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(Cite as: 543 N.W.2d 376)


Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

Sylvia COHEN, Appellant,

v.

LITTLE SIX, INC., d/b/a Mystic Lake Casino, Respondent.

No. C6-95-928.


Feb. 13, 1996.

Rehearing Denied March 11, 1997.


*377 Syllabus by the Court

A business corporation created under tribal law, owned and controlled by the tribe, and operated for governmental purposes enjoys sovereign immunity.   State courts have no subject matter jurisdiction over such a corporation under Public Law 280, 28 U.S.C. § 1360.   In the absence of an applicable federal statute, state courts cannot assert jurisdiction over disputes arising entirely on the territory of an Indian reservation.


*378 Appeal from District Court, Scott County; Michael A. Young, Judge.


Clinton Collins, Jr., Janie L. Fink, Clinton Collins & Assoc., P.A., Minneapolis, for appellant.

Steven F. Olson, BlueDog, Olson & Small, P.L.L.P., Minneapolis, Joseph Plumer, McDonough, Wagner & Sherry, P.A., Apple Valley, for respondent.


Considered and decided by RANDALL, P.J., and SHORT and PETERSON, JJ.


OPINION

SHORT, Judge.

Sylvia Cohen argues an Indian gaming casino is subject to the jurisdiction of Minnesota state courts, and the trial court erred or violated her due process rights by dismissing her personal injury suit against Mystic Lake Casino.


FACTS


On October 7, 1994, Sylvia Cohen entered Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake, Minnesota.   As Cohen attempted to sit on a chair in front of a slot machine, the chair “snapped from underneath her,” and Cohen fell to the floor.   She claims the fall caused injuries that required hospitalization.


Cohen brought a personal injury action against Little Six, Inc. (LSI), d/b/a Mystic Lake Casino.   LSI was created by tribal ordinance and is owned and controlled by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (“community”).   The community is a federally-recognized Indian tribe, which operates under a constitution approved by the Secretary of the Interior.   The casino is located on reservation land.


Without answering the complaint, LSI moved to dismiss on the basis of lack of jurisdiction.   The trial court held LSI enjoys sovereign immunity, and dismissed Cohen's lawsuit for want of jurisdiction.


ISSUES


I.   Do Minnesota state courts have jurisdiction over a dispute in which the sole defendant is a tribal business corporation, controlled by the tribe for governmental purposes, and the underlying events occurred entirely on an Indian reservation?

II. Does dismissal for want of jurisdiction violate Cohen's right to due process?



ANALYSIS


[1] The jurisdiction of courts and the constitutionality of state action present questions of law, which we review de novo.  Rupp v. Omaha Indian Tribe, 45 F.3d 1241, 1244 (8th Cir.1995) (reviewing the trial court's jurisdictional rulings de novo);  see Estate of Jones v. Kvamme, 529 N.W.2d 335, 337 (Minn.1995) (evaluating the constitutionality of a statute de novo).   We are asked to decide whether state courts possess jurisdiction over a tort claim brought against a tribal corporation, controlled by the tribe for governmental purposes, for injuries sustained on the reservation and whether dismissal for want of jurisdiction infringes on Cohen's constitutional right to due process.


I.


[2] While sovereign immunity and lack of subject matter jurisdiction both deprive courts of the authority to hear certain matters, they differ in that parties may waive the former jurisdictional defect, but not the latter.  In re Prairie Island Dakota Sioux, 21 F.3d 302, 304-05 (8th Cir.1994).


A. Sovereign Immunity


[3][4][5] Indian tribes have long possessed the immunity enjoyed by sovereigns at common law.  Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 58, 98 S.Ct. 1670, 1677, 56 L.Ed.2d 106 (1978).   While Congress has enacted many exceptions to the absolute immunity enjoyed by foreign sovereigns, these restrictions do not apply to sovereign Indian communities.  In re Greene, 980 F.2d 590, 594 (9th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1039, 114 S.Ct. 681, 126 L.Ed.2d 649 (1994);  see Sac & Fox Nation v. Hanson, 47 F.3d *379 1061, 1064-65 (10th Cir.) (refusing to apply “commercial exception” of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to Indian communities), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 810, 116 S.Ct. 57, 133 L.Ed.2d 21 (1995);  see also 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602-1611 (1988) (Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976).   Absent a clear congressional or tribal waiver, common law notions of immunity apply to Indian tribes.  Sac & Fox Nation, 47 F.3d at 1063 (quoting Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe, 498 U.S. 505, 509, 111 S.Ct. 905, 909, 112 L.Ed.2d 1112 (1991) and Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 58, 98 S.Ct. at 1677).   Any waiver must be express and unequivocal and cannot be implied.   Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 58-59, 98 S.Ct. at 1677 (quoting United States v. Testan, 424 U.S. 392, 399, 96 S.Ct. 948, 953-54, 47 L.Ed.2d 114 (1976) (quoting United States v. King, 395 U.S. 1, 4, 89 S.Ct. 1501, 1503, 23 L.Ed.2d 52 (1969))).


[6] Cohen argues the trial court erred in allowing LSI, a separate legal entity, to assert the tribe's sovereign immunity as a jurisdictional defense.   However, case law establishes that a corporation organized under tribal laws, controlled by the tribe, and operated for governmental purposes can assert the tribe's immunity as a defense.   See, e.g., Elliott v. Capital Int'l Bank & Trust, 870 F.Supp. 733, 733-35 (E.D.Tex.1994) (dismissing, on immunity grounds, an action against a limited liability bank, which was chartered, governed, and owned by an Indian tribe);  Namekagon Dev. Co. v. Bois Forte Reservation Housing Auth., 395 F.Supp. 23, 26 (D.Minn.1974) (acknowledging tribes can confer immunity upon tribally-owned and -created corporations), aff'd, 517 F.2d 508 (8th Cir.1975);  Duluth Lumber & Plywood Co. v. Delta Dev., Inc., 281 N.W.2d 377, 378, 383-84 (Minn.1979) (determining a tribally-created corporation fulfilling a governmental purpose was equivalent to the tribe, but lacked sovereign immunity because of an express waiver );  see also Dixon v. Picopa Constr. Co., 160 Ariz. 251, 256-258, 772 P.2d 1104, 1109-11 (1989) (holding a tribally-created corporation did not enjoy immunity because it was a simple business venture, having no responsibility for promoting tribal welfare or development).   This approach is consistent with applications of the absolute common law immunity formerly enjoyed by foreign sovereigns.   See, e.g., In re Investigation of World Arrangements with Relation to the Production, Transportation, Refining & Distribution of Petroleum, 13 F.R.D. 280, 288-91 (D.D.C.1952) (recognizing a corporation's power to invoke sovereign immunity because it was organized under British law, was controlled by the British government, and served the government's purpose of ensuring access to oil).   Even under the restrictive view of sovereign immunity, corporations owned by foreign governments are entitled to assert immunity unless they fall within an exception contained in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.  28 U.S.C. §§ 1603(a) (a “foreign state” includes its agencies and instrumentalities), 1603(b) (an “agency or instrumentality of a foreign state” includes an entity in which the foreign state holds a majority share), 1604 (a “foreign state” enjoys immunity unless it falls within one of the act's exceptions).


