>> finally in his latest book united states naval academy history professor brian vandermark recounts the 1970 vietnam war protests and penn state shooting. look for me these titles in the near future on booktv. you could also what all our past author events online at booktv.org. >> you have been watching booktv, , television for serious readers. every sunday on c-span2 hear from nonfiction authors discussing their books and watch your favorite authors online anytime at booktv.org.

you can also find us on facebook, youtube and x at booktv. >> we are honored to have you join us here for this important commemoration. we gather today in the kennedy caucus room of the russell senate office building, but we recognize that were in the region which was the ancestral lands of an active chain, that this gothic cat away, manna hocked peoples. this is washington, d.c. everybody claims it. but we gather acknowledging that this is ancestral land of the native peoples, and we gather to tell stories that are all too often ignored, misunderstood, or turned into myths that people

believe that are far from reality. my name is jane campbell that i have the honor of serving as the president and ceo of the united states capital historical society. to set the day in a good mode, we are going to for a moment of reflection from larry wright, jr. mr. wright is an enrolled member of the tribe of nebraska, served as tribal chairman for 11 years and is currently the executive director of the national congress of american indians, which describes itself as the oldest, largest and most representative american indian and alaskan native organization serving the broad interest of tribal governments and communities. in this position mr. wright is responsible for managing the organizations d day-to-day succs

and its publication arm. he's a military veteran and a former social studies teacher from lincoln, nebraska. mr. wright. [applause] >> she should it's a recovering social studies teacher. still working on that. but it's honored to be her this morning, honor to be asked to give the invocation. i'll say this fori' my language and i'll translate, and so with all due respect just i ask you to pray in your own way while i do this, so thank you. [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> great spirit, we thank you for thees day, we thanked with e blessings that you the store upon us. we thank all those that made this day possible. bring us together to learn about our past and talk about our future. we thank you for the strength and guidance that you give us. i say a special prayer for all my people, my punk of people,, all our travel nations,th all those that come together and work on our half to help our

sovereignty and help our people. and pray for strength and guidance and thank you for all these blessings. thank you. >> thank you very much, larry. we look forward to hearing more from yous this afternoon on the panel. now, some of you were with us last night and some of you were not, , so this story will sound familiar, but i want to tell you something just to put all in perspectives. and richards was governor ofte texas, and she was speaking to a group of us when we were young elected officials at you said you know what? people come here to say something 12 times for people here. soe if you're hearing it, the story for the second time, you know, you only part y way there. five years ago i was the newly

appointed ceo of the capital historical society. so one of the things you do when you know is you go around and you talk to the leaders. one of those leaders was congressman tom cole who was whatever congressional advisors. at the time he was the ranking member of thett rules committee, and so we sat with me and he questioned me about my plans and what were we going to do at the historical society. it was 2019. i told him that we are planning a symposium in 2022 recognize the fact that women have earned the right to vote, and we wanted look at the struggle for the right to vote and, in fact, of women having the right to vote. and he looked to me and he said, look, i'm good with women voting. i think that's a fine thing. my mother was in the oklahoma legislature. i'm all about it.

but i want you to promise me that in 2024 you will do something equally significant to commemorate the 100th anniversary of my people earning the right to post. and that was the beginning of this symposium. and so today's event is part of the delivery on that promise. he then gave meoo a handful of books to read. he's at phd historian who was a professor, turn congressman. here, take you some read them, including at that time killers of the flower moon which nobody had heard of. so i have learned a lot. today we come together to commemorate the indian citizenship act, or the schneider act, which many of us had an opportunity to see at the national archives, and they are

displaying it for this period of time so that if you haven't been there and you have an opportunity to go see s at, it's in the rubenstein gallery of rights. now, in 1924 when the schneider act was passed, it granted citizenship to native americans born within the territorial limits of the united states and extended the 15th amendment whichnt granted citizens the rit to vote. and thereby created indigenous suffrage. it would be a vast oversimplification to say that the snyder act guaranteed american indians access to the polls across the country. it has taken the civil rights movement and years of continuing

activity to try to secure those rights, and the work is not done. it would also be an oversimplification to say that the snyder act resolved the inherent difficult and important tensions between the concept of citizenship and sovereignty, and these debates continue to this day and will be represented in the conversations.. these five years have been a real education for me and for our team, and we have benefited greatly from our advisory committee who we want to acknowledge the honorable dan boren, kiki carol, sophia, andre jacobs, maria marable bunch, heidi, and hillary thompkins. ever grateful for all a of them for helping us put this together. we are also grateful for our partners who have invested in

