ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | PDF
Version
PROCEEDINGS
(On record at 1 o'clock p.m.)
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: (Had begun speaking before the recorder was turned on) . . .everyone. We will now officially open up the Alaska Natives Commission hearings on the Task Force on Governance. Up here at the table, you - - those of you who do not know me, my name is Frank Pagano. I'm also President of Koniag, Inc. On my left, we have Father Elliott, who is a Commission member.
This doesn't work; it's just for that system.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: It doesn’t amplify?
Then you' d better speak up. Can everybody hear?
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: On my right we have Commissioner Boyko. If you can't hear, you should move forward.
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: There's no PA system.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: And Resources Task Force members is Bart --
MR. GARBER: Garber.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- Garber; and Ella --
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Ella Anagik --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- Anagik,
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: -- yeah.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: We will try to limit testimony to ten minutes, because question and answers could take into more time; and depending on how many we're going to have that's going to testify. We just shut down at 5 o'clock; so it's between now and 5 o'clock, and see if we can get everyth -- everybody who want -- wishes to testify through and finished.
The first one on the list is Charlie --
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Kairaiuak.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: All right. If you want to come forward?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: About right here?
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Yes, please. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Right there.
(Pause.)
If you'd state your name and where you're from, and what you -- if you're representing anything. But, however, you testified last night in the general session; and if your testimony is going to be pretty much the same today, I would like you to limit it to ten-minute situation. If it's different, we can go a little.
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Yeah. Thank you. My name's Charlie Kairaiuak. I'm from the village of Chefornak. I'm living here presently, and I still works -- work with the elders constantly in the village by providing them technical assistance in whatever I can. And so, based on that working relationship, I'm going to state my views on the governance issues.
A long dime ago, our village governing system was based on the elders' council; and those -- they were the ones that made the laws, and led court, and made the decisions within our village about any issue that was brought up to their attention. And they followed the traditional laws of our people that have been passed on for thousands of years.
And when the federal government came in, they forced our people to try to get
them under this IRA Act -- to operate as under IRA Act. And then state of
Alaska, after it was created, forced them to adopt the city council, and
they did it illegally. When they came in, they ha -- they were meeting with
three people in the village, and they forced 'em to sign by only telling
our people that if they created the city government, that they would be given
a lot of money; so this was a vehicle of promise of funneling money to our
community. And the other two signatures that they needed for creation of
a city in the village of Chefornak, the people that were representing the
state, which work, through RURALCAP, walked out in the street and got two
signatures from people that were not even at the
meeting.
And they -- to date, the state is still trying to force the village to use the state government as a governance organization.
And -- but village has converted back to the elders' council as a governing body. And it has ver - - worked very well for us, because of the things that are maj -- that were becoming major problems, were taken care of.
For example, at the time that our village
reverted back to the elders’ council, our village -- we estimated that 80 percent of the people in the vi -- adults were drinking. And with the efforts of the elders' council, we've eliminated that problem from our community; and now we're looking at economic development, because our elders’ council
now understand a couple of things that we're using as vehicles
to get access to funding to develop economics.
One is that -- the Tribal Tax Status Act, which is used to get funding for people that are within the jurisdiction of the United States to give their moneys to the tribe if they choose to. Because the side benefit is that the credit that they receive would be 100 percent credit, rather than diminished form that is used by the government in forgiving charitable funds -- to give tax credit.
And the other one is the tax-free bonds. Since the United States cannot issue any more tax-free bonds, so the only ones who -- within the United States that can issue tax-free bonds are the tribes. And so there's different vehicles that our people can use, that we know of, that our village is using.
And in these eras of declining moneys, that is, to me, tribal governments -- traditional governments -- not tribal government., but traditional governments are the vehicle to dealing with all of these problems. And Senator Stevens finally stated this morning, after 20 years of fighting against it, is that the tribal governments and the sovereignty of the people within their communities should also be used as a vehicle to deal with the social problems that our people are dealing with.
Because the main problem I see in villages is that they become dependent communities when they use city governments, or even corporations, to do services for them; and since there's a strong move by the communities to govern their own people, because they find out that the main problem is that the State Troopers or law enforcement a -- people do not live in the communities, the communities have a tendency to break apart. And so, knowing these experiences, and having these experiences, people are moving back to the tribal government system; because time and time again, they've turned to the state; time and time again, they've turned to the federal government for help; and they've been given very little help, And when it does -- when it is given to them, it's c -- it is given to them in a bandaid form. It's just to cover up the problem; not to solve it; not to take cars of it, but to cover it up.
