Chapter 1 - 1.2
Chapter 1: Implication of historical events as source of present social problems
1.2. The establishment of the reservations
How Americans came to be concentrated on reservation is a complicated story. The seclusion and concentration American Indians commenced early. It was the first legal justification in the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Most of the Indians who were inhabited east of the Mississippi were moved to areas west of the river. Such groups as the Seneca, which were encompassed in this relocation were made to leave the state of New York and finally ended up in a small area in what is now northeastern Oklahoma (Sandefur 1989: 37). According to Gary D. Sandefur (1989: 37) “Those Indians who did not move west of the Mississippi were compelled to give up large portions of land over which they had previously had control and were concentrated on increasingly small and geographically isolated areas.” In the late 1800s, the population of European descent in the United States began to surge west of the Mississippi. In this time, there was rising pressure on the recently removed groups such as the Cherokee to give up some of their new land, and on the groups indigenous to the West, such as the Sioux, to give up large amounts of land traditionally under their control. As far as further displacement was concerned, we know that it was conducted in peaceful way through treaties and through violent military confrontation. The Indians’ lands were the least desirable by whites. These lands were located far from major population centers, trails and transportation routes. Indians were forced by policy of the U.S. government to isolate and concentrate in places with few natural resources and far from contact with the developing economy and society (Sandefur 1989: 37). Gary D. Sandefur also said:
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the federal government revised its principle approach to the “Indian problem” to one of forced assimilation rather than forced isolation. This change in policy was in part motivated by awareness that the quality of life on the isolated reservations was very, very low. The concerns about the reservations resembled in many respects the current analyses of problems in the central city (Sandefur 1989: 38).
The assimilation was to be reached thanks to allotment policy and the first allotment legislation which was called The Dawes Act. This act was named for its author, Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, which was passed by Congress on February 8 in 1887. It is also known as the General Allotment Act. The fundamental idea was to divide into smaller parcels (often 160 acres) the small areas of land that were at that time ruled by the diverse groups of Indians. These parcels were allotted to each particular Indian tribe. The main aim of this policy was to enable Indians to become farmers or ranchers, which were the major occupations in the areas where Indians were located. For white settlements there was a side of benefit because they purchased from Indian groups that ‘surplus’ land at low price and they might make use of it at all. American Indians did not have any convenient healthy consequences from Allotment. The situation of the Indians groups who experienced this act did not get better but even got worse Sandefur 1989: 38).The enthusiasm for allocation as a solution to the Indian problem subsided step by step, the many reservations remained intact (Sandefur 1989: 38).
In the early 1950s there was the next major attack on the reservation system. However, public opinion and politic leaders were distressed not only by the miserable living conditions on Indian reservations, but also the special legal relationship between American Indian groups and the federal government. Termination legislation is known to have been passed and signed into law in 1953. The ending of their relation was one of the aims of this legislation. As a result, the reservations would stop to exist as independent political entities (Sandefur 1989: 38). Gary D. Sandefur wrote that “To accompany this program, the federal government also instituted an employment and relocation program which provided financial assistance and social services to Indians who wanted to leave reservations and isolated rural areas for urban areas with supposedly better employment prospects.” (Sandefur 1989: 38). We know that before this approach was abandoned, some of tribes were terminated. What is more, limited relocation and employment assistance program still exists (Sandefur 1989: 38).
To sum up, by setting up Indian reservations, the government wanted to avoid conflicts over land boundaries between natives and white colonists. They also wanted to limit Native American tribes to tracts where they could be controlled and provided for by federal effort. On condition that they had remained peaceful, they would have been generally free to live as they wished on their lands. Native American land was attractive to white settlers. In consequence, reservations were placed in the areas which were unfriendly for humans. The general number of reservations has diminished many times since 1880s to 1934s to account for only 25 percent of reservations established at the beginning (Sandefur 1989: 38).