Examples Of Tribal Sovereignty

In the seventeenth century, European people begin to settle in the North America. They started to invest in the natural resources in the eastern America using the best resource they found in the land, captured Native Indians. Many poor European people migrated to North America for opportunity to earn money and rise of their social status. They came to the America as indentured or contracted servants because the passage aboard was too expensive for them. By the time many Native Indians and indentured servants die from the hard labor and low morality rate, masters of the plantation purchased more slaves from Africa to profit themselves. The “Virginia Servant and Slave Laws” reveal the dominant efforts of masters to profit from their servants and slaves by passing laws to treat slaves as their properties and to control servants and slaves by suppressing the rebellion using brutal force. Masters and rich planters sought to earn more profit from mercantilism, or trade, economic system by violating the civil rights of Native Indian, African, and poor European people and this thought and practice still exist today as a form of racism and segregation in America.

Amanda Cobb (2005) defines sovereignty as “a nation’s power to self-govern, to determine its own way of life, and to live that life---to whatever extent possible---free from interference.” If tribal sovereignty falls under Cobb’s definition, Native American tribes in the United States are not completely sovereign, for some aspects of their lives are still under the control of the federal government. Tribal councils are still regarded as having tribal sovereignty, but they are limited by federal funding and authority.

Native Americans are entitled to the same Constitutional protections that guard other citizens from federal government infringement. Plenary power and the accompanying seizure and use of indigenous land bases have violated the rights of Native Americans and demonstrated the inability of the federal government to manage Indian affairs. The United States should give ownership and control of original, non-privately owned land bases back to tribes. This course of action would end treaty violation, compensate tribes for land takings, prevent bureaucrats from implementing policies that obstruct the ability of Native Americans to participate in their

Although while some Native American Tribes may benefit financially because of the casinos, most have the worst standard of living in the United States.

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

American Indian culture included gambling for many centuries. More than 100 tribes were known to play different versions of dice games before the Europeans settled in the United States. In the United States, gambling on Indian reservations has become quite common. There are 225 tribes in 28 states who operate some sort of gaming facility. Gambling on reservations was initially established to promote economic development in order to increase the standard of living. It was seen as a way to increase income on poverty-stricken reservations. (Momper 2010)

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.

I think the Sovereignty Commission kept this file because it was their job to respond to negative attention on segregation and to respond to media outlets so that they could show a more positive view of the situation. They wanted to keep racist going, and protect segregation. The article was showing how whites were being racist towards African Americans but the Sovereignty Commission job was to show how they weren’t being racist. The article was about racist but the Sovereignty Commission presented it in a different way. They job was to make it look better than it was. They saw these newspaper articles as a thread and it gave them a red flag of what to do. They found articles on racist and they had to respond to the problem and make it sound

All of these are widely known problems across the state. Tribes across Alaska have been granted with inherent sovereignty;

When I was asked what tribal sovereignty was I really didn’t have much of an idea of what it actually was. I had heard of it before from past schooling, but I didn’t learn it in depth to the point where I would be able to give a specific definition for tribal sovereignty. Out of the years in school one would think that at some point you would be taught about subjects such as tribal sovereignty. Obviously that was not the case for me. After conducting my interviews I realized that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t really aware of what tribal sovereignty was or what it meant. Too many people are uneducated on the topic of tribal sovereignty and I think it is important for this to become part of everyone’s common knowledge.

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

The development of tribal casinos or what is commonly referred to as organized gambling can be credited to Native American reservations. Gaming operations have brought phenomenal success to many native tribes in America, and there has been a new dimension to the existing debate regarding Native American sovereignty in organized gambling. There are over 310 casinos ran by about one-third the nations federally recognized tribes, and generate around $10 billion in revenue which is one-sixth of all revenue generated through legal gaming in the country (Evans, Topoleski, 2002). Many of the tribes are now able to provide for themselves essential services rather than wait for the government. However, most

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.

Following the Cabazon decision, Congress in 1988 enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, affirming Tribal government authority to use Indian gaming "to provide Tribal economic development, Tribal self-sufficiency and strong Tribal government" (Eadington, 42).

Freedom issues for the Native American are cultural and religious freedoms. The denial of freedoms affect their ability to worship ceremonially and traditionally. They include lack of access to their religious sites, sacred objects, and termination of aid (pluralism.org). In the 1960s the Indian Termination policy, would force them to be incorporated into America, as well as end their independence. They stopped development projects and cut off federal service. In 1975 The Indian Self-determination Act confirmed the rights of tribes. The Act also allowed confirmed tribes to get federal