>> well, thank you, tim, for that kind introduction. thank you for the warm welcome. it is great to be here today to celebrate the opening of the nations to nation exhibit. this exhibit is a tangible reminder of the federal government's relationship with sovereign tribal nations of this country. it's also a reminder of the moral and legal obligations that the united states has to honor and uphold our treaties with indian countries. the united states has 566 recognized tribes as sovereign entities with their own governments and their own laws. sovereign is a key word, a treaty is formal, written agreements between sovereign states. and the constitution clearly states that a treaty is a supreme law of the land. the documents shown in this exhibit may be on parchment or on hide and displayed behind

glass cases but don't mistake them for relics of the past. these are living, breathing documents that inform our policies to this very day. history shows that the newly formed government of this country learned a lot from its relationship with indian country. the early leaders of this nation base many of the guiding principles that we cherish today on the enlightened democratic tenants of these tribal governments. one of the very first treaties entered into by the united states government and a tribal nation was the treaty of kanadagwa. that document is on display here and i encourage my nasenate colleagues to take a look. it's a reminder of long lasting bonds between united states and indian country. let's be clear, there is no time limit to the legitimacy and impact of these documents. they don't have an expiration date and they do not become less relevant over time. just as a constitution and the

bill of rights, they are living, guiding documents. many of the treaties signed by the tribes were in exchange for large portions of their lands. often millions of acres. they were negotiated by the tribes in good faith in exchange for the promise of support, support that would address their citizens' health, education, and welfare. often these tribes gave up some of their best territories and in exchange the federal government made promises through these treaties. to provide for and protect the tribes and to work with them to especially sure the survival of their culture. the tribes often signed the treaties and made sacrifices as a last option. done with the intent to benefit their people and their descendents but history shows the relationship between the united states government and indian country has gone through several cycles, some good, some not so good. over time we have seen both

destructive and deinstructive. some of the worth came during the tenure of the andrew jackson and the removal of the indian act. that act our mission? to uphold these treaties and assure they not only survive, but thrive. treaties help establish the service and the bureau of indian affairs and my committee, the indian affairs mittee will continue to push for better health care and better research management for the department of the interior and we demand nothing less. the senate will champion our obligation to ensure their

sovereign rights are protected. my committee maintains the oversight. we had tough discussions with the indian health services. we delivered the health care services. we are woefully under serving and under funding our obligations this this country. we have also pressed for resolution in the study. i believe those final payments are being sent out to tribal members as we speak here today. we will continue to fight for the rights ofs as we near this sefgz congress. we have a number of issues on the table and i am working with my colleagues in the senate to address them. one of the greatest assets is the bipartisan support.

we are working together to help improve the lives of all native americans and that kind of bipartisanship is rare in this congress. i'm honored to share the opening of this subject and i hope the people who come see it will leave here with a better understanding of the unique relationship that the united states has with the indian tribes of this country. i hope they understand it remains vel vandt and title today and for the future of the indians in this great country. thank you very much. >> thank you, senator for your eloquent and honorable remarks.

it is now my flsh for the assistant secretary with the department of the interior and in the enrolled member of the nation of oklahoma. in addition carrying out the trust responsibilities regarding the management of tribal and individual indian trust lands and the secretary is responsible for promoting the self determination and economic self sufficiency of the nation's 566 federally recognized american indian and alaska native tribes and there approximately two million enrolled members. a former law school professor and dean, washburn served as general council for the national indian gaming commission and the united states attorney and albuquerque, new mexico. he is a well-known scholar of indian law.

