The Indian Claims Commission, established in June 1946, worked as a quasi-judicial branch of Congress, hearing and resolving all claims against the Untied States on behalf of any Indian tribe, band, or other identifiable group of Native Americans.
Such claims included those arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States and executive orders of the president, those resulting if the treaties, contracts, or agreements between tribes and the United States were revised on the grounds of fraud, duress, unconscionable consideration, mutual or unilateral mistake, or those
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Arising from the taking by the United States, whether as a result of a treaty of cession or otherwise, of lands owned or occupied by Native American tribes without payment or compensation agreed to by tribes.
Historically, government policy toward Indian tribes has vacillated. Prior to World War II, the U. S. government supported tribal efforts at autonomy for more than a decade. In the 1950s, however, the government no longer encouraged self-government, choosing instead to enact a Termination policy. The administration of DwiGHT D. Eisenhower pushed for a settling of all outstanding claims and advocated the elimination of reservations as legitimate political entities. To facilitate termination by way of assimilation, the government instituted an urban relocation program to encourage Native Americans to leave their reservations and move to the cities. As a result of this policy, many Native Americans faced poor housing facilities, including overcrowding, high rents, and widespread discrimination. These conditions led to increased Indian activism in the late 1960s. Many tribes used the Indian Claims Commission to obtain monetary compensation for lost lands and to force the government to acknowledge their presence. As more tribes exercised their power as a legal entity within the Indian Claims Commission court system, the Termination policy became a less viable option. By the end of the 1950s, Eisenhower modified the policy, rendering his Termination policy ineffective in anything but a legal sense.
The Indian Claims Commission constituted both a product of past moral wrongdoing and an effort to relieve some of the burden on the U. S. Court of Claims, previously the only legal venue for tribal issues. Ninety percent of the claims handled by the commission concerned issues of land, with remaining cases regarded as accounting cases. Land cases were heard in three complex stages: title, value-liability, and offsets. Initially, attorneys defined those lands historically occupied by Native Americans. Next, they established the value of land at the time it was appropriated by the United States; and finally, assuming liability, they offset any proper payment against that value before the case was closed. Accounting cases involved assessing the management of tribal monies by the U. S. government as the appointed legal guardian for the tribes. As with land cases, records revealed overwhelming evidence of mishandling and malfeasance.
Congress originally established a period of 10 years for Native American tribes to file claims against the United States. This period was later extended. By 1951, Native Americans filed a total of 852 claims for more total acreage than existed in the entire United States. Overlapping claims accounted for the confusion. As of June 30, 1967, awards totaling $208 million were made in 101 cases, with 133 cases dismissed for various reasons. By 1978, when the Indian Claims Commission ceased operation, it had awarded more than $800 million on nearly 300 claims. The decisions provided not only legal proof but also a cognizance that many past treaties and other agreements between the United States and Native Americans were immoral and unjust.
Further reading: U. S. Indian Claims Commission, Indian Clai-ms Commission Decisions (Boulder, Colo.: Native American Rights Fund, 1973); John R. Wunder. “Retained by the People”: A History of American Indians and the Bill of Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
—Nichole Suzanne Prescott
Indians See Native Americans.
World History
