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
In 1887, the U.S. passed the General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act. King frames the Dawes Act as “Washington’s new and improved effort at assimilating Indians” after removal and relocation failed to produce the results the government had in mind. According to King, the intent of the Dawes Act was to teach Indians the value of the control of land and private ownership. By 1887, reservations were seen as incompatible with America’s capitalist and Christian values, and government officials feared that allowing Indians to live on reservations enabled them to continue their pagan cultural practices.
The implicit intent of the General Allotment Act was to assimilate Indians into Western society. As King has previously stated, the U.S.’s thoughts on how land ought to be valued and controlled were rooted in Eurocentric ideas that differed from Native peoples’ relationships to land. Teaching Indians the value of private land ownership was another attempt to absorb Indians into the U.S. culture and economy.
Themes
The General Allotment Act broke reservations into individual parcels of land, and each head of household received an allotment of 160 acres. The federal government held the allotments in a trust for 25 years, during which time the land couldn’t be sold. Everyone who received an allotment gave up their treaty status but received U.S. citizenship in exchange. After 25 years, each allottee would own their land, and reservations and America’s “Indian Problem” would be solved, once and for all.
The General Allotment Act transformed formerly communal tribal land into personal property (albeit personal property that was still held in trust to the federal government). This is a variation on the methods employed in the residential school system: to force assimilation by separating communities and immersing individuals in European customs and values.
Themes
While the General Allotment Act was framed as beneficial to Indians, what it mostly did was free up land where reservations used to exist for White settlers to use in their own business ventures. It also meant that acreage tribes received through previous land treaties was halved.
Once more, the U.S. government frames a policy created to eradicate Indian culture as something that’s ultimately beneficial for Indians. Such a narrative portrays the U.S. as blameless and well-intentioned as opposed to complicit in cultural destruction and colonial violence.
Themes
Allotment continued in the U.S. until 1934, when Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, his administration created programs designed to revive the economy during the Great Depression. Roosevelt appointed John Collier as Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Collier rejected the notion of forced assimilation, embracing instead a “cultural pluralism” that allowed Indians to embrace their cultures. He also believed that in order for this to happen, Indians had to keep their land.
John Collier is one of the rare U.S. government officials King has mentioned that appears to respect the culture and land rights of Indians. He also explicitly identifies the direct positive relationship between the perpetuation of Indian culture and the ability of Indians to maintain their communal land.
Themes
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Collier instituted the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), also known as the Wheeler-Howard Act, in 1934. The act signified a positive shift in the government’s treatment of Indians, ending allotment and allowing for the land lost in the allotment process to be returned to tribes. While the Act seemed good on paper, its stipulations weren’t strictly practiced in the 19 years it was in effect. World War II, which began in 1939, redirected the federal government’s (in the U.S. and Canada) attention away from Indians. By the end of the war, the U.S. rolled back many of the liberties the IRA afforded Indians, and colonialism again became the norm.
Circumstance prohibited the U.S. from seeing the impact the Indian Reorganization Act might have made if World War II hadn’t taken hold of the country’s economic and political resources. There’s something rather tragic in the notion that the U.S. returned from fighting a genocidal authoritarian regime (Nazi Germany) only to resume the process of eliminating their own country’s minority population.
Themes
This new form of colonialism was called “termination.” The practice became official government policy in 1953 after the passage of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 108, which repealed all existing treaties with tribes and ended federal supervision over tribes. Additionally, Public Law 280 enabled some states to control reservations. These practices continued for 13 years until the termination policy ended in 1966; however, by this time, 109 tribes were abolished and a million acres of land taken from Indians. Canada attempted to pass similar legislation in 1969, when Pierre Trudeau and the Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, published the 1969 White Paper, a proposed law that would have rescinded treaties and abolished Indian status, ultimately resulting in loss of Indian land.
