Intergovernmental Relations

Sheila Morago, Jill Peters, and Theresa M. Pouley: Some Tools to Govern Effectively (Q&A)

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Sheila Morago, Jill Peters, and Theresa M. Pouley field questions from the audience concerning lobbying, the importance of public education about tribal sovereignty and development, and how the Tulalip Tribal Court deals with fetal alcohol syndrome and its effects. 

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Morago, Sheila. "Some Tools to Govern Effectively (Q&A)." Emerging Leaders Seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 26, 2008. Presentation.

Peters, Jill. "Some Tools to Govern Effectively (Q&A)." Emerging Leaders Seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 26, 2008. Presentation.

Pouley, Theresa M. "Some Tools to Govern Effectively (Q&A)." Emerging Leaders Seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 26, 2008. Presentation.

Audience member:

"This is a question for Sheila. What's your feelings on the effectiveness of like short DVDs in lobbying? I testified at a language bill and this other tribe brought in a short DVD and it had their elders interviewed, their children, and it's talking about the impacts of learning the language in the schools. And it seemed to be very positive, pretty short, but do people spend time to actually watch them?"

Sheila Morago:

"Actually they probably do, especially if it's an issue that's coming up and is very relevant to something that is going to get voted on. What I would say that if you're going to do that, you don't want to show it while you're sitting there unless it's really short. Sit there, encourage the person that you're talking to to watch it. And especially if it's something that has your elders, your children, a group consensus of how this is going to affect you, all of that works. Again, they want to see how it affects the tribe itself and those tribal members. So absolutely any, [because] the last thing they want to see, to be real honest with you -- Jill working in Senator McCain's office -- is someone walking up and handing you a stack of paper this big and say, 'Here's the background on this. Can you read that before the vote tomorrow?' It goes shoo! right back there. So one of the things, that is a quick and easy way for someone to get all their listening, seeing and being able to get that very quickly so that's a great idea.

James R. Gray:

"I wanted to ask a question of [Jill]. If you had...I know in one case on our reservation we have a grocery store that's owned by the tribe. And it's a good case study on how to deal with something in kind of a crisis moment because we had bought a going concern from a non-Indian business owner who was going to close his business so we took it over. A significant number of our tribal members lived in that town but it was serving everybody there. And one day the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture walked in and did a survey like they always do on that store owner's maintenance of the WIC [Women, Infants and Children program] and food stamp program. And we were carrying out that contract within our tribe, but at the grocery store level it put us in a completely different role. And in that circumstance they fined us. Not because we were charging too much for the program, we weren't charging enough. We were cheapening our own business. For some reason, it was just a mistake on our end at the management level, but we ended up cheating us. But they said, "˜Well, we brought this to your attention on four different occasions and your manager never fixed it. So now we're going to have to fine you.' And as embarrassing as that was, we said, "˜Well, can we apply the fine in the form of a payment for contracted services?' Because what we didn't have in our tribe was a health department of agriculture that was going to do this anyway. Had we had that, we would have provided that assistance, but since we didn't have it we entered into an agreement with the State of Oklahoma Department of Agriculture to pay them to come and monitor that program. Because the Daily Oklahoman made a big story about this and put it on the front page of the newspaper that Chief Gray and the Osage Tribe were kicking out the State of Oklahoma off the reservation for being cited for health department issues, which created a freak-out among the community that something was wrong with our grocery store. And so they never corrected it of course, but we entered into this agreement where rather than accept jurisdiction of the state into our grocery store, we just paid them to come on and make sure that those programs were running right and everyone got to save face. And we left the jurisdictional fights for other bigger issues [because] you didn't want to get into a big court fight over something that you didn't do right, but because the issue of jurisdiction would never have been heard properly in the right context. So the suggestion I wanted to ask, maybe you could speak to is, could you talk about how important it is to pick your fights and ways in which you want to advance your interest as you're protecting your rights as well?"

Jill Peters:

"Sure. And I think that's a very important point, because you're going to have a whole range of issues that will be coming before tribal governments. And some of those may be some of these, I don't want to say it's a small issue, but at the same time you're going to have bigger issues dealing with the state, that you're going to have to deal with on that and are going to really have long-term impacts. And that really is going to be a balancing of the tribal leaders' responsibilities. You really have to set priorities and when you're developing your agenda you really have to think forward. "˜Well, these are the issues that we're going to deal with and we want to address.' And maybe on a very large or overarching level, part of that is to say, "˜Well, we need to look at where we are lacking in our resources. Where are we lacking? Maybe we don't have that State Department of Health. So we need to look at well, how are we going to fill that gap?' So part of that may be a bigger policy type of approach where you decide, "˜Well, let's talk to the local [government] or let's talk to the state and maybe we can try to develop that cooperative approach.' So that way, again it comes down to the tribal government kind of determining priorities. And I think you also have, in some ways it helps to have someone who can handle your PR [public relations] in a way that can help manage those messages as well. So when you have these kind of like little fires that come up, they can help the tribal government sort of help manage so that the wrong message is not being communicated to the community members who are out there who don't have the privilege or knowledge of what the tribal government is doing. So again, it's probably not going to be a very simple reply or answer to that, but again it's a matter of the tribal government determining what are the priorities, looking at areas where maybe they're lacking in resources and trying to see how they can make up for that in resources. And some of that may be a little preemptive. You may be thinking ahead about problems that you may not have at this point in time, but you have to look at, "˜Well, if you have checker-boarded lands and you have checker-boarded jurisdiction in your community, what are some of the issues that may come up as a result of some of those conflicting jurisdiction issues.' So it's not a very uncommon issue. It could be a gas station, it could be something else. You may have a gas bill. How do you deal with that? It's an individual owner and you have checker-boarded land and then -- you want to be able to kind of anticipate some of these issues. So some of that may be looking ahead, being a little more proactive, rather than reactive. So and again it comes back to the tribal leaders determining some priorities, having some good planners, having a good PR person. Some of those things can help manage some of those issues. And again it may just be looking for other avenues of resources that are out there. What are the tribal communities doing maybe to kind of help address some of these issues? I don't know if that directly answers your question or if anybody else has anything to offer on that particular issue."

Audience member:

"Yesterday, Sophie Pierre mentioned that tribes must be the authors of their own stories and also, Chairman [Anthony] Pico said tribes must be more transparent and project a better image, because ultimately it will be the voters who decide the fate of many of these Indian issues. My experience is that tribes could do a lot better job here in this area especially in engaging their local communities. You've talked a lot about engaging the political structures, and particularly in Washington. My experience again, when tribes do engage public relations, it's often an outside firm that has little knowledge or understanding of Indians or of the local community, and that few tribes actually take the time to explain what they're doing with their communities on their websites. So my question to you is what can tribes do more to better tell their own stories, particularly with local communities and with local citizens who will decide many of these issues for us, like it or not?"

Sheila Morago:

"PR is something new for tribes and it's really difficult for them to make that transition. We're taught very quickly, especially -- I work in the gaming parts, so talking about how much money you make, what you're doing with it, how your charitable contributions are being made -- to be real honest with you, that's very tough. We're taught not to brag and that's kind of bragging. So one of the things that we do a lot, especially here in Arizona, you have to be pretty transparent. Chairman Pico's right. A lot of this, especially when it comes to gaming, is voted on by the people. We just went through our referendum in Arizona in 2002. California just went through theirs just recently and before that. One of the things that we do particularly is we publish an annual report -- and they're actually out on the table right now. Every year Arizona does an annual report that tells how much money we made, statewide -- not individual tribes. We tell how much money went to the state and one of the great things that one of the tribes does is TGen, they give some of their money to TGen, which is great. We have to work with local communities. Those people are going to be the people who are voting on our particular issues if it comes down to a gaming issue. So if you're asked to speak at community meetings, you go. If you can be part of any type of cities and towns forum, you go. You want to be the resource. So you want to have an intergovernmental relations person that is within the political structure of the governor's office or the state legislature or your representatives. Anytime that there is an opportunity to speak, you speak. Anytime you have a reporter call you, you answer. That is one of the biggest things that really that you'll see in any type of newspaper article. All attempts to contact a tribal representative were not answered and you're like, 'Kch!' So it's difficult because --especially if you're dealing with something that's bad -- you really don't want to be the front person. And as we all know, it's very hard for anybody to be the one spokesman for the tribe. And that is something that has to get done on a tribal level that the council and the tribal leadership actually gives that responsibility to somebody. And that's a difficult issue, too. Everybody is in different parts of that in developing all of that. But once you get very good at it, you'll realize the benefits that happen with that. All of a sudden you're not the bad person. And sometimes you can spin it to where you're the hurt person in the deal and it helps a lot, especially when you're dealing in intergovernmental relations and doing cross-jurisdictional things. The more people know about you, the easier it is for them to understand where it is you're coming from when you're dealing with that stuff."

Jill Peters:

"Yeah, I know intergovernmental relations, when I talk about it, it sounds a lot easier than I think, in practicality, it is, and for a lot of reasons. And I think one of those main things is information and sharing information and it really is a hard thing to do. And tribal governments, as Sheila mentioned, are sort of now just coming onto par of actually having web pages and putting things on their web pages, sending out press releases. A lot of tribal communities that I work with do have newsletters. So they send out newsletters, but these may be only quarterly or something else. So they don't include -- it's very limited information. So, as Sheila mentioned, it is helpful to have someone who can be working on PR issues for you and be able to give information out, especially to neighboring communities. I work in Phoenix, so one of the issues that is constantly dealt with are the communities that live within the city boundaries of Phoenix. So you have a community where one road separates Scottsdale from a tribal community. I mean you literally walk on one side you're in a tribe and you walk on the other side you're within the city. It's taken many, many years, but these two communities have learned to work together. And it's not always easy, but I think they do a lot of information sharing as well. I can't speak to exactly what that is, but I think at least they know who to call if they have questions. So there's a contact person. Also, some communities establish working groups with other jurisdictions so that they meet on an annual basis -- or what other type of regular basis -- and they just share information and they share different areas of priority that they're working on and see where different areas of -- they match where they might be able to work together. So I think there's a variety of ways that you can deal with that issue but it's just again, it may be that there's not someone on the ground whose taken that responsibility, or is not assigned that responsibility, or there's not resources to deal with that issue. But communication really has to be a key part of tribal government for a lot of reasons. Again, if you don't know what's happening in your neighboring community, they're not going to know what's happening in yours. And so if you keep operating in that mode, chances are someone's going to take an action that's going to negatively impact you or vice versa. So I think really it just has to be a priority again at the tribal level. Someone has to reach out, whether it's the tribe or the local community. If you're working with the other community reaching out really is the first step."

Gwen Phillips:

"I have a quick comment. It's just exactly what you're speaking about here. Chief Sophie [Pierre] had to leave the room because we have reporters asking about a purchase of land and did we support it and all this other stuff. So I was madly looking for support for her, as a director, to give her. So my job as a staff is to make sure I've got all of that information and then to feed it to her, in a timely manner and a concise manner, so she can do her job. My question is actually for Theresa, Judge Theresa. I was the Director of Education for our nation for ten years. And Sophie had alluded to our having done a full Psych Ed assessment of our school-aged population in the early 90s. And we had assessed, at about, 40 percent-plus fetal alcohol syndrome; fetal alcohol affects. We had a very intensive program operating for a good dozen years addressing fetal alcohol affects, but we repeatedly and continually -- in all systems out there that are designed to assist individuals in growth -- come up against brick walls all over the place. Not our own brick walls, of course, but those of the institutions that we have to deal with. And I'm wondering what approach, if any, that your nation has taken in addressing this, because these are the ones that are the circles?"

Theresa Pouley:

"Well, there's a couple of really important issues. One of them is fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol affect. And Tulalip does a great job about this. And it's the judge's job to make sure the state court thinks we're doing an okay job from a due process perspective, but Tulalip has taken the position that unborn children belong to the tribe. So if you are a substance-abusing mother who's in the court system, there is some possibility you may sit out your pregnancy in jail because it's our responsibility to those children not to have them be subjected to that. That's a pretty hard line and that's a hard thing to do as a tribal council person. I don't want to sort of minimize that, but there is this huge recognition of that. Wellness courts themselves, which institutionalize a structure -- weekly meetings, weekly reporting -- actually that works great for people with fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol affect. So for our clients that have those particular issues, it's working really well. And the sort of last one is how do you get it started. I think Tulalip is sort of like the perfect example of anywhere you want. The chief of police took the resolution to the board of directors -- not the tribal court judge -- the chief of police. The chief judge was doing it on the ground already. The board of directors passed a resolution. It is a most amazing thing when you can empower your judge to invite people to the table, because if the judge invites you to come sit, lots of people come and sit. So it's kind of a surprising tool that you can use to be able to orchestrate that. So I hope I got all three of your issues."

Gwen Phillips:

"Yeah. I'm just -- the reason I'm saying that is because we're in modern-day treaty negotiations. So we have the federal and the provincial governments that we're negotiating with. And we had tabled with them our intent to strike both within our liquor control legislation and our child protection legislation, the very thing that you spoke of. And they were just freaking out big-time talking about the charter of rights and freedoms and da, da, da, da, da. So exactly like you say, once the woman has made the choice to keep that baby, that baby belongs to us. So I'm pleased and will probably be in touch with you to figure out how we work it out systemically."

Joan Timeche:

"Thank you very much."

Theresa Pouley:

"If tribal court judges have a job, that's it. We have to figure out how to put a Western-style justice system face on remedies that are tribal. So that's our job and we take that job real seriously. Now we'll see, we may have Roe vs. Wade in Tulalip Tribal Court any day and I'll let you know how that comes out." 

Honoring Nations: Ken James: The Flandreau Police Department (2007)

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Former Flandreau (South Dakota) Police Chief Ken James discusses how the Flandreau Police Department works to provide culturally sensitive law enforcement to all of the citizens it serves.

People
Resource Type
Citation

James, Ken. "The Flandreau Police Deparment," Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Michael Lipsky:

"So our presenters are Ken James, Chief of the Flandreau Police Department, who was honored in 2005, whose program was honored in 2005; Don Corbine, who is from the Bad River Recycling program in Wisconsin; LuAnn Leonard, the Director of the Hopi Education Endowment Fund; and Mary Etsitty, the Executive Director of the Office of the Navajo Tax Commission. So perhaps, we'll go in the order that I read those names and so Ken, perhaps you'd start off?"

Ken James:

"[Dakota greeting/prayer] Before I start I want to share with you -- it's a song. And I sing this song for strength, for inner strength, and it's a song of encouragement. And I sing this a lot in the line of work that I do. I always need strength from the higher power. And after I get done singing his song, I'll share with you the history of that song.

[Singing]

That song, (you can go ahead and sit down. Thank you). That song is a reminder of our history, as Dakota Santees in South Dakota, Nebraska and North Dakota. On December 26th, 1862, our brothers and sisters, our ancestors, stood side by side holding hands with the men, the women and children in Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26th, 1862. They were a bristling wall of strength that stood there, and they watched their brothers, their relatives. The largest mass execution in U.S. history; 38 Santees were put in the gallows and they were hung. And it was for our homelands in Minnesota and we were exiled. Our ancestors were moved, and we were moved, and we were moved. And through all of those journeys through life, we've had the tenacity to overcome and to adapt as Indian people.

When I look around the room today, I see each and every one of us have our own stories to tell in our families, in our tribes, in our nations. And so we, each and every one of us, we're that bristling wall of strength today for our people and for the generations to come. And I want to start off by -- it's been so gracious, I've learned so much since I've been here. I've never been to this side of the world other than to -- I've been to D.C. for a law enforcement summit, so it's been just very gratifying to come here and to learn and I'm just absorbing it all in. It's just been a blessing and a gift. Somebody once said that sometimes we have to travel this road alone but we don't have to do it by ourselves. We have so many people. I share that a lot with my children that sometimes we're going to have complex issues come in our life but we can do it together. There's nothing saying that we can't do it by ourselves.

And I want to share with you, I want to thank and I want to acknowledge some people here. I think it's only right and fair that I do that. In our Native way, we do that anyway. [Because] what I've learned in my career, it was given to me, it was something I didn't do by myself. I had so many people that are no longer here in the physical realm that [have] helped me to get where I'm at today. So I'm very appreciative of that love and that unconditional love that has been bestowed upon me. My Indian name is [Dakota language]. In Dakota that means ‘strong minded.' That was given to me in 1995 in a Hunka ceremony in Kyle, South Dakota. I was adopted into the, at that time was the president of, the Oglala Sioux Nation; his name was Wilbur Between Lodge. And it was mostly, in part, because of the work that I was doing down on the Indian reservations working more so with gang violence in Indian Country. I also did a lot of work in building healthy lifestyles. I want to share with you that last week was 14 years of continuous sobriety for me. I gave that up. So today the federal Bureau of Land Management declared me a fire hazard because I'm so dry. So don't light a cigarette or nothing around me, I'm flammable. I've been married 27 years. I have six grown children and one granddaughter and another one on the way. My daughter's Kaylen James. She's a student now here at Wellesley College here in Boston. Her sister, another identical twin, is up at Dartmouth going to school there. And I'm very proud of them. I have four other grown children and they're all in school, going back to college and still continue to evolve and still continue to learn.

I want to acknowledge that we have Josh Weston, our president, the youngest president in the history of our tribe; he's my nephew. And then I have another person I want to acknowledge is Leah Fyten. Leah is the Housing Director for the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe. She's currently on our Public Safety Commission and she's also Chairperson of our Meth Initiative Coalition there in Flandreau, South Dakota, that she chairs and doing a very good job. The other person I want to acknowledge in the crowd here is Dr. David Gipp, a huge contribution in my life, as far as my career in law enforcement. In 1979, I was a young 18-year-old, turning 19, and I went to school at United Tribes [Technical College], and I took up the Criminal Justice program. And I had the opportunity to learn and also work at United Tribes [Technical College] for four years in the security department before I went on to work in the Rapid City Police Department. We have continued to maintain contact and continue to keep that dialogue open as far as some of the contemporary needs and concerns that's going on in Indian Country today. So I'm just glad and very pleased that we still have people, such as Dr. David Gipp, around that's still a huge inroad in our lives, still paving the paths for so many successes in Indian country with all the students that graduate [from] United Tribes [Technical College].

