Crooked Paths to Allotment

The Fight over Federal Indian Policy after the Civil War

C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781469617510, 9780807835760
• eBook ISBN: 9780807837412
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Standard narratives of Native American history view the nineteenth century in terms of steadily declining Indigenous sovereignty, from removal of southeastern tribes to the 1887 General Allotment Act. In Crooked Paths to Allotment, C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa complicates these narratives, focusing on political moments when viable alternatives to federal assimilation policies arose. In these moments, Native American reformers and their white allies challenged coercive practices and offered visions for policies that might have allowed Indigenous nations to adapt at their own pace and on their own terms. Examining the contests over Indian policy from Reconstruction through the Gilded Age, Genetin-Pilawa reveals the contingent state of American settler colonialism.
Genetin-Pilawa focuses on reformers and activists, including Tonawanda Seneca Ely S. Parker and Council Fire editor Thomas A. Bland, whose contributions to Indian policy debates have heretofore been underappreciated. He reveals how these men and their allies opposed such policies as forced land allotment, the elimination of traditional cultural practices, mandatory boarding school education for Indian youth, and compulsory participation in the market economy. Although the mainstream supporters of assimilation successfully repressed these efforts, the ideas and policy frameworks they espoused established a tradition of dissent against disruptive colonial governance.

Index

Italic page numbers refer to illustrations.

Abel, Annie, 60, 61, 67

Alcohol, 33, 42, 43, 55, 79, 103–4

Allegany Reservation, 32, 33, 34, 40, 45–46, 48, 85, 171 (n. 10)

Allotment Act of 1887, 127, 132, 140–41;

coercive assimilation and, 112, 150, 152;

contestation of passage of, 12, 133, 134, 135, 142, 143, 144, 147, 151, 153–54;

Indian citizenship and, 115, 150;

passage of, 151–53, 155, 186–87 (n. 2);

ramifications of, 108, 156–57, 192 (n. 22), 196 (n. 1)

“Allotment of Lands, Defense of the Dawes Indian Severalty Bill” (IRA pamphlet), 143

Allotment policy, 118, 187 (nn. 6–7);

challenges to, 1930s, 158–59;

coercive assimilation and, 112–13, 116;

crooked path to, 2–3, 160;

Dawes Sioux Bill and, 123, 128–29, 130, 133, 140, 141, 153;

Indian citizenship and, 89, 115;

land dispossession and, 126–27, 131, 146–47, 156–57;

Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) and, 108–9, 111, 131, 134, 152–53, 187 (n. 6);

passage of law, 151–53, 186–87 (n. 2);

treaties and, 126–27, 132–33. See also Indian Rights Association; National Indian Defense Association

American Indian Defense Association (AIDA), 157–58

American Indian historical studies, 7–8, 9, 163, 193 (n. 27);

allotment and, 109, 111;

late-nineteenth-century Indian policy and, 116, 118, 155, 165–66 (n. 5), 187 (nn. 6–7), 187–88 (n. 10), 189 (n. 29), 191 (n. 1);

peace policy period and, 75–76, 180 (nn. 6–7)

American Indian Life, 156

American Missionary Association, 132

American political development (APD), 6–7, 10, 166 (n. 12), 167 (n. 20), 169–70 (n. 34), 191 (n. 3)

American Revolution, 16, 18, 31, 41, 46, 127

Andre...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Crooked Paths to Allotment
• Introduction
• One: Confining Indians
• Two: Tonawanda Seneca and the Assault on Tribal Sovereignty, 1838–1861
• Three: Peace Policy Precursors, 1861–1868
• Four: Ely Parker’s Moment, 1869–1871
• Five: A Contentious Peace Policy, 1871–1875
• Six: Thomas Bland’s Moment, 1875–1886
• Seven: The Allotment Controversy, 1882–1889
• Conclusion: John Collier’s Moment, 1928–1935
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index