9.39.26 Class_Exhaustive Study Notes on Native American History, Expansion Legislation, and Assimilation Policies

Sacagawea and Early Westward Expansion Legislation

• Sacagawea's Background and Multilingual Skills:

  • Kidnapped as a young girl from Shoshone territory during a raid by a Hidatsa (Hadatsa) war party and taken east to live among the Hidatsa.

  • Learned the Hidatsa language while living with the tribe.

  • Sold as a wife to a French trader, through which she learned to speak both French and English.

  • Spoke four languages fluently: Shoshone, Hidatsa, French, and English.

  • Served as an invaluable interpreter and vital resource for the American expansion movement during regional expeditions.

• Early Westward Expansion Legislation and Land Grants:

  • Homestead Acts and land grant policies were promoted in Congress throughout the 1850s and 1860s to encourage settlement of the West.

  • President Abraham Lincoln heavily advocated for the Homestead Act as a core element of his political platform when running for president to open the West to settlers.

  • Paid Homestead Terms:

    • Settlers could be issued up to $\text{160 acres}$ of land.

    • Required payment rate: $\$1.25/\text{acre}$.

    • Total cost calculation for a full grant: \text{160 acres} \times \1.25/\text{acre} = \$200.00$.

    • Designed as both an incentive to populate the West and a revenue-generation tool for the United States government.

  • Earned Homestead Terms (Free Title):

    • Targeted settlers lacking initial purchase capital.

    • Required settlers to demonstrate independent capability to establish a functional homestead through ranching, farming, or business.

    • Mandated a $\text{5-year}$ residency and development period on the land.

    • Upon successful proof of self-sufficiency over $\text{5 years}$, full land title and ownership were granted for free, capped at $\text{160 acres}$.

Desert Land Act and Pacific Railroad Acts

• The Desert Land Act:

  • Passed to compel and entice settlers into entering the Southwest region of North America.

  • Historical migration routes (such as the Bozeman Trail and Oregon Trail) took northern paths through Montana, Oregon, and Northern California because early maps classified the Southwest as a desert.

  • Settlers actively avoided the Southwest due to environmental fears and perceived threats from hostile Apache and Navajo territories.

  • Land Allocation Terms under the Desert Land Act:

    • Increased the maximum land grant limit from $\text{160 acres}$ up to $\text{640 acres}$ to support cattle ranching.

    • Discounted price rate: $\$0.25/\text{acre}$.

    • Total cost for maximum acreage: \text{640 acres} \times \0.25/\text{acre} = \$160.00$.

• Pacific Railroad Acts of 1864 and 1866:

  • First Pacific Railroad Act: Passed in September 1864 ($\text{09/1864}$).

  • Second Pacific Railroad Act: Passed two years later in $\text{1866}$.

  • Purpose: Granted railroad companies direct access through Native American reservation lands to lay track.

  • Land Right Conversions:

    • First Act (1864): Granted railroad companies land ownership extending $\text{1 mile}$ to the left and $\text{1 mile}$ to the right of laid track.

    • Second Act (1866): Doubled the land grant footprint to $\text{2 miles}$ to the left and $\text{2 miles}$ to the right of laid track.

  • Railroad companies generated revenue both from building infrastructure and selling granted side-lands to arriving settlers.

Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 and Assimilation Frameworks

• Overview of the Dawes Severalty Act (General Allotment Act):

  • Sponsored by Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts and passed in $\text{1887}$.

  • Primary objective: Systematically diminish tribal reservation land bases and forcibly assimilate Native Americans into Euro-American society.

• Generational Targeted Assimilation Programs:

  • Children (Ages $\text{6}$ to $\text{16}$): Targeted through compulsory Indian boarding schools.

  • Middle-Aged Adults (Parents): Targeted through individual land allotments under the Dawes Severalty Act of $\text{1887}$.

  • Elders (Grandparents): Omitted from formal assimilation programs under the policy assumption that they would die off within a $\text{25-year}$ generation.

• Creation of Tribal Police Forces:

  • Former Native American scouts who served in the United States Army were transitioned into the first tribal police forces.

  • Operated as quasi-military organizations on reservations.

  • Primary initial duty: Serve as truant officers to locate, round up, and force Native children into boarding schools or day schools.

• Allotment Provisions and Structural Disruption:

  • Land was issued strictly along patriarchal lines to Native men; Native women were denied land grants based on Euro-American legal views that treated women as property without political/property rights.

  • Married Native man with family: Received an allotment of $\text{160 acres}$.

  • Single Native man (unmarried, without children): Received an allotment of $\text{80 acres}$.