this program, are presenting partner wells fargo, car platinum partner the chickasaw nation, our bronze partner mcguire woods, the american historical association, each of which is make contributions to this effort. we are, at some point today i'm going to introduce you to a very special young woman who did the art that is on the program. so look at the art and know that we're going to meet, we're going to meet cedar hunt who is a high school student from montana who entered her art into the congressional art competition and one inta montana's first district. she's even bringing her mother. so we well see her at some point

and acknowledge her. also want to thank senator markwayne mullin and the senate rules committee for making this room available to us. so now i would like to art to the podium our first panel a native americanze citizenship suffrage and sovereignty in history. joining us today are to make distinguished scholars, doctor lila knolle and dr. david silverstein. doctor knoll is a lecturer in harvard universities history and literature program. she holds degrees from vassar college, from columbia university and the university of new hampshire. in 2021 lila was a first fellow with the american society for legal history and the university of wisconsin law school as well as recipient of charlotte

fellowship with the institute for citizens and scholars. her current project is entitled data citizens, the fight over native american citizenship in the u.s. 1887-1924. david silverman is a professor of history at george washington university where he has taught since 2003. he's authored several books on native americans, colonial americans and american racial history, including this land is their land, the wampanoag indians, plymouth -- published in 2019 and thunder sticks, firearms and the violent transformation of native america which appeared under the harvard university press16 in 2016. he is currently writing a new book about indigenous people and

race making and the united states history. would you please welcome these distinguished scholars to the stage. [applause] >> we will hear their presentations and then we'll have an opportunity for questions. so what --ht know, i'm going to sit right there so i'll be able to see you. >> accident. well, thank you so muchh for having me here today. i really consider an honor to be here amongst these scholars and activists. i've already learned a lot and i'm looking forward to the conversations that happen over the course of the day. so as jane said i am primarily a legal historian and my specialty is the passage of the 1924

alson citizenship act, known as the snyder act. and when i started doing research into this legislation, the predominant understanding at least among legal historians was fy '19 24 native american citizenship in the u.s. was relatively uncontroversial, and that congress passed the legislation as a type of belated patriotic response to native american service during world war i. that citizenship was a belated gift to native american people. and indeed if you look at the congressional record of the debate serenity 1924 act, you will likely be convinced of its interpretation. there was hardly any debate over the 1924 act. and the legislation was supported by the department of the interior, the bureau of indian affairs, and some of the most well-known native americans

at the time, including charles eastman, arthur parker, carlos montezuma. it seemed as if there was this consensus at the time had come for native american citizenship. but when we look be on the immediate passage of the 1924 legislation, it's clear just how controversial native american citizenship was in the united states in the decade preceding the snyder act. so, for example, in the winter 1923 many congressional representatives and native american activists came to d.c. to form a committee of 100 to reflect on the state of native american policy and to make recommendations to congress and the secretary of the interior. in their final report they noted that the american populace was largely in support of native american citizenship, but they

also noted, quote, the cold fact that every time a bill conferring citizenship has been introduced in congress, indians themselves have led an opposing them, end quote. the evidence they said was in congressional archives. and, of course, historians and activists within native communities have always known the duality of american citizenship, that on one hand citizenship is a powerful tool that comes with the essential rights, that can help bolster sovereignty, but that also can be coercive and threatening to sovereignty. so in my allotted time today i thought i would talk a little bit about the controversy surrounding native american citizenship in the lead up to 1924 as a way to understand why some native americans and some non-natives.eduns citizenship ws

the bestor path forward for nate american nations, and what others opposed it. and then i will also sort of gesture towards how those debates continue to shape suffrage debate over the course of the 20th century. so as i alluded to that are plenty of people who supportedal the legal and social integration of native americans into the american body politic. the primary indigenous activists were members of the society of american indians which was a pan indian reform organization founded in 1911 and it were to close with non-native reform groups, congress and the bureau to address corruption, policy changes, and the general well-being of native american nations and individuals. they spent a lot of time in these halls. for many of the leaders of the society such as president

charles eastman, citizenship and the u.s. was the best way to protect and ensure the future of native americans. forns citizenship would open up greater access to the courts, would allow many native americans to serve on juries, and would make suffrage a greater possibility. they traveled around the nation galvanizing non-native americans to write to the congressional leaders, , urging them to suppot native american citizenship. as society members, , chickasaw citizens, and u.s. congressman from oklahoma, charlesca carter wrote citizenship would be a, quote, simple act of justice to render to the indians that which is long been due to him, end quote. their efforts were incredibly successful. i really think that they are both the linchpin in turning on native american sentiment pro native american citizenship in this period, and their efforts

