Native American self-determination

Native American self-determination refers to the social movements, legislation, and beliefs by which the tribes in the United States exercise self-governance and decision making on issues that affect their own people. "Self-determination" is meant to reverse the paternalistic policies enacted upon Native American tribes since the U.S. government created treaties and established the reservation system. The nations want to control their own affairs.

Self-determination is defined as the movement by which the Native Americans sought to achieve restoration of tribal community, self-government, cultural renewal, reservation development, educational control, and equal or controlling input into federal government decisions concerning policies and programs. The beginnings of the federal policy favoring self-determination dates back to the 1930s. In 1933, John Collier, a social worker and reformer who had long worked in American Indian affairs, was appointed commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was likely the most knowledgeable person about American Indians appointed to this position up to that period. He respected tribal cultures and values.

The U.S. Congress passed Collier's legislation, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, although with numerous changes. It was to enable tribes to reorganize their governments and strengthen their communities. It ended the allotment of Indian lands to individual households, which had led to loss of control over their territories. The law was intended to decrease the paternalistic power of the BIA, which extended to their running numerous Indian boarding schools, where American Indian children were forced to give up native languages and cultural practices. Four years before the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act, the government acknowledged that the paternalism was unfair to the Indian tribes and their people. The IRA was called the Indian "New Deal" by the Roosevelt administration. The IRA enabled the restoration of tribal governments, but Congress made many changes in response to lobbyists, and the bill fell short of the policy of "Indian self-determination without termination."

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