Authority is important for any leader or government, because that is how decisions are accepted as right. Sovereignty is the recognition by other states that one government has the authority to control a certain territory. As well as the acceptance of rule by the people One major reading that contests this idea of sovereignty is the book Mohawk Interruptus by Audra Simpson, which discusses the trials of Native American populations and their efforts to reclaim their own sovereignty. Within Mohawk Interruptus, the people of the Kahnawá:ke tribe struggle against the colonial idea of American or Canadian sovereignty lorded over them, and through refusal of such “gifts” regain their sovereignty. “… Kahnawa’kehró:non had refused the authority of the state at almost every turn and in so doing reinstated a different political authority” (Simpson, 2014, 106). Through these rejections, the people of Kahnawá:ke and Kahnawa’kehró:non established that the current system of sovereignty does not work for them, as it is colonially based to oppress the Native American communities. Simpson uses these examples to make a larger point on the Western systems of governance and understandings of authority. Though this idea of sovereignty, Simpson argues, was a way to appropriate land and incorporate or destroy opposing cultures. Through the research of Hannah Ardent, it is considered that sovereignty has been used to forcefully assimilate minority populations of nations. Within her paper on the
There are hundreds of Native American tribes and millions of people that are within North America that identify themselves as Native Americans. Each tribe has their own unique customs, language, and myths. However, within the confines of this paper I will take a broad view with regards to Native American customs and traditions from a small sample of tribes that were observed prior to the vast expansion of colonizing the west.
The facts of this case is the Ojibwe Indians were entitled to the treaty rights and the rights were not extinguished when Minnesota was admitted as a state in 1958. (Cheeseman H. R. 2013, pp. 16)
Second, Canada’s First Nations’ plight can be improved through self-governance. According to Pocklington, “For several years, Canadian aboriginal leaders have been demanding the recognition of a right of Native self-determination and thereby, for the aboriginal collectivities that choose it a right of self-government” (102). Aboriginal self-governance is a controversial issue in Canada. Before researching the issue I believed that self-governance would deter national unity, after further investigation, I presently believe that the claim for Aboriginal self-governance is justifiable. Although, according to Blakeney, “It will be a real challenge to make effective
Political Scientists, Thomas Flanagan and Roger Townshend explain the key to the big question: “Can a Native State Exist Within a Canadian State?” in the readings: “The Case for Native Sovereignty” and “Native Sovereignty: Does Anyone Really Want an Aboriginal Archipelago?”. The essay will outline and provide evidence to both sides, whether there could or could not exist a Native State in Canada. The document will argue that Natives are not organized enough to form their own government. Throughout the decades, Natives have agonized many savageries at the hands of the European settlers. The essay will take Flanagan’s side with the belief that Natives should not be sovereign, using the textbooks “Principles of Comparative Politics”, and
Sovereignty is a nation’s “relative independence from and among other states” (Cobb, 2005). In this case, tribal sovereignty of Native nations depends upon recognition by the United States. This is ironic; their tribal sovereignty has been “granted” to them by the Unites States federal government. No single nation is completely independent of foreign influence. Tribal nations more so
Thomas Flanagan disapproves the idea of Native sovereignty ever coexisting with Canadian sovereignty. Flanagan identifies the flaws in Townshend’s arguments referring to them as a theoretical approach and not a practical approach. It is true that the sharing of jurisdictional power is the essence of the Canadian state but this cannot apply to the Aboriginals of Canada. One reason a third level of government cannot work in Canada is “In the 10 provinces, Canada has over six hundred Indian bands living on more than 2200 reserves, plus hundreds of thousands of Métis and non-status Indians who do not possess reserves,” (Flanagan 44). Flanagan draws the fact that “No one has proposed a workable mechanism by which this far-flung archipelago could
Power can be viewed as the ability to influence and/or control others. Another flaw about reservations is the fact that they are not totally governed by Native American representatives. The U.S. government actually has tight control over the majority, if not all, reservations (Perry, 2002, p 233). This tight control has left the Native American population powerless in terms of self- regulation. Despite the fact that Native American government do exist,
Native Americans have been working unremittingly for sovereignty over their own affairs since the very beginning of Euro-American contact. The twentieth century in particular was a progressive time for Native Americans as they continued to fight for sovereignty over their own affairs and Historians have taken note of this. Most historians of Native Americans have given a substantial amount of attention to the Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA). Many historians concur that the ICRA was a fundamental tool for Natives to not only gain autonomy in a progressively bellicose society, but equally between themselves. After acknowledging that Indian Nations were not invited to the Constitutional Convention and that the United States Constitution was never
With globalization and colonization taking over almost the entire known world, native tribes who are indigenous to their lands are losing control of the lands that their people have lived in for ages to the hands of foreign colonizers who claim the land as their own. Now, indigenous people all around the world are struggling to reclaim the lands and rights that were taken away from them through non-violent social relations with national governments and large corporations. Anthropologists have recorded how indigenous people across the globe attempt to create relations with national governments to reclaim rights and lands that they once had before the colonization of their ancestral homeland.
In Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?, Lyons states, “sovereignty is the guiding story in our pursuit of self-determination, the general strategy by which we aim to best recover our losses from ravages of colonization…the pursuit of sovereignty is an attempt to revive not our past, but our possibilities” (2000). I agree with Lyons on this statement. Sovereignty should be way of retelling the history of different groups so those who do not know their story can become familiar with it. People cannot learn from history if they do not know their history. Once they know the history, then they can seek the possibilities they once claimed from it. This can go for any group of people, not just Native Americans.
Alaska faces a variety of different problems. One of the main concerns of Alaskans is the abuse of drugs and alcohol (Alcohol and Drug Abuse). Abusing these substances causes a lot of wrongdoing in communities and creates obstacles that dramatically affect the people of Alaska, especially in rural areas. Tribal courts across the state attempt to resolve these problems by establishing an array of different rules and regulations to help protect the Alaskan people. Without community support- change is not ensured (Tanana Chiefs 95).
There are between 200,000 and 500,000 members of gypsy groups living in all regions of the United States. Most of these members of the gypsy communities would be known as the Romani (Roma). Romani people originally come from India and migrated first to Europe, later throughout the United states, and now they are all across the world. The people of the Gypsy culture are not known as healthy. About 85% smoke and 85% are obese. Their average life expectancy is only about 48 to 55 years of age.
Don’t be confused when an Indian tribe is called the Chippewa or the Ojibway because they are the same tribe. French settlers could not pronounce Ojibway correctly so they called the tribe the Chippewa. Have you ever wanted to know about the Ojibway Indians? If you read on, you will learn many interesting facts about this tribe.
Sovereignty is the absolute power over a certain area or region. This power in the past has been given to monarchs, royal sovereignty, or even to a group of people that decide the fate for the masses, parliamentary sovereignty. The amazing thing about our government however is Popular Sovereignty, which is the absolute power given to the people that the powers are meant to govern. The beauty of this is that the government follows the Locke-Hobbes idea that a government needs to be a social contract between its people and its ruling body.
With the federal government’s support, many Native tribes have constructed Native Governments and Corporations where the rights to land and money are placed to their own responsibility. What this actually means is that the rights of the people’s land and monetary bonds are transferred from governmental trust to