Timeline of Native American Tribal Sovereignty
1648
The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. Out of this treaty emerges the seminal doctrine of “Westphalian Sovereignty” under international law, which regulates lawful interactions among independent nation-states.
1787
Newly-drafted U.S. Constitution is adopted by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution vests the power to “regulate Commerce” with the “Indian Tribes.”
1810
U.S. Supreme Court decides Fletcher v. Peck, the first case to declare a state law unconstitutional, and address matters of Native American ownership of tribal lands. In the case, land buyer Robert Fletcher argues that John Peck did not hold title to land he’d sold to Fletcher because he had bought it from the state of Georgia, who had taken the land from the Yazoo tribe. The Court rules that Peck’s ownership was valid, thereby also the sale to Fletcher. In his opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall rejects the idea that Native Americans could hold absolute legal title to their land, which they “merely roamed over and hunted on.” He introduces the notion of “occupancy title” for Native Americans’ land, which was occupied for the purpose of hunting, and ought not to be “transferred, but extinguished.”
1823
Johnson v. M’Intoshis decided by the Supreme Court, which holds that private citizens may not purchase land from Native Americans. In the case, Johnson and M’Intosh both claimed to own a tract of land. Johnson, he maintained, had received his claim from land grants made by the Piankeshaw following the American Revolution that had not been approved by the federal government. Would this land grant be recognized in court? No. Ultimately, the Court maintained that the Piankeshaw did not have the right to sell their land to Johnson. The Indians, Chief Justice Marshall wrote, are “the rightful occupants of the soil, which have a legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion … but their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle … discovery.”
1828
The state of Georgia passes a series of laws designed to strip the Cherokees of rights in the hopes of compelling them to leave their lands.
John Ross is elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
1829
American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions member Jeremiah Evarts publishes “Essays on the Present Crisis in the Condition of the American Indian.” The text later influences Cherokee lawyers arguing for Native American sovereignty.
Congress establishes a federal Office of Indian Affair under the Department of War. In 1849, the office becomes part of the newly established U.S. Department of the Interior. It is renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947.
1830
Indian Removal Act is passed by Congress. It authorizes President Andrew Jackson to negotiate with Native Americans east of the Mississippi River to move to lands west of the Mississippi River.
John Ross hires former U.S. Attorney General William Wirt as lead lawyer for the Cherokee Nation.
George “Corn” Tassel, a Cherokee man, is arrested for murder by the state of Georgia, tried, convicted, and executed. The Cherokee nation’s lawyer, William Wirt, had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Georgia courts’ rulings in the case. The Cherokee maintained that Tassel’s arrest was illegal and that they were a sovereign nation with the ability to manage their own arrests, trials, and convictions for crimes committed by their members. Georgia executed Tassel ten days after the Court granted certiorari, effectively ending the case.
1831
The Supreme Court issues its decision in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, in which the Cherokee Nation sought a federal injunction against laws passed by the state of Georgia. The Court rules that it has no jurisdiction in the matter, as the Cherokee are a dependent nation to the United States, like a “ward to its guardian.” JusticeWilliam Johnsonadds that the “rules of nations” would regard “Indian tribes” as “nothing more than wandering hordes, held together only by ties of blood and habit, and having neither rules or government beyond what is required in a savage state.” In a dissenting opinion, JusticesSmith Thompson andJoseph Story, hold that the Cherokee nation is a “foreign state” in the sense that the Cherokee retain their “usages and customs and self-government” and the United States government has treated them as “competent to make a treaty or contract.” The Court therefore has jurisdiction; Acts passed by the State of Georgia are “repugnant to the treaties with the Cherokees” and directly in violation of a congressional Act of 1802;and the injury to the Cherokee is severe enough to justify an injunction against the further execution of the state laws.
1832
The Supreme Court rules that the Cherokee Nation is a sovereign state in Worcester v. Georgia. The Court declares a Georgia statute that attempts to regulate who may live in Cherokee territory unconstitutional. The decision’s dicta outlines the relationship between Native American tribes, states, and the federal government, with the federal government being the party authorized to address Indian affairs and nations. Neither President Andrew Jackson, nor the governor of Georiga enforced the decision.
1835
The Treaty of Echota is signed in New Echota, Georgia. It cedes the Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River to the U.S. Government with a promise that the Cherokee move west of the Mississippi River into Indian Territory and receive a payment of $5 million plus additional expenses from the federal government. Although the treaty was not signed by Principle Chief John Ross or approved by a majority of the Cherokee Nation, it becomes the legal basis for Cherokee removal from Georgia, and the U.S. Senate ratifies the treaty the following year.
1836
Samuel Worcester moves West to Indian territory. Cherokees begin to voluntarily move West to Indian Territory.
1838
Deadline in the Treaty of Echota for all Cherokee to voluntarily vacate their land in the southeastern United States.Thousands move west in what is known as the “Trail of Tears.”
1871
The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 provides that “hereafter no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty.” As a result, all subsequent interactions between the federal government and Indian tribes are by Congressional statutes, rather than treaties.
1903
In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Congress has the right to abrogate treaties with Indian tribes because “authority over the tribal relations of the Indians has been exercised by Congress from the beginning, and the power has always been deemed a political one.” This case asserted that the federal courts must defer to Congress’s “plenary power.” The Court declared that Indians were “the wards of the nation” and that “from their very weakness and helplessness …there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.”
1924
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 grants all previously non-citizen resident Indians U.S. citizenship.
1934
The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, sometimes known as the “Indian New Deal,” reverses prior federal policy aimed at assimilating Indians into American society and aims to encourage and strengthen historical tribal cultures. Since the late twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court has considered a number of cases challenging the constitutionality of provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act.
1953
In 1953 Congress adopts a policy of “termination,” intending “as rapidly as possible to make Indians within the territorial limits of the United States subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as are applicable to other citizens of the United States.” (as expressed in House Concurrent Resolution 108). Over the next 11 years, 109 tribes are terminated and federal responsibility and jurisdiction over their lands turned over to state governments.
1975
The Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act of 1975 officially changes federal government policy regarding Indians from “termination” to “self-determination.” It is the culmination of an evolution in federal government policy that begins under the Johnson and Nixon Administrations.
1988
Congress passes the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to regulate gaming on Indian lands. The Act establishes three classes of gaming, each with different regulatory schemes. The prior year, in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the Supreme Court had effectively overturned prior restrictions on gaming on Indian reservations. IGRA is premised upon notions of Indian tribal sovereignty and self-government.
2000
Issued by President Bill Clinton, Executive Order 13175 requires federal government agencies to consult with Indian tribal governments on policies that would affect their communities. The executive order sets out contemporary principles of Indian tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and self-government.