Frank Shockey, Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota. shoc0012@tc.umn.edu

The Legal Evolution of American Indian Reservations as Discrete Polities

This paper examines the legal development of the place of American Indian reservations in the U.S. political system. From the inception of the idea of the reservation, reservations have been separate from the rest of America in both social and legal terms, but the degree of separation has wavered. The idea has fluctuated from lands reserved by Indians in treaties, and therefore essentially separate from the United States, to lands reserved from public sale by the federal government and set aside for the exclusive use of Indians-therefore, essentially within the United States. The push and pull of different policy initiatives over the years attempting to solve the government's "Indian problem" have combined to keep reservations, and the tribal governments that govern them, in an uneasy and poorly defined state of quasi-separation. After explaining some of the major past changes in the status of reservations, I evaluate their effects on the powers of tribal governments today, and speculate on possible future changes.