chapter 7, "disputable truths: the american stranger, television documentary and native american...

8/6/2019 Chapter 7, "Disputable Truths: The American Stranger, Television Documentary and Native American Cultural Politic

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Wilson, Pamela. "Disputable Truths: The American Stranger, TelevisionDocumentary and Native American Cultural Politics in the 1950s." Dissertation,

University of Wisconsin, 1996.

PART III:

STORMING THE DISCURSIVE FORT


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CHAPTER SEVEN:

DEFINING INDIANNESS: DISCOURSES OF

RACE, ETHNICITY AND NATION

The social construction of Native Americans as Indians has beenlargely without input from the Native Americans themselves, whotraditionally and in many cases today still regard themselvesmainly in terms of their tribal affiliation rather than in terms ofIndianness or political allegiance to the United States or thestates. Early European settlers lumped all Indians together,despite acknowledging different languages and customs of

separate tribes. . . . Only in the past two decades has there beenserious reevaluation of the concepts of race and ethnicity by theCensus Bureau, anthropologists, and the general public.

David Wilkins and Anne McCulloch (1994) i

Recent scholarship across various disciplines has pointed out the need to

assess the ways that dominant (white, Anglo, Euro-American) society has historically

conceptualized Native Americans as racially, culturally and/or politically Other--and

continues to do so today. Political scientists Anthony Affigne, Manuel Avalos and

Gerald Alfred have lamented the paucity of methodological and theoretical

frameworks within their discipline which might satisfactorily address the issue of race

and politics in the Americas; I would agree that such a lack exists across all

disciplines, especially in terms of the complex conceptualization of Native Americans

regarding race, socioeconomic class, geographical positioning, cultural/ethnic

difference, and the legalities of sovereign nationality of tribes. ii The various and

competing social constructions of American Indians--the concept itself a social

construction imposed by Euro-American society, ignoring and imploding the


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distinctions of culture, language and nation maintained by the hundreds of diverse

tribal nations--provide insights not only into the resulting social and political practices

which have maintained Native Americans as oppressed minorities (ranging from

discrimination to genocide and land removal), but also into the self-perceptions of

non-Indian Americans who have individually and collectively constructed their sense

of privilege, their whiteness and their national identity upon, around and in contrast to

the historical experiences of Americas indigenous peoples.

Proposing a transnational and interdisciplinary model for emerging scholarship

to replace the de-racialized models of social research which have ignored or

minimized the relevance of racial stratification, Affigne, Avalos and Alfred have called

for the development of race-conscious theoretical models based upon the missing

histories of the indigenous, African, mixed race (notably Latino) and Asian peoples of

the Americas. Claiming that colonialism and imperialism are still alive and well, Carlos

Munoz, Jr. recently implicated academic scholars in the social sciences with playing a

prominent role in promoting and reinforcing these Eurocentric paradigms, and

challenged his academic colleagues to think about how they could contribute to the

decolonization process, both empirically and intellectually. Franke Wilner and others

have noted that racism has not only affected but has been a central ideological factor

in American public policy formation (e.g. federal Indian policy), and we may also

extend that to include the historical narratives and social scientific studies about

Americas minority groups which excluded their involvements and voices and

perspectives from the official record. In terms of the pan-ethnic category of Native

Americans (a coalitional and ideological response on the part of indigenous people to


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the broad racial categorization within dominant society), Affigne, Avalos and Alfred

have commented that not only should Native American contributions be part of the

historical record, but that the interaction between history and politics, centered on the

indigenous experience, should be part of the analytical framework we use to

understand, and explain, the broader world of politics in the Americas. iii

The ways that the United States government and the American popular

imagination have conceptualized individualindigenous persons must be analytically

separated from the popular perception and legal construction of collective social

groups, communities, tribes or nationsof indigenous people. While these identities

may be indistinguishable for some Native people, in the Euro-American system these

two disparate conceptual frameworks have created a great tension within the legal

system (the rights of the individual vs. the sovereign and treaty rights of the various

tribes) as well as the social system (which is constructed around individuals rather

than institutions). Many of the dominant historical discourses about American Indians

have exhibited a profound confusion about this distinction. Rather than understanding

the distinct legal issues undergirding the issues of Native American tribal sovereignty,

many discourses have collapsed American Indians into a racial/ethnic immigrant

category which includes other ethnic Americans and people of color, and have

generally favored viewing the Indian as an individualto be assimilated rather than as

a member of a sovereign nation.

The relative marginalization of Native Americans in terms of race, class,

geography, ethnicity and nation has actually changed very little during the past half a

century. What haschanged somewhat, however--though perhaps not nearly as much


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as we might desire--are the discourses circulating within American society-at-large

about Native American peoples, and the conceptualizations and understandings

about how Native Americans are different--and what this difference might mean for

them as well as for the dominant, white nation. In this chapter, I am specifically

interested in the discursive construction of both "Indianness" and whiteness during

the 1950s, a period historically contextualized within both the prevalent global political

climate (the Cold War) and the domestic civil rights struggle--a conflict generally

conceptualized as a binary (black-white) racial issue. Media stories during the 1950s

frequently problematized the construction of "American Indian" as a sociopolitical

category and situated the cultural politics of American Indian tribes and peoples in the

context of broader issues of race, ethnicity, nationalism and empire. These media

discourses exhibited a profound ambivalence about race: on the one hand, popular

classification of Native Americans as "red" placed them outside of the "black" vs.

"white" struggle, but on the other hand, their positioning as non-whites allied them with

other non-whites against a common oppressive and colonial regime. For these

reasons, the relation of Native Americans to issues of race was ambiguous and

constantly shifting.

In this chapter, I use the case study of Native American politics and the media

in the 1950s as a basis for interrogating some of these theoretical and

historiographical challenges--in particular, the contested social construction of

categories of race, ethnicity and nationhood. An examination of the issues which

crystallized around the production and reception of nonfictional media representations

of indigenous Americans can provide contemporary scholars of media and culture


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with new insights into the media's role in the social construction of "difference." Recent

cultural critics have noted that racial or ethnic "difference" in American culture, though

traditionally constructed as extra-normative, must be understood as a constitutive

element of white America's national identity. This is particularly relevant in the case of

indigenous American peoples, whose presence both historically and in the American

mythic imagination has shaped America's national master narrative of its own

whiteness. iv

I would like to address a few of the critical challenges of historical cultural

analysis, which involves reading the past through the visions of contemporary critical

interventions. Historians must filter, order and interpret myriad data; traditionally, this

has been done through the construction of a narrative that structures events based

upon historiographical conventions such as chronological sequence and the

assumption of a single historical truth. In contrast, the contemporary intervention of

critical cultural analysis into the historiographical process has resulted in new ways of

processing the information or evidence gathered from historical materials. In this

process, historians strive not to automatically reduce the events of the past to a single

truth narrative, but to explore both the multiple and contested knowledges that reflect

competing and conflicted political, cultural and socioeconomic interests and how

those knowledges are used in relations of power and structures of social difference.

