Between Two Worlds: The Survival of Twentieth Century Indians Page: 206
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206
three programs unfolded roughly in the order listed, at various
times there was considerable overlap of two or even three of
them. Thus, they were not so much periods of time as they were
broad philosophies which at one time or another dominated
national thinking in Indian affairs.
The earliest national scale approach to what was perceived
as "the Indian problem" was an attempt at military and social
conquest. In fact, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (or the Indian
Service) was first formulated in the War Department twenty-
five years before the creation of the Department of the Interior
to which the Bureau was moved and in which it resides today.
This organizational placement indicated the federal govern-
ment's perception that the solution to the Indian problem lay in
domination of Native Americans who were regarded as a
threat to the Anglo settlements. The Removal Act of 1830,
which provided for the exchange of lands west of the
Mississippi River for Indian land east of the Mississippi River,
was implemented with considerable confusion and, in many
cases, military confrontation.
There was no real lesson for today in this epic except perhaps
to note that most of the Indian people affected by the Removal
Act saw the actions and attitudes of the federal government,
and many superintendents and commissioners of Indian
affairs, as characterized by duplicity and cynicism. In confi-
dential memoranda superintendents would often report sup-
pression of Indian ritual and religious ceremony with great
pride to their commissioner, and commissioners directed their
efforts toward obliterating, in so far as possible, what they
perceived as the pagan and uncivilized characteristics of
Indians over whom they had a trust charge.
The conduct of removal and the Indian experience with
government officials set the stage for a strong skepticism by
knowledgeable Indians concerning the good will of the federal
government. In 1831, the United States Supreme Court
identified Indians as "domestic, dependent nations" who stood
in a relationship to the federal government as wards in the
same sense that a child is the ward of a parent. The idea of
domestic nations or domestic sovereignty appeared then, and
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Between Two Worlds: The Survival of Twentieth Century Indians (Book)
Book containing historical information about Native American-U. S. Government relations during the 20th Century, including different pieces of legislation passed against and in support of the American Indians. Index begins on page 236.
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Gibson, Arrell Morgan. Between Two Worlds: The Survival of Twentieth Century Indians, book, 1986; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc862903/m1/222/?q=War+of+the+Rebellion.: accessed July 16, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; .