T H E R I E R E P O R T | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 3
Note from the Project Directors Terry Anderson & Dominic Parker
The Hoover Project on Renewing Indigenous Economies (RIE) continues to work toward finding new ways to support economic regrowth in Indigenous communities. This Q3 RIE Report provides updates on the work of the RIE team and shares resources to keep you informed and engaged. We welcome your input for future newsletters. Please stay in touch by contacting our team at indigenousecon@stanford.edu.
R E C E N T & U P C O M I N G E V E N T S
Research Workshop on Tribal Governance
The RIE program hosted a workshop, The Past and Future of Tribal Governance, at the Hoover Institution on November 5–6, 2023. Eighteen scholars from the United States and Canada representing disciplines including economics, political science, history, and law attended the workshop. Authors presented six papers addressing topics such as the long-term effects of Christian missionaries and land allotment on Indigenous people and how contemporary politics and democratic representation affect modern tribal communities. In addition to the empirical papers, Anne Hyde, a historian from the University of Oklahoma, discussed her book, Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent and the Making of the American West, which shows how intermarriage between Native Americans and Europeans facilitated trade and higher incomes (read more below). Click here for the workshop summary.
The Hoover Institution thanks the Searle Freedom Trust for its support of this workshop. For the past five years, Searle has supported similar workshops, bringing more than 50 scholars to Stanford for the study of the institutions that support tribal economies by rewarding entrepreneurship and asset stewardship.
2024 Indigenous Student Seminar
Applications for the 2024 Indigenous Student Seminar are open, and we encourage you to help us recruit students. The seminar will take place the week of August 5–9 at the Stanford campus. It will build on the success of the three previous gatherings, which brought students and recent graduates from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia together to learn about policies, initiatives, and opportunities integral to renewing Indigenous economies. Surrounded by the future leaders of Indigenous communities from around the world, one student summarized the experience, saying, “I knew I was where I belonged, and my mind and heart are filled with hopeful ideas of what the future holds.”
Click here to learn more and apply for the 2024 seminar. Please pass the link along to students you know. The RIE team is available at indigenousecon@stanford.edu to answer questions.
I N F I L M
Two new blockbuster films cast light on how Native American economies prospered from abundant resources such as bison and oil and how those resources were taken from them. These films prompted two op-eds by RIE scholars.
The movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, illustrates how the discovery of oil brought tragedy to the Osage during the early 20th century. Their “headrights” to royalties made them the richest people in the world, but the US government assigned them “guardians” to oversee Osage payments, and those guardians often withheld payments or stole from them. Non-Osage could gain access to headrights by marrying an Osage woman and becoming her guardian and by murdering her for the full inheritance. Writing in The Hill, Dominic Parker and Adam Crepelle note that this terrible history foreshadows a sad modern paradox. Too many American Indians remain impoverished today despite living on reservations rich with natural resources. The federal government—still a legal “guardian”—remains culpable, even if it is guilty now of only suppressing development rather than of stealing resources or turning a blind eye to corruption and murder.
Also in The Hill, Terry Anderson and Thomas Stratmann reference both Killers of the Flower Moon and Ken Burns’s new PBS documentary, The American Buffalo, in pointing out that renewing Indigenous economies requires more than bringing back the buffalo or righting the wrongs to the Osage. The results from an RIE survey covering 80 reservations shows that the spirit of entrepreneurship survives on reservations but that unleashing its energy requires unwrapping Indian entrepreneurs from the federal government’s “white tape.” (More results from this survey will be featured in the next newsletter.)
R E A D I N G R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S
Mixed Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West
University of Oklahoma historian Anne Hyde’s recent book, Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent People and the Making of the American West, provides an in-depth account of intermarriage between American Indians and Whites that facilitated peace, cooperation, and prosperity. She shows that intermarried couples and their offspring often prospered during the 17th , 18th, and 19th centuries. They took advantage of shared languages, cultures, and economic trading networks before the turn of the 20th century, when federal Indian policy began to penalize racial mixing. Click here to learn more about the book.
Barriers to Tribal Water Use in the American West
The second recommended reading is “Federal Barriers Limit Native American Benefits from Water Rights Settlements,” by economists Leslie Sanchez, Bryan Leonard, and Eric Edwards. This research briefing highlights how barriers, restrictions, and regulatory constraints undermine tribal sovereign control of water to which they have legal claims, thus preventing tribal members from truly benefiting from their water rights. The research estimates that constraints on tribal water rights cause tribes to forgo trade gains valued at $1.0 to $1.8 billion annually. Click here for the Research Briefing.
Learn More About the RIE Project