[7] The record establishes:  (1) LSI was created by tribal ordinance;  (2) the community owns LSI's single share of stock;  (3) members of the tribe's General Council may call special meetings of the corporation;  (4) all community members may vote at LSI meetings;  (5) LSI cannot exercise many of its powers, including approval of its annual budget, without consent of the tribe's voting members;  and (6) LSI's purpose, as set forth in its articles of incorporation, is to “seek * * * to improve the business, financial, or general welfare of the Corporation, the Members of the Corporation, and the Community.”   Raising revenue and redistributing it for the welfare of a sovereign nation is manifestly a governmental purpose.   Because the tribe created, owns, and controls LSI to further a legitimate governmental purpose, LSI is entitled to assert the tribe's sovereign immunity.   But see Gavle v. Little Six, Inc., 534 N.W.2d 280, 284 (Minn.App.1995) (considering LSI's activities nongovernmental in *380 nature), review granted (Minn. Sept. 28, 1995).FN1


FN1. However, under a common law sovereign immunity analysis, the activity's purpose, not its nature, controls the result.   See In re World Arrangements, 13 F.R.D. at 288-91 (recognizing the immunity of governmental corporation because of the purpose it served).


[8] Cohen also argues operation of a gaming hall under the authority of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), 25 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2721 (1988 & Supp. V 1993), is a waiver of sovereign immunity.   However, that statute creates only a limited waiver.   See Maxam v. Lower Sioux Indian Community, 829 F.Supp. 277, 281-82 (D.Minn.1993) (holding the IGRA waives sovereign immunity for enforcement actions, but not suits for money damages);  Ross v. Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, 809 F.Supp. 738, 745 (D.S.D.1992) (same);  see also Davids v. Coyhis, 869 F.Supp. 1401, 1407, 1410 (E.D.Wis.1994) (holding the IGRA does not waive sovereign immunity even for enforcement actions).   LSI's operation of a gaming hall subjects it to a non-tribal court's authority to enforce compliance with the IGRA, not claims for money damages.


[9] Cohen also argues the community waived sovereign immunity by registering as a foreign corporation in Minnesota.   See Minn.Stat. § 303.13, subd. 1 (1994) (subjecting registered foreign corporations to service of process).   However, appointment of an agent for the service of process waives only personal jurisdiction defenses, not sovereign immunity.   Canadian Overseas Ores v. Compania de Acero Del Pacifico, 528 F.Supp. 1337, 1346 (S.D.N.Y.1982), aff'd, 727 F.2d 274 (2nd Cir.1984);  see Duluth Lumber, 281 N.W.2d at 383 (holding that an entity subject to state court jurisdiction may still assert sovereign immunity as a defense).


[10][11] Cohen further argues registration as a foreign corporation constituted a waiver of sovereign immunity because foreign corporations “shall be subject to the laws of this state.”  Minn.Stat. § 303.09 (1994).   While that statute provides a means of gaining personal jurisdiction, it does not waive sovereign immunity.   See Rykoff-Sexton, Inc. v. American Appraisal Assocs., 469 N.W.2d 88, 90 (Minn.1991) (applying the statute as a means of gaining personal jurisdiction);  State ex rel. Ohsman & Sons v. Starkweather, 214 Minn. 232, 235-36, 7 N.W.2d 747, 748-49 (1943) (describing the statute's function as a method of achieving personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation);  see also Canadian Overseas Ores, 528 F.Supp. at 1346 (submission to personal jurisdiction does not waive sovereign immunity);  Duluth Lumber, 281 N.W.2d at 383 (concluding that, even if the court otherwise had jurisdiction, tribal sovereign immunity might bar suit).   Even if we concluded the statute amounted to a choice-of-law provision, there is no basis on which to find a clear and unequivocal waiver of sovereign immunity.   See American Indian Agric. Credit Consortium v. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, 780 F.2d 1374, 1379-81 (8th Cir.1985) (finding no waiver of sovereign immunity in a promissory note containing a choice-of-law clause).   While a choice-of-law clause sets forth the rules governing the parties' duties and obligations, it does not constitute an explicit statement that the parties have agreed to submit disputes regarding those rules to adjudication in a particular forum.   See id. at 1380-81 (implying courts should not transform a choice-of-law clause into a choice of forum).   By registering in Minnesota as a foreign corporation, the community did not unequivocally waive sovereign immunity.


B. Subject Matter Jurisdiction FN2


FN2. Although the trial court never reached the question, LSI argues Minnesota state courts lack subject matter jurisdiction over this case.   While we typically review only questions decided by the trial court, subject matter jurisdiction presents an issue falling outside of this general rule.   See Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.08(c) (providing that a party may question subject matter jurisdiction at any time);  Berke v. Resolution Trust Corp., 483 N.W.2d 712, 714 (Minn.App.1992) (resolving a claimed lack of subject matter jurisdiction raised for the first time on appeal), review denied (Minn. May 21, 1992).


[12][13] By virtue of the United States Constitution, the federal government enjoys paramount authority over Indian tribes.  Williams v. Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 219-20 & n. 4, 79 S.Ct. 269, 270 & n. 4, 3 L.Ed.2d 251 (1959);  Maryland Casualty Co. v. Citizens *381 Nat'l Bank, 361 F.2d 517, 520 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 918, 87 S.Ct. 227, 17 L.Ed.2d 143 (1966).   Thus, state courts cannot exercise subject matter jurisdiction over Indians or activities on Indian lands unless a federal statute provides for such jurisdiction, or the exercise of jurisdiction will not infringe upon Indians' right to self-governance.  Williams, 358 U.S. at 220, 79 S.Ct. at 270-71;  Duluth Lumber, 281 N.W.2d at 380-82.


