Tribal Treaty Q&A

Treaties are legally binding contracts between sovereign nations that establish those nations' political and property relations. Article Six of the United States Constitution holds that treaties "are the supreme law of the land."

Treaties between Indian tribes and the United States confirm each nation's rights and privileges. In most of these treaties, the tribes gave vast amounts of land to the United States in exchange for protection, services, and in some cases cash payments, but reserved certain lands (reservations) and rights for themselves and their future generations.

Indian treaties have the same force now as on the day they were signed; like the Constitution and Bill of Rights, treaties do not expire with time.

What promises did the United States make in the treaties?

In return for the vast Indian holdings and resources, the United States made certain promises:

• Protection for Indians from attacks upon their lands (this protection included legal assistance).
• Health care
• Education
• Some monies
• Sovereignty and religious freedom
• Confirmation and protection of certain rights: self-government, fishing and hunting rights, and jurisdiction over their own lands

Indians have been called supercitizens. Are they?

It is a common misconception that Indians have special rights because of their race. This is not the case. Indians as individuals do not enjoy any privileges or special rights. Certain rights, such as hunting and fishing, belong to various Indian tribes not because they are made up of Indians, but because they were sovereign nations who signed treaties reserving rights to self-government among other reservations and conditions.

Hunting, fishing, and gathering rights are known legally as usufructory rights and are property rights. Retaining rights to minerals on land when it is sold, or as in some states retaining the rights to frail for pecans or rights to air space after the land is sold, are all of a similar nature. Property rights such as these are enjoyed by us all and are not a special right of Indian people.

What rights do Indian tribes have to natural resources?

In their treaties with the United States, Northwest tribes not only reserved land for themselves but also the right to determine use of that land and its resources. On reservations, tribes set land use codes and regulate hunting, fishing, grazing, mineral development, and water use.

Tribal rights to resource use extend far beyond reservation boundaries. In the treaties, tribes reserved the rights to hunt, fish, gather roots and berries, and pasture livestock on non-reservation lands. Many places where tribes possess these rights are on ceded lands on the millions of acres they gave to the United States in exchange for reservations and other rights and guarantees embodied in the treaties. The tribes also retained rights to fish at "all usual and accustomed places" that lie outside the ceded areas.

Resource rights, together with tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction, are the basis for Indian cultural and economic self-sufficiency.