The Commissioners of Indian Affairs : The United States Indian Service and the Making of Federal Indian Policy, 1824 to 2017

Although federal Indian policies are largely determined by Congress and the executive branch, it is the commissioner and assistant secretary of Indian Affairs who must implement them. Over the past two centuries, the overarching goals of federal Indian policy have been the social and political integration and assimilation of Native Americans and the extinguishment of aboriginal title to Indian lands. These goals have been woven into policies of emigration, assimilation, acculturation, termination, reservations, and consumerism, shifting under the influence of a changing national moral compass. Indian Affairs commissioners have and continue to hold an enormous power to dictate how these policies affect the fate of Indians and their lands, a power that David H. DeJong shows has been used and misused in different ways through the years. By examining the work of the Indian affairs commissioners and the assistant secretaries, DeJong gives new insight into how federal Indian policy has evolved and been shaped by the social, political, and cultural winds of the day. "For more than two hundred years, members of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of t he American government have had a hand in shaping the course of federal Indian policy, or the legal relationship between the American federal government and the now more than 570 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States. Since 1824, it has been the responsibility of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (called the United States Indian Service until 1947) to support, enact, and administer the executive orders, congressional legislation, an d Supreme Court rulings relevant to Indian Country. In that time, a handful of policies, shaped by various, sometimes competing, and always changing attitudes toward Indians in the United States, have determined how and to what ends the BIA has approached its mission. Policies of civilization, emigration, reservations, assimilation, acculturation, termination, and consumerism, have and continue to dictate the terms and means by which the federal government administers Indian affairs in fulfillment of its constitutional and treaty obligations. In "A Most Anonymous Position," David H. DeJong has written the first comprehensive history of federal Indian policy based on these policy strands and their enforcement by BIA commissioners and their assistant secretaries. BIA commissioners have always had enormous power to dictate the fate of Indians and their lands, a power that DeJong shows has been wielded in different ways and has changed with policy through the years"-- Provided by publisher Contents Tables Preface 1. Aboriginal Indian Title: The Meaning of Indian Country 2. “Civilize or Exterminate?”: Formative Indian Policy, 1775–1849 3. “Halfway Across the Continent”: Beginnings of a Reservation Policy, 1849–1861 4. “To Conquer by Kindness”: Civil War and Peace Policy, 1861–1881 5. “Part of the Great Family”: Allotment and Citizenship, 1881–1904 6. “The New Magna Charta”: Carrying Civilization to the Indians, 1905–1928 7. “Last Chance for the Indians?”: Reorganization and New Deal, 1928–1948 8. “Men, Money, and Management”: Termination and Relocation, 1948–1961 9. “Awakening the National Conscience”: The Call for Self- Determination, 1961–1980 10. “A Federalist Partnership”: Indian Self-Determination, 1981–2017 11. “A Most Anonymous Position”: Federal Indian Policy and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1824–2017 Notes Bibliography Index