Within days of her election as president of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) earlier this month, Fawn Sharp spoke before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States Oversight Hearing on the “Broken Promises Report.”
She pressed Congress to make good on funding promises that, she said, continue fall woefully behind 16 years after the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights first brought them to the attention of U.S. legislators.
Sharp comes to the job of president of the oldest and largest national Indian organization after leading (and continuing the lead) the Quinault Indian Nation of about 3,000 members based in Washington state south of the Olympic Peninsula two hours’ drive from Port Angeles. Its reservation has about 200,000 acres, 31 miles of coastline, lakes, rivers, beaches and rainforest.
The national organization she will lead for the next two years was founded in 1944 as a response to the termination and assimilation policies the U.S. Congress was pursuing at the time. Sharp was elected at the 76th Annual NCAI Convention in Albuquerque.
The “Broken Promises Report” is a 2018 document that examines federal funding shortfalls in Indian Country. First issued in 2003 by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) “A Quiet Crisis: Federal Funding and Unmet Needs in Indian Country” aka the “Broken Promises Report,” found that funding for Indian Country was ““disproportionately lower than funding for services to other populations.” It was updated in 2018 as “Broken Promises: Continuing Federal Funding Shortfall for Native Americans,” where it found that many of the same discrepancies continued to exist.
In her statement to the committee just days after assuming the mantle of NCAI leadership, Sharp said, “The report found that in the past fifteen years, efforts undertaken by the federal government have resulted in only minor improvements across Indian Country. Additionally, the report noted that federal programs serving Indian Country continue to be underfunded and, in some ways, federal initiatives for Native Americans have regressed. Specifically, the commission found that ‘Federal programs designed to support the social and economic wellbeing of Native Americans remain chronically underfunded and sometimes inefficiently structured, which leaves many basic needs in the Native American community unmet and contributes to the inequities observed in Native American communities.’ ”
Sharp told the subcommittee: “Tribal nations seek only those things promised to them and their citizens by the solemn treaties and agreements reached between tribal nations and the United States. When tribal nations agreed to cede millions of acres of land, the federal government promised to safeguard their right to govern themselves, and to provide them adequate resources to deliver essential services effectively.”
Drawing on the experiences of her own Quinault Nation, she referenced the Treaty of Olympia of 1856 and declared, “Over the past several years, the United States has continued to fall short of meeting its treaty obligations as appropriations cuts, sequestration, government shut-downs, inflation, and other factors impede the federal government’s ability to meet its trust responsibility.”
Federal government shortfalls to her nation amounted to $6 million that the Quinault were forced “to supplement inadequate levels of federal funding,” she said.
When she was running for president of NCAI, Sharp said, “I believe there is tremendous strength and power all across Indian country and I’m excited to unify tribal nations to advance a new agenda of tribal sovereignty, civil rights, economic prosperity and to harness all the strength and energy that lies within Indian country.”
The “significant goal,” that she seeks to pursue is, “ to ensure that tribal nations have political equality not only with the United States but with countries globally. Because we all know that the creator gifted us with certain things, including the right to access traditional foods, the right to govern freely without external interference; access to our lands, our homelands. These are things that we all know to be true but the U.S. through the course of history and the centuries has worked to actively diminish those very precious resources that the creator gifted to us. We’ve seen a recent turn in the United States but we know it could be so much better for all of us in Indian Country.”
Sharp was born May 20, 1970 at the end of the “termination era”; a traumatic time for many Indians, when the Congress made a concerted effort to end the reservation system, and terminated many tribes as federally recognized.
In an exclusive interview with Global Gaming Business News, Sharp said, “I felt I was called at this time to advance tribal self-determination. I knew at the age of 12 what treaty abrogation was.”
“Treaty abrogation” as she refers to it, are the struggles the tribe has fought against the state of Washington over the rights of the Quinault guaranteed by the Treaty of Olympia, including fishing rights along the tribe’s coastline.
Sharp wanted to be an attorney and to fight for her people from a young age. She rose to become the Attorney General for the Quinault Nation after serving as both a tribal judge and a tax judge for Washington state. She was 25 when she was appointed a tribal court judge and three years later appointed a tax judge, splitting her time between the two jobs.
“My role as a judge helped me to understand that injustices aren’t always as they appear,” said Sharp. “There are root causes for behaviors and injustices. Oftentimes attorneys don’t bring the full spectrum of the law into a courtroom, but a judge is free to look at all sources of law, to seek justice as sought by attorneys. My role as an arbitrator was to look at things that are below the surface, not only legality and principles but natural law. To have that experience just out of law school was invaluable.”
In 2005, when she was 35, tribal elders urged her to run for public office. She took a leave of absence from her position as tribal Attorney General. “I spent time meeting and talking with elders. I never campaigned. I ran a traditional campaign, which means I don’t campaign,” she recalled.
Sharp considers herself a reflection of her people. “I’m asked what are the strengths of the nation. We have a very active and engaged citizenly and it has been that way all my life,” she said. “They are very engaged and it’s reflective of having robust policies and a tribal sovereignty, and a strong sense of identity through cultural practices and spirituality.”
She added, “I believe tribal leaders to be that voice of the citizens they serve currently but those who have gone before, and the voice of those left to be born. When a tribal leader speaks they are speaking for hundreds of thousands of Quinault, past, current and future, to honor the leaders of our past.”
Sharp won the presidency of NCAI with nearly 62 percent of the vote, with the runner up of the three other contenders getting less than 18 percent of the vote. Asked why she believes she won such a large majority, she said, “I think it was my platform that went beyond the issues. It seeks to address centuries of injustice, and it has a long-term vision: to recognition the moral standing that we have to lead in a range of issues for the entire world, including climate change, and human and individual rights. Presenting that kind of vision that was deeply rooted in achieving the bright future, searching deeply into the soul, and recognizing the strength that we bring not only to our tribe, but to our nation that wants real leadership, and to indigenous people around the world. I think presenting that type of agenda is universal and timeless and it’s the kind of thing our ancestors prayed for, that we would be prepared to defend and protect all that is sacred to us.”
The Quinault Nation, which proudly declares itself, “among the small number of Americans who can walk the same beaches, paddle the same waters, and hunt the same lands our ancestors did centuries ago,” operates the Quinault Beach Resort Ocean Shores Hotel and Casino.
Sharp believes that Indian gaming is “fulfilling its promise in that not only have we seen tribal economies transformed; in Washington state tribes are leading employers in our respective counties. It’s also fulfilling the promise that not only can we raise profits, it shows the extent with which we are subsidizing federal trust responsibilities.” She believes tribes should have the power of taxation that states have to, “close the gap of economic conditions.”
Sharp would like to use the economic leverage that gaming gives tribes in order to enter the field of international diplomacy. “I think gaming revenues could be utilized to participate in international gaming. It’s a great opportunity to engage in international trade, diplomacy and bilateral relationships with other countries,” she told GGB News.
Returning to the subject of the “Quiet Crisis Report” that she addressed to Congress, Sharp added, “My major takeaway from that is that it reinforces the previous report, and that even with a report that was issued to Congress in 2003, nothing has been done. We not only have a quiet crises we have a raging crises raging across Indian country.”
Sharp is just the third woman to serve as president of the NCAI in its 75 year history. “It inspires me in that I hope to be a role model and example for other women and young girls. I think when young people can see a female president, it inspires them to think that anything is possible.”