he is coauthor and editor in the field of indian law. we are honored by the presence of the assistant secretary who will provide the introductory remarks. please join me in welcoming the honorable kevin washburn. >> it's wonderful to be here. i was inspired to be here. i was thrilled and trying to figure out what to talk about. this is absolutely terrific. it's beautiful among other things, but thoughtful and inspiring. long after this exists, the book

will continue to exist. it's full of sandwich and thoughts from a member of my friends and great scholars. a historical essay and should be known as a great historian and others. one of my colleagues is featured in the book. great pictures too. a delightful picture that meat my heart smile and a slightly older forest gerard. two heroes we lot of. i want to thank senator tester for going first. since you went easy on him, i'm

willing to be here. he also didn't beat up on me. i had a hard time with senator mccain and his committee. rest assures he said he has been art on the bureau of indian affairs as well. treaties might be a touchy subject for someone like me. treaties were instruments of destiny and they legitimized the settling and gave it legal cover. in the southeastern united states would no doubt look a lot different. there would be no united states as we know it today. that's a tragedy for indian

describes. they describe the irony. treaties of a unique relationship and a source of pride to indian people and the tribes that include mine, the chicksaw nation of oklahoma. they are a standing in the american quality that is unique and a reflection of important legal rights. in my office i have more than once had tribes come in and talk to me when their lawyers and i know good and well, they don't have a treaty. not all tribes have treaties. nevertheless they will talk to me about the treaty rights. as clinton notes in the book,

and to some of us, it's a personal history. in my real life, i'm not just a former professor. i'm a current law professor on leave. i'm not an expert. it is like constitutions. just as they define the governmental relationship between the united states and each of the states, it's really treaties that define the relationship between the united states and each of the tribes. indeed they are like constitutional rights. they are known to compute a broader meaning than just the words on the page.

the treaties also have a broader influence and in this area of treaties is known as the trust responsibility. this extends even beyond treaties and treaty tribes to all of the tribes. they tempted to think that they are important today. it is their role as their backbone of the trust response that continues their importance. that's one of the continued reasons for being. one only need to read the treaties to see the importance in modern times for protecting indian rights. that's an inspirational story. i do a lot of thinking about treaties in my current job. not just about indian treaties.

i was at the united nations testifying on behalf of the united states in a treaty defense. the united states has interesting treaties of course. the state department defends on the performance of treaties. these were usually multilateral at the un that in many countries, they are sig tories to. the u.s. was being evaluated by the human rights committee with the compliance on civil and political rights. the panel asked me to attend. the delegation asked me to attend. i feel that the questions, you can imagine what this was like. there is a big panel of experts that are questioning the united states and 10 to 12 official who is have to take the beating in some respects. they asked questions on

homelessness and indian issues in addition, but there is a wide range of government officials there. one started pressing me on why doesn't the united states just apologize to the tribes and be done with it. that was the attitude. not the exact words. i said we will never be done with it as long as the united states occupies north america, we will always have obligations to the indian tribes. when i said the united states was occupying north america, he perked up. suddenly i had his attention. he dplazed over to that point. he was alarmed to think we were occupying north america. it's quite enjoyable to see our perspective at the international stage. i have a lot of problems with

treaties. a lot of complaints. for the treaties, they are imperfect. not just because they took away a lot of land as they were reserving others, but i have got tremendous practical frustrations with them today. one of them is that they came with excellent descriptions of land. they described the land that was going to be retained in great detail. that's good to have clear descriptions and clear legal descriptions of lands. treaties retained water rights for tribes. they were not so well described and so land is important and water rights are significantly important. it is to some degree unknown and extremely important resource and valuable resource and that clarity that we have for land is lacking in the area of water. that's a real problem because

since indian water rights are not clearly defined nationwide, other people are using the rights and compensating for the water rights. it weighs heavily on my soul and we have to work on that and do burden and work on that to ensure they are getting value when their rights are being used. treaties were precursors to a relationship that was filled with much more mundane agreements. many of you know what that means, but for many of who you don't. to meet the federal responsibility to indian tribes, we signed courteouses to those service. they do a better job than

federal officials can. we signed thousands of contracts each year and they are the treaties in some respects. we have not paid tribes the full amount of money they contracted for under those these. these have not been fully paid and we have to start meeting those obligations and those promises as well. that's one of the ways we are beginning to abide by those agreements that are the modern praj news. the 638 contracts and complex. buried in the essay is a discussion about the act.