And that's been the history for village Alaska ever since the U.S. government came in and forced their system on the village. And in a lot of cases, it has pushed away the villages.
Now there's two things -- there's one important thing I think that this Commission should be aware of, that when they talk to the villages, that they should be aware of this fact There's three type of governing systems that are in place. One is -- one are the state systems, and they come in the form of corporations or municipalities. Sometimes the govern -- the corporation ends up being the governing form of a system for the community, because the people that are in corporations are powerful enough to make things happen, so they take over, in some cases, as governing bodies. So that's why I say they're one form of governing body.
The second governing body is the municipalities that the state force -- in most cases, forced on our people to adopt. And I'm -- no, that -- the second form is the tri -- IRA governments that are -- that pla -- have placed themselves under the jurisdiction without knowing the fact that they are sovereign people; that they have -- are in the same level of sovereignty as United States government, because of the fact that the Kozlitzof (ph.) Memorandum explains very clearly that the land title belongs to the Native people and does not belong to the United States nor to the U. S. govern -- I mean, to state of Alaska. And those are the govern -- tribal governments that are subjugating themselves to the government of United States.
Now the third form of governance that is being practiced by some villages is total sovereignty. They're exercising their full authority, and they are not subjugating themselves to the U.S. government.
And, in a lot of cases, there's a lot of misinterpretations of who's a governing body, especially when there's organizations like AFN, who run around and say that they represent the Native people. And then cu -- and then there's culprits that are running around saying that they represent the Native people, and then -- so forth and so on. So we -- and non-profit organizations from regional non-profit organizations say the same thing; and so there's a lot of confusion as to who the real governing bodies are by those people that are dealing with those villages.
But in some villages, it's very, very clear who the -- who they have choose to be their governing body. In my village, it is very clear to the people that the governing body is the elders' council. In other places, the traditional governments are the recognized governing body.
So instead of making an assessment from a far-off distance like Anchorage or Juneau, the Commission should make effort to deter -- to find our which governing body that is recognized by that village. Because all those things that I brought up has, to me, contributed to the failure of solving a lot of problems that exist in the villages, because even the State Legislature, our representatives are not able to help our communities, because they don't live in those communities. And so what I would recommend to this Commission is that instead of continuing to violate the rights of our people, to determine and help them clearly understand the difference between the choices that they're going to make. If they haven't made those choices, that this Commission ma -- should make every effort for the village to understand what choice -- when they make their choice, which governing body they're going to work. But I think the -- this Commission should work toward rec -- the recognition of those -- the governing body that those people choose in that village to have. Because the longer this question is not answered, the bigger these problems are going to have -- our people are going to have.
And many of the burdens that the State carries and federal government would be greatly eliminated if, in fact, those things are recognized so that the people can start using the tools that they have within their own system. Because those are the ones that have already proved themselves to be working. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Do you have --
MS. DEMOTT: I would like to ask a question, --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: No, it's not --
MS. DEMOTT: -- please.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- no.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: The procedure will be --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Yeah, --
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: -- the Commission members, --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- the procedure is the --
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: -- the staff people, and then the audience.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- Commission asks the questions, not -- I want to add our
latecomer Paul Tony -- or Tony Paul -- Paul Tony, who is one of the resources
people, just joined us.
MR. TONY: Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We can't hear you guys in the back.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Come forward. We don't have amplification, and --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: The person who just joined us as a resource person on the Task Force of Governance is Paul Tony.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: There's lots of seats up front, and we don't have a full house.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I can't; I'm losing my voice.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: We're taking as loud as we can, I'm sorry. Anyone have any questions of Charlie? Ella, do you have any questions of Charlie?
MS. ANAGIK: No, I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, I was just (indiscernible).
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Okay, the -- how about, Bart. Do you have any?
MR. GARBER: No.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Ed, do you have a question?
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Yeah, I do. You've given
us a description of the kind of local governments that have
sort of developed under -- one under existing state law and
jurisdiction, and one created by the federal government, (indiscernible)
under the claim of sovereignty, and you’ve also made a distinction
between tribal government and traditional village government.
And -- but it seemed to be all these choices out there. Now,
are you suggesting that each village should sort of exercise
some kind of local option and decide where it wants to fit?
