Sovereignty, Native American

For federally recognized American Indian tribes in the United States, of which there are 334 in the lower forty-eight states, sovereignty is the central political issue. This issue is expressed through the treaty relationship that has existed between American Indian nations and the federal government since 1776. In addition to the federally recognized tribes, there are 228 Alaska Native Villages, which are also federally recognized but through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. As distinct from the tribes in the lower forty-eight states, whose land is held in “trust” by the federal government, the Alaska Native villages are organized into corporations that hold their land. Although the land held in trust, most of which is organized into reservations, is legally defined as “Indian country,” the Alaska Native land is not so defined.

Native Hawaiians do not currently have a special relationship with the federal government, though there is currently a movement on the island and in Congress to have Native communities recognized under the same rubric of federal American Indian law as the tribes in the lower forty-eight states. However, this movement is opposed by groups of Native Hawaiians who reason that gaining “trust” status would only limit or co-opt historic Hawaiian sovereignty, which pre-dates the European invasion of the islands in the 18th century.

In fact, the sovereignty of all Indigenous Peoples worldwide, as expressed in the UN Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, pre-dates the [Page 1270]European invasions beginning in 1492. But the declaration also recognizes, as it condemns, the limitations placed on this sovereignty by the various European colonizers. Recognizing that it is the aspiration of Indigenous Peoples worldwide to restore in one way or another their precolonial sovereignty, this entry focuses on how the colonial power of the United States has limited and continues to limit this sovereignty for the 334 American Indian tribes in what would become the lower forty-eight states.