there is a great gem about that law. they can remedy some of the faults and there is a need fixture for the powers. they helped mastermind that and get the powers. the most gratifying part of my job, my office has the power to expand. it's a lot simpler now in a stroke of the pen with a lot of research in advance and work with the tribe, we can create a reservation or expand and we have done it four times this year alone. a close second is taking land into trust. restoring homelands in that way.

the department has taken 264,000 acres of land into trust for indian tribes across the country. this is a drop in the bucket of all the land that was lot of. more than 100 million acres. it's something. we are learning and expanding indian country through this work. today we work hard. how does it determine how it will be responsible? it usually involves budgets. i won't be with you all day because i have several other meetings, but one of the most important is meeting at the white house on budgets. as a law professor, i don't always enjoy bureaucratic meetings about the budget.

we have a new process established. president obama established the white house native american affairs council. this council is important. one of the one of the new developments is that nearly every federal cabinet agency has an office and some are extensive. what's happened is we have brought silos to ourselves. one of the purposes is to ensure that we are serving tribes not just with the indian programs, but the general programs.

today my boss, the secretary of the interior who chairs this council said look, we need to be coordinating our budgets and today for the first time we will get together with the office of management and budget, and it's not very interesting, about but we will present our indian budgets to one another. at least we will know what they are doing. it's terrific, but we have to be talking to one oofrth. to give you a sense of this, in the interior, the budget for indian programs overall is around $3 billion. indian health services is about $4.5 billion. hud has about $650 million a

year that they give out. the department of justice has an exess of $10 million. we have to be coordinated. we can't live in a bunch of separate stove pipes. this afternoon, secretary said we will get together again. we share among the federal agencies about what we are doing and try to break down the stove pipes. this is a modest first step, but an important and historic one. another goal of the council is to influence policy decisions. another thing that is important is you having the programs, but some of your programs have sta

teles. for example, they might allow state and local governments, but not tribe. we are anxious to have a brought decision. while you all will be here engaging in an interesting symposium and intellectual thought going on, i will be leading a group at white house and we will be pouring over spread sheets with lots of numbers on them. you will be having an interesting discussion and would rather be here. i vow to you they will be working hard to ensure it is important and fruitful. this is an opportunity for me to make a difference and help us do

that. i wish you a very, very good day. i will be looking longingly back in this direction and i want to encourage you to soak up this book. it is terrific. thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this event. thank you. thank you assistant and secretary. the next speaker is robert clinton, foundation professor of law at the sandra day o'connor college of law and affiliated faculty member of the sau american indian studies program.

clinton has served on the courts of several tribes in addition teaching and writing about tribal law, american indian history, federal court, cyberspace law, copyright and civil procedure. his pub stations include articles on policy and federal juris sdikz. professor clinton, welcome. >> i want to thank kevin and susan for involving me in this project and the wonderful star for all of the want itity and help on both of the essay in the

book and it's a little difficult in the book to follow this morning, but i will try and what i'm going to do with you is to do a 400 year plus survey about indians and indian treaties. and to try to put them in some perspective, some of which they averted to. treaties are an interesting phenomenon, particularly of north america. attempting to think that somehow europeans brought treaties to north america, but that's not true. we know if you think about it, that at the time of first

contact, there was a rich tribal alliance and negotiations and intertribal relations between the original occupants. a great wall of peace, i won't try to pronounce it since i'm not that kind of speaker and do not want to murder it. it was in fact just an elaborated treaty among five nations that formed the basis of that confederation. so when when the british and the dutch and to a lesser extent the french showed up, especially essentially treaty relationships has been established and they just fell into base with the indian tribes. we are attempted to think of treaties as a document.

