Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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Senator
Pendleton of Ohio had very dramatically stated the
position of the Indian during the debate on allotment of Indian lands
as early
as 1881:
“Now,
Mr. President, I do not believe, and I say it frankly,
that any bill can be framed on this subject of Indian control which is
entirely
consistent, and entirely satisfactory; and the reason is a very simple
one. There are difficulties surrounding
this subject which are inherent and artificial, and in both aspects
they are
very great. They arise from the fact
that our constitutions and our laws were passed for the control and the
government of the white citizens of the country and not for these
Indian
tribes; they arise from the fact that when those constitutions and laws
were
passed these Indians were treated as quasi-foreign nations; that
treaties were
made with them; that a vast territory was set apart for them in which
they
could indulge in their natural habits; habits entailed upon them by
centuries
of practice, indulge in the chase, in fishing, and in war among
themselves [sic]. We had no
connection with them except by
passage of the non-intercourse law, to prevent the intrusion of our own
citizens among them. As long as they
confined themselves to their reservation—I mean the vast expanse of
territory which
was known under the name of Indian Territory, or a few years ago as the
unorganized territory of the United States—they might pursue the chase,
they
might purse fishing, they might make war among themselves, they might
commit
barbarities and wrongs among themselves and we take no notice; and it
was only
here and there by a sporadic and ineffectual attempt at teaching them
the arts
of civilized life that we had any connection with them except when they
intruded upon our territory and marauded upon our citizens. It was easy enough comparatively to deal
with a class of men whom we recognized as nations, with whom we made
treaties,
whom we segregated from our citizens, and to whom we assigned that vast
expanse
of western territory. But that
condition of things has entirely changed; the times have passed; the
conditions
of this government and those governments (if I may call the Indian
tribes such)
have entirely changed. Our villages now
dot their prairies; our cities are built upon their plains; our miners
climb
their mountains and seek the recesses of their gulches; our telegraphs
and
railroads and post offices penetrate their country in every direction;
their
forests are cleared and their prairies are plowed and their
wildernesses are
opened up. The Indians cannot hunt or
fish. They must either change their
mode of life or they must die. That is
the alternative presented. There is
none other. We may regret it, we may
wish it were otherwise, our sentiments of humanity may be shocked by
the
alternative, but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that is the
alternative,
and that these Indians must either change their modes of life or they
will be
exterminated. I say, Mr. President, in
order that they may change their modes of life, we must change our
policy; we
must give them, and we must stimulate within them to the very largest
degree,
the idea of home, of family, and of property.
These are the very anchorages of civilization; the commencement
of the
dawning of these ideas in the mind is the commencement of the
civilization of
any race, and these Indians are no exception
It must be our part to seek to foster and to encourage within
them this
trinity upon which all civilization depends—family, home, property.”
D’Arcy
McNickle’s comment on Senator Pendleton’s remarks is a
classic:
“In
the heat of such a discussion, it would not have occurred
to any of the debaters to inquire of the Indians what ideas they had of
home,
of family, and of property. It would
have been assumed, in any case, that the ideas, whatever they were,
were
without merit since they were Indian.”
In
Theodore Roosevelt’s message to Congress, December 8,
1901, we find the same urgency as expressed by Senator Pendleton in
1881:
“In
my judgement the time has arrived when we should
definitely make up our minds to recognize the Indian as an individual
and not
as a member of a tribe. The General
Allotment Act is a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal
mass. It acts directly upon the family and
the
individual. Under its provisions some
sixty thousand Indians have already become citizens of the United
States. We
should not break up the tribal funds, doing for them what allotment
does for
the tribal lands; that is, they should be divided into individual
holdings.”
In
1906 the Burke Act was passed by the Congress to amend
some of the features of the General Allotment Act.
Although the trust period was continued as 25 years, broad
discretionary powers were given to the Secretary of the Interior to
release
particular Indian allottees from Federal supervision ahead of schedule
by a
declaration of competence, but when the “new declaration of policy” was
promulgated by Commissioner Sells such caution was no longer practiced.
The
Clapp Amendment which related to the White Earth Chippewa
[sic] of Minnesota, passed by Congress in 1906, in effect
allowed any
mixed-blood White Earth Chippewa [sic] to transform his trust
patent
into a patent in fee and freed him from Government supervision. The Individual Indians could then dispose of
their allotments as they saw fit. As a
result, most of the valuable white pine timber lands held by these
Indians were
sold to lumber interests at unfair and inadequate prices.
This
action, referred to as the “White Earth Scandal,” is one
of the few cases where the Congress intervened in the activities of the
Department of the Interior and took supervision of Indian property,
with the
result that Indian title was too soon lost.
The loss of this valuable property which followed this
Congressional
action is one of the back spots in the administration of Indian affairs.
Under
the administration of Theodore Roosevelt form 1905 to
1909, there was an attempt to secure title to certain forest lands held
by
various ... tribes in the name of conservation. Eight
Executive Orders were signed two days before the end of his
term of office that sought to have two and a half million acres of
Indian
reservation forest land included in respective national forests. It was later determined that the action
taken by President roosevelt was beyond the power of the Executive. The lands were, therefore, returned to their
former status. [Our Indian forests were
stolen by the U.S. and the State of Minnesota anyway.
Part of this stolen land is the land that the White Earth
Settlement Act “gives” to White Earth Indians.]
Sho-ne-ah-wub
Francis Blake, Jr.
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