Review of The Cheyenne Nation: A Social and Demographic History.

Like every nation in the world, John Moore argues in this exceptionally candid and respectful study, the Cheyenne have cosmopolitan origins. Building on the Cheyenne case, Moore convincingly challenges the persistent characterization of tribal societies as static crystals shattered by their collision with European states

The Challenge of Indigenous Self-Determination

The Earth Summit at Rio was the first global negotiation in which indigenous peoples participated directly. They did so with the aim of advocating land rights and greater self-determination in the fields of natural-resource management and development. They justified these claims by arguing that indigenous peoples are superior stewards of the land and that strengthening indigenous peoples\u27 traditional economies would contribute to solving global ecological and economic problems. This approach succeeded all too well. Jaded diplomats and environmental ministers seized on the hopeful possibility that indigenous economics actually might work better than discredited socialism and overextended capitalism, and they invited indigenous peoples to accept a leadership role, nationally and globally. A few weeks after Rio, Latin American presidents announced the establishment of a regional development fund to be managed jointly by indigenous peoples and governments. Can indigenous peoples deliver on their commitments at Rio? What role, in particular, can be played by American Indian tribes, who were conspicuously underrepresented in the preparatory negotiations for the Earth Summit and other recent international meetings? The answers to these questions are suggested by a critical assessment of what American Indian tribal governments have achieved after sixty years of self-government and twenty years of self-determination. We begin with a threshold problem: the characteristic isolationism of American Indian leadership in the twentieth century

Plains Indian Agrariaism and Class Conflict

Relatively little has been done to trace the political structures of American Indians through the years 1890 to 1940, when reservation economics were undergoing their most dramatic changes. That failure has left the false impression of a fifty-vear institutional vacuum. In fact, the middle years were times of complex reJisrrihutions of power ;md the emergence of indigellous socioeconomic classes. It was also perhaps the earliest period in which Plains Indians enjoyed anything like an Americanstyle, decentralized elective democracy. Federal programs shifted the control of the Indians\u27 food supply. From being skilled hunter- organizers they became recipients of gc)\ ernnwnt patronage, heelme small landholders and, finally, tribal technocrats. In other words, they experienced two cycles of centralization. An agrarian entrepreneurial middle class and a landless bureaucratic class emerged, and their competition for political influence has dominated reservation life ever since. As in many developing countries, modernization was accompanied by a conflict between small-scale agrarian capitalism and central planning. If valid, this thesis requires reversing some well-entrenched historical judgments, i.c., that the Ceneral Allotment Act was bad because it reduced the Indians\u27 aggregate landholdings, and that the Indian New Deal was good because it stopped allotment and encouraged Indian self-government. On the contrary, allotment may have given Indian leaders the opportunity to reestablish their economic and political independence from the Bureau of Indian Affairs-and the New Deal reorganization program crushed this emergent Indian bourgeoisie and its growing power

Is There Any Indian Law Left? A Review of the Supreme Court\u27s 1982 Term

The Supreme Court\u27s decisions have been characterized by an absence of general principles, which the Justices rationalize as the particularization of their analysis. The standards that do appear from time to time, such as balancing interests and implied repeal, are merely euphemisms for discretion. There has been no consistent authorship of opinions because the Justices hold little enthusiasm for Indian law cases, and the Court seems to treat each dispute as if it were a matter of first impression. Generalizations on this subject have become . . . treacherous as a result of the Court\u27s failure to make and stick to general guiding principles. The Court\u27s 1982 Term, its busiest ever for Indian decisions, was no exception. In the four opinions reviewed in detail here, the Court abandoned any pretense that the scope of tribal sovereignty or the nature of federal trusteeship can be determined save on the facts of each case. At the same time, it strengthened the notion that state and national interests, as construed by the Justices, override any rights Indians may yet have

Review of The Cheyenne Nation: A Social and Demographic History.

Like every nation in the world, John Moore argues in this exceptionally candid and respectful study, the Cheyenne have cosmopolitan origins. Building on the Cheyenne case, Moore convincingly challenges the persistent characterization of tribal societies as static crystals shattered by their collision with European states