Native Americans and the Denial of Treaty Rights

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Native Americans and the Denial of Treaty Rights

• Political Science 61 / Chicano/Latino Studies 64
• October 16, 2007

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Models of Minority Exclusion

• Apartheid
• An official policy of racial segregation,
  involving political, legal, and economic
  discrimination against nonwhites
• Economic and political disempowerment
• Taking away what has already been exercised
• Two-tiered pluralism
• PluralismA condition in which numerous distinct
  ethnic, religious, or cultural groups compete
  within a society
• Two-tiered pluralismOngoing competition, but
  access to some opportunities/resources
  unavailable to certain groups

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Before We Begin A Philosophical Question

• Should the Native American experience be
  understood in terms of minority politics?
• Yes
• They are a numerical minority
• That is distinct from the racial majority
• No
• They were here first and saw widespread
  violations of their rights by all immigrant
  groups
• The degree to which they are a people, rather the
  peoples is much more contested that for other
  groups

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U.S. Policies Toward Native Americans

• Sovereignty (1700s 1830s)
• Treaties between the U.S. and Indian nations
• Forcible assimilation (1870s 1940s)
• Termination of indigenous practices/land tenure
• Abrogation of treaties
• Relocation of Indians to cities
• Establish dependency on reservations
• Self-determination on reservations (1950s - )
• Tribal sovereignty
• Indigenous self-government
• National demand-making among Indian tribes

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Sovereignty

• Treaties with independent nations
• Military alliances in the pre-Revolutionary
  period
• 1787-1871389 treaties
• U.S. Constitution
• Article 1, section 2 excluding Indians, not
  taxed
• Article 1, section 8 Federal regulation of
  commerce with Indian tribes (like with foreign
  nations)
• Northwest Ordinance (1787)
• No Indian land could be taken without their
  consent, except in the case of war declared by
  Congress

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Decline of Sovereignty

• Pressures to follow white land-ownership patterns
• Forced migration / land trades
• Indian Removal Act (1830)
• Worchester v. Georgia (1832)
• Trail of tears (1838)

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Forcible Assimilation

• General Allotment Act The Dawes Act (1887)
• Native lands transfers to individuals, could be
  sold after 25 years
• Sale of surplus land
• Consequence 1887-1934 native lands decreased
  from 138 million acres to 90 million acres
• Civilizing Indians
• Forced education
• Religion

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Legislative Grant of Citizenship (1924)

• Goal of civil rights struggles for
  immigrant-descent minorities
• For native Americans, used to undermine what had
  been (in theory) a status above U.S. citizenship
• Formal end of notion of sovereignty
• 14th Amendment protections for Native Americans
• Courts only selectively recognized through the
  1940s
• So, worst of both worlds
• A legislative grant can always be reversed for
  subsequent generations (Puerto Rico faces a
  similar dilemma)

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Self-determination On Reservations or
Assimilation?

• Ending native rights
• Termination Resolution (1953)
• 109 tribes dissolved
• American Indian Movement (1969 - )
• Tribal sovereignty
• Indian Self-determination and Education
  Assistance Act of 1975
• Tribes (on reservations) increasingly acting in
  the place of states in terms of police powers
  and taxation

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Current Debates

• Identity
• Who determines who is a member of a tribe?
• Who is a tribe and who determines?
• 245 tribes not recognized by the U.S. government
• Tribal economic development
• Revenue sources cigarettes and gambling
• Revenue sharing with states
• Role of non-tribal corporate entities
• The Bureau of Indian Affairs and native trust
  funds

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Consequence

• Population growth
• 1970 -- 827,255
• 1980 -- 1,420,400
• 1990 -- 1,959,234
• 2000 -- 2,475,956 199
• Much of growth is not among tribally-affiliated
  Indians
• Is pan-ethnicity a concept that can be applied to
  Native Americans?

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Disempowerment Revisited Post Civil Rights Era

• From sovereign nation to ?
• Rediscovery of treaty and constitutional rights
• Diminished efforts to eliminate tribal
  recognition
• Economic development opportunities for some
  tribes
• Resources for lobbying, particularly around
  gaming
• But

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But,

• Core resources have been stripped land, tribal
  governance
• Human capital on reservations low
• Growth in Indian identity among those with
  limited ties to tribal Native Americans
• Returning then to our initial question Can a
  politicized ethnicity grow from ethnics with
  largely symbolic ties?

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Question for Next Time

• What did the Chinese Exclusion Act provide for?
• Who in American society supported such
  legislation? In other words, what was the
  political coalition that was built to support
  Chinese exclusion?