The Indian and Citizenship
—-v
By Robert L. Bennett
IN The Indian Leader, Kansas
-x
Webster’s International Dic
tionary defines a citizen as a
member of a state, a person, a
native or naturalized of either
sex, one who owes allegiance to
a government and is entitled to
reciprocal protection from that
government. To be a member of
a state means that we must
take an active interest in all
things relative to that stat<\
With a membership in the state,
a person owes allegiance as a re
sult of receiving the rights of
participation. Allegiance is the
tie or obligation of a subject to
his government; the duty of fi
delity to one’s government or
soverign state.
We are an exacting people. Wc
demand of our Government that
in return for loyalty, the guar -
antee and privileges of living in
peace and tranquillity with
neighbors, that wc be guaran
teed the privilege of carrying
the sails of commerce the world
over, that our homes be pro
tected, that our children be edu
cated.
The tendency of society wheth
er civilized or barbarous, is na
turally, tho gradually toward
cohesion, union and centraliza
tion. The Athenian and the Ro
man state both grew out of such
a coalescence of antecedent
tribes. The narrower the limit
of land, the speedier is this uni
on. At the time that the Eu
ropean people first came to this
country, my people were scat
tered over vast areas and sep
arated by the barriers of climate
emerging but slowly from the
barbarism into which the whole
land had fallen when the sug
gested and unsubstantial civili
zation of prehistoric days had
gone down to savagery. For this
reason, the spirit of union was
slow and retarded growth,
: nd that it did exist is evidenced
by the numerous confederacies
that were found in the land at
the time of its discovery by Eu
ropeans. Of these confedera
cies, the strongest, the most in -
telligent, the most alert—“fore
most in war, foremost in elo
quence, foremost in their sav
age arts of policy,” declares Mr.
Parkman, “were the people of
the Long House.” This was the
only name by which the Five
Confederated Tribes, called by
the French “Iroquois,” ever dis
tinguished themselves. The men
cf these five nations were cap
able and far-seeing beyond their
kind. They had intelligence
not cnly to appreciate the wis
dom of confederation but the
skill to undertake it. Somewhere
about the middle of the 15th
century, a council of wise men
and chiefs of the Five Tribes
met upon the northern shore of
Onandaga Lake, near the site
of the present city of Syracuse.
It was at this council that a
plan of confederation was for
mulated, adopted, and immedi
ately entered upon. The con
federacy thus formed by these
five kindred tribes was based
upon the principle of absolute
and fraternal equality. .Each
tribe remained independent so
far as local self-government was
concerned, but in the matters of
mutual interests they were unit
ed and patriotic. Mr. Morgan in
his exhaustive study of this kin
dred confederation says: “The
history of the Iroquois demon
strates the reality as well as the
persistency of the bond of kin
and the fidelity with which it
was respected.” During the long
period through which the con
federation endured, they never
fell into anarchy nor refuted the
organization. The composition
of the confederacy gave to each
tribe, unhampered, its chiefs,
subchiefs, and councillors, but
all matters of national import
ance that called for united ac
tion were discussed and se tied
by fiie central council composed
:i the chiefs of the tribes. This
met when summoned in the
bark council house—“The Long
House”—on the Onandaga. So
intelligent a political organiza
tion as this was really a long
step in the direction of civiliza
tion with its ultimate goal of ci
tizenship. Just how far this step
might have led can be a matter
only for conjecture There is,
however, little doubt that it
would have been a dominating
influence on the American Con
tinent. East and West, North
and South, the power of the
“Long House” spread. A nation
of warriors with “an (insatiable
ambition and restless ferocity”
brooked neither enemy nor rival,
and the career of conquest of
these “Romans of the West,” as
they have been not inaptly call
ed, was checked only by the in -
terposition of a foreign and un
locked for power greater than
themselves. We shall need to
study the Indian story with
minds divested of the while
man's prejudices, and the Red
Man’s limited perceptions.
In attempting to analyze the
status of the Indian of to-day,
and his relation to citizenship,
we find that he was a citizen,
that he had a government, that
he was a respecter of property,
and that he had a religion long
before his contact with the in
vading Europeans. We find that
the progress in all of these es
sentials of citizenship were rude
ly interrupted by the invasion of
a European people. They land
ed upon our shores; they bar
gained and bartered with us;
they made war upon us; and
they drove us to the confines of