OCR Text |
Show AN INTRODUCTION TO UTAH'S INDIAN HISTORY W E S H A L L R E M A I N : U TA H I N D I A N C U R R I C U L U M G U I D E 36 This lesson explores how Utah's Indians negoti-ate their place in Utah and the United States. As members of tribes, they are part of sovereign aboriginal nations that predate the United States. This means that they belong to a group that can govern itself independently from federal, state, and local governments. Sovereignty for these five nations is rooted in ancient ties to their homelands and traditional cultural practices and resides, in part, on articulated agreements between tribes and the federal government, in tribes' explicit pronouncements of sovereignty as written into formal governmental constitutions, and in tribes' powers to control their member-ship. It is important to remember that each of the tribes represented in this curriculum guide have distinct histories of sovereign relations with the U.S. and the states, and they articulate aspects of their sovereignty in distinct ways. Although members of a political entity that possesses inherent sovereignty in its relation-ship to state and federal governments, Utah's Indians also are part of life in Utah and in rest of the United States. Contrary to the perception of some non-Indians, being a tribal member does not exclude one from being a citizen of the United States or participating in state and city activities. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 formally con-veyed American citizenship to American Indians and confirmed their right to vote in both tribal elections and state/local government elections. Unfortunately, the act was not uniformly applied; Utah, for instance, did not allow Indians to vote until the 1950s, making it one of the last states to do so. Utah's failure to grant Indians the vote prior to the 1950s-despite the federal ruling-is in keeping with a history of marginalization that has profoundly shaped the experience of being Indian in Utah. Historically, many non-Indians viewed Indians as inferior to white Europeans and Americans. The doctrine of white superi-ority supported the idea that it was legitimate to take away vast tracts of Indians' original territory and place Indians on reservations. The settlement of Utah, contrary to popular be-lief, was in many ways typical of the national story. In his introduction to A History of Utah's American Indians, Forrest Cuch, the director of the Utah's Division of Indian Affairs and a Ute educator, identifies two major "myths" about Utah history: that "no one" lived in Utah prior to Mormon settlement and that after settle-ment, Utah's American Indians received better treatment than Indians in other states. Both assumptions about the state's past are inaccurate and deny Utah Indians their rightful place in the state's history. The second assumption is partic-ularly damaging because it masks the mistreat-ments and injustices that Utah's Indians suffered. Indeed, as Cuch points out, "in the case of the Bear River Massacre . . . treatment was even more harsh and severe than what was experienced by Indians residing in other states." Ironically, while most whites did not want In-ians in their midst, they also believed that At a Glance: sovereignty, tribal culture, and "living in two worlds" |