[14] Public Law 280 (28 U.S.C. § 1360(a) (1988)) provides Minnesota state courts shall, except with regard to activities occurring on the Red Lake Reservation, “have jurisdiction over civil causes of action between Indians or to which Indians are parties.”   While Public Law 280 applies to actions involving “Indians,” this grant of jurisdiction does not apply to Indian tribes, thus preserving the vitality of Indian sovereignty and preventing the transformation of Native American communities into “little more than ‘private, voluntary organizations.’ ”  Bryan v. Itasca County, Minn., 426 U.S. 373, 388-89, 96 S.Ct. 2102, 2111, 48 L.Ed.2d 710 (1976) (quoting United States v. Mazurie, 419 U.S. 544, 557, 95 S.Ct. 710, 718, 42 L.Ed.2d 706 (1975)).   Thus, the federal statute's jurisdictional gap protects against infringement on the tribe's status as a sovereign.   See Parker Drilling Co. v. Metlakatla Indian Community, 451 F.Supp. 1127, 1139 (D.Alaska 1978) (construing Public Law 280 as having more in common with sovereign immunity than with traditional notions of subject matter jurisdiction).   Under these circumstances, it would be illogical to impute the tribe's status to LSI for sovereign immunity purposes, but to prevent LSI from sharing other jurisdictional defenses designed to safeguard the tribe's sovereign status.   See In re World Arrangements, 13 F.R.D. at 290-91 (allowing a British corporation to assert sovereign immunity because it was owned and controlled by Britain for a governmental purpose and, thus, was indistinguishable from the sovereign).   As a consequence, we construe Public Law 280 as inapplicable to tribal corporate entities that are equivalent to the tribe for purposes of sovereign immunity.   See Bryan, 426 U.S. at 388-89, 96 S.Ct. at 2111 (holding Public Law 280 does not confer jurisdiction over tribes );  Duluth Lumber, 281 N.W.2d at 378, 383-84 (treating a tribally-created corporation, serving a governmental purpose, as the tribe);  cf. Parker Drilling, 451 F.Supp. at 1139 (holding a federally-incorporated tribe not to be an “Indian” for purposes of Public Law 280).


[15] In the absence of a federal law authorizing state court jurisdiction, states may exercise jurisdiction over matters involving Indians if doing so will not infringe on their right to self-governance.  Williams, 358 U.S. at 220, 79 S.Ct. at 270-71;  Duluth Lumber, 281 N.W.2d at 380-82.   If jurisdiction does not attach under Public Law 280 and the disputed events occurred wholly within the confines of an Indian reservation, state court jurisdiction over the matter interferes with tribal self-governance.  Duluth Lumber, 281 N.W.2d at 382.   Because we conclude jurisdiction is unavailable under Public Law 280 and the events giving rise to Cohen's cause of action transpired wholly within the reservation, we lack authority to hear the merits of this action.FN3


FN3. Even if the trial court had concurrent subject matter jurisdiction over this dispute, federal policy would require it to abstain from acting with regard to the matter until after its final resolution in tribal court.   See Bowen v. Doyle, 880 F.Supp. 99, 123, 127 (W.D.N.Y.1995) (holding even if they have jurisdiction and the matter is not currently pending before a tribal court, state courts must abstain from hearing suits arising on reservations until after tribal courts have resolved the matter);  Smith v. Babbitt, 875 F.Supp. 1353, 1366-67 (D.Minn.1995) (stating a non-tribal court must abstain from hearing a matter arising on Indian land until the plaintiff has exhausted its remedies in tribal court).


II.


[16][17] Cohen argues the jurisdictional immunities afforded to Indian tribes leave her without a remedy and, thus, violate her right to due process.   We disagree.   Cohen has not been deprived of her day in court, but only of her day in the court of her choice.   See Bank of Okla. v. Muscogee (Creek) Nation, 972 F.2d 1166, 1169 (10th Cir.1992) (finding no due process violation in the relegation of the plaintiff's claim to tribal court).   Moreover, there is no state action that is *382 necessary to a due process claim;  the tribe's assertion of sovereign immunity is not an affirmative act, but a claim of status.  Greene, 980 F.2d at 596.   Similarly, a proper dismissal for lack of jurisdiction serves merely as recognition of the court's lack of authority to act.   See Duenow v. Lindeman, 223 Minn. 505, 511, 27 N.W.2d 421, 425 (1947) (quoting Sache v. Wallace, 101 Minn. 169, 172, 112 N.W. 386, 387 (1907) and stating subject matter jurisdiction is the “authority to hear and determine the particular questions the court assumes to decide”).


DECISION


First, LSI may assert the tribe's sovereign immunity.   Second, no federal statute authorizes state jurisdiction over this case and state court jurisdiction would infringe on tribal self-governance.   And third, by dismissing this action for want of jurisdiction, the trial court did not violate Cohen's right to due process.


Affirmed.


RANDALL, Judge (dissenting).


A treaty is a contract.


A contract is a promise.


“The government made us many promises, more than I can remember, they never kept but one, they promised to take our land and they took it.”

   Red Cloud (Mahpiua Luta)

   Oglala Lakota

The government could not keep its own citizens out of the Sioux lands, any more than it had been able to keep them out of any other Indian treaty land, in spite of solemn pledges, since the time when the land just across the Appalachians was the West.   It was now up to the Indian Bureau to find some way to legalize this latest trespass.

* * * *

Actually, there was no writing of treaties with Indian tribes after 1871, when the entire ridiculous pretense that tribes were sovereignties was abolished.   It would be pleasant to be able to report that the change was made because common sense prevailed, but such was not the case.


Ralph K. Andrist, The Long Death:  The Last Days of the Plains Indian 246 (1993) (emphasis added).


Justice Blackmun, in Puyallup Tribe, Inc. v. Department of Game State of Wash., expressed doubts about the “continuing vitality in this day of the doctrine of tribal immunity” and suggested that “the doctrine may well merit re-examination in an appropriate case.”  433 U.S. 165, 178-79, 97 S.Ct. 2616, 2624, 53 L.Ed.2d 667 (1977)(Blackmun, J., concurring).   Justice Stevens later declared the doctrine of sovereign immunity to be “founded upon an anachronistic fiction.”  Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Potawatomi Indian Tribe, 498 U.S. 505, 514, 111 S.Ct. 905, 912, 112 L.Ed.2d 1112 (1991)(Stevens, J., concurring).

