[PW] native americans leaving reservations

[Bratton, Phyllis]

Thanks, John.   I had a feeling that this was going to be pretty varied
by time and place, and it appears to be so.  I know our history always
has Lakota people wandering through it, and thought that if there was
any such law, it was certainly not enforced with any great success or
enthusiasm.

Phyllis

-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of
John P. Dyson
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 3:26 PM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: Re: [PW] native americans leaving reservations

Quoting "Bratton, Phyllis" <pbratton at jc.edu>:

> A professor wants to know when the restriction which forced American
> Indians to live on tribal lands was lifted.
>
> I can find lots of information about people voluntarily leaving the
> reservations, but nothing about when they were first legally able to
do
> so.  The BIA website seems to have all sorts of restrictions on it.


Hi Phyllis,

The reason you are not getting much on this query is that the question
cannot be answered as posed: the generalization doesn't quite fit. An 
appropriate answer will depend upon whether the Indians were being 
forced off lands wanted by the federal government, by states and/or by 
private speculators (the situation in the east) or if an attempt was 
being made to subjugate combative Indians (in the plains and the far 
west). Indians lived on reservations in order to maintain tribal 
existence, speak the only language they knew, keep close to family and 
friends and to receive promised subsistence goods or to farm or ranch 
as they were able. The government hoped to make them dependent and 
docile and eventually to detribalize them. Mostly the Indians did not 
*have* to live there by law. In fact, three years after Custer's 
defeat, Capt. Richard Henry Pratt was already assembling a broad 
selection of Indian youngsters for industrial training at Carlisle 
Barracks in Pennsylvania; four years later, Buffalo Bill was touring in 
his show with hired Indians who went freely wherever he went; the next 
year, Indian children were also training and living at Haskell 
Institute in Kansas. Pratt sent many Carlisle pupils to live with white 
families when classes were over in order to integrate the trainees into 
white society.

Those forced onto the reservations and kept there early on were 
"hostiles" under guard in the brig. Truly hard cases were sent to 
military imprisonment in Florida and Alabama and to Ft. Sill in 
Oklahoma. Leaders were frequently imprisoned in order to elicit a 
specific ransom: the surrender of otherwise recalcitrant warriors at 
reservation headquarters.

To answer the question properly, one needs to know whether Indians were 
compelled by necessity or by force to live on lands reserved to their 
sole use. Two "commandments" seem to have provoked the relocation of 
the Native population: 1) "Thou shalt not possess in common lands rich 
with natural resources that the white man wishes to own and exploit 
privately as God intended" and 2) "Thou shalt not maraude, even and 
especially if the reason for such marauding is that the white man has 
deliberately destroyed thy natural food source."

Perhaps a more pointed, and poignant, question is why the Indian 
"chose" to continue on the reservation even when he was not legally 
required to do so.

John Dyson

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