James Robert Allison
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300206692
- eISBN:
- 9780300216219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300206692.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter demonstrates the flawed minerals leasing regime in action. Postwar changes in global energy production and escalating demand from the booming Sunbelt South brought multinational energy ...
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This chapter demonstrates the flawed minerals leasing regime in action. Postwar changes in global energy production and escalating demand from the booming Sunbelt South brought multinational energy companies to the vast coal reserves of the American West. There, they exploited a legal regime that placed authority over public and tribal minerals in the hands of unprepared federal officials, who allowed energy firms to cheaply secure millions of tons of minerals. By 1971, this system was so dysfunctional that the federal government halted further leasing of public minerals, though Indian mineral development continued unabated. No group had more experience with this broken system than the Navajo and Hopi tribes. The second half of the chapter thus demonstrates how energy companies worked with federal agents and tribal leaders to lock up reservation minerals for minimum royalties. It discusses the pressure to develop exerted by federal officials, the inexperience of tribal leaders negotiating energy deals, and the lack of knowledge among ordinary tribal members about mining’s impacts. While some tribal members resisted development, that resistance came too little, too late. These southwestern fights, however, prepared a generation of tribal leaders and consultants for their more successful battle on the Northern Plains.Less
This chapter demonstrates the flawed minerals leasing regime in action. Postwar changes in global energy production and escalating demand from the booming Sunbelt South brought multinational energy companies to the vast coal reserves of the American West. There, they exploited a legal regime that placed authority over public and tribal minerals in the hands of unprepared federal officials, who allowed energy firms to cheaply secure millions of tons of minerals. By 1971, this system was so dysfunctional that the federal government halted further leasing of public minerals, though Indian mineral development continued unabated. No group had more experience with this broken system than the Navajo and Hopi tribes. The second half of the chapter thus demonstrates how energy companies worked with federal agents and tribal leaders to lock up reservation minerals for minimum royalties. It discusses the pressure to develop exerted by federal officials, the inexperience of tribal leaders negotiating energy deals, and the lack of knowledge among ordinary tribal members about mining’s impacts. While some tribal members resisted development, that resistance came too little, too late. These southwestern fights, however, prepared a generation of tribal leaders and consultants for their more successful battle on the Northern Plains.
James Robert Allison
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300206692
- eISBN:
- 9780300216219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300206692.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
Sadly, just as energy tribes secured recognition of their sovereign rights to control resource development, the market for Indian energy collapsed. This Epilogue explains the changes in international ...
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Sadly, just as energy tribes secured recognition of their sovereign rights to control resource development, the market for Indian energy collapsed. This Epilogue explains the changes in international energy markets that produced a glut of cheap foreign oil in mid-1980s, making investment in tribal-led energy projects uneconomical. It also updates readers on the fitful attempts by the Northern Cheyenne, Crow, and Navajo to establish mineral revenues amid fluctuating energy markets, and details the intense intra-tribal debates over resource development that continue to divide these communities. Despite these setbacks, however, the book concludes on a hopeful note, describing subsequent changes to federal law that continue to expand tribal control over reservation resources. The last anecdote offers CERT Chairman Peter MacDonald’s 1982 farewell address as an opportunity to summarize the energy tribes’ momentous efforts. These groups mobilized a defense of the homeland, developed the institutional capacity to regulate energy development, and secured legal authority over reservation resources. Only the successful execution of that authority to alleviate suffocating poverty remains.Less
Sadly, just as energy tribes secured recognition of their sovereign rights to control resource development, the market for Indian energy collapsed. This Epilogue explains the changes in international energy markets that produced a glut of cheap foreign oil in mid-1980s, making investment in tribal-led energy projects uneconomical. It also updates readers on the fitful attempts by the Northern Cheyenne, Crow, and Navajo to establish mineral revenues amid fluctuating energy markets, and details the intense intra-tribal debates over resource development that continue to divide these communities. Despite these setbacks, however, the book concludes on a hopeful note, describing subsequent changes to federal law that continue to expand tribal control over reservation resources. The last anecdote offers CERT Chairman Peter MacDonald’s 1982 farewell address as an opportunity to summarize the energy tribes’ momentous efforts. These groups mobilized a defense of the homeland, developed the institutional capacity to regulate energy development, and secured legal authority over reservation resources. Only the successful execution of that authority to alleviate suffocating poverty remains.
James Robert Allison III
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300206692
- eISBN:
- 9780300216219
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300206692.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This book shows how American Indians fulfilled the promise of Indian self-determination by reclaiming control over reservation resources. During America’s 1970s quest for energy independence, tribes ...
