I). Loss of Land.
Loss of land and dispossession of property is a great challenge faced by the Native tribes in the United States of America. The new data set quantifies that these communities have lost 99 percent of their land, leading to forced migration. They are forced to reside in fewer valuable areas, which excludes them from the economic development in the United States of America. Two of the climate change concerns that pose the biggest threat to modern Indigenous lands are high temperatures and low precipitation levels. The current data set also reveals that indigenous territories have 24 percent fewer oil and gas resources than historical areas. This implies indigenous people have had fewer chances to benefit from the energy economy’s reliance on fossil fuels. He speculates that specific indigenous communities might not have used those materials as extensively as European colonists did. However, they were never given a chance to decide otherwise.
However, this problem and dispute in Native America began in 1786 when the United States established reserves for the Native Americans. “The myth of the United States “plenary power” has been used to steal the homelands of Indian peoples living east of the Mississippi River by removing them from their traditional ancestral homelands through the Indian Removal Act of 1835” (Newcomb., 2009 p186). The Native Americans resisted the Europeans from gaining more land during the colonial period. The European nations were rushing to scramble for land in the “New World,” which resulted in conflict with the indigenous inhabitants of America. However, the Natives had been weakened by European diseases such as smallpox, which killed almost 90 percent of their population. These land disputes have continued to this day, where the Native communities have been pushed to less productive areas.
II). Continued issues of self-governance and rights to vote.
The Native Americans were deprived of self-governance and determination by the federal government, “Within the first decade of existence of the federal government, the fledgling democracy’s inexorable need to expand led to increased conflict between indigenous and non-indigenous people” (Lobo et al., 2009 p191). The right to vote and self-governance for Native American s has been uphill. Although the Indian Citizenship Act was passed in 1924, many Native Americans living on reservations were still denied the right to vote. Native Americans in New Mexico and Arizona won a court case guaranteeing their right to vote in 1948. Only in the latter years, between 1957 and 1958, did any states provide Native Americans living on reservations the ability to vote. When voting rights were finally won, voter suppression laws prevented Native Americans from exercising them and running for office.
Native Americans living on reservations did not pay state taxes or were wards of the federal government was used as an excuse by several states to deny those Native Americans the right to vote. Native Americans, for instance, were deemed by the courts in Arizona for decades to qualify as “persons under guardianship.” As a result, they were denied the right to vote following the state’s constitution. In a historic ruling from 1948, the Arizona Supreme Court finally granted Native American citizens the right to vote. In the same year, a federal three-judge court ruled in a New Mexico case that a state constitutional clause barring “Indians not taxed” from voting was unconstitutional under the 14th and 15th Amendments. In 1957, Utah overturned its law that prevented Native Americans from casting ballots in state elections. Native Americans won the right to vote nationwide, but some states still used discriminatory methods like literacy tests to suppress their votes and the votes of other minorities.
Responses to these challenges.
The Natives first responded to the voting and self-governance issue through “Increased political participation and territory expansion” (Wilkins, 2009, p189). Native Americans Rights Fund suggested a new project in January 2015 to bring together voting rights campaigners, lawyers, civil rights experts, and tribal advocates to debate voting concerns in Indian Country and explore solutions. In the past, there was no united effort to safeguard Native Americans’ voting rights; thus, campaigners worked alone. Much of the effort was in response to an imminent threat, not planned before an election. NARF wanted to change that. People formed the Native American Voting Rights Coalition (NAVRC).
The Coalition’s primary goal is to make sure that voting opportunities are available to Native Americans and that they can cast their ballots in all elections. The National Association of Voting Rights Commissioners (NAVRC) has increased its efforts to prevent voter suppression and violations of voting rights legislation as evidence of these issues has developed. This includes preparing for redistricting that will take place following the census in 2020, resolving irregularities that were noticed in the 2016 elections, and supervising the largest survey of Native voters ever performed to learn more about the current situation of voting in Indian Country.
The Native Americans responded to the challenge of loss of land through litigation, demonstrations and protests, and armed resistance. For example, the Native communities first resisted the Land Removal Act of 1830 by force, “Armed resistance; under duress” (Lobo et al., 2009 p189). In addition, Native American groups in the United States are organizing marches to the capitals of their respective states, where they will stage protests and interact directly with government officials. Native American communities in the United States that lack governmental protection have organized their patrols to keep an eye out for unlawful activities and remove undesirable guests. These patrols also remove unwanted visitors.
Native Americans are also using the Supreme court to fight against the non-Natives grabbing their land. In a landmark decision for tribal sovereignty, the U.S. Supreme Court held that states could prosecute non-Native people who commit crimes against a Native person on tribal territories, reversing decades of practice. After being convicted of child abuse in 2015 for abusing his Native American stepdaughter on the Cherokee Reservation in Oklahoma, non-Native Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta was given a 35-year sentence. The Supreme Court’s ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which upheld the idea that states cannot prosecute crimes committed on Native American grounds without federal authority, was the basis for Castro-appeal Huerta’s conviction.
References
Lobo, S., Talbot, S., & Carlston, T. M. (2016). Native American voices. Routledge.
(2020, December 20). YouTube. Retrieved September 24, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVer6Z9wMzw.
Newcomb. (2009). Ebook Central. “500 years of injustice” (pp. 182–187). Taylor & Francis Group. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csla/reader.action?docID=4415695&ppg=188.
Wilkins, E. (2009). eBook Central. A history of federal Indian policy” (pp. 188–201). Taylor & Francis Group. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csla/reader.action?docID=4415695&ppg=188.
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