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Week 4 · Chapter

Chapter 4 — Indigenous Nations, Sovereignty, and Settler Colonialism

Introduction to Ethnic Studies Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~30–40 minutes · Objective 4 (analyze Native American and Indigenous experiences: tribal sovereignty as a political status, treaties, removal, allotment, boarding schools, termination and relocation, self-determination, repatriation, and survivance, using settler colonialism as a framework), with Objective 3 (compare theories of belonging (assimilation, cultural pluralism, segmented assimilation, internal colonialism, and double consciousness) as frameworks with named authors and named critics, and distinguish immigrant from colonized or incorporated peoples) called back · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, and the quiz all build on it.

In plain language

Native nations are governments, and they were governing themselves long before the United States existed. This week you will learn tribal sovereignty (a Native nation's own right to govern itself) and why tribal citizenship (membership in a Native nation) is a political status, not a racial one. You will read a treaty (a written agreement between nations) the way the field reads a record, and you will meet three federal policies stated plainly: removal, allotment, and the boarding schools. Then you will try a framework, settler colonialism (the idea that settlers came to stay and take the land, so the taking is a lasting structure), and test it against the immigrant story from last week. By the end, you will read a map, a law, or a news story about Native nations with sharper questions.

Why you already care about this

Think about a club you have belonged to: a robotics team, a student union, a neighborhood soccer league. Its bylaws say who is a member and who may vote at the meeting. A person who walks in and looks like the members does not get a vote. A member who looks nothing like the others does. Membership comes from the club's own rules, and nobody calls that a racial rule.

Hold that picture, because it is the key to this week. Native nations decide who their citizens are, the way any nation does. They signed treaties with the United States as one government with another. And between 1830 and 1887, federal law moved, divided, and sold their land, while from 1819 to 1969 federal schools took in their children. This chapter follows those dates in order. It reads them the way ethnic studies reads every record: what it says, who made it, whom it affected, and what it leaves out.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to: explain tribal sovereignty and why tribal citizenship is a political status, not a racial category; read the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) as an agreement between nations, in the field's five-step order; state plainly what the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Dawes Act of 1887, and the federal boarding schools did; place those laws on a timeline and compute the years between them; and use settler colonialism, from Wolfe (2006), as a framework beside Week 3's internal colonialism, including its limits.

Carry this sentence with you: nations sign treaties; races do not.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 set out what ethnic studies asks of a record, Week 2 defined race, ethnicity, and nation, and Week 3 taught the theories of belonging, ending on the line between immigrant peoples and colonized or incorporated peoples.
This week: Native nations as self-governing peoples: tribal sovereignty, treaties, removal, allotment, the federal boarding schools, and settler colonialism as a framework.
How they connect: Week 3's assimilation story assumed people who arrived; Native nations did not arrive, the settlers did, so this week tests the immigrant model at once.
Where we're going next: Week 5, Indigenous Survivance and Self-Determination, follows how Native nations have governed, resisted, and endured in the twentieth century and now.

Week 1 gave you the field's habit of asking who made a record and whom it served. Week 2 defined a nation as a self-governing people with its own territory, government, and history, and that definition does real work this week. Week 3 then named the field's central distinction. Immigrant peoples came under a country's immigration rules. Colonized or incorporated peoples became part of the United States by conquest, annexation, or force, and Native nations are the first example on that list. Week 3 also gave you Blauner (1969), "Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt", Social Problems, which set groups that entered by force apart from groups that entered as immigrants. You will set a second colonial framework beside it at the end of this chapter.

1. Recognize tribal sovereignty: nations that govern

Go back to the club. Its members elect officers, pass rules, and decide who joins. Nobody outside the club gets to rewrite its bylaws on a whim. That everyday idea, a group that runs its own affairs, is the plain-language core of sovereignty.

Here is the course's definition, set off so you can find it:

Tribal sovereignty is the inherent right of Native nations to govern themselves. Federally recognized tribes have a government-to-government relationship with the United States: each deals with the other as a government, not as a group of private people.

"Inherent" matters here. The right did not start as a gift from Congress. Native nations were governing their own lands, laws, and families long before 1492, and they kept doing so after the United States formed. The United States signed treaties with them for exactly that reason: you sign treaties with governments.

Now follow the idea one step further. Because a tribe is a government, belonging to it works like belonging to any nation.

Tribal citizenship is membership in a Native nation, set by that nation's own government. It is a political status, like citizenship in any nation, and not a racial category.

Worked example — the club and the nation. Compare two rules, side by side.

