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Race & ethnic relations: American and global perspectives

Marger, M. N. (2015). Race and ethnic relations: American and global

perspectives (10th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

NATIVE AMERICANS CHAPTER 6

If the United States is a country of immigrants, what can be said of American Indians (or Native Americans)? As the original inhabitants of the continent, surely they can- not be considered .immigrants in the conventional sense, like Europeans of the nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries or Asians and Hispanics of today. But in a sense, even these native peoples can be seen as an immigrant group when considered in a long-range historical context. From twelve thousand to fifty thousaqd years ago, humans reached the Western Hemisphere from Northeast Asia with the help of gla- ciers that, from time to time, covered most of what is today Canada and Alaska, fo rming a land bridge between the two hemispheres. Some may have come by water as well as land. These migrations probably occurred over thousands of years, and it is unlikely that the migrants came from similar racial origins (Goodman and Heffing- ton, 2000). How humans first came to inhabit what is today N orth and South Amer- ica remains an unresolved question among archaeologists. But what is no longer m uch debated is that American Indians originated in another geographic locale.

Realistically, of course, it would seem absurd to refer to American Indians as an " immigrant" group, despite their ancient migration from another part of the globe. Their cultures and 9ocieties developed here, not on another continent. Clearly, Amer- ican Indians are North America 's indigenous peoples, and in this they maintain a un- ique status among the ethnic populations of the United States and Canada . As Ronald Wright has put it, " N ative Americans .. . are American in a way that no others can be. Even if we suppose that their ancestors arrived ' only' 15,000 years ago . .. they have been here thirty times longer than anyone else. If we call that rime a month, Columbus came yesterday" (1992:x) .

CONQUEST AND ADAPTATION

Because American Indians inhabited the continent prior to the explorations of Europeans , they occupy a singular place in the shaping and development of the American ethnic hierarchy. Unlike any other group , their placement into the society's ethnic scheme and their subsequent adaptation were shaped by conquest.

137

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138 PA RT II ETHNICITY IN THE UN ITED STATES

EUROPEAN CONT ACT

When Europeans crossed the Atlantic beginning in the late fifteenth century, they found two continents inhabited by millions of people. 1 Native peoples extended over the entire Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic to the tip of South America. These "Indians," as the Europeans called them, were by no means homogeneous but were organized into hundreds of tribes or nations, some quite advanced in social organization and technology. They practiced a wide variety of subsistence patterns ranging from hunting and gathering to intensive agriculture (Crawford, 2001). They were different from the Europeans, however, and the white invaders ethnocen- trically interpreted these physical and cultural differences as proof of inferiority and lack of civilization.

Estimates of the indigenous population north of the Rio Grand~ at the time of Columbus's arrival range from one million to eighteen million (Crawford, 2001; Thornton, 1995; Ubelaker, 1988). Like the more numerous natives of what is today Latin America, these peoples spoke many different languages, conformed to dispa- rate cultural systems, and were organized in a variety of economic and social forms. There were, then, no "American Indians" per se but rather a great number of diverse ethnic groups, viewing themselves as different from one another <:\:.~ from the _Euro- pean invaders (Lurie, 1991). - · -

EMERGENCE OF AN ETHNIC H IERARCHY The establishment of Europeart supremacy over the North American Indians conforms closely to the theories -of th.e emergeri~e of_ dominance and subordination explained in Chapter 2. As a conq~ed, p0pu}f1tion,, the subordination of Indians occurred through a highly conflictual process. An indig- enous group invaded by a more powerful settler group can only capitulate or, more commonly, resist. This ordinarily makes for a high level of conflict and rejection of assimilation into the dominant group.

The four major conditions for the emergence of ethnic stratification-contact, ethnocentrism, competition, and differential power- are clearly seen in the case of Indian-white relations at the outset of European settlement and afterward.

The Native Americans' physical and cultural distance from European standards inevitably produced an ethnocentric white view. Of particular importance to the North American settlers was that the Indians were "heathen." Moreover, they were preliterate and at a technological level far below that of the Europeans. A combina- tion of these traits contributed to the image of Indians as savage and inferior and, con- sequently, to the rationale for their exploitation and annihilation. As Alvin Josephy has written, "In the Western Hemisphere, Indians, to the whites, were all the same, and the newcomers disagreed among themselves only over the extent to which the na- tive populations differed from, or seemed to be inferior to, Europeans" (1969:279).

Contact and even ethnocentrism among alien ethnic groups will not in them- selves create dominant-subordinate relations, however. Competition over valued

1 The number of indigenous people inhabiting North and South America at the time of European discovery is disputed among anthropologists and historians. Estimates range from less than ten million to more than a hundred million (Dobyns, 1966; Kroeber, 1939; Utter, 1993). As one researcher has declared , "Prior to the late nineteenth century, all numbers are uncertain, and a uniquely correc~ number of nati ves never will be had" (Jaffe, 1992:2).

CH APTER 6 NA TI VE AME RI CANS 1 3 9

resources is a third factor, and in the case of Indian-white relations, land provided the necessary ingredient. The settlers' objective was to secure land for agricultural production. From the outset, divergent cultural perceptions of "property" led to mis- understandings and hostilities between Indian and settler. Indian lands were held communally, not as private property. Whites consequently perceived them as basi- ally unoccupied. Furthermore, most Indians did not engage in European-style farm-

ing, which led to the view that these lands were underutilized and thus justifiably ._ occupied by those who would cultivate them in a "proper" manner.

In the end, however, it was the differential power between Indians and settlers that proved the crucial element in establishing dominance and subordination. In par- ticular, the deciding factor in the European conquest of indigenous peoples in all parts of the Western Hemisphere was the Europeans' technological skills, which gave them a tremendous advantage in war. When the vastly superior arms of the co- lonialists were combined with the inability of Indians to resist the diseases introduced by the Europeans, it was inevitable that whites would prevail in the struggle for resources and that Native populations would decline.

D ISPLACEMENT AND DEPOPULATION

From the beginning of European settlement to the end of the eighteenth century, In dian-white relations in North America centered primarily on the fur trade. During that time, three major colonial powers vied for the economic resources of the West- ern Hem.isphere: Britain, France, and Spain. Each had different colonial objectives. Spain, chiefly concerned with exploiting the mineral wealth of its possessions, con- centrated its activities primarily in the southern part of the hemisphere. In North America, the Spanish influence was eventually confined to the present-day American So uthwest. Indigenous peoples in what are today Mexico, Central and South Amer- ica, and parts of the Caribbean were brutally exploited as a labor force, first through enslavement and later through debt peonage (Cumberland, 1968).

France's economic activities, by contrast, focused mostly on supplying the Euro- pean market with furs. Its activities extended throughout most of the northeastern and central parts of the North American continent, including the St. Lawrence wa- terway, eastern Canada, the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley, and the Mississippi River Valley. As a result, the French necessarily nurtured close relations with North Amer- ican Indian nations who aided them in their economic goals. Through the fur trade, Indians were integrated into the emergent North American economy.

THE BRITISH TRIUM PH The British, too, were engaged in the fur trade and, like the French, entered into alliances with Indian nations. The British-French rivalry in the fur trade led to deadly conflict among the Indian nations attached to each country. Yloreover, as a result of their economic and political relations with the Europeans, native Indians' cultural institutions and forms of social organization were radically transformed in numerous ways.

More than the Spanish and the French, the British valued land as a resource, and their colonial activities eventually became focused on that goal. Britain was inter- ested in having colonists permanently settle the land and farm it rather than simply exploit it for minerals and furs. With the triumph of the British in North America in

140 PART JI ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES

the late eighteenth century, the crux of Indian-white relations shifted from the fur trade to issues of land. The British colonial government as well as its successor, the newly independent United States, sought to control the acquisition of lands by Amer- ican settlers and to protect the rights of Indians, but both governments failed. The quest for land by British colonists proved insatiable, leading ultimately to the dis- placement of the indigenous population.

