Essential Understandings page 2

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ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDING  4

       Reservations are land that have been reserved by the tribes for their own use through treaties and was not “given” to them. The principle that land should be acquired from the Indians only through their consent with treaties involved three assumptions:

    I. That both parties to treaties were sovereign powers.

    II. That Indian tribes had some form of transferable title to the land.

    III. That acquisition of Indian lands was solely a government matter not to be left to individual colonists.

ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDING 5

      There were many federal policies put into place throughout American history that have impacted Indian people and shape who they are today. Much of Indian history can be related through several major federal policy periods.
Examples: Colonization Period, Treaty Period , Allotment Period, Boarding School Period, Tribal Reorganization, Termination, Self-determination

ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDING 6

History is a story and most often related through the subjective experience of the teller. Histories are being rediscovered and revised. History told from an Indian perspective conflicts with what most of mainstream history tells us.

ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDING 7

Under the American legal system, Indian tribes have sovereign powers, separate and independent from the federal and state governments. However, the extent and breadth of tribal sovereignty is not the same for each tribe.