By the end of this exercise, I can… 

• analyze temporary convergences for political organizing in urban centers like Chicago
• evaluate how the Chicago American Indian Conference brought together Native people to set a vision for self-determination

This exercise could also be paired with teaching about: 

• African American Civil Rights Movement. Connect to political organizing and urban community development (1960s)

Inquiry

• SS.9-12.IS.5. Gather and evaluate information from multiple primary and secondary sources that reflect the perspectives and experiences of multiple groups, including marginalized groups.

Civics

• SS.9-12.CV.9. Evaluate public policies in terms of intended and unintended outcomes and related consequences on different communities including the marginalization of multiple groups.

History

• SS.9-12.H.14. Analyze the geographic and cultural forces that have resulted in conflict and cooperation. Identify the cause and effects of imperialism and colonization.

Native nations have a government-to-government relationship with the United States based in treaties. This means both Native nations and the US government have made promises that they must keep. The United States has rarely kept its promises to Native people. Relocation policy was another broken promise.

In the 1950s, the US government tried three policies to get rid of Native nations and take over Native land: relocation, termination, and Public Law 280, which changed rules in some states for handling crimes. Termination and Relocation both directly impacted Native people in Chicago, while Public Law 280 affected many of their communities back home. Both termination and relocation were part of how the U.S. government tried to assimilate Native people. Termination proposed that if the federal government thought certain Native nations were “sufficiently assimilated,” then they were no longer their own nations. It ended government-to-government relationships with these tribes, which violated the treaties. Termination ended the government-to-government relationship between many Native nations and the United States; some of these have been reinstated, but many are still fighting for their rights to be restored. 

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs ran the Voluntary Relocation Program from 1952 to 1972, which the government officially authorized under the 1956 Indian relocation act. They used the program to encourage Native people to leave their reservations and move to cities like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Seattle. The Bureau of Indian Affairs used promotional posters, photographs, and videos to paint a picture of what life could be like in cities. They promised relocatees housing and employment. These promises weren’t kept. Few relocatees ever saw these benefits. Instead, most Native people who relocated faced discrimination that led to poor housing, unemployment, and poverty. Many felt isolated from their home communities and cultures. Relocation attempted to remove Native people – especially younger adults – from their communities. It tried to end Native peoples’ sense of identity and belonging to their communities. But Native people came together in their new environments in cities to support one another and build new communities. Many people relocated through the federal program, and many others relocated on their own because of the need for work. Native people came together in their new environments in cities to support one another and build new communities. They retained their cultural identities through urban organizations and by maintaining their connections to their reservations. 

Native people responded to the United States’ broken promises through direct activism and protest. They also came together to write policy statements and organize politically. The Chicago American Indian Conference of 1961 was one of these coming together moments in Chicago. Native participants and non-Native attendees convened at the University of Chicago from June 13-20, 1961 (organizers agreed that non-Native people should observe but let Native people drive the conversation). They wanted to respond to the impacts of Relocation and Termination. They also wanted to call out the lack of updated federal studies on the conditions of Native people. Native and non-Native people believed that a national conference could drive the goal of Indigenous self-determination. The Chicago Conference brought Native people together with an objective: to create a statement on national government issues for Indian Affairs. The conference also facilitated connections between people from many tribes, which connected Native people on a national scale. At the conference, they wrote the Declaration of Indian Purpose. The National Congress of American Indians presented this declaration to President John F. Kennedy in 1962. After the conference, Native people continued to organize, like when a group of Native youth created the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC). 

Sources

Fixico, Donald. Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-1960. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990). 

Tom Greenwood Papers, Box 1, Folders 1-14. Newberry Library. 

LaGrande, James B. Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago, 1945-75. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005). 

Note to teachers: We invite you to use the components of the Indigenous Chicago curriculum that best align with the needs of your classroom. The following suggested steps can be modified as needed, and we invite you to use the teacher’s history brief to inspire new exercises that best meet the needs of your students. Please note that we suggest shortening, rather than modifying, the language of historical sources to best reflect the original source’s context, intention, and voice. 

