FOUNDATIONS OF SELF DETERMINATION
SELF-DETERMINATION: A POLICY TO ALLOW TRIBES THE RIGHT TO DETERMINE THEIR OWN FUTURE BY PROVIDING THEM
SOVEREIGNTY
Part Three: Foundations
Examples of Successes leading to a
New Indian Policy
This Powerpoint is subject to continuous revisions.
Written and Revised by Scott Fritz, Ph.D. on October 27, 2015 at
11:45 a.m.
Western New Mexico University
EARLY SUCCESSES
OF THE ‘SUSTAINING FIGURES’
Lakota Sioux overturn Public Law
280 in 1964
 Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota
 Tribal leaders: Cato Valandra
 Referendum
 First time, Sioux voted in great
numbers

Cato Valandra: b. 1921, Rosebud Indian
Reservation, S. Dakota, WWII, est.
business, in 1954, treasurer of Rosebud
Reservation, oversaw influx of federal
monies in 1960s, elected tribal chairman in
1962, oversaw economic development, road
building, housing, lowered unemployment, in
1970s he was Economic Development
Administration director and administrator for
Tribal Planning Office, in 1977, became
director of Institute of Indian Studies at
University of S. Dakota.
TERMINATION ENDS: COLVILLE RESERVATION IN
WASHINGTON
To be terminated in 1961
 There was some support for termination

 Each
family would receive $30,000 because of
timber resources
 Traditionals against termination

Lucy Covington against termination = “If an
Indian doesn’t have land, he has nothing.”
LUCY COVINGTON’S FIGHT AGAINST
TERMINATION OF COLVILLE
RESERVATION

B. 1910 Colville Indian Tribe, Washington


Sold cattle to fight termination





Pay for lawyers and airline tickets to Washington D.C.
Ran in 1968 tribal election on an anti-termination
slate  won
Covington held referendum for or against termination


Confederated tribe – Included Salish-speaking tribes
like Nespelem, Sanpoil, Wenatchi and Chief Joseph’s
band of Nez Perce
Reservation residents to vote against it
Stopped the Colville Indian Reservation termination
bill in 1971
Significance: movement toward Self-Determination
Died -- 1982
MENOMINEE TERMINATION (OVERTURNED)

Background: Menominee (of Wisconsin) were terminated
in 1961



Background: Menominee Enterprises: Monies overseen
by First Wisconsin Trust Co.



Assets drop to $300,000 in 1964
Consequences:




Low sales of timber from outmoded lumber mill
Pay taxes
Following Termination – tribe only had $1.7 million


Voting Trust – dominated by Anglos
Problems:


Members went to cities
Lands had transferred to Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI)
Lost health facility
Children dropped out of school
Unemployed doubled
Attempted real estate development “Legend Lake” to sell
to non-Indians
MOVE TO END MENOMINEE TERMINATION
BEGINS

Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee
Shareholders (DRUMS)
End Legend Lakes land sales
 End Termination

ADA DEER, B. 1935,
degree from University
of Wisconsin, involved
with DRUM, helped
bring an end to
Termination Era, Chair
of Menominee
Restoration Committee,
served as first native
woman to head of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
1993-1997.
Leaders: Ada Deer
 Picketed Legend Lakes sales office and
promotional events in Milwaukee
 1971 marched on Madison, WI. –
 DRUMS put up slate of candidates in annual
election of MEI voting trustees and won a majority
of votes

MENOMINEE RESTORATION ACT (1973)



By 1972, support from:
 Native American Defense Fund
 Wisconsin Legislators
Ada Deer went to Washington, D.C. to lobby for the
Menominee Restoration Act
 Signed by President Richard Nixon
 Recreated reservation and tribal sovereignty
Act allowed for:
 Menominee Restoration Committee (headed by Ada
Deer) – draft new constitution
 Election of new tribal council
 New tribal police force and implementation of tribal
laws
 Enforcement of tribal hunting and fishing regulations
 New health clinic
NADF est. in 1970 to provide
money to lawyers who worked
for reservations. Background:
Office of Economic Opportunity
had funded lawyers to work in
Indian Country. As cases
increased, need to create a
national organized was created,
hence the NADF.
OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY



Est. 1964 – Reservations used funds for
development programs
 Independent of BIA
 Community Action Programs (CAP)
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty
programs
Significance:
 OEO
projects infused Indian country with great
confidence to continue fighting, such as against
termination
 Origin of Self-Determination
USE OF OEO MONIES: SOME EXAMPLES

New Mexico Pueblos
Programs to train silversmiths
 Factory to build adobe brick


Red Lake Chippewa


Programs to train carpenters, plumbers, and
electricians
Navajo

Rough Rock Demonstration School, est. 1966
 First
Indian-run school
 To teach Navajo children both Navajo culture and English,
reading, and math
RETURNED BLUE LAKE TO THE TAOS
PUEBLO IN 1970
TAOS BLUE LAKE

Sacred lake for the Taos Pueblo



Pilgrimage to lake




Source of Rio Pueblo de Taos
Drinking water
25 mile trek in August
Shrines along trail
Done in secret; outsiders not allowed
Belief


Taos Pueblo emerged from its waters
Tribal leader Paul Bernal: The water “is purified by nature
and therefore is holy water coming from Blue Lake…Blue
Lake is our Indian Church.”
TAOS PUEBLO LOST OWNERSHIP OF BLUE LAKE

Creation of the Taos National Forest,
1906
 Included
Blue Lake
 Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot did not
receive permission from Taos Pueblo

Forest Service opened up the area to
camping, hunting, fishing
 Lake
stocked with trout
 Religious sites destroyed
Taos National
Forest renamed
Carson National
Forest)
PAUL BERNAL FIGHTS FOR BLUE LAKE



Paul Bernal
 WW II Vet
 Appointed by elder Juan de Jesus Romero to be
Indian
Pueblo’s representative to outside world
Claims
Commission
, est. 1946
Indian Claims Commission
 In 1965 -- offered money to Taos for loss of Blue
Lake
Felix Cohen: b. 1907,
 Bernal against monetary payment; wanted land
1930s worked for the
Department of the Interior,
helped create legal
instead
framework for Indian
Reorganization Act,
published Handbook of
Taos Pueblo hired lawyer Felix Cohen
Federal Indian Law in 1941,
with new policy of
 Submitted bills to Congress in 1950s
Termination, he left public
service to become private
lawyer.
 Failed because Forest Service did not want to
encourage other tribes (like Tlingit and Tongass NF)
BLUE LAKE RETURNED TO TAOS, 1970

Republican Richard Nixon won
1968 election
 Saw
return of lake as a chance to
appeal to Indian voters

Lake returned
 Nixon
administration cited
freedom of religion
ALASKA NATIVE LAND CLAIMS – RECOGNIZED IN
1971

Context:
 Alaska
Purchased in 1867
 No treaties with federal government
Native groups like the Tlingit, Haida, Eyak, Inuit,
and Athabascans
 Statehood in 1959



Put forward land claims when Alaska become a
state (claimed much of Alaska)
State of Alaska, BLM, Forest Service, oil companies
made land claims too
ALASKA INDIAN CLAIMS: CONTINUED



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
Alaska Federation of Natives (est. 1966)
Tensions between Indians and government
“Deep Freeze” 1969
 Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall imposed moratorium on
decisions regarding land claims (for Indians and nonIndians)
Negotiations continued into early 1970s
 Indians, environmentalists, mining and oil interests
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) signed in 1971
 Tribes gave up 1/9th of the state in exchange for $962.5
Million)
 Tribes received 44 million acres
ANCSA CREATED NATIVE CORPORATIONS
To administer money and lands
 Corporations selected lands

 Held

Title
Receive monies from settlement
 Invest
funds, and give out payments to tribes
RESTORATION OF FISHING AND HUNTING
RIGHTS



In 1972, Michigan Supreme Court overruled the
Chosa Decision 1930, claiming that the 1854
Treaty with the Keweenaw Bay Band of
Chippewa guaranteed fishing rights
In 1972, Idaho vs. Tinno Shoshone and
Bannock had fishing and hunting rights
guaranteed in Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868
United States v. Washington 1974



Billy Frank
“Boldt Decision”
Allow tribes to fish at traditional sites and manage
salmon fisheries
WHAT IS SELF-DETERMINATION?


Today’s U.S. Indian Policy
Indian Self-Determination and
Education Act (1975)



Tribes receive money directly and the
tribes use the money independent of
the federal agencies
Tribes administer their own (i.e.) day
care centers, schools, health clinics,
etc.
How did Self-Determination develop?
Lets look at its foundations
MAINE INDIAN CLAIMS SETTLEMENT, 1980
LAND RETURNS FOR THE PASSAMAQUODDY
AND PENOBSCOT OF MAINE

Passamaquoddy Treaty of 1794
 With
state of Massachusetts
 Promised to the tribe some 23,000 acres and
15 islands
Land had slipped into private hands
 Passamaquoddy leader John Stevens

 Leads
a sit-in (1964) to prevent a white
landowner from building tourist cabins on
land covered by the treaty

Tribe hired Tom Tureen to defend their
land claims
Tom Tureen: b. 1945,
lawyer, pioneered use
of Nonintercourse
Acts to obtain return
of land. Helped gain
recognition for five
New England tribes
and return of their
lands
TOM TUREEN WORKS FOR THE
PASSAMAQUODDY AND PENOBSCOT
Was paid through Pine Tree Legal Assistance
(an OEO Indian legal service program)
 Realized that 1794 treaty was illegal because
the 1790 Nonintercourse Act of 1790 required
congressional approval of tribal land sales
 This was same for Penobscot
 Choice: go to Indian Claims Commission for
monetary recompense or seek reclaiming of
land (chose latter)

