I don't think someone should be exempt from state taxes because one great grandfather out of seven great grandparents happened to be descended from a grandparent who might have been done out of his land by some sharp practice. The issue is no different from reparations. While the Indian wars were going on in the US, my ancestors were in Europe, getting the shaft in much the same way. We're living in the 21th century; why are we living with a system that sucked even in the 19th century?
But when I propose renegotiating the agreements, I am perhaps coming at it from a slightly different perspective. RWP says "I don't think someone should be exempt from state taxes because one... might have been done out of his land by some sharp practice..."
There is no "might" about it. There were two kinds of Indian Wars during the nineteenth century, there were wars caused by the simple competition for land, which might have been unavoidable (unavoidable, in the sense that the settlers had no intention of honoring Indian land claims). And there was a second kind of war, caused almost directly by corruption. Money was appropriated by Congress for the tribes and disappeared along the way in to other pockets. The result, starvation followed by an uprising followed by all out war. And the final destruction of the tribe.
I am aware of several examples of out and out corruption, so the "might" can be discarded out of hand. The treaties were negotiated to settle wars that were fought as settlers moved on to land that was not theirs.
If your ancestors were in Europe during the great Indian Wars, then you don't have any of their blood charged to your account directly, but you are probably living on land that was taken from them by force. I don't think we have any intention of giving it back, and the Hungarians are not moving back to the steppes of Central Asia. But we should approach the matter with a little humility.
I live not far from where small tribes were destroyed by miners out for a Sunday, who would sit up in the rocks and drink and shoot just for a laugh.
I agree that the legal situation should be re-examined, and if possible clarified, simplified, privatized, modernized. But we should approach it from the point of view that the treaties were imposed on the Indians by force, and were the least they were willing to settle for, faced with certain genocide.
"We're living in the 21th century; why are we living with a system that sucked even in the 19th century? " It sucked in the 19th century because it was imposed by force, and the people who administered it put the money into their own pockets. I agree, though, its time to modernize it.