Athena Review 3,2: Peopling of the Americas: Returning to the Circle

Athena Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2002)
Returning to the Circle:

The Long Journey of American Indian Tribes to a Renewal of Sovereignty.

Stephen M. Sachs   University of Indiana/ Purdue University Indianapolis
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Remembering the Circle: American Indian Society Before Columbus
Before the coming of Columbus and European colonization, American Indian tribes were sovereign nations. The more than 500 nations that lived in what is now the United States were each unique in their political, social and economic organization, and in their cultures, but they shared many common values,¹ ways of seeing and approaches to living. This provided the basis for good lives in well functioning societies.
The tribal and band societies of what is now the United States were extremely harmonious and democratic,providing mutually supportive relationships and a high quality of life for virtually all of their members.² Decision making, while carried out in different ways in different societies, was by consensus, with everyone effected by a decision having a say in it.³ Political leaders were facilitators and announcers of decisions, rather than decision makers.⁴ As those chosen as leaders were people of fine character and ability, they usually exercised influence in helping the community come to a consensus, but they had no effective power to command anyone to do anything without the support of the community. Military leaders could command during a war party, but warriors, usually, werefree to choose which leaders to follow. Moreover, military leaders, often, were separate from and subordinate to civil leaders.⁵
This was the general pattern both for small and large traditional North American Societies. The Chiricahua Apaches of the Southwest, for example, lived in small bands, each with its own consensus based governance.⁶ They lived by hunting, gathering, raiding and agriculture. Each band, and within it, each local group, was guided by one or more recognized leaders assisted by a number of subordinates. Important decisions were made at band or local group meetings at which all adults were present and male heads of households usually spoke to represent their families, though wives and unmarried sons and daughters might contribute to the discussion. A man would become a leader if enough people respected him sufficiently to give him their loyalty, and he would maintain that leadership role only so long as he maintained that respect and loyalty. People dissatisfied with a local or band leader could simply move away to another band or group, which worked to make band leaders sensitive to their members needs and concerns. As in many bands and tribes, being of good family was an advantage in gaining the respect necessary to become a leader, and a leader was almost always the head of an extended family. But the primary basis of leadership was being respected for ability and good qualities, as demonstrated by his achievements. He must be wise, respectful of others, able in war, capable in managing his own and his family's affairs, and generous. Thus wealth was an aspect of qualification for leadership: as a sign of ability and as a source of the generosity that leaders were expected to exhibit, in hosting prominent people, putting on feasts, and in providing for those less well off.
The functions of a Chiricahua leader included being an advisor in community affairs, a peacemaker, and a leader in war. While leaders could command in combat, they had no power of control in civil governance beyond what was supported by public opinion. To the extent that they were respected and were persuasive (a quality contributing to respect), leaders exercised influence in the forming of community views. Even as peacemakers, when deviant acts or major disputes occurred, they only had the authority of mediators. Since the Chiricahuas needed each other's help in a variety of economic and social activities (as is normally the case in band and tribal societies), the main pressure for following social norms, including reaching settlement in a trouble case, was the pressure of public opinion (in which women played an important role). Thus leaders were under continuing scrutiny to act well and needed to be concerned for the needs and views of the members of the community. In particular, the band leader needed to listen carefully and take into account the advice of the local group leaders. They, in turn, had to be especially responsive to leading heads of families, who were obligated to be responsive to the adult members of their families. Family relations were wide spread and quite extended, involving mutual obligations and mutual support amongst people who economically and socially needed each other to live well.⁷ Thus power and influence were widely disbursed in Chiricahua society. Respected elders had the most political influence, but this influence and respect itself rested upon the opinions of the community members at large in a culture which emphasized respect for all community members (and indeed all beings).
Fig.1: Tshai-Kloge, a Chiricahua Apache woman, from a photo taken in about 1900 (Bureau of American Ethnology [BAE] vol.30, 1907).
The same basic values and underlying pattern of consensus based decision making were also found in the larger and more complicated tribal societies in traditional North America, who had not yet begun to develop the attributes of states. The Dine, generally known as the Navajo, for example, were a society governed largely at the band level with somewhat more complexity in their social organization owing to their strong clan structure.⁸ It appears that clans (extended family units) were important in public affairs because they were responsible for the behavior of their own members (e.g., debts, torts and crimes). Since clans gave considerable emotional and economic support to their members, pressure from kinsmen, especially elders, was likely to have exerted a strong influence. In speaking of more contemporary local governance, Kluckhohn and Leighton describe what oral history says was true of the old band government and which was typical of traditional Native American government in general.⁹
Headmen have no powers of coercion, save possibly that some people fear them as potential witches, but they have responsibilities. They are often expected, for example, to look after the interests of the needy who are without close relatives or whose relatives neglect them [a rare occurrence in traditional times], but all they can do with the neglectful ones is talk to them. No program put forward by a headman is practicable unless it wins public endorsement or has the tacit backing of a high proportion of the influential men and women of the area.
The two authors go on to say that at meetings, "the Navaho pattern was for discussion to be continued until unanimity was reached, or at least until those in opposition felt it was useless or impolitic to express disagreement."¹⁰ They point out, however, that while public meetings provided an occasion for free voicing of sentiments and thrashing out of disagreements, the most important part of traditional Dine political decision making took place informally in negotiations among clan and other leaders representing their respective groups, who regularly discussed community concerns face to face.
An important aspect of the inclusiveness of traditional North American societies was a balance between women and men in community affairs. in differing ways in each society, men and women in Native American cultures carried out their separate functions and had a greater say in differing areas of social life. But this division of labor did not produce the difference in status and value that accompanied the dichotomy of social roles in Western society.¹¹ To the extent that in Western societies it could be said that a man's home is his castle, among traditional Native Americans one might say that a man's home was her castle. Among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), for example, only men served as chiefs (sachems) on the intertribal council, but women held considerable power. In certain clans, the women, speaking through the Clan Mother, nominated the chiefs and had the power to remove them for misconduct.¹² In some tribes women served as chiefs, but regardless of their formal role, women in traditional Native American societies were predominate in their own affairs and held great influence in public affairs.¹³ Indeed, a study of 13 North American societies and multiple society culture areas, north of what is now Mexico, found that, traditionally, in all but one case, there was a balanced reciprocity between men and women.¹⁴ Further research indicates that even that one case involved balanced reciprocity.¹⁵
Of particular importance in traditional Native American societies is the collective voice of women, especially of elders, because of the emphasis on honor and shame in those cultures. Even with all the changes in American Indian ways that have occurred with the arrival of Europeans and others, the collective voice of women remains strong to this day. This is illustrated by an experience of this author one evening at the Sun Dance of the Southern Utes, in Southwest Colorado. In that sacred ceremony the men at the drum start the song, but the women around them join in and "have the last word." That night, after a visiting group of singers finished their turn, no regulars were available, so a few part-time singers and apprentices, as was I, filled in under the direction of a young man who just that afternoon had been taught how to lead by the elder singers. While for the most part the young man's fine spirit made up for our technical weakness, on one occasion we lost the song and were ready to let it go and move on to the next. But the women singers would not allow our indiscretion. They picked up the song and gave it back to us. And when that song was properly completed, they let us know quite clearly how we were expected to do our job correctly in that sacred space.
The relative traditional balance of men and women,¹⁶ each dominant in their own spheres, can also be seen today at Southern Ute in the continuance of the ancient Bear Dance each spring. When, in the Dance, the two facing lines of men and of women break into couples (or trios), the partners are side by side with the men facing East and the Women facing West. As the couple makes the long prance East, the man guides the couple. And when the couple moves toward the West, the woman guides.
The inclusive participatory democracy of American Indian societies had a very important impact on the Europeans and their North American descendants who later attempted to repress and eradicate Native American culture. There is now excellent evidence that observation of Indian institutions had a strong impact on the writers of the U.S. Constitution and is responsible for there being as much democracy as there now is in the United States.¹⁷ When, following Columbus arrival, Europeans began settling in the Americas, a movement toward democracy was in motion in Europe supported only by the revived memory of ancient Greece and Rome and a few isolated and scattered contemporary examples of participatory city states. But in North America, well working democracy was readily observable. It is undeniable that Indian political experience directly influenced John Locke¹⁸ and Jean Jacques Rousseau,¹⁹ while Karl Marx later developed much of his theory of human historical development on the basis of Morgan's reports of the Seneca.²⁰
II: The Circle Under Seige: The Impact of Colonialism on Indian Nations to the 1960's
The onslaught, in North America, of, first, European Colonialism and, then, United States expansion, initiated a series of devastating changes in the circumstance of Indian nations. The United States was born into a situation in which a number of European powers were contending for position and territory. Until the United States obtained hegemony amongst them in North America, the U.S. often joined in the competition to gain Indian nations as allies, while it sought to keep formerly tribal lands, and gain new territories from Indian nations. At least in theory, and, for a while, sometimes in fact, the relationship of the United States to tribes was one of sovereign to sovereign. It was based upon treaties: agreements binding both parties. As increasingly the United States became the stronger party, during this period, Indian nations were treated by it as protectorates. By treaty, and under related acts, such as provisions of the Northwest Ordinance, in return for friendship, land and, sometimes, military help, the United States had an obligation to protect Indian lands from incursion and to provide goods and/or money. Although the United States has often failed to live up to the treaties, and at times has used subterfuge and coercion to obtain agreement from Indian nations to changing their provisions, at least formally, the U.S. Government has always recognized the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations and the need to obtain their agreement to change treaty arrangements and obligations.²¹
From the outset, the United States promised to protect tribal culture and lands and assure Indians the ability to make a living in exchange for tribes ceding land and ending hostilities. This was the beginning of the trust relationship between the federal government and tribal governments, which continues to be fundamental to U.S. - Indian relations. Similarly, the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations, with the right of self governance, has never been extinguished, even though it was violated, in fact, by the United States government for many years.
