to all Native Americans born in the U.S. Because the right to vote was governed by state law, until 1948 some states barred Native Americans from voting. In a WPA interview from the 1930s, Henry Mitchell describes the attitude toward Native Americans in Maine, one of the last states to comply with the Indian Citizenship Act:
One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official in the city hall about voting. I don't know just what position that official had over there, but he said to the Indian, 'We don't want you people over here. You have your own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there.'"The Life of Henry Mitchell,"
Old Town, Maine,
Robert Grady, interviewer,
circa 1938-1939.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940At the time of the Indian Citizenship Act, the Dawes Severalty Act shaped U.S. Indian policy. Since 1887, the government had encouraged Native Americans to assimilate. Hoping to turn Indians into farmers, the federal government redistributed tribal lands to individuals in 160-acre allotments. Unclaimed or "surplus" land was sold, and the proceeds used to establish Indian schools where Native-American children learned reading, writing, and the domestic and social systems of white America. By 1932, the sale of both unclaimed land and allotted acreage had resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the 138 million acres Native Americans held prior to the Dawes Act.
In addition to extending voting rights to Native Americans, Congress created the Meriam Commission to asses the impact of the Dawes Act. Completed in 1928, the Meriam Report described how government policy oppressed Native Americans and destroyed their culture and society.
The poverty and exploitation resulting from the paternalistic Dawes Act spurred passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. This legislation promoted Native American autonomy by prohibiting allotment of tribal lands, returning some surplus land, and urging tribes to engage in active self-government. Rather than imposing the legislation on Native Americans, individual tribes were allowed to accept or reject the Reorganization Act. From 1934 to 1953, the U.S. government invested in the development of infrastructure, health care, and education, and the quality of life on Indian lands improved. With the aid of federal courts and the government, over two million acres of land were returned to various tribes during this period.
- Listen to Native American music. Omaha Indian Music features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. Search by keyword or browse the list of recorded music.
- View photographs documenting Native American life in the 1930s and 1940s. Search the collection, FSA/OWI Photographs, 1935-1945 on reservation or Indian.
- The George Washington Papers, 1741-1799 include many references to Indian treaties and rights; to explore this aspect of Washington's correspondence, search the collection on Indian rights and Indian treaties.
- Words and Deeds in American History contains three features highlighting aspects of Native American history in the Northern and Central U.S.
- Search the Today in History archive on Native American to read additional features including pages on Jim Thorpe, the Cherokee chief John Ross, the Paiute writer and translator Sarah Winnemucca, and the Wounded Knee Massacre.
