Foundations of Self Determination Self-Determination: A policy to allow tribes the right to determine their own future by providing them sovereignty

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Foundations of Self DeterminationSelf-Determinat
ion A policy to allow tribes the right to
determine their own future by providing them
sovereignty

• Part Three Foundations
• Examples of Successes leading to a New Indian
  Policy

This Powerpoint is subject to continuous
revisions. Written and Revised by Scott Fritz,
Ph.D. on October 27, 2015 at 1145 a.m. Western
New Mexico University
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Early Successes of the Sustaining Figures

• Lakota Sioux overturn Public Law 280 in 1964
• Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota
• Tribal leaders Cato Valandra
• Referendum
• First time, Sioux voted in great numbers

Cato Valandra b. 1921, Rosebud Indian
Reservation, S. Dakota, WWII, est. business, in
1954, treasurer of Rosebud Reservation, oversaw
influx of federal monies in 1960s, elected tribal
chairman in 1962, oversaw economic development,
road building, housing, lowered unemployment, in
1970s he was Economic Development Administration
director and administrator for Tribal Planning
Office, in 1977, became director of Institute of
Indian Studies at University of S. Dakota.

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Termination ends Colville Reservation in
Washington

• To be terminated in 1961
• There was some support for termination
• Each family would receive 30,000 because of
  timber resources
• Traditionals against termination
• Lucy Covington against termination If an
  Indian doesnt have land, he has nothing.

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Lucy Covingtons Fight against Termination of
Colville Reservation

• B. 1910 Colville Indian Tribe, Washington
• Confederated tribe Included Salish-speaking
  tribes like Nespelem, Sanpoil, Wenatchi and Chief
  Josephs band of Nez Perce
• Sold cattle to fight termination
• Pay for lawyers and airline tickets to Washington
  D.C.
• Ran in 1968 tribal election on an
  anti-termination slate ? won
• Covington held referendum for or against
  termination
• Reservation residents to vote against it
• Stopped the Colville Indian Reservation
  termination bill in 1971
• Significance movement toward Self-Determination
• Died -- 1982

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Menominee Termination (overturned)

• Background Menominee (of Wisconsin) were
  terminated in 1961
• Members went to cities
• Lands had transferred to Menominee Enterprises,
  Inc. (MEI)
• Background Menominee Enterprises Monies
  overseen by First Wisconsin Trust Co.
• Voting Trust dominated by Anglos
• Problems
• Low sales of timber from outmoded lumber mill
• Pay taxes
• Following Termination tribe only had 1.7
  million
• Assets drop to 300,000 in 1964
• Consequences
• Lost health facility
• Children dropped out of school
• Unemployed doubled
• Attempted real estate development Legend Lake
  to sell to non-Indians

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Move to end Menominee termination begins

• Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee
  Shareholders (DRUMS)
• End Legend Lakes land sales
• End Termination
• Leaders Ada Deer
• Picketed Legend Lakes sales office and
  promotional events in Milwaukee
• 1971 marched on Madison, WI.
• DRUMS put up slate of candidates in annual
  election of MEI voting trustees and won a
  majority of votes

ADA DEER, B. 1935, degree from University of
Wisconsin, involved with DRUM, helped bring an
end to Termination Era, Chair of Menominee
Restoration Committee, served as first native
woman to head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
1993-1997.
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Menominee Restoration Act (1973)

• By 1972, support from
• Native American Defense Fund
• Wisconsin Legislators
• Ada Deer went to Washington, D.C. to lobby for
  the Menominee Restoration Act
• Signed by President Richard Nixon
• Recreated reservation and tribal sovereignty
• Act allowed for
• Menominee Restoration Committee (headed by Ada
  Deer) draft new constitution
• Election of new tribal council
• New tribal police force and implementation of
  tribal laws
• Enforcement of tribal hunting and fishing
  regulations
• New health clinic

NADF est. in 1970 to provide money to lawyers who
worked for reservations. Background Office of
Economic Opportunity had funded lawyers to work
in Indian Country. As cases increased, need to
create a national organized was created, hence
the NADF.
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Office of Economic Opportunity

• Est. 1964 Reservations used funds for
  development programs
• Independent of BIA
• Community Action Programs (CAP)
• President Lyndon B. Johnsons War on Poverty
  programs
• Significance
• OEO projects infused Indian country with great
  confidence to continue fighting, such as against
  termination
• Origin of Self-Determination

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Use of oeo monies some examples

• New Mexico Pueblos
• Programs to train silversmiths
• Factory to build adobe brick
• Red Lake Chippewa
• Programs to train carpenters, plumbers, and
  electricians
• Navajo
• Rough Rock Demonstration School, est. 1966
• First Indian-run school
• To teach Navajo children both Navajo culture and
  English, reading, and math

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Returned Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo in 1970
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Taos blue lake

• Sacred lake for the Taos Pueblo
• Source of Rio Pueblo de Taos
• Drinking water
• Pilgrimage to lake
• 25 mile trek in August
• Shrines along trail
• Done in secret outsiders not allowed
• Belief
• Taos Pueblo emerged from its waters
• Tribal leader Paul Bernal The water is purified
  by nature and therefore is holy water coming from
  Blue LakeBlue Lake is our Indian Church.