MAINE INDIAN CLAIMS SETTLEMENT, 1980
Signed by Jimmy Carter
 Provided tribes $81.5 million to be used to
purchase lands, including timber lands
 Tribes received federal recognition
 Other tribes from New England, Alabamba, and
Texas would do the same, claiming treaties
signed between their ancestors and the states
were illegal due to the Nonintercourse Act of
1790

Successes and Some Failures
SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CONGRESS AND
COURTS
CONTEXT
Supreme Court made 120 decisions regarding
Indian law from 1959 to the 2000s
 Most decisions were in favor of Indians, until the
1980s
 OEO legal service programs active on reservations
 Indian Claims Commission ended and private law
firms took over Indian cases, including:

Native American Rights Fund, est. 1969
 Indian Law Resource Center


Many Indians studied law
THE MCCLANAHAN DECISION: MCCLANAHAN V.
ARIZONA STATE TAX COMMISSION 1967
In 1967, Arizona sought to tax employees of
Great Western Bank branch in Window Rock,
capital of Navajo Nation (town is on the
reservation)
 Rosalind McClanahan, employee, contested
Arizona’s right to tax on the reservation
 She went to the OEO legal services program
Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe or DNA
(lawyers helping to revitalize the Navajo people)

MCCLANAHAN DECISION CONTINUED:
DNA lawyers based their argument on Worcester v.
Georgia 1832 = state of Georgia cannot pass laws
on Cherokee lands
 McClanahan case went to the Supreme Court of
Arizona
 The court found in favor of the Navajo  Arizona
cannot tax the Navajo
 Significance –

Turning points (or foundations) of Self-Determination
 Success for Indians

INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT 1978
In 1967, Indian child Ivan Brown taken from his
home because he was cared by an elderly Indian
woman (Spirit Lake Sioux, N. Dakota)
 Indians sued = separating children from the tribe
destroyed their identity
 Court found many instances of Indian children
being removed from Indian homes into non-Indian
homes
 President Jimmy Carter signed the act, which said
that tribes have jurisdiction over custody cases

INDIAN CHILD ADOPTIONS

BIA placed Indian orphans into white families
 Justification:
stable homes, guardianship doctrine
 Case workers did not care, or BIA sought
assimilation

Adoption of John Doe v. Heim (1976)
 In
1975, Navajo child to be adopted, grandfather
protested
 Decision: Government has right to place Indian
children into non-Indian households without tribal
approval
INDIAN CHILDREN ADOPTIONS: CONTINUED

Consequences of taking children out of tribes
 Language,
culture, traditions not continued
 Grandparents
help raise children, impart tribal histories,
mythologies, etc.

UN definition of genocide
 “Forcibly
transferring children of one group to
another group.” (Echohawk, 220)
Congress realized problem
 Indian Child Welfare Act (1978)

 Required
state courts to transfer Indian child
adoptions to tribal courts when a reservation
requests such actions
MERRION V. JICARILLA APACHE 1982
Oil and gas companies acquired leases in 1953
and tribal government could not tax leases
 In 1969, Jicarilla tribal council amended
constitution to implement tax oil and gas
companies operating on Jicarilla land
 Companies sued; went to Supreme Court
 Court ruled in favor of Jicarilla

Jicarilla has sovereign government, its own laws, police,
etc.
 Oil Companies benefited from the government
 Indians have right to tax leases

COURT DECISIONS AGAINST INDIANS

Oliphant Decision (1978)
Mark Oliphant arrested for fighting by tribal police on
the Suquamish reservation in Washington
 Justice Rehnquist = Indians lack criminal jurisdiction
over non-Indians


Atkinson Trading Co. Decision (2001)
Could Navajo Nation tax a non-Indian hotel (on nonIndian land within reservation)?
 Justice Rehnquist = no, Indians cannot tax – went
against Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache

IN GENERAL, GREAT SUCCESSES FOR INDIAN
PEOPLES
American Indian Religious Freedom Act, 1978
 Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act, 1990
 Legislators who were pro-Indian: Morris Udall
and John McCain (Arizona); Ben Nighthorse
(Colorado); etc.
 Senator Daniel K. Inouye (Hawaii)

 Chaired
Indian Affairs Committee
 Helped get pro-Indian legislation passed
OTHER COURT ISSUES
Fishing rights in Pacific Northwest and Great
Lakes
 Eagle feathers for ceremonial purposes
 Water rights in Colorado and Utah
 Peyote usage in Nevada and New Mexico
 Casinos in California and Connecticut
 Tribal taxation over non-Indians in Arizona and
Dakotas

CONCLUSION
Over-turning Public Law 280 in South Dakota
 Prevention of Colville Reservation Termination,
1971
 Menominee Restoration 1973
 Office of Economic Opportunity
 Return of Blue Lake 1970
 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 1971
 Self Determination Act 1978
 Maine Indian Settlement Act, 1980
 Supreme Court Decisions
