The Dawes Act and the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act - Essay Example

1 THE DAWES ACT AND THE 1924 INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT Introduction After the Revolutionary War, wherein the American forces vanquished the British, the Americans convinced that the native Indians, who supported the British, were a conquered race forced the Indians to sign a series of treaties and acquiesce to the American occupation of Ohio. The Delawares, Shawnees and other Indian tribes in the area who valued their lands as their inheritance from their ancestors since time immemorial, resisted and wars ensued (Deloria & Salisbury 2004,p.397). The Americans believing in the notion of the American Manifest Destiny, laid claim to all the lands on account of the Indian 'savagery' vis--vis the American 'civilization'(Saito 2005,p. 184) The concept of American Manifest Destiny consists in the belief that Providence had given the Americans the right to overspread and possess the whole of the continent for the development of liberty (Stephanson 1995,p.267). The early colonists believed that it was part of their destiny to conquer the west and the northern American wilderness but the Indians stood along the way and its God-given destiny (Kline 2000,p.24). At first, US treated the Indians as sovereign and independent people by negotiating treaties with them but the treaties only ended up with the Indians ceding their lands in return for desolate, barren lands elsewhere. This ended with President James Monroe's declaration that Indians be removed and resettled beyond the Mississippi River for their own best interests (American Philosophical Society 2000,p.65) Thus the Cherokees from Georgia appealed to the Supreme Court to prevent the seizure of their lands.However, Chief Justice John Marshall 2 declared all Indians as without sovereignty and people who "reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States" and are "in a state of pupilage"(Cherokee Nation v Georgia). But he later on declared the Cherokees as a distinct political community "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force" and into which Georgians are prohibited to enter without treaty permission (Worcester v Georgia). The Supreme Court then declared all Indians to be under the complete control of the US government but ironically, they cannot be citizens as contemplated by the 14th Amendment because they belonged to 'alien nations'(Elk v Wilkins, 1884). As such, all Indians were impounded in assigned reservations to their consternation on the basis of national security and military necessity after they ceded their ancestral lands and were not allowed to leave without a permit. But in one case, the court adjudicated that Indians are entitled to the same legal protection and freedom as the Americans (Standing Bear v Crook, 1879). The Dawes Act of 1887 or The General Allotment Act The first idea of Indian citizenship was broached by Thomas Jefferson but he laid down an extensive list of prerequisites prior to giving them citizenship (American Philosophical Society 2000, p.63). He also voiced out his plans to civilize the Indians and slowly assimilate them to the mainstream of American society. He also revealed his plans to give the Indians parcels of land to farm. All these served as impetus for Congress to enact the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Act on February 8,1887. The rationale behind the statute was to civilize and assimilate the Indians by breaking their tribal structures and thus make them individualistic and more resourceful individuals and force them through education to adopt the civilized life and finally to make them yeomen farmers. When they have become civilized, educated and financially independent, then they would be ripe for citizenship as conceptualized by Jefferson (Morris & Webster 2007, p.86). As the Great White Father, the government expected that the 3 benefits of citizenship and private property ownership would accrue to Indian traits of labor, thrift and self-sufficiency and with a massive infusion of vocational education emphasizing farming and stockraising techniques as well as manual labor and with religious instruction underscoring individualism over tribalism, it was hoped that the native Indians would be ripe for full participation as bona-fide citizens of the country (Nichols 1986 ,p.205). Congressman Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, kindled by the pioneering spirit and the compassionate wisdom of Thomas Jefferson took where Jefferson left. Dawes was sanguine that with proper training and with all the right conditions held in place, the Indians can rise up and be integrated with the American society. Dawes was convinced of the civilizing power of private property and firmly believed that in order to be deemed as civilized, one has to "wear civilized clothes.cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey and own property". Dawes and others had been frustrated by the slow process of assimilation and acculturation of native Indians cooped