| Book Review | Oregon Historical Quarterly, 108.1

Reviews

BLOOD STRUGGLE: THE RISE OF MODERN INDIAN NATIONS

by Charles Wilkinson

W.W. Norton, New York, 2005. Photographs, maps, tables, notes, index. 558 pages. $15.95 paper.

"We are still here." This is the message that American Indian tribes and Indian people are delivering today. It is also the theme of Charles Wilkinson's excellent new book, Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations.

Echoing the slogan of the 1960s Civil Rights movement "we shall overcome," modern-day Indian nations and peoples are proudly proclaiming their continued existence: "We are still here." This is an important message for tribes to deliver now because, as Wilkinson says, "for more than 500 years, white society on this continent has discussed how long it would be before Indian people finally disappeared into the general society. Not if, but when" (p. 383).

This tribal message was emphasized by the citizens and governments of forty-one Indian nations who chose to be officially involved in the recent Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration. They did so not to celebrate the American saga of Lewis and Clark, but to tell their own tribal histories and stories, and to force Americans to recognize that Indians and their cultures and governments have survived the arrival of the United States — as personified by Lewis and Clark — and the assimilation and extermination policies of American Manifest Destiny.

Wilkinson recounts in a detailed and exciting fashion the proud story of tribal survival despite nineteenth- and twentieth-century policies that were designed to terminate the political existence of Indian governments and to assimilate Indian people into the majority society. Using well-told stories, Wilkinson describes the resurgence of Indian nations, who have exercised their own sovereignty and jurisdiction since what he calls the "deadening years" of the 1950s Termination Era of federal Indian policy (p. 90). He introduced termination policy this way: "The middle of the twentieth century ... marked the all-time low for tribal existence on this continent. American Indians faced four overbearing and seemingly intractable problems. First, they were mired in the worst economic and social conditions of any group in America.... Second, Indians suffered a relentless political oppression at mid-century. The Bureau of Indian Affairs controlled the reservation with an iron grip.... Third, ... the BIA and the churches ran a concerted campaign to suppress tribal religions and traditions and "Christianize" Native Americans.... Then, on August 1, 1953, Congress tightened the screws by activating the most extreme Indian program in history. House Concurrent Resolution 108 officially announced the termination policy, a "final solution" that would lead to a sell-off of tribal lands, the withdrawal of all federal support, and the rapid assimilation of Indian people into the majority society (pp. xii–xiii)."

Wilkinson argues that the Termination Era, from the mid 1940s to the early 1960s, was designed to end the existence of tribal governments. But he then recounts inspiring stories of how individual Indians, their governments, and their political leaders protected and restored tribal powers and sovereignty over their own lands, peoples, and assets. Wilkinson highlights the exploits of many individual Indians and tribal leaders, showing readers how those courageous people protected their human and political rights and created today's strong and increasingly stronger tribal governments and institutions. He demonstrates, for example, how individual and tribal actions brought the Menominee Nation and people from Wisconsin and the Siletz Nation and people from Oregon back from termination to restoration as federally recognized governments. He shows how other tribes and individual Indian people — such as Lucy Covington of the Colville Nation from Washington and elsewhere — fended off federal policies designed to terminate their governments. He also recounts tribal victories in state elections and courts that protected important tribal interests in South Dakota, California, and other states. And he proves how the development of strong and viable tribal governments — such as at the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon — have improved the lives of individual Indians and have helped surrounding non-Indian communities as tribes develop and protect their lands, assets, and rights.

Wilkinson also points to the work of tribal governments and individuals, such as Billy Frank Jr. and Joe DeLaCruz from Washington, who fought to protect tribal treaty rights in salmon and timber in the Pacific Northwest.

Equally important, Wilkinson establishes how tribes used new federal policies during the mid 1960s and after to reorganize, to develop their governing capabilities, and to protect their rights. Most tribes across the nation used programs from President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty agenda to begin operating and functioning as real governments, allowing them to exercise real control over their reservations. Tribes then lobbied for, won, and utilized the opportunities that flowed from President Johnson's and President Richard Nixon's commitments to allow Indians to decide for themselves how they would govern their lives. From those new policy beginnings, the federal government came to support what is now called tribal self-determination. In 1975, Congress enacted the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. This new law was based on the idea that native people and their governments should direct their own affairs, including the federal programs designed to assist them, because they have the right of self-determination and, of course, have the best knowledge of how to improve the economic, social, and political conditions in their homelands.

Wilkinson's book is well worth reading. It is appropriate for general readers and for those specifically interested in Indian studies. The book is well footnoted and Wilkinson's arguments are supported by the facts. The author tells a little-known story that Americans need to hear. That story is of tribal heroes and their self-sacrifice, which have led to the rise of modern-day Indian nations comprised of surprising flexibility, abilities, and knowhow. This is a well-written book that will educate many Americans about the continued existence and strengths of Native people and their governments in modern-day America, despite "five centuries of survival under the most excruciating pressure of killing diseases, wars, land expropriation, and official government policy — forced assimilation, then outright termination. Yet the tribes," Wilkinson writes, "are now the strongest they have been in a century and a half. Never has this land seen such staying power" (p. 383).

Robert J. Miller

Lewis & Clark Law School

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