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Taos Pueblo Lost ownership of Blue Lake

• Creation of the Taos National Forest, 1906
• Included Blue Lake
• Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot did not receive
  permission from Taos Pueblo
• Forest Service opened up the area to camping,
  hunting, fishing
• Lake stocked with trout
• Religious sites destroyed

Taos National Forest renamed Carson National
Forest)
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Paul Bernal fights for Blue lake

• Paul Bernal
• WW II Vet
• Appointed by elder Juan de Jesus Romero to be
  Pueblos representative to outside world
• Indian Claims Commission
• In 1965 -- offered money to Taos for loss of Blue
  Lake
• Bernal against monetary payment wanted land
  instead
• Taos Pueblo hired lawyer Felix Cohen
• Submitted bills to Congress in 1950s
• Failed because Forest Service did not want to
  encourage other tribes (like Tlingit and Tongass
  NF)

Indian Claims Commission, est. 1946
Felix Cohen b. 1907, 1930s worked for the
Department of the Interior, helped create legal
framework for Indian Reorganization Act,
published Handbook of Federal Indian Law in 1941,
with new policy of Termination, he left public
service to become private lawyer.
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Blue Lake returned to Taos, 1970

• Republican Richard Nixon won 1968 election
• Saw return of lake as a chance to appeal to
  Indian voters
• Lake returned
• Nixon administration cited freedom of religion

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Alaska native land claims recognized in 1971

• Context
• Alaska Purchased in 1867
• No treaties with federal government
• Native groups like the Tlingit, Haida, Eyak,
  Inuit, and Athabascans
• Statehood in 1959
• Put forward land claims when Alaska become a
  state (claimed much of Alaska)
• State of Alaska, BLM, Forest Service, oil
  companies made land claims too

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Alaska Indian Claims continued

• Alaska Federation of Natives (est. 1966)
• Tensions between Indians and government
• Deep Freeze 1969
• Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall imposed
  moratorium on decisions regarding land claims
  (for Indians and non-Indians)
• Negotiations continued into early 1970s
• Indians, environmentalists, mining and oil
  interests
• Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA)
  signed in 1971
• Tribes gave up 1/9th of the state in exchange for
  962.5 Million)
• Tribes received 44 million acres

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ANCSA created Native Corporations

• To administer money and lands
• Corporations selected lands
• Held Title
• Receive monies from settlement
• Invest funds, and give out payments to tribes

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Restoration of fishing and hunting rights

• In 1972, Michigan Supreme Court overruled the
  Chosa Decision 1930, claiming that the 1854
  Treaty with the Keweenaw Bay Band of Chippewa
  guaranteed fishing rights
• In 1972, Idaho vs. Tinno Shoshone and Bannock had
  fishing and hunting rights guaranteed in Fort
  Bridger Treaty of 1868
• United States v. Washington 1974
• Billy Frank
• Boldt Decision
• Allow tribes to fish at traditional sites and
  manage salmon fisheries

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What is Self-Determination?

• Todays U.S. Indian Policy
• Indian Self-Determination and Education Act
  (1975)
• Tribes receive money directly and the tribes use
  the money independent of the federal agencies
• Tribes administer their own (i.e.) day care
  centers, schools, health clinics, etc.
• How did Self-Determination develop? Lets look at
  its foundations

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Maine Indian Claims settlement, 1980
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Land returns for the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot
of Maine

• Passamaquoddy Treaty of 1794
• With state of Massachusetts
• Promised to the tribe some 23,000 acres and 15
  islands
• Land had slipped into private hands
• Passamaquoddy leader John Stevens
• Leads a sit-in (1964) to prevent a white
  landowner from building tourist cabins on land
  covered by the treaty
• Tribe hired Tom Tureen to defend their land
  claims

Tom Tureen b. 1945, lawyer, pioneered use of
Nonintercourse Acts to obtain return of land.
Helped gain recognition for five New England
tribes and return of their lands
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Tom Tureen works for the passamaquoddy and
Penobscot

• Was paid through Pine Tree Legal Assistance (an
  OEO Indian legal service program)
• Realized that 1794 treaty was illegal because the
  1790 Nonintercourse Act of 1790 required
  congressional approval of tribal land sales
• This was same for Penobscot
• Choice go to Indian Claims Commission for
  monetary recompense or seek reclaiming of land
  (chose latter)

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Maine Indian Claims settlement, 1980

