 Indian Appropriations Act of 1904 |
|
Excerpts from this congressional act show the allocation of funds for a wide variety of expenditures on Native lands including boarding schools, asylums, payroll, transportation, warehouses, police, judges, and medical supplies, and called for the liquidation of tribal land not already allotted to tribal citizens. It also removed alienation restrictions for some allottees on a case-by-case basis.
|
| Indian Major Crimes Act |
|
The Indian Major Crimes Act brought certain crimes committed on tribal lands under the jurisdiction of the United States federal government, weakening tribal sovereignty.
|
| Indian Removal Act |
|
The Indian Removal Act outlined the intent and plan by the federal government to forcibly remove Native Americans "residing in any of the states or territories" and relocate them west of the Mississippi River.
|
| Indian Territory Citizenship Act |
|
This act amended section six of the Dawes Act to give United States citizenship to all Native Americans residing in Indian Territory.
|
 Indian Territory with Part of the Adjoining State of Kansas &c. |
|
The map shows the treaty-designated territories of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole Nations after the conclusion of the Civil War and the signing of each tribe’s 1866 Treaty. Notably, the territories of each nation were significantly reduced.
|
| James Ash v. William H. Williams |
|
In this freedom suit, James Ash was freed from enslavement by the Circuit Court of D.C., based on provisions in the will of his former enslaver. She stipulated that her enslaved people were not to be taken out of Maryland or sold. Should either event occur, they were to be declared free for life. Ash's new enslaver appealed the verdict, but it was affirmed by the Supreme Court.
|
| John Heo v. Robert H. Milroy |
|
In this habeas suit, John Heo was arrested by an Indian agent after he refused to reside on the reservation with his wife and children. Heo argued that he had severed his tribal relations, as had his parents, and that they never lived on a reservation or accepted government annuities. Despite "constantly living with the whites engaged in the pursuits of civilized life" and having "at no time lived with any tribe of Indians" or "acknowledged himself a member of any Indian tribe," the judge ruled in favor of the Indian agent, and Heo remained in custody.
|
| John Johnson v. Sosthene Allain |
|
John Johnson filed a petition for freedom in a New Orleans court, asserting that although born free in New York, he had been illegally sold into slavery and was now being held on a sugar plantation. Johnson and his attorneys invoked New York's gradual abolition laws to establish his free status. The Louisiana court ruled in his favor and Johnson claimed his freedom.
|
| John Jones v. Robert F. Logan |
|
When John Jones was arrested as a fugitive from slavery, he petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus. Born free in Pennsylvania, upon hearing the facts of the case, Jones was released by the court.
|
| Jones–Shafroth Act |
|
This act granted U.S. citizenship to anyone born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899, reformed the Puerto Rican government, and included a bill of rights that paralleled the rights and privileges available to U.S. citizens in the states and territories.
|
| Julia, alias Mary Ann v. Robert Duncan |
|
This freedom suit was brought on behalf of Julia, a child under the age of 21 who was unlawfully enslaved in St. Louis by the man who sold her free mother into slavery in Louisiana. Although the court granted Julia her freedom, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by her mother two years later shows that Julia was still being held by her enslaver.
|
 Keeping Account |
|
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.
|
| Letter from Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Superintendent, Round Valley, California |
|
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.
|
| Letters of Application for Fee Patent |
|
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.
|
| List of Freedmen who have been Murdered in the state of Texas since the close of the Rebellion |
|
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.
|
| Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock |
|
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.
|
| Louisiana Purchase Treaty |
|
The Louisiana Purchase Treaty reflected United States ambitions toward empire, while ignoring critical issues regarding the incorporation of Native nations.
|
| Making A Sioux Indian Into An American Citizen |
|
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.
|
| Mann Act |
|
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.
|
| Marbury v. Madison |
|
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.
|
| Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act |
|
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.
|
| Matilda v. Isaac Vanbibber |
|
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.
|
| Medicine Lodge Treaty |
|
Signed between the United States government and several of the Great Plains Native American tribes, the Medicine Lodge Treaties were a series of treaties relocating these Native American groups to Indian Territory. The October 21, 1867 treaty relocated the Kiowa and Comanche people.
|
| Memorial of Chinese laborers resident at Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory |
|
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
|
| Milly v. Mathias Rose |
|
In this freedom suit, Milly sued for her freedom on behalf of herself and her two children Eliza and Bob. Milly argued that she should be free on account of being held in slavery in the free Illinois Territory.
|