{"id":8663,"date":"2011-06-23T17:56:21","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T22:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=8663"},"modified":"2021-10-21T07:27:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T12:27:13","slug":"smallest-indian-tribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/smallest-indian-tribe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Smallest Tribe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is the smallest tribe of Native Americans in the United States? It\u2019s more difficult to answer than one might imagine. The definition varies. It could be based on population or territory as an example. I’ll look at both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognition by the Federal government could add another dimension to the question. However, some State-recognized tribes do not meet Federal guidelines. Also, some groups have neither Federal nor State recognition and still consider themselves tribes regardless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, Federal recognition is very important. It confers eligibility to receive substantial services from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs<\/a> — the BIA. The Federal government recognized 565 tribes as of October 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Cahuilla people migrated to inland Southern California, in the vicinity of the current city of Palm Springs and the Salton Sea. They have lived there for upwards of two millennia although they have dwindled to probably fewer than fifteen hundred members today due to outside pressures and intermarriages. The population split further into several distinct bands. The smallest of these bands, and the smallest of all Federally-recognized tribes is the \u201cAugustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, California (formerly the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians of the Augustine Reservation)\u201d. Only 8 enrolled members existed as of 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Augustine Band maintains a small 20-acre reservation in Thermal, California, southeast of Palm Desert and south of Indio (map<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Augustine Band almost went extinct. According to a January 4, 1998 article in the Press-Enterprise<\/a>, a newspaper covering inland Southern California, the band had only 34 members at the formation of their reservation in 1891. They were down to 11 federally-enrolled members by 1951. The last of those, Roberta Augustine, passed away in the 1980’s. By then the reservation laid abandoned for decades but the BIA continued to hold the land in trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reestablishment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Roberta had children, but she never enrolled any of them in the tribe. Her progeny had only the vaguest exposure to their Indian ancestry during childhood. A daughter, Mary Ann Martin, grew up primarily in the household of her African-American paternal grandmother. She didn’t reconnect with her Native American identity until she was an adult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However she enrolled as a tribe member, thus re-forming it, and established a tribal government along with her two brothers (who passed away tragically a few years later). She also moved her family onto the reservation and reestablished it in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n