Американские индейцы

- but both the Articles of Confederation and the federal Constitution

reserved either to the president or to Congress sole authority in Indian

affairs, including authority to extinguish Indian title by treaty. When

French dominion in Canada capitulated in 1760, the English announced that

"the Savages or Indian Allies of his most Christian Majesty, shall be

maintained in the lands they inhabit, if they choose to remain there."

Thereafter, the proclamation of 1763 applied in Canada and was embodied in

the practices of the dominion government. (The British North America Act of

1867, which created modern Canada, provided that the parliament of Canada

should have exclusive legislative authority with respect to "Indians, and

lands reserved for the Indians." Thus, both North American countries made

control over Indian matters a national concern.)

United States policy: the late 18th and 19th centuries

The first full declaration of U.S. policy was embodied in the

Northwest Ordinance (1787): The utmost good faith shall always be

observed toward the Indians, their lands and property shall never be

taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights, and

liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and

lawful wars authorized by congress; but laws founded in justice and

humanity shall from time to time be made, for preventing wrongs being

done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.This

doctrine was embodied in the act of August 7, 1789, as one of the first

declarations of the U.S. Congress under the Constitution.The final

shaping of the legal and political rights of the Indian tribes is found

in the opinions of Chief Justice John Marshall, notably in decision in

the case of Worcester v. Georgia: The Indian nations had always been

considered as distinct, independent, political communities, retaining

their original natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the land,

from time immemorial. . . . The settled doctrine of the law of nations

is, that a weaker power does not surrender its independence - its right

to self-government - by associating with a stronger, and taking its

protection. A weak state, in order to provide for its safety, may place

itself under the protection of one more powerful, without stripping

itself of the right of government, and ceasing to be a state.The first

major departure from the policy of respecting Indian rights came with the

Indian Removal Act of 1830. For the first time the United States resorted

to coercion, particularly in the cases of the Cherokee and Seminole

tribes, as a means of securing compliance. The Removal Act was not in

itself coercive, since it authorized the president only to negotiate with

tribes east of the Mississippi on a basis of payment for their lands; it

called for improvements in the east and a grant of land west of the

river, to which perpetual title would be attached. In carrying out the

law, however, resistance was met with military force. In the decade

following, almost the entire population of perhaps 100,000 Indians was

moved westward. The episode moved Alexis de Tocqueville to remark in

1831: The Europeans continued to surround [the Indians] on every side,

and to confine them within narrower limits . . . and the Indians have

been ruined by a competition which they had not the means of sustaining.

They were isolated in their own country, and their race only constituted

a little colony of troublesome strangers in the midst of a numerous and

dominant people.

The territory west of the Mississippi, it turned out, was not so

remote as had been supposed. The discovery of gold in California (1848)

started a new sequence of treaties, designed to extinguish Indian title

to lands lying in the path of the overland routes to the Pacific. The

sudden surge of thousands of wagon trains through the last of the Indian

country and the consequent slaughtering of prairie and mountain game that

provided subsistence for the Indians brought on the most serious Indian

wars the country had experienced. For three decades, beginning in the

1850s, raids and sporadic pitched fighting took place up and down the

western Plains, highlighted by such incidents as the Custer massacre by

Sioux and Cheyenne Indians (1876), the Nez Perce chief Joseph's running

battle in 1877 against superior U.S. army forces, and the Chiricahua

Geronimo's long duel with authorities in the Southwest, resulting in his

capture and imprisonment in 1886. Toward the close of that period, the

Ghost Dance religion, arising out of the dream revelations of a young

Paiute Indian, Wovoka, promised the Indians a return to the old life and

reunion with their departed kinsmen. The songs and ceremonies born of

this revelation swept across the northern Plains. The movement came to an

abrupt end December 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota.

