{"id":37720,"date":"2024-06-08T20:14:09","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T00:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=37720"},"modified":"2024-06-17T20:45:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T00:45:44","slug":"cronkite-news-indian-citizenship-law-hits-century-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2024\/06\/08\/cronkite-news-indian-citizenship-law-hits-century-milestone\/","title":{"rendered":"Cronkite News: Indian citizenship law hits century milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"
Congress gave citizenship to Native Americans a century ago, but voting rights would come decades later<\/div>\r\n
Saturday, June 8, 2024<\/div>\r\n
By Brianna Chappie <\/div>\r\n
Cronkite News<\/DIV>\r\n
cronkitenews.azpbs.org<\/A><\/DIV>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWASHINGTON — June 2 marked one century since then-President Calvin Coolidge signed a law granting American citizenship to Native Americans.

<\/P>\r\nWomen had secured the right to vote four years earlier under the 19th Amendment. For the nation\u2019s 250,000 or so Native Americans<\/a>, the Indian Citizenship Law promised acceptance, economic opportunity and legal protections.

<\/P>\r\nBut it was not intended to ensure voting rights.

<\/P>\r\nThat remained the purview of states, and many threw up obstacles for decades. Arizona, in particular, used literacy tests and other tools to quash voting rights of Americans who also happened to be Native American.

<\/P>\r\n \r\nFour years after Congress adopted the new law, two members of the Gila River Indian Community tried to register to vote in Pinal county. The county recorder turned them away.

<\/P>\r\nUnder the state\u2019s logic, Peter Porter and Rudolf Johnson weren\u2019t eligible to vote because they lived on the reservation, did not pay taxes and had the legal status of wards of the state.

<\/P>\r\nThe Arizona Supreme Court upheld the ban, finding that being \u201cunder guardianship\u201d of the federal government made Native Americans ineligible to vote in the state.

<\/P>\r\nThe ban lasted until 1948.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cMy grandmother was born here in Arizona in 1912,\u201d recounted Gabriella C\u00e1zares-Kelly, who is Tohono O\u2019odham, \u201cbut she was not able to speak English. She didn\u2019t read or write in English. She was a brilliant woman, so smart, and a community leader.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nNone of that mattered when it came to voting.

<\/P>\r\nIn 2020, C\u00e1zares-Kelly won the job of recorder in Pima county, which includes Tucson \u2013 the first Indigenous countywide elected official<\/a> in Pima county.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cBeing the granddaughter of somebody who couldn\u2019t vote until they were 30 years old, and really not until their 50s \u2026 and now being an elections officer of the second-largest county in Arizona and having this position of influence and power, it is really humbling,\u201d she said.

<\/P>\r\nBefore Congress sent the Indian Citizenship Act to Coolidge\u2019s desk in 1924, Native Americans were not considered citizens of the United States.
\r\n\u201cThey did not have a lot of rights when it came to leaving the reservations, finding jobs and homes, going to schools and so forth,\u201d said David Mart\u00ednez, a professor of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University who is Akimel O\u2019odham and Hia-Ced O\u2019odham<\/a>. \u201cIt was a segregation system.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nSome Native Americans did manage to obtain U.S. citizenship before 1924. But that often came at a high price.

<\/P>\r\nThe 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek offered citizenship to Choctaw who chose to stay in Mississippi after their lands were seized under the Indian Removal Act. Over the next two decades, an estimated 100,000 people were forcibly removed from their lands east of the Mississippi, ending up in what is now Oklahoma after a dangerous trek on the infamous Trail of Tears.

<\/P>\r\nThe Dawes Act of 1887 promised citizenship to those who gave up their tribal citizenship, paid taxes, moved to assigned plots of land and adopted \u201cwhite\u201d clothing and ways.

<\/P>\r\nMany would-be citizens weren\u2019t told about the option. Many who met those requirements still never received citizenship, on grounds they hadn\u2019t assimilated sufficiently.

<\/P>\r\nSome states conferred citizenship, albeit sparingly, to Native Americans who left their reservations and assimilated completely. Native American women who married white men were eligible, as were their offspring.

<\/P>\r\nCharles Curtis, a Kansas Republican with three-eighths Native American ancestry \u2013 Kaw, Osage and Potawatomi \u2013 became the first Native American elected to the U.S. House in 1893<\/a>, and the first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1907.

<\/P>\r\nBy the time he was elected vice president in 1928 as Herbert Hoover\u2019s running mate, he\u2019d risen to Senate majority leader.

<\/P>\r\nBut Curtis\u2019 rise to power said less about expansion of rights and acceptance into the American mainstream than about the power of assimilation, of which Curtis himself was a strong advocate.

<\/P>\r\nThe infamous Curtis Act of 1898<\/a> abolished tribal governments and communal land holdings \u2013 a direct assault on tribal sovereignty that had a devastating effect on the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole.

<\/P>\r\nCurtis also supported the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, which some tribal groups opposed out of concern it would undermine tribal identity.

<\/P>\r\nThe Onondaga Nation accused Congress of attempting forced assimilation by conferring U.S. citizenship on Native Americans without their consent. As recently as 2018, the tribe reaffirmed its position<\/a> that the U.S. government had no authority to declare its members U.S. citizens.

<\/P>\r\nRep. Homer P. Snyder, a New York Republican who chaired the House Committee on Indian Affairs in the early 1920s, introduced the historic measure. One objection raised \u2013 by Rep. Finis J. Garrett, a Tennessee Democrat \u2013 had to do with whether the legislation would override state law on voter eligibility.

<\/P>\r\nSnyder assured him it would not.

