Having endured the boarding school years, where children were taken far from their families and placed in schools designed to strip them of their culture, the continuation of Native child adoption by non-Indian families proved one of the direst issues facing tribal communities by the 1970’s. For generations, Indian families lost their children to federal agents, who, at their discretion, …
The Indian Gaming & Regulatory Act was a law passed by Congress attempting to mitigate the growing frustration states had with their inability to tax and regulate sovereign Indian nations’ gaming operations. Beginning in the 1960’s and 1970’s, tribal communities across the United States began operating bingo houses to raise money for their communities. As states also attempted to channel …
In the years after the defeat of the British and their Indian allies in the War of 1812, the nature of the U.S. government’s Indian policy and the goal of treaty-making became increasingly hostile toward Native Americans, opening the door for the removals of the 1830s. The federal government was no longer interested in negotiating treaties that just arranged for …
The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), known also as the Wheeler-Howard Act for the two United States Senators sponsoring the bill, was the first major effort from the U.S. federal government to allow tribes to govern their own affairs. The IRA provided tribal nations with resources to create a written constitution, halted the allotment process, and authorized funds for use by …
In the years following the disastrous policy of Termination, the United States federal government began shifting its energies towards investing in tribal autonomy as a way of managing Indian affairs. Beginning formally with a 1961 Commission on the Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of the American Indian concluding that top-down initiatives lacking cooperation with tribal community members are destined for failure, …