At the start of the nineteenth century, Indian-white relations evolved into a con- frontation in which the rapacious quest of white settlers for land led to ever-greater efforts to dispossess Indians of lands they were occupying. Two paths to this objec- tive became apparent: Indians would be separated from their lands either through assimilation (by encouraging them to abandon their communal patterns of land- holding in favor of private property) or through removal (by relocating them through negotiated purchase of land or through conquest) (Cornell, 1988). These two paths were not mutually exclusive; rather, they were compleiiientary, not only in a practical sense but also as a way of satisfying the objectives of settlers, who wanted land, and reformers , who sought to "civilize" the Indians with American cul- ture. This dual objective, notes historian Robert Berkhofer, was a constant pattern throughout most of American history: "From the founding of the nation until recent times, and some would include today as well, United States policy makers placed two considerations above all others in the nation's relation with Native Americans as In- dians: the extinction of native title in favor of White exploitation of native lands and resources and the transformation of native lifestyles into copies of approved White models" (1979:135).

By the lat'e nineteenth century, most of the remaining Native population had been forcibly resettled in reservations west of the Mississippi. It was not coincidental that reservations were located on lands that whites deemed virtually worthless for farming or grazing.

DEPOPULATION Indian societies were physically reduced through a combination of ex- posure to European diseases, armed conflict, starvation, and the breakup of cultural systems that had traditionally provided for social and material needs. Although In- dians did make many cultural adaptations to the white presence, doing so did not prevent the eventual destruction of their social forms and the succession of white dominance (Wax, 1971). By the time Americans had gone beyond the Appalachian Mountains, Indians had already adopted several new technologies from the Eur- opeans. Firearms now aided in hunting and, on the plains, the horse, introduced by the Spanish in the Southwest, had thoroughly transformed the Indians' way of life. Despite these adaptations, however, Indians remained politically fractured into many scattered tribes . This made them vulnerable to American settlers' intrusions and, ultimately, divestiture.

As for diseases, perhaps nothing more severely affected the Indians' physical condition than the epidemics brought by Europeans, which decimated many tribes from the very outset of their contact with settlers and explorers. These epidemics continued, repeatedly, throughout the nineteenth century (Thornton, 1995; Wash- burn, 1975). Native populations lacked immunity to smallpox, measles, cholera , typhoid, malaria, and other diseases; their effects were devastating.

CHAPTER 6 NATIVE AMERICANS 14 I

GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND AMERICAN INDIANS

Stephen Cornell (1988) has suggested that the "Indian problem" for Euro-Americans fr om the time of settlement to the present has had three aspects: economic- how best to secure Indian resources, especially land;2 cultural-how best to assimilate Indians into the dominant, non-Indian, culture; and political-how best to control Indians to bring about solutions to the first two problems. The counterpart to the Indian prob- lem was a "Euro-American problem" for Indians. "In its essence," notes Cornell, "" this problem seems to have been tribal survival: the maintenance of particular sets of social relations, more or less distinct cultural orders, and some measure of politi- al autonomy in the face of invasion, conquest, and loss of power" (1988:7). It is

around these two conflicting problems that Indian-white relations have revolved for che past three centuries.

The solution to the Euro-Americans' economic, cultural, and political "Indian problem" was displacement and depopulation of Indian tribes, as well as cultural decimation through forced assimilation. All of these strategies were underwritten by government edict. Several phases of the history of relations between American Indians and the federal government can be delineated. Each corresponds to shifting o bjectives and specific measures, always undertaken with two implicit goals: (1) elim- inating the Native American population as an impediment to western settlement and che needs of an expanding American economy, and (2) eradicating Native American ultures and political forms.

-EPA RATION The earliest U.S. policy toward Indians grew out of the struggle for land chat had characterized relations between Indians and the English settlers. Various agreements between Indians and colonists essentially held that the Indian nations were independent political entities and were to be dealt with on that basis. This pol- icy continued after U.S. independence. Specific bounded territories were promul- gated, separating Indian nations from Americans. Thus the paradoxical status of Indians was, as Edward Spicer describes it, "a people within the territory of the new nation and yet outside the processes of its political life" (1982:179).

The legal status of Indian lands, however, quickly became hazy as settlers oveted these lands and began to infringe on them. Indian lands were ceded irrevers-

ibly by treaties, usually entered into by Indians under duress or in ignorance of their me aning, through fraudulent schemes perpetrated by whites, or by sheer force . .\1oreover, treaties themselves provided no protection of those lands left to the Na- rive Americans because renegotiations and violations became standard practice whenever disputes arose. Where there was desirable land, whites eventually took it. Clashes occurred repeatedly; the solution, from the American perspective, was to en- oa ge the Indians in negotiation and land exchanges for their removal to lands farther west, where it was assumed these border issues would no longer arise.

RE~1ovAL The Indian Removal Act of 1830 called for the relocation of all tribes liv- ing in the eastern United States to lands set aside for them west of the Mississippi

: It should be remembered that at the outset of contact between Indians and Europeans, it was not land ur other resources- in North America, furs-that Europeans sought. From the late eighteenth century n, however, land was the major objective.

142 PART II ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES

River. This policy was pursued vigorously by President Andrew Jackson, who repre- sented the sentiments of settlers who saw Indian occupation of desired lands as an obstacle to the development of white dominance. Removal was rationalized by the view that Indians were not using land as "God had intended"-that is, to farm in the way of the white man. As Governor William Henry Harrison asked, "Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization?" (quoted in Hagan, 1961:69).

This ten-year movement marked a time of great hardship and suffering for Indians and resulted in the virtual destruction of many tribes, particularly those that resisted removal. Perhaps the most infamous episode involved the forced migra- tion of the Cherokees in 1838, an affair referred to as the "Trail of Tears." In the summer of that year, the U.S. Army rounded up all sixteen thousand Cherokees and held them for months in disease-infested camps. The march west to Oklahoma extended over the autumn and winter, and by its end, four thousand had died (Wright, 1992). As one historian has described it, the removal of Indians at best "resembled closely the pioneering experience of thousands of their white contem- poraries" and at worst "approached the horrors created by the Nazi handling of subject peoples" (Hagan, 1961:77) . The Indian Removal Act was perhaps the most devastating single action taken by the federal government in destroying Indian cul- tures and societies .

THE WESTERN INDIANS After the American Civil War, the U.S. government took steps to put an end to Indian resistance that stood in the way of western development. Thus the locus of Indian affairs shifted to the tribes of the plains, the Southwest, and the Far West. The result was the further dispossession of Indian lands through military campaigns as well as the signing of treaties that were quickly broken by the government when their terms impeded settlement.

A key part of this effort was the suppression of the Ghost Dance religious move- ment. The Ghost Dance religion had been founded by a prophet, Wovoka, of the Paiute tribe. Believers were convinced that they could drive whites from Indian lands and restore their traditional way of life by following certain rituals, particularly a ceremonial dance. In the late 1880s, the movement spread across the plains. The U.S. government viewed the Ghost Dance as a serious threat; in 1890, following the killing of Sitting Bull, one of the movement's leaders, the government ordered troops to move on the Ghost Dancers. This led to the slaughter of hundreds of Sioux In- dians at Wounded Knee near the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota (Brown, 1972). This incident represented the culmination of military force against Indians, and from that point forward, Indian resistance ceased. Wounded Knee became a symbol of the federal government's destructive anti-Indian policies .

In addition to military force, the Plains Indians were decimated by disease and by the extermination of the buffalo (or bison), which had been the very heart of their way of life. They depended on it not only for food but also for clothing and shelter. The herds were drastically reduced when white hunters shot them, harvesting meat and hides . In a matter of only a few years, as many as fifteen million buffalo were virtually extinguished. The passing of the buffalo further diminished the power of Western Indians to resist white settlement. The choice they now faced was between

CHA PT ER 6 N ATIVE AMER ICAN S 143

depending on government handouts and adopting the Euro-American way of life (Wexler, 1995).

