Warrior Nation by Anton Treuer

Author:Anton Treuer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-87351-968-7
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 2015-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

Public Law 280 and the Pushback against Tribal Sovereignty

The General Council was having success in many simultaneous political battles, but its work was usually accomplished through adversity. The Office of Indian Affairs was renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947. That was a tiny part of a larger effort to make the agency more advisory and less supervisory. Red Lake was able to slowly diminish the agency’s controlling position on the reservation. Not everyone supported the waxing power of the tribal government. Many nonnative citizens and politicians were adamantly opposed to tribal sovereignty. The state of Minnesota was especially distrustful of Red Lake after it lost the long battle over control of the fishery.

The political pendulum that swung left in 1934 for the Indian Reorganization Act swung far to the right in 1953. The federal government passed legislation that year to give state governments more jurisdiction over criminal affairs on Indian land. The effort had been developing for many years. Criminal matters in the United States were considered almost entirely under state law. In 1883, the court case Ex Parte Crow Dog ruled that due to the sovereignty of tribes, state governments had no jurisdiction over Indian crime on Indian land. Only the federal government could take actions that affected tribal sovereignty. In 1885, in response to that court case, the federal government passed the Major Crimes Act, which established a mechanism for the federal government to assume jurisdiction in Indian cases of murder, manslaughter, rape, assault, arson, burglary, and larceny. In 1953, the federal government wanted to transfer that power back to state governments. The proposed legislation, called Public Law 280, would affect Indians in several states, including Minnesota.89

In 1953, most tribes in Minnesota were just starting to organize reservation business committees and develop modern governing structures under the Indian Reorganization Act. When the new law was proposed, they were not in a political position to fight it, but Peter Graves was. He wrote letters on behalf of the General Council to his connections in the Bureau of Indian Affairs to influence the legislation. Red Lake’s well-established political presence was impossible to dispute. There was simply no need for further state jurisdiction at Red Lake, especially when it was obviously not welcome. Public Law 280 passed into law on August 15, 1953. Red Lake was exempted. The Minnesota Supreme Court later explained, “the exclusion of the Red Lake Reservation from Public Law 280 was done out of deference to the wishes of the Red Lake Band of Indians.”90

There were legal tests after the legislation passed. Red Lake’s exclusive jurisdiction over all civil and criminal matters except for those explicitly covered by the Major Crimes Act was affirmed by ruling of the Minnesota Supreme Court in Sigana v. Bailey, where the state was denied jurisdiction in a civil suit because of Red Lake’s inherent sovereignty and exemption from Public Law 280. State v. Holthusen, State v. Lussier, and other cases further affirmed Red Lake’s unfettered exclusion from state interference. Legal arguments had to be made.

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