Fig.2: John Sexton’s 1710 map showing territories of southwestern tribes including the “Apaches of navaio” (encircled), a name commonly used by 17th-18th c. Spaniards to distinguish the Navajo from other “Apache” tribes. The name Navajo derives from the Tewa term, Navah�, which refers to a large area of cultivated land (after Johnston, D.F. 1966, BAE vol.197, map 2).
The relationship between Indian nations and the United States has undergone many changes.²² From the 1770's until the 1820's, prior to the U.S. becoming the preeminent power in North America, Indian nations were treated as protectorates, constituting sovereign nations. The U.S. Dealt with them as legally equal political entities in international relations. With the rise of the U.S. as the predominant power on the continent, that relationship shifted, bringing Indian removal from the 1830's to 1850's under a variety of treaties and Congressional acts. In this period Indian nations were treated as dependent domestic sovereigns and dealt with on a government to government relationship, with the U.S. having a trust responsibility to protect Indian rights and interests. However, during this period, many Indian people were forced to move to the west, often on terribly destructive trails of tears.²³
Beginning in the 1850's until the 1930s, Indians began to be treated as wards in need of protection, under guardianship, as the trust relationship was interpreted by the U.S. to empower it to act however Congress decided was "in the interest" of Indians (regardless of the actual impact of congressional action on native people). From the 1850's to the 1870's, removal of Indians from their lands shifted to relocation onto reservations under treaties. In 1871 Congress ended treaty making as the United States was changing from a policy of relocating Indians, to one of attempting to assimilate them into mainstream culture. This policy, became full blown with the Dawes Allotment Act, in 1887, which began the allotting of 160 acre parcels of reservation land to individual Indians, and the sale of the remainder of the reservation land to settlers (and in some cases, as in Oklahoma, with the termination of reservations). As part of the process of assimilation, Indian children were forced to go to boarding schools to learn Euro-American ways and trades. These schools, which were often brutal in the treatment of their students, were destructive of Indian culture, and failed to integrate Indian young people into Euro-American society and economy. The result was that many native young people were left alienated from both their own cultures and the wider society.
By 1928, the Meriam Report made clear that assimilation had not been achieved and that U.S. Policy had left Indian people in dire economic need to the point of starvation, with poor housing, ill health, declining population, and justifiable discont.²⁴ Indian people and leaders had long complained about their treatment, but as they were only a small portion of the U.S population, generally did not have the vote until 1924, and did not gain a full knowledge of how the American political system functioned until World War II, they had had little power to change their situation.
Thus it was that the Roosevelt administration initiated a policy of Indian self-government accompanied by the renewal of government-to-government relations between the federal government and Indian tribes, who were considered quasi-sovereigns. With John Collier leading the Bureau of Indian Affairs, some significant gains were made toward returning Indians to self-governance and improved living conditions. These beginning steps were put on hold by World War II, however, and then somewhat reversed by the policy or termination of the 1950s, that sought to end the trust relationship between Indian nations and the U.S. Government. In effect this policy left Indians to make their own way without any support, on the grounds that the government wasn't doing a very good job of providing the support and empowerment it had promised, after taking Indian lands and destroying native people's ways of making a living. Fortunately, termination had not proceeded very far, when it was replaced by a renewal of government-to-government relations and the trust relationship under the present general policy of self-determination.
Thus it was that Indian renewal, seeking a return to sovereignty, self sufficiency and harmony in Indian communities, did not fully begin until the 1960s. By that time, American Indians had had the perseverance to survive a horrendous physical and cultural genocide that left them facing a gauntlet of interrelated psychological, social, economic and political problems that they are still working to overcome today. The coming of Europeans brought wave after wave of destructive, imperialistic intrusion, seriously disrupting indigenous peoples' lives and ways of life. Repeatedly, Indian population was decimated by war, imported disease (on occasion deliberately inflicted) and harsh living conditions resulting from relocation, reduction of land base and destruction of traditional ways of living. By 1850, the Indian population in the U.S., which had been estimated at 5 million in 1492, had been reduced by 95% to 250,000.²⁵ By 1930, tribes that were still recognized by the federal or state governments lived on vastly reduced territory, often far from their traditional lands, and of poor quality for providing a living, directly through agriculture or hunting and gathering, or indirectly from economic development.
Fig.3: Growth of Navajo Reservations in the Four Corners area (after Johnston 1966, BAE vol.197).
Once proudly independent people were, thus, left dependent on the U.S. government, which consistently failed to keep its treaty promises and trust responsibility to provide Indian people a reasonable level of living, while furnishing adequate material and educational assistance for Indians to regain self-sufficiency, in return for vast cessions of land. The government's failure to even remotely meet these "trust obligations," combined with lack of opportunity for Indians stemming from the isolation of reservations and racist discrimination, left them in extreme poverty.
The repeated waves of military pressure, conquest, relocation and other aspects of physical genocide inflicted upon Indian nations from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries frequently caused divisions in Indian communities. Faced with nearly impossible situations, Indian nations frequently were divided in attempting to identify and choose the least destructive among available harsh, high risk alternatives. Community fracturing continued under later U.S. Indian policy that pushed indigenous people toward assimilation, although little meaningful assimilation was possible, given poverty, limited education and racism. This furthered the destruction of the physical basis of traditional life and of any potential for a simple return to traditional ways. However, difficult as the problem of intensified factionalism was, if they had been left free to do so, it is likely that Indian nations eventually would have returned to community harmony in developing their own ways to adapt to the new conditions. Though dialogue would have been more intense than usual, the traditional values of mutual respect and the cultural mechanisms for building consensus among diverse factions and viewpoints would have been available to recreate unity within even the increased diversity.²⁶
Fig.4 (right): Fringed knife case used in the Sun Dance by the Teton Sioux.
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Fig.5 (left): Bison effigy used in the Sun Dance by the Teton Sioux (Densmore 1918, BAE vol.61).
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At the same time, traditional methods of spiritual and psychological healing, and of returning individuals to inner harmony, such as the Sweat Lodge and Sun Dance of many plains tribes (figs.4,5), and the various healing ceremonies for returning people to beauty or harmony of the Navajo Nation, would have provided effective means for Indian people to process and transcend feelings of historical loss and grief.²⁷
U.S. government policy, however, to a considerable extent, destroyed the means that native communities had for community and individual harmonizing, and thus considerably exacerbated community fracturing, thus furthering the real and perceived loss suffered by individuals. This was done through a variety of measures that undermined traditional leaders and governance, while repressing traditional culture, including traditional religion and spiritual practice, with the aim of assimilating Indians into "white" culture.²⁸ Perhaps the most pernicious of these actions was the forced taking of Indian children from their families and communities and placing them in boarding schools to have their traditions driven out of them.²⁹ Since this "schooling" cut young Indians off from their own culture, in most cases without providing them with the ability to function effectively in Euro-American society, it left many American Indians alienated, both from the larger culture and from their own people.³⁰ Often it disrupted family relationships which were the primary supports of traditional Indian societies and cultures. Moreover, the boarding school experience was widely marked by physical, sexual and emotional abuse, initiating a vicious cycle of poor parenting and repeated child abuse, in addition to creating low self and community esteem and anger in many who suffered it.³¹
Moreover, the cultural genocide created new factions in many Indian communities. For example, the disruption of traditional spiritual practice by government policy, accompanied by the imposition of Christianity, with different denominations sending missionaries and running schools on different reservations, resulted in a diversification of approaches to spiritual and religious thought and practice. While some native people have integrated the traditional and newer ways and/or continue to be accepting of diversity, in many cases this imposition created conflicts in values and identity.
A major aspect of the destruction of the old methods for creating community harmony amidst a diversity of views was the U.S. government's general disavowal of tribal self-governance, placing governance of tribal affairs in Indian agents who, as a general rule, intentionally undermined traditional leadership and culture. This took place to some extent under the administration of the army, but primarily under the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) which was transferred to the Department of the Interior in 1849.32 While the operation of the BIA varied with time and place, and its efforts to undermine traditional culture and values were resisted by a great many Indians, there is no question that the BIA's administration of Indian affairs had numerous pernicious effects,33 including increasing the degree of community fragmentation by largely destroying the traditional vehicles for social integration and consensus building.