in reservations as well as the detrimental effects of the transcontinental railroad on the ecology, economy and well-being of the indigenous Americans. Furthermore, the continuing assaults on their persons and their lands by white settlers lusting for their lands, convinced them that they must be protected at all costs by some legislation (Norgren & Nanda, 1996, p.20). And the basis of such legislation was the long-held consensus that the short-cut way of making the Indians civilized, church-going farmers, capitalists with a sense of selfishness and enterprise and a competitive spirit is to allot each with individually owned lands carved from what was erstwhile communally held tribal lands. As Dawes expressed it, without this system the native Indians cannot progress to any more degree. Others joined in the chorus by asserting that the native Indian culture would be destined to extinction, unable to withstand the impact of American culture and "only assimilation 4 would save them" (Norgren & Nanda 1996,p.20). The reformists further contended that only by enacting a statute that would protect them from cultural and physical exploitation could they be made recipients of the "benefits of civilization". The US Supreme Court agreed and adjudicated that a statute commanding an escheat of Sioux tribal lands was unconstitutional and needed just compensation (Hodel v Irving). With these in view, Congress enacted the Dawes Act on February 8,1887, which provided for the division of Indian tribal-held reservation lands into 160-acre holdings. The President was given the power to determine the Indian tribal areas to be divided and 160 acres were to be allotted for each family who will farm the land; 80 acres for those who would use it for cattle farming and 40 acres for those who would utilize it for any normal living purpose. Thereupon, the allottees, who fully participated in the process of land allotment and those who left the land but embraced the civilized life would become bona-fide US citizens with all the rights, privileges and immunities of US citizens. However, the allotted lands were to be held in trust by the government for 25 years. This denotes that the allottees are prohibited from disposing of their lands for 25 years. This was based on the principle that native Indians are wards needing paternalistic protection from the government as the Great White Father. The law however contained a provision whereby reservation lands left after all the allottees had received their shares of the land or what we may call as surplus lands may immediately be sold to whomsoever the Secretary of the Interior deems worthy who all happened to be whites. The Dawes Act as a legislation removed all the impediments to citizenship as conceptualized by Jefferson and Washington i.e." the cleansing and Americanization of savage reservation residents"and their civilization, assimilation and integration into mainstream society not to mention the dissolution of Indian tribalism by the division of their lands in 5 severalty, "the promotion of Indian self-sufficiency through farming and stock-raising, the formal education of their young.and the conferring of US citizenship on Indians who had abandoned traditional ways" and the learning of the English language by many of them, all of which composed the juridical construction of citizenship at that time (Calhoun 2006,p.172). The 1924 Indian Citizenship Act The reformists and the progressives in the US Congress were convinced that the Dawes Act suffered from certain flaws. They contended that the Act was ethnocentric and compelled Indians to be like and act like 'Anglos' and refused to acknowledge their cultural heritage and liberty (Kotlowski 2001, p.190). Thus, the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act or Snyder Act had to emerge on June 2, 1924 to set things straight. It should be noticed that the juridical construction of citizenship for native Indians underwent evolution. In 1850, citizenship was conditional. There will only be one if the Indian lands be opened to private ownership. In 1887, the Dawes Act made citizenship available only to those who acquiesced to the division and parcelling of tribal lands and the selling of surplus lands to whites. In 1888, citizenship was available to Indians who married US citizens. In 1901, citizenship was for the taking in Oklahoma for those who voluntarily applied for citizenship and who were amenable to the leasing of Indian lands for oil exploration purposes and for right-of-way usages. In 1919, citizenship was legislated by Congress for patriotic Indians who fought for USA during World War I (Johansen 1998,p.137-8). Finally, in 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act conferred citizenship en masse to all Indians who were born in the territory of the United States but this did not carry the right to vote Congress designed it to be progressive, unilateral, ambivalent, unconditional and respecting of the Indian tribal citizenship which thus implied a dual citizenship for them. There was no need to apply for US citizenship