American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The expansion of the United States at the expense of Native Americans during the nineteenth century is usually seen strictly in military terms. This belief has been reinforced by countless Hollywood movies of the cavalry chasing Indians through the West; thus, many people incorrectly believe that Indians were simply conquered by White armed force. This view, however, ignores the realities of the situation. Especially in the early nineteenth century the U.s. government was young and relatively weak. Dominance over Native peoples was a gradual process and its accomplishments were achieved more through diplomatic and legal manipulation than by military conquest. Native Americans were much more successful resisting militarily than they were in controlling the legal processes by which self-government was stolen from them. Expansion was believed to be an integral part of America's destiny from the beginning. In addition to the problems of overcoming geographical obstacles, American expansion faced rival claims to the land from two types of potential opponents; other Western imperialist powers, who made counterclaims of sovereignty to a particular territory, and the Native occupants of that land.

In analyzing White-Native American relations over the past two centuries, most historians recognize that the government implemented various methods to extinguish the Indians' title to the land. However, once the military actions against the tribes ended in the 1880s, many researchers conclude their study of American Indian policy and imply that the era of coerced land cessions stopped with the disappearance of the frontier. To them, assimilation characterized the period from the 1887 General Allotment Act to the 1930s "Indian New Deal" and the previous century's use of force led to acculturative goals. These are misleading conclusions. Assimilation was not representative of the entire period from 1887-1930, and force continued to play an important role in White-Indian relationships. Congress emphasized acculturation between 1887 and 1895, but, once the optimism that the Indians would quickly join White society faded, officials again turned to coercion to acquire the remaining tribal resources. As a result, from 1900-1925, the Indians lost control of much of their property and witnessed the near termination of their reservations. As in the past, promoting White progress at the expense of tribal lands became the primary thrust of American Indian policy.

American Indians have never played a viable role in the political arena of the United States. They have never been afforded the socio-economic strength by Anglo-American society to establish a powerful political base. This essay, then, will provide an explanation of why political power has eluded American Indians and what chance they have in becoming a participating and policy-making force in mainstream American society. The crux of the problem of Indian-White relationships in the United States seems to lie in two opposing visions of what American society should be. The first of these, the melting pot vision, assumed the assimilation of people of diverse cultures into a single homogeneous society, generally dedicated to Judeo-Christian religion, republican government and financial opportunity. That vision of American society, implicit from the time of the American Revolution and popularized in 1908 by Israel Zangwill's enormously successful play "The Melting Pot," was taught in the schools and was the dominant ideal through the 1950s. The second vision of American society, that of the cultural pluralists, was one in which diverse cultures were to coexist in peace and mutual respect under a common national government. Ethnic minorities from Europe, such as the Germans, Irish, Italians, Jews and Poles, achieved early political success in the United States because they tended to accept the process of assimilation. They came to America willing to change their languages and their lifestyles in order to become participating members of the newly created nation. However, with the exception of the Jewish immigrants, they already shared the Christian faith and linguistic roots with the society they entered. In addition they often sought representative government and economic opportunity. Jews, though they shared religious roots with Christians, found assimilation more difficult, but they had achieved local political power as early as the 1930s. Even Blacks, culturally if not racially assimilated, have been more successful since the 1960s in affecting American policy than have American Indians.

Commenting on the federal government's self-determination legislation of the 1970s, Cecil D. Williams, Chairman of Arizona's Papago Tribe, admitted that the ''BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] still has a lot to say, but the direction now comes from the tribe .... There are still a lot of problems. But self-determination is the best thing that has come along yet, and it should mean a brighter future for Indians." For Williams and numerous other Native leaders, the Seventies was a time of significant reform in Washington's Indian policy and a consequent improvement in the status of their people. Indian judgments were not unanimous. For some the Seventies was an era of frustration and dashed hopes. Testifying before the United States Senate, Joseph De La Cruz, Chairman of the Quinalt Tribe of the State of Washington and head of the National Tribal Chairmen's Association, lamented: I, along with other tribal chairmen, greeted the passage of that [Self-Determination] Act in 1975 with hope that Indian tribes finally would be able to administer their new programs without confusion and conflict. I cannot report to you today that we still have such hope.

INTRODUCTION This index is the first published index to the American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Originally titled the American Indian Culture Center Journal and published in the Spring of 1970 as a low-cost, semi-scholarly, literary publication, the Journal emerged on an irregular basis due to budgetary problems. In 1974 the journal title was changed to the present American Indian Culture and Research Journal to better reflect the growth and programmatic change of the American Indian Studies Center. The newly formatted and titled Journal focused its scope on the publication of research-oriented essays, in conjunction with literary and historical articles. It is in this period of increased scholarship on American Indians, when the Journal emerged with quality articles and a wider readership, that this index begins. The index reflects the first ten years of the Journal when it emerged and continued as an important vehicle to support the development of in-depth scholarly research in American Indian Studies. The scope of the index includes articles, poetry, review essays, research notes and stories; excluded are the book reviews. The index is categorized, however, by author, by title and by subject. The subject entries generally conform to the Library of Congress Subject Headings under the classification "Indians of orth America." Modifications have been made to reflect contemporary conditions and usage of subject categories in American Indian Studies. All entries contain full bibliographic information: author, title, volume and number, year and page numbers. Individual titles of poems are not cited but may be found under author, under "poem" or "poems" in the title index, or under "poetry" in the subject index.