From: Hank Roth <odin@halcyon.halcyon.com>
Subject: The Anti-Indian Movement
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:19:59 GMT

<<< via P_news/p.news >>>>
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>From:  David Goyette (a Mohawk warrior)
>Subject:  anti-Indian/right wing extremism
>Original article provided by: JOHN BURROWS  
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               C O M P E T I N G   S O V E R E I G N T I E S
                         IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE
                    RIGHT-WING AND ANTI-INDIAN MOVEMENT
 
                          **********************
                           Preliminary Findings
                          **********************
 
                    Center for World Indigenous Studies
            Right-Wing Extremism & Anti-Indian Network Project
                             January 13, 1988
 
[Ed. Note:  This article may be reproduced for electronic 
transfer and posting on computer bulletin boards in part or full, 
provided that full credit is given to the author and the Center 
For World Indigenous Studies. The complete findings of the Right-
Wing Extremism & Anti-Indian Project may be found in _Anti-Indian 
Movement on the Tribal Frontier, Special 2nd Edition_, by Rudolph 
C. Ryser for $10.50 ($US).] 
 
For orders or information, please write to:
 
Center for World Indigenous Studies
P.O. Box 82038
Kenmore, Washington  98028-0038
 
 
                          COMPETING SOVEREIGNTIES
 
 
     Indian and Native Nations, tribes and communities are in a 
tug-of-war in Canada and the United States of America.  The first 
nations of North America are locked in a political conflict with 
the United States and Canadian federal governments and individual 
State and Provincial governments over the question of, "Who will 
exercise sovereignty over Indian lands and resources and the 
people who live inside Indian and Native lands."  The struggle 
between Indian Nations, States and the federal governments has 
its origins in European colonization, and the subsequent 
formation of the United States of America and Canada. Unsettling 
as this long-term dispute between nations and states has been to 
Indian peoples, it now seems to have spawned a reactionary 
movement among non-Indians against Indians.  Incipient racism, 
economic hard-times and honest fear have combined to form the 
basis for an organized Anti-Indian Movement that threatens the 
destabilization of Indian governments and the break-up of Indian 
Nations. 
 
     Organized activism aimed at the dismemberment of Indian 
Nations has been growing since the late 1960s.  The Anti-Indian 
Movement is now organized in 13 states in the United States and 
at least four of the provinces of Canada. 
 
     While the Anti-Indian movement has grown in size and 
organizational sophistication in the last twenty years, it has 
only been in the last ten years that a more virulent from of 
reactionary-racism has begun to appear with greater frequency in 
Indian Country.  Extreme Right-Wing groups which include the Ku 
Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the "White Aryan Nation", Survivalists, 
Constitutionalists, and the Identity Church appear with 
increasing regularity on and near Indian reservations -- 
particularly in the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes Region of 
the United States and Southern British Columbia, Alberta, 
Saskatchewan and Ontario in Canada. Individuals associated with 
the Anti-Indian Movement now appear to have occasional, if not 
frequent, association with Right-Wing Extremist groups. This tide 
of non-Indian reaction rides on the Back of discontent, racism, 
economic troubles, and uncertainties about land and natural 
resource rights which are partly connected to the long-term 
struggle between Indian Nations, neighboring states and the 
United States government. 
 
 
                      ROOTS OF CONFLICT AND REACTION
 
 
     Indian and Native Nations claim the inherent right to 
exercise power over their lands and resources and people within 
their boundaries.  State and Provincial governments claim the 
right to exercise power over CITIZENS within their boundaries -- 
including those living inside reservations. The Canadian and U.S. 
governments claim the right to exercise power over all matters 
granted to them by the federal constitution.  Caught up in the 
struggle between Indian governments, State or Provincial 
governments and the federal governments are thousands of 
individual Indians and non-Indians who experience persistent 
challenges to what they perceive as their rights.  In both 
countries, the patterns of political competition over sovereignty 
are very similar. 
 
 
                      In the United States of America
 
 
     While the Tribal, State and U.S. governments dual in the 
courts, executive agencies and legislative branches, individual 
Indians and non-Indians feel the uncertainties produced by the 
struggles.  Though Indian and native governments experienced 
defeat after defeat and the State and federal governments 
expanded their powers over Indian reservations through the first 
half of the 20th Century, things began to change after 1964. The 
tide of encroachments reducing Indian governmental powers began 
to reverse.  From 1965 to 1975, many Indian nations and tribes 
began to recover many powers and authorities once eroded by 
various States and the U.S. government.  As a result of hard won 
successes, Indian governments began to compete directly with 
States and the federal government for control over lands, 
hunting, fishing, taxation, social welfare, commerce, and a 
growing list of other powers. 
 
