A REDEFINITION OF INDIAN AFFAIRSIN MARCH OF 1966 the executive committee of the National Congress of American Indians met in El Paso, Texas, to discuss its program for the future. During the meeting a man named Tom Diamond appeared before us with a ragged little group of people. Fervently he made his plea for NCAI support and assistance for the Tigua Indian tribe of Isleta, Texas. The modern era of Indian emergence had begun.
The year 1688 saw the end of the Spanish rule of New Mexico for nearly a generation. The Pueblos of New Mexico revolted against Spanish rule and pushed the Spanish out of New Mexico back to their river fortress of El Paso del Norte, now Juarez, Mexico. With the retreating soldiers a number of Indians from the Isleta Pueblo were taken. Like human mules they carried the stolen treasures of New Mexico south.
Once at El Paso del Norte, the Tiguas were of no further use to the Spanish and therefore assigned a piece of land on the north bank of the Rio Grande River, where it was expected they would provide a buffer zone against the warlike Mescalero Apaches who dominated eastern New Mexico and western Texas.
Centuries passed. The little group was forgotten. The Bureau of Indian Affairs listed them as a Pueblo group under the jurisdiction of the New Mexico office but little was done for them. Some of the Tiguas attended the government boarding school in Albuquerque and occasionally bureau officials stopped by, but the tendency was to ignore them.
In 1936 President Roosevelt was made an honorary Tigua warrior when he visited Texas. There was no doubt that the Tiguas deserved federal recognition, having once received services from the federal government and having been listed as one of the tribes eligible for such services. But since they were secreted away in the middle of El Paso, Texas, they were soon forgotten. They had not been heard from since the visit by Roosevelt and people assumed they no longer existed.
The NCAI recognized the Tiguas as a surviving tribe of Indians and began to take steps to see if they could be formally recognized. Tom Diamond, an attorney in El Paso who had given his time and money for years in an effort to help the Tiguas, led the struggle to get their status clarified.
Finally in early April, 1968, President Johnson signed into law a bill that officially recognized the Tiguas as an Indian tribe and ceded responsibility for them to the state of Texas. Under the programs of Texas the Tiguas are now enjoying a revival of tribal life with a chance to build a sound economic base for the future.
Ever since Indians began to be shunted to reservations it has been assumed by both Indians and whites that the eventual destiny of the Indian people was to silently merge into the mainstream of American society and disappear. The thought of a tribe being able to maintain traditions, socio-political structure, and basic identity within an expanding modern American city would have been so preposterous an idea had it been advanced prior to the discovery of the Tiguas, that the person expounding the thesis would have been laughed out of the room.
Yet the Tiguas had fought for their tribal existence and been successful. The famed melting pot, that great sociological theory devised to explain the dispersion of the European immigrant into American society, had cracks in it through which, apparently, Indian tribes were slipping with ease.
Discovery of the Tiguas rocked Indian people in several respects. Indians had been brainwashed into accepting the demise of their tribe as God’s natural plan for Indians. Yet the Tiguas plainly demonstrated that Indian tribal society had the strength and internal unity to maintain itself indefinitely within an alien culture.
If, many Indian people thought, the Tiguas had survived for three centuries in the middle of El Paso, might not their own tribe also survive somehow? Once accepting the idea that tribes were really entities that had no beginning or end, Indians began to view their problems in a new light. The basic operating assumption of tribes changed from that of preserving the tribal estate for an eventual distribution to the idea that tribes would always manage to survive, that present difficulties were not insurmountable, and that perhaps the Indian community was nationally much larger than people had imagined.
Since 1966 there has been an increasing awareness of tribalism sweeping the Indian power structure. No longer does Indian country begin at the Mississippi. Now it extends from coast to coast. Talk has even begun about contact with the surviving natives of Hawaii.
The NCAI set its sights to contact as many groups as possible in the eastern portion of the United States, hoping to find other groups such as the Tiguas. In due time the Tunicas of Louisiana, the Appalachicolas of Florida, the Haliwas of North Carolina, the Pamunkeys of Virginia, the Wampanogs of Massachusetts, the Coushattas of eastern Texas, the Cherokees of southern Ohio, and the Payson Band of Yavapai Apaches in Arizona were all located.
In many cases knowledgeable non-Indians had learned of the search for missing tribes and come forward with information. In other cases the Bureau of Indian Affairs began to push for recognition of bands which had always been eligible for federal services but which had been caught between reservations during frontier days and preferred to remain among white friends in small towns.
