Indigenous History and Rights & Tribal Sovereignty

"In the essays collected here, twelve scholars explore how Native peoples, despite the upheavals caused by the European intrusion, often thrived after contact, preserving their sovereignty, territory, and culture and shaping indigenous borderlands across the Americas, from the sixteenth-century U.S. South to twentieth-century Bolivia. The book defines borderlands as spaces where diverse populations interact, cross-cultural exchanges are frequent and consequential, and no polity or community holds dominion"--;"Pervasive myths of European domination and indigenous submission in the Americas receive an overdue corrective in this far-reaching revisionary work. Despite initial upheavals caused by the European intrusion, Native people often thrived after contact, preserving their sovereignty, territory, and culture and shaping indigenous borderlands across the hemisphere. Borderlands, in this context, are spaces where diverse populations interact, cross-cultural exchanges are frequent and consequential, and no polity or community holds dominion. Within the indigenous borderlands of the Americas, as this volume shows, Native peoples exercised considerable power, often retaining control of the land, and remaining paramount agents of historical transformation after the European incursion. Conversely, European conquest and colonialism were typically slow and incomplete, as the newcomers struggled to assert their authority and implement policies designed to subjugate Native societies and change their beliefs and practices. Indigenous Borderlands covers a wide chronological and geographical span, from the sixteenth-century U.S. South to twentieth-century Bolivia, and gathers leading scholars from the United States and Latin America. Drawing on previously untapped or underutilized primary sources, the original essays in this volume document the resilience and relative success of indigenous communities commonly and wrongly thought to have been subordinated by colonial forces, or even vanished, as well as the persistence of indigenous borderlands within territories claimed by people of European descent. Indeed, numerous indigenous groups remain culturally distinct and politically autonomous. Hemispheric in its scope, unique in its approach, this work significantly recasts our understanding of the important roles played by Native agents in constructing indigenous borderlands in the era of European imperialism. Chapters 5, 6, 8, and 9 are published with generous support from the Americas Research Network. "--

With a deep, anticolonial and antiracist critique and analysis of what “conservation” currently is, Decolonize Conservation presents an alternative vision–one already working–of the most effective and just way to fight against biodiversity loss and climate change. Through the voices of largely silenced or invisibilized Indigenous Peoples and local communities, the devastating consequences of making 30 percent of the globe “Protected Areas,” and other so-called “Nature-Based Solutions” are made clear. Evidence proves indigenous people understand and manage their environment better than anyone else. Eighty percent of the Earth’s biodiversity is in tribal territories and when indigenous peoples have secure rights over their land, they achieve at least equal if not better conservation results at a fraction of the cost of conventional conservation programs. But in Africa and Asia, governments and NGOs are stealing vast areas of land from tribal peoples and local communities under the false claim that this is necessary for conservation. As the editors write, “This is colonialism pure and simple: powerful global interests are shamelessly taking land and resources from vulnerable people while claiming they are doing it for the good of humanity.” The powerful collection of voices from the groundbreaking “Our Land, Our Nature” congress takes us to the heart of the climate justice movement and the struggle for life and land across the globe. With Indigenous Peoples and their rights at its center, the book exposes the brutal and deadly reality of colonial and racist conservation for people around the world, while revealing the problems of current climate policy approaches that do nothing to tackle the real causes of environmental destruction.

Stephanie Russo Carroll, associate director of the Native Nations Institute, has focused her career on encouraging institutions to adopt policies and practices that recognize Indigenous Peoples'

Authorities say U.S. Border Patrol agents answering reports of gunfire shot and killed a man on a tribal reservation in southern Arizona after he threw something and abruptly raised his arm. The Thursday night death of Raymond Mattia is under investigation by the FBI and Tohono O’odham Nation. A statement Monday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection says tribal police had asked Border Patrol agents for help in responding to a report of shots fired near the home of a man in a tribal community near the U.S.-Mexico border. The statement says three Border Patrol agents opened fire after encountering a man who threw some kind of object and “abruptly extended” his arm.

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Raymond Mattia of the Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona was shot by agents after calling them for assistance

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe has drafted regulations in an effort to formalize the border-crossing process for their relatives in Mexico coming to their reservation in Arizona. Like dozens of Native American nations across the U.S., the Pascua Yaqui Tribe was sliced in two by modern-day international borders. When deer dancers and musicians living in Sonora, Mexico, make the trip into the U.S. for ceremonies, they may be detained or have their cultural objects confiscated. The effort is part of their work with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s recently formed Tribal Homeland Security Advisory Council. DHS did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the status of the regulations.

"Although Native Americans have been subjugated by every American government since The Founding, they have persevered and, in some cases, thrived. What explains the existence of separate, semi-sovereign nations within the larger American nation? In large part it has been victories won at the Supreme Court that have preserved the opportunity for Native Americans to ?make their own laws and be ruled by them.? The Supreme Court could have gone further, creating truly sovereign nations with whom the United States could have negotiated on an equal basis. The Supreme Court could also have done away with tribes and tribalism with the stroke of a pen. Instead, the Court set a compromise course, declaring tribes not fully sovereign but also something far more than a mere social club. This book describes several of the most famous Supreme Court cases impacting the course of Native American history. The author provides an analysis of canonical American Indian Law cases with historical and legal context and brings a fresh perspective to the issues. Law students, policy makers and judges looking for an introduction to American Indian Law will gain an understanding of this complicated history. This exploration will also appeal to academics interested in a new perspective on old and current cases."--Back cover.

