Everything comes to an end. The Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet empire.
When the Indian reservations end, how will it happen?
With a bang or a wimper? Gradually or all at once?
I personally think it will happen all at once but quietly. Something will trigger an end of federal funding, like a lawsuit about casinos, and the reservations will beg for remedies, and those offered will all involve right wing agenda items against “tribal communism”: privatization, private property, normalization as generic county governments.
I think that the sovreignty of Native reservations will probably be challenged quite soon. A reservation in South Dakota has announced its intentions to open an abortion clinic if the new legislation baning abortions is not defeated by legal challenges. I can see some people having Big Issues with this, and I imaigine it will culminate in a legal challenge which would seek to force Native reservations to follow state laws.
Any legal challenge from the outside will be met with UN involvement. Not to mention the further drop in US image around the world, as we violate yet another set of treaties.
I think it far more likely than reservations gradually dissolve as their populations diminish to nothing.
No other country in the world gives a crap. Insofar as pretty much everyone else is concerned, it’s simply not an international issue. And far too many other countries have their own aboriginal rights issues to get into a morality shouting match.
What if they don’t?
Then I think we have a major set of problems. Allowing an independent, semi-sovereign entity within a country is a recipe for long-term disaster. If the populations on the reservations grows, it will increase the pressure to remove the special status of the reservation. Then we will have to bite the bullet and dissolve them.
Personally, speaking out of my ass, I think there should be a time limit placed on the continued existance of reservations. Give them 50 years to fully integrate with the rest of society, and then dissolve the reservations. This half-way treatment is an insult to everybody. Either the natives are independent countries, or they are conquered peoples. Pick one and deal with the consequences.
They are conquered peoples obviously, but that does not settle the question of their sovereignty. A conquered political entity is not automatically extinguished. That is at the discretion of the conqueror.
The Federal policy on Native Americans is pretty darn strange and I think most will agree that it’s been a complete failure so far as the natives were concerned. The Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 was designed to break up the reservations, give plots of land to indvidual Indians, and sell any surplus to fund Indian education. Well, it didn’t work and starting in 1923 the American Indian Defense Association started working toward an end of land allotment and a return to tribal governments.
In 1924 Native Americans were made full citizens of the United States. It’s really weird that the United States should have treaties with its own citizens. For all practical purposes they’re not really soverign. I don’t really know how to end the cycle of poverty and despair found on many reservations. It’s a tough problem.
Marc
Is the existence of reservations that big of a deal? Maybe it’s just because I live in a state without a large Native population, but I don’t see their existence as being oh so much of a threat to the “American” way of life. C’mon, it ain’t the Roman Empire. Are people really that upset because a tiny group of people (who wouldn’t be able to afford them anyway) aren’t paying taxes? Or because they have autonomy to do things that their conquerors can’t do? Believe me, no matter how nice the reservation deal is on paper, the reality is much less pretty.
I think any motion about dissolving the reservations or “integrating” into the outside world should come solely at the discretion of the people living in said reservations. But then, if I had my way we’d give the whole place back to the Natives and throw ourselves into the sea, so you could say I’m a little biased.
Don’t forget, it is also possible the reservations could become “county governments” without privatizing all tribal property. That is, the rez would become a county, integrated into state government in exactly the same way and degree as other counties in that state and no claim to sovereignty independent of the state’s, but with broader powers and functions than the typical county government.
Of course, that might not work for reservations that cut across state lines, such as the Hopi and Navajo.
I predict that it will happen once Indians start leaving the reservations in search of more economic opportunities. When, who knows?
Marc
It’s a somewhat rare thing to leave your community to look for better work. My hometown has few opprotunites (factory jobs, mostly) and yet having a kid leave town for broader horizons is something which makes the paper when it happens. For the most part, people stay put, and make the most of what they have around them.
One of the common gripes around here is indian casinos. Nobody else can do it except for them and many of these casinos are HUGE moneymakers. In one case locally the official members fo the tribe are only like a hundred people but reap the benefits of a tens of millions a dollar a year business that only about 25 of them even actually work at. In addition a few more unbalanced members of the tribe are famous for doing things like picking fights with customers, vandalizing cars in the parking lot, all manner of sundry obnoxiousness.
I have no problem with it really, but I am not the only POV out there and I do think its wrong that they can run a business that would be illegal a quarter mile down the street.
I think Indian casinos are a wonderful thing. If the tribes can make enough to modernize the rez, get their children a quality education and provide for their elders then more power to them. The fact that they are getting rich off the White Man is just delicious irony. Eventualy, I hope that the casinos provide a way to break the cycle that the BIA has perpetuated for the last 100 years.
As the Jack Abramoff scandal illustrated, Indians have too much money now for Congress to ignore their voices in as profound a way as your prediction suggests. Indian sovereignty will likely erode according to two different scenarios:
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As globalization continues to progress, the federal government assumes even more power either directly or indirectly through its participation in international organizations. This would not only diminish the Indian’s sovereignty, but also state sovereignty.
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As western states become more wealthy and grow in population, the gaming revenues from Indian reservations will stablize and the Indian population of Indian reservations continue to decrease. Reservations will continue to make small deals here and there with states regarding paying certain taxes, maintaining roads, and cross-deputization agreements. Over time, Indian sovereignty will be contracted away, bit by bit.
Other towns have the opposite problem. There are many rural areas where the future existence of the town is in danger because so many people are moving out and not returning. It doesn’t happen all the time but I think that people are more likely to move from their community for economic reasons then for other reasons. Freed slaves stayed in the south until better economic opportunities resulted in the Great Migration during WW I.
But, I could be wrong. It was, after all, a simple prediction and not written in stone.
Marc
I would think that Native peoples would have even a lesser chance of leaving because of their attatchment to their land-- all that remains of once huge territories. I’d imagine that there’s quite a bit of socialization to love your home in those cultures.
What country do you live in?! 'Cause it ain’t the U.S. of A. I don’t know anybody – I very much doubt I have even ever met anybody – who has lived in the same house or apartment for more than 20 years. And relatively few who have even lived in the same county for 20 years.
My mother’s lived in the same house for 35 years, and will most likely die in it. My parents were NEVER in line with the “move every 5 years” demographic.
You might be right but I think that’s a big “what if.” I think we’re all indoctrinated at a young age to love the place we came from whether it was Mexico, Utah, or Wales. I’m not convinced that their indoctrination to love their home is any stronger than ours though I imagine that might vary from tribe to tribe. After all, a Navajo is not a Lakota, is not an Inuit, is not a Pima.
Most modern Indians bear very little resemblence to their ancestors when it comes to culture. They don’t engage in the same economic activities (hunting, gathering, or farming), they don’t practice the same religion (most are Christian), and many of them don’t even live on the same land. The Choctaw, for example, certainly weren’t living in Oklahoma in the 16th Century.
Marc