And then last is Harvard [Honoring] Nations. Yesterday the motto was ‘Just do it'. Well, I think there's another part of that is they keep coming back. Two years ago when we were given this award we thought that would be the end of it. That's not the case. They call you up, they're in contact with you, sharing dialogue, sharing information, sharing ideas. And it's kind of spun off on me [because] now I'm contacting them. When I'm dealing with complex issues, it just takes a phone call, or even an email, to get on the phone, or get on the computer, and we share these issues together because together -- again, I heard someone say that two minds working together is better than one and when we can put that altogether it's really, there's a lot of strength in there. I just appreciate Harvard for all the work that they do and continue to do, even after you get your award, they continue to work with you. And then it's people such as yourselves that are here. I've learned so much talking and sharing and learning so much about the other cultures and different backgrounds. So I'm going to be going back to South Dakota rejuvenated, energized, and ready to go back to work and do what I do.

Myself, I have about 28 years of security, corrections and law enforcement work. The majority of my law enforcement career was in Rapid City, South Dakota, which is in the western part of South Dakota. There we have probably about 80, 85, 90,000 population. And about 7,000 Native Americans live in Rapid City and that population fluctuates. And then I've been the Chief of Police for the Flandreau Santee Sioux tribe and the City of Flandreau for the past seven years. One of the things I wanted to share with you is that, when I took this position as the chief of police, they were looking for someone who could collaborate and use that cooperative learning to engage the community; someone that would be able to work with the Native population, the Native people, and then of course work with the non-Indian community and bridge that gap and bring things together. One thing that I found out is, there's an old Hopi saying that says, ‘One finger can't lift a pebble, it takes more than -- several fingers to coordinate and bring that together,' and that's how it is when we work together in Flandreau.

It hasn't been an easy road. A lot of the rites of passage, the maturational process that we had to go through to get where we're at, was -- we weren't courting disaster, but when you go into something and when you don't settle for the status quo -- there's nothing wrong with the status quo, there's nothing negative about it, but if you want to be an innovative leader, if you want to forge ahead and maybe sometimes even fall forward, falling forward sometimes you're going to make some mistakes. And certainly in our department in Flandreau we have some flaws, we've had some weaknesses. But we didn't try to override them; we tried to work through them. And it's been a tremendous learning experience, as far as our growth, and we have certainly not become stagnant.

One of the things I wanted to share with you about our experience is we've -- talking about Flandreau -- we've been able to take that model, use a traditional law enforcement setting. If you look at it, where we're at today in law enforcement, the model is that it used to be tribal law enforcement and traditional law enforcement. Then it moved over to Indian Scout, and then it went to BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs], and now you're seeing it come in a complete circle, starting to go back again to traditional law enforcement. In Dakota, we call it the Akicita Society, the Soldier's Lodge. Today, what we have done is, we've been able to fine-tune that and today, in contemporary law enforcement, we call it community-oriented policing -- and in that, what we've done is, we've been able to mesh that together. And so I come to find out that community-oriented policing correlates very well, it identifies very well, with traditional law enforcement, what those principles are about. In [community-oriented] policing, it talks about the broken window[s] theory. In Native country, when we see broken down cars and dilapidated buildings, we become desensitized to that, we see it every day, and after a while we become accustomed to it. In the [community-oriented] policing, the broken window[s] theory is that, if you have windows that are busted up, what it does is it increases crime; it goes against societal needs.

One thing that I want to share with you is that, as the chief of police, I am Dakota first and professional second. Everything that I do, the way I live, the way I act and conduct myself is that I'm a Dakota first and that I'm Chief of Police second. In the same lines, as chief of police, I'm also chief of police/mentor/coach/teacher to my officers. I keep giving back to them that sacred trust and responsibility. When you wear that badge, that's what it's all about, about the community comes first, the welfare of the community. Sir Robert Peelsaid it best during the ancient feudal backgrounds when law enforcement was first established. He said, ‘The community is the police and the police is the community.' We're just an extension. One of the things about [community-oriented] policing in Flandreau, as well as across the nation, is part of that [community-oriented] policing principle is that we're there to identify problems and then coming up with approaches and solutions to those problems. It's being a problem-solver in today's 21st-century law enforcement.

And again I want to share with you is that -- I heard yesterday, someone talking about, by working together in unison -- a single twig breaks but when you put a bundle of sticks together there's strength there, it's hard to break that. One of the things I wanted to share with you is that when we work with people and we work with the demands of society, we see a lot of issues; we see a lot of concerns. And one of the things I wanted to share with you is this, is that -- there's an old ancient method of working with arrows. Someone had talked about the quiver and the arrows yesterday. What we do with the arrows is that, when you have one arrow that's out of line, what you do is you take that arrow and you make it the focal point. You make that the center of importance. You take that arrow and you put it in the middle. And you take all the straight arrows that have precision and balance and equilibrium, you put it around that arrow and you wrap it. You put it away for a couple of days and you come back. You don't go back and tamper and check and see if everything's working okay. You let it be, you let it work on its own accord. Several days later you go back, you unravel that wrapping and the arrow that was crooked and out of line that was in the middle is now straight. It's been aligned with the rest of the community. That's social bonding in our traditional culture, bringing things together. And when we see kids that are in gangs, we see the methamphetamine issues; that's what we need to do with people. We put them at the center, rather than outcast them and displace them and kick them out of the community.

One of the things I want to talk about, in our department there's training through osmosis. It's probably been the biggest thing, as far as relational building, is that I have non-Indian officers that work in my department. What we've been able to do through training through osmosis is they learn from me, as a Native chief of police; I show them the mannerisms, I show them the etiquette, I show them the things that we do in our way of life. And vice versa, we do the same thing. I go out there and I learn just as much about the backgrounds and cultures of my officers that work for me. It works so well, is that our model -- in Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, up on Standing Rock, they're starting to look at and view what we've been able to do in Flandreau, as far as building that partnership between the city and tribe, because in the Nation it's never been done. So when we forged ahead in that concept, in that partnership, we didn't realize the magnitude of what it was going to cause. We didn't even think of it as something special because historically, in Flandreau, the city and tribe has always learned to get along with each other, see the differences, and be able to work through some of those issues. And I think that's partly due, because we have one of the oldest BIA boarding schools there in Flandreau, and -- for example, our city mayor is a retired teacher from the Flandreau Indian School. So, in other words, we never had to really reinvent the wheel, and today the tribe and the city are working on other economic development ventures and things like that. So we're certainly moving ahead, forging ahead and we're learning from our past.

One of the things I want to share with you is about, when I traveled over here the other day, come across, we had a relative, an ancestor, his name was [Dakota language], which means winner. Most of you guys probably seen the movie that came out a couple months ago, it was about Wounded Knee. And in there, the main character was about Dr. Charles Eastman. Dr. Charles Eastman came to Dartmouth and went to school here and got his education. And what happened was, during that time of travel here -- I can only imagine what had happened, as what happened to a lot of our ancestors, it was part of that assimilation process, as far as that U.S. policy of educating the Indian. A lot the people, especially the Dakotas and Lakotas and other tribes, we were taken from the families and we were taken, by either buggy or horseback, down to the Missouri River where they were departed from their loved ones and their relatives and they made the journey east to go to school here. I had a grandpa that went to school at Carlisle Indian School; he was a World War I veteran. After he left Carlisle, he never did come back to our reservation and that was a part of that process. It's not to say that he didn't go on and work in other Indian communities, but he ended up relocating in the Southwest. And we all know too well about the 1950s with the relocation.

I had a grandmother that went to school at Hampton Institute over here on the east side. So there's a history that's there. Earlier when I sang that song, I want to share with you, it's about tenacity, it's about perseverance and it's about enduring. One of my grandmothers, after the Dakota conflict, went down and went to Crow Agency, or Creek, and ended up there and then ended up down in Santee Agency in northeast Nebraska and she had the intestinal fortitude to go, during all the mass confusion, she ended up going back. We ended up leaving one of the children behind there in Minnesota up in present day Minneapolis, Fort Snelling. And it was at a time when there was still a lot of hostility towards Native people. When she got to Santee Agency, it wasn't a man, her Indian name was [Dakota language], which means ‘like [a] man,' [because] she took some of the duties of the man when they were away on war parties or if they were away from the camp. So she went, she walked on foot. I don't know how she got through over the bridge, or there wasn't even bridges back then, but she walked all the way back to Minnesota and reclaimed one of the kids there and then took him back on foot all the way back to northeast Nebraska. I shared that story a couple years ago at a wellness conference in Rapid City; we were talking about building strengths in families. And when I look at my own disappointments and my own problems in life, I just have to draw back to that memory of our history in our family and I say, ‘Wow.' Last summer I had a chance to go down to the southern part of our Indian reservation in Nebraska and I found where she's buried. It's way down in this valley and I walked down, I got out and I walked and got there and I was able to -- I just remember kneeling down at her headstone and saying, and I kissed it and said, ‘Thank you. Thank you so much for what you done.'

So I've learned, through that time, about taking our police department, all the things that we've been able to do, mixing them together, and sharing, and giving a lot of thought to what we're doing, as far as a police department in today's contemporary society. And I want to share with you one more story. And it's about what I do, why I do what I do. When I was working in Rapid City I went to a domestic violence call and it was very chaotic. I remember showing up about three in the morning, I got there and there was a young boy. It was families just fighting, people were intoxicated. And I looked and I could see right through this little door, these little eyes peeking out, little angel faces peeking out, little lips were trembling. And I imagined they were scared and frightened of police and fire and ambulance there, and one of the grandmas was [lying] on the couch having a heart attack. And so I remember watching them and I went out the door, I got in the police car, and I was getting ready to leave. And I looked and I seen this little young man, about nine years old, he was walking back and he, at nine years old, he already had a substance abuse issue, inhalant abuse. And he was probably one of the youngest that was put into the detoxification center in Rapid City. But anyway, he was coming back and he was acting like a gang [member]. So I called him over, I knew that he was on probation so I put him in the car with me. And I call it a divine intervention. And I put him in the car with me, I put him in back and started talking to him, he got very defensive. So I started talking with him and I said, ‘You know,' I said, ‘How do you feel right now with all the stuff that's going on with your family right now?' And so he got very defensive and very abrupt and I just kept talking to him and finally he -- I told him, I said, ‘You know, I want you to know this,' I said, ‘as a young child,' I said, ‘You've already been to hell and back already with everything that's going on in your family.' I said, ‘You've got sisters in there, little sisters that need you.' I told him, I said, ‘If you can get through what you're going through today, you can go anywhere in this world, if you put your mind to it.' And I ended it by saying, ‘You know why I'm telling you this? It's because I simply, I care about you.' And that little boy, in the back seat of my patrol car, he just started to weep like a baby and he ended it by saying, he said, ‘I want to say something to you.' He said, ‘I never -- no one's ever said that they care about me.' That was a reflection, a tiny reflection of myself, looking at that little boy growing up. And that sticks with me today because sometimes in my line of police work and working in Flandreau, working with families, one thing is that we get kind of bogged down, we get wrapped up in our work, and I have to go back to the basics of why I do what I do. And it's about making a difference in people's lives, improving safety in Indian Country. And so I wanted to share with you a little bit about that.

We still have a lot of work that's ahead of us. Together, we can accomplish a lot of those things. The thing that's really, that we're dealing with today in society, in Indian Country, is methamphetamine. The other part is we're dealing with the youth gangs and the violence. And then we still haven't really curbed the domestic violence. And today, on the panel, there's going to be some work and discussion about the Violence Against Women Act. So those are the areas. And I wanted to share with you and close by thanking everybody here. I wanted to talk a little bit about our police department. I'll be around still afterwards to share with you a little bit more about what we do in Flandreau. With a time allotment of a little over ten minutes, I don't have that much time to share with you everything and it's impossible, you can't do that. But I want to share with you some things that you will understand as Indian people, the commonality of things that we do. Thank you very much."

Honoring Nations: Sovereignty Today: Q&A

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

The 2007 Honoring Nations symposium "Sovereignty Today" panel presenters as well as members of the Honoring Nations Board of Governors field questions from the audience and offer their thoughts on the state of tribal sovereignty today and the challenges that lie ahead.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"Sovereignty Today: Q&A." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Ethel Branch:

"Hi. Thank you all for speaking. It was really inspiring to hear all of your words. I guess my question is -- My name's Ethel Branch. I'm a student at the law school. I'm Navajo from Arizona. My question is, Indian policy, federal Indian policy has always suffered vicissitudes going back and forth from an era of termination, extermination, whatever, and switching to an era of revitalization, empowerment of tribes. We've been in self-determination for now over 30 years. Do you see a shift in the tide? What direction do you think the next era is going to go? If you could give insight on that, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you."

Floyd "Buck" Jourdain:

"Geez, I feel like Billy Madison up here. Anybody who's seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.

Self-governance. We're a self-governance tribe and we no longer have a BIA agent and all that, we deal directly with our appropriations through the tribe. And it's [an] experimental thing that several tribes took on, but we feel it's working to our advantage; we're using it in a good way. And one of the things that we notice with the non, the tribes that are still under the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] -- they do get preference over us, so we have to really fight and arm wrestle every year; appropriations, negotiations, hearings. And it's almost like sometimes there's a safety net there that we need to grow away from. Self-governance is a good thing if it's used in a good way, and it's used correctly, and you have good leadership, and people are really on top of it. I think we just need to pry away from that old era and get away from that. And if it doesn't happen, then you'll see tribes, kind of, falling back into that, which is a dangerous thing.

Like I talked about today, the climate. You talk about the energy push in America, George Bush and the big oil companies. One of the things that -- our tribal treasurer goes to D.C. and brings back these horror stories about, 'There's going to be another huge cut. The [Department of the] Interior and BIA is going to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.' And you have all these issues in your Indian community. You have methamphetamine, you have homelessness, you have poverty but, 'Hey, here's the answer to all your solutions! Let us come in and build a power plant on your lakeside and that will really help you guys out and get you out of this state.' So right now it's been rights of ways issues, those are huge -- people wanting to build power lines and roads across our land so they can -- tourism can explode and those types of things.

So I think that tribes need to really grasp it, emphasize self-governance, and really use it in a good way, and be aggressive with it. And I think that if more of them start moving in that direction you're going to see a lot of self-sufficient tribes out there doing some pretty good things."

James Ransom:

"I wanted to stand up. I know some of the people over here can't see us over here. I just had two comments on the question.

A trend that I see happening and which is real obvious is one, stay out of court. That cannot be overemphasized right now. Anything that gets to the Supreme Court is going to be an erosion of sovereignty. You can almost be guaranteed that.

What that tells us though is we need to refine our diplomacy skills and we need to negotiate solutions to issues on the local level, on a state level, on the federal level but in a way that is protective of our communities. And again, that talks about responsibility. We need to work on that and bring that back.

I think that's going to be the key to the future is exercising our responsibilities in ways that non-Natives -- the larger society -- can understand and appreciate."

Michael Thomas:

"I can only agree first of all with what's been said in terms of our own responsibilities and how we should not allow a perpetual federal trust responsibility to us to foster dependency. And frankly, the 30 years of the [Indian] Self-Determination Era has, in my mind, fostered as much dependency as self-determination. And frankly, I think that self-determination can be an excuse for modern governments to avoid their trust responsibility to each and every one of the people in our tribal communities. And so it's a balancing act. I think that we will see the lip service toward self-determination continue, but I think that you'll see the pendulum swing back and forth between whether these people are walking the walk or simply talking the talk.

As you watch the composition of our Supreme Court change, the advice about staying out of court becomes more and more relevant. And that is the kind of long-term pendulum swing that we as Indian people can appreciate but the average American cannot. The reality is, unless you are subject to those swings in constitutional interpretation, and Supreme Court composition, and federal Indian policy, and all the other things that create the storm of politics within which we must live, you're not going to get consistent outcomes.

And so that responsibility that both other tribal leaders here have emphasized is critical. Because it's a different approach to say 'They will never fully meet this trust responsibility, therefore we must...' than it is to simply cry over and over and over, 'Meet your trust responsibility, meet your trust...' We end up putting our people in a victim's position, when the reality is that we have all we need to protect and advance our people even in the absence of that fulfilled trust responsibility. I think an increasing recognition of this by tribal leaders can only lead us to good places."

Ben Nuvamsa:

"I'm very humbled to be here among you leaders. Thank you for your teachings and validation of what I also believe in. Chief Ransom, as you spoke, I feel like you were talking about us.

At Hopi, we're going through a tremendous change. I agree with you, wholeheartedly, that along with sovereignty comes responsibility and accountability, and if we can exercise that in the correct way -- hopefully we don't get to the point where somebody tells us what sovereignty means to us, like the Supreme Court. Our constitutions that we have adopted, the IRA constitution -- at Hopi we're very different because of our traditional ceremonies that we are very still actively involved in, in that -- and our values are much different than what an IRA constitution puts forth. And that really creates some problems for us, that we have two different cultures always conflicting with how we operate. And I think that in the situation that we're in, we need to go out and we need to re-evaluate that constitution. And many tribes have done that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that good, bad, or indifferent, however our constitutions are, we need to interpret those in our Hopi ways, in our tribal ways, what does that mean to us in our local customary practices. That's what's going to sustain us forever. I think that's where we're at.

I'm also very humbled to be with a group of our representatives here that are very knowledgeable in our tribal government. Mr. Kuwaninvaya has been on the council for a long time and I look to him for guidance. He's very astute about when we get into a debate at the council -- and he has this unique knack to put things in proper perspective, and he brings our traditional values, our knowledge, and interprets that debate into how we are supposed to be. And it seems like it really clarifies the whole debate. It's very simple. Go back to what Hopi is. Go back to what our beliefs are. And I think that's what sovereignty means to us is who we are as a people, and what our beliefs are, what our customs are. And we speak our language; our language is what sets us apart also. That is our sovereignty.

And so I just want to thank you for the thoughts. We also have certain principles that you talked about. Sumi'nangwa. Nami'nangwa. Kyavtsi. Respect for one another, coming together as one people, putting our heads together and working together. Those are principles and kind of visions that we have, high bars that we have to achieve. But I think that's the kind of a process that we're in right now and we'll need to get to that point. And I just want to thank you for your words of wisdom all of you."

