Indigenous Nations and Tribal Sovereignty

The indigenous rights movement has embraced the idea of self-determination for framing their demands for economic, political, and cultural survival. Indeed, calls for tribal sovereignty problematize the international community’s central focus on state governments for legitimizing human rights claimants. For communities such as the Onondaga Nation of Central New York, state membership comes second to the ties that bind one to an indigenous nation. (Indeed, the Onondaga Nation maintains a legally distinct territory just outside Syracuse, New York, and some members have rejected US citizenship in favor of tribe-issued passports.) While this chapter explores the historical trajectory leading to modern indigenous rights concerns—which include an ongoing process of cultural genocide—it focuses on how indigenous nations and tribal sovereignty challenge the reliance on state citizenship for recognizing personhood and claiming human rights. Calls for indigenous sovereignty offer alternative pathways for conceptualizing identification, legal status, and political membership.