Among the most overlooked and underanalyzed stories of twentieth-century Native American history is energy development on reservations. Why? Is energy development unappealing because it is industrial, often ugly and dirty; takes place out of sight, in hidden, rural corners of Indian country; or leads to thorny issues of intratribal disputes that outsiders hesitate to probe or reveal? Or is it the fact that energy development involves a complex story of federal policy and corporate power, topics scholars have abandoned in recent years? Whatever the reason, after Marjane Ambler’s (1990) and Donald L. Fixico’s (1990) books, historians left the field fallow until recently. James Robert Allison III’s Sovereignty for Survival, Andrew Needham’s (2014) Power Lines, and a book I coedited, Indians and Energy (Smith and Frehner 2010) bring this subject to the fore and will, hopefully, spark fresh scholarly scrutiny on this important topic.Allison’s excellent book focuses on the Northern Cheyenne and Crow cases to illustrate how, starting in the 1970s, they reversed the centuries-long tale of diminishing tribal power. Taking note of a world hungry for energy sources and a federal policy context that stressed self-determination, they asserted and then gained the authority to manage their reservation resources. This involved several steps. First they threw off the shackles of the federal trust relationship. Insisting that they must be freed from the unprofitable leases the paternalist government had made on their behalf, the Cheyenne and Crow negotiated much more lucrative deals with multinational energy companies. Next, with significant support from the federal government, the two tribes helped create a national coalition of energy tribes. The Council for Energy Resource Tribes’ goals included funding energy resources inventories, helping rewrite lease contracts, providing capital for tribes for resource development, and educating leaders in energy planning. Most important, the council supported the idea that tribal governments must determine the scale and pace of development “to ensure profits without sacrificing communities” (151), moving away from leases and toward tribal ownership of mining ventures.The latter goal required federal approval, which came when President Ronald Reagan signed into law the 1982 Indian Mineral Development Act. Reagan’s interest in diminishing federal power coincided with tribes’ determination to control resources. The law effectively allowed that. “It was a remarkable expansion of tribal sovereignty” (171). But it did not resolve all issues. Energy development remained contentious within tribal communities as people debated whether economic benefits were worth the environmental costs—whether jobs sufficiently compensated for damage to land, bodies, culture, and society. Grassroots resisters pushed back against development, and this led to significant changes in governance and even the culture of communities. However, that these conversations and consequent decisions took place at the tribal level is enormously important. They signal a huge victory for sovereignty.One other factor, however, shaped this history: global economic conditions. Against the seemingly inevitable busts that follow extractive industry booms or the environmental concerns about coal-fired power plants, tribes have little power. Just as energy tribes achieved the authority to control their resources, the market for oil collapsed. Their political victories could not shield them from the same national and global factors that affect other energy companies and other peoples around the world. This does not “diminish the energy tribes’ accomplishments,” Allison concludes. “Rather, it makes them historical actors like any other, operating among forces they can shape but not fully control” (184).This carefully researched, sophisticated analysis ends, then, on a nuanced and wise note. Achieving greater sovereignty is an important and necessary step toward tribal recovery, but it is no panacea.
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Nov 26, 2018
Jonas R Stonis + 3
Open Access