“Pendulum” of Indian policy
• Cycles of binary thinking
(“good” or “bad” Indian)
• Policy swings between
Autonomy and Assimilation
• Policies intended to assimilate often backfired on gov’t

Early Indian Policies
• Treaties, 1770s-1871
– Took land but recognized nationhood
• Removal, 1820s-50s
– Moved tribes but sparked resistance
• Reservations, 1830s-80s
– Isolated tribes but retained land base/self-rule

Recent Indian Policies
• Allotment / boarding schools, 1880s-1920s
• Indian New Deal /
Reorganization, 1930s-40s
• Termination/
Urban Relocation, 1950s-60s
• Political Self-Determination,
1970s-80s
• Economic/Cultural
Self-Determination 1990s?

ALLOTMENT ERA, 1880s-1920s
• General Allotment
Act, 1887 (Dawes Act)
• Privatized Indian lands to create farmers
• Non-Indians
“checkerboarded” most reservations

Allotment, 1887-1934
Each tribal member received allotment
(in trust 25 years)
160
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Head of household
Alloted acreage
80
Single adults
40
Kids
Surplus land sold to white settlers
Many allotted lands taken through fraud
(via language, kids, etc.)
Gov’ts foreclosed lands for unpaid taxes

160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Effects of Allotment
Half of reservation lands lost
156
Millions of acres
78
1881 1900
18 million acres allotted;
49 million acres surplus
Notion of individual private property
(“break up tribal mass”)
Farming failed in some regions.
BIA undermined tribal governments
Split tribal membership

Vulnerable lands
Rich farmland
Forests (timber)
Lakefront
Minerals/oil

Oneida
(1838)
2,581 acres
Tribal
18%
Alloted
82%
(1978 figures)

Lac Courte
Oreilles
(1854)
30,529 acres
Tribal
13%
Alloted
87%

Bad River (1854)
41,802 acres
Tribal
20%
Alloted
80%

Lac du Flambeau
(1854)
40,479 acres
Tribal
62%
Alloted
38%

Red Cliff (1854)
7,267 acres
Tribal
70%
Alloted
30%

St. Croix (1934)
1,715 acres
Tribal
70%
Alloted
30%

Federal attacks on sovereignty
1885: Major Crimes Act creates federal jurisdiction over 7 crimes between Indians on Indian land:
(Murder, Manslaughter, Rape, Assault w/ intent to kill, Arson,
Burglary, Larceny)
1886: Kagama decision extends federal “plenary power” over Indians to an “incontrovertible right.”
Congress passes ~ 5,000 laws regulating Indians--most without their consent or input.

Boarding Schools
• Removal of kids from family, land
• Cultural assimilation/Christianizing
• Economic training

BIA and Mission School policies
• Forced attendance
• Native name replaced
• Languages forbidden
• Hair, clothing changed
• Practicing traditions taboo

St. Joseph’s
Catholic School,
Menominee Res.

Unintended effects
• Students learned to work the white system
• Students met other tribal members
• Turned negative into
“pan-Indian” (supratribal) national movement

Tribal backlash to allotment
• 1894 Hopi petition
• Allotment ended in
Southwest, 1911
• Merriam Report blamed allotment for poverty, 1928

xxxxx Early Protests
• Opposed allotment
• Christian churches against poverty
•
Lone Wolf decision kept Indians as federal
“wards”, 1903
• Nice decision: wards even if citizens, 1916

Society of American Indians
Favored
“progressive”
(assimilation) solutions
Not “traditional”
(tribal) solutions
But raised public awareness

Indian Citizenship Act, 1924
Some veterans, allottees already citizens
Rest of Indians became dual citizens of U.S. & own nation
Kept “right of any Indian to tribal or other property”
Some traditionalists opposed U.S. citizenship

INDIAN NEW DEAL ERA
1930s-1940s
• Indian Reorganization
Act (IRA), 1934
(Wheeler-Howard Act)
• Identified with FDR
& BIA’s John Collier
• Intended to end allotment, start autonomy

Autonomy Effects of IRA
• (Altered) self-rule restored on some rezes ak
• Resisted by some tribes
- Hopi, Pueblos
• Tensions between traditional Chiefs &
IRA “tribal councils” on some reservations
Lakota, Iroquois

Assimilationist Effects of IRA
• Replaced traditional governance with U.S. model like corporate boards
• Companies had picked Tribal
Council to sign mineral leases
(Standard Oil on Navajo)
• Tribes to develop constitutions, hold elections, use foreign parliamentary procedures
• Interior/BIA controlled funds, could veto tribal decisions

Indian Claims Commission, 1946
Settled (extinguished) tribal land claims until 1978
Tribe paid estmated “price per acre” of the land at time it was illegally taken
($1200 each to Potawatomi)
ICC did not return land; some tribes turned down $$

Cultural Survival through “Dark Ages”

TERMINATION
ERA, 1950s-60s
Termination Resolution (1953) to “free” successful tribes from federal gov’t, communal lands
Ended 109 tribes, subjected to state/local control
Federal services lost; private lands lost via tax foreclosure
Menominee terminated, 1961-73
Major cause stimulating
Indian rights movement;
13 tribes restored

Federal moves vs. sovereignty
NW Shoshone decision, 1942
(treaty rights only for “temporary occupancy”)
Public Law 280, 1953
(state law enforcement on rezes in 5 states, include. WI)
Tee-Hit-Ton decision, 1955
(Alaskan tribe has no pre-Conquest “aboriginal rights”)

Activism in 1950s-early 1960s
Returning WWII, Korean war veterans fight for rights
National Congress of American Indians, 1944
American Indian Chicago Conference, 1961; NIYC 1963
Iroquois protest at U.S.-Canada border for Jay Treaty

Relocation Act, 1956
Force Indians off reservation by offering job training opportunities in urban areas.
Individuals made to sign agreements that they would not return to their reservations.
Urban populations grew in LA,
NY, Chicago, Mpls, Denver,
Albuquerque, OKC, etc .

