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What Do We Owe the Indians?By Paul VanDevelder | American History | 22 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post The country had no sooner pushed west over the Allegheny Mountains than problems began to emerge with the Constitution itself. The simple model of federalism envisioned by the Founders was proving unequal to the task of managing westward migration. Nothing in the Constitution explained how the new federal government and the states were going to share power with the hundreds of sovereign Indian nations within the republic’s borders. The Constitution’s commerce clause was designed to neutralize the jealousy of states by giving the federal government exclusive legal authority over treaties and commerce with the tribes, but when Georgia thumbed its nose at Cherokee sovereignty in 1802 by demanding that the entire nation be removed from its territory, the invisible fault line in federalism suddenly opened into a chasm. Subscribe Today
The Indians found themselves entangled in a fierce jurisdictional battle that they had no part in starting. It was not their fight, but when the smoke and dust finally settled four decades later, the resolution would be paid for in Indian blood. Georgia’s scheme was to bring the issue of states’ rights to a national crisis point, and it worked. Bewailing the arrogance of “southern tyrants,” President John Quincy Adams declared that Georgia’s defiance of federal law had put “the Union in the most imminent danger of dissolution….The ship is about to founder.” Short of declaring war against Georgia and its sympathetic neighbors, the nation finally turned in desperation to the Supreme Court. When the concept of Indian sovereignty was put to the test, Chief Justice John Marshall offered up a series of judgments that infuriated Southern states’ rights advocates, including his cousin and bitter rival Thomas Jefferson. In three landmark decisions, known as the Marshall Trilogy issued between 1823 and 1832, the court laid the groundwork for all subsequent federal Indian law. In Johnson v. McIntosh, Marshall affirmed that under the Constitution, Indian tribes are “domestically dependent nations” entitled to all the privileges of sovereignty with the exception of making treaties with foreign governments. He explained in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia that the federal government and the Indian nations are inextricably bound together as trustee to obligee, a concept now referred to as the federal trust doctrine. He also ruled that treaties are a granting of rights from the Indians to the federal government, not the other way around, and all rights not granted by the Indians are presumed to be reserved by the Indians. This came to be known as the reserved rights doctrine. The federal trust doctrine and the reserved rights doctrine placed the government and the tribes in a legally binding partnership, leaving Congress and the courts with a practical problem—guaranteeing tribes that American society would expand across the continent in an orderly and lawful fashion. Inevitably, as disorderly and unlawful expansion became the norm—by common citizens, presidents, state legislators, governors and lawmakers alike—the conflict of interest embedded in federalism gradually eclipsed the rights of the tribes. By 1840 America’s first Indian “removal era” was completed, and within a decade a second removal era would begin. Massive land grabs in the West commenced when Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, opening treaty-protected Indian lands to white settlement. While the act is most often remembered as a failed attempt to ease rapidly growing tensions between the North and South by giving settlers the right to determine whether to allow slavery in the new territories, it also embodied a brazen disregard by Washington lawmakers of their trust obligations to Western tribes. Three decades later, the federal government ignored its trust obligations yet again when the 1887 Dawes Act gave the president the authority to partition tribal lands into allotments for individual Indian families. “Surplus” Indian land was opened up to settlement by white homesteaders, and soon 100 million acres of land once protected by treaties had been wrested from Indian control. Euphemistically known as the Allotments Era, this period lasted until 1934, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Congress finally put an end to the land grabs. Meanwhile, federal courts began relying on Marshall’s century-old legal precedents in a series of controversial decisions that forcefully reminded Washington lawmakers of their binding obligations to the tribes. The decisions also prompted jealous state governments to resume their adversarial relationship with tribes, and to treat the tribes’ partner, the federal government, as a heavy-handed interloper. Although many Allotment Era executive orders were eventually ruled illegal by federal courts, the genie was out of the bottle. There was no way to return the land that had been taken to its rightful owners, and besides, the powerless remnants of once great Indian tribes were lucky to survive from one year to the next. Ironically, the turning point for Indians came decades later, courtesy of Richard Nixon. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: American History, Native American History
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22 Comments to “What Do We Owe the Indians?”
