Sovereignty

Initially, Indian tribes were considered sovereign nations, a classification which endured after the initial formation of the United States; however, partly due to the increasing military power of the United States, a gradual erosion of sovereignty began to occur (Berman 128; Prucha 6-7). The United States began to believe that it could overpower Indian Nations if it chose to do so. The term was redefined after the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia case, and tribes were regarded as “domestic dependent nations”; this case, and others in the 1830s, established the meaning of the term that is still applied to Indian Nations today (Lyons 450-452).