  • Societal Impact: Intentional strategy to break up communal Native social structures, enforce individual independence, and convert nomadic or hunting-gathering societies into sedentary agriculturalists and farmers.

• Surplus "Unclaimed Public Lands":

  • Once all eligible Native men on a reservation received their $\text{160-acre}$ or $\text{80-acre}$ allotments, all remaining reservation land was reclassified as "unclaimed public land."

  • Unclaimed public lands were opened to immediate settlement and purchase by white settlers, stripping millions of acres of ancestral territory from Native nations.

• Compulsory Indian Education Act of 1888:

  • Passed in $\text{1888}$ to reinforce assimilation goals.

  • Made formal schooling mandatory for all Native American children without exception.

• The $\text{25-Year}$ Trust Period, Tax Exploitation, and Corruption:

  • Allotment lands were held in trust by the federal government for a $\text{25-year}$ transition period to allow Native families to farm, ranch, assimilate, and adopt Christian values.

  • Upon demonstrating successful assimilation after $\text{25 years}$, the Native landowner received full legal title and United States citizenship.

  • Property Tax Requirement: Full title ownership subjected the owner to property taxes; unprepared Native landowners frequently lost land through tax default.

  • Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Corruption: Corrupt BIA officials took illegal under-the-table payments from settlers and land prospectors. Officials prematurely declared Native owners as "assimilated citizens" before the $\text{25-year}$ mark, forcing land title transfers so prospectors could buy high-value allotments (lands rich in vegetation and water access) cheaply from desperate, starving families.

• The Curtis Act:

  • Legislation passed to force allotment policies onto resistant Native nations that refused to voluntarily divide their communal lands.

  • US Army military forces remained stationed at forts on or near reservations (e.g., Fort Defiance) well into the $\text{1890s}$ to maintain control.

Key Figures, Boarding School Athletics, and Military Service

• Prominent Native Figures in US Political and Public Life:

  • Charles Curtis: First Native American elected Vice President of the United States.

  • Jim Thorpe: Sac and Fox athlete from Oklahoma sent to Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

    • Ran away from Carlisle twice: The first escape reached halfway home before capture. The second escape was completed entirely on foot from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to Oklahoma. Upon arrival, his father loaded him onto a wagon and returned him directly to the school.

• Athletic Programs in Indian Boarding Schools:

  • Boarding schools introduced organized sports (basketball, baseball, football, track and field) as an outlet to reduce student runaway rates.

  • Student-athletes received special privileges: separate dormitories, pool tables, private cooks/kitchens, and off-campus travel.

• Carlisle's Collegiate Expansion and Achievements:

  • Carlisle added a $\text{13th}$ and $\text{14th}$ grade to its curriculum, operating as a two-year junior college.

  • Competed in collegiate athletics against major universities, defeating Harvard University by a score of $\text{70 to 0}$ and defeating the West Point Military Academy.

  • Jim Thorpe won gold medals in both the pentathlon and decathlon at the $\text{1912}$ Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden.

  • In $\text{1920}$, the American Football League (AFL)—later renamed the National Football League (NFL)—was founded, appointing Jim Thorpe as its first president.

• Extreme Conditions for Boarding School Runaways:

  • Navajo children running away from the Fort Lewis boarding school in Durango, Colorado, frequently froze to death in deep winter snowpacks, with their bodies unrecovered until the spring thaw.

• World War I Military Service and the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924:

  • Approximately $\text{10,000}$ to $\text{12,000}$ Native Americans from the United States served in World War I, alongside over $\text{10,000}$ First Nations individuals from Canada (totaling $\text{22,000}$ to $\text{24,000}$ indigenous service members).

  • Approximately $\text{12}$ Navajo men served in World War I.

  • Boarding schools served as primary recruitment grounds for military recruiters.

  • Returning Native WWI veterans were denied GI Bill benefits because Native Americans were not recognized as United States citizens.

  • Public and legislative pressure resulted in the Indian Citizenship Act of $\text{1924}$, granting blanket US citizenship to all Native Americans within United States boundaries ($\text{100 years}$ after the establishment of the BIA under the War Department in $\text{1824}$).

Navajo Reservation Expansion and Franciscan Missionary Advocacy

• Oil Discoveries and Governance Shifts:

  • Oil was discovered in San Juan County / Four Corners region around $\text{1910}$.

  • Outside oil companies lobbied the BIA to secure long-term land leases, leading to the creation of the Navajo Business Council in $\text{1922--1923}$ and establishing a single executive leadership structure.

