Frank King

When I was young, my dad, John King Jr., used to say to me, "Too much dependence on welfare destroys our tribal sovereignty." I never really understood what he was talking about until later on in life.

Many people have adapted individually to welfare by learning how to navigate the state and federal policies so as to stay on welfare continually. Since the time of my father's generation, welfare has changed and reformed to push people into the job market; but the problem on the reservations is the lack of jobs.

But why is there a lack of jobs? Because the economy of the tribe hasn't evolved since the reservations were created.

It is the tribes' responsibility to create and develop a modern economy for the people, but what has consistently happened is that many tribes have developed an economy around the individual or individuals who are utilizing the land on the reservations.

The land base of the tribe holds the key to building an economically stable environment within its borders, but this has become an impossibility due to the trust responsibility that the Department of Interior has taken on over the individual landowners. The issues surrounding the Cobell vs. Norton case is evidence of the fact that millions if not billions have been made on our lands - but what happened to the money? Who, in the end, has benefited from the leases and resources -- grazing, not to mention the oil, gas, timber, etc. - on our tribal nations? It certainly hasn't been our people, our relatives or our children.

It is interesting that the "establishment" is quick to use the recent phenomenon of Indian gaming as an example of how tribal economic development is benefiting the few and not the majority of tribal members. They choose to overlook the obvious truth of how non-Indians have reaped the majority of financial benefits from natural resources on Indian lands for generations.

The Cobell vs. Norton case is proof that an economy can be built off the land and its resources by a tribal nation because it shows us the volume of riches that can be made off our lands. We are currently reaching toward gaming to bring us out of this hole of poverty, and for some tribes it has worked well, but for the geographically isolated tribes, this simply isn't the case. These tribes should look at supplementing their gaming income with monies made off the natural resources of their lands.

Tribes need to take total control of all aspects of natural resource leases, including but not limited to: oil, gas, coal, timber, water, wildlife, farming and ranching. There are cash resources on our reservation lands that have been used to the benefit of others since the creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the advent of reservations. Our tribes need to look at making an economic recovery plan out of these natural-resource monies that have been consistently taken off the reservations by the Department of the Interior.

If this court case over our Individual Indian Monies seeks to remedy the issues surrounding the lack of responsibility of the Interior Department, then it should also have a solution of turning over the responsibility of those monies and leases to our tribes.

Right now we are in a horrible state of financial affairs across this Native nation. We have the resources to pull ourselves out of this continuous tribal recession, but we fail to see what has always been right in front of our eyes - our land.

We need to create tribal laws to govern the use of our lands and create a corporate language that everyone falls under if they want to use our natural resources for any purposes, thus eliminating the rules that have been enacted by a third-party government that have been consistently failing Native America. Cobell vs. Norton is a good example of this failure and is a good excuse for our tribes to take back the responsibility of what has always been rightfully ours: The right to manage the natural resources of our lands and the right to govern this management ourselves.

Our tribes have been too dependent on inadequate federal government representation; a department of the federal government cannot fairly represent the interests of the tribes. We need to do this ourselves, or have the power and resources to create an independent third party to represent us in Washington, D.C.

In my opinion, it is unconstitutional for the current elected federal officials to represent any tribal government. It isn't fair for one sovereign to represent another when their state doesn't have jurisdiction on tribal lands in the first place.

Poverty is perpetuated when a community becomes dependent on welfare. If the people know that they don't really need to work for their individual sovereignty because it's easier to apply for welfare, then they won't have a desire to improve beyond the amount of money that they can get in the welfare check every month. This dependency destroys the individual by destroying self-esteem. A dependent person, like a dependent nation, is never truly free.

The handout-dependent mentality is unfortunately passed on from generation to generation, which only creates a future leadership that is used to being spoon-fed. In this way, tribal societies unknowingly reinforce the illusion that only the federal government knows what is best for our Native people, which isn't really sovereignty at all but legislative welfare.

Welfare should be addressed as a problem by all tribal governments, not endorsed as a way of life.

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Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare
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