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It's a rare day when the Indians win. Late last year a multi-billion dollar settlement was announced in the class action lawsuit Cobell v. Salazar. When it is finalized, at least 500,000 Native Americans will benefit financially, and many tribes will have the opportunity to consolidate land within their reservation boundaries.
The issues in the case date back to the very beginnings of U.S. settlement. From the perspective of many Native Americans, the history of the U.S. is little more than a series of land grabs from tribal peoples. In 1887, after having established tribal reservations and negotiated with native leadership, U.S. lawmakers thought it best to encourage Indians to integrate into American culture.
One way they did that was to divide the tribal reservations into small parcels of land and "allot" those parcels to individual Indians.
The idea was to promote the European value of individual ownership over the tribal tradition of communal use of the land. Once alloted, those individual parcels were held "in trust" by the government because it was thought the Native people needed help to manage their lands. And, according to Elousie Cobell, who brought suit against the U.S. government, those trusts were egregiously mismanaged, and with the settlement hundreds of thousands of Indians have money coming to them. Some critics say it may not be nearly enough.
Do you live on a reservation? Do own a parcel of land managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs? Do you lease such land? Do you own a piece of land that used to belong to a Native American tribe? What do you think restitution to Native Americans in this lawsuit should look like?
GUESTS:
- Elouise Cobell: Lead plaintiff in Cobell v. Salazar
- Dave Tovey: Economic development director at the Siletz Tribal Business Corporation
- Antone Minthorn: Past chairman of the Umatilla Tribes
- William Martin: President of the Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska
Photo credit: Patchoulli / Creative Commons
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What's the best response to a white supremacist group that wants to move into your community?
Symptoms of Gall Bladder
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There has been only one program that has made a positive impact on Indian poverty in generations: Indian Tribal Casino Monopoly.
Land is only important if it allows the future construction of a convenient tribal casino with easy freeway access close to a major city. Underpopulated arid desert land has little value.
Building poverty reduction programs exclusively on a vice is on shaky moral, ethical and economic ground. Should all cities go Vegas?
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Jacob,
Your perspective is a common one and is based on misunderstanding and lack of information. Any of the guests on the program or any other persons familiar with Indian economic development programs would be happy to provide you with information that would help you understand what tribes are doing in economic development and the role of gaming (if any) in their economic development mix.
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If the tribes will be getting the rights and responsibilities of their own lands back, will that include water rights?
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A statewide radio network that combines cellular and public service radio towers to serve all of Oregon has apparently been slowed due to lack of access to some federal forest service and tribal areas.
I'm curious if the settlement will have an impact on radio tower siting on tribal lands.
http://www.dailywireless.org/2010/02/25/d-block-its-done-congress-pays/
- Sam
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When entering a legal agreeement would you allow the other party to not hold up there end of the deal or would you just let it go and say oh thats ok I do not need the money for all that land and royalties that was promised and even signed a legal document to that effect. Now years later, 200 and more, everybody says they don't deserve that, why them, that was a long time ago. We have just integrated and learned to play the game and try to keep up with the rules as they are made up. Think of it this way if you had something owed or coming to you like say you income tax return, and it is a nice one then it never shows up, you never receive anything, nothing is ever heard about it. When you ask questions you are ignored, bullied, and swindled. Then if they ever do pay it is way less and has all kinds of stipulations on how you can use it. All we are asking for is what is owed and what was promised to us.
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Comments are now closed.
May I suggest Bob Miller from Lewis & Clark Law School as a guest for this show.