<\/P>\r\nThere were other objections. As the New Mexico Historical Review recounted<\/a>, Herbert J. Spinden of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, a member of the American Indian Defense Association \u2013 founded to protect tribal rights \u2013 vehemently opposed the act.

<\/P>\r\nSpinden argued that Native Americans had \u201cnot developed politically or sufficiently\u201d to justify citizenship and that \u201cthe bulk of Indians \u2026 would form a dangerous mass of alien stock in our political system if they were given the privilege of citizenship.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nSuch arguments did not deter Congress.

<\/P>\r\nCoolidge signed the measure into law on June 2, 1924.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cAll noncitizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States,\u201d the law said.

<\/P>\r\nThe Fourteenth Amendment<\/a>, adopted after the Civil War, granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the nation, excluding “Indians not taxed.”

<\/P>\r\nThe 1924 law gave citizenship to all Native Americans regardless of whether they lived on or off a reservation, or had married a white person.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cThe way that the 1920s generation of Indian rights advocates spoke about Indian human rights was in terms of U.S. citizenship rights. If Indian people can be accorded citizenship rights, then under American law, maybe they\u2019ll be treated more like fellow human beings,\u201d said Mart\u00ednez, the ASU professor.

<\/P>\r\nArizona was the last state with an outright ban on voting for Native Americans. World War II was a catalyst as soldiers returned from fighting and pressure grew for civil equality.

<\/P>\r\nApproximately 44,000 Native Americans<\/a> saw active duty. Of the predominantly Pima and Navajo soldiers of the famous<\/a> 158th Infantry Regiment General Douglas MacArthur remarked, \u201cNo greater fighting combat team has ever deployed for battle.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nThe Navajo Code Talkers, 29 men picked by the Marine Corps to create an unbreakable code, were instrumental to the Allies\u2019 victory in the Pacific theater.

<\/P>\r\nBut coming home when the war ended in 1945, many could still not vote.

<\/P>\r\nMaricopa County denied attempts by two Army veterans \u2013 Yavapai from Fort McDowell, Frank Harrison and Harry Austin \u2013 to register in 1947.

<\/P>\r\nThis time, the Arizona Supreme Court was more sympathetic.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cIn a democracy suffrage is the most basic civil right, since its exercise is the chief means whereby other rights may be safeguarded,\u201d Justice Levi Udall wrote as the court reversed its own 1928 ruling.

<\/P>\r\nBut the victory in court still didn\u2019t guarantee access to the polls.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cJust like other people of color, like Black communities, we were not able to participate due to discrimination, due to writing tests, poll taxes. The KKK would literally be standing outside of polling locations,\u201d said C\u00e1zares-Kelly, the Pima County recorder.

<\/P>\r\nThe Voting Rights Act of 1965 cemented protections for Native Americans, as for other groups that had historically faced discrimination.

<\/P>\r\n

Obstacles Remain<\/div>\r\nTurnout remains relatively low, though, and many Native Americans still face obstacles.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re asking people who were once targeted by the United States government to now participate. And that\u2019s very difficult,\u201d said C\u00e1zares-Kelly, the Pima County recorder. \u201cIt’s a difficult thing for people to have to shift their mindset and recognize that their vote counts.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nPoll workers often don\u2019t realize that tribal enrollment cards are a valid form of voter ID under state law, according to Mart\u00ednez, despite clear guidance from the Secretary of State<\/a> and the Arizona Clean Elections Commission<\/a>.

<\/P>\r\nAnother ongoing problem is that many people who live on reservations have no street address.

<\/P>\r\nIn 2012, Apache County purged 500 Navajo voters<\/a> because the county recorder didn\u2019t accept certain P.O. boxes.

<\/P>\r\nSome applicants drew maps on registration forms to show where they resided. Those, too, were rejected.

<\/P>\r\nApache, Navajo and Coconino counties had especially high rates of ballots being rejected in 2012 because of confusion over residency. Such problems persisted into the 2020 election, when over 2,000 Apache County voters had their registration suspended due to questions over their addresses, according to the Native American Rights Fund<\/a>.

<\/P>\r\nLast September, a federal judge ruled in favor of the Tohono O\u2019odham and Gila River tribes in a challenge to Arizona law requiring proof of a physical address. Critics called the law an attempt at voter suppression, given that at least 40,000 homes on reservations in Arizona have no standard street address.

<\/P>\r\n

Other outcomes of the ICA<\/div>\r\nBy excluding the right to vote, the law Congress adopted a century ago left much to be desired for Native Americans.

<\/P>\r\nYet it\u2019s still viewed as an important milestone, affirming their status in two cultures.

<\/P>\r\nCharles Michaud, 50, an Ojibwe-Anishinaabe Native American born and raised on Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota, joined the Marines when he was 18.

<\/P>\r\nHis grandmother was among the Native Americans forced to attend one of the many boarding schools where children faced corporal punishment for speaking in their Native language, he said.

<\/P>\r\nAbout 20 years ago he started attending and dancing at powwows but \u201cwhen I was younger, I almost hid that I was (Native American),\u201d he said.

<\/P>\r\nMichaud, a shift manager at a steel company in Keewatin, Minn., no longer lives on the reservation.

<\/P>\r\nBut he\u2019s more comfortable about publicly celebrating his heritage and hopes his children will, too \u2013 in part by exercising their right to vote and making their voices heard.

<\/P>\r\n\u201cMy grandfather thought politics was very important. So we\u2019d always watch elections when we were young,\u201d Michaud said. \u201cHe said it was very important because his father didn\u2019t get to have the chance.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nFor more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org<\/A>.<\/STRONG>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News<\/a>. It is published via a Creative Commons license<\/A>. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication<\/A> at Arizona State University<\/A>.<\/EM>
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