Indigenous people in the United States of American experience a unique style of systemic marginalization that dates as far back as the first treaty between them and the U.S. government. Treaty with the Delawares of 1778 was one of the first treaties signed and essentially recognized a nation-to-nation relationship that would theoretically set the framework for other tribes and recognize them as a sovereign state. Native American tribes viewed themselves as a sovereign state that is able “to manage their own affairs and exist as nations that are recognized as having control over their own destinies” (Lee). Conversely, the United States government viewed them as a U.S. tribal sovereignty which means they are “domestic dependent nations that exist within the boundaries of the U.S. and that they are wards of the U.S., even though they may operate and manage some internal tribal affairs” (Lee). To add further confusion in legal jurisdiction, there is no common practices defining the interactions between the federal government and individual tribes which leads to diverse rulings and outcomes.
In 1887, the Dawes Act was passed and offered tribal members the opportunity to acquire land in exchange for U.S. citizenship. The stated goal was to ease relations between the two entities but a more sinister calculation was embedded in this Act. “By granting citizenship to those who took the land, the hope was that they would be less communicative and accepting of tribal government — that exposing Natives to the “civilized” white culture would leave them more accepting of it and lead to better U.S. and tribal relations” (Picotte). The end result of this Act was to decimate indigenous culture, land, and language by recognizing individuals instead of tribes. It pitted tribes against each other, situated individuals on land that was not consistent with their tribe, sent children to boarding schools where they were assimilated in to white culture, and decreased the acreage that belonged to indigenous people. The devastation to tribal culture and longevity was documented in the 1928 Meriam Report and paved the way for government intervention to offset the disastrous impact of the Dawes Act.
The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 was nicknamed the “Indian New Deal” and attempted to rectify many of the wrongs from 1887 and build upon the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which granted citizenship to the remaining indigenous people. “The act sought to reverse the government’s long-standing policy of forcing Indians to abandon their culture and assimilate into American society by allowing the tribes a greater degree of self-government and encouraging the retention of historic Indian culture and traditions” (Longley).
This convoluted path to current day Indigenous peoples’ representation within the US was on display in the 2018 elections. Just before the 2018 elections in North Dakota a new law was passed that would require Indigenous people to provide a street address on a government issued ID in order to cast a ballot. The new law impacted local, state and federal elections because the tribe followed federal election requirements. This disenfranchised Native Americans in this region, in part, because their housing is not situated in a similar manner of having a street name and number. Post office boxes are used for mailing purposes. Secondly, Native Americans overrepresent the homeless populations and do not have a physical mailing address (Domonoske). In the past, they have relied on tribal documents to verify their qualification to vote. Tribal leaders and youth activist rallied around their community to find temporary solutions.
It is easy to see that America’s Indigenous people are systematically marginalized, yet one area that continues to be overlooked is the violence against girls and women in this community. The complex history of sovereignty and jurisdiction complicates an underfunded and undervalued crisis. In 2016, there were 5,712 classes of missing or murdered women or girls but only 116 of these cases were logged in to the Department of Justice database (Lucchesi, pg 2). The danger to these girls and women is happening in real time and their erasure is perpetuated by the lack of media coverage and the lack of data gathering.
Currently, there are only seven states that have a task force to address the needs to make lives safer for Native Americans (Edwards). The majority of Indigenous women currently live in urban areas, off tribal land. When a crime is committed to one of them, it highlights the failings in past treaties as jurisdiction can be a grey area, data collection is complicated by non-tribal name changes from settler days, and media coverage is non-existent or at best scant and racially biased to place blame on the victim. Law enforcement’s lack of willingness to track data is indicative of larger institutional structural inequity. “The challenges and barriers in accessing data on this issue from law enforcement severely impede the ability of communities, tribal nations, and policy makers to make informed decisions on how best to address this violence.” (Lucchesi, pg 21). All these types of barriers contribute to their erasure and thus the level of violence is not truly reported or understood.
Louis Erdrich wrote a beautiful but gut wrenching story that displayed these dilemmas and educated the reader with the unfolding one family’s story. She provides the detail of their lives that are a mosaic of faulty treaties long ago, with current day clutter cropping up to muddy the picture of an all too true description facing many in Native American communities. Understanding the historical features that are woven in to this story makes it all the more enriching.
Sources
Domonoske, Camila. “Many Native IDs Won’t Be Accepted At North Dakota Polling Places”. October 13, 2018. www.NPR.org
Edwards, Melodie. 7 States Step Up Efforts To Fight Violence Against Indigenous Women. July 23, 2019. www.NPR.org
Lee, Murray. “What is Tribal Sovereignty?” Partnership with Native Americans, Sept 9 2014, www.nativepartnership.org
Longley, Robert. “Indian Reorganization Act: A ‘New Deal’ for American Indians” July 3, 2019, www.thoughtco.com
Lucchesi, Annita and Echo-Hawk, Abigail. Missing and murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. 2016, www.uihi.org
“The Meriam Report”. July 7, 2010, www.NativeAmericanRoots.net
Picotte, Tristan. “The True Impact of the Dawes Act of 1887”. Partnership with Native Americans, February 7, 2017, www.nativepartnership.org
