Native American policy of the Nixon Administration

The administration of Richard Nixon, from 1969 to 1974, made important changes in United States policy towards Native Americans through legislation and executive action. The Nixon Administration advocated a reversal of the long-standing policy of "termination" that had characterize relations between the U.S. Government and American Indians in favor of "self-determination." The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act restructed indigenous governance in the state of Alaska, creating a unique structure of Native Corporations. Some of the most notable instances of American Indian activism occurred under the Nixon Administration including the Occupation of Alcatraz and the Standoff at Wounded Knee.

Termination policy

Prior to the 1950s, Indian tribes were considered semi-autonomous nations with complete governance over their own territory. Such autonomy allowed tribes to organize a tribal government, legislate and adjudicate, determine tribal membership, levy and collect taxes, enforce tribal laws, and control development of tribal resources.[1] However, the United States' Indian policy gradually began to shift throughout the twentieth century. The United States government began to take a more involved role in the affairs of previously autonomous Indian tribes. For Indian tribes, total assimilation into American society became the new policy line.[1] In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act which sought to reorganize tribal systems of governance into forms foreign to Indians. Simultaneously, under the Indian Reorganization Act, the Bureau of Indian Affairs began to gain approval power over Indian constitutions, resource development, and cultural activities. A new era of assimilation characterized relations between the United States and Indians. This evolution of policy was formally codified into law with the passage of House Concurrent Resolution 108 and Public Law 280 in 1953.

House Concurrent Resolution 108

House Concurrent Resolution 108 of 1953 is often perceived as the formal codification of the official "termination" policy of the United States. Passed by the Eighty-Third Congress on August 1, 1953, the resolution sought to abolish tribal autonomy and subject Indians to the same laws as citizens of the United States. Furthermore, House Concurrent Resolution 108 opened the sale of tribal lands to non-Indians.

"Whereas it is the policy of Congress as rapidly as possible, to make the Indians within the territorial limits of the United States subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as are applicable to other citizens of the United States, and to grant them all of the rights and prerogatives pertaining to American citizenship; and whereas the Indians within the territorial limits of the United States should assume their full responsibilities as American citizens."[2]

Public Law 280

Public Law 280 (PL-280), passed on August 15, 1953, and supplemented the tenets and policies outlined in House Concurrent Resolution 108. Public Law 280 sought to transfer criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed by Indians in "Indian Country" to certain state governments. Previously, "Indian Country" was under the jurisdiction of the federal criminal code. Congress gave six states (California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Alaska) extensive authority to prosecute most crimes that occurred in Indian country. Between 1953 and 1968, numerous other states than the original six exercised expanded jurisdiction in Indian country. Not only did PL-280 strip the federal government of jurisdiction in Indian country, but it also nullified traditional tribal systems of internal justice.[3]

Efforts towards repeal under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson

The United States government's policy of "termination" was met with staunch opposition from Indian populations. What had been initiated as an attempt at assimilation into American society had evolved into a systematic removal of Indian autonomy. Upon taking office in 1961, President Kennedy sought to gradually repeal the termination policy of the 1950s due to problems surrounding multiple ancestral land ownership patterns. President Kennedy scaled back the tenets of the termination era through a series of legislative actions.[4]

President Lyndon B. Johnson furthered Kennedy's efforts to end the policy of "termination." In a landmark address to Congress on March 6, 1968, President Johnson emphasized the necessity of self-determination and improved living conditions for Indians in the United States.[6] However, Johnson's program to provide Indians with equal standards of living to Americans quickly lost traction in Congress.[7] Johnson's reform efforts did reap some substantial results. In 1968, the National Council on Indian Opportunity was established to encourage and coordinate the rise of Federal programs to benefit the American Indian population, appraise the impact and progress of such programs, and to suggest ways to improve the programs to meet the needs and desires of the Indian population. The National Council on Indian Opportunity was terminated in 1974.[8]

The Nixon Years (1969–1974)

The Nixon Administration

Richard Nixon took office as president in 1969. It was under his administration that Senator Jackson and Forrest J. Gerard were most active in their reform efforts. The efforts of Jackson and Gerrard mirrored the demands of Indians for "self-determination." President Nixon called for an end to termination and provided a direct endorsement of "self-determination."

