1941: Indians, American

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City on Jan. 22, 1941, devoted its entire building to the first complete display of North American Indian arts. The display ranged from the earliest known examples of Indian painting and sculpture to modern Indian handicrafts. On June 29, the Education Division of the Office of Indian Affairs opened the Museum of the Plains Indian at Browning, Mont. The museum displays a pageant of plains Indian historic culture, and in an associated crafts center the handicrafts of modern plains Indians are offered for sale.

In October the republic of Ecuador voted its adherence to the convention establishing an Inter-American Indian Institute, submitted to the American republics by the First Inter-American Conference on Indian Affairs, held at Patzcuaro, Mexico, in April 1940. Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and the United States having previously ratified, Ecuador constituted the fifth nation necessary to bring the Institute into active being. A quarterly, America Indigena, and a bimonthly Boletin Indigenista will be the publicity organs of the Institute.

On Nov. 1, the National Indian Institute of the United States was established in the Department of the Interior on an Executive Order signed by the President. The National Indian Institute will collaborate with the Inter-American Indian Institute and will also initiate and promote Federal, state, and private agency collaboration in the fields of Indian administration and in the study of Indians. The director of the new institute is Mr. John Collier.

The Appellate Court of New York State on Nov. 24, rejected the plea of the Six Nations in New York to have their young men exempted from the draft law. These Indians did not object to serving in the armed forces of the United States to which they have always generously volunteered but argued that they were independent nations and not citizens of the United States, therefore not subject to the draft. The court held that Congress had conferred citizenship upon them with all of its privileges and responsibilities. The Yakima in Washington state made a similar appeal with the same results.

On Dec. 8, the United States Supreme Court rendered a significant decision dealing with Indian land titles in former Spanish territory. The Walapai Indians of northern Arizona had sued to eject the Santa Fe Railroad from lands formerly occupied by the tribe within and without its present reservation, which are claimed by the railroad under a federal land grant. The court decided:

1. Indian land claims based upon aboriginal occupancy are protected in lands formerly under Spanish sovereignty as in other areas.

2. Formal recognition of their existence by the Federal Government is not necessary to the establishment of the rights of aboriginal occupancy.

3. Indians' possessory rights in lands which have been occupied from time immemorial by the tribe are not terminated by their forcible removal from these lands.

The decision further stated that in accepting its present reservation the tribe voluntarily relinquished its aboriginal tribal rights outside of the reserved area, but held that the Walapai tribe was entitled to an accounting by the railroad for reservation land to which the claim of aboriginal occupancy applies.

During the year steps have been jointly undertaken by the Federal Government and the state of South Carolina to provide economic rehabilitation for a group of approximately 300 Catawba Indians. The state is buying land, the Farm Security Administration furnishing guidance and agricultural loans, the Indian Office advising with regard to health and education. The Catawbas will not become Federal or state wards but will continue as voting citizens of the state. While the land title will be vested in the tribe, it will not be tax exempt. If successful, this plan may be followed in dealing with numerous other bands of non-ward Indians scattered in other states who are in need of help. See also MEXICO.