Администрация Трумэна ликвидировала Бюро по делам индейцев и ужесточила законодательство в отношении коренных народов

With the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, Vice-President Harry Truman became President, a position which he held until 1953. In the bureaucracy of the American government, the administration of Indian affairs had been delegated to the Department of the Interior. Within this department, the Indian Office was headed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a political appointee. Under Roosevelt, John Collier had served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs and had steered Indian policy away from assimilation and incorporated multi-culturalism. With the transition to the Truman administration, John Collier resigned as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In his book Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912-1954. historian Paul Rosier writes: “When Collier left office, American Indians lost a champion of their right to associate for cultural, economic, and political advancement.” President Harry Truman called for the elimination of the Indian Office (later known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs) within three years. According to Truman, the Indian Office “…has segregated the Indian from the general citizenry, condemned him to an indefinite if not perpetual wardship, tied him to land in perpetuity, and forced a system of Bureau-controlled education and land use upon him.” After having made clear that he intended to get rid of the Indian Office and return to the discredited program of assimilation that had led to massive poverty for Indians, President Truman appointed William A. Brophy (1903-1962) as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In his chapter on Brophy in The Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824-1977, Lyman Tyler writes: “William A. Brophy became commissioner of Indian affairs directly after World War II during a stormy transition period leading to the development of a policy aimed at the elimination of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.” Brophy had served as special attorney for the Pueblo Indians. As Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Brophy began to guide the Indian Office toward policies which emphasized a return to assimilation and abandoned the idea of cultural pluralism. Brophy’s poor health meant that William Zimmerman, an assistant commissioner of Indian affairs, became acting Commissioner in 1946. Legislation reorganized the Indian Office in 1946. Forty reservation-based offices were eliminated, and regional headquarters were established in five cities: Minneapolis, Billings, Portland, Phoenix, and Oklahoma City. On the one hand, this reorganization was justified as a movement to streamline management and to make it more cost-effective. On the other hand, it was a move away from meeting the needs of reservation Indians and a vehicle for accelerating the relocation of Indians from their tribal homelands into urban areas. The Indian Office was renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1947. In 1948, William Brophy resigned as Commissioner of Indian Affairs and returned to New Mexico where he again became special attorney for the Pueblo Setting Indians Free A 1945 article by Missouri politician O. K. Armstrong published in Reader’s Digest entitled “Set the American Indians Free” characterized early reservations as concentration camps and criticized the trust relationship regarding land use as a way of fostering perpetual guardianship. The article called for Indians to be freed from property right restrictions and racial segregation. The Secretary of the Interior asked to be allowed to write a rebuttal to the article, but Reader’s Digest refused. Christian missionary groups rallied behind the article and distributed 3,500 copies of it. Armstrong was asked to speak to the Indian Committee of the Home Missions Council of North America. Following the article, legislation was introduced in Congress which would remove property restrictions on Indians who had served in the armed forces. O. K. Armstrong saw himself as a crusader against “Collier’s crowd” and felt that Indians should have been assimilated into American culture a half century earlier. He later wrote “They can keep all the ‘Indian-ness’ that is worth a whoop and still hold productive jobs and send their kids to integrated schools.” In 1948, O. K. Armstrong wrote another article for Reader’s Digest, “Let’s Give the Indians Back to the Country,” in which he emphasized the incompatibility of Indian tribal citizenship and tribal sovereignty within the United States.  Colonization In 1945, the Indian Office “colonization” program moved Hopi and Navajo families to Chemehuevi and Mojave lands along the Colorado River in Arizona. The concentration camps at Poston originally built for Japanese American detainees were used for the colonists. While the tribal council for the Colorado River Indian Reservation signed an ordinance agreeing to the colonization program, they did so under duress.  Seventeen Hopi families were the first to be relocated. In recruiting these families, the government targeted families living outside of the Hopi villages. The Hopis moved into barracks which had just been vacated by the Japanese. The facilities included public latrines, showers, and laundry rooms. According to Ruth Okimoto, in her special report in News from Native California: “The introduction of the public latrines and public showers was traumatizing for the Hopi colonists. Intensely private and reserved in their attitude towards public exposure of their bodies, the colonists found the idea of bathing so publicly to be extremely difficult.” In 1947, a number of Navajofamilies were relocated to the Colorado River Indian Reservation. Colonists from other southwestern tribes –Walapai, Supai, Cocopah, and Quechan– were also recruited. Many of the colonists eventually returned to their own reservations. In 1948, the Secretary of the Interior considered moving 1,000 Navajo families from their reservation in Arizona and New Mexico to the Colorado River as a means of alleviating overpopulation on