Challenging American boundaries: Indigenous people and the "gift" of U.S. citizenship

Studies in American Political Development

Volumn 18, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 30-43

  Bruyneel, Kevin ^a  

^a BABSON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 4043150064     PISSN: 0898588X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0898588x04000021     Document Type: Review

References (85)

1. The two main ways that indigenous people could become U.S. citizens prior to the 1924 act were the following: (1) through the allotment process beginning in 1887, by which indigenous people could gain citizenship by becoming American private property holders; and (2) by a 1919 act that offered citizenship to indigenous veterans of World War I. Both avenues will be discussed below.
2. For approaches to political identity that have helped shape how I view this matter, see "Conference Panel: On Political Identity," Studies in American Political Development 6 (1992): 140-62. The three main participants were Mary Ryan, Anne Norton, and George Shulman. For Ryan, political identities "are more than just symbolically charged loyalties. . . . They are vehicles for making very major claims on the public realm" (145). Norton sees "political identities as constituted by and constitutive of relations of oppositions" (147). Finally, Shulman offers that, politics is cultural because it involves collective identities, which people build and enact through narratives that identify the circumstances, interests, difficulties, and differences that confront and divide them, by defining the history, commitments and institutions that do or should bind them. (153)
3. In his autobiography, Rickard asserts that "fight for the line" were "the last words Chief Deskaheh had said to me before he died" (Clinton Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora: The Autobiography of Chief Clinton Rickard, ed. Barbara Graymont. [Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1973], 68).
4. "Indian Citizenship Act," June 2, 1924, United States Statutes at Large, 43:253.
5. "Citizenship for World War I Veterans," Nov. 6, 1919. U.S. Statutes at Large, 41:550. This Act states: That every American Indian who served in the Military or Naval Establishments of the United States during the war against the Imperial German Government, and who has received or who shall hereafter receive an honorable discharge, if not now a citizen and if he so desires, shall . . . be granted full citizenship with all the privileges thereto . . . (emphasis added) The 1919 act points to an issue not central to this paper, though still interesting in itself, which is the question of whether World War I played a causal role in the formation and passage of the ICA. In dominant political histories of U.S.-indigenous relations it is often presumed that the ICA was formed and passed as a reward to indigenous people for their patriotic involvement in and support for the war effort. The very existence of the 1919 Act demonstrates that this "reward" of citizenship had already been offered, but not unilaterally conferred, five years before the passage of the ICA. Thus, there is no direct causal relationship between the participation of indigenous people in World War I and the passage of the ICA in 1924.
6. For the active and influential role of individual Progressive legislators, despite the fact that the Progressive movement and political party as a whole were in distinct decline, see Arthur Link, "What Happened to the Progressive Movement in the 1920s?," The American Historical Review 64 (1959): 833-51.
7. The three were Burton K. Wheeler (Montana), Bob La Follette, Jr. (Wisconsin), and Lynn Frazier (North Dakota).
8. Margaret Garretson Szasz, "Indian Reform in the Decade of Prosperity," Montana: The Magazine of Western History 20 (1970): 24.
9. Gary C. Stein, "The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924," New Mexico Historical Review 47 (1972): 266.
10. Ibid., 267.
11. As Alexandra Harmon puts it, The Friends of the Indian were several hundred people who, through a network of local and national organizations, mobilized to influence public opinion and to change policy by grass roots organizing, lobbying, public speaking, and writing. Their most powerful group was the Indian Rights Association. (Alexandra Harmon, "When is an Indian not an Indian? The "Friends of the Indian" and the Problem of Indian Identity," Journal of Ethnic Studies 18 (1990): 96.
12. Herbert Welsh, "How to Bring the Indian to Citizenship, and Citizenship to the Indian: A Speech before the Society for Promoting Good Citizenship as printed by the Boston Commonwealth, April 9, 1892," Indian Rights Associations Publications, 1st ser., 4 (1892): 2
13. Merrill E. Gates, "Addresses at the Lake Mohonk Conferences," in Americanizing the American Indians: Writings by the "Friends of the Indian" 1880-1900, ed. Frances Paul Prucha (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 340.