A symptom of the national Indian awakening was the appointment of Judge Lacy Maynor of North Carolina, the distinguished leader of the Lumbee community, as a co-chairman of the First Citizens for Humphrey-Muskie, a coalition of Indian people supporting the Democratic ticket in 1968. Judge Maynor had gained national recognition in 1958 when his Lumbees surprised the Ku Klux Klan at a meeting in North Carolina and sent them packing. But Maynor’s appointment as a co-chairman was tacit recognition by western Indians of eastern non-federal tribes as an important segment of the emerging nationwide Indian community.
The awakening of the tribes is just beginning. Traditionalists see the movement as fulfillment of ancient Hopi and Iroquois religious predictions of the end of white domination of the continent. Others feel that American society has now reached the point of maturity where the platitudes of the Constitution can finally begin to take on real meaning.
Anthropologists love to talk knowingly about this movement and call it pan-Indianism. When the first Indian came to Plymouth Colony and chanced to meet another Indian on the way in, a committee of anthropologists was probably trailing him, eagerly observing pan-Indianism at work.
But pan-Indianism exists primarily in the mind of the beholder, as do all anthropological theories. Pan-Indianism implies that a man forgets his tribal background and fervently merges with other Indians to form “Indianism.” Rubbish.
Younger Indians are beginning to understand the extent to which the Indian community is being expanded and to many of them it is an affirmation of tribalism over individualism. Traditions, which kept the Tiguas together and which are holding the Tunicas and other tribes in the ways of their ancestors, are now beginning to become of primary importance.
The mechanized concepts of image, relevancy, feasibility, and efficiency are now being seen as gimmicks by which white America fools itself into believing it has created a culture. In reality, it has used these plastic devices to avoid the necessity of having a real culture. Tribal existence is fast becoming the most important value in life. Consideration of other ideas takes second place to tribalism.
The federal tribes of the southeastern United States, always separated by distance and ideology, recently moved in the direction of a southeastern coalition of tribes. The Choctaws of Mississippi and the Seminoles and the Miccosukees of Florida recently banded together with the Eastern Band of Cherokees of North Carolina to form an inter-tribal council to work specifically on their problems.
As federal policies change and become clarified, there is little doubt that the southeastern United States will experience a great Indian revival, bringing the focus in Indian Affairs to philosophy rather than program considerations.
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While tribal societies are beginning to awaken, assert themselves, and contact others in the rural areas, urban Indians have been developing a new nationalism for themselves. In January of 1968 representatives of twenty-six urban Indian groups met in Seattle, Washington, for the first of a series of consultations on problems of off-reservation Indians.
The Seattle conference was attended by a number of reservation Indians who were suspicious of the gathering. In the late 1950’s the off-reservation Colvilles were organized by a white man for the specific purpose of selling the large Colville reservation. The land is valued at one hundred million dollars and the critical issue has been division of the money among the non-reservation people. Mistrust ran rampant throughout the meeting, especially among the attending reservation people who feared it would result in a massive movement against the reservations. Consequently the meeting ended with both groups preparing for the next confrontation.
At the annual NCAI convention in the fall of 1968 the subject of urban Indians was cussed and discussed at length. Several resolutions attempting to define policy with respect to off-reservation Indians were offered. Finally a compromise resolution very general in nature was passed.
The fears of reservation Indians were perhaps justified when one considers what the organization of unsuspecting off-reservation members of a tribe could do to reservation programs. But reservation people need not fear the urban movement among off-reservation people. Urban centers are inter-tribal and the chances of one center having a majority of one tribe are practically nil.
Furthermore, urban Indians have become the cutting edge of the new Indian nationalism. For centuries they have been going into town and remaining there. Now they are asserting themselves as a power to be reckoned with. Urban Indians frequently return to their reservations, if only for a vacation or weekend, and until recently they were content to think of themselves as temporary residents of the city in which they lived.
Over the past decades the empty stores, church basements, and rented halls they had been meeting in for social activities have become newly purchased Indian centers, complete with staff and programs. From a once-a-month dance to an ongoing program of social services, the spectrum of Indian centers appears endless and continually in transition. The eventual list of cities in which Indians have organized may one day pass the one hundred mark.
The large midwestern cities of Chicago and Minneapolis represent the most comprehensive development of urban Indianism. With a long history of capable leadership from both white and Indian communities, people in these two cities have set up the procedure for total Indian renaissance. Fund-raising drives have provided financial support for their programs. In Chicago the two Indian centers own buildings and have achieved relative financial stapility. In Minneapolis, settlement houses have served as rallying points and been used by the urban Indians to spread into neighborhoods in all parts of the city.
