Why do Indian Reservations still exist?

[retromike22]

1. More Native Americans live outside the reservations than inside.
2. The life within the reservations has been compared to that of a developing country.

Should they just be abolished?

[Ban my account ffs!]

The reservations are their land.

I live near one of only two "closed" reservations in the U.S.  Non-band members cannot purchase a home there and very few whites live there despite the two other nearby reservations being full of whites.

Reservations still serve as "home base" for them.  Abolishing them would pretty much just turn them into gypsies with no place to call home.

Many will have to leave to find better opportunities off the reservations... but having that home base is very important.

[Brittain33]

1. More Native Americans live outside the reservations than inside.
2. The life within the reservations has been compared to that of a developing country.

Should they just be abolished?

The short answer is that the reservations are their land, they are the sovereign remnants after centuries of expropriation, abuse, and bad policy, and any decision about what happens to them lies with the people who have sovereignty within the reservations. Also, while many have serious poverty, there are some whose sovereignty and nearness to cities have been an advantage, as in Phoenix.

But as a thought experiment, what do you envision abolition as involving? Let's assume that the governments within the reservations decide, ok, let's give up any sense of independent government. What would happen next in terms of land ownership, government, etc? How would it help the people who live there now?

[Redalgo]

Retromike, I suppose it is basically a matter of self-determination at this point. Disbanding the reservations, thus causing Natives to become more dispersed while opening up the last scraps of their world to European American seizure and development, would likely have a positive economic impact for Native Americans in the long run but also deal a death blow to the ongoing struggles of their nations to survive U.S. imperialism and heal from wounds left by many decades of being targets for cultural genocide in the past.

The poor states of development on many reservations are basically echoing legacies of historic injustices. Abject living conditions in some of these places are still primarily the fault of the U.S. government. Individuals today are partly responsible of course but the roots of current social ills were laid down a long, long time ago.

As for where Natives live, it is worth noting "blood quantum" is still widely used to decide who should and should not be accepted into the surviving nations. I suspect this exaggerates the extent to which people who still practice traditional customs have moved off reservations to live far from their respective peoples. My father is accepted into a Chippewa nation, for example, but in practice he is no more Chippewa in culture than I am in connection to the Kalmar Union, Holy Roman Empire, or medieval England or Scotland of my ancestors. Using bloodlines is rubbish for determining ones nationality, that is to say.

Decent arguments can be made for disbanding reservations but I'm not sure I can agree with 'em. I think the people living on reservations should decide whether to stay or leave, work to improve their communities or leave things as they are, help preserve the old ways of life or assimilate, etc. If current trends hold steady, however, I suspect nearly all Native cultures will be extinct or on the verge of becoming so within my lifetime - at which point the continued existence of reservations would be no more than a vestigial tradition. Or maybe there is hope... I honestly don't know.

[DC Al Fine]

As others have said, it's not as simple as abolishing them. Many reservations have been established by treaty.

There's also an economic interest in the various band leaderships to keep the reserves. The better ones have set up solid economic systems to generate revenue. The worse ones have leaders who enjoy having their personal fiefdom.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

No, they shouldn't be abolished.  Most of them have been established by treaties.  Yes, this country has a bad history with how it dealt with Native Americans; however, the way to solve that is not to violate the treaties we signed with them because we want to "help" them.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If a Republican Presidential nominee had the position of wanting to abolish Indian Reservations, would the Democrat break 95% in Shannon County South Dakota?

[Meeker]

Pretty sure a federal court would rule unconstitutional any law that abolished reservations established by treaties.

[The Mikado]

For reference, so we know what we're talking about.

[Frodo]

No, they shouldn't be abolished.  Most of them have been established by treaties.  Yes, this country has a bad history with how it dealt with Native Americans; however, the way to solve that is not to violate the treaties we signed with them because we want to "help" them.

I envy New Zealand -the British dealt with all the Maori tribes in one treaty.  We, on the other hand, have had at least hundreds of treaties with numerous tribes/tribal confederations that we have yet to honestly uphold.

[Associate Justice PiT]

1. More Native Americans live outside the reservations than inside.
2. The life within the reservations has been compared to that of a developing country.

Should they just be abolished?

