Who is Responsible for the Protection of Tribal Sovereignty

This is an letter to the editor I wrote as part of a Tribal Leadership course I was taking 2 years ago. The idea of all of us being resposible for the protection of Tribal Sovereignty still is as important to day as it was when I wrote it. When chaos prevails and infighting is rampid people lose sight of the important things. By staying together the Buffalo were always able to protect the herd. They did this by working together and being able to count on the each other. Let us began to work together.

Who is Responsible for the Protection of Tribal Sovereignty

One of the most important issues facing every tribal leader in Indian Country is the protection of tribal Sovereignty. So how do they do this while trying to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, drugs, etc.? This is not new; every generation has had to face this problem –from the very beginning –of first contact with the aggressive Euro-American.

So what has changed from say 100 years in the past to the present time? Well one thing –we are no longer running for our lives. Or are we? Sometimes I wonder if we still are, running for our lives – I think we are, it’s just a different type of running. We now run in circles trying to pay our bills, keep food on our tables, get to the clinic when we are sick and then wait for hours.

So how do we stop? There are answers to many of these problems, but we have to be willing to participate in solving them. One of our biggest problems is the threat against tribal sovereignty. Without sovereignty we are at the mercy of the state governments and the political whim of the day. Tribal members may believe that the protection of tribal sovereignty is the responsibility of the elected tribal leadership rather then theirs.

When one thinks about what the old hunter/warriors of our past did when they were attacked on June 25th 1876 by the 7th Calvary. Not one of them said “it’s not my responsibility it’s our leaders who have to protect our camp. No, they grabbed their rifles, bow & arrows, and jumped on their horses and charged into the battle. They never once thought about their safety, only thinking about the protection of their families.

So how does one compare the battle of the “Greasy Grass” to the battle for the protection of tribal sovereignty? The comparison is based on the idea of responsibility. Tribal members have the same responsibility for protection of tribal sovereignty that the hunter/warrior had.

So how would a tribal member protect sovereignty? One of the main ways is to “become a good relative” towards other tribal members. Robert B. Porter speaks about the critical issues that are a threat to a tribe’s sovereignty in his paper “Strengthening Tribal Sovereignty Through Government Reform: What are the Issues?” (1997-1998). One of the main problems he points out is infighting –he believes that this is a major problem for tribes and that it can literally cause the destruction of a tribe.

So if tribal members are willing to take the responsibility to be “Good Relatives” to each other infighting will become a thing of the past and people will began to work together, to solve the other problems facing the reservations. The concept of being good relatives is not new to the Lakota it is one of the main foundations of our tiyospayes. By being responsible for our behavior towards each other we can protect the sovereignty of our tribes.