The criteria for tribal membership differs from one tribe to the next. For its own purposes, the Bureau of the Census counts anyone an Indian who declares to be such.
By recent counts, there are more than 2. These terms denote the cultural distinction between the indigenous people of the continental United States and those of Alaska. An Indian tribe was originally a body of people bound together by blood ties who were socially, politically, and religiously organized, who lived together in a defined territory and who spoke a common language or dialect.
In the eyes of the US government a body of people as described above must be officially recognized in order to be considered a tribe. Only tribes who maintain a legal relationship to the US government through binding treaties, acts of Congress, executive orders, etc.
There are currently more than federally recognized tribes in the United States, including some village groups in Alaska.
However, there are still hundreds of tribes undergoing the lengthy and tedious process of applying for federal recognition. Tribal sovereignty describes the right of federally recognized tribes to govern themselves, their lands, and their people. ISBN: Chapter 4 covers Tribal Membership, including membership criteria, judicial review of membership determinations, disenrollment, and federal government intervention.
Law review articles on tribal enrollment are indexed in the NILL library catalog. Many are available online in full-text while others are available by request from the library. For court cases, federal legislation, and news that is relevant to tribal enrollment, search "enrollment" or "membership" in the Indian Law Bulletins.
Indian tribes are sovereign and set their own rules regarding tribal enrollment and membership. In order to find out what requirements a specific tribe has, contact the tribe's main office or tribal enrollment office. These states also may not regulate matters such as environmental control, land use, gambling, and licenses on federal Indian reservations. In addition, the federal government gave up all special criminal jurisdiction in these states over Indian offenders and victims.
The states that elected to assume full or partial jurisdiction were Arizona , Florida , Idaho , subject to tribal consent , Iowa , Montana , Nevada , North Dakota , subject to tribal consent , South Dakota , Utah , and Washington Tribes possess all powers of self-government except those relinquished under treaty with the United States, those that Congress has expressly extinguished, and those that federal courts have ruled are subject to existing federal law or are inconsistent with overriding national policies.
Tribes, therefore, possess the right to form their own governments; to make and enforce laws, both civil and criminal; to tax; to establish and determine membership i. Limitations on inherent tribal powers of self-government are few, but do include the same limitations applicable to states, e.
For thousands of years, American Indians and Alaska Natives governed themselves through tribal laws, cultural traditions, religious customs, and kinship systems, such as clans and societies. Today, most modern tribal governments are organized democratically, that is, with an elected leadership. Through their tribal governments, tribal members generally define conditions of membership, regulate domestic relations of members, prescribe rules of inheritance for reservation property not in trust status, levy taxes, regulate property under tribal jurisdiction, control the conduct of members by tribal ordinances, and administer justice.
They also continue to utilize their traditional systems of self-government whenever and wherever possible. Many tribes have constitutions, others operate under articles of association or other bodies of law, and some have found a way to combine their traditional systems of government within a modern governmental framework. Some do not operate under any of these acts, but are nevertheless organized under documents approved by the Secretary of the Interior.
Contemporary tribal governments are usually, but not always, modeled upon the federal system of the three branches: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. The chief executive of a tribe is usually called a chairman, chairwoman or chairperson, but may also be called a principal chief, governor, president, mayor, spokesperson, or representative.
In modern tribal government, the chief executive and members of the tribal council or business committee are almost always elected. It is comprised of tribal members who are elected by eligible tribal voters.
In some tribes, the council is comprised of all eligible adult tribal members. Although some tribes require a referendum by their members to enact laws, a tribal council generally acts as any other legislative body in creating laws, authorizing expenditures, appropriating funds, and conducting oversight of activities carried out by the chief executive and tribal government employees. An elected tribal council and chief executive, recognized as such by the Secretary of the Interior, have authority to speak and act for the tribe as a whole, and to represent it in negotiations with federal, state, and local governments.
Furthermore, many tribes have established, or are building, their judicial branch — the tribal court system — to interpret tribal laws and administer justice. Generally, tribal courts have civil jurisdiction over Indians and non-Indians who either reside or do business on federal Indian reservations.
