WIKIPEDIA: Tribal sovereignty in the United States refers to the inherent authority of indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States of America. The US federal government recognizes tribal nations as "domestic dependent nations" and has established a number of laws attempting to clarify the relationship between the United States federal and state governments and the tribal nations. The Constitution and later federal laws grant to tribal nations more sovereignty than is granted to states or other local jurisdictions, yet do not grant full sovereignty equivalent to foreign nations, hence the term "domestic dependent nations...".

SOVEREIGN AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY MAP:

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TRIBAL GUIDE: Maps and websites of the sovereign, federally-recognized SOCAL Indian reservations.

SUE WOODROW minneapolisfed.org: Native American tribes consider SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY to be crucial for the protection of tribal resources and the promotion of tribal economic and social interests. Because of the uncertainties surrounding this doctrine, however, this very same tool of self-determination may be viewed as a significant obstacle to the non-Indian investor, lender or developer who otherwise may be interested in doing business in Indian Country. Accordingly, questions that have long been asked are: what is sovereign immunity? and what does it mean in the tribal context?....

Susan Woodrow is a senior counsel at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and an active volunteer at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

PUBLIC LAW 280:

WIKIPEDIA: Public Law 280 (Pub.L. 83-280, August 15, 1953) is a federal law of the United States establishing "a method whereby States may assume jurisdiction over reservation Indians," as stated by Arizona Supreme Court Justice....

Public Law 280 and Law Enforcement in Indian Country – Research Priorities

FULL TEXT www.tribal-institute.org

WIKIPEDIA: The Discovery Doctrine is a concept of public international law expounded by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions, most notably Johnson v. M'Intosh in 1823. The doctrine was Chief Justice John Marshall's explanation of the way in which colonial powers laid claim to newly discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Under it, title to newly discovered lands lay with the government whose subjects discovered new territory. The doctrine has been primarily used to support decisions invalidating or ignoring aboriginal possession of land in favor of colonial or post-colonial governments.

STEVE NEWCOMB
LEGACY, ORIGINS & US Law, Five Hundred Years of Injustice:

When Christopher Columbus first set foot on the white sands of Guanahani island, he performed a ceremony to "take possession" of the land for the king and queen of Spain, acting under the international laws of Western Christendom.

Although the story of Columbus' "discovery" has taken on mythological proportions in most of the Western world, few people are aware that his act of "possession" was based on a religious doctrine now known in history as the Doctrine of Discovery.

Even fewer people realize that today - five centuries later - the United States government still uses this archaic Judeo-Christian doctrine to deny the rights of Native American Indians....

Steven T. Newcomb wrote the book: "PAGANS PROMISED LAND • Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery".

WIKIPEDIA: The United States Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution...these limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property including freedoms of religion, speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.

Together these documents form the supreme law of the United States of America. They are the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.

But originally (1791), the Bill of Rights included legal protection for white men only and it excluded most other races in America, including Native Americans and all women.

Native Americans could not become U.S. citizens until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge. Yet even with the Indian Citizen Act legalized, U.S. citizenship and voting rights for American Indians were not easy procedures or a sure thing for most Native people who wanted them...women were granted the right to vote in 1920, but it wasn't until around 1959-1960 that Native American Indians could legally vote in every state.

One grassroots California Indian political organization who fought for Indian rights is the MISSION INDIAN FEDERATION (active 1919-1965). MIF members are credited for providing the backbone that today guarantees equal rights for American Indians as U.S. citizens under the United States Bill of Rights....

Click on photo for MIF poster.

Department of the Interior (DOI) letter, 2011:

The Department of the Interior has a solemn responsibility to uphold the federal government’s unique government-to-government relationship with federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes, as provided for by the Constitution of the United States, U.S. treaties and court decisions, presidential executive orders and federal policies and administrative actions.

We recognize that a legacy of injustice and broken promises shapes the history of the federal government’s relationship with the American Indian and Alaska Native people. We are therefore working to turn the page on the federal government’s pattern of neglect of this community and, instead, build a strategy for empowerment that helps the tribal nations forge futures of their own choosing.

To chart this new path, we are restoring the government-to-government relationship between the federal government and these tribal nations because “self-determination,” “sovereignty,” “self-government,” “empowerment,” and “self-reliance” are not abstract concepts. Rather, they are the tools that will enable tribal nations to shape their collective destiny. This is why Interior is committed to partnering with American Indian and Alaska Native communities to help them prosper by expanding education and employment opportunities for youth and adults, protecting lives and property by strengthening law enforcement, and building strong, sustainable tribal economies....

SOURCE | PDF

Source: www.doi.gov

Protectecting everyone's "rights" can get pretty complicated when trying to understand and interpret the Native American Indian sovereign "rights" to expand their modest reservation-based gaming casino operations into the world-wide Internet gambling market where even more billions of dollars are at stake....

INDIAN CASINO FINDER with high-resolution Casino Map Locator, FAQ, Research Study Guide to all the best Indian casinos and resorts in Southern California.