An Independent Native American State?
Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:15 pmI came across an interesting page on Wikipedia earlier today called "Republic of Lakotah" after reading about the American Indian Movement (AIM).
Basically the Republic of Lakotah is a proposed homeland in North America for the Lakota.
The Lakota native Americans, the tribe where Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are from, have withdrawn from the 150 year old treaties between them and the United States.
I personally think the Americans should allow the Native Americans the right to reassert their sovereignty over the reservations they currently reside on and sacred tribal sites, after all the United States has promised the Native Americans the right of self determination in 1918.
The U.S. Government as the representatives of a leading respected Democratic nation should allow the Native Americans this right.
In fact they should feel obliged to do so, considering the past the colonists and the natives shared.
In accordance with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. Government promised the peoples of the five tribes (Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw) that they would never be bothered by them ever again as long they moved from their beloved homelands and moved to the west of the Mississippi, this arduous journey that killed an abundance of natives became known as trail of tears.
Of course, the colonists did not stand by their hollow promise and they continued to push ever westwards and steal lands off the natives until there was very little land left. Time and time again the American Government found an excuse and plausible way to steal more and more land, even as recently as the 1940's and onwards when the Board of Indian Affair's started the Indian Relocation Program when they transferred Native Americans living in rural and remote areas to big cities such as San Francisco and New York. Wilma Mankiller and her Cherokee family were living evidence of this scandal, before they were relocated to San Francisco in 1956, they lived in their ancestral home known to them as "Mankiller Flats" which was situated in the Adair County of Oklahoma.
So this leads me to the question, do you think Native American tribes should be given the right to declare their reservations independent?
Basically the Republic of Lakotah is a proposed homeland in North America for the Lakota.
The Lakota native Americans, the tribe where Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are from, have withdrawn from the 150 year old treaties between them and the United States.
I personally think the Americans should allow the Native Americans the right to reassert their sovereignty over the reservations they currently reside on and sacred tribal sites, after all the United States has promised the Native Americans the right of self determination in 1918.
The U.S. Government as the representatives of a leading respected Democratic nation should allow the Native Americans this right.
In fact they should feel obliged to do so, considering the past the colonists and the natives shared.
In accordance with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. Government promised the peoples of the five tribes (Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw) that they would never be bothered by them ever again as long they moved from their beloved homelands and moved to the west of the Mississippi, this arduous journey that killed an abundance of natives became known as trail of tears.
Of course, the colonists did not stand by their hollow promise and they continued to push ever westwards and steal lands off the natives until there was very little land left. Time and time again the American Government found an excuse and plausible way to steal more and more land, even as recently as the 1940's and onwards when the Board of Indian Affair's started the Indian Relocation Program when they transferred Native Americans living in rural and remote areas to big cities such as San Francisco and New York. Wilma Mankiller and her Cherokee family were living evidence of this scandal, before they were relocated to San Francisco in 1956, they lived in their ancestral home known to them as "Mankiller Flats" which was situated in the Adair County of Oklahoma.
A group of Native Americans called the Lakota Freedom Delegation traveled to Washington, D.C., on 17 December 2007 and delivered a statement asserting the independence of the Lakota from the United States. The group argues that the recent declaration of independence is not a secession from the USA, but rather a reassertion of sovereignty. Their leader was Russell Means, one of the prominent members of the American Indian Movement in the late 1960s and 1970's.
Its boundaries would be surrounded by the borders of the United States, covering thousands of square miles in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. The proposed borders are those of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the United States government and the Lakota.
A group of Native Americans called the Lakota Freedom Delegation traveled to Washington, D.C., on 17 December 2007 and delivered a statement asserting the independence of the Lakota from the United States. The group argues that the recent declaration of independence is not a secession from the USA, but rather a reassertion of sovereignty. Their leader was Russell Means, one of the prominent members of the American Indian Movement in the late 1960's
and 1970's.Proposed location of the Republic of Lakotah
Gary Garrison of the BIA said that the group's withdrawal "doesn't mean anything." "These are not legitimate tribal governments elected by the people ... when they begin the process of violating other people's rights, breaking the law, they're going to end up like all the other groups that have declared themselves independent — usually getting arrested and being put in jail."
Source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Lakotah
So this leads me to the question, do you think Native American tribes should be given the right to declare their reservations independent?
