Identifier	Thesis 1545
Author	Sadlak-Bass, Alita J.
Title	The middle ground revisited : congressional protection and the Choctaw
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date of Publication	1998
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Abstract	Charles Wilkinson asserts that the Supreme Court has responded to contemporary Native American pleas for justice by attempting to incorporate Indian understanding of past commitments into reinterpretations of old laws. The new accommodation appears to represent a resurgence of the particular brand of cultural middle ground Richard White claims Native Americans and Europeans shared in the Great Lakes Region prior to 1815. For the new accommodation to be assessed a return to relations based on mutual respect and a commitment to making meaning of cultural differences, however, the existence of a past relationship between Anglos and Native Americans in which the former sought neither acculturation nor assimilation of the latter must first be established. The province of the Great Father by precedent, management of Indian affairs and protection of the special sovereignty of Indian Nations became the responsibilities of Congress. This study, therefore, examines the early primary instruments of congressional prerogative in Indian affairs for evidence of an historical commitment by the United States to preserve Native American culture and to protect guaranteed Indian rights. It specifically seeks to determine whether a middle ground accommodation may have existed with the Mississippi Choctaw. A southern tribe, the Choctaw offered the opportunity to test Anglo policy for middle ground characteristics in a geographical setting substantially different from the Great Lakes Region. One of the Five Civilized Tribes, the Choctaw experience with Anglo-Americans presumably offered a high probability of discovering equitable relations. An examination in Chapter 1 of significant treaties from Hopewell to the end of the treaty making period reveals no middle ground characteristics. To the contrary, Choctaw treaty experience with the American Great Father demonstrates the incompatibility of Anglo-American national interests with Native Americans' unique domestic/international status from the beginning of diplomatic discourse between the two entities. Promises made to the Choctaw were not honored; the language of peace and friendship was manipulated to serve Anglo greed for Choctaw land. While no evidence of middle ground human oneness was found, contractual agreement to recognize Indian sovereignty and, insofar as practicable, to preserve legitimate tribal interests were. Chapter 2 pursues evidence in support of a middle ground in the Trade and Intercourse Acts, the most significant and direct efforts of Congress to protect Indians from white encroachments. The search for commitment to Choctaw preservation in statutory law further supports the primacy of Anglo-American interests over guaranteed special status for Native Americans. Legislation and the machinery to enforce it became more elaborate, but their purpose was to manage the demise of the Choctaw as a nation and as a people, not to prevent it. Despite significant expenditure of time, effort and money to implement treaty promises by statute, the underlying legal imperative to protect Indians' special status was ignored, subordinated to other national interests. Implementation of policies beneficial only to the Great Father did not, however, alter the legal force of his contractual agreements. Chapter 3 assesses the combination of treaty promises and legislation to enforce them a success in terms of consolidating Anglo-American power and a failure in terms of respect for Native American rights and commitment to their preservation. With no evidence to support its existence in the past, new attempts to accommodate Indian prerogatives could not be interpreted as a resurgence of a middle ground in the present. While not a return to a middle ground, however, the new accommodation may be assessed the resurrection of a past common ground, a place in which Anglos and Native Americans agreed to agree for mutual benefit. Both agreed on separation and the protection of Indians' special separateness as the cornerstone of peace and friendship. Each, however, interpreted their agreements differently, Native americans understanding promises as inviolable and Anglos understanding them as subject to changing national goals. Treaty guarantees and the statutes enacted to enforce them provide sound legal basis on which to revisit old laws to try to understand them as the Indians would have understood them. The new accommodation applies the rule of law to still legally compelling agreements in order to right wrongs committed when the legal imperative to treat equitabley with Native Americans was ignored. In a broader historical context, contemporary efforts to accommodate Indian understanding of treaty promises appear to be a manifestation of the retreat phase of a broad cycle of domination and retreat common to confrontation between a stronger and a weaker culture. The conqueror may dominate for an extended period of time but cannot sustain exercise of absolute power forever; the former may suppress the latter but cannot annihilate it. As the power, even the need to dominate abates, the weaker but still extant culture reasserts itself, not to displace the supreme sovereign but to demand respect for and recognition of its legitimate place within the status quo.
Notes	Thesis advisor: Dr. Abner S. Baker.; "Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts [in History]."; M.A.,Central Connecticut State University,1998; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-107).
Subject	Choctaw Indians--Government relations--History. Indians of North America--Government relations--History. Federal-Indian trust relationship.
Department	Department of History
Advisor	Baker, Abner
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Software	System requirements: PC and World Wide Web browser.
Language	eng
OCLC number	42543991
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The middle ground revisited : congressional protection and the Choctaw

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