Idaho Tribes’ Relations with Local Governments
Keith G. Allred, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Public Policy
Frank Church Distinguished Professor, Boise State University
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
keithallred@boisestate.edu
Idaho tribes have been negotiating with federal and local governments for more than 200 years. As talks have progressed from territorial boundaries to quality of life issues, the interests of both sides have become more intertwined and the stakes higher. Positive relationships in the future are dependent on close cooperation today.
The story of relations between white Europeans and the tribes of Idaho began in the fall of 1805 when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark encountered the Shoshone and Nez Perce tribes. The opening chapters of the relationship between Idaho tribes and whites were remarkably positive, with these two tribes playing crucial roles in the success of the Corps of Discovery. Sacagawea, of course, was indispensable. This Shoshone teenager had been taken captive and was later traded to and became the wife of the French trapper Charbonneau. When Sacagawea and
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Black Eagle, an Idaho Nez Perce, posed for photographer Edward S. Curtis in 1905. (Northwestern University). Turn-of-the-century photographs often portrayed the Nez Perce as a doomed tribe on the verge of extinction despite the strength of their treaty claims. |
Charbonneau joined the Corps, she became a crucial guide, providing service not only in pointing the way, but interpreting and facilitating peaceful interaction with other tribes. Other Shoshones provided horses and guidance as Lewis and Clark struggled to find a way over the Continental Divide before winter.
When the Corps of Discovery encountered early snows in the harsh Bitterroot high country, the Nez Perce tribe came to their rescue. It was arguably the Corps’ darkest hour and one in which American and Idaho history hung in the balance. As Lewis and Clark battled for their lives, the Nez Perce elders considered the three options they had for dealing with the explorers. They could kill them and take their impressive supplies, thereby gaining substantial advantage over neighboring tribes. They could ignore the explorers, leaving them to fend for themselves. Or they could help them. A Nez Perce woman, Watkuweis, urged the tribe toward the third option. Like Sacagawea, Watkuweis had been taken captive and sold to whites. In this critical moment, Watkuweis reminded her people that the whites she had lived among had treated her well. She felt that it was her tribe’s moment to return the favor. “These are the people who helped me,” she told the elders. “Do them no hurt.” The Nez Perce elders followed her guidance, providing crucial food, canoes and directions.1 As we approach the 200th anniversary of these critical encounters, it is appropriate to take stock of current Indian/white relationships in Idaho and their prospects for the future.
My intent in this chapter is to focus on the role that intergovernmental relationships between these two peoples play in the welfare of both groups. Accordingly, the chapter begins with a brief history of the last 200 years of federal Indian policy. An understanding of this policy — complicated, often contradictory and constantly changing — is an essential foundation for understanding the challenges tribes and local governments face in sustaining productive intergovernmental relationships today. Next, the chapter reviews relationships between tribes and local governments and investigates the practices that have been effective — as well as those that have failed — as tribes and Idaho’s city and county governments have worked to get along. It considers in detail the current state of relations between each of the five Idaho tribes and the local governments with which they interact as well as their prospects for the future. Although relationships between tribes and state governments are vitally important and only growing in significance, this third intergovernmental relationship falls beyond the scope of this chapter. I will limit my consideration of this topic to a few comments in the conclusion.
The History of Federal Indian Policy:
200 years of Pendulum Swinging
In addition to finding a route to the Pacific Ocean, the Corps of Discovery was charged with establishing friendly relations with Indian tribes. While the Corps was generally successful in this mission, and certainly successful in Idaho, subsequent chapters in the story of Indian/white relations have too often been disturbingly dark. One can’t help but wonder what actions the Shoshone and Nez Perce Indians might have taken if they had known then what would later transpire.
Regrettably, the difficulty of Indian/white relations was not assuaged through a clear, consistent and coherent federal Indian policy. Instead, for more than 200 years, the pendulum of federal policy has swung back and forth between treating Indians, in their respective tribes, as sovereign nations and treating them as individuals with no unique status who should be assimilated into the broader society. The fact that vestiges of old policies survive as new policies come into being has created a contradictory and bewildering hodgepodge that presents real challenges to both tribal and local governments as they try to serve the interests of their citizens. A brief review of the major developments in this history provides perspective on current challenges.
In the decades following the Lewis & Clark expedition, federal Indian policy emphasized formalizing treaties with tribes. These treaties sought to settle conflicts between tribes and white settlers by establishing reservations within which Indians would be unmolested by whites and much larger areas outside of reservations within which whites would be unmolested by Indians. These treaties stipulated that, within their reservations, Indians would be largely free to govern their own affairs.
