In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated, and Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States. He entered the White House better acquainted with both the Indian Service (later known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs) and Indians than any President since William Henry Harrison. In his book Theodore Roosevelt and Six Friends of the Indian, William Hagan writes:
“Paradoxically, however, President Roosevelt never exhibited a deep or abiding interest in the subject.”
While Roosevelt had a background with regard to Indian affairs, this was not one of his major interests. In their annual report, the Indian Rights Association lauded the new President:
“No man in the country has a fuller or more practical sympathy with the Indians than President Roosevelt, nor a better understanding of their conditions and needs.”
In his 1903 book, The Winning of the West, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote:
“The truth is, the Indians never had any real title to the soil.”
In this book, he compared Indian rights to the land with those of cattle ranchers trying to keep immigrants off their vast unfenced ranges.
At the time Roosevelt became President, the Indian Service had a staff of nearly 6,000 to administer 160 reservations with more than 300 tribes. The Indian Service included 250 schools which accounted for half of its work force and had an enrollment of nearly 20,000.
In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt won the Presidential election by a landslide. For his 1905 inauguration, he asked the Indian Service to provide “a touch of color” for his inaugural parade by providing some Indians. The Indian Service provided Geronimo (Apache), Quanah Parker (Comanche), American Horse (Sioux), Hollow Horn Bear (Sioux), Little Plume (Blackfoot), and Buckskin Charley (Ute). Historian Herman Viola, in his book Diplomats in Buckskins: A History of Indian Delegations in Washington City, reports:
“The old men were in full regalia, riding painted ponies as they led a troop of marching Carlisle Indian students up Pennsylvania Avenue. War whoops and similar derisive shouts from the crowd accompanied them the length of the parade route.”
Carlisle was the premier Indian school at this time and proudly proclaimed its motto as “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”, as its goal was the destruction of American Indian cultures.
Prior to Being President
In 1891, four groups of Indian Service employees – physicians, school superintendents and assistant superintendents, school-teachers, and matrons – were placed under Civil Service Classifications. As a member of the Civil Service Commission, Theodore Roosevelt advocated that Civil Service rules be modified so that Indians could be given preference for these positions.
The following year, Theodore Roosevelt delivered a Lowell Institute Lecture in Boston, Massachusetts, in which he defends the government’s treatment of Indians:
“This continent had to be won. We need not waste our time in dealing with any sentimentalist who believes that, on account of any abstract principle, it would have been right to leave this continent to the domain, the hunting ground of squalid savages. It had to be taken by the white race.”
Historian William Hagan notes:
“It is unlikely that anyone in Roosevelt’s audience was sufficiently acquainted with how Indians were bribed, deceived, and intimidated into selling land to have challenged this statement.”
Allotment of Reservations
In 1887, Congress had passed the General Allotment Act (also known as the Dawes Act) which had the intent of assimilating Indians by making them land-owning farmers. The idea of the Dawes Act was to break up the reservations by giving each Indian family an allotment of land, similar to the homesteads given to non-Indian settlers. In his book Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960, Edward Spicer explains it this way:
“It was thought that the Indians needed to be civilized and that the basis of civilization consisted in knowing how to handle individual property.”
In 1901 President Theodore Roosevelt stated:
“In my judgment the time has arrived when we should definitely make up our minds to recognize the Indian as an individual and not as a member of a tribe. The General Allotment Act is a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mass.”
Yavapai Indians
In 1901 Camp McDowell, Arizona, an abandoned military reservation, was set aside for Indian use by Executive Order of President Theodore Roosevelt. Congress, however, rejected a bill that would have created a Yavapai reservation because American squatters in the area objected.
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt sent his personal agent to investigate the situation of the Yavapai in the Verde Valley, Arizona. The agent reported that there were more than 500 Yavapai living in the area. The agent recommended buying the squatters’ claims to Fort McDowell lands and making this land available to the Yavapai. In his book Surviving Conquest: A History of the Yavapai Peoples, historian Timothy Braatz reports:
“His only worry was that Yavapais who lived too near American communities would be demoralized by ‘gambling and drinking saloons’—a perspective quite different from that of the Verde Valley petitioners, who once argued that their children’s morals would be corrupted by Yavapai resettlement in the area.”
