Colonial Entanglement: Constituting a Twenty-First-Century Osage Nation

5 Sovereignty

Chapter 5 Sovereignty 130 : : : S o v e r e i g n t y E arly in the morning on an unseasonably warm February day in 2005, I made the forty-minute drive northwest from Skiatook to Pawhuska, the capital of the Osage Nation. While this drive would later become routine with my almost daily travel, for now its scenery still captured my attention. The wildflowers that would cover the rolling prairie were not yet sprouts in the hard earth, leaving only the tall brown grass and scrub oaks to mark the rolling hills. Given the recent spike in the cost of gasoline, almost all the rusty oil wells lining the horizon were once again slowly tottering up and down. The power lines and barbwire fences raced alongside the road, connecting the scattered houses along the winding hills. Fields for grazing and the occasional crop of soybeans lay dormant for the winter. Except for the inhabitants of Barnsdall, a town of around 1,300, with its own grocery store and newspaper, most of the residents of this part of the reservation appeared to be on four legs, with cattle and horses the most visible. As I entered Pawhuska, however, the scene changed; it was certainly not the thriving metropolis it had been during the oil boom of the 1920s, but Pawhuska’s many office buildings had begun to fill back up, primarily due to the recent expansion of the Osage Nation. Chain restaurants such as Sonic and Pizza Hut were accompanied by the local favorites, including Bad Brad’s BBQ, Sally’s Sandwich Shop, The Greek’s, and the Osage Country Club, which had its own nine-hole golf course. Turning up the steep hill in the center of town, I entered the Osage campus, with its old stone and concrete structures. Although I arrived well ahead of the 9 a.m. event start time, I was directed to park in a nearby field, joining about thirty cars already parked for the day. Hiking with my camera equipment across the Osage campus, I entered the Osage Tribal Council (OTC) chambers, where the day’s events were set to begin. By five minutes to nine, the room was so full that the press of people made any video recording of the event almost impossible. Stepping onto a nearby chair, I gained a better vantage point of the now-packed room. At the entrance, Chief Jim Gray and several of the members of the OTC glanced approvingly over the large crowd. As they entered, the room respectfully quieted as a path was cleared to the front table. The event began with a prayer before quickly moving to a choreographed signing of the Declaration of Sovereignty and Independence by the People of the Osage Nation. Once the members of the OTC had all signed, I joined the long line, adding my name to the one-page document. S o v e r e i g n t y : : : 131 Despite its brevity, the document speaks volumes. Perhaps most importantly, it states: “We declare that our inherent rights as a sovereign nation predate the Constitution of the United States. . . . Further, that we have never relinquished any of those rights and we strongly assert that the Osage Reservation has never been disestablished.” Osage Sovereignty Day, as the daylong event was designated, was intended to commemorate the passage of the 2004 federal law 108-431, “To reaffirm the inherent sovereign rights of the Osage Tribe to determine its membership and form of government.” The Sovereignty Day’s larger goal, however, was to declare the independence of the Osage people from almost a hundred years of direct colonial control and to begin the process of building a stronger Osage Nation. Within this context, sovereignty signals a centralized system of governmental authority that allows for the assertion of independence within and control over a territory. This vision of an independent and centralized nation, able to manage its own affairs and create an economic renaissance on the reservation, was the primary aim of the 2004–6 reform as envisioned by those most actively involved in the process. This was not, however, the only vision of an Osage future. Notions of the Osage as a “unique race,” as a people united by particular “practices that are located outside the realm of governance,” or as “shareholders in a Mineral Estate corporation” each had to be managed, often distracting...