With the Racial Integrity Law, the state of Virginia defines whites as people with no non-Caucasian ancestry. However, the law makes an exception for Caucasians with no more than one-sixteenth Indian blood. This provision is made to accommodate the socially prominent whites who proudly claim they are the descendants of Pocahontas (see entry for APRIL 5, 1614).
The Indian Citizenship Act makes all Indians citizens of the United States.
Drafted by the Indian Rights Association (see entry for 1882), the Indian Citizenship Act extends U. S. citizenship to all Indians born in the United States. Before its passage, a series of congressional acts had already granted citizenship to more than two-thirds of the Indian population. In the aftermath of World War I, however, universal Indian citizenship became a focus of Indian rights organizations, who chastised the federal government for denying some Indians citizenship while allowing Indian soldiers to fight and die for the United States.
Despite the hopes of Indian activists, citizenship will leave Indians’ relationship to the government largely unchanged. It will not alter their position as wards of the U. S. government, nor will it affect their tribal membership
“[I]t has [finally] pleased Congress to admit the descendants of the original American people to the same legal status as aliens who have gone through the necessary procedure after five years of continuous residence here. . . . If there are cynics among the Indians, they may receive the news of their new citizenship with wry smiles. The white race, having robbed them of a continent, and having sought to deprive them of freedom of actions, freedom of social custom and freedom of worship, now at last gives them the same legal basis as their conquerors.”
—from an editorial in the New York Times on the grantingof U. S. citizenship to Indians
The Pueblo Lands Act settles land disputes between Pueblo and non-Indians.
The Bursum Bill sought to give non-Indians title to lands they claimed in Pueblo territory, but the legislation was defeated owing to aggressive lobbying by Indian activists (see entry for NOVEMBER 5, 1922). To finally settle these disputes, Congress passes the Pueblo Lands Act. The law establishes the Pueblo Lands Board to examine the validity of the non-Indians’ claims.
The board will grant title to a small number of non-Indian claimants and provide modest monetary compensation for the rest. The process of granting land titles and evicting non-Indians offered compensation only will continue until 1938.
The final Big House Ceremony is held.
Near Copan, Oklahoma, the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) hold the last ceremony of the Big House Church. The most sacred religious rite of the Lenni Lenape, the Big House ceremony traditionally was held over 12 nights to celebrate the harvest and ensure good fortune during the year to come. The Lenni Lenape are forced to abandoned the Big House Church because their elder religious leaders are too old to perform it, while their children, now students in non-Indian schools, are prohibited from participating by their teachers.
World History
