1942: Indians, American

The War is exerting a tremendous influence upon the Indians of the United States, and furnishing countless examples of their unexcelled loyalty. Volunteers in large numbers have swelled the proportion of Indians in the armed forces beyond that of any other racial group. The Army and Marine Corps have organized Indian groups for specialized services, while accepting Indians without prejudice in all ranks of the armed forces. Thousands of Indian men and women have found places in war industry. As a result, the reservations are stripped of personnel below the minimum needed to maintain normal production in livestock and agriculture. Despite this, the Indian areas have exceeded their quota in food production.

The Civilian Conservation Corps which was terminated June 30, and the schools of the Indian Service may be credited with the practical training with tools and machinery which fitted Indian young men for both industry and the armed services. The war coming as a culmination to these experiences, will probably contribute to more complete assimilation than any previous contact with white culture.

A small colony of Aleuts (about 160) on Attu at the far end of the Aleutian Islands were among the first residents of American territory to suffer capture by the Japanese. As a result of the bombing of the native village of Unalaska during the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor, the natives of these island outposts and the Eskimos from the Pribilofs were evacuated to Kilisnoo and Ward Cove in southeast Alaska where they are being assisted in reestablishing their self-sufficiency.

In August the Office of Indian Affairs was moved to Chicago, leaving a small liaison staff in Washington.

When decision was reached in early February to remove both alien and American-born Japanese from the Pacific Coast, the undeveloped lands of the Colorado River Indian Reservation in western Arizona were selected for the site of the first relocation center. The Indian Service had just completed the construction of Head Gate Rock Diversion Dam on the Colorado River preparatory to the subjugation of this area, but work had been stopped by war priorities. The Army decided to transfer about 20,000 evacuees to the area and supply them with the tools and machinery to install the main canal and laterals, and subjugate about 25,000 acres of the most fertile land. Three town sites were selected, rough army barracks erected, and Poston, Arizona's third largest community, came into being within four months. The administration and supervision of the project remains under the Indian Service.

Near Sacaton on the Gila River, Pima Reservation, another war relocation center, has also been erected, which will be under the direction of the War Relocation Authority. Under agreements between the Department of the Interior, the Indians and the war agencies, the Japanese are to be removed at the close of the war and the lands and improvements are to revert to their Indian owners.

In 1941 the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in the suit of the Walapai Indians of Arizona to regain title to lands on their reservation, which had been granted to the Santa Fe Railroad. The court held that the Indians retained these rights because of aboriginal occupancy. During 1942 an opinion of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior held that the principles enunciated in this decision would apply with equal force to fishing rights of the natives of southeast Alaska. Final decision in the matter is in abeyance for the duration, but indications are that the Walapai decision will prove an effective defense of native rights over a wide area.

During 1942 Mr. John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, served as Chairman of the Governing Board of the Inter-American Indian Institute, which was established by treaty in 1941. The Institute Office is in Mexico City, and the permanent Director, Sr. Manual Gamio. The Institute has undertaken the extension of the studies of Indian diet inaugurated in 1941 by the United States Indian Service to Latin American countries. The first diet study report, completed this year, covered the Papago Reservation in southern Arizona, and indicates that the subsistence farmers preserving the ancient culture traits are better nourished than the more modern wage-earning Indians. Recommendations for the preservation of older diet patterns and the introduction of new and suitable foods are being made effective through the Government schools on the reservation.

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.

1940: Indians, American

Indian Reorganization Act.

An outstanding grievance of the Indians of the United States is the failure of Congress to authorize a settlement of Indian claims growing out of alleged disregard of treaties in the disposition of Indian lands. However, the Court of Claims has recently made an award to two tribes and Congress appropriated $4,599,987.02 to the Shoshone of the Wind River reservation in Wyoming, and $5,598,635.43 to the Klamath of Oregon. Per capita distribution of these amounts was arranged under restrictions agreed to by the tribe, limiting the use of the funds to economic reconstruction in the form of land purchases, home building, and similar forms of permanent investment.

Two hundred fifty of the tribes or groups eligible to organize under the Indian Reorganization Act, and its Alaska and Oklahoma supplements, have voted to accept the Act, and 132 of these have received charters giving them corporate status and making them eligible for loans under the credit provisions of the Act and to receive other benefits. Numerous suggestions for changes in the Act were aired before Congress, but none was approved.

