Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The mouth of the Klamath River viewed from the Klamath River Overlook, overlooking a 1,200-acre parcel the Yurok Tribe is hoping to acquire for their own tribal park inside the current boundary of the Redwood National and State Park as part of an expansion of reservation land under their control. Their negotiations were about relationship, responsibility, respect, and reciprocity. When tribes would come to the table to negotiate treaties, they weren’t thinking only about the present, they were thinking about many generations into the future. Some of my own family members signed these treaties, and later they would tell stories about how hard-fought these negotiations were and how they struggled to reconcile what they had to compromise in order to protect future generations and to protect our lands and more-than-human relatives. Our people had agreed to these treaties in the hopes of finding reprieve from the genocide that was being perpetrated against us by the California government and citizens. There were 18 in total that were made with California Indians in the 1800s, but at the time, Congress decided not to ratify them and then put them under an injunction of secrecy. Well, we do have treaties, but those treaties were not ratified. Here in California, we actually do not have treaties. Cutcha Risling Baldy, Hoopa Valley Tribe/Yurok/Karuk, assistant professor and department chair of Native American studies at Humboldt State University: We asked six Indigenous academics, community leaders, and activists what would it look like if the US were to fulfill their trust and treaty responsibilities. So while just about every candidate at the LaMere Forum said they would honor the treaties or the “ Supreme Law” of the United States, what does that actually mean as far as tangible results? That’s why listening to what Native peoples are actually asking for is so important. While the language in the treaties is diverse, there are often certain common features of the pacts: a guarantee of peace, a definition of land boundaries, preservation of hunting and fishing rights, and provisions for protection against domestic and foreign enemies.īut these pacts were signed across significantly different periods of history, with incredibly divergent views of what Indigenous nations were. The US government signed 370 treaties with numerous Indigenous nations from 1778 to 1871. While people in a single community will provide a range of perspectives - much less in all 573 federally recognized tribes - more often than not, a version of one answer always comes up about what the US needs to do: honor the treaties. Then there are state-recognized nations, unrecognized nations, and Indigenous communities living in the diaspora, too. There are more than 5.2 million American Indian and Alaska Native people who live in America and 573 federally recognized Indian nations across the country, each with distinctive histories of colonization since European contact. In part, because Indian Country is so diverse.
#INDIAN TRIBES HOW TO#
There is no easy answer as to how to improve the over-400-year relationship between Indigenous peoples and the United States. So one has to ask: What long-unfulfilled promises to Indigenous peoples can presidential candidates actually make good on? Where do we go from here? Candidates’ plans were discussed as well: Warren’s includes massive increases in spending to help bolster Indian Country Julián Castro’s notes the need to develop cultural competency in federal relationships, while also giving tribes enhanced self-determination.īut for all these current issues, historical grievances were aired, too. Questions covered a lot of ground: climate change, the 2020 census, the consultation of Indigenous nations on federal decisions, and the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 law meant to reverse the disproportionately high number of Indigenous children removed from their homes by government agencies. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa on August 20, 2019.