"Lavender Fields uses autoethnography to explore how Black girls and women are living with and through COVID-19. It centers their pain, joys, and imaginations for a more just future as we confront all the inequalities that COVID-19 exposes"--

This post describes the events reported in the Law Library's new acquistion, Alleged Frauds Agains Certain Indian Soldiers.

A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday said the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe's usual and accustomed fishing grounds don't include the Skagit River, a win for the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe in a fishing rights suit involving a Washington state river that supports important populations of wild salmon.

EPA News Release: EPA Proposes to Establish First-Time Clean Water Act Protections for Over 250 Tribes

This weekend, Democracy Now! co-host Juan González gives the opening plenary at American University’s one-day conference, “Burying 200 Years of the U.S. Monroe Doctrine,” marking 200 years since the Monroe Doctrine, the foreign policy directive from President James Monroe that effectively declared all of Latin America a U.S. sphere of influence. For the past two centuries, the Monroe Doctrine has been repeatedly used to justify scores of invasions, interventions and CIA regime changes in the Americas. On today’s show, we speak to two other conference guests, CodePink’s Medea Benjamin and The Red Nation’s Nick Estes, about the Monroe Doctrine’s long and brutal legacy within U.S. imperialism.

The call for Indigenous data sovereignty (ID-Sov) —the right of a nation to govern the collection, ownership, and application of its own data—has grown in intensity and scope over the past five years. To date three national-level Indigenous data sovereignty networks exist: Te Mana Raraunga - Maori Data Sovereignty Network, the United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network (USIDSN), and the Maiamnayri Wingara Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Sovereignty Group in Australia. Similar initiatives are underway in Hawaii and Sweden.

02/2021

The Arizona Journal of Environmental Law and Policy focused our annual Spring Symposium on the topic of Indigenous Land Stewardship. The Symposium brought together a diverse array of leaders from tribal communities, academia, the public sector, and advocacy organizations to discuss current efforts and developments within the field of Indigenous land stewardship and its intersections with domestic and international law and policy. The Symposium Keynote Address was given by Dorothy FireCloud, Native American Affairs Liaison to the Director of the National Park Service. Ms. FireCloud was introduced by Charles F. Sams, III, the first Native American to serve as the Director of the National Park Service. The rest of the Symposium consisted of four panels: Land Back in Action (Panel I), Protecting Indigenous Sacred Sites (Panel II), Tribal Co-Management of Federal Lands (Panel III), and Indigenous Knowledge in Land Stewardship Law and Policy (Panel IV).

TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) – After a unanimous city council vote, 10.6 acres of ancestral land will begin to be returned to the Tohono O’odham Nation.

The city of Tucson is returning a portion of ancestral land to the Tohono O’odham Nation in a new resolution unanimously passed by the City Council this week. The nearly 11-acre stretch of land is located at the base of Sentinel Peak, a more than 2,000 foot peak southwest of what is today downtown Tucson. The Santa Cruz river runs right next to one side of the mountain's base and the Tohono O’odham’s Hohokam ancestors have farmed and lived there for more than 4,500 years.Mayor Regina Romero calls it the birthplace of Tucson.

A conversation with Juanita Cabrera Lopez and Blake A. Gentry co-sponsored by the University of Arizona Law's Environmental Law Society and the Native American Law Students Association.

Last month, Tribal Justice Clinic Director Heather Whiteman Runs Him filed an amicus brief on behalf of 37 tribes in support of the Navajo Nation, which has been arguing for the right to draw water from the Colorado River. The case, Arizona v. Navajo Nation, pits the treaty rights of the largest Native American reservation in the United States against water rights claims by the state in which much of the reservation is located.

PHOENIX (AP) — Native American tribal members fighting plans for an enormous copper mine on land they consider sacred say they are increasingly worried U.S. officials will publish an environmental …

The Gila River Indian Community will receive up to $233 million in funding for conservation agreements that will help the tribe and other water users along the Colorado River Basin protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River System.

An Idaho federal judge granted a partial win to the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in their challenge to a U.S. Department of the Interior land transfer for the expansion of a phosphogypsum plant, saying the agency violated a 1900 federal law that limits the disposal of treaty-ceded lands.

When Native people, allies, and visionary funders worked together to create the Native American Rights Fund in California in 1970, the team decided that to create an effective national legal defense for Native people...

Legal Support for Line 3 Resistance

An official site of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on Stand With Standing Rock…

Join us to #StopLine3 from desecrating our lakes, wild rice, and Anishinaabeg treaty territories.

The First Nations Educational & Cultural Center and the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs are proud to support Native students in their pursuit of community and success at Indiana University.