 Letter from Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Superintendent, Round Valley, California (1902) |
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This letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Superintendent of the Round Valley Reservation in California reveals the connections between appearance and progress towards civilization in the eyes of federal Indian policymakers during the Progressive Era. This federal document is an example of policies restricting Native American identity for the purpose of furthering assimilation. In it, racialized presumptions about civilization are tied to hair, Native practices of face painting, and clothing. The agent is encouraged to get his wards to wear their hair short, as it will "hasten their progress towards civilization." Hair is especially seen as an agent of regression for former boarding school students, who return to the reservation, let their hair grow long, and subsequently "adopts all the old habits and customs which his education in our industrial schools had tried to eradicate." Dancing and feasts are prohibited because of their effects on morality. The Commissioner suggests withholding employment and supplies from Native Americans who do not comply with these orders.
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| Letter from Dorinda to Hamilton R. Gamble (1827) |
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Dorinda, "a free woman of color," wrote to her attorney in the midst of her freedom suit to tell him that her enslaver had violated the court's order not to remove her from the court's jurisdiction and planned to "keep me out of your reach if possible."
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| Letter from John Emerson to Thomas Lawson (1838) |
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In this letter, Dred Scott's enslaver John Emerson wrote to his superiors requesting a change of post, citing numerous personal struggles including the fact that "one of my negroes in Saint Louis has sued me for his freedom." This is thought to be the only reference surviving in the historical record of the first freedom suit Dred Scott filed in Missouri courts.
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| Letter from Nelson Harris to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1867) |
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In this letter, Choctaw Freedman Nelson Harris describes his treatment by the Choctaw Nation following the 1865 act. He draws upon the Treaty of 1866, asking for assistance in ensuring his rights to reside and work in the Choctaw Nation were respected.
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| Letter from Thirteen Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen Pleading for Federal Assistance in Emancipating their Kin (1865) |
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This letter, formulated by a group of thirteen men who fled enslavement in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, details how Choctaw and Chickasaw enslavers continued to hold Black people in bondage. The letter includes a plea for federal assistance in ensuring the freedom of the authors' family members, an exhibit with the names and locations of eighty people who were still enslaved in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, and an accounting of how self-emancipated Black people were under threat of immediate death if they were to return to either nation.
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| Letters of Application for Fee Patent (1915) |
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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.
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| List of Enslaved People Freed by Lawrence Taliaferro |
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This undated note scribbled on the back of a document attesting to Lawrence Talliaferro's membership in the Franklin Society lists the names of 21 enslaved men and women whom Taliaferro manumitted between 1839-1843. Among the named is Harriet Robinson, the wife of Dred Scott.
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| List of Freedmen who have been Murdered in the state of Texas since the close of the Rebellion (1866) |
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These records document the extreme extent of retributive, white supremacist violence committed against the population of freedmen and women upon emancipation in Texas. This compilation contains graphic language and descriptions.
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| Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903) |
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After Congress attempted to pass legislation that violated the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, Kiowa chief Lone Wolf filed a complaint on behalf of the tribes who had signed the treaty. The Supreme Court sided with Congress and upheld the violation of the treaty.
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| Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775) |
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In this proclamation, Lord Dunmore, the last Royal Governor of Virginia, declared martial law in the colony at the start of the American Revolution. He incentivized enslaved people to join the British Army by offering them freedom in exchange for service, which in turn helped mobilize American enslavers against the British Army.
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| Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803) |
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The Louisiana Purchase Treaty reflected United States ambitions toward empire, while ignoring critical issues regarding the incorporation of Native nations.
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| Loving v. Virginia (1967) |
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In this landmark civil rights case, the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage were unconstitutional for violating the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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| Lum Jung Luke and E. M. Allen v. C. E. Yingling and H. W. Applegate (1926) |
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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."
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| Lum Jung Luke's Deed of Transfer (1926) |
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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.
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| Magna Carta (1215) |
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The foundation for governments of former British colonies, the Magna Carta held the king accountable to the barons, and later, the people. It was born out of a misuse of resources and abuse of power on the part of the King of England.
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| Making A Sioux Indian Into An American Citizen (1916) |
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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.
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| Mann Act (1910) |
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The Mann Act was a federal law that focused on interstate sex trafficking, specifically of white women. The act was responsible for the targeting of inter-racial couples by law enforcement.
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| Marbury v. Madison (1803) |
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This landmark Supreme Court decision established the principle of judicial review, giving the courts the right to determine the constitutionality of the actions of the other two branches of government.
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| Margaret Quando v. Thomas Wheeler (1721) |
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This colonial freedom suit was brought by Margaret Quando, a free Black woman, on behalf of her two daughters, who were caught up in an indenture scam by Thomas Wheeler. The court found in favor of the Quando women.
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| Martin v. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1805) |
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The Martin case set precedent that women were the same legal person as their husbands. The case itself was brought by James Martin in an attempt to recover his Loyalist mother's property which had been confiscated by the post-Revolutionary government of Massachusetts when she and her husband fled during the war. The court in this case ruled that because Anna Martin had not intended to forfeit her land but had been forced to leave with her husband as required by the marital law of coverture, her property could not be confiscated.
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| Maryland Toleration Act (1649) |
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The Maryland Toleration Act, also known as "An Act Concerning Religion," was the first law in North America requiring religious tolerance. It aimed to protect Christians from discrimination and protected the practice of Christian religion in the colony of Maryland. The Act also states that cursing God or blasphemy are punishable by death. This act protects religion for Christian denominations but still punishes those who are non-religious or not Christian.
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| Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) |
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The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first legal code formed in the New England colonies. It established individual rights and protections that would later influence the U.S. Bill of Rights.
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| Massachusetts Government Act (1774) |
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One of the Intolerable or Coercive Acts, the Massachusetts Government Act gave the right to appoint a governor of Massachusetts to the King and Queen. This act was passed following the Boston Tea party and restructured Massachusetts’s government to give the monarchy more control over the colony. After this act and the other Intolerable Acts were passed, the First Continental Congress met to formalize a reaction to the perceived overstepping of British parliament.
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| Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act (1855) |
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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.
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| Matilda v. Isaac Vanbibber (1815) |
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Matilda was a Black girl, aged twelve or thirteen, who was brought into Indiana Territory and later forcibly removed to Missouri Territory and sold as a slave. In her petition for freedom, Matilda argued that she earned her freedom while in Indiana Territory by virtue of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which banned slavery in the new territories.
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