Special message to Congress on Indian Affairs

In a 1970 address to Congress, President Nixon articulated his vision of self-determination. He explained, "The time has come to break decisively with the past and to create the conditions for a new era in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions."[9] Nixon continued, "This policy of forced termination is wrong, in my judgment, for a number of reasons. First, the premises on which it rests are wrong. Termination implies that the Federal government has taken on a trusteeship responsibility for Indian communities as an act of generosity toward a disadvantaged people and that it can therefore discontinue this responsibility on a unilateral basis whenever it sees fit." [10] Nixon's overt renunciation of the long-standing termination policy was the first of any President in the post World War II era.

Henry M. Jackson and Forrest J. Gerard

In 1971, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington, Chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs, hired Forrest J. Gerard. Gerrard was born on Montana's Blackfeet Reservation in 1925, served in the United States Air Force in World War II, and received a college education on the G.I. Bill of Rights. Following college, Gerrard worked for agencies in Montana and Wyoming before moving to Washington, D.C. to work for the Indian Health Service. Eventually, Gerrard would work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Health and Human Services.[11] Gerard would provide Jackson with the experience and network of relationships with tribal leaders necessary for serious policy reform.[7]

Together, Jackson and Gerrard worked hard to put the policies of self-determination outlined by Kennedy and Johnson into action. Beginning with Jackson's call for a Senate resolution to reverse House Concurrent Resolution 108, they embarked on an ambitious legislative agenda to reform Indian affairs in the United States. The legislation regarding Indian Affairs that bears the authorship of Senator Jackson and Gerrard and the sponsorship of Senator Jackson includes:

Alaskan Native claims

In 1959, Alaska became the 49th U.S. state. However, prior to and after the passage of the Alaska Statehood Act, indigenous claims were seen as contrary to goals of development.[17] The 1968 discovery of North Slope oil was a dramatic development that demanded immediate conflict resolution over Indian land claims.[12] However, the Alaska Statehood Act provided the new State with the entitlement pursue land grants. Furthermore, the state and federal government embarked on a project to create a pipeline to transport oil from the North Slope fields.[18] The vast majority of Alaskan Natives did not live on reservations but rather on scattered villages. As the State of Alaska began to select lands pursuant to the Statehood Act, native villages protested to the Secretary of the Interior that the lands chosen were occupied and used for aboriginal purposes.

The Senate Interior Committee chairman, Henry M. Jackson, desired an immediate resolution to the issue of land claims. In 1966, the Alaskan Federation of Natives was formed. Composed of 400 Alaskan Natives representing 17 Native organizations, the AFN would work to achieve the passage of a just and fair land settlement.[19] Younger, more educated Natives formed the core of the AFN leadership and desired to keep a portion of their aboriginal lands. In 1968, Senator Jackson would travel to Anchorage for a public hearing with AFN members and the Native community.[12] Ultimately, Senator Jackson concluded that land grants would not be enough for native leadership. Trusteeship would not be acceptable for the AFN. In response, Congress presented the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The ANCSA was designed to rectify disproportionate State land claims by transferring land titles to twelve Alaska Native regional corporations and over 200 local village corporations. True to his commitment to "self-determination," prior to signing the ANCSA into law in 1971, President Nixon sought to ensure that the measure was supported by the AFN.[12]

Impact of ANCSA

The ANCSA, negotiated between Native leaders and government officials, provided Alaska Natives 44 million acres of land and $962.5 million. Nearly half of the money was to be paid from royalties on oil production. Furthermore, the Act required the establishment of village and regional Native corporations to manage the land and cash payments.[20] Corporations served as the mechanism through which the allocated land, funds, and oil revenue provided under the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act would be equitably distributed.[21] Each of the twelve regional corporations was divided upon ethnic and geographical guidelines and the capital decision making of corporations was determined by Alaska Natives without the oversight of state or federal government. Every Native person was to receive 100 shares within their designated corporation.[20]

On a macro scale, Native owned corporations have been an economic failure. Many village corporations have considered bankruptcy and several regional corporations are close to insolvency. Furthermore, Native corporations were intended to transfer money directly to shareholders through employment or by paying dividends. However, most ANCSA corporations have been unable to employ a large quantity of Natives and remain unable to pay significant dividends.[22] The vast majority of Natives have seen a decrease in quality of life and little financial benefit from the provisions of the ANCSA.