Moreover, mere casual inquiry reveals that by and large the governmental powers actually exercised by contemporary tribal governments are those gratuitously granted by the federal government.   Those powers are found in the Indian Reorganization Act of 1932, an Act of the United States Congress.   Besides being severely limited in scope, those powers can be amended, or eliminated for that matter, at the whim of Congress.   Thus, the governmental powers exercised by contemporary tribal governments are more illusion than real.


Robert A. Fairbanks, The Tribal Sovereignty More Illusion Than Real, The Native American Press/Ojibwe News, Nov. 3, 1995, at 4.


I respectfully dissent.   As the majority sets out, appellant Sylvia Cohen was injured in the Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake, Minnesota.   The casino is managed by respondent Little Six, Inc. (LSI), d/b/a Mystic Lake Casino.   LSI is a branch and a part of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Reservation.   Appellant commenced a standard personal injury action against respondent in the Minnesota District Court for Scott County, wherein the Shakopee reservation lies.


Respondent essentially asserts that the Mystic Lake Casino is an authorized branch of the tribal government of the reservation and thus asserts that the reservation is immune*383  from lawsuits of this type, subject to certain narrow exceptions.   It asserts that no such exception exists here.


I.


Sovereignty


Respondent's primary defenses center around its contention that Indian tribes are “sovereign” and thus may exercise inherent sovereign powers, which include immunity from lawsuits, unless they expressly waive this “sovereign immunity” and consent to be sued.


Respondent raises other arguments as well, all of which have the claim of sovereignty at their core.   For example, it argues that the reservation's tribal court has original jurisdiction over this matter, if anyone does, and appellant must first take her claim to tribal court.   Respondent additionally argues its casino is a tribal enterprise and that reservation's interests strongly outweigh the state's interest in providing Minnesota citizens access to Minnesota district courts for civil lawsuits.   Respondent further argues that appellant's lawsuit impermissibly infringes on tribal interests that have been recognized by the federal government and that those tribal interests include an Indian tribe's right to protect its tribal assets, its culture, its identity, its religion or spirituality, and its right to self-governance and self-determination.   All of these arguments are based on sovereignty.


Respondent concedes there are already many recognized inroads to this concept of “sovereignty.”   There may be federal and state jurisdiction over criminal matters on Indian reservations.   Public Law 280, which includes the State of Minnesota, specifically confers certain jurisdiction on state district courts for incidents happening on reservations.   See 28 U.S.C. § 1360(a) (granting Minnesota courts limited civil jurisdiction over actions “between Indians or to which Indians are parties” and “which arise in the areas of Indian Country”).   Respondent argues that Public Law 280 does not apply to this set of facts because it, as a defendant in a personal injury lawsuit, is not an individual Indian, but is an Indian tribal enterprise, and that Public Law 280, to date, has been construed to not include tribes within its purview.   See, e.g., Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U.S. 373, 389, 96 S.Ct. 2102, 2111, 48 L.Ed.2d 710 (1976).   Be that as it may, the already recognized exceptions to claims of sovereignty are incompatible with any belief that there is true sovereignty on Indian land.   True sovereignty and true immunity from Minnesota state courts and this country's federal courts exists in Canada and Mexico, for instance.   Our neighbors to the north and south are, in every sense of the word, true sovereign states or sovereign nations.   The reason is simple.   They are not in the United States.   On the other hand, respondent is in Minnesota, on Minnesota and U.S. land, and the reason for that is simple.   Respondent is a Minnesota corporation, its residents are all full-blown Minnesota citizens and full-blown U.S. citizens, and respondent and its residents are every bit a part of this state, a part of this country, as the rest of Minnesotans.


The majority notes that respondent, to buttress its claim of sovereign immunity, registered as a “foreign” corporation in Minnesota.   Respondent accurately describes itself as “a corporation wholly-owned and operated by a federally recognized Indian Tribe (the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community).”   I agree with respondent's characterization.   If the Minnesota Secretary of State allowed filing as a foreign corporation, either because respondent is an Indian tribe, or because respondent incorporated in Delaware or some other state, but registered here to do business here, it changes nothing.


As respondent states, it is the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community.   Although the Plains Indians moved around hundreds of years ago without regard to the political borders we call “states,” respondent, a branch of the Sioux Nation, has its historical roots in Minnesota.   Virtually all of Minnesota at one time was “Dakota Country.”   A few hundred years ago, the Anishinabe Ojibwe, after a protracted and fierce struggle, drove the Dakota people south and west out of central Minnesota.   But respondent's official name, “Mdewakanton,” which they bear proudly, roughly translates into “Dwellers of the Spirit Lake.” Spirit Lake, or Mystic Lake, is Lake Mille Lacs.   Thus, *384 respondent is historically grounded in Minnesota.   Its official name, Mdewakanton, meaning literally from the Lake Mille Lacs area of Minnesota, distinguishes it from other branches of the Sioux Nation.   The Yankton (South Dakota), and other subdivisions of the Teton Sioux (as respondent is) are also historically grounded in identifiable areas in a particular state.   The Minniconju Sioux (Teton) are associated with the Cheyenne River reservation (South Dakota);  the Hunkpapa Sioux (Teton) with the Standing Rock reservation, which borders North and South Dakota;  the Oglala Sioux (Teton) are associated with the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, and so on.


Further, all residents of respondent, including respondent's board of directors, elected chief, and council members, are full-bodied residents of the State of Minnesota.   They are entitled to vote in Minnesota, go to public schools if they choose, run for public office in Minnesota if they choose, and in every bit of the term, are full normal Minnesotans.   Minnesota owes them that.   They are.   Respondent's residents do not vote in state and national elections in North or South Dakota, or Iowa, or Wisconsin.   They are not residents of those states.   Regardless of what state respondent chose for incorporation, its reservation, its people, its casino at issue, its headquarters, and its home land are in Minnesota.   Thus, I will continue to use the term Minnesota corporation to describe respondent.   If another court should choose to call respondent a foreign corporation, it would change neither my legal analysis one line, nor history one day.