This concern with differenceleads post-structuralist historians to seek sources

that expose different ways of knowing, different perceptions of truth, and the way

these differences become contested issues. In an attempt to redefine historiography,


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feminist historian Joan Wallach Scott has written that the story of history is no longer

about the things that have happened . . . and how [people] have reacted to them;

rather, this new understanding of history is about how the subjective and collective

meanings of . . . categories of identity have been constructed.v Scott defines politics

as the process by which power and knowledge constitute identity and experience,

which are discursively organized in particular contexts or configurations. An example

would be the radically different concepts of political leadership and governance which

distinguish mainstream American political though from that of many Native American

tribal groups. Recent work in political science by Jennifer Arnott, LaDonna Harris and

Stephen Sachs suggests some of the structural and ideological implications (in terms

of conceptualizations of power, leadership roles, social control and political structures)

of a political system constituted upon and within the world view and cultural

consciousness of a particular indigenous nation-- in these works, the Anishinabe and

the Comanche. These extended examples of tribal efforts to re-institute traditional

methods of governance provide illustrations of strong and historically-rooted systems

of counterhegemonic practices that exist in sharp contrast to the incompatible

Euro-American political processes and structures which had been forced upon tribes

(for example, through the Roosevelt-era Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 which

created and imposed tribal constitutions and structures of leadership based upon the

European model).vi These distinct processes of decision-making, community

consensus-building, and other forms of governance that balanced the needs of the

individual and the community, provide yet another insight into the culturally distinct


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truths, knowledges and practices which have been historically contested during the

long period of colonization.

An examination of representations of Native Americans in the 1950s nonfiction

media foregrounds those discourses addressing issues of (1) civil rights, race and

minority status; (2) American nationalism, human rights and socioeconomic issues of

poverty, as well as the related issue of cultural assimilation of individual American

Indians into mainstream American society; and (3) legal issues of American Indian

political sovereignty and nationhood. However, these strands of thought are not

cleanly divided, and almost always overlap. For instance, both the civil rights and

human rights discourses emphasize racial and socioeconomic differences, as well as

contemporary injustices to minorities as subcultures of American society, thus linking

Native America to other cultural groupings. This contrasts to the claims of

distinctiveness as Americas indigenous nations within states which generally

defined discourses of tribal sovereignty. Assimilationist discourses were frequently

linked to concerns about poverty and minority status, especially by white altruists,

although concerns about socioeconomic issues in Native America became

increasingly linked to discourses of sovereignty and self-determination during the

1960s, and in discourses by Native Americans.

BLACK, WHITE AND RED: NATIVE AMERICANS, RACE AND CIVIL RIGHTSDISCOURSES

Conceptualizing Native American cultural politics in terms of race was

infrequent during the 1950s, since to do so would have been to equate the structural


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positions and historical experiences of Indians with those of Negroes or African

Americans. However, the fact that such racialized discourses were rarely spoken

aloud did not completely hide the fact that they certainly existed and were very salient

in terms of associated practices of racial discrimination and prejudicial attitudes. The

popular knowledge about racial difference during the first half of the century is

explained by Wilkins and McCulloch, who maintain that for much of the twentieth

century, schools taught [children] that there were three races: caucasoid, mongoloid

and negroid; the category mongoloid was then divided into two racial groups, Asians

and Native Americans.vii The popular understanding of Native Americans as

genetically and biologically different from white Americans is institutionalized in our

language (full bloods and half bloods and blood quantum) as well as in our federal

legal system which in fact definesindividual Indian identity in terms of biological

descent and blood quantum. For those who might choose to use racially-defined

differences as justification for discriminatory attitudes and actions against Native

Americans, the popularized scientific evidence for such differences has been

abundant.

However, by the 1950s such a racialized model had been generally repressed,

at least openly and in more liberal intellectual circles, in favor of an understanding of

race which was based on cultural or ethnic, rather than biological, determinants. In

their sociohistorical study of the construction and transformation of racial meanings,

Michael Omi and Howard Winant have outlined three paradigms of racial thought in

twentieth century America, each with particular core ideological assumptions that

have guided academic research, public policy and political action.viii The first of these,


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ethnicity theory, emerged in the 1920s as a challenge to the then-predominant social

Darwinism and biological conceptions of race. Omi and Winant claim that ethnicity

theory--that is, the general understanding of socially-marked differences as

cultural--has been the dominant paradigm to shape academic thinking, guide public

policy issues and influence popular racial ideology into the mid-1960s, when

ethnicity theory was challenged by class- and nation-based paradigms of race.

Ethnicity theory has conceptualized difference as a process of social

formation based upon common culture and descent (heritage); in this scheme, race

has been perceived as merely one of a number of social categories determining ethnic

group identity. Omi and Winant have delineated three major stages of ethnicity theory

as a modern paradigm: (a) an insurgent approach prior to the 1930s that challenged

the implicitly racist biological determinism on race, (2) a progressive/liberal common

sense approach to race, dating from roughly the 1930s to the mid-1960s, during

which two recurrent themes (assimilationism and cultural pluralism) were defined, and

(3) concurrent with the continuation of the liberal position, a neoconservative

egalitarianism since the mid-1960s against what is perceived as the radical assault of

group rights.

The progressive/liberal stage, which is the most applicable to an understanding

of the discourses surrounding The American Stranger, grew out of the egalitarian

vision of Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, when the public came to accept ethnicity

theory and its assimilationist goals (operationalized as racial integration) as a tenet

of Democratic party liberalism. ix Omi and Winant note that the paradigm--and the

implications of the concept of ethnicity--have been based solidly in a framework of


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European (white) immigrant ethnicity, a very different historical experience from the

minority experiences of peoples of color in the United States, especially those of the

indigenous experience. Through the lens of the liberal ethnicity paradigm during this

period, proponents of the civil rights movement fought for the full integration of African

Americans into dominant white society and for the removal of institutional/legal

discriminatory barriers to full participation by blacks in mainstream society.

During this second (liberal/progressive) stage, still resonant today, the ethnicity

paradigm has weathered an internal debate between melting-pot assimilationists and

cultural pluralists about the possibility of maintaining ethnic group identities over time,

and about the ultimate viability of ethnicity in a supposedly unitary majority culture.

Moreover, during the late 1960s and 1970s many blacks, Latinos, American Indians

and others rejected this assimilationist paradigm in favor of a more radical identity

which sought recognition of the cultural and historical distinctiveness of each group.

Empirical evidence from the 1950s shows the prevalence of the

liberal/progressive ethnicity paradigm as a way of thinking about American Indians as

a minority group in American society, usually as individual victims of social and

economic discrimination based on racial difference. Many discourses which engaged

in a civil rights model constructed the Indian problem as similar or equivalent to that

of other racial minorities, especially the "Negro situation." This led to a great deal of

confusion among whites about the seeming differences in the desired goals of the two

racial/cultural groups in terms of ultimate integration into mainstream society, and

further complicated the ability of white Americans to clearly understand what the right

thing to do might be in terms of Americas indigenous peoples. For example, many


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liberal white Americans considered the reservation system to be the ultimate of

segregation techniques among American minorities, and during the civil rights era

when segregation was the evil to be stamped out, ambivalences about the situation of

Native Americans would necessarily exist.x In spite of its political conservatism, much

of the pro-termination discourse used this analogy to frame termination in terms of

"emancipating" American Indians from federal control, discursively linking them to the

emancipation from slavery of African Americans a century earlier. However, certain

perceived commonalities led to an conjuncture, to some degree, of some of the goals

of African Americans and Native Americans during the civil rights movement,

culminating with the inclusion of the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act as one of the civil

rights legislative measures of the 1960s.

