Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Inconvenient Indian, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
History and Mythology
Racism and Systemic Oppression
Land
Sovereignty
Summary
Analysis
King lists some of the many atrocities and injustices Native people have faced from the government, such as the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 and the Trail of Tears, to challenge the notion that the historically oppressed ought to leave the past in the past and shift their attention to the future. He shifts his focus to a pamphlet published by the Interstate Congress for Equal Rights and Responsibilities entitled Are We Giving America Back to the Indians?, which portrays Indians as “a bunch of welfare bums.”
King mentions the Interstate Congress for Equal Rights and Responsibilities pamphlet, which portrayed Indians as “a bunch of welfare bums.” He uses this to illustrate a belief he thinks is unfortunately prevalent in mainstream American culture: namely, that Natives (and all oppressed people) ought to leave the past in the past and move on with their lives. Such a view renders the demand for retribution or reparations for past wrongs an exercise in whining and refusal to take personal accountability rather than an exercise in justice. It assigns blame to Natives by erasing the past wrongs the government committed against them.
Themes
King makes a rhetorical choice to be objective, though, addressing “Native failings,” such as the racist treatment of the Cherokee Freedmen. Since the 1800s, Cherokee have been involved in a debate about who is Cherokee enough to receive tribal assets and vote in elections. Prior to the abolition of slavery, Cherokee participated in the slave trade and enslaved over 1,000 African people. After the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in 1866, former Cherokee slaves, some of whom were born of African-Cherokee heritage, were allowed the same rights as native Cherokees. These people were called the Cherokee Freedmen.
King includes this aside about the Cherokee Freedom as a rhetorical strategy. He shows that he can portray Native history in an objective light, revealing unsavory moments of tribes’ pasts, such as the enslavement of Black people, in addition to portraying tribes as the victims of colonial oppression. He also shows how, within tribes, the notion of who counts as a “Legal Indian” is a contentious subject. Cherokee resistance to offering tribal membership to Freemen is similar to the federal government’s restrictions on tribal membership or, in Canada, Status. At the same time, it must be noted that the issue of tribal membership and Native identity has been complicated by U.S. policy toward the treatment of Native Americans. Years of having rights taken away and treaties broken has given tribes extra incentive to safeguard membership.
Themes
A lot of Cherokee disagreed with the ruling that Cherokee Freedmen had access to the same rights as other Cherokee. In the 1970s, Ross Swimmer, Principal Chief of the Cherokee, required all Cherokee citizens to have a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) to claim assets. There are three categories of Cherokee: Cherokee by blood, Freedman, and intermarried Whites. This ruling was challenged in 2004, when Lucy Allen, a descendent of a Freedman, brought the issue to the Cherokee Supreme Court, which ruled that Freedmen had the same right to assets as blood Cherokee. This ruling was challenged and reversed in 2006 by Chad Smith, who changed the constitution to allow for additional restrictions on tribal membership. While the 2006 ruling demonstrated the Cherokee nation’s just right to sovereignty, it also illuminated the problematic reality that many Cherokee opposed sharing tribal assets with Black people.
Since the publication of King’s book, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the Freedmen descendants, stating that descendants had the full rights of citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation’s Supreme Court has also voted to remove the words “by blood” from its constitution, which as deemed exclusionary toward descendants of Freedmen.
Themes
King returns to his opening, rhetorical call to “ignore the past,” choosing to begin “the present” in 1985, the year his second child was born. He references the book Helpless! Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy and How the Law Failed All of Us by Christie Blatchford, a journalist at Globe and Mail, as an example of this present-oriented style of Native history. In the introduction to her book, Blatchford stresses that her book will not address land claims, or the abuse, trauma, and injustices Native peoples have suffered for generations. Rather, it focuses on the negative consequences the occupation of the Douglas Creek Estates has had on non-Native Caledonia residents, and the failure of law enforcement to protect their property. The irony behind Blatchford’s claim, of course, is that the occupation would not have happened were it not for Canada’s failure to fulfill land claims established centuries earlier.
King’s move to “ignore the past” is a rhetorical choice aimed at discrediting the viewpoint that Indians ought to forgive the U.S. the sins of its past. Blatchford proposes such a view in her book about the occupation of the Douglas Creek Estates, which focuses on the negative consequences the protest had on White homeowners and business owners of the area while ignoring the land claims issues that inspired the protest in the first place. King insinuates that Blatchford’s logic is faulty because ignoring the past automatically renders the protesters in the wrong, because without a past there is no justification for protest. The occupation in question is the Caledonia land dispute/Grand River land dispute, an ongoing (as of 2022) conflict between the Six Nations of the Grand River and Canada. The Six Nations are demanding compensation for leased lands and the return of stolen lands. The dispute gained widespread attention in 2006 when a group of protestors occupied Caledonia, a community within the disputed land. Shortly after, they took control of Douglas Creek Estates, the site of a future development. Protestors blocked roads and rail lines and damaged a power station, resulting in a power outage and $1 million of repairs. Violence ensued on both sides of the protest. The area’s residents sued the Government of Ontario for its failure to intervene in the occupation.
Themes
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Nevertheless, King resolves to forget history, shifting his attention to his proposed 1985 start date to address Canada’s Bill C-31, which passed in 1985 and was created to address the inequality between Status Native men and Status Native women. Before C-31, when Status Native men married non-Status women, the women and their children would gain Status. However, when Status women married non-Status men, they would lose their Status. The passage of Bill C-31 into law returned Status to women who had lost theirs through marriage. However, Bill C-31 failed to guarantee Status for offspring of marriages between Status and non-Status Natives. For instance, the child of a Status woman who married a non-Status man would not have Status. This loophole is called the “two generation cut-off clause.”
The “two generation cut-off clause” of Bill C-31 reflects an ongoing pattern in laws passed that purport to help Native people but harm the longevity of their culture in the long run. The intent behind the clause is virtually identical to many of the other policies King has presented throughout the book: to eradicate legal claims to Indian identity and relieve the federal government of the burden to support its indigenous people.
Themes
King sees this denial of status as part of a larger measure by which the Canadian government sought to eliminate Status Indians. While there will still be full-blood and mixed-blood Indians in Canada, there will be fewer and fewer Status Indians. Over generations, Canada’s reserves will become “ghost towns. Or museums.” As a result, the Canadian government will no longer need to allocate as many resources as possible toward Status Indians.
King’s description of the disappearance of Status Indians rendering Canada’s reserves “ghost towns” or “museums” evokes language of death and the past. In this way, he insinuates that Canadian policy toward Indians is aimed at transforming the country’s Legal Indians into Dead Indians: into individuals of a bygone era that pose no legal or sociological threat to the government or mainstream Canadian culture.
Themes
Continuing in his survey of post-1985 history, King describes the Meech Lake Accord, a series of amendments to the Canadian Constitution that deemed Quebec a “distinct society” with new, increased powers in the areas of government appointments, immigration, and national institutions. Notably, the Accord enabled Quebec to exit any government programs it deemed unnecessary. However, the Accord dismissed Aboriginal needs, denying Aboriginal societies the designation of “distinct societies” awarded to Quebec. In fact, Native people weren’t mentioned in the Accord. To pass, Canada’s 10 provinces had to approve the Accord before June 23, 1990. However, Manitoba and Newfoundland failed to approve it.
The Meech Lake Accord’s failure to consider Aboriginal nations “distinct societies” is further evidence of federal policy legally denying Aboriginal people the right to self-governance. The accord was initially popular across Canada’s provinces; however, opponents took issue with the “distinct society” clause, arguing that it would unbalance the federal government and give Quebec the power to surpass protections afforded to minority groups (among them, Aboriginals) in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to prioritize the province’s French culture.
Themes
Elijah Harper, a Cree, was the first Treaty Indian elected to office in Manitoba. He voted against forgoing public hearings to pass the Accord, effectively killing the Meech Lake Accord. Two years later, a second Accord of amendments, the Charlottetown Accord, was presented. Unlike the Meech Lake Accord, the Charlottetown Accord involved the Assembly of First Nations, the Native Council of Canada, the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and the Métis National Council. It also included amendments calling for the right of Canada’s Native population to practice their culture, language, and traditions, and for the Aboriginal governments to “constitute one of the three orders of government in Canada.” Lastly, it called for the treaty rights of Native peoples to be upheld, and for the Native right to self-government, as well as guaranteed seats allotted to Aboriginal peoples in the Canadian Senate.
The Charlottetown Accord was supported by the Progressive Conservative, Liberal, and New Democratic Party of Canada, as well as First Nations groups. The Accord was particularly unpopular in Canada’s Western provinces, which shared a concern that the Accord reflected the elites’ ideas about how Canada ought to be. In the years following the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, Canada was in the midst of a recession, and many citizens had turned on what they viewed as an elite leadership too concerned with politics to be concerned for the country’s economy.
Themes
While these stipulations sound good in theory, King reveals that they were accompanied by clauses that essentially negated whatever power they seemed to promise. For example, the proposed “right to self-government” was undercut by a provision that prohibited the passage of aboriginal laws if those laws conflicted with federal law. The Charlottetown Accord was voted on by public referendum and defeated, lacking popular support of Aboriginal peoples. King speculates that this might have been due to Aboriginal people’s unwillingness to trust the federal government. Furthermore, it wasn’t only Aboriginal voters who voted against the Accord: voters from six provinces also rejected the Accord. Indeed, King recalls people complaining about “more money being wasted on Indians” in this Accord. The failure of these two Accords, King muses, sends Native peoples “right back to 1985.”
Even the Charlottetown Accord, which seems to be a piece of legislation King feels is most in line with the interests of indigenous people, contains legal loopholes that undercuts indigenous peoples’ right to self-govern. King suggests that the failure of both Accords to pass ultimately brought Native people “right back to 1985,” implying that even in this rhetorical experiment—where King willfully forgets the past and resolves to solve Indian issues that exist in the present—laws are passed and rejected to the detriment of indigenous people. No matter how recent the past, the government still acts against the interest of its indigenous communities.
Themes
King returns to the 2006 Mohawk occupation of land in Caledonia, Ontario. The occupation led to the Ontario government agreeing to a $20 million settlement, awarded to the homeowners and businesses of non-Natives who suffered negative consequences as a result of the occupation. Mohawk land disputes, in contrast, were ignored.
King describes the $20 million settlement to point out how quickly and easily the government hands out compensation for stolen land to its White population while failing to afford its indigenous population the same privilege. Of course, the only world in which this double standard is justified is the hypothetical world King inhabits in this chapter, where history begins in 1985.
Themes
King shifts focus to the rise of Native gaming, which had economic costs and benefits for Native peoples. King dates the beginnings of legislation that opened the door for gaming to 1972, when a Chippewa couple living on the Greater Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota challenged a property tax bill the county sent them. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that state governments did not have the right to tax Indians living on federal reservations, nor could they monitor Indian activities that took place on reservations. The ruling, voiced by Justice William Brennan Jr., along with two other major cases, 1981’s Seminole v. Butterworth and 1987’s California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, paved the way for the development of gambling enterprises on tribal land.
Seminole v. Butterworth was a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit case where the court ruled that the State of Florida could not enforce the Florida Bingo Statute to prevent the Seminole tribe from operating a bingo parlor on tribal property. The ruling went against Public Law 280, which held that Native Nations were held to the same laws as U.S. Citizens. It was highly influential in the develop of the Indian gaming industry. The final case King references, California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving California’s attempt to shut down small bingo parlor operations operated on Cabazon and Morongo reservation lands. The court ruled in favor of the tribes, which overturned existing laws limiting gaming on reservations and set a new standard for tribal sovereignty.