ledia to the passage of the 1919 indian veterans act which allowed native veterans to apply for u.s. citizenship. the other group eager to make native americans justices were the -- before the act of the primary way for native americans to become citizens was through the general allotment act of 1887. this piece of legislation was determined to break up tribal reservations, tribal communities, and communally held a lance if this was conceived of as a definite and purposeful blow to tribal sovereignty and tribal nations. i believe dr. silverman will talk more about the dov zakheim, yes? okay there but i just want to give you a brief overview so you can understand the importance. the act wouldld allow each traveled member or had a family

specific parcel of land and importantly that allotment would be held in trust by the u.s. government for 25 years. during which time the lands would be immune from local and state taxation. the act also made citizens of the united states. it's hard to overstate the effect of this legislation. conceived of as a progressive piece off legislation, that led to millions of land lost, and it stripped native americans of their culture and land practices. in 1906, congress altered the terms of the act to the burke act. we'll going to get into some legal weeds here but urge you to stay with me. while the act made native americans of law citizens upon receiving the allotment, the

1906 act delayed that until the trust treatment of individual land allotment was terminated committing that now citizenship, taxation and and of the trust relationship, the personal trust relationship all coincided at one moment. you could only become a citizen once you received the patency for your allotment and you -- to taxation.n congress also declared that the 25 year trust period to the terminated early so long as the secretary of the interior approved. so this meant the secretary could declare native american individual ready for citizenship which would terminate the trust provision on an allotted land early, which would then make them liable to state and local taxation. this could be done without an individual's consent or

application for citizenship and it could be done against the explicit wishes. for congressmen who lived in states with large native american populations, particularly those that had been allotted, they now have the potential to open up a new incredibly large tax base. and these congressmen were constantly hearing from constituents and their state government counterparts about how difficult it was for non-native citizens to find a local governments opened by the quote unquote services. congress being pushed by the constituents to release indians land to taxation and the burke act seemingly gave the secretary of the interior permission to do just that. so in other words, for many native americans, citizenship came to look like just another

way to take native american lands out of indigenous possession. by 1917 it was bureau policy to release native americans as quick as possible from the trust to make them citizens, to give them their patency, to make them vulnerable to taxation. and citizenship was thus a way to appease citizens who are ideologically committed to native americann citizenship, wo saw native americans as being essential toti american identity and to those were driven by more material concerns. against this backdrop it's probably very easy to see the opposition to citizenship. add a want to emphasize in this next part about how native american activism really changed citizenship policy in the united states. first this will come as no surprise, there was sustained

objection to impose citizenship because of the tax obligations that came along with it. and i want to be clear, this wasn't just shirking of small tax bills. these were large tax bills and his tax bills and forced patenting as a process came to benefit was incredibly destructive. many native americans could not afford the taxes and would lose their land or other property as a result. communities had counted on the 25 year trust period as a way to bolster resources and establish revenue. on some reservations up to 90% of land that was forced patented would be lost. resistance to forced patenting to the release of the trust and imposition citizenship was swift. the force of patents would ad by u.s. certified mail, which often lead to extended standoffs between native american

individuals and postal workers, and then also we have numerous court cases come out of indian country to fight forced patenting, which are ultimately successful. and by 1922 the courts have decided that forced patenting is an illegal process. every citizenship bill introduced between 1887-1922 had allotment provisions included in it. citizenship in this period was intimately tiedll with allotment and assimilation, but native americans whether they were for or against citizenship maintained indigenous peoples right to the culture and history.i and allotment threatened many tribal nations ability to practice fully their cultures and to memorialize their histories. and, of course, allotment would lead to taxation.

one of the loudest and effective advocates against allotment in the name of cultural sovereignty was pablo of fate of the public of what he met with congressional representative weekly to reject citizenship because of the repeated reliance on allotments and the assimilation it represented. the pueblo work with many famous artists including d. h. lawrence to publicize her protests and this led to congress abandoning at least to make citizenship bills. it created a pr nightmare for congress.io and the last rejection of citizenship i want to cover in this time came from the earthquake and are probably the most well-known for the rejection of your citizenship. the rejected it based on political sovereignty and international law. their tribal councils wrote many letters to congress personally or through lawyers reminding

congress that imposing citizenship upon them would be a violation of their tribal sovereignty, violation of treaties, and assault on international law. as one layer reminded congress, quote, they are independent nations, and they still have complete control over their internal affairs, end quote. the legacy of world war i hung heavy in these protests. one of lawyer for the phone initially wrote call, we proclaim but yesterday the right of the week peoples to self-determination. we denounced but yesterday other peoples who broke their written entreaties solomon made and waged war on them for the deeds. where we hypocrites and search only for world praise? end quote. they threat and to tie these issues up in court. lawsuits filed or threatened, public protests, the uproar made

