Tribal Leadership

Most of the key decisions that have guided the exciting developments on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation over the past 30 years started with the Tribal Council.

It’s similar to a city council, with seven elected members who meet every week to deliberate on the business of the day. The chairman, currently Chief J. Allan, leads the council, but only has one vote like the rest.

“We all have different views,” says Margaret SiJohn, who served on the council from 201517 and is currently serving another three-year term. “Even if we disagree, we’re willing to compromise with one another and make a decision that we all feel is best for the tribe.”

Like many things throughout the Coeur d’Alene people’s history, the council was a hard-won gain. First formed in 1947 to align with the self-government provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, it was formalized two years later under a written constitution after fraught negotiations with the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Joe Garry, son of the tribe’s last traditional chief, Ignace Garry, served as the council’s first elected president. Joe would go on to make history as the first Native American elected to the Idaho Legislature, serving in both the Idaho House and Senate in the years that followed. Joe Garry went on to become a hero to tribes across the United States, as he became president of the National Congress of American Indians in 1953. As Congress worked to dissolve tribal governments and liquidate tribal lands — a battle waged on many fronts via a series of federal laws from the 1940s to the 1960s known as “termination” — the man who organized the opposition was a Coeur d’Alene born in a tipi, Joe Garry.

“Past leaders put in their time and their life experience to get us here,” says SiJohn. “Their focus on getting the younger generations educated and aware of what’s happening outside the reservation has really helped put us where we are now.”

The council has oversight and funding authority over many tribal enterprises, from police and justice to public works. One important initiative is the Tribal School in DeSmet, which dates all the way back to 1877. Along with teaching the usual K-8 subjects, the Tribal School is reviving the native language among its roughly 100 students.

“There are no fluent speakers of snchitsu’umshtsn,” the school states, “which makes our school’s mission to create new fluent speakers of the Coeur d’Alene language to protect our language from disappearance.” 