Mittell: Corruption of the Native American

By David A. Mittell, Syndicated columnist
GHS

New! Wed Aug 08, 2007, 12:26 AM EDT

The American attitude toward the Indian has always been ridiculous. Indians have gone from being "savages" — Jefferson said as much in the Declaration of Independence; to "noble savages" — gentle proto-environmentalists who lived in harmony with the land until they were killed or removed by rapacious European invaders.

Common sense in dealing with natives has seldom prevailed in the 400 years since Jamestown given that Indians, like Europeans, vary considerably from tribe to tribe, from age to age and from person to person.

The history began with treaties between advancing white settlers and involuntarily retreating tribes or "sovereign nations" of Indians. What typically happened in the 19th century was that an Indian massacre of isolated settlers, magnified in the white imagination by fear and propaganda, led to what we would now call ethnic cleansing of whole regions of the United States.

When the Indian Wars ended in the 1890s, most Indians were isolated on reservations, far from their ancestral lands, often in places not conducive to their way of life. Today, Indians' case for betterment has a greater claim on American justice than that of any other sometimes discriminated-against minority group.

But history is richer and more complex than the simple parables by which it is taught. A pertinent fact to know is that the Cherokee, Creek and Seminole owned black slaves, and the Cherokee fought with the Confederacy in the Civil War. The Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 required these tribes to grant citizenship to their former slaves. But in 2007 — flush with power and money from gaming rights — the Cherokee voted to expel 2,800 black members.

The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 attempted to give Indians the constitutional protections and economic opportunities enjoyed by their white conquerors. Sen. Henry J. Dawes of Massachusetts sincerely, if condescendingly, extolled the civilizing power of private property: "(To be civilized is) to walk in civilized clothes, cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, walk children to school, drink whiskey (and) own property."

Individual Indians were allotted property up to 100 acres. After 25 years they could claim full title and U.S. citizenship, provided they agreed to be subject to the jurisdiction of their state or territory.

In 1934, the Wheeler-Howard Indian Reorganization Act repealed the eminently wise Dawes Act, eliminated the private ownership of land, and instituted pure communism. (This, not empathy for Indians, is why 73 years later leftists still idealize the poverty on reservations.)

The next "virus" was the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. Here Congress gave up all pretense of equality under the law, and propped up tribal sovereignty for purposes of casino gambling.

This has been law for less than 20 years and has already corrupted both national political parties: The Cheyenne and Arapaho of Oklahoma have been trying to regain 7,500 acres taken for Fort Reno in 1867 since 1908.

During the Clinton administration the tribes were advised to make donations totaling $107,000 to the Democratic National Committee. This led to lunch in the White House on June 16, 1996, but no action on the petition. The tribes were then advised to hire former Clinton-Gore campaign manager Peter Knight to represent them for $10,000 a month and a $100,000 retainer.

Despite these shakedowns the tribes never got their lands back.

Republicans did not settle for six-figure swindles. The congressional scandal, for which Jack Abramoff is now doing time for scamming various Indian tribes out of an estimated $85 million, cost Tom Delay his majority leadership and seat in Congress, and rightly, I think, cost the Republicans the House of Representatives in 2006.

What are we to conclude? The Cherokees' recent vote to exclude their black members isn't unique: Tribes can, and do, delimit their membership. It has jokingly been said that as gambling profits have skyrocketed, tribes' "membership drives" have been efforts to "drive members out."

Indian-only gaming really amounts to a perfect Mafia for government and casino companies to manipulate and be manipulated by. Each corrupts the other and all are corrupted by the enormous amounts of cash gambling brings in. Indian Mafias can "rub out" their own, thereby increasing their profits, their control and their reliability to corruptible politicians. It is Havana or Las Vegas, 1955, with a new dress.

David A. Mittell writes for The Patriot Ledger

Encompassing sweeping changes, the Dawes Act is now generally viewed as having had disastrous effects on the native tribes it was designed to help.

The land granted to most allottees was not sufficient for economic viability, and division of land between heirs upon allottees' deaths resulted in land fractionalization. Most allotment land, which could be sold after a statutory period of 25 years, was eventually sold to non-Native buyers at bargain prices. Additionally, land deemed to be "surplus" beyond what was needed for allotment was opened to white settlers. Over the 47 years of the Act's life, about 90 million acres (360,000 km²) of treaty land — about two-thirds of the 1887 land base — was lost to Native Americans, and about 90,000 Indians were made landless.