How Economy Relates to Sovereignty

For Native Americans economic freedom means not having to rely on federal government grants and loans anymore. They can buy back ancestral land and any new land needed for their growing tribe. With income, tribal governments can support themselves and their people. Money is fungible, which means that it can be changed or exchanged for other things. The money obtained by Native American tribes through gaming or other sources can be used to make new schools or businesses, hire lawyers to help with court cases, hire building contractors and architectural engineers to build houses, communities centers, schools, government buildings, and support programs such as the National Indian Education Association and the International Indian Treaty Council. The NIEA promotes education of native language and culture as well as modern things such as computer science, math, and the English language. The IITC tries to get Native Americans involved in the UN and other national organizations; if they get international support, then the government is more likely to listen to their demands. Tribal governments and legal systems are the key to sovereignty. Sovereignty is ruling your own people, being a separate nation, making decisions for yourself and your people, having a land and resource base and a reliable source of income. With economic freedom comes political freedom. Being able to rely on yourself, your own government and not another, is the key to being an independent nation. With the income gained from Indian gaming and other businesses, such as cattle raising, Native American tribes are becoming economically free of the federal government, and then through the fungibility of money, they are becoming politically free of the federal government.