1. After Relocation, Indigenous people came together to advocate for their rights to self-determination (for more on Indigenous activism, see the Activism and Resistance module). One example of Indigenous people coming together to advocate for their rights is the Chicago American Indian Conference of 1961. This conference was organized by a group of Native and non-Native participants. It brought together more than 500 Native people from more than 90 Native nations. To begin, review the information about what led to the conference in the Background section above.

2. To prepare for the primary sources you’re about to look at, create a chart like the one below (adapted from Nokes, 2022, p. 130):

3. Sol Tax was a researcher at the University of Chicago who helped organize the conference. Read through this planning letter from Sol Tax (Source 1).

• • How would you describe the organizing of the conference (a group effort, an individual, improvised, well organized, etc.)?
  • How big did organizers think the conference might be?
  • What did they envision as the goal of the conference?

4. Now, look at this newspaper article about the conference in the Chicago Sun-Times in June 1961 (Source 2). The two-page section also includes an essay by Sol Tax. 

• • How does the article describe the need for self-determination?
  • What does he think people should know about the diversity between Native people? 
  • List the responsibilities Sol Tax identifies as responsibilities of federal government agencies:
    •  
    •  
    •  
  • If you’re using the other Indigenous Chicago exercises: Given the history of Chicago you know by this point, why might Chicago have been an appropriate place for such a convening? How does this conference fit within longer histories of convergences in Chicago? 

5. At the conference, attendees wrote the Declaration of Indian Purpose (Source 3). This is the document that was published and delivered to President Kennedy following the conference. Read the “Creed” (also printed at the end of this document) and skim through other sections. 

• • How does the document recognize the long history of Native people under colonialism?
  • In what ways is the document a response to the broken promises connected to the Relocation policy? 
  • How does it represent another way of people coming together to support each other?
  • Historians have noted that the Kennedy administration did not do much with the declaration after the presentation. Why do you think the declaration is still a significant document?

6. Summing it up! In SQ1, you thought about Indigenous confederacies prior to colonization and early settler-Indigenous interactions through trade and diplomacy. In SQ2, you thought about Relocation and how Native people came together to build a new intertribal community in Chicago. Now, in SQ3, you’ve thought about a temporary convergence through the Chicago American Indian Conference. 

• • What do each of these stories teach us about how people support themselves and their connections with one another, particularly in the face of social disruptions?

Note to teachers: You can use this question for a formative assessment of your choosing to assess the SQ and the skills you are currently working on with your students. If you’d like a longer or more structured summative assessment, please see our suggested exercise here. 

You can see a higher resolution version of the document here.

Sol Tax was an non-Native anthropologist. He is best known for creating “action anthropology.” “Action anthropology” is an approach to research that prioritizes working with communities to create shared goals and support their priorities. He carried out his community-focused research for many decades at the University of Chicago. Tax worked closely with community members to plan the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference and draft the Declaration of Indian Purpose. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO  February 7, 1961

To: Ben Bearskin, Neffie Berryhill, Nathan Bird, William Careful, Earl Cordier, Irene Dixon, Frank Fastwolf, David Fox, Harry Funmaker, Kenneth Funmaker,Lenore George, Mary Greendeer, Tom Greenwood, Helen Harden, Dorothy Holstein, Hiawatha Hood, Robinson Johnson, Columbus Keahna, William La Mere, Cloe La Pearl, Ed La Plante, Marlo Martinez, Verne MIller, Daniel Mousseaux, Ernest Naquayouma, Edward Poitra, Richard Poweshiek, Tom Segunde, Rose Stevens, Deanna Stops, Ray Tahahwah, Annette Teboe, Carol Trebian, Mary Treetop, Melvin Walker, Vincent Zurega:

You are invited to supper next Saturday evening February 11th at 6 P.M. at ISHAM MEMORIAL Y.M.C.A., 15lS North Ogden Ave., Chicago. You will be joined at supper by a number of Indians who have come from all over the U.S.A. to make preliminary plans for theAmerican Indian Charter Convention which will be held here in Chicago, June 13-20. Those who will be here include: Austin Buckles, Fred Kabote, George Kenote, Judge Lacey Maynor, D’Arcy McNickle, Helen Peterson, John C. Ranier, William Rickard, FrankTakes Gun, Alvin Warreo, Clarence Wesley, and George O. Heron, Dibbon Cook. 