The conditions of life for Indians, both on and off reservations, have improved since 1928. Indian population has rebounded from less than 240,000 in 1900 to almost 2 million in 1990.34 However, federal spending has remained inadequate to even approach meeting Indian needs. Moreover, since, 1986 percapita spending for Indians has been less than that for the U.S. population as a whole, and the gap has been widening. In 1998 federal spending per Indian was less than 65% of federal spending per American.35 The result is that from 1980 to 1990 the percentage of Native Americans below the poverty line increased from 27.5 to 30.9%. and they are now the poorest ethnic group in the United States.36
Underfunding of schools, housing, health and other services, combined with the fact that such services are often supplied in culturally inappropriate ways, continues to make it difficult for Indians to break out of the poverty cycle. Of particular significance is the fact that inadequate funding and often culturally inappropriate education have resulted in Indians having the lowest overall rate of educational achievement of any measured U.S. group.³⁷ American Indian health is also considerably substandard for the U.S. While there has been a significant improvement in the health of Native Americans over the past quarter century, they continue to have a higher mortality rate than the U.S. population at large because of poor living conditions and a lower availability of health care than is accorded to the American population as a whole.³⁸ The death rate for Native Americans (as of 1988) is higher than for the entire population for a significant number of selected causes,³⁹ while maternal death rates and infant mortality rates remain somewhat higher for Native Americans than for Americans generally.⁴⁰
A factor in health and in general wellbeing is the condition of housing and of infrastructure on reservations. While conditions vary from reservation to reservation, in general, there is insufficient housing, leading to crowding of many people into small structures. At Pine Ridge for example, as of 1995, there were only 1500 units for 26,000 people: an average of 17 per house, which may be only 20' by 20.'⁴¹ About 1000 Pine Ridge residents were then on the waiting list for housing, some of whom had been waiting for two decades.⁴² Much of the housing is substandard, without insulation (thus very hot in summer, and quite cold in winter), plumbing, or an adequate kitchen. It is aging and in serious need of repair (with the BIA housing repair program backlogged with a documented $600 million need in 1996).⁴³ Infrastructure, including roads are generally seriously underdeveloped. On the vast Navaho Reservation, with the largest Native American population in the country, many areas are linked only by hundreds of miles of extremely poor unpaved roads. If one wishes to enjoy Chaco Canyon National Monument, inside the reservation, the Monument's roads are paved, but to reach it by the shortest route from a paved highway requires a more than 20 mile drive on unimproved road that is almost entirely washboard, threatening to shake any vehicle to pieces that is traveling over 3 miles per hour. Other infrastructure, such as electric power, sewerage treatment and and telephone communications (to say nothing of fiber optic cables) are also underdeveloped in Indian country.
Fig.6 (above): Kivas (round subterranean ceremonial areas) in the southeastern side of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. This Anasazi site, dating from the Pueblo III period (ca. 1100-1300 AD), is within the Navajo Reservation (Judd 1924, National Geographic).
Fig.7 (below): Plan of Pueblo Bonito, with about 800 residential areas or apartments in five stories, around a central courtyard with kivas (Judd 1924, National Geographic).
The lack of adequate and appropriate education, health, other services and infrastructure and economic development have contributed to very high unemployment and underemployment for American Indians. Most of the available jobs around many reservations are with the tribes, and are at least partially funded by the federal government. There are relatively few Indians on or off reservation in high paying jobs, such as those of doctors, lawyers or business executives. But off reservation Native Americans have better job opportunities than on, as is indicated in still generally relevant 1970 figures showing that 48% of employed Native Americans in cities worked as white collar workers, technicians, craftsmen, foremen, etc., as opposed to 35% on reservation. While situations vary from reservation to reservation, unemployment generally runs high, driving down wage levels for those who can find jobs. For example at Pine Ridge in South Dakota, unemployment runs from a low of 45% in the summer months when seasonal work, such as construction, is available, to a high of 90% in the winter, to average about 80%.⁴⁴ Over all, unemployment for Native Americans averaged 16.2% for males and 13.5% for females in 1989, compared to 6.4% for males and 6.2% for females in the U.S. population as a whole that year.⁴⁵
A major factor in the high rates of Indian poverty and unemployment is the lack of economic development on reservations. Economic improvement has been made difficult by the isolated locations of reservations and their lack of infrastructure of all kinds. The generally low levels of education of Native Americans is also a difficulty. Moreover, most of the limited attempts that have been made at economic development have been undertaken in culturally inappropriate ways that insured a high degree of failure.⁴⁶ Never-the-less, some improvement in living conditions and economic development has taken place in recent years, largely with federal government assistance,⁴⁷ but can only continue with further external provision of resources for investment, education and services, until the reservations become self-sufficient and are enabled to prepare their youth to succeed in the job market both on and off tribal lands.
The possible sources of capital necessary for the needed development of the tribes and their members are generally limited. The lands made available to the tribes for reservations were usually those considered least desirable by the mostly Euro-Americans displacing tribal peoples, thus they usually have limited potential for agriculture or ranching. In many instances the tapping of natural resources has been possible, but must be balanced with environmental and other concerns. Moreover, natural resources, such as oil, natural gas, coal and other minerals are nonrenewable and can only be profitably exploited for a limited time. Resource development has been an important source of income for tribes, which can be increased by educating tribal members so that the tribes can run their own resource managing operations, rather than merely receiving royalties from outside corporations (as the Southern Utes have done in developing their own natural gas company). Some tribes have been able to attract some manufacturing business or start their own businesses in various fields, either on their own or in collaboration with external entities.⁴⁸ However, given the geographic location of many Indian nations, and the need for increased education, and other development and services required to overcome long term poverty as well as to provide adequate infrastructure to support development, economic advancement can only take place over a long period of time.
One recent development that has been somewhat helpful is the rise of casino gambling on reservations. However, for all the reasons discussed above, its impact has generally been limited, and the myth that it has significantly raised the fortunes of Native Americans in general is not the case. Over all, only about 30% Federally recognized Indian nations currently have high stakes gaming.⁴⁹ In only a few cases have well located tribes and their members become well off from gambling operations. Most casinos do not make huge profits. Some gaming operations are extremely limited and because of location are likely to remain so.⁵⁰ Others have been important both in creating jobs for tribal and non-tribal members and for bringing in funds and creating opportunities for further economic development, but the needs of the tribes are so great that these moneys, while significant, are only a small portion of what is required. Moreover, largely because of increasing competition, the rate of increase of profits from Indian gaming is declining, and in some instances profits actually have declined.⁵¹ Therefore, while Indian gaming is a significant source of capital for tribes, additional sources are needed if Indian nations are to become economically viable, and continued federal funding is clearly essential for tribal development.
If Indian nations and people are to solve all of the above problems, they must be enabled to run their own lives and communities effectively. While appropriate assistance with resources, education and technical assistance are necessary, a primary element of Indian renewal must be a return to tribal sovereignty through the restoration of effective Indian self-government. Since it is not practical, at the currant time, for Indian nations to return to being independent countries, Indian tribal governments need to be come full partners in American federalism. There are two aspects of this development. The first is that tribal governments be empowered to be effective. The second is that other governments in the U.S. work with tribal governments on a true government-to-government basis.
Governmental systems can only function effectively, producing workable policies, when they are compatible with the values of those who live under them. From the mid Nineteenth Century until the 1930's, the U.S. Government prevented Indian people from governing themselves. When the Roosevelt Administration decided to return Indian tribes to self-governance, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 imposed a Euro-American form of representative government on many Indian nations who had no say in how those governments would be structured. People who were used to having a direct say in their governance had to choose those who would decide for them. Thus, citizens were denied the basic respect of being heard directly, which undermined their sense of self as participating members of their societies. Moreover, tribal government has often been fractured by the development of separate services, originally reporting to different federal agencies with disparate regulations and reporting requirements. This tended to create competing serfdoms, sometimes at odds with the elected leadership. These difficulties, along with other destructive aspects of colonialism that the reform of the 1930s and 1960s was intended to overcome, often created an interrelated set of psychological, social and political problems which feed upon each other in creating community disharmony and a sometimes perverted public policy process.⁵²
In too many instances infighting has left tribal governments locked in deadlock, or quite unstable. In extreme cases, volatile conflict relating to governance has broken into violence, and/or led to a take over of tribal government by the Department of the Interior to restore or maintain peace. Currently, tribal governments are facing increasing challenges that are making community disharmony more likely and more intense. These include demographic shifts, rapid cultural, social and economic change, growing concerning as to whether economic development is occurring compatibly with tribal values, and increasing responsibility for tribal governments as the Federal government devolves authority to the tribes, states and localities.
In recent years a growing number of Indian nations have been attempting to make their public policy processes more effective by reshaping their systems of governance in accordance with traditional values applied appropriately for contemporary circumstances.⁵³ For example, the Comanche Nation in Oklahoma, in collaboration with Americans for Indian Opportunity, for a time increased community harmony and overcame deadlock in tribal decision making by employing an inclusive community discussion process to involve Comanches in considering public issues and in democratically building consensus on policy. The Navaho nation has been engaged for several years in decentralizing much of its government from its tribal government to local chapters, while working to improve the quality and extent of participation at the local level. Meanwhile, the Southern Utes have been increasing citizen participation through a growing number of community meetings and individual member opportunities to discuss concerns directly with the tribal council. Thus, American Indian nations have been working to overcome a complex of psychological, social, economic and political problems caused by physical and cultural genocide. While much of the necessary work must be undertaken within Indian communities, with the assistance of appropriate outside collaboration. A major aspect of returning native communities to wholeness is the development of mutually respectful relations between tribal and other governments.
