Just how sovereign are the American Indian Reservations?

[The Backlash Cometh]

This is a rant, and as rants often do, I might get myself in politically hot water over it so I'll apologize in advance.

Someone the other day asked me what community I would feel comfortable living in. I said I wish there was a community filled with environmentalist and conservationist. That's where I would feel most at home. She replied, "Oh, a hippy community." I was shocked. I know hippies meet the criteria, but it said more about her mental limitations in understanding environmentalist and conservationist. I tried to answer without showing any emotion in my voice. No, I said, a community filled with people like Al Gore. And other scientists looking for answers to what's going to happen next in our world, and who may already be getting the idea that we will never be able to change some people's patterns of behavior. So we'll live in a community and just make the best of working together to survive what's coming next.

I've been thinking about where such a community could be placed and it dawned on me, that much of what passes for environmentalism and conservationism springs from the American Indian's cultural beliefs. If Indian Reservations were truly sovereign, couldn't their governments begin to contract to build such a green community full of the best and the brightest scientific minds, maybe some who are ready to leave the rat race for more personal rewarding work? As long as those educators and scientist understood that they are there to learn from the Indian culture as much as educate young American Indians so they would be better prepared to live in both worlds, wouldn't it be the perfect symbiotic relationship?

Why wouldn't this idea be workable?

[scarletwoman]

1. Short answer -- not very.

Here's an example...

http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v06/n657/a07.html

COURT NIXES PINE RIDGE HEMP FARM

SIOUX FALLS -- An American Indian treaty and United States law do not allow for the cultivation of industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

Alex White Plume, who is vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and members of his family planted hemp on their property but it was cut down and confiscated by federal agents.

-snip-

The family tried three times to grow industrial hemp on Pine Ridge reservation land from 2000 to 2002, only to have the federal government seize and destroy the plants.

A judge ordered the White Plumes to stop the plantings but they were never charged in criminal court.

The family could have applied to the DEA for permission to grow the crop, but without that authorization the crop could not be allowed, argued Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Salter.

-snip-

The White Plumes' lawyer, Bruce Ellison of Rapid City, argued the family was not growing a drug so it didn't need to apply to the federal government for permission.

Ellison said he knew of no instance when the DEA granted a commercial hemp farming permit. And he said by treaty and tribal law, the White Plumes had the right to grow hemp without a DEA permit.

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The Pine Ridge Tribal Council had okayed the hemp farm in 2000, on the grounds that as a 'sovereign nation' they had the right to authorize that particular commercial enterprise on tribal land. Oh no, sez the Feds, you're not THAT sovereign.

From the formations of tribal governments, to the definition of 'who is an Indian' -- 'blood quanta' -- the U.S. Federal government retains the power to dictate to the tribal nations just how 'sovereign' they are allowed to be.

My advice; leave the Indians out of your fantasies. They neither need nor welcome well-meaning but ignorant outsiders showing up with grand plans. I live near 2 reservation communities and have developed years-long relationships within those communities. They accept me as a friend because, as a white woman, I learned long ago to respect their boundaries and have put in much effort at learning their histories and present circumstances, and have never sought to interfere in their affairs.

If you want to develop an ideal 'community', do what we old hippies did in the 60s and early 70s and start a commune. Leave the Indians out of it.

sw

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. American Indian sovereignty appears to be an illusion.

I wouldn't be surprised to find good ole boys milking the profits from the casinos. Where there is exploitation, you're bound to find someone politically connected.

[madmusic]

5. Federal courts do not have jurisdiction on membership

Banished Indians fighting back
Politics, greed blamed in tribal ousters
By Todd Milbourn -- Bee Staff Writer

Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, August 6, 2006

OROVILLE -- Robert Edwards is no longer an Indian. At least not according to his own tribe.

Edwards and about 70 other members of Butte County's Enterprise Rancheria were disenrolled -- essentially voted out -- by the tribal government during a bitter power struggle three years ago.

Never mind that Edwards' great-grandmother was a full-blooded Maidu. As nations unto themselves, tribes are free to decide who belongs and who doesn't.

"It tears me apart," said Edwards, one of about 30 tribe-less American Indians who protested their treatment at a rally Saturday, holding signs reading "No Due Process" and "End Tribal Injustice." The rally, which drew Indians from several tribes, was pegged to an appeals hearing for Enterprise Rancheria members who are facing disenrollment.

Stories such as Edwards' are not uncommon. Over the past decade, more than 2,000 American Indians have been booted from their tribes, said John Gomez Jr., a disenrolled Pechanga member in Temecula, Riverside County.

Why?

Politics and greed, said Gomez, who earlier this year founded the American Indian Rights and Resources Organization to advocate for disenrolled Indians. He said it's sometimes easier for a tribe to simply banish a disaffected member than to deal with the criticism. Also, fewer members mean larger shares of casino profits for those who remain.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/california/story/14289403p-15116898c.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Oh, what a crime.

I think you answered my question. What happens to an American Indian controlled government when the government is composed of the same greed factor as our local governments are? Answer: It's just easier to get rid of the dissenters.