that's not the way the relationship was understood either by europeans or by the native community, but it evolved into that on the western side and creating all kinds of problems and misunderstandings. if one were to look, there is an initial first contact treaty. the concern colonial power is seeking friendly relations and trying to create exclusivity

with a particular colonial power. this was not asking for a land session. the next one was. then the one after that asked for more and more land and removal and relocation. as assistant secretary washburn averted to treaties without up being a colonial vehicle for disposition of native land. they essentially were vehicles for enforcing the doctrine of discovery. those of you familiar with that know it derives to colonial authority to british doctrine. that it basically was designed

to rationalize colonial disposition of the occupants of the soil of north america. basically it created a relationship which provided a basis for dispossession one basis of which was consent. what are the treaties? they are the consent in the doctrine of discovery. the doctrine of discovery is reviled by indigenous people. yet treaties aren't. it's an interesting contradiction. it's one we need to explore. frequently in indian country as they averted to, treaties are revered icons despite being the

vehicles under the doctrine of discovery. many claim the font of their power and indian rights is there n their treaties. i happen to teach in arizona. there is only one in arizona that has a treaty with the united states. all of the others have no treaties. yet as washburn averted to, you will frequently hearing them talking about the enforcement of their rights under a treaty that they don't have. treaties have become synonymous with the font of indian sovereign power. that causes a rather interesting

set of questions. demonstrations, here in the honor of the treaty organization holding a meeting, treating the treaty as a revered iconic emblem of that source of power. this all creates a contradiction. if treaties are the historical vehicle for the consent of discovery and therefore dispossession of natives of indigenous people of their aboriginal lands, how is it they have become iconic sources of native power and rights? and it's that history i want to focus your attention on in my

remaining time. neither the british or european generally colonial side nor the indian tribes fought of treaties and alliances as a memorialized document. at contact, the british side had consepgsz of alliances that were top down organic familial relationships. marriage was common in europe as a vehicle of creating alliance. it wasn't a piece of purp. it was a kinship. the native peoples and the native nations viewed alliances

in kinship terms. they were organized around extended families. they thought of political relationships as kinship relationships. and you see this played out in the references and colonial treaties themselves. i won't go into detail, but not only on the indian side, but also initial ly on the european side is kinship. but the difference is the european conception of the relationship was monarch cal down for the most part and there

is some level of hierarchy. it was a flatter and not hierarchical relationship. it shows up in the treaty who would mead for reasons i'm about to talk about with the albany new york commissioners and the kinship that bound them against the frenchor another who might interfere with the document. so treaties in the colonial period at least in the 17th and early 18th centuries are about kinship. they are about forming alliances. as you don't have a document

that knits together your family, you have family reunions. you have relationships. it's organic. it's ongoing. similarly, the document if there was one at all and generally there was not, it was not the object of a treaty discussion in the 17th or early 18th century. between the british colonial authorities and native people. the point was the relationship. it was to work out differences in an organic relationship just as today nato needs to work out relationships among the family

of the nato alliances and there is not an expectation that a document will come out of that relationship. this is evident in this print that is hard to read at a distance that published by benjamin franklin with a treaty held at albany between them and the albany indian commissioners and representatives from massachusetts, connecticut and pennsylvania. this is a treaty at a particular point. does the document reflect a memorialized agreement signed by two parties? not at all. it's a meeting of the two parties. it's an organic concept.

treaties began as this relationship on both sides. the critical relationship was at least from the native point of view, the natives have agency in the partnership and they were actors and players and they brought their concern to the table. they were consulted about the relationship. they in fact weren't told what the policy was. they were consulted in the policy formulation. they were actors and consulted in the relationship and ultimately for anything to change, they had to concept. these are the critical elements from an indigijus point of view.

about the treaty relationship however it is cast. agency. consultation and informed and free consent. those are the core elements of a treaty relationship. we are going see they erode overtime. these treaties and the relationship were often formalized in not a document so much as a belt or a ceremonyial gift. here we have jake edwards holing and i'm not sure whether they were replicas of the two nationwide belts commemorating a treaty with the meaning of a

treaty relationship. with the anniversary of these agreements. also given out to memorialize this relationship in the treaty. the problem with the treaty begins not on the native side, but like many problems begins on the western side. it begins on the anglo american side. the idea of what a treaty is begins to start changing in europe with the piece in 1648 which is traced to the beginning of international relations in a modern sense in europe. increasingly treaties are