Regis Pecos:

"Thank you for that, what I think is a really profound question. If we go back into the past and reflect upon that time of federal policies dealing with extermination, and where that moved to assimilation, and where that moved to termination, and then the more recent federal policy that defines this time as the era of self-determination, we really are at a critical juncture to be asking some very critical questions with regard to, 'What are we doing differently now, when we are in control, from those times when we weren't and we were critical of that subjection to those federal policies?' Because if we're not careful, I think that we potentially become our own worst enemies at this particular time and juncture in our journey through life.

I really think that this next wave, to answer your question, really is going to be a return to the core values. And that the definition of sovereignty is really going to come back to be defined, redefined, internally and outwardly. And I think part of the celebration, with something as profound as what we've heard all of today, are the incredible redefining of approaches that is coming from and dictated by our return to those principles and core values. I think in this next wave it's going to be part of a process and an evolution that is using the core values to redefine the strength of tribal governments, and the sovereignty and the power of our peoples to define, outwardly, the interrelations of intergovernmental relations, if you will, but defined for our purposes. So that, as we take a circle, and in it are the core values of our land, our language, our way of life, our people, our resources, our water, our air that sustains that spirit of living, to examine the way in which we either are making decisions with governance and our jurisprudence that moves us away from the core values or reinforces the core values; and where decisions are made that's moving us away, how we're contributing to make fragile that institutional framework that otherwise creates for an operation from a position of strength. And if all we're doing in this time of self-determination is simply replicating programs with no conscious thought about how the replication of programs is moving us further away from those core values or reinforcing core values, or the way in which economic development is viewed, to either be supportive and compatible with the core values or moving us away from the core values, and something as critical as education -- If we see education as the means and the process that was never intended for us, but how we find that to be necessary in developing our skills to deal with their external forces, to protect the internal workings of our nations, it becomes critical at this very point to really look at ways in which we strike a balance. And as our young people and our trust for the future are being schooled in the formal education institutions, we really have to be mindful in terms of what we're doing consciously in redefining our own blueprint for the teachings, from a cultural perspective, so that in the kind of challenges from this point forward, we really must operate from that position of strength, that is, articulating our relationships with other governments from those fundamental principles encompassed and defined by those core values.

So I think in this next wave, it's going to be about our redefining relationships with other governments based upon the articulation and the full utilization of the core values moving from within, outwardly, as it's never been done before. And if we're not approaching it in that way, the gaps are going to become greater and wider. And if language and culture is not the focus of what we do in creating the next generation of leaders, ask ourselves, 'Will they have any opportunity to argue the spirit of sovereignty from any other context or perspective?' Because when that happens we're going to be reduced to everything we don't want to be reduced to, as simply political subdivisions of someone else's sovereign governmental framework, different than what we want to do -- to come from within that context that sustains that spirit, that is defined by everything the Creator gave us and blessed us with, that sustains that spirit of living from a totally different perspective, which means that we have to create our own institutions. So that for all of us who've gone through the experience of a formal education, it doesn't take us to move back through a process of being reeducated in the principles of those core values.

So I think in this next wave, we have to be conscious about creating our own opportunities and institutions to strike the kind of balance that results in the kind of training that is necessary for young people to have that kind of balanced perspective, moving the core values as we define the way in which we're going to preserve that sustained spirit of living using those core values."

Michael Thomas:

"Definitely very well said. I would only add one piece, to what frankly, I don't think any of us could say better, which is that one of those core values we have to emphasize, in addition to that which separates us...is our foundation, our language, our culture, our values, the history, this dirt that we are from and of -- the interconnectedness value that we were all given as well is horribly underplayed. As important as all of those things that make us distinct tribal communities are, equally important are the things that bind us from one to the other, the interconnectedness value that every last one of us was taught by our elders is one that we don't walk often enough. It's an area where the way I say it to our council, it's an area where we are not matching our lips with our moccasins. It sounds wonderful, but to really emphasize the interconnectedness means that we would fight less within each of these tribal communities.

And frankly, I've never been to a tribal community, and I've visited several hundred in my life, that is startlingly different from another. As a matter of fact, when people come to Mashantucket, I tell them, 'Don't be confused by the cars and the houses. This is the res.' It might be a little bigger or a little prettier -- same issues, frankly. Wealth has intensified some of those community, social, cultural issues that we face. We're thankful to have the means to deal with those things, finally, but we've got to emphasize connectedness, because all of the other things bring us into our own individual boxes. And everything in this American culture is so individualized and so disconnected from anything, that what that value of 'the connectedness of all things' is one of the most important traditional values we should keep in mind and turn into the action that Regis articulated as well as anyone could. Thank you."

David Gipp:

"Regis, I think you summed up quite a few things today, at least from our perspective and from the tribal perspective, and where we're going hopefully. Let me jump to the next question. And it's a question for you, and other leaders, and everyone here, I think. And that's the question that our Assistant Secretary is posing and he's talking about modernizing the BIA. I don't know if you heard his remarks this morning. And I thought some of them made very good sense as compared to what I heard you say out in...which was the introduction of that thought. And I know you're running around the country trying to get ideas of what that means as well, at least that's what I hear. Comes that question, and that's part of what you have raised is, where are we going to go with this? And how are we going to deal with this? Because the immediate question is, now we have a new trust office that's been put in place, and it's supposedly doing all of these wonderful things for us in terms of managing our trust resources, and being accountable, and somebody mentioned the word transparency, and perhaps we'll see this someday from the U.S. government and truly see what they've been up to all these centuries. But the other issue is, what happens with the rest of the functions within the Bureau of Indian Affairs? Particularly as our tribal nations assume more of these, I'll just say, jurisdictional issues and more of the issues that relate to sovereignty and who and what we're all about. What happens to the government in the meantime, and the U.S. government? And what role does it play? And how will it play that role? And where do we put it in its place, if you will, as we talk about this new, if you will, evolution that's beginning to take place? And I think that's a very real question, because the government can surely be, as we know, stand in the way and create even more problems than it has in the past. Or it can be, indeed, potentially a partner, if we make it a partner. And how do we do that?"

Oren Lyons:

"Sovereignty is the act thereof. No more. No less. And it's a French word. It talks about kings. It talks about absolute monarchal power, absolute. That's what sovereignty comes from. But we came to understand it to mean control of your own future. When we talked this morning about the landing of our brothers here, and not too far away from right here, and they saw the Indian come standing out of the forest. And they looked at him and the word was, 'We'll never tame that man.' And all they ever saw was a free person. That's what they were looking at, was a free person. And that's what we all were at one time. And it's absolutely [certain] that we have to go back to our original teachings to move into the future because they're fundamental, they don't change. Principles don't change. Everything else changes, but principles do not. So as we move forward, we've changed as well. I would imagine that if we were to talk to our counterparts 200 years ago, if they walked in here, they wouldn't know who we were. They'd say, 'Well, whatever happened to our people?' We change. And 100 years or 200 years from now, we'd look at what's in the future and we'd say, 'Well, whatever happened to them?' But if you keep your principles, the main core principles, you can change all you want and nothing changes.

And so I think that it's true that there's going to be outside forces, this global warming is no joke. It's going to break economies. It's going to break world economies. They're just not going to be able to stand it. They're not going to be able to be spending all their money on wars and fighting because they're just going to be talking about survival. So commonality comes back. The discussion is about water, it's about land, it's about resources. When you talk about sovereignty in a contemporary sense, you're talking about jurisdiction. Who has jurisdiction on your land? And that will tell you how sovereign you are. And so jurisdiction is a very important discussion. How do you maintain that?

The courts have always been unfair but they're extremely unfair these days. I agree with you, it's a very difficult time. There's not been fairness in this country to us, there never has been. Racism is still here, it's still rampant, doesn't take much for it to come up. It does not take much for it to pop right up and look you in the face. So we're in a time, I guess, where we're going to see momentous changes. And so the spiritual strength that comes from our elders and comes from our nations and our old people, they always talk about the old people. I always remember Thomas Banyacya saying, 'Well, the old people said...' I always liked it when he said that because he was talking about our elders and how they instructed us and how they always looked after us. It was never a question about leadership then.

The problem with today's leadership in Indian Country is the system that doesn't allow you any continuity. You're there for two years, and then you have an election, and you fight each other for two years, and then you start again, and two years later you're -- it keeps you off balance. The traditional system, the old system, where the chiefs were there for life, I'm one of them. I've got 40 years on the bench, so to speak. I've seen a lot, talked to a lot of leaders (Nixon), most of them one time or another. Bob Bennett, I knew Bob. All of them actually -- how they had a short time, problematic time, but meantime back home, back home where we live, things remain kind of constant. You do what you can do, but I think the core values are just what we're going to depend on and we have to just get back to that. The ceremonies that Jim [James Ransom] was talking about as a guideline -- ceremony is what kept us going, ceremony is what makes us unique, it makes us different from everybody. If you were to ask who we are, we're the people who give thanks to the earth. That's who we are. And we do it all the time. And we still do it. It's important and we were told as long as you're doing it, you're going to survive. When you give it up, you won't. Simple as that.

So we're coming into times, hard times. We've had changes. On September 13th [2007] the United Nations adopted the Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And for the first time in the history of this world they recognized us as peoples with an "s." We fought 30 years for that. Up to that point, we were populations. Populations don't have human rights. Peoples do. That's why we had such a problem. Well, 143 countries voted for us, four voted against us. We know who they were. But the question is why? The question is why? And you have to really inspect that for a reason. We know each other. We've been sometimes allies, sometimes antagonists, but we know each other very well, especially the Haudenosaunee. Those 13 colonies were about as close to Indian as you're ever going to get, Grand Council, the whole works, instructions from our chiefs, democracy. Democracy is from here. It didn't come from overseas. It was here all the time. We were all democratic.

And so we're coming to a crux and it's a tough one. We're involved in it because we're people; peoples, I should say. That was really a benchmark. Now the problems that we had in that final document, we'll be battling in the next 30 years I suppose, if we have 30 years. That's the question. This global warming is extremely fast, it's coming and it's coming faster than you will think. In 2000, we gave a speech at the UN and we warned them then. We warned them then. The ice is melting. It took them seven years to respond to that, but seven years lost. Time's a factor now. We really don't have the luxury of another 100 years. We're going to see stuff very quickly and we best be ready, as leaders, as responsible people. It's coming now. You can't be red, you can't be white, you can't be yellow, you can't be black. You're people, you're a species and the species is in dire trouble as a species. There's nobody in charge of our fate except ourselves. Human beings have their own fate in their hands and how they act is how it's going to be. So they're looking for instructions and right now the long-term thinking is coming forward and the values are coming forward -- our values. And I say that collectively, because I know we all have the same -- I know that. I've traveled into ceremonies all over the place. It's all the same. It doesn't matter what language. It's the same. That's going to come back again. Now whether we can survive, collectively, is going to be up to us. It's just going to be up to us. That's all. So leadership is now coming forward and I think Indian nations have that opportunity. And the stuff that we're doing right here is kind of what you would call getting in shape. You're getting in shape, flexing yourself, getting back to where we used to be, getting in shape for the big one.

And I'm just really pleased and honored for this collection of humanity: common people, common cause, and we have to work together for survival. That's the way it's going to be. Unity -- that's what the peacemaker said. Your strength is in unity. One arrow you can break, arrows bound together in a tight bundle is strength. That's what we're doing. We're binding the arrows, getting ready. We've got to take care of each other and help our brother. He's in a lot of trouble and when he's in trouble so are we. There's no way to run. You have only one Mother and when you make her mad you're in trouble. And that's where she is right now. You can't make war against your Mother and that's what's going on in this world, and not without a consequence. So I know next year, when we have the meeting again, there'll be more examples of our abilities and our strength and who we are. It's coming forward and I'm pleased to see that.

I just want to say one more thing about sovereignty. In May [2007], in Halifax, Canada, they played the World Games Box Lacrosse Championships, world championships. And Iroquois Nationals won all through the week and came into the semi-finals and we defeated the United States 14 to 4. And we moved in to play for the gold on a Sunday and we were defeated by Canada by one goal in overtime. And I would say bad call from the ref in there, too. But it was our flag, it was our anthem, and our nation and our boys and they did do well. [Thank you]."

Megan Hill:

"Thank you, Chief. I've been honored and humbled to have been in this room with so much wisdom."

Michael K. Mitchell: Perspectives on Leadership and Nation Building

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Grand Chief Michael K. Mitchell discusses the Akwesasne Mohawk's effort to regain control over their own affairs, and offers his advice to leaders who are working to regain jurisdiction over their lands and resources as well as rebuild their nations.

Resource Type
Citation

Mitchell, Michael K. "Perspectives on Leadership and Nation Building." Emerging Leaders Seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 25, 2008. Presentation.

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Mohawk golf club. Guaranteed to go 300-400 yards, no problem. So if you can't hit your drives, I'm selling good sticks. Actually I wanted to come up here and start with this because the game of lacrosse is a contribution of Native American. It's an Indigenous game. We were playing this game when Europeans came to the New World. But if you read your history, it will tell you the Jesuits, the first time they saw Iroquois playing this game against another tribe, they recorded in their history that they were at war because they played the game so intensely. It gives you an idea how far apart -- their view and ours -- because they were really playing this game to honor their Creator. They were playing the game to honor their elders. They were playing the game to get physically fit. And it could be, in them days, close to 100 braves on one side. And if they had a difference of opinion or a difference with different nations, they wouldn't necessarily go to war, but they would agree to have a lacrosse game. And the winner would be accorded the right of whatever differences they had. And I wanted to inject a little culture because I want to donate this stick to our Indigenous golf tournament that we're going to have Friday. Don't you guys get any ideas about using it for a driver, either."

Joan Timeche:

"We will be, I'm not sure if we're going to, we'll probably auction this off at our golf tournament on April 4th here in Tucson. Thank you very much."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"It was a real pleasure to sit in the audience this morning and listen to the presenters share some of our experiences on leadership, Indigenous leaders from different nations. There's a lot of wisdom there. From what I understand, there's quite a few young leaders that are attending this conference. Heed their words, because nation building is a process that you cannot get from books, you certainly can't get it from Washington or Ottawa. These ideas of governance stem right from the heart of our nations, passed on from our elders.

They say in our traditions back home -- among the Mohawk Nation, Haudenosaunee -- our leader is acknowledged from the time he is crawling on the dirt, to when he walks, to when he's a young man and he hunts. And everything he does defines his characteristics. And depending on what clan he belongs to -- because we also, like many nations, have our clans (I belong to the Wolf clan, my Mohawk name is Kanentakeron) -- and so we are defined [by] how we are conducting ourselves within our own society. And from that, back home the women of the clans would select who the leader would be. And they say that he has already proven his leadership from the way he conducts himself, morals, leadership to how he relates to his people, how he takes care of them, how he acknowledges the elders in the families that are in his nation. So the women already knew he was going to be a good leader. And they say that he would be a leader for as long as he demonstrated those qualities. If at any time he wasn't a good leader, that he would fall on something, the women gave him three chances in his lifetime to set it straight; they would set him straight. And so if he went beyond that and he didn't follow the principles of [Mohawk language], a good mind, the women would take you out of office.

Well, back home in Canada, Canada thought they could improve on that kind of leadership and that kind of democracy. And you've been hearing this morning about the Indian Act in Canada. You also heard about the Indian Reorganization Act in the United States. That was Canada's idea of governance for First Nations. I grew up in the longhouse. My mother is a clan mother, my brother is a wampum keeper, and I have a sister who is a very strong Christian -- goes to church just about every day. So for my family, I think we cover all the elements. Now I come from a territory that is located in upstate New York and it's right on the border of Canada/United States. Half the reservation is in the United States side. My brothers -- James Ransom is the tribal chief, he's here; Ron LaFrance, Jr. is a tribal chief, he's also here –- he's one of the younger ones. We were just talking to James a while ago and he's on his third term. They both adhere to those principles and philosophy from the traditional side of our nation. And when you have that in your heart and in your mind, it just about guarantees that you have the nation's heart and mind, that you're going to be a good leader. And so those ideas about all the frustrations that you're going to face in your political lifetime, there's another saying back home, the elders tell you as you're growing up: If you're going to be a leader, you have to have a skin, and in our language that means 'seven thumbs thick,' or sometimes they'll say 'seven skins thick,' because you have to exercise a lot of patience, you have to exercise a good mind and good will. And you will take a lot of abuse. And so you take that home. And how you conduct yourself as a leader that will be judged by the people in your territory, in your community. And so for us, term limits is something that is decided by your nation and that term could be your whole life if you're a good leader. So those people that you saw -- those three people that sat in front of you and gave presentations just before noon -- look at them as very wise leaders who are willing to share their experience with you, because they have demonstrated the type of leadership that our people need and have served our nations well.

I became Grand Chief in 1984 and all I had in knowledge was my traditional upbringing. I didn't realize that under the Indian Act that all the authority comes from Ottawa, comes from the Indian Act, comes from the Department of Indian Affairs. The council that I inherited was in a deficit of close to $2.5 million and all they were responsible for was $5 million. The government was sent to come down and put our administration finances under third-party management. So I came to be a leader at the wrong time. And I studied, talked to people, and I found out that it's pretty well the Indian agent, Indian Affairs, their officials pretty well ran the community -- education, they controlled health, they controlled social, welfare, housing. And it was just like they said this morning; the chiefs that were on council were really just administering the programs. So the head chief was the band administrator. The language that was prevalent; nobody said 'nation.' Nobody spoke of 'nation.' As a matter of fact, our people at that time looked down on nation people. They were the Long House people, traditional people, and they never gave up the idea that we're a nation. They kept that alive. But they were very few because they also followed their own Native American religion. They still had their ceremonies and they kept that going. They kept our tongue alive: [Mohawk language].

We only spoke our language, first language. And so when I got to work in my term, there was some men by the council office and they didn't have an appointment. So they stayed outside because that's the way you met with the chief back in them days and you better have an appointment. So they caught me as I'm going in and they said, "˜We'd like to meet with you. And we don't have an appointment, but it's kind of important. Could you make some time for us?' I said, "˜Come on in.' Sat down, gave them some coffee, spoke in our own language and I said, "˜What seems to be the problem?' And they said, "˜Well, our friends over here were out fishing the other day and a conservation officer stopped them. And he said they didn't have any license to be on the river to be fishing, by the interior government. And so they confiscated our boats and motors and nets. And in the last six months it's been a steady process of having this happen. You're a new chief. We're wondering if you might consider checking into this.' I said, "˜Listen, I'm going to make time tomorrow morning. I'm going to get my boat and I'm going to track down this conservation officer from Ontario and ask them,' because you grow up believing that our waters is ours. And they were making new laws and the government was changing things, creeping more into 'civilizing us' by making us come under their law -- provincial law, state law. And so the Aboriginal right to hunt and fish at that time was slowly being taken over. Anyway, when I told them that I was going to go on the river they said, "˜Well, we'll come with you because we know the river. We know where he's going to come in from.'