A city's community garden club (illustrative) lets only its members vote on which beds get water first. A neighbor who is not a member cannot vote, whatever the neighbor's background. The rule sorts people by membership, which the club's bylaws define.
A Native nation's government decides who its citizens are and which citizens may vote in its elections. A person who is not a citizen of that nation cannot vote there, whatever the person's background. The rule sorts people by citizenship, which the nation's own law defines.
In words: both rules turn on a political tie to a self-governing body, so neither is a racial rule. The nation's rule is a government's rule, which is why the course calls tribal citizenship a political status.

A note on names. The term rule from earlier weeks applies here with extra force. When material is about one nation, that nation's own name comes first. Native American and Indigenous are broad terms, each naming the many Native peoples together, and many people use both. American Indian is also broad, and it is also a legal and federal term, which is why you will see it in laws and agency names such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Words like these are not interchangeable labels for a single group; they are names for many nations, each with its own name.

Misconception check — "part of the past." Students often talk about Native nations only in the past tense, as if they belong to a history unit and not to the present. That is tempting, because many school lessons stop at the 1800s. But Native nations exist and govern now, with their own governments, citizens, and lands. The cure: speak of Native nations in the present tense wherever they exist today.

Misconception check — "a racial preference." Students also sometimes read tribal sovereignty as a special benefit handed to a racial group. That is tempting, because the word "tribe" sounds like a description of ancestry. But tribal citizenship comes from a nation's government and its relationship with the United States, the way any citizenship does. The cure: a tribe is a government, not a race.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a group you belong to that decides its own membership, such as a team, a congregation, a union, or a club. What would change if an outside body could rewrite its membership rules?
(b) Think of a form you have filled out that asked about your background. Did it ask about a political membership, a racial category, or both, and how could you tell?

2. Read a treaty as an agreement between nations

Picture two neighboring towns (illustrative) that share a river. The upstream town promises not to dam it. The downstream town promises to share the fish ladder it built. Each town keeps its own council, and each signs as itself. Nobody would call that agreement a gift from one town to the other. It is a deal between two governments.

A treaty is a written agreement between nations in which each side gives something and is promised something. Treaties between the United States and Native nations are agreements between governments, not gifts.

The course reads one treaty closely: the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868), between the United States and the Sioux Nation. Those are the names the treaty and the National Archives use. When you open the treaty this week, notice that it also names the separate bands who signed, each by its own name.

Worked example — reading the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) in the field's order. Walk the five steps in turn.

What it says. The treaty set aside the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, which are sacred to the Sioux people. Its first article reads "From this day forward all war between the parties to this agreement shall forever cease."
Who made it. Two governments, the United States and the Sioux Nation, each acting for its own people. Because a treaty is an agreement between nations, each side gave something and each side was promised something.
Whom it affected. The Sioux people, whose land the treaty set aside, and settlers and miners, because the land was set aside for the Sioux people's exclusive use.
What happened next. After gold was found following an 1874 expedition, the government confiscated the land in 1877. That is 1877 − 1868 = 9 years after the treaty, and 1877 − 1874 = 3 years after the expedition.
What it leaves out, and where it stands now. The treaty text records the promise, not what came after it. Ownership of the Black Hills remains the subject of a legal dispute between the United States and the Sioux Nation. You describe that dispute without a verdict: it is a live legal question, and this course does not argue it.

The reading in one plain sentence: the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) was an agreement between two nations that set aside the Black Hills for the Sioux people, the United States confiscated that land 9 years later, and the Sioux Nation's claim to it remains in legal dispute.

Notice what that sentence does and does not do. It states the documented history plainly: a treaty was signed, and land was taken 9 years later. It does not stage the taking as a debate. It also does not decide the present-day legal question, which belongs to the courts and the parties.

Misconception check — "treaties were gifts." Students often think of a treaty as something the United States granted to a tribe, like a favor. That is tempting, because the United States was the larger power and many treaties set aside land "for" a nation. But a treaty is signed by two governments, and each side gives and is promised something. In 1868 the United States pledged peace and set aside a reservation; the bands who signed gave up other land. The cure: read a treaty as a deal between nations, with promises running both ways.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a written agreement in your own life, such as a lease, a work contract, or a team's code of conduct. What does the paper record, and what does it leave out about what happened after it was signed?
(b) The treaty's first article promises that war "shall forever cease." Whose voice do you hear in that sentence, and whose voice would you want to hear beside it?

3. State removal plainly: the 1830 law and the Trail of Tears

Moving can be something a family chooses: a new job, a new school, a fresh start. Removal was not that. It was a federal policy that pushed whole nations off their homelands, and this course states it plainly.

