The Inconvenient Indian

The Inconvenient Indian

by

Thomas King

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Sovereignty Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
History and Mythology   Theme Icon
Racism and Systemic Oppression  Theme Icon
Land  Theme Icon
Sovereignty  Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Inconvenient Indian, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Sovereignty  Theme Icon

In Chapter 8, “What Indians Want,” King states, “If Native people are to have a future that is of our own making, such a future will be predicated, in large part, on sovereignty.” The definition of sovereignty is “supreme and unrestricted authority,” though King contends that sovereignty, in practice, is rarely unrestricted or absolute. In the context of North American Indian-White relations, sovereignty refers to tribes’ or bands’ ability to conduct their affairs without the economic or political interference of their respective federal governments. Although numerous treaties (not to mention both Canada’s and the U.S.’s constitutions, as well as the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) recognize Aboriginal peoples’ legal right to self-governance, in practice, Canada and the U.S. have historically (and continue to) attack this right through treaties and legal loopholes that leave tribes with what is, at most, “partial sovereignty.” For instance, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that tribes had the right to develop gaming operations on tribal land, the U.S. Congress responded by passing the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), which required tribes to negotiate with states over which gaming was allowed on reservations.

Furthermore, the IGRA forced tribes to sign over to the state substantial percentages of the profits they earned from gaming operations, despite the fact that they were the “sole owners and primary beneficiaries” of these operations. In effect, the IGRA encroached on tribes’ ability to take full economic advantage of their sovereign status. King goes further, arguing that non-Native North Americans’ support for sovereignty extends only so far as it benefits them financially: for instance, waste management companies became fervent supports of tribal sovereignty when it offered them the possibility of surpassing U.S. environmental regulations by leasing out sections of tribal reservations to use as landfills. The controversial subject of tribal sovereignty and the federal government’s repeated attempts to undermine tribes’ right to self-governance underscores the connection between economic development and Native cultural longevity.

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Sovereignty ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Sovereignty appears in each chapter of The Inconvenient Indian. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Sovereignty Quotes in The Inconvenient Indian

Below you will find the important quotes in The Inconvenient Indian related to the theme of Sovereignty .
Chapter 2. The End of the Trail Quotes

But if you look at the sculpture a second time, you can easily reason that the horse is resisting. Its front legs are braced and its back legs are dug in. American expansion be damned. This pony is not about to go gentle into that good night. Such a reading might be expanded to reimagine our doleful Indian as a tired Indian, who, at any moment, will wake up refreshed, lift up his spear, and ride off into the twenty-first century and beyond.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker), James Earle Fraser
Related Symbols: The End of the Trail
Page Number: 32-33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3. Too Heavy to Lift Quotes

Whites have always been comfortable with Dead Indians.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Related Symbols: Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:

Dead Indians are dignified, noble, silent, suitably garbed. And dead. Live Indians are invisible, unruly, disappointing. And breathing. One is a romantic reminder of a heroic but fictional past. The other is simply an unpleasant, contemporary surprise.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Related Symbols: Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5. We Are Sorry Quotes

Throughout the history of Indian–White relations in North America, there have always been two impulses afoot. Extermination and assimilation.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 101
Explanation and Analysis:

Pratt’s plan was a simple one. North America would have to kill the Indian in order to save the man. “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man” was the exact quotation, and while it sounds harsh, it was an improvement on Philadelphia lawyer Henry Pancoast’s 1882 suggestion that “We must either butcher them [Indians] or civilize them, and what we do we must do quickly.”

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker), Richard Pratt (speaker)
Page Number: 107-108
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6. Like Cowboys and Indians Quotes

At the end of the twenty-five-year trust period, each allottee would own their own allotment free and clear, and Indians, who had been communal members of a tribe, would now be individual, private land owners. Reservations would disappear. Indians would disappear. The “Indian Problem” would disappear. Private ownership of land would free Indians from the tyranny of the tribe and traditional Native culture, and civilize the savage.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 130-131
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7. Forget about It Quotes

Ignore the past. Play in the present.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:

What happens next is complicated, illegal, and sleazy. But, given the history of Indian affairs, not unexpected. The states, along with the federal government and private interests, made it quite clear that while tribes might have the legal right to run gaming enterprises on their reservations, that right could be tied up in the courts until hell froze over. What we need, tribes were told by the powers that be, is a compromise. Compromise is a fine word. So much more generous than blackmail.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 177-178
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8. What Indians Want Quotes

If Native people are to have a future that is of our own making, such a future will be predicated, in large part, on sovereignty.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis:

But instead of pursuing the American dream of accumulating land as personal wealth, the tribes have taken their purchases to the Secretary of the Interior and requested that the land they acquired be added to their respective reservations and given trust status. This is not merely a return to a communal past. It is a shrewd move to preserve and expand an indigenous land base for the benefit of future generations.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 211
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10. Happy Ever After Quotes

Ignorance has never been the problem. The problem was and continues to be unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity. And arrogance. Perhaps it is unfair to judge the past by the present, but it is also necessary.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 265
Explanation and Analysis:

So long as we possess one element of sovereignty, so long as we possess one parcel of land, North America will come for us, and the question we have to face is how badly we wish to continue to pursue the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination.

Related Characters: Thomas King (speaker)
Page Number: 265
Explanation and Analysis: