Representatives from the Nez Perce Tribe visited Lewiston High School Oct. 16 and 17 to share about the history of the tribe, its political system and its relationship to the broader United States.
Government students heard from the tribe’s education manager, Joyce McFarland; managing attorney for the Office of Legal Counsel, Julie Kane; and Winter Hayes, attorney and policy analyst for Environmental Restoration and Waste Management and OLC.
The speakers spent each class period discussing the tribe’s inner-workings, including its government system. The people of the Nez Perce Tribe, or Nimiipuu, are governed by the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, including its six subcommittees, which, in total, employs more than 1,300 people. The tribe has around 3,500 current members.
The various tribes in the United States have different government systems, but they all cooperate with the federal and state governments. The extent of their autonomy is not strictly defined, but as of now, tribes are considered co-managers of their allotted territories.
Predictably, the murky limits of tribal sovereignty often create conflict, with various tribes around the country in dispute with the states around them and the federal government on a variety of issues.
“Tribes would like to operate as sovereign as they were before contact,” McFarland explained.
As for the Nimiipuu specifically, one of the most pressing issues is the status of the lower Snake River dams, which the tribe has advocated for the removal of since 1999, when they first adopted an official resolution on the matter. “Sovereignty in salmon” is written into the 1855 treaty between the Nimiipuu and the U.S. government. The threat posed to the salmon by the dams, the tribe argues, has reduced that sovereignty and is regardless detrimental to their way of life, which oral tradition suggests goes back more than 10,000 years.
Perhaps the most important message the presenters wanted to communicate was the importance of understanding the historic relationship between the Nez Perce Tribe, and tribes in general, and the United States.
“[It is a] history of broken promises,” Kane said.
Just eight years after the aforementioned 1855 treaty, a second treaty reduced the already agreed-upon reservation by 90%. And as referenced before, the construction of dams in the region threatens the right to salmon held by the tribe.
As a result of the failure of the U.S. to properly uphold its agreements with the Nez Perce — and with disputes still affecting the tribe today — the Nimiipuu and other tribes have adopted this philosophy: When making a decision, one should consider the effects it will have in seven generations. This is roughly the time since the 1855 treaty that began the relationship between the tribe and the U.S. government.
Something may be advantageous today, but any negative effects it may bring in the future should be considered. The Nez Perce Tribe, the United States and all people must “learn history so history won’t repeat itself,” McFarland said.
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