Believing that the Ghost Dance was disturbing an uneasy peace, government

agents moved to arrest ringleaders. Sitting Bull was killed (December 15)

while being taken into custody, and two weeks later units of the U.S. 7th

Cavalry at Wounded Knee massacred more than 200 men, women, and children

who had already agreed to return to their homes. A further major shift of

policy had occurred in 1871 after congressional discussions lasting

several years. U.S. presidents, with the advice and consent of the

Senate, had continued to make treaties with the Indian tribes and commit

the United States to the payment of sums of money. The House of

Representatives protested, since a number of congressmen had come to the

view that treaties with Indian tribes were an absurdity (a view earlier

held by Andrew Jackson). The Senate yielded, and the act of March 3,

1871, declared that "hereafter no Indian nation or tribe" would be

recognized "as an independent power with whom the United States may

contract by treaty." Indian affairs were brought under the legislative

control of the Congress to an extent that had not been attempted

previously. Tribal authority with respect to criminal offenses committed

by members within the tribe was reduced to the extent that murder and

other major crimes were placed under the jurisdiction of the federal

courts. The most radical undertaking of the new legislative policy was

the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887. By that time the Indian tribes

had been moved out of the mainstreams of traffic and were settled on

lands that they had chosen out of the larger areas that they had formerly

occupied. Their choice in most cases had been confirmed by treaty,

agreement, act of Congress, or executive order of the president. The

tribes that lived by hunting over wide areas found reservation

confinement a threat to their existence. Generally, they had insisted on

annuity payments or rations, or both, and the U.S. peace commissioners

had been willing to offer such a price in return for important land

cessions. In time the view came to be held that reservation life fostered

indolence and perpetuated customs and attitudes that held Indians back

from assimilation. The strategy offered by proponents of this theory was

the Allotment Act authorizing the president to divide the reservations

into individual parcels and to give every Indian, whether he wanted it or

not, a particular piece of the tribally owned land. In order not to make

the transition too abrupt, the land would be held in trust for a period

of 25 years, after which ownership would devolve upon the individual.

With it would go all the rights and duties of citizenship. Reservation

land remaining after all living members of the tribes had been provided

with allotments was declared surplus, and the president was authorized to

open it for entry by non-Indian homesteaders, the Indians being paid the

homestead price. A total of 118 reservations was allotted in this manner,

but the result was not what had been anticipated. Through the alienation

of surplus lands (making no allowance for children yet unborn) and

through patenting of individual holdings, the Indians lost 86,000,000

acres (34,800,000 hectares), or 62 percent, of a total of 138,000,000

acres in Indian ownership prior to 1887. A generation of landless Indians

resulted, with no vocational training to relieve them of dependence upon

land. The strategy also failed in that ownership of land did not effect

an automatic acculturation in those Indians who received individual

parcels. Through scattering of individuals and families, moreover, social

cohesiveness tended to break down. The result was a weakening of native

institutions and cultural practices with nothing offered in substitution.

What was intended as transition proved to be a blind alley. The Indian

population had been dwindling through the decades after the mid-19th

century. The California Indians alone, it was estimated, dropped from

100,000 in 1853 to not more than 30,000 in 1864 and 19,000 in 1906.

Cholera in the central Plains in 1849 struck the Pawnee. As late as 1870-

71 an epidemic of smallpox brought disaster to the Blackfeet, Assiniboin,

and Cree. These events gave currency to the concept of the Indian as "the

vanishing American." The decision of 1871 to discontinue treaty making

and the passage of the Allotment Act of 1887 were both founded in the

belief that the Indians would not survive, and hence it did not much

matter whether their views were sought in advance of legislation or

whether lands were provided for coming generations. When it became

obvious after about 1920 that the Indians, whose numbers had remained

static for several years, were surely increasing, the United States was

without a policy for advancing the interests of a living people.

20th-century reforms of U.S. policy

A survey in 1926 brought into clear focus the failings of the previous

40 years. The investigators found most Indians "extremely poor," in bad

health, without education, and lacking adjustment to the dominant culture

around them. Under the impetus of these findings and other pressures for

reform, Congress adopted the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which

contemplated an orderly decrease of federal control and a concomitant

increase of Indian self-government and responsibility. The essentials of

the new law were as follows: (1) allotment of tribal lands was prohibited

in the future, but tribes might assign use rights to individuals; (2) so-

called surplus lands not pre-empted by homesteaders might be returned to

the tribes; (3) tribes might adopt written constitutions and charters of

incorporation embodying their continuing inherent powers to manage internal

affairs; and (4) funds were authorized for the establishment of a revolving

credit program, for land purchases, for educational assistance, and for

aiding the tribes in forming organizations. Moreover, the act could be

rejected on any reservation by referendum.

