This article discusses basic writing pedagogy at a two-year tribal college, an institution type that has not been visible in the basic writing literature to date. In many tribal college contexts, socioeconomic challenges, under-resourced K-12 schools, and linguistic diversity all contribute to high student placement rates into "developmental" writing courses. Operating from the understanding that tribal college writing curricula are assertions of rhetorical sovereignty, I present a narrative of the pedagogical reasoning that led me to structure my basic writing course around the exigencies of U.S. settler colonialism--that is, the settler state's ongoing political, social, and economic project of controlling Indigenous peoples, lands, and resources. This approach encourages NativeAmerican students to develop critical language awareness and invites them to consider the importance of writing for furthering the interests of their communities and nations while meeting the tribal college's self-determined learning outcomes.