formalized into documents in a written language. the idea of dinaftic marriage alliances begins to dissolve in favor of these paper documents. that gradually trickles over into north america. from a native side. this idea that a treaty is a dynamic organic kinship relationship continues. they are not part of what's going on in europe. so when they think they are making an agreement with the americans, it is an organic kinship within their culture in a way that increasingly is not understood. by the people who are making the agreement who want the signature on the bottom line of a document to get the informed consent for whatever the treaty says,

usually the dispossession of the native people. so we see an increased focus of westerners on a memorialized treaty beginning in the late 18th and continuing into the 19th century. of course treaties are negotiated multiple languages. most of the tripes didn't speak english. they spoke their native language. there is a fishing rights treaty where they were used. if you are going to focus on a mer morialized document instead of a kinship relationship, you have a problem because the native languages at least in north america were all oral languages. they are not at this point written languages. there is the possibility that the memorialized document might

not reflect a common understanding and still might be to the advantage of the party who is negotiating the memorialization, ie, the british or later the americans. it's long been said my native people that the language of these treaties doesn't reflect the understanding of these treaties as they understand them. through the oral tradition. and of course with an increased focus on language, a lot of people don't understand that. i think you can begin to see why this might be true. it turns out there is proof of that fact in a treaty not from north america, but the major treaty in new zealand.

it had been quite a while before that was negotiated and he had been transliterated and many were literate in the language. unlike every other treaty in north america, the treaty was written and memorialized in language in two different languages. it's a short treaty. only four articles. the first one sees it all. you read it and it seems to give a heck of a lot less. what does it give? it allows the crown to serve as a leader for the people and that's a big difference. you can see that the treaty,

there is documentary proof in two different languages. there the native common understanding that the document doesn't capture the agreement is probably true in many more instances. out of this phenomena is interpretation of treaties that in fact we use commonly and the courts have increasingly ignored in indian law. they have been important historically. what are they? the treaty should be construed as indians understood them and the treaties should be liberally construed in favor of the indians and they should be interpreted in favor of the

indians. they were originally designed to assure that that trust relationship that secretary washburn talked about would in fact be upheld. that the united states would act with utmost good faith towards the indians. the increased abandonment on this construction in the federal courts said all too much and all too loudly about what the federal courts have been doing recently. whether they are acting with utmost good faith in their upholding of the western side of what should be a bilateral treaty relationship. if you understand treaty happies, you know that a treaty is not self-executing and

doesn't happen overnight and whatever is on the paper happens. the balance that forces on one side of whether it's going to be enforced and that's true of the institution of the relationship. if one looks at the treaties, most are negotiated at arm's length between by aligning with other powers in north america or to literally threaten the security of the sol me in even

of the united states. until the war of 1812. many of you know the history of the war of 1812 and you know a pan indian alliance with the british was defeated in the war. that was the last opportunity for the alliance. that changed the geopolitical relationship in north america. if you look at the treaty relationship, after the war of 1812, you see increasingly that the united states is more and more dictating the treaties and less and less negotiating the treatments of treaties. the treaties are more and more boiler plate to look like each other. and less and less individually negotiating.

because the geopolitical situation has changed. during that period, the subject i teach, indian law, gradually moves from true international law. that's where it began. that's not really the same thing. that's not the same thing as negotiated. because the war of 1812 eliminates the last possibility of a native alliance with another european power to threaten real security, the treaty relationship gradually changes. i want to make that point by looking at the culmination. in 1868 before a sat ut passes, two treaties are negotiated. the treaty of ft. laramie ending

red cloud's war and the ft. sumner treaty of 1868 with the navajo. the geopolitical relationship between the parties in these two treaties couldn't have been different. any more different. they had just fought the war successfully and the us was suing for peace theachl had won. they had pushed the united states cavalry out. in fact, the conquest is the basis of all rights.

