CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS PINE RIDGE RESERVATION SOUTH DAKOTA CITIZENSHIP Native Americans were not considered United States citizens until 1924, and were barred from the ordinary processes of naturalization open to foreigners. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, also known as the Snyder Act, was proposed by Representative Homer P. Snyder (R) of New York, resulted in granting full U.S. citizenship to America's indigenous peoples, called "Indians" in this Act. i
President Calvin Coolidge with four Osage Indians after Coolidge signed the bill granting Indians full citizenship. Source — LOC, LC-USZ62-111409 DLC.
Rights granted to Native Americans through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 are ii: 1. Allowed to vote. 2. Considered U.S. Citizens.
3. Allowed to leave the Reservation legally. LAND MANAGEMENT (US Code Title 25, Chapter 14) The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 had facilitated the transfer of tens of millions of acres of Indian land from Native to non-Native ownership and eroded the Native American access to natural resources and economy. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 allowed for: 1. Tribes could now establish their own tribal governments. 2. Native American’s could not protect their land from seizure by the United States government. 3. Tribal members could now be both Tribal and United States citizens. 4. Tribes could now establish Tribal corporations that would have legal standing. BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS Voting Rights Act of 1968 For the first time, Native Americans in all 50 states are allowed to vote by Federal law. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 Some of the basics tenants of Indian Civil Rights Act are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Right to free speech, press, and assembly Protection from unreasonable search and seizure Right of criminal defendant to a speedy trial, to be advised of the charges, and to confront any adverse witnesses Right to hire an attorney in a criminal case Protection against self incrimination Protection against cruel and unusual punishment, excessive bail, incarceration of more than one year and/or a fine in excess of $5,000 for any one offense Protection from double jeopardy or ex post facto laws Right to a jury trial for offenses punishable by imprisonment Equal protection under the law and due processiii
“Poor Bear v. Jackson County: In September 2014, members of the
Oglala Sioux Tribe from the Pine Ridge Reservation filed a lawsuit against Jackson County, South Dakota, alleging that county officials refused to create a satellite office where Sioux residents could register and file in-person absentee ballots. For tribal citizens, the closest place to submit their absentee ballots is the county auditor's office in Kadoka, a town that's 95 percent white and roughly 27 miles away. (Native Americans must travel twice as far as white residents in the county to submit ballots in person, according to the lawsuit.) Voters can also submit absentee ballots by mail, but they have to submit an affidavit to prove their identity if they lack a tribal photo ID card, a potential hardship for Native American voters. iv” RELIGION (Public Law No. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469) Native American’s weren’t granted full religious freedom until 1978 under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. CHILD WELFARE (Public Law 95–608) The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) righted a nearly 200 year old wrong that had been forced upon the Native American Indians. As many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being removed from their Indian homes and placed in non-Indian homes, with presumably an absence of Indian culture. In some cases, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) paid the states to remove Indian children and to place them with non-Indian families and religious groups. Testimony in the House Committee for Interior and Insular Affairs showed that in some cases, the per capita rate of Indian children in foster care was nearly 16 times higher than the rate for non-Indians. If Indian children had continued to be removed from Indian homes at this rate, tribal survival would be threatened. It also damaged the emotional lives of many children, as adults having been through the process testified. v As Louis La Rose (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska) testified:
"I think the cruelest trick that the white man has ever done to Indian children is to take them into adoption court, erase all of their records and send them off to some nebulous family ... residing in a white community and he goes back to the reservation and he has absolutely
no idea who his relatives are, and they effectively make him a nonperson and I think ... they destroy him.� NATIVE LANGUAGES Legislation mandated English as the exclusive language of instruction enforced on reservations by the Civilization Fund Act of 1819 which authorized allotted funds to organizations such as missionaries and agents and employees of the Federal Government to live on and amongst the Indians to educate and assimilate the Indian people into the standards of Euro-American society. As the foreign culture became more dominant, racial overtones surfaced. Native American boarding schools were the impetus for executing the paradigm of assimilation even further. Indian children were removed from their homes and placed in distant boarding schools run by federal government officials and missionaries. Many emotional and psychological issues today found in Indian communities have their foundations within the historical trauma experienced by the children educated in such schools. The Native American Language Act of 1990 vi is the short cited title for executive order PUBLIC LAW 101-477 enacted by Congress on October 30, 1990. Public Law 101-477 of 1990 gave historical importance as repudiating past policies of eradicating Indian Languages by declaring as policy that Native Americans were entitled to use their own languages. The fundamental basis of the policy's declaration was that the United States "declares to preserve, protect and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use practice and develop Native American Languages" In December 2006, US H.R. 4766, the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act, was signed into law by President George W. Bush, becoming Public Law No: 109-394. It authorized funding for new programs for three-year grants for educational Native American language nests, survival schools, and restoration programs. Requires that Native American language nests: (1) provide instruction and child care through the use of a Native American language for at least 10 children under the age of seven for an average of at least 500 hours per year per student; (2) provide classes in such language for the parents of such students; and (3) use such language as the dominant medium of instruction in the nest.
i
Rice, G. Williams, 2009, The Indian Reorganization Act, The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and a Proposed Carcieri "Fix": Updating the Trust Land Acquisition Process, Tulsa University Law Digital Commons. 45 Idaho L. Rev. 575 (2009). http://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1198&context=fac_pub ii
https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/upload/Native-American-Citizenship-2.pdf
iii
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_civil_rights#cite_ref-7
iv
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/native-american-voting-rights-lawsuits
v
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act
vi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Languages_Act_of_1990