I like to hear of the old History of the Indians.I myself am 1/2 Cherokee & feel like the Indians of America have been shoved out in the cold.I even have ancestors who were on the “Trail of Tears” from East Tennessee to Oaklahoma to the Reservation there. This was done all because the white man found gold in the mountains of East Tennessee.Such a shame to our ancestors, May they rest in PEACE.
By Wayman S Mercer on Apr 8, 2009 at 11:45 pm
This provides and exc ellent summary and timeline of US government and Native American interactions.
By Sandra Hayley on Apr 9, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Being of Native American, African American and Irish American descent I am elated that finally this history about Native American is being told. It’s a shame that so many of my people have passed away without any recognition, fleeced of financial gain, robbed of their heritage and then regarded as savages. There is no reason why people in our county should be poor if the greedy would stop trying to cheat property owners, mineral right owners etc. out of what is rightfully theirs. Compensation has been made for some but not all.
By M. L. Nelson on Apr 9, 2009 at 1:29 pm
The United States Government threw the use of forced removel and uninforced laws has taken not onle the land of the Cherokee peoples of Georgia, but their indentity as well. The sudden seperation from their native lands, the scattering of their peoples who ran away in every direction. The worst part of all was for those who did not run, those who stayed till the removel suffered the greatest, they had to watch as, one by one, as they lost their young and their elderly on the Trail of Tears. Those elders held all the knowledge of their past history inside of them, when put into contex leaves the Cherokee people without their identity or their history. That also took the direction of their future too.
Today, identity thieft is a crime, but the Federal Government still is destroying Native Peoples idenity threw distuction of Indian Mounds ect. all in the name of progress and new construction. I will end with a quote from a founding member of the Trail of Tears Ass.
‘If man cares not for his roots, then how can he care for his branches?’ –Doyle M Davis
serving only my history, my heritage and my heart,
David M. Fowler Jr.
Head of Coosa Ga.
By David M.Fowler Jr. on Apr 13, 2009 at 3:42 pm
There should be a native american history month.
Also, there should be moves to increase tribal soveriegnty over their remaining lands.
A thoroughly sad history.
By Charles laster on Apr 14, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I realize that the culture of the American Indian has been all but destroyed. But their ravenge has been the CASINO.
By Charlie Eyster on Apr 15, 2009 at 3:32 pm
America owes the Indigenous people ALOT! I, being of the Seminole & Northern Arapaho nations, believe that Natives not only are due an apology, but some sort of payment. Now, I highly doubt that some sort of payment will happen, at least America could recognize what it has done, by acknowledging the robbing, raping & pillaging of this whole continent.
By Elisa Emarthle on Apr 26, 2009 at 4:54 pm
The historical face of America has many ugly scars. The treatment of the American Indian is a horrible, ghastly, ugly scar that has virtually been covered over by no less then our waving banner comonly referred to as ” OLD GLORY “. Dont get me wrong, I love our flag and have served our country, but I’m 72 yrs. old and have stated openly and publicly since I was a child that ” Custer and his kin got exactly what they deserved at Little Big Horn “. What do we owe the Indian? A debt so large that it can only be paid by the forgiving grace of Allmighty God !
By John Lea on May 1, 2009 at 2:59 am
The article was very relevant and a deserving indictment of our culture/country and the darkest pert of our history. I was aware of most of the trasvesties described, although I am a ‘dumb white guy’. In recent years I have gone to many powwows, and al-though those are just giving bits and pieces of Native culture, I have come to realize that the Indigenous way of life is very much superior to the frantic, abusive, and greedy euro-centric prevailing culture. Quite possibly, that ‘normal’ society will come to deperately need to learn the Native way in order to survive one day – and that day might not be very far away. In other words – ‘what goes around comes around’.