they were in a strong position. by contrast, southern new mexico, the naf row were petitioning and were defeated. they were not at war. you think the treys would look very, very different, wouldn't you? if you are looking at geopolitical relationships, by contrast if you look at them closely, they look very much the same. they have similar provisions. if you look closely enough with a microscope, you can see maybe that the united states agrees to put it out of the country to in

fact make sure that westerners are not settling. they got some of what they wanted out of it. in the terms of the treaty, 90% are alike. by 1868, for the most part, they are boiler plate. this by the way is a very famous picture as one of the few pictures or the only one i can find. there another couple. they are treatied negotiation that was 45 photographed. this was the laramie negotiation. with the united states commissioners sitting on chairs and the delegation as they would be wanted sitting on the ground, facing the united states negotiators. sherman is third from the left. it's part of the negotiator

package. this is the first page. i think the last couple of pages are in the book of the handwritten version of that treaty. >> the last three had disappeared. the native agency and consultation and the formulation of indian policy had been abandoned. increasingly the terms of the treaty were coming down from washington and the treaty commissioners were going out indian country to do what? to get the only 1 that marginally remained. get them to sign on the dotted line. get consent. consent was thought to be a requirement for a treaty and a constitutional requirement for the imposition of policy, but by

the beginning of the 20th century, even the formal requirement of native nation consent disappeared from the implementation of federal policy. how did it come about that this idea of agency consultation and consent with which the relationship began ended without any of them. again, it's the federal judiciary that formed many bad things that come to indian country. in the late 19th century, you recall america was involved in the first major colonial assertion of power over a lot of people who had not signed up for the american project. we were involved in the diplomacy.

when plum bia wouldn't agree to the panama canal, we took it away and formed the country of panama to build a canal. we overthrough the indigiuous monarchy and recognized the republic with which we and many other nations have treaty relationships. and then after the president declared that overthrow unauthorized and illegal, the people who did it said we will take it. of course it becomes a state. the late 19th century is the american colonial expansion period. that's when treaty making comes to an end. it is thought it comes to an end with this statute. section 14 and no tribe within

the united states shl be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the united states and goes on to provide. this statute was the result of the fight between the house and senate over who makes indian policy. why? it was then expensive. they had to send the culturalist out. who begins that by custom? the house. who ratifies treaties? the senate. is the house involved? no. not the treaties. what did they do? >> the house held up for a couple of years to get a say in

this whole thing. the result was this statute. it wasn't ended to end negotiations with the tribes which is what many think it did. it wasn't intended. there was too much focus on the beginning part instead of the park about making treaties. all that happened after the statute passed was that we sent the commissioners out to tribes and they got agreements. they got agreements. then what happened? we bring them back to washington and ratify them as statutes. what's the advantage of ratifying the statutes? they go through the house as well as the senate. if you look closely at the way the general allotment act of 1887 was implemented, many talked about this in the

reservation diminishment area. it was almost invariably an agreement that was negotiated with the tribe. what's that? it's a treaty. from the tribe standpoint, it's a treaty. it was ratified boy the statute. you think about what happened that took the black hills. many went out there and tried to negotiate. we got pen% to agree. they brought it back and said see, we got agreement and passed as a statute. in fact that may be the very first case to taking them to black hills. where the united states did something without true consent, but that nevertheless was passed by the statute. it turns out ultimately these agreements because they were

passed by statute and went through both houses of congress soon started getting amended in congress. wait a minute. they got an agreement. usually you just approve it. the house wanted changes. do they go back and negotiate? no. they just amend it as it goes through. wait a minute. the idea of agency consultation and consent gets a meliorated in the form of the ratification. any of you are familiar with the history of the fast track trade agreements, this will sound very, very familiar. it's the same problem in a modern context. they tried to amend the agreements being ratified by

congress. the final blow to even the consent comes in a case that the judge once called the dread scott of indian law. lone wolf versus hitchcock decided in 1903 that holds what? holds that indian consent does not require the indian treaties. if we don't need consent, do we have to negotiate? we eliminated agency and consultation. virtually overnight, true treaty making ends 30 to 40 years. notice what i just said. it's not the 1871 statute that ended. it's the united states supreme court. in a decision made in 1903.

