Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Inconvenient Indian, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
History and Mythology
Racism and Systemic Oppression
Land
Sovereignty
Summary
Analysis
King suggests that the bigoted, anti-Indian slurs he’s heard at protests and marches are indicative of North America’s broader hatred of Live Indians. He isolates one example of this hatred, the question “Why didn’t we kill you off when we had the chance?” as a launch point for a deeper exploration of North American Indian policy during the early colonial years.
The rhetorical question King poses establishes the central concerns of Chapter 4: the methods America has used to atone for its mistake of not completely eradicating Indians and Indian culture while it had the chance. King argues that the ensuing years of North American Indian policy was the U.S. and Canada’s attempt to finish the task it wished it had completed outright.
Themes
King begins by addressing the North American misconception that Native people and their culture “are trapped in a state of stasis,” unable to progress alongside the rest of civilization. He compares this presumed stasis to Vladimir and Estragon of Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, suggesting that White Americans see Native people as “waiting for Europeans to lead [them] to civilization” and considers it an extension of the “savagism versus civilization dichotomy” that has defined North America’s attitude toward Native people for centuries. Such a dichotomy regards anything that contradicts Christianity and capitalism as immoral savagery.
The idea that Native people and their culture “are trapped in a state of stasis” reflects King’s earlier notion of the Dead Indian: Americans tend to believe that Native people and their culture are a thing of the past and no longer relevant or beneficial to modern society. The Beckett play Waiting for Godot features two characters who wait for the titular character, who never arrives. For King to evoke this play to describe Whites’ perception of Indians “waiting for Europeans to lead [them] to civilization” imbues Native people with a powerlessness to change their circumstances. It suggests that Americans think Native people are doomed to remain static and unimproved.
Themes
After America fought and won the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812, William Bradford claimed that “a hideous and desolate wilderness” had been transformed into two nation states, Canada, and the U.S.
Bradford’s description—in which he calls America’s newly won land “a hideous and desolate wilderness”—reinforces Whites’ dichotomy between civilized European culture and uncivilized, savage Native culture.
Themes
Indian-White relations were initially centered around commerce, such as the fur trade, and military alliances. Indians saw themselves as independent nations separate from the U.S. and Canada, and, initially, federal governments treated them as such. However, this attitude shifted as European militaries grew more powerful than Indian forces. The Articles of Confederation gave the U.S. federal government the right to supervise all Indian affairs. This right was expanded in the 1790 Trade and Intercourse Act, which gave the federal government the power to buy and sell Indian land.
Initially, the federal government treated Indian tribes as sovereign nations. This meant that Indian nations were not held to the same legal responsibilities as U.S. Citizens. King insinuates that the government allowed this not out of a desire to honor tribes’ rights to self-governance but out of self-preservation: it was in the federal government’s best interest not to interfere in Indian issues because Indian military forces were stronger than European forces. However, when the balance of power shifted hands, it was no longer necessary to “respect” Indian rights to sovereignty. The 1790 Trade and Intercourse Act was the first law passed to control trade between Native Americans and settlers. It came from the impulse toward assimilation present in American culture and politics of the time. It also laid the groundwork for later acts that pushed for moving tribes off their land and onto reservations.
Themes
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King cites three Supreme Court decisions in the 19th century as instrumental in shaping Indian-White relations in North America by redefining tribes as dependent rather than sovereign nations. In 1823’s Johnson v. McIntosh, the court ruled that private citizens couldn’t buy land from Indians directly—if Indians wanted to sell, they had to go through the federal government, since the land belonged to the government “by right of discovery.” In 1831’s Cherokee v. Georgia, the court ruled against the Cherokee nation, maintaining that the Cherokee nation was not sovereign and, therefore, still subject to the laws of the state of Georgia. Finally, 1832’s Worcester v. Georgia held that it was the federal government’s responsibility to uphold and regulate relations with the Cherokee nation. Canada would fashion laws of their own in 1876 with the Indian Act.
