1 The claim to tribal sovereignty is regularly asserted by Indian leaders in Canada and is virtually always explicit in the written representations that provincial and national Indian organizations have made to the Canadian government. For example, see Assembly of First Nations, “Memorandum Concerning the Rights of First Nations and the Canadian Constitution,” June 16, 1982: Federation of Saskatchewan Indians. “Indian Nationhood and Indian Government,” 1977; Proceedings of the Indian Government Development Conference (Ottawa: National Indian Brotherhood, 1979): Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, “Indian Nations: Determination or Termination,” October 1980; and Assembly of First Nations, “Opening Remarks for Presentation by David Ahenakew, National Chief, Assembly of First Nations to the First Ministers' Conference on Aboriginal Rights,” March 15, 1983. The consensus among Indian leaders at the band level regarding inherent sovereignty was also strongly evidenced in the testimony of 567 witnesses, representing Indian bands from every province, before the Special Committee on Indian Self-Government of the House of Commons. The Committee has stated that witnesses unanimously rejected the federal government's proposed band-government bill principally because that proposal involved a delegation of power rather than a recognition of the sovereignty of Indian First Nations' governments. See Indian Self-Government in Canada, report of the Special Committee on Indian Self-Government. House of Commons. October 20. 1983, 24.Google Scholar

2 Boldt, Menno, “Intellectural Orientations and Nationalism Among Indian Leaders in an Internal Colony: A Theoretical and Comparative Perpsective,” British Journal of Sociology 33 (1982), 484–510;CrossRefGoogle Scholar“Enlightenment Values, Romanticism and Attitudes Toward Political Status: A Study of Native Indian Leaders in Canada,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 18 (1981), 545–65.Google Scholar

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5 JrMerriam, Charles E., History of the Theory of Sovereignty Since Rousseau (New York: AMS Press, 1968), 83Google Scholar; and Sir Barker, Ernest, Essays on Government (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1960), 100.Google Scholar

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7 See Stankewicz, W. J., “Sovereignty as Political Theory,” Political Studies 24 (1966), 142.Google Scholar

8 Easton, David, “The Perception of Authority and Political Change,” in Friedrich, Carl J. (ed.), Authority (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), 184.Google Scholar

9 See A Basic Call to Consciousness: The Hau de no sau nee Address to the Western World (Rooseveltown, N.Y.: Akwesasne Notes, 1977): and Alfonso Ortiz, “Summary,” in W. R. Swagerty (ed.), Indian Sovereignty.Google Scholar

10 Laslett, Peter, “The Face to Face Society,” in Laslett, Peter (ed.). Philosophy. Politics and Society (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), 167.Google Scholar

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12 Youngblood-Henderson, , in Swagerty, W. R. (ed.), Indian Sovereignty, 77.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., 58.

14 It is worth noting that many of the values termed “enlightenment” values have been found by various students of native Indian society to be indigenous, in approximate form and in varying degrees, to the cultures of many native tribes in North America. See for example, Hamilton, C. E., Cry of the Thunderbird: The American Indian's Own Story (New York: Macmillan, 1950)Google Scholar; MacKenzie, J. B., The Six Nations Indians in Canada (Toronto: Hunter Rose, 1896), 35Google Scholar; Forbes, J. D., The Indians in American Past (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964)Google Scholar; Catlin, George, in Ross, M. (ed.), Episodes From Life Among the Indians and Last Rambles (Norman, Oklahoma, 1959Google Scholar) Smith, M. W., Indians of the Urban North-West (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), 13Google Scholar; and JrJosephy, A. M., The Indian Heritage of America (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), 119Google Scholar. See also, in this connection, Boldt, Menno, “Social Correlates of Romanticism: A Study of Leadership in an Internal Colony,” Ethnic Groups 3 (1981), 307–32Google Scholar. It is a matter of historical record that philosophers from Montaigne to Rousseau were influenced by what they understood to be the enlightened state of North American Indians. Egalitarianism was the most prevalent, though not the universal, model. See, for exceptions, Drucker, Philip, Indians of the Northwest Coast (Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press, 1963), chap. 4. For such exceptional tribes sovereignty does not hold all of the cultural contradictions that we identify in this article.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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16 Ibid.

