Curtis Act
The Curtis Act is a law introduced by Charles Curtis in 1898 , which deals with the dissolution of the Indian nations in what is now the US state of Oklahoma . The proposal was passed as Act "Pub.L. 55-517" by the 55th Congress of the United States on June 28, 1898 .
The Curtis Act was an extension of the Dawes Act of 1887. The Dawes Act originally did not apply to the Indian tribes in Indian Territory . With the Curtis Act , the Dawes Act was extended to the area of this territory. The Curtis Act gave the tribes approximately 90 million acresLand withdrawn. According to the law, the governments of the Indian nations had to be dissolved by 1907. Only through this law was it possible to found the state of Oklahoma. The Curtis Act allowed territories that were originally assigned to the tribes by the American government for "Eternal Times" to be divided into individual plots. Members of the tribes were assigned individual parcels. The rest of the land was sold to non-tribesmen. The Curtis Act made it possible to establish communities and towns on Indian territory. The Curtis Act eliminated the Cherokee Nation government . Cherokee nationals became United States nationals. It was not until the 1970s that the Cherokee Nation government could be re-established.
history
The Curtis Act was initiated by Charles Curtis due to the refusal of the Five Civilized Tribes to parcel their territory. The tribes refused to divide the land to individual Indian families. But the Washington government had plans for the country. Excess land should be sold to non-tribal members and the state of Oklahoma should be established. On February 8, 1887, the US Congress passed the General Allotment Act . Charles Curtis also saw with this law a possibility to improve the life of the Indians in Indian territory. Instead of joint ownership of land, the families should be assigned individual parcels that they should work on independently. The power of the tribal governments should be broken in this way. But the General Allotment Act did not apply due to the special contractual relationships. The tribes that were expelled from the eastern states in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act did not see themselves as part of the United States and insisted on their status as Independent Nations . Charles Curtis, on the other hand, wanted to promote the integration of the Indians into society. In the tribal governments he saw advocates of the ancient way of life of the Indians, the way of life of the hunter-gatherers . The Indians of the tribes were also to become full citizens of the United States. Schools should be built in the Indian communities, the Indians should adopt the culture of the majority in order to survive. Charles Curtis, himself a half-Indian from Kansas , believed in the superiority of the white man's culture.
Versions and content of the law
The law has received 5 major revisions. Little was left of the original design by Charles Curtis. The initiator was disappointed with the final version. Originally it was planned that the tribal governments would be given until March 6, 1906 to reorient themselves. But the law immediately deprived them of far-reaching powers and legislation. The tribes only retained the right to negotiate over the parceling of their land. Since the law also provided for the establishment of cities and towns, cities like Tulsa were founded by white residents of the Indian territory as a consequence . They were also no longer free to decide who was a member of the tribe.
Much of the land was given to white settlers. But the Cherokee Freedmen , black slaves that the Cherokee had brought with them from the east and their descendants, were partially allocated land, although the Cherokee did not see them as members of their tribe. About 4,000 Cherokee Freedmen were given land. Problems and legal battles persist to this day as to whether or not the Freedmen have a right to tribal membership after the Cherokee Nation was revived as a sovereign nation in the 1970s .
Individual evidence
- ^ Oklahoma Historical Society Curtis Act (1898)
- ^ Native Heritage Project The Curtis Act of 1898
- ^ Theda Perdue, Michael D Green: The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast Columbia University Press, 168
- ↑ indivisible The Cherokee Freedmen Debate
- ↑ Black Past Indian severaly (The Dawes and Curtis Acts) and black Indian Freeman