Indian Citizenship Act
The Indian Citizenship Act, enacted in 1924, marked a significant yet complex milestone in the legal status of American Indians in the United States. This legislation granted U.S. citizenship to all American Indians born within the country, allowing for dual citizenship with their respective tribes, while also aiming to preserve their rights to tribal property. The background to this act is rooted in a lengthy struggle for recognition; prior to its passage, various legal and congressional barriers had prevented Indian tribes from being recognized as citizens.
Despite the symbolic importance of citizenship, the act did not fundamentally improve the rights or status of American Indians, who continued to face systemic challenges. For decades after the act's passage, many indigenous individuals experienced continued disenfranchisement, particularly with voting rights, which were not fully recognized until the 1960s. The act reflects a broader tension between tribal sovereignty and the desire for integration into American society. Overall, while the Indian Citizenship Act represented a formal acknowledgment of American Indians as U.S. citizens, its implementation and impact were fraught with complexity and contradiction.
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Indian Citizenship Act
The Indian Citizenship Act conferred US citizenship on all American Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, permitting dual US and tribal citizenship, but did little to secure or improve American Indians’ rights.
American Indians hold a unique position in US society and law, so the acquisition of citizenship took special congressional action. Several factors made citizenship difficult to obtain. As long as Indians were members of tribes or nations which negotiated treaties with the United States government as independent political units, they could not be considered American citizens. Two significant rulings made it clear that a specific act of Congress would eventually be required to grant Indians citizenship. An 1870 Senate committee on the judiciary ruled that tribal Indians were not granted citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), which gave citizenship to recently emancipated slaves, because Indians were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. In 1884, in Elk v. Wilkins, an American Indian who had severed tribal relations and lived among white people was ruled ineligible to be a United States citizen because he had been born a tribal member.
By the 1880s many in the United States sought to end tribal sovereignty, to individualize Indians, and to make them citizens. The General Allotment Act (1887) therefore carried provisions for citizenship as a reward for adopting “the habits of civilized life.” In 1901 a congressional act granted every Indian in Oklahoma Territory citizenship, and by 1917, through a variety of federal statutes, more than two-thirds of all American Indians were United States citizens. It was World War I that reopened the debate about citizenship for all Indians.
American Indians actively supported the war effort through increased food production and contributions to the Red Cross. Most dramatically, six thousand to ten thousand Indians, many of whom were not citizens, enlisted for military service. In return, through the act of November 6, 1919, Congress provided any Indian who received an honorable discharge from military service during World War I the right to apply for citizenship with no restriction on the right to tribal property. Still, by 1920, 125,000 Indians were not citizens, so in 1923 a citizenship bill for all Indians was introduced in Congress. Political maneuverings began at once.
Many mainstream Americans favored citizenship as a way to sever the legal relationship between Indian tribes and the federal government. Full-bloods in many tribes were fearful that citizenship would end tribal sovereignty, bring them under state jurisdiction, and ultimately destroy tribal values. These conflicting views led to a compromise. In January, 1924, Congressman Homer P. Snyder of New York introduced House Resolution 6355, authorizing the secretary of the interior to grant citizenship to all Indians yet stating that “the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.” The American Indian Citizenship Act, signed into law on June 2, 1924, by President Calvin Coolidge, made American Indians both citizens of the United States and persons with tribal relations. Ultimately citizenship changed little for American Indians; the Bureau of Indian Affairs continued to treat them as wards of the government and to administer affairs for American Indian citizens, and many American Indians were denied the right to vote until the 1960s.
Bibliography
“Citizenship Questions Sound Familiar.” Cortez Journal (CO) 29 Dec. 2014: NewsBank. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Deloria, Philip J. “American Master Narratives and the Problem of Indian Citizenship in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.” Jour. of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era 14.1 (2015): 3. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Fixico, Donald Lee. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2012. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Littleton, Steven A., and James E. Seelye. Voices of the American Indian Experience. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2013. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Schroedel, Jean, and Ryan Hart. “Vote Dilution and Suppression in Indian Country.” Studies in American Political Development 29.1 (2015): 40. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.