Themes
These rulings upset state governments, who were now unable to claim tax revenue amassed from gambling. Federal agencies, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Congress, banded together to oppose Brennan’s ruling. In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), which recognized tribes’ rights to operate gambling establishments on tribal land—with the caveat that tribes had to consult with the states on which games would be allowed to be played there.
IGRA was the first federal gaming structure to pass into law. It established the National Indian Gaming Commission and authorized the political entity to regulate gaming operation. Since the Act’s passage in 1988, it has been the subject of much controversy, particularly with regard to whether the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Department of the Interior can legally regulate tribal Indian gaming regulations.
Themes
The IGRA established three classes of gambling, I, II, and III. Class I comprised “social gaming with minimal prizes” and was not regulated by the IGRA. Class II covered bingo and bingo-adjacent games and was regulated by tribal governments overseen by the National Indian Gaming Commission. Class III encompassed all gaming not covered in Classes I and II. This gaming was regulated by the state and federal governments, though it differed little from the type of games featured in Atlantic City or Las Vegas.
While IGRA authorizes states to regulate some elements of Indian gambling operations, many opponents of the Act come from the states themselves. One common objection has to do with how casinos are funded. The Bureau of Indian Affairs allots tax-payer money to tribes (who do not pay taxes) for economic development. Some states and U.S. citizens object to the use of taxpayer money to fund tax-exempt tribal casinos that generate income that is not funneled back into the state economy.
Themes
As of the writing of this book, there are 15 Native-run casinos in Canada and over 300 in the U.S. The growing industry generates over $25 billion annually, and approximately one-third of North America’s tribes are involved in gaming. King notes how he once heard someone call Indian Gaming “the new buffalo.”
King’s remark that Indian Gaming is “the new buffalo” alludes to how Indians have had to find new ways to advance themselves since their previous source of sustenance, the buffalo, was rendered virtually extinct through excessive hunting practices of settlers. The comparison frames gaming as a primary means of economic development for tribes and a path toward economic independence and sovereignty.
Themes
Indian Gaming generates substantial income for states as well. Arizona tribes have given Arizona over $400 million since 2003, for example. In 2003, California asked its tribes to “donate $1.5 billion” toward helping the state escape its deficit. King wryly notes that California, centuries before, had sanctioned the murdering and scalping of Indians, regardless of age or gender. But, of course, “the past is the past.”
King offers these examples of Indian Gaming revenue being cycled back into state economies to challenge the notion he cited at the beginning of the chapter—namely, that Indians are lazy and reliant on handouts. He continues his rhetorical strategy of willing away the past in this passage as well. King points out the hypocrisy of states demanding money from a group of people they have scalped and murdered in the past. He then undercuts such an idea by suggesting that “the past is the past.” King’s dark humor points to how omitting certain contexts—particularly how the past impacts the present—skews one’s sense of history.
Themes
Of course, the present sees its fair share of atrocities committed against Native peoples as well. King points to the formation of advocacy groups such as Stop Treaty Abuse, formed in 1988, geared toward stopping the government’s supposed “preferential treatment” of Indians. Meanwhile, the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance (CERA) argues that Federal Indian Policy is racist and unconstitutional. Bigotry against Native peoples exists on a smaller scale, too. King describes a flier distributed across South Dakota and Nebraska in 1999 that purported to be from the South Dakota Fish and Game Department and announced a special hunting season geared toward hunting the state’s “Worthless Red Bastards, Gut Eaters, Prairie Niggers.”
King provides these examples of bigotry to show how racism impacts Native peoples on a personal level as well as systematically. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called CERA “arguably the most important anti-Indian group in the nation.” The group seeks to end tribal governments, eradicate treaties, and overturn policies that establish legal rights for Native peoples.
Themes
Such bigotry extends to Canada as well. King recalls moving into a house in Lethbridge, Ontario, in a newer, suburban subdivision situated on the edge of the Blackfoot reserve. Shortly after moving in, they received a flyer from a realtor warning the subdivision that a “Treaty Seven” family had moved into the neighborhood, referring to the treaty the Canadian government negotiated with the Blackfoot in 1877. The flyer’s coded message was that an Indian family moved into the neighborhood, which would diminish everyone’s property value. When King and some others complained about the Treaty Seven flier, a city official ordered them to “calm down” and forget the past. The realtor wasn’t punished for the flier, either.
King’s personal encounter with bigotry further shows how racism impacts North America’s indigenous population at the broader, legal level and at the personal level. His story also illustrates another instance in which the larger society fails to defend attacks against indigenous people that occur in the present as well as the past. That the realtor wasn’t punished for the coded message on the flyer shows that the common refrain to leave the past in the past and focus on the present is empty rhetoric the culture uses to avoid accountability.
Themes
King reflects on another example of bigotry, recalling a sign taped to a Tim Horton’s drive-through window that read “No Drunk Natives.” He notes that while he’s seen far more drunk Whites emerging from bars on the weekend, “in North America, White drunks tend to be invisible, whereas people of color who drink to excess are not.”
This additional example of racism shows that North America applies a double standard not only to policymaking but also to behavior. North America largely ignores its “White drunks” while simultaneously weaponizing indigenous struggles with addiction, thus presenting Indians as a group of “Drunk Natives.” This thinking implies that Whites are allowed their vices at the individual level while Indians are forced to act on behalf of their entire culture.
Themes
King categorizes North America’s racism as “endemic” and “systemic,” noting that racism runs rampant in institutions that are supposed to safeguard minorities against it. For instance, in Manitoba in 1971, a Cree Woman named Helen Betty Osborne was walking home alone when four White men beat, raped, and brutally murdered her. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) didn’t begin a serious investigation into the murder, however, until 1983. Though four men were identified as complicit in the crime, only one, Dwayne Johnston, was convicted of murder. Furthermore, it wasn’t until 1999 that the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry confirmed that the crime was racially motivated.
King uses the murder of Osborne to show how racism influences how the law is enforced when, in theory, the opposite should be true—the law should keep racism and racist attacks in check. The failure of Canadian authorities to convict more than one man of the crime, too, resembles other instances King has provided to demonstrate the government’s failure to protect its indigenous population. Schmitz, for example, beat Wesley Bad Heart Bill to death in Custer, South Dakota and spent only a single day in jail (as outlined in Chapter 6).
Themes
King next focuses on three suspicious, seemingly connected deaths of Native men in Saskatoon. Each of the men was found frozen to death in the same area outside of town. Eventually, it came to light that, at least since 1976, Saskatoon police officers had a practice of driving Native men to the outskirts of town and leaving them for dead. In local urban folklore, the practice was known as “Starlight Tours.” After a public inquiry, police involved in the crimes had “their reputations impugned,” but the most severe sentence served was a mere eight months in prison.
As of 2021, no Saskatoon police officer has been convicted in the freezing deaths of the indigenous men who died in the “Starlight Tours.” Furthermore, between 2012 and 2016, the “Starlight tours” section of the Wikipedia entry for the Saskatoon Police Service was deleted multiple times. An investigation revealed that the edits came from a computer associated with the police service. This scandal illustrates the police service’s quite literal effort to rewrite history to obscure their complicitly in violence committed against the indigenous population.
Themes
King ends his survey of racially motivated legal sanctions and crimes committed against Indians in North America with the conclusion that it’s impossible to forget the past, since the aftermath of these atrocities is irrevocably intertwined with the present.
The rhetorical exercise of forgetting the past that King employs in this chapter proves futile. By extension, King suggests that simply moving on from such a horrific and difficult past is illogical, counterproductive, and even impossible.
Themes
