Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1987
Abstract
The rhetoric of the Indian New Deal has directed scholars to study tribal political activities only after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Graham D. Taylor expressed the prevailing opinion when he claimed that "the tribal governments established under the Indian Reorganization Act constitute a totally new and unfamiliar level of organization for many Indian groups.'" Although the flurry of new tribal constitutions adopted after 1934 overshadowed previous constitutional activities, Taylor and others overstate the case. Indian tribes had always had the right to determine their own form of government, and many tribes, beginning with the Cherokee in 1827, had adopted written tribal constitutions long before the IRA. The Brule' Sioux of the Rosebud Reservation and their Oglala kinsfolkon the Pine Ridge Reservation had between them written and adopted seven constitutions between 1916 and 1933. These documents show both a strong understanding of and a widespread interest in constitutional government among the Sioux. Moreover, these early constitutions actually provided the tribes with more autonomy than did the 1934 IRA constitutions, which required approval or review of the actions of tribal governments by the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior or by the secretary of the interior himself. Despite the plenary powers of Congress over Indian affairs, nothing in the context of the pre-1934 constitutions was as limiting as these "limiting clauses" in the IRA constitutions.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 7:2 (Spring 1987). Copyright © 1987 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.