HIS200 Northeast Montessori ANCSA Complexity and Contingency Assignment

Description

Based on your reading in the webtext, select one of the following thesis statements. Your response should be two to three paragraphs in length.

1. The Alaska Native Regional Corporations (ANCSA) and the Native corporation system have been good for Alaska Natives.

2. ANCSA and the Native corporation system have been bad for Alaska Natives.

Next, revise the statement you have chosen to reflect the complexity of the historical events surrounding this issue. Provide specific examples of how ANCSA and the Native corporation system have had a positive or negative impactor perhaps bothon Alaska Natives. Further illustrate the complexity of this issue by showing how the passage of ANCSA was contingent on at least three historical events or forces.

In March 1867, Tsar Alexander II of Russia agreed to sell “Russian America” (quickly renamed the “Department of Alaska”) to the United States. Under the Treaty of Cession, the U.S. government paid the Tsar $7.2 million for a territory that comprised 586,412 square milesroughly two cents an acre. (To see the text of the treaty, click here.)

Iñupiat with a Native skinboat, or umiak, 1935. (Click button for citation)

But who really owned all that land? At the time of the Alaska Purchase, Secretary of State William H. Seward estimated that the Native population of Alaska was slightly less than 60,000. (Seward, 1891) These

All that changed in 1968, when the Atlantic-Richfield Company discovered oil at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s Arctic Coast. It quickly became apparent that the most effective way to get crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to markets in the Lower 48 would be to build a pipeline to carry the oil to the port of Valdez in southern Alaska. (Banet 1991) But to build the pipeline, the oil companies would need http://dggs.alaska.gov/webpubs/outside/text/blm_ofr_034.pdf, October 6, 2017.

Jones, R. (1981). “Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (Public Law 92-203): History and Analysis Together With Subsequent Amendments (Report No. 81-127 GOV).” Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.

Seward, F. W. (1891) Seward at Washington as Senator and Secretary of State. New York: Derby and Miller.

Turner, W. (1982). “Areas as Vast as Whole States Now Change Hands in Alaska.” The New York Times, October 8, 1982.

ANCSA and Native Corporations

Alaska was admitted to the Union as the 49th state on January 3, 1959. Under the terms of the Alaska Statehood Act, the federal government would transfer ownership of up to 104.5 million acres of land to the new state, but none of this would be land that was subject to Native claims. (Alaska Statehood Act, 1958. To read the law, click here. )

Former Alaska Governor Walter Hickel. (Click button for citation)

The law gave the state 25 years to select which tracts of land it wanted. In the 1960s, the state began to make its selectionsbut much of the land it wanted was subject to Native claims. Several Native groups filed lawsuits to stop the land selections, and the

On December 18, 1971, President Nixon signed into law the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (

A Tlingit totem pole in Sitka, Alaska. Click on the image to go to the Smithsonian’s Alaska Native Collections. (Click button for citation)

ANCSA was generally well-received in Alaska by both Natives and non-Natives. After years of legal wrangling over exactly who was entitled to Native corporation shares, many of those corporations have grown into successful businesses that generate substantial dividends and provide thousands of jobs for Native shareholders. And, by removing one critical barrier to construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, ANCSA paved the way for the emergence of the state’s “oil economy,” which has generated substantial economic benefits for both Natives and non-Natives. (Alaska Humanities Forum, 2016)

One unique aspect of Alaska’s “oil economy” is the Alaska Permanent Fund, a state fund that collects 25 percent of all oil-land royalties and invests those funds for the benefit of all Alaskans. The Fund, which in 2015 amounted to more than $51 billion, pays a yearly dividend to every qualified Alaskan; in 2015, that meant a dividend check of $2,072 for virtually every man, woman, and child in the state. (Klint and Doogan, 2015) By enabling construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, ANCSA in a very real sense made the Permanent Fund, and its yearly dividend checks, possible.

Still, the law remains controversial, especially among Natives who believe it weakens ties to Native heritage. (Thomas, 1985) Almost a half-century after its passage, the jury is still out on whether ANCSA was a “good deal” or a “raw deal” for Natives. But it is, in almost every respect, a very different sort of deal than that received by any other group of Natives in American history.

Week 8 Short Responses

Historians, like judges and juries, come to conclusions after considering all the evidence. A http://www.akhistorycourse.org/modern-alaska/alaska-native-claims-settlement-act, June 10, 2016.

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), (1971). Public Law 92-203, 43 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.

Alaska Statehood Act (1958). Public Law 85-508, 72 Stat. 339.

Klint, C. and Doogan, S. (2015). “$2,072: 2015 Alaska Permanent Fund dividend amount announced.” Alaska Dispatch News, September 21, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.adn.com/economy/article/2015-pfd-announcement-just-hours-away-anchorage/2015/09/21/.