The response to the 1934 act was indicative of the Indians' ability to

rise above adversity. About 160 tribes, bands, and Alaska villages adopted

written constitutions, some of which combined traditional practices with

modern parliamentary methods. The revolving credit fund helped Indians

build up their herds and improve their economic position in other ways.

Borrowers from the fund were tribal corporations, credit associations, and

cooperatives that loaned to individual Indians and to group enterprises on

a multimillion-dollar scale. Educational and health services were also

improved through federal aid.

Originally, the United States exercised no guardianship over the

person of the Indian; after 1871, when internal tribal matters became the

subject of national legislation, the number and variety of regulatory

measures multiplied rapidly. In the same year that the Indian

Reorganization Act was passed, Congress significantly repealed 12 statutes

that had made it possible to hold Indians virtual prisoners on their

reservations. Indians were then able to come and go as freely as all other

persons. The Snyder Act of 1924, extending citizenship to all Indians born

in the United States, opened the door to full participation. But few

Indians took advantage of the law, and because of their lack of interest a

number of states excluded Indians from the franchise. Organization of

tribal governments following the Reorganization Act, however, seemed to

awaken an interest in civic affairs beyond tribal boundaries, and when

Indians asked for the franchise, they were generally able to secure it

eventually, though not until 1948 in Arizona and New Mexico, after lengthy

court action.

The federal courts consistently upheld the treaties made with Indian

tribes and also held that property may not be taken from Indians, whether

or not a treaty exists, "except in fair trade." The latter contention was

offered by the Hualapai Indians against the Santa Fe Railway. The company

was required by the courts in 1944 to relinquish about 500,000 acres it

thought had been granted to it by the U.S. The lands had been occupied

since prehistory by the Indians, without benefit of treaty recognition, and

the Supreme Court held that, if the occupancy could be proved, as it

subsequently was, the Indians were entitled to have their lands restored.

In 1950 the Ute Indians were awarded a judgment against the United States

of $31,750,000 for lands taken without adequate compensation. A special

Indian Claims Commission, created by act of Congress on August 13, 1946,

received many petitions for land claims against the United States and

awarded, for example, about $14,789,000 to the Cherokee nation, $10,242,000

to the Crow tribe, $3,650,000 to the Snake-Paiute of Oregon, $3,000,000 to

the Nez Perce, and $12,300,000 to the Seminole. The period from the early

1950s to the 1970s was one of increasing federal attempts to establish new

policies regarding the Indians, and it was also a period in which Indians

themselves became increasingly vocal in their quest for an equal measure of

human rights and the correction of past wrongs. The first major shift in

policy came in 1954, when the Department of the Interior began terminating

federal control over those Indians and reservations deemed able to look

after their own affairs. From 1954 to 1960, support to 61 tribes and other

Indian groups was ended by the withdrawal of federal services or trust

supervision. The results, however, were unhappy. Some extremely

impoverished Indian groups lost many acres of land to private exploitation

of their land and water resources. Indians in certain states became subject

exclusively to state laws that were less liberal or sympathetic than

federal laws. Finally the protests of Indians, anthropologists, and others

became so insistent that the program was decelerated in 1960. In 1961 a

trained anthropologist was sworn in as commissioner of Indian Affairs, the

first anthropologist ever to hold that position. Federal aid expanded

greatly, and in the ensuing decade Indians were brought into various

federal programs for equal economic opportunity. Indian unemployment

remained severe, however.

American Indians came more and more into public attention in the late

20th century as they sought (along with other minorities) to achieve a

better life. Following the example set by black civil-rights activists of

the 1960s, Indian groups drew attention to their cause through mass

demonstrations and protests. Perhaps the most publicized of these actions

were the 19-month seizure (1970-71) of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay

(California) by members of the militant American Indian Movement (AIM) and

the February 1973 occupation of a settlement at the Oglala Sioux Pine Ridge

(South Dakota) reservation; the latter incident was the second conflict to

occur at Wounded Knee. Representing an attempt to gain a more traditional

political power base was the establishment in 1971 of the National Tribal

Chairman's Association, which eventually grew to include more than 100

tribes.

