Tribal Sovereignty Controversy

In the seventeenth century, European people begin to settle in the North America. They started to invest in the natural resources in the eastern America using the best resource they found in the land, captured Native Indians. Many poor European people migrated to North America for opportunity to earn money and rise of their social status. They came to the America as indentured or contracted servants because the passage aboard was too expensive for them. By the time many Native Indians and indentured servants die from the hard labor and low morality rate, masters of the plantation purchased more slaves from Africa to profit themselves. The “Virginia Servant and Slave Laws” reveal the dominant efforts of masters to profit from their servants and slaves by passing laws to treat slaves as their properties and to control servants and slaves by suppressing the rebellion using brutal force. Masters and rich planters sought to earn more profit from mercantilism, or trade, economic system by violating the civil rights of Native Indian, African, and poor European people and this thought and practice still exist today as a form of racism and segregation in America.

Political Scientists, Thomas Flanagan and Roger Townshend explain the key to the big question: “Can a Native State Exist Within a Canadian State?” in the readings: “The Case for Native Sovereignty” and “Native Sovereignty: Does Anyone Really Want an Aboriginal Archipelago?”. The essay will outline and provide evidence to both sides, whether there could or could not exist a Native State in Canada. The document will argue that Natives are not organized enough to form their own government. Throughout the decades, Natives have agonized many savageries at the hands of the European settlers. The essay will take Flanagan’s side with the belief that Natives should not be sovereign, using the textbooks “Principles of Comparative Politics”, and

For several hundred years people have sought answers to the Indian problems, who are the Indians, and what rights do they have? These questions may seem simple, but the answers themselves present a difficult number of further questions and answers. State and Federal governments have tried to provide some order with a number of laws and policies, sometimes resulting in state and federal conflicts. The Federal Government's attempt to deal with Indian tribes can be easily understood by following the history of Federal Indian Policy. Indians all over the United States fought policies which threatened to destroy their familial bonds and traditions. The Passamaquoddy Indian Tribe of Maine, resisted no less

Over 100 years ago, the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina pleaded for federal recognition. In 1956, an act relating to the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina was passed, giving the Lumbee tribe the acknowledgment of being of native descent. Recently, an amendment to the 1956 law has been put on the table under the name of “Lumbee Recognition Act.” This amendment will make the Lumbee Indians a fully Federally recognized tribe.  To be recognized as a legitimate native nation, a tribe must have political influence, possess membership criteria,

The removal of various members of Native American tribes from their indigenous lands to that which was east of the Mississippi was a widely debated topic in the early portion of the 19th century. Morally, proponents of this action cited the fact that these Native Americans were "savages" (Jackson) with no rights to their land; legally, they were expected to adhere to the rights of the states and the federal government of the U.S. Those who were against Indian removal believed that legally they were entitled to their land because of their lengthy history in occupying it, and that morally their rights as people substantiated their claims to the land. A review of both arguments reflects the fact that the latter position is the most convincing.

Thomas Flanagan disapproves the idea of Native sovereignty ever coexisting with Canadian sovereignty. Flanagan identifies the flaws in Townshend’s arguments referring to them as a theoretical approach and not a practical approach. It is true that the sharing of jurisdictional power is the essence of the Canadian state but this cannot apply to the Aboriginals of Canada. One reason a third level of government cannot work in Canada is “In the 10 provinces, Canada has over six hundred Indian bands living on more than 2200 reserves, plus hundreds of thousands of Métis and non-status Indians who do not possess reserves,” (Flanagan 44). Flanagan draws the fact that “No one has proposed a workable mechanism by which this far-flung archipelago could

Power can be viewed as the ability to influence and/or control others. Another flaw about reservations is the fact that they are not totally governed by Native American representatives. The U.S. government actually has tight control over the majority, if not all, reservations (Perry, 2002, p 233). This tight control has left the Native American population powerless in terms of self- regulation. Despite the fact that Native American government do exist,

In Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?, Lyons states, “sovereignty is the guiding story in our pursuit of self-determination, the general strategy by which we aim to best recover our losses from ravages of colonization…the pursuit of sovereignty is an attempt to revive not our past, but our possibilities” (2000). I agree with Lyons on this statement. Sovereignty should be way of retelling the history of different groups so those who do not know their story can become familiar with it. People cannot learn from history if they do not know their history. Once they know the history, then they can seek the possibilities they once claimed from it. This can go for any group of people, not just Native Americans.

