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Tribal Sovereignty Matters

A Guide to Requesting Health Data Reports within a Federally Recognized Tribe
This guide describes how tribal staff in various programs (e.g., environmental, housing, maintenance, etc.) can request health data to better understand and describe the scope of public health issues that affect the tribes they serve. The health data can be used to support grant applications submitted to agencies such as the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Tribal programs can also use this data to prioritize programmatic activities. This guide is not intended for those doing academic research.
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Three ways to access health reports covered in this guide:
1) making a request to the tribe’s health department or healthcare system
2) making a request to the corresponding Indian Health Service (IHS) area office
3) contacting the Tribal Epidemiology Center working with the tribe
Systems of Support: What Institutions of Higher Education Can Do for Indigenous Communities
The purpose of this chapter is to highlight ways institutions of higher education (IHEs) can support culturally relevant community-driven measures and asset-based research that allows Native students to excel academically and display enhanced well-being, self-efficacy, and self-esteem (McCarty, Teach Educ, 20:7–29, 2009).
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Why Treaties Matter
Today, treaties continue to affirm the inherent sovereignty of American Indian nations. Tribal governments maintain nation-to-nation relationships with the United States government. Tribal nations manage lands, resources, and economies, protect people, and build more secure futures for generations to come. That is Why Treaties Matter.
Remember you're on Native Land INDIGENOUS GEOTAGS

Please use these links.

Tribal Nations and the United States
The guide "Tribal Nations and the United States: An Introduction" developed by the National Congress of American Indians seeks to provide a basic overview of the history and underlying principles of tribal governance. The guide also provides introductory information about tribal governments and American Indian and Alaska Native people today. The purpose of the guide is to ensure that policy decision makers at the local, state, and federal level understand their relationship to tribal governments as part of the American family of governments.

Sovereign Stories - A Free Resource for Building Understanding in American Indian Politics
YouTube page with short videos on history and politics for Indian Country.
NPR - So What Exactly Is 'Blood Quantum'?

NPR - The Difficult Math Of Being Native American

Tribal Governance Resources

Native Nations Institute
Located on Tohono O’odham Nation traditional homelands, the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy (NNI) was founded in 2001 by The University of Arizona and the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation as a self-determination, self-governance, and development resource for Native nations. It is housed at the university's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
The Harvard Project aims to understand and foster the conditions under which sustained, self-determined social and economic development is achieved among American Indian nations through applied research and service.
Honoring Treaty Obligations
This report is a reminder of the enduring United States treaty obligations to our member Tribes

Tribal Justice

HUMAN TRAFFICKING Information on Cases in Indian Country or that Involved Native Americans

Native Disparities in Youth Incarceration
Native Youth 3X More Likely than Whites to be Held

#NotInvisible: The Plight of Native American Women and Sexual Violence

Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women and Men

Tribal Child Welfare / Social Work

National Indian Child Welfare Association

Indian Child Welfare Act Judicial Benchbook

Cultural impact of the Indian Adoption Project still felt today - MPR News

Cultural Understanding

Miscellaneous

Minnesota Tribes

Bois Forte Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
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The Bois Forte reservation is located in extreme northern Minnesota, about 45 miles south of the Canadian border. The reservation is divided into three sectors, Nett Lake, Vermilion, and Deer Creek. The largest section is around Nett Lake located in St. Louis and Koochiching counties. 50% of the Nett Lake sector is wetland and is said to be the largest producer of wild rice in the United States. The Nett Lake sector is home to the majority of the Bois Forte Band members and the Bands primary government offices.
Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
The Fond du Lac Band is one of six Chippewa Indian Bands in the state of Minnesota. The Fond du Lac Reservation was established by the La Pointe Treaty of 1854. Archaeologists, however, maintain that ancestors of the present day Chippewa (Ojibwe) have resided in the Great Lakes area since 800 A.D. Today, our Band includes over 4,200 members. The Ojibwe name for the Fond du Lac Reservation is "Nagaajiwanaang", which means "where the water stops".
Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa does not have a website.
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe
The Ojibwe living around Leech Lake signed treaties with the United States Government, and by doing so, the Leech Lake Reservation was created. In 1858, the state of Minnesota was admitted to the Union.
Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe
Home Page for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
White Earth Nation
White Earth Reservation is located in Becker, Clearwater, and Mahnomen counties in north-central Minnesota. Created in 1867 by a treaty between the United States and the Mississippi Band of Chippewa Indians, it is one of seven Chippewa reservations in Minnesota. Although the White Earth Chippewa no longer live as their ancestors did, they have kept alive their tribal heritage. Almost every aspect of their present-day life has been strongly influenced by the past.
Red Lake Nation
Protecting Sovereignty while moving forward to maintain the traditions of the past.

