Sovereign Nations Or Reservations

How the U.S. governments policies and romanticisms of Indians shape our perception and therefore their history.

This book is an extensive compilation of readings focused on the meaning of sovereignty and self-determination in relation to Indigenous nations and peoples in the United States. The overall purpose of the book is to afford readers the opportunity to study and analyze the interplay of legal, political, economic, and cultural factors that contribute to the debate surrounding the status of Indigenous nations and peoples within American society. The book is divided into three parts, with each part prefaced by a set of questions for the reader to consider. The first part explores the meaning of Indigenous nation sovereignty from three different perspectives--the Indigenous nations and peoples, the colonizing peoples, and the international community. The second part then addresses the different ways in which this sovereignty is threatened. The last part of the book explores the variety of approaches by which Indigenous nation sovereignty may be preserved and strengthened in the future. The readings included are extraordinarily broad in scope and are designed to promote vigorous student inquiry and discussion. In addition to including a wide variety of authors, the works include speeches, testimony, policy statements, law cases, statutes, articles, book chapters, and newspaper stories. The materials are extensively edited (with few footnotes and citations) so as to focus the reader on important concepts and to facilitate overall understanding. The book is intended for use in both law school and non-law school courses relating to law and policy dealing with Indigenous nations and peoples, American history, and international law and policy governing minorities and Indigenous peoples. The book is also designed for use in undergraduate courses and seminars.

In the most comprehensive and detailed cultural-geographic study ever conducted of the American Indian reservations in the forty-eight contiguous states, Klaus Frantz explores the reservations as living environments rather than historical footnotes. Although this study provides well-researched documentation of the generally deplorable living conditions on the reservations, it also seeks to discover and highlight the many possibilities for positive change. Informed by both historical research and extensive fieldwork, this book pays special attention to the natural resource base and economic outlook of the reservations, as well as the crucial issue of tribal sovereignty. Chapters also cover the demography of American Indian groups and their socioeconomic status (including standard of living, employment, and education). A new afterword treats some of the developments since the book's initial publication in German, such as the effects of the 1988 Indian gaming law that allowed Indian reservations to operate gambling establishments (with mixed success). "Provides a good overview of the basic questions and problems facing reservation Indians today."—Peter Bolz, Journal of American History (on the German edition)

Elements of Indigenous Style offers Indigenous writers and editors—and everyone creating works about Indigenous Peoples—the first published guide to common questions and issues of style and process. Everyone working in words or other media needs to read this important new reference, and to keep it nearby while they’re working. This guide features: - Twenty-two succinct style principles. - Advice on culturally appropriate publishing practices, including how to collaborate with Indigenous Peoples, when and how to seek the advice of Elders, and how to respect Indigenous Oral Traditions and Traditional Knowledge. - Terminology to use and to avoid. - Advice on specific editing issues, such as biased language, capitalization, and quoting from historical sources and archives. - Case studies of projects that illustrate best practices.

Long before lucrative tribal casinos sparked controversy, Native Americans amassed other wealth that provoked intense debate about the desirability, morality, and compatibility of Indian and non-Indian economic practices. Alexandra Harmon examines seven such instances of Indian affluence and the dilemmas they presented both for Native Americans and for Euro-Americans--dilemmas rooted in the colonial origins of the modern American economy. Harmon's study not only compels us to look beyond stereotypes of greedy whites and poor Indians, but also convincingly demonstrates that Indians deserve a prominent place in American economic history and in the history of American ideas.

Major questions have always existed concerning the role and status of Indian tribes and Indian peoples within the fabric of life in the United States. There is a relatively consistent body of law whose origins flow from precolonial America to the present day. This body of law is neither well-known nor well-understood by the American Public. Federal Indian law - or, more accurately, United States constitutional law concerning Indian tribes and individuals - is unique and separate from the rest of American jurisprudence. Analogies to general constitutional law, civil right law, public land law, and the like are misleading and often erroneous. Indian law is distinct. It encompassed Western European international law, specific provisions of the United States Constitution, precolonial treaties, treaties of the United States, an entire volume of the United States Code, and numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court and lower federal courts.The nature of the federal, state, and tribal relationship was defined in a highly politicized setting, when the Supreme Court of the United States, led by chief Justice John Marshall, struck down an entire series of state statutes violative of tribal-state and tribal-federal relations. These cases established the principles that Indian tribes possessed sovereignty over their members and territory and that the federal government protects tribal sovereignty, land, and resources from states and non-Indian interests.The Supreme Court of the United States has specifically addressed the issue of whether specialized treatment of Indians by the federal government is unconstitutional racial discrimination. The clear answer of the Court was that it is not. For the purpose of dealing with the federal government, Indian tribes are not racial groupings but rather political groupings - governments.This directory provides a unique source of information on the land areas controlled by these governments that many citizens do not even realize exist.

This book compares and contrasts historical and contemporary Canadian and U.S. Native American policy. The contributors include economists, political scientists, and lawyers, who, despite analyzing a number of different groups in several eras, consistently take a political economy approach to the issues. Using this framework, the authors examine the evolution of property rights, from wildlife in pre-Columbian times and the potential for using property rights to resolve contemporary fish and wildlife issues, to the importance of customs and culture to resource use decisions; the competition from states for Native American casino revenues; and the impact of sovereignty on economic development. In each case, the chapters present new data and new ways of thinking about old evidence. In addition to providing a framework for analysis and new data, this book suggests how Native American and First Nation policy might be reformed toward the end of sustainable economic development, cultural integrity, and self-determination. For these reasons, the book should be of interest to scholars, policy analysts, and students of Native American law, economics, and resource use, as well as those interested in the history of Native Americans and Canada’s First Nations.