An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose government is sovereign, subject to regulations passed by the United States Congress and administered by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, and not to the U.S. state government in which it is located
. The federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe, and the land is reserved for the use, possession, and benefit of an Indian tribe or group of Indians
. The term "reservation" comes from the conception of the Native American nations as independent sovereigns at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Early peace treaties, often signed under conditions of duress or fraud, in which Native American nations surrendered large portions of their land to the United States, designated parcels which the nations, as sovereigns, "reserved" to themselves, and those parcels came to be called "reservations"
