This paper examines the ongoing struggle of Native American tribes to achieve genuine sovereignty in the United States. Beginning with the colonial period, when tribes were recognized as foreign nations, it traces how settler expansion and resource greed eroded that recognition. The paper explores how sacred land violations, religious suppression, poverty, and unemployment have compounded the hardships faced by Native communities. It then analyzes constructive responses — including the establishment of Native American financial institutions, the growth of reservation-based gaming, the development of tribal enterprises, and the creation of tribal colleges — as concrete steps toward economic and political self-determination.
Sovereignty, in its truest definition, is the condition of having complete independence and self-government. In essence, it describes a territory existing as an independent state, free to govern itself with dignity and justice. For the Native American tribes of the United States, sovereignty has long been a dangling carrot held up by a government notorious for broken promises and centuries of deception and civil abuse.
This constant uphill battle to gain independence has led many Native Americans to feel abandoned by the government as they try to improve their reservations and preserve their history and their ancestors' way of life. Many have concluded that their sovereignty will only be achieved through their own efforts. While the U.S. government may hold the door shut to their independence, it is through existing laws and Constitutional rights that Native peoples seek to claim what is rightfully theirs.
Things were not always this way for Native American nations. "During the British colonial period, Indian tribes were considered foreign nations by the British Crown and were dealt with by treaty. This relationship worked so well that the majority of the tribes allied with the British during the Revolutionary War" (Bulzomi, 2001). After the colonists won the war and gained their independence, they continued to respect the tribes as sovereign nations — but over time, this respect gave way to a greed driven by necessity. Lands considered sacred to sovereign tribes were also coveted by colonists for their natural resources and the room they offered for population growth.
It is this greed that continues to create a rift between the U.S. government and Native American leaders. "For instance, when an oil billionaire and major funder of the Bush campaign was granted rights to drill in an area sacred to scores of Northern Plains tribes only twelve days after Bush's election, it galvanized opposition from Indians and non-Indians alike" (Taliman, 2002).
There is a unique spirituality associated with sacred lands and places that resonates not only with many Native Americans, but with non-Native Americans as well. Perhaps the most telling evidence of the U.S. government's indifference to Native American religious beliefs is the following: "No other religious leaders or practitioners are pressured to define the sacred in their religions or to identify what is central or indispensable to their beliefs and ceremonies. Native American religions were outlawed under the federal Civilization Regulations from the 1880s to the 1930s, and traditional Native peoples were not allowed to go to or pray at their sacred places" (Taliman, 2002).
Culturally, Native Americans have worked to educate the broader American public about their beliefs — and about the atrocities committed against them, past and present — through a range of means. From powwows held on reservations to PBS specials and Hollywood films, Native American history and traditions have become more widely known and respected. Sweat lodges and animal medicine are commonly associated with the New Age movement, which has broadened their visibility across the decades; nevertheless, these are traditional aspects of Native American life given new vitality in a world where old ways and stories are in danger of fading away.
"Unemployment, health crises, and systemic barriers"
"Casinos funding healthcare, education, and tribal business"
"Tribal colleges building sovereignty through education"
There are very few present-day heroes for a young Native American growing up in a poverty-stricken area of a struggling reservation. There are plenty of vices to fall into — from gangs and violence to gambling, debt, and alcoholism. These are the same vices that trouble any struggling community and typically attract government attention in the form of intervention programs. For Native Americans, however, it is the underlying failure to achieve sovereignty as an independent state that gives rise to all these problems. For the government to truly address them would require returning hundreds upon hundreds of acres of land, surrendering millions of dollars in revenue, and acknowledging centuries of abuse and neglect.
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