III: Returning to the Circle: Building Government-to-Government Relations
When the Roosevelt Administration sought to renew government-to-government relations with Indian nations, virtually all tribal relations were exclusively with the U.S. Government through an extremely bureaucratic and oppressive Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).⁵⁴ As head of the BIA, John Collier attempted to have the agency give tribal governments power to make their own decisions, while building a staff more open to Indian views by bringing a significant number of native people into the agency. The BIA, however, found ways to resist allowing Indian nations to make their own decisions until well into the 1970s, while the new BIA staff were trained by the old hands, making it a long slow process to change the culture of the agency, even when Indians became a significant percentage of its work force.⁵⁵ So it was that the first major development in tribal self-governance came, after long protest by Indian people and organizations, with Johnson's War on Poverty, which decentralized carrying out of a number of federal programs to the local level with the "maximum feasible participation" of the recipients of the program. Thus, with the launching of a variety of programs from different agencies, in which Indian people had a direct say, the virtual monopoly of the BIA in reservation affairs was broken, allowing considerable nation building as tribal leaders began to gain experience and competence in running their own programs.⁵⁶
Five developments were then required to transform federal-tribal relations, which have unfolded slowly over several administrations, are still incomplete, and could be put on hold, or even reversed, should there be unfavorable changes in the White House or in Congress. First, tribal governments need to be empowered to carry out their local applications of federal programs, by being given the legal authority, the financial and other resources, and the education to do so. Second, there is a need for presidential leadership, and an appropriate office or position in the White House, to coordinate federal Indian policy with appropriate input from Indian tribal governments and urban Indians (as more than 60% of the official members of federally recognized tribes now live off reservation), and to insure that federal agencies and personal understand Indian issues and people and receive Indian input on issues relating to them. Third, there is a need for similar leadership and policy coordination in the larger departments, such as Health and Human Services, within which several agencies and/or divisions deal with Native Americans. Fourth, it is necessary that, within each agency, office or division dealing with Indians, some one knowledgeable about Indians and Indian affairs, and able and willing to communicate with them, be appointed to coordinate Indian policy and communications in their programs. This is a need shared with other groups that are out side the mainstream of American middle or upper class culture, and do not have considerable political power, as agency personnel are often not knowledgeable about them, frequently making false assumptions about their views, situation and needs. Fourth, appropriate executive leadership and the development of a sensitive bureaucratic culture are required to insure that genuine dialogue takes place between tribal governments and federal agencies and personnel. This is but an aspect of a general problem of getting federal agency staff to see beyond their own perspectives and genuinely dialogue with those with whom they they interact, especially for the realization of real government-to-government relations. State and local officials often complain that so called "consultation" sessions with federal agency staff too often consist largely, or entirely, in federal officials lecturing their other government partners.
The Johnson Administration initiated what could have become an appropriate body to coordinate Indian policy. The National Council on Indian Opportunity, however, became lost in the concern over the Vietnam War and Johnson's winding down his Presidency after a single term, and did not meet during his tenure. The following Nixon Administration took some important steps toward Indian governmental participation,⁵⁷ including initiating "Indian Desks...in each of the human resource departments of the Federal Government to help coordinate and accelerate Indian programs."⁵⁸ However, the Indian Desks were often ineffective or of short lived value, in that many of those assigned to be tribal liaisons already were burdened with major duties, and they often had a low level of commitment to tribal relations. Even when the agency officer did significant work as tribal liaison, that function was attached to that person and not to a permanent position. Thus it was not until later, especially in the Clinton Administration, that Indian Desks became widely established and reasonably effective. Similarly, Nixon's coordination of Indian policy at the White House level was informally assigned to particular advisors, and did not continue after his term of office. Meanwhile, Congress moved Indian self-governance ahead by passing of the Indian Self-Determination Act in 1975, and a series of related bills.⁵⁹
However, Nixon's initiatives and the inputs of Indian people inside and outside of government did begin to bring reform in some of the larger agencies, particularly in Health and Human Services,⁶⁰ and later in the Department of Agriculture,⁶¹ which established department wide coordination of Indian policy and Indian liaisons in each agency within their department that regularly dealt with Indian concerns. This later spread to other agencies, most notably the Environmental Protection Agency.
Beginning in the 1980's, EPA created an Indian Work Group to "develop a policy for the administration of EPA programs on American Indian Reservations" seeking "appropriate ways in which tribal governments can play a more central regulatory role in implementing EPA programs on reservation lands."⁶² EPA began hiring qualified Indians to work in Indian related areas,⁶³ trained its staff to be knowledgeable on Indian issues and concerns,⁶⁴ legally empowered tribal governments and trained their staffs to run their own environmental programs.Epa, later, obtained legislation from Congress allowing the agency to treat qualified tribes as if they were states⁶⁵ in setting first water, and later air, quality standards for their reservations that require compliance of other government and private entities up stream, and upwind of the reservation.
Similarly, with encouragement from the Clinton Administration, the Justice Department has established an office to deal directly with Indian nations, and the DOJ has instituted a number of partnership programs with tribes to improve their justice systems. Moreover, U.S. Attorney's Offices with significant Indian Country jurisdiction have worked with tribal, federal and state agencies to develop memoranda of understanding to address problems of overlapping jurisdiction.⁶⁶
It is only recently that the Clinton Administration, beginning in 1994, established what appears can become a fairly adequate and appropriate set of mechanisms for coordination and mutual communication of concerns if a few important changes are made to it. This began with what is believed to be the first meeting in which all federally recognized tribes were invited to the White House for discussion of Native American affairs.⁶⁷ This has been regularized as an annual event, forming a useful vehicle for enhancing government-to-government relations. Going beyond that, to using it as a vehicle for focusing upon the field of Indian affairs as a whole, it would be useful to include representatives of "urban Indians," since more than 60% of Native Americans now live off reservation, mostly in cities (and most federal agencies and programs are primarily focused upon reservations).
Soon thereafter, the Clinton Administration established The Working Group on American Indian and Alaska Natives as part of the Domestic Policy Council. The Working Group (as of January 1997)⁶⁸ was composed of 20 high ranking members of executive departments (such as the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development, the Chief of Staff of the Department of Commerce, and the Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs of the Department of Energy) and other agencies (such as the Office of Management and Budget), plus designated staff in each agency, and was chaired by the Secretary of the Interior. The working group has been the initiator, after appropriate consultation, of a number of reforms and has taken enumerable steps to see that government-to-government relations were operating on a regular and proper basis throughout the executive branch.
These steps included the establishment of permanent Indian desks or offices in all agencies that regularly deal with, or have an impact upon, Native Americans, and the drafting of several Presidential Memoranda for the heads of agencies and departments, first "directing them to engage in continuing government- to- government relations with federally recognized tribal governments," and then requesting the departments and agencies to report what government-to-government procedures they have instituted, as a step in "insuring that the President's directive is properly implemented."⁶⁹ This has led to a continuing of federal agency development of Indian consultation during the early days of the Bush administration, even though President Bush is not particularly oriented toward the government-to-government approach of the national government in dealing with Indian Issues, and may move to reverse some of those policies.
There is, however, one major problem with the Clinton Administration's organization of the Working Group. It was headed by the Secretary of the Interior. Institutionally, this presented the Secretary with a conflict of interest between his responsibilities to his department and the requirements for coordinating Indian policy as a whole. He had pressures from a number of constituencies in his department, along with concerns for maintaining his power and authority to function effectively as department head. Moreover, the Secretary of Interior, as an equal with other department heads, must regularly work cautiously and diplomatically with other departments. As a result of this duel difficulty, energy was drawn away from the Secretary's seeing that the BIA and other Interior agencies dealt adequately with current major issues and communicated well with the tribes. As a result, the Working Group was unable to move swiftly or effectively to solve major problems that crossed departmental and agency jurisdictional boundaries in such crucial fields as gaming and the handling of toxic wastes. Moreover, little was done to improve the extremely varied quality of tribal communications infrastructure, so that all tribal governments and their members could receive up to date information from, and provide timely input to, all federal agencies (as could be achieved through developing adequate internet linkages). What needs to be done is to move the coordination (and chairing) of the Working Group entirely into the White House as part of the Intergovernmental Working Group with equal status for tribal governments with state and other governmental entities. Here it will be able to operate from above the level of the departments with a clear institutional interest in, and the full authority to effectively coordinate Indian policy and its implementation in dialogue with the Tribes.