As a result of the agent’s report, the Fort McDowell Reservation was created for the Yavapai by executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt. Under the order, all lands which were not legally claimed by Americans were to be turned over to the Yavapai who were living in the area. This action represented the culmination of four decades of efforts by the Yavapai to obtain a reservation in their homelands.
Sioux Reservation
In 1901, the Indian Office began to open up cattle grazing on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota to non-Indian cattle ranchers. One of the primary promoters of this action was the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad (C. M. & S.P.). Historian William Hagan reports:
“The C. M. & S. P. expected to profit by shipping ranchers’ cattle to the reservation and from there to market.”
In two councils, the Sioux refused to allow non-Indian cattle. The federal government, however, insisted and forced the Sioux to accept the leasing of their land. Historian William Hagan reports:
“The Sioux secured promises of safeguards for any families living in leased areas and reserved the right to stake out the land to be leased. The instrument drafted in the Indian Office, however, covered an area twice the size that the Indians had approved and ignored the promise to permit them to determine its location.”
The Indian Rights Association (IRA), founded in 1882 by a group of non-Indians dedicated to the well-being and acculturation of American Indians, authorized an investigation into the situation of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 1902. The IRA sent a letter to the Department of the Interior asking that action on cattle leases on the reservation be held off until the rights of the Sioux had been assured. The IRA also contacted President Theodore Roosevelt and asked him to intervene. The Women’s National Indian Association and the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee joined the IRA in protesting the leases.
In response to the IRA request, President Roosevelt asked writer George Bird Grinnell to investigate the situation on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Grinnell’s report blasted the government’s unscrupulous leasing practices. He also criticized the order by the Commission of Indian Affairs that all Indians cut off their long hair. According to Grinnell:
“Such an order was never before heard of in a free country, and the enforcement of it tends to make the Indians feel themselves to be slaves.”
Delaware Indians
The Delaware Indians, also known as the Lenni Lenape, were living on the Atlantic coast at the beginning of the European invasion of North America. The European colonists pushed the Delawares west. By 1835 many had resettled in Kansas. At the end of the Civil War, American settlers moved into their territory and in 1868 they were relocated in what would become Oklahoma.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt cancelled the proposed relocation of the Delaware. The Dawes Commission was dividing up Indian lands in preparation for statehood. Historian William Hagan reports:
“The area where the Delawares originally located had been the site of a major oil strike, and it was rumored that Dawes Commission members were trying to shunt the Delawares aside to promote lucrative deals with the Cherokees.”
Board of Indian Commissioners
The Board of Indian Commissioners had been established by Congress in 1869 to oversee the purchase and distribution of goods and supplies for the Indian Service. The Board was made up of distinguished philanthropists who served without pay. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a Catholic to the Board of Indian Commissioners in an attempt to reverse the pattern of discrimination against Catholics by the federal government. He was criticized for this.
Grand Canyon
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He rode down into the canyon and found Havasupai families headed by Yavñmi’ Gswedva (Dangling Beard) and Burro living at Indian Garden. According to Stephen Hirst, in his book I Am The Grand Canyon: The Story of the Havasupai People:
“The Havasupai recount that President Roosevelt spoke to Gswedva, whom the Europeans called Big Jim, and informed him, through an interpreter, of the federal government’s intent to locate a park for the American people on Gswedva’s and Burro’s Garden lands below the rim. To make such a park possible, he urged them to vacate the area.”
Mesa Verde National Park
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill which created Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Mesa Verde is the site of ancient Anasazi ruins, a culture which is ancestral to the Pueblos. This was the first national park which sought to preserve ancient ruins. The initial Act included 42,000 acres of Ute land. However, because of a faulty survey almost none of the ruins were in the Park. To correct this, the bill was amended to place all unpatented prehistoric ruins on Indian or federal land within five miles of the park boundary under the custodianship of the park.