by these type of bills make passing indian citizenship nearly impossible as the committee of 100 recognized in 1923. when the 1924 act passed, it passed not because it was uncontroversial but because it was done so swiftly and quietly, and it was a much different piece of legislation than what congress had previously envisioned. there are four main changes i want to highlight. one, the citizenship act did not remove tax protections early. two, it did not have any sort of continued allotment provision in it. three, it did not affect tribal citizenship status or claims to tribal property, and, four, it contained contained no cultural assimilation provisions. although i do want to recognize

that obviously assimilationist pressures would continue and continue today. of course citizenship was still imposed, was still nonconsensual, but it would be up to the next generation of indigenous americans to leverage that citizenship to not only preserve indian sovereignty but to strengthen it and a fight for greater suffrage rights in the nation that declared them citizens. in in a particularly cruel bitf irony, theri very victories of 1924, the exclusion of early taxation provisions and the continued ability to claim tribal status would become someh of the major ways that states would try to limit native american sovereignty. and so this this is a fighl continue from 1924 and that we are living with today. thank you. [applause]

>> good morning, everybody. i'm honored to be on this broken today was such luminaries and i'm also humbled this morning, where i'm addressing a history that some of the people in this room have lived and his ancestors have lived. i'd like to begin this morning by offering aet theoretical and historical framework for approaching the subject of the indians. my theoretical framework which i offer for those here and online who are unfamiliar with indian country is that native americans are not just another american racial or ethnic group, like african-americans, asian americans, jewish americans or irish irish-americans. for two central reasons.

one is that they are indigenous which is to say they were here first. as such, they did not come into the united states voluntarily. the vast majority of them never asked to join it as full members. white people imposed thehe couny on them. the history of native peoples relations with the united states has involved a constant struggle to defend the inherent sovereignty that comes with being indigenous. and byse that i mean the right o self-governance, recognize territorial boundaries, and the power to engage with other foreign states. put another way, the focus of native peoples aspirations, unlike say african-americans, has not been equal rights with white people. though most of them today certainly expect that status here but the exercise of the

greatest sovereignty possible. the second central reason that native people differ froman othr american racial and ethnic groups is that they are organized into qualities, tribal nations that covered their members and their territory. thoughat the united states does not permit them to engage in foreign relations like other powers. these tribal nations exist not only by virtue of their members inherit indigenous rights but by virtue of recognition by the united states through senate ratified treaties which under the constitution by the supreme law of the land and by supreme court rulings. the us tribal nations innt government to government relations with the federal government, which makes native people different than any other groups in america. against that background i'd like to devote the rest of my time

here to discussing the historical background to the innocence is citizenship act, by contending that in the century plus receiving the indian citizenship act come native people experience the granting of your citizenship as a tool by which white people dispossessed and subjugated them, not as a gift promising equality and opportunity. from the countries of very founding, u.s. authorities voice the desire to christianize, civilized, and absorb native people internation in the hope that this offer would encourage indians to surrender their land and authority voluntarily. american leaders also hope this program would lead to posterity just to save us, to see some moral purpose in the countries expansion and gated expense. precious few native people took up the offer, not only because

they found it unattractive on its face but because they had witnessed white americans exploitation and even extirpation of christians civilized indiansri who tried, a pattern that stretch back intory the 17th century it and i'd be happy to elaborate on that powder in our discussion. in other words, from the start native people saw the fundamental problem in the utopian dreams of white reformers for indian assimilation and citizenship. the main obstacle was not indian opposition, formidable as it was, but the unwillingness of most white americans to treat those they deemed as racial inferiors with dignity, nevermind equality, no matter howcu culturally similar they were. this pattern played out repeatedly throughout the 19th century. the most glaring early examples

came during the indian removal period. our histories of that dark chapter ten to overlook the most removal treaties which were designed to make the process lookok voluntarily, voluntary, contained provisions to allow native people to remain back east if they took up private property, accepted state law, and became citizens. though a handful of moneyed elite indians generally off whe ancestry made good on this offer, the vast majority who took up the offer suffered plunder and murder at the hands of white mobs. this was the case, for example, for thousands of creeks or muscogee is whom southern whites robbed of 2 million a lot of acres and then drove west of mississippi and change, and what can only be called an orgy of

violence. 5000 choctaws representing a quarter of their tribe also suffered whites placed -- state governments helped orchestrate this pillage by the federal government stood by and did nothing the only place where into and successfully became success was wisconsin. there, several hundred indians and stockbridge mohicans the citizenship and private property option which they called becoming white, rather than relocate to kansas. having already migrated from southern new england to escape white persecution. some of them were confident that their status as civilized christians equip them to compete in white society, despite the obstacles of white race

