Law Commons^™

Respecting The Identity And Dignity Of All Indigenous Americans, Bill Piatt

Faculty Articles

The United States government attempted to eliminate Native Americans through outright physical extermination and later by the eradication of Indian identity through a boarding school system and other "paper genocide" mechanisms. One of those mechanisms is the recognition of some Natives but not the majority, including those who ancestors were enslaved. The assistance provided to recognized tribes by the government is inadequate to compensate for the historical and continuing suffering these people endure. And yet the problem is compounded for those unrecognized Natives whose ancestors were enslaved and whose tribal identity was erased. They are subjected to a double-barreled discrimination. …