The US signed 370 treaties as supreme law under Article VI. It has violated nearly all of them. The minimum legal obligation is to finally keep its word.
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Between 1778 and 1871, the United States signed 370 treaties with Indigenous nations — agreements that the Constitution designates as the "supreme Law of the Land" under Article VI. The US has violated virtually every one.
The pattern was consistent across two centuries. The federal government would negotiate a treaty guaranteeing Indigenous nations specific land boundaries, sovereignty, and resources in exchange for massive land cessions. When settlers wanted that land, or when gold, oil, or minerals were discovered, the government would break the treaty, force a new one with smaller boundaries, and repeat the cycle. The Doctrine of Discovery — a legal theory rooted in a 1493 papal decree that declared non-Christian lands available for European claim — was used by US courts as late as 2005 to justify denying Indigenous land rights. The Supreme Court did not formally repudiate the doctrine until recent decades, and its legal shadow persists in property law today.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 led to the forced relocation of approximately 60,000 Indigenous people from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to territories west of the Mississippi — a series of forced marches known as the Trail of Tears that killed an estimated 15,000 people. This was not an aberration. It was federal policy. The Navajo Long Walk, the forced relocation of the Ponca, the dispossession of the Lakota from the Black Hills — each followed the same pattern: treaty, violation, forced removal.
From the 1860s through the 1960s, the federal government operated Indian boarding schools designed explicitly to destroy Indigenous languages, cultures, and family structures. The schools' motto — "Kill the Indian, save the man" — was official policy. Children were forcibly taken from families, forbidden from speaking their languages, and subjected to widespread physical and sexual abuse. A 2022 Interior Department investigation identified more than 500 deaths at these schools, with more investigations ongoing. The trauma from this system reverberates through Indigenous communities today.
The Termination Era of the 1940s-1960s saw Congress attempt to eliminate tribal sovereignty entirely, dissolving over 100 tribal governments and transferring their lands to state jurisdiction. The policy was a disaster by every measure — poverty deepened, health outcomes collapsed, and cultural destruction accelerated. Congress officially repudiated termination in the 1970s and began the era of tribal self-determination, but the damage was done and many terminated tribes have never recovered their federal recognition. For the full historical context, see the racial justice issue page.
Centuries of broken treaties, forced relocations, cultural destruction, and systematic disinvestment have produced outcomes that would be considered a national crisis if they affected any other population. For Indigenous Americans, they are treated as background noise.
Poverty: Native Americans have the highest poverty rate of any racial group in the United States at approximately 25% — more than double the national average. On some reservations, poverty rates exceed 50%. Unemployment on many reservations ranges from 25% to 85%. These numbers are not caused by a lack of work ethic or ambition — they are the direct result of geographic isolation, chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, and an economy that was systematically dismantled by federal policy over two centuries.
Healthcare: The Indian Health Service is funded at roughly 60% of need. Life expectancy for Native Americans is 10-12 years below the national average. Diabetes rates are three times the national average. Suicide rates among Native youth are 2.5 times the national average. IHS per-capita spending is less than half of Medicare per-capita spending and roughly one-third of what the Bureau of Prisons spends per inmate. The federal government spends more on healthcare for prisoners than it does fulfilling its treaty obligations to Indigenous peoples. See the healthcare issue page for related policy.
Infrastructure: Approximately 40% of roads on reservations are unpaved. Many reservation homes lack running water or electricity. Broadband access on tribal lands lags far behind the rest of the country, with some reservations having less than 10% broadband penetration. These infrastructure deficits make economic development nearly impossible and compound every other problem — healthcare access, education, employment, and emergency services.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW): Native American women are murdered at more than four times the national average. Jurisdictional gaps between tribal, federal, and state law enforcement create a patchwork where crimes routinely fall through the cracks. Many cases are never investigated at all. The crisis is detailed in the MMIW section below.
Environmental justice: Indigenous communities bear a disproportionate burden of environmental destruction. Pipelines are routed through treaty lands. Uranium mining has contaminated water on Navajo lands for decades. Sacred sites are opened to resource extraction despite treaty protections. The Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline brought international attention to this pattern, but it is replicated across the country — from copper mining near the Boundary Waters to lithium extraction on Paiute lands. For related policy, see the climate and energy page.
The Common Good plan starts from a simple legal principle: the United States made binding commitments under its own Constitution, and the minimum obligation is to finally keep them. This is not charity. It is compliance with existing law.
The plan addresses the full spectrum of Indigenous rights — from treaty enforcement and healthcare funding to infrastructure investment and cultural preservation. Each provision is designed to work in partnership with tribal governments, not to impose federal solutions on sovereign nations.
For the complete plan with legislative detail, cost projections, and sourcing, see the full indigenous rights issue page.