prejudice. most of them spoke and wrote english. they governed their own churches. they ran sawmills, grist mills, farms and logging operations. quite a number of them had a command of white law. three of the brother ten indians would go on to serve in the wisconsin legislature, yet many of them came to regret the transition to citizenship as white creditors, the tax man, and hucksters zeroed in on their allotments. three years into the experiment most of theth stockbridge mohics petitioned to return their citizenship and revert back to the legal status as indians. they had all their lives been called indians, the stockbridge is appeal to congress. it is their desire to continue. adding, that their natures and other dispositions can no more

be changed then their skins be made white and transparent. the stockbridge is did return their citizenship and managed to secure another reservation, which they retain to this day. the brother towns who remain citizens lost everything. in the state with the seal containing the latin saying civilization replaces barbarism, and depicting an indian hunter retreating westward in the face of your white man guiding a plow. the pattern continued threat the 19th century in the midwest and the northern portion of federal indian territory, kansas. repeatedly, native people facing dispossession try to parlay the acceptance of private property and citizenship into the right to remain where they were.nc hence, for example, citizen pottawatomie is of oklahoma.

by and large not entirely but by and large the native people who made these attempts were of mixed indian white background which help would provide them with somero measure of acceptane by the white majority. their attempts are written across maps of this error in places called halfbreed tracks. they're all over the midwest. one enrolled t member of, charls curtis, would parlay the profits from his halfbreed allotment intoat a fortune that would contribute to them it becoa federal senator from kansas and ultimately vice president under herbert hoover. almost no one has heard of this guy even among historians. that begs some conversation. most data people though found that citizenship was an empty promise. there were very few charles curtis is out there. the united states intended reservations to be way stations

on the road to assimilation private property and citizenship, not permanent homelands. but these places didn't function the way the u.s. intended. in actuality, thehe federal government failed miserably in making these places reasonably decent places to live. it did not provide sufficient food to sustain people who could to do longer support themselves through traditionall means, nor did it provide adequate farming and livestock to promote the transition tofa farming. it did not provide anywhere near sufficient medical care for people ravaged by diseases that preyed on their malnutrition, frayed psychologies, and poor sanitation. its agents routinely built the people they were supposed to protect. and perhaps worst of all, and this is closely related to the issues of citizenship, the

government did next to nothing asng surrounding whites plunderd the reservations of livestock, fencing and firewood, trespassed on grazing lands, and trafficked in liquor.uo in other words, native people could see plainly that the law bound but did not protect indians while the protected but did not bind whites. the government's plan to assimilate indians toward incorporating them as citizens included forcing native children to attend boarding schools, some on the reservations, others very far away. in these places white authorities subject of the children to a, daily regimen of military drills, roll calls, work details and corporal punishment with little time for rest and leisure. none of this resembled mainstream white american life. this was not reparation for

participation in white america. the education was rudimentary and outrightly white supremacist, including the relentless message that the students backgrounds were savage and inferior. health conditions were abysmal, marked by sickness and death communicable diseases at rates the government nevered would've tolerated white people. following school most native alums from no more acceptance in white society than if they had never attended school in the first place, and little opportunity to apply the skills they had learned on the reservation. it was during the reservation and boarding school regimes that congress passed the dawes act of 1887 and the curtis act of 1898 named after the aforementioned charles curtis himself come to speed along the indian transition to private property and citizenship. the dawes act authorize the

division of indian reservations into tracks usually of 160 acres or less, andnd allotment of thoe partials, parcels among native individuals. as we've already heard that would be a 25 year restriction on then selling the track. the tracks to provide time for him or her to learn how to manage l the land as a source of capital. once that interim period i elapsed, each indian would receive a key patent lifting all restrictions on alienation, mortgages and leases. from then on, again, just repeat the point and you have to say these things 12 times, the title holder would be responsible to pay property taxes and run the risk of having the track confiscated for debt. furthermore, he or she would become an american citizen. if the government judge of the

allottee to become civilized before the end of the 25 year wait, he or she could be granted unrestricted ownership and citizenship early. as for the remaining undivided lands of therc reservation, the government would purchase this surplus fromtr the tried and kep most of the proceeds as an interest-bearing account to fund its civilization programs, including the boarding schools. i find it a strange species of cruelty to force people to fund what amounted to the kidnapping and cultural reprogramming of their own children. as if to twist the knife further, the government's plan was to sell the indian surplus territory to white homesteaders. the idea here was that by the time indians became private property holding citizens they would be enveloped by white society and ready to join it. allotment legislation had been

