The Indian New Deal of the 1930s changed official policy from assimilationist attitudes to acculturation on the reservation and an emphasis on tribal culture. John Collier's program included self-determination in tribal matters and advancements in health, education, and the economy. Despite improvements in these areas, many critics charged that Collier's administration increased bureaucracy and hampered Indian attempts at decision making. The American Indian Federation, one of Collier's most relentless critics and a group with extreme right-wing, Fascist connections, succeeded in publicizing the Indian Bureau's deficiencies but failed to gain many followers among Indians. Native Americans appeared oblivious, puzzled, or overtly hostile to this group which undermined its own efforts with its blatant racism, anti-Semitism, and un-American attitudes which struck at the very heart of American Indian patriotism. This deep-seated patriotism, manifested in World War II by a ninety-nine percent registration for the draft, accompanied a resurgence of tribal sovereignty as Indians demanded the right to refuse to enlist. Based on government violation of treaty rights, this refusal emerged as a philosophical argument, because Native Americans enlisted in numbers comparable to their white peers. Politicians critical of the Indian New Deal exploited the Indian war effort to push their own agenda of reversing the Indian Reorganization Act. The enormous wartime sacrifices and contributions offered by civilian Indians further convinced the public and politicians that Native Americans no longer needed supervision. In postwar America Indians who had willingly given labor, resources, and finances found that their role in America's war would be all too easily forgotten. The Indian veteran and his civilian counterparts soon realized that their fight for freedom did not end in Europe or in the Pacific. When they returned to their homes and encountered injustices which had always existed, Native Americans refused to passively accept these situations. In the 1940s American Indians asserted their rights and began the fight for equality which would continue for the next three decades.

It has been the purpose of this study to look closely at the history of Cherokee relations with the European powers and ascertain the reasons for the Indians' rarely severed loyalty to the British crown. The writer has attempted to determine the causes for ineffective Cherokee resistance to the westward movement of American settlers and absence of offensive action during the Revolution.

As Colin Calloway has noted, American Indians have been accorded a “minimal and negative role” in historical memories of the American Revolution because – according to popular mythology – they “chose the wrong side and lost.”1 Such memories are, I argue, at least partially the result of the failure of United States Indian policies and diplomacy during the war. An examination of the Journals of the Continental Congress reveals that these policies were predicated upon the racialized notion that Indians were ‘savages’ that should be ‘civilized’ and assimilated into American society. Such policies were, I argue, the product of processes of national identity formation. In the early years of the war, American leaders eager to form a new national identity separate from that of their British ‘oppressors’ began to identify themselves with Indians as natives of the same land and thus sought to bring them into the fold of the new nation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Indians’ attempts to preserve their own culture and independence in the face of these policies were met largely with resentment by American leaders. By doing so Indians had, American leaders believed, rejected ‘civilization.’ They were thus ‘unworthy’ of inclusion in the American nation. The removal policies that arose in the wake of the Revolution were, I argue, partially an outgrowth of this belief. By removing Indians westward, American leaders could push them out of both sight and mind while conveniently forgetting their own diplomatic failures during the war. In the process, they positioned Indians in popular American memories of the Revolutionary War as ‘savages’ that ‘chose the wrong side and lost.’ / Introduction : the wrong side : a historiography of Indians' involvement in the American Revolution -- We may become one people : the evolution of Congressional Indian policies -- The same island is our common mother : diplomacy on the Revolutionary frontier -- Civilization or death to all savages : Congress's war on the frontier -- By the aid of the full blooded natives : Indians' war for independence -- Epilogue : a civilized people : a digital analysis of the Indian Removal Act's Revolutionary inheritances. / Department of History

The purpose of this study is to explore one aspect of American Indian life: the personal situations and political implications of the American Indian residing in an urban setting.

No description available.