In 1932, Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur explained that "the United States has had no treaty relations with any of the aborigines of Alaska nor have they been recognized as the independent tribes with a government of their own." But today Alaska Natives in villages throughout Alaska are adamant that they are, and always have been, members of federally recognized tribes that possess inherent sovereign governmental authority. How that happened is the story Donald Craig Mitchell tells in Tribal Sovereignty in Alaska, the first comprehensive history of the Alaska Native tribal sovereignty movement.