in the works for years as white reformers concluded that the reservations were failing to turn indians into civilized human, and his white economic enters zero in on the natives remaining profitable resources. as early as 1876 the commissioner of indian affairs was already questioning, and i quote, whether any high degree of civilization is possible without individual ownership of land. a notion that was reflective of the teachings of that aris anthropology. over the next several years white progressives who style themselves as friends of the indians gathering at an annual conference in the upper hudson river valley turned t this principle into a mantra. in one of the conference series more memorable speeches, merrill e gates, the president of

amherst college declared, we, by which he meant white reformers, must make the indian war intelligently selfish before we can make him unselfishly intelligent. we need to awaken in him wants, discontent with the tp and the starving rations of the 18 can and winter is data to get the indian out of the blanket andh into trousers. and trousers with pocket in them and in the pocket that aches to be filled with the dollars. massachusetts senator henry dawes whose surname became synonymous with allotment since little ache of this when he visited the cherokees in 1885. one cherokee officer boasted to him and i quote, at the was not a family in the whole cherokee nation that had not a home of

its own. it was not -- and the nation did not owe a dollar. it built its own capital and built itsch own schools and hospitals. in other words, leave us alone. but dawes was unimpressed by the shared security afforded by the cherokees communal principles. they have goneco as far as they could go, he judged, because they owned the land in common. consistent with the ideology of party, dawesn wanted to see individuals striving for wealth to create a rising economic seat lifted all boats. practically every commissioner of indian affairs, from the late 19th through the early 20th 20th centuries, agreed wholeheartedly withny them, as did the vast majority of the many organizations created by the friends of the indians. most native spokesman and more than a few whites concluding in

congress insisted that this legislation could be nothing more than m a massive plundering of indian land, and they were correct. it did not take 25 years after allotment for the pillage to begin, because during the interim period the government repeatedly granted citizenship and the right to sell the land to indians it deemed competent. which is usually meant nothing more than those of mixed white indian backgrounds. there had been more than 155 million acres of indian land in 1881. by 1934 that number was 48 million. so 155 million acres, to 48. two-thirds of native people were left eye to completely landless or sold land or that they could that earn a subsistence. they became minorities on their own reservations. nowhere more so than in federal

indian territory promised to the removed tribes forever, whereby 1997 when oklahoma became a state the number of whites stood almost 550,000 compared to 80,000 african-americans, and just 61,000 native people. superintendent of indian affairs charles burke surveying the wreckage in 1923 lamented, a race of landlords has been transformed into a race of tenants. what i'm saying here is that the allotment act and -- the allotment acts and their supporting legislation had not turned indians into white citizens.e instead, these measures became yet another example of how power in white america involve exploiting native people with impunity while claiming to act in their benefit. reducing them to destitution and then blaming them for the results. virtually no white people during

this entire era conceived of a system like we have now, and which tribal nations have secure land bases, exercise self-government, and practice of religious and cultural lives however they choose. now, that vision almost certainly existedy in the minds of some native people before 1924, but not as a realistic political possibility because whites simply would not consider it. the rangeio of options were ver, very narrow. about american history as far back as the colonial era most white americans have responded to native american difference, quite frankly, with campaigns to exterminate them. the only dissenting voices from white america came from progressives of the day who conceived that indians who became a christian and civilized could become citizens with all the same rights and responsibilities as white people. and here's the rub.

these reformers would not confront that most of their fellow white americans would not grant native people the option, nor would they consider the united states tolerating native people living in their own way on their own land protected from white exploitation. they considered such a course to be just a slower path to extinction and outright extermination. the desperation of native people in the face of these limited options, i contend, largely explains why some of them like the acculturated formally educated and professionally accomplished native people who founded the society of american indians in 1911 advocated for the indian citizenship act. it helps to explain why some native veterans of worldwo war i did so, too. their options were meager.

the only alternative they could conceive to the destitution of reservation life was full incorporation into the united states. i'll close to us by noting, today things are different. the results, the result of generations of native american activism, lawyering, lobbying, and sure resilience it's also result of at least enough white people being willing to listen. but i fear for the future. the current eras combination of indian s sovereignty and citizenship exists at the sufferance of an american majority and the will of congress. i contend that the current status quo is not based on informed principled public commitment to indian self-determination. but instead on a passive acceptance of a state of affairs handed to us by lawmakers and

activism in the 1970s. most americans know nothing about the history i have discussed you this morning. most americansin know nothing about the current state of indian country and its place with an american federalism. even if americans did possess this knowledge, i fear that a sizable portion of them would revert to the position of reformers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, that native american difference is unacceptable and even dangerous, or that native american sovereignty is somehow a special hound out rather than an inherit indigenous right -- hand out . my is grounded in an awareness of this country's history and ourcurrent state of society. thanks. [applause] >> thanks.