American Indians and Alaskan Natives have a relationship with the federal government that is unique due to the “trust relationship” between the US and American Indians/Alaskan Natives (AI/ANs) who are entitled to health care services provided by the US government by virtue of their membership in sovereign Indian nations. In order to contextualize the complex nature of Indian health programs it is necessary to become versed in the political and legal status of Indian tribes. Through numerous constitutional, legislative, judicial, executive rulings, and orders that were largely associated with the succession of land and subsequent treaty rights; the health care of AI/ANs has been one of many responsibilities guaranteed by the federal government. The foundations of which can be traced back to the year 1787. The ceded land has been interpreted in courts to mean that healthcare and services were in a sense prepaid by AI/AN tribes and 400 million acres of land. The misconception of “free healthcare” and a conservative political disdain from so called entitlement programs have also led to misconceptions regarding the federal government’s responsibility to provide health care and services to AI/ANs. Rhoades (2000) has argued that tribal sovereignty is the overarching principle guiding Indian health care on a daily basis.1 This paper will examine the history surrounding federally mandated healthcare to AI/ANs, pertinent issues of sovereignty, as well as case studies in tribal

With the federal government’s support, many Native tribes have constructed Native Governments and Corporations where the rights to land and money are placed to their own responsibility. What this actually means is that the rights of the people’s land and monetary bonds are transferred from governmental trust to

This is important because the Native American nation’s self-governance remains deeply ingrained in America’s jurisprudence. In turn, this provides a crucial backdrop against which analysis of any state law can be contrasted. A wide difference of opinion exists about the costs and benefits among both Indians and non-Indians. However, gaming on reservations has grown rapidly since 1988 with experts stating that the trend will continue the same way for some time. This means that the sovereignty issue remains the greatest significance for Native American tribes and state governments. State governments will be affected due to the newly-empowered assertions of Native American sovereignty. A good example is the recent ratification by California Senate and Assembly of the new tribal gaming compact. This case that was between the state and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians was a great revelation on how good work can be accomplished through government-to-government negotiations (Evans, Topoleski,

One major reading that contests this idea of sovereignty is the book Mohawk Interruptus by Audra Simpson, which discusses the trials of Native American populations and their efforts to reclaim their own sovereignty. Within Mohawk Interruptus, the people of the Kahnawá:ke tribe struggle against the colonial idea of American or Canadian sovereignty lorded over them, and through refusal of such “gifts” regain their sovereignty. “… Kahnawa’kehró:non had refused the authority of the state at almost every turn and in so doing reinstated a different political authority” (Simpson, 2014, 106). Through these rejections, the people of Kahnawá:ke and Kahnawa’kehró:non established that the current system of sovereignty does not work for them, as it is colonially based to oppress the Native American communities. Simpson uses these examples to make a larger point on the Western systems of governance and understandings of authority. Though this idea of sovereignty, Simpson argues, was a way to appropriate land and incorporate or destroy opposing cultures.

The main theme Katherine Blue Carroll’s, Tribal Law and Reconciliation in the New Iraq is regarding the unsuccessful attempts made by the Iraqi government to enhance and endorse reconciliation between the two Muslim communities that reside in Iraq, Sunni and Shi’a. However, the futile attempts of Government of Iraq allowed tribal leaders to reunite the Iraqi community through tribal law. The author’s main theme is to portray the efforts of Shaykhs in post conflict reconciliation (how tribal law works in Iraq in reconciliation) where state authority disappoints to do so. The author conducts interviews with various Shaykhs to understand how the traditional tribal law work in the new Iraq. She explains how the tribal law works and how it has worked in terms of in Iraq to elicit peace in the region.

From the moment of organized European appearances in North America, negotiation has been a central characteristic of relationships between aboriginal residents and newcomers. It is a characteristic that has been evident in treaty-making throughout Canada for more than three hundred years and it continues to be the order of the day in modern treaties, claims and agreements being negotiated with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis across in Canada. 1

The Encyclopedia of Human Rights Issues since 1945, defines sovereignty as the state having complete power to enact legislation regarding “all property, events, institutions, and persons” living inside its borders. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the following definitions of sovereignty that can be used in this context. They are, rule and existing as an independent state and supremacy in respect of power, domination, or rank; supreme dominion, authority, or rule. Inherent in the definition of sovereignty is independence and the ability to make decisions without consultation or being overruled by anyone or entity. In the United States Native American tribes or nations are sovereign. Native Americans retain political