulted by law enforcement agents, because they are viewed as being dangerous. The Xhosa in South Africa are an example of a nativist millennial movement that committed violence because of that culture’s fragility due to internal stresses and oppression from outsiders. The Taiping movement in China, the German Nazis, and the Montana Freemen and others in the contemporary Euro-American nativist movement are examples of nativists who are revolutionary. The Taipings and the German Nazis succeeded in becoming culturally dominant for a time, and thus caused massive revolutionary violence. The contemporary Euro-American nativist movement is diffuse and widespread, but it is attractive only to a minority of white Americans. The violent individuals in this movement commit acts of terrorism, but so far have been unable to spark a full-scale revolution.

Catherine Wessinger

Loyola University, New Orleans

See also entries on catastrophic millennialism, progressive millennialism, assaulted millennial groups, fragile millennial groups, revolutionary millennial movements.

Adas, Michael. 1979. Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest Movements against the European Colonial Order. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Ellwood, Robert. Forthcoming. "Nazism as a Millennialist Movement." In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Kaplan, Jeffrey. Forthcoming. "Real Paranoids Have Real Enemies: The Genesis of the ZOG Discourse in the American National Socialist Subculture." In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Lowe, Scott. Forthcoming. "Western Millennial Ideology Goes East: The Taiping Revolution and Mao’s Great Leap Forward." In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Pesantubbee, Michelene E. Forthcoming. "From Vision to Violence: The Wounded Knee Massacre" in Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Rosenfeld, Jean E. Forthcoming. "The Justus Freemen Standoff: The Importance of the Analysis of Religion in Avoiding Violent Outcomes." In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Steyn, Christine. Forthcoming. "Millenarian Tragedies in South Africa: The Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement and the Bulhoek Massacre." In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1956. "Revitalization Movements," American Anthropologist 58/2 (April): 264-81.

Wessinger, Catherine. Forthcoming. How the Millennium Comes Violently. Chappaqua, NY: Seven Bridges Press.

______. Forthcoming. "The Interacting Dynamics of Millennial Beliefs, Persecution, and Violence." In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.