page 70/BREAKTHROUGH . ... The US agrees that the following district of country .. . is hereby set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named and for such other friend ly tribes or individual Indians, as from time to time they may be willing with the consent of the US to admit among them; and the US now solemnly agrees that no persons except those herein authorized so to do, and except such officers . . . of the Government as may be authorized by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article, or in such territory as may be added to this reservation for the use of said Indians. ( Treaty with Cheyenne and Arapaho, 1867-p. 18, same) On the matter of the violation and destruction of those promises; from the discussion of the new policy of the allotment of Native lands for sale: ... The ideology of ... (Indian) life had included no real concept of property in land . .. To . . . Indians the land was "Mother Earth" and attaching to her property concepts ... seemed sacrilegious. A committee report of the US House of Representatives in 1880 sho wed that Congress '. was aware of this. The report states: ... The very idea of property in the soil was unknown to the Indian mind ... \ And as to the ~omequences. Senator Henry . Teller made these remarks: ... If I stand alone in the Senate, I want to put upon the record by prophecy in this matter, that when 30 to 40 years shall have passed and these Indians shall have parted with their title, they will curse the hand that was raised professedly in their defense to secure this kind of legislation .. .. (p. 92, same) Further (from Indian Sovereignty, p. 60): ... The Allotment Act affected the sovereignty of Indian governments in two ways. First, it reduced the amount of land controlled by Indians. From 1887 to 1934 ... the Indian land base hatl been reduced to two-thirds of its original size. With individual ownership of reservation lands, Indian governments lost some control of their territories. But a court decision has
held that, although the lands were owned individually by Indians and non-Indians, the reservation boundaries srill exisr .... Indian governments still have jurisdiction within reservation boundaries, even over non-Indian owners of land. Second, the Act weakened Indian governments by breaking up the social organization of tribes. The undermining of the sovereignty and treaty rights of the Native Americans was furthered by a decision of the US Supreme Court handed down by Chief Justice Marshall in 1830 on a case brought by the Cherokee Nation against the State of Georgia. Marshall held against the Cherokee previously-undisputed right to its territory on the ground that Native Nations are not the same as foreign nations bur: They may be ... denominated domestic, dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right to possession ceases. Meanwhile, they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that ofa ward co his guardian. (p. 76, same) The present-day Guardia.n is retrograde as :ompared to Marshall's "limited sovereignty." The Guardian cannotjit Indians into its scheme of "multi-national" working class and democratic rights, so it treats Native Americans as if they were already extinct and therefore of no significance as nations. As recently as 1886 the Supreme Court was still using the wards of the nation doctrine. (p. 8/, same) In more recent years, the courts have been under much pressure from increased resistance and struggles ,by Native Americans and the peoples of other oppressed nations, at home and abroad. This has caused the courts to uphold some of the treaty rights, especially as against individual states. As recently as 1976 the Supreme Court held in one case that Indian tribes are: Distinct, independent, political communities possessing and exercising powers of self-government derived solely from their original sovereignty. However, in cases involving the Federal Executive (Justice Department, FBI, etc.) and the Congress, the Courts continue to either not act,