“By right of discovery” is legal jargon that originated in the Doctrine of Discovery, legislation used by European monarchies beginning in the 15th century to justify the colonization of foreign lands. The Doctrine was issued in 1403, shortly after Columbus arrived in America. The purpose of the Doctrine was to claim territories inhabited by non-Christians. What’s more, because indigenous people were not practicing Christians, they were considered non-human by the Doctrine’s guidelines. The Doctrine reinforces the Western narrative of history that frames Europeans as discovering America, disregarding the people and civilizations that already existed there. The Doctrine’s underlying ideology was critical in the rulings of these three Supreme Court cases.
Themes
King describes how these rulings transformed Indians into North America’s “property,” proposing that Indians became “furniture” under such laws, which were designed to control and “organize” them, grouping together disparate tribes, cultures, and languages under the general term “Indian.” This generalization transformed the way North America regarded Indians, grouping them together in a “‘one size fits all’ mindset.” From there, explains King, North America began to form its official “Indian Policy.”
King’s analysis that these rulings transformed Indians into “property” is in keeping with the guidelines set in place by the Doctrine of Discovery, which held that indigenous people were not considered human due to the fact that they weren’t Christian. The dehumanization of Native people informed the federal government’s decision to categorize and restructure formerly sovereign tribes as it saw fit. King is suggesting here that Europeans’ resounding belief that Native Americans were not people was a major influence on the official “Indian Policy” that would develop over the following centuries.
Themes
Before the 1800s, explains King, military action had been synonymous with Indian policy in North America. However, by the 19th century, military action was supplemented with “treaties, removals, and relocations,” the combined efforts of which King refers to as “Plan A.” According to King, the point of Plan A was to steer Indians away from White settlement and economic growth. Plan A also outlined a plan of attack for whenever a conflict between Whites and Indians arose. Under Plan A, the military would intervene, and the government would follow up by devising a new treaty that forced Native people to give up either a portion or the totality of their land.
Prior to the 1800s, King suggests, Indian-White relations had been limited to military pursuits. The federal government’s newfound control over land and trade enabled them to exercise power over Native tribes more politically, supplementing military dealings with "treaties, removals, and relocations” in an effort to ensure that Whites maintained the upper hand.
Themes
Throughout the colonial period, the U.S. and Canada signed over 500 such treaties. The first was signed with the Delaware in 1778, and the last, with the Nez Perces, in 1868. Treaty-making ended in the U.S. in 1871, which was, coincidentally, the same year treaty-making began in Canada, with 11 Numbered Treaties negotiated with multiple First Nations bands across Canada. While treaties might have ended Indian-White conflicts, North American governments repeatedly failed to honor the stipulations outlined in these treaties.
King construes these treaties as a means for the federal government to have its cake and eat it too: the federal government presented treaties as legally binding promises extended to Native tribes in place of war, but the federal government’s comparatively stronger military forces meant there was no foolproof way for Native tribes to ensure the federal governments followed the guidelines of the treaties.
Themes
King agrees with numerous scholars who have claimed that these treaties were intended to be mere “experiences of the moment” rather than “long-standing agreements.” When these treaties were signed, North America believed it was only a matter of time before Indians died out entirely, therefore agreements outlined in the treaties wouldn’t need to be upheld permanently. The “inconvenien[ce]” of surviving Indian populations prompted their removal and relocation. The federal government’s official justification for such moves was “Indian welfare,” claiming that segregating Indian and White populations would minimize racism and allow Indians to maintain their culture.
King and other scholars suggest that these treaties were the federal governments’ efforts at buying time. They were quick ways to avoid war while avoiding having to make good on any promises. The governments entered into these treaties with the assurance that they could expel or assimilate the remaining Indian populations and ultimately avoid having to honor the guidelines outlined in the treaties. Finally, King shows how the government recast Indian removal and relocation as in the best interest of “Indian welfare” to minimize their complicitly in unethical and removal of Native people from their lands and cast themselves as moral saviors of their uncivilized, helpless indigenous neighbors.
Themes
The U.S.’s first legal sanctions to force Indians from their land happened in 1802, when the federal government asked Georgia to give its western lands to the federal government. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson drafted an amendment that gave Congress the right to trade land west of the Mississippi River (that was bought from France via the Louisiana Purchase). Although the amendment was never ratified, Congress passed legislation in 1804 that provided an avenue for Jefferson to pursue similar policies.
