Indian removal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Routes of southern removals

Indian removal was a forced migration in the 19th century whereby Native Americans were forced by the United States government to leave their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River, specifically to a designated Indian Territory (roughly, modern Oklahoma). The Indian Removal Act was signed by Andrew Jackson, who took a hard line on Indian removal, but it was put into effect primarily under the Martin van Buren administration.

Indian removal was a consequence of actions first by European settlers to North America in the colonial period, then by the United States government and its citizens until the mid-20th century. The policy traced its direct origins to the administration of James Monroe, though it addressed conflicts between European Americans and Native Americans that had been occurring since the 17th century, and were escalating into the early 19th century as white settlers were continually pushing westward. The Indian Removal Act was the key law that forced the removal of the Indians, and was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.

The Revolutionary background

American leaders in the Revolutionary and Early National era debated whether the American Indians should be treated officially as individuals or as nations in their own right. Some of these views are summarized below.

Benjamin Franklin

In a draft, "Proposed Articles of Confederation", presented to the Continental Congress on May 10, 1775, Benjamin Franklin called for a "perpetual Alliance" with the Indians for the nation about to take birth, especially with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy:

Article XI. A perpetual Alliance offensive and defensive, is to be entered into as soon as may be with the Six Nations; their Limits to be ascertained and secured to them; their Land not to be encroached on, nor any private or Colony Purchases made of them hereafter to be held good; nor any Contract for Lands to be made but between the Great Council of the Indians at Onondaga and the General Congress. The Boundaries and Lands of all the other Indians shall also be ascertained and secured to them in the same manner; and Persons appointed to reside among them in proper Districts, who shall take care to prevent Injustice in the Trade with them, and be enabled at our general Expense by occasional small Supplies, to relieve their personal Wants and Distresses. And all Purchases from them shall be by the Congress for the General Advantage and Benefit of the United Colonies.

Thomas Jefferson

In his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Thomas Jefferson defended American Indian culture and marveled at how the tribes of Virginia "never submitted themselves to any laws, any coercive power, any shadow of government" due to their "moral sense of right and wrong". He would later write to the Marquis de Chastellux in 1785, "I believe the Indian then to be in body and mind equal to the whiteman". His desire, as interpreted by Francis Paul Prucha, was for the Native Americans to intermix with European Americans and to become one people. To achieve that end, Jefferson would, as president, offer U.S. citizenship to some Indian nations, and propose offering credit to them to facilitate their trade—with the expectation, as Bernard Sheehan argues, that they would be unable to honor their debts and thereby allow the United States to acquire their land.

George Washington

President George Washington, in his address to the Seneca nation in 1790, describing the pre-Constitutional Indian land sale difficulties as "evils", asserted that the case was now entirely altered, and publicly pledged to uphold their "just rights". In March and April 1792, Washington met with 50 tribal chiefs in Philadelphia—including the Iroquois—to discuss closer friendship between them and the United States. Later that same year, in his Fourth Annual Message to Congress, Washington stressed the need for building peace, trust, and commerce with America's Indian neighbors:

I cannot dismiss the subject of Indian affairs without again recommending to your consideration the expediency of more adequate provision for giving energy to the laws throughout our interior frontier, and for restraining the commission of outrages upon the Indians; without which all pacific plans must prove nugatory. To enable, by competent rewards, the employment of qualified and trusty persons to reside among them, as agents, would also contribute to the preservation of peace and good neighbourhood. If, in addition to these expedients, an eligible plan could be devised for promoting civilization among the friendly tribes, and for carrying on trade with them, upon a scale equal to their wants, and under regulations calculated to protect them from imposition and extortion, its influence in cementing their interests with our's [sic] could not but be considerable.

In 1795, in his Seventh Annual Message to Congress, Washington intimated that if the U.S. government wanted peace with the Indians, then it must give peace to them, and that if the U.S. wanted raids by Indians to stop, then raids by American "frontier inhabitants" must also stop.

Early Congressional Acts

The Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which would serve broadly as a precedent for the manner in which the United States' territorial expansion would occur for years to come, calling for the protection of Indians' "property, rights, and liberty": The U.S. Constitution of 1787 (Article I, Section 8) makes Congress responsible for regulating commerce with the Indian tribes. In 1790, the new U.S. Congress passed the Indian Nonintercourse Act (renewed and amended in 1793, 1796, 1799, 1802, and 1834) to protect and codify the land rights of recognized tribes.

Jeffersonian policy

As president, Thomas Jefferson developed a far-reaching Indian policy that had two primary goals. First, the security of the new United States was paramount, so Jefferson wanted to assure that the Native nations were tightly bound to the United States, and not other foreign nations. Second, he wanted "to civilize" them into adopting an agricultural, rather than a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. These goals would be achieved through the development of trade and the signing of treaties.

Jefferson initially promoted an American policy that encouraged Native Americans to become assimilated, or "civilized". As president, Jefferson made sustained efforts to win the friendship and cooperation of many Native American tribes, repeatedly articulating his desire for a united nation of both whites and Indians, as in a letter to the Seneca spiritual leader, Handsome Lake, dated November 3, 1802:

Go on then, brother, in the great reformation you have undertaken.... In all your enterprises for the good of your people, you may count with confidence on the aid and protection of the United States, and on the sincerity and zeal with which I am myself animated in the furthering of this humane work. You are our brethren of the same land; we wish your prosperity as brethren should do. Farewell.

When a delegation from the Upper Towns of the Cherokee Nation lobbied Jefferson for the full and equal citizenship George Washington had promised to Indians living in American territory, his response indicated that he was willing to accommodate citizenship for those Indian nations that sought it. In his Eighth Annual Message to Congress on November 8, 1808, he presented to the nation a vision of white and Indian unity:

With our Indian neighbors the public peace has been steadily maintained.... And, generally, from a conviction that we consider them as part of ourselves, and cherish with sincerity their rights and interests, the attachment of the Indian tribes is gaining strength daily... and will amply requite us for the justice and friendship practiced towards them.... [O]ne of the two great divisions of the Cherokee nation have now under consideration to solicit the citizenship of the United States, and to be identified with us in laws and government, in such progressive manner as we shall think best.

