Broken Treaties

Along with the Constitution and legislation passed by Congress, treaties are referred to as “the supreme Law of the Land” in Article IV of the U.S. Constitution. This means that any treaty ratified by the Senate is U.S. law. It also means that the federal government, by ignoring the treaties it has made with Native American tribes, has repeatedly broken its own laws.

Land

Most U.S. treaties with Native Americans involved land in some way or another. Usually, American Indian tribes agreed to give up some of their land in return for promises that the rest of their land would be respected. These promises were broken repeatedly.

Throughout the first century of the United States’ existence, policymakers, settlers and militiamen made a sustained land grab that only concluded when the United States stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific and there was no more land to take.

One of the most notorious relocations was the Trail of Tears, in which 17,000 Cherokees were forced off their land, and 4,000 were killed by the cold, disease, and maltreatment. During the relocation, President Andrew Jackson told U.S. army majors to promise the following to the Cherokee people:

Say to the chiefs and warriors that I am their friend, that I wish to act as their friend but they must, by removing from the limits of the States of Mississippi and Alabama and by being settled on the lands I offer them, put it in my power to be such. There, beyond the limits of any State, in possession of land of their own, which they shall possess as long as grass grows or water runs. I am and will protect them and be their friend and father.

Today, Indian reservations make up only 2.3% of the land within the borders of the United States. Considering that at various points in history, Native Americans were promised all land west of the Appalachians and, later, all the land west of the Mississippi River, this is an insult to Native Tribes.

Services

In return for land, the U.S. promised American Indians government services: education, protection, medical care, food, etc. Often, these services were to be guaranteed forever, reflecting the United States’ permanent takeover of the land. However, these promises were not made in good faith.

Shipments of food were too small, and the rations that were sent lacked sufficient nutritional value. The educational services provided often attempted to brainwash Native American children into feelings of inferiority. Medical care has been significantly underfunded – the Indian Health Service receives approximately half the funding, per capita, that Medicare receives.

For a country that prides itself on being a “nation of laws,” this treaty violation is shameful and should be addressed. Providing services to Native Americans is not a form of reparations. It is a requirement of the “supreme Law of the Land.”

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