14. U.S. Statutes at Large, 24:388-91.
15. Arlene Hirschfelder and Martha Kreipe de Montano, The Native American Almanac (New York: Prentice Hall, 1993), 21.
16. Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 213.
17. The era of allotment (1887-1934) was disastrous for tribal land-holdings. During that period, "the national Indian land estate was reduced from 138 million acres in 1887 to 52 million acres in 1934" (Frank Pommersheim, Braid of Feathers: American Indian Law and Contemporary Tribal Life [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995], 20.
18. Hoxie, Final Promise, 230.
19. "Forty-Second Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Indian Rights Association," Dec. 15, 1924 (Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, 1924), 29.
20. John R. Brown, "Citizens - and Wards Too," The Survey, 15 Apr. 1925, 95.
21. When referring to the American polity, I mean the discourses, institutions, society, and territory of the United States.
22. Arthur C. Parker. "Certain Important Elements of the Indian Problem," Quarterly Journal 3 (1915). Reprinted in Frederick E. Hoxie, ed., Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001), 100.
23. Arthur C. Parker. "Certain Important Elements of the Indian Problem," Quarterly Journal 3 (1915). Reprinted in Frederick E. Hoxie, ed., Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001), 100.
24. Stephen Cornell, The Return of the Native, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 116.
25. Frederick E. Hoxie, ed., Encyclopedia of North American Indians (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996), 176.
26. For more on the Ghost Dance massacre, including a bibliography, see Hoxie, ed., Encyclopedia, 694-97.
27. Charles A. Eastman, "The Indian as a citizen," Lippincott's, 95 (1915): 70.
28. Ibid., 73.
29. Charles Eastman, "The Indian's Plea for Freedom," American Indian Magazine 6, (1919): 165.
30. Although it is not my focus here, after the passage of the ICA, there was still a decades-long political battle to be fought by some indigenous people and their supporters to gain the enforcement of indigenous people's civil rights in many states, a struggle that continued well into the 1970s. For more on the effort to enfranchise indigenous people across the United States, see Linda Parker, "The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924," in Between Two Worlds: The Survival of Twentieth Century Indians, ed. Arrell Morgan Gibson (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1984), 44-71; and Helen Peterson. "American Indian Political Participation," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 311 (1957): 116-26, esp. 121-22.
31. Although it is not my focus here, after the passage of the ICA, there was still a decades-long political battle to be fought by some indigenous people and their supporters to gain the enforcement of indigenous people's civil rights in many states, a struggle that continued well into the 1970s. For more on the effort to enfranchise indigenous people across the United States, see Linda Parker, "The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924," in Between Two Worlds: The Survival of Twentieth Century Indians, ed. Arrell Morgan Gibson (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1984), 44-71; and Helen Peterson. "American Indian Political Participation," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 311 (1957): 116-26, esp. 121-22.
32. Carlos Montezuma. "Drafting Indians and Justice," Wassaja 2, (1917). Reprinted in Hoxie, ed., Talking Back to Civilization, 126.
33. Carlos Montezuma. "Drafting Indians and Justice," Wassaja 2, (1917). Reprinted in Hoxie, ed., Talking Back to Civilization, 126.
34. Hoxie, ed., Talking Back to Civilization, 126-27.
35. Ernest Renan. "What is a Nation?" in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1991), 11.
36. Homi Bhabha, "DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation," in Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration, 310.
37. Ibid., 298-99.
38. Gertrude Bonin, "Editorial Comment," American Indian Magazine, 6 (1919): 162.
39. Hoxie, ed. Encyclopedia, 709.
40. It should be noted that National Council of American Indians is not the same organization as the National Congress of American Indians. The latter organization was founded in 1944 and is to this day still very active as an advocate for indigenous concerns within U.S. political institutions. The earlier NCAI diminished as an active political force in the 1930s. Still, the pan-Indian scope and more integrationist political direction of both groups are very similar. The presence of the original organization likely influenced the shape, composition, and outlook of its successor.
