American Indians and the History of U.S. Foreign Relations
Diplomatic History, Vol. 39(5), Article Review No. 620, Pp. 943-954, November 2015
10 Pages Posted: 29 Jun 2016 Last revised: 16 Jul 2016
Date Written: November 1, 2015
Abstract
Professor Miller agrees with the conclusions of these three professor-authors that U.S. foreign affairs scholars have almost completely overlooked Indian nations and individual Indian actors. It appears that this omission has occurred primarily because of the statement by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1831 that tribes are "domestic dependent nations." In contrast, though, foreign affairs and foreign relations scholars should focus intently on the relations between American Indian nations and the United States because they were truly "foreign relations." As Miller wrote in 1993, the "United States-tribal relations were the major foreign policy concern of the United States for many decades after the Revolution." Thus, the United States' diplomatic and government-to-government relationships with the Indian nations is most properly a matter of American foreign relations study rather than merely an issue of American domestic history.
Keywords: American Indian Nations, U.S. Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, American Indian Foreign Affairs
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