     Compared to the powers lost over the previous generations, 
Indian nations and tribes could only consider their successes as 
minor compared to their losses.  To a growing number of non-
Indians who took up residence inside Indian reservations between 
1900 and 1965, Indian successes caused doubts and anxieties.  
Non-Indians began to express doubts about whether their rights to 
land and a way of life would be protected by increasingly active 
Indian governments.  Individual Indians holding allotments on 
reservations, but not living as members of the tribe, also began 
to have doubts about the protection of their rights.  Increased 
Indian government activity aroused increased concerns among both 
Indian and non-Indian land owners. 
 
     Non-Indians with significant economic interests on Indian 
reservations sought protection from growing Indian government 
power by turning to the U.S. federal courts.  Their success can 
best be described as modest.  The U.S. courts did not produce the 
broad reduction of Indian government powers originally hoped for.  
Non-Indians turned to the State governments for protection and 
found even less success.  Many non-Indians began to express 
frustration which became anger and finally produced reactionary 
political action. 
 
     Though reservations and native communities are recognized by 
the United States government to include reserved lands and 
resources for Indian and native peoples, the U.S. Department of 
the Interior has worked unceasingly to move non-Indians into 
these lands.  Since the U.S. government enacted the General 
Allotment Act of 1887 it has successfully annexed major portions 
of reserved Indian lands for use by non-Indians.  A little more 
than three-tenths percent (0.3% or about 567,000) of the total 
non-Indian population in the United States now either own lands 
or live on Indian reservations.  Fully forty-five percent (45%) 
of the estimated 1,263,403 people on Indian reservations are now 
non-Indian.  On some reservations, the Indian population now 
represents less than 20% of the total number of residents. 
 
     The Department of Interior's practice of promoting non-
Indian immigration into Indian reservations violated both the 
spirit and the language of treaties and agreements with Indian 
Nations.  Because of their greater numbers, non-Indians began to 
organize inside reservations to undermine Indian communities and 
their governments.  Immigrant non-Indians began to argue that 
their presence actually reduces the size of Indian reservations 
and opens the "annexed lands" to control by the State government.  
They appealed to State governments and found increasing interest 
in their concerns.  One-by-one, State governments have begun to 
assert that where "non-Indians reside inside Indian 
reservations," the authority of the State can and will be 
extended. 
 
     Competition for the land and resources and regulation of 
people's lives is not new.  This struggle has been a continuing 
fact of life for Indian Nations since Europeans began to colonize 
the western hemisphere 495 years ago.  For 428 years, until the 
1920s, Indian nations and the growing immigrant populations 
competed through violent means:  Wars, massacres, battles, and 
skirmishes.  In that time, the collective population of Indian 
Nations fell from an estimated  15,000,000 to fewer than  
1,000,000 -- a 94% drop.  Meanwhile, the non-Indian immigrant 
population swelled from a few thousand individuals to more than 
100,000,000 -- a 5000% increase. 
 
     Over the same period, Indian and native peoples saw their 
land and resource domain shrink from 3.6 million square miles to 
just 680,000 square miles -- a drop of 81.2%. 
 
     Since 1972, the size of the Indian and native land-base has 
further shrunk to about 152,000 square miles -- with the 
enactment of the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act.  An area 
larger than the combined size of Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho and Montana, an estimated 480,000 square miles 
of land near Indian and native lands, remain contested. 
 
 
                          In the State of Canada
 
     In Canada, Indian and Native Nations have had a similar 
experience though of more recent vintage.  Eleven treaties 
conducted by Indian Nations and the United Kingdom deal with 
"Peace and Friendship," immigration, trade, travel, resource 
extraction, "to open lands for settlement," and land cessions in 
regions located primarily in southern Canada.  Nearly two-thirds 
of what is now called Canada was never ceded to any European or 
American State.  Consequently, many Indian Nations in Canada hold 
the view that they have a relationship based on treaties with the 
United Kingdom and not with the State of Canada. 
 
