What would have happened to Native Americans if they had been declared U. S. citizens by the 14 Amendment to the U. S. Constitution?
Dissenters or questioners of my last article on Indians being left out of the 14th Amendment brushed it aside by saying that Indians never wanted to be U. S. Citizens, but instead wanted to be considered citizens of their own sovereign nations. Perhaps, but they also could have been included in the 14th Amendment as U. S. Citizens just as they were in made citizens in 1924 giving them U. S. citizenship and allowing them to retain their rights as citizens of their own nations.
Today, Indians are citizens of their own nations, citizens of the states where they reside and citizens of the United States.
The 14th Amendment enacted in 1868 following the Civil War granted citizenship to any person born within the borders of the United States.
If Chief Sitanka, Big Foot, was a U. S. citizen, along with his followers, would they have been considered deserters of their reservation because they traveled to the Pine Ridge Reservation from the Cheyenne Sioux River Reservation seeking shelter with Chief Red Cloud?
No, they would have just been U. S. citizens moving from one place to another. But since they were not citizens they were considered to be hostiles and subject to the direct control of the United States 7th Cavalry. They were stopped at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890, where nearly 300 innocent Lakota men, women and children were slaughtered like animals in one of the worst massacres in U. S. history.
South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, nearly one year before the massacre. If the people of the Great Sioux Nation had been granted citizenship in 1868 and been given the right to vote, would they have voted for statehood?
Oklahoma was once known as Indian Territory. It was occupied by the Indian tribes known as the Five Civilized Tribes made up of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole. On September 16, 1883 the United States initiated the Great Oklahoma Land Rush in which the land previously occupied by the Five Civilized Tribes was open for settlement and the lands once called home by these tribes was overrun and given away to the settlers. At that time in history members of these tribes were not considered citizens of the United States. Could there lands have been stolen from them in such a fashion if they were citizens of the U. S.? After all, hadn't they been considered civilized?
Citizenship would have given the right to vote to the Indian people. In states with large Indian populations like South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho and Montana, the right to vote would have given the Indian people a voice in stopping so many of the state actions that divested them of land and natural resources.
Some states so feared the Indian vote that even though citizenship was granted to Native Americans in 1924, states like Arizona and New Mexico did not grant citizenship until 1948 and then only after they had been challenged by Native American veterans returning from the battles of World War II.
Life for Native Americans would have been totally different if they had been recognized as citizens by the 14th Amendment.
(Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is Editor Emeritus of the Native Sun News, and can be reached at unitysodak1@vastbb.net)