Indian reservation

This article is about Native American reservations in the United States of America. For similar entities in Canada, see Indian reserve. For similar terms, see Indian reserve (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Reservation in India.

Indian reservations
CategoryPolitical divisions
LocationUnited States
Created
  • 1758 (Brotherton)–Present
Number326[1]
PopulationsAbout 1 million (total)[2][3]
Largest: Navajo Nation (165,158)[4]
AreasRanging from the 1.32-acre (0.534 hectare) cemetery of the Pit River Tribe in California to the 17 million–acre (64,750 square kilometer) Navajo Nation Reservation located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah[1]
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An American Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose government is autonomous, subject to regulations passed by the United States Congress and administered by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, and not to the U.S. state government in which it is located. Some of the country's 574[5] federally recognized tribes govern more than one of the 326[6] Indian reservations in the United States, while some share reservations, and others have no reservation at all. Historical piecemeal land allocations under the Dawes Act facilitated sales to non–Native Americans, resulting in some reservations becoming severely fragmented, with pieces of tribal and privately held land being treated as separate enclaves. This intersection of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.[7]

The total area of all reservations is 56,200,000 acres (22,700,000 ha; 87,800 sq mi; 227,000 km2), approximately 2.3% of the total area of the United States and about the size of the state of Idaho.[8][9] While most reservations are small compared to the average U.S. state, twelve Indian reservations are larger than the state of Rhode Island. The largest reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, is similar in size to the state of West Virginia. Reservations are unevenly distributed throughout the country, the majority being situated west of the Mississippi River and occupying lands that were first reserved by treaty (Indian Land Grants) from the public domain.[10]

Because recognized Native American nations possess tribal sovereignty, albeit of a limited degree, laws within tribal lands may vary from those of the surrounding and adjacent states.[11] For example, these laws can permit casinos on reservations located within states which do not allow gambling, thus attracting tourism. The tribal council generally has jurisdiction over the reservation, not the U.S. state it is located in, but is subject to federal law. Court jurisdiction in Indian country is shared between tribes and the federal government, depending on the tribal affiliation of the parties involved and the specific crime or civil matter. Different reservations have different systems of government, which may or may not replicate the forms of government found outside the reservation. Most Native American reservations were established by the federal government but a small number, mainly in the East, owe their origin to state recognition.[12]

The term "reservation" is a legal designation. It comes from the conception of the Native American nations as independent sovereigns at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Thus, early peace treaties (often signed under conditions of duress or fraud), in which Native American nations surrendered large portions of their land to the United States, designated parcels which the nations, as sovereigns, "reserved" to themselves, and those parcels came to be called "reservations".[13][14] The term remained in use after the federal government began to forcibly relocate nations to parcels of land to which they often had no historical or cultural connection. Compared to other population centers in the U.S., reservations are disproportionately located on or near toxic sites hazardous to the health of those living or working in close proximity, including nuclear testing grounds and contaminated mines.[15]

The majority of American Indians and Alaska Natives live outside the reservations, mainly in the larger western cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles.[16][17] In 2012, there were more than 2.5 million Native Americans, with 1 million living on reservations.[2][3]

  1. ^ a b Bureau of Indian Affairs (August 19, 2017). "What is a federal Indian reservation?". Department of the Interior. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  2. ^ a b McGreal, Chris (May 4, 2012). "US should return stolen land to Indian tribes, says United Nations". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved October 5, 2023.
  3. ^ a b "The Indigenous World 2022: United States of America". IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  4. ^ "Navajo Population Profile 2010 U.S. Census" (PDF). Retrieved October 7, 2018.
  5. ^ "Federally recognized American Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities". usa.gov. General Services Administration. July 14, 2023. Retrieved August 26, 2023.
  6. ^ "What is a federal Indian reservation?". bia.gov. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Retrieved August 26, 2023.
  7. ^ Sutton, 199.[full citation needed]
  8. ^ "What is a federal Indian reservation? | Indian Affairs". www.bia.gov. August 19, 2017. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  9. ^ "Explore Census Data". data.census.gov. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  10. ^ Kinney, 1937; Sutton, 1975
  11. ^ Davies & Clow; Sutton 1991.
  12. ^ For general data, see Tiller (1996).
  13. ^ Frantz, Klaus (1999). Indian Reservations in the United States: Territory, Sovereignty, and Socioeconomic Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 45. ISBN 0-226-26089-5. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
  14. ^ See, e.g., United States v. Dion, 476 U.S. 734 (1986); Francis v. Francis, 203 U.S. 233 (1906).
  15. ^ Hooks, Gregory; Smith, Chad L. (August 2004). "The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans". American Sociological Review. 69 (4): 558–575. doi:10.1177/000312240406900405. ISSN 0003-1224. S2CID 145428620.
  16. ^ "Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States: 1980–2000". Census.gov. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
  17. ^ For Los Angeles, see Allen, J. P. and E. Turner, 2002. Text and map of the metropolitan area show the widespread urban distribution of California and other Native Americans.