"Chris Hilfer and Noel Stewart, both white, learned unexpected lessons during their first year at college. They found out what it’s like to be in a racial minority.

Both young people are non-Indian or non-beneficiary students who are enrolled in tribal colleges. Hilfer, 22, attends United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) in Bismarck, North Dakota; Stewart, also 22, attends Blackfeet Community College in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet reservation.

The greatest numbers of non-beneficiary students are located on “checker board” reservations, in which Indian land is not contiguous, such as the Blackfeet and Salish Kootenai reservations in Montana. The Dawes Act of 1887 authorized the federal government to divide reservation land and allot tracts to individual tribal members. The head of each household received 160 acres with the remaining land available to non-Indians. Over time, many Indians sold their property or lost it through a variety of swindles. Today many non-Indians may live on land that is surrounded by reservation land.

Despite their close proximity, however, Indians and non-Indians living in reservation border towns or on checkerboard reservations often have little contact with each other. "

Get the Story:
Mary Annette Pember: More Non-Indians Choosing Tribal Colleges (The Daily Yonder 6/13)

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