AUTHOR: Andrea Neal -
http://www.starnews.com
A case before the U.S. Supreme Court could correct
one of the
more shameful chapters in how the government treated
our American
Indian ancestors here in Indiana.
It's the last legal avenue available to the Miami
Nation. If the
petition is denied, only Congress can remedy this
century-long
injustice.
At issue is the Department of Interior's refusal
since 1897 to
treat the Indiana Miami the same as other federally
recognized
tribes.
They were federally recognized in a treaty signed in
1854. That
treaty remains in effect today, whether the
Department of
Interior abides by it or not. Only Congress can take
away tribal
status.
"That's the reason the Indiana Miami have pursued
this, lo these
many years," says Al Harker of Marion, general
counsel for the
Miami Nation of Indiana. "It's a matter of dignity
and
self-esteem as well as being treated equally to
other tribes in
access to programs and benefits."
This case has nothing to do with gambling, by the
way, although
the ill-informed might assume that it does. The
Miami of Indiana
have never sought to open a casino, and have no
intention of
doing so should they be placed on the Interior
Department's
"acknowledgement list."
They would, however, like the same economic
development tools and
health, housing and education benefits given to
other tribes,
including their Miami counterparts in Oklahoma.
A little history:
We're called Indiana for a reason. We were the "Land
of the
Indians" before becoming "Crossroads of America,"
and the Miami
were probably the most influential tribe. But most
were forced to
move away under a series of treaties in the early
1800s that
stripped them of their land in Indiana, Illinois and
Ohio. They
were sent first to Kansas and later to Oklahoma,
where they
reconstituted as an Oklahoma tribe of the Miami
Nation.
Those who stayed in Indiana had almost no land to
call their own,
but were given something more important: formal
status as a
tribe. Ironically, their lack of land has been cited
by federal
officials through the years as evidence they are not
a cohesive
tribe of Indians.
Harker says some 2,500 Miami in Indiana can prove
their direct
Indian ancestry. They have a functioning
not-for-profit
organization that represents their interests, guided
by a tribal
council of chiefs from nine clans that go back
centuries. Another
2,000 Miami of Indiana live out of state.
So far, courts have not been receptive to the Miami
plea, and
it's been litigated forever. The Supreme Court
petition, likely
to be acted on next month, is from a case that goes
back more
than 20 years.
In 1980, the Miami asked the Interior Department to
put it back
on the list of acknowledged tribes so it could
receive federal
benefits. In a glaring example of the disrespect
this tribe has
gotten from our government, Interior didn't even
rule on the
request until 1992.
Various appeals followed, leading to the 7th U.S.
Circuit Court
of Appeals in Chicago, which sided with Interior in
holding that
the Miami aren't big enough or strong enough or
organized enough
to count as a tribe. "Indian nations, like foreign
nations, can
disappear over time -- can go the way of Sumeria,
Phoenicia,
Burgundy, the Ottoman Empire, Prussia, the Republic
of Texas, and
the Republic of Vietnam," the court wrote, "whether
through
conquest, or voluntary absorption into a larger
entity, or
fission, or dissolution, or movement of population.
"Probably by 1940 and certainly by 1992, the Miami
Nation had
ceased to be a tribe in any reasonable sense . . .
It was a group
of people united by nothing more than common
descent, with no
territory, no significant governance and only the
loosest of
social ties," the court concluded.
In a nutshell, the Miami no longer count as a tribe
because the
federal government's illegal refusal to treat them
as a tribe
caused them to dwindle and disperse.
That is the very definition of unfair.
All Hoosiers have a reason to join our Miami
neighbors in this
struggle. Why should our tax dollars support tribes
in other
states, but not the one in our own back yard?
And while it would be nice for them to have the
federal benefits
they are due, this is not about money at its core.
It is about
justice for a group we can truly call the original
Hoosiers.
[Neal is editor of the editorial pages. Contact her
at
1-317-444-6177 or viae-mail at:
andrea.neal(a)indystar.com]
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Debbie Bert <debbiebert(a)dundee.net>
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