As some of Jefferson's other writings illustrate, however, he was ambivalent about Indian assimilation, even going so far as to use the words "exterminate" and "extirpate" regarding tribes that resisted American expansion and were willing to fight to defend their lands. Jefferson's intention was to change Indian lifestyles from hunter-gatherering to farming, largely through "the decrease of game rendering their subsistence by hunting insufficient". He expected that the switch to agriculture would make them dependent on white Americans for trade goods and therefore more likely to give up their land in exchange, or else be removed to lands west of the Mississippi. In a private 1803 letter to William Henry Harrison, Jefferson wrote:

Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.

Elsewhere in the same letter, Jefferson spoke of protecting the Indians from injustices perpetrated by whites:

Our system is to live in perpetual peace with the Indians, to cultivate an affectionate attachment from them, by everything just and liberal which we can do for them within... reason, and by giving them effectual protection against wrongs from our own people.

By the terms of the treaty of February 27, 1819, the U.S. government would again offer citizenship to the Cherokees who lived east of the Mississippi River, along with 640 acres of land per family. Native American land was sometimes purchased, either via a treaty or under duress. The idea of land exchange, that is, that Native Americans would give up their land east of the Mississippi in exchange for a similar amount of territory west of the river, was first proposed by Jefferson in 1803 and had first been incorporated in treaties in 1817, years after the Jefferson presidency. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 incorporated this concept.

Calhoun's plan

Under President James Monroe, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun devised the first plans for Indian removal. By late 1824, Monroe approved Calhoun's plans and in a special message to the Senate on January 27, 1825, requested the creation of the Arkansaw Territory and Indian Territory. The Indians east of the Mississippi were to voluntarily exchange their lands for lands west of the river. The Senate accepted Monroe's request and asked Calhoun to draft a bill, which was killed in the House of Representatives by the Georgia delegation. President John Quincy Adams assumed the Calhoun–Monroe policy and was determined to remove the Indians by non-forceful means, but Georgia refused to submit to Adams' request, forcing Adams to make a treaty with the Cherokees granting Georgia the Cherokee lands. On July 26, 1827, the Cherokee Nation adopted a written constitution modeled after that of the United States which declared they were an independent nation with jurisdiction over their own lands. Georgia contended that it would not countenance a sovereign state within its own territory, and proceeded to assert its authority over Cherokee territory. When Andrew Jackson became president as the candidate of the newly organized Democratic Party, he agreed that the Indians should be forced to exchange their eastern lands for western lands and relocate to them, and enforced Indian removal policy vigorously.

Indian Removal Act

Gallery of the Five Civilized Tribes. The portraits were drawn/painted between 1775 and 1850.

 

When Andrew Jackson assumed office as president of the United States in 1829, his government took a hard line on Indian Removal policy. Jackson abandoned the policy of his predecessors of treating different Indian groups as separate nations. Instead, he aggressively pursued plans against all Indian tribes which claimed constitutional sovereignty and independence from state laws, and which were based east of the Mississippi River. They were to be removed to reservations in Indian Territory west of the Mississippi (now Oklahoma), where their laws could be sovereign without any state interference. At Jackson's request, the United States Congress opened a debate on an Indian Removal Bill. After fierce disagreements, the Senate passed the measure 28–19, the House 102–97. Jackson signed the legislation into law May 30, 1830.

In 1830, the majority of the "Five Civilized Tribes"—the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee—were living east of the Mississippi. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 implemented the federal government's policy towards the Indian populations, which called for moving Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river. While it did not authorize the forced removal of the indigenous tribes, it authorized the president to negotiate land exchange treaties with tribes located in lands of the United States.

Choctaw

On September 27, 1830, the Choctaw signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek and by concession, became the first Native American tribe to be removed. The agreement represented one of the largest transfers of land that was signed between the U.S. Government and Native Americans without being instigated by warfare. By the treaty, the Choctaw signed away their remaining traditional homelands, opening them up for European-American settlement in Mississippi Territory. When the Choctaw reached Little Rock, a Choctaw chief referred to the trek as a "trail of tears and death".

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, the French historian and political thinker, witnessed an exhausted group of Choctaw men, women and children emerging from the forest during an exceptionally cold winter near Memphis, Tennessee, on their way to the Mississippi to be loaded onto a steamboat, and wrote:

In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction, something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch without feeling one's heart wrung. The Indians were tranquil, but sombre and taciturn. There was one who could speak English and of whom I asked why the Chactas were leaving their country. "To be free," he answered, could never get any other reason out of him. We ... watch the expulsion ... of one of the most celebrated and ancient American peoples.

Cherokee

While the Indian Removal Act made the move of the tribes voluntary, it was often abused by government officials. The best-known example is the Treaty of New Echota, which was negotiated and signed by a small faction of only twenty Cherokee tribal members, not the tribal leadership, on December 29, 1835. Most of the Cherokees later blamed them and the treaty for the forced relocation of the tribe in 1838. An estimated 4,000 Cherokees died in the march, now known as the Trail of Tears. Missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts urged the Cherokee Nation to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Marshall court heard the case in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), but declined to rule on its merits, instead declaring that the Native American tribes were not sovereign nations, and had no status to "maintain an action" in the courts of the United States. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the court held, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall, that individual states had no authority in American Indian affairs.

Yet the state of Georgia defied the Supreme Court ruling, and the desire of white settlers and land speculators for Indian lands continued unabated. Some whites claimed that the Indian presence was a threat to peace and security; the Georgia legislature passed a law that after March 31, 1831, forbade whites from living on Indian territory without a license from the state, in order to exclude white missionaries who opposed Indian removal.

Seminole

In 1835, the Seminole people refused to leave their lands in Florida, leading to the Second Seminole War. Osceola was a war leader of the Seminole in their fight against removal. Based in the Everglades of Florida, Osceola and his band used surprise attacks to defeat the U.S. Army in many battles. In 1837, Osceola was seized by deceit upon the orders of U.S. General Thomas Jesup when Osceola came under a flag of truce to negotiate a peace near Fort Peyton. Osceola died in prison of illness. The war would result in over 1,500 U.S. deaths and cost the government $20 million. Some Seminole traveled deeper into the Everglades, while others moved west. Removal continued out west and numerous wars ensued over land.