the reservation. Congress In 1945, the Senate Select Committee On Indian Affairs met with representatives of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation at the tribes’ request. The tribes informed the Committee that the construction of Garrison Dam, part of the Pick-Sloan Project, would violate Indian treaties. In his book Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire Through Indian Territory, Paul VanDevelder reports: “Off the record, Congress viewed the hearing as a polite formality conducted to humor the complainants.” In 1946, the Standing Committees on Indian Affairs in the Senate and the House were abolished. In other words, there would no longer be regular committees to consider Indian issues, an indication that Congress no longer considered Indians to be a major concern. Indian matters were relegated to sub-committees. The following year, some Senators began to call for the abolition of the Indian Office, claiming that it had ceased to be of use. In 1946, Congress authorized the sale of land and timber in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska without Indian consent. According to historian Thomas Cowger, in his book The National Congress of American Indians: The Founding Years: “In essence, the bill allowed Congress authority to extinguish native title.” In 1947, Congress created a special task force headed by former President Herbert Hoover to recommend the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The following year, Charles James Rhoads was appointed to investigate the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Rhoads had served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs under President Hoover. In 1947, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs reported that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) had ceased to be of utility and some Senators began to call for its abolition. Congress revised the United States Code in 1948 and made it clear that Indian country jurisdiction was not affected by fee patenting (i.e. the removal of trust protections from Indian-owned land) within a reservation. The statute defines Indian country as “all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and, including rights-of-way through the reservation” In 1948, Congress passed legislation which allowed Indians to use alcohol only for mechanical, scientific, or medicinal purposes. Indian Claims Commission The Indian Claims Commission was formed in 1946 for adjudicating all claims arising out of fraud, treaty violations, or other wrongs done to the Indians by the government. Under the Indian Claims Commission Act, a tribe could receive full and just compensation for wrongs. It was presumed that most of the claims would deal with land. Historian Francis Haines, in an article in Idaho Yesterdays, writes: “Had tribal lands been seized, or had such lands been bought for less than their true market value, or had lands been damaged by intruders while such lands were specifically under protection of the federal government?” In his book Beneath These Red Cliffs: An Ethnohistory of the Utah Paiutes, Ronald L. Holt writes: “The intent of the Indian claims legislation was to get the federal government out of the Indian business.” In his chapter in American Indians/American Presidents: A History, Duane Champagne writes: “Truman and congressional policy makers favored a final settlement of Indian land claims as a step toward assimilating American Indians and dismantling the Office of Indian Affairs. Once Indian land claims were settled, Truman believed, Indians would assume full citizenship, and would no longer require Indian status.” The orientation of the Commission was to “pay” for wrongs with money, not to correct them. Most of the tribes, however, wanted their land back, not money. In addition, Ronald Holt reports: “Indians were to be paid compensation at the value of their land at the time of seizure, not at current land values.” While the Indian Claims Commission was good-intentioned, Vine Deloria, in his chapter in The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance, points out “…the effect of the work of the Indian Claims Commission was to retroactively transfer title to large tracts of land owned by Indians to the United States by using the fictional device which asserted that the lands had been permanently lost.” In his book After Columbus: The Smithsonian Chronology of the North American Indians, Herman Viola writes: “Although the legal action under the Claims Commission Act benefited many tribes and individual Indians it proved far more lucrative to the host of lawyers and expert witnesses who helped the Indians present their cases to the federal government.” Similarly, historian James Covington, in his book The Seminoles of Florida, writes: “The Claims Commission proved to be a bonanza for lawyers, a good research tool for the scholars who provided material for the attorneys, and of some benefit to those tribes that stipulated that part of the funds go for improvements such as roads and schools.”  The Indian Claims Commission was obligated to notify every tribe of their right to bring their claims forward. Some smaller tribes, such as the Cow Creek Umpqua, however, were never notified in spite of the fact that they had been pressing their claims before Congress. In 1948, the Oregon coastal tribes involved in the Alcea Land-Claims case asked the Court of Claims for $65 million, which included interest, for the lands which were taken from them. The government’s attorney argued that the tribes did not actually exist due to intermarriage, but this argument was turned down by the Court of Claims. In 1948, the Washos of Nevada and California began to prepare a claim for the Indian Claims Commission. Anthropologist Warren D’Azevedo, in his chapter on the Washos in the Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11: Great Basin, notes that this “…was important for the emergence of a stronger sense of tribal unity.” National Congress of American Indians The second annual convention of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) was held in Browning, Montana on the Blackfeet   Reservation. Delegates from 22 tribes attend. The