Whistle when you hear how much money the Navajo Nation and other tribes have won in litigation with the federal government. For the Navajos, alone, a $554-million settlement for mismanagement made news today. Since 2010, eighty tribes have won a total of $2.61 billion for grievances by American Indians.
This news brings a number of thoughts and wonderings to my mind. Among them:
(1.) I think of a scripture of the LDS people, from the Book of Mormon, suggesting the American Indians would be nursed by others. I do not know if the federal government's care of the American natives is a fulfillment of that prophecy, but I wonder.
(2.) This $2.61 billion is is a discernible amount in the national debt. I do wish such a large sum was not required. However, if it is just dues, if we were wrong, we should pay it.
(3.) I understand a grievance from the Navajos was that the development of lands (causing water and uranium pollution, among other harms) was unwanted. I do so believe the reservations should belong to the native Americans, with them deciding how the lands are used and whether mining or other such activities should take place on those lands. The federal government manages the land? I believe it okay that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management manage the lands only if they do so at the direction of the tribes. We took all of America from the American Indians. Surely, we can at least let them have -- in every sense of the word -- the reservations for their own.
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