Both cities are characterized by the organization of many smaller groups of Indians who participate in city-wide programs. Indians in these cities have found that tribal differences do not merge into a general blur of Indianism. Tribal backgrounds are too strong for even an Indian melting pot. So the people have built their organizations on tribal differences.
Clubs have been organized by tribe. Thus Minneapolis has the Twin Cities Sioux Council, the Twin Cities Chippewa Council, and others. The tribal clubs support the overall program of the urban center and in turn have their own programs in which ideas unique to the particular tribe are emphasized. Overall membership in the entire program is much broader and more active than when tribes were indiscriminately merged into one amalgam.
From the consultation at Seattle, Indians of other cities came to an understanding of what was possible for urban people. Many left Seattle determined to reproduce in Tulsa, Denver, Rapid City, and Omaha what had been done in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Oakland. And many of the conference participants were surprised to discover that they all felt a real desire to get into the fight for better legislation to help the reservation people protect the reservation homeland from further encroachment.
Even the eastern cities—traditional homes of tribes thought long since vanished—have begun the task of organizing themselves. The second urban meeting in Tempe, Arizona, saw the attendance of a group from New York City. Eventually Cleveland, Cincinnati, Boston, and Washington, D.C., are also expected to have urban Indian centers.
When one realizes that the majority of Indian people live in urban areas, the extent of the new movement becomes clear. The cities are beginning to furnish the catalytic agents for total national organization. A decade ago organization was primarily according to tribe; off-reservation people had not yet begun to seek each other out. Few even suspected that very many other Indian people resided in the city in which they lived.
Now it is becoming painfully apparent to government agencies that reservation people are the least of their problems. Demonstrations against Bureau of Indian Affairs offices have taken place in three cities. More are being planned by young urban Indians sent to the cities to receive job training. Soon bureaucrats will be asking for transfer to isolated reservations instead of cities where the young militants are sure to make their lives miserable.
The Vice President’s Council on Indian Opportunity, set up in April, 1968, by order of the President, is now in contact with the urban Indians who have formally organized as American Indians United. Problems are being outlined and possible solutions discussed by the two groups.
Chicago has seen the rise of Indian nationalism by younger people. In addition to the established centers and clubs, young people have started to move the urban Indian structure toward a more militant stance in regard to urban programs available through the mayor’s office. Denver has recently seen the organization of another Indian club that is avowedly more militant with regard to programs being administered by the city. Omaha has a group of younger Indians which threatens to begin to move city Indians toward community involvement.
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Because there is such a mushrooming movement among urban Indians, old ideas and traditional policies have become woefully outmoded. In the past, tribal councils have largely determined national Indian policy. Many times the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been able to apply pressure on certain tribes to hold back militant stands by Indian people. It learned to effectively play one tribe against another until the tribes were confused and disheartened. Then it would appear to compromise and tribes would eagerly agree to whatever was placed before them. When one recalls that every tribe had to have approval of the BIA to lease its lands, to travel, to get legal counsel, it is a wonder that tribes have been able to get anything done.
While the BIA still has to approve basic tribal operations, it no longer has the resources to keep track of everything happening in Indian Affairs today. Other agencies are continually calling conferences which take tribes from one end of the country to another. Pressuring individual tribes has become too risky because of the great competition between government agencies to appear more active than competing agencies.
Urban Indians have a great advantage over reservation people. They have no restrictions on the way they raise or spend money. The bureau has no means by which it can influence decisions made by urban Indian centers. Thus, if it is to influence urban Indians at all, it must be by offering them something. Urban Indians have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so initial success breeds deeper thought and more comprehensive planning for the next go-round.
Nor do the emerging non-federal eastern Indians have anything to lose. In many cases, in many states, they are busy compiling the documentation to prove their claims. The tribes of Maine are moving incredibly fast in pressing their claims against Massachusetts. And Massachusetts may have its hands full with other tribes such as the Wampanoag and Narragansett before it is finished with Indian people.
The great weapon which the eastern tribes have is invisibility. No one believes they exist, yet back in the statutes and treaties lies the key to their eventual success. The Montauks are a good example. At the turn of the century the tribe was thrown out of court because the Montauks lacked standing to file suit. They were wards of the state of New York. Well, people argue, if they were wards of the state of New York, what has the state been doing for them?
At present there is tremendous potential awakening in the cities and among the non-federal tribes of the East. At least three-quarters of the national Indian population lives in the cities and eastern United States. A new coalition of eastern Indians and urban groups could force a radical change in existing federal policy toward Indian people. These people generally vote more than reservation people. When they organize for political purposes, they will be able to exert more influence than they have at present.