By the 1880s, however, it became clear that the reservation system was, in many respects, failing badly. Indians on reservations faced extreme hardships including deep poverty, hunger, poor health and high mortality. Moreover, as white settlements expanded so did the settlers’ appetite for the lands that had been reserved for Indians. A strange coalition of eastern progressives interested in improving Indian welfare and western whites interested in obtaining Indian reservation lands emerged to pass the Dawes Act of 1887. Otherwise know as the Allotment Act, this act provided for allotting plots of reservation land to individual Indians. The thinking of eastern progressives, who knew little of the west or of Indians and who did little to consult with Indians, was that making Indians property owners would provide the means for them to assimilate into American society. The thinking of many western whites was that the “surplus” land that remained after the allotments had been made should be opened to settlement.
Eastern progressives failed to realize their aims. The Allotment Act did not improve life for Indians. In fact, by all measures Indian welfare declined in subsequent years. Many land-hungry whites, however, considered the Allotment Act a success as it opened up much of what had been reservation land to white settlement. In addition to acquiring the “surplus” reservation land, whites often acquired individual allotments from Indians, often at prices significantly below their value and in transactions that violated federal laws designed to protect these Indian holdings.
As a result, by the 1930s Indian land holdings across the nation had declined to one-third of what they had been when the Allotment Act was passed.2 Once contiguous reservations became “checker boarded” holdings of white and Indian lands; on many of these reservations, Indians became a minority. With this influx of whites onto one-time reservation land came the advent of counties and cities with their attendant services and jurisdictional powers.
By the 1930s a consensus emerged that the Allotment Act and the policy of assimilation generally was a failure. The policy of assimilation not only increased the physical suffering of most Indians, but led to a loss of cultural identity and esteem. This consensus led the pendulum of federal policy to swing back toward Indian sovereignty and self-rule. In 1934 the Wheeler-Howard Act, also known as the Indian Reorganization Act, abolished the Allotment Act and provided tribes the opportunity to establish constitutions and governments with which to rule themselves.3
Since 1934, the pendulum of federal Indian policy has swung back and forth several times. In fact, it continues to swing most notably today in terms of the courts’ interpretations of existing law. Vestiges of past policy complicate present policy, making uncertainty and confusion over the dictates of federal Indian law the only certainty.
Great uncertainty exists specifically over the jurisdiction of what had once been contiguous reservation lands. At the time the Indian Reorganization Act reintroduced Indian self-rule, white settlers formed substantial, even majority, populations within the borders of Indian reservation lands and had done so for several generations. Their affairs were governed by regularly constituted city and county governments that had been in existence for decades. As tribes began to form tribal governments and exercise governmental jurisdiction, complicated jurisdictional questions emerged. Where does the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s department end and that of the tribal police department begin? How should education, social services, fire protection, water and sewer, waste disposal and roads be provided and paid for given the existence of both local and tribal governments? There was — and is — no simple answer to these questions. Governments always face the challenge of providing services to its people with limited resources. The challenge for both tribal and local governments is made greater still by this bewildering jurisdictional setting.
Intergovernmental Relations in Indian Country Today:
What Works and What Doesn’t
The complicated jurisdictional context in which local and tribal governments in Indian Country operate, combined with a 200-year history that includes substantial antagonism between whites and Indians, creates enormous potential for conflict. However, substantial overlapping interests, including a shared interest in providing good public services, promoting a thriving economy, and building a warm and inclusive community invite cooperation. My colleagues and I at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government have investigated the experience of tribes and local governments across the country to determine what has worked well, and what hasn’t, in dealing with the jurisdictional complexities in Indian Country.4
The Litigation Route: High Costs and Uncertain Prospects
Stories of long-standing legal battles over jurisdictional issues in Indian Country abound. Because the law is so complicated and ever-changing, and because of overarching federal jurisdiction, litigation over such issues tends to be long and costly. For example, the Ute Tribe and the local and state governments of Utah waged a legal battle that lasted more than twenty years and cost both sides millions of dollars to determine whether the Ute reservation in northeastern Utah had been “diminished.” The question of diminishment refers to whether or not Congress’s implementation of the Allotment Act on a given reservation was intended to diminish, or even disestablish, that reservation. Although one might think that Congress would have established a standard, definitive answer to such a question, it turns out that the courts must determine the answer and that their rulings continue to evolve while taking into account a variety of factors that vary from reservation to reservation. Not even court rulings guarantee clarity. Even after a Supreme Court decision found for diminishment in the case of The Ute Tribe vs. The State of Utah, the interpretation of what that meant in terms of jurisdiction continued to be a matter of litigation.5
As substantial as the direct costs of litigation are, the costs of lost economic development that such legal battles impose on communities may be even greater. These legal battles often involve rural areas that struggle economically and already face challenges in attracting and retaining businesses. It is important to note that, in these areas, Indian and non-Indian economies are deeply intertwined. In fact, they are essentially indistinguishable, rising and falling together. When tribes and local governments wage jurisdictional battles with each other, investors are often scared off by the economic uncertainty these battles create. As the economic development of both communities is arrested due to disputes, the rising generation of both Indians and whites tends to move away to places of greater economic promise. The experience of the Swinomish tribal community and Skagit County, north of Seattle, Washington, is instructive here. When these two governments got into a heated battle over land use planning and building permit jurisdiction, with each government seeking to block the permits the other issued, potential investors soon began to look elsewhere. As a result, both communities experienced economic difficulties.