King is referring to the Compact of 1802, which authorized the federal government to terminate the Indian land title and remove the Cherokee from Georgia in exchange for Georgia relinquishing its claim to western land. Purchasing western land through the Louisiana Purchase afforded the U.S. new land onto which to relocate eastern tribes.
Themes
A series of relocation treaties between the U.S. government and tribes followed. In 1804, Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana, enacted a treaty between the state and Sauk chiefs in response to a Sauk warrior being accused of killing three settlers. Harrison offered the warrior’s release in exchange for compensation for the murdered settlers and the cessation of the tribe’s land in Illinois and Wisconsin. Moreover, some rumors claim that Harrison got the Sauk chiefs drunk before signing the treaty. Harrison’s trickery was commonplace in treaty “negotiations.” If a tribe refused to sign a removal treaty, for instance, the U.S. government would simply find a few outlying members of the tribe willing to sign the document, even if these members weren’t authorized to speak on behalf of their tribe. When Native peoples threatened to combat these tactics with military action, the U.S. withheld annuity payments to disincentivize military action.
The Treaty of St. Louis (1804) refers to a series of treaties between the U.S. and Native American tribes between 1804 and 1824. Harrison negotiated the Treaty of St. Louis of 1804 with the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes. The treaty held that in exchange for an annual delivery of $1,000 worth of goods, the tribes would relinquish their land rights. That the treaty was signed by Quashquame, a Sauk chief, on behalf of the affected tribes was highly controversial. Black Hawk, another Sauk chief, argued that Quashquame was unauthorized to sign treaties. The treaty created a rift between the Sauk and the U.S. and ultimately contributed to the Sauks’ decision to side with the British during the War of 1812.
Themes
Removal became national policy when Andrew Jackson signed the Removal Act into law in 1830, symbolically framing removal as a triumph of civilization over savagery. From there, relocation happened quickly. The Choctaw were removed from their land in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in 1831. By 1840, most tribes east of the Mississippi River were relocated west. The Cherokee use the phrase nunna daul isunyi or “the trail where they cried” to refer to their forced removal, which saw the deaths of 4,000 of the 17,000 forced to flee their native land. King sees the Trail of Tears as “the largest massacre of Native people in North American history.” Although no records exist to attest to the exact number of Native peoples removed from their land in the 19th century, the number of displaced Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Seminole peoples alone is between 75,000 and 100,000.
Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law on May 28, 1830, and the first issue arose when the Cherokee, along with four other tribes known as the Five Civilized Tribes (Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, and Creek) refused to abandon their cultivated land for land unknown in the western “Indian Territory.” While the Cherokee were forced from their land and undertook the Trail of Tears, Florida tribes remained behind and fought resettlement in what became known as the Seminole Wars (1835-1842). The Trail of Tears consisted of over 5,000 miles across nine states. Those who perished on the Trail of Tears died of starvation, illness, and exposure to extreme weather.
Themes
While Canada didn’t have an official removal policy on par with the U.S.’s, it, too, enforced “relocations” for Native peoples. According to a 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Canadian government saw Aboriginal people as “unsophisticated, poor, [and] outside modern society” and used Natives’ supposed incompetence to justify relocation, arguing that it would help impoverished Native peoples move to locations with more hunting opportunities and better access to healthcare and educational resources.
Canada’s official policies on Indian removal might have differed from the U.S., but their motive for undertaking the task of removal stemmed from the same racist ideology that Native people were “unsophisticated, poor, [and] outside modern society” to the extent that they could not coexist with Europeans in new settlements. As King has shown time and again, the Canadian government tried to recast the unethical forced move, suggesting that removal was actually beneficial for tribes since it afforded them better hunting opportunities and access to resources.
Themes
Most of Canada’s official relocations happened in the 1940s. However, unofficial relocations began as early as 1836, when the Governor General of Canada, Francis Bond Head, suggested that Native peoples needed to be shielded from “White vices,” such as alcohol. To do so, Head proposed relocating Native peoples away from White settlements. In 1836, Head forced the Newash and Saugeen bands of the Ojibway to give up 600,000 hectares of their land south of Owen Sound, Ontario. The bands were then relocated to present-day Bruce Peninsula. Just 20 years later, the Newash band had to relinquish 4,000 hectares of their reserve to make room for additional White expansion. Subsequent relocation measures followed, with the Ojibway being allotted smaller land parcels with each restructuring.