     It was this perception that aroused Indian and Native 
Nations to react to the Canadian government's developing plans in 
the late 1960s and early 1970s to establish a new relationship 
with the United Kingdom.  In 1969, the Canadian government 
published the _White Paper_ which detailed proposals for the 
termination of Indian and Native Nations.  After years of public 
opposition by Indian governments, and the development of 
alternative political proposals by Indian governments, Canada 
shifted its emphasis.  The Canadian government began to move 
toward a unilateral redefinition of relations between Canada and 
the United Kingdom without consulting with Indian and Native 
Nations.  Canada proposed to secure its independence from the 
United Kingdom by "repatriating the Constitution." Put another 
way, Canada sought a political process between the Canadian 
government and the British government which would formally 
constitute the State of Canada under its own constitution.  Along 
with this process was the assumption by Canadian leaders that 
Canada would assume full control over all Indians and their lands 
-- thus breaking the relationship between Indian Nations and the 
United Kingdom by agreement between Canada and Britain, and 
without Indian consent. 
 
     By 1979, the Canadian Constitutional Repatriation process 
had begun to take form.  Indian Nations believing that the United 
Kingdom would not break the promises it made in the eleven 
Treaties, pursued a separate political process to enter 
discussions with the British government. During the next four 
years, Indian and Native Nations became a visible participant in 
a political tug-of-war that involved the British government, 
Canadian government and the governments of Canada's Provinces. On 
April 17, 1982, Canada succeeded in gaining an agreement with the 
British Parliament which allowed Canada to have its own 
Constitution separate from Britain.  On that date, Canada became 
a legitimate, independent State in its own right. 
 
     Despite proposals and petitions from Indian and Native 
Nations, Canada would not agree to include Indian Nations in its 
new Constitution as a "Third Level of Government."  Indian and 
Native Nations were specifically left out of the Canadian 
Constitution as distinct political entities.  They were not 
permitted to join in confederation with provincial and federal 
governments.  Simultaneously, Treaties and agreements between 
Indian and Native Nations and the United Kingdom were 
unceremoniously abandoned by the British government.  Canada said 
it would assume the responsibilities under such treaties -- an 
idea soundly rejected by many Indian and Native governments. 
 
     Since, under the new Canadian Constitution, Provincial 
governments have primary authority over land and natural resource 
questions, these governments began to move quickly to ensure 
control over Canadian, Provincial AND Indian lands.  It was this 
very move that Indian and Native governments feared would be the 
outcome. 
 
     In the past five years since Canada became an independent 
State, the political conflict between Indian and Native Nations 
and the Provincial and Federal governments has continued 
unabated.  An incipient, Anti-Indian Movement, partly influenced 
by events over the previous fifteen years and by events in the 
United States began to grow.  But, unlike the United States' 
Movement, Right-Wing political extremism has played a much more 
public and active role.  The growth of fundamentalist religious 
activities in and around Indian and Native communities has been 
very rapid.  Elements of the Identity Church, in British Columbia 
and Alberta particularly, have assumed considerable influence.  
Elements of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian and groups of 
"concerned citizens" have increased in number. 
 
     While most of what is discussed below focuses on the United 
States, virtually all has relevance to the situation of Indians 
in Canada. 
 
 
                         THE ANTI-INDIAN MOVEMENT
 
     Competition for control over Indian reservations now 
includes individual non-Indians seeking to force the break-up of 
reservation governments and lands.  On-reservation non-Indians 
were joined by off-reservation non-Indians to achieve the break-
up of Indian Nations.  Off-reservation non-Indian activism began 
to grow as a result of three factors:  Public activism by the 
American Indian Movement in the early 1970s, growing success by 
Indian governments to exercise some governmental powers over 
lands, resources and activities in "ceded territories," and 
movements by several Indian Nations to reclaim original lands and 
resources wrongfully taken by the United States. 
 
     What is now called the "Anti-Indian Movement" includes non-
Indian activists inside reservations and non-Indian activists 
outside reservations.  It also includes a small minority of 
Indians, both inside and outside reservations, who associate 
themselves with the values and aspirations of the non-Indian 
population.  While the Anti-Indian Movement has an important 
impact in several areas of the country, the actual numbers of 
activists is not more than 1000 individuals.  Far greater numbers 
of sympathetic followers, have given their names to small 
organizations in fifteen states.  The total number of sympathetic 
followers is currently estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 individuals. 
 