After supper, the visitors will leave and all of you who accept this invitation will be a temporary “Ways and Means Committee” to plan an “All Chicago” meeting which will be held on Saturday evening February 25 also at ISHAM MEMORIAL Y.M.C.A.

Let me start again from the beginning. This Charter Convention will be held at the University of Chicago in June. All Indians in the U.S.A. are invited to come; and they are already discussing different programs for the future of American Indians.

Since the Convention will be In Chicago, the Indians living in Chicago are “hosts”. Therefore, I invited to my home last Friday night Ben Bearskin, Frank Fastwolf, Tom Greenwood, Dorothy Holstein, Robinson Johnson, Willard La Mere, Thomas Segundo, and Melvin Walker. Mrs. Holstein and Tom Segundo could not come. The others, after several hours of discussion decided (1) there might be several thousand Indians coming to Chicago for the Convention,and much planning needs to be done; (2) therefore, there should be an early meeting of all Chicago Indians who can be reached in time — and this meeting Is scheduled for Feb. 25; (3) a temporary Ways and Means Committee should get together as soon as possible to discuss the problems, and prepare for the meeting –and this meeting is scheduled for Feb. 11th, (4) to give me names of Indians to be invited to this Feb. 11 meeting.

All of the names at the head of this letter were supplied by those who met with me last Friday evening. I am only the “co-ordinator”.

May I Invite you most cordially to come to the meeting this coming Saturday, Feb. 11th. Time: 6 P.M., Place: ISHAM MEMORIAL Y.M.C.A., 1515 N. Ogden.

Source citation: “Sol Tax to Bearskin et. al,” February 7, 1961. Box 1, Folder 6, Tom Greenwood Papers, Newberry Library. 

You can view the article in its entirety here.

Sol Tax was an non-Native anthropologist. He is best known for creating “action anthropology.” “Action anthropology” is an approach to research that prioritizes working with communities to create shared goals and support their priorities. He carried out his community-focused research for many decades at the University of Chicago. Tax worked closely with community members to plan the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference and draft the Declaration of Indian Purpose. 

Source citation: Tax, Sol. “What the Indians Want.” June 11, 1961. Chicago Sun Times. Box 1, Folder 11, Tom Greenwood Papers, Newberry Library.

What the Indians Want

Older than the nation itself and more complex than ever is the American Indian “problem.”  For decades, only piecemeal, stop-and-go actions have been taken to help Indians fulfill their aims and adjust fully to a growingly complex society. 

No comprehensive survey of the Indian situation has been made in 32 years.  But this week the Indians themselves, representing hundreds of tribes all over the country, will gather on the campus of the University of Chicago to arrive at a declaration of purpose embodying their goals.

Co-ordinator [sic] of the all-tribal conference, which climaxes a series of regional meetings, is Dr. Sol Tax.  This article was prepared after discussions with others active in planning the conference:  Robert Rietz, director of the Chicago Indian Center; Dr. Nancy O. Lurie of the University of Michigan, and Albert Wahrhaftig, an assistant to the co-ordinators [sic].  

This background article summarizes the highlights of the Indian “problem,” underscoring some of the fallacies and failures of previous policies.

THE AUTHOR 

Dr. Sol Tax, widely regarded as one of the nation’s leading authorities on the American Indian, is a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. 

Among his publications are “Acculturation in the America’s,” [sic] “Indian Tribes of Aboriginal America” and “Civilizations of Ancient America.” 

He is the editor of Current Anthropology, a worldwide anthropological journal, and is past president of the American Anthropological Assn.  He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1935 and joined the faculty in 1940.  From 1955 to 1958 he was chairman of the university’s anthropology department.  

Views to Be Aired At Parley Here 

It may come as a surprise that there are about as many Indians in the United States today as there were when Columbus discovered America.

The aboriginal population of North America, including Canada and the northern border area of Mexico, is estimated to have been about 1,000,000.  This population was greatly reduced by wars and epidemics, and by the end of the 19th Century it appeared that the Indians were a people doomed to extinction. 

In the 20th Century, their numbers have been steadily and rapidly increasing.  Between 1930 and 1960, the American Indian population—excluding Alaska—rose from 332,397 to 508,665, an increase of approximately 50 per cent, roughly the same as the increase in the nation as a whole despite the fact that Indian death rates are still proportionately higher compared to birth rates than is the case for the general population.  It is striking that this increase continues even though all government programs consistently aim at decreasing the Indian population as such—in earlier years by military campaigns and for the last 75 years by promoting the disappearance of Indians into the general population.  

Nor are 1961 Indians merely Indians by name or appearance.  While we may pass many of Chicago’s more than 4,000 Indians in the streets every day without even realizing that they are Indians, almost all of them live and guide their lives in terms of moral values more Indian than non-Indian.  The “vanishing American” is here to stay.

THE SO-CALLED “INDIAN PROBLEM” has been with us since Colonial times.  Although special bureaus, agencies and commissions in the federal and many state governments, as well as private organizations, have devoted vast amounts of money and endless expert planning to Indian affairs, the “problem” remains.  One may well ask why.

To seek an answer to this question, Indians from tribes all over the nation will meet for a week beginning Tuesday at the University of Chicago.  The American Indian Chicago Conference will climax six months of concerted effort by Indians themselves to make their own voices heard.  We anthropologists who are co-ordinating [sic] the effort have set ourselves the task of listening and learning but not speaking.  

In the last six months, I (for one) have learned more about the Indian view than in my 30 years of previous research.  We do not know what proposals will be made at the conference nor the language in which they will be couched, but it is already possible to restate the “Indian problem” in terms of the underlying Indian point of view, to take into account not only the objective facts as known from historical and anthropological studies, but how these facts have been experienced and interpreted by Indians themselves.

FROM THE BEGINNING, Indians have cherished their heritages, their communities, their homelands, their moral values.  More than anything else, they have wanted to retain their identity.  Whenever they came to realize that Europeans had come to take away their land and their identity, they resisted. From the beginning, whenever programs have threatened their land or their identity, such programs have failed. Therefore, the first necessity in dealing with Indians in the United States honestly and intelligently is to stop trying to take away their land and stop trying to take away their identity as Indians.  We must assume that every Indian tribe is here to stay.  

Basing policy on any other assumption is like saying that the solution to the well-known school bus problem is for all Roman Catholics to become Protestants or vice versa.  

This does not mean that we have to move back to Europe and give the continent back to the Indians.  It only means that we must stop threatening the last remnants of Indian land holdings and strengthen the Indians’ land base wherever we can.  

Nor does this mean that Indians expect to live by hunting, fishing and handouts from the federal government or anybody else.  It only means that we should return to Indians, for as long as needed—and this may be forever—some equivalent to the economic opportunity that was lost to them with the loss of their lands. 

Nor does the requirement that their identity be respected mean that Indians want to turn back the clock and live in the manner of their ancestors at the time of European contact.

RESPECTING THE IDENTITY of Indians means recognizing the continuing existence and identity of Indian communities.  Nobody is “just an Indian.”  He is, first of all, a Tuscarora, or an Apache, or a Menomini [Menominee], or a Klamath or a member of some other tribe with its particular history and traditions.  Before the white man came, there were Hopis, and Winnebagoes [Ho-Chunk] and many other tribes, but no “Indians.”  It is only the Europeans who saw them all as “Indians.”  Therefore, a threat to the existence of the community is a threat to the existence of every member of the community.  

