Tim Giago: Native Americans remain at the bottom of the heap

Opinion

Monday, October 18, 2010

A Bureau of Indian Affairs bureaucrat once responded angrily when I spoke about “treaty tribes,” with, “What in the hell are treaty tribes?”

Kurt Luger, a well-known member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, is also actively involved behind the scenes in the casino gaming activities of the tribes of North Dakota and beyond. He often uses the term “treaty tribes” when discussing issues that impact tribal governments. He is referring to those tribes that were signers of major treaties like the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868, treaties that set down the guidelines, rules and laws that are still adhered to by the tribes, but basically ignored by the other signer, the United States Government.

Many tribes of the Great Plains signed treaties with the United States in the late 1800s, treaties that ceded millions of acres of land and guaranteed peace between the Indian nations and the United States. In exchange for the ceded lands the United States guaranteed certain rights “in perpetuity” to the tribes. Those rights included healthcare, education, the retention of lands with specific borders and boundaries, food rations, self-governance, and a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

There has been an ongoing battle between the “treaty tribes” and the United States for more than 150 years over the stipulations of those treaties. And most present day politicians totally unfamiliar with the treaties are still under the impression that the tribal governments of the treaty tribes are getting welfare benefits instead of just compensation for land, water, mineral and natural resource rights guaranteed by the treaties. The ceded lands have brought billions of dollars to the US in profits from the sale of gold, uranium and timber with very little if anything going to the tribes.

The Homestake Mine in the Black Hills of South Dakota alone has brought in billions of dollars to the mine owners, the state and the federal government, but not one penny to the tribes who did not cede this particular parcel of land, but instead had it taken illegally by the United States. It’s a long and sordid story so go to any website about the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Sioux tribes for more details.

All of the above is history that is easily researched and it is hard for most Americans to understand this history and its impact on the Indian people, but worse yet in these hard economic times of lost jobs, lower income and dwindling saving for most Americans, it is something most people don’t even care about. When people are struggling to survive they care little about the travails of others, especially that of Native Americans.

And once more there are reasons for this. Most Americans believe that the Indian tribes are getting rich on gaming dollars. They see the glitzy casinos and Indians living in nice homes and driving big cars and they get angry not realizing that the gaming phenomenon does not spread its wealth equally. The treaty tribes of the Great Plains are still among the poorest people of America even though they have probably given up more in material wealth to this country than any of the other tribes.

The majority of the tribes that have grown wealthy by virtue of geography are not about to share their wealth with the poor tribes. For them, charity begins at home and most of them took their share of financial lumps and losses from speculators and crooks while building their wealth. The wealth they have kept they guard zealously and who is to blame them?

When one American general was asked the definition of an Indian reservation he replied that it is a piece of land set aside for the exclusive use of the Indian people that is surrounded by thieves.

A nation and a people struggling for survival has little concern for the problems of others and so charity and goodwill for Native Americans has fallen to the bottom of the heap and a Nation at war with itself cannot be blamed. False information, myths and misconceptions has contributed greatly to the loss of interest in all things Native American.

But, as Walter Cronkite would say, “That’s the way it is.”

Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the editor and publisher of Native Sun News. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1990. His weekly column won the H. L. Mencken Award in 1985. His book Children Left Behind was awarded the Bronze Medal by Independent Book Publishers. He was the first Native American ever inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com.