Many non-reservation Indians are scattered in states and Congressional districts that have yet to produce a Senator or Congressman who has taken an interest in Indians. When these groups organize for effective action they will begin to make Indian Affairs a concern of interested non-Indians who would like to assist Indian people. Thus there is every indication that eastern and urban people will be able to bring up issues which reservation people have not been able or willing to raise.
Tragically, Indian Affairs within the Bureau of Indian Affairs is today exclusively oriented toward individual reservations. Little concern is shown for program development on a regional, state, or inter-area office basis. Thus the BIA is extremely vulnerable to unexpected pressures from regional groups which combine urban concentrations or urban centers and reservations.
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The great danger in the gathering Indian movement is that urban Indians will allow themselves to be betrayed by two factors: reservation entanglements and the black power movement. Because of the pressure on reservation communities by terminationists in the Senate, reservation people have been on the defensive for a decade and a half. Their first inclination is to view a proposal in terms of its possibly detrimental effect on their communities.
Urban Indians may very well endorse proposals of reservation people without a thought for the larger issues which are emerging in the cities. Employment is inevitably bound to housing, which in turn is bound to credit availability. Concentration of simple issues designed for upgrading reservations may not take into account the complexities of the urban situation.
The nomadic tendency of Indians could conceivably limit the possibilities of upgrading programs and policies for all Indian people. It is almost impossible to keep an accurate census of Indians in a city. Some surveys taken in Denver indicated that only one-quarter of the people listed at a certain address in the fall were there that same winter. They had vanished, moved, gone back to their reservations, or moved on to another city.
Similar attempts to count reservation people have produced almost identical results. Programs designed to provide employment on certain reservations may be woefully out of touch with the nomadic tendencies of the people of that reservation to move back and forth.
Some attempt should be made to coordinate movements of Indians to coincide with ongoing programs in both reservation communities and urban centers. One such attempt is being made in the Midwest. Whether it proves successful or not will depend primarily upon the ability of the urban Indians to articulate the problem to their reservation cousins and the ability of these urban people to understand national trends.
Sioux City Indian Center was funded this spring to do work in organizing the Indian people in the surrounding four states of South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska. These states have small concentrations of Indian people in their larger towns. Many of these people go back and forth to the neighboring reservations of Yankton Sioux, Santee Sioux, Flandreaux Sioux, Winnebago, Omaha, Sac and Fox, and Lower Brule. Sioux City will be the focal point of a regional effort to coordinate employment, housing, education, and organization of the Indian people in this area.
With careful planning a large number of Indian clusters can be built up in neighboring towns and smaller cities such as Sioux Falls, Worthington, Minnesota, and Des Moines, Iowa. In a very short time an integrated balanced Indian community, which will encompass an area of some fifty thousand square miles, can be built. From the focal point will come directions for economic development by which a self-sufficient Indian community can be stabilized.
Concentration simply on reservation problems in this area would produce little if any tangible results. Employment is primarily available in the cities and towns. Development of the reservations as centers of employment is absurd because of a multitude of problems. But development of those same reservations as enclaves of residential and social stability makes a great deal of sense.
Combining urban and reservation goals must, therefore, be led by urban people who are much more aware of opportunities for specific developments. If urban Indians can take the time and trouble to plan for the future, they will gain a strong influence over Indian Affairs locally and eventually nationally.
There is an added danger to urban Indians from their involvement with the militants of other minority groups, particularly the black power, movements. Spectacular success in achieving national publicity has attracted a great many urban Indians to the black power people. In Omaha and Chicago, Oakland and Los Angeles, young Indians are talking like black militants and beginning to ape their ideas and techniques. Participation in the Poor People’s March gave additional impetus toward development of red power movements.
Indians are often told by bureaucrats that “Indians don’t act like that.” This idea is entirely false and only serves to illuminate stereotypes and make the militants more active. Militancy in certain areas is the only means by which the Indian people can accomplish their goals. But it makes a great deal of difference what philosophy lies at the basis of militancy.
By and large, blacks have rioted and marched for undefined objectives. Cries of “Freedom now!” have provided very little understanding of problems or solutions. Indians who copy blacks simply because they are attracted by the chance to make their names household words are embarking on a disastrous course of action.
During the Poor People’s March Abernathy made continuous veiled threats that certain things would happen if his demands were not met. Nothing happened. It was obvious to everyone that Abernathy was conducting a demonstration in a symbolic representation of the poor, not in a real sense. Abernathy could no more have produced on his threats than he could have reached the far side of the moon.
