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South Dakota Senator Neal Tapio recently called for abolishing reservations. He told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader “We need to renegotiate the treaties that are holding down a once very proud people.” President Trump said “we tamed a continent” in a recent commencement speech at the Naval Academy. And Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke suggested sending kids in the foster care system on the Fort Peck reservation to a boarding school in Oklahoma. Comments like this from politicians are nothing new, but they often spark concern from people on the receiving end. We’ll break down the context and intent of each of the latest political messages.
Listen to an interview with Senator Neal Tapio (R-Watertown, SD) talking about his desire to renegotiate South Dakota treaties:
Guests:
Dr. David Lewis (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde) – educator and ethno historian blogs at NDN History Research
Dr. James Riding In (Pawnee) – Interim Director of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University and Associate Professor
Break 1 Music: Spirit Dance (song) Aaron White and Anthony Wakeman (artist) Handprints Of Our People (album)
Break 2 Music: Cree Honor Song (song) Randy Wood (artist) The Gift of Life (album)
to further explain my comments on this subject, In 1920, the State Mineral Protection act, Congress gave states 37 1/2 of bonuses, leases and royalties income from federal land. 1976 or 1978 congress increased the states mineral protection act to 50%. Mind you this is a congressional act, our little 5% isn’t a congressional act. Zinkte has made statement to leaders of native nation that the funding from resource revenue will pay for the reorganization. So let’s say Wyoming made 677 million off of federal land so that means the U.S, treasury half is 677 million. Look up the office of natural resource revenue. States will be pushing for more mining because of the revenue, and by the way Senator and house of representatives always enter a bill to turn over federal land to the States and they ask for all the income. The Senators and H of R that usually enters the identical bills are from a state with a population of native. And mind you the Senators entering the bill sit of Senate of Indian Affairs. As far as native nations sitting in the house as the other sovereign dependent nation, puerto rico washington d.c., marina island etc… they have the same privileges except for voting on the floor, they may enter a bill…That is what we really need is to enter our own bills. Congress seats change every two years, do you think they learned of natives in 2 years..no. this message is so important for native nations to understand. i tried to explain to our ira government, ours is really corrupt, What neil said was true, heaven forbid a white man to make such statement of us. Our government is not held responsible for miss spent funding of a contract program..so we get sanction which cuts the funding down. Any available extra revenue through taxation our ira government ( council) spends on travel, or the council take out a bond on taxes. the bond is never for improvement on our rez, the member don’t even know that the tribal government received a bond. but yet the council will spend the bond on how they see fit, like bonuses to council, more travel..it is corrupt and we have no one to turn to. We have talked to senators about the corruption, their response is your a sovereign nation and we are hands off. Our native courts will not hear any illegal matters that involves the ira government, because our government is sovereign. We are a restricted members of a tribe.