Holders of the pragmatic sovereignty viewpoint argue that tribal sovereignty - as recognized and exercised within the United States legal and political system - is a functional and valuable framework that indigenous nations should pursue, defend, and expand, regardless of its historical origins or theoretical impurities. Proponents do not necessarily deny that the sovereignty framework was shaped by colonial legal history or that it imposes certain organizational requirements on tribal governments. They contend, rather, that sovereignty rights as they currently exist provide genuine protections for land, resources, self-governance, and cultural continuity, and that abandoning or undermining them would leave indigenous communities worse off. This position is held by tribal governments, federal Indian law practitioners, many indigenous elected officials, and a substantial portion of indigenous legal and policy scholars.

The most basic argument of pragmatic sovereignty proponents is empirical: tribal sovereignty, as recognized under federal law, produces real and measurable protections. Federally recognized tribes exercise governmental authority over their territories, operate tribal courts, administer social services, control land use, manage natural resources, and in many cases generate economic activity through enterprises that non-tribal jurisdictions cannot regulate or tax. These are not abstract legal entitlements - they translate into housing, health care, language programs, and the physical presence of indigenous communities on ancestral land. Proponents argue that whatever the doctrinal genealogy of these rights, the communities that hold them are better positioned than those that do not.

Pragmatic sovereignty proponents acknowledge that the Marshall Trilogy¹⁾²⁾³⁾ and the federal trust relationship emerged from a legal order organized around indigenous dispossession. They argue, however, that the question of origins is separate from the question of current utility. Many legal rights held by subordinated groups were produced by systems those groups did not design and did not consent to - what matters is whether those rights can be wielded effectively in the present. The Constitution was drafted by slaveholders; labor law emerged from decades of struggle within a capitalist legal framework; civil rights law was extracted from a political system that enforced segregation. Proponents hold that the genealogy of a legal tool does not determine its present value.

Advocates of this viewpoint frequently argue that the practical alternative to pursuing sovereignty is not resurgence or self-determination outside the colonial framework - it is exposure to the full weight of state and federal authority without the protections that tribal status provides. Without recognized sovereignty, tribal lands would be subject to state jurisdiction, state taxation, and state regulatory control. Tribal members would lose the treaty rights, hunting and fishing protections, and federal trust obligations that sovereignty underwrites. Proponents argue that critics of the sovereignty framework, however sophisticated their theoretical objections, must reckon with this practical asymmetry: rejecting sovereignty does not dissolve the colonial state; it dissolves the legal buffer that stands between indigenous communities and that state's full jurisdictional reach.

Pragmatic proponents do not uniformly hold that the current sovereignty framework is adequate or that it should be accepted without further development. Many argue that tribal governments can and should expand their jurisdictional authority, develop their own legal traditions within the space sovereignty creates, and press Congress and the courts for stronger recognition of tribal rights. The 1978 American Indian Policy Review Commission recommendations, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978,⁴⁾ and the landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma decision of 2020⁵⁾ are cited as evidence that sovereignty can be a living framework capable of expansion rather than a fixed colonial imposition. Proponents hold that tribal governance can develop in culturally grounded directions while operating within the recognition system, and that many tribes have done exactly this.

Pragmatic proponents frequently invoke the history of federal termination policy - the mid-twentieth-century effort to dissolve tribal sovereignty and assimilate indigenous peoples into state jurisdictions - as the clearest evidence that sovereignty is worth defending. The Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin and the Klamath Tribe of Oregon, among others, suffered severe land loss, poverty, and community disintegration following termination before having their status restored through subsequent legislation. Proponents argue that this episode demonstrates concretely what the alternative to recognized sovereignty looks like in practice, and that it vindicates the policy of sovereignty defense pursued by tribal governments and advocates over the past half-century.

The pragmatic sovereignty position developed largely in response to the federal termination policy of the 1950s and early 1960s. As termination produced demonstrably destructive outcomes for affected tribes, indigenous advocacy organizations and tribal governments consolidated around a defense of the trust relationship and treaty rights. The National Congress of American Indians, founded in 1944, became a central institutional voice for this approach.

The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975⁶⁾ marked a legislative turning point, replacing the assimilationist model with a framework under which tribes could contract to administer federal programs themselves. This shift - from federal management of indigenous affairs to tribal self-administration within a federal funding structure - gave sovereignty a practical institutional content that strengthened the pragmatic case for pursuing it.

The development of federal Indian law as a distinct legal specialty, centered at institutions including the University of New Mexico School of Law and the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, provided the pragmatic position with sophisticated doctrinal elaboration. Scholars and practitioners in this tradition worked to expand the protective reach of tribal sovereignty through litigation and legislation rather than by contesting the framework's foundations.

The economic development dimension of the pragmatic position was substantially reinforced by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988⁷⁾ and the subsequent expansion of tribal gaming enterprises, which demonstrated that sovereignty rights could generate the revenue needed to fund tribal governments, social services, and cultural programs. For proponents, gaming revenue represents sovereignty functioning as intended - enabling genuine self-governance rather than dependence on federal appropriations.

Felix S. Cohen (1907-1953) - Non-indigenous attorney and philosopher who, as Associate Solicitor of the Interior Department, drafted the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934⁸⁾ and authored the foundational Handbook of Federal Indian Law (1942).⁹⁾ Cohen's work established the doctrinal architecture within which tribal sovereignty has been defended and expanded ever since, treating it as a body of rights to be strengthened through careful legal argument.

Wilma Mankiller (Cherokee Nation, 1945-2010) - First woman elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (1985-1995), whose tenure exemplified the pragmatic approach: expanding tribal governmental capacity, developing economic institutions, and rebuilding community infrastructure through the exercise of sovereignty rights within the federal framework. Mankiller held that sovereignty was the precondition for Cherokee self-determination and pursued its expansion through political and administrative means.¹⁰⁾

Philip S. Deloria (Standing Rock Sioux, 1937-2022) - Attorney, professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, and longtime director of the American Indian Law Center, whose scholarship and advocacy focused on expanding tribal governmental authority and developing indigenous legal institutions within the federal recognition system.

Carole Goldberg - Law professor at UCLA and co-author of a leading federal Indian law casebook,¹¹⁾ whose work has engaged practically with the mechanisms of tribal sovereignty and the conditions under which it can be strengthened. Goldberg has argued that sovereignty rights, properly understood and enforced, provide indigenous communities with the governmental authority needed for genuine self-determination.

Kevin Washburn (Chickasaw Nation) - Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law and former Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs (2012-2015), whose scholarship and policy work have focused on the practical functioning of tribal governance and the conditions under which federal Indian law best serves indigenous communities.

David Wilkins (Lumbee) - Political scientist and author of American Indian Politics and the American Political System,¹²⁾ whose scholarship examines tribal sovereignty as a political and legal resource that indigenous nations must actively manage and defend within the American federal system.

A significant internal tension concerns the degree to which sovereignty-based governance should accommodate or mirror non-indigenous governmental forms. Some pragmatic proponents hold that tribal governments should adopt constitutional structures, separation of powers, and due process protections similar to those of non-tribal governments, both to strengthen their credibility in federal courts and to protect tribal members. Others argue that this approach risks trading cultural distinctiveness for legal legitimacy, producing governments that look indigenous but operate according to alien institutional logics. The development of the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968¹³⁾ and subsequent litigation over its application has been a central arena for this dispute.

Pragmatic sovereignty proponents share with the broader indigenous policy community deep disagreement over membership criteria - specifically, whether federally recognized tribes should maintain blood quantum requirements. Defenders of blood quantum argue that it protects tribal sovereignty by enabling tribes to define their own membership without federal interference, and that it prevents the dilution of trust assets and treaty rights. Critics within the pragmatic camp argue that blood quantum is itself a federal imposition that has no basis in indigenous tradition and functions to shrink tribal rolls over time, ultimately serving termination goals by other means. This debate has no settled resolution within the pragmatic viewpoint.

Some pragmatic proponents have expressed concern that tribal gaming revenues, while genuinely beneficial, create new dependencies and distortions. Tribes that generate substantial gaming income may face political pressure to prioritize revenue protection over other sovereignty interests; those that do not have gaming enterprises may find that the visibility of wealthy gaming tribes obscures their own needs. There is also internal debate about whether economic development through gaming strengthens sovereignty by funding tribal government or subtly reorients tribal governance toward commercial rather than political ends.

A longstanding internal debate concerns the federal trust relationship itself - whether it should be understood as a protective obligation that tribes should demand the federal government fulfill, or as a form of guardianship that infantilizes tribal governments and should be transformed into a more equal government-to-government relationship. The latter position has gained ground as tribal governmental capacity has increased, but the former remains influential among communities where federal trust resources represent a significant portion of tribal budgets.

• Tribal Sovereignty - Main topic
• Tribal Sovereignty - History
• Tribal Sovereignty - Debate
• Tribal Sovereignty - Colonial Imposition Viewpoint
• Tribal Sovereignty - Restorationist Viewpoint
• Tribal Sovereignty - Federal Law Consensus
• Doctrine of Discovery
• Indian Self-Determination
• Federal Trust Relationship