Historically, there have been parallels between the struggles of blacks and

Indians as well. Brian Dippie has noted that the Civil War may be considered a rough

dividing mark between policies of isolation and policies of assimilation with regard to

federal Indian policy, and that the involvement of abolitionists in Indian policy reform

campaigns linked the "Indian question" to slavery. Yet, as Dippie points out, the Indian

and Negro problems, even for those who defined them as such, were never really

analogous. Nineteenth-century biological determinists theorizing innate racial

differences considered the "proud" Indians to be incapable of servitude, exhibiting a

loss of energy in captivity (thus the rationale for their projected disappearance):

Free and independent by nature, [Indians] were doomed by their ownbest qualities. . . . [Since] the native would have to disappear to free theland for the settler, . . . the idea of the Vanishing American owed much ofits popularity to this simple realization. . . . They were doomed as adistinct racial type.xi


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Dippie has discussed the strikingly different images of African American and

American Indian in nineteenth-century popular culture, and their construction as

antithetical stereotypes:

Even as Indian barbarism was being systematically eliminated . . . theIndian served as an honored symbol for the United States, while theNegro, with few exceptions, remained an object of contempt. . . .Indians, in contrast to blacks, were invariably described as ferociouslyindependent and proud. . . . The nineteenth-century American mightconsider the Indian's brand of liberty a form of anarchy that, carried to itslogical conclusion, always proved self-destructive. Still, the love ofliberty was a precious asset--and a "little Indian" would always be awelcome component in the national character.xii

Even American iconography saluted and mythicized the Indian, ranging from

Revolutionary War propaganda portraying America as an Indian maiden,

"befeathered and often bare-breasted, defying Britain's tyranny," to the plumed

profiles on U.S. coinage starting in the 1850s. As Dippie has noted, in contrast, "No

Negro's face has ever been impressed on regular American coinage; until 1940, no

American stamps honored a black person's achievements."xiii

With many demographic changes in American society during the middle of the

twentieth century, an awareness of American Indians as people of "color" began to

emerge. For example, a 1944 book review in the Association on American Indian

Affairs publication The American Indian discussed "our dark-skinned fellow

Americans," including Indians, Porto [sic] Ricans, Chinese, Mexicans, Hawaiians,

Filipinos and Negroes, noting that "America is changing her color,' [the writer] affirms,

. . . leading us into a future in which some Federal policy towards our colored

minorities as a whole must be worked out." Insisting that all discrimination based on


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race and color must be removed from our present society, the reviewer pointed out

that, "Only in the case of the Indian have we adopted the principle of Federal

responsibility for the protection and assimilation of a colored minority." D'Arcy

McNickle, a well-respected Native American (Salish/Kootenai) cultural critic and

former BIA administrator during the New Deal era who also helped to found the NCAI,

in 1949 discussed prevalent racist attitudes that were institutionalized in federal

structures which treated Indians as "childlike, guileless and improvident," and also

noted "a more insidious and insistent prejudice affecting all dark-skinned peoples"

which "stigmatizes them as intellectually inferior."xiv

The historical context in which the 1958 NBC documentary The American

Stranger was received was dominated by journalistic discourses regarding civil rights.

For example, the week that the controversy between the Interior Department and NBC

broke into the public news, the headlines of NBCs Huntley-Brinkley Report were filled

with stories relating to civil rights issues, all touched by discourses of

segregation--stories involved the investigative hearing by the Federal Commission

regarding the denial of voting rights to Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama and

subsequent threats by Alabama officials to arrest any federal officials trying to gain

access to the voting records. Other lead stories were about a meeting of the

Democratic Party defending their election of a committee member against charges by

segregationists that his views on that subject were too advanced for their taste, and

a contested Congressional election in Little Rock which was won by a write-in

candidate who strongly supported segregation.xv


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In the text of The American Stranger, the only explicit link constructed between

the situations of Native Americans and African Americans--a construction which might

have foregrounded the race question and its accompanying discourses--was

McCormicks remark, in his closing statement, that American Indians experienced

discrimination as strong in some places as any discrimination against Southern

Negroes. Some Southern and not-so-Southern viewers--white, we assume--took

offense at this remark. Many expressed resentment about the steps being taken

towards civil rights for Negroes--such as school desegregation efforts and the work

of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a

national advocacy organization)--by drawing upon stereotypes which painted black

Americans as the undeserved recipients of social privileges because they were seen

as shiftless, lacking in initiative and a work ethic. In contrast, these racist viewers

perceived Indians as noble, highly moralistic and deserving of respect and

humanitarian assistance. For example, one viewer of The American Stranger wrote a

letter to Congressman Lee Metcalf with rhetoric blending criticism of the U.S.

governments historical treatment of American Indians with statements contrastingthe

Indian situation to that of the Southern Negro :

I have always contended that the Indian has been given one of the mostraw deals ever handed out by a civilized government. It makes my bloodboil to hear our own government scream about the things othercountries do when our own U.S. is dishing out this kind of stuff to theonly real American here. The Supreme Court is trying to choke theNegro down our throats here in the South, while the government isgiving the Indian a kick in the teeth . . . . It was heartbreaking to see thelittle Indian children pledging allegiance to the flag when all they get fromthe U.S. is a slap in the face. I am for the American Indian and I hopethat something can be done to see that they get their just rights. . . . I amwith you in all that you can do for these oppressed Americans. xvi


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A Georgia woman wrote Robert McCormick with some amazing racial facts:

I have just watched your T.V. program on the story of the AmericanIndian and I resent very much the remark you made about the southernNegro. It is obvious that you, my friend, know nothing about the southernNegro. I have lived in Atlanta, Georgia all my life and I want to enlightenyou on a few real facts. The Negro in the south is exactly what he wantsto be. If he wants an education it is fine for him. In nearly all areas theNegro schools are newer, more modern and superior in all ways thanthe white ones. What you seem to forget is that this is our problem andwe have been working on it. The Negroes here have progressed fartherin the past twenty years than ever before. Their housing, their jobopportunities, their education, every thing is better than ever before.

We want them to have a better life but we want them to have a separatelifeand we do not feel we should be forced into anything. Perhaps if youshowed as much interest in the welfare of the northern Negro as you doin the one from the south, you would find yourself too busy to botherabout us. [italics]xvii

Another viewer wrote to McCormick:

I am an American, non-Indian, and every time I hear of Human Right[s],or Civil Rights, and see or hear of the NAACP and all of the laws givingthe Negro so many privileges, and the Supreme Court forcingintegration all over our Vast land, and the politicians going overboard forthem and their votes, I just wonder why the American sense of justiceand Civil Rights stops short when the Indian is concerned? . . .

Why is there no National Association Advancement of Indian People? Itseems to me that if half the funds given the NAACP were given theIndians, it would really have been a NEW DEAL, and a FAIR DEAL.Instead, it seems the Indian is abused and deprived and starved morethan ever. WHY? Could it be because PRESSURE WHITE GROUPSwant their valued property, whereas, the Negro has none? . . .

I wonder why we must integrate our schools to the Negro, educate anddevelop the colored man, but no attention nor opportunities given theIndians? Certainly we would not have the terrible intermarriage problemconcerning them, that is posed by the Negro race. . . . You are a realcrusader for real Civil Rights, and I surely do respect and admire yourdesire for fair play.xviii


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A woman writing to Blackfeet tribal leader Iliff McKay with charitable offers of clothing

contributions exhibited racial resentment against the colored people (African

Americans, one assumes) in her community, and held the Indian people in moral

contrast:

After seeing the film The American Stranger by Bob McCormick, I knewthat the clothing I have been saving in my trunks for several years wasintended for the Blackfeet Tribe. My home is Okeechobee, Florida, atown not far from the Seminole Indian reservation. For many years myparents and I and my husbands people have known several Indiansvery well and donated many items to them. . . . If it occurs to you whydont my friends and myself patronize our own local charities we have foryears but have been getting fed up with our clothing being given out tocolored people who do nothing to help themselves and who have beensponging off of these local charities for years.xix

Some letters reflected less openly racist statements, but still implicitly constructed

American Indians as the metaphorical stepchild--ranking behind Negroes and foreign

aid--in terms of receiving attention and aid from the government. Another letter also

touched upon the comparison between federal responsibility to tribal people and

foreign aid:

We can send money all over the world to starving people, which is allright, but we let our own people starve. Right now the Negro question isthe chief problem of all the politicians. We are busy selling bonds forIsreal [sic]--everyone but the poor Indians. I even wrote to Mrs.Roosevelt and asked her why she did not do something for the Indians,as she has a lot of influence and prestige and that she had been soinfluential with the Negroes. . . . Thanks again for bringing the plight ofthe Indians to light.xx

A few viewers wrote expressing a more liberal perspective regarding race

issues. Based upon her own knowledge from living near an Indian community, one

viewer commented upon the discrimination Indians experience based upon their

non-white racial classification:


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I was much moved by last Sundays T.V. program about the AmericanIndians. Having lived in Colorado I know about these conditions as wehave seen the Arizona reservation--a terrible place! Would you believe

that in Pueblo, Colo. (our former home) Indians have to be buried from aNegro Mortuary? xxi

A Florida man wrote to Metcalf following the broadcast with an editorial he had written,

entitled A People Without a Voice, which put the Indian question on the nations civil

rights agenda:

Integration is a phony issue unless it includes the original American--theAmerican Indian. While Washington crocadillos, false political voices"sweep" over the South's objection to anything but gradual integration inpublic schools, threaten to send 400,000 red skinned (noble) red menfrom the only homes they know in their well beloved plains--Whispers,the louder rumors persist. Cattlemen and oil interests seek to dispersethe Indians under projected legislation so that their lands may again betaken--their identity lost forever! In Little Rock, black children pass by aNEW $900,000 school to go to Central High. The Indian does not belongto the body organized for "advancement of the colored people"--theIndian has contributed in every war a record for bravery andsacrifice--but he has no voice--His voting power is nil. He often has NOschool to attend. xxii

This writers comments examined the federal relocation and termination initiatives in

the broader social context of the current political issues of school integration, the racial

inequalities of public education, and the civil rights movement.

In general, however, the number of letters received in response to The

American Stranger which directly addressed issues of race (that is, in terms of

comparison or contrast with black/white issues) was a rather small percentage of the

total mail received, and it is apparent that, even during this early civil rights era, Native

American/ Indian issues were perceived as racial or civil rights issues only secondarily

to other issues such as human rights and the failed responsibilities of the United

States government in terms of honoring treaties. However, the language used by


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some letter writers to characterize themselves, as well as the Other in American

society, shed light on the implicit racialized construction of Native Americans as a

people of color--since in American racial discourses, race has generally been

conceptualized and labeled as color. An example is this excerpt from a letter to Interior

Secretary Seaton from an Illinois woman, who also engaged in the liberal Christian

family metaphor of race which was omnipresent in progressive discourses during

this period:

The Indians have suffered long and greatly at the hands of whites in thiscountry and it would be to our everlasting shame if we should allow themto be further exploited for white mens gain. The experience with theNavajo people shows that we can deal justly with our red brothers. xxiii

That race wasan issue in the perception of Native Americans during the 1950s is quite

evident; however, it was an issue that remained for the most part implicit and

unvoiced, spoken more in terms of white guilt over the historical treatment of a

conquered and colonized people than in terms of the social inequalities and

discriminatory practices rooted in racial stratification, or the insertion of red as a

critical component to broaden the binary black/white conceptualization of racial issues

on the sociopolitical agenda of early civil-rights-era America.

THE CHRISTIAN, AMERICAN WAY: ISSUES OFCLASS, POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Political scientists Affigne, Avalos and Alfred have recently argued that

American racial stratification has been structured by a combination of racially-defined

social boundaries as well as by class inequality. Pointing out the extreme poverty of

non-white populations (especially Native American nations) within extravagantly


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wealthy North America, they contend that racial, cultural and sovereignty conflicts

are inextricably bound up with the political economy of the advanced,

energy-intensive U.S. industrial system, its internal class politics, and its international

ambitions.xxiv These political scientists claim that other demographic facts--i.e., that

Americans of color statistically experience higher arrest and incarceration levels,

higher incidences of criminal violence, higher infant mortality rates, shorter life spans,

and other incidences of social, physiological and economic misfortune which place

them in a marginal position in relation to the norms of American society--reflect the

impact of such racial and class stratification, and claim that for the people of color in

the Western Hemisphere, lifes opportunities and hazards are powerfully structured

by racial stereotyping, social control and physical segregation.xxv

The American public in the 1950s was also concerned about the social and

economic conditions in many of the nations Indian communities, and Indian

reservation communities were often pointed to as sites perpetuating the culture of

poverty in American society. Images of barefoot Indian children, then, were frequently

framed to evoke many of the same reactions as--and invite invariable comparisons

to--images of poverty in other economically destitute regions of America (especially

Appalachia) and in Third World countries. The human rights arm of the United

Nations, formed just after World War II, was beginning to draw widespread public

attention to the often-alarming social, economic and political conditions in regions

around the globe, especially those which were undergoing decolonization and

development. Many Americans responded to such Third World issues with

humanitarian aid, through either government channels or those affiliated with religious


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mission and relief work. As a result of these comparisons, 1950s discourses about

Indians frequently framed the issues in terms of human rights, conceptualizing Native

American cultures as Other in a similar way to the conceptualization of the

poverty-stricken people in Third World and developing nations. For example, in

response to a pro-BIA Editorial in the Washington Post, AAIA President Oliver

LaFarge fired back a letter of response which hoped to convince the public that Indian

reservations needed to be developedrather than abandoned by the federal

government:

The problem of these Indian home communities resembles to someextent that of economically depressed areas in states such as Kentucky,Tennessee and Arkansas. It is perhaps even more like those of Indiancommunities throughout Latin America and of rural communitiesthroughout Asia. We have not written any of these communities off. Wehave not told these people that they better go elsewhere. Instead, ourGovernment and citizen groups have supported programs to developthese communities. There are programs to assist depressed areas inthe United States and a Point-4 program for foreign countries. We askno more for the Indian communities of the United States. But we ask foraction, not mere words.xxvi

In a 1955 letter to Dwight Eisenhower, LaFarge urged the President to include in his

proposed domestic Point 4 Program for the nations chronically depressed areas

those communities occupied by the American Indians, who are certainly as

chronically depressed as any group in the country. LaFarge argued that such a

program would halt, before it is too late, the present administrative tendency to see

the solution to the Indian problem in the dispersal of Indian communities (referring, of

course, to termination) and emphasized that a Point 4 Program would reveal that the

true solution to the Indian problem rested in the elevation of Indian communities to

the level of health and well-being enjoyed by other communities in our country.xxvii


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With rhetoric both imperial and altruistic, concerned non-Indian citizens

frequently chastised the federal government for spending American tax dollars on

foreign aid to impoverished and developing nations overseas when such scenes of

deprivation were occurring in their own back yards. For example, upon viewing The

American Stranger, a Rhode Island woman wrote to Montanas Congressman Lee

Metcalf:

After hearing your views on Kaleidoscope this past Sunday, Id like tothank you for your efforts on behalf of the American Indians. It is ashame that a country which can send millions of dollars overseas can soignore the true American native.xxviii

Concerned and enraged viewers of the documentary also invoked American

democratic (and Christian) ideals in their criticisms of and suggestions for the

treatment of the nations indigenous people, framing the issue as a matter of national

pride and responsibility. Their letters constructed Indian communities and

reservations as domestic Third World communities, worthy of the same

humanitarian aid from the government and from altruistic agencies (such as church

mission agencies) as the overseas beneficiaries. Many used terms of possessiveness

when discussing our Indians, our minority, our shameful domestic situation. Many

viewers applauded the NBC broadcast for waking up the non-Indian portion of the

American public to these matters, collectively acknowledging an understanding of

whiteness in America as a condition of metaphorical sleep and blind indifference to

the domestic discomforts of those lacking such privilege :