Although the ANCSA resolved land and resource ownership disputes and expanded the role of Natives in the Alaskan economy, the ANCSA extinguished traditional subsistence hunting and fishing rights.[23] In response to widespread dissatisfaction, Congress passed the Alaska Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) to provide a priority to subsistence use on the public federal lands by rural residents of Alaska. In 1978, the State of Alaska adopted a similar subsistence priority statue in accordance with the tenets of the ANILCA. However, the state supreme court ruled that the implementation of a rural subsistence priority violated the equal access provisions of the Alaska Constitution. This left the federal government to administer rural priority. Furthermore, the State has actively sought to limit the federal government’s role as overseer of rural priority.[24] Therefore, the Alaska Interest Lands Conservation Act has been largely ineffective in protecting the traditional subsistence hunting and fishing rights of indigenous peoples.

American Indian protest movements

The late 1960s were not only a time of tremendous policy change in regard to American Indians, but also a period of tremendous advocacy. Mirroring the Civil Rights Movement, protests against the Vietnam War, and the greater counterculture movement as a whole, American Indian protests movements blossomed with the era.

The occupation of Alcatraz Island

Although Nixon was responsible for the direction of his Indian policy, the implementation and specifics were largely carried out by subordinates and White House staff members.[25] However, in 1969 Nixon was forced to involve himself in an unforeseen crisis. In an effort to protest a policy of terminating Indian reservations and relocating inhabitants to urban areas, a group of American Indians boated to the abandoned island of Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay. The occupiers, calling themselves "Indians of All Tribes," were led by Richard Oaks, a Native American and student at San Francisco State College. The vast majority of his companions were Native American college students.[26]

The White House refused to cave to the protesters but would not forcibly remove them either. Rather, the Nixon Administration sought to respond through increased reform efforts in regard to Indian policy. The occupation would last until 1971. In that time period, President Nixon would sign 52 Congressional legislative measures on behalf of American Indians to support tribal self-rule. In addition, President Nixon would increase the BIA budget by 225 percent, double funds for Indian health care and establish the Office of Indian Water Rights.[27] However, the primary concerns of the "Indians of All Tribes" were not addressed. The administration insisted that urban Indians form federally recognized tribes and use regular social service from the state and local agencies, not the BIA.[16] President Nixon's inability to effectively reform the BIA would result in increased Indian activism and protest.

Standoff at Wounded Knee

Main article: Wounded Knee incident

The policy of President Nixon created a schism among Indian leadership. Radical urban groups such as the American Indian Movement (AIM) actively opposed the BIA. In 1972, AIM members occupied the BIA building in Washington, D.C. Once more showing the restraint of Alcatraz, the Nixon Administration negotiated with the AIM for their peaceful departure.[16] The tactics of civil disobedience employed by AIM disagreed with elected tribal leaders of reservations. Tribal leaders viewed AIM as a destructive organization while AIM perceived tribal leaders as weak and unfit to provide substantial change.[16] This conflict came to a head in 1973 when 200 members of AIM converged on Wounded Knee at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The conflict at Wounded Knee involved the impeachment of Oglala Lakota (Sioux)'s tribal chairman, Richard Wilson, who was considered corrupt by many elders and traditional members of the tribe, including those associated with AIM.[28] Furthermore, AIM leaders disliked the existing government because it had been established under the IRA of 1934.[16] AIM took Wounded Knee at gunpoint and proclaimed an independent Sioux nation. In response, Richard Wilson threatened to invade Wounded Knee and violently eject all AIM members. U.S. Marshals, FBI agents, and BIA police were deployed to Pine Ridge Reservation to defuse the situation. However, the standoff would continue for another three months until negotiations between President Nixon's representative Leonard Garment and AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Carter Camp reached an agreement.[28] The occupiers would surrender their arms in exchange for an investigation of Wilson's management of the Pine Ridge Reservation.[16] Once more, the Nixon Administration had used restraint and patience in a potentially violent situation.

