The Twentieth Century

Between 1887 and FDR's Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the land base of the American Indian was reduced from 138 million to 48 million acres. In the Southwest, the Navajos, Hopis, and Pueblos were generally successful in warding off the destructive objectives of the Dawes and Curtis Acts, while in the area east of the Missouri River, Native American land holdings had been largely done away with in the pre-Civil War years. Thus it was that the Plains Indians suffered the greatest land losses. Even so, the catastrophe was as much spiritual and psychological as it was economic. Unable to adjust quickly to the life of a farmer or rancher, let alone that of a Christian fundamentalist, sullen traditionalists took refuge in shoddy leasing agreements legalized by the federal government, confusing mortgage contracts, and alcohol. Collectively, they were caricatured as either stoic cigar-store Indians or as lazy, unhealthy "savages" with no desire to get ahead.

The Meriam Survey released by the Institute for Government Research in 1928 emphasized that because the economic base of traditional Indian life had been destroyed by an avaricious white population, and because the base simply could not be restored, it was essential that Indian policy for the future be so structured as to allow the Indian to merge with the majority culture, or "to live in the presence of that civilization at least in accordance with a minimum standard of health and decency." "He who wants to remain an Indian and live according to his culture," emphasized the Survey, "should be aided in doing so."

Under the Indian Reorganization (Wheeler-Howard) Act of 1934, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and Indian Commissioner John Collier did their best to translate ideas into action. Allotments were halted, much surplus land previously opened to sale was returned to tribal ownership, means were provided for the acquisition of additional tribal lands, tribal economic enterprises were encouraged, and machinery for the revitalization of communal culture were created. It was a revolutionary about-face, and right-wing critics styled the Act as a "Communist-inspired plot to erode the sacred American concept of rugged individualism." But under FDR's guiding hand, these irrational complaints were largely ignored. The result was a growing sense of optimism and hope among the Plains Indians, as well as Native American groups elsewhere.

World War II prompted a radical alteration in traditional Indian life-styles. Indian military service in Europe and the Far East disrupted family life, as did the non-military migration of both males and females to urban centers in search of the white man's measure of wealth. The socio-psychological consequences were disastrous and well calculated for attracting Native American participation in the Civil Rights movement of the sixties and early seventies.

In an almost classic manifestation of what Leslie Fiedler has called "The Return of the Vanishing American," representatives of the Plains Indians have recently participated in the radicalism of the American Indian Movement. That they have been challenged by more conservative factions of their own tribes should come as no surprise to perceptive observers. After all, history has a way of making people feel uncomfortable.

The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 has encouraged many Native Americans to seek redress for past wrongs through the Indian Claims Commission (created in 1946) and/or the federal courts. In this, the Plains Indians have played a leadership role. They are enrolling in the best law schools in the nation. They are spending long hours in libraries, searching out their heritage with the legal confines created by the white man. And they are motivated by statements such as the one recently made by Clyde Warrior, a young Ponca intellectual, before the President's National Advisory Committee on Rural Poverty,

"We still have human passions and depth of feeling (which may be somewhat rare in these days), but we are poor in spirit because we are not free - not free in the most basic sense of the word...We are not allowed to make those basic human choices and decisions about our personal life and about the destiny of our communities which is the mark of free mature people...We are rarely accorded respect as fellow human beings."