ALLOTMENT AND CO ERCIVE AssJMILATI ON By the latter part of the nineteenth century, armed resistance to federal policy had ended. Government officials and reformers now advocated a policy that they felt would once and for all solve the Indian prob- lem: Reservation lands would be broken up and allotted to individual tribal mem- bers. Unallotted lands would then be sold to non-Indians. This policy was fo rmalized in 1887 with congressional passage of the Dawes Act (also called the General Allotment Act}. The policy of allotment further diminished those lands re- maining in Indian possession, leaving them with even fewer productive resources. Furthermore, the administrative effects of the Dawes Act led to an even greater intru- sion of the BIA (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the government's major agency for dealing with Indians) into Indian affairs, further diminishing native cultures and weakening tribal political institutions.

As a means of coercing Indians into an acceptance of their now virtual power- lessness in the face of the federal government, a policy of forced assimilation was put into place. The policy of breaking up Indian lands and assigning title to indivi- duals was, by itself, intended to make over Indian families, using white settlers as the model: "hard working and economically motivated" (Spicer, 1982:183). But part of the policy also consisted of specific attempts to assimilate Indians into the main- stream society. In cooperation with religious groups, efforts were made to eradicate native cultures and impose the American way of life. This meant destroying native religions and putting Christianity in their place, denying Indians native languages and substituting English, and generally reducing education to an effort to "civilize" Indians. Native American children were placed in government-run boarding schools, which indoctrinated them with the belief that Euro-American culture was vastly uperior to "primitive " tribal cultures. Separated from their families for years at a

rime, the children were taught to speak English, wear Western clothing, and pray as Christians; failure to behave accordingly merited stern punishment from school au- thorities (Adams, 1995). The BIA commissioner in 1889 bluntly stated his bureau's intent: "The Indians must conform to 'the white man 's ways,' peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must" (quoted in Cornell, 1988:56).

At the start of the twentieth century, then, Indians were impoverished and virtu- ally at the mercy of the federal government, whose paternalistic policies continued to reflect white ethnocentrism. By that time, the Indian population had been reduced to ·ewer than 250,000. Indians were now officially wards of the federal government and were thus no longer seen or dealt with as separate nations.

_ ).!Ew APPROACH TO I NDIAN AFFAIRS In the 1930s, an effort was made to reverse the dec- ades of neglect and exploitation that had characterized government policies vis -a-vis _-\merican Indians. It was also an attempt to create a more pluralistic system of In dia n-white relations. John Collier, enlightened and sympathetic toward Native ca us es, was appointed to head the BIA during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first cerm. Collier proposed major changes in Indian policy that included tribal self-rule and efforts to encourage Native cultural preservation. Most important was his pro- posal to end the allotment system created by the Dawes Act, which had resulted in

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144 PART II ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES

the loss of much Indian land. Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) in 1934, which included a number of Collier's recommendations. It was not met with enthusiasm by all Indians, however. Some were committed to assimilation, and others were not prepared to accept at face value any measure offered by the federal government. Still others saw the act as simply one more form of paternalism. Most tribes, however, approved it. The IRA, though failing to fundamentally alter the sta- tus and condition of Native Americans, did result in halting some of the more egre- gious aspects of past Indian policy. It prohibited further allotments of tribal lands and encouraged Indians to establish self-governing systems within their tribes. More- over, Collier reduced the heavy-handed control of Indian life by the BIA and reduced efforts aimed at forced cultural assimilation.

TERMINATION AND ITs REVERSAL In the 1950s, another turnabout in the government's ap- proach to Indian affairs emerged with a new policy known as " termihation." In es - sence the objective was, once again, assimilation. Termination essentially meant the end of the federal government's responsibility to provide various social, educational, and economic services to Indians; it also ended government protection of Indian lands and property held in trust for the tribes (Senese, 1991; Wilkinson, 2005) . In a sense, Indians would now be entirely on their own. Moreover, the tribal organiza- tion of Indian life was seen as a relic of the past, and it was felt that Indians should be dealt with on an individualistic, not a communal, basis. The idea was that they should be treated no differently from other citizens. To accomplish this, it was pro- posed that the reservation system be dismantled and the federal government's unique role toward Indians be severed. No longer would treaty obligations be recognized, and the sovereign status of tribes would be eliminated.

Most Indians strongly resisted termination, realizing that the ultimate result would be the loss of tribal lands as well as Native cultures. The failure of termination led to a return to a policy more in line with the IRA during the next three decades. Reversing its position again, federal policy toward American Indians in the 1970s moved in the direction of greater autonomy for tribal governments.

RED PowER A major influence on the government's decision to reverse the policy of termination was the Red Power movement. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Native Americans put pressure on the federal government to address Indian issues and needs and to reassert Indian rights. Moreover, as with other ethnic groups, American Indians during that time began to reaffirm their ethnic identity. These ideas and actions, in total, came to be known as the Red Power movement. Specifi- cally, the aim of Red Power was to end the federal policy of termination, return In- dians to traditional cultural ways, and review and revitalize Indian communities. As it took shape, Red Power in many ways emulated similar movements occurring at that time among African Americans and Latinos. It brought the grievances and gen- eral plight of Native Americans to public awareness through numerous incidents- marches, protests, sit-ins, and demonstrations.

Perhaps the most publicized and attention-grabbing event of the Red Power movement was the nineteen-month occupation of Alcatraz Island, an abandoned federal prison in San Francisco Bay, beginning in 1969. Many Indian activists saw this as the spark that ignited the Red Power movement. Following Alcatraz, several

CH APTER 6 N AT IVE AME RI CANS 145

other occupations took place in various locations around the country. The siege at Wounded Knee in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1973, however, overshadowed the others. The conflict actually began as an internal power struggle among the Oglala Sioux tribe. Eventually it involved not only the two sides of the tribe but also federal law enforcement officials, the BIA, local citizens, nationally prominent entertainers who lent their celebrity endorsement, national religious and legal organizations, and the national news media (Josephy et al. , 1999). One of the major groups involved was AIM, the American Indian Movement. AIM had been .. fo unded in 1968 by a group of young Indian men, including Dennis Banks, and had been one of the major organizing units of the earlier Alcatraz occupation.

Wounded Knee culminated in a standoff between AIM and federal officials that ontinued for more than two months, with sporadic violence resulting in several

deaths and many injuries. Banks and Russell Means, another activist leader, were u bsequently arrested and charged with inciting to riot and conspiracy. The choice

of Wounded Knee was hardly random. This location held great symbolic significance fo r American Indians because it had been the site where the U.S . cavalry had massa - red hundreds of Sioux men, women, and children in 1890. After Wounded Knee,

rhe militancy of Red Power subsided relatively quickly, however, and was replaced with a more legalistic approach to preserving and enhancing Indian cultural and eco- nomic interests.

Alcatraz and Wounded Knee took on great symbolic meaning for Native Amer- icans and helped to stimulate ethnic reidentification among Indians who had drifted into an urbanized assimilation path. A renewal of ethnic pride and c;onsciousness be- ame evident, and a cultural renaissance emerged on many Indian reservations (Kelly

and Nagel, 2002).

-ELF-DETERMINATION In 1975, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, permitting tribes to take control of numerous federal pro- grams on reservations. This marked a revolutionary break with the past, releasing Indian tribes from the strict control and supervision of the BIA (Josephy et al., 1999; Wilkinson, 2005). The effect was a renewal of tribal sovereignty and, in effect, a reversal of the policy of termination. Many of the reservations' social and eco- nomic functions were now assumed by tribal governments.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration made severe cuts in federal assistance ~o American Indians. As with all other federa l agencies, the Reagan approach was to remove the federal government from activities and turn these over to the private sec- -or. In 1983 alone, aid was cut by more than one-third, affecting programs on all reservations (Worsnop, 1992). These policies reflected a philosophical rejection of ;;;elf-determination that had seemed to hold sway in the 1970s, but they were short- :ived. By the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, self-determination once again dominated government policy as Congress and the courts made decisions that ;;rrengthened the sovereignty of Indian nations (Josephy et al., 1999; Wilkinson, _005). In 1990, for example, Congress enacted the Native American Languages Act,

tended to promote the use and development of Indian languages. Recent politics of American Indians have focused primarily on political self-

.:letermination and on the protection of remaining Indian lands. Indians have, in the • ast two decades, generally experienced greater empowerment than at any time since

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146 PART II ETH N ICIT Y IN THE UNIT ED ST AT ES

the nineteenth century. Much of this power has been the result of the leverage that tribes have been able to exert in their control of valuable minerals and other re- sources that are now part of Indian-controlled areas. As much as 30 percent of U.S. energy sources, such as oil, gas, and coal, may be located on tribal lands (Harvard Project, 2008). Moreover, many tribes, as we will see, have become adept at business affairs and have developed numerous enterprises on reservations.

