88 Unwanted and ambivalent citizenship through the demos. The indigenous peoples of North America did not share this history. This has been presented particularly succinctly by one scholar: ‘Native peoples saw no need to be emancipated from a feudal, medieval social order they had never experienced.’29 This makes no claims about the political structures of the colonised peoples themselves. It only observes that their experience of sub jection to the British crown functioned differently to that of the White settlers, and their experience of the coming of republican citizenship was also different (indeed some reportedly saw the British as at least protecting against settler expansion westward).30 Consequently, the imposition of this liberal democratic citizenship cannot be seen only as emancipatory. It also represented subjection to a colonising regime. Some indigenous individuals also worried that changing the nature of the rela tionship between themselves and the United States might undermine the system of rights-protections that had been negotiated through treaties. That is, whereas individuals had previously been treated as citizens of foreign nations, if their predominant relationship with the US would be one of formal citizenship, many worried about the status of the original treaties.31 One writer poses the rhetorical question: ‘How can a citizen have a treaty with his own government?’32 Citizenship and noncitizenship are not mutually exclusive relationships with a State. Yet, so long as the theoretical framework within which the State system functions assumes that they are, a person who wants to claim a nonciti zen relationship might in fact have to claim hyphenated non-citizenship and wholly reject citizenship and everything that goes along with it. When that cit izenship is the only way in which a person can have a recognised relationship with a State, including what this means for the protection of rights and inter ests, this drives a choice between protected rights within an acknowledged individual-State relationship on the one hand; and rightslessness, dehumanisa tion and claiming a reality that will still probably not be recognised on the other hand. In this, the noncitizen challenge is made clear. It is a challenge both to the noncitizen and to the State. In cases where citizenship is unwanted, it is difficult, within traditional interpretations, for such persons to express their rejection of the theoretical framework of the State built upon liberal democratic principles. Their position is assumed out of the framework. Not recognising noncitizenship as a real relationship between an individual and a State makes the choice even more constrained. And it can make the struggles seem more threatening. 29 Alexandra Witkin (1995) ‘To Silence a Drum: The Imposition of United States Citizenship on Native Peoples’, pp. 353–383 in Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques 21(2), at p. 355. 30 For example, the Royal Proclamation of 1703 which had attempted to forbid European settlement west of the Appalachians. Colin Calloway (1995) The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities, Cambridge University Press. 31 George-Kanentiio 2006 ibid. p. 27. See detailed study in Vine Deloria Jr and David E. Wilkins (1999) Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations, University of Texas Press. 32 Rickard 1973 ibid. p. 56.