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Sovereignty for Survival: American Energy Development and Indian Self-Determination
In the years following World War II many multi-national energy firms, bolstered by outdated U.S. federal laws, turned their attention to the abundant resources buried beneath Native American reservations. By the 1970s, however, a coalition of Native Americans in the Northern Plains had successfully blocked the efforts of powerful energy corporations to develop coal reserves on sovereign Indian land. This challenge to corporate and federal authorities, initiated by the Crow and Northern Cheyenne nations, changed the laws of the land to expand Native American sovereignty while simultaneously reshaping Native identities and Indian Country itself.
James Allison makes an important contribution to ethnic, environmental, and energy studies with this unique exploration of the influence of America’s indigenous peoples on energy policy and development. Allison’s fascinating history documents how certain federally supported, often environmentally damaging, energy projects were perceived by American Indians as potentially disruptive to indigenous lifeways. These perceived threats sparked a pan-tribal resistance movement that ultimately increased Native American autonomy over reservation lands and enabled an unprecedented boom in tribal entrepreneurship. At the same time, the author demonstrates how this movement generated great controversy within Native American communities, inspiring intense debates over culturally authentic forms of indigenous governance and the proper management of tribal lands.
James Allison makes an important contribution to ethnic, environmental, and energy studies with this unique exploration of the influence of America’s indigenous peoples on energy policy and development. Allison’s fascinating history documents how certain federally supported, often environmentally damaging, energy projects were perceived by American Indians as potentially disruptive to indigenous lifeways. These perceived threats sparked a pan-tribal resistance movement that ultimately increased Native American autonomy over reservation lands and enabled an unprecedented boom in tribal entrepreneurship. At the same time, the author demonstrates how this movement generated great controversy within Native American communities, inspiring intense debates over culturally authentic forms of indigenous governance and the proper management of tribal lands.
- GenresNonfiction
257 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 27, 2015
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23 people want to read
About the author
James Robert Allison
1 book1 followerJames Robert Allison III is assistant professor in the department of history at Christopher Newport University. He lives in Richmond, VA.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 31, 2020
Makes some compelling interventions, particularly around development and identity in Indian Country and about the importance of capacity in tribal nations.
October 21, 2021
I thought the author did a great job writing the book. It was well researched but also gave a great narrative that is easy to follow.
December 13, 2016
Last book review for class, so why not post it for this solid and enjoyable read!
As part of the Lamar Series in Western History, James Allison’s Sovereignty for Survival admirably aims to depict to a general audience a complicated environmental and legal history of Native Americans vying for control of resource development on tribal lands during the post-WWII energy boom. Allison focuses on the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations in Montana, but the book is formatted into three fluidly overlapping parts, “Constructing Bad Deals,” “Local Resistance,” and “The National Campaign,” that connect these tribes’ stories to a larger battle for Indian sovereignty. The crux of his argument is that “on the Northern Plains in the 1970s, energy tribes…expanded their governments’ capacity to manage reservation land, and…[with their] legal authority to govern communal resources [they] seized the skills necessary to protect their sovereignty because [it] was crucial to protecting tribal lifeways and land.” (3)
Part one, effectively argues that an antiquated legal template rendered the agency trustees from the Bureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) as ignorant of energy leasing challenges as the Native Americans they claimed to protect. By largely focusing on the 1960s, especially the Navajo and Hopi tribes in the Southwest, Allison decisively displays that while global interest in American tribal and public energy resources increased, the trustees from the BIA failed to offer the paternal “expertise” they claimed to have. Native American leaders were not simply passive actors, but as Allison argues, were eager to boost their struggling economies, and mistrusted the benign, yet unprepared officials that were there to guide them.
Part two hones in on the Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes in Montana, showing how national and global energy trends affected them locally. The “bad deals” in the Southwest created turmoil into the 1970s and the Northern Plains tribes mobilized for either more control over resource development, or no production at all. Allison capably analyzes these varied responses, and demonstrates how the internal turmoil of what was “authentically” Northern Cheyenne or Crow changed governmental structures. He skillfully shows that the fight for resource control was nothing short of a fight for tribal identity, which hinged on their landscape and social and cultural practices. These all seemed to face destruction by incoming energy companies who threatened to destroy lands with the labor of a massive white population that would invade tribal territory.