What can we, as citizens of this great country do--if anything-- to helpprevent betrayal of these people? We criticize other countries for whatthey do to minority groups. Has Congress no honor to uphold in regard


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to treaties? What does "Liberty and justice for all," mean? I watchedthose little children giving the salute to the flag--and wondered.xxix

It is unbelievable to me that so many un-Indians, who can weep for andtry to keep the oppressed and needing all over the world, can be so calmand indifferent to the plight of so many of our Indian citizens. It is myfeverish prayer that your broadcast will wake up vast numbers of peopleto the real facts.xxx

Isn't it sad that we find the money, the time and the energy to aid the"oppressed minorities" all over the world but so completely forget ourown "oppressed minority"?xxxi

So much money is sent to Europe and the Orient, when our quiet folk arein need. Charity should begin at home!xxxii

I have written the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., not that Ithink it will do any good--but to let them know that there are things herethat need our attention as much as outside of America. Again--thank youfor this Kaleidoscope, although I'm afraid it's a "hopeless cause", werealize that they aren't a "foreign nation"--therefore, not worthy of"political relations."xxxiii

Not given to being steamed up after viewing T.V. programs, but after lastSundays NBC Kaleidoscope on Channel 4 every red blooded Americanshould be aroused. Our Government is sending money by millionsacross the water and is allowing our first citizens to be treated in thismanner, its just unbelievable. Then there are our Churches, sendingmoney like mad to Foreign Missions with so much needed among theIndians. Mr. McCormick, cannot something be done to arouse thisGovernment of ours? Every American should hang their heads inshame.xxxiv

Another writer expressed the shame of the privileged and powerful who have abused

their position, as well as scorn for the political and economic privileging of foreign aid

policies over domestic welfare issues. He also reiterated a frequent discursive theme

about Indians as real Americans--a frequent trope used by white liberals

emphasizing that American Indians are somehow more true or real or authentic

Americans (not in terms of land rights necessarily, but in terms of patriotism):


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What we saw and heard during The American Stranger leaves us noalternative but to say that the treatment of the American Indian is anational American disgrace. When the government of this so-called land

of plenty can send billions and billions of dollars overseas and allowAmerican children, who are wards of the government, to starve, this isindeed a crime and a blight on every American. As a result of what myfamily and I saw and heard concerning the treatment of the AmericanIndian, it makes us ashamed to call ourselves "Americans."

The government can't give the Black-Feet Indians four thousand dollarsto help them over the winter, but could send four and one half billions ofdollars overseas last year. If these American Indians came instead from"India," they undoubtedly would get not a paltry forty thousand dollars,but millions--ironic, isn't it? The president of the United States speaks ofraising the American standard of living to levels never before dreamedof, while the Indians sink lower. Instead of taxing us silly to send moneyoverseas let him order some of that money to Indian usage.

What my family and I saw and heard on that program The AmericanStranger leaves us sick to our stomachs. In conclusion, I wish to statethat I am not a member of any organization or pressure group. I am justa simple plain American Ex--G.I. of World War Two. I have a wife andtwo children and oh yes, a good old G.I. mortgage on our home. So youcan see this letter comes from the heart and I pray that something canbe done for the American Indians so that may live as REALAMERICANS.xxxv

A few letters, in addition to making references to American foreign aid, also

brought up issues of the government encouraging and providing opportunities for

foreign immigration, all the while doing too little for the native Americans:

After viewing a television program shown here in Detroit on November16th, I (a non-Indian) was sickened and ashamed. I never realizedbefore what deplorable conditions our poor Indians have to live under.Our Country is known the world over as "The Land of Abundance," andyet, our own American Indians are not only cold and hungry, but arethreatened with the loss of the land they so dearly love. The White Menhave probably by now succeeded in killing their Spirit; are they nowgoing for all out murder? Are there no more Christian, humane, ordownright decent politicians left west of the Mississippi any more?. . .

We bring foreigners over here and give them jobs, we send millionsoverseas for relief, and yet, our own little Indian children can cry from


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cold and hunger and no one listens. Is this the Christian, American way?[italics added]xxxvi

We have taken some of the people in from Europe for a long long timeand it makes me [angry], when I see these D.P.'s coming over here andliving like Kings and Queens, while there is so much poverty among ourown people.xxxvii

The rhetoric of these viewers combines the scorn for foreign aid with an implicit

understanding of the difference between indigenous peoples and immigrants (to

whom a different form of racism was being addressed), with a little noble Indian

romanticism thrown in for good measure.

Some of the viewers who wrote letters to the Secretary of the Interior sent a

copy to McCormick at NBC. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other letters critical of

federal policy were sent to the Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs. Some

viewers wrote to McCormick, Metcalf and even Father Byrne with practical

suggestions. Many of these involved suggestions about extending the jurisdiction of

the California-based non-profit organization CARE (Cooperative for American Relief

Everywhere, Inc.), which operated large-scale humanitarian relief operations

(distributing American surplus food and used clothing) in Third World countries, to

Native American communities:

Why can't our surplus funds (at least some of it) be sent to thesedesolate Indian reservations? Why can't CARE packages be sent there?We believe in supporting CARE as much as possible, but feel theseIndians deserve help as well.xxxviii

CARE packages are being solicited for places all over the world--whereI am sure there is genuine need. But why is not a CARE functioning forour own people--or, should I say--our dis-avowed people?xxxix


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One exchange of correspondence indicates that a California viewer, Mary Lawrence,

actually contacted the CARE organization, attempting to find out how to get aid

directed to Indian reservations:

Dear Father Byrne, it took me a long time to getting around to writingCARE headquarters, as I promised. As you can see by the enclosedletter, there is nothing they can do officially, but my husband suggeststhat you write to Mr. Flynn calling to his attention that there are Indians inMontana too--and that if he receives any other inquiries from peoplewho want to help the Indians they might be given the address of yourmission. This is a very disappointing and futile situation--apparently itcan only be handled on a government basis. Perhaps if the Democratswin next time they will be more open to suggestion. They OUGHT to be.. . . I wish I could have accomplished something. . . . xl

Her letter from CARE was enclosed, indicating that as a result of her letter the

organization had actually taken steps to widen its range of service to include Indian

reservations, but had been stymied by federalofficials:

Mrs. Lawrence, you are perfectly right in your understanding that theAmerican Indian problem is somewhat beyond my jurisdiction, howeverit is not beyond my feeling and desire to help which I have donepersonally for many years. I interested myself in this problem andpersuaded the CARE officials to go to Arizona and investigate how wecould help. The U.S. government stepped in, however, and told us thatour charter for overseas operation did not permit us to help the AmericanIndian, and therefore we are at a standstill.

