Red Tape: How American Laws Ensnare Native American Lands, Resources, and People
![handle is hein.journals/okcu23 and id is 385 raw text is: Red Tape: How American Laws Ensnare Native
American Lands, Resources, and People
Matthew Atkinson*
In this Article, the author discusses America's heritage of
taking land from Native Americans-a heritage that continues
today. The author explains that beginning with the Indian Re-
moval Act in 1830 and the General Allotment Act in 1887, Con-
gress has consistently passed legislation which either takes land
from Native Americans or has the effect of preventing Native
Americans from using their land. The United States has also ne-
gotiated numerous treaties with Native Americans with the same
outcome-a loss of millions of acres of Indian land. The author
further addresses the US. government's unsuccessful attempts to
remedy the land thefts, for example by creating the Indian
Claims Commission, a commission with authority only to com-
pensate Native Americans for their losses, but without authority
to return lands to them. The author concludes that many of the
problems facing tribes and reservations today result from
American government actions to control Native Americans and
their land.
[W]hen our happy political institutions and the religion of the
Bible, have displaced their barbarous laws, and wretched super-
stitions; can we wish these effects of civilization, religion, and
the arts, to disappear, and the dark forests and roaming Indian
again to possess the land? Are we not compelled to admit that
the superintending providence of the Being who first formed the
earth, is to be seen in this mighty change?
* Substance abuse counselor for the Absentee Shawnee Tribe's drug elimination pro-
gram. M.S.W., University of Oklahoma, 1998. Mr. Atkinson is the author of the book,
THE LAST INDIAN WARS: SparruAL ROOTS OF COOPERATIVE AcTIvisM (1996).
1. Caldwell v. State, I Stew. & P. 327, 445 (Ala. 1832).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/okcu23&div=22&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Red Tape: How American Laws Ensnare Native American Lands, Resources, and People
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