C O M P E T I N G S O V E R E I G N T I E S
IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE
RIGHT-WING AND ANTI-INDIAN MOVEMENT
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Preliminary Findings
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Center for World Indigenous Studies
Right-Wing Extremism & Anti-Indian Network Project
Copyright 1988 Center For World Indigenous Studies
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COMPETING SOVEREIGNTIES
Indian and Native Nations, tribes and communities are in a tug-of-war
in Canada and the United States of America. The first nations of North
America are locked in a political conflict with the United States and
Canadian federal governments and individual State and Provincial
governments over the question of, "Who will exercise sovereignty over
Indian lands and resources and the people who live inside Indian and
Native lands." The struggle between Indian Nations, States and the
federal governments has its origins in European colonization, and the
subsequent formation of the United States of America and Canada.
Unsettling as this long-term dispute between nations and states has been
to Indian peoples, it now seems to have spawned a reactionary movement
among non-Indians against Indians. Incipient racism, economic hard-times
and honest fear have combined to form the basis for an organized Anti-
Indian Movement that threatens the destabilization of Indian governments
and the break-up of Indian Nations.
Organized activism aimed at the dismemberment of Indian Nations has
been growing since the late 1960s. The Anti-Indian Movement is now
organized in 13 states in the United States and at least four of the
provinces of Canada.
While the Anti-Indian movement has grown in size and organizational
sophistication in the last twenty years, it has only been in the last ten
years that a more virulent from of reactionary-racism has begun to appear
with greater frequency in Indian Country. Extreme Right-Wing groups which
include the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the "White Aryan Nation",
Survivalists, Constitutionalists, and the Identity Church appear with
increasing regularity on and near Indian reservations -- particularly in
the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes Region of the United States and
Southern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario in Canada.
Individuals associated with the Anti-Indian Movement now appear to have
occasional, if not frequent, association with Right-Wing Extremist groups.
This tide of non-Indian reaction rides on the Back of discontent, racism,
economic troubles, and uncertainties about land and natural resource
rights which are partly connected to the long-term struggle between Indian
Nations, neighboring states and the United States government.
ROOTS OF CONFLICT AND REACTION
Indian and Native Nations claim the inherent right to exercise power
over their lands and resources and people within their boundaries. State
and Provincial governments claim the right to exercise power over CITIZENS
within their boundaries -- including those living inside reservations.
The Canadian and U.S. governments claim the right to exercise power over
all matters granted to them by the federal constitution. Caught up in the
struggle between Indian governments, State or Provincial governments and
the federal governments are thousands of individual Indians and non-
Indians who experience persistent challenges to what they perceive as
their rights. In both countries, the patterns of political competition
over sovereignty are very similar.
In the United States of America
While the Tribal, State and U.S. governments dual in the courts,
executive agencies and legislative branches, individual Indians and non-
Indians feel the uncertainties produced by the struggles. Though Indian
and native governments experienced defeat after defeat and the State and
federal governments expanded their powers over Indian reservations through
the first half of the 20th Century, things began to change after 1964.
The tide of encroachments reducing Indian governmental powers began to
reverse. From 1965 to 1975, many Indian nations and tribes began to
recover many powers and authorities once eroded by various States and the
U.S. government. As a result of hard won successes, Indian governments
began to compete directly with States and the federal government for
control over lands, hunting, fishing, taxation, social welfare, commerce,
and a growing list of other powers.
Compared to the powers lost over the previous generations, Indian
nations and tribes could only consider their successes as minor compared
to their losses. To a growing number of non-Indians who took up residence
inside Indian reservations between 1900 and 1965, Indian successes caused
doubts and anxieties. Non-Indians began to express doubts about whether
their rights to land and a way of life would be protected by increasingly
active Indian governments. Individual Indians holding allotments on
reservations, but not living as members of the tribe, also began to have
doubts about the protection of their rights. Increased Indian government
activity aroused increased concerns among both Indian and non-Indian land
owners.
