Endowed With the Same Right and Claim': Native Nations, Congressional Relations, and Federal Indian Boarding Schools

All are welcome to a lecture presentation sponsored by Philososphy, Politics, and Economics, Laura E. Evans, Professor of Political Sciences at University of California Riverside. 

When Native peoples appeared before Congress in the Assimilation Era (1887–1933), what did they have to say? Native witnesses faced a legislature that was attacking their basic rights and the very existence of their communities. Yet Native witnesses did not capitulate; they chose to highlight Congress's hypocrisies and failures. This paper uses an original dataset to examine the content of their testimony. I also consider the relationship between the variation in testimony content and Congress's use of perhaps its most potent oppressive tool of the era: federal Indian boarding schools. Along the way, I attempt to identify the similarities and reconcile the differing predictions of two important literatures: that on race and authoritarian enclaves in American Political Development, and the comparative politics literature on authoritarian legislatures.

Dr. Laura Evans Dr. Evans’ research focuses on Native American politics, federalism, and race and politics.  Her work addresses Native American tribal governments’ historic and continuing exercise of sovereignty, as well as topics such as tribal governments’ relations with federal, state and local governments; Native American political attitudes; and comparative Indigenous politics.