Devils Tower National Monument
In Wyoming, Devils Tower – a sacred place known to the Lakota, Shoshone, Arapaho, and Cheyenne as Bears’ Lodge – was proclaimed a national monument by presidential proclamation in 1905. This geological feature was mentioned in the oral traditions of at least 20 tribes and is also known as Tree Rock, Home of the Bear, and Great Grey Horn. It has been a common practice in the United States to associate American Indian sacred sites and ceremonial areas with the Devil under the stereotype of Indians as Devil worshippers.
National Bison Range
In 1908, President Roosevelt established the National Bison Range near Moise, Montana on the Flathead Reservation. The mission of the Nation Bison Range is to provide a representative herd of buffalo, in natural conditions, to help ensure the preservation of the species for the public benefit and enjoyment.
Chief Joseph
In 1903, Nez Perce Chief Joseph met with President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, D. C. At a buffalo dinner, Chief Joseph explained the situation of his people. He was promised by the President that someone would come to investigate the matter.
Quanah Parker
In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt visited Frederick, Oklahoma Territory where he was met by an honor guard that included Comanche leader Quanah Parker. Roosevelt asked Parker to join him on the speakers’ stand as he told the people:
“Give the red man the same chance as the white. This country is founded on a doctrine of giving each man a fair show to see what there is in him.”
Geronimo
In 1906, Apache leader Geronimo, who was a prisoner-of-war, told his life story to S. M. Barrett who published it as Geronimo: His Own Story. The military objected to this biography and sought to stop its publication. President Roosevelt personally intervened to see that Geronimo’s story was published.
Commissioner of Indian Affairs
In the structure of the federal government, Indian affairs are administered by the Department of the Interior. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a political appointee, oversees this area. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Francis Leupp as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Leupp had been employed by the Indian Rights Association as their Washington, D.C. representative. Unlike most of the earlier appointments to this position, Leupp was actually well-versed in Indian affairs. Historian William Hagan writes:
“Leupp was definitely a hands-on administrator and unlike Jones [the previous Commissioner] had come to the office well versed in Indian Affairs.”
Honoring an Indian Fighter
In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated a monument in New York to Captain John Underhill, the first professional Indian fighter in the northeast. In 1637, Underhill had been one of the leaders of the genocidal Pequot War in New England. According to Roosevelt, Underhill was one of the men in Colonial times who “helped to lay the foundation of the nation that was to be.” Another view of Underhill is provided by historian Laurence Hauptman, in his book Tribes and Tribulations: Misconceptions about American Indians and their Histories:
“Underhill’s actions suggest that he was a sociopath, or, in more correct psychological parlance, that he suffered from antisocial personality disorder.”
Reservation Timber
In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt issued eight proclamations which transferred 15 million acres of Indian timber on reservations created by Executive Order to adjacent national forests. The reservations included Fort Apache, Mescalero, Jicarilla, San Carlos, Zuni, Hoopa Valley, Tule River, and Navajo.
The proclamation regarding the enlargement of the Trinity National Forest in California included most of the Hoopa Reservation. The proclamation stated that after 25 years any un-allotted land on the reservation was to become a part of the national forest and the Hoopa were to lose their rights to this land.
More 20th-Century American Indian histories
In the 19th century it was commonly believed that Indians would be extinct by the 20th century and many American history books relegate Indians to the past rendering them invisible in accounts of 20th-century histories. Here are some 20th-century histories:
Indians 101: Suppressing Indian religions in Montana, 1900-1934
Indians 101: The Grand Coulee Dam and the Colville Indians
Indians 101: Hopi Indians as tourist attractions in the early 20th century
Indians 101: World War II Veterans Come Home
Indians 101: American Indians and the Korean War
Indians 101: Indians, Iwo Jima, and the American Flag
Indians 101: Boulder Dam and the Navajo Reservation
Indians 101: Changing Federal Indian Policies Through the Indian Reorganization Act