A new database of tribal constitutions tells a more nuanced history of self-governance than the one explained in textbooks. The constitution is one of many in a new database created by Beth Redbird (Oglala Lakota and Oklahoma Choctaw), a sociologist at Northwestern University, as part of the Tribal Constitutions Project. The database contains constitutions from more than 350 of the now 574 federally recognized tribes, documents that serve as written records of the many ways tribal governments have asserted independence within a colonial system. The bulk of the tribal constitutions in the Tribal Constitutions Project database were passed in response to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, often called the Indian New Deal. At that point tribal constitutional amendments dropped off as tribes kept their policies close to their chests, Redbird says.