So before urban Indians consider the path of the black militant they would be wise to insure that they have power firmly in their grasp within the urban Indian community. Otherwise, like the more radical blacks, they will be forced to turn increasingly to violence as a means of backing up their demands.
Blacks have not been denied because of their so-called extremism, but because they failed to consolidate the power that does exist in their hands. No one is going to hand over decision-making authority to people who have no base within the community other than their ability to articulate demands. Blacks have failed to operate for power positions in their own communities, and Indians must not make that mistake.
And although important, consolidation of power is secondary to the comprehensive examination of goals and techniques. Indians must first understand the position they occupy in urban and national affairs. Then they must become aware of the weak points where leverage and power can be combined to provide a means of pivoting the power structure that confronts them. Only then can they apply their power to the situation and contemplate significant results.
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When one examines the history of American society one notices the great weakness inherent in it. The country was founded in violence. It worships violence and it will continue to live violently. Anyone who tries to meet violence with love is crushed, but violence used to meet violence also ends abruptly with meaningless destruction.
Consider the history of America closely. Never has America lost a war. When engaged in warfare the United States has always applied the principle of overkill and mercilessly stamped its opposition into the dust. Both Grant and Eisenhower made unconditional surrender their policy. No quarter, even if requested. Consider Vietnam, where the United States has already dropped more bombs than it did during the last world war—a classic of overkill.
Consider also the fascination of America’s military leaders with the body count. It is not enough to kill people, bodies must be counted and statistics compiled to show how the harvest is going. Several years ago every effort was made to keep the ratio of enemy killed to American fatalities at a certain proportion. Yes, violence is America’s sweetheart.
But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies.
The United States operates on incredibly stupid premises. It always fails to understand the nature of the world and so does not develop policies that can hold the allegiance of people. It then alienates everyone who does not automatically love it. It worries about its reputation and prestige but daily becomes more vulnerable to ideologies more realistic than its own. This country could be easily influenced by any group with a more comprehensive philosophy of man if that group worked in a non-violent, non-controversial manner.
Ideological leverage is always superior to violence. People are always open to ideas even though they may appear to reject thought itself. Few people will allow themselves to become victims of irrational behavior, however, and violence and militancy are animalistic shortcuts to non-existent ends. Having once made a convert, the struggle ends and the convert is committed to realization of the ideology. But having once beaten a man to the draw, the winner is always subject to others who want to test his skill.
For Indians to walk the steps of the black militants would be a disaster. The problems of Indians have always been ideological rather than social, political, or economic. Simply to invite violence upon oneself for the sake of temporary concessions seems ridiculous and stupid.
It would be fairly easy, however, with a sufficient number of articulate young Indians and well-organized community support, to greatly influence the thinking of the nation within a few years. The white man asks only the opportunity to chase the almighty dollar. Whoever can take the burden of thinking from him is worshiped and praised beyond belief. Thus did Americans immortalize John Kennedy who did little to solve America’s problems but seemed as if he thought about them a great deal.
Consider also the strange case of Lyndon B. Johnson. He brought to fruition more programs and opportunities than any other President in history. Yet he never presented the image of a thinker. Johnson was unable to attract the intellectual community to his side. And he never gave the impression that he had deeply considered the problems on an intellectual or philosophical level. People therefore felt that if they themselves had to confront the issues that the President must be the cause of those problems.
So it is vitally important that the Indian people pick the intellectual arena as the one in which to wage war. Past events have shown that the Indian people have always been fooled about the intentions of the white man. Always we have discussed irrelevant issues while he has taken the land. Never have we taken the time to examine the premises upon which he operates so that we could manipulate him as he has us.
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A redefinition of Indian Affairs, then, would concentrate its attention on the coordination among the non-reservation peoples and the reservation programs on a regional or area basis. In that way migrations to and from urban areas could be taken into account when planning reservation programs. There would therefore be a need for the Department of the Interior to redefine its service function. Present regulations restrict Interior services to Indians living on trust land. Only these people are eligible for health, education, and trusteeship services. An urban Indian can become eligible for bureau services simply by returning to the reservation for a decent period and establishing residence. Often he spends as much time and money establishing his eligibility as the services he eventually receives are worth.
Because the bureau is restricted in its services to reservation Indians, little progress is made in uplifting the total Indian community. The result is the continual return of people from the urban areas, adding to the burden carried by the reservation programs.