     I suggest reading about the American Indian Movement...or any other aspect of our government's relations with the American Indians. Then think about this again.

[afleitch]

Why do they exist? Because you herded them into there.

[Antonio the Sixth]

For reference, so we know what we're talking about.

Wow, looks like Jackson's removal in the South was pretty damn effective.

[Vega]

If there was an earlier Termination policy like there was in the 1950s, there probably wouldn't be any because of a lack of population to justify their existence.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

If they were abolished, would they be ahead or behind the Kurds for largest ethnicity without their own proper nation?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Because the small number that would rather have the dignity of maintaining their own sovereign status rather than the higher quality of life of life in the US proper choose to maintain them. I see no reason to try to change that.

[Ban my account ffs!]

If they were abolished, would they be ahead or behind the Kurds for largest ethnicity without their own proper nation?

Oh there are plenty of patriotic natives.  They are Americans as well as Native Americans.  Most are just very poor and apathetic today.

[angus]

Should they just be abolished?

no.

[Middle-aged Europe]

If they were abolished, would they be ahead or behind the Kurds for largest ethnicity without their own proper nation?

Depends on whether you consider "Native American" to be an ethnicity in the first place.

Strictly speaking, it is probably as much of an ethnicity as "European" is.

[Redalgo]

If they were abolished, would they be ahead or behind the Kurds for largest ethnicity without their own proper nation?

Depends on whether you consider "Native American" to be an ethnicity in the first place.

Strictly speaking, it is probably as much of an ethnicity as "European" is.

Yeah, there were hundreds of distinct nations.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

By any chance are you familiar with The Dawes Act?

[ingemann]

If they were abolished, would they be ahead or behind the Kurds for largest ethnicity without their own proper nation?

Depends on whether you consider "Native American" to be an ethnicity in the first place.

Strictly speaking, it is probably as much of an ethnicity as "European" is.

Less so, Europe is home to 3-5 language families (depending on where you set Europe's borders). The Native Americans have many times more language families than that, and Europeans, whether Christian or Muslims, Turk, Latin or Finn share many more religious imagery, myths, folklore, mores and achetypes than the Native Americans. The only thing they really share is the loss of their land.

[politicus]

If they were abolished, would they be ahead or behind the Kurds for largest ethnicity without their own proper nation?

Depends on whether you consider "Native American" to be an ethnicity in the first place.

Strictly speaking, it is probably as much of an ethnicity as "European" is.

Less so, Europe is home to 3-5 language families (depending on where you set Europe's borders). The Native Americans have many times more language families than that, and Europeans, whether Christian or Muslims, Turk, Latin or Finn share many more religious imagery, myths, folklore, mores and archetypes than the Native Americans. The only thing they really share is the loss of their land.

Even without including the fringes of Europe (with Turkic, Mongolic, Semitic, Iranian) and counting Finno-Ugric as one group insteadof two you get 7 multilanguage families: Germanic, Romanic, Celtic, Slavic, Caucasian, Finno-Ugric and Baltic with Basque, Greek, Armenian and Albanian constituting their own groups.

[Sol]

If they were abolished, would they be ahead or behind the Kurds for largest ethnicity without their own proper nation?

Depends on whether you consider "Native American" to be an ethnicity in the first place.

Strictly speaking, it is probably as much of an ethnicity as "European" is.

Less so, Europe is home to 3-5 language families (depending on where you set Europe's borders). The Native Americans have many times more language families than that, and Europeans, whether Christian or Muslims, Turk, Latin or Finn share many more religious imagery, myths, folklore, mores and archetypes than the Native Americans. The only thing they really share is the loss of their land.

Even without including the fringes of Europe (with Turkic, Mongolic, Semitic, Iranian) and counting Finno-Ugric as one group insteadof two you get 7 multilanguage families: Germanic, Romanic, Celtic, Slavic, Caucasian, Finno-Ugric and Baltic with Basque, Greek, Armenian and Albanian constituting their own groups.

The ones I bolded are all the same family. Caucasian is three families; Abkhaz, Chechen and Georgian are unrelated. In any case, the overwhelming majority of Europeans speak related languages.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Those maps are always hilariously optimistic about some of the various minority languages.