UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Citizenship and Suffrage: The Native American Struggle for Civil Rights in the American West, 1830-1965

Identification

Public canonical key

openalex:w147535811

Authors

Willard Hughes Rollings

Reported year

2004

Reported language

en

Source type

conference-paper

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.957048+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:04:47.957048+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Documentary abstract — original language

Native Americans occupy a unique place in this country.They are the direct descendants of people who first arrived in this land 30,000 years ago.'Despite their longtime residency in North America and the support of many tribes in the war for independence, the leaders of the newly created United States did not deem Indian people worthy enough to become citizens of their country.In fairness, few Native peoples sought American citizenship in the eighteenth century, for they were citizens of their own powerful tribal groups who owned and controlled most of the land of North America.Their considerable power guaranteed their sovereignty and protected their lives and cultures, hence few Indians were interested in becoming members of the new small country of strangers.This new country of strangers, however, would grow as immigrants flocked there, and the growing population would move west onto Indian lands.Indian people, sometimes with compromise, but more often with violence, resisted this invasion.The Indian victories on the battlefields were only momentary.As the United States continued to grow in size and power, the temporary battlefield victories were soon replaced by permanent defeats.The military defeats took land and power from the Indian people; but in time, some tribes took their battles to new venues and began challenging the invaders in the courtroom.These legal challenges, however, were seldom successful, for they were always conducted in the white peoples' courtrooms where all the rules and procedures were those of their opponents.The protections provided by the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution had not been extended to Indian people; thus, Indian people rarely won their battles in the courtrooms of the United States.Throughout the nineteenth century their battlefield and courtroom

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W147535811

Documentary context

Documentary family

Conference paper / proceedings

Source-reported types

conference-paper

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1

• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W147535811

Documentary status

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Library

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