NCAI adopted a policy of electing at least one woman to the executive council each year and Lorene Burgess (Blackfoot) was elected to the council. The close association between the NCAI and the Indian Office is noted by Alison Bernstein in American Indians and World War II: Toward a New Era in Indian Affairs: “…the NCAI’s beginnings may be traced to the BIA and John Collier.” At this meeting, however, Robert Yellowtail (Crow), an outspoken critic of both the Indian Office and John Collier, was elected to the council. D’Arcy McNickle (Cree enrolled Flathead) put forth a resolution to forbid Indian Office employees from holding elective positions in the NCAI. The resolution passed. With regard to the Browning location for the meeting, historian John Fahey, in his book Saving the Reservation: Joe Garry and the Battle to be Indian, writes: “Browning had been chosen as a demonstration of Indian unity in the heart of Indian country. From this standpoint, and as public relations, the convention fizzled.” Pine Ridge Reservation In 1945, the Oglala SiouxTribal Council on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota passed a resolution asking for the immediate removal of the superintendent. According to the superintendent, the tribal president had attended the meeting of the National Congress of American Indians and “…came back imbued with the notion that the council has great power, and that it can get personnel removed and replace them with Indians of the Council’s selection.” The Indian Office investigated the situation and concluded that the superintendent was doing an excellent job. He was later transferred and promoted. Seminole Reservations In 1945, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs approved a new trust agreement for the management of the cattle industry on two Seminole reservations. Two groups—the Brighton Agricultural and Livestock Enterprise and the Big Cypress Agricultural and Livestock Enterprise—were formed. Each of the two groups was to select one tribal trustee and the agency superintendent would appoint a third trustee. This was the first time that a single council would represent all of the Seminole people. Arapaho In 1947, the Bureau of Indian Affairs authorized a five-year test to see if the Arapahos in Wyoming could spend their per capita money wisely. In her book The Arapahoes, Our People, historian Virginia Cole Trenholm writes: “The result was better than had been expected, for new houses were built and some of the old ones were wired for electricity.” Hualapai In 1947, title to more than 500,000 acres of land previously held by the Santa Fe Railroad in Arizona was quieted (i.e. competing claims for the land were settled). The government held this land in trust for the Hualapais. Umatilla Reservation In 1947, Henry Roe Cloud (Winnebago) was appointed as the superintendent for the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon. Even though he is Indian, the reservation Indians were still leery of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1947, the General Council of the Umatilla Reservation debated about hiring an attorney. Superintendent Henry Roe Cloud opposed hiring an attorney and informed them that there was no need for an attorney as he could look up all of the answers to their legal questions in the federal code book. The council, however, still insisted that it wanted its own attorney. Boarding Schools In 1945, the Chemawa Indian School in Oregon required a course in Ethics and Christian Doctrine for all grades: “All students are required to attend and for this reason the ministers have been asked not to stress a particular creed but to present moral and christian [sic] doctrine such that it will be accepted by any student regardless of his chosen faith.” When the Indian Office found out about the class the school was informed that it was illegal to require a religion class. In Arizona and New Mexico, the Navajo Special Education Program started in 1946 for Navajo students who had not attended school regularly. Under the program, the students were given vocational training and taught assimilation survival skills. Students were taken from the reservation to the Sherman Institute in California. Here the students were to learn good work habits and desirable attitudes toward work. The goal was to provide them with a marketable vocational skill so that they could relocate off the reservation. In 1948, the Navajo Special Education Program was started at the Chemawa Indian School in Oregon. Sonciray Bonnell writes: “Most Navajo students coming to Chemawa had little, if any, formal education and their English was minimal.” The Navajo Special Education Program provided five years of basic education. In her Dartmouth College M.A. Thesis Chemawa Indian Boarding School: The First One Hundred Years, 1880-1980, Sonciray Bonnell writes: “It was believed that students starting school at age twelve who had little or no past schooling would learn at a faster rate than a student starting at the age of six.” It is expected that at the end of five years the Navajo students would be literate and equipped with skills for earning a living in the modern world. For the first three years, the curriculum focused on written and oral English, clothing and grooming, health and safety, and basic academic instruction. The first-year students were taught primarily in Navajo. The fourth year was equally divided between academic and vocational instruction, and the fifth year was focused primarily on vocational. Water Rights In Montana, the Indian Office and the Bureau of Reclamation signed an agreement which provides that one-seventh of the natural flow of the Milk River in Montana stored behind Fresno Dam was to be allocated to the Fort Belknap Reservation. The Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes on the reservation were not consulted. The tribes viewed the agreement as a theft of their Winters Doctrine water rights. More Twentieth Century American Indian Histories Indians 201: Terminating American Indian reservations Indians 201: The Hoover Commission Report on American Indians Indians 101: World War II Veterans Come Home Indians 101: The National Congress of American Indians