Imagine an armed guard and border patrol on the edge of every Indigenous nation in North America...

An issue that’s extremely important and relevant to many First Nations in Canada and Tribes in the United States is sovereignty.

The definition of sovereignty is:

1. Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign state.
2. Royal rank, authority, or power.
3. Complete independence and self-government.
4. A territory existing as an independent state.

The federal governments of Canada and the United States do pay lip service to the concept of Native sovereignty but that’s all it is.  During the Obama ‘08 campaign… it was stated that:

SOVEREIGNTY, TRIBAL-FEDERAL RELATIONS AND THE TRUST RESPONSIBILITY:
Native American tribal nations are sovereign, self-governing political entities and enjoy a government-to-government relationship with the United States federal government that is recognized expressly in the U.S. Constitution.

Self-Determination: Barack Obama supports the principle of tribal self-determination, with recognition that the federal government must honor its treaty obligations and fully enable tribal self-governance.

But lip service is all it is.   For instance… if the Navajo Nation was allowed by the United States of America to regain complete and absolute sovereignty, the Dineh people would have the right to trade arms and missiles with North Korea, or buy/sell nuclear technology with Syria.  The Americans or Canadians simply wouldn’t allow a situation to exist where that situation was a possibility.  Can you imagine going to a currency exchange store and saying “I’d like three thousand Dineh Dollars please“… ??

The thing that makes the issue even more complicated is that international law is quite clearly on the same side as North America’s indigenous people.  The United Nations General Assembly clearly stated in the ‘Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples‘ that;

1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.
2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
3. Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.
4. All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected.

Is it no wonder that New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States – countries with significant indigenous populations – balked at signing that declaration?

I’m not sure I subscribe to the theory but there is a train of thought that in the modern world Native people in the United States should cease to view themselves as sovereign nations, and instead view themselves as self governing  American ’states’ much like the 50 current states in the U.S.A.  Imagine… overnight, America’s state count exploding from 50 up to 614!

It sucks to say… but it may save native folk time and effort ceding sovereignty, and putting the issue to rest permanently so they can focus their energies towards other matters such as basic human rights.