Native American history

Walter, I don't know The Marshall Trilogy without researching, but as far as I can ascertain, Indian Reservations and those that live therein, cannot be taxed by the Federal Government; consequently, any revenue that they receive from casinos are not taxable. As for tribal laws, I suppose each of the various amerind tribes have a set of rules governing the dwellers.

The easy response is to just send you to The American Indian Policy Center Policy Center however that would be the easy way out.

Here's the condensed version on The Marshall Trilogy.

The Marshall Trilogy involved 3 cases in which Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall presided. They were as follows:

1)Johnson v.McIntosh (1823); tribal sovereignty although impaired by European colonization cannot be dismissed. Marshall stated that 'In the establishment of these relationships [between Europeans and Indians], the rights of the original inhabitants, were in no instance, entirely disregarded. They were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil with legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and use it according to their discretion.

2)Cherokee Nation v.Georgia (1831) ruled that Indian tribes were a distinct political party separated from others, capable of managing their own affairs and governing themselves.

3)Worcester v. Georgia (1832) The court held that tribal sovereign powers were not relinquished when Indian tribes exchanged land for peace or protection.


As a result of The Marshall Trilogy, The Supreme Court both reaffirmed the sovereignty of Indian tribes and acknowledged this as predating European arrival. Because Indian nations lie within the acknowledged boundaries of The United States, Chief Justice Marshall delineated Indian tribes as 'domestic dependent nations'. It is under this definition that Indian tribes operate today.


As to what type of sovereignty Indian Nations have, that is a continued struggle and variable which changes on a regular basis. As has always been the case governments step in and see choice parcels of land and find ways to claim it as their own. The good part is that there is a much greater awareness today of the horrors which Native Americans have been forced to endure. The bad news is that there are far fewer Native Americans now than ever before and their numbers do not show signs of gain at any time in the foreseeable future.

estimated population of native americans (Amerinds) at the time of european contact is 12,000,000, US Census 1990 shows a poplulation of 1,878,275 Amerinds representing 116 distinct tribes. The US government policy re Amerinds is operated by teh Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Dept of the Interior. Within the realm of modern statistic, the US policy towards the native peoples has represented the largest genocide know to modern man. The first, that I am aware of< Amerind operated Casino became legal in the early 1970's after years fo legal battles with the states which surrounded the "tribal lands". As a socioo-economic group, Amerinds are at the bottom in every catagory from household income to health.

Mr. Justice John Marshall is the "granddaddy" of the Supremes and the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court. His opinion in Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the principle of legal interpretation as an inherent duty of the Court. The "Marshall Triology" is a coinage of American historians of the aboriginal peoples, which refers to three decisions of Marshall: Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823), Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832). These three decisions are the basis upon which subsequent relations between the aboriginal people and the government entities of the United States have been based. Rather than go into a lengthy discription here, for which i do not possess the legal knowledge to provide a description of appropriate finesse, i suggest that those interested search for those three decisions. Basically, however, the Court held that states have no jurisdiction on tribal lands, that tribal lands are held only by right of occupancy and not possession, and that the Federal government holds actual possession of those lands, which are dependent domestic nations, and not sovereign nations.

There is an Indian Gaming Commission which has been established by the Federal government to oversee gaming on Indian land. Once again, in only a basic, general sense, the issue is that states have no jurisdiction to interfer with such activities, and the aboriginal people assert (with a good deal of historical justification) that they all indulge enthusiastically in gambling as a cultural matter, and therefore are not bound by christian standards enacted into state law. The Gaming Commission seeks to find a happy medium between the ambitions of tribes and the states in which they wish to erect their casinos. The general tenor of Gaming Commission decisions, which has the ability to refer to Federal authority on tribal lands, is to encourage states to negotiate with tribes. It is, after all, in the interest of the Federal government to get the tribes to be more self-supporting, which relieves the Feds of a heavy revenue burden.

I cannot speak with any authority to the details of any of this, having made no particular study of this contemporary aspect of aboriginal history. Hope that helps.

"I've never seen more egregious conduct by the federal government," said Royce C. Lamberth, the federal judge overseeing the Individual Indian Trust (IIT) reform case, which stands as the largest class action lawsuit ever filed against the U.S. federal governmentis easily one of the biggest stories of government criminality in modern U.S. historyover $100 billion rightfully belonging to the nation's most impoverished people. The Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Treasury say they have simply "lost" the money and claim they cannot now provide an accurate accounting of how much is owed to whom. In the course of the lawsuit, the government has repeatedly destroyed vital accounting documents, deliberately filed false reports to the court, and generally conducted itself in such bad faith that a stunning total of 37 past and present government officials, including current Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and former Secretary Bruce Babbitt, have been held in contempt of court for their misconduct.

It did, and I appreciate all your responses (special thanks to dys :wink: ).
Thanks!



Besides that, there are certainly some more links easily to be found on the web (and as said above: I did indeed look it up before posting my questions :wink: )

Quite a good example for the history of an Indian tribe:

Who Are The Golden Hill Indians Of The Paugussett Indian Nation?

This website seems to give quite an extensive overview re Marshall Triology [which I understand, however, now better due to your responses]:

Native Sense - Marshall Triology



Thanks to Tony Hillerman, I know that the FBI is involved in all murder investigations on the Navajo reservation.
(And thanks to some law library sites: this is due to the 'Seven Major Crimes Act' of 1885.)

It seems, Set already mentioned it, that tribal governments by-pass the states and deal directly with the federal government.
(Is this the same e.g. with American Samoa?)

So: does this mean that states cannot levy taxes on tribally owned businesses? They don't have criminal jurisdiction over Indians who commit crimes on Indian land? They cannot make laws governing Indian tribes?

Hmm: the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) allows federally recognized tribes to conduct certain gaming operations with the approval of the state ?



Source

If you look carefully at the Marshall decisions, you will see that a state could not impose upon the tribal council's decisions, but that the Federal goverment can do so. So the Indian Gaming Commission has the authority of the legislation which established it to require tribal councils to take cognisance of the laws of the state in which they propose to operate a gaming activity.

This is so, and many tribes take adavantage of this to sell tobacco products and gasoline at discount prices. They cannot compete significantly in other products, but with those two products, they can offer substantial discounts (for example, the gasoline take in Ohio is forty cents per gallon).



I don't believe so, although i would point out that i've already stated that i'm less well-informed on contemporary relations between aboriginals and government than on historical matters.



Not directly, no--they could attempt to work through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, however, the Federal Agency responsible.

Walter, I'm told by several Navajos that Hillerman is a top source, as far as he goes.

Federal taxes apply on the reservations. When we do work on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, by the way, we collect sales tax at the Jicarilla rate and pay the tribe directly, rather than sending the whole thing to the state first. This is a very recent intrepretation. It is also a pain in the neck, but enough neck pains mean job security.

Dunno if anyone mentioned this - too many posts to visit before they're wiped from my new post page(s)....

Native American politics is still currently active. It seems that people in this country and abroad sometimes think of the Natives here as being all past-tense. Last week, the local wampanoag tribe was in a land scuffle with a few towns near the cape cod canal.

Tribal Politics! Now you're talking hardball.

Thanks for your responses. Will come back later.

I'm hoping this is the right place to post this, but I'm very interested in learning about the Native American tribes that were located in Canada. My family is Canadian and in school we always learned about the US American Indians but nothing about those in Canada, especially in the Quebec region, which is where my family is from. Were there any tribes located in that area, and if so, does anyone know where I can find information about them? Thanks!!

When Jacques Cartier explored the valley of the St. Laurent in the 16th century, he recorded some of the vocabulary of the aboriginal inhabitants. Nineteenth century linguists pronounced the vocabulary he recorded to be from the Huron/Iroquoian language group. It appears likely that the Iroquois, linguistic cousins of the Hurons, were driven south by the pressure of Algoquian migrations. When Champlain arrived (to stay) in the first decade of the 17th century, he encounterd no Huron/Iroquoian, but he did encounter Algonquian tribes. Near the estuary, these were a numerous but extremely primitive lot, who routinely starved in wintertime because they practiced no agriculture. Further up the river valley (that is, to the west and south), he encountered more sophisticated Algonquian tribes, most notably the Ottawa, who referred to the Hurons as "Grandfathers," suggesting that they had learned agriculture from the Hurons, and perhaps other attributes of a more advanced civilization. The great contribution of the Algoquians was the birch-bark canoe, which gave them a mobility that other tribes--and notably, their implacable enemies, the Iroquois--lacked to their considerable commercial detriment. If you take the names i've used here and do online searches, you should find a great deal.

I have a lot to learn about all the southwest amerinds, or tribes. I don't even know preferred nouns for various people, such as amerind. Dys has told me some history, but I only retained enough information to continue to be interested. (I've done some design for a childrens' center up here in the north for a group of local tribes - the immigrant history here is really quite short, and quite brutal.)

Indian Island, Humboldt Bay
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/28/DDG5Q59D8J1.DTL

Thanks! I'll do searches for those names!

How!