American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION "Sustainability" is the inescapable focus of almost any discussion of agriculture today, and Indian agriculture is no exception. An important focus in such discussions is the relative sustainability of conventional industrial agriculture, often promoted in Indian country by agencies of the U.S. government, compared with that of indigenous or traditional agriculture based on Native American agriculture before the European invasion. Environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable agriculture can be broadly defined as agriculture that provides adequate food and income equitably for present generations while conserving natural, resources for future generations. However, there are many possible ways to interpret such a broad definition in specific situations, based on different assumptions which are often unexamined, and proponents of sustainability often emphasize either the environmental, economic, or social aspect. Defining sustainable agriculture is the same as defining the goal of an agricultural system, and therefore any definition is based on values and thus arbitrary. However, once a definition is agreed on, empirical data can be used to test the sustainability of a given agricultural system or system component.

In 1863, on the heels of quieting the turmoil of this country’s civil war, the U.S.government turned attention to finding a final solution for ongoing conflicts with the Navajo. To this end, plans were initiated to destroy Navajo livestock and horticultural resources in several critical production areas. By the winter of 1864, crops and herds had been severely reduced; on January 6th, a military expedition set out to deliver the final blow ”at that traditional target of Navajoland” and the focus of this study-Canyon de Chelly and its major tributary, Canyon del Muerto. The Navajo were coerced through direct military domination or the threat of starvation into relocating to what was planned as a small agricultural reserve along the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico, near Fort Sumner place the Navajo call Hwkeldi. This plan followed decades of federal-Indian policy characterized by Jacksonian-era removals of Native Americans out of the path of the progressive westward expansion of Euro-American colonial settlement.’

The Creek and Seminole Indians are closely related tribes who originally lived in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. During the eighteenth century and earlier, they occupied medium to large permanent villages and engaged in intensive riverine agriculture, supplemented by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the Creeks and Seminoles became heavily involved in the southern deerskin trade with the Europeans. They also adopted livestock raising at this time. Scholars generally have noted that the Southeastern Indians adopted stock raising early, but primarily have viewed it as significant only later in the nineteenth century. Most see the only economic significance of livestock as first supplementing, then replacing, game in the Indian’s diet during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is not until the establishment of large-scale commercial cattle-raising operations by some ”mixed-bloods” in Indian Territory during the later nineteenth century that livestock raising is viewed generally as significant. I would argue that stock raising had greater social and economic significance from the beginning. Its role in the domestic economy as a source of meat was, as generally noted, increasingly important during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is the role of livestock in the export economy and in the internal political economy of the Southeastern Indians during the same period and earlier that largely has been ignored. Within this arena, livestock raising played simultaneous roles in both maintaining older sociopolitical patterns and introducing change through class formation. Further, differences in patterns of social change among the Creeks and Seminoles were partially linked to differences in the ways in which livestock raising was integrated into their societies and economies.

This paper demonstrates the utility of the concept of social class for understanding reservation politics, while suggesting the most theoretical models of and for class analysis are inadequate for such an enterprise. A relational model of class dynamics is used to interpret the effects of agrarian transformation on the Fort Berthold reservation in central North Dakota, where the first-person accounts presented above were recorded during 1990. At that time, the most recent ”farm crisis’’ had gripped much of rural America for a decade. Fort Berthold was one of several reservation communities in the agriculturally dependent northern Plains at risk of losing lands mortgaged by tribal members through loan foreclosures or voluntary conveyance. The deflation of the reservation’s livestock-based agrarian sector and the potential for land alienation generated a maelstrom of conflict between the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Three Affiliated Tribes (TAT: Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara), tribal farm and ranch operators, Farmer’s Home Administration (FmHA), and others.

INTRODUCTION As Native American tribes move toward self-determination in government and self-sufficiency of their peoples, they face daunting problems. Beginning with the status quo of unemployment rates ranging as high as 90 percent, concomitant social and health issues unseen elsewhere in the United States, and limited financial assets, tribes need to develop long-term strategic plans. However, traditional economic development models and techniques are of little use in designing these plans. Additionally, some tribes are earning substantial financial assets through gaming operations. Nearly all tribes, however, still face the challenge of using their assets to build vibrant communities after many years of destitution. To this end, the development of a long-term strategic community development plan is called for. The National Executive Education Program for Native American Leadership (NEEPNAL), in conjunction with the Center for American Indian Economic Development (CAIED), has developed a method for aiding tribes to develop such plans. This paper addresses the multiple, difficult issues surrounding development of an effective long-term strategic planning process for productive uses of tribal assets. Further, the NEEPNAL/CAIED method for overcoming these difficulties is presented, with positive examples from tribal experience.

A mere four years ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma a knowledgeable group of American Indians and scholars of American Indian topics gathered to forecast the future of American Indian sovereignty, economics, relations with governments, and general well-being. With far too much temerity I stood in front of the gathering to forecast American Indian economic development. As was my wont after nearly forty years of observation and analysis of Indian economic ventures, particularly agriculture, but also recreation, industrial park, mining, energy, and sundry smaller business activities, I assumed that the future of economic developments among America's Indian tribes would be similar to past attempts to develop Indian economies. Indeed, I argued that it was wise to accept David Hume's proposition that the past is the best predictor of the future for social phenomena? Hence, I foresaw nothing but failures, the exception being the maquiladora-like assembly operations owned and managed by the Mississippi Choctaw.

As the American West has been glamorized in book and film, American Indians have frequently been portrayed as primitive hunter-gathers, living off wild meat. The dietary protein supplied by hunting activities was critically important to many Native cultures, but the perception that early Americans ate only meat, did not cultivate crops, had no domesticated livestock, had no weaving or spinning skills, and were nomadic is simply untrue. Five hundred years ago the land we now call the United States of America was fully occupied by diverse peoples who are the ancestors of today’s American Indians. These Americans were prosperous in their various cultures and supported established towns and villages through well-developed agriculture.

The Indian nations of the United States face a rare opportunity. This is not the occasional business opportunity of reservation legend, when some eager investor would arrive at tribal offices with a proposal ”guaranteed” to produce millions of dollars for the tribe-although such investors still appear, promises in hand. Nor is it the niche economic opportunity of gaming, although that has transformed some tribes’ situations in important ways. This opportunity is a political and organizational one. It is a chance to rethink, restructure, reorganize-a chance not to start a business or exploit an economic niche but to substantially reshape the future. It is the opportunity for nation-building.

INTRODUCTION Before the Europeans came to these shores in search of wealth and religious freedom for themselves, about 12,000 Wampanoag Indians lived in southeastern New England- 8,000 on the mainland and 4,000 on the islands. After the King Philip’s War (1675-1676) only about 400 Wampanoag people survived. No one has done a complete history of all these people following the war. Throughout the years, blood mixing, laws, disease, racist attitudes, and isolation have disintegrated the looks, language, and lore of the First Americans in this region. But Indian culture was never completely replaced by Christianity or European culture. A people, a culture, does not want to die!