A consistent theme of power imbalance seems to run through the history of U.S. government policy vis-a-vis Native Americans . At all times, whatever the issues or whichever administration formulated policy, Indians themselves lacked the political power to defend their interests. They were always reactors to, never initiators of, policies affecting their welfare. At certain times the object of government measures was to assimilate Indians to the cultural ways of whites, whereas at other times, Indians were seen as unassimilable and thus to be left alone. In either case- with few exceptions- gross neglect typified the attitudes of policy makers, and each suc- ceeding generation of Native Americans has felt the consequences of that neglect.

AMERICAN I NDIAN D EMOGRAPHICS

It is difficult today to accurately measure the American Indian population because definitions of who is "Indian" are not clear and unequivocal. As with other ethnic groups, the U.S. Census_ counts anyone as Indian who declares him- or herself so. Within the Native American population itself, Indian identity is left to each tribe to define. Thus a variety of criteria may be used in establishing a person's tribal mem- bership. Often blood quantum rs a qualification; but in some cases, one need only trace his or her lineage to earlier tribal members (Snipp, 2002; Thornton, 1987).

In some cases, the indeterminate nature of Indian identity has led to internal tribal disputes centering on who should qualify for membership and thus be entitled to tribal benefits. In the Cherokee Nation, for example, there are descendants of black slaves owned by Cherokees, freed blacks who were married to Cherokees, and the children of mixed-race families known as black Cherokees, all of whom were part of the migration to Oklahoma in 1838 (Nieves, 2007a). In 2007, in a highly controversial move, the Cherokee Nation revoked the tribal citizenship of about three thousand of the descendants of slaves owned by the tribe. Tribal leaders later restored partial rights to some of these black members, though not full citizenship.

P OPULATION GROWTH Despite the problems in accurately determining Indian identity, there is little doubt that Indians are a relatively young and growing ethnic popula- tion. The "official" Indian population today (including Alaska natives) is 2.9 mil- lion, which is less than 1 percent of the total U.S . population. Nonetheless, this represents a significant growth over the 1980 recorded Indian population of 1.4 mil- lion and a fivefold increase from 550,000 in 1960. As noted in Chapter 5, beginning in 2000 the U.S. Census enabled people to declare more than one racial identity. If those who declared some Indian ancestry are included with those who identified themselves as American Indian only, the population of this category jumps to about 5.2 million, or 1.7 percent of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012f).

CH APTE R 6 NAT IVE AME RI CANS 1 47

Much of the increase in the Native American population is the product of a high birthrate, but a larger part is accounted for by the growing tendency for people to declare their Indian affiliation (Sandefur et al., 2001 ). By the late 1960s, " Indianness" had risen in popularity. As a result of the Red Power movement, Indian activism inspired new pride among Native Americans, as did the more favorable portrayal of Indians by the mass media (Nagel, 1995) . In addition to the new positive public perception of this group, many now claimed Indian ancestry in order to be in- cluded in lucrative judgments being awarded to tribes in land-claims cases. "Every announcement of a large judgment," notes historian William Hagan, "seemed to trig- ger the memories of some Americans that their family trees included an Indian, usu- ally a chief's daughter, a princess" (1992:284). Many discovered that declaring oneself "Indian" also resulted in eligibility for various federal assistance programs, including health and education. Indian identity, then, remains problematic, with no systematic way to verify the validity of genuine Indianness. This is hardly a recent problem, however; it extends well back in American history (Hagan, 1992).

Today the federal government officially recognizes 564 Indian tribes in the United States; almost 300 other groups are seeking official recognition as tribes (Bu- reau of Indian Affairs, 2009; Peterson, 2004 ). Not all American Indians, however, are actually enrolled members of these tribes. Figure 6.1 lists the ten largest Ameri- can Indian tribes.

RESERVATION I N DIANS The American Indian population is split between those living on and those living off the approximately 300 federal Indian reservations. The

Cherokee

Navajo

Choctaw

Mexican American Indian

Chippewa

Sioux

Apache

Blackfeet

Creek

Iroq uois

• Tribal grouping alone

D Tribal grou p ing in an y combination

FIGUR E 6. r I T EN L ARGEST A MERI CAN I NDIAN T RIBAL GROUPINGS Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2012f).

Tribal grouping alone or in any combination

819 ,105

332 , 129

195,764

175,494

170,742

170,110

111 ,810

105 ,304

88 ,332

81,002

S31.Vl.S 031.!Nfl 3Hl. NI ,UIJ INHJ.3 II 1.~Vd 8Vl

CHAPTER 6 NATIVE AMER ICANS 149

TABLE 6. r I METROPOLITAN AREAS WITH THE LARGEST AMERICAN INDIAN POPULATIONS '"

Phoenix

New York

Los Angeles

Tulsa, OK

Albuquerque, NM

Oklahoma City

Riverside- San Bernardino-Ontario, CA

Dallas-Fort Worth

• Alone or in com bin ation with ocher racia l groupings.

Source: U.S . Census Bureau (2012b ).

American Indian Population

99,000

93,000

91,000

77,000

52,000

51,000

46,000

43,000

Percent of Total Metro Population

2.4

0.5

0.7

8.2

5.9

4.1

1.1

0.7

largest of these reservations is the Navajo, covering 16 million acres of land in Ari- zona, New Mexico, and Utah, with a population of around 175,000. Most other re- servations, however, are much smaller. The second largest is the Pine Ridge Res ervation in South Dakota and Nebraska, with a population of 1'9,000. Figure 6.2 shows the geographic size and location of American Indian reservations.

URBAN INDIA NS Almost three -quarters of all Native Americans live off reservations, most of whom reside in urban areas. Indeed, the movement of American Indians to cities has been a continuous process. Federally sponsored urban relocation programs begun during the 1950s impelled much of this movement.

Table 6.1 and Figure 6.3 show those states and metropolitan areas where Indians are most numerous. As is evident, Indians are concentrated in a few states, mostly in the West. The largest populations are in California, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

American Ind ian and i----- ----.-.--.------- - -----------,

Alaska Native 13.9 6.8 6.0 4.2 59.9 alone or in f----- "'" ,,,..._ _ _,____.____,_ _ _______________ __J

combination

American Indian and i----

Alaska Native f-- 1 _ 2 _·

4 _

alone

10.1 6.6 5.8 54.1

i DcA • oK 0 AZ 0TX 0NY 0NM D Aii other states I

FIGURE 6 .3 I PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE POPULATION BY STATE: 2010

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2012£) .

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150 PART II ETH N ICITY IN THE UN ITED STAT ES

AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE CLASS SYSTEM

SO CIOECONOMIC STATUS

Wherever American Indians reside, on reservations or in urban areas, they are below the national average on most socioeconomic measures- income, education, occupa- tion, employment, health care, mortality, and housing.