41. "Petition of the National Council of American Indians to the Senate," printed in the Congressional Record, Apr. 24, 1926, at the request of the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard. Reprinted in Jennings C. Wise, The Red Man in the New World Drama: A Politico-Legal Study with a Pageantry of American Indian History (Washington, DC: W.F. Roberts Co., 1931), 571.
42. "Petition of the National Council of American Indians to the Senate," printed in the Congressional Record, Apr. 24, 1926, at the request of the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard. Reprinted in Jennings C. Wise, The Red Man in the New World Drama: A Politico-Legal Study with a Pageantry of American Indian History (Washington, DC: W.F. Roberts Co., 1931), 571.
43. Hoxie, ed., "Introduction," in Final Promise, 4.
44. Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, Inc., "Minutes of Annual Meeting Held at Cass Lake, Minnesota," July 8-10, 1924, 1-2, in Council Meetings of the Major American Indian Tribes, 1907-1971. (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981-1984), reel 14, at 694.
45. The most obvious way indigenous leaders would have learned about the precise terms of the ICA would have been by reading it on their own. However, if there was some barrier or hindrance, the tribes were not only in communication with BIA and other government officials about new legislation, especially during these annual council meetings, but they were also hearing from nongovernmental organizations such as the Indian Rights Association about the implication of new U.S. Indian policy. As such, it is highly unlikely that Caswell would not have known about the tribal rights provision in the ICA.
46. Among the tribes that paid little attention to the passage of the ICA were those whose people had been declared U.S. citizens prior to 1924. Most notable in this regard during the Progressive Era were the various Pueblo tribes of the southwestern United States, whose people were conferred U.S. citizenship, without their consent, as a consequence of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In the 1920s, the Pueblos were much more concerned with Congressional legislation, in particular the Bursum Bill of 1922, which allowed for the legal validation of land rights of white squatters on Pueblo Territory. Thus, for reasons of both preexistent citizenship and more pressing concerns, during their 1924 all-council meeting, there is no mention of the ICA. See "Meeting of All-Pueblo Council at Santo Domingo,"July 17, 1924, 1-43, in Council Meetings of the Major American Indian Tribes, reel 12, at 27. For the citizenship status of the Pueblos, see Alexandra Witkin, "To Silence a Drum: The Imposition of United States Citizenship on Native Peoples," Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques, 21 (1995): 368-70. For Pueblo political activity during the 1920s, see Kenneth Philp, "Albert B. Fall and the Protest from the Pueblos, 1921-1923," Arizona and the West 12 (1970): 237-54. For an example of the support of white reformers for the Pueblo cause, see John Collier, "Plundering the Pueblo Indians," Sunset Magazine 50. (1923): 21-25, 56.
47. Among the tribes that paid little attention to the passage of the ICA were those whose people had been declared U.S. citizens prior to 1924. Most notable in this regard during the Progressive Era were the various Pueblo tribes of the southwestern United States, whose people were conferred U.S. citizenship, without their consent, as a consequence of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In the 1920s, the Pueblos were much more concerned with Congressional legislation, in particular the Bursum Bill of 1922, which allowed for the legal validation of land rights of white squatters on Pueblo Territory. Thus, for reasons of both preexistent citizenship and more pressing concerns, during their 1924 all-council meeting, there is no mention of the ICA. See "Meeting of All-Pueblo Council at Santo Domingo,"July 17, 1924, 1-43, in Council Meetings of the Major American Indian Tribes, reel 12, at 27. For the citizenship status of the Pueblos, see Alexandra Witkin, "To Silence a Drum: The Imposition of United States Citizenship on Native Peoples," Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques, 21 (1995): 368-70. For Pueblo political activity during the 1920s, see Kenneth Philp, "Albert B. Fall and the Protest from the Pueblos, 1921-1923," Arizona and the West 12 (1970): 237-54. For an example of the support of white reformers for the Pueblo cause, see John Collier, "Plundering the Pueblo Indians," Sunset Magazine 50. (1923): 21-25, 56.