So early in the morning we got out on the river. It didn't take long before they found where he was coming from, Cornwall. You have to come around a certain island. And the river current is very fast. So when you come around this one island eastern corner island, St. Regis Island, you have to, you're in United States waters and you're in Quebec waters and he's in Ontario. That's where we were waiting for him. And as soon as he come across that island we came out and we stopped them on the river. And then we shut off the motor and we started talking. He didn't want to hear anything about...I was asking him if he could return the boats. Maybe he didn't understand that we don't need a license. He was aggressive. He was talking down to us like we didn't know anything. So I tried to be very diplomatic, and when it came down to the end -- remember that seven thumbs thick, patience and all that -- I said, "˜Sir, you won't tell us where you took their boats but we want them back. So I have to take your boat.' And his jaw just dropped and he says, "˜You're what?' I said, "˜Yep, I have to take your boat until they get their boats back. You're coming with us.'

We took him down to St. Regis Village police station and then I phoned Toronto, Ministry of Natural Resources and I told them, I said, "˜I have your administrator official here.' Well, it worked up very fast up the chain of command. People were calling. "˜Is he a hostage?' Nothing like this had ever happened in Canada. I said, "˜No, I just want those boats back.' So it didn't take long, maybe a couple hours. Their Premier, Prime Minister of Ontario, he calls. He said, "˜Look, this might be an international crisis situation. I'm sure we can resolve this.' Anyway, we worked it out, they traced; they found those boats in Toronto, which is a four-hour drive from Akwesasne. I said, "˜I want them boats back by 9 o'clock in the morning or I'm going to call a press conference.' So he calls back in half an hour, he says, "˜Those boats are on their way.' You see I learned very fast that you've got to speak their language. That's the only way they'll do business with you. Those boats came back. The same guy that arrested them brought the boats back in the morning -- turned them over, they inspected and everything was there -- the motor, boats.

And then I asked my council and our administrator, "˜Why is it that we don't have any authority on the water? We live by the river. We're on the St. Lawrence and we don't seem to have any authority left.' The RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they enforce the federal laws. The Quebec Provincial Police and the Ontario Provincial Police enforce the provincial law. So everybody was an authority out there except us. Anyway, I passed a council resolution. We put together our own conservation law for the water, for the environment, for the wild game, for the river life; sent it to Ottawa. Well see how fast it came back and said, "˜You have no authority under the Indian Act to do this.' Anyway, seven times, diplomatically. Again, they said 'no.' I turned around and I went to the nation chiefs, the traditional leaders at the longhouse and I said, "˜I want to implement a nation law based on our inherent right.' We went to the Iroquois Confederacy Grand Council meeting and passed it as a community law for Akwesasne.

I said, "˜Now, we need our conservation officers.' And Canada says, "˜Nope. Whoever heard of Mohawk conservation officers executing their own law?' Ontario said no. The feds said no. Ontario said no. Don't forget where we live. I called Albany, New York -- New York State Police Academy -- and said, "˜Do you have a conservation course up there?' They said, "˜Yeah.' "˜Can you register some Mohawks to take this program?' "˜Yep.' Six months later they come home wearing uniforms. They had the state trooper headgear, nine-millimeter sidearm -- 'Dirty Harry' guns -- and they hit that water and they started bringing in.

Oh, at the same time, we executed our conservation environment law in the justice program; we set up our courts. Well, that court was nonexistent. We're only doing dog catching and little municipal things. We upgraded our statute [because] we had judges but they just weren't allowed to hear bigger cases. Those conservation officers were bringing in non-Natives who refused to buy our fishing licenses, hunting licenses, safety license and they brought them to our court and they were kicking and screaming saying, "˜This is a kangaroo court. You have no authority. I'm going to contact my member of Parliament.' But when they opened that door, there's a courtroom that had the Mohawk community flag, the Haudenosaunee flag, on the wall. There's a judge sitting up there, there's a prosecutor and there's a lawyer there that would defend you if you needed one. They read the charge, they read the law and they paid the fine. And that's how we started our justice program.

And those, I guess in reflection, is stand up for your nation's rights; putting them back in action. Those conservation officers, the first time they went over to Canada into Cornwall, the Ontario Provincial Police arrested them, confiscated their weapons saying, "˜These are totally illegal in Canada.' They went to court, produced their training from the United States. The judge says, "˜These people are qualified for the work they do. You return them guns.' And so you have to fight the legal system, you have to fight the government system, but after awhile -- oh, the appeal, they lost the appeal, too. Anyway, you have to take control. And then I noticed that on council, the way the programs were running, the Department of Indian Affairs just about ran everything, all the different programs. So I went to see the Minister of Indian Affairs and said, "˜Look, these deficits are going to keep occurring "˜cause your people don't give a damn about how our business is...' (Thank you very much. That wasn't peace; that was two minutes.) Well, to make a long story short, I asked the minister, [because] all these government people that were in authority over us, none of them was [Mohawk language], none of them were Native. So I cut a deal with him. I said, "˜I'll wipe that deficit out within five years but you've got to let us do it our way.' He says, "˜What's that?' I said, "˜A lot of our people are skilled in financing, administration, proposal writing. Why do we have to get authority from you?' So we made a deal. That was kind of a curiosity for him. And I said, "˜You take back all your government people and we'll hire our own to look after the affairs of our people. We'll look after our administration.'

We did wipe all that deficit within five years and our government grew. We established a relationship with the traditional government and passed a resolution recognizing them as our historic national government. We started having meetings with the tribal council on the American side and we started planning for the future. It's just an idea that evolves from your own nation. A lot of other episodes happened like the stories that I'm telling you. I was on a little bit of a roll there. When you're a leader, you require patience but sometimes it's the audacity, shocking the Canadian and American governments to say, "˜Yes, I have that authority and I'm going to do something about it.' You also got to think of your youth and your elders, and I proposed the writing that led us to having our own nursing home, our own arena, looked at development around in the community that needed those programs and our people went after them. So it's out there. For those fights between a tribe and the Long House on our side was an ongoing affair. Today, they sit together and they plan for the whole territory. And that's the kind of story I guess I can leave with you. Don't allow yourselves to fight with one another because the Indian Act, criteria from the American government, state, etc. -- we have that jealousy factor; it don't belong to us but we are so full of it in our communities. The longer vision in nation building, you rise, give knowledge to your young, respect your elders, look after the people in general and fight together. And I guess I could say that to all of you."

Honoring Nations: Jon Waterhouse and Rob Rosenfeld: The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Jon Waterhouse and Rob Rosenfeld provide an overview of the work accomplished by the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council, demonstrating the benefits of Native nations who have common cultures and challenges to band together to solve issues of mutual concern.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Rosenfeld, Rob and Jon Waterhouse. "The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Heather Kendall-Miller:

"Our next panelist is Rob Rosenfeld, and he's going to be joined by Jon Waterhouse. Rob Rosenfeld is the Alaskan Region Director for the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council. Their program is a 2005 honoree."

Jon Waterhouse:

"Good morning. My name's Jon Waterhouse and I work with the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council. I'll start with a quick introduction. I'm S'Klallam, Chippewa, Cree and Scottish. I always kind of like to think I got the best parts. My wife has let me know that's my own private delusion. That's okay.

I would though, before we get going, I'd like to say this. We are a group of 66 Tribes and First Nations in the United States and Canada that came together in 1997. Now it's ten years later, you can imagine getting even five people together to agree on one thing. But the chiefs came together in '97 and decided that the Yukon River was in trouble and that it needed some help, and decided on one thing and that was clean water. And it's a unifier, I believe that to this day, and it has become that. As I heard earlier, nations around the world are having trouble getting together. I think as Native nations -- I agree with what I heard earlier -- that we can help them find some way to come together. If I could call on Heather Kendall-Miller, who has been a huge help, to come up here for just a minute. This is the part of the job I love. It's all-inclusive. That's what we try to be. We include everyone. I have a short mission statement I'd love to have her read for me."

Heather Kendall-Miller:

"Our Mission: We, the Indigenous Tribes/First Nations from the headwaters to the mouth of the Yukon River, having been placed here by our Creator, do hereby agree to initiate and continue the clean up and preservation of the Yukon River for the protection of our own and future generations of our Tribes/First Nations and for the continuation of our traditional Native way of life.

Jon Waterhouse:

"Okay, enough of the modern technology. Some of the issues of the day, that I've heard here today, are climate change and energy. Well, we've looked at a lot of programs -- I know the time is short. We have many programs, but on climate change we've taken water quality as one of our issues. The Yukon River is about 2,000 miles long. We have a program of water quality testing for the entire river system. It's been turned over to us by the USGS [U.S. Geological Survey], a world-renowned water quality group. And it's a capacity builder, because our tribal members of all 66 tribes are involved in that program. We've provided the training and now it's been taken to a whole new level where we are a world benchmark-river for climate change. All the scientists are looking at us. It's pretty exciting. All our programs are interwoven, so it's kind of hard to talk about one without talking about another. One of our hugely successful programs is the backhaul program, which kind of combines climate change and energy. The program cleans up things, so it kind of does something about climate change, and we take the materials and turn them into energy. In the last three years, we've removed five million pounds of recyclables and hazardous waste from the Yukon River watershed through a combination of private industry and public monies, like through our NGO [non-governmental organization]. It has taken airplanes, trains, boats, ships -- you name it -- but once again, it's a capacity builder. The tribes have taken this as their mission to clean up the watershed. It's a huge program. It can be replicated, and I offer that to everyone here, to take that home with them. It can be replicated around the world and I think it should. Some of the hazardous waste like the used oils that we've received from this program we've turned into energy. We found equipment, and helped design it, that combines the used oil on the molecular level with your existing heating fuel. It cleans the fuel; it's cleaner than anything you put in at the beginning. And we are now heating tribal offices and clinics with that fuel. So it's a pretty exciting program. Now I know time is short and I just wanted to tell you about a few of the programs that got us here. I'd like to turn the rest of this over to Rob Rosenfeld, who is not only an ally of ours, he is definitely one of our very good advisors. So, Rob Rosenfeld, please."

Rob Rosenfeld:

"Podiums are difficult for me as well; I am standing up. It is a true honor to be here among so many great nations. All great nations have allies and it's been a great honor for me to be an ally of Indigenous nations throughout the Yukon River Watershed and beyond.

Jon spoke briefly about the backhaul program. It's been a very, very exciting program. And the genesis of it was at the very first meeting of leaders in 1997. The leaders identified many of the different contaminant sources, from one end of the river to the other, including mining sites, military contaminants, but they looked mostly at their own municipal solid waste. And instead of pointing fingers at polluters, they decided to focus on what they could do in their own backyards. With that the backhaul program was created and, with one of the guiding principles of the organization, it was driven. Through inclusiveness, all the different backhaul companies, 12 airlines, three barge companies, two shipping companies, Alaska Railroad, as well as battery recycling companies joined together. They go out to the villages filled with all sorts of goods and services and come back empty. Not any more. They're loaded up to the gills. And we realized that they were going above and beyond and we realized the importance of rewarding them for their efforts and encouraging corporate responsibility.

And the way that we did that was -- actually, I'll give Jon Waterhouse the credit for that. I asked Jon to come up with a very creative way to say thank you to the many different transportation companies. He walked into my office one day with an idea to do a commercial on the Super Bowl. I thought he was nuts, actually. I had no idea that was even feasible. Well, within about six months, it came to reality. And Super Bowl Alaska aired a 60-second piece that focused on the good work of the transportation companies and the tribes. And that has now been shown two years in a row, last year twice at halftime.

And one of the things I wanted to focus on is, really, how the Honoring Nations award program has helped amplify the work of the Yukon River [Inter-Tribal] Watershed [Council]. Since the Honoring Nations Board of Directors acknowledged the good work of the Tribes on the Yukon River [Inter-Tribal] Watershed [Council], the organization has tripled in size and tripled in credibility. The money that came with the award was used for the video footage that was used for the Super Bowl commercial. It was also used for footage that was utilized to create a new documentary called Yukon Circles. That documentary is now part of the permanent archives of the National Museum of American [Indians]. It travels with the Wild and Scenic Film Festival all around the United States. It's showing in a film festival in Italy this next month in October, and it's been in nine other film festivals around the country.

I do want to switch for a moment to how not only Honoring Nations matters, but also unified voices of sovereign nations matters most of all. When 66 indigenous governments come together and take a position, that position is hard to ignore. It wasn't long ago, maybe three years ago, that the community of Galena was looking at and still is looking at a proposed nuclear reactor, being donated by Toshiba©. Now, it's kind of cute. It sounds kind of cute -- the 4S reactor. It's super, safe, small and simple. It sounds like you want to take it to bed with you. But it's actually 100 feet big; it's 60 feet in the ground and 40 feet above the ground. There's 450, or so, reactors in the world. Three of them are sodium cooled. Every single sodium-cooled reactor in the world that has ever gone online has gone on fire, blown up, and in one case killed everyone on site. Again, corporate America is looking to use Indigenous peoples as guinea pigs. And the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council provided information to the Tribes and First Nations. It was a no brainer. It didn't take long. The Tribes and First Nations have unified and they oppose the transportation of radioactive materials on the Yukon River watershed, they stand against the storage of radioactive materials on the Yukon River watershed, the experimentation with Yukon radioactive materials on the watershed, and they opposed this particular sodium-cooled reactor. We got a phone call two nights ago from one of the city council members who once voted in favor of this proposed reactor who now, as of last night, took an official position against the reactor because he wanted to encourage all the city council members to recognize the desires of the First Nations and Tribes on the Yukon River watershed. So we hope next time to come back and let you know that there is no more talk of that reactor.

One other important thing that I wanted to mention was the unified voice that is starting to come to be with regards to a critical issue that affects all of us here in this room and beyond. There is a proposed land transfer in the Yukon Flats Wildlife Refuge, one of the biggest refuges in the United States. The Department of Interior is proposing trading some of the refuge land with a corporation. That would be the beginning of the erosion of refuges in the United States. To go along with that, in an area that has 80 percent unemployment in most places, Fish and Wildlife has put a high dollar -- and is proposing to put a high-dollar value -- on buying Native allotments. What it could amount to is yet another federal land grab of Native lands. I can say that from a meeting over three weeks ago or four weeks ago more than 50 Tribes and First Nations have expressed their opposition for this proposed land transfer. And we'll be going to Secretary Kempthorne's office in the very near future, hopefully, if he will honor the request for a meeting. And the request will be made to 'please, not to release a draft environmental impact statement without first consulting with all the governments, all the tribal governments on the Yukon River watershed,' before a draft environmental impact statement is released, so that their concerns can be integrated, rather than being reactionary to a position that gets put out. Finally, the leaders have requested a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing to look at the impacts of military contaminants throughout the Yukon River watershed.

And I'll just close with sharing the theme of this initiative here today and this symposium, is sharing successes. And since the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council received high honors in 2005, and received incredible exposure as a result, the leaders on the Yukon River [Inter-Tribal] Watershed [Council] have since been invited to go to Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina to help the Indigenous governments form an inter-tribal watershed effort in a similar way. Since then they have gone already to the Salish Sea Conference, where 88 First Nations and Tribes came together to also emulate and take the best from this idea of organizing on a watershed basis, a paradigm shift. In addition, the leaders have been invited to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia as those countries work together on cross-border environmental cooperation. Just three days ago, we spoke at a NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] conference where the people of Mexico asked for the documentary to include subtitles in Spanish, so that the people of Mexico protecting their rivers can begin to learn from this effort and invitations have already been extended. We've learned of the Three Rivers effort in England, where now there's been invitations for leadership to go to England to teach how to organize for river watershed protection. And finally, there's been invitations to speak at French universities.

In any event, I'm just so honored to be here, and I look forward to getting to know folks, and continuing to learn from all your wisdom in this room. Thank you."

Honoring Nations: Allen Pemberton: The Red Lake Walleye Recovery Project

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Red Lake Chippewa Natural Resources Director Allen Pemberton provides an overview of the Honoring Nations award-winning Red Lake Walleye Recovery Project, and illustrates how the program reflects the benefits of Native nations taking over control of their own affairs from the federal government.

Resource Type
Citation

Pemberton, Allen. "The Red Lake Walleye Recovery Project." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Alfreda Mitre:

"Our first panelist is Al Pemberton, Director of Natural Resources for Red Lake Walleye Recovery Program. He is a 2006 honoree."

Allen Pemberton:

"Thank you. It's pretty hard to get up here after all the good speeches everybody gave today and yesterday. I'm just a person that worked in forestry, pretty much most of my career. And I'm probably used to talking to trees more than I am people. You talk about the strength of Honoring Nations. It's a real good program. I'm very honored that we won that award. And just the family that comes along with it is spectacular. I brought my mother along. We had some friends down here where I worked for the IHS [Indian Health Service] years ago, a doctor, and we sat down and had supper with them yesterday; [I] hadn't seen them for about 30 years. I just want to let you know -- I forgot to tell you my name. My name's Allen Duane Pemberton. My Indian name is Coming Down to Earth Thunderbird.

I work for the -- When you talk about self-governance and stuff like that, I worked for the Bureau [of Indian Affairs] for 15 years, almost 15 years, when the tribe took over the self-governance program. I was kind of a skeptic to begin with. I was one of the ones, you know, ‘Geez, I'm losing my job.' But the tribe took a big step there and looking back on it now, I'm very glad they did that. To me, working as a Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA] employee -- you've got one of them Bureau people sitting right over here -- and one of the things that, to me, as an employee of the Bureau, I was really, I was young then and I was really energetic about what I was going to do. I was in forestry and I seen some of the problems that were happening on our reservation and I wanted to make it better for the timber and stuff like that.

And one of the things, I started a program with all the young students on planting trees. I seen a need for that, that we had a problem with fires and stuff on our reservation. And I was just trying to start at the bottom with all the young ones so they would work their way up to knowing about -- there's actually trees out in those fields and it takes awhile for them to get up to where they're growing. I guess I'm going off on a tangent here, but what happened was I did that for about five years in the tribe. I went to them and asked them for money every year and they'd give us money and the kids came out and we fed them, they planted trees; it was a real good project. One of the things that I feel, in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, looking back on my career, is that the people that work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, not all of them but a big part of them, they don't care. They don't care about us. We're Indian people, this is our land. There was a lot of them that did care but a lot of them didn't. They didn't say, ‘Hey, Al. Good job here. You started a program and it's really working.' Every year I'd have to go to the tribal council and ask for money when the [BIA] Forestry Department had enough money to take care of that. But my supervisors at that time, ‘Al Pemberton?' You know, ‘Pfft! Who cares you're doing that?' But it's just kind of -- I just kind of wanted to start that way.

The self-governance program, looking back on it now, is the best thing the tribe ever did. We're going to do things better than the Bureau would ever have done because we care for our land. We want to be, like Oren Lyons says, the seventh generation. I'm not going to see what happens to our trees and our fish. Our fish, they came back. That's something we can see and it happened. Just miraculously, they came back. But you're looking down as a leader of your tribe; you're looking to your grandkids, your great grandkids. And if you stick around long enough to see some of that, that's the best thing that could probably ever happen to you.

In the walleye recovery, one of the things that me, as a Red Lake member -- we never ceded our lands to the government. We're a closed reservation. And one of the things that happened, my great grandfather, Peter Graves, was asked by the chiefs to come help them because they were having such trouble with negotiations with the government. They wanted to allot our land and the chiefs said, ‘No, we're not allotting our land.' And when they negotiated with them, they were so mad at them. And they had the foresight to, back then, to know that we should keep our land. And they did it in a way that got the government agent mad at them. This walleye recovery process, it's kind of hard for us as Indian people to -- when they went back to Washington, they were so mad at Red Lake. The Red Lake, the chiefs told them that, ‘We want the whole of the lake,' and when it came back later on, they'd cut part of the lake off. The reason, I was told, that some of that happened because there was non-members living up there. And at that time you -- back in them days, you didn't get around. They didn't have very many cars, so they probably didn't even know there was people living up there. And it was hard for us to negotiate with the State of Minnesota. Because why should you negotiate for something they stole from us? That's our land. And to this day, we still think that's our land. There's an imaginary line there. But no matter what you do, as Indian people, we have to, we have to fight for what we have. You have to keep it. It's hard. The Bureau throws stuff out to us and let's the tribes fight for it and I don't think that's right. We should be nation to nation. We're Indian tribes. We're a nation. Give us our money that -- you stole land from us through the centuries and what do we get back for it? A slap in the face. I'm just going to get back to our walleye recovery process. I could go on all day on that but...

The Red Lake walleye Initiative was our -- in 1997, was the first year of the self-governance program and we reached out to the State of Minnesota to explore a partnership to recover the famous Red Lake walleye. One of the things that happened was, the Red Lake fishermen, they voted -- they were at a co-op and they voted their self out of a job. There was over two to three hundred fishermen at the time and they voted to stop fishing because they knew the walleyes were down and we needed to -- they needed to do something. And they sat there and voted themselves out of a job. And we have 70-80 percent unemployment on our reservation. This was a thing that people had done for years. It was in their families, the fishing, the netting, the people made money, the kids helped, the whole family, so it was kind of a culture in our tribe. And these guys voted their self out of a job. They knew it would take -- we said ten years and it ended up eight years. And what happened was some of the council people, at that time, went and asked the government -- some of the fisheries in other places, when they go down, they give them help, as stipends, to go to school or find a different job or anything like that. But, 'No, the Red Lake people, no. We don't have nothing for you. You're just going to have to suck it up and have unemployment on your reservation, more than what it was before.' And that's one of the things that bothers me. They could have come out and tried to help us out a little bit but no, they didn't. Red Lake did it pretty much on their own.

When we negotiated with the State of Minnesota, prior to that, there was no contact or cooperation with the state fisheries on any issues. Essentially, one hand didn't know what the other hand was doing. And Red Lake was the first one to put a moratorium on the walleye fish harvest. It took the State of Minnesota two more years to do a similar moratorium, when Red Lake had already quit two years before that. Red Lake worked with the State of Minnesota and other technical committees to restore the Red Lake walleye, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And through this -- I remember when we sat down, some of the guys said when they first sat down, I wasn't there at that time, but -- when they first sat down they were, all the different divisions sat in separate tables, but after the years went on, we began to trust one another. And I think there was -- we fostered some cooperation and trust between the programs and the Red Lake walleye recovery was a success because of this partnership. We're going forward, we'll be managing using state of the art science, where we have -- every year the catch is going to be measured by what the -- they'll go out and do their test netting every year and find out how many fish we can take in the following year. And Red Lake has a top-notch science team. I think talking about some of the stuff earlier that Red Lake has a real good group of people now that care about our resources, and then that way we pick the people -- through self-governance -- we pick the people that we want, not who the Bureau of Indian Affairs wants. Going forward, I think this whole thing really worked out pretty good.

And in the past, the Red Lake fishery was governed by the Secretary of the Interior using outdated quota systems. Every year it was 650,000 pounds of fish no matter whether the walleyes were low or not. They'd just sign off on 650,000 pounds. Now we're going to, if it's 800,000 pounds this year, next year it might be 600,000 pounds. That's what we're going to go by. We're not going to -- once it gets to that point it just stops. Before, it was kind of driven economically by the fishery people and the cooperative asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs for -- say they got into July and they already hit their quota, well, they just asked the Bureau for another 650,000 pounds and they'd sign off on it. But the tribe is not going to do that anymore. You're borrowing on your next year's catch, and the years to come, and we can't do that anymore and we know that. The tribe will -- we sent out letters to the members and they told us different things that they wanted, more rules and regulations, and it's really worked out pretty good.

The fishery is opening up again, but we're going to use hook and line from now on. We're going to try that. It's kind of a culture shock for everybody [because] a lot of them are used to using the nets and stuff. But we thought that we're going to try it this way and it seems to -- what's going to happen is there [is] going to be a lot of walleyes taken during the wintertime. [Because] as you know, Minnesota's a pretty cold place. So during the winter, you can go out and fish quite a few months without having any problems. So last year the fishing resumed on Red Lake. And we caught a little slack over it because the State, their portion of the lake, they had two walleyes, just a two-walleye limit. So the Red Lake DNR [Department of Natural Resources] and the tribal council set the limits at 10 walleyes for Red Lake members. So we heard about that on the new things that everybody looks at, computers and emails. There's a lot of things people say about, ‘Oh, Red Lake's got ten fish, why do we get two?' But they have a lot more people than we do. And when they go and fish on their side of the lake it's, it looks like a city up there. When they fish on our side of the lake, if you go out on the lake you're lucky to see 200 or 300 people out there. On that side of the lake it looks like a city up there in the winter. It's like a little city there. So we're going hook and line right now, and taking a cautious approach to commercial fishing.

The Red Lake Fishery has completed a $1 million state-of-the-art renovation. This is thanks to a grant from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community tribe. We got a grant from them to refurbish our fishery and we are getting another grant to get some other equipment that is needed. The biggest test for the fishery will be the ice-fishing season. The fish sales will be through the Red Lake Foods. Red Lake Foods -- they're a promising tribal business. We [have] a goal to maximize by selling fully processed products and fillets. Where before, when we used nets, we made a company south of our reservation pretty rich because we sold everything to them in the round, almost everything. Where now we're going to do all of the processing on our own and sell them right from Red Lake. I think that's going to work out better. It'll create more jobs for everybody. We're currently working with a Canadian tribe -- not tribe, there's like seven of them -- and they want a better price for their fish and they're looking at us to get that. That might be another thing that happens to us, where they said they could give us like a million pounds of fish every year, where we would process those and sell them through our fishery.

So that's some of the stuff I have to say. I don't know if I went on a tangent sometimes, but you've got to bear with me. I'm just a guy that works out in the woods. So thanks."

Honoring Nations: Floyd "Buck" Jourdain: Sovereignty Today

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Red Lake Band of Chippewa Former Chairman Floyd "Buck" Jourdain defines sovereignty as the aggressive and proactive exercise of a nation's sovereign powers, and illustrates how his nation takes this approach in advancing its own priorities and dealing with other sovereign governments.

Resource Type
Citation

Jourdain, Floyd "Buck." "Sovereignty Today." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Megan Hill:

"I'd like to introduce next, Chairman Floyd Jourdain from the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. The Red Lake Walleye Recovery Program is a 2006 honoree, and we heard from them earlier today. Chairman Jourdain.

Chairman Floyd Jourdain:

"Boozhoo. I hope I don't talk too loud in this. I'm a really loud person. I wrote a speech in the last two minutes -- he inspired me. He's really good. I like him.

[Anishinaabe introduction]

This is why I'm so mixed up because one, [Anishinaabe], that means 'lead runner,' a person who is leading all the people running, and [Anishinaabe], means 'there is a man standing there,' that's why I'm so mixed up, I'm standing around and I'm supposed to be running! I need someone to come slap me upside the head every now and then, 'Lead us!' you know?

I'm honored to be here, on behalf of everybody back home. This is a pretty big deal for us, and Alan [Pemberton] did a nice job this morning. Our tribal treasurer, Darrell Seki, is seated over here. He is here also representing our tribe. And Alan's mother is here, his beautiful mom is here taking pictures for us. So, it's good to see her.

We've talked about a lot of sovereignty issues. Red Lake is a huge reservation, there are 10,000 members, we have about three-quarters of a million acres of pristine woodlands, lakes, lands, resources, and it's something that I was able to -- honored to be able to serve as the chairman there. We've been around a long, long time. There's a lot of Ojibwe nations. In Minnesota, there's a thing called the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, where all of the Chippewa tribes are like a conglomerate, joined together. Red Lake is not a part of that structure, and that goes back historically to our chiefs. We came from a system of chiefs and hereditary chiefs that govern by consensus. We moved into the agreement era, and from there we moved into where we had a chief executive, and surrounded by chiefs. At one point there was like 45 people on the tribal council. In 1959, we went to an elected form of government. Now we have four districts, two [representatives from each district], and three executive officers: the treasurer, the secretary, and the tribal chairman, who some also, a lot of the older people, still consider to be the chief of the tribe, the principal chief. So it's a position that is very complex, there's a lot to know.

And one of the things that I'd like to talk about today, which Mr. [Michael] Thomas touched on, is the education of the next generation, the next wave of people who will protect and defend our tribal sovereignty. And we just think of it as something we've always done. Red Lake did not want to be a part of the other tribes because we respected the other tribes. We knew what was going on in the 1800s with the massacres and those types of things. We knew that the government that was overseeing this country was very serious, with a very serious and dangerous agenda, so we made sure that we were very well prepared, and we consulted with our people, we consulted with our ceremonies, and we tried to do the best that we could to retain what we had as Indian people. As a result of that, we, like Alan said today, we hold in common all of our land. There are no landowners -- one hundred percent owners [are] 10,000 people. Imagine owning every tree, every fish, every aspect of the tribe. So everybody is watching everybody all the time. They are watching us right now. But we were the first in the nation. We like to see our sovereignty as a proactive use of it. We were the first tribe in the nation to have tribal license plates. We wanted to license ourselves, to have our own [Motor Vehicle] registration department, and we did that. Of course the state objected, we fought in court, we won that [case], and we set the precedent for the tribes in the United States with the license plates. We're very proud of that. We've battled in the courtrooms, Supreme Court, major cases involving members taking eagle feathers for ceremonial purposes. We've gone to war in court and we won those battles, because that was never taken from Indian people, we never gave that way -- our right to hunt and fish on our lands.

Now, we're trying to educate a whole new generation of people on the complexities of this modern era. We're in a very dangerous and volatile position right now as tribes. So rather than getting on the tribal council and saying, 'I'm going to bring home the pork for my district and I'm going to fix a road, or I'm going to build houses, and do those types of things,' we also -- because we are not subject to the laws of the State of Minnesota, we have to watch the State of Minnesota and interact with them while at the same time they are attempting to erode our tribal sovereignty and access our lands and impose their laws over us. The national government, [we're] very astute -- we're professional, we have law firms in Albuquerque, D.C., lobbyists there that work, and we have tribal members who are constantly feeding us information on Supreme Court appointments, legislation that's passed through, and so we work closely with a lot of people who are a lot smarter than us to let us know what's going on, because all the tribes are joined by the hip.

And we're -- it's funny, I went up to the grocery store today, and I saw this little clock, and I said, 'What is that little clock for?' And it said 'George Bush Countdown.' And the seconds are going, you know, and it was counting backwards -- I'm going to get one of those before I leave and it put it on my desk when I get back to the office.

But a good example of us proactive with our sovereignty is the fisheries, interacting with the State of Minnesota, the federal government, and the fishermen on our reservation. And we said, "Well, we're not going to sit around and wait for something bad to happen to us. We're going to initiate this ourselves. We don't need to be told to save our walleye. We don't need to be told to try to put businesses together. We don't need to be told to educate ourselves on how to run business. We're going to do those things ourselves.' So, I think it's a good way to go. And I really like what the Harvard Project is doing. I've been going to the website for several years now. Before I was chairman, I was reading some of the stuff when I was taking classes. It's really good that someone out there is trying to make sense of all of this. It's pretty complex.

So another example was on March 21, 2005. Some of you may recall that we had a horrible tragedy on our reservation, where we had a school shooting there. Several people lost their lives. And being a community [where you hardly ever] see white people -- they come, they work at the hospitals, some of them are teachers. We're one hundred percent Indian people. So when you see an army of news trucks and people coming on to your reservation who want access and feel that they should have access, and they say, 'How dare you restrict us from your tribal lands?' Again, we didn't wait around. We called the best resources that we have and said, We have to have a protocol. How are we going to handle this monumental tragedy? What's our plan? How are we going to do that?' And when people came to the reservation, sure enough, it happened that way. They got there, they wanted to run around the reservation and see blood, guts, gore and all this stuff. And we said, 'Well, absolutely not. We have a media pool, We have a place where we're doing press conferences. We have a designated area for you there. We'll be more than happy to help you out and accommodate you in any way.' They said, 'No!' They despised the fact that Indian people had a structure, were educated, had laws, and they had to abide by them. They said, 'That's ridiculous! This is the United States of America. Who the hell do you think you are?' So [we said], 'We're the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, and you are on Indian land, and you follow our laws.'

So we do take the boats and the planes and those kinds of things, like Alan talked about, and even though there's laws out there and there's Congressional acts that say we can't do those type of things, we beg to differ. We test that. We've always been cutting edge. And if someone enters into our tribal lands and if they do not act accordingly, we do reserve the right to kick them the hell out. We've always done that. In fact, under the former Tribal Chairman Roger Jourdain, there was a passport system that was implemented through the Red Lake Band. He said, 'Well, if we can't exercise our laws on these people, then we're going to, ourselves, tailor a passport system and a protocol where they will have to report to the tribal government center, declare their intention here, let us know who they are, and they will have to have permission to go around our Indian lands. If they do not have this passport, there's the line, we'll help you across it.' So that's one of the things that we've used our sovereignty in a good way, and the State of Minnesota really has a lot of issues with that because, when we had this stuff going on -- I use the example, I think, of Canada. When you cross into Canada, near the Minnesota border there, you have to go to customs. They ask you, 'Do you have weapons? Do you have alcohol? Do you have anything to declare? Do you understand that if you come into Canada and you break any rules, that there will be consequences to pay?' And you say, 'Yes, understood, we'll abide by the laws of Canada.' Fine, they let you go. But if you raise heck up there, they're real tough on people with DUIs and that kind stuff. They won't even let the Indians in there, now we have to swim across on our own land. But you have a price to pay.

So I think, from the tribal leader perspective, when we come to D.C., we expect to be treated as such, because our forefathers respected each other that way. They saw each individual Indian nation like these leaders who are here today, these men out here today. I went out and I greeted these tribal leaders that are in the room, at least the ones that I knew. (I'm sorry, this is the first time I've met you, I've always wanted to meet you, and it's good to finally see you my brother.) So that's the respect, and that's the way we also think as Indian people. We are a government. We are a sovereign. We're not a municipality, we're not a corporation, we're not a township. We are Indian people, each and every one of us. And it has to be respected and used in a good way. Thank you very much."

Jaime Pinkham: Intergovernmental and Intertribal Relations: Walking the Sovereignty Walk

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Jaime Pinkham discusses why the building of productive intergovernmental and intertribal relationships is so important, and shows how they can advance the nation-building efforts of Native nations. He shares a number of in-depth case-study examples illustrating how Native nations have engaged in such relationships in order to overcome conflicts and achieve their goals. 

People
Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Pinkham, Jaime. "Intergovernmental and Intertribal Relations: Walking the Sovereignty Walk." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 21, 2012. Presentation. 

"So I get the opportunity to talk about 'Intergovernmental Relations: Walking the Sovereignty Walk.' And believe me, a lot of my comments will come from my personal experiences at Nez Perce. And it's good to see Joanna Merrick, one of our tribal leaders from Nez Perce, who was able to join us for this conference here. Because if you think about the political landscape of a place like Idaho, it's probably a lot like what the people at Yankton Sioux experience in South Dakota -- a very conservative community, a very conservative government, which trickles down into how the local governments kind of operate and feel and look at Indian policy. So it really was out of necessity that we found ourselves working on these intergovernmental agreements.

I think those of you from the Pacific Northwest probably know of a guy by the name of Billy Frank, Jr. from the Nisqually Tribe. And one of the quotes that I always steal from Billy, one of my favorite quotes, is when he said, 'We need to be peacemakers when we can and warriors when we must.' Those of you who ran for tribal council, I bet you've heard the standard campaign is, 'I will fight for sovereignty, I will fight for treaty rights.' It doesn't always have to be a fight, does it? Well, I've never heard anybody who said, 'I am going to fight against sovereignty and treaty rights,' much less somebody who got elected on that platform. So we ask ourselves, in this nation-building tool kit -- all these things that we've been sharing with [you] -- how does intergovernmental relations become a part of the tool kit?

