Tag Archives: tribal sovereignty

Tribal Sovereignty – TLAM Week 6

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Although the controversy has waned, white sportsmen’s anger toward American Indian fishermen reached a boiling point in the late 1980s and early ’90s. White protesters hurled verbal — and occasionally physical — assaults at American Indians who exercised their treaty rights by spearfishing during the spring spawn in northern Wisconsin lakes.

Dr. Larry Nesper, an assistant professor in American Indian studies program at the University of Wisconsin, was a guest speaker Feb. 24 in the Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums class. During a PowerPoint presentation, Nesper, author of The Walleye War, chronicled government documents, treaties, and court decisions that eventually enabled American Indians to fish and hunt on ceded land.

In the 1800s, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld sovereignty for American Indians, Nesper explained. In the following century, that sovereignty was eroded in another series of laws and treaties. Treaties of 1837 and 1842 were central documents regarding American Indian hunting and fishing rights. In those treaties, the Ojibwe ceded land in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan but retained rights to hunt, fish, and gather off-reservation. When the Ojibwe attempted to exercise those rights in the 1950s, it set off another round of litigation. However, the 1983 watershed decision in Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Voigt reaffirmed American Indians’ rights to hunt, fish, and gather off-reservation. Federal Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in 1991 that the state could not interfere with Ojibwe hunting, fishing, and trapping on public lands within the ceded territory in Wisconsin. These rulings set off racist protests at boat landings during the walleye harvest.

Spearfishing continues today. However, the tradition is allowed only on certain lakes, and bag limits are enforced. State game wardens monitor the harvest, and every fish is measured and identified. The number of fish harvested during the spawn is a tiny fraction of the overall haul taken during the standard fishing season.

Mike Cross, director of public library development for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, also spoke to the class Feb. 24. He explained how state library law affects public libraries, including Wisconsin’s five tribal libraries. The law mandates that library directors attain certification, that libraries are open at least 20 hours per week, and that they spend at least $2,500 annually on materials. In return, libraries receive state services and are eligible for federal funding.

The department is considering establishing less restrictive rules for tribal libraries, but such action would require passage of legislation. These rules will be important as the class tries to help build a public library on the Red Cliff Reservation.

Madison protests and law – TLAM Week 5

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The fifth week of TLAM broke a bit from the norm; because of historic demonstrations occurring in Madison, the class period was altered as our guest lecturers rescheduled for next week.  We nevertheless adapted to the extraordinary times, met as usual, discussed our readings, and reflected on the topics we’ve covered so far.

It seems particularly appropriate that the tensions in Madison have erupted as we have been reading about American Indian law and tribal relationships to the US government; the readings this week have made me think a lot about the relationships between the various levels and forms of government in our country.  As our focus has been on the Wisconsin State Capitol building this week, our academic minds have been examining the legal structure laid out for tribes historically and in the present.

We read two chapters from A Companion to American Indian History (eds. P.J. Deloria and N. Salisbury) to give us some background into the history of the three way relationship between Indian tribes, the US government, and individual states.  Relationships between individual tribes and the US government have been varied and complicated, employing language to be reinterpreted at the convenience of the federal government and constantly whittling down the rights of tribes to the detriment of their members.  If the relationships between tribes and the federal government are complex, the relationships between tribes and states are labyrinthine.  Disproportionate formal study has been done on state-tribe relationships compared to federal, which is interesting given the history of conflict between tribes and states as each entity tries to coexist in a complicated political environment.

In our constant goal to connect history, politics and librarianship, the last article we read for this week dealt with the complexities of law librarianship in relation to tribal collections.  Carter argues that law librarians should approach Indian law not just as another subject, but as a different paradigm; it is important to cover both the way federal law applies to tribes, as well as how internal tribal laws work.  It is also necessary to keep in mind that this information will differ depending on the specific tribe, as each individual tribe has different internal laws and sovereign status.  This segment of law has been previously neglected in law librarianship.

The take home message from this week, as far as I can see it, is this: law is complicated and history is messy.  As we all consider our political stances and constitutional understandings, we should keep these two facts in mind.

-Rebecca Karr