Part three skillfully unweaves a tangled web of bureaucratic history, and Allison convincingly argues that the local battles of the Northern Plains Indians were the catalyst for tribal control of resource development nationally. The pan-tribal alliance, Native American Natural Resource Development Federation (NANRDF), that came from those local efforts learned and became active in the American legal system right when the country needed tribal resources the most. Yet, increased tribal sovereignty did not bring the economic prosperity imagined, as Allison’s epilogue disappointingly explains how many of the battles of the 1970s, especially over tribal identity, are still struggles the Northern Plains Indians face today.
Allison’s book is well-researched and deftly utilizes endnotes to expand on various complicated aspects of this story. It is densely written, and although sometimes convoluted, still an important addition to the fields of Environmental, Native American, Legal, and American West History. He notably brings the “fragmentation” of “New” American West History back to a regional, national, and even global scale, superbly demonstrating the importance of local studies for larger histories.
As part of the Lamar Series in Western History, James Allison’s Sovereignty for Survival admirably aims to depict to a general audience a complicated environmental and legal history of Native Americans vying for control of resource development on tribal lands during the post-WWII energy boom. Allison focuses on the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations in Montana, but the book is formatted into three fluidly overlapping parts, “Constructing Bad Deals,” “Local Resistance,” and “The National Campaign,” that connect these tribes’ stories to a larger battle for Indian sovereignty. The crux of his argument is that “on the Northern Plains in the 1970s, energy tribes…expanded their governments’ capacity to manage reservation land, and…[with their] legal authority to govern communal resources [they] seized the skills necessary to protect their sovereignty because [it] was crucial to protecting tribal lifeways and land.” (3)
Part one, effectively argues that an antiquated legal template rendered the agency trustees from the Bureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) as ignorant of energy leasing challenges as the Native Americans they claimed to protect. By largely focusing on the 1960s, especially the Navajo and Hopi tribes in the Southwest, Allison decisively displays that while global interest in American tribal and public energy resources increased, the trustees from the BIA failed to offer the paternal “expertise” they claimed to have. Native American leaders were not simply passive actors, but as Allison argues, were eager to boost their struggling economies, and mistrusted the benign, yet unprepared officials that were there to guide them.
Part two hones in on the Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes in Montana, showing how national and global energy trends affected them locally. The “bad deals” in the Southwest created turmoil into the 1970s and the Northern Plains tribes mobilized for either more control over resource development, or no production at all. Allison capably analyzes these varied responses, and demonstrates how the internal turmoil of what was “authentically” Northern Cheyenne or Crow changed governmental structures. He skillfully shows that the fight for resource control was nothing short of a fight for tribal identity, which hinged on their landscape and social and cultural practices. These all seemed to face destruction by incoming energy companies who threatened to destroy lands with the labor of a massive white population that would invade tribal territory.
Part three skillfully unweaves a tangled web of bureaucratic history, and Allison convincingly argues that the local battles of the Northern Plains Indians were the catalyst for tribal control of resource development nationally. The pan-tribal alliance, Native American Natural Resource Development Federation (NANRDF), that came from those local efforts learned and became active in the American legal system right when the country needed tribal resources the most. Yet, increased tribal sovereignty did not bring the economic prosperity imagined, as Allison’s epilogue disappointingly explains how many of the battles of the 1970s, especially over tribal identity, are still struggles the Northern Plains Indians face today.
Allison’s book is well-researched and deftly utilizes endnotes to expand on various complicated aspects of this story. It is densely written, and although sometimes convoluted, still an important addition to the fields of Environmental, Native American, Legal, and American West History. He notably brings the “fragmentation” of “New” American West History back to a regional, national, and even global scale, superbly demonstrating the importance of local studies for larger histories.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews