Toward a New Era in the Tribal Nation–United States Relationship: Re-imagining Nation-to-Nation Diplomacy for the 21st Century
November 7, 2024
When colonizing governments first landed on our shores, they recognized us for what we were then and are now: inherently sovereign, self-governing, political entities with whom coexistence requires Nation-to-Nation diplomacy.
Yet, from the beginning, those first colonizers and, eventually, the United States sought to take our lands and resources, and they began to construct layer upon layer of impediments restricting exercise of our sovereign rights and authorities. Not only has the United States taken our homelands and limited our authorities through direct violence, threats, and unilateral fiat, but the colonizer’s own courts have structured federal Indian law to throw a cloak of validity over these actions.
Over time, these thefts led to the United States’ current land base, wealth, and strength. Through our forced sacrifices, the United States has assumed trust and treaty obligations that serve as a perpetual debt to us, a truth even the United States itself has recognized—at least in words.
There is no other relationship like this within the United States.
However, the existing relationship structure between the United States and Tribal Nations, including the trust model, is faulty and requires modernization. It is based on the deeply flawed and paternalistic assumptions that Tribal Nations are incompetent to handle our own affairs and will eventually disappear. And it embraces the unjust legal concepts that the United States has plenary power to unilaterally strip Tribal Nations of our inherent sovereign and bargained-for rights and authorities and to limit the justiciability of its own trust and treaty obligations.
The USET Sovereignty Protection Fund (USET SPF) advocates for a new era of federal Indian law and policy and an evolved relationship between the United States and Tribal Nations. We call on the United States to fully recognize and uphold the two true pillars underlying federal Indian law and policy: Tribal Nations’ inherent sovereignty, and the United States’ trust and treaty obligations.
The United States must fully recognize and remove all impediments on Tribal Nations’ exercise of our inherent sovereign rights and authorities to govern ourselves, including our lands, resources, people, governments, and enterprises. A corollary to this pillar is the diplomatic Nation-to-Nation relationship with the United States that each Tribal Nation has as a self-governing political entity.
We also call on the United States to fully deliver on its trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations and Native people. These obligations derive from taking Tribal Nations’ lands and resources and limiting the exercise of our inherent sovereign rights and authorities. These obligations require the United States to provide services and funding in perpetuity in repayment of and in exchange for what was taken from us. The U.S. Constitution’s Indian affairs powers provide the federal government authority to carry out its trust and treaty obligations.
Tribal Nations were here first, and we know how to take care of the land, our people, and our lifeways. We carry this knowledge for the good of all humanity. The people who live in what is today the United States will benefit—morally and practically—from giving us space to heal our shared communities and our shared lands.
USET SPF is advocating for a new era of federal Indian law and policy based on true diplomacy, where we are able to fully exercise our inherent sovereign rights and authorities and receive the full debts owed to us under the trust and treaty obligations, as reflected in our Toward a New Era in the Tribal Nation-United States Relationship: Reimagining Nation to Nation Diplomacy for the 21st Century .
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