Lower Sioux Indian Community
The Vision of the Lower Sioux Indian Community is a healthy, safe, and happy community – grounded and guided by Dakota culture, traditions, and language – where every person contributes to a diversified social and economic life. The people grow, adapt, and innovate together, through opportunities that span the generations and seek continuous success.
Prairie Island Indian Community
The People of Prairie Island welcome you!
The Mdewakanton, “those who were born of the waters,” have lived on Prairie Island for countless generations. Located in Southeastern Minnesota along the wooded shores of the Mississippi and Vermillion Rivers, Prairie Island is a spiritual place for our people.
Shakopee Mdewekanton Sioux Community
Welcome to the official website of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC). We are a federally recognized sovereign nation located in Scott County, Minnesota. We are dedicated to serving our members, creating strong partnerships, and protecting the earth's resources. Thank you for your interest in learning how the SMSC is working to ensure a healthy community environment and economy for generations to come.
Upper Sioux Community Pezihutazizi Oyate
This land we call Pejuhutazizi Kapi (the place where they dig for yellow medicine) has been the homeland for our people, the Dakota Oyate (Nation), for thousands of years

Wisconsin Tribes List with Links

Wisconsin Tribal List

Tribal Health

Behavioral Health Among American Indian and Alaska Natives: An Overview
Trends in Indian Health: 2014 Edition
Trends in Indian Health contains tables and charts describing the Indian Health Service program and the health status of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Information pertaining to the IHS structure, American Indian and Alaska Native demography, patient care, and community health are included. Historical trends are depicted, and comparisons to other population groups are made, when appropriate.

Mortality Among American Indians and Alaska Natives

Tribal Youth

Center for Native American Youth - 2017 State of Native Youth Report
Our Identities as Civic Power

Understanding the Affects of Boarding Schools

Education for Extinction by David Wallace Adams
ISBN: 9780700608386
Publication Date: 1995-10-30
The last "Indian War" was fought against Native American children in the dormitories and classrooms of government boarding schools. Only by removing Indian children from their homes for extended periods of time, policymakers reasoned, could white "civilization" take root while childhood memories of "savagism" gradually faded to the point of extinction. In the words of one official: "Kill the Indian and save the man." ....
Kill the Indian, Save the Man by Ward Churchill
ISBN: 9780872864344
Publication Date: 2004-11-01
For five consecutive generations, from roughly 1880 to 1980, Native American children in the United States and Canada were forcibly taken from their families and relocated to residential schools. The stated goal of this government program was to "kill the Indian to save the man." Half of the children did not survive the experience, and those who did were left permanently scarred. The resulting alcoholism, suicide, and the transmission of trauma to their own children has led to a social disintegration with results that can only be described as genocidal. "The Indian residential schools in both the US and Canada... include[d] the forced exile of children and the prohibition of the use of a national language or religion....
Boarding School Seasons by Brenda J. Child; Brenda Child
ISBN: 9780803264052
Publication Date: 2000-02-01
Boarding School Seasons offers a revealing look at the strong emotional history of Indian boarding school experiences in the first half of the twentieth century. At the heart of this book are the hundreds of letters written by parents, children, and school officials at Haskell Institute in Kansas and the Flandreau School in South Dakota. These revealing letters show how profoundly entire families were affected by their experiences. Children, who often attended schools at great distances from their communities, suffered from homesickness, and their parents from loneliness. Parents worried continually about the emotional and physical health and the academic progress of their children. Families clashed repeatedly with school officials...
Away from Home by Brenda J. Child (Editor); K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Editor); Heard Museum Staff; Margaret L. Archuleta; Brenda Child (Editor)
ISBN: 0934351627
Publication Date: 2000-11-01
"Artfully weaving old photographs, first-person accounts, and well-organized text and verse, the editors present important and predominantly Native views of some 'good, bad, and ugly' aspects of Indian boarding school life.--Choice

Unspoken: America's Native American Boarding Schools

Resources for Working with Tribes

Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance
Concerned by the current state of the data available for tribal and community decision making--including census, health, social services, and environment--and by Native nation’s limited control over their data, NNI researchers and a network of colleagues and collaborators are addressing the need for tribes to drive their data agendas through practicing Indigenous data sovereignty and governing their information.
Links to Research Ethics: A Source Guide to Conducting Research with Indigenous Peoples
Conducting Research with Tribal Communities: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Data-Sharing Issues
Reading list: eight books on Indigenous research methods, recommended by Helen Kara

Tribal Treaty Rights / Natural Resources / Science

A Guide to Understanding Ojibwe Treaty Rights
The guide contains the pertinent treaties, discusses the nature of treaty rights, provides historical background on the treaty rights, and details tribal resource management and GLIFWC activities.
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission Publications
1854 Treaty Authority
“The 1854 Treaty Authority shall provide an Inter-Tribal natural resource program to ensure that the rights secured to member Indian tribes by treaties of the United States to hunt, fish and gather within the 1854 Ceded Territory shall be protected, preserved, and enhanced for the benefit of present and future member Indian tribes in a manner consistent with the character of such rights, through provision of services”.
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission
The Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission is commonly known by its acronym, GLIFWC. Formed in 1984, GLIFWC represents eleven Ojibwe tribes in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan who reserved hunting, fishing and gathering rights in the 1837, 1842, and 1854 Treaties with the United States government.
GLIFWC provides natural resource management expertise, conservation enforcement, legal and policy analysis, and public information services in support of the exercise of treaty rights during well-regulated, off-reservation seasons throughout the treaty ceded territories.
100 Women: The scientists championing their indigenous ancestors' discoveries