Lone Wolf v Hitchcock
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Question
Where did the Lone Wolf v Hitchcock case originate, and what did it decide?
Answer
Lone Wolf v Hitchcock (187 U.S. 553, 1903) was part of a long string of treaties and legislative and judicial measures that displaced North America’s First Peoples from their ancestral lands, hemmed them into “reservations,” and eventually detribalized them. This Supreme Court decision originated on the Kiowa-Comanche reservation, which the Medicine Lodge Treaty (1867) had established in Indian Territory. The treaty guaranteed the Kiowa and Comanche “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of these reservation lands and stipulated that in order for any portion of the reservation lands to be ceded to the U.S., three-fourths of the adult males in the tribe had to give their approval. However, in 1900, without Native American consent, Congress passed an Allotment Act that divided the Kiowa-Comanche lands into 160-acre allotments to give to the Native American residents of the reservation. Those who accepted the allotments were also given American citizenship. The “surplus” lands left after the allotment were to be sold to whites, and the Kiowa and Comanche were to receive about one dollar per acre for these lands. In 1902, Kiowa headman Lone Wolf sued newly-appointed Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock to stop the allotment of the Reservation. Lone Wolf argued that the allotment was a denial of due process and a violation of the consent requirement in the Medicine Lodge treaty. The federal government’s lawyers asserted that Congress had a right to alter the terms of the treaty through legislation, because it had paramount authority over Indian affairs. Justice A.C. Bradley of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia rejected the Kiowa claim that the 1900 Act deprived tribes of due process. He stated that lack of consent was not relevant because Native American matters were under the exclusive control of Congress. The Court of Appeals upheld Bradley’s decision, and the United States Supreme Court agreed.
From their very weakness and helplessness. . . there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power
Justice Edward Douglas White’s opinion stated that Congress had the right to alter the terms of treaties with Native American tribes, because “authority over the tribal relations of the Indians has been exercised by Congress from the beginning, and the power has always been deemed a political one.” The judiciary could not interfere in Congress’s “plenary power.” This decision was based on the idea that Indians held dependent status to the United States government. Calling Native Americans “the wards of the nation,” White stated that “from their very weakness and helplessness, so largely due to the course of dealing of the Federal government with them and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.” This assertion of paternal dominion over Native Americans reversed the Supreme Court’s acknowledgment of a certain measure of Indian autonomy in previous cases, such as Worcester v Georgia 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832). Shortly after the decision, the U.S. opened Kiowa lands to white settlers, and over 50,000 settled on the “surplus” lands that Kiowa and Comanche had possessed under the Medicine Lodge Treaty. The “plenary power” doctrine first affirmed in Lone Wolf v Hitchcock is still valid Indian policy today.
For more information
Clark, Blue. Lone Wolf v Hitchcock: Treaty Rights and Indian Law at the End of the Nineteenth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Pommersheim, Frank. Broken Landscape: Indians, Indian Tribes, and the Constitution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Bibliography
Lone Wolf v Hitchcock 187 U.S. 553 (1903). Treaty with the Kiowa and Comanche (Medicine Lodge Treaty) 1867. In Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. 2. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904. Digital Library, Oklahoma State University.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse
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On September 11, 1857, roughly 120 members of the Baker-Fancher wagon train—bound westward towards California from Arkansas—were killed in Mountain Meadows, UT, by the local Mormon militia and their Indian allies. Once known as a welcoming oasis for wagon trains, subsequent reporting in newspapers and the proceeds of an official government investigation into this event transformed Mountain Meadows into a site of shame. Debates emerged over the causes of the massacre, with some arguing that the members of the Baker-Fancher party had abused local Mormon populations, and others arguing that the killings were largely unprovoked.
This website presents an archive of primary sources surrounding this event. Currently, the website presents 40 newspaper accounts written between 1857 and 1859 from newspapers in Arkansas, Chicago, California, and Nebraska. Eventually, the archive will also include government investigation reports; early Mountain Meadows Massacre histories in Western Americana; Apostate and Anti-Mormon publications; and fiction, drama, and film. Rather than re-hash the facts surrounding the massacre, the website focuses on the creation of documentation about the massacre, presenting primary sources that allow users to explore representations of the event from multiple perspectives.
National Museum of the American Indian
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According to the National Museum of the American Indian's website, the museum strives to advance, "knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, past, present, and future, through partnership with Native people and others. The museum works to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life."
There are two sections of the NMAI website which are optimal for educational use. First, is the museum's collection of print resources, designed with educators in mind. These include study guides, posters for your classroom, museum guides, and lesson plans. The other must-see section consists of the museum's more than 30 online exhibits, ranging from horses in Native American culture to how native traditions fared after European contact.
If you're specifically interested in planning for the holidays, be sure to check out the museum's study guide, selections of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, poster, and list of activities on Native American perspectives concerning Thanksgiving.
The museum also offers several audio resources. See how something we view as so definite—time—is actually cultural, by exploring Native American chronological perspectives. You can also use the site's list of radio and film networks to help you research available Native American media.
Visit Indigenous Geography for a wide variety of Native American perspectives on the environment. The site also offers introductory lessons in multiculturalism and curriculum guides for each community presented.
Luckily, for teachers who are interested in visiting the museum in person, there are two locations—DC and New York City, with the archives at yet another site, Suitland, MD. School visits are welcome. If you are considering visiting the New York museum, consider arranging a cultural interpreter, to give a tour from a Native American perspective, or take a look at the upcoming student and teacher workshops.
Kiowa Drawings
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Presents more than 600 drawings by Kiowa Indians—a tribe originally from the Southern Plains—from the 19th and 20th centuries. While many are on traditional buffalo hide, more recent drawings are on paper. These drawings illustrate "tribal social and artistic traditions" as well as the history of contact and conflict. The first of five sections includes 45 drawings created by Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe warriors imprisoned in the 1870s. The largest section offers more than 400 images commissioned by anthropologist James Mooney in the late 19th century as illustrations for his field notes. Additional sections include the Silver Horn pictorial calendar, composed of images used to track time and illustrate stories, and Silver Horn Target Record Book, with images of "warfare, courting, personal dress, the Sun Dance, and stories of the mythical trickster figure, Saynday." The final section offers material by the "Kiowa Five," artists who studied at the University of Oklahoma in the late 1920s and helped establish contemporary Indian painting. Useful for those studying American Indian history, culture, life, and art.
Camping With the Sioux—Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher
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This site presents two fieldwork journals written by anthropologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher during her six-week stay with a group of Dakota Sioux women in 1881. The journals are indexed by date and can be searched or read as a narrative.
Visitors will find a 1,000-word biographical essay about Fletcher and a bibliography of sources, including three books, three Smithsonian collections of related materials, five collections of papers, and six links to sites about Sioux Indians and 19th-century anthropology of the Sioux. A gallery of 36 photographs contains pictures of Fletcher, her two travelling companions, scenes of Sioux life, and portraits of Sioux Indians, including Sitting Bull.
In her journals, Fletcher transcribed 14 folk tales related by her Sioux hosts. These tales are indexed by title and presented separately as well as in the journals. The site offers unique sources particularly useful for students of Native American history, women's history, and the history of anthropology and ethnography.