Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA) And American Indian Movement

For several hundred years people have sought answers to the Indian problems, who are the Indians, and what rights do they have? These questions may seem simple, but the answers themselves present a difficult number of further questions and answers. State and Federal governments have tried to provide some order with a number of laws and policies, sometimes resulting in state and federal conflicts. The Federal Government's attempt to deal with Indian tribes can be easily understood by following the history of Federal Indian Policy. Indians all over the United States fought policies which threatened to destroy their familial bonds and traditions. The Passamaquoddy Indian Tribe of Maine, resisted no less

Unfamiliar with extended family child-rearing practices and communal values, government social service workers attempted to ‘rescue’ children from their Aboriginal families and communities, devastating children’s lives and furthering the destitution of many families. Culture and ethnicity were not taken into consideration as it was assumed that the child, being pliable, would take on the heritage and culture of the foster/adoptive parents (Armitage, 1995). The forced removal of children and youth from their Native communities has been linked with social problems such as “high suicide rate, sexual exploitation, substance use and abuse, poverty, low educational achievement and chronic unemployment” (Lavell-Harvard and Lavell, 2006, p.144). Newly designated funds from the federal to the provincial governments were “the primary catalysts for state involvement in the well-being of Aboriginal children…as Ottawa guaranteed payment for each child apprehended” (Lavell-Harvard and Lavell, 2006, p.145). Exporting Aboriginal children to the United States was common practice. Private American adoption agencies paid Canadian child welfare services $5,000 to $10,000 per child (LavellHarvard and Lavell, 2006). These agencies rarely went beyond confirming the applicant’s ability to pay, resulting in minimal screening and monitoring of foster or adoptive parents (Fournier and

The Indian Claims Commission was a judicial panel for relations between the United States Federal Government and Native American tribes. It was established under the Indian Claims Act in 1946 by the United States Congress to hear claims of Indian tribes against the United States. According to Rosier (2003) the impetus to create the ICC came from three main sources. Native Americans and white political leaders had been calling for a commission separate from the backlogged U.S. Court of Claims since 1910. Assimilationists intent on "terminating" federal guardianship of Native Americans hoped to eliminate a final legal and moral hurdle by "wiping the slate clean" of Indian demands for re-dress. Finally, federal officials wanted to address Native Americans ' grievances as a reward for their contributions during World War II and to create a positive record of dealing fairly with America 's minorities in the increasingly competitive atmosphere of the Cold War.

Thesis: The Indian Act effectively required Aboriginals to give up large amounts of land and rights followed by moving onto reserves. It negatively changed the lives of many Indian men and women who married non-status Aboriginals and harshly withdrew Aboriginal children from their families and put them into residential schools for the purposes assimilation. The Indian Act was known for creating an atrocious life for Indians.

The Dawes Act of 1887 began the process of allotment. By trying to force Native Americans to become farmers, the federal government cast many groups into poverty. The land which the United States held in trust for Indians was usually not choice farmland. Those trying to make a living off the inhospitable lands of the West found little success. During the interwar period of the early twentieth century, the government made new efforts to alleviate Indians’ position as a marginalized group. Over 10,000 Native Americans volunteered and served with distinction in the armed forces during World War I. In recognition of their efforts, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, making all American Indians United States citizens.

In the years leading up to the Indian Removal Act, which was the initial cause of the Trail of Tears, the United States was in a shift. The country was seeing an unrivaled influx of European settlers looking for careers and land. This caused population to skyrocket, in fact in the years 1790-1840, the United States saw a 350% increase in population. In other words, the need for fertile land and viable property was high. At the same time, attempts at assimilation of Indians into American society were proving to be futile. Americans saw the Indians as “noble savages”, who were uncivilized but able to be fit for society if they were converted to Christianity and adopted Anglo-European culture and behavior. With the growing need for land and the rise in tension between Natives and fearful white settlers, something needed to be done in the eyes of the American people. These two things combined is what really set up the foreground for what would become the Indian Removal Act. President Andrew Jackson, in