By Mike Rubinfeld on May 18, 2009 at 12:12 pm
It is a sad day and it is becoming worse everyday in indian country. I grew up on my rancheria with my great grandmother Virginia Timmoms, she lived here with her mother and father and remained here after their deaths. We have lived on this property since the 1930’s In 2002 the tribe, Redding Rancheria and the tribal chairperson Barbara Murphy started a rumor that my grandmother was not the daughter of my great grandmother. My grandmother was born in 1916 at home and did not have a birth certificate. The tribe, with millions of dollars at stake to spead with the disenrolling of the Foreman family, 76 out of a tribe of 300, would not take census records BIA documents, historical and medical, plus personal witnesses, so we were forced to exhume the bodies of both mother and daughter to give them DNA, 99.987% that they are indeed mother and daughter the tribe let the members vote by secret ballot to vote us out. Greed won and we lost, I still live on the rancheria with my family, trust land. No justice, to due process and no place to have our case heard in an un-biased venue. It is a cancer that will end up destroying indian country. Please visit http://www.tribalcorruption.com for more information, thank you for your time, Bobby Foreman
By Bobby Foreman on May 18, 2009 at 4:09 pm
What we owe the Indians is about 3 million square miles of land, plus interest.
By X on May 25, 2009 at 1:17 am
The status quo continues on how the Native American’s are treated in this country, with or without land. Grandpa John Stands In Timber said it would not change which the Cheyenne’s are forgetting/not interested in. Someone should video tape or photograph the Northern Cheyenne Reserv-
vation before the coal is removed.
By Alvina Firecrow on May 27, 2009 at 7:20 pm
It’s apparent that we totaly overran this Continent.
By David Ringler on Jun 3, 2009 at 8:59 pm
The Indians were killing themselves before the White man even got here. So we did what they were already doing. The Indian’s problem was really their numbers. There weren’t millions of Indians here on the continent, most tribes numbered in hundreds vs. thousands of people. Millions of Europeans and other nationalities resettled in this country and almost immediately outnumbered the indians.
By Jim on Jun 5, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Honor the treaties, Pay up or get off the land that was stolen!
By Daniel on Jun 5, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Unenlightened Jim Article 6/5/09
“The Indians were killing themselves before the White man even got here.”~ True! the American Indian Tribes were battling each other for prestige, hunting grounds & tribal honor. The way in which they conducted their battles is where you lost your case! Study the acts of, “counting coup”. Any blow struck against the enemy counted as a coup, but the most prestigious acts included touching an enemy warrior, with the hand or with a coup stick, then escaping unharmed. Some American Indian Tribes used Lacrosse, originating in the Indian nations of mid-America. In many Native American societies/tribes, the ball sport was often part of religious ritual, played to resolve conflicts, heal the sick, develop strong, virile men and prepare for war.
As you stated in your article, “So we did what they were already doing.” No we did not! The Great White Chief in Washington, killed by an act of attrition or genocide, which US Presidents guised as, Manifest Destiny: A doctrine used to rationalize U.S. territorial expansion in the 1840s and 1850s.
Jim stated, “The Indian’s problem was really their numbers. There weren’t millions of Indians here on the continent, most tribes numbered in hundreds vs. thousands of people. Millions of Europeans and other nationalities resettled in this country and almost immediately outnumbered the indians.” Wrong again! Columbus did not set foot on North America until 1492. It took 350 years for the non-native settlers to outnumber the American Indian population. As for the spred of infectious disease and the use of heinous weaponry now you’re on to something! The US Calvary distributed infectious blankets (chemical warfare of the time) to the American Indians on reservations devastating mass populations. The Gatling Gun of 1861 used at Wounded Knee, burning of whole villages of women & children while sleeping inside their tipis were all methods by which to kill off the American Indian population. All of these methods were commonplace practices for the elimination of the American Indian now considered illegal under the rules established by the Geneva Convention.
Hope that clears things up for you, Jim
By Al Asa-Dorian on Jun 17, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Dear Kathy Wise,
I just read an article that you wrote for the June 2009 issue of Cowboys and Indians magazine concerning Apache Skateboards.
It seemed rather odd that none of the Indians in the photographs are smiling. I have been around Mescalero Apaches for over a half century and they smile a lot. Same goes for the various Pueblo Indians I’ve known in New Mexico .
