Mary Klann is a lecturer in U.S. history and Native American history at the University of California–San Diego. Her most recent book Wardship and the Welfare State: Native Americans and the Formation of First-Class Citizenship in Mid-Twentieth-Century America was published by Nebraska in June.
The Indian Citizenship Act (ICA) passed 100 years ago, on June 2, 1924. It unilaterally declared about one-third of the Native population in the United States to be American citizens—the majority of Native people were already citizens before its passage. Nevertheless, in the decades following the ICA, Congress repeatedly attempted to grant citizenship to Native people, something they already had. In 1953, the termination law, House Concurrent Resolution 108 (HCR 108) decreed that certain tribes and Native individuals be “grant[ed] all of the rights and prerogatives pertaining to American citizenship,” and should “assume their full responsibilities as American citizens.” In order to gain these rights and assume these responsibilities, members of “terminated” tribes would no longer be considered “wards of the United States.” They would be “freed from Federal supervision and control and from all disabilities and limitations specially applicable to Indians.” What was citizenship? Not only rights, prerogatives, and responsibilities of a certain population, but also the absence of disabilities, limitations, and federal supervision and control. Citizens weren’t wards—were they? Wards certainly couldn’t be citizens. (Right?)