An item in the President's third reorganization plan transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior soil conservation activities on Indian reservations which will hereafter be administered by the Indian Service. In view of the serious nature of the soil depletion and overgrazing of Indian-owned land, this may be most significant.

Conference on Indian Life.

The First Inter-American Conference on Indian Life assembled in Patzcuaro, Mexico, on April 24, 1940, involving representatives of 19 American republics. Haiti, which has no Indians, was not invited, Paraguay was not able to be represented, Canada abstained from participation. Official delegates and representatives of the Indian population were both in attendance. The social, political, educational, and physical welfare of the 30,000,000 Indian inhabitants of the three Americas was for the first time considered. The Congress voted the establishment, subject to ratification by five governments, of a permanent agency for inter-American cooperation on behalf of Indians.

Health.

The incidence of trachoma among the Indian population is far greater than among the white population, ranging from four or five per cent in some areas, to as high as forty per cent in others. In 1938 the Medical Division of the Office of Indian Affairs announced that its research had finally established that trachoma is a virus disease. Since that time experimentation with sulfanilamide and neopontosil give evidence that these drugs may prove a specific for the arrestment or cure of trachoma.

Compendium of Laws.

A compendium of Federal laws and treaties relating to Indians, in 46 volumes, was completed by the Solicitor's Office of the Department of the Interior during the year.

Registration under Selective Service.

It is estimated that 99 per cent of eligibles among the Indian tribes of the United States registered under the Selective Service Act on Oct. 16, 1940. In view of the fact that large numbers of the more isolated members of some of the Southwest tribes do not speak English, and that a few tribes are technically still at war with the United States, the response was considered exceedingly gratifying. Indians generally were not subject to draft in 1917, but because of the Act of 1924 extending full citizenship to all Indians, they were included in 1940.

1939: Indians, American

Population Increase.

After a long period of steadily decreasing Indian population in the United States, the evidence appears conclusive that the trend has been reversed. The death rate for Indians of 16 per 1,000 in 1931 has been cut to 13 per 1,000 in 1939. In the same period the birth rate increased from 21.5 to 22.7. Between 1931 and 1939 the census total of persons listed as Indians has increased from 314,543 to 351,878. While through continued intermarriage between mixed blood Indians and whites, the mixed blood group is becoming more numerous, there is also a tendency for full bloods and those of greater degrees of Indian blood to marry within the Indian group, thus promising a small but permanent minority of Indians in the United States. In the last few years the alienation of Indian lands which had been going on at the rate of 2,000,000 acres per year for almost 60 years also has been stopped, and since 1934 new lands have been acquired for Indians by outright Federal purchase by the Indian Service or by the Resettlement Administration for the Indian Service, by the return of unused 'surplus' lands at one time ceded by tribes to the United States, and by land purchases with Indian tribal funds, to the extent of 2,907,143 acres.

Economic Rehabilitation.

Under the Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934, the government has committed itself to a continuing policy of land reacquisition. This Act also authorizes Federal loans to incorporated Indian tribes, and in the last three years loans amounting to $4,068,411 have been authorized to 53 of these groups. During the same period Indian tribes have loaned $785,615 of their own funds to individual Indians for purposes of economic rehabilitation. Unorganized tribes have also had access to $522,946 of Federal credit. While these figures indicate improvement in the economic conditions of Indians, they constitute only a small beginning.

Statistics collected between 1934 and 1936 showed that many Indian groups had an earned annual income averaging less than $50 per family. The major objective of the Federal Government in its land purchase program, its credit program, and its various forms of rehabilitation is to help the Indians in their adjustment to the white world and to assist them in making their own living. Except that land and other property held in trust by the United States for Indian use is tax exempt, Indians pay Federal income, gift, and inheritance taxes, and most state taxes include sales tax. There has therefore been a growing tendency to grant Indians their proportionate share in relief payments, social security benefits, farm security aid, and similar types of assistance on a par with their white neighbors.

Health.

Increased medical attention and hospital service are probably largely responsible for lowering the Indian death rate. The Medical Division has devoted years to intensive research on the problem of trachoma which seriously afflicts many Indian groups and during the last year has announced the discovery of a filterable virus as cause of the disease, and rather remarkable success in the use of sulfanilamide as a specific for its relief and cure in many instances. There is evidence that the Indian population is gradually developing an immunity to tuberculosis somewhat similar to that of the whites.

Education.

