A People's History

Did you know that the USA was not the first democracy in North America?

It's us.

I mean, the Mohawks and four other tribes that created The Great Law of Peace.

This democracy was formed by the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca.

We called ourselves the Haudenosaunee, which translates to the people of the longhouse.

But of course, the French would call us the Iroquois Confederacy.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy still exists today with the inclusion of more tribes.

But our impact is nearly missing from history books.

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, even Frederick Engels and Karl Marx were influenced by the structure of government.

I mean, The Great Law of Peace outlines a federal government which has authority over the member tribes, a legislature, executive branch, veto power and freedoms of speech, press and religion.

So if the USA took our blueprint of democracy and our theory on interstate peacemaking.

Then how the heck did we end up on reservations?

This is a people's history of Native America.

With me, Tai Leclaire.

Before we answer the reservation question, we need to backtrack to the US Constitution.

Why?

Because treaties, that's why.

I'll explain.

Indian appears three times in the Constitution.

The first is to imply that Indians are not citizens.

Then again later in the 14th Amendment.

But the third mention is to declare that Congress has the power to regulate commerce with Indian tribes, thereby acknowledging the sovereignty Indians have to govern themselves.

But what does this mean?

Well, it's interpreted by many to mean that Indian tribes are sovereign nations.

Therefore, only through treaties can the United States negotiate with tribes.

That negotiation requires approval by Congress.

But any such agreement can be questioned and in that case, goes to the Supreme Court.

Confused?

Well, join the club.

But here's what you need to know.

The federal government negotiated treaties with many Indian nations, at least up until 1871.

But the Supreme Court's historical rulings with regard to treaties, the Constitution and Indian law have determined two main things.

One, Congress has fairly broad power over Indian nations, and two, the judicial branch also has power to push back on bad policies.

Also, you probably notice I use the term Indian.

That's because Indian is a legal term for us, just as Indian country is a legal term for all of our land.

But that excludes Alaska native land.

We're the only racial group that's also a political entity.

The United States has had a nation to nation relationship with tribes for nearly 250 years, and during that time has acquired 1.5 billion acres of our land.

Tribal nations are both confined to reservations on Indian Country and legally dependent on the federal government.

Various treaties outline an exchange of land for the promise of rights, as well as health, education and social welfare in perpetuity.

What happened?

Were those treaties the worst deals of all time?

Well, no.

So why are these treaties honored?

Treaties, despite being legally valid, had many issues when they were written.

Primarily is that many treaties came after or under the threat of war because to be clear, tribes do not let white people in willingly.

We have records of wars and battles starting in the 1600s, going all the way until 1923.

Let's take some time to scroll on screen so you can see what I'm talking about.

Then came the translation.

Translators, let alone accurate translators, were few and far between.

What was meant and what was written were sometimes two separate things that were settled in court or on the battlefield.

But at the end of the day, the vast majority of the treaties could be interpreted like this.

If Indians signed a treaty, they can hunt, fish and live as they want, but on an area reserved for them or reservation.

In exchange, they would give up their current land base, ensuring the federal government would continue to take care of them.

Since America capitalized up our resources from 1778 to 1871, the Federal government ratified over 370 treaties with tribal nations, and it's safe to say all had been broken.

Now let's take a look at today's reservations and some of the current statistics around reservations.

You often see low income, high rates of incarcerate and low access to clean drinking water.

Not to mention the actual location far away from major public infrastructure or even cities.

These are not the statistics of people who are taking care of.

Indians signed those treaties, in part to ensure the futures of their descendants.

Since then, we've been fighting and litigating our way to get America to uphold these treaty promises and respect our cultures and lifeways.

The first set of cases that validated our treaty promises is referred to as the Marshall Trilogy.

Out of these cases came the doctrine of federal trust responsibility, meaning that since tribes have inherent sovereignty over their lands and governance, and if the federal government takes their land by treaty or otherwise, they must be compensated with essential services to Indian people, as well as protection of Indian land and resources.

