According to the majority of non-Indian social philosophers, bureaucrats, and politicians of the nineteenth century, American Indians were going to simply disappear. Many history books about Indians stop their histories at the end of the nineteenth century, adding to the illusion that Indians somewhat stopped being Indians when the twentieth century began. In his chapter in Indian Self-Rule: First-Hand Accounts of Indian-White Relations from Roosevelt to Reagan, Roger Buffalohead puts it this way:
“When the twentieth century began, most Americans who thought about Indians at all did so in the past tense. Like a photograph, the image of Indian culture was frozen in time.”
The reality of the twentieth century was that Indians didn’t disappear but increased in numbers. One hundred years ago, in 1924, it was evident that: (1) Indians weren’t going to disappear; (2) Indians, particularly those on reservations, were economically disadvantaged (their poverty level was extremely high); and (3) the federal government’s American Indian policies developed in the nineteenth century weren’t working for twentieth-century Indians.
Within the federal government, Indian affairs were administered by the Indian Office (later known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs) in the Interior Department. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a political appointee, was in charge of the Indian Office which administered all Indian reservations, Indian health services, Indian schools, and Indian police. David Miller, in his chapter on the 1921-1925 era in The History of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana, 1800-2000, writes:
“Indian affairs had become an administrative problem, increasingly entangled by the technicality of laws and regulations, and a bureaucracy burgeoned to handle it. Machinations around land and its uses continued. The agenda of incorporation managed all aspects of Indian life.”
In their book Renegade Tribe: The Palouse Indians and the Invasion of the Inland Pacific Northwest, Clifford Trafzer and Richard Scheuerman write:
“American Indian policy was designed for the benefit of whites, not Indians, and was carried out by determined agents far more concerned with their professional duty and the destiny of their nation than they were with Indians. These policies were generally executed by governmental representatives selected more for their political loyalties than their experience in Indian matters.”
Briefly described below are some of the events regarding American Indians and the federal government 100 years ago, in 1924.
Campaign Against Indian Religions
In 1924, American Indian religious ceremonies were considered illegal and an impediment to “civilizing” Indians. In 1924 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Charles H. Burke, began a renewed campaign against Indian religions and declared Indian ceremonies to be obscene and sadistic. He felt that native religions prevented the full assimilation of Indians into American life.
Peyote
The Native American Church arose in the late nineteenth century as a pan-Indian religious movement. It incorporates many Christian elements as well as Indian elements. The Native American Church uses peyote as a sacrament. In their book Native American Almanac: More than 50,000 Years of the Cultures and Histories of Indigenous Peoples, Yvonne Wakim Dennis, Arlene Hirschfelder, and Shannon Rothenberger Flynn write about peyote:
“Its substance is not addictive and should not be classified as a narcotic. People eat the bitter, dried top, or ‘button,’ to induce heightened perceptions of sound and color. It enhances concentration and highlights spiritual truths with vivid imagery during ceremonies.”
In his book Southwestern Indian Ceremonials, Tom Bahti writes:
“Peyote (lophophora williamsii) is a small, turnip-shaped, spineless cactus that grows in the lower Rio Grande valley from southern New Mexico southward to Nayarit, Mexico. It contains nine alkaloid substances, part of which, mainly mescaline, are hallucinogenic in nature; that is, they induce dreams or visions. Reactions to peyote seems to vary with the social situations under which it is used.”
In 1924, Senator Charles Curtis, a Kaw Indian from Kansas, introduced a bill to prohibit peyote. It failed to pass.
Lost Rights
The Supreme Court ruled in 1924 that the Tejon Indians of California lost their claim to their ancestral lands by not filing their claims earlier.
In 1924 Congress awarded the Nisqually in Washington $85,000 as compensation for the hunting rights which they had lost, as well as for lost access to streams and lakes.
The Federal Power Commission, without the consent of the Mission Indians, granted broad water and power rights to a non-Indian utility operating on the Rincon Reservation in California. In 1914 the Mission Indians had made an agreement with the United States concerning water and power rights, but the Federal Power Commission in 1924 ignored this agreement in assigning rights to the utility.
Indian Education
The Committee of One Hundred was a federal advisory group composed of scholars, activists, and policy specialists who advised the government on critical American Indian issues. In 1924, the Committee recommended that Indian education be improved with better school facilities, better trained personnel, an increase in the number of students in public schools, and scholarships for high school and college.
Pueblo Lands Act
The Pueblos are the village agriculturists of New Mexico and Northern Arizona. While the Pueblos are usually lumped together in both the anthropological and historical writings as though they are a single cultural group, they are linguistically and culturally divergent. They do, however, share a few common traits: they are agriculturalists who grow corn, beans, and squash; they built permanent villages with a central plaza; and most have kivas (underground ceremonial centers). Land is an important possession among the Pueblos.
In 1924, Congress passed the Pueblo Lands Act which calls for a commission to investigate Pueblo land titles and to provide for legal solutions to non-Indian claims against Pueblo lands. Under the provisions of the Act, New Mexico laws cannot be used to obtain title to Pueblo lands. Transfer of Pueblo land requires the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.
Nearly 3,000 claims are filed by non-Indians claiming some right to Pueblo lands.
Leasing Indian Lands
The Indian Office controlled the leasing of reservation lands for cattle grazing, oil and mineral extraction, timber harvesting, farming, and other uses. In general, leases were intended to economically benefit the non-Indian lease holders rather than the tribes.
The U.S. Attorney General issued an opinion in 1924 that the public lands leasing act cannot be applied to executive-order reservations as both Congress and the courts in the past had treated executive-order reservation property rights in the same way as treaty rights.
In 1924 Congress passed the Indian Oil Leasing Act which required the auction of oil leases and extended the terms of such leases to ten years providing that the land was producing oil and gas in paying quantities.
Cattle Policy
In 1912 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells, had directed Indian agents to confiscate individually owned cattle and to form tribal herds on the Northern Plains reservations. Sells felt that greater growth and profit could be realized if the herds were under the management of the Indian Bureau.
In 1924 the Indian Bureau abandoned its policy of tribal cattle herds on the Northern Plains reservations. While the Indian Bureau attempted to return the surviving cattle to their original owners, most Indians received nothing as the cattle herds had diminished to almost nothing.
Prior to the Indian Bureau policy of tribal herds, the Northern Cheyenne in Montana had a flourishing cattle business. After 12 years of Indian Bureau control, however, the cattle business on the reservation had been nearly destroyed, but the tribe was still held responsible for $130,000 in debts which were incurred while the cattle were under Indian Bureau care.
When the Northern Cheyennes had protested the 1912 tribal herd mandate, the Indian agent had threatened lengthy jail terms for anyone who failed to comply with the confiscation order.
More twentieth-century American Indian histories
Indians 101: The American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
Indians 101: American Indian reservations 100 years ago, 1924
Indians 101: American Indians in Montana 100 years ago, 1924
Indians 101: American Indians in Oklahoma 100 years ago, 1924
Indians 101: American Indians and the states 100 years ago, 1924
Indians 101: American Indians and the federal government 100 years ago, 1923
Indians 101: The 1915 Ute Indian War
Indians 101: the 1923 Posey's War in Utah