Pitched jurisdictional battles also tear at the fabric of the community. Existing tensions between Indian and non-Indian communities that result from often tumultuous histories are further exacerbated by legal wrangling. In every case that we examined, key players lamented the deep division and animosity these legal conflicts created.
In spite of such high costs, legal battles might be justified if either one side or the other could anticipate that ultimate vindication would allow them to serve their citizens’ interests more effectively. However, given the uncertain and changing nature of Indian law, neither Indian nor white communities can have much certainty as they enter the legal fray. As the lead attorney in the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Utah said, “Trying to resolve these issues through the courts is like trying to nail Jello to a tree.”6 As an expert in Indian law has concluded, the only people who tend to benefit from these legal battles are the attorneys paid to wage them.7 In most arenas, litigation is a dubious, costly avenue to advance one’s interests. In Indian Country, the costs are even higher and the benefits more elusive than elsewhere.
The Collaboration Route
Rather than fight each other in court, tribes and local governments sometimes choose to collaboratively seek mutually beneficial solutions to the problems they face. In fact, most tribes and local governments who have aggressively pursued the litigation track ultimately turn from it to collaboration. Having fought each other to a standstill without achieving any clear victory, the State of Utah, the local counties and the Ute tribe now focus on collaboration. They have concluded a number of Memoranda of Understanding covering a variety of jurisdictional areas and meet together often to solve problems and prevent litigation. Skagit County and the Swinomish ultimately set up regular intergovernmental meetings that resulted in a joint land use plan and harmonized building permit ordinances. In these two cases, as well as others that we studied, the officials we interviewed reported making better progress in addressing the problems they face, establishing a more hospitable environment for economic development, and substantially improving social relations once they turned from litigation to collaboration. Moreover, both sides saved the millions of dollars that further litigation would have demanded.
In our study of the most successful collaborative efforts in Indian Country, my colleagues and I have observed several common themes. First, in successful collaborative initiatives, the parties do not cede their jurisdictional claims. Indeed, cooperative agreements signed by the parties usually explicitly reserve their rights to make their jurisdictional claims in court. Second, the parties commit to address the issue of competing jurisdictional claims through cooperative efforts before resorting to litigation whenever possible. Third, these parties dedicate considerable time and attention to developing a process for productive intergovernmental relations. The results are institutionalized collaboration involving regular meetings of working groups and committees, written protocols for how these groups and committees function, and Memoranda of Understanding that govern their joint efforts. In this regard, the most successful collaborative efforts are characterized by what they don’t do as well as what they do. Initially, successful collaborative efforts tend not to focus on the substantive issues per se. Rather, they first invest energy in working out processes and protocols for dealing with substantive issues. When this investment doesn’t occur, collaborative efforts tend to be short-lived and less effective at delivering concrete progress. Fourth, the most successful collaborative efforts tend to be sustained and guided by effective and courageous leaders who exhibit long-term commitments of time and attention, even when the going is slow and they encounter problems. These leaders recognize that there are no silver bullets and that progress is often slow and frustrating, but nevertheless superior to litigation.
Intergovernmental Relations in Idaho
The state of intergovernmental relations between the five tribes of Idaho and surrounding governments are interesting in their own right and reflect a rich mix of conflict and collaboration. A review of aspects of these intergovernmental relations, moving from the southeast to the north, offers lessons for tribes and whites in Idaho.
