John Collier (reformer)

John Collier ( May 4, 1884 , † May 8, 1968 in Taos ) was an American social reformer who campaigned for the rights of the Indians of North America .

Life

Early years

John Collier grew up in Atlanta as the son of the well-known businessman and politician Charles Collier . He studied at Columbia University and the Collège de France in Paris. While still a student in the United States, he began developing a social philosophy that would later shape his work with Indians, and also dealt with the potentially unfavorable effects of the industrial age. In his view, society was evolving in too much of a materialistic and individualistic direction, and he concluded that American culture must find its way back to a sense of community and responsibility. In 1908, an article by Collier about the socialist government of Milwaukee ( Wisconsin ) was published in Harper's Weekly magazine , and in October 1919 the 35-year-old moved to California . There he worked on an organizational level for the California Housing and Immigration Commission with institutes to teach immigrants American culture and way of life ( Americanization ).

Commitment to Indian rights (1919–1933)

During a visit to artist friend Mabel Dodge, who lives with the Taos people in Taos (New Mexico), Collier first met North American Indians in 1919. He then spent the next two years in a nearby artists' colony and studied the history and way of life of the Indian people. When he left in 1921 to take up a job as a teacher in San Francisco , he was firmly convinced that the Indians and their culture should not be lost as a result of the increasing Americanization of the Native Americans. As a result, he opposed the assimilation mechanisms customary at the time and called for greater cultural pluralism to be made possible in dealing with the Indian peoples. He saw a key factor in the survival of these peoples in the preservation of their own land and campaigned for the repeal of the Dawes General Allotment Act (Land Allocation Act ) of 1887. By this law, the reservation land of the Indian tribes was initially divided into parcels and then distributed as private property within the peoples according to fixed distribution keys. The aim was, on the one hand, to break the traditionally strong feeling of belonging among the Indians, and on the other, to permanently Americanize the Indians through forced re-education. According to Collier's assessment, the law had failed and led to massive land loss on the part of the Indian peoples. With Collier's intensive commitment to a realignment of Indian policy in the United States , 1922 can be cited as a turning point in this policy. While criticism was previously usually directed against corrupt and inefficient officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs , Collier now directly attacked current policies and legislation that were detrimental to the welfare of the North American Indians. His first breakthrough in a decade-long struggle for Indian rights finally came when a large study was carried out at his endeavor in 1926–1927, in which the conditions under which Indians lived in the United States were carried out. Through this study, known as the Meriam Report , published in 1928 under the title The Problem of Indian Administration , the flaws in American Indian policy became apparent and how much it contributed to serious problems among Indian peoples; The problem areas mentioned concerned education, health and poverty.

Political career (1933–1945)

Eventually, through the Meriam Report and Collier's continued efforts, Native American affairs became a major issue again at the federal government level . As a result of the stock market crash on Black Thursday 1929, the economic and social conditions also deteriorated significantly for the Indian peoples, whereupon the government around President Herbert Hoover provided the Bureau of Indian Affairs with significantly higher financial resources than before and also reorganized it. However, real successes in reforming Indian policy came after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as US President in 1932 and the introduction of state programs as part of the so-called New Deal ; it was also Roosevelt who named Collier Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1933 . To improve the poor conditions caused by the Great Depression for the Indian peoples, Collier set up the Indian Civilian Conservation Corps and made it possible for Indians to take up jobs in areas such as erosion control and afforestation through job creation measures. Another measure was the passing of the Indian Reorganization Act (also known as the Wheeler-Howard Act or Indian New Deal ) in 1934 on Collier's initiative. On the one hand, it ended Americanization efforts affecting the Indian peoples and at the same time emphasized an approach of self-determination ; on the other hand, one set one's own efforts in complete opposition to the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887, which had been followed for so long. Collier was also instrumental in the successful passage of Johnson -O'Malley Act , through which a subsidy of aid programs of medical, social and especially educational kind for Indians in US states and US territories was made possible by the federal government and responsibility was shared between them. While Collier made clear his support for Indian self-determination, his Indian New Deal programs were often seen by North American Indian peoples as just another attempt at paternalization by federal government policies. Collier's efforts were nevertheless overall successful and far-reaching, and in the case of the Indian Reorganization Act, permanent and of considerable influence on the subsequent Indian policy of the US government. John Collier himself finally resigned from his post in 1945, of all Indian affairs officers before and after him he was the longest in office.

After 1945

Collier continued to head the United States National Indian Institute (established by Executive Order 8930 of November 1, 1941). He died on May 8, 1968 at the age of 84 in Taos, New Mexico .

Works

Books (selection)

• John Collier: The Indians of the Americas . WW Norton and Company, New York 1947 (English).
• John Collier: On the Gleaming Way: Navajos, Eastern Pueblos, Zunis, Hopis, Apaches, and Their Land, and Their Meanings to the World . Sage Books, Denver 1962 (English).
• John Collier: From Every Zenith: A Memoir and Some Essays on Life and Thought . Alan Swallow, Denver 1963 (English).

Articles (selection)

• John Collier: The Indian in a Wartime Nation . In: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science . tape 223 , September 1942, pp. 29-35 , JSTOR : 1023781 (English).

literature

• Laurence M. Hauptman: The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform . University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 1983 (English).
• Donald Lee Parman: Indians and the American West in the Twentieth Century . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1994 (English).
• Kenneth Roy Philp: John Collier and the American Indian, 1920-1945 . Michigan State University Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1968 (English).
• Kenneth Roy Philp: John Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920–1954 . University of Arizona Press, Tucson 1977 (English).
• Francis Paul Prucha: The Great Father the United States Government and the American Indians . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1986 (English).
• Elmer R. Rusco: John Collier: Architect of Sovereignty or Assimilation? In: American Indian Quarterly . tape 15 , 1, Winter, 1991, pp. 49-54 , JSTOR : 1185213 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Executive Order 8930 - Establishing a National Indian Institute in the Department of the Interior. In: The American Presidency Project. Retrieved May 16, 2010 . 
2. ↑ Burt W. Aginsky: Reviewed work (s): The Indians of the Americas by John Collier . In: American Anthropologist, New Series . tape 50 , April-June 2, 1948, pp. 305-307 , JSTOR : 664179 (English, book review).
3. ↑ Edward P. Dozier: Reviewed work (s): On the Gleaming Way: Navajos, Eastern Pueblos, Zunis, Hopis, Apaches, and Their Land, and Their Meanings to the World by John Collier . In: American Anthropologist, New Series . tape 65 , no. 2 , April 1963, p. 441-442 , JSTOR : 667483 (English).
4. ↑ Lawrence C. Kelly: Reviewed work (s): From Every Zenith: A Memoir and Some Essays on Life and Thought by John Collier . In: Ethnohistory . tape 11 , 1, winter. Duke University Press, 1964, pp. 65-68 , JSTOR : 480539 (English, book review).