The Return of the Native: American Indian Political Resurgence

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 1990 M07 19 - 288 pages
An incisive look at American Indian and Euro-American relations from the 16th century to the present, this book focuses on how such relations have shaped the Native American political identity and tactics in the ongoing struggle for power. Cornell shows how, in the early days of colonization, Indians were able to maintain their nationhood by playing off the competing European powers; and how the American Revolution and westward expansion eventually caused Native Americans to lose their land, social cohesion, and economic independence. The final part of the book recounts the slow, steady reemergence of American Indian political power and identity, evidenced by militant political activism in the 1960s and early 1970s. By paying particular attention to the evolution of Indian groups as collective actors and to changes over time in Indian political opportunities and their capacities to act on those opportunities, Cornell traces the Indian path from power to powerlessness and back to power again.

From inside the book

Contents

Chapter 1 The New Indian Politics
3
INTO THE DARK
9
THE FOUNDATIONS OF POLITICAL RESURGENCE
69
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
185
Notes
219
Selected Bibliography
267
Index
271
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 37 - ... Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.
Page 49 - No Indian nation or tribe, within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power, with whom the United States may contract by treaty...
Page 37 - The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue, is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society...
Page 204 - The Congress declares its commitment to the maintenance of the Federal Government's unique and continuing relationship with and responsibility to the Indian people through the establishment of a meaningful Indian self-determination policy which will permit an orderly transition from Federal domination of programs for and services to Indians to effective and meaningful participation by the Indian people in the planning, conduct, and administration of those programs and services.
Page 46 - Perhaps the most basic principle of all Indian law, supported by a host of decisions hereinafter analyzed, is the principle that those powers which are lawfully vested in an Indian tribe are not, in general, delegated powers granted by express acts of Congress, but rather inherent powers of a limited sovereignty which has never been extinguished.
Page 39 - Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.
Page 119 - Alaska ; to enlighten the public toward a better understanding of the Indian race; to preserve Indian cultural values; to seek an equitable adjustment of tribal affairs; to secure and to preserve rights under Indian treaties with the United States ; and otherwise to promote the common welfare of the American Indians — do establish this organization and adopt the following constitution and bylaws.
Page 46 - Tribes have been recognized as "distinct, independent, political communities" and, as such, qualified to exercise powers of self-government, not by virtue of any delegation of powers from the Federal Government, but rather by reason of their original Tribal...
Page 92 - Any Indian tribe, or tribes, residing on the same reservation, shall have the right to organize for its common welfare, and may adopt an appropriate constitution and bylaws, which shall become effective when ratified by a majority vote of the adult members of the tribe, or of the adult Indians residing on such reservation, as the case may be, at a special election authorized and called by the Secretary of the Interior under...
Page 47 - Cherokees acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the United States, and of no other power. Protection does not imply the destruction of the protected.

Bibliographic information