Continuing on, as Andrist said, “the entire ridiculous pretense that tribes [are] sovereignties” should have been done away with a long time ago.   Andrist, The Long Death at 246.


During World War II and the Vietnam War, a test of sovereignty presented itself.   Essentially, American Indians raised the issue of whether they were citizens of the U.S. subject to the draft or whether they were sovereign or quasi-sovereign inhabitants of a sovereign or quasi-sovereign reservation and, thus, not subject to the draft.   The federal courts listened politely and then ruled immediately that American Indians were U.S. citizens subject to the draft.   See, e.g., United States v. Rosebear, 500 F.2d 1102 (8th Cir.1974) (holding that induction of Indian, who was United States citizen within the meaning of the Selective Service Act, is not precluded from military service by quasi-sovereignty of Indian nations, lack of full citizenship by Indian people, or treaty commitments);  Williams v. United States, 406 F.2d 704 (9th Cir.1969), cert. denied 394 U.S. 959, 89 S.Ct. 1307, 22 L.Ed.2d 561 (1969) (holding member of Western Shoshone Nation of Indians subject to Universal Military Training and Service Act and not exempt by Treaty between the United States and Western Shoshone);  Ex Parte Green, 123 F.2d 862 (2d. Cir.1941) (holding that even if treaty status between U.S. and Indian tribe were valid, Congressional action superseded the treaties and made tribe member a citizen for purposes of WWII military service);  United States v. Cook, 383 F.Supp. 353 (N.D.N.Y.1974) (holding that appellant was subject to Military Service Act of 1967 even though a member of Six Nations of Indians);  United States v. Craig, 353 F.Supp. 121 (D.Minn.1973) (court found no inconsistency in recognizing certain unique Indian rights pertaining to modes of self-government, hunting and fishing rights and in deeming Indians to be citizens within the meaning of Selective Service law.)


I am not at all surprised by the result.   I can only note that, in time of war, this country has accepted volunteers from true foreign or sovereign countries.   But we have not been in the habit of involuntary induction, drafting against their will, bona fide citizens of sovereign nations.


It can be noted that during World War II, foreign born people residing in America, who had not yet been naturalized or in other ways attained citizenship, were subject to the military draft.   But the point is still made, as those foreign born residents were drafted only because they resided in the U.S.   We were not drafting tourists from foreign countries nor were we drafting foreign born non-residents from foreign countries.   We were drafting them because they lived here.   In contrast, the American Indian's position was they could not be drafted off the reservation *385 because it was sovereign or quasi-sovereign soil.   That argument failed completely.


If during World War II and the Vietnam War we had drafted (with serious criminal penalties for refusal) sovereign or quasi-sovereign American Indians off of sovereign or quasi-sovereign non-American soil, and sent them to war, to fight honorably, to put themselves in harm's way, to suffer serious injury and death, I would like to be the lead plaintiff's attorney in that class action lawsuit.   However, there never was nor will there be any such lawsuit because, in truth, we were not doing anything of the kind.   We were drafting full-blown U.S. citizens, residents of the individual states, into the armed forces, to serve honorably along with all other draftable males regardless of race or color.


While overseas and under fire, the American Indian was accepted and fully integrated.   Why, when he returned to this country, do we put him back on a private enclave, unlike all other returning soldiers of color, and tell him that as long as you stay there, you are on some sort of “sovereign soil?”   To me, it is the cruelest kind of joke, to trumpet “sovereignty,” as we do here, by forbidding appellant, a Minnesotan, from suing a Minnesota corporate entity in Minnesota state court;  but in time of war, this great shield of sovereignty is exposed for what it truly is, a Potemkin Village.


Respondent's brief repeats a long line of federal and state cases discussing the issues of Indian sovereignty.   One of the seminal cases that respondent cites in support of its position and one that has never been expressly overruled is Cherokee Nation vs. State of Georgia decided in 1831.   30 U.S.  (5 Pet.) 1, 8 L.Ed. 25 (1831).   Actually, Cherokee Nation sets the record straight.   The case sets out unequivocally that Indian tribes are not true sovereign states or nations.  Cherokee Nation labelled the tribes “domestic dependent nations.”  Id. at 17.   Cherokee Nation is accurate when it uses the term “domestic” as, by definition, American Indian tribes are in the U.S., not a foreign country.  Cherokee Nation is totally accurate when it uses the term “dependent”.   The federal government has made Indian tribes wards of government since this country was founded right up to the present.   I suggest this acknowledged dependency is not compatible with any claim of true sovereignty.   See Id. (stating “[t]heir relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.”)


The Indian tribes' virtual total dependence on the federal government for money, grants, permission to build this, permission to buy or sell that, permission to get into the casino business, etc., is exemplified by the partial federal government shutdown in late 1995 and early 1996.   Articles appeared in various Indian and non-Indian newspapers detailing the hardships on reservations because of the slow down or shutoff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other sources of federal support.


The federal government views its obligations to Indian reservations as real and mandatory.   In contrast, unlike how we view foreign aid to true sovereign nations as an optional decision of each Congress and President.


Respondent, with its successful Mystic Lake Casino, and the Mashantucket Pequot, with its successful Foxwood Resort and Casino in Connecticut, may be exceptions to tribal dependency.   But these two tribal casinos, out of the few hundred now dotting this country, are true exceptions.


In large parts of this country, the rule for reservations is that poverty, lack of adequate housing, medical care, educational opportunities, and work equal or surpass that of many Third World countries.   This problem is partially due to the continuous conflicts between state law, federal law, and tribal constitutions, with the end result being there is often is no true line to authority with the power to look into conditions and issues and rule with the force of law what has to be done to correct the situation.   On the other hand, townships, villages, cities, counties, etc. in the State of Minnesota have a known rule of law, state statutes and the Minnesota Constitution, to operate under, and its citizens have a clear line to a neutral detached judicial body with the power to hear and redress wrongs.   We call it the Minnesota District Court system.


If we are honest, we must concede that hopes for a thriving multi-million dollar casino*386  like Mystic Lake or Foxwood on every reservation, to cure all ills, is no hope at all.   There is no guarantee the few eminently successful Indian casinos will have the ability forever to continue at their present levels.   More importantly, there is absolutely no way that every single tribe in this country, large and small alike, will have a Foxwood or a Mystic Lake. The 50 states could not possibly absorb 500 to 2500 casinos of this type, of this size.   We need to concede, because we must concede, that it would be impossible for all 50 states to have the equivalent of a Las Vegas and a Reno within their borders.   That many casinos would kill each other off and drain vast amounts of money out of other businesses.   The real issue is why are we putting the American Indian in a position where unless they get a successful casino off the ground, they remain in utter poverty.   On some of the poorer Indian reservations in this country, their theoretical right to negotiate with the state for a gambling compact (providing they can entice outside investors and outside professional consultants into helping them in return for a large piece of the pie), would likely be traded for a chance at a real job, and a hot meal.   Put another way, on what other class of our citizens do we impose the obligation to put up a gambling casino or some other economic enterprise before they are deemed worthy of the normal help and assistance we give to non-Indian Americans who do not have to first claim to be residents of some sovereign entity or tribe?


The truth of the matter is, Indian reservations and their inhabitants are semi-dependent or totally dependent wards of the federal government.   This is reality.   It is not sovereignty.


But somehow, through the years, “domestic dependent nation” has come to be used interchangeably with “sovereign state”, or “quasi-sovereign state”, or “sovereign tribes”, and different variations thereof.


Thus, the core issue which needs to be addressed prior to developing the actual facts of this case and discussing other issues such as tribal courts, self-determination, and the unquestioned need to protect Indian identity, culture, spirituality, and dignity, is sovereignty.


Any hint in Cherokee Nation (if there was any), and any inference or outright statement in any of its progeny that purports to treat Indian tribes as sovereign or quasi-sovereign entities was mush when it was written, and is mush today.  “Dependent,” yes.  “Sovereign,” not now, not ever.   I do not care what we have said or put in writing.   Our actions speak louder than our words.   Sovereignty is a phrase we have mouthed for over 200 years, but this country has never, at any time, treated Indian tribes with any of the courtesy, nor respect accorded a true sovereign state or nation, such as a Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, etc.   None of the normal attributes of a true sovereign nation or foreign county has ever been gifted to, or attributed to, Indian tribes.   Real sovereignty includes, without limitation, the right to seal one's borders, declare war, make peace, coin one's own currency, design and distribute one's own postage stamps, nationalize essential industries such as radio, telephone, communications, steel, oil, nationalize industries belonging to foreigners, control immigration, set quotas, forbid emigration, apply for a seat in the United Nations, etc.   Sovereignty is defined as:

The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which any independent state is governed;  supreme political authority;  paramount control of the constitution and frame of government and its administration;  the self-sufficient source of political power, from which all specific political powers are derived;  the international independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign dictation;  also a political society, or state, which is sovereign and independent.

The power to do everything in a state without accountability,-to make laws, to execute and to apply them, to impose and collect taxes and levy contributions, to make war or peace, to form treaties of alliance or of commerce with foreign nations, and the like.


Black's Law Dictionary, 1251 (5th ed. 1979).


Indians and Indian tribes, on the other hand, have been treated by this country, at *387 times, in a way that would not be countenanced by the Geneva Convention or any of its predecessor rules of war controlling the treatment of prisoners and combatants.


Cherokee Nation itself is instructive.   It discussed the intentions of the State of Georgia to uproot the Cherokee Nation from its historical lands and bodily force it out of the state at gunpoint in violation of a treaty.   The Cherokee Nation court indicated that there might be an injustice here, but solemnly concluded the poor Indians had no standing to sue and that the United States Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to hear their plea.   In so holding the court stated:

If it be true that the Cherokee Nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted.   If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future.

The motion for an injunction is denied.


Cherokee Nation, 30 U.S. at 20.


The Cherokee court did leave us with the following:

Though the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and, heretofore, unquestioned right to the lands they occupy until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our government, yet it may well be doubted whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States can, with strict accuracy, be denominated foreign nations.   They may, more correctly be denominated domestic dependent nations.   They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases.   Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage.   Their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.

They look to our government for protection;  rely upon its kindness and its power;  appeal to it for relief to their wants;  and address the President as their great father.   They and their county are considered by foreign nations, as well as by ourselves, as being so completely under the sovereignty and dominion of the United States, that any attempt to acquire their lands, or to form political connection with them, would be considered by all as an invasion of our territory, and an act of hostility.


Id. at 17 (emphasis added).


Following Cherokee Nation, and other cases solemnly discussing Indian sovereignty, and right on through the rest of the 19th Century, as we pushed west to the Pacific Ocean, we either bought below the market price or stole virtually every acre of Indian land between the East Coast and the West Coast.   During that time span, with dozens, if not hundreds, of state and federal court cases ringing with the solemn term “sovereignty”, “domestic dependent nation”, etc., this country was responsible for the Cherokee Trail of Tears in 1830;  the Navajo Long Walk in the 1860s;  the Sand Creek Massacre at Washita River in 1864;  the violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868;  the lengthy battle against Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce in the 1870s;  the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890;  and other similar actions, too numerous to mention (but can be looked up and verified), totally incompatible with any version of sovereignty.   Look at what we do, not what we say.


Could this conduct be justified if individual Indians were true foreign nationals of a true sovereign or foreign state?   The answer is, of course not.   This country, at its worst, has always given some nod to the rules of war, even under the most trying of combat conditions.   The history of Indian warfare lacks this nod.


The history of Indian “warfare” lacks even the pretense that we were warring against sovereignties, as Congress and the President did not bother to go through the formalized process of declaring war against the Indians that we went through in the colonial war for independence, World War I, and World War II.   At one time anyway, the formalized process by which Congress and the President declared war was thought essential to our concept of honor.   Indian warfare, including the intentional killing of noncombatants, women, and children, proceeded without this honor.


*388 Could this conduct be justified because it was not until 1924 that the U.S. government got around to acknowledging that American Indians were official citizens of the United States?   See Act of June 2, 1924, ch. 233, 43 Stat. 253, 8 U.S.C. § 3, (now included in 8 U.S.C. § 1401).   No, I do not think so.   In roughly the same time frame, from 1800 to 1900, as we moved west and absorbed Indian country, the great waves of immigrants came to the United States.   When they arrived, immigrants were all true foreign nationals of true foreign states.   Although many, because of poverty, had to walk or ride by boxcars to homes and jobs, none were forcibly herded into boxcars at the point of a gun.   None were taken hundreds of miles from lands that were concededly theirs and where they wished to live, to lands hundreds of miles away that were not theirs and where they did not wish to live.   Only Indians.


The Fort Laramie treaty of 1868, and the history of the Black Hills, with its identity to the Plains Indians, particularly the Lakota/Dakota Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, are instructive, cannot be denied, and represent, oh so well, our treatment of Indians and Indian tribes as a so-called sovereign people.   First of all, to get from the East Coast to the Black Hills in South Dakota, we broke, or unilaterally modified or ignored, in whole or in part, every treaty which, if honored, would have kept us on the east coast.


Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S.Ct. 216, 47 L.Ed. 299, (1903), on treaties is instructive.   Like Cherokee Nation, this United States Supreme Court case has never been overruled.  Lone Wolf states, in part:

The power exists to abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty, though presumably such power will be exercised only when circumstances arise which will not only justify the government in disregarding the stipulations of the treaty, but may demand, in the interest of the country and the Indians themselves, that it should do so.   When, therefore, treaties were entered into between the United States and a tribe of Indians it was never doubted that the power to abrogate existed in Congress, and that in a contingency such power might be availed of from considerations of governmental policy, particularly if consistent with perfect good faith towards the Indians.


Id. at 566, 23 S.Ct. at 221.


Lone Wolf makes short work of sovereignty, in the sense that a Canada, a Mexico, or a Great Britain are true sovereigns.  Lone Wolf makes it clear that Indian tribes are not.

After an experience of a hundred years of the treaty-making system of government Congress has determined upon a new departure,-to govern them by acts of Congress.   This is seen in the act of March 3, 1871, embodied in § 2079 of the Revised Statutes:  ‘No Indian nation or tribe, within the territory of the United States, shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty;  but no obligation of any treaty lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe prior to March 3d, 1871, shall be hereby invalidated or impaired.'


Id.


Lone Wolf repeats, not the sovereign status of Indians, but their dependent status:

In one of the cited cases it was clearly pointed out that Congress possessed a paramount power over the property of the Indians, by reason of its exercise of guardianship over their interests, and that such authority might be implied, even though opposed to the strict letter of a treaty with the Indians.

* * * *

It seems to us that this is within the competency of Congress.   These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation.   They are communities dependent on the United States.


Id., 187 U.S. at 565-67, 23 S.Ct. at 221-22.


Lone Wolf also put to rest any idea that the land beneath reservations is not United States soil, but rather, is land belonging to a foreign or sovereign nation:

But the right which the Indians held was only that of occupancy.   The fee was in the United States, subject to that right, and could be transferred by them whenever they chose.   The grantee, it is true, would *389 take only the naked fee, and could not disturb the occupancy of the Indians;  that occupancy could only be interfered with or determined by the United States.   It is to be presumed that in this matter the United States would be governed by such considerations of justice as would control a Christian people in their treatment of an ignorant and dependent race.   Be that is it may, the propriety or justice of their action towards the Indians with respect to their lands is a question of governmental policy, and is not a matter open to discussion in a controversy between third parties, neither of whom derive title from the Indians.


Id., 187 U.S. at 565, 23 S.Ct. at 221.


Preceding Lone Wolf, we had Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U.S. 504, 16 S.Ct. 1076, 41 L.Ed. 244 (1896), telling us

that ‘a treaty may supersede a prior act of congress, and an act of congress supersede a prior treaty,’ is elementary.  Fong Yue Ting v. U.S., 149 U.S. 698, 13 S.Ct. 1016 [37 L.Ed. 905 (1893)];  The Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wall. [616] 621 [20 L.Ed. 227 (1870)].   In the last case it was held that a law of congress imposing a tax on tobacco, if in conflict with a prior treaty with the Cherokees, was paramount to the treaty.


Id. at 511, 16 S.Ct. at 1078.


I suggest Lone Wolf and Race Horse tell the truth.


Our attitude toward the Black Hills shows how we abandoned any pretense of the word “sovereignty” when it was deemed to be in our best interests.   With the great expansion westward during the Civil War and post-Civil War era, a big public effort was made by the United States government and its military arm, the U.S. Army, to convince the Indians that westward expansion would halt at the Black Hills and that no further expansion into their territory would take place without their express consent.   The Black Hills and surrounding territories, including parts of other states, were recognized as Indian territory.   As settlers moved west following the Civil War, the U.S. Army and a young cavalry officer by the name of George Custer were sent to the Black Hills to protect the Indians from illegal encroachment by white settlers, at least for a while.   But when gold was discovered by the Army and some white prospectors in the Black Hills, the gold rush was on, and settlers, miners, prospectors, and land speculators began to pour into what was concededly Indian territory.   The U.S. government and its military arm now had an important decision to make.   Would it use the Army to protect the Indians from the illegal trespass, and in the process run the risk of having to injure, or even kill, white trespassers, or would the U.S. Army, in violation of the treaty, move into the Black Hills Indian territory and protect white trespassers, while running the risk of having to injure and possibly kill Indians.   We made the obvious choice.


To argue there is any vitality to the word sovereignty is to ignore history.


America and the United States, had two chances to confer true sovereignty upon Indians.   The first missed opportunity was not our fault.   The second was.   The first opportunity belonged to Columbus, who in 1492, because of a cloudy sextant, dropped anchor in the Caribbean, and loudly proclaimed that he had found India and was now going to trade.   If he had gone ashore, looked around and tried to communicate intelligently with the native people living there, he could have ordered his crew back onto the ship and said, “Come on boys, this is somebody else's land.   We are turning around and going back to our home.   We will tell other Europeans to stay in Europe.”   He did not do that.


The second time, the U.S. had the opportunity to confer true sovereignty on Indian people and Indian tribes and treat them as such.   That opportunity came at the front end of our westward expansion.   The Mississippi River, stretching virtually from the Canadian border south to the Gulf of Mexico and present day Louisiana was a recognizable, distinct and easily ascertainable border (just follow the river).   At that time, there was even some discussion about recognizing it as a firm border between the U.S. and Indian country.   But like all other discussion concerning Indian rights, it did not translate into action.   We could have recognized the Mississippi as our national border just as we recognize the Rio Grande as the border between*390  the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, or as the northern border between the U.S. and Canada is recognized.   Then, whatever the Indian tribes did west of the Mississippi would have been their own business.   They could have continued to roam free in small bands, or organized into counties, regions, or provinces.   In other words, they would have had the same options citizens of Mexico and Canada have.   But we did not.   Instead, we did the following:


1851


Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.   After years of mounting pressure from white settlers and facing huge debts to fur traders, the people of the Eastern Dakota Nation sign a treaty giving up all of their lands west of the Mississippi River.   However, the U.S. Senate strikes out the provision granting the Dakota a reservation in Minnesota.   Territorial governor Alexander Ramsey saves the deal by getting the president to allow the Dakota a reservation on a five-year lease.   The Dakota are relocated to a strip of land bordering the Minnesota River in west-central Minnesota.


