Indian country is any of the self-governing Native American or American Indian communities throughout the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Colloquially, this refers to lands governed by

federally recognized tribe A federally recognized tribe is a Native American tribe recognized by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs as holding a government-to-government relationship with the US federal government. In the United States, the Native American tribe ...

s and state recognized tribes. The concept of tribal sovereignty legally recognizes tribes as distinct, independent nations within the United States. As a legal category, it includes "all land within the limits of any

Indian reservation An American Indian reservation is an area of land land tenure, held and governed by a List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States#Description, U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose gov ...

", "all dependent Indian communities within the borders of the United States", and " all Indian allotments, the Indian titles to which have not been extinguished." Native Tribes which are not recognized by the government can seek recognition. Multiple tribes that had their relationship with the federal government terminated have not regained federal recognition. The American military has since applied the term to sovereign land outside its control, including land in Vietnam.

Legal classification

This legal classification defines American Indian tribal and individual land holdings as part of a reservation, dependent Indian community, an allotment, or a public domain allotment: All federal trust lands held for Native American tribes are Indian country. Federal, state, and local governments use this category in their legal processes. Today, however, according to the U.S. Census of 2010, over 78% of all Native Americans live off reservations. Indian country now spans thousands of rural areas, towns and cities where Indian people live. This convention is followed generally in colloquial speech and is reflected in publications such as the Native American newspaper '' Indian Country Today''.

Related and historical meanings

Historically, Indian country was considered the areas, regions, territories or countries beyond the frontier of settlement that were inhabited primarily by Native Americans. Colonists made treaties with Native Americans, agreeing to offer services and protection indefinitely in exchange for peaceful transfer of Native American land. Many of these treaties were arranged and signed through coercion, and many treaty agreements were violated or ignored.

Between the Appalachians and Mississippi

As the original 13 colonies grew and treaties were made, the de facto boundary between settled territory and Indian country during the 18th century was roughly the crest of the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

, a boundary set into law by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the Confederation Congress Proclamation of 1783, and later by the Nonintercourse Act. The Indian Reserve was gradually settled by European Americans and divided into territories and states, starting with Kentucky County (an extension of Virginia) and the

Northwest Territory The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from part of the unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolution. Established ...

West of the Mississippi

Most Indians in the area of the former Reserve were either killed or relocated further west under policies of Indian Removal. After the

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase () was the acquisition of the Louisiana (New France), territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. This consisted of most of the land in the Mississippi River#Watershed, Mississipp ...

, the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 created the

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

west of the Mississippi River as a destination. It too was gradually divided into territories and states for European American settlement, leaving only modern Indian Reservations inside the boundaries of U.S. states. In 2020, the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

ruled in '' McGirt v. Oklahoma'' that the tribal statistical area (and former reservation) of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation remains under the tribal sovereignty of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act.

American military usage

Vietnam War

During the Vietnam War circa 1968, the American military and pilots referred to free-fire zones under South Vietnamese control as "Indian Country." American military personnel also used the term " savage" and "uncivilized" to refer to its inhabitants. During a 1971 congressional hearing, American airborne ranger Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. defined the term to politician John F. Seiberling:

...it means different things to different people. It is like there are savages out there, there are gooks out there. In the same way we slaughtered the Indian's buffalo, we would slaughter the water buffalo in Vietnam.

In 1989, Tom Holm claimed Vietnam War usage of this term was "in obvious mimicry of the old Cavalry versus Indian films".

Iraq and Afghanistan

The term is used by "soldiers, military strategists, reporters, and World Wide Web users to refer to hostile, unsecured, and dangerous territory in Iraq and Afghanistan."

References

* N. Bruce Duthu, American Indians and the Law (NY: Penguin Library -Viking - 2008) * David H. Getches, Charles F. Wilkinson, and Robert A. Williams, jr., Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law, 4th Ed. (St. Paul: West Pub., 1998) * Imre Sutton, ed., "The Political Geography of Indian Country." American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 15(02) 1991 https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-10.pdf {{DEFAULTSORT:Tribal Sovereignty In The United States Legal systems Indigenous politics in the United States Native American law Sovereignty United States federal policy Native American culture Cultural regions of the United States