Process Paper
Early 20th century American history is fascinating and the standards require an understanding of Indian sovereignty. Citizenship is considered a central element of both rights and responsibilities in a democracy. I remembered seeing a reference to an Indian protesting US citizenship. Since most textbooks present the event as positive, I decided to research the Indian Citizenship Act (ICA) of 1924.
In my preliminary research at the History Center library, I found the intriguing Mary Burroughs papers, and revisited them after learning more about the Dawes Act. Once I realized the story was larger than the 1924 act, I gathered wide-ranging materials before focusing on the timeframe of the 1887 Dawes Act to the ICA. I also emailed every professor in an Indian Studies department in Minnesota or South Dakota that I could find, asking for leads on Indian perspectives on citizenship. Several of these professors replied with leads to other sources. Mr. Dupuis sent me a document he had written.
I was trying to find multiple viewpoints from Indian perspectives, but apart from Chief Rickard's autobiography, I found very few primary sources from the perspective of Indians opposed to US citizenship (a reference to a 1924 article written by Jane Zane Gordon (Wyandotte) in the Los Angeles Examiner, and comments attributed to a few other people). I did find a few comments in the transcript of the meeting at Red Lake, but was frustrated not to find more.
I found http://archives.org, which has scanned copies of the Congressional record. I spent hours poring through the debates and while I did not find all the discussions I looked for, I found the ICA House debate, from a reference in a newspaper article. It was beneficial to see the perspectives of the most vocal participants, and find the stated intention for the ICA. I was intrigued to learn that two of the supporters of the Citizenship Act were themselves Indian. I hadn't realized there were Indian members of Congress before Ben Nighthorse Campbell.
Since the time of Athenian democracy, citizenship status has held great importance. Without citizenship, it has historically been difficult to influence political decisions in a democracy. The common assumption in the US is that everyone wants US citizenship; however the case of the Dawes Act and the ICA is different. This was the unilateral designation of citizenship on a people who had previously been recognized as sovereign nations through nearly 300 treaties. Both sides of the citizenship debate argued for rights – equal rights as US citizens, or sovereign rights as independent nations, and self-reliance and responsibility came up in Congressional debates as well as newspaper articles and other sources as a reason to encourage US citizenship for Indians. Indians were considered lazy and uncivilized, citizenship was considered a vehicle for or an end result of civilization efforts.
In my preliminary research at the History Center library, I found the intriguing Mary Burroughs papers, and revisited them after learning more about the Dawes Act. Once I realized the story was larger than the 1924 act, I gathered wide-ranging materials before focusing on the timeframe of the 1887 Dawes Act to the ICA. I also emailed every professor in an Indian Studies department in Minnesota or South Dakota that I could find, asking for leads on Indian perspectives on citizenship. Several of these professors replied with leads to other sources. Mr. Dupuis sent me a document he had written.
I was trying to find multiple viewpoints from Indian perspectives, but apart from Chief Rickard's autobiography, I found very few primary sources from the perspective of Indians opposed to US citizenship (a reference to a 1924 article written by Jane Zane Gordon (Wyandotte) in the Los Angeles Examiner, and comments attributed to a few other people). I did find a few comments in the transcript of the meeting at Red Lake, but was frustrated not to find more.
I found http://archives.org, which has scanned copies of the Congressional record. I spent hours poring through the debates and while I did not find all the discussions I looked for, I found the ICA House debate, from a reference in a newspaper article. It was beneficial to see the perspectives of the most vocal participants, and find the stated intention for the ICA. I was intrigued to learn that two of the supporters of the Citizenship Act were themselves Indian. I hadn't realized there were Indian members of Congress before Ben Nighthorse Campbell.
Since the time of Athenian democracy, citizenship status has held great importance. Without citizenship, it has historically been difficult to influence political decisions in a democracy. The common assumption in the US is that everyone wants US citizenship; however the case of the Dawes Act and the ICA is different. This was the unilateral designation of citizenship on a people who had previously been recognized as sovereign nations through nearly 300 treaties. Both sides of the citizenship debate argued for rights – equal rights as US citizens, or sovereign rights as independent nations, and self-reliance and responsibility came up in Congressional debates as well as newspaper articles and other sources as a reason to encourage US citizenship for Indians. Indians were considered lazy and uncivilized, citizenship was considered a vehicle for or an end result of civilization efforts.