E CONOMIC M EASU RES Table 6.2 indicates some of the economic discrepancies between American Indians and the general population. As can be seen, median household in- come is well below that of the total population, and the percentage of people in pov- erty is twice as high. The social and economic conditions on reservations are especially dismal and remain resistant to significant change. Two of the poorest counties in the United States are Sioux reservations in South Dakota. ,

Income and poverty rates vary somewhat from tribe to tribe, but in no case do they even come close to the rates for whites or even the national average. Median household income for American Indians is about two-thirds of the median house- hold income for non-Hispanic whites. The comparative poverty gap is even wider, with the American Indian rate more than double the rate for whites. Of particular consequence is the serious Native American unemployment rate. For reservation In- dians, this has been the result of a combination of poor education and geographical isolation. But the rate of unemployment for American Indians, whether on or off reservations, is well above the national average and remains high in good times and bad (Austin, 2009). Although urban Indians are less impoverished than reserva- tion Indians, they remain concentrated near the bottom of the class system, experiencing persistent joblessness and difficulty in adjusting to urban economies that no longer can absorb workers with low skills and education. The urban migra- tion of American Indians is not likely to decline radically and thus will continue to render profound economic- as well as social and cultural- effects on Indian life.

T ABLE 6.2 I S OCIOECONOM IC STATUS OF AMERICAN I NDIAN S, 2011

Education

High school graduates

College graduates

Median household income

Professional and managerial occupations

In poverty

Unemployed

American Indians ''-

78.9%

13.3%

$35,192

26.2%

29.5%

10.0%

''-Alone, not in combination with other racia l groupings.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (20 12d )_

Total Population

85.4%

28.2%

$50,502

35.7%

14.3%

8.7%

Non-Hispanic Whites

88.0%

29.9%

$53,444

37.7%

13.0%

5.6%

CHA PTE R 6 NA TI VE AM ERI CANS 1 5 I

EDUCATI ON Regarding education, Native Americans again find themselves at or close to the bottom of the social hierarchy. For example, American Indian students have the highest high school dropout rate among all ethnic groups. Achievement levels are among the lowest as well. More than any other factor, the low level of human capital among Native Americans, primarily in the form of education, accounts for the socioeconomic discrepancy between Indian and white populations (Waters and Eschbach, 1995).

From very early on the federal government has had some role in Indian educa- tion. Missionary schools had been established by the early nineteenth century, and the government assisted these schools in their efforts. The BIA operated its own school system with schools on or near reservations. After the Civil War, many boarding schools were established for Indians. As noted earlier, mental and physical a buse were common in these schools, and suppression of Indian cultural ways was a fundamental objective. The failure of the boarding school system was eventually rec- ognized, and Indian students were increasingly channeled into Indian day schools and the public school system (Thornton, 2001).

By the mid-twentieth century most observers agreed that the system of educating Indian children was pathetically ineffective and in many ways perpetuated the low social and economic status of Native Americans (Josephy et al., 1999). A U.S. Senate report in 1969, summarizing a lengthy investigation of the Indian education system, concluded that "our national policies for educating American Indians are a failure of major proportions. They have not offered Indian children- either iµ years past or today- an educational opportunity anywhere near equal to that offered the great bulk of American children" (cited in Josephy et al. , 1999:186). Federal control has undergone slow change over the past several decades. By the late 1960s, several states had assumed responsibility for educating Indian children. Today American In- dians have gained a greater measure of control over the education of their children, and this trend is likely to continue (Thornton, 2001). Nonetheless, the educational gap between Indians and the larger society remains a problem of serious propor- tions. A Department of Education task force studying Indian education concluded that "[i]t is evident that the existing educational systems, whether they be public or federal, have not effectively met the educational, cultural, economic, and social needs of Native commu~ities" (U.S. Department of Education, 1991:12).

Despite this gap, positive trends are evident on most measures of education for American Indians. High school completion in 1980 was 56 percent; it had risen to 66 percent in 1990 and today is 79 percent. Similarly, the numbers of Native Ameri- can students attending and grad uating from college and pursuing graduate and other professional degrees have steadily risen. In 2011, 13 percent of adult Native Ameri- cans were college graduates, compared to 11 percent in 1996 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1997; 2012d).

HEALTH Economic insecurity and low educational achievement tr anslate into other measures of deprivation. Although improved, the health of American Indians is still worse than that of the general population by almost every indicator. For example, Indian deaths from tuberculosis are more than 500 percent higher than for other Americans (Indian Health Service, 2010). Doctors, nurses, and dentists are in short supply on reservations, and for urban Indians, access to health care providers is

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I52 PART II ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES

typically far more difficult and inadequate than for the general population (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2004; Worsnop, 1992). Poor diet also contributes greatly to Indian health problems, particularly on reservations. The rate of diabetes, for example, has reached epidemic proportions. Furthermore, suicide and alcoholism rates are considerably higher among Native Americans than among the general pop- ulation. American Indians fifteen to twenty-four years old commit suicide at three times the national average for that age group (Nieves, 2007b). And the mortality rate from alcoholism among American Indians is over six times the rate among the rest of the U.S. population (Indian Health Service, 2010).

In sum, although new policies and favorable court decisions have clearly im- proved some of their economic and social conditions, Native Americans, both reser- vation and urban, continue to lag behind the general population on most measures of socioeconomic status. Despite progress, the proportionate gap between American Indians and the general population has not closed appreciably. Life expectancy of Indians, for example, has risen nearly ten years (from 65.1 to 74.5 years) since 1976. Yet the difference in life expectancy relative to other Americans has changed very little (Indian Health Service, 2006; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2004). Similar wide disparities remain between Indians and the general population in edu- cation, occupation, income, poverty, and unemployment, as we have seen.

Continued Native_ American economic and social deprivation is in large measure explained as a result of the lack of attention and priority given to Indian needs, espe- cially by the federal government. For example, the Indian Health Service, which is the primary h~alth care provider for Native Americans, spends less than $2,000 per patient per year; this is about half of what the government spends on prisoners and less than 40 percent of what it spends on the general population (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2004). That issues pertaining to American Indians often seem like an afterthought to policy makers may be in large part a result of the fact that their pop- ulation base is simply not large enough to translate into effective political power. Hence, other minority ethnic groups may be better able to bring their needs to the attention of both public and private agencies and therefore garner proportionately greater benefits from assistance programs.

RECENT ECONOMIC PROJECTS

Indian activism of the past three decades has been met with measures designed mostly to quell militancy rather than to address the unique socioeconomic problems of Native Americans. Moreover, as vital resources such as oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium have been discovered in recent years on federal Indian reservations, Native Americans have experienced new pressures threatening their control over their re- maining lands. Indian lands are estimated to contain nearly 30 percent of the na- tion's coal reserves west of the Mississippi, as much as half of potential uranium reserves, and up to 20 percent of known natural gas and oil reserves (Grogan et al., 2011 ). In some cases, those resources have served as a valuable political tool in pur- suing Indian political and economic goals . Some tribes, however, object to mining on their lands, regardless of its value.

In recent years, many Indian tribes have become more aggressive in pursuing projects designed to foster greater economic development and independence. Because

CHAPTER 6 NATIVE AMERICANS 153

American Indian nations are considered sovereign, the U.S. government does not tax tribes or their wealth. This has provided opportunities to establish businesses of various kinds, some of which have been extremely successful and have resulted in significant economic benefits to Indian reservations. The Lac du Flambeau Chippewa tribe in Wisconsin, for example, distributes Ojibwe brand pizza in seven states, and the St. Regis Mohawk tribe of New York produces widely sold fishing products. In Arizona and New Mexico, the Navajo reservation grows produce that ~ it sells in twenty-one states as well as Mexico and Canada, generating millions of dollars of revenue (Grasser, 2013; Trueheart and McAuliffe, 1995).

A number of tribes have begun to generate stable income streams from off- reservation investments, which have subsequently been used to create employment opportunities on the reservation. And, several Indian nations have become signifi- cant economic forces in relatively poor and rural settings. Business success among tribes, however, has not been universal, and most Indian enterprises begin from a low base. Moreover, the future of Native American economic development is heavily dependent on the ability of tribes to maintain sovereignty over their resources and investments, which have been vulnerable to legal and political challenges by state and federal governments (Harvard Project, 2008).

