American Indians and State Law: Sovereignty, Race, and Citizenship, 1790-1880

Conclusion: State Law and Direct Rule over Indians

202 Conclusion State Law and Direct Rule over Indians  The states led the way to incorporating Indians into American society between 1790 and 1880. During the nine decades following the ratification of the Constitution, the states applied their laws directly to Indians within state borders, brought Indians into the legal order by giving them access to law courts and including them in the states’criminal jurisdiction, and integrated many Indians into the political structure by granting them the right of suffrage and citizenship status. The underside of those developments was the states’ disregard of tribal sovereignty, reliance on tenets of white racial superiority, and pervasive paternalistic posture toward Indians. State Indian policies were also influenced by other interests and goals, such as asserting state sovereignty, maintaining the racial foundation of the institution of slavery or—at a later time—promoting principles of civil rights, furthering pride in regional identity, reinforcing private property ownership and patriarchal values, and bringing land and resources into the market economy. With these motivations and attitudes shaping their legislative and judicial decisions, the states established a pattern of decentralized American Indian policy and created a model for extending direct rule over Indians. the states’ role in incorporating indians While federal government officials merely expressed the long-term goal of eventually integrating Indians after they had been acculturated, the states began the process of amalgamating Indians into their communities. Territorial governments followed a similar policy where possible. The first small step in integrating Indians was evident in the early national period , when states began regulating Native peoples as well as whites’ interactions with Indians. To a large extent, this action was a natural result of State Law and Direct Rule over Indians 203 the permeability of the barriers between whites and Indians. Whites were not willing to cede to Indians ultimate authority over tribe members who entered white areas or whites who traveled onto Indian lands. During the first few decades of the Republic, local white officials successfully asserted control over many aspects of Indian activities and over whites going into tribal territory. Moreover, they drew Indian-white disputes into the AngloAmerican legal system. Nonetheless, there were limits to whites’ willingness to absorb Indians in pre–Civil War America. Perceptions of Native Americans’ insuperable racial differences meant most whites were hesitant to bring Indians fully into the states’civic communities during the antebellum era and even worked to encourage or force Indians to move outside state boundaries altogether. Removing Indians was sometimes regarded as a desirable alternative to incorporation, especially Indians who could otherwise reasonably be subject to federal, rather than state, authority because they retained their separate tribal identity. The second stage of state incorporation of Indians took place in the Civil War era, when a number of northeastern states bestowed citizenship on all Indians remaining within state territorial limits, New Mexico determined that Pueblo Indians were citizens, and midwestern states offered the franchise to Indians on a selective basis. Racial theories had changed so as to make these new policies possible. Racist views, along with assumptions about racially determined cultural characteristics, dissipated significantly in northern states in the mid-nineteenth century. As a result, people who had once been considered racially unsuited to citizenship rights came to be seen as part of the state political community. Yet eagerness to incorporate Indians in the states and territories was not solely indicative of greater openness or progressive sentiment. Though some whites viewed the extension of citizens’ privileges to Indians as an essential part of a broader civil rights movement, others had more selfserving material and ideological purposes. Declaring Indians citizens and disbanding their tribes reinforced state sovereignty in the Northeast, and even the midwestern process of enfranchising eligible Indians extended state sovereignty there as far as was possible without encroaching on federal jurisdiction. Assimilating Indians eliminated what were seen as anomalous exceptions to the general rule that a state should have authority over all the land and people within its territorial limits. Incorporating Indians into the civil structure helped the states to manage both Indians and their lands. Furthermore, making Indians citizens was a welcome reinforcement of patriarchal family structure, individualism, and private property State Law and Direct Rule over Indians 204 ownership, which were regarded as important American values. From east to west—in Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and elsewhere across the country—Indian citizenship was intended to...