Removal was the federal policy of forcing Native nations off their homelands east of the Mississippi River and onto land in the west. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized removal treaties with tribes living east of the Mississippi River.

The best-known removal is the Cherokee removal. It was carried out under the Treaty of New Echota (ratified 1836), and it is known as the Trail of Tears. People were forced from their homes and made to travel west, and many died on the way.

How many died is a question sources answer differently. The National Archives gives an estimate of about 4,000 of 16,000 Cherokees dying on the way. Here is an honesty note about that figure: it is an estimate, and you say it in words with its source, never as an exact count and never as a quiz answer. The point the figure carries does not depend on its last digit. Thousands of people died during a forced removal ordered under federal law.

Read the 1830 law the way the field reads every record. What it says: it authorized removal treaties. Who made it: Congress, with the President's signature. Whom it affected: the nations living east of the Mississippi River, the Cherokee among them. What it leaves out: the word "treaty" sounds like a deal between equals, but the removal that followed was carried out by force. In one plain sentence: the Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized removal treaties with tribes east of the Mississippi River, and under one of them the Cherokee people were forced west on the Trail of Tears, where thousands died.

Misconception check — "a voluntary move." Students often picture removal as a migration, a people deciding to move west for better land. That is tempting, because the law speaks of treaties, and treaties sound voluntary. But the Cherokee removal was forced, and people died on the way. The cure: call it what the record shows, a forced removal, and keep the word "move" for choices people make freely.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) A summary you read says the Cherokee "relocated" in the 1830s. What does that word hide, and what word would you use instead?
(b) Think of a time your family or a family you know moved. What made that move a choice, and what would have made it something else?

4. Follow the land: allotment under the Dawes Act

Imagine a neighborhood park that everyone in the neighborhood shares. One day a new rule divides it into small private lots, hands each household one lot, and sells whatever is left over to outsiders. The neighborhood still has people, but it no longer has a shared park. That is the plain-language shape of allotment.

Allotment means dividing land that a Native nation held in common into separate parcels assigned to individuals, with the land left over opened for sale. The Dawes Act of 1887 divided reservation land into individual allotments, a quarter section to each head of family, opened the land not allotted for sale, and made allottees citizens.

Ask the Week 3 question of this law: what did it expect the people it affected to become? It expected the members of a nation to become individual landholders and citizens of the United States. That is an assimilation question, and Week 3's critics of assimilation theory apply here. The law treated one way of holding land as the standard and expected everyone to follow it.

Worked example — placing the week's laws on one timeline. Put the dates in order and compute the gaps.

The Indian Removal Act came in 1830.
The Fort Laramie Treaty came in 1868, so 1868 − 1830 = 38 years after the removal law.
The Dawes Act came in 1887, so 1887 − 1868 = 19 years after the treaty.
The whole span from removal to allotment is 1887 − 1830 = 57 years.
In words: within 57 years, federal policy moved nations west, signed a treaty that set land aside, and then divided reservation land into individual parcels.

The week's three timeline laws and treaties, with the years between them
Year	Law or treaty	What it did	Years since the item above
1830	Indian Removal Act	authorized removal treaties with tribes east of the Mississippi River	(first entry)
1868	Fort Laramie Treaty	set aside the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills	38
1887	Dawes Act	divided reservation land into individual allotments and opened the rest for sale	19

In practice (your tools). Build the timeline in any free spreadsheet. Type the years 1830, 1868, and 1887 into cells A2, A3, and A4, and type the law's name beside each year in column B. In cell C3, enter =A3-A2 to get 38, then copy it into C4 to get 19. In cell C5, enter =A4-A2 to get 57. A hand-drawn timeline on paper works the same way: equal spacing for equal years shows you at a glance that the treaty sits closer to the Dawes Act than to the removal law.

Misconception check — "allotment gave land to Native families." Students sometimes read the Dawes Act as a gift of farms. That is tempting, because the law did hand each head of family a parcel. But it handed out parcels of land the nation already held in common, and it opened the land not allotted for sale. The cure: ask what a law took as well as what it gave.

5. Name the boarding schools plainly

Think about the first week at a new school: the rules, the schedule, the way the building sounds. Now picture a school far from home, run by a government that is not your nation's, and attended because federal policy sent Native children there. That is the history this section states plainly.

Federal Indian boarding schools were the federal school system for Native children that ran from 1819 to 1969. The Department of the Interior's 2022 investigative report found 408 federal schools across 37 states or then territories from 1819 to 1969, with marked or unmarked burial sites at about 53 schools.

