'Rise up - Make Haste - Our People Need Us!' : Pan-Indigenous Activism in Canada and the United States, 1950 to 1975
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'Rise up - make haste - our people need us!' : Pan-Indigenous Activism in Canada and the United States, 1950 to 1975 by Karine R. Duhamel A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2013 by Karine R. Duhamel Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgments iv Dedication v Timeline of Key Events vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: 36 Formulating a pan-Indigenous Agenda: Citizenship and Liberalism after World War II Chapter 2: 86 'A Tough Horse to Ride': The Challenge of Organizational Politics in the Rights Era Chapter 3: 158 'Indians in the City': Indigenous Responses to the Challenges of Urbanization Chapter 4: 216 'We were just trying to survive': The Challenges of Indigenous Politics on Canadian Reserves Chapter 5: 258 'I struggle along anyway': The American Reservation System and 1960s Revival Chapter 6: 293 'Rise up – make haste – our people need us': Activism and the Baby Boom Generation Chapter 7: 346 'Your little girl and mine': Gendered Politics and Indigenous Women's Organizing Conclusion 401 Bibliography 414 ii Abstract This dissertation examines the period of pan-Indigenous activism in Canada and in the United States between 1950 and 1975. The rights era in both countries presented important challenges for both legislators and for minority groups. In a post-war context increasingly concerned with equality and global justice, minority groups were uniquely positioned to exact from the government perhaps greater concessions than ever before. For Indigenous groups, however, the potential of this period delivered only in part due to initiatives like the Great Society and the Just Society which, while claiming to offer justice for Indigenous people, threatened them as perhaps never before, by homogenizing Indigenous people and their demands with those of other minority groups. As such, I argue that the broader political and social context of the rights era served to inform, but not to dictate, the shape and content of the Indigenous rights movement. The relationship of Indigenous activism to other forms of activism during the rights era was both complicated and contentious, with Indigenous activists conceiving of their struggle in markedly different terms than other marginalized groups. Within this context, I examine the formation of both mainstream and alternative organizations, as well as their responses to the challenges of radicalism, of youth culture and of gender. I argue that the failure of mainstream organizations to properly address the grassroots contributed to a crisis of legitimacy within an increasingly crowded organizational milieu. As both the documentary record and oral accounts demonstrate, what many have demarcated as a new period of “pan-Indian” unity, therefore, was also marked by important division and protest that has often been overlooked in laudatory accounts of the activism of the period. These internal critiques also serve to explain why the mid-1970s signaled an important change in organizational tactics in both countries, at least in the way they had been practiced previously. In addition, the proliferation of rights-seeking groups demonstrated an important echo pattern whereby both policy and protest was replicated and reinvented in a Canadian context slightly later than in an American one. iii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable help, support, and constant reassurance of my talented advisor, Dr. Jarvis Brownlie who provided academic and emotional support all the way through, and who believed in this project from the start. In addition, this research would not have been possible without the ongoing support and advice of my committee members, including Dr. David Churchill, Dr. Jean Friesen and Dr. Peter Kulchyski, all of whom contributed to the project in various ways. To all of those in the Department of History at the University of Manitoba, for your many years of encouragement and support, I am eternally grateful. In addition, to all those who shared of their lives and experience with me, either publicly or off the record, I am grateful for your trust. A special thank you to Dr. Robert Allan Warrior of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana who gave an unknown doctoral student access to his personal collection of interviews, manuscripts and notes, without reservation. Finally, this thesis would not have been realized without the financial support of both the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Graduate Studies as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. iv Dedication To Collin, thank you for believing in my crazy dream. To my beautiful girls, Claire and Anabelle, who I hope one day will also contribute to a greater understanding in their own unique way. And to my maman and my papa, who taught me by example that of those to whom much is given, much is required. Your excellence inspires me to always try harder. v Timeline of key protests and events, 1944-1975 DATE CANADA USA 1944 - Jules Sioui, Aboriginal activist, holds a - Founding of the National Congress of conference in Ottawa and founds the American Indians (NCAI) in Denver, North American Indian Brotherhood. Colorado. - The Special Joint Committee of the House of Commons meets to consider changes to the Indian Act. 1946 - President Truman establishes President's Committee on Civil Rights. Its report, To Secure These Rights, documents what most minority ethnic groups already know about a systemic and pervasive racism confronting minority groups at every level. - The Indian Claims Commission is established. 1950 - The Navajo/Hopi Rehabilitation Act provides $500,000 in emergency funding and $88 million in long-range funding to expand employment and services. 1951 - House of Commons passes revisions to the Indian Act which make several important changes including section 87, which places Aboriginal people under the jurisdiction of provincial law. 1953 - House Concurrent Resolution 108, also known as Termination, is approved in Congress. It is followed only a few days later by Public Law 280 which extends states' jurisdiction over Native American people. 1954 - Status Indians receive the federal -The Klamath Termination Act is passed, franchise. despite significant opposition within the tribe. 1960 - The Canadian Bill of Rights is enacted by Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker providing some guarantee of individual rights including freedom of speech and equality as well as limited equality vi rights. - The Indian-Eskimo Association is formed, composed of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous membership and with the goal to study and to propose ways of improving the lives of Aboriginal Canadians. - The National Indian Council is created to represent the concerns of all Aboriginal Canadians, with a stated mandate to promote unity among Aboriginal people and to work for the betterment of the people. 1961 - The American Indian Chicago Conference takes place. - The National Indian Youth Council is born. 1964 - The Economic Opportunity Act launches the war on poverty, providing monies directly to tribal governments for community programs. - First Indigenous attempt to occupy Alcatraz Island takes place with very little media attention or concrete success. 1964-1966 - A series of fish-in protests organized by activist groups and by tribal governments highlights the increasing tensions regarding the abrogation of Indian resources by non- Indigenous people. 1965 - CBC presents a radio show devoted to Aboriginal people entitled Our Native Land. The show, which runs for over twenty years, provides a national forum and voice for Indigenous people tocommunicate on issues of importance nation-wide. 1966 - The first Canadian Aboriginal youth workshop is held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and organized in large part by the Canadian Indian Youth Council. vii Modeled on the American workshops held in Boulder, Colorado, as of 1956, the workshop aims to help young Aboriginal Canadians learn about Indigenous issues and foster emerging leadership. 1966-1967 - The Hawthorne report is published highlighting the difficult conditions and the abject poverty facing many of Canada's Indigenous people. 1967 - Indigenous groups including the National Indian Council work to have a voice in crafting the Indian Pavillion for Expo '67, with little success. Still, the Pavillion does make a statement and invites further attention to the problems facing Aboriginal people. 1968 - The National Indian Council splits into - “The Forgotten American” address by two groups; the National Indian President Lyndon B. Johnson highlights a Brotherhood, to represent status Indian growing awareness in legislative circles that people, and the Canadian Metis significant restructuring is needed. The Association to represent non-status and American Indian Civil Rights Act provides Metis. several new protections for American Indian individuals in the areas of judicial and governance rights, as well as provides a measure of protection from states assuming jurisdiction over Indian lands. - The Poor People's campaign allows Indian activists to participate in wider protest action as well as convinces some of the uniqueness of the Indigenous cause. - The American Indian Movement (AIM) is founded. 1969 - The White Paper proposal galvanizes - Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Aboriginal people to unite against Manifesto, by Vine Deloria Jr.,