So let's look at what's been going on over the past three decades, since the 1980s. We've seen this thickening of relationships between tribes and with states. And some of this is driven by the fact that we see governors being elected and taking actions to formalize new relations with tribes within their states. Some of it will come as an executive order by the governor. Just in 2010, the Governor of South Dakota, newly elected Governor [Dennis] Daugaard, had created a secretarial position -- Secretary of Indian Affairs -- and he selected someone from the Cheyenne River Sioux, an attorney by the name of J.R. LaPlante, to head up this first department within the State of South Dakota. And what's interesting, before this the tribal relations in South Dakota was under the tourism department in the state. So it shows a major shift in thinking. And we also see state legislatures responding, too. For example, in Idaho, the State Legislature had passed legislation that created an Indian Affairs Commission. And on this commission you have a representative from the House, from the Senate, from the Governor's office as well as a representative from each of the five tribes in Idaho. The expectation is that maybe there's another avenue to resolving these conflicts and trying to head off issues before it gets into the legislature because believe me, you don't always want state legislatures working on Indian policy.

There are other areas, too, that we see. If you looked at the National Conference of State Legislatures -- it's a coalition of the 50 state legislatures in the U.S. -- and on their website, if you look under the Indian Country headings, 42 of the 50 states now have some kind of a formal relationship that they're developing with tribes, whether it's through the actions of the governor or the legislature. So we see this emergence. But the other thing we see too, which I find extremely fascinating, is the number of Native Americans running and getting elected to state legislatures. Now you see this in South Dakota, certainly up in Alaska, Montana, we're seeing it in Idaho and Washington. One of my favorite stories is Richard Marcellais, Chairman of Turtle Mountain Chippewa. Not only was he chairman of the tribe, but he was also the state senator from North Dakota from that particular district. And back in 2010, when the chairman was running for re-election, he gave me one of his campaign cards. And you look at it and here he is with this war bonnet on and this picture that says, 'Integrity, Honesty, Hard-working. Re-elect Richard Marcellais, Chairman, Turtle Mountain Chippewa.' Turn the card over. Here he is in his business suit, 'Honesty, Integrity, Hard-working. Re-elect Richard Marcellais, State Senator.' I thought it was fascinating. How many citizens have this ability to exercise leadership in multiple layers of government? And tribes have that opportunity, and we see many tribal people exercising it.

Well, we also see the growth in intergovernmental relationships between tribes and states. For example, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act requires that we negotiate compacts with states, which in turn are intergovernmental relations. And many times we see these compacts also leading to other relationships and agreements with local governments over gaming and its impact on land use and public safety and revenue sharing and other areas as well. So we see this emergence going on. And the growth in intertribal partnerships have long been occurring. I was talking with Jefferson earlier, another Columbia River Treaty tribe at Warm Springs. We've had this ancient relationship where we're connected by river and our relationship to salmon, which that grew into a connection by blood. And so that strategic alliances with tribes that have lasted over maybe the axis of a common resource, a common language or maybe we had common enemies. So we always had these nation-to-nation relationships between tribes and that's nothing new for us.

The growing interest by governments in strengthening agreements, avoiding the pitfalls, and simplifying processes. Gosh, believe me, they just don't print enough money to solve all our problems these days. So what are some other avenues that we can have to provide the services that our tribal citizens need, whether it's through health care or law enforcement, jurisdictional issues? And I'll share some examples of where this is coming true. And the drivers for this growth are many.

We see this devolution of power. The federal government -- the granddaddy of governments, so to speak -- wanted to transfer more responsibilities and authorities down to other governments whether it's tribes, the states. And many times they transfer those responsibilities, but they don't transfer the resources to implement them. But we see this devolution going on. In some respects the Indian Self Determination Act, which provided the tribes with the opportunity to manage those BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] responsibilities, we see cases where tribes and even the states are asking for a greater say or the ability to manage natural resources like federal lands or the bison range in Montana when it comes to the Flathead Tribe [Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes], or Nez Perce who wanted to take on wolf recovery from the federal government for the entire state of Idaho. So you see these responsibilities being shifted from the national level on down to the tribal level and state level. And you even see states going through this too, transferring certain authorities down to counties and cities. Also the increased assertion of sovereignty by Native nations; the more that we get out there and exercise our sovereignty wisely, we see this expansion, especially where you have life-sustaining resources like water and fish and wildlife that don't know political boundaries. And so our sovereignty will be extending outside of our reservation boundaries to provide for law enforcement, management and care of natural resources. So we see ourselves expanding outside of our boundaries.

In some cases, it's the challenges themselves that drive the need for these intergovernmental relationships. In Nez Perce, we're a checkerboard reservation. You've got three counties, multiple cities. You've got these jurisdictional intersections and as cars are passing by, whose authority takes precedence? What parcel of land are you standing on at a particular time? And are you Indian, non-Indian, or are you a member of another tribe? And so you have all these complexities of this jurisdictional web of issues that you try to sort out. We also see it in social services, welfare reform, where Congress had kind of created this inequity granting more authorities to the states than they did to the tribes. So in some cases, we're forced to work with states on social service programs. And of course the limited capacities; and it's not just limited capacities of money, it's also what kind of talent and resources, whether it's technical resources or intellectual resources or information that we need to solve our problems. But as well as work with our neighbors as they face the same kind of concerns and challenges and opportunities that we do. And always there's the potential value added by cooperation. Thinking about Billy Frank's comment about are you going to be a peacemaker or a warrior, you need the wisdom and the strength to do the due diligence to decide which is going to work in your community. Sometimes it is the litigation -- you have no choice but to litigate your concerns.

One example I'd like to use that I know Joanna is familiar with, a very difficult decision at Nez Perce and it involved the adjudication of water rights in the Snake River Basin. In the tribe, we didn't want into the fight, but we had to get into the fight when the state had filed water claims against the federal government. Well, we weren't going to stand by and let the feds represent our interests. Even during the negotiation, hell, it was hard to tell what side the feds were on. Were they with us or against us? And so we knew that the only chance for us to make sure that we came out protecting our interest was to engage in the litigation. But the tribe took two tracks. They were parallel tracks that were simultaneous. One involved the litigation and one involved a mediated negotiated solution. On the litigation side, the primary basis for our claims was around in-stream flows. We're salmon people; we love our sushi. And so being [that] the Clearwater and the Salmon and the Snake rivers coming through our country, the salmon are important to our society. And so we wanted to insure the in-stream flows for the adults to return and for the young smolts to go back out to the ocean. But it was also the in-stream flows for our consumptive uses, for domestic-industrial uses. Also the litigation was over the use of springs. We used to herd our cattle all around that region. And in our treaty, we retained the right to access private property to water our cattle and horses. So that's where litigation was taking us.

Same thing, though, on a negotiation was about the in-stream flows. But when we got to negotiation we found out there were other things that we could put onto the table. We were allotted and all the surplus land that was not either reserved for tribal allotments or for the tribe in common and not homesteaded was given to the Bureau of Land Management. We had federal BLM lands within an Indian reservation and dammit, we wanted those lands back. So we put those on a negotiating table. The next thing we said, 'There are two federal fish hatcheries on this reservation. Why are the feds running them and why aren't we running them?' We said, 'We want those fish hatcheries,' under negotiations. Well, the feds said, 'Well, we'll give you this one. This other one has this huge research facility, it's state of the art and we don't want to give it up.' So we negotiated and we said, 'Okay, let us co-manage it with you.' So we started talking about even more than that. And we started talking about funding --funding for watershed restoration, funding for the infrastructure to have clean water and clean sewer, to build a community infrastructure. So we had a funding package on there. Then it came up to a vote and I tell you there was not a wrong answer. Do you vote for litigation? Do you vote for negotiation? They were both right answers. And I think there's something liberating about you can pick either one and either one is going to work. But after a hard decision -- I was no longer on council so that rested with Joanna and others -- they voted with the negotiations. And it was actually one of the largest-funded water rights settlements in this country. So it shows that sometimes litigation and cooperation -- tough choices -- but cooperation does allow you to put more opportunities on the table.

When I was on council and we'd be talking about these intergovernmental agreements, we had concerns about going forward with them. And one is we have this long history of conflicts with these governments. So why would we want to sit down and be their partner all of a sudden? And wasn't it just the feds who have this government-to-government relationship with us? Why do we want to recognize these more junior governments like cities and counties? And we also thought, 'Yeah, they're the minor leagues. We're a tribal government. We're in the big leagues. We don't want to deal with these little junior varsity governments.' And also the feeling that we are tribal sovereigns. We always think there are three true sovereigns, and that's the tribes, the federal government, and the states. And why would we want to deal with these other governments? By dealing with these non-sovereign sort of governments, doesn't that erode our sovereignty? So there was a concern about that. And the other one is heck, sometimes we're so darn good we just beat them in court anyway any time there's a conflict. But we figure, we admit that these intergovernmental relationships -- we're talking about how government is a tool for the nation -- well, this is one of the tools in the toolkit here, is these nation-building tools of how tribal governments can interact with other governments because we can influence policy outcomes on a broader scale. When you interact with state on policy issue, your authority, your voices get expanded and may impact how things go on outside your community. And it enhances economic opportunities. And I'll share an example of how this worked at Nez Perce, where because of the existence of the tribe and our work with the local city, we were able to expand the economic infrastructure to support both the city and the tribe. And also the delivery of quality services to our tribal members, especially on reservations where you're very rural and we had limited resources to provide for our tribal members, but also the counties and the cities have the same limitations. So are there opportunities that we can cobble everything together to create a single functioning program? And again, I'll share more examples of that.

This federal devolution thing -- it's not going to go away. I think it will continue to expand and we need to be prepared for it. Utilization of scarce resources, the mutual concerns -- as I covered before -- but also I think what's important here is when we talk about the concerns -- that I showed on an earlier page -- really these intergovernmental relationships are an exercise of sovereignty. We say to ourselves, when we get into these agreements, that we have the sovereign ability to negotiate the terms of an agreement, to pick and choose who we want to partner with, to characterize what is the nature of that relationships. So really these intergovernmental agreements are just an expression of our sovereignty. And so the contributions are many -- and again so that I stay on time and we play a little bit of catch up here, let me cover these in the examples that I'm going to show here in a bit.

So let me share just some common areas for these intergovernmental agreements. One of my favorites is a Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. They sit on the far east side of the state right along the boundary of the State of Minnesota. So you've got the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, a small reservation and it overlaps the boundaries of the city, the City of Flandreau. And so again you have this jurisdictional intersection. Whose laws take precedent? Who's involved in a particular action or crime? Is it civil, is it criminal, on and on and on? Well, they were struggling with this about this overlapping mixed jurisdiction and they finally decided back in 2000 and said, 'What if we just create a single police department?' And so in 2000 they created a joint police department. And actually, it's led by the tribe, so you have uniformed police officers that provide law enforcement, tribal law enforcement, that also provide law enforcement over the city. And how they managed that, the cooperation of that is they have a joint public safety commission that provides oversight, helps with the creating of laws, and it respects the rights of the tribe as well as the interests of the city in this agreement.

Others are justice systems, and we've been talking a lot about [Chairman John] 'Rocky' Barrett at Citizen Band Potawatomi. We have a lot of Rocky stories, too. And Rocky was saying, there was a city that came to him and said, 'We don't have the resources for law enforcement on our reservation. Can we contract with the tribal police to provide public safety on the reservation?' And Rocky said, 'Yeah, fine, we can do that.' But he said then they came back later and they said, 'You know what, we like how you resolve your disputes in your court system. Can we use your court system to adjudicate our conflicts?' And Rocky said, 'That was unheard of.' A non-Indian government saying, 'we like how your courts operate, can we use your courts to resolve conflict?' And it just shows the sophistication of the infrastructure that Citizen Band Potawatomi was developing. When I was talking to Rocky a couple years ago, he said that agreement is no longer in place. He said after a city council election, the new city council voted to disband that relationship. So we say, 'Well, the city didn't have the staying power to stay in it.' But there's another example that's been emerging.

Leech Lake Band of Chippewa in Northern Minnesota -- another checkerboard reservation -- and you've got the issues that the tribe and the non-Indian community share is the same that many societies share; and it's the substance abuse, and the crime that is associated with substance abuse. And so you've got the state, the tribe and the counties with these overlapping jurisdictions. And they decided to get together to create a joint wellness court; it was the tribe and two local counties -- Cass County and Itasca County -- that formed this wellness court. And while it focuses on the crimes itself, it also focuses on how do you drive down the repeat offenders. And so it has this intensive monitoring program that if you're convicted then you have to frequently appear before the court and they monitor you on your progress. 'Are you keeping up with your treatments? Are you doing your community service?' And on and on and on. But what's interesting is that it doesn't matter which court you go to. The joint powers agreement says, 'Well, you go to the court...' If I'm a tribal member, I can go to Cass County court and through teleconferencing I'm kind of beamed into the tribal court. And so what's interesting is that you've got these three courts with the same laws respecting their authorities, but it doesn't matter whether you're Indian or non, you can go and get the same kind of treatment and oversight in whichever courtroom you go into. And the counties actually, the counties and the courthouses, fly the Leech Lake Tribal flag in their courtroom. How many county courthouses fly tribal flags? One of the attorneys, one of the judges actually said, he said, 'There was a time when I thought tribal courts were inferior to our courts.' And he said, 'Through this joint powers agreement I recognize it is not so.' He says, 'I now fully understand the strength of tribal sovereignty.' And he says, 'That Leech Lake flag that flies in my courtroom reminds me of that every day.' There are even cases where the tribal judge, Korey Wahwassuck, takes the bench right next to one of these county judges, too. I think it's just a phenomenal agreement.

Land use examples. Swinomish, I think, is a great example; you've got another checkerboard reservation. And so you've got the county and the cities that overlap with Swinomish and each had their own land use laws. And so when maybe a county would permit something and put conditions on this permit process, you would have impacts across the boundaries on the tribal resources, impact to the water and the land. And so they decided to get together and create a comprehensive land use plan, which now they do. And that land use plan, while maybe it started with the county land use plan, it began to grow into other plans and other arrangements. Actually, as I understand, Swinomish was the first tribe in the nation to have a joint agreement on land use planning with other governments within a reservation.

Natural resource examples; there's an abundance of those. Chippewa Flowage Agreement; Lac Courte Oreilles in Wisconsin has a relationship with the state and the U.S. Forest Service -- the feds -- on the operation of a reservoir that inundated one of their villages. And so this cooperative relationship between three parties helps to address the management concerns in managing the water levels within that storage facility.

Social services: you see the Houlton Band [of Maliseet Indians] that has this child protective team that works with the state to try to assert more authority of protecting Maliseet children in their placement and their care and establishing foster homes. The other one I want to share is Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians; we've been talking about [former chairman] Frank Ettawageshik. They have within their constitution a clause that specifically talks about intergovernmental relationships. They said, 'We recognize we have inherent powers and that as citizens and nations we have these inherent rights.' And in the constitution it says they recognize that there are other peoples and governments and nations within the world that also have these inherent rights. And it says, 'We will recognize their sovereignty as long as they recognize and respect ours.' It's a quid pro quo on a government-to-government relationship and I think very unique to see that actually embedded in a tribal constitution in that way.

Let me share a couple of case studies from home, one about this bitter fight that we had when I was on tribal council with this alliance, and another one is this project that we did with the City of Lewiston on expanding our infrastructure. Nez Perce is a checkerboard reservation. If you look at a highway map, it would be within the State of Idaho and it covers about three quarters of a million acres, but through our treaty we have actually a large land base that extends across three states and covers roughly 13 million acres of land. We were homesteaded. Similar case of what happened at Yankton Sioux; we were allotted and then homesteaded and that has created a bunch of conflict. Well, this alliance had formed because, as we were out there exercising our sovereign powers -- whether it be through tribal employment rights offices, we were aggressively purchasing land -- and thank god the tribe is still aggressive in buying land today. We're buying land on and off the reservations and county governments were upset because of the fear that it was going to erode the tax base and we were going to become larger land barons. We had implemented a utility tax on the reservation saying any private utility running through the reservation whether it's a railroad or a cell tower or utility line had to pay a utility tax. Law enforcement. Even the state lottery became the issue because we told the State of Idaho, 'If we had to negotiate a compact with you to have gaming on our reservation, then doesn't it serve that you have to get a compact with us to have those lottery machines on the reservation?' So we forced the state...well, we had to litigate it first and we won in litigation and it required the state to negotiate a compact with us on the state lottery; but it was a source of conflict, these ongoing questions of sovereign immunity.

Those of you who can remember back; there was a senator from the State of Washington, Slade Gorton, who was really tough on tribes with sovereignty. Well, Slade was in his heyday back then. And so 23 governments -- cities, counties, highway districts, school districts, even the same school districts our kids were going to -- had created this alliance to challenge the jurisdiction of the Nez Perce Tribe. And the premise of that conflict was the same thing that happened at Yankton Sioux. As a matter of fact, the tribal attorney that was fighting or the attorney that was fighting Yankton from South Dakota was also helping to fight tribes at Mille Lacs, the Omaha and Winnebagos in Nebraska, and he moved out west to help fight the Nez Perce on our jurisdictional issue. So this guy was really making a name for himself, kind of inciting this racial conflict over sovereignty.

And so the alliance took the position that since we were homesteaded that our reservation was diminished. Quite basically saying is that our outer boundary was erased and our only jurisdiction was over the lands that we held, that we owned. And we said, 'No, the political boundary is intact,' and there was an issue of diminishment. And they were actually using the Yankton Sioux case to cite that. And so we had these series of conflicts and charges and countercharges that were going on. And things got so bad the prosecuting attorney from Lewis County was speeding through the reservation, coming down the grade and down at the bottom was one of our tribal police officers. And he was speeding on by and so our tribal officer pulled behind him and pulled him over. And when the tribal police officer got up there, this county prosecutor said, 'I don't recognize your authority,' and he drove off. And our cop, our tribal cop, played it really smart. He didn't get into this wild chase, he just pulled in behind him with his lights flashing and followed him off the reservation boundary to where this guy turned him into, he turned himself into the state patrol. We tried to get the guy disbarred, but the best that we got out of it was tremendous media coverage about how reckless this is becoming. We had the city administrator for one of the communities on the reservation write a letter, an internal memo, which happened to leak and it talked about bloodshed was inevitable. Phil Batt -- grand gentleman, the governor from Idaho -- flies up and tries to convene a meeting between us and with these 23 entities around the table and, as hard as he tried, we were not going to come to a resolution and the tensions continued to grow.

