The American public largely do not think about the Native Americans, both because they are a fairly isolated minority and their relative lack of power and influence. I know there are swaths of land that are set aside for them, but it has been my impression since I was young that these were pretty static. I never hear about new indian tribes suing for land, or some act of Congress granting new land to them.
So have any reservations of significant size been created lately? Any land change hands in a swap? Have Native Americans lost any land recently to some type of government seizures?
This is not a new reservation, but, as a Delaware, I find it interesting. We moved from the Lawrence, KS area to within the Cherokee Nation in the 1860s. Our tribe is now in the process of establishing a service area in the Lawrence environs to supply services to Delawares (and other tribe’s members) in the region.
From Chief Paula Pechonick’s “Open Letter to the People of Kansas” (here) :
"The Delaware Tribe of Indians has a profound vision for our future in Kansas. With respect to other activities within the state’s borders’ we are actively in conversations with the state and local governments as well as federal agencies that hold a trust relationship with the Delaware Tribe to establish a service area. This is not a request for a reservation, nor is it taking lands off the tax rolls, nor is it designed to threaten anyone’s property rights. The designation is awarded to tribal nations who demonstrate a historic connection to the area and the capacity to render federal services that Indian people are eligible for in these areas. Such as agriculture, law enforcement, road and bridge improvements, health care just to name a few. In our proposed service area, there are nearly 50,000 Native Americans eligible for but without access to such services because no tribe serves the area.
The expansion will allow the Tribe to deliver services not only to our own tribal members but also members of other federally recognized tribes who are eligible for federal services but do not live on one of the four tribe’s reservations (the areas in which they serve). The designation will reduce the burden on local and state governments and allow the state’s money to go further for all Kansas citizens."
I think in general this is a good thing. We also have ties to Indiana from when we were located there (during our Diaspora). There is a recent documentary produced by Ball State University in Muncie, “Lenape on the Wapahani River”, which won a Platinum – Best of Show for Historical Documentaries at the Aurora Awards.
So, while not establishing new reservations, tribes are reaching out to those locations in which they historically have ties for various benign and beneficial reasons.
The Fort Sill Apaches were forced into Oklahoma for the last century. Recently, they acquired some land in southern New Mexico, near their ancestral home.
The NM land is described as a “trust”. I’m not sure what that means legally. I don’t think it is a full-fledged reservation. Lately, they have been fighting the NM government to open a bingo parlor. I assume they eventually want to build a casino.
Some tribes such as the Chinookan People are in limbo as far as being recognized as a “legitimate” tribe. Inter-tribal rivalries, such as between the Quinault and Chinook are somewhat to blame. Without recognition as a tribe, Indian groups are screwed as far as government assistance, and I’m pretty sure opening a casino is out of the question.
In at least one case, the Klamath Indians of Oregon had all their land taken away over time. The advantage that they DO have is that they own the water rights and are tough negotiators with the farming community for its use.
Not too long ago (1986) the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa purchased an old Sears Roebuck store in downtown Duluth, MN and placed the property into tribal trust, thus making it part of the Reservation (20 miles away from the rest of the Reservation). Then it opened a casino (Fond du Luth) in the building. Locals called it the tribe of Sears and Roebuck.
It was operated jointly by the tribe & the city, with the city getting 24.5% of the profits. That was later reduced to 19%, and then 5 years ago, the tribe just stopped paying the city its share.
Would that be considered making a new Reservation, or adding to an existing (if distant) one?
The actual treaty-designated boundaries of the reservations rarely change, but there’s many situations where the actual ownership of the land within those boundaries is changing.
From the 1890s through the 1930’s there was a process called allotment whereby the BIA took tribal land, gave each individual tribal member a certain amount of acreage, and then opened the “excess” land to white homesteading. This resulted in reservations that were sometimes almost all non-Indian owned, depending on how quickly the process progressed. The tribal government has very little power over non-Indians and non-Indian owned land, so even though the original boundaries were unchanged, actual tribal jurisdiction is sometimes largely non-existent or heavily checkerboarded.
Post-allotment policies and legislation have tried to recover allotted land and return it to tribal ownership. Again depending on the circumstances, some tribes have been very successful at using those programs to restore their tribal land bases. So even though the boundaries on the map haven’t changed, the amount of land the tribal government actually has jurisdiction over has gradually gone up.