HCR 108 and Public Law 280 effectively ended tribal sovereignty. This meant that Indians were subject to the same laws and regulations as other U.S. citizens. Canada’s proposed 1969 White Paper purported to advance equality in Canada by getting rid of the Status designation (Legal Indians, in King’s terms) and rendering all individuals—Indian or otherwise—equal under Canadian law. Again, then, the government frames a law to position itself as well-intentioned when, in reality, the law harms the people it purports to protect. When negotiations began to amend the Indian Act in response to Hawthorn’s report (mentioned in Chapter 5), First Nations leaders repeatedly expressed concern over the breach of rights to land and self-determination that the proposed amendments would bring about for Canada’s Native peoples.
Themes
King sees these new developments in Indian policies as an extension of the type of treatment Indians received in the 18th and 19th centuries. This time, however, Indians began to revolt. King sets this revolt against the backdrop of other revolutions and discord taking place in the late 1960s, such as the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, or the police clashing with demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 1968 was a significant year for Indian revolution. In 1968, N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa-Cherokee author, was the first Aboriginal author to win the Pulitzer Prize. Meanwhile, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was gaining traction in Minneapolis.
King places the Indian revolt against termination policies alongside other critical moments of the Civil Rights movement to provide historical context, and to raise awareness about a cause that is often forgotten amidst the anti-war movement and fight for Black American rights that dominate historical narratives about this era in U.S. history. The American Indian Movement (AIM) was one of the most important Native advocacy groups to emerge out of the era. It was founded by a group of Native American men who had been separated from their communities and traditions following the passage of U.S. Public Law 959 Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which incentivized the relocation of Indians from reservations to urban areas.
Themes
King enrolled at Chico State University in California in 1968 and got involved in Native activism. He describes the late 1960s and early 1970s as a period in North American history when “everyone wanted to be an Indian. Even the Indians.” At this time, many Indians living in urban environments were largely unaware of life in rural areas and on reservations. However, this changed on November 20, 1969, when 89 Indians from multiple tribes sailed from Sausalito to occupy Alcatraz, a defunct federal prison. Some protestors claimed that the Indians occupied Alcatraz because of its many similarities with reservations. For instance, it was isolated from modern facilities, had no running water, and lacked employment opportunities and access to healthcare.
The organizers of the Occupation of Alcatraz claimed that the Treaty of Fort Laramie (signed between the U.S. and the Lakota) authorized Indians to use abandoned federal land. Alcatraz qualified as this type of land, since the federal penitentiary had been closed since 1963 and the island on which it was located named surplus federal property in 1964. Four hundred protestors occupied the island at the height of the protest. The occupation of federal land had special symbolic meaning to the movement because it emphasized the central role land ownership and control has played in the history of Indian-White conflict.
Themes
The occupation of Alcatraz lasted nearly 19 months and attracted national attention. Celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando visited the island to show their support. Still, the conditions on Alcatraz were harsh, and, in many ways, it was more of a media success than a practical success. However, the occupation did succeed in transforming Alcatraz into a symbol of Native resistance. King quotes Vine Deloria Jr., who stated, “Alcatraz was a big enough symbol that for the first time this century Indians were taken seriously.” Indeed, the U.S. government took notice of the occupation, and protestors saw what was possible if they organized well and committed to their cause.
Even if the occupation of Alcatraz wasn’t directly responsible for any changes to U.S. Indian policy, the protest’s visibility made it more difficult to construct a narrative of Indian-White history in which Indians were a dying people with an extinct culture. It jettisoned Native issues into public discourse and helped Indians become active, vocal authors of their history.
Themes
The Alcatraz occupation ended on June 10, 1971, when authorities removed the 15 people who remained. While King agrees with Deloria’s claim that the occupation was mostly “symbolic,” he maintains that it was critical in popularizing the American Indian Movement (AIM). AIM was established in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to oppose police brutality against Indians in the Twin Cities. It was headed by activists such as George Mitchell, Dennis Banks, and Clyde Bellecourt, who organized patrol squads to monitor police conduct. AIM also helped establish alternate schooling options for Indian children in the Twin Cities area who had a hard time adjusting to public schools due to recent relocation.