The United States is not alone in its history of Indigenous dispossession, but it lags behind several peer nations in its efforts to make things right. The comparison is instructive — and often unflattering.
| Country | Treaty Status | Land Rights | Healthcare | Apology Issued | Self-Governance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 370 treaties, nearly all violated | Limited trust lands | IHS funded at 60% | 2009 (buried in appropriations bill) | Tribal sovereignty, often undermined |
| Canada | Numbered treaties, ongoing modern treaties | Comprehensive land claims process | Universal coverage + Indigenous-specific programs | 2008 (formal, public) | Self-government agreements expanding |
| Australia | No treaties signed | Native title recognized since 1992 | Universal + Closing the Gap programs | 2008 (formal, public) | Limited, Voice referendum failed 2023 |
| New Zealand | Treaty of Waitangi (1840) | Waitangi Tribunal settles claims | Universal + Māori health authority | Multiple (by Crown) | Co-governance expanding |
| Norway | Sami rights recognized | Finnmark Act (2005) | Universal coverage for all | King's 1997 apology | Sami Parliament (legislative power) |
| Brazil | Constitutional protections (1988) | Demarcated reserves (under threat) | Indigenous health subsystem (SESAI) | None | Limited, significant threats |
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have all issued formal, public apologies for their treatment of Indigenous peoples. The United States issued an apology in 2009 — buried in a defense appropriations bill, with a disclaimer that it could not be used to support legal claims, and with no public ceremony. Most Americans do not know it exists.
New Zealand's Waitangi Tribunal has settled billions of dollars in claims and transferred significant land and resources back to Māori communities. Norway's Sami Parliament exercises real legislative authority. The United States has taken no comparable steps to systematically address its treaty violations. For more on how the US compares to other countries across issues, see the Compare Parties page.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is a crisis that receives a fraction of the attention it deserves. Native American women are murdered at more than four times the national average, and the cases are systematically under-investigated due to jurisdictional gaps that exist nowhere else in American law.
The crisis is driven by a jurisdictional patchwork that is unique to Indian Country. On reservations, criminal jurisdiction is split between tribal, federal, and sometimes state authorities depending on the identity of the victim, the identity of the perpetrator, the type of crime, and whether the crime occurred on trust land. This confusion means that when a crime is reported, it is often unclear which agency has authority to investigate — and too often, none does. Cases fall through the cracks not because law enforcement doesn't care, but because the system was designed in a way that makes accountability nearly impossible.
The numbers are staggering. A 2016 National Institute of Justice study found that more than 84% of Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime. On some reservations, the murder rate for Indigenous women is ten times the national average. Indigenous women make up a disproportionate share of missing persons cases in many states despite being a small percentage of the population. In Wyoming, Indigenous people made up fewer than 3% of the population but accounted for more than 20% of homicide victims in some years.
Tribal law enforcement is chronically underfunded. Many reservations have fewer than five officers to patrol areas the size of small states. Response times can exceed an hour. The FBI, which has jurisdiction over major crimes on reservations, declines to prosecute a significant percentage of cases referred from Indian Country — a declination rate far higher than for non-Indigenous cases.
The Common Good plan addresses the MMIW crisis through dedicated federal funding for tribal law enforcement, cross-jurisdictional task forces, a national database for missing Indigenous persons, expansion of tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators (building on the Violence Against Women Act provisions), and mandatory federal reporting requirements for cases in Indian Country. See the criminal justice page for related policy on law enforcement reform.
Misconceptions about Indigenous peoples and their legal rights are widespread in American public life. These myths are used — sometimes deliberately — to justify continued inaction on treaty obligations and federal responsibilities. Here are the four most damaging myths and what the evidence actually shows.
Myth: "That was all in the past."
Reality: The last Indian boarding school closed in 1969. The Termination Era ended in the 1970s. Forced sterilization of Indigenous women continued into the 1970s. The Dakota Access Pipeline controversy was in 2016. The Indian Health Service remains funded at 60% of need right now. Sacred sites are being opened to mining and drilling right now. The MMIW crisis is happening right now. Treaties signed under Article VI of the Constitution are being violated right now. This is not history. It is the present.
Myth: "Tribes already get enough federal money."
Reality: Federal spending on Indigenous programs is not a handout — it is a legal obligation under 370 treaties and the trust responsibility. And even measured against that obligation, funding falls dramatically short. IHS is funded at 60% of need. The Bureau of Indian Education's schools rank among the worst-funded in the country. Infrastructure on reservations is decades behind the rest of America. The federal government spends more per capita on healthcare for federal prisoners than it does for Indigenous Americans to whom it has a treaty obligation to provide care.
Myth: "Casinos made them rich."
Reality: Only about 40% of federally recognized tribes operate casinos, and revenue distribution is wildly uneven. A handful of tribes near major cities generate significant income, but the vast majority of tribal casinos are small operations in remote areas. The median household income on reservations remains far below the national average. The Native American poverty rate is 25% — the highest of any racial group. Casino revenue has helped some communities, but it comes nowhere close to compensating for centuries of broken treaties, stolen land, and systematic disinvestment.
Myth: "Sovereignty means special treatment."
Reality: Tribal sovereignty is not a special privilege. It is a legal status that predates the United States, is recognized by the Constitution, and was guaranteed by treaties that the US voluntarily entered. Every treaty involved Indigenous nations ceding millions of acres of land in exchange for specific guarantees — sovereignty, healthcare, education, and protection. Calling sovereignty "special treatment" is like selling someone a house, keeping the money, refusing to hand over the keys, and then calling them entitled when they ask for what they paid for. The US received the land. It owes the obligations it agreed to in exchange.
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370 treaties. Nearly all broken. 574 tribes. Chronically underfunded. The US signed these agreements as the supreme law of the land. Read the full plan for how we honor them.