Native American Culture and Sovereignty Sovereignty is the authority of a state or nation to govern itself. In the late 19th century Congress expanded its legislative powers to keep order and protect Indians that lived in Indian Country from Non-Indians. While the authors of sovereignty may have meant well, the laws have produced a variety of results. Some of the cases did more harm than good and then there were cases where it seems that laws just became blurred. Crow Dog originally was tried, sentenced and imprisoned for killing another Indian. He appealed that ruling with stating that the US had no jurisdiction. Crow Dog vs US inspired the Major Crimes Act which gave the US the jurisdiction to try and sentence Native Americans for serious crimes that happened within Indian Country. The same type of case occurred with Kagama vs US. Kagama was charged with homicide due to killing another Native, his appeal was met with a split decision. The government ruled that the tribal government owed their powers to the US who gave it to them and that the US could basically change the rules at any time. During that time period, the US was allegedly giving Indians the right to rule on their land as they saw fit. Laws like the Major Crime Act said differently. In my opinion it was just another form of assimilation. The …show more content…
In these instances, the courts ruled appropriately and upheld the sentencing of the tribal courts. It was no wonder that the courts and Natives alike were confused about what one could do and not do because it seems that right after the courts would uphold a ruling, they would turn right around and almost undo the ruling and basically undermine the tribal courts. It almost appeared that the rulings that were handed down depended on how the person doing the ruling felt that day. There wasn’t a lot of