Are Native Americans U.S. citizens?
All Native Americansâas well as Alaska Natives, who often do not identify with the term Native Americanââborn within the territorial limits of the United Statesâ are U.S. citizens. This has been the case since 1924, when Pres. Calvin Coolidge signed the Snyder Act, also called the Indian Citizenship Act, into law. This act did not apply to Native Hawaiians, who were already citizens through the Hawaiian Organic Act in 1900.
Citizenship in the 19th century
Some Indigenous Americans have been U.S. citizens since at least 1817. For much of the 19th century citizenship was offered to Indigenous people in exchange for their land. Those who accepted the trade were expected to give up their traditional ways of life and live on land allotments, and many rejected the governmentâs offer. Others accepted the terms of the treaties in the hopes of better treatment but often found that better conditions failed to materialize. For example, a number of members of the Choctaw people became citizens in order to avoid being forcibly moved west under the Indian Removal Act (1830), but the U.S. government did not protect them against continued attacks by their white neighbors. The Dawes General Allotment Act (1887) continued this practice, offering Indigenous families and unmarried adults land allotments and citizenship in exchange for tribal land not allotted to members becoming available for public sale.
The Fourteenth Amendment and its interpretation
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War, granted citizenship to âall persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereofâ and specifies that representatives should be apportioned based on the population of each state âexcluding Indians not taxed.â Because of the ambiguity left in the wording of the amendment regarding the status of Indigenous persons the Senate Committee on the Judiciary was instructed in 1870 to assess and report on whether the amendment impacted the status of Native Americans. The committeeâs conclusion was that Indigenous individuals were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because Native tribes had been treated as separate nations by the government. It further asserted that the continued exclusion of untaxed Indigenous persons from population counts to determine the number of representatives reflected that the amendment was not intended to apply to Native Americans.
" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">
Federal courts interpreted the amendment in a similar way. The 1884 U.S. Supreme Court case Elk v. Wilkins ruled that an Omaha man was not eligible to vote. The Court based its decision on the exclusion of âIndians not taxedâ from reapportionment counts, which it argued meant that the amendment was not intended to apply to Native Americans.
Toward 1924
In the early 20th century about half of all Native Americans (including Alaska Natives) remained noncitizens. Despite this, about 6,500 Indigenous men were drafted to fight in World War I, with another 5,000 or so volunteering to fight. This number accounted for about 25 percent of the male Native American population at the time. On November 6, 1919ânearly one year after the end of the warâall Indigenous veterans of World War I who had received an honorable discharge were declared eligible for U.S. citizenship. Unlike previous offers, the U.S. government did not make the acceptance of citizenship contingent on Native Americans ceding their rights to their lands. Rather, that statute specified that the veteransâ claims to tribal property would remain unaffected. Similar language was used in the Snyder Act five years later to make all Native Americans and Alaska Natives citizens without terminating their rights to tribal lands and property.