"Throughout most of the last two centuries, the United States sought to eliminate the political existence of American Indian tribes. The federal anti-tribal agenda appeared through laws, policies and programs encouraging or forcing Indian assimilation into the American middle class. But by the late 1960s, federal policymakers finally realized that Indian people and polities were not going away.

Informed by federal “Indian self-determination” policy, in the 1970s Congress began enacting a slew of programs and laws committed to involving Indians in the development and implementation of reservation programs and services. As a result, the economic development of Indian Country finally commenced in earnest. The “distinct legal and economic market opportunities” derived from the “sovereign status of tribes,” as described by Drs. Joseph Kalt and Stephen Cornell, has since played the largest role in evolving the American Indian middle class discussed in Part I, into a reservation-based middle class—into a distinctly tribal middle class.

Indian self-determination, in practice, began with the reclamation of tribal resources. Although tribal peoples fished commercially for centuries, the practice fell victim to the “no special treatment” adage of the assimilation era. Then, in 1968, under the tribal threats of Treaty enforcement litigation, Oregon and Washington re-established an Indian-only commercial fishery in the Columbia River. Likewise, after decades of timber harvesting stymied by federal control and red tape, in the 1970s tribes themselves began to reap the economic benefits of high-yield timber harvesting. The Indian commercial fisherman and logger emerged, earning enough money to no longer have their families live hand-to-mouth, and, in some instances, to live quite comfortably."

Get the Story:
Gabe Galanda: Attack on the Tribal Middle Class, Part II (Indian Country Today 11/3)

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Gabe Galanda: An attack on Indian Country's middle class (10/21)