Native Americans have fought to protect their land and water resources from oil and gas extraction and from pipelines and fossil fuel export terminals that traverse their reservation lands, off-reservation lands and public lands to which they hold historical and cultural ties. The Trump administration reversed tribes’ hard-won successes and exacerbated centuries of prior injustices. Trump asserted disputed presidential powers to permit the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, to shrink national monuments, including the Bears Ears National Monument, the first national monument proposed and co-managed by Native American tribes, and to open former monument lands to drilling. In their fight against these decisions, tribes advanced legal arguments based on federal laws, including environmental laws, and asserted their rights to reservation lands and their treaty hunting, fishing and gathering rights on off-reservation lands. Within reservations, tribes, like other Americans, are grappling with whether to rely on fossil fuels or to transition to renewable energy. The appointment of Representative Debra Haaland, who led Congress’s efforts to protect Native American lands and public lands, as the first Native American secretary of the Interior offers hope for a reset in US government relations with the first sovereign nations.

Connecting what happens on Indian reservations with challenges facing the United States, Chapter 1 highlights the significance of what happens in Indian country to those living in neighboring and even distant communities. Chapter 1 also presents in brief the major themes of the book—the heavy federal role in reservation development and resource exploitation, the importance of improving tribal self-governance, and the ways in which land use decisions shape reservation life—and emphasizes the centrality of both history and institutional development in understanding Indian nations today.