1858


Dakota leaders on a diplomatic visit to Washington D.C. are told they did not own the reservation land.   Faced with more debt and threatened with expulsion, they are forced to sell the northern half of their reservation.

Timeline of Events Leading Up to the Dakota Conflict and Exile, The Native American Press/Ojibwe News, Jan. 18, 1996, at 8.


Two of Minnesota's storied historical figures, Alexander Ramsey and Henry Sibley, were leaders in this land grab of Dakota Country by Minnesota.


Another article in this newspaper shows in stark detail how after the American Indian was pushed just west of the Mississippi River, the pushing continued unabated through western Minnesota, and all of South and North Dakota (Dakota Territory), continuing into Nebraska and Montana, and finally in 1871, a part of the few tribes remaining, particularly some of the Dakota Sioux, accepted the inevitable and fled north into Canada.   They did not stick around to await the inevitable, which would have been getting pushed into the Pacific Ocean!


We had the chance to confer true sovereignty upon Indian tribes in the grasp of our hands.   Instead, we opted for make believe sovereignty, as we have now, and pushed forward to the west with a governmental policy, that at times involved extermination and genocide, and at other times involved pushing the Indians west, south, and north, onto the most undesirable parts of the territory and states we developed.   Today, there are a few tribes whose reservations contain some valuable oil, gas, mineral, coal, and timber rights.   The Navajo (Diné) in New Mexico and Arizona, the Crow in Montana, the Cherokee in Oklahoma, to mention a few, do have in some places valuable natural resources.   However, this is entirely due to accident, not by design.


Ralph K. Andrist, in his book The Long Death:  The Last Days of the Plains Indian, recounts in detail the period of westward expansion that I have just touched on.


I note that some of the precedent cited in the case before us mentions treaties as some sort of foundation for “Indian sovereignty.”   I join with Andrist in asking:  Why did anyone pay attention to this “ridiculous pretense?”   Honestly, I believe it is best that we do not bring up the term “treaty.”   My question would be, which one?   I know of no major treaty that we have not broken.   If the U.S. and its constituent states started talking seriously about treaties, I suggest we Indo-European Caucasians, African-Americans, and Asian Americans pack our bags, book passage on the next steamer, and head back to where we came from.


If treaties are to be honored, then we are on someone else's land.


The final word on treaties is best expressed by the United States Supreme Court in Lone Wolf, when it states that when all is said and done, Congress has complete power over Indian tribal property and Congress can abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty at any time.  Lone Wolf, 187 U.S. at 566, 23 S.Ct. at 221.


*391 Reading Cherokee Nation, Lone Wolf, and other federal cases solemnly discussing Indian sovereignty, as if it were a viable issue, I feel as if I am in a time warp, reading Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L.Ed. 691 (1856), or Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256, (1896), as if these cases were still the law of the land.   I note that in Plessy, Justice Harlan, the lone dissenter, watching the Court give continued life to separate but equal by solemnly discussing whether colored people could be kept separate from white people as long as they were “kept equal” to white people, made the same observation that I make today watching the court's solemn discussion about Indian sovereignty:

In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.


Id. at 559, 16 S.Ct. at 1146 (J. Harlan, dissenting).


If Justice Harlan were alive today, I suggest he would state that he did not write the dissent in Plessy.   I suggest he would state that he wrote the majority, that he wrote the law of the land, but that it took the Supreme Court and this country 58 years, until Brown v. Board of Education decided in 1954, to realize it.   See Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 495, 74 S.Ct. 686, 692, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954)(holding “separate but equal” treatment of races is unconstitutional).


The parties here are all Minnesotans, and all Americans.   That gets lost in the shuffle of sovereignty.   Any argument that American Indians are different from the rest of us and, therefore, are sovereign or quasi-sovereign, and reside on sovereign or foreign land, is put to rest by our actual treatment of them, and by the fact that in 1924 by the Citizenship Act, we conferred full U.S. citizenship on American Indians.


The State of Minnesota, and its residents, whether Indian or non-Indian, are not in any way, shape, or form a true sovereign.   We might carelessly throw the term around, but in truth, we are not.   We are individual citizens of a state that is part of a highly organized federation of states, comprising one indivisible sovereign, the United States of America.   This state, and the other 49 components, might throw the term “sovereign” around at the quadrennial presidential nominating conventions, as in “the Great Sovereign State of Florida casts 42 sunshiny orange juice filled votes for candidate ‘x,’ the next great president of this here great U.S. of A.”   But after the convention we are all back to being just states within one indivisible country.


For instance, Minnesota is “sovereign or independent” of North Dakota, to the extent that on our election day, North Dakota residents (those who have no intention of changing that status), cannot pour willy-nilly across our border and vote in, or run for local and state office.   But neither Minnesota as a state, nor its individual citizens, is sovereign to the point where its legislature/courts could, for instance, unilaterally declare us free of the draft should it ever be reinstated.   Minnesota is not a true sovereign.   The Minnesota legislature/courts cannot declare, for example, that any Minnesotan 18 years of age or older can run for president of the United States.   Nor does the State of Minnesota and its legislature/courts have the power to rule that no Minnesotan can ever be president.   If we had such enumerated powers, we would be sovereign.   We do not, we are not.   The Minnesota Indian is right there with the rest of the non-Indian Minnesotans.   We are all equally endowed with the same rights, the same privileges, the same obligations, and the same limitations.


I note that waiting until 1924 to “confer full U.S. citizenship on American Indians,” has to redefine “irony”.   The earliest anyone else in this country can claim to have relatives born here is the 17th Century.


We took this land, by fire and sword, from its owners of record, the British, who took part of it from the Indians and the French.   We then took all the rest.


Most U.S. citizens trace their ancestry back perhaps 50 to 200 years.   Precious few insist they have blood lineage to someon