Indian Reservations
Indian reservations are areas of land managed by a Native American tribe under the US Department of the Interiors Bureau of Indian Affairs. It all started in 1851 through the Indian Appropriation Act which was passed by the US Congress and which authorized the creation of Indian reservations in nowadays Oklahoma. The relationships between settlers and the Native Americans were getting worse as the settlers trespassed on the Indian territory and the natural resources in the West of the US. In an attempt to find a solution to this conflict, President Ulysses S. Grant stated the Peace Policy, which included the reorganization of the Indian Service, with the aim of relocating various tribes from their ancestral homes to pieces of land established specifically for their inhabitation.
The policy was controversial from the very start. Indian reservations were established by executive order, and in many cases the white settlers objected to the size of the pieces of lands given to the Indians, therefore leading to their size being significantly reduced. Many tribes ignored the relocation orders and were led by force to their limited land parcels. The US Army was in charge with restricting the movements of the tribes. As a result of the pursuit of the tribes in order to force them back in their reservations there were a number of Native American Wars. Among these wars the most famous are the Battle of Little Bighorn and the Nez Perce War. By the end of the 1870s, the policy regarding the Indian reservations was considered a failure, mainly because of the bloody wars it started. Through the Howard-Wheeler Act of 1934, known also as the Indian New Deal, new rights were laid for the Native Americans, encouraged self-government and land management by tribes.
There are about 310 Indian reservations in the US, therefore not all of the countrys more than 550 recognized tribes have a reservation, some tribes have more than one reservation, some have none. The reservation land is very fragmented because of the past sales and allotments. Regarded as a whole, the geographical area of all Indian reservations is 55.7 million acres, representing only 2.3% of the entire surface of the US.
The tribal council and not the local or federal government is the one to have jurisdiction over the Indian reservations. There are different forms of government for different reservations and these forms may or may not resemble the ones found outside the reservation. The outline of the Indian reservations was laid either by the federal government or by the states where the respective reservations are located.
