While it is common to speak about Indian tribes and Indian reservations, it is also important to realize that these concepts—i.e., tribes and reservations—are not Native, but have been superimposed on American Indians for administrative, colonial, and racist reasons.
By 1921, it was common to refer to Indian tribes with a vague understanding that a tribe was somehow a single governmental and political entity. During the treaty negotiations of the nineteenth century, the American government simply created tribes by putting autonomous Indian groups together under a single leader, often appointed by the government. In some cases, the tribes formed in this manner shared some common cultural features, such as language and religion, while in other cases the government simply grouped diverse groups together as a tribe for administrative purposes.
The concept of the Indian reservation has its roots in the English conquest of Ireland in which the “wild” Irish were geographically confined to certain regions so that they would be out of the way of the English plantations. In North America, the English colonists and, later, the newly created United States took a similar approach by creating Indian reservations in which the “wild” Indians, like the “wild” Irish would not interfere with the process of “civilization.” In an article in the Western Historical Quarterly, Christina Klein writes:
“Reservations were physical spaces designed to redefine the cultural space of Indians—to move them from savagery, a position wholly outside the social order, to quasi-citizenry, a position within the emerging social hierarchy, albeit on its lowest rungs.”
Briefly described below are some of the 1921 events impacting tribes and reservations.
Hopi
The Hopi are a group of autonomous agricultural villages located on mesas in Northern Arizona. The superintendent of the Hopi reservation, together with eight employees and seven policemen, all armed with pistols, went to the village of Hotevilla. The people were then forcibly stripped and dipped in sheep dip (black leaf 40). The superintendent reported:
“We prepared their baths at the proper temperature, bathed them, and boiled and dried their clothes for them while they were being bathed. Yet they had to be driven or dragged to the tub, and forced into it like some wild beast, unblessed with human intelligence. Pure unadulterated fanatical perversity is the only explanation.”
Reports by others differed from that of the superintendent. In the words of Violet Pooleyama:
“They started putting our men and boys in it just as if they were sheep. They took the women and girls and put them in it, too. When the women fought with them they often threw them into the sheep-dip clothes and all. Sometimes they tore the clothes off the women and girls.”
The government officials used baseball bats to club men who resisted and ten of the Hotevilla men were taken to jail in Keams Canyon for resisting. In one instance, they knocked a man out for two hours. When he came to, they handcuffed him, hung him from the saddle of a horse, and drug him to Keams Canyon.
In Prescott, Arizona, a secret society of Anglo businessmen known as the Smokis began doing a parody of the Hopi snake dance as a part of the city’s Way Out West Celebration. According to English professor Leah Dilworth, in her book Imagining Indians in the Southwest: Persistent Visions of a Primitive Past:
“As much as the Smoki rhetoric emphasized the authenticity and seriousness of their performances, they did not show respect for Hopi beliefs or cosmology, and the performances were, in fact, comic turns; as respectable members of the business elite, the Smokis played at being inferior savages.”
San Carlos Apache
In Arizona, 74% of the grazing land on the San Carlos Apache Reservation was being used by non-Indian ranchers who had grazing permits from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Fort McDowell Yavapai
The Yavapai are a group of Yuman-speaking bands whose aboriginal homelands were in western Arizona. By 1921, the government had proposed moving the Yavapai to a new reservation. Protests from Dr. Carlos Montezuma (a prominent Yavapai physician and writer) and others regarding the proposed removal of the Yavapai from the Fort McDowell Reservation and their relocation on the Salt River Reservation led to an investigation of the situation. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs concluded that the Yavapai should be allowed to remain at Fort McDowell.
Fort Hall
The Fort Hall Indian Reservation was established in Idaho for the Shoshone and Bannock tribe. In 1921, the Fort Hall Indian Stockmen’s Association was organized by Ralph Dixey. The new association used a constitution and bylaws modeled after the Eastern Idaho Grazing Association. Historian John Heaton, in his book The Shoshone-Bannocks: Culture and Commerce at Fort Hall, 1870-1940, writes:
“The formation of this institution represented the most significant Shoshone-Bannock innovation since the turn to agriculture and political unification in the 1880s.”
John Heaton reports:
“Through the association, cattlemen asserted control over all facets of the reservation cattle industry, including production and management of range resources and member livestock, marketing and sales, product quality, bottoms hay resources, grazing allotments and the tribal grazing reserve, and transportation and market access.”
The Indian agent for the Fort Hall Reservation, having been informed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that the use of peyote and peyote meetings were in violation of Indian Office Regulations, posted a notice informing the Shoshone and Bannock that the introduction, use, or possession of peyote was illegal.
