How Long Will Bureaucrats Continue To Treat Native Americans Like Children on Their Own Lands

On his way out, Joltin' Joe Biden seems intent on blocking drilling for oil on tribal lands in Alaska, even though old treaties gave the natives the right to make such decisions about their own lands. That right lasted till someone struck oil. First white progressives stole the land and gave the first peoples what they didn't much want and then when that land became valuable, suddenly the white men of the DNC decided they needed to protect the primitives from themselves.

Absolute balderdash if you ask me.

Nagruk Harcharek, the president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, an organization that represents the interests of numerous native communities , said, "What we’re hearing from the administration is that (they) are the most tribally-friendly administration in the history of the United States, right?” Harcharek disagrees. “At least from our perspective, that’s not our impression. There was a lack of engagement, meaningful engagement (with the Biden administration over the rights of the tribes to allow drilling on their ancestral lands.) Oftentimes, Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, we heard of policy changes in the news and not from phone calls from folks, even though everybody has our number. We are part of the environment. We utilize it for subsistence hunting, for our culture, and it’s extremely important to us. We don’t need to be protected from our own environment,We can make decisions and help administrations make decisions that are both good for the region and also good for the environment and good for the state, good for the nation. And that just wasn’t the case."

 

As a person of native American ancestry this sounds to me like more of that paternalistic white man talk the Indians got in the 19th century when white men were talking treaties it seemed that at least some of them had no intention of honoring. The attitude was often "Got to take care of the Injuns because they aren't capable of caring for themselves. Great White Father in Washington my fuzzy muscular buttocks! It's just one more example of progressive white folk lying to the tribes.

Sheila and I have waay more native American ancestry than Pocahontas Warren sitting up there in DC on her high horse. My great++++++ grandfather, Nemacolin, was a scout for George Washington (who is my 7th cousin 8 times removed) and together they cut the Cumberland Trail. Sheila's Great +++++ Grandfather, War Chief Hopothle Mica Bowie traveled to New York to negotiate a peace treaty with the new United States President, George Washington. Papa George gave the Indians a much better deal than Biden even though noted Democrat President Andrew Jackson and others later reneged on the deals. Lincoln and Grant negotiated some fair deals with the tribes only to have later members of a certain party come along later and screw the Indians over. 

To this day Indians can't even get home mortgages for homes on the reservation because the Bureau of Indian Affairs won't allow it in case the bank were to foreclose. If the feds would let the tribes truly manage their own affairs they might have better economies that don't have to rely on casinos and cigarette and firework sales. In the past, Indian tribes in Oklahoma that were allowed to contract with oil companies to drill on their lands have been able to seriously improve conditions among their people.

Among the Sea Peoples the states and the feds do give our native brothers a break on fishing rights that commercial companies don't get up here in the Pacific Northwest. Even so, there are still too many politicians who suffer from the "Great White Father" syndrome.

If you want to support Native American rights, make Washington stick to the treaties, give control of the reservations to the tribes, and stop treating Native Americans like children. That's way more demeaning than anything done by conservative Christian Americans.

© 2024 by Tom King