Tribe: A Governmental phrase; an Anglo-American concept with Germanic roots applied to the Indigenous peoples of North America during the Reorganization Act of 1934.
Creating a "Tribe": After the Dine peoples returned to their homelands, in the late 1800s, from Bosque Redondo, where they had been held as prisoners of war following the historic Long Walk, the discovery of minerals and natural recourses was made on their land. Because of the nature of federal trusteeship, it became necessary for the Federal Government to create a "tribal" government, with "chiefs" i.e. leaders or chairmen among the Navajo. This chiefdom system of government (totally foreign to the Navajo, who are traditionally democratic) had to be created so that corporate interests could acquire official land leases from the "tribe" in order to exploit their lands.
In other-words, because reservation land is held in trust to Native communities, only those communities have the authority to let outsiders dig for Uranium and other resources on their lands. Because the majority of Native peoples during the 1930s wanted no part of such desecration, the only way the slime balls could get such blasphemous land leases out of them was to force them into creating Anglo-American-style governments. You get the idea.
Creating a "Tribe": After the Dine peoples returned to their homelands, in the late 1800s, from Bosque Redondo, where they had been held as prisoners of war following the historic Long Walk, the discovery of minerals and natural recourses was made on their land. Because of the nature of federal trusteeship, it became necessary for the Federal Government to create a "tribal" government, with "chiefs" i.e. leaders or chairmen among the Navajo. This chiefdom system of government (totally foreign to the Navajo, who are traditionally democratic) had to be created so that corporate interests could acquire official land leases from the "tribe" in order to exploit their lands.
In other-words, because reservation land is held in trust to Native communities, only those communities have the authority to let outsiders dig for Uranium and other resources on their lands. Because the majority of Native peoples during the 1930s wanted no part of such desecration, the only way the slime balls could get such blasphemous land leases out of them was to force them into creating Anglo-American-style governments. You get the idea.
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New Mexico
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Re: U.S. History 101
Thu, March 27, 2008 - 10:02 PMAnd it messes with matriarchy and clans. And, at worse, property transfer. -
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Re: U.S. History 101
Fri, March 28, 2008 - 11:15 AMcould you elaborate on that?
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Re: U.S. History 101
Fri, March 28, 2008 - 2:32 PMThis same thing happens all over the world. A white, patriarchalgovernment doesn't know how to reshape its fraternal hiearchies. They can't do business with the brown people for many reasons they would like to avoid. They don't want to negotiate with women. Bound by their religion, they feel they cannot talk with pagans. They can't understand how decisions are made and therefore, they find it difficult to sway or manipulate.
So it's just easier to force the brown people into a kind of "mirror" government. In this way, they can "talk to themselves." There is a Lord (Chief) and aldermen (band councillors). They are men and they will make decisions much like parlimentary protocol (band council resolution).
Why would Indians "let themselves be restructured like that? Access to resources: food, money, land and power. By refusing to negotiate with traditional governments and giving access to those "mirror governments, they managed to get Indian governments to take on new roles, roles analogous to those back in the Old World.
Who gets left out? Indian systems of self-government, clans, longhouses and female leaders. The white governments didn't understand (or did) that traditional structures of self-governing define property transfer, power, identity and dimplomatic protocol.
They damn near destroyed us like that, but we persisted and survived with a good chunk of our culture intact.
My thinking on this has been simple. We have to be careful not to become brown versions of white governments. Thankfully, we have alternatives--and the best ones are old. I think our dogmatism and narrow-mindedness has actually served us well. I know that sounds antithetical to contemporary democracy, but that "No, this is how it must be done" has helped us carry our own ways from the past to now and beyond. Is that enough?
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