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About Native News

Native News is a publication of the University of Montana. It is an honors course for seniors and graduate students, and has won national accolades for its yearly "tab." Teams of print, photojournalism and broadcast students work together, focusing on a Native American issue such as education, sovereignty or health.

About this Year's Topic

To the Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille on Montana’s Flathead Reservation, bison represent a time long ago when their ancestors lived according to ancient ways, their lives guided by the cycles and bounty of nature. As white men moved west they began the systematic destruction of the bison. Along with the bison’s demise came the destruction of the Indians’ way of life, of their self-sufficiency and their control of their own destiny.

Beginning in 1851, Indian tribes in Montana were forced onto reservations, their lives governed by laws and customs not of their own making. But because their reservations were created by treaties negotiated between sovereign governments, the tribes retained some rights of self-determination. For the last half of the 19th century and most of the 20th Montana’s Indian tribes did little to exercise their sovereign rights. In the last nearly 30 years that has begun to change, sparked in part by passage of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, passed by Congress in 1975.

Today on Montana’s seven reservations tribal governments are taking steps to shape their own futures. It’s not always a smooth or a straight path. The tribes also do not act in concert, as each tribal government is distinct, controlled by distinct cultures, histories and relationships. In this publication are some of the stories of their struggles to once again determine the destiny of their people.

Nearly 500 bison graze the 20,000 acres of grasslands at the National Bison Range on the Flathead Reservation. The preserve, eclipsed by the colossal Mission Mountain range, is in the shadow of rule by the United States government. The Flathead tribes are in the midst of negotiations to take control of the bison range, but it’s a move that has met with more than a little amount of opposition from among non-Indian residents of the reservation.

The issue of a tribal court’s jurisdiction over non-Indians doing business on the Crow Reservation became more than a court case for a family that lost several relatives when a Burlington Northern train barreled into a car at an unmarked crossing.

Northern Cheyenne Reservation residents agree that water is a sacred resource for their people, but don’t always agree on whether to permit resource development that some tribal members fear will impact their rights to a healthful environment.

Health concerns are also at issue on both the Blackfeet and Fort Belknap reservations. On the Blackfeet, the tribal housing authority constructed homes that now harbor what residents claim is toxic mold. Whether the tribe or the federal government is responsible for the cleanup is the subject of litigation. And at Fort Belknap, residents living near an abandoned mine that was worked for years using cyanide to extract the gold claim health effects from the mine that they say the State of Montana won’t protect them from.

Tribal courts in Montana have frequently been lightening rods for controversy, tangled in tribal politics and conflicts of interest. The Rocky Boy’s Reservation is changing the shape of its court system by altering how judges are selected. But one family on the reservation has endured more than a year of uncertainty and confusion as they wait for justice to be servedfor the death of their wife and mother.

Exercising their sovereignty won’t solve all the challenges that face Montana’s Indian peoples. Yet by standing up for themselves Montana’s Indian nations hope to have more say in securing their future.

Sovereignty is ultimately a question of who we are as people among other people. It is only partly determined by court documents and legal status. It is more reliant on a people’s ability to sustain themselves in a place.

If you have comments about this series, we’d like to hear from you. Write us at: Native News Honors Project, School of Journalism, University of Montana, Missoula, MT. 59812