And if that's the case, how are we going to make it all work together?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Well, I think the first thing is to make sure that if they're -- if the village are given that option, that unlike the creation of the state, or sub -- people subjugating themselves to the federal government, or even with the Land Claims, that all facts and issues that affect the rights of those individual people be explained.
And the reason I say that is because, in looking at the history of our people, when Alaska -- when the Treaty of Cession was signed between United States and Russian, people assumed and also believed the government, because they were running -- the government was running around saying that they bought Alaska. People assumed that it meant that they had bought the land, and all the resources, and everything else in it. But the history -- that document, Kozlitzof (ph.) Memorandum, which explains the Treaty of Cession, says that United States bought only the Ru -- the property of the Russian-American Trading Company, which includes two forts, one in Switch -- in a place called now -- place in Sitka and one in Kodiak Island, which is Abercrombie (ph.) Bay. And the for -- the people that -- the Russians that built those forts, staked out lands and -- in -- and the latest estimate, based on those four posts on each place equals to 240 acres.
And also in the sale, it included all the hunting and fishing boats and gear that the Russian-American Trading Company had; and the only other purchase that is assigned in this agreement states that the Russians were going to move out and allow the United States to come in and occupy for -- only for the purpose of trade and barter. And so that's the only thing United States bought.
Now for many Native people, and they're still being taught in school today in the classrooms that United States -- in 1867, the United States bought Alaska. They did not, and that -- chose kind of things should be cleared to our people by -- when they are told that the United States in 1867 signed a Treaty of Cessions, which only bought them these specific things.
That when you talk about the rights of Native people as their governance, that they should understand that they had not lost their sovereignty; that their tri -- traditional governments are on the same sovereign level as United States of America; and that if they choose to subjugate themselves to that government, that they would have to give us specific things. And those things should be outlined, and our people should co -- be made to understand that wa -- that if they subjugate themselves to United States, they are going to be losing something. There is always a price for it, because the difference between the sovereignty that-we have, the way I understand it, that if we join United States, we're losing our sovereignty, become -- but we're becoming democratic. And the sovereignty and democracy are two different elements of being -- that Na -- that people -- Native people have.
Did I answer your question?
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Well, not really. I
think you and I have a similar view of the legal history of
the, quote, acquisition of Alaska. It's one of my arguments
in favor of ANCSA, that the United States didn't buy very much
from the Russians legally. As a practical matter, we know,
in history, that he who controls the military force in a given
territory, owns it. And, you know, the whole world has been,
at one time or another, either conquered by war or taken over
semi-peacefully, but still by force. And on such -- until such
time as Alaska’s Natives are prepared to somehow secede from
the Union and have their own Army, Navy, and Air Force, and
the -- all these other wonderful things that go with sovereignty,
you may have a problem.
But what I'm talking about is local government. I understood you to say that there are options, the form of local government for the villages; and I'm particularly interested in that, because I do believe -- I do agree with you that our state/municipal government system probably does not fit the needs of most of the Native villages. I do agree that the traditional way of self-government is something that we need to look into and make available if it's -- if it can be made to work.
But my question is, you know, you have a number of villages with different ethnic backgrounds, with different histories, with different traditions. How are you going to make this all work together? Is each one of them going to determine for themselves whether they want to be traditionally governed, tribal government, sovereignty, IRA? How are we going to do this?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Well, I think it's the sovereign right. When I moved here -- I'll give you an example. When I moved here, there's already an Anchorage Municipality, and the Municipality had created their own laws, so when I move here, I have to follow their laws here, in -- within the Anchorage area. But when I go back to my village, then I have to follow the traditional laws.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Well, let me ask you something on that. When you go back to your village, assuming that the traditional laws are governing and that that's the law of that area, --
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Uh-huh (affirmative.)
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: -- how do you deal with, let's say, crimes? How do you deal with somebody killing somebody? Who takes care of it and in what fashion?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Well, the traditional ways
that -- the way that our court system worked, on a serious
crime, the whole village was called together, and the elders
would sit up front; and the person that was accused of murder
would be made to kneel in the center of the meeting hall. And
there would be two warr -- three warriors assigned to that
person, one on each side of the person and one behind. And
people would bring their information or documents to show what
this person did. They'd bring in the witnesses and all the
evidence that they would need to try this person. And so, at
the end of that hearing, if that person is sou -- found guilty
by the village, then the Chief would pass the sentence; and
when the -- and if the Chief -- Chiefs sentence is for that
-- the sentence for that person's crime is death, he would
be killed right there in front of everybody, because everybody
in that village would make that decision whether he’s guilty
or not of such serious crimes.
