 Applegate v. Luke (1927) |
|
After the Phillips County Chancery Court struck down Arkansas' Alien Land Act of 1925 as unconstitutional, Attorney General H. W. Applegate appealed the case to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Justice T. H. Humphreys upheld the lower court's ruling, arguing that the alien land law violated Section 20 of the the Declaration of Rights in the State Constitution.
|
| Arkansas Alien Land Act (1925) |
|
This act was passed by the Arkansas General Assembly in 1925 to restrict the ability of aliens ineligible for citizenship to acquire, possess, enjoy, use, cultivate, occupy, and transfer real property, or any interest therein," unless specified in treaties.
|
| Arkansas Declaration of Rights (1874) |
|
This excerpt from the Declaration of Rights in the 1874 (and current) Arkansas State Constitution contains the language prohibiting the distinction between resident aliens and citizens in regard to property.
|
| Asian Immigrants' Fight Against Discriminatory Alien Land Laws |
|
This module examines the history of anti-Asian/Japanese alien land laws in the 1920s United States, focusing on one lawsuit by Chinese immigrant Lum Jung Luke that brought down Arkansas' Alien Land Act.
|
| Corrigan v. Buckley (1926) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of racially restrictive covenants, stating that "it is obvious that none of [the] amendments prohibited private individuals from entering into contracts respecting the control and disposition of their own property." Restrictive covenants were eventually struck down by the Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948).
|
| Debt Recovery Act (1732) |
|
The Debt Recovery Act of 1732 was a British law that allowed enslaved people to be used as collateral for loans. This sharply contrasted the Spanish colonial policy that prevented enslaved people from being used as collateral.
|
| Estimate of Property Loss Sustained by the Chinese in their respective camps at Rock Springs (1885) |
|
In the wake of the 1885 Rock Springs Massacre, a U.S.- Chinese commission made up of politicians, ambassadors, and diplomats arrived in Wyoming Territory to collect testimony and tally the loss of property among Chinese laborers. The property lists accounted for individual property ownership, as well as property held in common by the Chinese miners.
|
| Fair Housing Act (1968) |
|
The Fair Housing Act was originally enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It prohibits discrimination by providers of housing based on race, color, religion, or national origin. In 1988, the act was amended to include disability and familial status.
|
| Hundley v. Gorewitz (1942) |
|
In this case, a federal court struck down a restrictive covenant in Washington, D.C., under the "change of neighborhood" doctrine which allowed a court to declare a restrictive covenant unenforceable if the neighborhood had changed to the point that the original purpose of the covenant had been defeated. In the Hundleys' case, NAACP lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston persuaded the court that the neighborhood was already becoming predominantly Black. These private agreements that prohibited the sale or rental of land to non-white individuals were intended to maintain residential segregation. Restrictive covenants were eventually struck down by the Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948).
|
| Hurd v. Hodge (1948) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that judicial enforcement of restrictive covenants banning the purchase or occupation of property based on race by D.C. courts is prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Hurd v. Hodge was decided alongside Shelley v. Kraemer, which held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits such restrictive covenants.
|
| Jones Act (1920) |
|
The Jones Act established that all interstate shipping must be conducted on ships that are owned and operated by United States shipping. This act claims to protect national security, but it also makes shipping to U.S. territories and Hawaii more expensive than international shipping.
|
 Keeping Account (1885) |
|
This political cartoon, published in the wake of the Rock Springs Massacre that targeted Chinese laborers, depicted the practice of "indemnity," or compensation between nations in the wake of racial violence. The cartoon depicted Uncle Sam and the Emperor of China debating how and whether China would be compensated for the racial violence in Wyoming Territory.
|
| Letters of Application for Fee Patent (1915) |
|
Three applications sent to the Secretary of the Interior for admission to full American citizenship through the competency process. These applications summarized the main assets and qualities of the Native American individual that qualified them for U.S. citizenship. Some applications were written by the Native American applicant, but the majority were composed by a reservation agent. Together, these three applications reveal the changes brought upon Native American landholdings and personal identity as a result of the Allotment and Assimilation era. They emphasize how legal schemes, such as the competency commissions, upheld racialized legal benchmarks as indicators of a Native person's readiness for citizenship.
|
| Lum Jung Luke and E. M. Allen v. C. E. Yingling and H. W. Applegate (1926) |
|
Lum Jung Luke and his business partner, E. M. Allen, applied for an injunction against Arkansas Attorney General H. W. Applegate and prosecutor C. E. Yingling, who had threatened to begin an escheat proceeding (the process of transferring assets to the state) against Lum due to his status as an alien ineligible for citizenship. Chancery Judge A. L. Hutchins ruled in Lum's favor, not only enjoining the attorney general, but also striking down the Alien Land Act of 1925 as "unconstitutional and void."