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes
Relationships between Indians and whites in Idaho began with the Shoshone-Bannock tribes. In fact, it was the Shoshone Sacagawea who first accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition into what is now Idaho. With most Shoshone and Bannock Indians now living in and around Fort Hall, west of Pocatello, that relationship is marked by a deep mix of cooperation and contention. On the cooperative side, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and area counties and municipalities have worked effectively together over a number of years to develop an economic plan for their region. This plan was a part of their successful application for an economic development grant from the Northwest Area Foundation. This $10 million grant, to be shared among the tribe and local governments, is an impressive victory for the region that will benefit its citizens for years to come. Other instances of cooperation mark this relationship. For example, local law enforcement agencies and the Tribe have worked out an agreement whereby officers from either side cite tribal members into either state or tribal court according to the preference of the tribal member.
Unfortunately, other aspects of the intergovernmental relationship between whites and the Shoshone-Bannock are characterized by tension and conflict. Progress in the law enforcement arena notwithstanding, incidents involving local police and tribal members have deeply divided the Indian and non-Indian communities. Conflicts regarding jurisdiction over the airport serving the Pocatello area have also contributed to tense relations.
With little to no formal or institutionalized commitment to collaboration and with changing leadership that requires the frequent rebuilding of relationships, the future of Shoshone-Bannock/white relationships is unclear. The governments involved must determine whether the experience of working together on the Northwest Area Foundation Grant or the more contentious aspects of their relationship will set the tone for the future.
The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes
The Duck Valley Reservation, the modern home of the Shoshone-Paiute tribes, straddles the Idaho-Nevada border south of Boise. While a substantial proportion of the population in each of the other four reservations in Idaho are non-Indian and the reservations include and/or abut a number of towns, the Duck Valley Reservation is populated mostly by Shoshone-Paiutes. The only town on the reservation, and the site of tribal headquarters, is Owyhee, Nevada. Accordingly, relations between the tribal government and mostly white local governments don’t loom as large on the Duck Valley Reservation as on the other reservations in Idaho.
The Nez Perce Tribe
Moving north, the Nez Perce Reservation lies to the south and west of Lewiston and includes land within the four counties of Nez Perce, Lewis, Clearwater and Idaho. With 90 percent of the land being owned by the 90 percent of the population that is non-Indian and with four counties and many towns, intergovernmental relations loom very large in this region of Idaho. The history of those relations has been mixed, with dramatic instances of both cooperation and contention over the last ten years in particular.
Conflict in the relationship began to escalate markedly in 1996 when the tribe notified a local school district that it would apply its Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance (TERO) to the construction of the new middle school in Kamiah. These ordinances, provided for by federal law, allow tribes to require Indian hiring preferences and to assess fees of up to 1.5 percent on construction projects. The fees are used for job training and placement. Already struggling to fund the much-needed school, the application of TERO sparked the formation of the North Central Idaho Jurisdictional Alliance (Alliance), an organization of the three counties of Clearwater, Lewis and Idaho and about twenty towns, school districts and highway districts. One of the first decisions the Alliance made was that they would only discuss jurisdictional matters with the tribe as an Alliance, not as individual entities. The tribe responded by saying that they would not negotiate with any organization which was formed to undermine their sovereignty. Communication, consequently, became virtually non-existent and tensions continued to escalate. By 1998 the conflict had risen to such alarming levels that when former Governor Phil Batt convened a meeting with officials from both sides, more than a dozen state police and two ambulances were on hand in case violence erupted. Thankfully, this didn’t happen, but continuing tensions provided a less than encouraging environment for economic investment and community building.
In 2000, local officials approached me about mediating the dispute. After several months of informal discussions, the leadership of both the Alliance and the tribe unanimously endorsed a proposal that Joe Kalt, my colleague at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and I offered for exploring ways to improve intergovernmental relations. At the behest of both parties, we sent teams of graduate students out to explore cases of intergovernmental relations elsewhere in Indian Country to see what worked well and what didn’t. We also conducted a survey of the views of officials and constituents on both sides. Finally, we presented our results in an executive education seminar in January 2002. Those results, as discussed above, indicated that waging battle over competing jurisdictional claims, in the courts or otherwise, imposed significant costs on both sides with few benefits, while building cooperative approaches to problem solving tended to cost little and achieve more.