So, therefore, very few people committed crimes in the village for that reason, because punishment was quick and justice was quick. But it was clearer and cleaner than the system that we're allowed to go in, where you wait months, and months, and months; and finally you get there and, in many cases for Native people, in this kind of system that we're dealing with the State system, a lot of our young people -- young men and young women that are in jail either get two things. One is that they don't -- they get thrown in jail for longer periods of time, less than anybody else in Alaska -- what I mean is White people, and the Black people, or other people, because -- and that's already a proven fact, because they've investigated those things.
And secondly the state system for -- and federal system are supposed to be designed for rehabilitation. And it's o -- it's becoming known fact today that when Native people come out of jails, they are worse off than when they went in. So that creates a situation where they're going to -- those people who have a tendency to commit more crime, or lean in that direction, because they were not rehabilitated. And so, therefore, you know, those kind of things that we're looking at -- knowing those things, my feeling -- or my belief is that the traditional governing system of the village does still exist; it's never been taken away. It's just that people are not practicing, because somebody came in and told 'em:
"Well, you'll have to use this municipal government;
you have to use this corporation; and you have to use this law or something."
And so -- but now people are realizing that they don't have
to do that. They’re -- a lot of villages are going back to their traditional
form of government.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Father Elliott? (Indiscernible.) That doesn't work. That's only to the PA system. That system doesn't work.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: No, it records, but it doesn't amplify; so you have to keep your voice up.
MR. TONY: Okay. I've got a question, and I guess this goes to
the issue that you had referred to earlier, which was the authority for governance,
and I'm not sure if my esteemed colleague, Mr. Boyko,
is aware of the -- one of the Seminole cases in federal Indian law, which was
written by Justice Douglas of the United States Supreme Court, and it spoke to
the very issue of Indian tribes being conquered by another, and referred to nation
states in Europe being conquered, but retaining their sovereignty for purposes
of self-government.
And I just wanted to ask a general statement about whether you think that there might be a similarity? If there is, the issues that he's talking about, not having the military might, whether or not there -- that we might still retain this sovereign right to govern, ourselves in the same way that same of the European nation states did?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Yes, it was assumed for some time that Alaska would fall under those -- under that type of jurisdiction of the United States, where United States to be able to use the conquering of a tribe in Lower 48 and apply it to Alaska.
Now, after -- during the time of the Anti-Genocide Act, there was a provision that United States signed to -- with United Nations, which stated that just becau -- more or less stated that just because a government has a large military power that they cannot go in and take over the land base of sovereign nations. And since Alaska and Hawaii were the last two, and -- two state that they conquered, and they were not contiguous to the Lower 48 states, that that assumption would -- that type of legal assumption would not apply. So, therefore, they created the provision where Alaska Natives and Hawaii Natives could take an option; and that option was of several things. They could maintain their sovereign identity by having their own governing system, and retaining their land title, and everything.
N -- and then the second thing is that they could maintain their sovereign status, but agree to become a satellite country to the United States, just like the Philippines are.
Or they could give up all their rights and become part of the United States under U.S. jurisdiction. And the Department of Interior, Department of -- I think -- Justice, and Treasury and -- had two secret meetings. In their require -- in their legal requirement, they're allowed to have three meetings; but they had two secret meetings, and they needed three cu -- three meetings to be able to settle those -- that question. The last meeting that they were having, the third meeting, was in Hawaii; and our people got a wind of it; they went down to Hawaii, and interceded on behalf of all the Native tribes in Alaska -- traditional governments, that they did not want to subject themselves to any of the latter two; that they still had the right and power to make that decision. Now, in the first two meetings, the only Alaska representatives that were allowed were the Governors -- the Governors of Alaska; and they knew about this provision, and they -- and this was a way of closing the door forever on the issue of sovereignty for Native people in Alaska, and Hawaii, and other islands like --
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Guam?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Guam and those -- the -- what do you call 'em?