The Nixon Administration hardened its policy toward AIM in the wake of the standoff at Wounded Knee. However, Nixon's relative progressivism toward Indian affairs only strengthened. Between 1973 and 1975 Congress, with the help of Senator Henry M. Jackson, passed a series of monumental reforms to U.S. Indian Policy.

References

  1. 1 2 Terminating the Indian Termination Policy, Michael C. Walch, Stanford Law Review Vol. 35, No. 6 (Jul., 1983), pp. 1181-121, p. 1182.
  2. ↑ Documents of United States Indian Policy, House Concurrent Resolution 108, ed. Francis Paul Prucha, University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
  3. ↑ United States Attorney's Office of Minnesota, Public Law 208. http://www.justice.gov/usao/mn/PL-280%20FAQ.html.
  4. ↑ Reyser, Rudolph C., Indigenous Nations and Modern States The Political Emergence of Nations Challenging State Power, Routledge: NY, 2012, pp. 1-289, p. 58.
  5. 1 2 3 JFK Presidential Library, Legislative Summary: Indians,http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/Legislative-Summary-Main-Page/Indians.aspx
  6. ↑ Lyndon B. Johnson: Special Message to the Congress on the Problems of the American Indian: "The Forgotten American." March 6, 1968. The American Presidency Project.
  7. 1 2 Trahant, Mark N.; Gerard, Forest J. (2010). The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars (PDF). The Cedars Group. ISBN 978-0-9827581-0-6. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  8. ↑ "FG 173 (National Council on Indian Opportunity)". Nixon Presidential Library. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
  9. ↑ "Richard Nixon Special Message to Congress on Indian Affairs". The American Presidency Project. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  10. ↑ "Richard Nixon Special Message to Congress on Indian Affairs". The American Presidency Project. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  11. ↑ Trahant, Mark. "Story of Forrest Gerrard is a 'must' for the Canon of Indian Country". Indian Country Today Media Network.com. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Trahant, Mark N.; Gerard, Forest J. (2010). The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars. The Cedars Group. ISBN 978-0-9827581-0-6. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  13. ↑ "Indian Health Care Improvement Act". National Indian Health Board. National Indian Health Board. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  14. ↑ "Summary of the Self-Determination and Indian Education Assistance Act". Tribal Government Leadership Forum. Arizona State University. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  15. ↑ "Bill Summary and Status 94th Congress (1975–1976) S.1327 CRS Summary". The Library of Congress THOMAS. The Library of Congress. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kotlowski, Dean J. (May 2004). "Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and Beyond: The Nixon and Ford Administrations Respond to Native American Protest". Pacific Historical Review 72: 201-227. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  17. ↑ Anderson, Robert T. (2007). "Alaska Native Rights, Statehood, and Unfinished Business". Tulsa Law Review. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  18. ↑ Anderson, Robert T. (2007). "Alaska Native Rights, Statehood, and Unfinished Business". Tulsa Law Review. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  19. ↑ "History". Alaskan Federation of Natives. Alaskan Federation of Natives. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  20. 1 2 The Alaska Pipeline. PBS.
  21. ↑ The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: Conflict and Controversy, Monica E. Thomas, Polar Record, 23(142): 27-36 (1986).
  22. ↑ Hirschfield, Martha.,The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: Tribal Sovereignty And The Corporate Form. 101 Yale L.J. 1331 (April 1992).
  23. ↑ Berardi, Gigi., The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA)-Whose Settlement Was It? An Overview of Salient Issues (2005). Western Washington University.
  24. ↑ Anderson, Robert T., Alaska Native Rights, Statehood, and Unfinished Business (July 21, 2008). Tulsa Law Review, Vol. 43.
  25. ↑ Kotlowski, Dean J. (May 2004). "Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and Beyond: The Nixon and Ford Administrations Respond to Native American Protest" (PDF). Pacific Historical Review 72: 201–227. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  26. ↑ Lapin, Nicole; Hanna, Jason. "1969 Alcatraz takeover 'changed the course of history'". CNN.com. CNN. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  27. ↑ "Alcatraz is Not an Island". PBS.org. PBS. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  28. 1 2 Alcatraz is Not an Island". PBS.org. PBS. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
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