  • Original oil leases lacked expiration dates, allowing perpetual resource extraction.

• Navajo Reservation Geographic Growth (1887–1934):

  • While other tribal reservations shrank under the Dawes Act between $\text{1887}$ and $\text{1934}$, the Navajo Reservation expanded through executive orders.

  • Original Treaty of $\text{1868}$ Boundary: A narrow rectangle straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border along the Chuska Mountains from the San Juan River south to Fort Defiance and Window Rock.

• Role of Catholic Franciscan Missionaries at St. Michaels:

  • St. Michaels Mission was established outside original reservation boundaries, but subsequent executive order expansions absorbed it inside the reservation.

  • Under President Ulysses S. Grant's $\text{1870s}$ peace policy, federal funding for Native education was directed exclusively to Protestant Christian groups (Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Mormons), while Catholic groups were explicitly denied federal funds.

  • Excluded from federal funding, Catholic missionaries formed an alliance with the Navajo people, who similarly distrusted the federal government following the Long Walk.

  • Franciscan Friar Anselm Weber actively lobbied Washington D.C. politicians and utilized national Catholic networks to secure executive orders expanding reservation boundaries for Navajo livestock.

  • Bilingual Navajo leader Henry Chee Dodge collaborated with Friar Weber, bringing Catholic friars into BIA meetings as legal and language advisors to prevent federal exploitation.

The Great Depression, Self-Sufficiency, and Livestock Reduction

• Impact of the Great Depression (1929–1939):

  • A global economic collapse lasting $\text{10 years}$ ($\text{1929 to 1939}$) caused by stock market failures and financial swindling.

• Native Self-Sufficiency during the Dust Bowl:

  • Migrating white families ("Okies") traveling through Kayenta, Arizona, toward California were malnourished and starving. Navajo community members in Kayenta prepared mutton stew to feed starving migrant children.

  • Traditional agrarian/livestock economies (farming corn, squash, watermelons, cantaloupe, honeydew, potatoes, and raising sheep, goats, cattle, horses) insulated Navajo and Tohono O'odham communities from the worst effects of the Depression.

  • Tohono O'odham wage workers in Tucson who lost urban jobs returned to reservation villages to resume traditional farming and ranching.

  • True tribal sovereignty is fundamentally grounded in food sovereignty—the capacity of a nation to feed its people without external reliance.

• The Federal Livestock Reduction Program:

  • BIA policy claimed Navajo sheep and goat herds caused severe overgrazing that threatened a Southwestern Dust Bowl.

  • The BIA forcibly slaughtered thousands of Navajo sheep, goats, cattle, and horses, replacing open grazing with strict grazing permits.

  • Native Historical Perspective: Navajo elders viewed livestock reduction not as an environmental necessity, but as an act of spite and malice by mainstream America, resentful that Navajos maintained abundant food supplies while the rest of the country suffered. Elders argued the government should have purchased livestock to feed starving citizens rather than executing animals.

Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and Government Restructuring

• The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934:

  • Passed under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal (distinct from the Indian Removal Act of $\text{1830}$).

  • Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC / Indian Division) projects built reservoirs and lakes across the Navajo Reservation, including Many Farms Lake, Wheatfields Lake, and Seely Lake.

  • Encouraged tribes to adopt democratic, three-branch government structures (Executive, Legislative, Judicial) modeled after the US Federal Government.

  • Financial incentives: Created revolving credit funds and higher education scholarships for participating tribes. Major universities (e.g., University of Michigan, Michigan State, Fort Lewis College, Colorado State University in Fort Collins) aggressively recruited Native students to access federal appropriations.

• Shift in Jurisdictional Dynamics (Marshall Trilogy vs. IRA Era):

  • Marshall Trilogy Era ($\text{1820s--1830s}$): Vertical hierarchy featuring the Federal Government at the top, Tribal Governments in the middle, and State Governments at the bottom.

  • IRA Era ($\text{1934}$ Onward): Shifted from a vertical hierarchy to an equal triangular relationship. The Federal Government remained at the apex, while Tribal Governments and State Governments sat at equal base levels.

  • Federal Strategy: Broke by the Great Depression, the federal government sought to divest its financial treaty obligations by forcing tribal governments into direct intergovernmental partnerships and commercial resource ventures (timber, minerals) with state governments.

• Mormon Migration into the Southwest:

  • Latter-day Saints (Mormons) migrated from New York and Illinois to Salt Lake City, expanding southward into Arizona settlements including Tuba City, Flagstaff, Show Low, Snowflake, Phoenix, and Tucson.