|
| Lum Jung Luke's Deed of Transfer (1926) |
|
This deed of transfer between Lum Jung Luke (spelled Luke Lum Jung) and the Harrison Lumber Company was filed while the Chancery Court decision on Arkansas' alien land law was still pending.
|
| Making A Sioux Indian Into An American Citizen (1916) |
|
In this newspaper article, Secretary of Interior Franklin Lane gives an account of a naturalization ritual that took place on the Yankton Reservation, South Dakota, in 1916. This article highlights the lived experience of naturalization processes for Native American individuals becoming U.S. citizens, revealing the involvement of other participants at the ceremony. This account highlights the complexities with receiving allotment for Native individuals and some of the effects citizenship had on legal and political rights. With a photograph of the event, this document provides a glimpse into the symbolic nature of the event, where the restructuring of Native identity encouraged in Allotment and Assimilation era policies is performed.
|
| Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act (1855) |
|
Passed in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act was among laws passed by Northern states in an attempt to protect Black residents from unwarranted arrest.
|
| Mays v. Burgess (1945) |
|
In this case, the Court of Appeals for D.C. affirmed the lower court's ruling that restrictive covenants, agreements among property owners forbidding the sale of their properties to Black people, was legal. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Henry Edgerton argued, "It would seem to be unsound policy for a court . . . to enforce a privately adopted segregation plan which would be unconstitutional if it were adopted by a legislature." When Clara Mays attempted to appeal this decision, the Supreme Court declined to hear her case. Restrictive covenants were eventually struck down by the Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948).
|
| Memorial of Chinese laborers resident at Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory (1885) |
|
Over five hundred Chinese survivors of the 1885 racial violence in Rock Springs petitioned Huang Sih Chuen, the Chinese consul at New York, providing testimony of the white-led massacre and detailing the circumstances through which they lost property. Survivors demanded bodily protection and property compensation, while invoking recent treaty stipulations between the U.S. and China
|
| Native American Citizenship and Competency During the Allotment and Assimilationist Era |
|
This teaching module explores how citizenship featured in Native American policy during the Allotment and Assimilation Era. It highlights the first formal naturalization process for individuals on a national scale. Focusing on competency commissions from 1915 to 1920, this unit guides students in analyzing how legal assessments of "competency" in the context of citizenship were shaped by race, gender, and settler values. Using primary documents— including applications, inspection reports, and naturalization rituals—this module examines how federal policies enforced whiteness and domestic norms as criteria for inclusion. The module also encourages discussion about the dual role of citizenship as both a tool of assimilation and a potential resource for Native resistance and legal agency.
|
| Racial Violence at Rock Springs, Property Compensation, and "Indemnity" during Chinese Exclusion |
|
This teaching module investigates the legal concept of "indemnity" and property compensation in the wake of the Rock Springs Massacre, which targeted Chinese laborers in Wyoming Territory in 1885. When white miners attacked a Chinese labor community, Chinese survivors petitioned the New York consul and worked through diplomatic channels to demand redress. This module explores how the concept of "indemnity" relied on treaty obligations and was tied to property compensation during a moment when national legislation worked to further restrict Chinese immigration.
|
| Ritual on Admission of Indians to Full American Citizenship (1918) |
|
This set of instructions for conducting the Ritual on Admission of Indians to Full American Citizenship was produced by the Department of the Interior in 1918 so that such ceremonies could take place across the Western reservations. It includes the opening remarks from the Representative of the Department, followed by instructions for each participant to undergo to receive U.S. citizenship. There are separate instructions for men and women. The document reveals the centrality of performance during naturalization events for Native Americans.
|
| Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) |
|
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited the enforcement of restrictive covenants banning the purchase or occupation of property based on race. Shelley v. Kraemer was decided alongside Hurd v. Hodge, which held that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibits judicial enforcement by D.C. courts of such restrictive covenants.
|
| Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) |
|
This treaty is the first formal treaty between the British and the Six Nations following the French and Indian War. Large amounts of Native American land were ceded to the British as a result of this treaty.
|
| Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) |
|
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo reset the southern border between Mexico and the United States. Implications of the treaty included issues of citizenship, land, and legal status. Mexican nationals were admitted as U.S. citizens, legally defining them as white, but they could also be regarded as Indian on a case by case basis.
|