While our Indigenous brothers and sisters still have only Reservations, here in the land which was originally ALL THEIRS?
How many people are aware that the United States tried to bribe the Sioux to forget the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie with an amount which, in 2011, was $1.3 BILLION dollars? That money is stuck in escrow, because the nine tribes comprising the Great Sioux Nation refused the money and want the US Federal Government to HONOR the Treaty.
One of the things which cause modern Indigenous people in America trouble is lack of political power.
You know what would empower them significantly? If they were accorded parity with the rest of us, which could only be reached if they had US Senators and US House Representatives who were citizens of American Indian States which are recognized and admitted to the Union, with all of the Rights and Privileges of Statehood.
Is it a crazy idea? Why? Because the Reservations are within current US States? That factor can be ignored with a vote in Congress and the Legislature of the State wherein the Reservation lies, just as the Constitution allows for Article V, Section 3:
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.
Thoughts?