Historically,
Native nations were bounded but inclusive socio-cultural communities
that prided themselves on maintaining distinctive religious-cultural
identities while also incorporating — whether through force or
invitation — individuals from other indigenous, racial, and ethnic
groups. Our peoples have always managed to creatively and successfully
augment their numbers and incorporate new blood and ideas. Outsiders, be
they Natives, Europeans, Africans, or others, were frequently welcomed
into tribal communities through ceremonies or via tribal council action.
This openness is evidence of an inherent cultural confidence and
generosity that are hallmarks of Native nations— qualities that, for
millennia, were bolstered, not threatened, by inclusion.
The strength of inclusion is one we need to recall and to draw upon
today, as our Nations are infected by the colonizers’ world-view that
rewards
individual gain over
survival of the people. These unhealthy
values are evidenced in our modern sovereign communities that are either
directly weakened or indirectly threatened by the scourge of
disenrollment. We must take action through a positive, traditional way
of building, healing, and protecting our members before this infection
becomes so deep that the federal government steps in with its own
sovereignty-suppressing cure.
While it may sound simplistic, I believe
we can and must use the traditional inclusive tool of
adoption as an
effective means to begin to address some of these citizenship
troubles.
The establishment of kinship bonds, whether genetic or chosen, is as
critical today as back then. We know this as we fight to keep our
children, our future, from being taken by the foster care system or
adopted out of our communities. And yet, we also bear witness as nearly
70 Native nations engage in formal banishment, disenrollment, or both,
of bona fide tribal citizens for economic or political reasons. It is
hard to understand the rationale of such radical behavior which so
strikingly veers away from the traditions of our ancestors who knew the
importance of strengthening and growing their communities.
Nearly 500 Native nations have been wise enough to avoid dismembering
their communities. At the same time, their leaders have largely
remained silent as some Native governments violate the civil and human
rights of their people. Many of those standing by have calculated that
if they call attention to this problem the U.S. government will
intervene in a way that irrevocably damages sovereignty throughout
Indian Country. Their concerns are justified. We all know the folly of
publicly condemning the sovereign actions of other Nations, as well as
the disastrous results of taking our issues into the federal court
system. In the end, this type of criticism and infighting only
undermines the well-being or all our Nations.
Unfortunately, in the void created by this fearful silence across
Indian Country, the problem only worsens and may ultimately make federal
intervention inevitable.
Native leaders are hoping this infection will
heal itself, but without the right medicine, in time, it will spread and
cause profound harm to us all by finally crippling sovereignty.
Because, without action to help forestall it, the U.S. Congress or,
more realistically, the Supreme Court, will impose their radical
treatments. As we all know too well, once those federal remedies are
imposed, they will affect us all, not just those who are actively and
cavalierly violating the civil liberties and human rights of their own
citizens. It is time for those who have averted their eyes from the
plight of the dismembered to show courage and act for the good of all
Native nations.
I would suggest that the nearly 500 strong, confident Nations
recognize their shared responsibility and take a simple, radical step
that would prevent federal interference and provide relief to
disenrollees, yet cost nothing except time and consideration. If each
intact Nation would adopt 10 indigenous refugees of the disenrollment
epidemic, those nation-less individuals who now feel their only avenues
for help are within the federal or state legal system, would have Native
support and recognition of their humanity as Native. Once Indian
Country steps up to help our own, without casting blame against the
Nations who used their authority to purge their tribal rolls, the calls
for federal or state intervention would be greatly diminished. Through
unified action we protect both the lives and liberties of those
dismembered and the sovereign authority of all Nations.
As leadership and political winds are ever changing it is even
possible that, with time, many disenrollees may find long-term remedies
to their situations at home. There are examples where as soon as one set
of tribal officials was voted out of office, disenrolled citizens were
re-membered back into the community. In one case, a former disenrollee
now serves as the Chairwoman of her Nation.
If the idea of adopting 10 seems overly ambitious, then at least take
the step of adopting, at a minimum, one elder and one child. While this
wouldn’t solve the problem of all those who have been outcast, it would
at least give those most vulnerable some modicum of safety, stability,
and dignity. Most importantly, they would retain their identities as
indigenous persons.
I can already hear the hue and cry about how no one wants to take on
someone else’s problems when many Nations are still struggling to get
by. All the attorneys out there are fretting about liability and
definitions of citizenship. Native academics are already racing to claim
the term “adoptive sovereignty.” But I’m not calling for mass
migrations or shared per caps. I’m simply talking about a powerful and
preemptive acknowledgment of the kinship and humanity of all those who
now find themselves tribe-less. We have capable elders and other leaders
who can figure this out. It’s time to talk seriously about how to make
something work, rather than simply dealing with the worsening fall-out
caused by a number of tribal political figures.
There are many examples of Natives who were born to one indigenous
community but who later joined a different one. In the 1840s, the
Eastern Shoshone chief, Washakie, left Umatilla lands while an
adolescent and was assimilated into the Eastern Shoshone, eventually
becoming one of their most famous leaders.
Or Richard Throssel, an early 20
th century photographer of
Crow life, who was born in Washington, and of Canadian Cree, Scottish,
and English ancestry. He and his family moved into Crow country in 1902
and were adopted by Tribal Council action in 1906. As new Crow adoptees,
the Throssel family also received land allotments, a generous gesture
on the part of the Crow Council, through a formal process that was
approved by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Secretary of the
Interior in 1908.
At least 160 tribal constitutions contain clauses
recognizing
adoption as one of the chief processes available to expand tribal rolls
and nearly 200 others have the ability to incorporate such a clause into
their organic charters. Those with more traditional types of governing
structures and their governments may have adoption procedures as well.
All sovereign Nations certainly have the authority to authorize such a
process. Ironically, one of the Nations seeking to disenroll over three
hundred of its citizens is currently led by an adoptee who, along with
the Council, recently oversaw an amendment to their Tribe’s constitution
that suspends future adoptions. Interestingly, it does not go so far as
to nullify existing adoptees’ status.
Without going into a lot of detail on constitutions, while all have
unique approaches, adoption provisions generally provide for the
physical and economic incorporation of new members. I suggest that these
be expanded to include a separate category of adoption of disenrollees
from other Nations. Those willing to extend citizenship could do so
initially in a limited way so that disenrollees were simply able to
retain their basic social and health benefits that come to everyone
through the BIA or other federal agencies. There would be no immediate
guarantee of land, housing, or other substantial economic benefits
provided by the tribal government unless the tribes were so inclined to
provide those. No one would be forced to leave their families or
relocate from their home country to retain their identities.
Since a majority of tribal constitutions were drafted under the
auspices of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, many of them contain
language that declares that the Tribal Council has the authority to
enact ordinances for the “adoption of new members,” but that such
procedures, like the Throssel family’s adoption into the Crow nation,
are “subject to approval by the Secretary of the Interior.” While
secretarial review is patently paternalistic, in this case it is an
important provision as it reminds federal officials that they have a
trust and, in many cases, a treaty obligation to provide a measure of
protection to indigenous citizens, who also happen to be US citizens.
Respected organizations like the Native American Rights Fund and the
National Congress of American Indians could provide guidance for those
Native nations with existing adoption procedures or those who might wish
to create adoption ordinances to help facilitate outreach to
disenrolled tribal refugees who are suffering profound psychic,
economic, and political losses due to their now tribe-less status.
While we are no longer living in a time where we find it easy, or
even wise, to fully embrace outsiders into our communities, it is
imperative that we protect those who have been or may become
dismembered. We can, at the very least, provide them with a sense of
refuge and a basic set of rights that political refugees the world over
receive when they seek asylum after having been forced out of their own
territory. So many of our Nations are generous with those overseas.
Surely we can turn our empathy and resources towards helping our own
indigenous citizens.
Let us use our own medicine to heal, protect, and make our
communities whole again by harkening back to our ancestors’ strategies
to strengthen and augment our peoples. By re-membering those who have
been disenrolled, Indian Country can finally begin to fight the
worsening infection of dismemberment. It is not just the right thing to
do for the human rights of these individuals. It is the right thing for
all our Nations if we truly want to protect our sovereign abilities to
make our own decisions.
Otherwise, as we’ve seen before, the disease will become unmanageable
and the federal government may step in and impose its will upon us all.
David E. Wilkins (Lumbee) holds the McKnight Presidential
Professorship in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota.
His most recent books include The Hank Adams Reader
(2011), The Legal Universe
(with Vine Deloria, Jr.) (2011), and Documents of Native American Political Development: 1500s-1933
(2009).
[David is one of the best thinkers we have in Indian Country...We need more thinkers and doers... Trace, dis-membered and someone in the Lost Bird category]
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