Effects of Urban
Relocation, 1960s
Chicago
American
Indian
Center powwow
Loss of Native culture & languages, yet kept touch with rural reservation
Increased contact among different tribes; growth of pan-Indian identity
Common experience of urban poverty & struggle
Exposure to civil rights activism, successes

POLITICAL SELF-DETERMINATION
ERA, 1970s-1980s

American Indian Movement, 1968
Founded at Stillwater Prison; inspired by Black Panthers
Urban Indians monitored
Minneapolis police brutality on Franklin Avenue
Made contact with traditional chiefs on reservations; fused urban and rural activism

Alcatraz 1969
Indians of All Tribes occupies abandoned
San Francisco Bay prison
Cites law that unused federal property reverts to tribes
First major national pan-Indian action

Trail of Broken Treaties 1972
Caravan to Washington,
DC for self-determination
Unplanned occupation of
BIA headquarters before
1972 election
Nixon White House embarrassed by clashes

AIM 1972-73 AIM protests beating death of Lakota elder in Gordon, Nebraska
Police attack on courthouse protesters in leads to Custer, SD riot
AIM backs Lakota traditionalists vs . corrupt Pine Ridge Chairman
Dick Wilson, and his Guardians
Of the Oglala Nation (GOON)

AIM 1972-73 AIM protests beating death of Lakota elder in Gordon, Nebraska
Police attack on courthouse protesters in leads to Custer, SD riot
AIM backs Lakota traditionalists vs . corrupt Pine Ridge Chairman
Dick Wilson, and his Guardians
Of the Oglala Nation (GOON)

Wounded Knee 1973
Taking a stand at the site of 1890 massacre on Pine Ridge

Wilson’s tribal government backed by BIA, FBI,
U.S. Marshalls, military

AIM and Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization in W.K.

Traditional
Lakota Chiefs redeclared an
Independent
Oglala Nation
Drew Indians from around
North
America
Example of traditional self-rule?

2 AIM killed; many injured; surrendered after 71 days

Aftermath of
Wounded Knee Siege
AIM leaders tried, but few convicted
( FBI misconduct &
COINTELPRO files)
After W.K.:
3 years of violence on Pine Ridge; up to 80 Lakota died
Oglala, June 26, 1975:
2 FBI , 1 AIM die;
Day after land transfer.
Peltier later convicted.

1960s-1970s romanticism
• Support for Native environmentalism
• Rebirth of “Noble Savage” images
• Chief Seattle speech rewritten to emphasize ecological themes
Iron Eyes
Cody ad vs. pollution

Pendulum swings to autonomy
1975: Indian Self-determination and Educational
Assistance Act lets tribes manage own housing, lawenforcement, health, social service, development.
1978: Indian Child Welfare Act gives tribes authority over most Indian adoption and child custody

Gresham
Wisconsin occupations, 1970s
Menominee still poor after 1973 restoration; needed hospital
Menominee Warrior Society occupies Alexian Novitiate near Gresham
Battles with white vigilantes;
National Guard separates sides
Milwaukee Coast Guard Station occupied, 1971 (used as school)
Milwaukee

1970s Activism
International Indian
Treaty Council, 1974; hemispheric networks
United Nations
Indigenous Peoples
Conference,
Geneva, 1977
Longest Walk
(SF to DC) opposes legislation, 1978

Treaty rights backlash, 1980s
• Began in Northwest fishing conflicts, 1960s
• Sportsmen & reservation whites oppose tribal land use
• “Wise Use” resource
& corporate interests
• WI, MN groups part of national movement

Self-Determination extends to economy
& culture,early 1990s
Columbus Day
Seminole casino
• Indian Gaming
Regulatory Act, 1988
• Tribes allowed same level of games as their states
• Casinos give tribes new jobs, influence
Reburial ceremony
• Public awareness of
Columbus, mascots, sacred sites, etc .

Big Foot Memorial Ride
Commemorating journey leading up to
1890 Wounded Knee massacre

Oka 1990
Armed standoff between
Mohawk Warrior Society &
Canadian Army over burial site threatened by golf course

Early 1990s romanticism
• “Noble savages” in Dances with Wolves
• New Age groups exploit spirituality
• But growing support for
Native environmental movement

WI Republican video of tribes “scalping” taxpayer
2000s backlash?
• Gaming revenue conflicts
– “Rich Indians” message
(like Termination, anti-Semitism?)
• Reservation jurisdiction conflicts
– More conservative judges
Schwarzenegger ads against tribal campaign donations :
The New “Terminator”?
• Tribes now have means to fight back in this cycle?

Pendulum of Federal Indian Policy
Era Policy trend
1880s-1920s: Assimilation
1930s-1940s: Autonomy
1950s-early 60s: Assimilation
Global trend
Imperialism/racism
Economic reform
Cold War/individualism
1970s-early 90s: Autonomy Civil rights/liberation
Late 1990s-2000s: Assimilation? Anti-multiculturalism