Meanwhile, the decentralization of federal programs to tribes through block grants became a general policy of Congress and the Clinton administration. For example, HUD has decentralized all tribal housing programs to tribally run housing authorities through direct block grants under the United States Housing Act of 1996.⁷⁰ As Congress has been devolving federal programs to the states, to date, it has provided for tribal governance of Indian portions of programs and/or collaboration between tribal and state governments in program administration. For example, in enacting welfare reform under P.L. 104-193 in 1996,⁷¹ which moved welfare financing and administration to providing direct block grants to the states for welfare, Congress provided the possibility that in many instances tribes could take over programs, directly receiving federal funding. Under some circumstances, however, this leads to a reduction in program funding to the tribe. As an alternative, Congress has included some incentives for states to make compacts with tribes to provide tribal programs, most likely at the same level, or close to the same level, as is provided to the rest of the state. Generally, the impact of welfare reform is to reduce assistance to low income persons. In some cases the reductions in the act fall more lightly upon some tribes, but more generally, the impact has been heavier on tribes than upon states, depending on the relevant provisions of the legislation and how the reform has implemented in practice. What is clear, is that when the national government delegates programs to the states that affect Indian tribes, that the legislation needs to include adequate incentives and mechanisms to be sure that Indian people are treated fairly and that states will consult fully with tribal governments to insure that the Indian portions of programs operate adequately and appropriately. This was not entirely the case with welfare reform, although it did promote some well working tribal-state cooperation.⁷²
An attempt to carry decentralization of federal programs to Indian nations, to the greatest degree possible, was begun during the Clinton years under "The Tribal Shares Process."⁷³ The Bureau of Indian Affairs, acting under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act and Fiscal Year 1997 Appropriations Language for the Department of the Interior, worked with every federal agency involved with Indian nations, and received public comment, including from Indian tribes, to develop a list of: 1) those functions in Indian programs that are inherently federal (IFF), and can only be carried out by the federal government, and those functions that are non-inherently federal that can be carried out by tribes directly, or if the tribes are unable or unwilling to carry them out themselves, can be contracted out by the tribes. It remains to be seen how appropriate the division of functions is in the list as it operates in practice. What is clear, is that there was an increase in the percentage of federal Indian program money going directly to tribal governments and in the extent to which Indian tribes run or contract out federal programs.⁷⁴
It should be noted, however, that the number of Indian Nations taking over federal programs coming to them under all of the methods available is only increasing very slowly. The problem is, first, that many of the tribes are not yet equipped to handle their own programs, and there is insufficient federal assistance to prepare them. Second, many tribes do not yet have the administrative structures necessary to carry out programs that could be turned over to them. Third, since the current arrangements merely shift monies from the federal government to the tribe, without reimbursement for the added administrative costs for the tribe, there is little incentive for tribes that are uncertain of their ability to take on the considerable responsibility to administer federal programs and monies, to move to begin to do so. Moreover, the Clinton Administration initiated little after 1996 that might concretely further enhance government-to-government relations, and the Bush administration is not likely to take further steps in this direction. Finally, there remain instances of bureaucratic resistance or inertia in which federal agency personnel fail to complete contracting or turning over of specific functions to tribal governments.⁷⁵
The devolution of authority from the federal government to tribal governments, and more recently to state and local governments, has brought about an increase in tribal-state and local government relations.⁷⁶ Until the 1970's, such relations were limited, and largely marked by a costly competition for jurisdiction, following from mistrust and misunderstanding, sometimes marred by racism. As tribal governments have gained authority and competence, they have been better able to collaborate with neighboring governments. The increase in tribal government competence, combined with a more favorable public view of Indians, and a rise in Indian political power ⁷⁷have contributed to the willingness of state and local governments to collaborate with states. Moreover, as reservation economies have improved, while a number of studies have shown that Indian people contribute significantly to the economies of their areas and states while paying more in state and local taxes than they receive in benefits,⁷⁸ citizens and policy makers have gained a growing understanding that they have an interest in working cooperatively with Indian nations.
Fig.8: Bidaz-Ishu, a Chiricahua Apache (BAE 43).
There are numerous examples of increasing collaboration between state and local and tribal governments in many fields.⁷⁹ For example, in order to deal with the difficulties of complex law enforcement jurisdictions on and around checkerboard reservations (where jurisdiction is different depending whether the alleged offence takes place on or off reservation land, and whether the alleged violator is Indian or non Indian), a number of tribes, including the Southern Utes in Colorado, the Miccosukees in Florida, the Blackfeet in Montana and the Yakimas in Washington, have found effective solutions to these difficulties by coming together with neighboring local and state police to cross deputize each other's officers (so that they have authority in each other's jurisdictions) and to engage in close communication and collaboration.⁸⁰
Similarly, where issues of taxation have often found tribal and state and local governments in conflict, in South Dakota, the state and the Oglala Sioux have worked out an agreement on the tribal sale of cigarettes. Legally, the state can only tax sales to non-Native Americans while the tribe can tax all sales. In this case the state and the tribe have set the taxes so that tax payment is equal. The state collects all the cigarette taxes on the reservation, and then, after deducting a small administrative fee, passes the tribe's share on to the tribe. A number of other tribes have made similar agreements with the states.⁸¹
A particularly advanced example of tribal-state collaboration, involving the coming together of several Indian nations with multiple agencies in three states to discuss common problems and develop policy, is the ongoing dialogue between the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington over health care policy.⁸² The Board, representing many of the tribes in the three states since 1974, has a professional staff and actively communicates with member tribes; state, regional and national Indian Organizations concerned with health issues; and health related agencies in the three states. A major factor in the success of the collaboration is that each state has developed its own vehicle for coordinating health policy and dialoging with the tribes in the state. In Oregon and Idaho representatives of tribal governments meet regularly with the state's coordinating institution. In Washington, the concerned tribes formed the American Indian Health Commission for Washington State to provide policy advice and collective communication with the state on health matters. It communicates regularly with a variety of state and local health agencies, while each Washington tribe appoints its own representative to the Indian Policy Advisory Committee in the Washington Department of Social and Health Services. The department also has appointed a liaison person for Native American/Alaska Native issues who is actively involved with the Commission, playing an instrumental role in avoiding and solving problems. Thus by providing professional staff and an active information and dialoging network, a well working relationship for the mutual development of policy and resolution of problems has been established. The Pacific Northwest health policy collaboration is a particularly important precedent for the realization of effective tribal state partnerships. The key element, which is often missing when tribal and state and local governments would like to collaborate, is the institutionalization of effective means of communication and policy coordination along the lines that the federal government has been moving toward.
IV. What Is Necessary for a Full Return to the Circle
For Indian nations to return fully to sovereignty, self-sufficiency and harmony as partners in American federalism, the entire range of problems relating to Indian communities and people that were brought on by physical and cultural genocide must be fully and properly addressed. First, there are a variety of psychological problems that afflict many Native Americans including: unresolved historical loss and grief, low individual and community esteem,⁸³ and a number of patterns of thinking and associating, developed as adaptations to destructive conditions, which are in need of transformation. All of these wounds must be healed for a return to individual and community wholeness and harmony. Second, are a number of related social problems including the highest rate of alcoholism and other forms of substance abuse of any U.S. ethnic group,⁸⁴ various forms of abuse of self (including very high suicide rates ⁸⁵) and others (both physical and emotional),⁸⁶ a violent crime rate more than twice the national average ⁸⁷ and the lowest rate of educational achievement and the highest school drop out rate of any U.S. ethnic group. Third, are a set of political problems including lack of appropriate forms and processes of self-government, an incomplete return to sovereignty and self-determination in relation to other governments, and often a lack of a sufficient number of adequately educated people for full self-determination with well operating self-governance.⁸⁸ Fourth, is a set of economic problems including a lack of sufficient resources for creating individual and community self-reliance, and for providing the needed, appropriate education and other services necessary to solve the entire set of difficulties confronting Indian communities and their members.⁸⁹ The accomplishment of this set of tasks will not benefit Indian people alone. The development of Indian communities since 1960 shows clearly that, as Indian people take control of their own lives, they improve their condition, allowing them to contribute significantly, economically, socially, politically and spiritually to the well-being of the people living around them and of the entire nation. The struggle to complete American Indian renewal is a concern for all Americans.
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[Editorial note: The printed version of the article, published in two parts in Athena Review (Vol.3, no.2, pp. 90-97, and Vol.3, no.3), was in places (especially in the footnotes) edited for the sake of brevity, in order to fit into the available pages. The present web version is complete, containing the full set of footnotes as well as the full text of the article.]
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FOOTNOTES

1. Several authors have delineated a set of "pan-Indian" values. These have included generosity, respect for elders, respect for women as life-givers, regarding children as sacred, harmony with nature, self-reliance, respect for choices of others, accountability to the collective, courage, sacrifice for the collective in humility, recognizing powers in the unseen world, and stewardship for the Earth. See A. Timas and R. Reedy, "Implementation of cultural-specific intervention for a Native American Community," Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1998, pp. 382-393.
2. Sharon O'Brien, American Indian Tribal Government (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), CH. 2,; and Stephen M. Sachs, Rembering the Circle: The Relevance of Traditional American Indian Governance for the Twenty-First Century," Western Social Science Association Meeting, Reno Nevada, 2001.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. For an example of this concerning the Cheyenne, see E. Adamson Hoebel, The Cheyennes: Indians of the Great Plains (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1960), p. 37.
6. See Morris Edward Opler, An Apache Way of Life: The Economic Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), on politics, particularly pp. 460-471.
7. This general pattern of mutual obligation and mutual support was a common element of precolumbian American Indian society, although the detailed form of family and social structure varied from tribe to tribe, and within a tribe over time. Ella Deloria, Speaking of Indians (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1998), Part II, "A scheme of Life That Worked," pp. 24-25, says of Dakota interpersonal relations what was widely the case: Kinship was the all-important matter. Its demands and dictates for all phases of social life were relentless and exact; but on the other hand, its privileges and honorings and rewarding prestige were not only tolerable but downright pleasant for all who conformed. By kinship all Dakota people were held together in a great relationship that was theoretically all-inclusive and co-extensive with the Dakota Domain. Everyone who was born a Dakota belonged in it; nobody need be left outside. [And since being Dakota, as with Indian societies generally, was more a matter of participation in the community than blood, kinship included all who effectively joined the community, whether they married in or were adopted, a common practice throughout traditional Native America].
". . . I can safely say that the ultimate aim of Dakota life, stripped of accessories, was quite simple: One must obey kinship rules: One must be a good relative. No Dakota who has participated in that life will dispute that. In the last analysis every other consideration was secondary-property, personal ambition, glory, good times, life itself. Without that aim and the constant struggle to attain it, the people would no longer be Dakota in truth. They would no longer be even human. To be a good Dakota then was to be humanized, civilized. And to be civilized was to keep the rules imposed by kinship for achieving civility, good manners, and a sense of responsibility toward every individual dealt with. Thus only was it possible to live communally with success; that is to say, with a minimum of friction and a maximum of good will."
For a similar view from a Cherokee perspective, see Michael Garrett, "To Walk in Beauty: The Way of Right Relationship," in J.T. Garrett and Michael Garrett, Medicine of the Cherokee: The Way of Right Relationship (Santa Fe: Bear and Company Publishing, 1996), p. 165-166.
8. Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorethea Leighton, The Navaho (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 111-123. Robert W. Young, A Political History of the Navajo Tribe (Tsaille, Navajo Nation, AZ: Navajo Community College Press, 1978), pp. 15-16, 25-27, reports that, according to Dine legend, the people lived in independent, self sufficient camps, in which, like other band societies, discussed below, decisions were made by the community by consensus. Headman (Hozhooli Naat'aah) only acted as advisors. He usually was proficient in leading at least one ceremony, governed by persuasion, "expounded on moral and ethical subjects, admonishing the people to live in peace and harmony. With his assistants he planned and organized the workday life of his community, gave instruction in the arts of of farming and stock raising and supervised the planting, cultivating and harvesting of the crops. As an aspect of his community relations function, it was his responsibility to arbitrate disputes, resolve family difficulties, try to reform wrong doers and represent his group in its relations with other communities, tribes and governments. He had no functions whatsoever relating to war because the conduct of hostilities was the province of War Chiefs. " A headman was a man of high prestige, chosen for his good qualities and only remained a leader "so long as his leadership enlisted public confidence or resulted in public benefit."
9. Kluckhohn and Dorethea Leighton, Ibid., p. 118.
10. Ibid., p. 120.
11. Laura E. Klein and Lillian A. Ackerman, "Introduction," and Daniel Maltz and JoAllyn Archambault, "Concluding Remarks,", in Laura E. Klein and Lillian A. Ackerman, Ed., Women and Power in Native North America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), pp. 3-16 and 230-249.
12. O'Brien, American Indian Tribal Government, pp. 17-20.
13. Valerie Sherer Mathes, "Native American Women in Medicine and the Military," Journal of the West, Vol. 21, 1982, p. 44.
14. Klein and Ackerman,Women and Power in Native North America. The one exception in the study was the case of the Muscogee, and this was a partial exception both concerning the place of women in particular, and the relative lack of hierarchy in Indian societies, in general.
15. As explained more fully in Ibid., while men and women did not do the same things, or have the same authority and power, their was a balance in their relations referred to as "balanced reciprocity." Concerning the one case, that of the Muscogee, reported in Ibid. not to involve balanced reciprocity, Joyoptaul Chaudhuri, who was married to a Muscogee woman and lived amongst them and studied their tradition for 40 years, commented to this author that that conclusion is only accurate for post contact times and not for the pre-contact Muscogee, which is no longer known by many tribal members. That the traditional Muscogee maintained a balance between men and women, see Jean and Joyotpaul Chaudhuri, A Sacred Path: The Way of the Muscogee Creeks (Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 2000).
16. Katherine M. B. Osburn, Southern Ute Women: Autonomy and Assimilation on the Reservation, 1887-1934 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), p. 23 states,
" In short, before confinement to the reservation, the Utes recognized significant differences in gender roles but did not value one gender more highly than the other. Women were equal members of their families and bands. They did not restrict their activities to the home and allow men to rule in the public realm. Rather, they participated in councils, were active in warfare, and provided leadership and power in spiritual matters. After relocation to the reservation, women continued to insist on participation in public affairs."
17. See Bruce Johnson, Forgotten Founders: How American Indians Helped Shape Democracy (Harvard and Boston: The Harvard Commons Press, 1982; Donald A. Grindle and Bruce E. Johnson, Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy (Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, UCLA, 1991), including Vine Deloria's introduction discussing the issues of scholarship on this question; Jose Barreiro, Ed., Indian Roots of American Democracy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); and in Lyons, et al, Exiled in the Land of the Free, see, Mohawk, "Indians and Democracy," Robert M. Venables, "American Indian Influence on the Founding Fathers," and Donald A. Grinde, Jr., Iroquois Political Theory and the Roots of American Democracy."
18. The Second Treatise on Civil Government, #108 (p. 61) & #184 (p. 102).
19. Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1950), Book Ill, Ch. V (p. 67), and indirectly on the subject of confederacy as a new subject in reference to the Six Nations or Iroquois league and other native American confederations including the Huron, Book Ill, Ch. XV (pp. 96-97 in the footnote). Rousseau also commented favorably on Native American life in, "A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality" published in the same volume.
20. T. B. Bottomore, Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (New York: McGraw-HilI. Book Company, 1964) Introduction at p. 39. Marx and Engles had read L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society. For a discussion of the limitations of Morgan's understanding, see Joy Bilharz, "First Among Equals? The Changing status of Seneca Women," in Laura F. Klein and Lilillian A. Ackerman, Women and Power in Native North America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), p. 107.
21. Vine Deloria, Jr. and David E. Wilkins, Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), particularly Ch. 3. See p. 61 for a discussion of the basic standards for valid treaties, and acts following from them, between the United States and Indian Nations.
22. The stages and related history are discused in O'Brien, American Indian Tribal Government, Part 2, and Ch. 12. A more detailed history is presented in Angie Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), Ch. 2-21.
23. As with the Cherokees (Debo, Ibid., pp. 120-125), the Muscogee (or Creek) and Seminole (Ibid., pp. 116-120, 125-126; and Chaudhuri and Chaudhuri, The Way of the Muscogee Creeks, pp. 146-1570).
24. Lewis Meriam, et al., The Problem of Indian Administration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1928) , discussed in Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States, pp. 336-337 and James S. Olson and Raymond Wilson, Native Americans in the Twentieth Century (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984), pp. 100-112 and 193. A representative excerpt is published in Francis Paul Prucha, Ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, Second Edition, Expanded (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), No 136, pp. 219-221. A history of Indian policy and its impact under the Dawes Act is also provided in Janet A McDonnell, The Dispossession of the American Indian, 1887-1934 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991).
25. O'Brien, American Indian Tribal Governments p. 77. Other estimates of Indian population in 1492 in what is now the United States range from one, to more than eighteen, million people [L.A. Stiffarm and P. Lane, Jr, "The Demography of Native North America: A Question of American Indian Survival," in M.A. James, Ed., The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization and Resistance (Boston: South End Press, 1992)]. Regardless of the, exact figure, the loss of population since 1492 is immense.
26. Evidence for this can be found in the successes attained when such processes have been reinstituted, as will be discussed below. See LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs, and Benjamin Broome, "Recreating Harmony Through Wisdom of The People: The Case of the Comanche and Other Oklahoma Tribes, Summary version," Proceedings of the National [Canadian] Gathering on Aboriginal Peoples and Dispute Resolution: 'Making Peace and Sharing Power,' (Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, 1997) and "Through Reactivating The Wisdom of the People: The Comanche Bring Back the Tradition of Consensus Decision Making," Native Americas, Vol. XII, No. 3, Fall 1996. We believe current experience gives evidence that traditional consensus building methods were likely to have been successful even though reduced living space and mobility would have lessoned the availability of one means of maintaining consensus: people changing communities (e/g Comanches being free to move from one band or village to another [see, Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952, p. 22, and put into context of this discussion by Ch. IX]), or forming a new community (as occurred amongst the Hopi in 1906 when a group of traditional people, not wanting to participate in certain modern adaptations of living, left Orabi and founded a new village at Hotevilla [see, Thomas E. Mails and Dan Evenema, Hotevilla: Hopi Shrine of the Covenant, Microcosm of the World (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1995, p. 280)]. Such moves did not break tribal and kinship relations, and thus were but one method for respectfully allowing for individual (person or group) freedom and difference, harmoniously, within a larger whole or community.
As Ella Deloria points out in Speaking of Indians (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), p. 131, if, after militarily defeating Indian nations the U.S. government had worked with the tribes respectfully to adopt to the new difficult conditions, the results would have been far better than what resulted from policies of cultural genocide: "..., if the missionaries and government officials had studied the problem with the chiefs and leaders, together they might have been able to reinterpret the [traditional Indian] ideal and revamp the customs in a workable form acceptable to the people."
27. As evidenced by recent successes using these methods in resolving historical grief discussed in Stephen M. Sachs, LaDonna Harris, Barbara Morris and Deborah Hunt, "Recreating the Circle: Overcoming Disharmony and Infighting in American Indian Communities," Proceedings of the 1999 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington:, DC: American Political Science Association, 1999), Section III, a. The impact of the loss of traditional ceremonies and the need for bringing back traditional ceremonies or their equivalents is discussed in Eduardo Duran and Bonnie Duran, Native American Postcolonial Psychology (Albany, NY: State of New York University Press, 1995), pp. 42-53 and Ch. 4, and p. 180. For discussion of plains ceremonies as practiced by the Lakota see, Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas R Parks, Editors, Sioux Indian Religion (Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1987). An interesting discussion of the Shoshone/Ute Sun Dance, also practiced by the Crow, and how it was adopted around 1890 for the difficult times brought on by Euro-American oppression, is presented by Joseph G. Jorgensen, The Sun Dance Religion: Power for the Powerless (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). For a discussion of Dine, or Navajo, ceremonies see, Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorethea Leighton, The Navaho, Revised Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974).
28. There is some discussion of this in Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States, Ch. 15-17.
29. For a discussion of the problems of Indian Education, including in boarding schools prior to 1928, see Margaret Connell Szasz, Education and the American Indian: The Road to Self-Determination Since 1928 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged, 1999), particularly pp. 2-3, 10-11, 18-27 and 67. A more detailed critique of the boarding school experience is to be found in David Wallace Adams, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1995).
