According to Congress, Indian Gaming Regulation Act (IGRA) was created in 1988 as a way of helping tribes from falling below the poverty level. The goal of IGRA is to use gaming as a mean of “[promoting] tribal economic development, self-sufficiency, and strong tribal government,” while ensuring that gaming is conducted fairly and honestly. Since its establishment, hundreds of tribes are able to negotiate an agreement with the governments to operate casinos on reservation lands (“Gaming Tax Law and Bank Secrecy Act Issues for Indian Tribal Government”). Although Congress says that the real purpose of IGRA is to allow Indians to open casinos, it is merely a set of laws that limits the tribe’s right on gaming.
The views of IGRA are differed among the Native Americans and the non-natives. To many American, IGRA is a compromise between the American government and the tribal government because it enables tribes to support themselves, while it meets the Congress’ intention of opening more jobs to control poverty-related crimes. According to a survey by the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) in 2006, as much as 75% of Americans believe that Indian benefits from gaming (The Economic Impact of Indian Gaming in 2006). “The federal National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) reported that the Indian gaming industry generated $16.7 billion in revenue in 2003,” and has created over 550,000 jobs (Light and Rand, 85). Even though there is only a small change in the number of crimes as a result of casinos, it is enough to conclude that “crime rates were reduced, but not in an overwhelming way” (Light and Rand, 97). On the contrary, Native Americans believe that it is a “one-sided negotiations” that gives the state and federal government pow...
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...nd the type of gaming tribes can conduct, IGRA also set a rule for how tribes should use their gaming profit. Tribes may spend gaming revenues only for five general purposes: to fund tribal government services, operations and programs, to promote tribal general welfare, to promote tribal economic development, to make charitable donations, and to help fund local government agencies (The Economic Impact of Indian Gaming in 2006). They are also required to pay tax as a condition of the tribal-state compact. Most of the payments are based on the percentage of gaming revenue. In 2003, California tribes pay zero to 13 percent of slot revenue based on the number of slot machines. In New York, tribes begin to pay at 18 percent and increased to as much as 25 percent in just seven years. In 2003, tribes paid, in total, approximately $759 million to state and local governments
The failure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to manage this trust fund properly led to legislation and lawsuits in the 1990s and early 2000s to force the government to properly account for the revenues collected. The aim of the act was to encourage American Indians to take up agriculture and adopt the habits of civilized life and ultimately.... ... middle of paper ... ...upon the survey of the lands so as to conform thereto; and patents. shall be issued to them for such lands in the manner and with the restrictions as provided herein.
Inventing the Savage: The Social Construct of Native American Criminality. Luana Ross. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1998.
of Native American Culture as a Means of Reform,” American Indian Quarterly 26, no. 1
The history of Indian Child Welfare Act derived from the need to address the problems with the removal of Indian children from their communities. Native American tribes identified the problem of Native American children being raised by non-native families when there were alarming numbers of children being removed from their h...
American Indians shaped their critique of modern America through their exposure to and experience with “civilized,” non-Indian American people. Because these Euro-Americans considered traditional Indian lifestyle savage, they sought to assimilate the Indians into their civilized culture. With the increase in industrialization, transportation systems, and the desire for valuable resources (such as coal, gold, etc.) on Indian-occupied land, modern Americans had an excuse for “the advancement of the human race” (9). Euro-Americans moved Indians onto reservations, controlled their education and practice of religion, depleted their land, and erased many of their freedoms. The national result of this “conquest of Indian communities” was a steady decrease of Indian populations and drastic increase in non-Indian populations during the nineteenth century (9). It is natural that many American Indians felt fearful that their culture and people were slowly vanishing. Modern America to American Indians meant the destruction of their cultural pride and demise of their way of life.
In regard to law, Deloria defines the relationship between the US Government and the Indians as paternalistic. The US Government treated and governed the Indians as a father would by providing basic needs but without given them rights. There has been some improvement with the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. This act allowed the return to local self-government on a tribal level and restored the self management of their assets. By allowing the Indians to self govern it encouraged an economic foundation for the inhabitants of Indian reservations. Unfortunately only a few tribes have fully taken advantage of this act, while others continue to struggle for survival.