But then something wonderful happened. And I hear Joe Kalt's going to be here later on this afternoon, and Joe Kalt is one of my heroes. And Joe had a friend from Idaho, a guy by the name of Keith Allred, who worked at the Harvard Institute and he said, 'This is what is going on in Idaho.' And so folks at the Harvard JFK [John F. Kennedy] School of Government offered to come up and help mediate a solution. How can we get off of this litigation merry-go-round and ease these confrontations, which were growing and building day after day? And so through Joe and Keith, they provided this neutral facilitation and created the starting point that we would accept each other's existence and honor and recognize them. And we needed to learn about one another. The more you fear, the less that you're willing to collaborate on. And we discovered that we cared about many things. And what we ended up doing was framing this MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] where we promised to work together. We knew that the jurisdictional issues would always be there but we said, 'There's areas of interest that we have in common. We need to focus on that. We'll commit ourselves to respect our governments and we'll agree to try to minimize these conflicts.' And so we went forward and we created an MOU that had this language in it. It says, 'nothing in this MOU shall limit or waive the regulatory authority or jurisdiction of the governments.' The alliance signed off on that. The very thing that they feared they were willing to recognize the tribe's jurisdiction and our sovereignty. So there's still tension between them, but boy, that was a major milestone to get that agreement in place and try to bring some peace back to our existence.

Quickly here, let me wrap up with another project: the City of Lewiston, Idaho. The reservation boundary is over here in green. The City of Lewiston, the largest community next to the reservation, well, our casino is right there where that little red arrow is. We bought a sliver of land and we thought that was the ideal place. And it first started out with a little metal shed where we sold cigarettes and expanded to a little convenience store. And we said, 'It's time to put a gaming facility there,' but we didn't own a lot of land. And by putting up a gaming facility, we knew that we're going to need the infrastructure of water and sewer but that was going to eat up valuable land that we'd rather develop. So our executive director, being quite savvy, he pulled out the comprehensive plan for the City of Lewiston and he looked at their urban growth boundary. And you know what, the city was kind of encroaching and growing towards the reservation boundary. And we recognized that eventually the city is going to have to expand their infrastructure and services, so why don't we get together and hit them up with a proposal? So that's what we did. So we committed to work together. And this is when the alliance issues was going on and so we played this quite well in the media, I thought, too. We told the city, 'How about we go out and get an EDA [U.S. Economic Development Administration] grant? And what we're going to do is we'll build the sewer line connecting to your sewer and water facility where it ends right now and let us extend it on to the reservation boundary and connect it to where we want to do our casino expansion at.' And we said, 'We'll build it to your specifications.' And they said, 'Yeah. Eventually we're going to want to build that and you're going to pay for it? Well, that's great. Let's do it.' And so we did. We got the EDA grant, extended the water and sewer out to our casino. And then, you know what? The tribe -- we're not water and sewer managers -- but you know what? The city's pretty darn good at it. So we told the city, 'Let us transfer the ownership of the facility to you at the reservation boundary. That way you can take over all...you've got the infrastructure in place already to manage those kinds of things.' So we did that, and so right now we pay the city a fee to maintain this. We didn't have to use up valuable tribal land to do that, and right now I'm happy to say the tribe just did groundbreaking again for further expansion. So here's a chance where we saw this intergovernmental opportunity with another tribe that helped us expand our economic infrastructure. But believe me, the good will that that created, the fact that we're fighting these 23 alliances and we said, 'See what happens when you want to play fair and you want to respect us as a sovereign?' Our sovereign ability allowed us to do that and the City of Lewiston was one of the beneficiaries of that.

Well, I've got to wrap this up, but some of the observations are that this isn't easy work. There's a long history of conflict that we need to overcome. We had to exercise kind of that sovereign attitude; do the due diligence. Where are those opportunities where we can have these intergovernmental relationships through cooperation and negotiation? And then where are those times that we've got to be -- like Billy [Frank] says -- it's time to be the warrior and draw the line? Both are hard choices, both are difficult paths to take, but the difference is in the outcome. And I've got to wrap up now and give a couple of minutes for questions and answers, but thank you for your attention."

Frank Ettawageshik: Reforming the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Constitution: What We Did and Why

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Frank Ettawageshik, Former Chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBBO), discusses how LTBBO came to develop a new constitution and system of government, the key components of the LTBBO constitution, and how the new LTBBO constitution differs in fundamental ways from the old one.

Resource Type
Citation

Ettawageshik, Frank. "Reforming the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Constitution: What We Did and Why." Tribal Constitutions seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. May 1, 2012. Presentation.

"I'm Frank Ettawageshik, and I am from the tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan. Our tribe, the Waganakising Odawak, we're the Ottawa at the Crooked Tree Place, and we have many relatives, Odawa relatives, that are all the way from Canada clear to Oklahoma. Our experience -- and I'll get right into the slides -- we were not on the list of federally recognized tribes for many years, and we always maintained that we were not an unrecognized tribe but that we were, that in our case we were -- the government had just made a mistake as far as it went, because we knew that we were inherently sovereign and that we had always acted as a government and for some reason we weren't on their list. And so while our sovereignty as inherent sovereignty was something that we certainly could work with, it made it a lot easier to assert that sovereignty, to exercise it, if it was recognized by the United States. And so we went through a 120-year legal process that culminated in 1994 with the signing of Public Law 103-324, which reaffirmed our federal status. It did not grant us recognition and it did not restore recognition, but it reaffirmed that we'd always had it. And at the time that we did this we had a constitution that had been put together, but it was largely based on the Indian Reorganization Act model...So we decided that we needed to do some changes -- and I don't want to get ahead of myself in the presentation -- but the reform in our constitution was initiated with the signing in the fall of 1994 of that reaffirmation act by President Clinton. It was a long process, and our constitution -- which as Steve [Cornell] pointed out, I do carry in my pocket all the time, and it's a handy reference. As a chairman, I carried not only our constitution but I also carried the United States Constitution. And this was approved in a secretarial election on February 1st, 2005, and this constitution went into effect on September 11th of 2005, when all of the officers that had been under the new constitution, that they'd all been elected, so that we didn't have a new constitution that called for one form of officers and have old officers trying to govern under it. So it didn't go into effect until all the new officers were sworn in.

We have a picture of course of the constitution and also the U.S. and our constitution. When I'd go to Washington on many of the trips, the congressmen would hand me one of the U.S. constitutions, and I decided that it was important that I be able to reciprocate. So we had ours printed in the same size, same general colors and the whole thing put together so that when we went in we could -- not only were we being told that the U.S. has a constitution but we were showing how we had chosen to govern ourselves, and that we were a constitutional government. This size is also real handy because it works well for all of the tribal citizens to have as a reference.

Why did we want to change? What were the things that we felt [in] the previous constitution was inadequate? The first thing was is that all the authority began within the constitution instead of originating from the tribal citizens. We felt that as an inherent sovereign that the people, our citizens, were the ones that maintained that authority, but our constitution didn't reflect that. And all of the power was within a seven-member tribal council. The chairman and all the council members were on that, and there were no checks and balances. If you didn't like what the council and wanted to go to complain to somebody, you went back to the council. Well, that doesn't really give much [of a] way for people to get redress of their issues. And then if you wanted to go to court, well, we had a tribal court, but it was created because the council passed a statute that created the court. So although we never did this, some tribes have done this, and that is they would-- if the council disagreed with what the court had to say on a particular case -- they'd abolish he court, create a new one, try again. And I know of at least one instance where this happened at least three times until the council got a ruling that they liked. Well, this really doesn't give much faith in the government for people's ability to deal with the questions that they have. And the other one that we had in here was the constitution that we had looked primarily to domestic issues, to internal issues. It didn't really focus a lot on the external activities or external look of the tribe.

So what are the changes? What are the changes that we did that were the most important changes? Of course we did a lot. There was a fundamental difference in the constitutions. But the first change that we made is that we put guarantees protecting traditional cultural practices, language and tribal heritage in the development of laws and the operation of the government. As Steve pointed out, that was one of the things that we felt was really important that we needed to have. The next one is that we have a separation of powers allowing checks and balances to protect the tribal citizens' access to their governmental processes. We also wanted to make sure we had an independent court, one that was, that couldn't be influenced too strongly by the other branches of government. And the last one is we put provisions in for a foreign policy dealing with foreign policy issues as well as domestic issues.

So what do these changes look like? Well, the first one guarantees protecting traditional cultural practices, language and tribal heritage. We had in the preamble to the constitution, right at the very top, it says, ‘In the ways of our ancestors, to perpetuate our way of life for future generations, we the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, called in our own language the Waganakising Odawak, a sovereign self-governing people who follow the Anishinaabe traditions, heritage and cultural values, set forth within this constitution the foundation of our governance.' This is just the beginning of the preamble but it says we assert that we have these rights and responsibilities and -- as was pointed out as Steve talked about -- the directive principles. We wanted to make sure that there is -- we wanted to be sure that there's a lens through which the government would have to look at its actions because when we did this we were delegating to the government certain authority. The people maintained the authority, but they would give some of it to the government and they could take it away or they could add to it. But in doing so, what we wanted is whenever the government exercised the authorities that we were giving to it, we wanted them to look through this lens, to look through this way of thinking about things, and that is number one, promote the preservation and revitalization of Anishinaabemowin, which is our language, and Anishinaabe culture, so that we wouldn't, we didn't want the government to be drifting too far away, and we wanted to give it parameters, and -- as Steve mentioned -- be adhering to a higher law, that it wasn't just this document, it wasn't just the powers of the council, but there was a higher law that we all had to adhere to. It goes on to talk about, ‘promote with special care the health, educational and economic interests of all the people, especially our children and elders,' and ‘shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.' We built into the teachings, our seven grandfather teachings -- we built those concepts into these directives that would then be, they would go to the government. There's more of this and if you're interested, at the end of this presentation there's a link that I put in here for finding a copy of the constitution if you'd like to read the various parts that I'm speaking of.

So the next part here is continuing, what do the changes look like? Well, we have the separation of powers and in this case separation of powers allowing checks and balances to protect the tribal citizens' access to their government processes, including an independent court. We wanted to figure how this was going to work, and so the separation of powers is something that keeps any one part of the government from acquiring and building too much authority and getting too much power, so that there are ways for -- all of this slows the government process down, but it also gives access to that process cause it doesn't happen in the blink of an eye. It takes a while for it to happen, and in so doing it gives people time to be thinking about it. And so in this case, through the delegation of authority, our tribal membership authorized the tribal council to be the legislative body with duties of lawmaking and appropriation of funds. The executive branch [is] to administer the funds and force the constitution and implement the policies and procedures that are approved by the council. And the judicial branch [is] to interpret the constitution and apply the laws that the tribe had made. And so we wanted to have this, this is a way that we dealt with that idea of giving more access to our tribal citizens and having a more open process and also to keep, put a check on runaway governments where you have too much authority within a single person.

So we then go to more things about what are the changes that we implemented look like, and in this case, provisions made for foreign policy. Well, too often we think just, we just give a slight nod to this idea of foreign policy, but foreign policy, it isn't just dealing with say France or dealing with Japan or dealing with the Indigenous people of Australia, but foreign policy is dealing with the other tribe that's just down the road. Foreign policy is dealing -- it's an international policy, which means that it's dealing with all of the other nations that we deal with. We knew that this was -- we wanted to make this quite a broad statement so this is, ‘We, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, speak through this document to assert that we are a distinct Nation of Anishinaabeg of North America that possess the right to self determination, freely determine our political status, freely pursue our economic, social, religious and cultural development and determine our membership without external interference. These same rights and principles of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians acknowledge to be inherent among other peoples, nations and governments throughout the world. We recognize their sovereignty and pledge to maintain relations with those peoples, nations and governments who acknowledge those same fundamental rights and principles and who recognize the sovereignty of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.' This essentially is the authorization for what amounts to what the activities of a state department [are] for instance, but one of the things that we've talked about often has been the idea that too often we rely on, and we've come to do this as tribes, we rely on the United States government to decide who's going to be in the club. In other words, there's federal recognition and we'll join organizations [where] every member of that organization has to be a member of a federally recognized tribe. And so what we do is we allow the federal government to choose who's going to be in the club, and then after that, that's who we talk to. And if there's another tribe out there that we may know quite well but is not yet federally recognized or hasn't chosen to do that, we somehow think of them as a lesser entity, and yet what we're doing is we're giving up the sovereign right to decide with whom we will have diplomatic relations. And it's not just a right, it's a responsibility for us to decide who we feel comfortable with, who actually acknowledges our sovereignty as well as us acknowledging theirs. And that's a responsibility of a nation. And through this particular point we were able to move into some areas, one of which is this. You're not going to be able to read this. It's really fine print. But it's the United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty. Our tribe was one of the ones that helped negotiate this treaty, and last fall [2011] the 90th nation signed this treaty. These nations are from the areas of the world today called Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States so far. Forty of those 90 are in New Zealand. They're Māori. And this is one example of that international or foreign policy relations.

Other examples are a treaty that, it's the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Mutual Aid. It was done in 1947, and it was done by the members of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). It [NCAI] was only a few years old at that time. And this treaty acknowledged each others' sovereignty, acknowledged each other, and agreed to set aside differences and to work together for common goals. And this is another example of the kind of treaty that's out there when people are thinking, looking outside in the foreign policy, not just a domestic policy dealing with internal issues.

So what we found as we were going through in understanding is that the adoption of a new constitution is only the beginning. The constitution is a living document that reflects the historic strengths and the evolving culture of the citizens who adopt it and use it to govern themselves. So [as] an example, we adopted our constitution on February 1st, 2005. It was implemented in September of that year. We've had a number of elections. We've had a recall. We had a chairman who was unpopular for a number of reasons, and under our old constitution we only had removal and removal had to be for cause and the person had to break a law in order to be removed. Under the new constitution we put in recall, which means that if the population decides that they choose to recall that person, they can for whatever reason. Well, we've gone through a recall, and not only that but we've had a smooth transition of power to the vice chair when the chair was removed. What this ended up doing is showing that the constitution provided tools for our community to peacefully settle issues of leadership and dispute without the blink of an eye in terms of the delivery of services to the community and in terms of the long-term work that we were doing for our future generations. And so when you work on changes like this, you need to realize that having the document is just, it's a tool, it's a living tool, and it's something that we need to, you need to think through. And some people say, ‘Oh, boy, we got the constitution, now we're all done.' Well, that isn't it at all, and I know that from lots of experience that that...but it gives you the right tools if you think it through, and if the community has really been working on it and is behind those changes that would do it. So we have contact information. I didn't get my PowerPoint [presentation] in time in to be put in the booklets but...I'm certain that it can be distributed if people would choose to get a copy. Also the copy of the Little Traverse Constitution can be found at the tribal website and in what we call the Odawa Register, which contains all of the laws, the constitution, the regulations and posting of proposed laws so that we do all that posting on the web, we require that it be done for so many days, I think it's 27 days before it can be acted on by the council, so that there's time for people to make comments on proposed legislation. And with that, I thank you and that'll be it for right now. Thanks.

Native Nation Building TV: "Intergovernmental and Intertribal Relations"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Jaime Pinkham and Sarah Hicks focus on Native nations’ efforts to enhance their relationships with other governments as a way to advance their nation-building objectives. It details how some Native nations are forging mutually beneficial intergovernmental agreements, and chronicles the many advantages to forging similar intertribal arrangements.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Intergovernmental and Intertribal Relations" (Episode 8). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program. 

Mark St. Pierre: "Hello, friends. I'm your host, Mark St. Pierre and welcome to Native Nation Building. Contemporary Native Nations face many challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies that fit their culture and circumstances, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity in change. Native Nation Building explores these often complex challenges in the ways Native Nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

0
0
1
4569
26045
The University of Arizona
217
61
30553
14.0

0
0
1
4569
26045
The University of Arizona
217
61
30553
14.0

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
JA
X-NONE

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
JA
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

[music]

Mark St. Pierre: "Today's show explores the importance of intertribal and intergovernmental relationships and the innovative approaches that many Native Nations are taking as they forge ahead with Nation building goals. With us today to examine these relationships are Jaime Pinkham and Sarah Hicks. Sarah Hicks, a citizen of the Native village of Ouzinkie in Alaska, is a doctoral candidate at Washington University. She also directs the National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center where she works on a joint project with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Jaime Pinkham, a citizen of the Nez Perce Tribe, is Watershed Program Manager with the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission and Intertribal Fisheries Organization. Welcome to both of you and thanks for being with us." 

Jaime Pinkham: "Thank you."

Sarah Hicks: "Thanks."

Mark St. Pierre: "Jaime, when we talk about intergovernmental and intertribal relationships among Native Nations, what are we really talking about?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, Mark, I feel we're talking about creating a platform that respects the individual autonomy of the tribes or the governmental agencies that sit at the table and it's a relationship that's built upon trust and mutual respect and provides our ability to provide collective talent and wisdom and resources to overcome conflicts or to move forward on areas of mutual concern."

Mark St. Pierre: "Would you like to respond to that?"

Sarah Hicks: "Yeah, I think we're really talking about deliberate relationships between sovereign governments who are coming to the table as equals. We're looking at relationships that are across various issue areas, we're looking at relationships that are between different levels of government, different kinds of governments and even different branches of government."

Mark St. Pierre: "Sarah, what role do these relationships play in building a Native nation?"

Sarah Hicks: "Well, these kinds of relationships really provide a way for tribal governments to extend their influence beyond their boundaries. It's really a way for tribal governments to leverage their influence, to bring their voice to the table with other governments to influence the policy making that's going on outside of their boundaries."

Mark St. Pierre: "Just as a follow up, is there a concern that tribes who work with, say, state or county agencies are surrendering some sovereignty, or how does that work out?"

Sarah Hicks: "Historically, because of the government-to-government relationship between the federal government and tribal governments, that there's been a great deal of attention to this very critical important relationship. But on the other hand, as we've seen devolution, or the federal government passing resources and authority to lower levels of government, to state government, to county government, in some cases to tribal government, that I think tribes are becoming less concerned about what they're giving up, and I think they see many more opportunities to cooperate on issues of mutual concern. So they're really looking to their neighboring governments as potential partners to accomplish some of these really important jobs that local governments perform."

Mark St. Pierre: "Jaime, you seem like you want to jump in there."

