Roberta Haines
Katrin H. Lamon Resident Scholar 1998-1999
Citizenship Bound to the Promised
Land:
An Investigation of the Status of Indigenous People in the United States
Full membership in the United States was contested by Native people at the
time of the 1924 American Indian Citizenship Act, resulting in a unique status
still puzzling to political theorists. In her dissertation, Roberta Haines
brings the case of Native American citizenship to discussions in political
theory and challenges current trends that argue for weakened group rights and
identity as the means to political and social stability.
In the centuries of negotiation between the United States
and indigenous people, unique arrangements evolved that are difficult to categorize
in the language of liberty, equality, group rights, or citizenship most familiar
to political theorists. "My work reinterprets the official U.S. policy toward
indigenous nations to show its national agenda of assimilation, a course determined
by early colonial positions and the momentum of building a nation-state," said
Haines.
Although indigenous tribes are semi-sovereign nations
who negotiated with the U.S. to secure protection in exchange for significant
territorial concessions, the U.S. wanted to quickly settle relationships with
all Native peoples. At first the U.S. thought a militarily enforced unilateral
treaty could move tribes beyond its borders, but when the Iroquois and Cherokee,
disturbed by this display of coercive tactics, began organizing in defense, the
U.S. leadership reconsidered. They chose a policy designed to pacify their neighbors:
persistently encouraging tribes to withdraw further west then absorbing any individuals
or small groups remaining in its path as it grew. This informal status of Native
people was formally articulated in 1828 by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Marshall who recognized native people as aliens, while declaring that tribes
were "domestic" not "foreign states." If living within tribal
territory, tribal people were understood to be citizens of the indigenous Nation.
Those who chose to remain within state borders were assimilated, yet usually
excluded from the political body and seldom had civil rights.
The legacy of alien status was reinforced repeatedly
as the U.S. moved west. Native people were alien occupants of land and resources
that the U.S. claimed for itself. Indigenous nations, then remnants of these
nations, were forced to move and re-move in a series of western settlement. "The
United States made every effort to change tribal people; to civilize them, to
Christianize them, then Americanize them. Indians would vanish and in their stead
would remain but the memory of a noble race. Native people, on the other hand,
had conflicting positions about their place in or with this new nation. They
were especially concerned about private property and U.S. citizenship, since
these were policy goals the U.S. implemented to transform indigenous people into
'Americans,'" Haines explains.
Using the journals of the Society of American Indians
(SAI) and the papers of Gertrude Bonnin, Haines' research shows how an educated
group of Native professionals worked to define a place for Native people in the
United States as citizens. They argued that citizenship would free Native people
from the non-status of "Indians" and establish them on the road to
progress and contribution as "Americans."
During the same period, World War I created a critical
moment for the question of citizenship as Native men were registered and conscripted
into military service. After the war, the U.S. Congress passed an act offering
citizenship to Indian veterans, and in 1924 it passed the American Indian Citizenship
Act which conferred citizenship upon indigenous people with or without their
consent, culminating U.S. policy to assimilate Native people.
"Contemporary citizenship theory addresses Native
Americans as one more of many groups in the U.S. My research investigates a new
dimension, that Native people enjoy a modified citizenship in the U.S. while
they enjoy tribal membership and thus have a unique political relationship with
the U.S. It is a relationship sensitive to those who wield political power and
must be understood to be protected. Without a clear understanding of the status
enjoyed by Native peoples, theorists risk abridging the rights that were so dearly
won," commented Haines.
Affiliation at time of award: Ph.D. Candidate,
Department of Political Science, University of California at Los Angeles
Return to Resident Scholars 1998-1999.
