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No other group in this
country has so complicated a relationship to the Federal Government as have
the 350,000 American Indians. A recent compilation prepared by the Federal
Government shows 389 treaties made with Indian Tribes and 4,267 laws enacted
by Congress concerning them. “During the century and a half covered by this
compilation,” says the Foreword, “the groups of human beings with whom
Indian lawa deal have undergone changes in living habits, institutions,
needs and aspirations, far greater than the changes that separate from our
own age the ages for which Moses, Lycurgus or Justinian legislated . . .
This compilation reveals a tremendous mass of obsolete and anachronistic
legislation which weighs upon the backs of Indians and Indian service
officials ... blocking the attainment of objectives desired alike by the
Indians, by the Indian Service and by Congress.”
Many friends of the Indian people welcome the above study as showing the
anomalous position of the North American Indian, as a step toward a more
clear-cut and understanding policy for these people and toward their
establishment on a basis of citizenship that is unhampered by restrictions
not applicable to American citizens of all races.
From time to time various tribes had been accorded citizenship but it was
not until 1924 that by Act of Congress this standing was given to all
Indians born within the United States. Such Act did not, however, for
Indians any more than it does for whites, carry with it the privilege of the
vote — a right that may be conferred or abridged by an individual state; but
while “it is beyond the constitutional power of any State to deny the right
of Indians to vote simply because they are Indians ... a few states,
particularly in the extreme south and southwest, have attempted to
discriminate against the Indians as with the Negroes, by setting up rigid
requirements as to registration, residence, etc., so as to make it as
difficult as possible for voters in these two classes to meet such
requirements.”
There are still about 200 tribes — some of them mere remnants but retaining
individual languages and dialects. Reservations have been allotted to these
tribes, most of them west of the Mississippi River. On these reservations
live some 200,000 Indians. Others have left these homes to go out to mingle
with the white population of the country, a trend that seems inevitable as
government, church, and other agencies give to the younger people modem
education that is broadening and challenging. Increasingly numbers of these
young Indians have found employment in the Government Indian Service so that
by 1940 it enrolled 4,682, many of whom were in the Office of Indian Affairs
in Washington, D. C.
The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, adopted by a majority of the tribes,
seems utterly at variance with the above tendencies in educational
opportunity for its trend is toward the continuance of Indian peoples as
units within, yet isolated from, the body politic. Certain phases of the
Reorganization Act such as the provision for preservation of Indian land,
for better standards of living and for training in collective service, merit
only praise, but one may ask whether a “group-destiny” be possible for so
small a number of people in a Commonwealth of 130,000,000 population.
“Apparently,” says a student of Indian affairs, “the Indian is at once to
cling to his own folkways and to learn all the white men can give. It is an
enticing ideal; but it demands the lack of mental coordination which would
lead one to dance in propitiation of the rain gods and at the same time rely
on the advice of the Department of Agriculture.”
The increasing inter-marriage of Indians and whites must gradually produce a
people less race-conscious than an unadulterated blood group might be. The
Chippewas, for example, have but 15 per cent full-bloods and other tribes
have large admixtures of white blood, a process that began in the very early
days and became particularly noticeable after the French and English wars.
“What constitutes an Indian?” is a frequent question. Often one-sixty-fourth
of Indian blood is recognized as enabling an applicant to be enrolled in a
tribe.
THE PROBLEM OF WARDSHIP
A most fundamental difficulty facing the majority of the Indians is that
caused by their “wardship” — a peculiar relation they bear to the Federal
Government. It is not possible to explain Indian Wardship with brevity or
simplicity. In 1831 the Cherokees, then in Georgia, maintained that they
constituted a “nation,” and as such could appeal to the court for action
against the State of Georgia. The matter was referred to the Supreme Court
of the United States and the decision rendered by Chief Justice John
Marshall was:
“It may well be doubted whether these tribes which reside within the
acknowledged boundaries of the United States can, with strict accuracy, be
denominated foreign nations. They may, more correctly, perhaps, be
denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we
assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of
possession when their right of possession ceases. Meanwhile they are in a
state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that of a
ward to a guardian.”
This relationship has never been clearly defined in the more than one
hundred years since Justice Marshall’s statement, yet it controls and limits
Indian life and relationships at every turn. An Indian may freely leave his
home and acreage without specific permission but he may not in many cases
sell that same acreage without specific permission obtained through Act of
Congress. He became a citizen but this did not abrogate his wardship per se
and at every turn he is hampered by his dual relationships.
In spite of the more than 4,000 laws, as noted in the recent Compilation,
none appears to define in terms applicable to all tribes, or for all tribes
in severalty, the exact and detailed relationship of Indian wards and the
Federal Government, or to make better the anomalous position of peoples
declared to be citizens of a free country who yet are restrained in this
citizenship by the not-fully-determined terms of their wardship. Each case
that arises is decided individually and through the years these have built
up much of the “obsolete and anachronistic legislation” on the statute
books.
Only Congress can define, limit or abolish wardship. Many people, both
Indian and white, feel that the time for such action has come. Laws,
treaties, land holdings and trust funds held for the Indian by the Federal
Government are all affected by this undefined relationship. Twenty-eight
laws regarding Indians were passed during a recent session of Congress, thus
continuing the accumulation of detailed and often petty laws, whereas, a few
wisely drawn laws might make the relationship of these people to the land of
their fathers the same as that of other citizens: the need for special
enactments would thus disappear.
In this year, 1942, when “Democracy” is our watchword, when men are fighting
for that ideal around the world, when Indian men in large numbers have
joined the American forces, one may seriously raise the question if this is
not the time for the United States to more carefully study its relationship
to this small minority of its own population and strive to accord to it,
with generosity overflowing, a full if belated measure of justice and
fellowship. What a gift this would be to those Indian men now fighting in
foreign lands to keep freedom and democracy alive in the world!
Reprinted from The Church WOMAN by Committee on Study of Wardship and Indian
Participation In American Life Room 69, 297 Fourth Avenue New York, N.Y. |