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Puerto Rico?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Marshall Islands. And so when our representatives
flew to Hawaii to that meeting they were able to stop the door from closing,
because it was the last act that they United States was going to follow to
finally take away the sovereign rights of the Native people in Alaska; but
we were able to stop that. Now, the thing is that we know for a fact, based
on international laws and United States signature to the Genocide Act, we
say -- they, themselves, created in 1985 -- that our people still have this
option of whether t -- that they should have their own country and retain
everything, or they should subjugate themselves only under satellite authority,
or they - - they're going to give everything up. And so we are not subject
to that law anymore, because of United States’ own signature to a new law
that applied only to Alaska, and Hawaii, and Marshall Islands. And so we
are not subj-- my response is that we are not subject to that law you are
referring to, because we have our own treaty author -- rights and authorities,
which we have never exercised in, and we have never signed a treaty with
United States that diminishes any authority that -- and the sovereignty of
-- that Native people in Alaska.
MR. TONY: I've got one follow-up question, if I might, Mr. Chairman? It's my understanding that the government-to-government relationship between Native American and Indian tribes, and the United States government began for one of the very purposes that he was talking about. It was a military question. When the government of the United States was in its infancy, when the colonies were forming the Constitution of the United States, they were very susceptible to attacks by Indian tribes; and it could have been -- if some of the stronger Indian tribes on the East Coast united with the French people in Canada, that they would have wiped out the Colonialists who were coming over from Europe. They could have destroyed the colonies completely. And it was that reason, my understanding is, from history, that the provision was put in the United States Constitution, giving Congress the authority -- the United States Congress the sole authority to deal, on a nation-to-nation basis, with Native American tribes; and that that's where the beginning of that nation-to-nation-- the sovereign relationship between separate nations began.
And, I guess, as it's developed over time, the doctrine has become to be understood that unless Congress acts specifically to relinquish a bribe's sovereignty, that they retain that right of self-government; that sovereign government-to-government relationship.
And I just wanted to ask the person testifying here today if he knows of any such Act which relinquishes the sovereignty of the Alaska Native tribal governments?
MR. KAIRAIUAK: There is a little bit of history in that area by the words of Tlingit people; but just like majority of the tribes that -- in the later history of United States that were dealt with very harshly; they were lied to; and they were tricked into signing treaties; that Tlingit people were subject to that type of dealing by the United States, because the only goal of the United States was to steal land and not pay for it.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Nothing's changed, has it?
(Laughter.)
MR. KAIRAIUAK: And if - - and (laughing) if those tribes had exercised their full authority, that these -- we might not have this problem with United States, but maybe with another country. But maybe we would have learned by then, where we would have created our own nation like Japan did there in the Philippines.
But anyway, that's besides the quest -- but as far as I know, as a whole, because Alaska Native people has had -- has a treaty that dates father back than the treaty that the
Tlingits signed with United States -- I don't know exactly what year and how far back this treaty goes back, but a long time ago, our nations were warring nations. The Yup'iks would war against the Inupiats; and Yup'iks would war against Athabascans -- they -- or Aleuts, or any other groups of nations -- and the -- and for territory; and there's a long history of the struggles of takeover of different areas; but that's for us to know, I guess, and when we decide to share it someday, we will.
(Laughter.)
Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Quick follow-up question. What about the impact of ANCSA? My -- we have two brilliant aboriginal --
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Yeah, I'm not --
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: -- lawyers here.
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Yeah, I'm not --
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Maybe they can answer.
MR. KAIRAIUAK: I'm trying to answer his question.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Yeah.
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Now that those -- one Athabascan Indian up in Tanana, he was an alasquq (ph.) -- you guys call them shamans, but we call them alasquqs (ph.). He was an alasquq (ph.) who had a vision of stopping all wars in Alaska, and the Inupiaq, Yup'ik, Athabascan nations, Aleut, Tlingit, and Tsimshian -- I don't know anything -- whether Haida nation or not did sent a representative there; but ten miles south of Tanana, there was a treaty signed between the United States -- I mean, a treaty signed between all the nations in Alaska. Now, when that man send out a Treaty Convention, it took five years for it to happen, because we didn't have airplanes, railroad tracks, and the modern-day conveniences. It took five days [sic] for all these representatives to get together ten miles south of Tanana; and the word was sent out that ea -- the representatives of those nations would not be harmed; that if any of the representatives were harmed from those nations that the -- that those nations that come -- that agreed to this Treaty Session, that other -- the nations would go together -- ban together and have a big war on them; so everybody -- nobody wanted to be ganged up, so they followed this; and it took five years to do that.
