When Ronnie Lupe became chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, it was hardly an auspicious time. The year was 1966 and his eastern Arizona tribe, like all the others, had hit rock bottom.

Indians faced the deepest poverty in the country. Infant mortality was high and adult life expectancy low. Few had attended college, much less graduated.

Despite treaties recognizing tribal authority, outside interests ran the reservations. Peabody Coal strip-mined sacred Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona through unfair leases with the Hopis and Navajos. The Bureau of Indian Affairs trashed Apache and other tribal forests with high-yield, unsustainable logging.

Lupe passionately believed in Apache self-determination. "I am an Apache," he said. "I look at the world differently. The way I do things, the things I believe, the choices I make are all because I am an Apache."

Yet the proud Apaches had no say on their high-country homeland. 

"We couldn't even open our mail," Lupe recalls. "It all went straight into the BIA's hands." The words of Chief Justice John Marshall, who described Indian tribes as nations, had turned to dust.

Against all odds, tribal leaders came together, decided to fight back and succeeded. In a historic revival that can be compared to the civil rights, environmental and women's movements, Indian tribes took back their reservations.

Leaders such as Lupe and Peterson Zah of the Navajos planned congressional initiatives and litigation offensives. The Supreme Court upheld the treaties. Congress supported tribal self-determination. It also affirmed Tribal Court jurisdiction over adoptions. Before that, 25 percent to 35 percent of all Indian children had been adopted into non-Indian homes.

Tribal leaders took those national laws and put them to work in Indian country, making tribes into full-service governments. In the 1960s, the Apache, like other tribes, had only a handful of employees. Today, about 70 tribes each have 300 or more employees, excluding gaming operations.

Natural resources are a priority. Tribes have large and expert environmental agencies. Since the 1960s, they have added 7.5 million acres, an area 1 1/2 times the size of Massachusetts, to the tribal land base. Tribal institutions have earned respect. On the Tohono O'odham Reservation in southern Arizona, cases are heard in a new justice complex with five courtrooms and many counselors specialize in juvenile justice. The Navajo courts, using traditional "peacemaking" practices, are national leaders in dispute resolution. Tribes operate 34 tribal colleges and more than 100 elementary and secondary schools.

To be sure, much still must be done. Poverty rates, although dramatically reduced, remain high. Health problems, notably diabetes, still stalk Indian country. Gaming has been a positive force because most proceeds go to tribal programs, the best way to meet Indian needs.

Tribal leaders have had a long struggle to make tribal sovereignty a reality. When he first came to office, Lupe was determined to bring the Apache's magnificent ponderosa forest under tribal management. It took 20 years to wrench control from the BIA, but now trees are harvested by the tribe on a conservative, sustained-yield basis. Instead of going off the reservation for processing, logs are milled at the tribal mill by tribal employees.

Another Apache forestland decision is noteworthy. The tribe's sacred peak is Dzil Ligai Si'an (Mount Baldy, in English). The tribe has closed the entire western slope to non-members. Even tribal members must obtain a permit to enter.

Perhaps this sacred area and the Apache timber mill together stand as fit testament to the tribes' determination to govern their homelands on their own terms, to make them places of both jobs and culture, places of both modernity and tradition.

Charles Wilkinson is a distinguished university professor and Moses Lasky professor of law at the University of Colorado and author of "Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations" (W.W. Norton).