     Activists have formed small groups on and near Indian 
reservations with names like, ALL CITIZENS EQUAL, TOTALLY EQUAL 
AMERICANS, CITIZENS RIGHTS ORGANIZATION, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WHITE 
EARTH EQUAL RIGHTS, CONCERNED CITIZENS COUNCIL, PROPERTY OWNERS' 
ASSOCIATION, and INTERSTATE CONGRESS FOR EQUAL RIGHTS AND 
RESPONSIBILITIES.  These groups have been linked through 
individuals and interest issues with organizations formed in 
cities and towns.  These include narrowly defined associations of 
individuals concerned with sport-fishing, hunting, small 
business, and recreation.  Such groups like S/SPAWN located in 
Bellevue, Washington; Alaskan Constitutional Legal Defense Fund 
in Anchorage, Alaska;  Bonduel Conservation Club in Wisconsin and 
East Slope Taxpayers in Cut Bank, Montana fall into this 
category.  These LOCAL GROUPS are linked independently and 
through two main group associations:  THE INTERSTATE CONGRESS FOR 
EQUAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES which has been a recipient of 
financial support from Joseph Coors of Coors Beer fame, and the 
PROTECT AMERICANS' RIGHTS & RESOURCES ASSOCIATION (PARR) which 
was formed in Wisconsin in March 1987. 
 
     These small associations of individuals and larger 
associations of organizations have worked to gain support for 
their interests through the National Associations of Counties 
(NaCo), the National Wildlife Federation and the National Rifle 
Association. 
 
     While the Anti-Indian Movement has grown and become more 
sophisticated in the last 20 years, its actual impact has been 
fairly small.  In 1987, however, the Anti-Indian Movement began 
to have an impact on the actual functioning of Indian 
governments, and it had a greater affect on the political 
aggressiveness of a number of State governments. Instead of 
directing their attention to legal actions, the Anti-Indian 
Movement focuses on political action centered on State 
legislatures, State Attorneys' General, U.S. Congressional 
offices and public opinion. 
 
 
                        ENTER RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS
 
     The formation of groups in the Pacific Northwest which have 
the intent of intimidating, violently attacking and even killing 
members of different societies (Non-Whites, Jewish people, etc.) 
began in earnest ten years ago.  Organized activities began much 
earlier in the mid-western states and the Great Lakes Region.  
Individuals connected with various churches, political groups, 
intellectual groups, and paramilitary groups broadly identified 
with the NEW-RIGHT, ULTRA-RIGHT, and the NEO-NAZI movement assert 
their intention to occupy and TAKE the five state area including 
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as a homeland for 
what they call the Aryan Nation.  Groups like CITIZENS FOR 
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, COMMITTEE TO RESTORE THE CONSTITUTION, 
NATIONAL SOCIALIST VANGUARD, CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST CHRISTIAN 
(ARYAN NATIONS), POSSEE COMMITATUS, THE DUCK CLUB, and THE ORDER 
have been established in towns near Indian reservations and on 
some reservations in Idaho, Washington, Michigan, Minnesota, 
Alaska, Wisconsin, Montana and South Dakota. 
 
     All of these groups are ultraconservative and far-right in 
their ideology.  All have close links with neo-nazi aspirations.  
The most visible of these on Indian reservations are the Citizens 
for Constitutional Government and Committee to Restore the 
Constitution. Individuals active in the Anti-Indian Movement have 
been directly linked to the Committee to Restore the 
Constitution. 
 
     The Anti-Indian Movement, Extreme Right-Wing groups and the 
competition between governments are all concerned with LAND and 
JURISDICTION.  These are refined terms for the same conflict that 
has been going on for more than four hundred years.  The conflict 
now, however, is political;  peppered with occasional instances 
of violent behaviour.  It is also a conflict which rages both 
INSIDE and OUTSIDE Indian reservations. 
 
     Organized Anti-Indian activists have been joined by private 
individuals on and near Indian reservations who fear Indian 
tribes. Growing evidence suggests that Extreme Right-Wing 
activists connected to such groups as the "White Aryan Nation," 
"The Order" and the "Identity Church" have located on and near 
Indian reservations;  and, they are winning converts from "those 
who fear Indian tribes."  This is a new wrinkle in Anti-Indian 
activity, which may contain the seeds of greater conflicts in the 
future. 
 