While Alcatraz might have been mostly symbolic, the attention it brought to AIM was indispensable to the cause for Native rights. AIM developed the Twenty Points, a list of issues AIM had with federal policy toward Indians. Twelve of these points described treaty responsibilities AIM felt the government had not honored, such as recognizing the right of Indians to review and interpret treaties, the passage of new treaties, and the repeal of Public Law 280.
Themes
The main goal of AIM’s occupations and protests was to call media attention to injustice. While AIM events received criticism for becoming violent, U.S. government intervention was frequently as responsible for the violence as the AIM protestors. In February 1972, AIM staged a protest in Gordon, Nebraska, to protest the death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, a Native man who was kidnapped by a mob of White men and presumably beaten to death. His body was found in the cab of a pickup truck. The Sheridan County Attorney framed the incident as “a cruel practical joke.” AIM demanded a murder investigation, but the perpetrators received only a year in prison.
For the Sheridan County Attorney to downplay Yellow Thunder’s brutal murder as “a cruel practical joke” reaffirms the common thread of King’s book: the repeated dehumanization of Native life and culture, and the way this dehumanization bled into centuries of biased and racially charged U.S. policy.
Themes
Later that year, AIM and some other advocacy organizations organized the Trail of Broken Treaties, a car caravan that travelled to Washington, D.C. to lobby for Native sovereignty and raise awareness of the poverty and inadequate living conditions Natives experienced on reservations. The caravan reached D.C. in November to find that their housing arrangements had fallen through. Frustrated and tired, protestors took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building, where they remained for a week, damaging BIA files in the process. King recalls hearing about the vandalism while a student in Salt Lake City. He and other advocates condemned the destruction, which ultimately had the potential to create negative consequences for tribes.
AIM left the Interior building on November 8 with the White House (then under Richard Nixon) agreeing to negotiate AIM’s 20 points. Nixon’s stance on tribal sovereignty was strikingly different from official policy and dominant sentiment of the 1950s. He believed that tribes would be better managed if they could govern their own affairs rather than reporting back to a separate government agency. Such thinking is in line with modern conservatism’s call for decentralized government and states’ rights.
Themes
Another important AIM occupation occurred in Custer, South Dakota, to protest the murder of Wesley Bad Heart Bill, who was beaten to death by a White man named Schmitz in a bar brawl. Schmitz received a second-degree manslaughter charge and a minimal sentence for his role in the crime. AIM leaders arrived in Custer on February 6 and demanded to meet with County Attorney Hobart Gates, who refused to amend the charges brought against Schmitz. The confrontation turned violent, and police interfered, armed with nightsticks and tear gas. A riot ensued that lasted through the afternoon and resulted in the arrest of nearly 30 Indians. Sarah Bad Heart Bull, the murdered man’s mother, was charged with “riot with arson” and spent five months in prison. Schmitz, in contrast, spent just one day in jail.
Schmitz’s second-degree manslaughter charge and single day in jail is yet another example of a White U.S. citizen receiving an extremely lenient sentence for committing a crime against a Native person. U.S. and Canadian policy that advocated for an end to the reservation system and tribal sovereignty in exchange for the enfranchisement of Indians claimed such laws would uplift Indians and render all U.S. citizens equal under the law, yet time and time again such laws aren’t doled out equally.
Themes
Just 21 days after the riot in Custer, AIM protestors occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. At this point, Pine Ridge was involved in something of a civil war, with traditional Lakota fighting the tribal chairman, Dick Wilson, and his GOONs (Guardians of the Oglala Nation), his personal security force. An AIM caravan of over 50 cars arrived to help the traditional Lakota in their fight against Wilson. They were drastically under armed against the federal government agencies who arrived to defend the town. The Wounded Knee occupation didn’t receive the same universal media coverage as Alcatraz, but grassroots efforts around the country organized to send supplies into the village, which the federal government had attempted to cut off from the outside world.
GOONs were a paramilitary group established in 1972 and authorized by the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council. AIM protestors occupied Wounded Knee to protest the election of tribal chairman Dick Wilson. AIM argued that Wilson and his (aptly named) GOONs intimidated and inflicted violence upon political enemies and misappropriated tribal funds.