Linxwiler, J. (2007) The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act at 35: Delivering on the Promise. Retrieved from http://www.lbblawyers.com/ancsa/ANCSA%20at%2035%20Delivering%20on%20the%20Promise%20Proof%2010-25-07.pdf.

Naske, C-M. (1994). Alaska: A History of the 49th State. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Thomas, M. (1986). “The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: Conflict and Controversy.” Polar Record, Vol. 23, No. 142, 27 – 36.

Native Corporations : Further Readings

So, what’s the bottom linehas ANCSA been a success or a failure? Have the Native corporations benefited the Native community, or not?

If you look only at the bottom linethat is, just at the economic performance of the Native corporations themselvesit’s fair to say that, after a rocky start, many of the regional corporations have done fairly well. In 2004, seven of the top ten Alaska-owned business were Native regional corporations, which distributed $117.5 million in shareholder dividends, employed 3,116 Native shareholders, and paid $5.4 million in scholarships for Native students, (Linxwiler, 2007)

Like much of the oil-dependent Alaska economy, the regional corporations are highly sensitive to fluctuations in the price of oil, and their performance in any given year will reflect whether the oil business is doing well or poorly. Nonetheless, many of these corporations have matured as businesses and are providing significant economic benefits for their Native shareholders.

The economic performance of the village corporations has been spottier. Many of the village corporations were located in remote rural areas with extremely limited opportunities for economic development. While some village corporationsparticularly those in more densely populated areas with easy access to outside marketshave fared well, others have been force to merge or have gone out of business. (Thomas, 1985)

But is economic performance all that really matters? While ANCSA was designed only to provide Alaska Natives with opportunities for economic development, many Natives saw the corporation system as a substitute foror a rival tothe traditional structures of tribal government. Among Alaska Natives, tribes are generally associated with individual villages (American Indian Resource Directory, 2016); many of the successful village corporations have established nonprofit agencies to provide health care and other social services to Native shareholders. At the same time, the pressure to turn a profit led many corporations, both regional and village, to bring in outside executives to run the businessesbypassing tribal leaders and Elders, who have traditionally had a revered place in Alaska Native society.

In recent years, many Natives have questioned the extent to which the corporation system might be supplanting some tribal structures and weakening ties to Native heritage. In some areas, tribal government has seen a resurgence in importance.

The readings in this learning block look at two sides of the ANCSA question: the economic performance of the Native corporations and their relationship to the Native heritage and tribal structures. Both articles are taken from the same academic journal: Journal of Land, Resources, and Environmental Law, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Winter, 2005).

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“Our Lives Are Not Measured in Dollars”
Economic Performance of the Regional Corporations

ANCSA Unrealized: Our Lives Are Not Measured in Dollars

The following excerpt is from an article by James Allaway, a professor and expert on sustainable economic development, and Byron Mallett, former president of the Alaska Federation of Natives and former CEO of Sealaska, one of the larger Native regional corporations. You can read it at this link, which will take you to the Journal of Land, Resources, and Environmental Law; you can find this specific article in the Table of Contents on the left side of the page. Click on the title of the article to read, download, and print a copy of the text. These readings are provided by the Shapiro Library. This reading is required. You will have to log into Shapiro Library with your SNHU credentials.

One of the legacies of ANCSA’s short history is the confusion it has caused, including confusion over governing structures. Certainly in Southeast Alaska we have known that clans, family, and family relationships were critical in the conduct of our affairs. I think this was the case all across the state.

Existing traditional governing groups, with their relationships and structures, did not go away with ANCSA. In fact, especially in the last decade, there has been a resurgence of those institutions. The resurgence has been felt and seen all across the state, particularly because there was a universal sense that ANCSA, and other efforts that deal with our circumstances, were not getting at the core of what we needed.

It is crucial that there is a place for traditional tribal governmental structures. I think the emergence of tribes in recent years is not so much about governmental structures, but is a reassertion that we will take hold of our own lives. We will be responsible for our destinies, which is a powerful ideal. It also places a profound obligation on Native people.

There is a vital place for Elders here. We cannot know the past and have a sense of values, we cannot have a sense of place or purpose, without Elders. Elders are an important part of the spiritual path. They carry the fire. We do not need to institutionalize the role of Elders, other than to sustain them materially. If we do, they will sustain us spiritually.

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Discussion

Please review the discussion prompt for this module in Brightspace.

References

American Indian Resource Directory (2016). Alaska Native Villages. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20051125001107/http://www.indians.org/Resource/FedTribes99/Region1/region1.html, June 10, 2016.

Thomas, M. (1986). “The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: Conflict and Controversy.” Polar Record, Vol. 23, No. 142, 27 – 36.

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