What was imposed on indigenous Americans is coming to the settlers.
Political scientist Robert Putnam made creative use of the concept “social capital” in his book Bowling Alone, chronicling the diminution of social capital in modern America. The relevance of bowling to social cohesion is that the number of lines bowled went up while — at the same time — bowling leagues were shutting down.
Social capital is the glue that keeps us from having to lock our doors and from needing institutions to care for orphans and the elderly. A society that is rich in social capital can better endure shortages of economic capital. During the Great Depression, my grandmother used to tell me, few people had anything but those who did, shared.
Some reservations exist in a permanent depression by design where people were involuntarily settled on lands inadequate to support them. The foreseeable result was there were few jobs and tribal government-controlled those that did exist.
In a society that retains high social capital, the crime rate would stay low even as incomes remained inadequate. The sick and elderly would lack nothing that could be provided by labor. The able-bodied unemployed would keep the wood chopped and the water hauled and the roof patched with whatever materials could be put together. (Mashed tin cans will work for shingles in a pinch.)
In a society with low social capital, competition for the few jobs is fought by political means and whether you work depends on whom you know rather than your skills. Alcohol and drugs pass the time, young people go unsupervised, and the crime rate does exactly what you would expect. You have a rural version of the inner city.
If your tribal nation or city or other political subdivision is rich in social capital, good for you.
If not, you have to decide what to do if you don’t want to leave. The United States has plenty of ideas for you.
First, you can ban alcohol and drugs from your community if you believe you are so different from the U.S. that the result will not be the creation of a new criminal class with money to entice your children outside the law.
Second, you can forget your traditions of restorative justice and adopt the white folks’ idea of retributive justice. After all, retribution has worked so well for the U.S. that it imprisons more people per capita than any other country.
Those tribes that had no restorative justice traditions had only punishment of the body: pain or death. Few human cages were required; a whipping post and a gallows were the only necessary criminal justice accoutrements. No Indian nation locked people up for longer than it took to sober up a drunk.
In modern times, banishment is the equivalent of the death penalty and it has the advantage of being reversible if you make a mistake, as you certainly will because every justice system does. Banishment from an Indian community with little social capital is probably a sentence to a big city neighborhood of the same character. Failure to banish is a judgment call that someone who has offended against the community is ready to contribute social capital rather than expend it. The character of the community is the sum of all individual decisions about who helps and who hurts.
Social capital can be regained. Many tribes have awakened to the links between language retention and their peoplehood and so they spend money to encourage elders to “talk Indian” to youngsters. History education tends to preserve social capital, too, since most of us have some ordeal in our past that binds us together as long as we have the memory.
Assimilation forces like so many cultural tsunamis have hit most east coast tribes. Most Oklahoma tribes are victims of both removal from lands once considered sacred and then involuntary allotment of reservation lands. When and if they acquire the means, these culturally battered peoples do not hesitate to spend on preserving what is left and regaining what can be regained.
The Mashantucket Pequots, stereotypical “rich” casino Indians, have spent lavishly on restoration of their roots. Why do they need restoring? Well, if you read Moby Dick, you might remember the ship was called the “Pequod.” That is a variant on Pequot and a tipoff to readers of Herman Melville’s time that the ship was doomed, like the Pequots.
Or not, if the modern Pequots have their way.
While social capital and economic capital are not the same thing, a strong economy helps hold things together. The Cherokee Nation has problems, but we are the strongest employer in Northeastern Oklahoma and our minimum wage is higher than Oklahoma’s. We do spend money on language and history, and we do honor Cherokee speakers and craftsmen. I am told that the Eastern Band does the same with resources from Mr. Harrah’s casino.
Then there are lucky tribes like the Navajo Nation. With a large population (which my tribe has) and a clan system very much alive (which my tribe does not have) and a reservation that includes their sacred geography (which my tribe — among many — does not have), they are strong in language and customs. As a lawyer, I envy their court system, which has managed to command respect among knowledgeable mainstream legal scholars without forfeiting their customs.
Just as one size has never fit all in federal Indian policy, there are culture-specific limitations on how much tribal policy will transplant to other Indian nations. However, it seems to me just as likely that tribal policies will transplant as that federal or state policies will. Those tribal governments that have crime and other social cohesion problems would do as well to look to their peers for models as to transplant ideas from the colonists.
I could be wrong about all this. Whether the colonists have cures for the ills they brought is open to question by reasonable people. Putnam is of course a white man and “social capital” is an imaginary concept that may have nothing to do with Indian Country. Just because prohibition and prison did not improve white society does not mean they can’t improve Indian society, and they are, after all, as traditional as fry bread and at least as good for you.
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Previously published on medium
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