Battle for the BIA: G.E.E. Lindquist and the Missionary Crusade against John Collier (review)

Indian policy in the early 1900s was based on the proposition that the assimilation of American Indians into American political and economic life was both necessary and humane. Despite the Indians' obvious suffering from the effects of the allotment policy, few of the Christian "friends of the Indian" doubted that assimilation was the proper policy. In the 1920s, a radical reform movement emerged, led by John Collier, who eventually became commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the architect of the "Indian New Deal." Professor Daily's account of the contest between Commissioner John Collier and the Protestant missionaries who had long enjoyed a close relationship with the BIA brings to life a consistent theme of the history of federal Indian policy: Nothing but mischief can ensue when even the best-intentioned white men purport to know what is best for Indians.

Daily, an assistant professor of religion at the University of the Ozarks, takes a unique approach in examining the Indian Reorganization Act period, telling the story through an examination of the life and works of Gustavus Elmer Emanuel Lindquist, an activist of the Home Missions Council of the Federal Council of Churches. Protestant missionaries like Lindquist had long played an important role in the effort to force Indians to assimilate into American life, operating churches on reservations and placing missionaries on the reservations and in BIA boarding schools.

Lindquist was perhaps typical of these missionaries in his view that assimilation "offered America's Indians the tools to define themselves through self-discipline, moral rectitude, and increased prosperity." These Protestants had been major supporters of the policy of allotting Indian lands and had installed themselves on many reservations to assist Indians in their transition from tribal members to Americans. They were not "radical" assimilationists—at least not at first. They did not advocate the immediate withdrawal of federal supervision and support of Indians, preferring instead a moderate pace of steady progress toward assimilation. Lindquist reasoned, "Our Government can well afford to ally itself with the forces of time. . . . If the Indian is to be absorbed and assimilated into our body politic let it be a benevolent assimilation." Thus, the Protestants chose to work with the BIA and assist in the assimilation process. Lindquist himself ultimately became a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners, a ten-member commission charged with fighting corruption and malfeasance in the Indian Service.

This close relationship between the Protestants and the BIA changed with the rise to power of John Collier. Collier was a vitriolic opponent of the BIA throughout the 1920s, accusing the Bureau of all manner of corruption and mistreatment. Lindquist and his fellows, on the other hand, defended the Bureau, even in its aggressive repression of "secret Indian dances" in the 1920s. A BIA report in 1920 had described certain Hopi dances as "shocking, revolting, almost inconceivably indecent." Relying on affidavits from Hopi Christians, the report found that the dances were "a cesspool of unspeakable vice and sensuality." In 1923, Commissioner Charles Burke, with the support of Protestant missionaries, issued instructions to BIA superintendents to appeal to Indians to stop these "useless and harmful performances." Collier pounced. He successfully portrayed the BIA policy as inhumanely repressive, and Burke was roundly criticized in the press. Collier eventually became the leading critic of both the BIA and the assimilation policy itself, arguing that tribal cultures had inherent value and that tribal governments were the best means for the advancement of Indians in American economic and political life.

Collier's ascendancy peaked with his appointment as commissioner of Indian affairs. Within a few months, the Board of Indian Commissioners on which Lindquist served was dissolved, and Protestant influence on the BIA fell precipitously. Through a series of directives, Collier set out to reduce the role of Protestant...