Editor's Commentary

The three North American nation-states of Canada, Mexico, and the United States are changing their respective images of the governance of indigenous peoples from former colonial administration to appropriation and commodification of land, people, and natural resources by successor postcolonial powers. This collection of papers focuses on indigenous self-governance in the twenty-first century in North America. Each paper presents an individual analysis of governance of a wide variety of indigenous communities of Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

It has been more than five hundred years since the beginning of the European invasion of North America, longer if the Viking expeditions and settlements are counted. The past half-thousand years have been a complex history of conquest and colony, absorption and resistance, integrity and antagonism. The question of sovereignty of indigenous governments impinges directly on the patterns of colonial dominance and exploitation of land, natural resources, and people. What are the prospects for self-selected representational sovereign governance more than five hundred years after Columbian contact? Do the indigenous forms of the elder sovereignties emerge from under the overlay of colonial graffiti or are they being submerged under the graffiti of recolonization? Economic recolonization is as repressive as any political colonization of the past.

The articles presented here are about the evolution of North American indigenous policies through the phases of colonization, decolonization, recolonization, and above all, the recognition of the inherent sovereignty of the indigenous peoples. The emergence of indigenous self-governance reverses the complex history of conquest and colonization.

Charles F. Wilkinson and Anna Nikole Ulrich prepared the "Annotated Bibliography of the Basic Literature Needed for an Understanding of Tribal Governance," which presents the publications all specialists and interested persons need on their bookshelves as basic reference works.

The loss of sovereignty in the nineteenth century is illustrated in James Riding In's "United States vs. Yellow Sun et al. (The Pawnee People)." Riding In's article is a precursor to all the articles that follow in this collection. They show how indigenous governments were destroyed or forced into toy government forms dictated by colonial and postcolonial powers.

This special issue considers two intertwined categories: governance and issues of sovereignty. Governance with attention to historical circumstances is emphasized in "Governance within the Navajo Nation: Have Democratic Traditions Taken Hold?" by David Wilkins, and "Ramona Redeemed? The Rise of Tribal Political Power in California," by Carole Goldberg and Duane Champagne. The issues of sovereignty are addressed in "Welfare Reform on the Rosebud Reservation," by Tom Biolsi et al. Tina Minor's article, "Political Participation of Inuit Women in the Government of Nunavut" focuses on two closely associated topics: gender equity in the government of Nunavut (the new Canadian territory that came into being on April 1, 1999) and the government of Nunavut itself. Eileen Luna-Firebaugh's "The Border Crossed Us" examines the problems of indigenous peoples crossing the international borders between the United States and Mexico. The treaties and agreements that set the boundaries between the North American nation-states were negotiated and signed only by the colonizers, without consulting the indigenous people whose lands these borders cross. Their assertion of the right to cross the international border without undue delay is a long-standing problem that the indigenous nations have attempted to resolve through treaties, legislation, negotiations, and direct action. "Toward a Great Sioux Nation Judicial Support Center and Supreme Court," by Frank Pommersheim and John P. Lavelle, may be an article in a class by itself.