Debunking the Myth, Part I

This is the first entry in an occasional series, "Debunking the Myth," that I'll be adding to my blog.


MYTH: American Indian reservations/lands are welfare states, funded by the federal government.

FACT: The federal government makes (some) payments to (some) tribes, as agreed upon in (some) treaties signed in the mid-1800s. The government entered into these agreements to compensate for the taking of land and resources and other wrong-doings. Since assimilation and relocation, American Indians have consistently been the poorest race — disproportionately poor — in the country.

Harvard University researchers Joseph P. Kalt and Joseph William Singer write it best: "When the U.S. took 98% of the land in the continental U.S. from Indian nations, it made certain promises in return. The payments made by the U.S. under its general trust obligation and in various government programs are making good on those promises. Indians and Indian tribes receiving such payments are not welfare recipients; they are the original owners of the land in the United States and the benefits provided by the federal government are properly understood as mortgage payments the U.S. is making in return for rights to use tribal land." (Myths and Realities of Tribal Sovereignty: The Law and Economics of Indian Self-Rule, 2004)

Not much attention was paid to our economic situation until the boom of Indian gaming, which took off in the 1990s (riding the coattails of the 1980s' bingo hall days). Indians' choice to game on Native lands is, by definition, an act of exercising sovereignty, and in 20 short years, gaming has become a multibillion dollar industry. It is, in effect, the only way some tribes have pulled themselves out of abject poverty. But the gaming industry — despite the tax base it's created for local/state/federal governments to enjoy, the unemployment rate it's quashed, and the good it's afforded for the public sector — has also brought much backlash to Indians.

As Northern California Coast Miwok Indian chief Greg Sarris said in 2003 to the Los Angeles Times: "As long as a tribe is poor, we're OK to the rest of the world. The minute you get empowered ... you're a wagon burner."