This makes tribes domestic dependent nations.

It makes sense, right?

Well, not to the other branches of government.

The executive branches War Department established the Office of Indian Affairs to install the policies of the Manifest Destiny.

Manifest Destiny is the idea that European-Americans were ordained to settle the entire continent, which paved the way for Congress to adopt other Indian removal practices.

For example, the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which allowed the President to set aside land west of the Mississippi for the tribes living in the south to what's now known as Indian territory.

So these new rules led to the Trail of Tears, a genocidal death march that forced 60,000 tribal members off their land in the south and moved to modern day Oklahoma.

To help us understand, we'll bring in Jessica Imotichey, an Oklahoma based Chickasaw tribal member.

Her great grandfather M.V.

Cheadle was born in Indian territory and served on the tribe's last original legislature from 1905 until statehood in 1907.

Hi, Jessica.

Thank you for having me today.

Can you help me and the viewers understand these treaties?

We've got this promise into perpetuity that our people will be taken care of, not just for seven generations before forever.

And that includes education.

That includes health care.

That includes housing.

That includes everything that it takes to make a person a healthy person.

So then it becomes a question of, but how do we still hold the federal government to their word?

After the Indian Removal Act?

Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act.

There were four versions of this act, all basically codifying the reservation system.

In order for many tribal members to get their slice of land and to adopt a surname, Leclaire.

More on that in a later episode.

And were given a blood quantum or a native purity test.

However, when non-natives purchase a lot of land from Indians, they do not have to abide by tribal rules, nor were they subject to tribal courts.

If you remember for our first episode, this was quite a problem for tribes to keep their citizens safe.

That was a lot of information.

And you might be thinking reservations are really bad, but we haven't explained why reservations are important to Native Americans.

To help us answer, let's bring back Jessica.

I think if you ask a Native person what their reservation is or means to them, I think that you'll hear many different answers.

It's ceremony, it's community, it's beauty and love.

And sometimes it's trauma and pain.

It's all of these things.

And I think that is what makes reservation life so amazing.

It's the tapestry of who we are.

So based on your work, how can Native Americans hold truth to power?

I think about the census and, and voting as almost having a marriage.

You're counted, you're recognized, you're seen, you have a voice.

So it is about power.

It is about representation, power and governance.

But it's also about money.

It's what determines federal funding.

Now we have the power to elect leaders that do believe in honoring treaties that do say, yes, we're going to sit down and we're going to meet with you face to face and we're going to talk about what your needs are.

We know as American Indian people, we can carry these things like health, education, housing, all these things out best for ourselves and for our people.

But it's the federal government's responsibility and duty to provide the funding to do that.

And so, you know, that's part of what honoring that treaty means.

So we think about some of the issues with the design of reservations, isolation, low funding, and a much understood distrust of, well, any governments, access to voting and the census is incredibly challenging.

The states control rules of voting, but reservations are technically under federal jurisdiction and often depend on federal, not state resources.

So voting drop boxes are few and far between in Indian Country, sometimes hundreds of miles away.

Voting places are the same, often requiring a full day off work, a car or sometimes horseback to vote.

So despite not being able to legally vote until 1924 or even 1958, states like Utah, Indian Country has very strong political organization, not only in the polls but in the courts, too.

What would happen if the state and federal governments abided by these treaties as the supreme law of the land as cited in the Constitution?

What would that look like?

Fences preventing interstate migration of elk, deer, bison and other barriers to hunting would be removed.

Reservation schools, hospitals and infrastructure would look like, well, look way better than they do right now.

Take the Indian Health Services.

A federal report found that an estimated $51 billion is needed to provide adequate care to all patients.

And before you get sticker shock, the US budget pays nearly ten times that amount in interest on loans.

But our treaties do not mention deficit spending.

They promise tribes, health care, education, sovereignty, hunting, fishing and culture.

For as long as the water flows and the grass grows.