nor alienate themselves from Indian tribal culture and renounce Indian property rights. Congress meant it to be citizenship that empowered and which released them from the 6 purview of the regulatory and widely perceived corrupt Bureau of Indian Affairs. Citizenship was no longer intertwined with big business nor big bureaucracy but citizenship involved social justice and the concept of federal guardianship i.e. "that federal guardianship is a necessary component of citizenship"and "that the government had an obligation to supervise and protect native citizens" (Bruyneel 2007,p.101). For the first time, the concept of partial citizenship was formulated. This meant that indigenous Indians were simultaneously US citizens and wards of the country. As expected, there were negative repercussions but as many Indians claimed, "We are the first Americans" and "Our citizenship is in our own nations"(Bruyneel 2007,p.101). Conclusion With regards to the Indian question, various generations of Americans and US leaders differed in ways of tackling it. Most lusted for Indian lands and thus wanted outright Indian removal. Many were consciensitized by the injustice but believed the American Manifest Destiny must give way to white settlement. Some like Thomas Jefferson believed that the Indians must first be civilized and assimilated to American society before being conferred citizenship. The Indian citizenship issue itself went through evolution. From citizenship in lieu of Indian lands, to citizenship conditioned to agreement to the breaking up of tribal lands and tribal culture, to assimilation through marriage, to citizenship by request, to citizenship in exchange for patriotism evinced in fighting for the US flag in World War I and finally to citizenship by birth within the territorial limits of USA. This kind celebrated a belongingness to both USA and the Indian tribal group where they came from. It emanated from the concept of federal guardianship and partial citizenship wherein all Indians were both citizens and wards of the country. What was examined in this paper were the policies of the American government towards the Indian question and the rationale behind these policies without being judgmental whether 7 these were right or wrong. These policies ultimately led to the bigger policies behind the Dawes Act of 1877 and the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. If we have to analyze well, there are quantum of differences between the earlier policies and that of the tenets behind the Dawes Act and between the Dawes Act, there is still another quantum of difference as the policy and rationale behind the Indian Citizenship Act was threshed out. It all started out with overt hostilities where both camps made no effort to hide their intentions to extinguish each other from the face of the earth. Then diplomacy and tact were utilized to stop the bloodshed as treaties were agreed upon. Then when American confidence was boosted by its military strength, the Indian removal became the policy. The rationale behind was that the possession of Indians with lands predestined by Providence for the Americans served as a barrier to the fulfillment of its American Manifest Destiny. The reformists began to make their presence felt with policies supporting the concept of Indian reservations where the aim was to separate the native Indians to protect them from white predators. Until the scheme calling for the breaking of reservation lands into individual parcels was conceptualized to assimilate them into the mainstream of American society and make them like all Americans. The progressives gained the upper hand where citizenship was conferred unconditionally and unilaterally with the simultaneous preservation and respect of Indian tribal culture. 8 REFERENCES American Philosophical Society. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, American Philosophical Society, 2000 Bruyneel, Kevin. The Third Space of Sovereignty, University of Minnesota Press, 2007 Cherokee Nation v Georgia, 5 Pet 1 (1831) Calhoun, Charles William. The Gilded Age, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006 Deloria,Philip Joseph & Salisbury,Neal. A Companion to American Indian History, Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Elk v Wilkins 112 US 94(1884) Hodel v Irving (1987) 4 (1987) 481 US 704 Howard, John. Awakening Minorities, Transaction Publishers, 1983 Jackson, Helen Hunt. The Indian Reform Letters of Helen Hunt Jackson, University of Oklahoma Press, 1998 Johansen, Bruce Elliott. The Encyclopedia of Native American Legal Tradition, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998 Kline, Benjamin. First Along the River, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000 Kotlowski, Dean. Nixon's Civil Rights, Harvard University Press, 2001 Morris, Jeffrey Brandon & William Webster. Establishing Justice in Middle America , University of Minnesota Press, 2007 Nichols, Roger The American Indian, Newbery Award Records, Inc, 1986 Norgren,Jill & Nanda, Serena. 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