Some Indian people resent having been “given” citizenship by Congress in 1924, seeing in this act the possible destruction of their tribal integrity and individual rights.  The implication, such as in the word “assimilation,” that a tribe and its culture will eventually disappear, is a threat of death to every individual concerned.  No wonder the long-standing assumption that Indians will welcome assimilation has paralyzed attempts at constructive programs for Indians.  

If a change, no matter how beneficial, is defined as a change from being Indian to being white, it stands a good chance of not being adopted.  If the opportunity to learn a trade suggests the beginning of a process of departure from being an Indian, it may well be rejected.  Precisely because the rifle, the horse and the automobile were never associated with assimilationist interpretations, they were incorporated into Indian cultures.  Frequent failures of “government programs” may be traced to justifying them as a means of assimilation.  

New and better understanding and some 300 years of historical perspective point out not only our past errors but how effective it would be to approach the Indian problem in a totally new light.  It should be easy enough now to stop taking the land, since we have taken all but a tiny fraction of the entire continent from the Indians, and perhaps Indians should now let bygones be bygones.  How can they let bygones be bygones when they have not yet gone by?  The age-old effort continues to alienate Indians from their few remaining acres under the same old pretexts that it is for their own good.  Indeed, it even bothers us to let them have some few bits of their remaining lands free of local real estate taxes, thinking it too “generous” or “discriminatory.”  

Individual Indians never had the right to alienate tribal property, and there is probably no case in our history when a trible [sic] responsibly and willingly parted with the territory it used and occupied as its own.  The continent was therefore taken away by hook or by crook.  We who think of land as real estate do not understand or appreciate the continuing and poignant personal loss felt by Indians who lose their lands.  While my work and association with Indians made me aware of the sacred tie of the Indian to land, the last six months have revealed its unsuspected intensity and universality.  A tribe without its land is as inconceivable as an Indian without his tribe.  

Since the time of earliest contact, it has been our bland and naïve assumption that Indians would not only part with their lands as so much real estate, but would jump at the slightest chance to shake off their curious customs and strange ways to become like Europeans.  The psychological reason for this myth probably combined the hopes that Indians living like Europeans would need only a few acres per family and there would be more than enough land for all; and that European farmers would be spared the disconcerting example of Indian neighbors hunting and fishing while they would on routine farm tasks.  

IN ORDER NOT to waste the taxpayer’s money and the Indians’ time in futile enterprises based on the expectation of eliminating the Indian problem by eliminating Indian communities, government agencies must reconcile themselves to the historic fact of Indian persistence and develop an appropriate administrative philosophy.  All who are concerned with Indian welfare must be reconciled to the need to subsidize Indian communities and to help Indian individuals to make their ways as Indians.  How much less subsidy than at present will ultimately be required we will know only after the Indian people receive opportunities to develop their resources in an unthreatening atmosphere of free choice.

The famous case of the Mohawks, who have made the high steel industry uniquely and peculiarly their own specialty while retaining and reaffirming their identity as Mohawks, illustrates that Indians can adapt effectively to the most modern conditions—given opportunity and free choice.  The Mohawk case was not a government program—it developed fortuitously—but it offers a model and a philosophy in solving the Indian problem.

RECOGNIZING THE IDENTITY of Indian communities and their right to persist means more than only removing threats.  It also means allowing the Indian communities to become again whole and fully functioning.  When Indian communities were independent and sovereign, they were able to adapt readily to changing conditions and avail themselves intelligently and efficiently of new ideas, techniques and material objects.  Throughout the long period of the fur trade, for example, Indians enriched their cultures without losing their sense of identity.  

In our management of Indian affairs we have made two serious miscalculations.  First, we, rather than the Indians, have decided what their goals should be.  Second, we have tried to see to it that these goals are reached by our own rather than by the Indians’ methods.  Important community decisions are made by outsiders and the work of carrying out the decisions is done by outsiders.  Since a normal community derives its meaning in the very act of organizing to make decisions and to carry them out, all American Indian communities have been effectively crippled.  One result of this has been that normal differences of opinion cannot be worked out within the community.  