Non-Indians with significant economic interests on Indian
reservations sought protection from growing Indian government power by
turning to the U.S. federal courts. Their success can best be described
as modest. The U.S. courts did not produce the broad reduction of Indian
government powers originally hoped for. Non-Indians turned to the State
governments for protection and found even less success. Many non-Indians
began to express frustration which became anger and finally produced
reactionary political action.
Though reservations and native communities are recognized by the
United States government to include reserved lands and resources for
Indian and native peoples, the U.S. Department of the Interior has worked
unceasingly to move non-Indians into these lands. Since the U.S.
government enacted the General Allotment Act of 1887 it has successfully
annexed major portions of reserved Indian lands for use by non-Indians. A
little more than three-tenths percent (0.3% or about 567,000) of the total
non-Indian population in the United States now either own lands or live on
Indian reservations. Fully forty-five percent (45%) of the estimated
1,263,403 people on Indian reservations are now non-Indian. On some
reservations, the Indian population now represents less than 20% of the
total number of residents.
The Department of Interior's practice of promoting non-Indian
immigration into Indian reservations violated both the spirit and the
language of treaties and agreements with Indian Nations. Because of their
greater numbers, non-Indians began to organize inside reservations to
undermine Indian communities and their governments. Immigrant non-Indians
began to argue that their presence actually reduces the size of Indian
reservations and opens the "annexed lands" to control by the State
government. They appealed to State governments and found increasing
interest in their concerns. One-by-one, State governments have begun to
assert that where "non-Indians reside inside Indian reservations," the
authority of the State can and will be extended.
Competition for the land and resources and regulation of people's
lives is not new. This struggle has been a continuing fact of life for
Indian Nations since Europeans began to colonize the western hemisphere
495 years ago. For 428 years, until the 1920s, Indian nations and the
growing immigrant populations competed through violent means: Wars,
massacres, battles, and skirmishes. In that time, the collective
population of Indian Nations fell from an estimated 15,000,000 to fewer
than 1,000,000 -- a 94% drop. Meanwhile, the non-Indian immigrant
population swelled from a few thousand individuals to more than
100,000,000 -- a 5000% increase.
Over the same period, Indian and native peoples saw their land and
resource domain shrink from 3.6 million square miles to just 680,000
square miles -- a drop of 81.2%.
Since 1972, the size of the Indian and native land-base has further
shrunk to about 152,000 square miles -- with the enactment of the Alaskan
Native Claims Settlement Act. An area larger than the combined size of
Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, an estimated
480,000 square miles of land near Indian and native lands, remain
contested.
In the State of Canada
In Canada, Indian and Native Nations have had a similar experience
though of more recent vintage. Eleven treaties conducted by Indian
Nations and the United Kingdom deal with "Peace and Friendship,"
immigration, trade, travel, resource extraction, "to open lands for
settlement," and land cessions in regions located primarily in southern
Canada. Nearly two-thirds of what is now called Canada was never ceded to
any European or American State. Consequently, many Indian Nations in
Canada hold the view that they have a relationship based on treaties with
the United Kingdom and not with the State of Canada.
It was this perception that aroused Indian and Native Nations to
react to the Canadian government's developing plans in the late 1960s and
early 1970s to establish a new relationship with the United Kingdom. In
1969, the Canadian government published the _White Paper_ which detailed
proposals for the termination of Indian and Native Nations. After years
of public opposition by Indian governments, and the development of
alternative political proposals by Indian governments, Canada shifted its
emphasis. The Canadian government began to move toward a unilateral
redefinition of relations between Canada and the United Kingdom without
consulting with Indian and Native Nations. Canada proposed to secure its
independence from the United Kingdom by "repatriating the Constitution."
Put another way, Canada sought a political process between the Canadian
government and the British government which would formally constitute the
State of Canada under its own constitution. Along with this process was
the assumption by Canadian leaders that Canada would assume full control
over all Indians and their lands -- thus breaking the relationship between
Indian Nations and the United Kingdom by agreement between Canada and
Britain, and without Indian consent.