In the past year and a half with events like DPAL, Native American rights along with the rights of other minority groups in the United States haven’t been shown the same rights as Caucasians when it comes to civil liberty issues. In 1978 Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Under the ICWA tribes have significant input on whether the removal of children from them is necessary, “efforts must be made to support and rehabilitate a family before its child is placed into foster care or adopted.” (Ryznar, 2013). The ICWA also was enacted to examine how it “establishes standards for state-court child custody proceedings involving Indian children… “the consequences…of abusive child welfare practices that [separated] Indian children from their families and tribes through adoption or foster care placement, usually in non-Indian homes.” (Cornell University Law School). In 2009, a couple from South Carolina, Melanie and Matthew Capobianco, wanted to adopt a baby whose father (Dusten Brown) was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and mother Christina Maldonado of Hispanic background. Due to Brown being a registered member of the Cherokee Nation, and under the ICWA, a child that

In the seventeenth century, European people begin to settle in the North America. They started to invest in the natural resources in the eastern America using the best resource they found in the land, captured Native Indians. Many poor European people migrated to North America for opportunity to earn money and rise of their social status. They came to the America as indentured or contracted servants because the passage aboard was too expensive for them. By the time many Native Indians and indentured servants die from the hard labor and low morality rate, masters of the plantation purchased more slaves from Africa to profit themselves. The “Virginia Servant and Slave Laws” reveal the dominant efforts of masters to profit from their servants and slaves by passing laws to treat slaves as their properties and to control servants and slaves by suppressing the rebellion using brutal force. Masters and rich planters sought to earn more profit from mercantilism, or trade, economic system by violating the civil rights of Native Indian, African, and poor European people and this thought and practice still exist today as a form of racism and segregation in America.

There was a court case, Baby Girl v. Adoptive Couple, in which a child who was partially Cherokee Indian, because of her father, and Hispanic, because of her mother. The adoption of Baby Girl was a difficult one due to the fact that she has an ancestry of Cherokee Indian. Therefore, under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), the adoption of Baby Girl seemed impossible because Biological Father had the right to have custody of his child, Baby Girl, if he chose to. So, the court greatly sees that by giving Baby Girl back to Biological Father would be in the child’s best interest under the ICWA, because there is the assumption that if she is with her Biological Father and her culture, she will not suffer any type of emotional distress. For

In 1830, the Jackson administration instated the Indian Removal Act. This act removed the Native Americans from their ancestral lands to make way for an increase of additional American immigrants. This act forced many Native American tribes from their homes including five larger tribes, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creek, and Seminole. These tribes had populations were estimated to be around 65,000 people strong that lived in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. (Foner, 2012) The American Indians fought for their rights and beliefs through the American court system. Their other objective other than fighting for their rights was but in the end, they were forced out of their homes to move

When Europeans first arrived to America, Indians were living in eight present states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, the Virginias, Alabama, and the Carolinas (Museum). Slowly, the Cherokee were forced to sign treaties giving away land to the new nation. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson finally worked to pass a treaty that would force all Indians west of the Mississippi River. It wasn’t until Andrew Jackson

The AIM was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt, mainly to stop the police brutality and other violence going on within the Indian communities. In the 1950’s the United States government had decided to establish a policy that included taking all the land they had given to Native Americans back. This would

Parents wishing to adopt have challenged the adoption laws regarding American-Indian children. For many decades, people wanting to adopt African-American children from disturbing situations have been put through several issues. A law was passed called the “Indian child welfare act” to end what was then a common practice. The state claims they thought that American-Indian children were better off in homes with non-Indian parents. A handful of recent lawsuits say the federal law and similar legislation at state levels make it harder to find stable homes for children. they’ve had many cases fall apart, because parents adopting don’t want the children. Most adopting parents believe it's unfair to them if they can’t adopt American-Indian children.

Imagine a world in which all men weren 't created equal. A world where skin color, ethnic origin, gender, and sexuality was what defined a person rather than character. “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood”(King). Through the decades of the 1940s-1960s, America built the foundation for civil rights, a movement in which minorities fought for equality. Groups that previously had been discriminated against began to defend themselves with greater strength and success. The civil rights movement inspired African Americans, Native Americans, women, queers, and Latinos to fight for equality. Although each social group faced their own unique challenges during the civil rights movement, each group shared a common connection through their struggles for equality.

The removal of Indian children from their families were at a significantly higher rate than whites and other non-white groups. A study conducted by the Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA) (1977) found that 25 to 35% of all Indian children were being placed in out-of-home care (as cited in Byler, 1977; Fischler, 1980). The study further found that 40% of all adoptions in