If there is a covenant with Indian country that perhaps overrides all others it is that the U.S. government has for over thirty years generally supported a commitment to tribal self-government. And it is no accident that because of this sometimes faltering but nevertheless steady and progressing policy current, American Indian nations in North America have achieved a measure of economic success and political power in the past two decades.
American Indian nations have carried the message of self-government to Congress, again and again, for as long as the country is old. Along the line, they achieved a changing of the terms of the collaboration between tribal governments and the other sovereign entities that surround them. In recognizing tribal sovereignty in ways both de facto and de jure, the U.S. federal courts, as well as legislative and bureaucratic systems, have provided the opportunity for the tribes to improve their social and economic conditions under federal status within American society.
This social contract is the guarantee and guarantor of a sense of proper dealing between the American federal government and the Native nations of the United States. This complex system, by and large, for all its foibles, has worked. For all its contentions, a measure of peace and collaboration has been possible, even for peoples who were cheated and overrun, who survived great adversities, and only later, were increasingly recognized to have survived and retained some footings in federal law.
Around the country, tribal leaders are planning for the continuous survival of their peoples while looking to guard the prosperity of their respective enterprises and institutions that best serve their communities. At the same time, many are offering effective analysis of threatening trends to better defend those American Indian rights that are so essentially required for the survival of their future generations.
We respect and commend the recent call by Navajo Tribal President Kelsey Begaye for all tribes to unite their thoughts and perspectives upon some fundamental issues of national importance. Begaye warned the tribes about serious erosion of the recognition of American Indian sovereignty by the U.S. Supreme Court. Begaye is not alone in that thought. Many native leaders have expressed it for years. But the trend by the current justices, as he identified it, is arching to diminish tribal powers and authorities.
To quote Begaye, “The concept of sovereignty is the foundation of federal Indian law and is embodied in the principle of self-determination.” He challenged the tribes to develop strategies of assertion to self-government, “to halt the court’s attempt to erode tribal sovereignty.” And he announced that the Navajo Nation would seek to fully reaffirm its rights as a tribal government. Begaye stated, “Without these two very important principles, it will be difficult for individual Indian nations to fully address these issues.” He stressed, (the) “need for a united front by the Indian nations.” Navajo Nation strategists are encouraging a national Native strategy to reaffirm congressional recognition of tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction.
Major senators from both parties hold the American Indian policy portfolio. These include Republicans like Arizona’s John McCain and Colorado’s Ben Nighthorse Campbell. One major Democrat, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, recently re-expressed his support for tribal sovereignty, reasserting that, “no one on Capitol Hill [can] tell the tribes what to do or how to do it.”
Inouye is absolutely correct. So too is Begaye. The Navajo Tribal President’s initiative is encouraging and completely necessary. All tribal nations, more than ever, need to elicit the best possible thinking and action around positive self-government and what constitutes successful community building. Whether through enterprise, educational, cultural, and governmental institutions, the human face of Indian country needs to be visible to a much larger swath of the American public, particularly it policy makers. A major new campaign by each and every Indian nation to develop and deploy well-documented, quality-produced materials telling the positive, most fundamental and important parts of their tribal realities is required.
This was also the theme and call of another meeting, the recently organized State-Tribal Relations Day event in Montana. Indian leaders there strongly recommended the intense education of non-Indians about cultural and sovereignty issues as a prime component of successfully expanding reservation economies. Education and collaboration to build trust and confidence among their own people and with outsiders was stressed as a major requirement.
The U.S. Supreme courts of the 1970s and 1980s, which regularly contemplated well-reasoned tribal arguments, are no more. But what made reasonable decisions possible on Indian cases even then was the general perception that at least a measure of national political will was being applied toward a justice-oriented resolution to Indian issues.
The political will is not lacking in Congress to sustain the basis of Indian self-governance and jurisdictional rights. But it must be given serious and consistent attention. It must be constantly energized. Collectively, tribes must generate and guide their most extended networks of people, including their own membership, employees, students, families, societies, meeting houses and churches to guard this most basic pillar. Creative approaches by Native media that can effectively make the case for sustained government to government relations within American law are very much encouraged.
More than ever, in these perilous times, it is most important for all tribal nations to project their own most positive images. Reasoned discussion on what constitutes unity of purpose for communities and peoples is much in order. Converging on a national initiative to educate each and every member of the U.S. Congress more diligently on tribal self-governance and its fundamental role in forging strong Native communities is a crucial focus for Indian country.
Pointing to the need “to address the fear that non-members will not be accorded due process and equal protection as guaranteed in non-Indian courts,” Begaye asked that, “Indian nations must provide constitutional protections for non-members and non-Indians,” who fall within their jurisdictions.
We salute the Navajo Nation and all those who encourage American Indian nations to unite as one, to speak with one voice on those universally held principles, to advocate for true recognition of inherent sovereignty by the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress.
Those are all positions we can strongly support.