     The Order operates near the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, while 
elements of the Identity Church operate near the Quinault and 
Lummi Indian Reservations.  The Duck Club operates near two 
Klallam reservations in Northwest Washington State, and growing 
evidence suggests that the groups have actually infiltrated some 
reservations.  Citizens for Constitutional Government and the 
Committee to restore the Constitution have strong political 
connections in Southern California and have visible presence near 
the Yakima, Lummi and Colville reservations in Washington State, 
and the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. 
 
     While the Anti-Indian Movement has its "racist leaders," it 
has remained primarily oriented to political action and public 
demonstrations. The Extreme Right-Wing groups, however, tend to 
combine political action, intimidation, paramilitary activity, 
actual land occupation and public demonstrations.  While both are 
relatively small, these apparently converging movements have 
important impacts on community stability through the use of 
intimidation and "bully politics." 
 
 
        ANTI-INDIAN AND RIGHT-WING HARMONIC CONVERGENCE:  1986-1987
 
     The apparent convergence of the Anti-Indian Movement and 
Right-Wing Extremists is ominous not only because of the 
instability and threat posed to Indian communities. 
 
     Both the Anti-Indian Movement and Right-Wing Extremist 
groups have an intense interest in both Indian land and reducing 
Indian government's powers.  When combined with the efforts of 
State governments and the United States government to further 
reduce Indian rights and Indian lands, the Anti-Indian Movement 
and emerging presence of Right-Wing Extremist groups operating 
from a fundamentally racist, WHITE-SUPREMACIST ideology pose a 
serious threat to Indian people. 
 
     Out of sight, and out of mind, the movement to organize 
opposition to Indian tribes (now twenty years old) has continued 
to grow.  It has grown into a sophisticated movement involving 
scores of small organizations, a few large organizations, 
businesses, county governments, state legislatures, offices of 
State Attorneys General, candidates for Congressional office in 
three states, and a growing number of individual Indians and non-
Indians.  The Anti-Indian Movement has a few ideological 
activists.  It now includes conservative and right-wing ideologs, 
farmers, on-reservation land-owners, hunters, fishermen, small 
businesses, and a growing number of individuals who have become 
persuaded that Indian Tribes must be eliminated. 
 
     Here are a few "apparently unrelated events" that took place 
in 1987: 
 
*    The PROTECT AMERICANS' RIGHTS & RESOURCES (PARR) 
organization was formed in Wisconsin, in March 1987.  The PARR 
called for a boycott of all high stakes bingo on Indian 
reservations as a way to counter a threat by Chippewas to boycott 
merchants in Ashland, Wisconsin. 
 
*    In Montana, about 300 Indian and non-Indian farmers and 
ranchers joined a "tractorcade convoy" to protest the Bureau of 
Indian Affairs' control over the Flathead Irrigation Project.  
Water, they said, should be under the control of the U.S. Bureau 
of Reclamation and eventually under the control of the users 
themselves.  The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes joined 
the Bureau of Indian Affairs to counter the protest. 
 
*    In Washington, Indians arrested by U.S. authorities for 
fishing the Columbia River received an acquittal from the Yakima 
Tribal Court, but sit in a Federal jail.  Political intimidation 
inside the Yakima reservation increased.  Non-Indian activist 
increasingly exploit public ignorance about a U.S. Internal 
Revenue Service challenge to the Lummi Indian Tribe's claim that 
individual Indian earnings from the sale of trust protected 
resources are exempt from U.S. income tax.  The subject is of 
particular interest to leaders of the COMMITTEE TO RESTORE THE 
CONSTITUTION. 
 
*    The Michigan based organization, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH protested 
Indian treaty-protected fishing and hunting in Northern Michigan. 
 
*    In Minnesota, the TOTALLY EQUAL AMERICANS organization 
expresses satisfaction and distrust with Montana Senator John 
Melcher's proposed legislation for Congress to "review Indian 
tribal authority to impose taxes on non-tribal persons on Indian 
reservations." 
 
*    THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES (NaCo) considered 
supporting a study to reclassify Indian reservations like 
counties and cities. 
 
*    The Washington State Attorney General authored a letter to 
U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese expressing gratitude for a 
December 9, 1987 meeting to discuss federal Indian policy, and 
"the unheard voices [of] individual Indian and non-Indian 
citizens who are being directly impacted by such federal Indian 
policies." 
 