By 1979, the Canadian Constitutional Repatriation process had begun
to take form. Indian Nations believing that the United Kingdom would not
break the promises it made in the eleven Treaties, pursued a separate
political process to enter discussions with the British government.
During the next four years, Indian and Native Nations became a visible
participant in a political tug-of-war that involved the British
government, Canadian government and the governments of Canada's Provinces.
On April 17, 1982, Canada succeeded in gaining an agreement with the
British Parliament which allowed Canada to have its own Constitution
separate from Britain. On that date, Canada became a legitimate,
independent State in its own right.
Despite proposals and petitions from Indian and Native Nations,
Canada would not agree to include Indian Nations in its new Constitution
as a "Third Level of Government." Indian and Native Nations were
specifically left out of the Canadian Constitution as distinct political
entities. They were not permitted to join in confederation with
provincial and federal governments. Simultaneously, Treaties and
agreements between Indian and Native Nations and the United Kingdom were
unceremoniously abandoned by the British government. Canada said it would
assume the responsibilities under such treaties -- an idea soundly
rejected by many Indian and Native governments.
Since, under the new Canadian Constitution, Provincial governments
have primary authority over land and natural resource questions, these
governments began to move quickly to ensure control over Canadian,
Provincial AND Indian lands. It was this very move that Indian and Native
governments feared would be the outcome.
In the past five years since Canada became an independent State, the
political conflict between Indian and Native Nations and the Provincial
and Federal governments has continued unabated. An incipient, Anti-Indian
Movement, partly influenced by events over the previous fifteen years and
by events in the United States began to grow. But, unlike the United
States' Movement, Right-Wing political extremism has played a much more
public and active role. The growth of fundamentalist religious activities
in and around Indian and Native communities has been very rapid. Elements
of the Identity Church, in British Columbia and Alberta particularly, have
assumed considerable influence. Elements of the Church of Jesus Christ
Christian and groups of "concerned citizens" have increased in number.
While most of what is discussed below focuses on the United States,
virtually all has relevance to the situation of Indians in Canada.
THE ANTI-INDIAN MOVEMENT
Competition for control over Indian reservations now includes
individual non-Indians seeking to force the break-up of reservation
governments and lands. On-reservation non-Indians were joined by off-
reservation non-Indians to achieve the break-up of Indian Nations. Off-
reservation non-Indian activism began to grow as a result of three
factors: Public activism by the American Indian Movement in the early
1970s, growing success by Indian governments to exercise some governmental
powers over lands, resources and activities in "ceded territories," and
movements by several Indian Nations to reclaim original lands and
resources wrongfully taken by the United States.
What is now called the "Anti-Indian Movement" includes non-Indian
activists inside reservations and non-Indian activists outside
reservations. It also includes a small minority of Indians, both inside
and outside reservations, who associate themselves with the values and
aspirations of the non-Indian population. While the Anti-Indian Movement
has an important impact in several areas of the country, the actual
numbers of activists is not more than 1000 individuals. Far greater
numbers of sympathetic followers, have given their names to small
organizations in fifteen states. The total number of sympathetic
followers is currently estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 individuals.
Activists have formed small groups on and near Indian reservations
with names like, ALL CITIZENS EQUAL, TOTALLY EQUAL AMERICANS, CITIZENS
RIGHTS ORGANIZATION, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WHITE EARTH EQUAL RIGHTS, CONCERNED
CITIZENS COUNCIL, PROPERTY OWNERS' ASSOCIATION, and INTERSTATE CONGRESS
FOR EQUAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. These groups have been linked
through individuals and interest issues with organizations formed in
cities and towns. These include narrowly defined associations of
individuals concerned with sport-fishing, hunting, small business, and
recreation. Such groups like S/SPAWN located in Bellevue, Washington;
Alaskan Constitutional Legal Defense Fund in Anchorage, Alaska; Bonduel
Conservation Club in Wisconsin and East Slope Taxpayers in Cut Bank,
Montana fall into this category. These LOCAL GROUPS are linked
independently and through two main group associations: THE INTERSTATE
CONGRESS FOR EQUAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES which has been a recipient
of financial support from Joseph Coors of Coors Beer fame, and the PROTECT
AMERICANS' RIGHTS & RESOURCES ASSOCIATION (PARR) which was formed in
Wisconsin in March 1987.