well, you certainly give us much to think about. this is our moment to have questions from the audience have questions, please. i think with someone with a mic. cards come with cards, okay. kate, this is katie ryan and sam holliday who are the two key staff members who have been putting this together, so raise your hand and they will bring you a card to write your question on. and while we do that we have been joined by the artist that it told you about. cedar, would you stand up? this is cedar hot who is the artist -- [applause] comes to us from montana and even brought her mother. so we welcome, we welcome cedar

and her mom. [applause] and if you get an opportunity to talk to t her, that peace has gt a whole sense of history. it's a ledger art and it is imposed on the kind of ledgers that were required for so many native people that somehow white folks felt like the native people couldn't handle their own finances, so there was a ledger that they had to go to get their own money, and that's, that's a little bit of the story. but cedar will be with us for a while to take a moment to talk to this talented young woman. okay. question. duringg the 1924 federal citizenship act and citizenship act, did the s legislation consider any state level

barriers? was any of that taken into consideration? >> sure. so, you know, as i mentioned the debate in congress are pretty sparse when it comes to the 1924 act. however, what does come up is how the act will affect suffrage for indigenous people.f and so that sort of propelled congress to ae conversation of state-level legislation. snyder, the man who bears his name on the piece of legislation, assured congressmen that the act would not change anythingte legislation, affectig native suffrage. so that's one way that it comes up. >> professor silverman? >> i would also add we need to be careful not to conflate the

granting of citizenship with the exerciseua of equal rights. even after the indian citizenship act, states like the mexico and arizona continued to private native people from voting. they didn't gain that right in the states until after world war ii. receive and citizenship didn't mean justice. there had been civil rights commissions that have focused on the unequal application of justice, , orio we might say the unequal application of injustice, in states like south dakota, arizona and new mexico. these commissions have conducted these investigations almost every decade from the 1940s onward and, you know, there are patterns that it become all too familiar to us in the context of the black lives matter movement, but you know, all of those issues apply to native america

as well. even in states where native people theoretically have or legally have the right to vote, there is a distinct pattern of white obstruction of native peoples access to the polls. you know, which for anyone who is following the news it is a pattern that is continued up to this great time. to sum it up, we need to be very careful not to conflate citizenship with legal and social equality. >> we have another question from the audience. would you discuss in some of us will come up in our later panels mature the first off the bat so you get the first, you know, the first, the first hit. would you discuss the significance of the various strategies that tribal nations and activists are employing in

the citizenship struggle both historically and currently in the unique relationship between nations that we have? >> i'll leave the current struggle to the people who are fighting it. they know far more about it than i do, certainly. you know, what i can say historically is that native people in the early 20th century are in such a desperate straight that they are grasping for any means to protect what little they had left. you know, the thrust of my talk was to have us confront what a narrow bandro of options there were.

the conception that native people could simultaneously be citizens andso sovereign nations did not exist in hardly any white people's minds. and almost certainly existed in native peoples minds but it wasn't even a part of the discussion. the state of reservations, by and large, was so abysmal for some native people said the only other possibility here is to get with the mainstream, to try to integrate and hope against hope. hope against historical patterns that doing everything white people ask will lead to some measure of justice and dignity in the public square. .. few of them were able to realize not because of their own shortcomings,

because but because of the white supremacy of the majority american population. yeah, i, i add as well that i think we're also >> we're also in the midst of sort of reevaluating the 1920's as a time of native american activism, right, as dr. silverman has emphasized. there was this very small band of possibilities for native american people facing overwhelming odds for a country that was bent on the destruction of their tribal nation. however, i think the activism really helps set up the future generations, right? there's an establishment of tools that becomes very helpful. so, for example, the cultural work that they're doing and the people like charles eastman are

doing, that is really trying to explain to non-native americans the intrinsic value of native american culture, ideas, histories. they're pretty successful in making inroads to populations that had been wildly hostile to their rights. so, for example, the pueblo are able to create a coalition that is able to protect a lot of practices and i think that you can call it like the pr move, right? actually helps set up some of the conversations that come later in the 20th century that have their own drawbacks which i'm happy to talk more about at some point. another sort of strategy i would highlight is this appeal

to international law that is capitalized on. it's not effective in the united states context in 1924, however, if you know anything about them, you'll know that their lands are surrounded by two set of colonial nations, canada and united states. both of those nations, by no coincidence, are trying to impose citizenship on native population at the time. those surrounded by canada, go to the league of nations and say this is why you are founded. this is a violation of international law. stand up for us. they don't. however, it sets a precedent of tribal nations using international organizations as a way to bolster claim to tribal sovereignty that will see manifest a little more producttively in the 1950's and obviously in 1970's and onward.

