Excerpt from:
Talking Back to Civilization, Indian Voices from the Progressive Era
Frederick E. Hoxie, Ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s, Boston and New York, 2001.
Selected Chronology of Important Events
for Native Americans in the Progressive Era (1890-1928)
1890 Congress creates Oklahoma Territory out of “unassigned” lands in the
western half of Indian Territory. A large portion of these lands had
been opened to white settlement in 1889 in the first of the territory’s
“land rushes.” Later rushes occurred in 1891, 1892, 1893, and 1895.
Sitting Bull is killed by Indian policemen in his cabin on the Standing
Rock Reservation.
The massacre of Sioux Indians occurs at Wounded Knee, South
Dakota. Charles Eastman, the physician at the Pine Ridge Agency,
tends to the wounded and accompanies the burial party that visits the
site.
1893 The World’s Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago to commemorate
the four hundredth anniversary of the Columbus voyages, Simon
Pokagon delivers his “Red Man’s Greeting.”
1898 Congress approves the Curtis Act, which provides for the allotment of
Indian Territory reservations and the ultimate dissolution of tribal
governments there.
1902 Oliver Wendell Holmes is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
1903 The U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock,
declaring that Congress has the power to abrogate treaties with Indian
tribes.
1904 Theodore Roosevelt, elected to a full term as president in November
1904, is inaugurated. Quanah Parker, Geronimo, and American Horse
ride in his inaugural parade.
Representatives of the Five Civilized Tribes hold a constitutional
convention to oppose Oklahoma statehood and propose admission of
Indian Territory into the Union as the state of Sequoyah.
Alaska creates a segregated public school system. One set of schools
is for whites and “civilized” mixed-bloods; the second set is for Alaskan
Natives. This system remains in place until 1960.
1907
Oklahoma becomes the forty-fifth state in the Union. Tribal
governments in
Indian Territory are terminated
1909
Geronimo, still held as a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, dies of
pneumonia. The Apache leader had ridden I Theodore Roosevelt’s
inaugural parade in 1905 and published his autobiography in 1907.
Chitto Harjo, leader of the Hickory Ground Creeks who refused to
cooperate with the allotment of their territory or to recognize the
dissolution of their tribal government, is killed in a shootout with U.S.
marshals.
1910
Daniel Beard’s “Sons of Daniel Boone” organization and Ernest
Thompson Seton’s “Woodcraft Indians” join James E. West, a
Washington, D.C., attorney, to found the Boy Scouts of America. The
Boy Scouts were founded in Great Britain by Lord Robert Bade-Powell.
The Indian lore merit badge quickly became one of the most soughtafter awards offered by the new group.
1915
The Hopi, weary of tourists photographing their ceremonies, ban
cameras from their villages.
1917
The United States enters World War I on the side of Great Britain,
France, and Russia. Ten thousand Native Americans eventually serve
in uniform.
Commissioner of Indian Affairs Cato Sells announces that the Indian
birth rate exceeds the death rate; Indians are “no longer a dying race.”
1918
World War I ends
The Native American Church is incorporated in Oklahoma to promote
Christian beliefs through “the peyote sacrament.” Frank Eagle, a
Ponca, is named the church’s first president.
1920
Warren G. Harding is elected president on a platform repudiating
American involvement with the League of Nations and calling for a
“return to normalcy.” Women vote for the first time in presidential
elections.
1922
The All-Pueblo Council calls on Congress to reject a proposal from
New Mexico senator Holm Bursum that would ratify the land claims of
settlers who had squatted illegally on Indian lands in the Rio Grande
valley.
1928 Herbert Hoover is elected president. Charles Curtis, and enrolled
member of the Kaw tribe, is elected vice president.
The Meriam Report on social conditions among American Indians is
released. The report chronicles Indian poverty and ill-health,
underscoring the failure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ programs of
allotment, education, and the suppression of traditional Native
American culture.