These small associations of individuals and larger associations of
organizations have worked to gain support for their interests through the
National Associations of Counties (NaCo), the National Wildlife Federation
and the National Rifle Association.
While the Anti-Indian Movement has grown and become more
sophisticated in the last 20 years, its actual impact has been fairly
small. In 1987, however, the Anti-Indian Movement began to have an impact
on the actual functioning of Indian governments, and it had a greater
affect on the political aggressiveness of a number of State governments.
Instead of directing their attention to legal actions, the Anti-Indian
Movement focuses on political action centered on State legislatures, State
Attorneys' General, U.S. Congressional offices and public opinion.
ENTER RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS
The formation of groups in the Pacific Northwest which have the
intent of intimidating, violently attacking and even killing members of
different societies (Non-Whites, Jewish people, etc.) began in earnest ten
years ago. Organized activities began much earlier in the mid-western
states and the Great Lakes Region. Individuals connected with various
churches, political groups, intellectual groups, and paramilitary groups
broadly identified with the NEW-RIGHT, ULTRA-RIGHT, and the NEO-NAZI
movement assert their intention to occupy and TAKE the five state area
including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as a homeland for
what they call the Aryan Nation. Groups like CITIZENS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL
GOVERNMENT, COMMITTEE TO RESTORE THE CONSTITUTION, NATIONAL SOCIALIST
VANGUARD, CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST CHRISTIAN (ARYAN NATIONS), POSSEE
COMMITATUS, THE DUCK CLUB, and THE ORDER have been established in towns
near Indian reservations and on some reservations in Idaho, Washington,
Michigan, Minnesota, Alaska, Wisconsin, Montana and South Dakota.
All of these groups are ultraconservative and far-right in their
ideology. All have close links with neo-nazi aspirations. The most
visible of these on Indian reservations are the Citizens for
Constitutional Government and Committee to Restore the Constitution.
Individuals active in the Anti-Indian Movement have been directly linked
to the Committee to Restore the Constitution.
The Anti-Indian Movement, Extreme Right-Wing groups and the
competition between governments are all concerned with LAND and
JURISDICTION. These are refined terms for the same conflict that has been
going on for more than four hundred years. The conflict now, however, is
political; peppered with occasional instances of violent behaviour. It
is also a conflict which rages both INSIDE and OUTSIDE Indian
reservations.
Organized Anti-Indian activists have been joined by private
individuals on and near Indian reservations who fear Indian tribes.
Growing evidence suggests that Extreme Right-Wing activists connected to
such groups as the "White Aryan Nation," "The Order" and the "Identity
Church" have located on and near Indian reservations; and, they are
winning converts from "those who fear Indian tribes." This is a new
wrinkle in Anti-Indian activity, which may contain the seeds of greater
conflicts in the future.
The Order operates near the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, while elements
of the Identity Church operate near the Quinault and Lummi Indian
Reservations. The Duck Club operates near two Klallam reservations in
Northwest Washington State, and growing evidence suggests that the groups
have actually infiltrated some reservations. Citizens for Constitutional
Government and the Committee to restore the Constitution have strong
political connections in Southern California and have visible presence
near the Yakima, Lummi and Colville reservations in Washington State, and
the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho.
While the Anti-Indian Movement has its "racist leaders," it has
remained primarily oriented to political action and public demonstrations.
The Extreme Right-Wing groups, however, tend to combine political action,
intimidation, paramilitary activity, actual land occupation and public
demonstrations. While both are relatively small, these apparently
converging movements have important impacts on community stability through
the use of intimidation and "bully politics."