Interior also concentrates its efforts on a few selected reservations, which have influential lawyers from big law firms in Washington, D.C. The majority of the organized tribes, which are too poor to afford full legal counsel, receive very little from the Department of the Interior. It is these little groups which fall victim to schemes developed by competitive bureaus within Interior, such as the Bureau of Reclamation which is always looking for Indian land to take for a development project of its own.
It is doubtful if Interior will initiate change. The department is ridden with career men who have spent their lives defending the traditional way of doing business. Change has never been Interior’s forte, whether under Democratic or Republican administrations. More likely would be the possibility that as urban Indians begin to work out new policies and programs with the Vice President’s Council on Indian Opportunity, Interior will grudgingly begin to adapt its policies to conform to the new currents moving in national Indian circles.
The most useful thing Interior and its component bureaus could do in the immediate future is to begin contracting with tribes and Indian centers to provide a comprehensive national program for development and training. A tribe or number of tribes could combine with an urban center to provide a reservation-city program of training and employment placement. In this way people could be trained in a city to take over specific jobs existing on the reservation and reservation people could be given pre-urban orientation before they left the reservation. In either case an Indian agency, the tribe or urban center, would be aware that they were receiving training and could expect employment, housing, and services when their training was finished.
Since a majority of Indian people now reside off reservation and are involved in work in the private area, Interior’s most fruitful approach would be to seek out projects which it could initiate in cooperation with tribes and urban centers. It could hold a series of conferences between selected tribes and urban centers, suggesting specific contracts it might issue to them jointly to solve particular problems. Interior already has legal authority for such a move under an old law called the “Buy Indian” Act which gives preference to purchases made directly from a tribe.
Using such an approach, Interior might cushion the shock wave that appears inevitable as non-reservation people become more active. People and funds might be better channeled into projects that have the support of the Indian people in both areas. Ultimately, the federal government has responsibility for all Indian people. Whether or not Interior will take an aggressive stance in program development before Indians take the initiative and put Interior on the defensive is a question to be answered by the present Secretary of the Interior.
Udall proved a tremendous disappointment to the Indian people in his years as head of the Interior Department. Too many times he was totally unresponsive to Indian proposals. When the tribes suggested an advisory council so that tribes and Interior could make plans jointly, Udall refused to act. Yet he had advisory committees for some of his other agencies, notably National Parks. Udall also continued to pack the Indian Arts and Crafts Board with non-Indians who cared little for the development of Indian arts and crafts. Allegedly a great conservationist, Udall promised the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe water for its declining shore line on the lake. Then he failed to deliver any significant amount of water and would not make any effort to clarify the tribe’s rights to water in the lake.
A new Secretary could begin programs on a national scale that would give the tribes almost total control of reservation programs. Expanding the scope of services would mean less decision-making in government and more by Indians. The natural movement in Indian Affairs now exerting itself could fill the vacuum that exists in bureau programs.
A good example of this is the old relocation program. Originally conceived by the bureau in the 1950’s as a means to get Indians off the reservation and into the cities, the program was renamed “Employment Assistance” in a feeble attempt to make it seem contemporary. This program could be expanded threefold by use of the contract method of operation since bureau offices in the relocation cities could be closed.
Churches must also shed their ineptness at facing modern problems. The rise of native religions in the past two decades has clearly put the churches on notice that their days as supreme religious authorities are numbered. Urban areas are showing a great deal of interest in native religions. In St. Paul, Minnesota, an urban chapter of the Medicine Lodge religion holds forth. Religious confrontation in the Great Lakes area may not be far away. With the exception of the Oneidas, Christianity may completely disappear among the Indians in that area.
Churches should acknowledge the relevancy of the Old Testament social forms if they mean to keep abreast of modern religious developments in Indian Affairs. As more urban centers appear on the scene, social-religious functions will begin to merge as Indian people give up differentiated social forms for an integral tribal existence. Even within the white church, men are forsaking the orthodox concept of the ministry for socially oriented functions comparable to the worker-priest movement of France.
Creation of new forms of ministry would place churches in the vanguard of social change within the field of Indian Affairs. Previously, churches have used the paid ministry as the representative of the organized church. Now they must acknowledge and support the informal channels of social activity by which the new Indians are reorienting their people. The informal, yet recognized, ministry would bring new blood into the churches and enable them to understand social fusion into tribal forms of the future.
I strongly doubt that American Christianity has the foresight or flexibility to embark on new paths of action. It has always been torn between being good and being real and generally chosen to be good.