L"IDIAN CAS INOS The largest and most significant of contemporary Indian enterprises is legalized gambling ("gaming"). The economic revenues accumulated and the jobs created by gaming have far exceeded those of other Native American projects. In many cases, gaming has turned what were economically dormant Indian nations into communities with a solid economic base from which other aspects of socioeco- nomic improvement have been launched. In 1988, the federal government enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), which provided for the operation of gaming by Indian tribes, with the objective of promoting tribal economic develop- ment and self-sufficiency. Since then, 460 Indian casinos and bingo parlors run by 240 tribes in thirty states have been established. In 2011, the industry produced over $27 billion in revenues, almost double revenues in 2000 (National Indian Gam- ing Commission, 2012).

Many Incfian nations have used their profits from gambling enterprises as a springboard to other forms of tribal economic development. Also, the emergence of a thriving gaming industry on many reservations has led to the return migration of many Native Americans who had been living in urban areas (Johnson, 1999).

The boom in casino gambling has resulted in an unanticipated twist of good for - tune for some Indian tribes, which are shifting suddenly from near destitution to sub- stantial wealth. Funds have been used to construct schools, health clinics, and ho using, and to capitalize other projects. The Pequots, for example, are buying back their land and are investing in nongaming businesses. The Seminoles of Florida, arguably the most enterprising tribe in the gaming industry, are Florida's largest op- erator of casinos, from which they realized $800 million in revenue in 2005 . Al- rhough most of the tribe's business is its casinos, it also runs citrus, cattle, and to bacco operations. In the Seminoles' most ambitious venture, they purchased Hard Rock International, the famous music-themed chain of hotels, restaurants, and casi- nos, in 2006 for $964 million (de la Merced, 2006). They now own more than 130

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154 PART ll ET H N ICITY IN THE UNITED STA TE S

Hard Rock Cafes worldwide, including two in Las Vegas, and more than a dozen hotels in four states and seven countries (Stutz, 2012).

Ironically, the success of some of these operations has redounded to non-Indians by providing jobs as well as tax revenues to states. The Mashantucket Pequots of Connecticut are a community of only a few hundred, but they operate a casino-the world's largest-that employs thirteen thousand people and is exceeded only by the federal government as a contributor to the state's treasury. Its annual revenue is over $1 billion (Barlett and Steele, 2002; Carstensen et al., 2000; Harvard Project, 2008) .

Some tribes have sought to take casino gambling one step further and establish operations in areas near cities that are not on official Indian lands. This has been re- ferred to as "off-reservation gambling." One such large-scale off-reservation project has been run by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewas, who generated $351 mil- lion in revenue in 2006 from their casino in downtown Detroit (Rivlin, 2007).

Despite the real and potential financial rewards of casino gambling, however, these have not yet proved to be the economic salvation of American Indians. The fabulous success of the Seminoles and a few other tribes can be deceptive since the popular perception of newfound wealth does not characterize the vast majority of the Indian population. Clearly, the benefits have not been felt for all Indians, even of those tribes that operate flourishing casinos. In fact, among all the tribes with ca- sino gambling, only a few near major population centers have thrived. Only twenty- three tribes account for nearly half of all revenue generated by tribal casinos (Rivlin, 2007). For the remaind~r, gambling revenues have not been great enough to appre- ciably upgrade the quality of life. Furthermore, huge financial payoffs have com- monly accrued not to tribal members but to outside-non-Indian-investors, who in some cases have pocketed more than 40 percent of casino profits (Barlett and Steele, 2002; Pace, 2000). Nor has the unemployment rate on most reservations been significantly affected because so many of the casino jobs are occupied by non- Indians. Above all, it must be remembered that two-thirds of all American Indians belong to tribes that do not own Las Vegas-style casinos. There is also fear among some Indian leaders that the attraction of tourists and the outside professional and managerial personnel who help operate the casinos will result in a further deteriora- tion of tribal traditions and values (Pulley, 1999).

In sum, the introduction of gaming has been successful in providing economic resources to many Indian communities, enabling them to invest in projects designed to improve their standard of living (Cornell, 2008; Harvard Project, 2008). But whether casino gambling or other enterprises prove to be long-term sources of tribal revenue is not at all certain. The immense success of a few tribes has obscured the continuing deprived condition of those that have not benefited from profitable enter- prises. The fact remains obvious that as a part of the American ethnic hierarchy, Na- tive Americans are still in a very low position.

PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

The unique history of Indians as they encountered Europeans, compared to that of other groups who entered mainly as immigrants, shaped the nature of prejudice and discrimination to which American Indians have been subjected. The idea of Indians as "savages" corresponded to the threat that Indians posed to early settlers.

CH APTER 6 NATIVE AM ER I CANS 155

Furthermore, in many cases it served as justification for divesting them of lands. But once their defeat was accomplished and Indians posed no economic or political threat to Euro -Americans, an elaborate racist ideology to justify the continuation of their subordinate status was no longer needed. Moreover, following the Indians' defeat, the bulk of their population was separated from the mainstream society on isolated reservations. However, the unique political status of Indian tribes and their placement on distant reservations led to the perpetuation of negative stereo- types, attitudes, and actions, though somewhat less vehement and impassioned than in earlier times.

THE WHITE VIEW OF NATIVE AMERICANS

From the start of contact between Europeans and Natives in North America, ethno- centric views prevailed on both sides. For Europeans, the distinctness of specific tribes was blurred by a perception of uniform inferiority. "That almost no account in the sixteenth century portrays systematically or completely the customs and beliefs of any one tribe," notes Berkhofer, "probably results from the newness of the en- counter and the feeling that all Indians possessed the same basic qualities" (1979:26). This tendency to see Indians collectively, rather than as separate and cul- turally varied units, carried forward to the modern period and has been challenged only in recent times.

The view of American Indians as inferior served as a justification for expropriat- ing their lands as settlers pushed westward. As noted earlier, i'n the perspective of Euro -Americans, land was to be settled and developed. Indians, therefore, stood in the way of American expansion. Those who fought Indians became folk heroes; those whom they fought were subhuman savages. "Over the course of the nineteenth century," notes John Coward, "the story of western expansion became part of a cel- ebrated national myth where heroes rose to their civilizing task and Indians were worthy- and exotic- impediments to progress and empire" (1999:6).

One unusual aspect of the white view of Indians is that the "savage" characteri- zation has, throughout American history, often been accompanied by admiration, yielding the "noble savage." Thus, on the one hand, Indians could be brave, inno- cent, and indus,trious, and on the other, cruel, treacherous, and lazy. But as Berkho- fer has explained, "Beneath both the good and bad images used by explorer, settler, missionary, and policy maker alike lay the idea of Indian deficiency that assumed- even demanded-that Whites do something to or for Indians to raise them to Euro- pean standards, whether for crass or idealistic motives" (1979:119).

However positive some characterizations of American Indians were, the domi- nant white view was always one of inferiority. Indians lacked those practices and in- stitutions that, from the Euro -American standpoint, constituted civilization: a work ethic, effective government, a defensible culture, and almost all kinds of technology (Coward, 1999). Thus, in the confrontation between European and Native, the ulti- mate outcome in the European view was the triumph of "civilization" over " savagery." As Berkhofer notes, from the middle of the eighteenth century to very recent times, for whites , "the only good Indian was indeed a dead Indian- whether through warfare or through assimilation" (1979:30) .

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156 PART II ETH N ICITY IN THE UN IT ED ST AT ES

N ATNE AMERICAN STEREOTYPES AND THE MAss MEDIA The use of stereotypes in describing Native Americans proved critical in the production of a rationale for stripping them of their lands and for efforts at dissolving their cultures. From the early nineteenth century, the mass media played the major role in creating and communicating those stereotypes. As depicted in newspapers, which were aligned with both government and business interests, Indians were obstacles to economic growth and national ex- pansion. Newspapers were also eager to offer their readers "colorful and exciting stories that confirmed the correctness of American values and goals" (Coward, 1999:39). Journalists, in their stories, conformed to a standardized, simplified view of Indians and their place in American society that could be easily understood by readers. Newspapers sustained the dual image of Native Americans as both romantic and savage, but in all cases as fundamentally different from Euro-Americans and thus not in accord with Western civilization (Coward, 1999; Weston, 1996).

