Indian Policy, Resistance, and the Negotiation of Change

Dawes Allotment Act, 1887

How do we define civilized? To be civilized is to wear civilized clothes cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey [and] own property Henry Dawes

Pros & Cons

Pros: Promised citizenship Fastest way to assimilate Self sufficiency Value of ownership, possession of land once Indians adopted this value, they would have something to pass down as an inheritance to future generations Intelligently selfish
Cons: Poor land quality Diminished entire tribal culture and way of life Land agreements were constantly renegotiated Promises werent kept Lack of skills & tools needed to manage land and crops Intertribal differences over allotment Corruption of rez agents

Indian Boarding Schools

Pros & Cons

Pros: Increased Indians technical & farming skills Produced model citizens with which to encourage other Indians to assimilate Helped assimilation by teaching ways of white culture Gave credibility to Indians Gave Indians tools to survive new world Brought tribes together Cons: Abuse & cruelty Separated families Segregation Teaching that Indians ways/language/culture are wrong Loss of culture Caught between two cultures once schooling was complete Rendered useless in both cultures

A Good Indians Dilemma

The Indian Problem

After 1790 the United States government faced four options in shaping its overall policy towards Indians:
(1) exterminate them (2) protect them in zoo-like enclaves while towns rise around them (3) assimilate Indians by encouraging them to become crop-raising, church-going, school-attending model citizens (4) transplant them to that inhospitable , unwanted wilderness west of the Mississippi, known as Indian Territory

Trail of Tears
1838-1839

John Collier

Harshly criticized the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and its Indian Policies 1928, Meriam Report 1933, appointed as new Commissioner of the BIA

 1934 New Deal/ Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) proposal. Items targeted:
The reorganization of Indian tribes towards selfgovernment End of allotment Multi-million dollar credit fund to foster Indian farms and businesses Recruitment of Indians for BIA jobs Indian court system Land acquisition

 Other issues IRA concerned with:

Indian healthcare system Indian arts and crafts Boarding schools day schools Soil conservation and stock reduction programs Cultural freedoms

Results of IRA:
Gutted version of Colliers vision passed Kept: halt to allotment, voluntary pooling of allotted lands, restoration of unsold surplus acreage, restoration of resource management to tribes, limited self-government

$12 million borrowed by 70 tribes to launch farming operations and salmon canning factories. By end of 1946, none had failed and nearly all loans repaid.

Improvement in health delivery systems

Boarding schools day schools

 [Collier] wanted tribes to keep their ancient democracy, and vowed at his swearing-in not to make a white man of the Indian. But he did not distinguish between the Indians form of participatory democracy, in which all tribal members played a part and decisions were reached after struggle for group census, and the white mans representative democracy, where elected spokespeople quickly passed laws that affected everybody. Nabokov, 310

Indian perspectives of the IRA

Pro:
Loan funds for farm programs, education Established self-governing body Hard to recognize change while in the midst of it Stopped sale of Indian lands and allotment

Con:
Set Indians apart from mainstream and made them a problem, saw them at the other Created a socialistic society (rather capitalist), paternalistic type of government Self-government still subject to approval of Secretary of Interior

 Big-picture results:
New sense of Indian pride What to do with newly-given power? Frustration by tribes who had livestock herds reduced And then WWII Henry S. Trumans administration

Johnny Cash, The Ballad of Ira Hayes

Life after Collier

1945, Collier resigns after fighting eleven years of resistance to his reforms Change in political climate: government should get out of the Indian business

Termination
1950, Dillon Myer named Commissioner of BIA after Colliers resignation Termination Policy
Liquidated Indians special ward status, governments trust responsibilities Phase out health, economic, educational benefits 1952, stopped BIA loans Sought to make Indians regular citizens Tribe-by-tribe basis Klamath tribe of Oregon 109 tribes terminated Loss of 1.3 million acres of land

Urban Relocation Program

Strategy to persuade reservation Indians to move to big cities By 1960, urban Indians accounted for 1/3 of Indian population As of 2010 census, urban Indians account for 64% of Indian population

Self-determination
1975, Nixon administration passes Indian SelfDetermination and Education Act Taos Pueblo Era of cultural revitalization Repatriation Maintaining old ways vs. confronting economic realities What is a tribe? What is Indian?

Reagan Era
Maybe we made a mistake in trying to maintain Indian cultures. Maybe we should not have humored them in wanting to stay in that kind of primitive life-style. Maybe we should have said, No, come join us. Be citizens along with the rest of us. Kill the Indian, save the man

Reagan-era policies:
1981, 82% cut in economic development funds 1983, Economic development plan 1983, Indian aid cut by 1/3 1985, Secretary of State interferes in negotiations between Peabody Coal Co. and the Navajo 1987, Strategic Mineral Task Force urges Reagan to declare Indian Country a national sacrifice zone.