Read those figures with care. They are a federal agency's findings, stamped with the year of its report, and you say them in words with their source. You never key them as quiz answers, and this course links no image of human remains.

Worked example — the longest thread. How long did the boarding school system run, and how does that compare with the timeline from Section 4?

The system ran from 1819 to 1969.
Its span is 1969 − 1819 = 150 years.
The whole span from removal to allotment was 57 years.
In words: the federal boarding schools ran for 150 years, longer than the whole 57-year span from removal to allotment, so they are not a short episode but a policy that lasted into the lifetimes of people living now.

The boarding schools also open one of the course's cross-group threads, the separate-schools thread. Later weeks follow school segregation through other groups' court cases and walkouts. For now, notice the first entry: a federal school system for one group of children, run for 150 years.

Misconception check — "a short, distant episode." Students often assume the boarding schools were a brief practice from long ago. That is tempting, because they are often taught beside nineteenth-century events. But the system ran until 1969, and the Department of the Interior reported its findings in 2022. The cure: say the dates out loud, 1819 to 1969, and notice how close the end date is.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) A school system teaches more than lessons; it teaches who belongs. What might a school far from home teach a child about belonging?
(b) Think about a language, a recipe, or a holiday your family keeps. What helps a practice like that last from one generation to the next, and what could interrupt it?

6. Name the pattern: settler colonialism as a framework

Start with a long view. After 1492, plants, animals, and diseases moved between the Americas and the rest of the world. Crops first grown in the Americas spread across the globe, animals brought by Europeans arrived in the Americas, and diseases new to the Americas spread among Native peoples. Many of the newcomers who followed came to stay.

That last word, stay, is the heart of this week's framework.

Settler colonialism is a framework, from Wolfe (2006), "Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native", Journal of Genocide Research: settlers come to stay and take the land, so colonialism is an ongoing structure rather than a single past event.

A structure, not an event. Look back at your timeline. Removal in 1830, a treaty in 1868, the Black Hills confiscated in 1877, allotment in 1887, and boarding schools from 1819 to 1969: different tools, across more than a century, pointing the same way. Wolfe's framework asks you to read those dates as one pattern about land, not as unrelated episodes.

Worked example — two colonial frameworks side by side. Set Wolfe beside Blauner from Week 3.

Blauner (1969) and Wolfe (2006) both use the word colonialism, 2006 − 1969 = 37 years apart.
Blauner's internal colonialism sets groups that entered by force apart from groups that entered as immigrants.
Wolfe's settler colonialism says the settlers came to stay and take the land, so the taking is a structure that runs from 1830 through 1877 and 1887, not one event.
In words: both frameworks reject the idea that every group followed an immigrant path, and Wolfe's adds that, for Native nations, the people who arrived were the settlers.

Two colonial frameworks compared, with author, year, and what each explains
Framework	Author and year	What it explains	Whose arrival it centers
Internal colonialism	Blauner (1969)	groups that entered by force set apart from groups that entered as immigrants	the incorporated group's
Settler colonialism	Wolfe (2006)	settlers come to stay and take the land, an ongoing structure	the settlers'

Now the test from Week 3. The melting-pot image and classic assimilation theory pictured a newcomer group joining a host society. Apply that to Native nations and the picture flips. Native nations were not newcomers to anyone's society; they were the governments already there. That is why the field places Native nations among colonized or incorporated peoples, not among immigrants.

Like every framework in this course, settler colonialism is a tool, not a verdict on every case. Here is a limitation worth naming: a framework built around taking land can make the people it describes look like they only had things done to them. One fair question to put to it is whether it leaves room for what nations did and do: negotiate, govern, resist, and endure. Week 5 takes up that question.

Misconception check — "every group is an immigrant group." Students often fold every group's story into the immigrant story from Week 3: people arrived, settled, and adjusted. That is tempting, because it is the most familiar American story. But Native nations did not arrive; they were here, governing, when settlers came to stay. The cure: before you apply an immigrant framework, ask who did the arriving.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Wolfe calls settler colonialism a structure, not an event. Name one thing in the week's timeline that looks like a single event, and explain how it fits a longer structure.
(b) Name one thing a framework about land-taking might leave out about Native nations, and say what kind of source would help you see it.

