Sovereign Nations Or Reservations?: An Economic History of American IndiansThe lifestyle of American Indians before European settlers arrived several centuries ago is often held up today as a model of environmental sensitivity and communitarian cooperation. But is it really true? In this bold book, Terry Anderson debunks much of the romanticism surrounding American Indian culture. American Indians, he argues, developed forms of property rights, contracts, and market exchanges resembling those used by modern Western cultures. Anderson further argues that much of the poverty among Indian tribes living on reservations today is due to U.S. government policies that deprive Indians of their property rights and impose collective decision making on them unnaturally. We do a great disservice to Indians, Anderson concludes, by imposing on them not only our bureaucracy but also a romantic image of Indian life that does not square with the historical record. |
Contents
Culture Property Rights and Paradigms 1 | 21 |
CHAPTER 3 | 29 |
Adaptation for Survival | 47 |
Copyright | |
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acres adapt agricultural productivity Allotment Act allottees Alston American Indians Anderson band Blackfeet buffalo buffalo horse Bureau of Indian bureaucratic capital Carlson Chapter Cherokee Outlet Cherokees chief Chief Seattle collective Collier communal Congress constitutions Cornell and Kalt costs Crow Crow tribe Dawes Act economic development enforce Ewers federal government fee simple land formal groups hunting incentives increased Indi Indian Affairs Indian Economies Indian lands Indian policy Indian Reorganization Act Indian reservations Indian tribes individual Indians individual trust informal institutional change investment land tenure leasing Lopach McChesney ment Native American natural resources nineteenth century non-Indians organization Outlet output percent Plains Indians political private ownership problem property rights Prucha reform rent seeking reservation land rules self-determination Shoshone Sioux social societies sovereign nation sovereignty territories tion trade traditional transfer tribal government trusteeship U.S. Department U.S. Government Printing Utley warfare Washington wealth whites