Trail of Broken Treaties

History of Relations with Native Americans

What became the U.S. federal government and an American Indian tribe entered into their first treaty in 1778 when an agreement between the United States of North America and the Delaware nation was approved. This initiated a process that produced some 370 additional formal treaties, as ratified by the U.S. Senate, that became a part of the dominant culture's jurisprudence. Eventually, the U.S. Congress abolished treaty making with Native Americans with legislation approved in 1871. That law did not repeal or modify any treaties that had been ratified before that date, however.

During the ensuing decades, many treaty provisions and, in some cases, entire documents were overlooked by the federal authorities as the tribal people with whom the agreements had been negotiated were either neglected or simply dismissed as being of no further consequence. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) within the U.S. Department of the Interior is the controlling agency for the U.S. government. Examples abound of the BIA selectively applying treaty provisions, completely abandoning others, or simply abrogating the entire document. Tribal entities protested the failure of the national government to fulfill its treaty obligations, but in most cases, these efforts were futile.

Vine Deloria, Jr., a keen observer of treaty history, noted in 1974 that the U.S. government's American Indian policy was exemplified by expediency, which was based on a political calculus that largely ignored [Page 1319]any understanding of the Native peoples, laws, governing councils, or responsibilities. An earlier example of this attitude occurred in 1862 with the failure of the federal government to delivery treaty-promised provisions and annuities, which helped to precipitate an American Indian rebellion, known as the Dakota Uprising, in Minnesota. Hundreds of White people and Native Americans were killed during the hostilities.

A Dialogue on Treaty Rights

What became known as “treaty rights” became a significant part of the dialogue between Native America and the national government, beginning in the early 1970s as the American Indian civil rights movement blossomed. American Indian militancy was fostered by the American Indian Movement (AIM), formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1968. AIM was part of a much larger effort by U.S. minorities, especially Blacks, to assert themselves and to gain full participation and representation in the U.S. system, with origins in the social ferment of the 1950s and 1960s.

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