and then, also, in terms of this idea of tribal sovereignty existing alongside u.s. citizenship, i think there's a way that we can read u.s. court cases like u.s. v knight, some of the taxation cases that i referenced before, are certainly not intending to leave the door open for sort of almost like a dual citizenship situation or for people to hang onto tribal nationhood and also being members of the u.s. there's a way that those cases are sort of providing a precedent that native peoples can use later on to see-- to say, look, in 1916, the u.s. supreme court said that tribal belonging is not in conflict with u.s. citizenship and

that's a way that can sort of manifest greater rights in the latter half of the 20th century. >> we've got another question from the audience and this will give you a sense of what our audience is like. the title of the law was an act to authorize the secretary of interior to issue certificates of citizenship to indians. are there any certificates and what do those certificates say? do you know? >> yeah, so this is one of the great mysteries of the 1924 acts. the mismatch of the name, which seems very narrow in its ambition and then the text, which makes all native americans in the territorial united states citizens and honestly, i don't have a great answer for that.

and if anyone here does please come find me, but my understanding is that congress is really trying to handle the fallout from that 1922 decision, which ends forced patents. they're revoking patents that were forced and trying to impose citizenship on certain natives and it's a really sort of crisis moment for congress in 1922 to 1926 as they deal with the fallout from this. as far as certificates, the certificate is actually just your patent and fee. it's just the title to your land, so, yes, you can find them. they're online and in terms of-- what's sort of ironic about this. in the period that i was

talking about before, there was actually no paper work that could confirm an indigenous person's status as a u.s. citizen. so, it led to this, again, another crisis where sometimes native americans would try to claim rights that were inherent in citizenship, but without proof of citizenship, it became very hard to do that and the bureau of indian affairs was only marginally helpful in providing people with evidence of their citizenship status. i'd like to note that the granting of these certificates when they were delivered to native people in reservation settings, very often was accompanied by a ritual which will drive home the point that

i was making earlier, that in most white americans' minds private property holding civilization were inextrickable, and they were shoot an arrow in the distance and then dropping the bow and going to a plow and putting his hands on it and sometimes, you know, they'd raise an american flag. speaks to the point. >> okay, we are going to do one more question and then we'll take a break so for those of you who are in person, we're going to take a break and reconvene at 11:00. for our onliners we'll be back at the podium at 11:00.

for those of you here in person, we have coffee and little snacks and an opportunity to talk informally with one another. so, we've got two questions, so i'm going to give you two questions to answer together and they don't really go together, so you can, you know, roll with this. one is that, one of our audience members was thinking about his own experience visiting indian reservations in 1968 when he was dispatched as part of a congressional outreach to look at the impact of the war on poverty, to see if it was making any headway. native country. and so do you have any thoughts about that? and then on a more contemporary question, one of our -- one of our audience members suggest

that perhaps there's some similarities to the russian invasion of ukraine to take that land that might be analogous to the white settlers coming onto the native land. so if you would like to take either one of those questions, please. >> i can take a stab at both of them. the war on poverty is actually an important moment in the beginning of the modern era of native sovereignty and self-determination. not -- and the reason that's the case is that federal funds began to be funneled through tribal government rather than through federal agents and that forced many, many tribal nations to create the apparatus

to receive, distribute, track those funds. so, you know, that's an important moment. i'm no expert on russian-ukrainian affairs, but as an informed person i've read enough to know that, you know, like most nations that invade other nations, the aggressor nation has a historical mythology to justify the aggression. that was certainly the case in the united states. you know, where the ideology of manifest destiny. the notion that god destined white america to expand at indigenous expense in order to spread democracy, christianity, opportunity, in short, western civilization was a galvanizing

force. it served to justify all of the horrors that expansion entailed and, you know, let's be clear about what i mean by horrors. these were wars of extermination against native communities that targeted women, children, and the elderly. make no mistake about it. and the idea again is god blessed this endeavor. so, yes, there are certainly parallels. >> and lylea supports it. so we have for each of you a small gift from this society. >> thank you. >> the gifts are paperweights that are models of the capitol made from marble that was from the capitol when they did the restoration, they gave us some of the capitol steps marble and we've made it into these things

and we hope you will display that in your offices and remember that we are so grateful for the time you spent with us and for being with us today. thank you so very much. [applause] >> if you're enjoying american history tv then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive weekly highlights of upcoming programs, history, american artifacts, the presidency and more. sign up for the newsletter today and be sure to watch american history tv every weekend or anytime online at c-span.org/history. ♪♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual fees. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sunday, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction book