Tribal Sovereignty: A Practical Definition

Tribes are treated significantly different than other minority groups because the United States has a legal and political relationship with tribes.

Tribal Sovereignty is a philosophical term that is legally constructed and came about through the treaty relationship, is limited via legislation and court decisions, and applied through the actions of Native nation building and self-determination.

At the most basic level, tribal sovereignty is the inherent political power of Native nations to self govern with each nation recognized as a distinct political entity.  In political reality, tribal sovereignty has been limited by Congress, court rulings and treaties.  It is important to understand that tribes were not given sovereignty; rather sovereignty of tribes was and is inherent and is legally recognized initially through treaties and later limited by laws and court rulings.

The federal-tribal relationship is both constitutionally based and congressionally based.  Congressional Plenary Power or the idea that Congress has ultimate authority over Indian affairs was defined by a series of three Supreme Court rulings called the Marshall Trilogy.  This series of cases defines Congressional Plenary power or the exclusive Federal-Tribal relationship, inherent tribal sovereignty, the Trust Doctrine or the fiduciary relationship with the United States as a trustee, and the Canons of Construction which defines the role of the courts with regard to tribes.

Tribal sovereignty is further supported by various mandates, including, but not limited to:

• Executive Order 13175 Consultation and Coordination with Indian tribes, where tribal self-government and sovereignty are recognized and a commitment to the government-to-government federal-tribal relationship was reaffirmed by President Clinton in 2000.
• Executive Memorandum of September 23, 2004 where President Bush recommitted to the principles of sovereignty, self determination, and the government-to-government relationship.

American Indian Self-Determination: What Does it Mean?

In Indian Country you often hear the word Self Determination.  It is more than just a buzz word! The term is most often used in legal and policy discussions regarding Native Americans. Here is one definition, but what does it really mean for Indian Country? Let’s discuss this.

“According to scholar Sam Cook from the 1996 publication Red Ink ( a web version can be found here http://faculty.smu.edu/twalker/samrcook.htm ) “The term self-determination seems to have first entered the vocabulary of Indian affairs in 1966, when the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) convened to develop an agenda to counter the threat of termination policy. Termination will be remembered as the last consolidated federal effort to assimilate Indians into the mainstream of American society. Reaching its zenith in the 1950s, termination policy purported to extinguish, once and for all, the so-called trust relationship, that is, the political relationship of good faith between the federal government and the Indian tribes. Thus, it must be concluded that when the members of the NCAI evoked the term self-determination, they were asserting the right of natives to be culturally distinct as well as politically autonomous.

It can be said, then, that in the context of Indian affairs, self-determination is a tribally-derived term. By the same token, the concept of self-determination entails a totality of tribal goals. These goals can be placed in three interrelated categories: 1) tribal self-rule; 2) cultural survival; and 3) economic development. The tribal pursuit of these goals is clearly reflected in the most visible issues in Indian affairs today religious freedom and gaming, for example. But policy-makers often fail to realize the profound manner in which these goals are necessarily interrelated.”