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The future indicates vicious struggles between those that have traditionally dominated Indian Affairs and those of the new movement. The Association on American Indian Affairs, Indian Rights Association, and other white interest groups have seen their best days despite the fact that they presently raise enormous sums of money which are apparently spent on some type of Indian program. For the better part of two generations these whites have not hesitated to make policies and direct programs on behalf of Indians without bothering to consult Indian people on the matter. Those days are vanishing swiftly. For the new Indian groups in the major cities will come to dominate news and programs relating to Indians in the respective areas. It is these new groups which the public will have to face and negotiate with.
National Indian organizations must also take cognizance of the new Indian movements. No longer will the NCAI be able to make simple appeals for membership and support on the basis of unity. Urban Indians, under the new American Indians United, will swiftly move into the lead position in Indian Affairs, determining the trends and issues which will attract both urban and reservation Indians alike.
Urban Indians will have the benefit of city libraries, night schools, all of the communicative tools of modern life. They will be able to focus on simple issues with simple answers in the same manner as the Civil Rights movement once made “We Shall Overcome” a national issue of integration.
Any national Indian organization of the future must contain a number of membership categories that operate by function or area of interest. The simplistic membership by tribes will no longer support political movements in national Indian affairs. As urban groups achieve organization for political purposes, they will begin to hold the balance of power on a statewide basis. This will be particularly true in Nevada, California (if not true there already), and Minnesota.
In many cases tribal clubs organized under large Indian centers will be wealthier and stronger and contain more people than does their tribal council on its home reservation. It is not inconceivable that people from the larger tribes, Sioux, Cherokee, Chippewa, and Navajo, will have a national urban organization. Individual Indians are now examining the method used by ACLU in building its branch offices. ACLU underwrites the creation of field offices and returns a percentage of income raised by a field office to the local branch. Eventually the local branch builds a sufficient income to operate its own programs.
State organizations of all Indians will be the wave of the future. It will no longer be possible to distinguish reservation from non-reservation people or to play off one tribe against another. Urban Indians will create a new sense of unity as they fight for equal representation in inter-tribal organizations. Their voting power will be sorely needed by reservation people as the population of reservations declines and that of non-Indians in the states continues to rise.
As programs become statewide the power and influence of urban Indians will continue to rise. Indians will begin to seek total development of reservation recreational facilities for their weekend and vacation use.
If the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Congressional committees do not fight the broadening of Indian concerns into these areas, hitherto undefined and unexplored, much of the confusion and indecision now characterizing Indian programs will be cleared up. Total expenditures on Indian programs will decline as Indians rely more and more upon their own resources.
Indians will become fiercely independent of federal sources of funds as they exercise their new-found ability to operate as an independent force. Once freed from the confining definitions of rights and privileges of the past, Indians will embark on a series of community development projects that are based upon new concepts of tribalism.
If Congress initially funds experimental efforts by tribal-urban combines, traditional programs which provide basic services to Indian people will disappear. The momentum of development will carry programs completely into the private sector of life. Thus there is everything to gain and little to lose for Congress to extend eligibility for funding to non-federal Indians in the next decade.
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Tribalism is the strongest force at work in the world today. And Indian people are the most tribal of all groups in America. They are also in the most advantageous position of any tribal people in the world. Using modern technical knowledge and having tremendous natural resources, Indian people can combine urban and rural life in a nationalistic continuum. An understanding of the forces and ideas brought forward by Indian people to solve particular problems during the next decade should prove to be useful information for solving similar problems elsewhere in the world.
The eventual movement among American Indians will be the “recolonization” of the unsettled areas of the nation by groups of Indian colonists. This process began several years ago when a group of Cherokee Indians, business and professional people from Los Angeles, moved from southern California back to Tahlequah, Oklahoma. They arrived at the old Cherokee capital and immediately blended into the existing Indian community virtually without a trace.
In Canada there has been a similar development. Several years ago a group of Ojibway moved off the reservations, purchased some land, and set up a corporation for community development. They began to get contracts for pulp wood from some of the papermills in the area. Now they own their own homes, a piece of land suitable for further development and expansion, and a great deal of machinery for their pulp wood business. Further experiments are planned by other groups in Canada.
In both cases the economic base for the new community was carefully analyzed and studied before the project was undertaken. Knowledge of modern economic mores and understanding of the strengths of tribal society enabled the people to project the type of recolonization that would be most likely to succeed. Both did.
The feasibility of such colonies is very much dependent on the rejection of the consumer mania which plagues society as a whole. The Indians had to determine whether continued treadmill consumption of luxuries was equal in value to a more leisurely and relaxed life. While certain benefits of urban or reservation living had to be surrendered, both experiments have shown that tribalism can be used in a redefinition of Indian life which has contemporary significance and strength.
