From Canada's Northwest Territories to the border between Panama and Colombia, indigenous peoples are gaining recognition and control over their own territories and resources. The nature of these gains varies from place to place, writes PNS associate editor Andrew Reding, but the overall trend is clear. Andrew Reding, a political scientist who has worked and traveled widely in Mexico, directs the North America Project of the World Policy Institute.

The tide is turning in much of the Americas as native peoples reestablish ownership over large tracts of land, gain official recognition of native forms of government and justice, get elected to public office, and, in some cases, even establish autonomous regions.

The trend began a couple of decades ago at the southernmost tip of North America, in Panama, where the isthmus of Darien, a narrow string of largely impenetrable rain forest, connects North America to South America. The Pan-American Highway was to have linked Panama to Colombia here -- yet it remains incomplete, a monument to the tenacity of the indigenous peoples of the region. With the abolition of the Panamanian army following the U.S. invasion, they now enjoy a comfortable measure of independence from the Panamanian government.

In nearby Nicaragua, the Miskitos and Sumus, who inhabit the Caribbean lowlands, wrested autonomy in the 1980s as the Sandinista government, fighting CIA-backed forces in the region, sought to appease indigenous populations. It set up two large autonomous regions -- one for English-speaking blacks, the other for Miskitos and Sumus -- each with its own legislature, bilingual education, and substantial control over natural resources.

In Guatemala, the only country in North America with a majority native population, a United Nations-supervised transition to democracy is finally giving the Mayan population a share of power. The white minority traditionally relied on the army to maintain control, and in the early 1980s the army destroyed hundreds of villages and massacred over 150,000 Mayans under cover of killing "communists." With this fig leaf no longer viable in the era of free trade, the government of President Alvaro Arzu signed accords in December 1996 that provide for recognition of indigenous rights, reduce the size of the army by one-third, and restrict its role in domestic affairs. Since then, dozens of indigenous leaders have won seats in the national legislature, and control of several dozen municipalities, including the country's second-largest city.

While the December 22 massacre in Chiapas, the Mexican state bordering Guatemala, demonstrates that persecution persists in some regions, the massacre itself was a response to the growing power of native groups. To the dismay of state and federal authorities, autonomous indigenous authorities linked to the Zapatista rebels have established control over 38 municipalities in the highlands, and are demanding removal of troops and fulfillment of peace accords which promised control over natural resources, and respect for indigenous forms of government.

Such forms are already accepted in the neighboring state of Oaxaca, where -- in 412 of the state's 570 municipalities -- leaders are chosen in open assemblies of elders, rather than by ballot. The communities also run their own systems of criminal justice.

Similarly, in the northern border state of Sonora, the 33,000 Yaquis are ruled by their own governor and council of elders, have their own laws, and exercise traditional communal control of a 1,880 square mile territory in the southeast portion of the state.

Canada's indigenous peoples are making similar gains. In December, that country's Supreme Court ruled that oral histories can be used as legally binding evidence, which means land claims can now be valid even in the absence of treaties, deeds, or other written documents. 

In the United States, gains have been of a different sort. Efforts to turn tribal lands into gambling havens seem to have put traditional values on the back burner. Tribal chiefs rolling in cash now command serious attention in Washington -- witness the investigation of Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, for allegedly blocking approval of a casino in Wisconsin at the request of competing tribes who made large contributions to the Democratic Party. That's influence, all right, but the kind Sitting Bull warned about in 1877 when he said "the love of possession is a disease."