ANTI-INDIAN AND RIGHT-WING HARMONIC CONVERGENCE: 1986-1987
The apparent convergence of the Anti-Indian Movement and Right-Wing
Extremists is ominous not only because of the instability and threat posed
to Indian communities.
Both the Anti-Indian Movement and Right-Wing Extremist groups have an
intense interest in both Indian land and reducing Indian government's
powers. When combined with the efforts of State governments and the
United States government to further reduce Indian rights and Indian lands,
the Anti-Indian Movement and emerging presence of Right-Wing Extremist
groups operating from a fundamentally racist, WHITE-SUPREMACIST ideology
pose a serious threat to Indian people.
Out of sight, and out of mind, the movement to organize opposition to
Indian tribes (now twenty years old) has continued to grow. It has grown
into a sophisticated movement involving scores of small organizations, a
few large organizations, businesses, county governments, state
legislatures, offices of State Attorneys General, candidates for
Congressional office in three states, and a growing number of individual
Indians and non-Indians. The Anti-Indian Movement has a few ideological
activists. It now includes conservative and right-wing ideologs, farmers,
on-reservation land-owners, hunters, fishermen, small businesses, and a
growing number of individuals who have become persuaded that Indian Tribes
must be eliminated.
Here are a few "apparently unrelated events" that took place in 1987:
* The PROTECT AMERICANS' RIGHTS & RESOURCES (PARR) organization was
formed in Wisconsin, in March 1987. The PARR called for a boycott of all
high stakes bingo on Indian reservations as a way to counter a threat by
Chippewas to boycott merchants in Ashland, Wisconsin.
* In Montana, about 300 Indian and non-Indian farmers and ranchers
joined a "tractorcade convoy" to protest the Bureau of Indian Affairs'
control over the Flathead Irrigation Project. Water, they said, should be
under the control of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and eventually under
the control of the users themselves. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai
Tribes joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs to counter the protest.
* In Washington, Indians arrested by U.S. authorities for fishing the
Columbia River received an acquittal from the Yakima Tribal Court, but sit
in a Federal jail. Political intimidation inside the Yakima reservation
increased. Non-Indian activist increasingly exploit public ignorance
about a U.S. Internal Revenue Service challenge to the Lummi Indian
Tribe's claim that individual Indian earnings from the sale of trust
protected resources are exempt from U.S. income tax. The subject is of
particular interest to leaders of the COMMITTEE TO RESTORE THE
CONSTITUTION.
* The Michigan based organization, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH protested Indian
treaty-protected fishing and hunting in Northern Michigan.
* In Minnesota, the TOTALLY EQUAL AMERICANS organization expresses
satisfaction and distrust with Montana Senator John Melcher's proposed
legislation for Congress to "review Indian tribal authority to impose
taxes on non-tribal persons on Indian reservations."
* THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES (NaCo) considered supporting a
study to reclassify Indian reservations like counties and cities.
* The Washington State Attorney General authored a letter to U.S.
Attorney General Edwin Meese expressing gratitude for a December 9, 1987
meeting to discuss federal Indian policy, and "the unheard voices [of]
individual Indian and non-Indian citizens who are being directly impacted
by such federal Indian policies."
The Anti-Indian Movement has evolved a jargon of its own with buzz
words and slogans: EQUAL RIGHTS, NON-INDIAN AND NON-TRIBAL-INDIAN RIGHTS,
INDIAN LAWS SUPPLANT THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
IS BEING IGNORED, INITIATIVE 456, PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON THE IMPACT OF
FEDERAL INDIAN POLICY ON NON-TRIBAL INDIANS AND NON-INDIANS, EQUAL RIGHTS
AND RESPONSIBILITIES, SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR A RACE OF PEOPLE, and ABROGATION
OF TREATIES. Out of an historical context, these terms and phrases have
the ring of respectability, and even "mainstream politics." The
contemporary environment in which these phrases have taken on meaning is
decidedly not mainstream. Ultra-conservative groups have adopted buzz
words and slogans that are very similar, and Right-Wing Extremists
frequently rely on such words to express their views.
