In the early decades of the twentieth century, the University of Montana (UM) developed from a small frontier college into an influential research institution. During its maturation process, the University relied on the acquisition of land to expand. In addition to its main campus in Missoula, the university sought out land for research and recreation. When Congress passed the Flathead Allotment Act (1904), the University became one of many non-Native beneficiaries of federal land dispossession policy in the United States in the 20th century. Existing scholarship has largely honed in on “land grant” universities established through the Morrill Act (1862) which effectively dispossessed 11 million acres of tribal land to support higher education in America. The University of Montana is not a land grant university but nonetheless benefited from the violent practice of dispossession, including allotments that became UM’s own Flathead Biological Station and the National Bison Range (surveyed by a UM professor). Using primary sources from newspaper and UM archives, tribal histories, and secondary scholarship, this research explores how the university acted in its colonial interest at the expense of tribal sovereignty on the Flathead Indian Reservation. My research seeks to engage more critically with the realities of colonization and the university as a settler-colonial space to consider constructive ways that the institution might reckon with its participation in the dispossession of Indigenous land.

Reclaiming Futures: Mobilizing Heritage, Education, and Law

Abstract:

American Indian Tribes and Nations in what are now known as the United States experience a plethora of formal and informal barriers in the pursuit of asserting sovereignty, or self-governance. The purpose of this project contributes to wider conversations that bring awareness to the topic of self-governance and ways American Indian Tribes have politically adapted to the 20th & 21st centuries. Reclaiming Futures is a project that identifies how American Indian Tribes operationalize cultural heritage, education, and law in their pursuit of exercising different degrees of sovereignty. A complex formulation of barriers exists around assertions of sovereignty, yet many groups persist through various dimensions of cultural expression. In ‘the land of freedom’ where treaty law supersedes constitutional law, groups in the position to do so must actively exercise their rights to self-determination. How such an exercise manifests can follow multifarious avenues. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is an instrument of human rights carrying moral force that outlines a framework of effectual international legal norms regarding the rights of indigenous peoples around the world. Informed from or in connection to this framework, indigenous groups can reference these articles in their pursuit of asserting different levels of sovereignty. Through archival study, I highlight three examples of sovereign exercises in connection to cultural heritage, education, and law that provide innovative and contemporary procedures that support self-determination. The contribution of this project provides a cohesive road map for the ways that American Indian Tribes and Nations can engage in the process of self-determination serving to maintain cultural integrity, support community initiatives, and provide paths for economic mobility.