Jaime Pinkham: "I don't see it as an erosion of sovereignty when we reach to other governments, and I think we're seeing more and more -- because of the capacity that tribes are building -- is we see these other governments reaching out to us. We've built the institutional capacity on resource programs, education and health care, and the other thing is that the tribes have unique access to federal resources, for example highway trust funds, which we can help rebuild or maintain infrastructures, especially in rural communities, that county governments and local municipalities depend upon, too. So I see them reaching out to us as well."

Mark St. Pierre: "You've both seen a shift in how Native nations view these relationships and their potential benefits. Historically, what began that shift in emphasis?"

Sarah Hicks: "Well, I think much of it was devolution as I was just mentioning earlier. Really in the late 1980s, we started to see more and more federal programs, environmental programs, some human service programs, community development programs that are being moved to more local levels of government, and over time the pace of devolution has increased. So throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, we've seen more and more resources really being directed at more local levels of government, and this just increases the incentive for tribal governments and state and county governments to look for these issues of mutual concern, to really bring to bear their limited resources on both sides to address issues that all governments care about."

Jaime Pinkham: "I also see the follow up on that is some courtroom fatigue where too often we're trying to resolve our differences in the court room and when you go to court you have one winner, one loser but when you come together in exploring these relationships you try to harmonize your efforts, and while litigation and negotiations are both difficult paths to take, the difference is the outcome and the outcome is the mutual benefits. The other thing is I've really witnessed over the past 10 to 15 years this elevation of both state and federal governments in formalizing tribal policies. It's an expression of tribal relationships, so we see the cabinet levels in the state legislatures and representatives of the governor's office now reaching out and creating new relationships with Indian tribes."

Mark St. Pierre: "In regions where tribes are really a small minority of the local or general population, have these relationships in fact increased the power of tribes in regional and local politics?"

Sarah Hicks: "I would argue yes. I think that this is a vehicle for tribes to come together on the one hand in intertribal organizations. We've seen an increased growth in regional intertribal organizations, and I would say an increased strength in those organizations as well over the past couple of years. So on the one hand, tribes being able to come together to voice their collective concerns, to share their resources that they have has definitely made a difference, but I also think that on the state and county level, neighboring governments are starting to see tribes as bigger political players. Tribes are getting on the map. They're starting to realize that there are a lot of common interests with tribal governments."

Jaime Pinkham: "And I agree. I think we're seeing many cases where local governments would like to ride upon the coattails of tribal governments because of the capacity that they have at dealing with the variety of levels of issues from very local to national in nature."

Mark St. Pierre: "Just on a personal level, on a human-to-human level, do you see these relationships strengthening communication and relationships between literal neighbors of the reservations?"

Jaime Pinkham: "I think we do, because as the tribes get more active in local politics, especially you start seeing members of the tribal communities becoming on school boards and county governments and city governments, and that helps really soothe and create and foster some positive relationships. What concerns me is we see the growth of these anti-Indian, anti-sovereignty organizations, but if we could work better and have these positive examples, we can try to teach these places where this fear exists of tribal sovereignty that really there's nothing to fear but really there's an opportunity, a partnership that can really help all communities prosper and grow."

Mark St. Pierre: "That kind of leads to a logical question I guess then. How have tribes or Native Nations avoided litigation, avoided conflict in dealing with other governments?"

Sarah Hicks: "Well, I think tribes and neighboring governments have really looked to local agreements as a way to avoid litigation. As Jaime was mentioning earlier, litigation is frequently extremely time-consuming, extremely expensive, and often results in an outcome that nobody's happy with, so to the extent that tribes and states or tribes and counties or tribes and other tribes can come to the table together to negotiate agreements that work better for everybody down on the ground, that's a win-win situation. We've seen a number of examples. If you look to motor fuel taxation and tobacco taxation, there have been some great agreements in Nevada, in Nebraska, in Oklahoma, in Arizona. There have been agreements around natural resource issues, around protection of cultural issues, around human service delivery. So I think we're seeing a proliferation of these kinds of relationships across a whole range of different topic areas."

Mark St. Pierre: "Is it in the best interest of federal, state and municipal governments to cross these traditional divides and work together with Native nations?"

Jaime Pinkham: "I believe it is. If you look out west, where that sense of individuality is treasured, but as long as we remain isolated, anonymous and faceless, we will never be able to come over some of those very difficult issues out west and a lot of those issues will deal in terms of the environment, the return of wolves or the recovery of salmon, where we see divisiveness in our communities. So the best way really is to start as local as you can. It's the politics of place in crafting those relationships very locally and using that to build up the ladder to state, federal governments. Who better to resolve local issues than those of us who live there? And to take those outcomes to where we really need action passed, and whether it's at Congress or at the state legislative level."

Sarah Hicks: "I guess I just wanted to make a related point, which is that I think not only are we seeing these relationships grow in all different kinds of topic areas and really in all different places across the country, but I think we're also seeing relationships that are being built across different branches of government. So increasingly, we're seeing relationships not only with the executive branch but with the legislative branch or in some cases they're relationships with the judiciary, with training of judges around some particularly important issues to tribal communities. So I think the trend is just growing and I think increasingly we're seeing that we have so many common issues where all neighboring governments are concerned about finite resources, about protecting our environment, about serving our citizens, making sure they have the essential governmental services they need. So I think increasingly we're just seeing more opportunities for governments to come together to solve these issues at the local level."

Mark St. Pierre: "Has this caused a shift in how these governments view Native Nations they work with? In other words, the State of Washington for instance, has it created a shift positive or negative in how they view the tribes in Washington?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, I can't speak for Washington, but in Idaho when I was on Tribal Council with Nez Perce, we did sense a shift, but unfortunately the shift was going two directions. One is where we were working collectively with a local county government and a city government to provide services to the reservation, but by us being there having access to economic development funds we were able to improve the infrastructure of the City of Lewiston. On the other hand, we saw these other governments riding on this wave of concern about what sovereignty will do to a community, and so we were faced with an alliance of 22 entities from school districts to city governments to county governments who feared tribal sovereignty and what it could do, the concerns about regulation and courts and they feared this word called 'sovereignty.' Sovereignty is something that really is an expression of the health of a community. So we worked hard to try to overcome the misconception that some of these communities had and the way to do it is to try to show the positive relationships we had with other neighboring communities."

Mark St. Pierre: "In South Dakota, I think there's a tremendous fear that in negotiating with the state, for instance, about anything, you're in a sense violating your treaty, because your treaty is between the tribe and the federal government. Do you want to respond to that concern 'cause it's a powerful concern."

Sarah Hicks: "Well, and I think part of this comes from a sense or a fear that many of these protections can be eroded, that the resources, the federal trust responsibility to American Indian tribal governments can be eroded. And so out of the fear to sort of protect what we have, there's been in some cases a real resistance to developing these kinds of relationships. But I think that nationally, we've started to move in a bit of a different direction. We've started to hear in national forums, tribal leaders articulating, 'We need to make sure that the federal trust responsibility is protected. We need assurances from the federal government that increasingly tribal self determination and tribal self-governance efforts, that increasingly, intergovernmental relationships aren't in anyway affecting the federal trust responsibility.' So I think on the one hand, tribes are concerned about that and I think they are looking to ensure that those protections are in place, but on the other hand, because of again the many, many common concerns and because of the increasing resources and opportunities for collaboration at the local level, I think we're seeing tribes move in that direction."

Jaime Pinkham: "And no doubt, I sense there still is some concern in Indian Country, because you have the federal government and then tribal government, state governments and the lower governments, and there's the concern that if we work with governments below us from the states down to city governments, that it's an erosion of our treaty rights and an erosion of our sovereignty. But the thing to keep in mind is we have the sovereign choice to work with those governments only if we choose."

Sarah Hicks: "Right. And I think we are. I think Jaime's right. We're talking about deliberate relationships between sovereign governments. It's governments coming together at the same table as equals to determine the type of relationship they want to have and what that relationship will encompass. So with tribes at the driver seat, I think this is really just underscoring that this really is about tribes as governments, tribes behaving as governments."

Mark St. Pierre: "I certainly think that sends a powerful idea to those tribes that are very nervous about these kinds of things, to hear that there are tribal groups working on positive relationships with local governments. Let's turn to a totally different thing here and look at intertribal relationships. Why are a growing number of Native Nations developing relationships and ties with other tribes in their region or nationally?"

Jaime Pinkham: "I think it's built on longstanding alliances and relationships that we've always had. In the Columbia River it was the salmon that always brought us together. The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, we're focused around the salmon, so we've always had the traditional alliances. The other thing, too, is recognizing the diversity of the landscape of Indian Country with our forms of government, our languages and our economies, it's important that we begin to share our talent and also to share knowledge and wisdom. When you look at parts of the U.S. where maybe we don't have the economic strength or we don't have the political strength and we're going to rely upon our neighboring tribes, and so I think these alliances are pretty fundamental to helping to elevate the tribal voice in places like Washington, D.C."

Sarah Hicks: "Part of it's strength in numbers, the sheer fact that tribes can come together, that we do have consensus on a great many issues and that we have a stronger voice if we work together. I also think that Jaime's right, a lot of this is really just formalizing relationships that have always been there."

Mark St. Pierre: "The tribes that work together, is it important that they kind of have their own internal tribal ducks in a row, that they have an effective government?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Yeah. Again, getting back to all politics is local, yeah, you have to be well-grounded and have strong, stable political leadership and use that as the basis and build up from there."

Sarah Hicks: "There's no doubt that it's important to have a message straight from the top that says, 'These relationships are important, that we're going to do what we can to work collaboratively on issues that we can.' This isn't to say that neighboring governments can always find common ground and can always agree on solutions to joint problems, but it is to say that it's important to have a message from the leadership that articulates very clearly the intention of cooperative relationships. On the other hand, I also think it's really important that the technical folks, that the staff, that the program directors are also on board for this. In some sense, you need the message from the top, the general policy that says, 'We're going to work together.' But on the other hand, it's the technical staff, it's those folks that are actually doing the work who really have to take to heart what it means to work collaboratively, to look for those opportunities to invite the other governments to the table."

Mark St. Pierre: "This question's for Jaime. In your capacity with the Nez Perce Tribe, you've been involved in a number of intergovernmental relationships. How did that process start? Tell us how that began and what it led to."

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, let me use an example, it's a recent example. We were involved in one of the largest water adjudications in the nation, the Snake River Basin, the Snake River Basin Adjudication, and actually we had two tracks going. We had the litigation track in court, but through the McCarran Amendment we're stuck in state court. And that's not the most comfortable place for a tribe to have their issues resolved. The other option we took was to try to find a negotiated settlement and both processes were going on track. And so the Tribe decided that we needed to keep both options open and we aggressively pursued a negotiated settlement working with the State of Idaho as well as representatives of the federal government. And believe me, it took us almost eight years to get this thing through and it took a lot of hard work. And like I said earlier, both paths are difficult but the only difference is the outcome. So we were able to resolve our differences and we had to be prepared to give a little and to gain a little bit. But in the end we avoided court, we avoided a court that may have ruled against our sovereignty, a court that could have ruled against some of our treaty-reserved rights. We preserved that. Those are the core values of our community and through negotiation we were able to preserve them."

Mark St. Pierre: "For those of us that aren't familiar with the actual issue, give us a framework for what brought the conflict to be."

Jaime Pinkham: "Actually, it started when the state went after securing their reserved water rights out of the Snake River Basin and they filed claims with the federal government. Well, the tribe couldn't stand back. We had to submit our claims and our claims were based on really two fundamental principles. One is in-stream flow to protect fisheries and the second one was the consumptive uses on reservation, whether it be for residential or industrial uses. And so we went through a long process to establish our tribal water rights claims."

Mark St. Pierre: "You now work for the Columbia River Intertribal fish Commission and I understand that's an award-winning intertribal organization. How has that commission empowered its member tribes, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Actually, I see it the other way -- that they've empowered us as a real function of tribal government. We provide technical expertise, legal expertise and assistance in intergovernmental affairs, but really when you look, the real strength of our organization rests in the tribes and the capacity they've built on the fisheries front in the four tribes in the Pacific Northwest that have treaty rights on the Columbia River. So really they empower us and we act and respond to whatever directions that they want us to go to. It's a wonderful organization and I would say that we're on the cutting edge of salmon recovery in very contentious times, the fate of the salmon and subsequent fate of the four lower Snake River dams. It is a difficult issue to be dealing with, but fortunately we have four strong tribal governments that have empowered us to act on their behalf."

Mark St. Pierre: "I guess one of the things that I'm looking at, the salmon recovery, is something that has broad economic implications for the region doesn't it?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Oh, it does. The irony is that when the settlers first came out west they had the timber, the agriculture, and the salmon economies, so salmon helped get a foothold. But today you hear them speak only passionately about protecting the timber economy or the agriculture economy and we need to once again elevate the significance that the salmon economy played, not just for Indian people but for the region. And a strong salmon economy also means a strong, healthy environment."

Mark St. Pierre: "Sarah, in your work with the National Congress of American Indians, you've been exposed to many mechanisms available to develop these types of partnerships. Can you talk about how that came about and what some of those methods are?"

Sarah Hicks: "Sure. First, I think just the National Congress of American Indians is an interesting model. Our organization was founded in 1944, actually in response to attempts by the federal government to terminate American Indian tribes. So the very impetus for our organization was that tribes needed to gather together collectively to advocate against the federal policy toward termination. So the whole purpose of our organization was to bring tribes together and to represent their interests to the federal government. So that's just one model of intertribal organizations. But then I think what you're speaking more directly to is a project that the National Congress of American Indians has had with the National Conference of State Legislatures, a national organization that serves the legislators of every state in the United States so actually they serve a little over 7,000 state legislators. And in this work that NCAI has done with NCSL, we've been funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for about six years now to start to provide some targeted technical assistance to states and tribes who are interested in finding new ways to work together. So some of the models that we've looked at and shared broadly include the establishment of Indian Affairs commissions, so these are usually executive-branch offices within the state government that try to coordinate the affairs of the executive branch in relationship to tribes. Then, of course, there are a number of legislative committees. I believe there are 14 states that have 17 different legislative committees that deal specifically with tribal issues. Some deal broadly with state tribal relationships where as others deal with particular issues around the relationships so perhaps repatriation, perhaps gaming, things like that. But there certainly are quite a number of models out there where states and tribes are finding new ways to work together developing new mechanisms and developing new agreements that will sort of chart the circumstances under which these relationships should continue."

Mark St. Pierre: "What I understand, it seems to me from what you're saying that the general climate is improving for the positive. Would that be your..."

Sarah Hicks: "I think so. If you look at some of the work that NCAI has done over the past year, we've been working up in Alaska with the previous administration there to sign a government-to-government agreement with the tribes in Alaska. That was the Millennium Agreement. We've seen similar types of agreements in a variety of other states. We've seen an increased number of Native legislators. I think that's a big sign that Native people think it's worth investing in the state system. We've seen increased number of bills that address tribal issues in state legislatures. So I think across the board we're seeing various indicators that tribes are moving in this direction. And again, not that this is a panacea. We don't think this is the be-all-and-end-all, that this is the solution for everything. Certainly tribal governments and neighboring governments will have very different views on some things in large part because of tribal cultures and tribal values may differ substantially from other governments. But on the other hand, it makes a lot of sense to look at issues that we can agree on and I think we are definitely moving in that direction."

Mark St. Pierre: "Let's turn now to some success stories. I know both of you have tremendous involvement in a wide range of these kinds of relationship building and conflict resolution. Give us some ideas of some of the successes in the country that are based on this new energy."

Jaime Pinkham: "Some of the things that we've worked on back home in Nez Perce country and looking at issues that were once conflict that had now come into a cooperative relationship, and one was when we were looking at protecting our traditional foods and medicines and the federal government had a plan to spray herbicides and it was to take out noxious weeds. And then we protested that so in turn the federal government and the state worked with us to develop a new method of controlling noxious weeds that would safeguard our traditional foods and medicines. So we started a bio-control center, so I think that was one where we took conflict and turned it into something that was positive and actually is providing resources, non-pesticide options to control noxious weeds in the Pacific Northwest."

Mark St. Pierre: "Sarah?"

Sarah Hicks: "I guess there are a couple that I can think of. One is that in 1998, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation signed an agreement with the Narragansett Tribe that would actually allow for tribal members to be hired by the state department of transportation to monitor some of the progress that was being made on developing highways, to be there when human remains or cultural artifacts were found so that there would be tribal members on site to try to make sure that those things were protected and they were addressed in a way that was appropriate to the tribe. So there are some examples like that. There are examples around federal subsidies to tribes to deal with foster care and adoption. Right now the federal funding flow is only to states, but we've seen some progress such that there are 71 tribal state agreements in 13 different states that allow these federal funds that are so urgently needed to deal with child welfare issues in tribal communities, to allow these funds to flow through the state to the tribes and in many cases there are other administrative funds and there are training funds that go with these so we are seeing I think...Jaime's pointing out some examples, and I'm talking about a couple others, and we're seeing that really this isn't relegated to just one domain, that we're actually seeing these kinds of efforts in a variety of different topic areas."

Mark St. Pierre: "I know in the fishing industry in the northwest that there have been arguments about water flow in terms of the revitalization of salmon in those rivers and they've required very complicated agreements. Can you tell us a bit about some of those?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, yeah, some of them are complex agreements where we have to work with a variety of people. If you look at the river system, it's a river of life. Not just human life, but an economic life, and a wonderful example is where the Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have reached beyond...we can talk about [intergovernmental] relationships and intertribal relationships, but also there's the importance of creating private sector relationships, and the Umatilla Tribe has a wonderful example of that where they were concerned that the irrigators were pulling water out of the life-giving river as they were trying to return salmon to the Umatilla River. So they worked with the local irrigators to do a water exchange to keep water within the river system. So they took what were traditional adversaries and now they've become allies in salmon recovery. So we see those kinds of agreements at play. And I'm hoping we'll see more and more of those. The salmon issue is not going to be resolved overnight and you've got so many players in the game from utilities to irrigation to recreation interests and the long-seated tribal interest that is there, and we need to continue to reach out and build more of these relationships. And you see the tribes who are taking the lead on running fish hatcheries and working with federal government on land restoration to kind of restore the habitat that is important to these species, so the relationships are really building out in the northwest."

Mark St. Pierre: "We want to give a heartfelt thanks to Sarah Hicks and Jaime Pinkham for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building, a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation building and the issues discussed here today, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."