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This book shows how American Indians fulfilled the promise of Indian self-determination by reclaiming control over reservation resources. During America’s 1970s quest for energy independence, tribes possessing valuable minerals resisted massive mining projects threatening their indigenous communities. They also launched a national campaign to improve their tribal governments’ capacity to manage reservation land. Working with federal agencies tasked with increasing domestic energy production, these groups created the Council of Energy Resource Tribes to educate tribal leaders and broker deals that could provide energy to the nation and revenue for the tribes. Unfortunately, an antiquated legal structure hindered tribal efforts at development. Progressive-Era laws embedded with notions of Indian inferiority – namely, the 1938 Indian Mineral Leasing Act – denied tribes the right to control reservation mining, placing this authority instead with unprepared federal agents. By the early 1980s, however, increasingly sophisticated tribes demanded the legal authority to match their newfound capacity. Working with industry representatives, federal officials, and members of Congress, energy tribes thus constructed a new legal regime – anchored by the 1982 Indian Mineral Development Act – that recognized tribal, not federal, control over reservation development. But importantly, these efforts to restructure federal law also reshaped Indian Country. As tribes altered their governments to better manage resources, intense internal debates erupted over whether these new forms of governance were culturally “authentic.” In the end, efforts to increase tribal capacity and secure legal authority over reservation resources produced both expanded sovereignty and deeply divided communities.Less
This book shows how American Indians fulfilled the promise of Indian self-determination by reclaiming control over reservation resources. During America’s 1970s quest for energy independence, tribes possessing valuable minerals resisted massive mining projects threatening their indigenous communities. They also launched a national campaign to improve their tribal governments’ capacity to manage reservation land. Working with federal agencies tasked with increasing domestic energy production, these groups created the Council of Energy Resource Tribes to educate tribal leaders and broker deals that could provide energy to the nation and revenue for the tribes. Unfortunately, an antiquated legal structure hindered tribal efforts at development. Progressive-Era laws embedded with notions of Indian inferiority – namely, the 1938 Indian Mineral Leasing Act – denied tribes the right to control reservation mining, placing this authority instead with unprepared federal agents. By the early 1980s, however, increasingly sophisticated tribes demanded the legal authority to match their newfound capacity. Working with industry representatives, federal officials, and members of Congress, energy tribes thus constructed a new legal regime – anchored by the 1982 Indian Mineral Development Act – that recognized tribal, not federal, control over reservation development. But importantly, these efforts to restructure federal law also reshaped Indian Country. As tribes altered their governments to better manage resources, intense internal debates erupted over whether these new forms of governance were culturally “authentic.” In the end, efforts to increase tribal capacity and secure legal authority over reservation resources produced both expanded sovereignty and deeply divided communities.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226712932
- eISBN:
- 9780226712963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226712963.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
The Hopi reservation occupies 1.5 million acres of those aboriginal lands promised them by Maasaw in northeastern Arizona. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, considerable concessions ...
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The Hopi reservation occupies 1.5 million acres of those aboriginal lands promised them by Maasaw in northeastern Arizona. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, considerable concessions of Hopi reservation lands would be made by the federal government to appease the demands of the larger Navajo Tribe, which surrounds them. These and other concessions have contributed to the much-publicized land dispute between the two tribes, which continues to this day as Navajo holdouts residing on Hopi Partition Lands resist efforts and inducements by the Hopi Tribe and the federal government to relocate to the Navajo reservation. This chapter provides some context concerning the history of Anglo-American-style jurisprudence among the Hopis, and describes the physical settings, legislation, and personnel that inform the institutional operation of contemporary Hopi Tribal Court proceedings. It discusses the impact of the Anglo-American style of jurisprudence on Hopi governance, including that of Hopi villages. It also examines the centralization of Hopi tribal government, the Hopi Court of Indian Offenses, Hopi Ordinance 21, and the Hopi Tribal Court today.Less
The Hopi reservation occupies 1.5 million acres of those aboriginal lands promised them by Maasaw in northeastern Arizona. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, considerable concessions of Hopi reservation lands would be made by the federal government to appease the demands of the larger Navajo Tribe, which surrounds them. These and other concessions have contributed to the much-publicized land dispute between the two tribes, which continues to this day as Navajo holdouts residing on Hopi Partition Lands resist efforts and inducements by the Hopi Tribe and the federal government to relocate to the Navajo reservation. This chapter provides some context concerning the history of Anglo-American-style jurisprudence among the Hopis, and describes the physical settings, legislation, and personnel that inform the institutional operation of contemporary Hopi Tribal Court proceedings. It discusses the impact of the Anglo-American style of jurisprudence on Hopi governance, including that of Hopi villages. It also examines the centralization of Hopi tribal government, the Hopi Court of Indian Offenses, Hopi Ordinance 21, and the Hopi Tribal Court today.