They also have criminal jurisdiction over violations of tribal laws committed by tribal members residing or doing business on the reservation. Under 25 C. Part , tribal courts are responsible for appointing guardians, determining competency, awarding child support from Individual Indian Money IIM accounts, determining paternity, sanctioning adoptions, marriages, and divorces, making presumptions of death, and adjudicating claims involving trust assets.
Congress has recognized the right of tribes to have a greater say over the development and implementation of federal programs and policies that directly impact on them and their tribal members. It did so by enacting two major pieces of legislation that together embody the important concepts of tribal self-determination and self-governance: The Indian Self-determination and Education Assistance Act of , as amended 25 U.
Through these laws, Congress accorded tribal governments the authority to administer themselves the programs and services usually administered by the BIA for their tribal members. It also upheld the principle of tribal consultation, whereby the federal government consults with tribes on federal actions, policies, rules or regulations that will directly affect them. Of course, blood quantum the degree of American Indian or Alaska Native blood from a federally recognized tribe or village that a person possesses is not the only means by which a person is considered to be an American Indian or Alaska Native.
In fact, there is no single federal or tribal criterion or standard that establishes a person's identity as American Indian or Alaska Native. The rights, protections, and services provided by the United States to individual American Indians and Alaska Natives flow not from a person's identity as such in an ethnological sense, but because he or she is a member of a federally recognized tribe.
That is, a tribe that has a government-to-government relationship and a special trust relationship with the United States. These special trust and government-to-government relationships entail certain legally enforceable obligations and responsibilities on the part of the United States to persons who are enrolled members of such tribes.
Eligibility requirements for federal services will differ from program to program. Likewise, the eligibility criteria for enrollment or membership in a tribe will differ from tribe to tribe.
According to the U. Bureau of the Census, the estimated population of American Indians and Alaska Natives, including those of more than one race, as of July 1, , was 4. They also refer specifically to persons eligible for benefits and services funded or directly provided by the BIA. Although the Secretary of the Interior is authorized by law to protect, where necessary, the interests of minors and adult persons deemed incompetent to handle their affairs, this protection does not confer a guardian-ward relationship.
As early as , U. American citizenship was also conveyed by statutes, naturalization proceedings, and by service in the Armed Forces with an honorable discharge in World War I. In , Congress extended American citizenship to all other American Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States. American Indians and Alaska Natives are citizens of the United States and of the individual states, counties, cities, and towns where they reside.
They can also become citizens of their tribes or villages as enrolled tribal members. American Indians and Alaska Natives have the right to vote just as all other U.
They can vote in presidential, congressional, state and local, and tribal elections, if eligible. And, just as the federal government and state and local governments have the sovereign right to establish voter eligibility criteria, so do tribal governments. American Indians and Alaska Natives have the same rights as other citizens to hold public office.
Over the years, American Indian and Alaska Native men and women have held elected and appointed offices at all levels of federal, state, and local government. Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Tribe of Kansas, served in both houses of Congress before holding the second highest elected office in the nation — that of Vice President of the United States under President Herbert Hoover.
American Indians and Alaska Natives also serve in state legislatures, state judicial systems, county and city governments, and on local school boards.
The heavy price American Indians and Alaska Natives paid to retain certain rights of self-government was to relinquish much of their land and resources to the United States. Among those may be hunting and fishing rights and access to sacred sites.
On federal Indian reservations, however, only federal and tribal laws apply to members of the tribe, unless Congress provides otherwise.
In federal law, the Assimilative Crimes Act makes any violation of state criminal law a federal offense on reservations. Most tribes now maintain tribal court systems and facilities to detain tribal members convicted of certain offenses within the boundaries of the reservation.
American Indians and Alaska Natives come from a multitude of different cultures with diverse languages, and for thousands of years used oral tradition to pass down familial and cultural information among generations of tribal members. Some tribes, even if widely scattered, belong to the same linguistic families. Common means of communicating between tribes allowed trade routes and political alliances to flourish. As contact between Indians and non-Indians grew, so did the necessity of learning of new languages.
Each tribe determines whether an individual is eligible for membership. Each tribe maintains it's own enrollment records and records about past members. To obtain information about your eligibility for membership, you must contact the tribe.
Tribal Enrollment Process.
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