Indian leaders also expanded their sphere of influence into the

courts; fishing, mineral, forest, casino gambling, and other rights

involving tribal lands became the subject of litigation by the Puyallup

(Washington state), the Northern Cheyenne (Montana), and the Penobscot and

the Passamaquoddy (Maine), among others. Although control of economic

resources was the focus of most such cases, some groups sought to regain

sovereignty over ancient tribal lands of primarily ceremonial and religious

significance.

facts about American Indians today

Source: Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior

Who is an Indian?

No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as

an Indian. Tribal membership is determined by the enrollment criteria of

the tribe from which Indian blood may be derived, and this varies with each

tribe. Generally, if linkage to an identified tribal member is far removed,

one would not qualify for membership.

To be eligible for Bureau of Indian Affairs services, an Indian must (1)

be a member of a tribe recognized by the federal government, (2) be of one-

half or more Indian blood of tribes indigenous to the United States; or (3)

must, for some purposes, be of one-fourth or more Indian ancestry. By

legislative and administrative decision, the Aleuts, Eskimos and Indians of

Alaska are eligible for BIA services. Most of the BIA's services and

programs, however, are limited to Indians living on or near Indian

reservations.

The Bureau of the Census counts anyone an Indian who declares himself or

herself to be an Indian. In 1990 the Census figures showed there were

1,959,234 American Indians and Alaska Natives living in the United States

(1,878,285 American Indians, 57,152 Eskimos, and 23,797 Aleuts). This is a

37.9 percent increase over the 1980 recorded total of 1,420,000. The

increase is attributed to improved census taking and more self-

identification during the 1990 count.

Why are Indians sometimes referred to as Native Americans?

The term, “Native American,” came into usage in the 1960s to denote the

groups served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs: American Indians and Alaska

Natives (Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska). Later the term also

included Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in some federal programs.

It, therefore, came into disfavor among some Indian groups. The preferred

term is American Indian. The Eskimos and Aleuts in Alaska are two

culturally distinct groups and are sensitive about being included under the

“Indian” designation. They prefer “Alaska Native.”

How does one trace Indian ancestry and become a member of a tribe?

The first step in tracing Indian ancestry is basic genealogical research

if one does not already have specific family information and documents that

identify tribal ties. Some information to obtain is: names of ancestors;

dates of birth; marriages and death; places where they lived; brothers and

sisters, if any; and, most importantly, tribal affiliations. Among family

documents to check are Bibles, wills, and other such papers. The next step

is to determine whether one's ancestors are on an official tribal roll or

census by contacting the tribe.

What is a federally recognized tribe?

There are more than 550 federally recognized tribes in the United States,

including 223 village groups in Alaska. “Federally recognized” means these

tribes and groups have a special, legal relationship with the U.S.

government. This relationship is referred to as a government-to-government

relationship.

A number of Indian tribes and groups in the U.S. do not have a federally

recognized status, although some are state-recognized. This means they have

no relations with the BIA or the programs it operates. A special program of

the BIA, however, works with those groups seeking federal recognition

status. Of the 150 petitions for federal recognition received by the BIA

since 1978, 12 have received acknowledgment through the BIA process, two

groups had their status clarified by the Department of the Interior through

other means, and seven were restored or recognized by Congress.

Reservations.

In the U.S. there are only two kinds of reserved lands that are well-

known: military and Indian. An Indian reservation is land reserved for a

tribe when it relinquished its other land areas to the U.S. through

treaties. More recently, Congressional acts, Executive Orders, and

administrative acts have created reservations. Today some reservations have

non-Indian residents and land owners.

There are approximately 275 Indian land areas in the U.S. administered

as Indian reservations (reservations, pueblos, rancherias, communities,

etc.). The largest is the Navajo Reservation of some 16 million acres of

land in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Many of the smaller reservations are

less than 1,000 acres with the smallest less than 100 acres. On each

reservation, the local governing authority is the tribal government.

Approximately 56.2 million acres of land are held in trust by the

United States for various Indian tribes and individuals. Much of this is

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