17 In European-Western society we have something akin to this notion of authority in what Friedrich has called “procedural authority.” Somewhat along this same line, the Americans substituted the impersonal authority of the Constitution for the personal authority of George III. Friedrich, Carl J., “Authority, Values, and policy.” in Friedrich, (ed.). Authority, 54.Google Scholar

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24 This is possible only in face-to-face societies such as the Indian tribes were. See Laslett in Peter Laslett (ed.), Philosophy. Politics and Society, 158. for a discussion of the characteristics of such societies.

25 Merriam, History of the Theory of Sovereignty Since Rousseau, 202-03.

26 Hinsley, Frances F., Sovereignty (London: C. A. Walls. 1966), 16.Google Scholar

27 Quoted in Werhan, Keith W., “The Sovereignty of Indian Tribes: A Reaffirmation and Strengthening in the 1970's,” Notre Dame Lawyer 54 (1978), 5–25.Google Scholar

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29 Laslett characterizes this de-emphasis of territoriality as one of the defining characteristics of the political form of a face-to-face society, because geographically defined borders are not suited for nor capable of giving a sense of political consciousness or identity to the members of such groups. That is why Indians retained their sense of nationhood even during the forced mass-migrations. They carried their concept of “nationhood” on their backs. See Laslett, in Peter Laslett (ed.), Philosophy, Politics and Society.

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32 We are not here advocating the reconstructionist anthropologists' position that Indians should change into what they once were. But, neither should they be forced to adopt alien political ideas that distort what they value most in their cultural heritage. They should be free to adopt a model of government that will preserve what they value in their cultural traditions.

33 Government of Canada, “Opening Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada, The Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau to the Constitutional Conference of First Ministers on the Rights of Aboriginal Peoples,” March 15, 1983, 16.

34 McRae, Kenneth D., “The Plural Society and the Western Political Tradition,” this JOURNAL 12 (1979), 677–78.Google Scholar

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39 Additionally, a major treaty has been in force for Canada since August 1979. Article of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that:

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic cooperation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

3. The States Parties to the present Covenant… shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

As a party to this covenant, Canada is obliged to report on the “measures… adopted which give effect to the rights recognized” (Article 40[l]) to a body set up under the treaty called the Human Rights Committee.

40 See also, Bell, Wendell, Jamaican Leaders: Political Attitudes in a New Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964)Google Scholar; The Democratic Revolution in the West Indies: Studies in Nationalism, Leadership and the Belief in Progress (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1967)Google Scholar; “New States in the Caribbean: A Grounded Theoretical Account,” in Eisenstadt, S. N. and Rokkan, Stein (eds.), Building States and Nations: Analysis by Region, Vol. 2 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1975)Google Scholar; and “Equality and Social Justice: Foundations of Nationalism in the Caribbean,” Caribbean Studies 20 (1980), 5–36.Google Scholar

41 The European colonizer's position on Indian sovereignty has been inconsistent and opportunistic; see F. Jennings, “Sovereignty in Anglo-American History,” in W. R. Swagerty (ed.), Indian Sovereignty, and Keith W. Werhan, “The Sovereignty of Indian Tribes,”5-25. Initially, to avoid conflict amongst themselves, Euopean powers introduced the doctrine of “discovery” to regulate competition for colonial territory. Subsequently, this doctrine was used as justification for declaring sovereignty over Indians on grounds that they were savages, they did not work the land, and had no civil government: see Keller, A. S., Lissitzyn, O. J. and Mann, F. J., Creation of Rights of Sovereignty Through Symbolic Acts 1400-1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958). At the same time, in order to avoid war and risk defeat, the British ostensibly recognized Indian tribes as sovereign nations and negotiated treaties with them. It is important to note that British claims to sovereignty over Indians were never based on “consent of the people.” Even today, although they live in a “representative democracy,” so far as Indians in Canada are concerned, the Canadian government does not derive its powers to govern Indians from the consent of the Indian people.Google Scholar

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