Deloria defines the relationship between the US Government and the Indians as paternalistic. The US Government treated and governed the Indians as a father would by providing basic needs but without given them rights. There has been some improvement with the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. This act allowed the return to local self-government on a tribal level and restored the self management of their assets. By allowing the Indians to self govern it encouraged an economic foundation for the inhabitants of Indian reservations. Unfortunately only a few tribes have fully taken advantage of this Act, while others struggle for survival.
In "A Better Day for Indians," Vine Deloria, Jr. outlines seven controlling assumptions that Congress has implied its power towards Indians. Congress uses and choses it’s power when it pleases them. This is the first foremost formative role that congress frequents and it goes unnoticed because congress acts in good faith that allows the federal government to render any immoral acts towards Indians. I will describe 3 of the seven with example of each.
4. The California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians – Describe in detail this former California law, its provisions and impacts on California Indians
Although, seeming to be most beneficial for the United States, this has been a yoke for the American Indians. Reservations are prisons where our people are kept to live and die says Carlos Montezuma. Another dilemma that the American Indians have faced is the fact that the government taught them how to live without work which has stripped the meaning of life for them. The American Indians were used to roaming the land and hunting to provide for their family. Constantly they were doing something. Carlos Montezuma states that the Indian Bureau must be done away with in order for his people to acquire the knowledge to appreciate their
The Indian Act is a combination of multiple legislations regarding the Aboriginal people who reside across Canada, such as the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869 (Hanson, n.p.). The Gradual Civilization Act was the Canadian government's attempt to assimilate the aboriginals into the Canadian society in a passive manner, through a method they encouraged called Enfranchisement. Enfranchisement is basically a legal process that allows aboriginals to give up their aboriginal status and accept a Canadian status (Crey, n.p.). This process, while under the Gradual Civilization Act, was still voluntary, but became a forced process when the Indian Act was consolidated in 1876 (Hanson, n.p.). The Gradual Enfranchisement Act introduced in 1869 was a major legislation that intruded with the private lives of the aboriginals. First, it established the “elective band council system” (Hanson, n.p.) that grants th...
With the exception of a few tribes who were fortunate enough to retain allotments rich with natural resources, the reservation system did nothing but hurt Native Americans. It not only stripped them of their traditional ways of life but it also separated many people from their families. It has contributed to innumerable cases of disease and death and has stripped many of their identity. Many live in an emotional state of limbo because they are not truly accepted in non-Native society nor are they fully accepted within Native society. This is exactly what the U.S. government has been trying to achieve from the beginning; the continuing disruption of Native American society with an endgame of total
Throughout history, industrialism by the west (i.e. England, France, and Spain) has led to many conflicts between them and the indigenous, native, people whom lived there. One indigenous group of people affected by western imperialism is the Native Americans in North America. The Europeans that settled onto the “New World” were confronted by Native Americans, and were faced with violent conflicts. These conflicts led to a belief that all Native Americans are savages as well as heathens (Democracy, 2012). This led to the Europeans to start to kill Native Americans, or kick them off of their land and place them onto reservations. Reservations were usually small and unusable land. But, other times, the chief was forced to sign treaties with the Europeans. These treaties usually stated that the Europeans had a right to be on the land, and if they were allowed to have some land as well as do colonize there, no conflict would occur. Yet, after the treaties were signed, the Europeans and Native Americans still had violent conflicts (Democracy, 2012). Today, there are very little Native Americans left in North America. Some of them are very poor, but some of them are rich due to the casinos they own within the reservations upon which they live. The treatment of these people original was harsh as well as cruel, and there is evidence of that today due to the low population of Native Americans within North America.
In 1787 the United States Constitution Article 1 section 8 established a federally mandated relationship between the government and the people of Indian Nations in regards to commerce. Although this agreement and many treaties subsequently thereafter were disregarded on the part of the United States (Smith, 2002), it established an official responsibility between the two nations. In 1921 the Snyder Act, which established authorization for the federal government to provide basic healthcare for members of federally recognized United States Indian tribes, was passed (Wallechinsky, 2010).
American Indians get the right to use sovereignty, meaning they deal with any crimes committed against them themselves, but the U.S. government likes to make simple sovereign nations have more complex situations than they should. This only applies to the 550 federally recognized tribes that are out there(amnesty,1). These 550 recognized tribes, though all of them except three lack the capability to prosecute non Native American men, who rape or domestically abuse American Indian wom...