There are two matters that must be addressed immediately regarding the future existence of American Indians.

First, the trust of the Indian people must be restored, not only by the federal government, but also by self-proclaimed Indian leaders.

Second, the definition of the federal/tribal relationship must be defined. There are full bloods who have lived their entire lives on reservations who are waiting for the day that the federal government will uphold the treaties.

There are members of Congress who believe that the American Indians have been paid for their land in the form of the federal appropriations for services provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, particularly the Indian Health Service (IHS) and the Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP). The FY2001 Budget Request for the Bureau of Indian Affairs was $2.2 billion. HUD’s (Department of Housing and Urban Development) FY2001 request for Indian programs was $730 million. The Office of Indian Education Program’s (OIEP) FY2001 request was $115.5 million. The Indian Health Service’s (IHS) FY2001 request was over $3 billion. In housing, health care, and education the 2001 budget request to the federal government was almost $4 billion.

Of the 140 million acres of land tribally owned in 1887, less than 50 million remained in 1934 when the General Allotment Act (Dawes Act of 1887) was repealed. This means that Indians had almost two-thirds of their land taken away by the federal government. The Black Hills of Dakota are sacred to the Sioux Indians. In the 1868 treaty, the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people. However, after the discovery of gold there in 1874, the United States confiscated the land in 1877.

We must make the uncertainty of the tribal/federal relationship certain.

To do so, we must make a declaration of the relationship together. Two certainties within the vagueness of this relationship are: 1) The declaration can not be done unilaterally (by the United States Congress alone). 2) The declaration must be made by a unified and democratic (tribal) voice. There are over 500 federally recognized Indian tribes. Less than 100 of these tribes consistently have a voice on the national level.

The declaration of the federal/Indian relationship under these two conditions will: 1) Revive Indian leadership. 2) Force tribes to speak as one unified Indian voice. 3) Most importantly, tribal and federal governments will be forced to listen to Indian people.

Congress has historically been prohibited from showing such leadership. The Civil Rights Act was an example of where the leadership, and ultimately the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John Kennedy, spent years making it socially acceptable for Congress to show leadership. Both men had documented where members of Congress would agree with civil rights privately, but could not publicly for fear of the damage of their reputations.

Self-proclaimed Indian leaders have been prohibited from unification and leadership because their definition of sovereignty is the self-fulfilling corruption that exists between socialism (dependence) and freedom. The importance of a lot of Indian leaders rests in the value of the budget of the federal programs that they manage. True sovereignty will lead to a restructuring of these programs.

The lost value in the federal tribal relationship has been the Indian people. In the 1990 Census Indian people were over 1.0 % of the total United States population. In the 2000 Census Indian people are 0.7% of the total United States population. The lack of the definition or declaration of the federal/tribal relationship is killing Indian people. The Indian Health Service had a Level of Needs Funded working group do a report of the health care needs of Indians. Less than 50% of the need is being met.