Nations Are Sovereign: They Are Not ‘Tribes’

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Over the past 35 + years since I have been fortunate enough to have served as General Counsel for the Onondaga Nation. In 1998, I was asked by the Onondaga Chiefs to author a law review article on their diplomatic resolution of the excise tax issue with then Governor Pataki over a year and a half period, which resulted in the May 1997 signing of a New York State/Haudenosaunee Trade and Commerce Agreement, (46 Buffalo Law Review 1011, 1998).

Interestingly, despite over two centuries of difficulties in this area, in this historic Agreement the state accepted the Haudenosaunee as Nations and used that label, rather than tribes.

The last sentence in the first footnote on this article states: “The more substantive terms nation and people will be used collectively in their international law sense, rather than the pejorative term tribe”; and the last sentence of the second foot note states: “In the past 25 years, as they have struggled to reaffirm their sovereign status, the Haudenosaunee have endeavored to reject these colonial and imperialist terms…” (Id. at 1012.)

So it is important to understand that, to the Haudenosaunee, the use of the term tribe means that they are not be accepted as sovereign, independent Nations. However unintentional the continued use of the term tribe may be, its use will be interpreted as disrespectful and insulting by traditional Haudenosaunee.

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