Indigenous Governance Database
News and Opinion
How Does Tribal Leadership Compare to Parliamentary Leadership?
Many traditional American Indian governments have significant organizational similarities with contemporary parliamentary governments around the world. A key similarity is that leadership serves only as long as there is supporting political consensus or confidence that the leader or leadership…
Keeping Language Alive: Cherokee Letters Being Translated for Yale
Century-old journals, political messages and medicinal formulas handwritten in Cherokee and archived at Yale University are being translated for the first time. The Cherokee Nation is among a small few, if not the only tribe, that has a language translation department who contracts with Apple,…
Red Cliff Chippewa Band Re-Dredges 55-Gallon Drums of Live World War 2 Ammo From Lake Superior
The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is having another go at the munitions barrels dumped into their waters by the Army Corps of Engineers during the Cold War years. Nearly 1,500 55-gallon drums were interred beneath the lake on orders of the U.S. Department of Defense from 1959 to 1962. In…
How Tribal Nations Need to Be Understood Around the World
The word “nation” is one of those words that gets thrown around haphazardly by academics, laypeople and politicians alike; it has become synonymous with “nation-state” and “state” to describe what we understand today as the global polities we refer to as countries. But there are distinctions to be…
No Tribes Left Behind: A Smarter Plan for Economic Development
Many Americans have never been to a Native American reservation. They’re often geographically isolated and underdeveloped, perpetually left off the various lists of tourism destinations. With sparse and scattered populations, tribal governments have faced many obstacles in exploring economic…
CDFI Fund Awards Indian Land Capital Company its Third $750K Award
For the third year in a row, Indian Land Capital Company (ILCC), an American Indian-owned and -managed Native Community Development Financial Institution (Native CDFI) and leader in the tribal land financing and acquisition movement, has received the highest tier financial award, $750,000, from the…
Kin-Based Governments Can Be Successful and Profitable
A key to understanding American Indian nations, and Indigenous Peoples in general, is local community organization. Local groups, as basic building blocks of indigenous nations, play a powerful role in tribal or national consensus building and decision-making. The ways that local indigenous groups…
Face Time: Video Conferencing App Improves Business Relations for Eastern Band of Cherokees
Many employees of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who tote tribal issued mobile devices are–or will be soon–getting more face time in with a video conferencing application. The Eastern Band, which employs about 1,100 workers, began its deployment of ClearSea, a high-definition video…
8 Tribes That Are Way Ahead of the Climate-Adaptation Curve
Much has been made of the need to develop climate-change-adaptation plans, especially in light of increasingly alarming findings about how swiftly the environment that sustains life as we know it is deteriorating, and how the changes compound one another to quicken the pace overall. Studies, and…
How Tribal Leaders Are Creating Jobs
The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) has provided a vital spark to infrastructure and economic development projects across Indian country. Momentum has been building over the past several years but because of recent federal agency actions, and now tax-related Congressional bickering, it is in danger…
Gerald Sherman, ILCC Native American Financing Pioneer, Receives Prestigious 'Visionary Leader Award'
Gerald Sherman (Oglala Lakota), a pioneer in developing financial products for disadvantaged and underserved Native communities, received the prestigious ‘Visionary Leader Award for Outstanding Achievement’ at the 10th Annual Native Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Convening…
Tribes Recondition Steelhead to Bring Back Endangered Trout
The notion of “reconditioning steelhead” might sound outlandish, even a bit ominous, at least when applied to an animal. Reconditioning is what’s done to prepare discarded electronics for resale, and the word carries connotations of recycling. How does one recycle a fish? It turns out, though, to…
Blood Quantum: A complicated system that determines tribal membership threatens the future of American Indians
Ryan Padraza Comes Last is a full-blooded Indian, Sioux and Cheyenne on his father's side and Assiniboine on his mother's. He will soon receive his Lakota name: "A Rope." (Comes Last raises rodeo horses and always has a rope in his right hand. He likes to call Ryan his "right-hand man.") But…
Muscogee Creek Nation Meets Growing Pharmacy Needs Through Bilingual, Self-Refill App
A new, automated prescription refill system has made time management much easier for Muscogee Creek pharmacy staff. Nearly a year ago, the tribe tapped Enacomm, a leader in interactive voice response technology, to help the Muscogee Creek Nation Department of Health manage their increasingly high…
Potawatomi $20 Million Feedstock-to-Energy Conversion Plant Becomes Reality
Meeting the dual goal of environmental stewardship and sustainability, the Forest County Potawatomi Community has opened its newly constructed $20 million Renewable Energy Facility, which will convert area food waste into enough electricity to power 1,500 homes. It was the fruition of a project…
Indigenous Nations Have the Right to Choose: Renewal or Contract
When making significant change Indigenous nations make choices about whether to build on traditions or to adopt new forms of government, economy, culture or community. Many changes are external and often forced upon contemporary Indigenous Peoples. Adapting to competitive markets, or new…
The Bay Mills Buck Stops With NIGC
With a case of potentially catastrophic consequence for Indian country now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, all of the players who can possibly prevent the disaster are either sitting on their hands or pointing fingers. The National Indian Gaming Commission has failed to act, citing a…
How Tribes Can Prepare for Tribal Sovereignty Blow From Supreme Court
In the first part of this two-part series, we provided a short history of the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case State of Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, discussed its relevance to the sustainability of the legal doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity, and detailed two potential outcomes of…
Will the Supreme Court Use Bay Mills Case to Blow Up Tribal Sovereignty?
As regular visitors to this site and other Indian country media outlets no doubt have seen in recent weeks, Native nation leaders, tribal attorneys, and federal Indian law practitioners alike are gravely concerned about a case currently pending before the Supreme Court: State of Michigan v. Bay…
DOJ Grants Muscogee Creek Nation $3.78 Million for Ex-Prisoner Reintegration Program
The Muscogee Creek Nation has received $3.78 million from the U.S. Department of Justice for the tribe’s Reintegration Program (RIP), which assists tribal citizens who have served time in a correctional facility and are ready to be welcomed back into society. The grant will go towards the…