• Signed by Jimmy Carter
• Provided tribes 81.5 million to be used to
  purchase lands, including timber lands
• Tribes received federal recognition
• Other tribes from New England, Alabamba, and
  Texas would do the same, claiming treaties signed
  between their ancestors and the states were
  illegal due to the Nonintercourse Act of 1790

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Sovereignty in the Congress and Courts

• Successes and Some Failures

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Context

• Supreme Court made 120 decisions regarding Indian
  law from 1959 to the 2000s
• Most decisions were in favor of Indians, until
  the 1980s
• OEO legal service programs active on reservations
• Indian Claims Commission ended and private law
  firms took over Indian cases, including
• Native American Rights Fund, est. 1969
• Indian Law Resource Center
• Many Indians studied law

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The McClanahan Decision McClanahan v. Arizona
State Tax Commission 1967

• In 1967, Arizona sought to tax employees of Great
  Western Bank branch in Window Rock, capital of
  Navajo Nation (town is on the reservation)
• Rosalind McClanahan, employee, contested
  Arizonas right to tax on the reservation
• She went to the OEO legal services program
  Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe or DNA (lawyers
  helping to revitalize the Navajo people)

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McClanahan Decision Continued

• DNA lawyers based their argument on Worcester v.
  Georgia 1832 state of Georgia cannot pass laws
  on Cherokee lands
• McClanahan case went to the Supreme Court of
  Arizona
• The court found in favor of the Navajo ? Arizona
  cannot tax the Navajo
• Significance
• Turning points (or foundations) of
  Self-Determination
• Success for Indians

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Indian Child Welfare Act 1978

• In 1967, Indian child Ivan Brown taken from his
  home because he was cared by an elderly Indian
  woman (Spirit Lake Sioux, N. Dakota)
• Indians sued separating children from the tribe
  destroyed their identity
• Court found many instances of Indian children
  being removed from Indian homes into non-Indian
  homes
• President Jimmy Carter signed the act, which said
  that tribes have jurisdiction over custody cases

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Indian Child adoptions

• BIA placed Indian orphans into white families
• Justification stable homes, guardianship
  doctrine
• Case workers did not care, or BIA sought
  assimilation
• Adoption of John Doe v. Heim (1976)
• In 1975, Navajo child to be adopted, grandfather
  protested
• Decision Government has right to place Indian
  children into non-Indian households without
  tribal approval

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Indian Children adoptions Continued

• Consequences of taking children out of tribes
• Language, culture, traditions not continued
• Grandparents help raise children, impart tribal
  histories, mythologies, etc.
• UN definition of genocide
• Forcibly transferring children of one group to
  another group. (Echohawk, 220)
• Congress realized problem
• Indian Child Welfare Act (1978)
• Required state courts to transfer Indian child
  adoptions to tribal courts when a reservation
  requests such actions

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Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache 1982

• Oil and gas companies acquired leases in 1953 and
  tribal government could not tax leases
• In 1969, Jicarilla tribal council amended
  constitution to implement tax oil and gas
  companies operating on Jicarilla land
• Companies sued went to Supreme Court
• Court ruled in favor of Jicarilla
• Jicarilla has sovereign government, its own laws,
  police, etc.
• Oil Companies benefited from the government
• Indians have right to tax leases

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Court decisions against Indians

• Oliphant Decision (1978)
• Mark Oliphant arrested for fighting by tribal
  police on the Suquamish reservation in Washington
• Justice Rehnquist Indians lack criminal
  jurisdiction over non-Indians
• Atkinson Trading Co. Decision (2001)
• Could Navajo Nation tax a non-Indian hotel (on
  non-Indian land within reservation)?
• Justice Rehnquist no, Indians cannot tax went
  against Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache

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In general, great successes for Indian peoples

• American Indian Religious Freedom Act, 1978
• Native American Graves Protection and
  Repatriation Act, 1990
• Legislators who were pro-Indian Morris Udall and
  John McCain (Arizona) Ben Nighthorse (Colorado)
  etc.
• Senator Daniel K. Inouye (Hawaii)
• Chaired Indian Affairs Committee
• Helped get pro-Indian legislation passed

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Other Court Issues

• Fishing rights in Pacific Northwest and Great
  Lakes
• Eagle feathers for ceremonial purposes
• Water rights in Colorado and Utah
• Peyote usage in Nevada and New Mexico
• Casinos in California and Connecticut
• Tribal taxation over non-Indians in Arizona and
  Dakotas

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Conclusion

• Over-turning Public Law 280 in South Dakota
• Prevention of Colville Reservation Termination,
  1971
• Menominee Restoration 1973
• Office of Economic Opportunity
• Return of Blue Lake 1970
• Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 1971
• Self Determination Act 1978
• Maine Indian Settlement Act, 1980
• Supreme Court Decisions