Why Native American communities suffer from poverty within their communities in the United States and Canada should be examined from the perspective of responsibility. Rather than recount the history of how Indian lands were taken from their original owners, it is more useful to directly address who is responsible for their economic woes today.

Within the United States, those with the direct responsibility of looking after the interests of Native Americans reside in Washington. According to a recent article in USA Today, Larry EchoHawk has been confirmed the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This branch of the Interior Department has supervised Indian affairs since 1887. In other words, the stewardship of Indian Affairs for 122 years has been the responsibility of the US government.

It is doubtful that anyone is proud of the job that Washington has done in seeing to the needs and interests of America's original residents. In addition to being vanquished on the battlefield, American Indians were banished from their lands and moved to reservations. Many Indian tribes entered into legal treaties with the US government that were eventually lost, or ignored.

The plight of poverty as relates to Native Americans in both the United States and Canada is a direct result of mismanagement, and disinterest. Bureaucrats who have had the responsibility to serve the interests of Indians must hang their heads in shame for having failed miserably those who depended upon them.

In addition, Native Americans have had no political clout. With no political power to this day, North America's original settlers are still at the very end of the political food chain. As a group, Native American communities have now lived generations within the vicious cycles of poverty, and lack of opportunity. Job and educational opportunities have eluded them within their own societies.

The problems of poverty do not exist solely for Native American descendants. All groups of citizens have pockets of poverty, but Indians have the added element that they must abandon their traditional heritage in order to find opportunity. That is the result of having been banished so many years ago to live in isolation from the rest of society.

Hopefully, the leadership of Larry EchoHawk will lead to educational and employment opportunities that have long eluded them. EchoHawk is a member of the Pawnee Indian Tribe, in addition to being a law professor from Brigham Young University.

If the Canadian and American governments continue to fail their responsibilities to properly administrate the affairs of their native populations, it will serve as fair warning to everyone that governments are not efficient at managing anything. Granting them license to control more aspects of life should be considered only with an eye to their past successes and failures. Beware of the power that you give them.

Learn more about this author, Bob Schmidt.
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