The White Earth Nation: Ratification of a Native Democratic Constitution

4. A Citizen’s Guide to the White Earth Constitution: Highlights and Reflections

81 4 Jill Doerfler A Citizen’s Guide to the White Earth Constitution highlights and reflections These eight essays were first published in Anishinaabeg Today: A Chronicle of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, the official newspaper of the White Earth Nation. The articles were written with the intention of sharing information with the Anishinaabeg citizens of White Earth Reservation in preparation for a referendum vote on the ratified Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Source information appears at the end of each article. Rebuilding and Renewing Tribal Sovereignty White Earth is one of many American Indian nations currently engaging in the process of constitutional reform, reclaiming the right to govern themselves, and creating a future full of promise. Many American Indian nations wrote constitutions in the 1930s after the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (ira) of 1934 and were highly influenced and, in some cases, pressured by U.S. officials. As Vine Deloria Jr. and Clifford M. Lytle argue in The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty, “it is crucial to realize . . . that these have not 82 Doerfler been the forms of government that the Indian people themselves have demanded or appreciated and are certainly not the kind of government that most Indians, given a truly free choice in the matter, would have adopted by themselves.” Today tribes are working to remove the colonial legacies imposed in ira constitutions and are embracing the opportunity to remake constitutions into documents that reflect the culture, values, and beliefs of their citizens. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (mct) was created under the Indian Reorganization Act; the preamble of that Constitution even states that “tribal organization ” were created “in accordance with such privilege granted the Indians by the United States under existing law.” This kind of language undermines tribal sovereignty, but is common in ira constitutions. Tribal sovereignty is inherent and is not a privilege that the United States has granted Native nations. The mct constitution also gives a significant amount of power to the U.S. secretary of the interior. The ratified White Earth Constitution does not delineate any power to the United States. As Anishinaabe scholar Duane Champagne argues in Remaking Tribal Constitutions, if “tribal communities want to assert greater control over their economic, political, and cultural lives, they will need more effective forms of government. For many communities there is a growing sense of crisis and a movement to remake tribal constitutions.” The time has come for tribal nations to rebuild. As part of that process, many tribal nations are working to create constitutions that incorporate their values and traditions. Blood quantum was imposed upon many tribes by the bia and federal officials. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe did not begin to use the one-quarter mct blood requirement for tribal citizenship until it was pressured into doing so in the 1960s. Other tribal nations had similar experiences. For example, the Fort Peck Tribe in Montana used lineal descent before it accepted a blood quantum requirement along with other constitutional changes in 1960. According to the current Citizen’s Guide to the Constitution 83 Fort Peck Tribes Constitution, enrolled members must be at least one-quarter Assiniboine or Sioux, or a combination of the two. This requirement has divided families. Roberta Garfield, a Fort Peck citizen and grandmother of twenty-four children, has commented, “We have to claim our grandkids.” Garfield supports lineal descent. Efforts toward constitutional reform are ongoing at Fort Peck. (The quotations in this paragraph come from Andrea Appleton’s article, “Blood Quantum: A Complicated System that Determines Tribal Membership Threatens the Future of American Indians,” published in High Country News on January 19, 2009.) Declining enrollments and cultural revitalization have influenced many tribes to consider constitutional changes and to consider how best to define citizenship criteria. Legal scholar Scott L. Gould has observed in “Mixing Bodies and Beliefs: The Predicament of Tribes” that many of these tribes will have to decide “whether to continue emphasizing race as the central criterion for membership, or to search for other measures of affinity.” As the racial diversity of American Indians continues to increase, questions abound as to how a viable citizenship base can be maintained using racial standards such as one-quarter blood quantum. American Indians are the most racially diverse group in the United States, and they have...