The Commission on State-Tribal Relations: Enduring Lessons in the Modern State-Tribal Relationship
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Forty years ago the relationship between states and tribes was primarily adversarial, both in perception and practice. Leaders of both state and tribal governments looked to the courts or Congress to define it in their favor, until events led to the creation of the Commission on State-Tribal Relations (“CSTR”) and the evolution of a different approach. The CSTR was the first organized national attempt to study the state-tribal relationship, and the principles it developed are still relevant to successful interactions of Indian and non-Indian governments. This article, written by the founders of the Commission on State-Tribal Relations, traces the historical development of a new approach to state-tribal relations in the 1970’s, during a time of heightened tension between state and tribal governments. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s federal Indian policy underwent dramatic changes. Within a relatively short period of time, the dreaded Termination Policy of the 1950’s 1 was replaced by the new self-determination era in all three branches of the federal government. The Executive Branch began to recognize tribal governments as more than administrative tools of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and in 1970 President Nixon promulgated a sweeping new policy of Indian Self-Determination. Congress embarked on an ambitious legislative agenda, in which it codified the policy of selfdetermination and provided a structure within which Indian tribal governments could
Source: bepress Legal Repository
Authors: Tassie Hanna, Sam Deloria, Charles E. Trimble
Institution: University of Tulsa
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: American Indian Graduate Center
OpenAlex ID: W172737620