Key terms

Tribal sovereignty — The inherent right of Native nations to govern themselves; a federally recognized tribe deals with the United States as one government to another. (first used: 1. Recognize tribal sovereignty: nations that govern)
Government-to-government relationship — The relationship between a federally recognized tribe and the United States, in which each deals with the other as a government rather than as a group of private people. (first used: 1. Recognize tribal sovereignty: nations that govern)
Tribal citizenship — Membership in a Native nation, set by that nation's own government; it is a political status, like citizenship in any nation, and not a racial category. (first used: 1. Recognize tribal sovereignty: nations that govern)
American Indian — A broad name for the Native peoples of what is now the United States that is also a legal and federal term; when the material is about one nation, that nation's own name comes first. (first used: 1. Recognize tribal sovereignty: nations that govern)
Treaty — A written agreement between nations in which each side gives something and is promised something; treaties between the United States and Native nations are agreements between governments, not gifts. (first used: 2. Read a treaty as an agreement between nations)
Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) — The treaty between the United States and the Sioux Nation that set aside the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, which are sacred to the Sioux people. (first used: 2. Read a treaty as an agreement between nations)
Removal — The federal policy of forcing Native nations off their homelands east of the Mississippi River and onto land in the west, carried out through removal treaties and by force. (first used: 3. State removal plainly: the 1830 law and the Trail of Tears)
Indian Removal Act of 1830 — The federal law that authorized the President to negotiate removal treaties with tribes living east of the Mississippi River. (first used: 3. State removal plainly: the 1830 law and the Trail of Tears)
Trail of Tears — The forced removal of the Cherokee people under the Treaty of New Echota, ratified in 1836, during which thousands of Cherokees died on the way. (first used: 3. State removal plainly: the 1830 law and the Trail of Tears)
Allotment — Dividing land that a Native nation held in common into separate parcels assigned to individuals, with the land left over opened for sale. (first used: 4. Follow the land: allotment under the Dawes Act)
Dawes Act of 1887 — The allotment law that divided reservation land into individual allotments, a quarter section to each head of family, opened the land not allotted for sale, and made allottees citizens. (first used: 4. Follow the land: allotment under the Dawes Act)
Federal Indian boarding schools — The federal school system for Native children that ran from 1819 to 1969; the Department of the Interior's 2022 investigative report documented hundreds of federal schools across dozens of states and then territories. (first used: 5. Name the boarding schools plainly)
Settler colonialism — A framework, from Wolfe (2006), in which settlers come to stay and take the land, so colonialism is an ongoing structure rather than a single past event. (first used: 6. Name the pattern: settler colonialism as a framework)

Summary

Tribal sovereignty is the inherent right of Native nations to govern themselves.
Tribal citizenship is a political status, not a racial category.
A treaty is an agreement between nations, not a gift.
The Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) set aside the Black Hills; the land was confiscated in 1877.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 led to forced removals, including the Trail of Tears.
The Dawes Act of 1887 divided reservation land and opened the rest for sale.
Federal boarding schools ran from 1819 to 1969; their counts are said in words.
Settler colonialism, from Wolfe (2006), reads land-taking as a structure, not an event.
Speak of Native nations in the present tense.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

A hiking club (an illustrative example) lets only members vote on trail days. A visitor who has hiked with the group for years asks to vote and is told no, because she has not joined. Which concept from this week does the club's rule resemble, and why is the rule not about the visitor's background?
Two illustrative towns sign a water-sharing agreement in the 40th year of their records. In the 47th year, one town builds a dam the agreement forbade. How many years did the agreement hold, and which step of the field's five-step reading would record the dam?
A website summary (an illustrative example) says, "Native peoples once lived on this land." Which of this week's wrong turns does the sentence make, and how would you rewrite it?
An illustrative family moved from one country to a new city for work and later became citizens. A Native nation was governing its homeland when settlers arrived to stay. Which of the two fits the immigrant model from Week 3, and which framework from this week fits the other?

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

The rule resembles tribal citizenship as a political status. The club decides membership through its own rules, so voting depends on the political tie of joining, not on who the visitor is or what she looks like. A Native nation's citizenship works the same way: its own government sets it, which is why it is not a racial category.
Subtract the earlier year from the later one: 47 − 40 = 7, so the agreement held for 7 years. The dam belongs to the step "what happened next", because the agreement's text records the promise, not what came after it. Notice that this is a fresh pair of towns, not the week's treaty.
The sentence speaks of Native peoples only in the past tense, as if they are gone. That is the wrong turn of reading Native nations as part of the past. A better version uses the present tense and names the nation where possible: "This is the homeland of a Native nation that governs here now."
The family fits the immigrant model: they arrived under a country's rules and joined its society. The Native nation does not, because it did not arrive; the settlers did. Settler colonialism, from Wolfe (2006), fits that case: settlers came to stay and take the land, an ongoing structure rather than a single event.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, the quiz, the discussion, and the assignment — and next week, Indigenous Survivance and Self-Determination follows how Native nations have governed, resisted, and endured.

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