Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
The U.S. federal government recognized American Indian tribes as independent nations and came to policy agreements with them via treaties. As the U.S. accelerated its westward expansion, internal political pressure grew for "Indian removal", but the pace of treaty-making grew regardless. The Civil War forged the U.S. into a more centralized and nationalistic country, fueling a "full bore assault on tribal culture and institutions", and pressure for Native Americans to assimilate. In the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, Congress prohibited any future treaties. This move was steadfastly opposed by Native Americans.
Currently, the U.S. recognizes tribal nations as domestic dependent nations and uses its own legal system to define the relationship between the federal, state, and tribal governments. As of 2026, the U.S. recognizes 575 tribal nations, 229 of which are in Alaska. The National Congress of American Indians explains, "Native peoples and governments have inherent rights and a political relationship with the U.S. government that does not derive from race or ethnicity."
Native American sovereignty and the Constitution The United States Constitution mentions Native American tribes three times: Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 states that "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... excluding Indians not taxed."Constitution of the United States of America: Article. I. According to Joseph Story's Commentaries on the U.S. Constitution, "There were Indians, also, in several, and probably in most, of the states at that period, who were not treated as citizens, and yet, who did not form a part of independent communities or tribes, exercising general sovereignty and powers of government within the boundaries of the states." Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states that "Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes",American Indian Policy Center. 2005. St. Paul, MN. 4 October 2008 determining that Indian tribes were separate from the federal government, the states, and foreign nations;Cherokee Nations v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1 (1831) and The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2 amends the apportionment of representatives in Article I, Section 2 above.Additional amendments to the United States Constitution
These constitutional provisions, and subsequent interpretations by the Supreme Court (see below), are today often summarized in three principles of U.S. Indian law:Charles F. Wilkinson, Indian tribes as sovereign governments: a sourcebook on federal-tribal history, law, and policy, AIRI Press, 1988Conference of Western Attorneys General, American Indian Law Deskbook, University Press of Colorado, 2004N. Bruce Duthu, American Indians and the Law, Penguin/Viking, 2008 Territorial sovereignty: Tribal authority on Indian land is organic and is not granted by the states in which Indian lands are located. Plenary power doctrine: Congress, and not the Executive Branch or Judicial Branch, has ultimate authority with regard to matters affecting the Indian tribes. Federal courts give greater deference to Congress on Indian matters than on other subjects. Trust relationship: The federal government has a "duty to protect" the tribes, implying (courts have found) the necessary legislative and executive authorities to effect that duty.Robert J. McCarthy, The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Federal Trust Obligation to American Indians, 19 BYU J. PUB. L. 1 (December, 2004)
Early history
First treaty The first treaty signed between the United States and a Native American tribe was with the Delaware Indians in 1783. This treaty borrowed heavily from British Indian policies from before the Revolutionary War.
Early America Native Americans in the recently formed United States often had to convince new citizens of the country to allow them to continue their existence within their lands. How this was done varied, but the most often used strategy was assimilation, converting to Christianity and leaving their former way of life to embrace the way the "Ideal American" would do things, this course of action was often forced on the Native Americans with the alternative being expulsion from their lands or even death.
Some Native Americans concluded that the only way to be accepted was to embrace Christianity and to atone for their perceived sins. By embracing Christianity along with what was considered the moral way of life observed by white settlers, Native Americans hoped to be accepted and to have a place in the new country. However this was far from enough as Native American had to often implore Americans to not exterminate their people, even after they had been assimilated. Preachers, such as Elias Boudinot, "took to the pulpit on behalf of Cherokee Nation [in the case of Elias Boudinot] and appealed to the consciences of whites.". These attempts and pleas fell on deaf ears even though many Native Americans were conforming to the white way of life and as such wanted to live among the white Americans. Many settlers believed that "[Native Americans] were inherently incapable of integrating peacefully into white society", despite the attempts of some Native Americans to do just that.
Even after some Native Americans began to conform to new ways of life, many were still pushed off their lands. This was often done to make room for white settlers, with the most famous example of this being the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation, which despite the pleas to the conscience of the people, were forced to leave in what has become known as the Trail of Tears.