Crow
In Montana, the Crow business committee refused to allow the agency superintendent to chair its meetings and rejected the by-laws which he had prepared for the committee.
Crow chief Plenty Coups traveled to Washington, D.C. to take part in an event paying homage to the Unknown Soldier. The organizers of the event insisted that the chief remain silent during the ceremony. In his chapter in American Indians/American Presidents: A History, Matthew Gilbert reports:
“Dressed in beaded buckskin, Chief Plenty Coups rose, placed his eagle-feather headdress and warrior coup stick on the sarcophagus, and began speaking to the crowd in his Native language.”
Matthew Gilbert goes on to say:
“Through his act of independence, Plenty Coups cast a spotlight on Native Americans at a time when Indians had been largely consigned to the margins of American society.”
Blackfeet
In Montana, in an effort to turn the Blackfoot into farmers, the new agent for the reservation began a Five Year Industrial Program (FYIP). The FYIP emphasized the cultivation of small gardens and plots of wheat as well as sheep grazing. The reservation was organized into 29 chapters of the Piegan Farming and Livestock Association, each with its own president, vice-president, and secretary. Historian Paul Rosier, in his book Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912-1954, reports:
“For full-bloods, increasing shut out of tribal policy-making, the program represented a comprehensive approach to community living, an opportunity for each cooperative organization to manage its domestic affairs, and evidence that the government had not abrogated its responsibility and promise to make them productive Indian citizens.”
Fort Peck
The Fort Peck Indian Reservation was established in Montana for several Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. In 1921, a special report on unrest among the Indians on the Fort Peck reservation described “a great deal of unrest among the Indians particularly the mixed bloods who, in my judgment, desire to fill all field positions with members of their own tribe, particularly themselves.”
Skokomish
In Washington, state courts allowed the condemnation of land for the City of Tacoma’s Cushman Hydroelectric Project. This includes Skokomish tribal lands.
Choctaw
In Mississippi, the federal government began buying 17,000 acres which was to become the Choctaw reservation.
Caddo
Drought threatened the Caddo corn crop in Oklahoma. Ghost Dance leader Mr. Squirrel set up the pole in the center of the dance circle. For three days he prayed and danced while the corn burned in the sun. On the fourth day, the rain came.
Lac Courte Oreilles
In Wisconsin, the Winter Dam built by Northern States Power Company flooded part of the Ojibwa Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation and destroyed rice beds and waterfowl habitat. Most of the Ojibwa did not benefit from the power generated by the dam.
S’Klallam
In Washington, the government school at the S’Klallam community of Jamestown was closed and the children had to go to school in Sequim with non-Indians. Anthropologist L.L. Langness, in a chapter in Shadows of Our Ancestors: Readings in the History of Klallam-White Relations, reports:
“This did not take place without some serious objections on the part of the whites.”
Osage
In Oklahoma, a series of murders began among the Osage. The first murder victim was Anna Brown (Wah-hrah-lum-pah), a wealthy 25-year-old full-blood. Former FBI agent Lawrence J. Hogan, in his book The Osage Indian Murders: The True Story of a Multiple Murder Plot to Acquire the Estates of Wealthy Osage Tribe Members, writes:
“Nearly two dozen Osage Indians died under suspicious circumstances. The entire Osage tribe, as well as their white neighbors, was horror-stricken and in desperate fear for their lives.”
Navajo
In New Mexico, prospectors combed the Navajo reservation looking for promising places for oil. However, the San Juan Navajo council did not wish to consider any oil and gas leases. The assistant commissioner of Indian affairs ordered the Indian agent to call the council together again, but once again they refused all petitions for leases. Historian Kathleen Chamberlain, in her book Under Sacred Ground: A History of Navajo Oil 1922-1982, reports:
“The oil companies refused to accept the Navajo decision.”
The Indian Office ordered another meeting with the San Juan Navajo. This time the oil company promised to hire Navajo for all unskilled work. Reluctantly, the Navajo agreed to a lease.
Indians 101
Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—this series presents American Indian topics. In most American history books, American Indians have vanished by the twentieth century, and yet many of the events of this century laid the foundation for many of today’s Indian issues, including poverty. More twentieth-century histories from this series:
Indians 101: The Northwest Coast Potlatch 100 years ago, 1921
Indians 101: American Indian art 100 years ago, 1921
Indians 101: The federal government and American Indians 100 years ago, 1921
Indians 101: Popular culture, stereotypes, crafts 100 years ago, 1920
Indians 101: World War II Veterans Come Home
Indians 101: Dissolving Cherokee Government
Indians 101: California Indians Lose Their Home
Indians 101: The Indian Reorganization Act