Steven Newcomb: Don't let tribes become just another minority

On July 8, 1970, President Richard Nixon delivered a “Special Message on Indian Affairs,” in which he formally ended what he called “forced termination.” The Termination Era was the result of several pieces of legislation, including House Concurrent Resolution 108, passed by Congress in August, 1953. It was a policy to end, as rapidly as possible, what is commonly termed the “trustee” relationship between the federal government and Indian nations or “tribes.” Once that relationship of federal recognition was severed, it resulted in a particular nation or tribe being “terminated” from federal dollars and federal programs.

Although it has been typical, even among Native politicians and lawyers, to praise Nixon for announcing a new U.S. policy of American Indian Self-Determination, it has been less typical to notice something else: In his Message, Nixon framed American Indians, and self-determination, in terms of a “minority group” existing in “the nation” of the United States. This is made evident by the opening sentence of President Nixon’s message: “The first Americans—the Indians—are the most deprived and most isolated minority group in our nation.” (emphasis added).

The strategy of Nixon’s Self-Determination Policy was essentially to convert American Indians to simply another minority group, comprised of individual Americans who, because of their American Indian ancestry, also happen to be members of some “tribal group” or “tribal community.” In such a “minority” context, the idea of self-determination for Indian nations is eclipsed and entirely out of focus. Such ideas serve a key U.S. political agenda: Make it appear that our original nations no longer exist as nations because of the U.S.’s claim that we have been assimilated as minority individuals into the overall society of the United States.