And in that Treaty Session, they all agreed never to have wars. The only thing that happened after that that some people might call wars are raiding. That continued after that treaty was agreed to; but they -- after -- following that, there was no wars between Native people in Alaska; and that preceded the treaty that Tlingit had with the United States.
So, therefore, in -- because of that treaty agreement that was made between all nations, for any treaty of one nation to be valid with the United States, all of those nations have to come to an agreement that they no longer have this treaty, where they're going to work together. Because it created a conglomerate of nations to work together what that treaty was agreed to. So, one nation, whether under pressure by United States, cannot be subject to be -- as far as I'm concerned, to be legal. The only ones that can relinquish that power and authority is if all the tribes agreed to disband that treat -- a treaty that was made up at Tanana.
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: Frank?
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Okay, Father Elliott, you had a comment?
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: It might help in this to read from -- just a paragraph from the Alaska Native Policy Papers. This particular paper, having been written by Thomas Morehouse, Professor of Political Science, the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage, concerning the treaty business. And he writes this:
"Federal Indian policy in Alaska. The case of
the Alaska Natives is both similar to and different from that of Native Americans
elsewhere. It is similar in that Alaska Natives, as the original inhabitants
of the region, could claim aboriginal rights, a trust relationship, and inherent
governmental powers, and those are documented by cases. It is different primarily
in that until recent times in most of Alaska, there was little or no pressure
on Natives to surrender their lands, including their traditional hunting
and fishing grounds. A major exception was the Russian occupation of southern
coastal and Aleutian region before the American purchase. Thus, Alaska Natives,
unlike most other Native American tribes, were not conquered by Euro-Americans;
did not sign one-sided treaties; and were not forced onto reservations. Alaska
Natives' dependent sovereignty or inherent governmental power was not documented
in treaties or institutionalized on reservations, although many special-purpose
reservations were created in Alaska."
Those, as you know, were done away with, except for Metlakatla. The Tsimshians granted that, by the United States government, to Canadian Indians.
"Ironically, the absence in Alaska of these traditional
instruments of Indi-an subordination and control has tended to undermine
rather to -- than reinforce the tribal status and powers of Alaska Natives."
So there was no treaty with the United States government, as may have been the reason for as you mentioned. Tony, in Europe, countries may have been conquered, or they may have been occupied by peaceful means, but were allowed to retain their own form of government. That would have been by treaty.
And -- but the point here is -- seems to be that there has been no treaty, and this is part of our problem in determining what constitutes a tribal status, or Indian sovereignty, or Indian country in Alaska -- one of the problems we're wrestling with.
MR. GARBER: I'd hope that the board --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Just a minute. Bart, go ahead.
MR. GARBER: I'd hope that the Commission -- I -- me, being a public member, wouldn't presume to answer any of these questions. I'd like to maximize -- Charlie has done a wonderful job in testimony, but I'd like to maximize testimony. If we do have a question about what the Claims Act did or didn't do, I'd rather have another public member -- or another person in the audience speak to those issues as they come up. We're supposed to be taking testimony here.
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: Yeah' that's right.
MR. GARBER: I'd like to maximize that.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: I agree with that.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Okay.
MS. DEMOTT: I'd like to ask a couple of questions.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: I'm -- at this time, we're running behind. Charlie has had the floor quite a while. We still have quite a bit. We'll take no questions on the floor; the questions will come from the panel. At this time, Charlie, I appreciate your time, and your interest, and your testimony, and we thank you for that.
MR. KAIRAIUAK: Thank you.
MS. DEMOTT: There' s no question, I wanted to comment here on something on the -- what I have gathered, 'kay? -- I went to Regina, Canada, and I went to a tribal court. I was invited to sit as a judge, and I wanted to say something to Charlie about that, because he's been talking about tribal (indiscernible).
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Okay.
MR. GARBER: I would suggest that you testify.
MS. DEMOTT: I am going to testify. I'm waiting for some (indiscernible) --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: The --
MS. DEMOTT: -- this is (indiscernible) and other things, and maybe I could throw this in, too.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: The next one on the agenda is Noah Andrew? Do we have Noah Andrew here?
(Pause.)
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Why don't you pass him right now, and take the next one, and when he comes back, --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: -- put him in.
This document was ocr scanned. We have made every
attempt to keep the online document the same as the original,
including the recorder's original misspellings or typos.