Committed to realizing the benefits of the insights gained from the seminar, the Alliance and the tribe formed the Intergovernmental Working Group, comprised of four representatives from each side, to promote cooperation. Several months’ worth of joint work produced a Memorandum of Understanding. Through this MOU, the tribe and Alliance pledged to pursue cooperatively their joint interests in providing good government for both Indian and non-Indian people in North Central Idaho. The MOU committed both sides to working to resolve disputes to their mutual satisfaction before resorting to litigation and it empowered the Intergovernmental Working Group to begin the process of addressing substantive jurisdictional disputes over issues such as economic development and law enforcement.
While this process was building cooperation and trust and beginning to address substantive issues, a new challenge emerged. Some years earlier, the Nez Perce tribe had filed on what it considered to be its in-stream Snake River flow rights as part of the Snake River Basin Adjudication. Subsequently, these issues had been the subject of another mediation that, by 2004, was nearing a court imposed deadline. With the possibility that an appeal in this matter might be heard by the Idaho Supreme Court, the Alliance chose to file a “friend of the court” brief arguing that the Nez Perce Reservation had been diminished as a result of actions taken in the nineteenth century to implement the Allotment Act. The tribe viewed the filing of the brief as a violation of the MOU and the spirit of cooperation that it expressed. The tribe told the Alliance that it would withdraw from the MOU unless the Alliance committed itself to not waging a legal battle over diminishment and reaffirmed its commitment to the MOU. On a narrowly split vote, the Alliance decided to continue to seek a legal ruling that the reservation had been diminished and, by a unanimous vote, reaffirmed its commitment to the MOU.
This mixed result was insufficient in the tribe’s view and it withdrew from the MOU last spring. The deep split that this situation created within the Alliance continues to this time. Many of the local government officials who make up the Alliance are convinced that the diminishment battle is unlikely to produce positive results for their citizens and will cost more than they can afford. Others believe it is a necessary and appropriate course of action.
As the Alliance continues to wrestle with its mission and direction, and as individual governments decide what to do given the direction the Alliance takes, promising initiatives to cooperatively address substantive issues like law enforcement that had recently begun remain stalled. In 1805 as the Nez Perce began their deliberations over the fate of the Corps of Discovery the future of the relationship between the Nez Perce and the whites was highly uncertain. Almost 200 years later, the future of the relationship between Indians and non-Indians in the Nez Perce homeland is again uncertain. Hopefully, the spirit of reciprocating good will that Watkuweis expressed will again prevail.
The Coeur d’ Alene Tribe
The Coeur d’ Alene Reservation south of the city of Coeur d’ Alene has had some of the best intergovernmental relations in the state. The MOUs used by the tribe to deal with law enforcement issues with both Kootenai and Benewah County are one example of the relationship that has been largely reasonable and respectful for years.
However, the relationship between the tribe and Benewah County, never entirely cooperative, has been growing increasingly tense over the last year. Much of the difficulty stems from the Coeur d’ Alene tribe’s recent U. S. Supreme Court victory in its decades-long effort to assert its sovereignty over the southern third of the lake. The Supreme Court decision swung jurisdiction over that part of the lake from the state to the tribe. Since that decision, the tribe has established a lake management plan governing, among other things, dock fees and permits to construct new docks. Various conflicts with individual property owners have arisen as the tribe has conducted an inventory of existing docks in order to begin enforcing its lake management plan. The County has taken the property owners’ side in many of these disputes.
While tribal and county leaders clearly have differences on this issue, they have made attempts to resolve the issue cooperatively. Ernie Stensgar, chairman of the Coeur d’ Alene tribe, and Jack Buell, chair of the Benewah County Commission, have sustained a respectful and productive relationship through their long years of service despite many disagreements. However, as of the writing of this article, it appears that there is a significant chance that legal battles will ensue and escalate things further.
The Kootenai Tribe
Some of the most successful intergovernmental relations in the state are found near its northern border. Over the last five years, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, Boundary County, the cities of Bonners Ferry and Moyie Springs, and the Boundary County School District have developed remarkably effective ways of interacting with each other. They have concluded two joint powers agreements. The first is the Boundary County Economic Development Council formed to promote both tribal and non-tribal business recruitment, expansion, and retention. The second is the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative formed to provide a collaborative local approach to preserving and enhancing the regions’ natural resources. The Kootenai Tribe also contracts with Bonners Ferry to provide police and fire services to tribal members within the city and contracts with the county to provide police services outside the city.
The Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative is particularly impressive in its scope and success. One subcommittee has received broad discretion from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality to develop the maximum daily load plans required by the Clean Water Act for the Lower Kootenai and Moyie Rivers. Another subcommittee has worked on recovery of the burbot, a species of freshwater cod, cooperating with the Idaho Conservation League along the way and preventing the listing of the burbot as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. A third subcommittee is working on restoration of wetlands in a manner that balances environmental with economic values. A fourth subcommittee is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to develop plans to optimize the recovery of burbot and white sturgeon and the protection of agriculture. Finally, a new subcommittee is working with the Forest Service under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act to prevent further forest fires like the one that burned 20 percent of the municipal watershed for Bonners Ferry last year.
The intergovernmental relations that the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho has with local governments exhibits all four characteristics of effective intergovernmental relations we have observed elsewhere in Indian County. First, neither side has ceded it claims to jurisdiction. Second, there is an explicit commitment to avoid litigation and conflict and to focus on finding practical solutions through cooperation in dealing with such issues. As tribal chairman Gary Aitken said, “We agreed we weren’t going to agree on some things, but decided to work together on the common interests that we share.”8 Third, they have invested in establishing an institutional framework and process for dealing with issues jointly, rather than moving directly to the substantive issues of the moment, thus increasing the chances that long term, effective interaction can be sustained. Patty Perry, the tribe’s administrative director who has provided much of administrative leadership for the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative, said, “It’s sometimes been a challenge to get people to invest in a process rather than a project that will have a clear product, but that’s what we’ve managed to do.”9 Fourth, their intergovernmental relationship has had the sustained commitment of their leaders. One only needs to speak with Darrell Kerbyx, mayor of Bonners Ferry, or Chairman Aitken for a few minutes to recognize how deeply committed the leadership is to a productive intergovernmental relationship. As Patty Perry said, “We keep plenty of rose colored glasses around so that we don’t let a problem here or there derail us.” Because of the quality of their intergovernmental relationship, the future does indeed look bright for the people, Indian and non-Indian, in Idaho’s northernmost community.
Conclusion
Overall, the state of relations between tribal and local governments in Idaho is deeply mixed and the prospects for the future uncertain. Whatever course those relations take in coming years, it is clear that the stakes are high and shared. It is difficult to find an example in Indian Country anywhere in the nation in which the Indian community is doing well and the non-Indian community is doing poorly, or vice versa. In the modern era, for better or worse, these communities are deeply intertwined. They tend to rise or fall, both economically and socially, together.
Given that these relationships so deeply affect some of the most economically challenged areas in Idaho, the state also has an interest in seeing both sides of these communities succeed. The record of the state in recognizing and pursuing this interest is also mixed. Sometimes it has tried to help improve these relationships, sometimes it has taken sides, and sometimes it has been the source of problems, to the great frustration of both local and tribal officials. Part of the reason the record of the state is so mixed is that Idaho invests less in addressing Indian issues in a sustained, institutional way than many other states with similar proportions of Indians. The result is an ad hoc approach with inconsistent results.
Since Lewis and Clark, each generation of Indians and non-Indians in Idaho have written the individual chapters that make up the story of this relationship. As the relationship enters its third century, our generation has many choices to make in writing its own chapter. Let us hope that it is a chapter that we will be proud to have subsequent generations read.
Endnotes:
1 For a very readable and engaging history of interactions between the Corps of Discovery and the Shoshone and Nez Perce Tribes see Stephen E. Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage (NY: Touchstone, 1996).
2 For a succinct summary of the Allotment Act and its effects see Howard R. Lamar, Ed., The New Encyclopedia of the American West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998): 288-289.
3 Again see Howard R. Lamar, Ed., The New Encyclopedia of the American West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998): 288-289.
4 Joe Kalt, Ford Foundation Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Co-Director, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development not only co-directed this research with me, but also taught me much of what I know about Indian Country. See http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/ for general information on research conducted by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Katherine Crewe and Heather Thompson were graduate students who also did outstanding work on the intergovernmental relations research.
Endnotes continued:
5 Phone interviews conducted by the author with Michael Quealy, former Deputy Utah Attorney General, Phil Pugsley, current Deputy Utah Attorney General, and Larry Ross, Duchense County Commissioner in the spring of 2004.
6 Michael Quealy, former Deputy Utah Attorney General, in phone interview with the author.
7 Peter Nicholas, assistant professor, School of Law, University of Washington in presentation to Nez Perce and local government leaders, Lewiston, Idaho, January 2002.
8 Interview conducted by the author, August 2004.
9 Interview conducted by the author, August 2004.
