Unbound and Determined
The Importance of Self Determination By EJ John
Student Staff Member
Modern Tribal Governments rarely reflect their traditional structure that existed before the creation of the United States. The United States has been in existence for barely three centuries, while Native American peoples have lived on this continent for over 20,000 years. Native American peoples have developed their ways of life thousands of years before the establishment of the United States, yet today it is the United States that determines the fate of most Native American tribes. In its 239 years of existence the United States has changed the political structure of many Native American nations. The Supreme Court determined early on that the United States Federal Government had the sole right to interact with the Native Nations in the Marshall Trilogy cases. After these decisions, Congress passed many acts that further shaped the structures of Tribal Governments. For instance, The Major Crimes Act limited Tribal criminal jurisdiction, The Indian Civil Rights Act required tribes to adopt many of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights, and the recent Violence against Women Act amendments required Tribes to meet certain criteria in order to benefit from the Act.
The outside influence on the internal structure of Native American Nations has not proven to be particularly beneficial. Statistics compiled by the Denver Post in 2007 show that both the poverty and crime rate is much higher in Native American communities than compared to the rest of the nation. These statistics suggest external laws and guidance do not succeed. If the push to change the internal structures of Native American nations from the outside is not working, then it might be time for a new, but familiar, approach.
Rather than pushing 239 year old policies on Native American Nations that have thrived for thousands of years, a better approach might be to allow Native American Nations themselves more authority to implement their own solutions. No one is greater qualified than the Native American Nations to identify and solve their own problems. In the greater context, the fight for Native American Self-Determination is the fight for Native Americans to continue living as they always have.
The bitter reality is that the way of life that Native American Nations enjoyed before the United States and before European Contact is never going to come back. However, Native American Nations do not have to give up their identities in order to continue living in today’s political systems. In the face of all the outside influences, Native American Nations must keep in mind the teachings and traditions passed down through thousands of years. It is important for Native Peoples to remember that we have always lived here. Even in the leviathan that is the Federal and Tribal political system, Native peoples can find the spaces that could lead to the creation of a political system that is truly of their own design. The start can be simple: it could be a simple change like renaming a building or a road in a Tribe’s original language. One example from the Navajo Nation is a codification of traditional principles written in the Navajo Language. In the face of so much adversity Tribes must continue to find ways to retain their identities because ultimately, we are fighting for the right to continue living as we always have.