it's the leader who brought this case to try to thwart the implementation of allotment on this reservation unsuccessfully and wound up creating a precedent that was more devastating than the allotment he was trying to thwart. i think we can begin to see why it's not surprising that in the 20th century, natives would look back at treaties as sources and forms of rights. even though the treaties were also the source of the possession. why would they do that? at least with treaty making,

true treaty making and not what we had by 1870, there was tribal agency. there was true and informed tribal consent. all three of which were gone by the 20th century. they are called the beltway and called washington, d.c. increasingly dictated indian policy to indian country instead of consulting indian country about its relationships with indian country. the story is not entirely bleak as they averted to. we are actually seeing a return of treaty making. just like in 1871, we don't call

the current things that we are doing treaties either. that's what they are. they are sovereign to sovereign agreements in which and this began and is often overlooked with a proposal that was part of the original indian reorganization act that never got enacted by congress. the reorganization act was much broader in collier's proposal that congress enacted. one of the reasons collier proposed the recognition of tribal governments through the constitutional process is he was proposing to contract with them to have them manage the indian service.

collier proposed 638 contracting and the original indian reorganization act. congress never passed the contracting part of collier's proposal. it just passed the recognition of the government's part. but that was just a means to the end of the contracting. ultimately, when public law 638 was passed in the 1970s, it spurs the beginning of a reju rejuvenation of sovereign to sovereign agreements in which the tribe had agency, they can decide to take it or not. they decide what they want to do. they're consulted about the relationship. and the policy doesn't go into effect unless they agree consent. notice 638 contracting creates treaties. the hundreds of documents that secretary washburn was reverting

to are all matter treaties. treaty making is back. other examples of modern treaty making. tribal state gaming compacts. i know a lot of the tribes complain about it. i know it's an important burden on some of the tribe's gaming desires, but what they are. they're negotiated agreements between an indian tribe and a sovereign state. yes, the federal government requires them. yes, you can't gain in class 3 without them. but they're treaties. they're treaties with the state. so now we have a new form of treaty. not just treaties with the nation but treaties with states and local governments. and we have more of them. think about what happens when these water cases that assistant secretary washburn talked about are settled. parties get together at a table. they decide to work out a relationship. they make compromises. they're consulted.

they're at the table, they have agency. and ultimately, they consent. many of these settlements, these are all modern treaties. they're treaties made an sille larry to -- what? litigation. the litigation forced the treaty making. they're still treaties. the fishing rights settlements, particularly in michigan where it wasn't so much litigated after initial litigation ait was negotiated. all treaties. with a state of michigan, the tribes and the federal government are involved in many of these. increasingly tribes and states are getting together on tax agreements. again, at least they're treaties. cross deputization treaties. sometimes with states. a form of treaty.

so we've witnessed an interesting curve in the policy by federal indian law. negotiation for the first 300 years. an effort of colonial position on policy on tribes. for maybe 100 years, a little less. and now we're witnessing a return of indian treaty making. here we have governor andrew cuomo signing an agreement with the united nation compromising many of the disputes between the two parties last year. i assume at the very head of that document, i've not seen it doesn't say treaty. probably says agreement. probably says memorandum of understanding. but what is it?

it's a modern day treaty. and, of course, why are we doing all of this? we're doing it for the seventh generation. for this little pow-wow toddler's future. and the future of her children, and her children's children. and many others out to the seventh generation. so the very same powers that a community enjoyed when the british first contacted native-a gonkian and the assembly in the future. and they willen joy a sovereign to sovereign relationship that fully has, what? agency, consultation and consult. i thank you for your time. [ applause ]

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>> you're watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation like us on facebook at c-span history. each week, american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn what acta arch that facts relegal about history. it opened in 2004 on the national mall in washington, d.c. we visit the nation-to-nation exhibit with treaties between the united states and even americans. cure rating suzan shown harjo explains that in the late 1900s the government made treaties with the six nations of the irchoice. >> i'm suzan s