Contemporary Authors

PERSONAL

Male.

Montana State University, M.A.; University of Virginia, Ph.D.; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, J.D.

ADDRESS

• Office - Department of History, Christopher Newport University, McMurran Hall 311, 1 Avenue of the Arts, Newport News, VA 23606.

CAREER

Historian, educator, and writer. Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, assistant professor of history.

WRITINGS

• Sovereignty for Survival: American Energy Development and Indian Self-Determination, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2015

SIDELIGHTS

Historian James Robert Allison III is interested in energy and environmental history, modern American Indian history, and modern American history. His writings have focused primarily on American Indians and energy development. In his book titled Sovereignty for Survival: American Energy Development and Indian Self-Determination, Allison examines how American Indians have successfully blocked powerful energy corporations from developing coal reserves on sovereign Indian lands. Focusing on the efforts in the 1970s of a coalition of Native Americans in the Northern Plains, Allison shows how the tribes leveraged their possession of energy resources in a way that enabled them to significantly increase tribal sovereignty while also participating in global energy development.

 “This story … is not another romantic account celebrating valiant but largely unsuccessful  fights for freedom on the Northern Plains,” Allison writes in the introduction to Sovereignty for Survival, adding: “It is, instead, a powerful tale of tribes becoming skilled negotiators, sophisticated energy developers, expert land managers, and more effective governing bodies.” Allison goes on note that his book examines how the Native Americans put in the effort to understand “the complicated legal, political, and economic mechanisms governing their lands and created a sovereign space where tribes decide the fate of their resources.”

Allison begins by discussing the tribal leasing regimes and the energy demands following World War II. After the war numerous multination energy firms began to seek out the abundant resources they knew were accessible beneath Native American reservations. Outdated U.S. federal laws encouraged these companies’ efforts to retrieve the resources. The laws, according to Allison, were based on long-held ideologies surrounding the belief that Native Americans were not able to manage wisely their natural resources within the context of capitalism. Rather, trustees were appointed to survey reservation land and identify appropriate areas for energy development. Allison points out, however, that the trustees were largely ill-equipped to carry out this task and ended up ceding their duties to the energy developers. As a result, by the 1970s energy companies had opened up millions of acres of reservation land for prospecting and mining.

While the energy companies were reaping the profits from the mining efforts, the Native Americans became increasingly concerned about the impact on their lives, even though the energy boom was bringing jobs and money into the reservations. Then the Northern Cheyenne decided to take a stand, in order to ensure the survival of their tribe and tribal sovereignty over their lands. The Cheyenne were living at the epicenter of a booming business in western, low-sulfur coal. One of the main concerns of the Cheyenne was that hordes of outsiders would soon be invading their reservation and would end up negatively impacting the tribe’s social customs and cultural norms. A secondary concern was the environmental impact on their lands. As a result, the Cheyenne started a grassroots campaign.

Initially, the grassroots campaign focused on a specific mining operation the Northern Cheyenne viewed as a threat to their way of life. Allison details this campaign and goes on to examine how the tribe went on to mobilize other tribes in similar situations into a national coalition. One goal was to educate other tribe leaders about what the Cheyenne had learned in opposing an outside mining operation. The second goal was to form a coalition of Native Americans in the Northern Plains to demand changes in federal laws.

The coalition’s challenge to both corporate leaders and federal authorities led to significant changes in federal laws that resulted in expanded Native American sovereignty. According to Allison, it also resulted in a significant rise in tribal entrepreneurship. Allison also delves into the controversies and debates within Native American communities as a result of the coalition’s efforts. Many of the debates revolved around issues of governance and management of tribal lands. B.E. Johansen, writing for Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, called Sovereignty for Survival “a partial primer for a much broader problem” related to the large number of U.S. Superfund sites on Indian lands established to clean up hazardous substances and various pollutants.

BIOCRIT
BOOKS

• Allison, James Robert, III, Sovereignty for Survival: American Energy Development and Indian Self-Determination, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2015.

PERIODICALS

• Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June, 2016, B.E. Johansen, review of  Sovereignty for Survival: American Energy Development and Indian Self-Determination, p. 1529.

ONLINE

• Department of History, Christopher Newport University Web site, (April 22, 2017), author faculty profile.