CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS - An American Indian Critique of Sovereignty

This "Critical Conversation" took place on February 9, 2021.
Glenn Morris (Shawnee) Professor Morris’ areas of expertise are indigenous peoples in the international legal and political arena, public law, civil liberties, and race/gender and the law. He has been active in the development of international legal standards for the defense of the rights of indigenous peoples for over thirty years. Tink Tinker (wazhazhe, Osage Nation) For 33 years he was a professor of American Indian studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, where he still holds the title emeritus professor.
‘Sovereignty’ is a eurochristian concept that has often been used in relation to American Indians during colonization. Historically, early contact with eurochristians took place within gift economies that were interconnected through trade throughout Turtle Island (what eurochristians call, “North America”). Through the legal fiction of the “Doctrine of Christian Discovery / Domination,” Indigenous Peoples became, in the eurochristian imagination, “subjects” to Christian Princes.
By the time of the American Revolution, various Indian Nations maintained international treaty relationships with the British, French, and later U.S. governments. As the U.S. government’s aspirations to empire unfolded throughout the 19th century, particularly following the Monroe Doctrine and Johnson v. M’Intosh in 1823, U.S.-Indian relations moved from the Department of War to the Department if the Interior. John Marshall would eventually tweak previous legal fictions to regard Indian Nations as “domestic dependent nations.”
Following the creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and various reservations following Indian Removal, as well as the end of treaty-making after 1870, the U.S. government increasingly used terminology of “tribes” to minimize previous international status. Plans to “civilize” and “assimilate” Indians initiated genocidal institutions such as compulsory boarding schools. All along, Christian missionaries were integral to these endeavors. Because the U.S. government has never upheld the various treaties it made with separate Nations, it sought to “legally” and genocidally dissolve them - through allotment, land encroachment, and “termination” policies throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. The “exceptional” space of the Indian reservation would be picked up by National Socialist lawyers as precedents for concentration camps.
Various efforts have been made by American Indians seeking international recognition at the League of Nations, the later United Nations. Following the Genocide Convention, policies of “termination” spread throughout the U.S., often displacing Indians to urban “ghettoes.” While some celebrate thee 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Ward Churchill and Charmaine White Face (Lakota) have argued that its diluted legal language makes it difficult for substantive effects in relation to centuries of injustices. Moreover, in Red Skin, White Masks Glen Sean Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) has pointed out that liberal politics of recognition maintain colonial logics of domination.
The notion of ‘sovereignty’ often arises in relation to American Indians amid this fraught and horrific history. As Taiaiake Alfred (Kahnawake Mohawk) notes, American Indians have entirely different concepts of ‘sovereignty’. In this conversation, Glenn Morris (Shawnee) and Tink Tinker (wazhazhe, Osage Nation) will elucidate some of the complexities among vexed notions of sovereignty as it relates to American Indians today.

[@kurtbogle2973]

I'm a person of Northern Scottish decent.
I'm a Human Being, and so is everyone else. I would like to approach the Humanitarian disfinction on this planet
From this point of view. What can we do to help ourselves when ourselves is all of Humanity? Because the fix must be a all inclusive understanding that ends the disfunction!
I hope we can agree on this. Because nothing is ever going to get fixed with a us vs them attitude. The Indigenous people are globally more powerful than they realize, but
we have all been victimized by the same system. The Turtle Island Indigenous only got in on the last 500 years of this Capitalist plague.
We were all once a planet of tribes. None of us were Christians. We Europeans didn't want Christianity either. It was forced upon us too. Much longer ago. The white people in the military weren't doing anything different than your people did in the first and second world war.
This doesn't mean we liked or agreed with it.
Your people experienced the same thing as our people did.
John Trudell speaks of this and nailed it.
We , you me and all of Humanity working together building the world that must be built to save all life on this planet .
Governments can be taken over. A United Humanity cannot be.
I see the Thirteen Grandmother's and think to myself that the Turtle Island Indigenous are the only people in this position because the Turtle Island Indigenous still have their identity and morality. Although it like out beliefs and languages is fading.
I believe Christianity was ment to turn everyone into livestock.
A tribe of tribes. A federation like you had to begin with. Only global. Good faith.
If Humanity can unite outside of the government's Humanity can be it's own government. Isn't this called Democracy?
Isn't that what it's supposed to be.
I look at Human history and all I see in the last 6000 years I'd divide and conquer by the Capitalists and their money.
How about unite and survive. How about embracing and understanding differences instead of condemnation ?
We are all made of the Earth Mother so is all life on this planet. We are all related we are all connected. . We must learn to care about and for each other.
I don't think the tribal division of anything among the Indigenous people is anyone's business except for the Tribes.
Sovereignty is making your own decisions and not having any other entity tell you what you can and can't do.
Humanity is Humanity, and everyone is the part of Humanity that they are. Tribal identity is the best thing for all . Because this is who we are this is how the Universe knows us. Love and peace to all.

[@kurtbogle2973]

To my understanding a sovereign nation is it's own country.