Many of the Native American tribal lands in the United States own a
wealth of natural resources, but most tribes have always faced pressure to
give up their lands, and in many cases, their lands were simply stripped
from them without thought or compensation. In the nineteenth century,
tribes were simply herded onto reservations, as this writer noted.
In the nineteenth century, Americans looked out upon the vast West and
its abundant natural resources and saw the possibility of great wealth
and opportunity. One obstacle presented itself to national
aspirations: the Indian tribes. [â€] Federal Indian policy was
characterized by one primary goal: pushing aside Indian tribes to
facilitate the exploitation of the West's bountiful natural resources"
Many tribes never had the opportunity to gain any kind of financial aid
from the natural resources they had taken for granted for hundreds of
years, but were suddenly in great demand by a growing nation, and today,
some of those tribes are fighting back with lawsuits and reclamation
In Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's ancient tribal lands were overrun
with silver mines in the nineteenth century, and when the mines played out,
all that remained was the environmental damage, as this writer notes.
"Over a one-hundred year period, the mining industry in northern Idaho's
Silver Valley wiped out most natural life in the Coeur d'Alene River Basin
by dumping seventy-two million tons of mining waste into the Coeur d'Alene
watershed (Althouse, 2001, p. 721). In 1991, the tribe began their own
restoration project, and also filed a lawsuit against several mining
companies which resulted in the largest ever natural resource damage suit
in U.S. history. The Coeur d'Alene are also fighting about who controls
the waters and the water quality of Lake C
...