Since decisions are made outside the community, people with inclinations and skills for leadership can only compete for power rather than resolve issues and carry out responsibilities.  Then, compounding the error, we blame tribes for their “factionalism” and for the “lack of true community leadership;” and we claim still more the need to make their decisions for them “because they can never get together.” 

IT IS SOMETIMES ARGUED that the crippling effects of governmental paternalism could have been avoided if the government had simply “stayed out of the Indian business.”  But this has not worked either.  There are many Indian communities which are not recognized by the government which face problems as acute as those of the over-regulated communities.  These “non-reservation” settlements, even when they no longer “own” their land, are identifiable as communities whose members are as attached to their territories as any other Indians, and with pressing problems comparable to the others.  Their problems cannot be wished away by refusing to recognize them.  These are communities without paternalistic control but also without the needed subsidization to begin to carry out choices they would like to make for their own benefit. 

IF THE FOREGOING ANALYSIS is correct in regard to Indian communities generally, whether recognized or unrecognized by the federal government, and if it properly takes into account the Indian point of view, it appears that the responsibilities of government agencies are clear:  

1.     Indian communities should be subsidized without setting any time limits. 
2.     Subsidization must not interfere with effective Indian selection and execution of their own programs.  
3.     Subsidization on the same terms must include legitimate, traditional Indian communities that perhaps never have been subsidized.  

It is said that Congress, at least, will not consider proposals so different from the established concepts of Indian administration, ineffective as these concepts have proved.  I assume, however, that people are educable and that Congress is responsive to informed public opinion.  

The Indians meeting in conference in Chicago this week are eager to bring their problems as they understand them before the American public and to tell us how they are prepared to work them out.  

Will these Indians be satisfied to find solutions, limited by the established channels of administrative precedent in the belief that this is their only possible recourse?  Or, will they rather strike out in a direction which is unprecedented but necessary from their own point of view in the hope that the American public will, for the first time, hear and be impressed by “the voice of the American Indian” on the Indian problem?  In either case, the choice will be a decision of the Indian people themselves and thus a necessary first step toward any good solution of the age-old “Indian problem.” 

You can see the full Declaration of Indian Purpose here.

The Chicago American Indian Conference of 1961 was a convening of Native and non-Native people at the University of Chicago from June 13-20, 1961. They wanted to respond to the impacts of Relocation and Termination. They also wanted to call out the lack of updated federal studies on the conditions of Native people. Native and non-Native people believed that a national conference could drive the goal of Indigenous self-determination. The Chicago Conference brought Native people together to create a statement on national government issues for Indian Affairs. The conference also helped connect people from many tribes. At the conference, they wrote the Declaration of Indian Purpose, and the opening Creed is printed here. A “creed” is a formal statement of shared beliefs. 

Creed

WE BELIEVE in the inherent right of all people to retain spiritual and cultural values, and that the free exercise of these values is necessary to the normal development of any people. Indians exercised this inherent right to live their own lives for thousands of years before the white man came and took their lands. It is a more complex world in which Indians live today, but the Indian people who first settled the New World and built the great civilizations which only now are being dug out of the past, long ago demonstrated that they could master complexity.

WE BELIEVE that the history and development of America show that the Indian has been subjected to duress, undue influence, unwarranted pressures, and policies which have produced uncertainty, frustration, and despair. Only when the public understands these conditions and is moved to take action toward the formulation and adoption of sound and consistent policies and programs will these destroying factors be removed and the Indian resume his normal growth and make his maximum contribution to modern society.

WE BELIEVE in the future of a greater America, an America which we were first to love, where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will be a reality. In such a future, with Indians and all other Americans cooperating, a cultural climate will be created in which the Indian people will grow and develop as members of a free society.

Source citation: “Declaration of Indian Purpose.” 1961.