48. Among the tribes that paid little attention to the passage of the ICA were those whose people had been declared U.S. citizens prior to 1924. Most notable in this regard during the Progressive Era were the various Pueblo tribes of the southwestern United States, whose people were conferred U.S. citizenship, without their consent, as a consequence of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In the 1920s, the Pueblos were much more concerned with Congressional legislation, in particular the Bursum Bill of 1922, which allowed for the legal validation of land rights of white squatters on Pueblo Territory. Thus, for reasons of both preexistent citizenship and more pressing concerns, during their 1924 all-council meeting, there is no mention of the ICA. See "Meeting of All-Pueblo Council at Santo Domingo,"July 17, 1924, 1-43, in Council Meetings of the Major American Indian Tribes, reel 12, at 27. For the citizenship status of the Pueblos, see Alexandra Witkin, "To Silence a Drum: The Imposition of United States Citizenship on Native Peoples," Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques, 21 (1995): 368-70. For Pueblo political activity during the 1920s, see Kenneth Philp, "Albert B. Fall and the Protest from the Pueblos, 1921-1923," Arizona and the West 12 (1970): 237-54. For an example of the support of white reformers for the Pueblo cause, see John Collier, "Plundering the Pueblo Indians," Sunset Magazine 50. (1923): 21-25, 56.
49. Among the tribes that paid little attention to the passage of the ICA were those whose people had been declared U.S. citizens prior to 1924. Most notable in this regard during the Progressive Era were the various Pueblo tribes of the southwestern United States, whose people were conferred U.S. citizenship, without their consent, as a consequence of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In the 1920s, the Pueblos were much more concerned with Congressional legislation, in particular the Bursum Bill of 1922, which allowed for the legal validation of land rights of white squatters on Pueblo Territory. Thus, for reasons of both preexistent citizenship and more pressing concerns, during their 1924 all-council meeting, there is no mention of the ICA. See "Meeting of All-Pueblo Council at Santo Domingo,"July 17, 1924, 1-43, in Council Meetings of the Major American Indian Tribes, reel 12, at 27. For the citizenship status of the Pueblos, see Alexandra Witkin, "To Silence a Drum: The Imposition of United States Citizenship on Native Peoples," Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques, 21 (1995): 368-70. For Pueblo political activity during the 1920s, see Kenneth Philp, "Albert B. Fall and the Protest from the Pueblos, 1921-1923," Arizona and the West 12 (1970): 237-54. For an example of the support of white reformers for the Pueblo cause, see John Collier, "Plundering the Pueblo Indians," Sunset Magazine 50. (1923): 21-25, 56.
50. Jane Zane Gordon, "Will Indians Give up Tribal independence for Newly Offered American Citizenship?" Los Angeles Examiner, July 29, 1924, sec. 5, 3.
51. I b i d.
52. I b i d.
53. U.S. Department of Interior, "Fifty-Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1924" (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1924), 20.
54. Laurence M. Hauptman. "American Indian Influences on the America of the Founding Fathers," in Exiled in the Land of the Free, ed. John Mohawk et al. (Sante Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers, 1992), 324.
55. Barbara Graymont. "Editor's Introduction," in Rickard. (1973), pp. xxiv, xxiii, xvii.
56. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora, 53.
57. Between 1789 and 1871 more than 800 treaties were negotiated between indigenous nations and the United States, of which approximately 370 were ratified by the U.S. Senate (Hirschfelder, Native American Almanac, 53).
58. Hoxie, ed., Encyclopedia, 645.
59. James Tully. "The Struggles of Indigenous People for and of Freedom," in Political Theory and the Eights of Indigenous Peoples, ed. Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton, and Will Sanders (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 42.
60. I lay out my "politics on the boundaries" argument at greater length in "Politics on the Boundaries: The Post-Colonial Politics of Indigenous People," Indigenous Nations Studies Journal 1:2 (2000): 73-94.
61. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora, 53.
62. Of the many excellent works on the shaping forces upon and implications of the 1924 Immigration Act, the following are especially valuable: John Higham, Stranger in Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1865-1925 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Mae Ngai, "The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law," Journal of American History 86 (1999): 67-92; and Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1998).