Head’s argument that Native people be relocated to protect them from “White vices” like alcohol is another example of the government recasting their oppressive policies as in the best interest of the oppressed. The 1836 forced removal King references here is Treaty 45, or the Manitoulin Island Treaty, which was negotiated between Odawa and Ojibwe leaders and Head, acting as a representative of the British Crown. The treaty was less of a negotiation than it was Head forcing the band leaders to sign the document. To suggest that the treaty was a negotiation implies that the Native groups had agency or choice in the matter. In reality, these treaties were signed using coercion and manipulation.
Themes
In 1935, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, which gave the Canadian government the power to turn farmland into pasture to prevent erosion, allowed for the forced relocation of the Métis of Ste. Madeline in Manitoba. The Act guaranteed displaced White farmers compensation for their removal, but the same protections weren’t extended to the Métis, nor were they given new land to replace the land from which they were removed.
Yet again, a negotiated treaty disproportionately harmed Native peoples while affording protections for Whites. The government undertook the actual process of removal unethically, as well. Between 1938 and 1940, the government forcibly removed Métis farmers from their community homestead, shooting dogs, burning down homes, and demolishing the community school and church in the process.
Themes
In 1942, the Mi’kmaq were relocated from disparate locations throughout Nova Scotia to Eskasoni and Shubenacadie, the two largest existing Mi’kmaq settlements. Because the Mi’kmaq were Catholic, the Canadian government used the Church to advocate for relocation. Ultimately, the relocation went through, despite the protests of the Mi’kmaq already living in the settlements as well as the relocated Mi’kmaq. Relocation of the Mi’kmaq began in 1942, though by 1944, only 10 new houses had been built at the settlements. Two years later, relocated families were still living in tents. By 1948, unemployment at the Eskasoni and Shubenacadie settlements reached record-breaking heights, and the entire population was on welfare. Ottawa refused to acknowledge that its relocation program had been a failure, and the Canadian government continued with its relocation efforts into the 1950s and 1960s, displacing the Inuit, Nutak, and numerous Yukon bands.
That the Canadian government pushed for the Catholic Church to advocate for Mi’kmaq relocation is another instance in which the government forced assimilation onto Native peoples and then weaponized it against them. The relocation of the Mi’kmaq wasn’t officially forced. Instead, the Canadian government incentivized Mi’kmaq families to move with the promise of finished housing and improved access to healthcare, education, and employment—opportunities that were lacking on their existing settlements. However, the government failed to follow through with these promises or to incorporate this egregious injustice into the larger historical narrative. As of 2020, Mikmaq impacted by the coerced relocation are still demanding an apology from the Canadian government.
Themes
After World War II, North America’s Indians were relocated en masse once more, this time to make room for industrial activity, namely hydroelectric projects. Dams were built across the continent, many on Indian land. These projects depleted hunting resources, destroyed sacred sites, and necessitated yet more forced relocation. King cites as an example the Flood Control Act of 1944, which allowed for the passage of the Pick-Sloan Plan, which, in turn, authorized the creation of dams and reservoirs along the Missouri River. Despite the fact that many of these dams would be built on tribal lands, the Army Corps of Engineers failed to consult with affected tribes. While the Pick-Sloan Plan flooded thousands of acres of Indian land and displaced 1,000 Indian families, curiously, it had no such negative impact on non-Indian towns in the same area.
The Flood Control Act of 1944 and the Pick-Sloan Plan caused the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota tribes to lose over 200,000 acres of land. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes) lost 155,000 acres of land on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Once more, King makes a direct comparison between the way treaties dealt with White versus Indian inhabitants of land. King suggests that the plans outlined in the Pick-Sloan Plan took care to preserve land inhabited by White settlers while affording Indian nations no such protections.
Themes
Ultimately, though, relocating Indians wasn’t enough for North America’s Whites. Indians continued to practice their culture, rendering them “in the way” even after they were relocated and strategically assimilated into Western society. According to King, it was now time for North America to begin “Plan B.”
King implies that one may regard the history of Indian-White relations as a timeline of Whites taking progressively drastic measures to ensure that Indians were not “in the way” of the development of White culture and towns.
Themes