Recolonization will call for a revival of Indian social and legal patterns. Rugged individualism will have to be reinterpreted to coincide with traditional Indian beliefs and practices. Some property must be held in common, personal property will remain the same. The corporate structure appears to give the best potential for development and use of small corporations as tools of development and recolonization will be highly favored.
Tribes already have corporation charters under the Indian Reorganization Act. Some urban centers have incorporated as nonprofit organizations. The next logical step is a corporation for development purposes in which both reservation and non-reservation people participate. These corporations would be formed to explore ideas of development outside either reservation boundaries or urban centers.
It is at this point that the traditional Indian customs will come to predominate among the operations of Indian people nationally. Tribalism looks at life as an undifferentiated whole. Distinctions are not made between social and psychological, educational and historical, political and legal. The tribe is an all-purpose entity which is expected to serve all areas of life. The new corporations will not simply be development corporations. Rather they will be expected to cover all areas of life from small business to scholarships.
Where ordinary white corporations serve to produce income from capital invested, corporations will not do so in the new Indian scheme. Rather they will serve to coordinate community life. Earnings will be used to provide services ordinarily received from various governmental agencies. As economic independence becomes greater, independence in other areas of life will follow. Indians can thereby achieve a prosperity not seen since the landing of the white man.
Knowledgeable anthropologists will probably tear their hair out reading this chapter. According to the scholars, community Indians should have vanished long ago. The thought that Indians might retribalize, recolonize, and recustomize will short many a fuse in the universities. But the urge is present. The concepts are being discussed, in places the idea is being tested; and when the urban Indians have achieved a certain amount of political awareness and made their presence felt in national Indian affairs, it will happen.
“Indianness” has been defined by whites for many years. Always they have been outside observers looking into Indian society from a self-made pedestal of preconceived ideas coupled with an innate superior attitude toward those different from themselves. Many times anthropologists and sociologists have acted as if we couldn’t do anything if they didn’t first understand it and approve of it. Those days are also gone.
“Indianness” never existed except in the mind of the beholder. Tribal social forms have always existed but they have been buried during past years by the legal entanglements of the federal government. Consequently Indians have come to believe that their problems were soluble by conformity to white culture (if there is one). Now that Indian people have realized that their problems are legal and not cultural, legal solutions will be found through political action, and Indian people will not only be free to revitalize old customs, but also to experiment with new social forms.
Tampering with the present legal status of Indian tribes will only bring change faster and tinge it with potential violence. Disenfranchised people, bitter from their termination experience, will provide the core of a violent urban Indian constituency if the present policy is continued. If the federal policy, however, contains provisions for self-determination of Indian groups wherever they happen to be, options for non-federal people will provide such a strong pull to the urban areas that people will willingly leave the reservations to join the new movements. This will speed development of self-sufficient projects and hurry the process of colonization.
There is, in fact, little need for more funds. The great need is for reorientation of existing expenditures to support projects of non-federal people. With much of the money now being spent in the Indian field going mainly to keep a dribble of young Indians on relocation, there is incredible monetary waste. There is no urgency in the program which can be felt by the Indian people themselves.
The more support that can be given to retribalizing of the people, the better chances are to avoid violence. Paradoxically, a greater sense of urgency in retribalization will tend to curb possible violence. Nationalism must be the ally of future policies. New policies must not be directed at breaking tribal ties because they will break upon the rock of the tribe.
As Indians become more and more aware of what they are doing the pressure on leadership will become less and less. In turn, the group will be stronger and more democratic and produce better leadership. The potential for development is unlimited but actual progress can be hampered by a number of factors. One is what the black community will be doing during the same time. At present the key words are “law and order.” All political candidates have used these words in their campaign speeches. Everyone understands that “law and order” are synonymous with repression of the black community. If the black community is severely repressed, it will accelerate movement in the Indian community. The natural tendency of Indians to withdraw will force them back upon themselves and act as a catalyst in hastening the time for recolonization.
Like all redefinitions, many factors of varying importance may change present projection. Crucial to the change in Indian Affairs is the ability of tribal people to understand the implications of movement over a long period of time. Any movement which begins to exert a significant influence in America is subjected to publicity. Too much attention from the press can radically change conceptions and goals simply by making the process appear commonplace.
But hopefully, enough Indian people will take the time to reflect on their situation, on the things going on around them both in the cities and on the reservations, and will choose the proper points of leverage by which Indian renewal can be fully realized.