Themes
King recalls being in Salt Lake City during the protest. During one support rally, an old woman stood up and asked, “Where are the warriors?” King sees this question as one that was asked repeatedly during this revolutionary period of Indian history. In response to her question, King and some others drove east to Wounded Knee. When they were stopped by police at the border passing into Wyoming, King recalls acting not like a warrior but like a frightened kid. The police harassed and pointed guns at King and his companions. Their van was towed, and they didn’t make it to Wounded Knee.
King’s recollection of his attempt to join the Wounded Knee occupation emphasizes the book’s central theme of history, storytelling, and mythology. He notes how the old woman’s call, “Where are the warriors?” was a common refrain of this revolutionary moment in Indian history. The call for warriors is a call to regain the collective, communal power Indian tribes had had before centuries of U.S. policy robbed them of culture and unity. That the armed police could so easily destroy King’s warrior ethos and render him a child shows how effectively the oppressive forces of the federal government dismantles tribal unity and disheartens proponents of indigenous culture.
Themes
The occupation of Wounded Knee lasted for 71 days. In the end, one U.S. Marshall, Lloyd Grimm, was paralyzed, and two Indians, Frank Clearwater, and Lawrence Lamont, were shot and killed by the government. Today, explains King, many people regard AIM as “the first truly militant Native organization,” and one primarily interested in “initiating confrontations and occupations at a national level.” King sees these conceptions as simultaneously true and false. Natives like Tecumseh and Pontiac had resisted colonialism long before AIM’s formation. The Society of American Indians, a separate pan-Indian organization, was founded in 1911 and was the primary Indian lobby in the U.S. for decades. The National Congress of American Indians was formed in 1944 and was also successful in lobbying efforts that opposed states’ rights to criminal and civil jurisdiction over tribes.
AIM’s infamous reputation as a “truly militant Native organization” and as instigators of “confrontations and occupations at a national level” may be interpreted as the broader culture’s attempt to discredit the oppressed, writing history in such a way that renders the oppressors blameless while finding fault with the oppressed. In reality, though, the opposite is true. AIM’s violent protests were a comparatively short-lived instances of violence relative to the centuries of systemic oppression, colonial violence, and trauma North American Indian policy thrust upon the continent’s indigenous population.
Themes
The League of Indians of Canada was formed in 1919 by F. O. Loft, a Mohawk, after seeing the right to vote awarded to Black people and women in America in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Loft felt that Native people, too, ought to enjoy the protections and liberties of having their own political entities. However, the League of Indians in Canada was struck down by the Canadian government which, in 1927, created legislation banning Native people from forming political organizations. Another Canadian organization was the North American Indian Brotherhood, formed in 1945. The organization was short-lived because of its associations with the Catholic Church. This was followed by the 1961 formation of the National Indian Council, which included Status and non-Status Indians, as well as the Métis.
Among the many grievances the League of Indians of Canada identified as common to Canada’s indigenous population included the loss of reserve lands, the government’s failure to honor indigenous land rights, and the government’s restriction of hunting and trapping rights. This reaffirms King’s central claim that land ownership and control is at the core of Indian-White relations.
Themes
AIM lasted longer than the aforementioned Canadian organizations; however, by 1990, central leadership figures were either imprisoned or “had their lives destroyed by government sanctions, legal and illegal,” and it, too, was dissolved. Today, many people look down on AIM, pointing to the looting of the BIA building or the riot in Gordon, Nebraska. One recurring sentiment is that AIM and similar organizations ought to have more faith in the government to right wrongs. Knowing the history of Indian treatment in the hands of the federal government, though, King sarcastically dismisses this sentiment.
King’s sarcastic dismissal of the notion that AIM and other Indians should have more faith in the government is rooted in centuries of broken treaties and illegal seizure of Indian land. Condemning AIM’s violence without taking into account the centuries of violence the U.S. government committed against Indian tribes offers an incomplete and therefore biased account of history.
Themes