They know how lucky they are to have a choice between the culture of the red man and that of the white man. They also get preferential treatment should they choose get a college education and get money from the U.S. Government each month whether they work or not.
Maybe the people of San Carlos are different than other Indians.
There was a statement you made about Miles’ being concerned about “owning the new imagery without being culturally hijacked”. The imagery shown in the magazine isn’t new. It appears to be a combination of ‘70’s era biker graffiti, amateur reproductions of old photos of Geronimo with a touch of Mexican influence, just a touch of the geometrical designs found on Mimbres pottery and one Texas Ranger star.
These people have a lot more to be proud of than painting skate boards. I wish you would give them more credit.
As far as the overall treatment fo the Amerinds is concerned, we have been very charitable in comparison to the way the indiginous people of Argentina were exterminated/exiled.
By Wilfred on Jun 26, 2009 at 11:03 am
Mr. Klein,
With all due respect, I don’t know how your comment is pertinent to this discussion.
By Dennis Sumrak on Jun 27, 2009 at 12:13 am
We dont owe the Indians anything…
P.S. Stop eminent domain abuse!
By S. Wesley Mcgranor on Aug 13, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I think the first thing we owe the Indians is an honest look at history. The rationalizations used for destruction of tribal sovereignty, especially after the American Revolution, were mostly bogus and inspired by greed. The sort of racism used to make this process palatable has been a staple of American culture ever since, though it has improved in the last 30 years or so. The most comprehensive destruction of American Indians, incidentally, took place in California, where the tribes were small, scattered, and not very warlike. Many of the warrior tribes are more numerous today than they were at the time of contact. The peaceful tribes were largely exterminated. However there are some doubts about the smallpox-in-the-blankets stories — smallpox contagion was probably accident. Wounded Knee took place in 1890, not 1861, and the weapons were Hotchkiss guns, not Gatling guns. The murder of a large number of women and children, however, is completely factual. Both sides did this — but in movies or the older history books, only the Indians did it….I think all unused land contiguous to or adjacent to large groups of Indians should be returned to the control of tribal governments for use in farming, ranching, gathering, tourism, whatever and that transfer of land now leased to ranchers should not be allowed beyond the linear family. American Indians are exceptionally intelligent people and given an absence of government and corporate interference they could probably cure their own “poverty problem” in a single generation.
By John on Oct 6, 2009 at 3:29 pm
We don’t owe the Native Americans anything. Civilizations have always risen up to expand their territories and history has shown that the weaker civilizations have always fallen to the smaller ones. It happened with the Romans, it happened with the Mongols, it happened with the US in this case, and it even happened with Germany and Japan in World War II. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, this is just the way it is and always will be; the stronger civilization will always overpower the weaker one: WAR is not meant to be a fair fight.
By Nick on Oct 20, 2009 at 8:28 pm
At WHAT POINT are people going to QUIT using EXCUSES for what the “white man” has done to them……and GET UP AND DO SOMETHING WITH THE LIFE THEY HAVE NOW!?! We CANT change History. NOTHING AT ALL can be done for EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HAS SEEN EVIL in THEIR lives….or been TREATED BADLY.
And WHAT will $$$$$ do to HELP THEM get OVER their PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS history? Every SINGLE nationality has seen SOME kind of EVIL towards THEIR nationality. Why should a WHITE MAN PAY ANYTHING for BEING WHITE???? I KNOW I did NOT have ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN HISTORY…so WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO REPAY ANYONE FOR THEIR HARDSHIP in life NOW???? Quit looking in the past for an EXCUSE to use today!
I QUARANTEE if ANY of THESE indians WANTED to GO WHERE THE WORK IS….LIKE MOST AMERICANS…THEY TOO could work, have a home and a GOOD life……..but INSTEAD….LIKE SO MANY nationalities in this country….THEY would RATHER blame the white man for being a STRONG nationality and MAKING THEIR WAY IN LIFE…using the SAME resources AVAILABLE to ALL in THIS COUNTRY!!!
By Brenda on Nov 12, 2009 at 1:44 pm