There is a continuing increase in proportion of Indian children attending school, and substantial increase in Indians attending high school. There are between 70,000 and 80,000 Indian children of school age. Approximately 25,525 are being educated in 261 schools operated by the Federal Government in the continental United States. Another 28,796 are attending public schools which receive tuition from the Federal Government to compensate for loss of revenue from non-taxable Indian lands. Seven thousand are in private and mission schools. About 6,000 are estimated to be non-attendants at any school, and the remainder are presumed to be attending at local public schools. The Federal Government also maintains 118 schools for the natives of Alaska which are attended by 5,000 students. It is estimated that another 2,000 natives are attending schools operated by the territorial government.

Irrigation Developments.

As part of the program of economic rehabilitation the Indian Irrigation Service has been engaged in the development of water resources in a number of areas where Indians possess irrigable lands, and work is in progress which will add several hundred acres of land to those now under irrigation. Several Indian reservations contain valuable areas of virgin forest which are being developed on a sustained yield basis. The receipts from these operations and from grazing leases in the forest areas constitute a valuable contribution to total Indian income.

Language.

After many years of attempting to discourage the use of native languages, the government also has reversed its position and is now encouraging the use of the written form of the native languages in areas occupied by large numbers of Indians. Primers in English and Navajo are being published for this group of 45,000 Indians. Readers are also being prepared for the 35,000 Sioux. This reversal of emphasis has carried with it an aroused interest upon the part of Indians in the acquisition of English and the program of English instruction is advancing more rapidly than heretofore.

1938: Indians, American

Reorganization Projects.

The Indian Reorganization Act passed by Congress on June 18, 1934, the supplemental Oklahoma Welfare Act of June 26, 1936, and the Alaska Act of May 1, 1936, which together extend to all parts of the Indian country new opportunities for self-government and economic rehabilitation, mark a fundamental change in the relationship between the Federal Government and its Indian wards.

To avoid the coercive aspect of many previous Indian policies, the application of these several acts is made optional with each tribe. The groups affected by the original act were required to accept or reject its application by a secret-ballot vote held before June 18, 1936. The Oklahoma and Alaska Acts carry no time limit, but may be applied only on vote of the affected groups. Of the 300 Indian groups, exclusive of Alaska, eligible to organize under the Act, 222 have accepted and 77 rejected its provisions. The specific changes in Indian relationships made possible by these Acts are, (1) renewed opportunities for self-government through the adoption of tribal constitutions which give the tribe a corporate status similar to that of an incorporated village or county, (2) the privilege of law and order enforcement in terms of regulations adapted to tribal customs as well as white regulations, (3) the right to adopt charters under which money may be borrowed from the Government and used by the tribe for business activities or reloaned to individual Indians, (4) opportunity for competent Indian high school graduates to obtain loans from the Government for advanced vocational or collegiate education.

Indian Lands.

These new laws reversed the fifty-year-old allotment policy by which tribal holdings on the Indian reservation were broken up and placed in individual ownership. This earlier policy resulted in the loss of more than 80,000,000 acres of the best Indian lands through allowing whites to homestead surplus tribal land and permitting Indians who had been adjudged 'competent' to dispose of their holdings. No Indian land may now be sold except with the express permission of the Secretary of the Interior in cases of emergency, largely limited to the untangling of land held in heirship status. Since 1934, 212,200 acres of new land have been bought which will be held in trust for the Indians by the Federal Government and assigned to individuals on a use basis.

Education.

Important changes have been made in the program of Indian education. There has been a great increase in the number of Indian children attending public schools in the states wherein they reside. There has been also a great increase in the number of Indian children in Federal day schools operated near their homes, which are also concerned with a program of community development for adults as well as children. This has been paralleled by a reduction in the number of boarding schools and the number of children enrolled in boarding schools.

The academic emphasis of the Indian school of the last two decades has given way to greater emphasis upon vocational needs leading to economic rehabilitation, and every effort is being made to assist Indian children to become economically self-sufficient through the full use of their resources.

The Federal Indian Service operates a total of 247 schools ranging from one-room day schools to boarding schools enrolling approximately 700 children in the continental United States. In addition, it operates 103 schools in Alaska, two of which are secondary vocational boarding schools with an enrollment of 175 each.

Agriculture.

The Indian Service in cooperation with the Soil Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture is devoting attention to the restoration of Indian grass lands, the correction of overgrazing, the installation of better practices of range management and of erosion control. The Indian CCC has done much work in water development, erosion control, and trail building for the protection and development of Indian land throughout the drought and dust bowl areas of the Dakotas and the Southwest.