ANTICIPATING THE YEAR AHEAD
In 1988, the Anti-Indian Movement and elements of the extreme Right-
Wing will continue to agitate on and near Indian reservations over
"special interests" like hunting rights, fishing rights, land rights,
jurisdiction, bingo, taxation and "government representation on
reservations." Organizations will increase efforts to lobby support for
anti-Indian legislation and legal contests through state governments.
Specific emphasis will be placed on Attorneys General in the Western
States who will seek to force U.S. government consideration of new
policies to "protect non-Indians and non-Tribal Indians from tribal
governments." Continuing efforts will be mounted to force the
establishment of a Presidential or Congressional Commission to Investigate
the effects of federal Indian Policies on non-Tribal Indian and non-Indian
citizens of the United States. Finally, the Anti-Indian Movement will
mobilize resources to support anti-Indian political candidates for state
legislatures, and the U.S. Congress. Particular emphasis is being placed
on Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Alaska and Nevada.
It can be further expected, despite recent indictments of leading
Right-Wing Extremists, there will be a greater convergence between Anti-
Indian Movement activists and ultraconservative and right-wing groups like
the Citizens for Constitutional Government, Committee to Restore the
Constitution, Church of Jesus Christ Christian and the Duck Club. Though
closely associated with more militant extremist, these groups have
achieved a level of public respectability and appear (PUBLICLY) insulated
from extremist groups. Because some of the ultraconservative groups are
lead by individuals who have achieved some prominence as State and County
elected officials, they are even more able to wear the label of
respectability.
Indian government, fishing, hunting, land, taxation, equal rights,
will broaden as the principal themes of the Anti-Indian Movement. Changes
in the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Indian tribes will be increasingly
exploited. State legislatures, county governments and popular referenda
will continue to be used to promote "popular opposition to Indian tribes."
Because the United States and Canada are entering a "political year," the
more respectable elements of ultraconservative and right-wing groups will
assume a greater level of public visibility -- exploiting popular
discontent and local economic upheavals. Indian tribes can expect a
substantial escalation in frequency of incidents and political action.
Despite a long felt wish that "people would just leave Indians alone
to live as they wish," organized efforts to subvert Indian governments,
create political division inside Indian tribes and force State,
Provincial, County and Federal Challenges to tribal government authority
continue to mount. Despite the growing Anti-Indian Movement, there is no
effective plan among Indian tribes to counter it across the country or
inside Indian reservations. There is no consensus among Indian leaders
about what the Anti-Indian Movement consists of, nor is there a consensus
about what the movement actually means and why it is occurring. This
condition of disarray will continue to be exploited.
Indian Tribes are on the defensive in nine states in the United
States and three provinces in Canada. Though not winning many actual
concessions from the U.S. government, the Anti-Indian Movement is rapidly
moving with success among State and Provincial governments (many
legislators and Attorneys General), Counties (County Executives,
Commissioners, Sheriffs) and increasing numbers of "distressed non-
Indians" on and near reservations. Anti-Indian organizational efforts are
strongest in Washington, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Alaska and Nevada in the United States. Canadian
Anti-Indian Activists and Right-Wing Extremists have increasingly close
ties with their U.S. counter-parts. Their strength is greatest in British
Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. In some instances, these
groups will expand by organizing joint actions across the U.S./Canada
border.
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The complete findings of the Right-Wing Extremism & Anti-Indian Project
may be found in _Anti-Indian Movement on the Tribal Frontier, Special 2nd
Edition_, by Rudolph C. Ryser for $12.00 ($US).
For orders or information, please write to:
Center for World Indigenous Studies
P.O. Box 2574
Olympia, Washington 98507-2574
Phone 206/705-2079
Fax 206/956-1087
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