DESCRIPTION: Within the context of the American constitutional system, Native American sovereignty constitutes the retained rights of Native American nations to self-determination not extinguished by treaty or by congressional statute.

SIGNIFICANCE: Native American tribes and the U.S. government maintain a complex and unique legal relationship. Like the fifty states, the tribes exercise sovereignty within their recognized spheres of control. Although tribal sovereignty is almost total in regard to the states, it is limited in regard to Congress, which has the final authority to determine issues such as tribal status and the continuation of treaty rights. The ambiguities and tensions relating to this limited sovereignty have elicited numerous decisions by the Supreme Court.