Existing research exploring challenges faced by some American Indian entrepreneurs reveal apprehensions that private entrepreneurial business practice risks stepping outside collectivist cultural norms. This presentation by Joseph Scott Gladstone (Associate Professor of Management, Washington State University) addresses and counters these apprehensions by providing historical examples through archaeological evidence and journal reports by Western fur traders show that private business activity at the family level has traditionally existed within American Indian tribes. This presentation also suggests a possible source for a perception that tribal governments are solely responsible for creating and managing business activity on Western U.S. reservations.