“Termination and the Eastern Band of Cherokees”

By the 1950’s the specter of termination hung over Indian tribes all over America, especially those that were financially stable.  This change was alarming to Indians that relied on the federal government for services including health care and education.  Nevertheless the Congress pushed forward, enacting HCR 108 “calling for abolition of several Indian offices and termination of trust responsibilities for certain specified tribes,” and Public Law 280, “which transferred  civil and criminal jurisdiction over most tribes in five states to…local governments.” The Eastern Band of Cherokees in North Carolina, a particularly successful tribe engaged in the tourism business and heavily reliant on federal aid for reservation programs, was split over termination efforts.  On the one hand, leaders and tribal members were interested in continuing to benefit from federal trust obligation, and on the other, wealthy landowners and successful entrepreneurs on the reservation saw a reduction in federal involvement on the reservation as an economic opportunity.  The expansion of economic opportunity was a main component of the argument for those who advocated for termination-related programs.

Two such individuals, former council member Pearson McCoy and former vice-chief of the band Fred Bauer, holding business interests on the reservation, agitated for termination of the Eastern Band of Cherokees in the Senate, arguing that the Cherokees “were not wards but citizens” while Principle Chief Jarret Blythe defended departments like the BIA, claiming that without protection racism and discrimination would have even more adverse effects on tribal life than it already did.  Ironically, it was the business interest of tourism that would save the Cherokees from termination – “most believed tourism required preservation of their reservation and a Cherokee tribal identity” – and services including education and health care, as well as local economies and the identity of Cherokees on the reservation, were preserved.

“The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Women”

In all the major court cases dealing with women’s health and reproductive freedom from the early 1900’s to the late 1970’s, at issue was the “right to privacy” and the constitutional protections afforded by the 1st amendment, including speech and “the issue of informed consent and the patients’ right to make an informed decision about what could be done to his or her body.” By the time these rights were affirmed in the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, Indian women had added their voices to the conversation in Washington D.C., many decrying sterilization efforts, a relic in the Indian Health Services and elsewhere from racist, termination-era and earlier policies directed at assimilating Indian people.  According to historian Jane Lawrence, “the IHS sterilized between 25 and 50 percent of Native American women between 1970 and 1976,” before the impact of Roe had fully penetrated the public and private sphere.  The reason for these sterilizations is stark – most physicians, including those in the IHS – were white males, and “believed that they were helping society by limiting the number of births in low-income, minority families.” Additionally, “tribal traditions and beliefs work against the use of commercial contraceptives,” and so a culture of ignorance among white doctors and policy makers had become endemic, causing them to further recommend sterilizations, often when women were in labor, or just after their child’s birth.  This change in how reproductive rights and personal privacy are considered after Roe helped to standardize literature, jumpstart an information campaign, and ultimately end the practice of sterilizations by the late 1970’s, another cruel twist of fate in the history of America’s indigenous people. 

“Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and Beyond”

The mid-1970’s saw a new era dawn for Indians and Indian law in America, an era of self-determination that contrasted sharply with previous decades’ policies of assimilation and termination.  This era was marked by Indian resistance-movement activities at places including Alcatraz, Wounded Knee in South Dakota, Eagle Bay, and others.  Presidents Nixon and Ford were sensitive to Indians agitating for rights of self-determination, and did not want a public outcry to ensue after so many years of poor treatment of Indians on the part of Congress and the federal government.  “The Nixon and Ford White Houses both endorsed tribal self-determination and responded patiently to unrest, allowing Congress to enact presidential initiatives.” At Alcatraz, In November of 1969, fifty Indians occupied the island in a “mock” invasion, symbolizing the fight for sovereignty that went hand-in-hand with self-determination, and “Nixon’s moderate advisors…sought compromise,” diffusing and ending the stand-off.  Similarly, in 1973 Oglala Sioux and Wounded Knee clashed with BIA officials as they sought “national recognition” and pushed back against government intransigence in expanding Indian rights and protections.  Under President Ford, who had learned from Nixon’s experiences at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, “federal officials confirmed their commitment to Indian self-determination.” In May of 1974 when Mohawks demanded the return of lands, staging a protest at Eagle Bay in New York, and again, when he granted 185,000 acres of land to the Havasupai of Arizona in 1975, President Ford favored cooperation and negotiation with Indian nations, putting into practice his stated goal of support federal activities that furthered the rights of tribes to self-determination.

A lengthy line of events and legislation through the 1970’s affirmed this new era for Indians in the United States, including, for example, the “[resolution] of numerous land claims” in the tribes’ favor, such as the Taos Pueblo’s claim to the Blue Lake area of the Grand Canyon.  For these reasons, the 1970’s represent an era, under the Nixon and Ford administrations, when Indians and citizens “were beginning [to] resolve their differences peacefully,” and one in which Indian efforts at exercising self-determination were able to bear fruit for a long oppressed indigenous population throughout the U.S.

“Constructing Nations within States”

The Federal Acknowledgement Program was a set of administrative processes developed by the BIA in 1978 that established criteria for federal recognition of Indian tribes, changing the way tribes interact with the government.  These criteria included having “aboriginal” status, “land, …a functioning government, …[and] a roll of members,” among others.  Problematic thought it is, tribes that qualify receive federal benefits, and the “federal government [affirms] the legal position of its members as Indians.” For this reason, tribes that go unrecognized by the federal government are aggrieved, and continually work on methods and programs to establish provenance, membership rolls, and local governments to qualify for federal recognition status.  The rules set by the BIA can have paradoxical effects.  For example, the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina settled in a remote part of the state during the colonial period, and had little contact with colonial-era state government.  So even though it is a large, high-functioning tribe, it has not gained status due to issues with its provenance as an ‘aboriginal’ group.  On the other hand, a much smaller and less economically active tribe, the Catawba, also located in South Carolina, has been able to, through extensive records documenting its engagement with colonial-era and earlier government officials, establish its indigenous status and qualify for federal recognition.  Land issues complicate other tribes’ efforts, as one contributor has explained succinctly, saying “…To gain federal recognition, an Indian Tribe must have a land base.  To secure a land base, an Indian Tribe must be federally recognized.”  Where the indigenous people of the Americas all know themselves as such, these “social constructs” invented by the BIA to classify tribes for legal and economic reasons result in a patchwork approach by the federal government to extending the original rights afforded Indians in treaty language.

References

Nichols, Roger L. The American Indian: Past and Present. 6th ed. Norman, Oklahoma. University of Oklahoma Press. 2008.