In more recent times, negative stereotypes have endured largely through the por- trayal of American Indians in motion pictures. Most Americans-indeed, most peo- ple of the world-have acquired their beliefs about North American Indians through films. Though created as entertainment, they nonetheless have shaped a perception of Indian culture that has been stubbornly resistant to change. Even American In- dians themselves have drawn from these films in constructing their own views of their cultural heritage (Price, 1973).

The savage, hostile Indian, in confrontation with white settlers pushing west- ward, has been a common movie theme since the introduction of films in the early part of the twentieth century. From the beginning, films have consistently depicted Indians with a set of degrading stereotypes. "The prototype of the Hollywood In- dian," notes Rita Keshena, "was treacherous, vicious, cruel, lazy, stupid, dirty, speaking in ughs and grunts, and often quite drunk" (1980:107). In the 1960s, films began to depict a more sympathetic view of American Indians, but one no less founded on inaccurate and simplistic stereotypes.

Not only have American films typically portrayed Indians as brutal and primi- tive but they have mostly continued to blur the cultural distinctions among them. Historically, films have presented Indians not as individuals or even as members of different tribes but as faceless parts of the collectivity labeled "Indians." More- over, the Hollywood image of Native Americans has been derived mainly from those Indian societies with a historical reputation for violence, particularly the horsemen of the plains and Southwest. Tribes with more passive and nonviolent reputations have been ignored. As Price (1973) notes, the emphasis on Plains Indians such as Apaches and Cheyennes is ironic because they did not evolve until after whites intro- duced the horse and were not similar to most other American Indians. North Ameri- can Indians did not ride horses before Columbus, and most still did not hunt from horseback in the mid-1800s. Furthermore, most were not hunters at all but agricul- tural people.

In recent years, the use of Indian names by sports teams has raised additional issues with Indian stereotypes. Team names such as "Braves," "Redskins," and "Chiefs" are seen by many as demeaning, contributing to the perpetuation of the In- dians' image as savage and warlike. A so-called Indian war chant-used by fans of the Florida State University athletic teams (called "Seminoles") as well as the Atlanta Braves baseball team-for example, evokes images of belligerence and brutality.

CHAPTER 6 NATIVE AMERICANS 157

The sports mascot issue seemed to resonate with the mainstream American media in the 1990s, when several prominent newspapers editorialized sympatheti- cally with those protesting the use of these names (Weston, 1996). One newspaper, the Portland Oregonian, announced a policy of no longer using nicknames of sports teams that were deemed racially offensive. Some college teams voluntarily changed their names and symbols. Stanford University changed its athletic teams' name from "Indians" to "Cardinal," St. John's University teams went from "Red- men" to "The Red Storm," and the Miami of Ohio "Redskins" became the "Red H awks." Others, like the University of North Dakota "Fighting Sioux," resisted crit- icism (Davey, 2009; Lapointe, 2004) . In 2005 , the NCAA (National Collegiate Ath- letic Association), the governing body of U.S. college sports, brought this issue to further light when it banned Indian mascots, logos, and nicknames from postsea- son tournaments. This fell short of abolishing Indian references entirely, but put more pressure for change on universities still using Indian themes. A few universities (including Florida State) won appeals of this decision after contending that they had received permission from Indian tribes to use their names (Lapointe, 2006). The University of North Dakota, which had continued to challenge the change edict and had engaged in a four -year legal battle, finally agreed in 2010 to drop its Indian nickname and logo, a decision reaffirmed in 2012 following a statewide referendum on the issue. Efforts at changing the Indian names of professional sports teams have not met with similar success. In 2013, for example, a movement was begun to pressure the Washington Redskins of the National Football League ,to change their name and logo; the team's owners indicated that they had no intention of doing so (M aske, 2013 ).

VIOLENCE AGAINST AMERICAN INDIANS

Violence against American Indians has a long and bloody history. As described ear- lier, no other group in the American ethnic system ever experienced the kind of geno- cidal actions that ultimately led to the decimation of the Native population.

Although systematic violence no longer characterizes relations of American In- dians with the dominant group, individual forms of violence remain a serious prob- lem. Government-reports have shown that the rate of racially motivated hate crimes is higher against American Indians than against any other ethnic minority, including African Americans (Harlow, 2005). Rape against Indian women occurs at an alarm- ing rate, and the vast majority of such cases involve non-Indian perpetrators (Duthu, 2008). Violent attacks are particularly evident in majority-white cities that abut In- dian reservations. In these settings, Indian and white cultures collide, often calling up racist notions that subsequently lead to incidents (Buchanan, 2007) .

ASSIMILATION AND AMERICAN INDIANS

CULTURAL ASSIMILATION

Throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, U.S. policy to- ward American Indians was designed to destroy native cultures and political entities in hopes of creating assimilation into the dominant Euro-American culture and

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158 PART II ETH N ICITY IN TH E UNIT ED ST AT ES

society. A major effort in this regard was the General Allotment Act of 1887. As noted earlier, the thrust of this legislation was to break up Indian tribes into individ- ual farming units, hoping to accelerate assimilation. The driving force of the policy was the belief that once Indians were fully assimilated, the "Indian problem" would disappear.

From 1887 to 1934, the efforts of the BIA, supplemented by those of Christian churches, which were active on most reservations, were directed energetically toward assimilation. Although the annihilation of Indian cultures and of Indian self- governing institutions was not full y realized, the effects on Native American culture and social life were nonetheless very great. Moreover, during this period the policy of forced assimilation engendered deep distrust of the federal government and ex- treme hostility toward whites (Spicer, 1980).

The assimilation objective changed in 1934 with the appointment of John Col- ' lier to head the BIA. Collier, as mentioned earlier, championed the Indian Reorgani-

zation Act (IRA), which proved to be a watershed, bringing with it an entirely new approach and direction to Indian-white relations. Collier, it should be remembered, encouraged the preservation of Native cultures. But as Cornell explains, despite Coll- ier's efforts and what became known as "the Indian New Deal," the basic assump- tion of Indian policy-eventual assimilation- was not essentially altered. Rather, this new approach was merely "a means of easing the process of change and giving Native Americans some measure of control over it" (1988:93). By the early 1950s, blatant assimilation sentiments again prevailed with enactment of the policy of termination.

C URR ENT P ATTERNS For most of American history, then, forced cultural assimilation- that is, the disintegration of Native cultures- has been the primary objective of dom- inant political and social institutions. That objective has never been fully accom- plished, but the continual assault on Native cultures has resulted generally in a significant dissolution of Indian cultural influences on individuals, especially regard- ing language. Dozens of tribal languages continue to exist and function, and there are efforts to revive their use, at least as a way of affirming Indian identity (Harvard Project, 2008; Hitt, 2005). But their practice is common mostly on reservations, and the proportion of Indians not also speaking English is low. Quite clearly, English to- day is the prevailing language among Native Americans (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007d, 2010b) . Many of those who are younger and have migrated to urban areas have been cut off from other tribal cultural influences in addition to language, such as re- ligion; hence, in some ways, their ethnic distinctness becomes increasingly difficult to sharply define.

Despite the steady dilution of Native American culture, the emergence of a strong pan-Indian movement in recent years has emphasized common Indian values and practices, which may serve as a shield against more complete cultural assimila- tion. In the past four decades, American Indian art and other manifestations of In- dian culture have seemed to proliferate. Many new tribal museums have been established, and numerous tribal and urban Indian powwows and arts festivals are held annually. Also evident is an explosion of Native American literature, music, and film , as well as the founding of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. (Josephy et al., 1999).

C H APTER 6 N AT IVE AME RI C ANS 159

There is, then, a somewhat contradictory pattern of cultural assimilation that has been occurring among American Indians. As Native Americans have increasingly moved off the reservations into urban areas and have intermarried with non-Indians, they have shed many tribal traditions. However, as Josephy and his colleagues 1999) have explained, a countervailing pattern has emerged, bringing about a kind

of "retraditionalization." The same urban Indians who enter the mainstream society return to the reservation periodically to take part in traditional practices as a means of reconnecting with past roots and Indian identity. These oppositional trends have led to internal debates among Indians, raising questions of "Who is an 'authentic' Indian?" "Who is entitled to tribal membership? " "Who should represent Indians before the federal government?" and "Who should be eligible for affirmative action benefits?" (Glaberson, 2001; Tobar, 2001). Those are questions that will continue to plague efforts at building a more cohesive American Indian ethnic population.

STRUCTURAL ASSIMILATION

In examining the structural assimilation of Native Americans, it is important to keep in mind that this is an ethnic population divided into two demographic parts: those living on and those living outside the reservations. In either case, as already seen, Na- ri ve Americans today remain at or near the bottom of the society's occupational, ed- ucational, and income hierarchies. This collective position has stifled rapid movement into mainstream economic and political institutions.

EC ONDARY STRUCTURAL AssIMILATIO N Regarding various measur_es of secondary struc- tural assimilation, the distinction between reservation and nonreservation Indians is an important consideration. This is particularly apparent in looking at the participa- tion of Indians in the political system. Those on reservations are subject to laws made by the tribal government; as a result, politics there are intratribal. Those off reservations do not represent a large enough group in any area to be able to carry much political weight. Thus American Indian representation in government at all le- vels has been minimal. The economic success of the gambling industry for some American Indians, however, has led to more concerted and systematic lobbying to protect and enhal'lce Indian needs (Dao, 1998). This has necessarily pulled Native ~.\mericans into some mainstream political issues.

Although substantial secondary structural assimilation has not occurred, one as- pect of Indian life that seems to augur increasing assimilation in the future is the ex- pansion of education. As noted earlier, a growing number of young Native _.\mericans attend college and, as this occurs, more will inevitably take their place in the business and political worlds.

In considering secondary structural assimilation, it must be kept in mind that . .\merican Indians remain in a somewhat peculiar legal limbo. In some regards they have regained aspects of political sovereignty, but in others they are still beholden to the federal government (Kehoe, 1999; Wilkinson, 2005).

PRL\1A RY STRUCTURAL A ss1M ILATI O N At the primary level of assimilation, those Native . .\mericans who have migrated to the cities appear to have begun to integrate into the larger society. Perhaps the most telling indication of this is the high, and

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160 PART II ETH N IC IT Y JN THE UN IT ED STATES

increasing, rate of intermarriage among American Indians and whites (Eschbach, 1995; Qian and Lichter, 2007; Stevens and Tyler, 2002). Well over half of married Indians are married to non-Indians, a percentage considerably higher than for any other nonwhite racial-ethnic group (Lee and Edmonston, 2005; Snipp, 2002). More than 75 percent of the members of the Cherokee Nation, for example, have less than one-quarter Cherokee blood; most are of European ancestry (Nieves, 2007a). The extremely high rate of intermarriage among American Indians is particularly strong among those in urban areas.

What this high and, apparently, unflagging rate of intermarriage means for the future of American Indians can only be speculated upon. In combination with the assimilating forces of urban life, it may indicate a decline of Indian ethnicity. Rela- tively undeterred by racial identity, Indians can more easily move into the main- stream-unlike African Americans, Asian Americans, and some Latinos . Inter- marriage may also reduce the number of persons who, in the futur\, will identify themselves ethnically as Indians. However, the existence of tribes and of relatively cohesive Indian communities on reservations, where intermarriage rates remain lower, would seem to preclude the complete disappearance of American Indians as part of the American ethnic system (Eschbach, 1995; Qian and Lichter, 2007). At the same time, it is unlikely that steady movement in the direction of assimilation will be seriously impeded as Native American ethnicity is increasingly diluted .

I N DIAN IZATION The idea of an American Indian ethnic group has, from the outset of European-Native contact,- been a construct of whites. The extreme cultural and so- cial diversity of the Native population was dissolved into a collective notion that cre- ated a single category. Among Indians, supratribal consciousness, though emergent in the early part of the twentieth century, did not become a well-developed move- ment until the 1950s and 1960s. This may have been largely a result of Indian migra- tion to the cities (Cornell, 1988, 1990; Fixico, 2000). In the urban environment, Indians discovered that tribal identities and interests no longer held much usefulness as they found themselves in political and economic competition with other ethnic groups. This Indian ethnic consciousness, developed in the urban communities, reached back to the reservations through returning migrants.

In recent years, then, American Indians have begun to coalesce into a coherent ethnic group, in a kind of "cross-tribalism" or "pan-Indianism." Tribal identities re - main, but increasingly Indians have begun to develop an Indian consciousness that transcends tribal divisions. In a sense, what is emerging is an "American Indian" eth- nic group (Nagel, 1995). This unity may result in greater political effectiveness and a stronger public awareness of Indian issues and problems .

SUMMARY • The conquest by European settlers of Native Americans took the form of con-

tact, ethnocentrism, competition over land, and the imposition of white domi- nance through superior force. Indians were ex ploited and largely annihilated in the nineteenth century. By the start of the twentieth century, American Indians were essentially wards of the state.

C H APTER 6 NATI VE AMER ICANS r6r

• Although the Indian population was decimated in the nineteenth century through war, disease, and the breakup of tribal cultures, in recent decades it has been on the rise, due largely to the tendency of more people to claim Indian ancestry.

• Almost three-quarters of all Indians live outside of reservations, and most of these are in urban areas.

• On various measures of socioeconomic status-income, education, occupation, health- the gap between American Indians and Euro -Americans is extremely wide. Urban Indians are somewhat better off economically than those living on reservations, but all Indians rank near the bottom of the stratification system.

• Some tribes have benefited substantially from the establishment of gambling ca- sinos, but the long-term benefits of these economic projects are not yet evident.

• Native Americans have been viewed by whites since the early nineteenth century as both savage and noble. Indian stereotypes, which were promulgated in the twentieth century primarily through films, have been strongly resistant to change.

• Attempts have been made repeatedly throughout various historical periods to force assimilation of Native Americans into the dominant culture. Although these attempts were never completely successful, Indian cultures have been diluted over many decades.

• Regarding structural assimilation, American Indians have intermarried with Euro-Americans at a very high rate. This, as well as the assimilating forces of urban life, may lead to a further decline of Indian cultures and institutions.

• In the past two decades, a pan-Indian movement has emerged, w~ich has led to a renewed sense of Indian ethnic identity and efforts to revitalize Indian cultures.

CRITICAL THINKING

1. One of the paradoxes of Indian-white relations is the fact that whites have seen Indians as both menacing and admirable. Are there other American ethnic groups that have been viewed in such seemingly contradictory ways, either in the past or currently?

2. Prejudice and discrimination against Native Americans has declined markedly in recent decades. In fact, other Americans today often express compassion for the continued pHght of American Indians. Why has this change in thought and be- havior occurred, unlike the far more obdurate prejudice and discrimination to- ward African Americans?

3. Most universities and many high school athletic teams that had traditionally used Indian nicknames have changed them. A few, however, retained those names after receiving approval from Indian tribal leaders. Why would some In- dian tribes not object to the use of their name by athletic teams? Why have pro- fessional sports teams that use Indian names and mascots been immune to pressures brought against schools and universities?

4. Compare the history of Indian-white relations in the United States to that of other societies in which settlers encountered indigenous peoples, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Latin America. Were relations more or less benign? Were the long-term outcomes similar? Frame your analysis in terms of the variable patterns discussed in Chapter 4.

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162 PA RT II ETH NICITY IN TH E UN IT ED ST AT ES

P ERSO NAL/PRACTICAL APPLICATION

1. If you were a Native American, how would you respond to the issue of sports teams calling themselves "Indians" or "Redskins" or "Chiefs" (all actual team names)? Would you respond similarly if a team used your ethnic identity as a nickname?

2. Speak to your friends or family about American Indians in comparison with other racial or ethnic minorities. Are their views more sympathetic to the mi- nority status of American Indians? If yes, what is the explanation for this?