The anti-Indian Movement has evolved a jargon of its own with 
buzz words and slogans:  EQUAL RIGHTS, NON-INDIAN AND NON-TRIBAL-
INDIAN RIGHTS, INDIAN LAWS SUPPLANT THE LAWS OF THE UNITED 
STATES, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS BEING IGNORED, INITIATIVE 456, 
PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON THE IMPACT OF FEDERAL INDIAN POLICY ON 
NON-TRIBAL INDIANS AND NON-INDIANS, EQUAL RIGHTS AND 
RESPONSIBILITIES, SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR A RACE OF PEOPLE, and 
ABROGATION OF TREATIES.  Out of an historical context, these 
terms and phrases have the ring of respectability, and even 
"mainstream politics."  The contemporary environment in which 
these phrases have taken on meaning is decidedly not mainstream.  
Ultra-conservative groups have adopted buzz words and slogans 
that are very similar, and Right-Wing Extremists frequently rely 
on such words to express their views. 
 
 
                        ANTICIPATING THE YEAR AHEAD
 
     In 1988, the Anti-Indian Movement and elements of the 
extreme Right-Wing will continue to agitate on and near Indian 
reservations over "special interests" like hunting rights, 
fishing rights, land rights, jurisdiction, bingo, taxation and 
"government representation on reservations."  Organizations will 
increase efforts to lobby support for anti-Indian  legislation 
and legal contests through state governments. Specific emphasis 
will be placed on Attorneys General in the Western States who 
will seek to force U.S. government consideration of new policies 
to "protect non-Indians and non-Tribal Indians from tribal 
governments."  Continuing efforts will be mounted to force the 
establishment of a Presidential or Congressional Commission to 
Investigate the effects of federal Indian Policies on non-Tribal 
Indian and non-Indian citizens of the United States.  Finally, 
the Anti-Indian Movement will mobilize resources to support anti-
Indian political candidates for state legislatures, and the U.S. 
Congress.  Particular emphasis is being placed on Washington, 
Idaho, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Alaska and Nevada. 
 
     It can be further expected, despite recent indictments of 
leading Right-Wing Extremists, there will be a greater 
convergence between Anti-Indian Movement activists and 
ultraconservative and right-wing groups like the Citizens for 
Constitutional Government, Committee to Restore the Constitution, 
Church of Jesus Christ Christian and the Duck Club.  Though 
closely associated with more militant extremist, these groups 
have achieved a level of public respectability and appear 
(PUBLICLY) insulated from extremist groups.  Because some of the 
ultraconservative groups are lead by individuals who have 
achieved some prominence as State and County elected officials, 
they are even more able to wear the label of respectability. 
 
     Indian government, fishing, hunting, land, taxation, equal 
rights, will broaden as the principal themes of the Anti-Indian 
Movement.  Changes in the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Indian 
tribes will be increasingly exploited.  State legislatures, 
county governments and popular referenda will continue to be used 
to promote "popular opposition to Indian tribes." Because the 
United States and Canada are entering a "political year," the 
more respectable elements of ultraconservative and right-wing 
groups will assume a greater level of public visibility -- 
exploiting popular discontent and local economic upheavals.  
Indian tribes can expect a substantial escalation in frequency of 
incidents and political action. 
 
     Despite a long felt wish that "people would just leave 
Indians alone to live as they wish," organized efforts to subvert 
Indian governments, create political division inside Indian 
tribes and force State, Provincial, County and Federal Challenges 
to tribal government authority continue to mount.  Despite the 
growing Anti-Indian Movement, there is no effective plan among 
Indian tribes to counter it across the country or inside Indian 
reservations.  There is no consensus among Indian leaders about 
what the Anti-Indian Movement consists of, nor is there a 
consensus about what the movement actually means and why it is 
occurring.  This condition of disarray will continue to be 
exploited. 
 
     Indian Tribes are on the defensive in nine states in the 
United States and three provinces in Canada.  Though not winning 
many actual concessions from the U.S. government, the Anti-Indian 
Movement is rapidly moving with success among State and 
Provincial governments (many legislators and Attorneys General), 
Counties (County Executives, Commissioners, Sheriffs) and 
increasing numbers of "distressed non-Indians" on and near 
reservations.  Anti-Indian organizational efforts are strongest 
in Washington, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Alaska and Nevada in the United States.  Canadian 
Anti-Indian Activists and Right-Wing Extremists have increasingly 
close ties with their U.S. counter-parts.  Their strength is 
greatest in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.  
In some instances, these groups will expand by organizing joint 
actions across the U.S./Canada border. 
 
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Copyright 1988 Center For World Indigenous Studies
 
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