As I understand it, the American Red Cross has the jurisdiction inhandling this situation and some of the local agencies, and I know youcan contribute through them. I wish I could be of more service, but I doknow that red tape strangles the help of so many good people likeyourself would like to give.xli

In the context of the Cold War, concerns about American Indian issues were

often phrased to highlight the contrast between the idealized American way of taking

care of all of its citizens and that of Communist countries, especially Russia, which


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were considered antithetical to the United States in terms of human rights. For

example, one New Jersey viewer wrote in response to the broadcast:

This is 1958; but, it looked more like a Russian village scene, the poorhousing, schools, etc. You showed the people on our Eastern coast howthe Indian in Montana is being squeezed out by big industry. His oilwells, not allowed to produce, his cattle have to be confined with otherherd, to be sold, if they are to stay off relief. It looks like the twoSenators, Murray and Mansfield, and the two Congressman, Metcalfand Anderson, cannot protect the people of their state. And SenatorMurray is chairman of Interior and Insular Affairs. It looks like Murray isthe wrong man for the job. . . .xlii

Being compared to the Communists in terms of human rights was a scathing criticism

of the federal government, as was the accusation of autocracy leveled by the

California man who wrote to McCormick:

Crusading for fair dealing with the tribesmen, in my estimation, is moreimportant than many of the various crusades inaugurated by variouspeople and forces for providing help for nations away from our shores. Iam ashamed that I have not been aware of the great injustices beingdone by an autocratic element of our governmental forces and I want todo what I can towards arousing others to pay some attention to thebrutal tactics of some of our own officials who feel that billions must bepoured into foreign lands to wheedle favor and political support.

[Your] program will, I hope, do a great deal for these Indians, for theremust be many others feeling as I do after hearing and seeing the story ofa minority group which gives every evidence of being completely worthyand to whom we, as a nation, should stick to the letter of treaties made.We bellow about Soviet tactics in failing to keep the word of agreementsand treaties and ourselves act like jackals towards Americans whoseancestors were in possession of this land before we ever arrived via ourancestors.xliii

Another viewer, a New Jersey woman, also expressed anti-Soviet sentiments,

accompanied by a humorous acknowledgment of the pervasive presence of

media-generated stereotypes of American Indians:


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This is a letter of congratulation as well as indignation. After seeingKaleidoscope Sunday I am appalled at the Indian situation. What anation of hypocrites we are, throwing up our hands in horror at the Soviet

treatment of conquered nations and shutting our eyes to what ourgovernment and the holier-than-thou bureaucrats are doing to our ownpeople. Millions for foreigners but not one for our own. We've robbedthem, slaughtered them and even put them in those terrible Westerns(maybe that's the greatest crime of all!).xliv

Such a juxtaposition of critiques underscores the cultural imperialism of the American

media, as well as the metaphorical blindness and arrogance which often accompanies

the power structure of whiteness in America.

Another viewer expressed similar sentiments about the role of Hollywood in

perpetuating stereotypes of Indians as she linked the democratic ideals of the Pledge

of Allegiance to the ideals of human rights codified by the United Nations::

I wish to express great appreciation for the program on the Indians . . . .It was factual and very revealing. I have known many of the same things,which the public-at-large should know so that can make "liberty and

justice for all" come alive. This is most necessary since we are coming tothe 10th Anniversary of the [United Nations] Declaration of HumanRights (Dec. 10). We should have more of this than all of the shooting ofIndians pictured in cowboy and Indian pictures. If it is within yourprovince, I should like suggestions as to what to do about theseinjustices.xlv

This construction of American Indians can be seen as a precursor to the conceptual

unification of indigenous peoples globally which has become the focus of United

Nations Human Rights activities and advocacy several decades later. Human rights

discourses of the 1950s emphasized statistical and observable demographic

differences in employment, per capita and family income, standard of living

conditions, educational levels, and so on, between American Indians (especially those

on reservations) and the American norm, and decried the culture of poverty in Indian


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communities. These perspectives accentuated the lack or denial of access by Native

Americans to many of those standards held as norms by mainstream white America in

the 1950s, such as private property, single family homes, indoor plumbing, running

water, modern appliances, adequate food and clothing, education for children, and

even radio, television and cars. Such constructions linked Indians not exclusively with

other racial groups in America, but with other segments of society who were singled

out as representing the culture of poverty, many of whom were white--especially

migrant workers and Appalachian mining families. The "War on Poverty," which was

institutionalized in Kennedy's New Frontier and Johnson's Great Society social

welfare programs, became a very popular cause among white liberals and

humanitarians of the 1950s and 1960s, and served as a frequent topic for social

television documentaries of the early 1960s.xlvi

The efforts to create solutions to the War on Poverty were frequently as

nearsighted and culturally destructive as those which advocated termination and

relocation of Native Americans. A related public policy implementation which was

implicitly based in the institionalized merging of racial and class prejudices was the

federally assisted Urban Renewal movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The urban

renewal initiative, a partnership between the federal government and local

municipalities, effectively razed and leveled entire central-city communities across the

nation, making way for civic centers and coliseums, and left behind a legacy of

checkered landscapes full of broad parking lots and blocks with occasional homes

(the few that had been spared) surrounded by grassy empty lots in what were once

culturally thriving, though economically dismal, neighborhoods. Urban renewal


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both the right and the left politically, felt even more pressured to hasten the

assimilation process because of their concerns about the deplorable conditions under

which many Indians were living. As early as 1949, applauding the progress made

toward assimilating the Indian people into the main stream of American life, leading

Indian intellectual D'Arcy McNickle exhibited the characteristic ambivalence of Native

leaders of his generation, who supported "progress" yet wanted the federal

government to assure that the Indian population received assistance in education,

health and economic opportunities "comparable to that provided for the rest of the

population." According to McNickle, the federal goal should be to assist the Indians "to

adjust their lives to a dominant culture."xlviii A white "Friend of the Indian" wrote about

relocation and assimilation: "The Indians have much to offer the total culture of the

country. It is wasteful as well as unhealthy to have so little contact between the original

Americans and the rest of the population."xlix

Discourses which framed Native American issues as minorities deserving

improved civil and human rights foregrounded the social and economic disadvantages

of individual Native Americans rather than addressing issues of corporate tribalism or

tribal nationalism. They categorized Indians with other racial, ethnic or cultural groups

who seemed to share some sociological or demographic criteria, keeping them

distinct from the constructed fiction of a "mainstream" and normative (white,

middle-class) America that dominated the self-image of America in the 1950s and

beyond. Such discourses, through their associated practices, sought to remedy the

effects--cultural displacement, poverty, discrimination--on individualsrather than the

causes which, after centuries of colonization, had broken down indigenous systems of


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self-government and economic, political and cultural self-sufficiency. These

discourses tended to see "being Indian" as a handicap, a disability for an individual,

rather than as a source of cultural pride and strength. Ultimately, such discourses

generally ignored or denied the essentially political basis of difference which has been

the foundation of self-definition for most American Indians, at the level of both

individual and nation. As a result, the 1950s saw a constant struggle by moderate

Indian rights advocates (represented by such interest groups as the NCAI and AAIA)

to reframe the terms of media discourses from socioeconomic ones to political and

legal ones.

However, the economic rehabilitation of Indian communities (health, education,

housing and general welfare programs as well as tribal economic development and

resource development) became the primary focus of federal Indian policy initiatives

during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations of the 1960s. This period (the War

on Poverty) was dominated by a progressive/liberal Democratic agenda which

undergirded the New Frontier and Great Society programs. It was an era in which

social activism was spurred by the growing widespread consciousness of white

middle-class privilege and its accompanying guilt--a period in which the definition of

liberal whiteness became sharply focused around practices of altruism and the

idealistic desire to bring Americas economic Others up to the same level of privilege

by providing equal opportunities. As Paul Prucha has explained, The guilt felt by

white Americans for past injustices to the Indians was a powerful stimulus to

widespread support of Indian claims, both in Congress and among the general

public.l Although termination had not been legally repudiated, the new federal mood


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in Indian Affairs was for development of human and economic resources, including

the broadening of Indian participation in government involvement and leadership in

efforts to find solutions to the nations Indian problems. Major landmarks during this

period were the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference, a gathering of delegates

from 90 tribes that resulted in a formal Declaration of Indian Purpose which would

influence public policy, as well as the Report of the Task Force on Indian Affairs

convened by new Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, which encapsulated all of the

discourses discussed above:

What we are attempting to do for those in the underdeveloped areas ofthe world, we can and must also do for the Indians here at home.Furthermore, to insure the success of our endeavor, we must solicit thecollaboration of those whom we hope to benefit--the Indiansthemselves. To do otherwise is contrary to the American concept ofdemocracy. li

In 1966, Robert Bennett (Oneida) was appointed as the first twentieth-century BIA

Commissioner of Indian descent. The landmark 1968 Civil Rights Act included

provisions specifically aimed to protect the constitutional rights of individual Native

Americans--but in so doing, set even further limits on the powers of tribal governments

(thus privileging the individual citizen over the sovereignty of the tribe in the ongoing

tension between the two). Also in 1968, President Johnson created the National

Council on Indian Opportunity (NCIO) as an advisory council to review federal Indian

programs, make broad policy recommendations to ensure that federal programs

would meet the needs and desires of Indian people. NCIO members included selected

Cabinet secretaries and six Indian leaders appointed by the President.


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Many of the more radical contemporary Native American critics have

considered these federal initiatives to more fully incorporate Native Americans into

administrative and policy-making roles to have been what Michael Lacy has called a

cooptive expansion of participation to a threatening group, and have judged those

tribal leaders who have participated in the federal system as sell-outs willing to

sacrifice tribal sovereignty for a compromised self-determination.lii The tension, since

the 1960s, between these two opposing philosophies surrounding the pragmatics of

tribal nations existing within the United States--rooted primarily in the disjuncture

between the Euro-American systems of governance adopted by the more

accommodative tribal leaders versus advocates of reinstalling more indigenous

systems of tribal authority and governance--has created an increasing factionalism

within tribal governments as well as an often chaotic situation in federal Indian policy

formulation and Indian Affairs.

The existence today of a globalized network linking the political and cultural

struggles of Native Americans with those of other indigenous peoples is an outgrowth

of the incipient conceptualizations of Native American issues during the postwar

period in terms of global human rights issues. However, the contemporary indigenous

coalitions are much more strongly linked to issues of sovereignty and tribal

nationalism. For example, the International Indian Treaty Council (an International

Voice for Indigenous Peoples), founded in 1974 at a gathering of representatives of

98 indigenous nations, is an organization of Indigenous Peoples from North, Central,

South America and the Pacific working for the Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and


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the protection of their human rights, cultures, and sacred lands. According to their

literature on the World Wide Web:

The IITC is dedicated to building unity and solidarity among IndigenousPeoples around the world, and to supporting their struggles for survivaland self-determination. Towards this end, the IITC provides support tomany grassroots Indigenous struggles through informationdissemination, networking and coalition building, technical assistance,direct organizing and facilitating the participation of traditional peoples inlocal, regional, national and international forums, events, andgatherings. In 1977, the IITC was recognized as a Non-GovernmentalOrganization (NGO) with Consultative Status to the United NationsEconomic and Social Council, the first organization of IndigenousPeoples to be so recognized. The IITC focuses on participation in U.N.forums such as the Commission on Human Rights, the Working Groupon Indigenous Populations, and the Sub-Commission on Prevention ofDiscrimination and Protection of Minorities. . . .

The IITC also focuses on dissemination of information about the U.N.and opportunities for involvement to grassroots Indigenouscommunities, and works to educate and build awareness aboutIndigenous struggles among non-Indigenous Peoples andorganizations.

The major global advocacy groups working on behalf of Indigenous Rights have

generally been under the aegis of the United Nations, the International Labor

Organization and UNESCO, such as the United Nations Working Group on

Indigenous Populations, which in late 1995 completed a 13-year Draft Declaration on

the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights

and the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities

have also been actively involved in monitoring human rights issues on a global level,

though their work has not been beyond criticism. liii

DISCOURSES OF TRIBAL NATIONALISM AND SOVEREIGNTY


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Legally (and ironically), the power to define oneself as an American Indian has

been usurped by the laws of the United States of America. Originally legislated as part

of the 1887 Dawes Act, the federally-certified determination of Indian racial identity

based upon blood quantum, amended in 1934 and again in 1972 under much

debate, the 1982 amended regulations stipulate that a legally-constituted Indian must

either be (1) a member of a federally recognized tribe (note: the process and criteria of

federal recognition are subject to extreme debate), (2) descendants of members of

recognized tribes who were residing on an Indian reservation on June 1, 1934, or (3) a

person who has one half or more Indian blood. liv Thus, for the purposes of U.S. law

and policy, individual Indianness is defined both by genetic constitution (blood

quantum) and by legal membership (as determined by varying tribal criteria) in a

federally-recognized tribal group. Even the determining factors of these seemingly

straightforward criteria are compound, complex and contradictory--since blood

quantum is rarely if ever measured scientifically, since the criteria for membership in

various tribes vary dramatically from tribe to tribe, and since there are many tribes in

America which are not federally recognized. As Annette Jaimes argues:

Typically centering upon a notion of blood quantum--not especiallydifferent in its conception from the eugenics code once adopted by NaziGermany in its effort to achieve racial purity, or currently utilized bySouth Africa to segregate Blacks and coloreds--this aspect of U.S.policy has increasingly wrought havoc with the American Indian senseof nationhood (and often the individual sense of self) over the pastcentury . . . . It has brought about the systematic marginalization andeventual exclusion of many more Indians from their owncultural/national designation than it has retained. . . . Federal policy hasset off a ridiculous game of one-upmanship in Indian Country: Im moreIndian than you and You arent Indian enough to say (or do, or think)that. . . .lv


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Thus, legal Indianness and genetic--or cultural--Indianness may be incommensurate

for many people with Indian identities. The question of racial (thus cultural and

tribal/national) determination has become a central issue in the tension over the

ultimate definition of tribal sovereignty in relation to the U.S. government.

However, the legal definition of tribal Indianness is also rife with problems and

complications, and must be sharply distinguished from the legal definition of individual

Indianness. As Wilkins and McCulloch have explained:

Racecoexists uneasily alongside the political basis(as exemplified inthe hundreds of ratified treaties negotiated between tribes and theEuropean nations and later the United States) as the defining factors inthe tribal-western relationship. . . . To what extent is the federalgovernments relationship with tribes based on race? On politics? Doesthis vary from tribe to tribe? From administration to administration? Doesthe U.S. have a legal and moral obligation to allindigenous groups, oronly to those with which it has maintained longstanding political (read:treaty) relations? lvi

Discussing the struggles of the Catawba and Lumbee to achieve legal federal

recognition as Indian tribes, Wilkins and McCulloch argue that the social construction

of Indianness created by Euro-American culture is one of the most crucial elements

in tribal recognition: The ability of an Indian tribe to be federally recognized is

dependent upon how well that tribe fits the social construction of [what an] Indian

tribe [is perceived to be].lvii

The relationship between the U.S. government and the various indigenous

communities of Native America has been singularly different from the federal

relationship to any other internal minority group, most notably because of the

economic issue of land and resources which were involved in the interactions from the

very beginning. Discourses of tribal nationalism and sovereignty, which have most


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often come from Native Americans themselves, have emphasized the political and

legal bases of Indian tribes as sovereign nations, and have stressed the historical

injustices resulting from broken treaties between the U.S. government and individual

tribal nations. As a result, these discourses of nationalism and sovereignty have

emphasized the situation of Native America as distinctive and unique from other

American subcultural groups. As noted above, however, such discourses have

recently found commonalities with other indigenous and internally colonized, or Fourth

World, peoples on a global level.

European explorers of the American continent at first perceived the indigenous

governments of North America to be on the same level with foreign nations, and

recognized indigenous Indian tribes as legitimate political entities and land-holders

with whom to negotiate by treaty. For this reason, treaty-making became the first basis

for defining legal and political relationships between the European colonizers and the

indigenous American peoples. The U.S. Constitution empowered Congress to

regulate commerce with Indian tribes. Treaties were designed to ensure peaceful

relations and to secure an orderly transfer of land ownership to the Europeans, in

exchange for promises of certain rights and privileges in perpetuity; for example, a

1789 treaty ordinance read:

The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians;their lands and properties shall never be taken from them without theirconsent; and in their property, rights and liberty they shall never beinvaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized byCongress. . . . lviii

Yet Supreme Court rulings in the early nineteenth century began to perceive Indian

tribes as having less than full sovereignty, as "domestic dependent nations" subject to


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the guardianship and protection of the federal government. As Affigne, Avalos and

Alfred explain, The original nation-to-nation principles which provided the framework

for the relationship in its early stages were jettisoned soon by Europeans as it became

clear that the simplistic European conception of sovereignty which drove

state-building in the new world could not accommodate sophisticated indigenous

American ideas on political relationships. lix As of 1871, an act was passed which

effectively denied the sovereignty of Indian tribes as independent nations to be dealt

with by treaty, thus creating a new condition for U.S./Indian relationships which was

less than satisfactory to the remaining indigenous peoples. As Rebecca Robbins has

clearly explained, the sovereignty of Indian tribes has increasingly diminished:

The current reality is that American Indian governance within the UnitedStates has been converted into something very different from that whichtraditionally prevailed, or anything remotely resembling the exercise ofnational self-determination. Through the unilateral assertion of U.S.plenary power over Indian affairs [in the late nineteenth century]. . ., thestatus of indigenous national governments has been subordinated tothat of the federal government, . . . diminished to approximately thesame level as that enjoyed by the states of the union.

During the termination era, Robbins emphasizes, the status of native nations was

again unilaterally lowered, placed within the jurisdiction of states, to the same level as

municipalities or counties. lx

During the period following World War II and throughout the dark termination

era, a movement began to grow in Native America based upon discourses of

"self-determination." However, the definition of self-determination was not clearly

agreed-upon, nor were the implications of this concept in terms of charting an

eventual path of full tribal sovereignty versus the accommodationist approach of


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nominal self-determination within the federal system. During the early termination era,

when fear of termination inhibited any strong expressions of desire for full sovereignty,

self-determination was conceptualized conservatively, as this 1950 AAIA resolution

reads:

Self-determination for the American Indians means that AmericanIndian people have the right to decide for themselves, as individuals andas tribal groups, the manner and degree of their assimilation, and topreserve inviolate, as they may choose, their heritage and their tradition,subject only to the general laws of the United States. . . .

No disposition of tribal lands and other assets, and no use of such, shallbe made by the federal government without the complete concurrenceand approval of the Indian people who are the individual or tribalowners. . . . American Indian people must have the same rights as othercitizens. . . . Many of these rights of self-determination are withheld fromAmerican Indians at the present time, or so restricted by precedents,paternalism and fossilized bureaucratic methods as, in effect, to bedenied, and that in these respects both Congress and administrativeofficials concerned with Indian affairs are often at fault in acting onIndian matters without, and often against, the approval of the Indianpeople affected. lxi

This concept of self-determination avoided any mention of sovereignty, and was

aimed primarily againstthe practices of termination rather than positively trying to

claim new ground.

Although discourses of sovereignty itself--and of self-determination--were

noticeably absent in the political rhetoric in Indian Affairs during the 1950s, tensions

frequently bubbled to the surface regarding the question of how individual Indians

could maintain allegiance to both their tribe and to the American nation. This quandary

led to a subtle but challenging ultimatum for Indians regarding their patriotism to the

U.S. government. The service rendered by American Indians as G.I.s during World

War II was frequently proffered as evidence of the patriotism of Indian people, yet


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government discourses seemed to want and need more. The incompatibility of a dual

allegiance was presupposed by termination advocates, and was an underlying

foundation of the assimilationist termination rhetoric, as Assistant Secretary of the

Interior Wesley DEwart posited: It is evident, and the Indians recognize this fact, that

their progress has involved a change and adaptation in their culture, pattern and moral

values and that these factors must be continually reevaluated to meet the changed

situation in which they now find themselves in order to avoid hindering their

acculturation and integration into the modern stream of American life. lxii Oliver

LaFarge wrote to President Eisenhower explaining the paradox of Indian rights:

They are citizens, voters, Americans, and well-tested comrades in arms.. . . Like other Americans, they are resentful of the decisions made forthem by others, of programs however benevolent impose upon themfrom above. They have the right common to all Americans, to pursuehappiness, to preserve their integrity, their heritage and traditions. Theyhave the inherent right to retain, if they so wish, their identity as Indiansand as tribal groups, to organize for their common good, and within theirterritories to exercise a measure of home rule. Indians have also certainother rights, guaranteed by innumerable official promises, by courtrulings, by legislation, or by solemn treaties. They have reserved tothemselves, except as the Congress has pared it away, the right of localself-government.lxiii

In response to a 1956 newspaper article by LaFarge which argued that Indians were

clinging to trusteeship and home rule because of their deep desire to continue to

exist as tribes and progress as Indians, the Department of the Interior replied:

If a desire to continue tribal living was paramount among the Indians,home rule might be considered an advantage. the facts are, however:(1) In his own article, Mr. LaFarge states the Indians have no desire torevert to ancient ways, and they want to be thoroughly competentAmericans. (2) The Indians can never hope to become competentAmericans and fit into the non-segregated scheme of living by retentionof home-rule. Again, only the older generation of Indians are opposed,mostly through ignorance, to termination of Federal trusteeship. The


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younger generation, veterans and college students have indicated awillingness to go into business, own their own homes and in general beself-sufficient.lxiv

This interpretation of an overall generational difference in desire for termination belies

all of the statements by tribal governments in response to termination, and also would

be belied by the surge of tribal nationalism by the younger generation within little

more than a decade.

The federal termination discourses of the early-to-mid-1950s which called for

complete assimilation, and perceived an incompatibility between any sort of tribalism

and American citizenship, slowly shifted and softened by the late 1950s to

accommodate some maintenance of cultural (though not political) sovereignty. By this

time, the federal goals were shifting to deal more directly with socioeconomic needs of

tribes. As a more moderate yet still paternalistic Assistant Secretary of the Interior

Roger Ernst articulated the governments perspective in late 1958, following the

Seaton speech in which termination was effectively muted, to improve the social and

economic conditions of our Indians to the point where they can intelligently determine

their own destinies.lxv Ultimately, it seems that the politicalquestion of compatibility

between American citizenship and tribal sovereignty kept returning to the key issue of

individual versus tribal rights, and in all cases the constitutional laws of the United

States privileged individual rights of citizens over the treaty-granted rights of tribes. As

Interior Secretary McKay argued in 1955, in response to LaFarge:

The basic difference between your position and that of the presentAdministration on Indian policy boils down essentially to this. Youapparently believe that the interests of the tribal group should be givenpriority over the rights and interests of the individual Indian and that firstemphasis should be placed on maintaining tribes intact on their present


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land base no matter how thin this base may be or how remote theprospects that it will provide an adequate livelihood for the tribalpopulation. We believe, on the other hand, in the primacy of the

individual Indianand in his right to choose his own way of life withoutpressure or coercion. [italics added] lxvi

The plank on Indian Problems of the 1958

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