63. Of the many excellent works on the shaping forces upon and implications of the 1924 Immigration Act, the following are especially valuable: John Higham, Stranger in Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1865-1925 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Mae Ngai, "The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law," Journal of American History 86 (1999): 67-92; and Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1998).
64. Of the many excellent works on the shaping forces upon and implications of the 1924 Immigration Act, the following are especially valuable: John Higham, Stranger in Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1865-1925 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Mae Ngai, "The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law," Journal of American History 86 (1999): 67-92; and Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1998).
65. Of the many excellent works on the shaping forces upon and implications of the 1924 Immigration Act, the following are especially valuable: John Higham, Stranger in Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1865-1925 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Mae Ngai, "The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law," Journal of American History 86 (1999): 67-92; and Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1998).
66. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora, 65.
67. By "envisioned territory," I mean territory on which a people may not presently reside at all or to the extent that they wish, but of and over which they envision themselves eventually gaining full or adequate occupancy and control. This relationship of political identity to political space is not, of course, unique to indigenous people in North America. Currently, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the Middle East is likely the most vibrant example of the relationship between political identity and political space as 'lived and envisioned territory.' For my definition of political identity, see n. 2 above.
68. For various maps of the historical and contemporary territory of the Six Nations as a whole and for particular nations that span the U.S./Canada boundary, see Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15: Northeast, ed. Bruce Trigger (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 450, 471.
69. Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation (Jay Treaty), 8. Stat. 116 (1794).
70. Eileen M. Luna-Firebaugh. "The Border Crossed Us: Border Crossing Issues of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas," Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies 17 (2002): 162; Treat of Peace and Amity (Treaty of Ghent), 8. Stat. 218 (1814).
71. Eileen M. Luna-Firebaugh. "The Border Crossed Us: Border Crossing Issues of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas," Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies 17 (2002): 162; Treat of Peace and Amity (Treaty of Ghent), 8. Stat. 218 (1814).
72. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora, 67.
73. Like their brethren below the border, these Six Nations dealt with ominous settler-state policies, as the Canadian government imposed citizenship upon the indigenous people in its midst and sought to break up the more politically radical indigenous groups, such as the Grand River Council. In 1920, the Canadian federal government added an amendment to the Indian Act, "which forced enfranchisement on Canadian Indians" (Hoxie, ed., Encyclopedia, 219). In October 1924, "armed police burst into the Ohsweken Council House and read a decree dissolving the Six Nations' parliament." This was done on the order of the Canadian government, "to overthrow the [Six Nation's] assembly that dared to challenge it" (Richard Wright, Stolen Continents: The "New World" Through Indian Eyes [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992]), 324.
74. Like their brethren below the border, these Six Nations dealt with ominous settler-state policies, as the Canadian government imposed citizenship upon the indigenous people in its midst and sought to break up the more politically radical indigenous groups, such as the Grand River Council. In 1920, the Canadian federal government added an amendment to the Indian Act, "which forced enfranchisement on Canadian Indians" (Hoxie, ed., Encyclopedia, 219). In October 1924, "armed police burst into the Ohsweken Council House and read a decree dissolving the Six Nations' parliament." This was done on the order of the Canadian government, "to overthrow the [Six Nation's] assembly that dared to challenge it" (Richard Wright, Stolen Continents: The "New World" Through Indian Eyes [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992]), 324.
75. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora, 65.
76. Indian Defense League of America (IDLA) website: http://tuscaroras/IDLA/
77. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarara, 84.
78. United States ex rel. Diabo v. McCandless. 18 F.2d. 282; 1927 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1053, 18 Mar. 1927.
79. Luna-Firebaugh, "The Border Crossed Us," 163.
80. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora, 85. The passage from the King Bill (S. 716), is quoted in Rickard.
81. Ibid., 87.
82. Act of 2 Apr. 1928, chap. 309, 45 Stat. 401; codified in 8. U.S.C.A. 1359.
83. Rickard, Fighting Tuscarora, 88.
84. IDLA website.
85. Bill Ashcroft, Post-Colonial Transformation (London: Routledge, 2001), 23.