[madmusic]

11. That's only the beginning.

Check these out:

Can a tribal court order the banishment of a non-Indian: forcible removal from her place of employment at a state-chartered non-profit organization on fee patent land, forcible removal from her home on white-owned fee patent land? Can a tribal court banish a non-Indian from state highways? Is the county sheriff obligated to enforce such a tribal court banishment order, particularly when he has personal knowledge that at least one of the reasons given by the tribal court for banishment is false? And—given ‘tribal sovereignty’—is there anything that a person banished without even a pretense of any fair hearing by the tribal court, can do about it?

http://www.maquah.net/clara/Press-ON/02-03-29.html

This case concerns nineteen individual plaintiffs who have lived for many, many years on a street known as “Territory Road” within the 32-acre sovereign Territory of the Oneida Indian Nation (“Territory”). (A-29) The Oneida Indian Nation is one of the six Indian Nations comprising the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy. The Oneida Territory is the last remaining 32-acres which was never seized or acquired by either the United States or the State of New York and is the cultural and spiritual center of the Oneida Nation and the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs comprise six (6) ‘household families’, each living in their privately owned home on Territory Road within the 32-acre Oneida Nation Territory. Four of the six plaintiffs’ households consist of direct family members of the Schenandoah family, also known as Shenandoah. Plaintiff Maisie Shenandoah is the mother of Plaintiff Diane Schenandoah, Vicky Schenandoah-Halsey and Danielle Shenandoah Patterson. Maisie Shenandoah is also the Aunt of defendant Halbritter and with whom there has been a leadership struggle for the last ten years.

Some of the plaintiffs are not ‘members’ of the Oneida Indian Nation, however, they are members of one or another of the other Indian Nations within the Haudenosaunee. (SPA-2) As such, they are entitled to live on the Oneida Territory even though they are not ‘members’ of the Oneida Nation. The defendants have used their control over the Oneida government to make the other plaintiffs ‘members-not-in-good-standing’. (SPA-29) As a result, none of the plaintiffs are ‘members-in-good-standing’ of the Oneida Nation.

The plaintiffs and defendants have been embroiled in a Leadership Dispute for the past ten (10) years beginning in 1993. The following facts are from the opinion and decision of the Honorable Rosemary Pooler, who was then serving as a U.S. District Court judge for Northern New York and rendered her decision in Shenandoah et al v U.S. Dept. of Interior, Halbritter, et al, (1997 W.L. 214947 N.D.N.Y.) (SPA-22) Additional facts are provided in Shenandoah v. U.S. Dept. of Interior et al., 159 F.3d 708 (C.A.2,1998) affirming portions of the district court’s decision. (copy at SPA-16)

The plaintiffs consist of “Traditional Leaders” within the Traditional Form of Self Governance of the Oneida Indian Nation of New York as duly recognized by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs by letter dated July 29, 1987. (SPA-22)
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:FzOdynekq_wJ:www.nativemetiswomenscouncil.com/files/FINAFO_1.doc+tribal+membership+Penn+%22Circuit+court%22+banish+%22habeas+corpus%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3


Respondent Julia Martinez is a full-blooded member of the Santa Clara Pueblo, and resides on the Santa Clara Reservation in Northern New Mexico. In 1941 she married a Navajo Indian with whom she has since had several children, including respondent Audrey Martinez. Two years before this marriage, the Pueblo passed the membership ordinance here at issue, which bars admission of the Martinez children to the tribe because their father is not a Santa Claran. 2 Although the children were raised on the reservation and continue to reside there now that they are adults, as a result of their exclusion from membership they may not vote in tribal elections or hold secular office in the tribe; moreover, they have no right to remain on the reservation in the event of their <436 U.S. 49, 53> mother's death, or to inherit their mother's home or her possessory interests in the communal lands.

After unsuccessful efforts to persuade the tribe to change the membership rule, respondents filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated. 3 Petitioners moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the court lacked jurisdiction to decide intratribal controversies affecting matters of tribal self-government and sovereignty. The District Court rejected petitioners' contention, finding that jurisdiction was conferred by 28 U.S.C. 1343 (4) and 25 U.S.C. 1302 (8). The court apparently concluded, first, that the substantive provisions of Title I impliedly authorized civil actions for declaratory and injunctive relief, and second, that the tribe was not immune from such suit. 4 Accordingly, the motion to dismiss was denied. 402 F. Supp. 5 (1975).

Following a full trial, the District Court found for petitioners on the merits. While acknowledging the relatively recent origin of the disputed rule, the District Court nevertheless <436 U.S. 49, 54> found it to reflect traditional values of patriarchy still significant in tribal life.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=436&invol=49&friend=nytimes

[johnaries]

3. Here ya go, just what you're looking for.

http://www.thefarm.org/

As for the Indian Nations, how much practical sovereignty can you have surrounded on all sides by another country?

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Thanks. Would be nice to bring hippies back into fashion.

Lord knows that tie-dying NEVER goes out of fashion with the young. If they can come up with revolutionary ways to form communities, they may be our hope for the future.

As for your comment about how a country can be sovereign surrounded by another country, I think it puts a stickler on the word, "sovereign." There is something very wrong here, even for a strict constructionist. Especially for a strict constructionist.

[htuttle]

7. Reservation governments have full sovereignity over everything...

...that is either impossible to accomplish or mostly irrelevant.

Anything important is the jurisdiction of the Federales.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. That did dawn on me. How sovereign can they be when they have

to go to our federal courts to determine sovereignty issues.

[Solo_in_MD]

8. To much and not enough

Its really a mixed bag. They have too much control is some areas, not enough in others. Its truly a mess.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. This calls for a leader with vision...from the tribes.