American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION In the following essays we focus on the ways in which contemporary governments currently operate among several American Indian tribes. All of the inquiries are born of relatively long-term contacts with the tribes-contacts that began in the 1960s or 70s and have continued to the present. Immediately prior to our first-hand contact with these tribes, they had experienced about a decade in which Federal policies sought to terminate them from trust status and Federal obligations. Some of us began our studies as Johnson Administration policies began to alleviate Indian fears about imminent termination. Policies set in motion by the Nixon Administration offered new meaning to "self-determination" among Indian tribes. We observed, even participated in, some of the Indian responses to self-determination programs. They were short-lived, but very influential during their effective lives. With the advent of Reagan's "New Federalism" we have observed the empirical consequences to Federal programs enabled by self-determination legislation when Federal funds are withdrawn. We assess the consequences of policy decisions on the several tribes that we have come to know through research and assistance over the past ten to twenty years.

INTRODUCTION The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) has been described as "visionary, idealistic, theoretical, and impractical" and as a "messianic movement" that "sought to recreate Indian cultures" and "to reverse modernizing trends" by undertaking "to redirect culture change toward communal, utopian societies . . . within the framework of free enterprise." It is regarded by some as the source of Indian self-determination and by others as an instrument of assimilation, and by still others as a reversal of the trend toward the dissolution of tribal structure. Critics have accused the IRA of being devoid of self-government and of bringing to the tribes an inappropriate "western style of democracy without the democracy." Calls have been made for its repeal (International Indian Treaty Council 1974), while another viewpoint regards the IRA as "the most impressive achievement in the field of applied anthropology that the discipline of anthropology can claim.”

INTRODUCTION A new era in American Indian affairs was born on March 6, 1968 when President Lyndon Johnsonl in a special message to Congress entitled "The Forgotten Americans," called for a new goal in federal Indian policy. He proposed "a policy of maximum choice for the American Indian: a policy expressed in programs of self-help, self-development and self-determination." Although the self-determination era was inaugurated by Johnson, Richard Nixon's special message on "The American Indians" of July 8, 1970 is generally viewed as the foundation of what was hailed at the time as a "radical new policy." The message read in part: It is long past time that the Indian policies of the Federal government began to recognize and build upon the capacities and insights of the Indian people. . . . The time has come to break decisively with the past and to create the conditions for a new era in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions.

INTRODUCTION Recently Wilcomb Washburn (1984) asserted that Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) governments were freely chosen by many tribes and bands and are suited to Indian notions of governance. Two IRA governments of Native American groups are analyzed here: the Upper Skagit Tribe of western Washington State and the St. Lawrence Island Eskimos of Gambell, Alaska. The relationships these groups have with federal, state and county governments and the complexities of the functions of their governments challenge Washburn's simplistic and misleading interpretations of IRA governments and demonstrate the dominant influence exercised over tribal affairs by federal policies.

INTRODUCTION In 1983, prompted by allegations that there were some economic successes among tribes rich in energy resources, I initiated research among two tribes that were most frequently cited as successful: the Northern Ute (Uintah and Ouray Ute Indian Reservation) of eastern Utah, and the Crow of south-central Montana. Inasmuch as my colleagues and I had been monitoring energy resource-rich tribes for about twelve years and not one of us had observed the development of a profitable, self-sustaining economic base among the reservation societies that we had studied, I was skeptical of the claims for economic successes. The skepticism was not borne solely of observations. I was also skeptical because of my knowledge of the political-economic niche that American Indians have occupied since subjugation, but puzzled as to whether Federal Indian legislation of the 1970s had made such a difference as to facilitate development. The Reagan Administration's "New Federalism" had been rolling on line for two years, the Indian Self-Determination Act for eight years, the Indian Financing Act for nine years, and the rapid extraction of Indian-owned energy resources for ten years (following the Arab oil embargo) when my students, Stephanie Reynolds Romeo, LaVerna Price, and JoAnna Endter, and I began our inquiry among the Northern Utes and Crows. If these tribes had been successful in implementing the provisions of the