There were some exceptions of Native Nations being given some amount of compensation for their land, such as the Chickasaw Nation. With good investment, this money soon made the Nation a large shareholder in the State Bank of Alabama, a fact that was largely hidden from investors. In an ironic way "Chickasaw funds became capital for the very banking system that provided credit and liquidity to speculators in their ceded lands". But this was the exception and not the rule as many Nations were given no compensation and were simply relocated to the far away frontier.
The Marshall Trilogy, 1823–1832
The Marshall Trilogy is a set of three Supreme Court decisions in the early nineteenth century affirming the legal and political standing of Indian nations.
Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), holding that private citizens could not purchase lands from Native Americans. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), holding the Cherokee nation dependent, with a relationship to the United States like that of a "ward to its guardian". Worcester v. Georgia (1832), which laid out the relationship between tribes and the state and federal governments, stating that the federal government was the sole authority to deal with Indian nations.
Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 Originally, the United States had recognized the Indian Tribes as independent nations, but after the Civil War, the U.S. suddenly changed its approach.
The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 had two significant sections. First, the Act ended United States recognition of additional Native American tribes or independent nations and prohibited additional treaties. Thus, it required the federal government no longer interact with the various tribes through treaties, but rather through statutes:
The 1871 Act also made it a federal crime to commit murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary, and larceny within any Territory of the United States.
Empowerment of tribal courts, 1883
On April 10, 1883, five years after establishing Indian police powers throughout the various reservations, the Indian Commissioner approved rules for a "court of Indian offenses". The court provided a venue for prosecuting criminal charges. Another five years later, Congress began providing funds to operate the Indian courts.
While U.S. courts clarified some of the rights and responsibilities of states and the federal government toward the Indian nations within the new nation's first century, it was almost another century before United States courts determined what powers remained vested in the tribal nations. In the interim, as a trustee charged with protecting their interests and property, the federal government was legally entrusted with ownership and administration of the assets, land, water, and treaty rights of the tribal nations.
United States v. Kagama (1886) The 1871 Act and the 1886 Major Crimes Act were tested in 1886 before the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Kagama, which affirmed that the Congress has plenary power over all Native American tribes within its borders by rationalization that "The power of the general government over these remnants of a race once powerful ... is necessary to their protection as well as to the safety of those among whom they dwell". The Supreme Court affirmed that the U.S. Government "has the right and authority, instead of controlling them by treaties, to govern them by acts of Congress, they being within the geographical limit of the United States. ... The Indians owe no allegiance to a State within which their reservation may be established, and the State gives them no protection."
The General Allotment Act (Dawes Act), 1887 Passed by Congress on 8 February 1887, the Dawes Act was named for senator Henry L. Dawes from Massachusetts, full name "An Act to Provide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations".
Background Treaties (e.g. The Horse Creek Treaty of 1851) negotiated between the US government and American Indians created some borders physically. It set aside separate lands for separate tribes, and fiscal, promising the tribes compensation in the form of goods and monies. The treaties also included provisions intended to promote peace both among the tribes and between the tribes and whites.
The logic is that if a person adopted "white" clothing and ways, and was responsible for their own farm, they would gradually drop their "Indianness" and be assimilated into White American culture. Then, it would no longer be necessary for the government to oversee Indian welfare which it had previously done, including providing small amount annuities, with American Indians treated as dependents.
Reformers embraced that idea and further, supported "civilizing" Indians in an effort to help them become self-sufficient and better able to live under the common law system. One policy that resulted was the Dawes Act, which its opponents saw as a method clearly intended to reduce tribal lands.
Effect Matt Snipp, professor of sociology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, wrote: "It's difficult to understate the importance and role of allotment in ending American Indians’ traditional way of life and serving the interests of others." Many government members gave negative response the act, "The real aim of the bill is to get land out of Indian hands and into the hands of white settlers," written by minority members when Dawes Act is implemented, "If this were done in the name of Greed, it would be bad enough, but to do it in the name of Humanity, and under the cloak of ardent desire to promote the Indian’s welfare by making him like ourselves, whether he will or not, is infinitely worse."
Jack Shane, a PhD student in the Department of Economics, Stanford, wrote, "This approach suggests that allotment increased the American Indian child mortality ratio by a little more than 15% and may be an underestimate due to selective mortality among adult women."