Introduction

In the foregoing parts of this Report, the Commission has considered theextent to which minority groups, particularly Negroes, suffer from denialof civil rights. In a more limited fashion, this part will deal with similarproblems faced by the American Indian.

At its California hearing in January of 1960, the Commission heardtestimony to the effect that Indians in that State were deprived of theirrights because of race. On the basis of that testimony, the Commissioninitiated an inquiry to determine how serious and extensive the allegeddeprivations were for all Indians.

Within a short time the Commission discovered that, though thenumber of Indians is not large compared to the number of Negroes, theirproblems are extremely and uniquely complex. Because the Commission's time and staff were committed to other inquiries, no comprehensivestudy of Indian affairs was possible. Moreover, it soon became apparentthat, while Indians are deprived of civil rights in many areas of Commission concern, much of their difficulty is outside the explicit scope of theCommission's jurisdiction.

This is a limited study of the extent to which Indians suffer froma denial of civil rights falling within the purview of the Commission'sjurisdiction. Because Indians have a unique status, and because theircivil rights problems cannot be fully understood without some discussionof why and how the Indian problem is unique, the study first toucheson the highlights of the history of the American Indian in his relationswith the Federal Government. The next chapter analyzes his currentlegal status. The remaining chapters deal with his civil rights in eacharea of Commission concern.

The citizen with a difference

If American Indians are a minority, they are a minority with a difference. Of course Indians face problems common to all minorities2014jobs,homes, and public places are not as accessible to them as to others.

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Poverty and deprivation are common. Social acceptance is not therule. In addition Indians seem to suffer more than occasional mistreatment by the instruments of law and order both on and off the reservation.

Yet to think of the Indian problem solely in terms of bias, discrimination, or civil rights would be a mistake. For unlike most minorities,Indians were and still are to some extent a people unto themselves, witha culture, land, government, and habits of life all their own.

When Columbus discovered America, there were approximately900,000 Indians in some 300 tribes in the area that was to become theUnited States. By 1880 the Indian population had dwindled to243,000. Today some 360,000 Indians live on more than 300 reservations supervised by the Federal Government. The total number ofIndians in the United States including those who live off reservationsis estimated at 520,000.* There are now an estimated 263 tribes livingin 25 States. 2 Thus Indians are not a vanishing race.

Since the Indian Citizenship Act of I924, 3 all Indians born withinthe territorial limits of the United States are automatically citizens ofthe United States. By virtue of the I4th amendment, they are alsocitizens of the States in which they reside. In principle, then, Indianshave all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Their right to vote,though occasionally contested, is now reasonably well-established. Theyface fewer problems on this score than do many Negroes. Among theother rights Indians share with all Americans are freedom of movement.Those who stay on reservations do so by choice and not by legalcompulsion.

Still, Indians differ from other minority groups in three principal ways:(i ) they have a strong tendency to preserve their separate cultures andidentities, a tendency symbolized in part by the reservation. While thisdrive by itself is not unique2014other minority groups live in separatequarters and not always unwillingly2014it has elements of form and substance peculiar to Indians alone; (2) they are a quasi-sovereign people,enjoying treaty rights with the Federal Government, land set aside fortheir exclusive use, and Federal laws applicable only to them; (3) another important distinguishing factor is the quasi-dependent relationshipof Indians to the Federal Government.

The fulcrum on which these differences turn is land. It is land mostof all that binds Indians together and sustains expression of tribal cultureand "sovereignty." Without land it is hard to imagine how Indianscould have survived as a separate people. Thus, Federal policy towardIndian land has played a decisive role in determining the Indian's fate.

The struggle for Indian land

From the beginning land has been the prime issue in the successive contests between white men and Indians. The European and the red manlooked upon land differently. To the white man, it was a merchant-116

able quantity, something to be owned, developed and improved, boughtand sold.

The Indian, on the other hand, thought of land as an integral partof nature to be used to sustain those who lived on it. Above all, it wasnot merchandise; it could be occupied, hunted, toiled, but not sold ortransferred. Land was the common possession of the tribe to be usedfor common purposes as long as common purposes remained. It wasnot susceptible, therefore, to ownership, or alienation by the individual.

In the early years, land acquisition by the colonist did not strainIndian-white relationships. There was enough to go around. Moreover, the hunting and food gathering habits of some tribes did not lendthemselves to permanent settlement...