Muskogee (Creek)

In the aftermath of the Treaty of Fort Jackson and the Treaty of Washington, the Muscogee were confined to a small strip of land in present-day east central Alabama. Following the Indian Removal Act, in 1832 the Creek National Council signed the Treaty of Cusseta, ceding their remaining lands east of the Mississippi to the U.S., and accepting relocation to the Indian Territory. Most Muscogee were removed to Indian Territory during the Trail of Tears in 1834, although some remained behind.

Friends and Brothers – By permission of the Great Spirit above, and the voice of the people, I have been made President of the United States, and now speak to you as your Father and friend, and request you to listen. Your warriors have known me long. You know I love my white and red children, and always speak with a straight, and not with a forked tongue; that I have always told you the truth ... Where you now are, you and my white children are too near to each other to live in harmony and peace. Your game is destroyed, and many of your people will not work and till the earth. Beyond the great River Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your Father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours forever. For the improvements in the country where you now live, and for all the stock which you cannot take with you, your Father will pay you a fair price ...

— President Andrew Jackson addressing the Creek, 1829.

Chickasaw

Unlike other tribes who exchanged land grants, the Chickasaw were to receive mostly financial compensation of $3 million from the United States for their lands east of the Mississippi River. In 1836, the Chickasaw reached an agreement that purchased land from the previously removed Choctaw after a bitter five-year debate, paying them $530,000 for the westernmost part of Choctaw land. Most of the Chickasaw moved in 1837–1838. The $3,000,000 that the U.S. owed the Chickasaw went unpaid for nearly 30 years.

Aftermath

As a result, the Five Civilized Tribes were resettled in the new Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee occupied the northeast corner of the Territory, as well as a strip of land seventy miles wide in Kansas on the border between the two. Some indigenous nations resisted forced migration more strongly. Those few that stayed behind eventually formed tribal groups, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee based in North Carolina, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Creeks in Alabama, including the Poarch Band.

Details on removals

The North

Tribes in the Old Northwest were far smaller and more fragmented than the Five Civilized Tribes, so the treaty and emigration process was more piecemeal. Bands of Shawnee, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Meskwaki (Fox) signed treaties and relocated to the Indian Territory. In 1832, a Sauk leader named Black Hawk led a band of Sauk and Fox back to their lands in Illinois; in the ensuing Black Hawk War, the U.S. Army and Illinois militia defeated Black Hawk and his warriors, resulting in the Sauk and Fox being relocated into what would become present day Iowa.

Tribes further to the east, such as the already displaced Lenape (or Delaware tribe), as well as the Kickapoo and Shawnee, were removed from Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio in the 1820s. The Potawatomi were forced out in late 1838 and resettled in Kansas Territory. Many Miami were resettled to Indian Territory in the 1840s. Communities in present-day Ohio were forced to move to Louisiana, which was then controlled by Spain.

By the terms of the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek (1838), the Senecas transferred all their land in New York, excepting one small reservation, in exchange for 200,000 acres of land in Indian Territory. The U.S. federal government would be responsible for the removal of those Senecas who opted to go west, while the Ogden Land company would acquire their lands in New York. The lands were sold by government officials, however, and the money deposited in the U.S. Treasury. The Senecas asserted that they had been defrauded, and sued for redress in the U.S. Court of Claims. The case was not resolved until 1898, when the United States awarded $1,998,714.46 in compensation to "the New York Indians". In 1842 and 1857, the U.S. signed treaties with the Senecas and the Tonawanda Senecas, respectively. Under the treaty of 1857, the Tonawandas renounced all claim to lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for the right to buy back the lands of the Tonawanda reservation from the Ogden Land Company. Over a century later, the Senecas purchased a nine-acre plot (part of their original reservation) in downtown Buffalo to build the "Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino".

The South

The following is a compilation of the statistics, many containing rounded figures, regarding the Southern removals.

Nation	Population east of the Mississippi before removal treaty	Removal treaty & year signed	Years of major emigration	Total number emigrated or forcibly removed	Number stayed in Southeast	Deaths during removal	Deaths from warfare
Choctaw	19,554 + white citizens of the Choctaw Nation + 500 black slaves	Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830)	1831–1836	12,500	7,000	2,000–4,000+ (Cholera)	none
Creek	22,700 + 900 black slaves	Cusseta (1832)	1834–1837	19,600	100s	3,500 (disease after removal)	? (Second Creek War)
Chickasaw	4,914 + 1,156 black slaves	Pontotoc Creek (1832)	1837–1847	over 4,000	100s	500–800	none
Cherokee	21,500 + 2,000 black slaves	New Echota (1835)	1836–1838	20,000 + 2,000 slaves	1,000	2,000–8,000	none
Seminole	5,000 + fugitive slaves	Payne's Landing (1832)	1832–1842	2,833	250 500		700 (Second Seminole War)

Changing perspective of policy

Historical views regarding the Indian Removal have been re-evaluated since that time. Widespread acceptance at the time of the policy, due in part to an embracing of the concept of Manifest destiny by the general populace, have since given way to somewhat harsher views. Descriptions such as "paternalism", ethnic cleansing, and even genocide have been ascribed by historians past and present to the motivation behind the Removals.

Jackson's reputation

Andrew Jackson's reputation took a blow for his treatment of the Indians. Historians who admire Jackson's strong presidential leadership, such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., would skip over the Indian question with a footnote. Writing in 1969, Francis Paul Prucha argued that Jackson's removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from the very hostile white environment in the Old South to Oklahoma probably saved their very existence. In the 1970s, however, Jackson came under sharp attack from writers, such as Michael Paul Rogin and Howard Zinn, chiefly on this issue. Zinn called him "exterminator of Indians"; Paul R. Bartrop and Steven Leonard Jacobs argue that Jackson's policies did not meet the criterion for genocide or cultural genocide.

Indian reservation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Indian reservations
Also known as: Domestic Dependent Nation
Category	Autonomous administrative divisions
Location	United States of America
Created	1658 (Powhatan Tribes)
Number	326 (map includes the 310 as of May 1996)
Populations	123 (several) – 173,667 (Navajo Nation)
Areas	Ranging from the 1.32-acre (0.534 hectare) Pit River Tribe's cemetery in California to the 16 million–acre (64,750 square kilometer) Navajo Nation Reservation located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah

An Indian reservation is a legal designation for an area of land managed by a federally recognized Native American tribe under the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs rather than the state governments of the United States in which they are physically located. Each of the 326 Indian reservations in the United States is associated with a particular Native American nation. Not all of the country's 567^] recognized tribes have a reservation—some tribes have more than one reservation, while some share reservations. In addition, because of past land allotments, leading to some sales to non–Native Americans, some reservations are severely fragmented, with each piece of tribal, individual, and privately held land being a separate enclave. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.

The collective geographical area of all reservations is 56,200,000 acres (22,700,000 ha; 87,800 sq mi; 227,000 km²), approximately the size of Idaho. While most reservations are small compared to U.S. states, there are 12 Indian reservations larger than the state of Rhode Island. The largest reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, is similar in size to West Virginia. Reservations are unevenly distributed throughout the country; the majority are west of the Mississippi River and occupy lands that were first reserved by treaty or "granted" from the public domain.

Because tribes possess the concept of tribal sovereignty, even though it is limited, laws on tribal lands vary from those of the surrounding area. These laws can permit legal casinos on reservations, for example, which attract tourists. The tribal council, not the local government or the United States federal government, often has jurisdiction over reservations. Different reservations have different systems of government, which may or may not replicate the forms of government found outside the reservation. Most Native American reservations were established by the federal government; a limited number, mainly in the East, owe their origin to state recognition.

The name "reservation" comes from the conception of the Native American tribes as independent sovereigns at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Thus, the early peace treaties (often signed under duress) in which Native American tribes surrendered large portions of land to the U.S. also designated parcels which the tribes, as sovereigns, "reserved" to themselves, and those parcels came to be called "reservations". The term remained in use even after the federal government began to forcibly relocate tribes to parcels of land to which they had no historical connection.

Today a majority of Native Americans and Alaska Natives live somewhere other than the reservations, often in larger western cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles. In 2012, there were over 2.5 million Native Americans, with about 1 million living on reservations.

History

Colonial and early US history

From the beginning of the European colonization of the Americas, Europeans often removed native peoples from lands they wished to occupy. The means varied, including treaties made under considerable duress, forceful ejection, and violence, and in a few cases voluntary moves based on mutual agreement. The removal caused many problems such as tribes losing means of livelihood by being subjected to a defined area, farmers having inadmissible land for agriculture, and hostility between tribes.

The first reservation was established in southern New Jersey on 29 August 1758. It was called Brotherton Indian Reservation and also Edgepillock or Edgepelick. The area was 3284 acres. Today it is called Indian Mills in Shamong Township.

In 1764 the "Plan for the Future Management of Indian Affairs" was proposed by the Board of Trade. Although never adopted formally, the plan established the imperial government's expectation that land would only be bought by colonial governments, not individuals, and that land would only be purchased at public meetings. Additionally, this plan dictated that the Indians would be properly consulted when ascertaining and defining the boundaries of colonial settlement.

The private contracts that once characterized the sale of Indian land to various individuals and groups—from farmers to towns—were replaced by treaties between sovereigns. This protocol was adopted by the United States Government after the American Revolution.

On 11 March 1824, John C. Calhoun founded the Office of Indian Affairs (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs) as a division of the United States Department of War (now the United States Department of Defense), to solve the land problem with 38 treaties with American Indian tribes.

Indigenous reservations before 1850

Letters from the Presidents of the United States of America on indigenous reservations (1825–1837)

The document “Indian Treaties, and Laws and Regulations Relating to Indian Affairs”’ published in 1825 in Washington City, America was signed by  president Andrew Jackson. He states that “we have placed the land reserves in a better state for the benefit of society” with approval of Indigenous reservations prior to 1850. The letter is signed by Isaac Shelby and the American President and discusses several regulations regarding Indigenous people of America and the approval of Indigenous segregation and the reservation system.

President Martin Van Buren wrote a Treaty with the Saginaw Tribe of Chippewas in 1837 to build a light house. The President of the United States of America was directly involved in the creation of new Treaties regarding Indian Reservations before 1850. He said Indigenous Reservations are “all their reserves of land in the state of Michigan, on the principle of said reserves being sold at the public land offices for their benefit and the actual proceeds being paid to them.” The agreement was for the Indigenous Tribe to sell their land, based on a Reservation to build a “lighthouse.” President, Martin Van Buren wants to buy Indigenous Reservation Land to build infrastructure. 

A Treaty signed by John Forsyth, the Secretary of State on behalf of, President Martin Van Buren of the United States of America also dictates where Indigenous peoples must live in terms of the reservation system in America between the Oneida People in 1838. This Treaty allows the Indigenous peoples five years on a specific reserve “the west shores of Saganaw bay.” The creation of reservations for Indigenous people of America could be as little as a five-year approval before 1850. Article two of the Treaty claims “the reserves on the river Angrais and at Rifle river, of which said Indians are to have the usufruct and occupancy for five years.” Indigenous people had restraints pushed on them by the five year allowance.

Early land sales in Virginia (1705–1713)

Scholarly author Buck Woodard uses executive papers from Governor William H. Cabell in his article, “Indian Land sales and allotment in Antebellum Virginia” to discuss Indigenous reservations in America before 1705 specifically in Virginia. He claims “the colonial government again recognized the Nottoway’s land rights by treaty in 1713, at the conclusion of the Tuscaro War.” The Indigenous peoples of America had Land Treaty agreements as early as 1713.

The beginning of the Indigenous Reservation System in America (1763–1834)

The American Indigenous Reservation system started with “the Royal Proclamation of 1763, where Great Britain set aside an enormous resource for Indians in the territory of the presently United States.” Another act put forward by America was when “Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.” A third act pushed through was “the federal government relocated “portions of [the] ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ from the southeastern states in the Non-Intercourse Act of 1834.” The Indigenous Reservation system in the United States of America began in 1763 with the Royal Proclamation set by Great Britain, the “Indian Removal Act of 1830” and the “Non-Intercourse act of 1834” which all came into play in the forceful removal of Indigenous peoples into specific land Reservations.

Treaty between America and the Menominee Nation (1831)

Scholarly author James Oberly discusses “The Treaty of 1831 between the Menominee Nation and the United States” in his article, “Decision on Duck Creek: Two Green Bay Reservations and Their Boundaries, 1816–1996.” Another Treaty regarding Indigenous Reservations before 1850. There is a conflict between the Menomee Nation and the State of Wisconsin and “the 1831 Menomee Treaty … ran the boundary between the lands of the Oneida, known in the Treaty as the “New York Indians.” This Treaty from 1831 is the cause of conflicts and is disputed because the land used to be good hunting grounds, but not anymore.

1834 Trade and Intercourse Act (1834)

The Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834 says “In the 1834 Indian Trade and Intercourse Act, the United States defined the boundaries of Indian County.” Also, “For Unrau, Indigenous Country is less on Indigenous homeland and more a place where the U.S. removed Indians from east of the Mississippi River and applied unique laws.” The United States of America applied laws on Indigenous Reservations depending on where they were located like the Mississippi River. This act came too, because “the federal government began to compress Indigenous lands because it needed to send troops to Texas during the Mexican-American War and protect American immigration travelling to Oregon and California.” The Federal Government of America had their own needs and desires for Indigenous Land Reservations. He says, “the reconnaissance of explorers and other American officials understood that Indigenous Country possessed good land, bountiful game, and potential mineral resources.” The American Government claimed Indigenous land for their own benefits with these creations of Indigenous Land Reservations .

Indigenous Reservation System in Texas (1845)

States such as Texas had their own policy when it came to Indian Reservations in America before 1850. Scholarly author, George D. Harmon discusses Texas’ own reservation system which “Prior to 1845, Texas had inaugurated and pursued her own Indian Policy of the U.S.” Texas was one of the States before 1850 that chose to create their own reservation system as seen in Harmon's article, “The United States Indian Policy in Texas, 1845–1860.” The State of “Texas had given only a few hundred acres of land in 1840, for the purpose of colonization”. However, “In March, 1847, … [a] special agent [was sent] to Texas to manage the Indian affairs in the State until Congress should take some definite and final action.” The United States of America allowed its states to make up their own treaties such as this one in Texas for the purpose of colonization.

Rise of Indian removal policy (1830–1868)

The passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 marked the systematization of a U.S. federal government policy of forcibly moving Native populations away from European-populated areas.

One example was the Five Civilized Tribes, who were removed from their native lands in the southern United States and moved to modern-day Oklahoma, in a mass migration that came to be known as the Trail of Tears. Some of the lands these tribes were given to inhabit following the removals eventually became Indian reservations.

In 1851, the United States Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act which authorized the creation of Indian reservations in modern-day Oklahoma. Relations between settlers and natives had grown increasingly worse as the settlers encroached on territory and natural resources in the West.

Forced assimilation (1868–1887)

Most Indian reservations, like the Laguna Indian reservation in New Mexico (pictured here in 1943), are in the western United States, often in regions suitable more for ranching than farming.

 

In 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant pursued a "Peace Policy" as an attempt to avoid violence. The policy included a reorganization of the Indian Service, with the goal of relocating various tribes from their ancestral homes to parcels of lands established specifically for their inhabitation. The policy called for the replacement of government officials by religious men, nominated by churches, to oversee the Indian agencies on reservations in order to teach Christianity to the native tribes. The Quakers were especially active in this policy on reservations.

The policy was controversial from the start. Reservations were generally established by executive order. In many cases, white settlers objected to the size of land parcels, which were subsequently reduced. A report submitted to Congress in 1868 found widespread corruption among the federal Native American agencies and generally poor conditions among the relocated tribes.

Many tribes ignored the relocation orders at first and were forced onto their limited land parcels. Enforcement of the policy required the United States Army to restrict the movements of various tribes. The pursuit of tribes in order to force them back onto reservations led to a number wars with Native Americans which included some massacres. The most well-known conflict was the Sioux War on the northern Great Plains, between 1876 and 1881, which included the Battle of Little Bighorn. Other famous wars in this regard included the Nez Perce War. 

By the late 1870s, the policy established by President Grant was regarded as a failure, primarily because it had resulted in some of the bloodiest wars between Native Americans and the United States. By 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes began phasing out the policy, and by 1882 all religious organizations had relinquished their authority to the federal Indian agency.

Individualized reservations (1887–1934)

In 1887, Congress undertook a significant change in reservation policy by the passage of the Dawes Act, or General Allotment (Severalty) Act. The act ended the general policy of granting land parcels to tribes as-a-whole by granting small parcels of land to individual tribe members. In some cases, for example, the Umatilla Indian Reservation, after the individual parcels were granted out of reservation land, the reservation area was reduced by giving the "excess land" to white settlers. The individual allotment policy continued until 1934 when it was terminated by the Indian Reorganization Act.

Indian New Deal (1934–present)

The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, also known as the Howard-Wheeler Act, was sometimes called the Indian New Deal and was initiated by John Collier. It laid out new rights for Native Americans, reversed some of the earlier privatization of their common holdings, and encouraged tribal sovereignty and land management by tribes. The act slowed the assignment of tribal lands to individual members and reduced the assignment of "extra" holdings to nonmembers. 

For the following 20 years, the U.S. government invested in infrastructure, health care, and education on the reservations. Likewise, over two million acres (8,000 km²) of land were returned to various tribes. Within a decade of Collier's retirement the government's position began to swing in the opposite direction. The new Indian Commissioners Myers and Emmons introduced the idea of the "withdrawal program" or "termination", which sought to end the government's responsibility and involvement with Indians and to force their assimilation. 

The Indians would lose their lands but were to be compensated, although many were not. Even though discontent and social rejection killed the idea before it was fully implemented, five tribes were terminated—the Coushatta, Ute, Paiute, Menominee and Klamath—and 114 groups in California lost their federal recognition as tribes. Many individuals were also relocated to cities, but one-third returned to their tribal reservations in the decades that followed.

Land tenure and federal Indian law

With the establishment of reservations, tribal territories diminished to a fraction of original areas and indigenous customary practices of land tenure sustained only for a time, and not in every instance. Instead, the federal government established regulations that subordinated tribes to the authority, first, of the military, and then of the Bureau (Office) of Indian Affairs. Under federal law, the government patented reservations to tribes, which became legal entities that at later times have operated in a corporate manner. Tribal tenure identifies jurisdiction over land-use planning and zoning, negotiating (with the close participation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs) leases for timber harvesting and mining.

Tribes generally have authority over other forms of economic development such as ranching, agriculture, tourism, and casinos. Tribes hire both members, other Indians and non-Indians in varying capacities; they may run tribal stores, gas stations, and develop museums (e.g., there is a gas station and general store at Fort Hall Indian Reservation, Idaho, and a museum at Foxwoods, on the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation in Connecticut).

Tribal members may utilize a number of resources held in tribal tenures such as grazing range and some cultivable lands. They may also construct homes on tribally held lands. As such, members are tenants-in-common, which may be likened to communal tenure. Even if some of this pattern emanates from pre-reservation tribal custom, generally the tribe has the authority to modify tenant in-common practices. 

Wagon loaded with squash, Rosebud Indian Reservation, ca. 1936

 

With the General Allotment Act (Dawes), 1887, the government sought to individualize tribal lands by authorizing allotments held in individual tenure. Generally, the allocation process led to grouping family holdings and, in some cases, this sustained pre-reservation clan or other patterns. There had been a few allotment programs ahead of the Dawes Act. However, the vast fragmentation of reservations occurred from the enactment of this act up to 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed. However, Congress authorized some allotment programs in the ensuing years, such as on the Palm Springs/Agua Caliente Indian Reservation in California.

Allotment set in motion a number of circumstances:

• Individuals could sell (alienate) the allotment – under the Dawes Act, it was not to happen until after twenty-five years.
• Individual allottees who would die intestate would encumber the land under prevailing state devisement laws, leading to complex patterns of heirship. Congress has attempted to mollify the impact of heirship by granting tribes the capacity to acquire fragmented allotments owing to heirship by financial grants. Tribes may also include such parcels in long-range land use planning.
• With alienation to non-Indians, their increased presence on numerous reservations has changed the demography of Indian Country. One of many implications of this fact is that tribes can not always effectively embrace the total management of a reservation, for non-Indian owners and users of allotted lands contend that tribes have no authority over lands that fall within the tax and law-and-order jurisdiction of local government.

The demographic factor, coupled with landownership data, led, for example, to litigation between the Devils Lake Sioux and the State of North Dakota, where non-Indians owned more acreage than tribal members even though more Native Americans resided on the reservation than non-Indians. The court decision turned, in part, on the perception of Indian character, contending that the tribe did not have jurisdiction over the alienated allotments. In a number of instances—e.g., the Yakama Indian Reservation—tribes have identified open and closed areas within reservations. One finds the majority of non-Indian landownership and residence in the open areas and, contrariwise, closed areas represent exclusive tribal residence and related conditions.

Spring roundup of Paiute-owned cattle begins at Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, 1973.

 

Indian Country today consists of tripartite government—i. e., federal, state and/or local, and tribal. Where state and local governments may exert some, but limited, law-and-order authority, tribal sovereignty is diminished. This situation prevails in connection with Indian gaming because federal legislation makes the state a party to any contractual or statutory agreement.

Finally, other-occupancy on reservations may be by virtue of tribal or individual tenure. There are many churches on reservations; most would occupy tribal land by consent of the federal government or the tribe. BIA agency offices, hospitals, schools, and other facilities usually occupy residual federal parcels within reservations. Many reservations include one or more sections (about 640 acres) of school lands, but those lands typically remain part of the reservation (e.g., Enabling Act of 1910 at Section 20). As a general practice, such lands may sit idle or be grazed by tribal ranchers.

Disputes over land sovereignty

When the Europeans discovered the "New World" in the fifteenth century, the land that was new to them had been home to Native Peoples for thousands of years. The American colonial government determined a precedent of establishing the land sovereignty of North America through treaties between countries. This precedent was upheld by the United States government. As a result, most Native American land was "purchased" by the United States government, a portion of which was designated to remain under Native sovereignty. The United States government and Native Peoples do not always agree on how land should be governed, which has resulted in a series of disputes over sovereignty.

Black Hills land dispute

The Federal Government and The Lakota Sioux tribe members have been involved in sorting out a legal claim for the Black Hills since signing the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, which created what is known today as the Great Sioux Nation covering the Black Hills and nearly half of western South Dakota. This treaty was acknowledged and respected until 1874, when General George Custer discovered gold, sending a wave of settlers into the area and leading to the realization of the value of the land from United States President Grant. President Grant used tactical military force to remove the Sioux from the land and assisted in the development of the Congressional appropriations bill for Indian Services in 1876, a "starve or sell" treaty signed by only 10% of the 75% tribal men required based on specifications from the Fort Laramie Treaty that relinquished the Sioux's rights to the Black Hills. Following this treaty, the Agreement of 1877 was passed by Congress to remove the Sioux from the Black Hills, stating that the land was purchased from the Sioux despite the insufficient number of signatures, the lack of transaction records, and the tribe's claim that the land was never for sale.

The Black Hills are sacred to the Sioux as a place central to their spirituality and identity, and contest of ownership of the land has been pressured in the courts by the Sioux Nation since they were allowed legal avenue in 1920. Beginning in 1923, the Sioux made legal claim that their relinquishment from the Black Hills was illegal under the Fifth Amendment, and no amount of money can make up for the loss of their sacred land. This claim went all the way up to the Supreme Court United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians case in 1979 after being revived by Congress, and the Sioux were awarded over $100 million as they ruled that the seizure of the Black Hills was in fact illegal. The Sioux have continually rejected the money, and since then the award has been accruing interest in trust accounts, and amounts to about $1 billion in 2015.

During President Barack Obama's campaign he made indications that the case of the Black Hills was going to be solved with innovative solutions and consultation, but this was questioned when White House Counsel Leonard Garment sent a note to The Ogala people saying, "The days of treaty making with the American Indians ended in 1871; ...only Congress can rescind or change in any way statutes enacted since 1871." The He Sapa Reparations Alliance was established after Obama's inauguration to educate the Sioux people and propose a bill to Congress that would allocate 1.3 million acres of federal land within the Black Hills to the tribe. To this day, the dispute of the Black Hills is ongoing with the trust estimated to be worth nearly $1.3 billion and sources believe principles of restorative justice  may be the best solution to addressing this century old dispute.

Iroquois land claims in Upstate New York

Fort Stanwix, NY

 

While the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, addressed land sovereignty disputes between the British Crown and the colonies, it neglected to settle hostilities between indigenous people—specifically those who fought on the side of the British, as four of the members of the Haudenosaunee did—and colonists. In October 1784 the newly formed United States government facilitated negotiations with representatives from the Six Nations in Fort Stanwix, New York. The treaty produced in 1784 resulted in Indians giving up their territory within the Ohio River Valley and the U.S. guaranteeing the Haudenosaunee six million acres— about half of what is present day New York— as permanent homelands.

Unenthusiastic about the treaty's conditions, the state of New York secured a series of twenty-six "leases", many of them lasting 999 years on all native territories within its boundaries. Led to believe that they had already lost their land to the New York Genesee Company, the Haudenosaunee agreed to land leasing which was presented by New York Governor George Clinton as a means by which the indigenous could maintain sovereignty over their land. On 28 August 1788, the Oneidas leased five million acres to the state in exchange for $2,000 in cash, $2,000 in clothing, $1,000 in provisions and $600 annual rent. The other two tribes followed with similar arrangements.

The Holland Land Company gained control over all but ten acres of the native land leased to the state on 15 September 1797. These 397 square miles were subsequently parceled out and subleased to whites, allegedly ending the native title to land. Despite Iroquois protests, federal authorities did virtually nothing to correct the injustice. Certain of losing all of their land, in 1831 most of the Oneidas asked that what was left of their holdings be exchanged for 500,000 acres purchased from the Menominees in Wisconsin. President Andrew Jackson, committed to Indian Removal west of the Mississippi, agreed.

The Treaty of Buffalo Creek, signed on 15 January 1838, directly ceded 102,069 acres of Seneca land to the Ogden company for $202,000, a sum that was divided evenly between the government— to hold in trust for Indians— and non-Indian individuals who wanted to buy and improve the plots. All that was left of the Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Tuscarora holding was extinguished at a total cost of $400,000 to Ogden.

After Indian complaints, a second Treaty of Buffalo was written in 1842 in attempts to mediate tension. Under this treaty the Haudenosaunee were given the right to reside in New York and small areas of reservations were restored by the U.S. government.

These agreements were largely ineffective in protecting Native American land. By 1889 eighty percent of all Iroquois reservation land in New York was leased by non-Haudenosaunees.

Navajo–Hopi land dispute

The modern-day Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations are located in Northern Arizona, near the Four Corners area. The Hopi reservation is 2,531.773 square miles within Arizona and lies surrounded by the greater Navajo reservation which spans 27,413 square miles and extends slightly into the states of New Mexico and Utah. The Hopi, also known as the Pueblo people, made many spiritually motivated migrations throughout the Southwest before settling in present-day Northern Arizona. The Navajo people also migrated throughout western North America following spiritual commands before settling near the Grand Canyon area. The two tribes peacefully coexisted and even traded and exchanged ideas with each other; However, their way of lives were threatened when the "New people", what the Navajo called white settlers, began executing Natives across the continent and claiming their land, as a result of Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act. War ensued between the Navajo people, who call themselves the Diné, and new Americans. The end result was the Long Walk in the early 1860s in which the entire tribe was forced to walk roughly 400 miles from Fort Canby (present day Window Rock, Arizona) to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. This march is similar to the well known Cherokee "Trail of Tears" and like it, many tribe did not survive the trek. The roughly 11,000 tribe members were imprisoned here in what the United States government deemed an experimental Indian reservation that failed because it became too expensive, there were too many people to feed, and they were continuously raided by other native tribes. Consequently, in 1868, the Navajo were allowed to return to their homeland after signing the Treaty of Bosque Redondo. The treaty officially established the "Navajo Indian Reservation" in Northern Arizona. The term reservation is one which creates territorialities or claims on places. This treaty gave them the right to the land and semi-autonomous governance of it. The Hopi reservation, on the other hand, was created through an executive order by President Arthur in 1882. 

A few years after the two reservations were established, the Dawes Allotment Act was passed under which communal tribal land was divvied up and allocated to each household in attempt to enforce European-American farming styles where each family owns and works their own plot of land. This was a further act of enclosure by the US government. Each family received 640 acres or less and the remaining land was deemed "surplus" because it was more than the tribes needed. This "surplus" land was then made available for purchase by American citizens.

The land designated to the Navajo and Hopi reservation was originally considered barren and unproductive by white settlers until 1921 when prospectors scoured the land for oil. The mining companies pressured the US government to set up Native American councils on the reservations so that they could agree to contracts, specifically leases, in the name of the tribe.

During World War II, uranium was mined from their land as well though the companies and government neglected to inform the people of the dangers of radiation exposure. Some people had even built their houses out of mine waste. The companies also failed to properly dispose of the radioactive waste which did and will continue to pollute the environment, including the natives' water sources. Many years later, these same men who worked the mines died from lung cancer and their families received no form of financial compensation.

In 1979, the Church Rock uranium mill spill was the largest release of radioactive waste in US history. The spill contaminated the Puerco River with 1,000 tons of solid radioactive waste and 93 million gallons of acidic, radioactive tailings solution which flowed downstream into the Navajo Nation. The Navajos used the water from this river for irrigation and their livestock but were not immediately informed about the contamination and its danger.

After the war ended, the American population boomed and energy demands soared. The utility companies needed a new source of power so they began the construction of coal-fired power plants. They placed these power plants in the four corners region. In the 1960s, John Boyden, an attorney working for both Peabody Coal and the Hopi tribe, the nation's largest coal producer, managed to gain rights to the Hopi land, including Black Mesa, a sacred location to both tribes which lay partially within the Joint Use Area of both tribes.

This case is an example of environmental racism and injustice, per the principles established by the Participants of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, because the Navajo and Hopi people, which are communities of color, low income, and political alienation, were disproportionately affected by the proximity and resulting pollution of these power plants which disregard their right to clean air, their land was degraded, and because the related public policies are not based on mutual respect of all people.

The mining companies wanted more land but the joint ownership of the land made negotiations difficult. At the same time, Hopi and Navajo tribes were squabbling over land rights while Navajo livestock continuously grazed on Hopi land. Boyden took advantage of this situation, presenting it to the House Subcommittee on Indian Affairs claiming that if the government did not step in and do something, a bloody war would ensue between the tribes. Congressmen agreed to pass the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974 which forced any Hopi and Navajo people living on the other's land to relocate. This affected 6,000 Navajo people and ultimately benefitted coal companies the most who could now more easily access the disputed land. Instead of using military violence to deal with those who refused to move, the government passed what became known as the Bennett Freeze to encourage the people to leave. The Bennett Freeze banned 1.5 million acres of Navajo land from any type of development, including paving roadways and even roof repair. This was meant to be a temporary incentive to push tribe negotiations but lasted over forty years until 2009 when President Obama lifted the moratorium. Still, the legacy of the Bennett Freeze looms over the region as seen by the nearly third world conditions on the reservation – seventy-five per cent of people do not have access to electricity and housing situations are poor.

Life and culture

Red Cliff Indian Reservation in Wisconsin during their annual pow wow

 

Many Native Americans who live on reservations deal with the federal government through two agencies: the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. 

The standard of living on some reservations is comparable to that in the developing world, with issues of infant mortality, life expectancy, poor nutrition, poverty, and alcohol and drug abuse. The two poorest counties in the United States are Buffalo County, South Dakota, home of the Lower Brule Indian Reservation, and Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota, home of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, according to data compiled by the 2000 census.

It is a common conception that environmentalism and a connectedness to nature is ingrained in the Native American culture. In recent years, cultural historians have set out to reconstruct this notion as what they claim to be a culturally inaccurate romanticism. Others recognize the differences between the attitudes and perspectives that emerge from a comparison of Western European philosophy and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of Indigenous peoples, especially when considering natural resource conflicts and management strategies involving multiple parties.

Gambling

In 1979, the Seminole tribe in Florida opened a high-stakes bingo operation on its reservation in Florida. The state attempted to close the operation down but was stopped in the courts. In the 1980s, the case of California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians established the right of reservations to operate other forms of gambling operations. In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which recognized the right of Native American tribes to establish gambling and gaming facilities on their reservations as long as the states in which they are located have some form of legalized gambling. 

Today, many Native American casinos are used as tourist attractions, including as the basis for hotel and conference facilities, to draw visitors and revenue to reservations. Successful gaming operations on some reservations have greatly increased the economic wealth of some tribes, enabling their investment to improve infrastructure, education and health for their people.

Law enforcement and crime

Serious crime on Indian reservations has historically been required (by the 1885 Major Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. §§1153, 3242, and court decisions) to be investigated by the federal government, usually the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and prosecuted by United States Attorneys of the United States federal judicial district in which the reservation lies.

Tribal courts were limited to sentences of one year or less, until on 29 July 2010, the Tribal Law and Order Act was enacted which in some measure reforms the system permitting tribal courts to impose sentences of up to three years provided proceedings are recorded and additional rights are extended to defendants. The Justice Department on 11 January 2010, initiated the Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative which recognizes problems with law enforcement on Indian reservations and assigns top priority to solving existing problems.

The Department of Justice recognizes the unique legal relationship that the United States has with federally recognized tribes. As one aspect of this relationship, in much of Indian Country, the Justice Department alone has the authority to seek a conviction that carries an appropriate potential sentence when a serious crime has been committed. Our role as the primary prosecutor of serious crimes makes our responsibility to citizens in Indian Country unique and mandatory. Accordingly, public safety in tribal communities is a top priority for the Department of Justice.

Emphasis was placed on improving prosecution of crimes involving domestic violence and sexual assault.

Passed in 1953, Public Law 280 (PL 280) gave jurisdiction over criminal offenses involving Indians in Indian Country to certain States and allowed other States to assume jurisdiction. Subsequent legislation allowed States to retrocede jurisdiction, which has occurred in some areas. Some PL 280 reservations have experienced jurisdictional confusion, tribal discontent, and litigation, compounded by the lack of data on crime rates and law enforcement response.

As of 2012, a high incidence of rape continued to impact Native American women.

Violence and substance abuse

A survey of death certificates over a four-year period showed that deaths among Indians due to alcohol are about four times as common as in the general US population and are often due to traffic collisions and liver disease with homicide, suicide, and falls also contributing. Deaths due to alcohol among American Indians are more common in men and among Northern Plains Indians. Alaska Natives showed the least incidence of death. Under federal law, alcohol sales are prohibited on Indian reservations unless the tribal councils choose to allow it.

Gang violence has become a major social problem. A 13 December 2009, The New York Times article about growing gang violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation estimated that there were 39 gangs with 5,000 members on that reservation alone. As opposed to traditional "Most Wanted" lists, Native Americans are often placed on regional Crime Stoppers lists offering rewards for their whereabouts.

Governance

Native American Tribes have recently started to become considered federally recognized tribes that are capable of exercising rights of self-governance. These exercises include but are not limited to the ability to pass laws, regulate power and energy, create treaties, and have tribal court hearings. In many ways Tribal governments are considered to be very much like State or Federal governments, but in the tribal system they are considered a sovereign government much like California or Canada where they are seen to be self-governing and have little to no connection to the State and Federal Governments.