30. Hillary N. Weaver and M. Yellow Horse Brave Heart, "Facets of American Indian Identity: Implications for Social Work Practice," Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, in Press; and Hillary N. Weaver, "Indigenous People in a Multicultural Society: Unique Issues for Human Services," Social Work, Vol. 43, No., 3, May 1998, pp. 205-206.
31. P.I. Morrisette, "The Holocaust of First Nation People: Residual Effects on Parenting and Treatment Implications," Contemporary Family Therapy, Vol. 16 (1994), pp. 381-392.
32. See Vine Deloria, Jr. And David E. Wilkins, Tribes, Treaties, And Constitutional Tribulations (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999). pp. 39-41; and Prucha, Ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, document 33, "Creation of a Bureau of Indian Affairs in the War Department, March 11, 1824," pp. 37-38.
33. One commentator summed up BIA's control of the lives of Indians as follows: "...The Indian is never alone. The life he leads is not his to control. Every aspect of his being is affected and defined by his relationship to the federal government-and primarily to one agency of the federal government: the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Even when exercised illegally, the total power of the Bureau is virtually unchallengeable and unreviewable. Where the normal citizen has three avenues of redress political, judicial, administrative-the Indian has none. Through the perverseness of the Bureau's role, the exercise of power and administration of programs by the BIA have come to ensure that every effort by the Indian to achieve self-realization is frustrated and penalized; that the Indian is kept in a state of permanent dependency as his price for survival; and that alienation from his people and past is rewarded and encouraged for the Indian." Edgar Cahn, Ed., Our Brother's Keeper: The Indian In White America (New York: New American Library, 1969) pp. 5, 10, 13, as quoted by Robert A. Nelson and Joseph F. Sheley, "The Bureau of Indian Affairs Influence on Indian Self-Determination," in Vine Deloria, Jr., Ed., American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), p. 178.
34. Mary V. Davis, Ed., Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993), p. 233.
35. "Federal Indian Spending: A Sinking Trust," The Friends Committee on National Legislation, Indian Report, 1-55, Summer 1997, pp. 1, 3. The overall inadequacy of federal spending for Indians is discussed in, Stephen M. Sachs, "Termination By Budget: Impact of the 1996 Federal Budget on Native Americans," Proceedings of the 1996 Meeting of American Political Science Association (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1996).
36. "Poverty Status, By Race/Ethnicity, 1980 and 1990," in Marlita A. Ready, Ed., Statistical Record of Native North Americans (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993), p. 814. It should be noted that because of large average sizes of households, Native Americans remained second from the lowest for all groups measured from 1980 to 1990, but they were the only group to have household income (adjusted for inflation) decline during the decade.
37. IHS, Trends in Indian Health, p. 28 and Indian Nations at Risk Taskforce, U.S. Department of Education, Final Report, Indian Nations at Risk: An Educational Strategy for Action (Washington, DC: Indian Nations at Risk Taskforce, U.S. Department of Education, 1991), pp. 7, 9.
38. IHS, Trends in Indian Health, p. 5.
39. Ibid.., pp. 35 and 36.
40. Ibid., p. 71.
41. Van Biema, "Bury My Heart in Committee," pp. 48, 50. Also, "Tribal Housing Susceptible to Economic Stress," Indian Country Today, June 29, 1995 p. A10, contains an overview of the tribal housing situation. The article reports that the situation today would be much worse if there had not been a significant increase in housing in recent years from new construction, and that housing construction has become more efficient in terms of cost and construction time.
42. Eric Haase, "Tribal Housing Singled Out for Major Cuts," Indian Country Today, June 29, 1995, p. A9.
43. Ada Deer, "1997 Budget: GOP Cuts Threaten BIA Funding; Impact deep at Reservation Level," Indian Country Today, Week of May 27 - June 4, 1996, p. A7. It should be noted that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of the Secretary, "Annual Report to Congress: FY1979: Indian and Alaska Native Housing and Community Development Programs," in commenting that much progress had been made during 1979 made a statement that remains largely true today (p. 6).
The condition of Indian housing is generally poor, and the needs for community development assistance enormous. Units needing replacement often lack normal water, sewage, and electrical services, or effective weatherproofing. Almost half of all Indian housing is substandard, as measured by relatively conservative BIA standards. Over 25% of existing structures have severe structural deficiencies, are unsuitable for even basic rehabilitation and require replacement.
Housing and community development needs are closely interrelated on Indian reservations. Lack of water and sewer systems, electricity, all-weather roads (paved or unpaved), and fire fighting equipment are as much of a problem and a priority for communities as a whole as they are for those interested in the provision of new housing. Unfortunately, Indian communities are almost uniformly of very low income, and lack the income tax base to finance such improvements.
44. Olson and Wilson, Native Americans in the Twenty First Century, p. 164.
45. . IHS, Trends in Indian Health, p. 29.
46. Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt, Successful Economic Development and Heterogeneity of Government Forms on Indian Reservations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1995).
47. See the Report of the Taskforce on Indian Economic Development for an overview of policies that have been undertaken and their results.
48. A particularly interesting example of joint economic development is that of the Mississippi Choctaw who collaborated with the City of Philadelphia, MI to make possible the expansion of the tribe's General Motors plant, creating many new jobs, most of which were filled by non-tribal members. See, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Choctaw Industrial Park (Philadelphia, MS: Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, 1982) and John H. Peterson, Jr., "Three Efforts at Development Among the Choctaws of Mississippi," in Walter L. Williams, Ed., Southeastern Indians Since the Removal Era (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1979).
49. According to the National Indian Gaming Authority, as reported in David Melmer, "Casino Tax Shelved but May Rise Again," Indian Country Today, November 23, 1995, p. 1, 130 of 550 recognized tribes had high stakes casinos. The number has risen somewhat, but remains limited, in part because under current law casino gaming is only legal when it is legal in the state in which the reservation is located, and even then only after a compact has been signed between the Tribe and the state. Since the publication of the figure quoted here, their are a number of tribes whose gambling operations have been declared illegal or whose legality has been questioned, while some new casinos have been opened. Some additional casinos may be established, but given the legal requirements alone, expansion of gambling to additional reservations is likely to be slow and may be quite limited in the future.
50. "Casino Profits Going Down," Indian Country Today, December 14, 1995, p. A4.
51. Ibid. reports that tribal casino profits have been declining for two years. The Deadwood Casino in South Dakota, for example had a 20% reduction in profits in 1995. This may be larger than normal, but it is also in one of the poorest areas where the funds are most needed.
52. LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs and Benjamin J. Broome, "Wisdom of the People: Potential and Pitfalls in Efforts by the Comanches to Recreate Traditional Ways of Building Consensus," American Indian Quarterly, Forthcoming.
53. Ibid.
54. Cahn, Ed., Our Brother's Keeper. See also the discussion in Vine DeLoria and Clifford Lytle, Nations Within (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).
55. Stephen M. Sachs, LaDonna Harris and Barbara Morris, "Native American Tribes and Federalism: Can Government to Government Relations Between the Tribes and the Federal Government Be Institutionalized?," Proceedings of the 1997 American Political Science Association Meeting, Proceedings of the 1996 American Political Science Association Meeting. (Washington, DC: American Political Science association, 1988).
56. Ibid.
57. See, "Recommendations for Indian Policy, Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Recommendations for Indian Policy," July 8, 1970, Referred to the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of Representatives, 91st Congress 2d session, Document No 91 363.
58. Ibid., p. 11.
59. Olson and Wilson, Native Americans in the Twentieth Century, Ch. 8, and O'Brien, Native American Tribal Governments, pp. 86-91, 258. The Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 is P.L. 93-638, partially presented in Prucha, Documents of United States Indian Policy, pp. 274-276.
60. See the December 19, 1978 HEW "Note to National Indian Organizations" from A. David Lester, Chairman of the Intra-Departmental Council on Indian Affairs, attached to LaDonna Harris January 17, 1979 letter to A. David Lester in the Harris Papers.
61. See the Department of Agriculture "Secretary's Memorandum No. 1932: Native American Task Force of January 25, 1978, attached to the letter of Stuart Jamison, Supervisor, Indian Desk, Department of Agriculture of April 4, 1978 (#7160) to LaDonna Harris, (the collection of the Papers of LaDonna Harris at NAES [Native American Education Service] in Chicago, here after referred to in this paper as the "Harris Papers").
62. Letter to Ron Andrade, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians of June (date not clear), 1990 from B. Leigh Price, EPA Indian Work Group Coordinator, Harris Papers. The letter indicated that Price and Andrade had previously discussed the matter. EPA's policy called for:
..."ensure that our programs to protect the environment and human health operate as effectively on Indian reservations as they do elsewhere."
...incorporate Tribal governments into the operation and management of the Agency's programs, as follows:
1. EPA will recognize Tribal Governments as the primary parties for policy formulation and implementation on Indian lands, consistent with Agency standards and regulations. The Agency is prepared to work directly with Indian Tribal Governments on a one-to-one basis, rather than as subdivisions of other governments.
2. EPA will take affirmative steps to encourage and assist Tribes in assuming regulatory and program management responsibilities for reservation lands.
3. EPA will take appropriate steps to remove existing legal and procedural impediments to working directly and effectively with Tribal Governments on reservation programs.
4. EPA will ensure that Tribal concerns and interests are fully considered whenever EPA's actions and/or decisions may impact reservation environments.
5. EPA will encourage cooperation between Tribal and State governments to resolve environmental problems of mutual concern.
6. EPA will work with other Federal agencies which have related responsibilities on Indian lands, to enlist their interest and support in cooperative efforts to help Tribes assume environmental program responsibilities for reservations. [This particularly involves the Indian Health Service (IHS) which has responsibility for sanitation and drinking water on many reservations, and secondly concerns the BIA.]
7. EPA will incorporate its Indian Policy goals into its planning and management activities.
Excerpts from EPA, 7/18/84, "Indian Policy: Answers to Common Questions," The Harris Papers.
An example of the kind of collaboration, referred to in point 6 above, between EPA, IHS and Indian nations is discussed in the EPA Draft, Report To Congress on Indian Waste water Treatment Needs and Assistance, pp. 2,3, attached to January 15, 1988 EPA letter to Tribal Organization Official from Robert J. Blanco, Director, Municipal Facilities Division, Harris Papers.
63. . For example, when the Office of Tribal Operations was established in 1994, Terry Williams, previously Executive Director of the Tulalip Tribe's Fisheries and Natural Resources, was appointed its first Executive Director (Terry C. Hansen, "EPA Establishes Offices to Strengthen Tribal Operations," News From Indian Country, Late October, 1994, p. 10). Then in 1997, Kathy Gorpospe, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, for six years an executive assistant with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, was appointed Executive Director of that Office. See, Holly Swanson, "Oregon Natural Resources Specialist Takes EPA Post" Indian Country Today, February 3-10, 1997, pp. B1, B2.
The bringing in to EPA of American Indians experienced in environmental policy and administration has been extremely important to the devolution of environmental policy to Tribes. For example, EPA's initiation a general policy of treating competent tribes as if they were states was not immediately uniformly applied throughout EPA's regions. Although the Flathead Tribe was prepared to initiate a set of stricter environmental standards that would apply to Indians and nonIndians engaged in agriculture within the boundaries of their checkerboard reservation, they were not enabled to do so by EPA until an Indian was appointed Director of the Denver office. As has been shown in several examples in this paper, Indians in key places in a variety of agencies, including EPA, were instrumental in initiating major advances in the development of government-to-government relations, not only in expanding their implementation.
64. This is exemplified by the creation of The American Indian Environmental Office, whose Administrative Director reports directly to the Administrator of EPA. The Office was established to coordinate all EPA Indian programs, cooperation with other agencies involved with tribal environmental programs, and oversight of EPA personnel training on trust responsibilities, and related environmental concerns, culture and legal issues.
65. The Water Quality Act of 1987 (P.L. 100-4, �131.7). See also, Catherine A. Clay, "EPA Proposes to Work with Tribes in Same Way It Works with States," News From Indian Country, Late October, 1994, p. 10.
66. "Two Years After the President's Meeting With Tribal Leaders: Annual Report of the Administration Working Group on Indians and Alaska Natives," August 1996, pp. 3, 22-23.
67. "Tribal Leaders Zero in on Treaty Obligations at Summit Meeting," Indian Country Today, Week of May 4, 1995, p. A2.
68. "Members of Working Group on American Indians and Alaska Natives of the White House Domestic Policy Council," Revised January 27, 1997.
69. May 23, 1997 White House Memorandum for Heads of Departments and Agencies from Erskine Bowles, Chief of Staff to the President and Bruce Reed, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy concerning Executive Memorandum on Government-to-Government relations.
70. Randall Howell, "Tribes Writing Regs on Housing: New HUD Law Effective Oct. 1, Indian Country Today, December 23-30, 1996, pp. B1, B5.
71. The potential impact of the 1996 welfare reform for the tribes is analyzed George Waters and Tim Seward Legislative Update from George Waters Consulting Services, 1010 Massachusetts Ave., Washington, DC 20001, "RE: Welfare Reform/Budget Reconciliation -- P.L. 104-193, August 12, 1996 (a copy is archieved at NACE in Chicago). Note that the National Indian Policy Center in Washington, DC received an ANA grant to allow it to enter into a subcontract with the National Congress of American Indians to help defray costs of a national forum for tribal leaders to develop a plan to insure the appropriate government-to-government dialogue between tribal governments and the federal officials responsible for initiating welfare reform, "Policy Center to Participate in National Forum," Indian Country Today, September 16-23, 1996, p. A3.
72. For a more detailed discussion of welfare reform and tribes, and the tribal requirements in devolution legislation, see Deborah Hunt, Stephen M. Sachs and Barbara Morris, "Devolution of Welfare Programs to the States, the impact on Indian Nations and on Tribal Government-State and Local Government Relations," Proceedings of the 2000 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 2000).
73. "Tribes Set Own Goals," News From Indian Country, Late July, 1996, p. 15A73 45. See, Proposed List of Inherently Federal Functions and Non-Inherently Federal Functions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, May 1997, and "Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Notice of Schedule of Regional Consultation Sessions on Tribal Shares," Federal Register, Vol. 62, No. 95, Friday, May 16, 1997, p. 27064.
74. "Two Years After the President's Meeting With Tribal Leaders: Annual Report of the Administrative Working Group on American Indians and Alaska Natives," August, 1996.
75. The BIA and other federal agencies concerned with Indian nation programs have undergone a great deal of cultural change, so that in July of 1997 two officials at Southern Ute commented to author Stephen Sachs that their tribe's relations with the BIA were vastly improved, with one of the them stating, "Things turned around about five years ago. The BIA works for us now." By contrast, tribal officials at the Navajo Nation said that while BIA personnel currently worked more collaboratively with their tribe than had been the case in the past, they still experienced bureaucratic difficulties in trying to work with the BIA. A similar considerable, but incomplete, change of organization culture and individual staff member attitude has taken place at other agencies. The Indian Health Service (IHS), for example, now works more collaboratively with tribes than it did previously. However, instances of IHS staff not acting consistently with Indian self-determination are still reported. For example, see, Cate Montana, "Innocuous rider sends IHS to court to avoid paying contract support," Indian Country Today, January 18-25, 1999, pp. 1, 3.
76. Sachs, Harris and Morris, "Strategy and Choice."
77. Ibid.
78. For example, see: William L. Stringer in Association with Charles Blackwell, The Economic Impact of Tribal Tax and Expenditure Programs in the State of Oklahoma (Washington, DC and Oklahoma City: The George Washington University Center for Native American Studies and Indian Policy Development and the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, 1992); Robert F. Robinson, The Economic and Fiscal Importance of Indian Tribes in Arizona (Phoenix: The Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs, 1993); Alfred L. Parker, The Economic and Fiscal Importance of American Indians in New Mexico (Bernalillo, NM: Americans for Indian Opportunity, 1993); Jill Rowley, "Dollar Impact of Tribes Greater than Air Base, [in South Dakota]" Indian Country Today, June 15, 1995, p. 1. This topic in relation to the development of collaboration between tribal and state and local governments is discussed more broadly in Sachs, Harris and Morris, "Strategy and Choice."
79. A more comprehensive discussion of tribal-state and local government collaboration and the conditions that support and undermine its development and maintenance is provided in Sachs, Harris and Morris, "Strategy and Choice."
80. Ibid., and O'Brien, American Indian Tribal Government, pp. 279-281, and Young, The Ute Indians of Colorado in the Twentieth Century, p. 234.
81. O'Brien, American Indian Tribal Government, pp. 284-85.
82. Edward J. Fox, "Tribal/State Health Policymaking in the Northwest States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho: Institution Building for Policymaking." Proceedings of the 1998 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1998.
83. An indicator of the low cultural esteem that many Indians have come to feel is the report to coauthor Stephen Sachs by a member of an Indian community about childhood games. The tribal member said that, as children, they often played cowboys and Indians, but that while everyone wanted to play the cowboys, no one wanted to play being an Indian.
84. Native Americans have an alcoholism rate 433% of the national average, IHS, Trends in Indian Health, p. 5.
85. Indian Children are more likely to be abused than those of any other ethnic group, although family abuse overall is about the same as the national average according to a U.S. Department of Justice report. Although it is not clear if the figures represent an actual increase or merely an improvement in reporting, the study shows an increase of child abuse and neglect of 18% among Indians from 1992 to 1995 while the national average fell by 8%. See Phillip Brasher, "Indians' Crime Risk Is More Than Twice the Norm, Study Says," Indianapolis Star, February 15, 1999, Section A.
86. The American Indian suicide rate is 54% higher than the national average, IHS, Trends in Indian Health, p. 5. For an analysis of the causes of suicide among Indians see the consideration of internalized oppression in Duran and Duran, Native American Postcolonial Psychology, pp. 27-30
87. As reported by the U.S. Department of Justice. See Brasher, "Indians' Crime Risk Is More Than Twice the Norm."
88. The need for education and training to make self-determination viable for many tribes is discussed in Stephen M. Sachs, La Donna Harris, Barbara Morris, "Devolution of Federal Authority to the States: The Growth of TribalGovernment Authority and the Development of Tribal-State and Local Government Relations" (Paper presented at theSouthwest Political Science Association Meeting, San Antonio, TX, 1999), parts II and IV; and in Harris, Sachs and Morris, "Native American Tribes and Federalism". More general discussions of the need to improve Indian education, and what is necessary to make Indian education adequate and appropriate are to be found in Szasz, Education and the American Indian; Indian Nations at Risk; to realize sovereignty and self-sufficiency
89. The considerable need for economic resources by many Indian nations is discussed in, Sachs, "Termination By Budget."

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Athena Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2002)

Returning to the Circle:

The Long Journey of American Indian Tribes to a Renewal of Sovereignty.