Center for Teaching the Rule of Law

August 7, 1786 – The Congress of the United States under the Articles of Confederation Adopts the First Ordinance for Regulating Indian Affairs

8/7/2021

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​On August 7, 1786, the Continental Congress adopted an ordinance for the regulation of Indian affairs. The ordinance required two districts (Northern and Southern), each headed by a superintendent, who reported to the Secretary of War. The Superintendents were authorized to grant licenses to applicants who wanted to trade and live with the Indians. The ordinance also required that all official transactions (including councils and treaties) between the Superintendent for the Northern District and any Indian Nation were to be conducted at the nearest outpost occupied by US troops.  

This date is often cited as the beginning of the practice of placing indigenous peoples into reservations, but in fact that practice pre-dated the revolution.  In 1764 the "Plan for the Future Management of Indian Affairs" was proposed by the British Board of Trade. Although never adopted formally, the plan established the imperial government's expectation that land would only be bought by colonial governments, not individuals, and that land would only be purchased at public meetings. Additionally, this plan dictated that the Indians would be properly consulted when ascertaining and defining the boundaries of colonial settlement.  The private contracts that once characterized the sale of Indian land to various individuals and groups—from farmers to towns—were replaced by treaties between sovereigns.

The American Indigenous Reservation system started with the Royal Proclamation of 1763, where Great Britain set aside an enormous resource for Indians in the territory of the present United States. The United States put forward another act when Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. A third act pushed through was “the federal government relocated portions of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ from the southeastern states in the Non-Intercourse Act of 1834.” All three of these laws set into motion the Indigenous Reservation system in the United States of America, resulting in the forceful removal of Indigenous peoples into specific land Reservations.

Today, there are 326 recognized reservations.  The term "reservation" is a legal designation. It comes from the conception of the Native American nations as independent sovereigns at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Thus, early peace treaties (often signed under conditions of duress or fraud), in which Native American nations surrendered large portions of their land to the United States, designated parcels which the nations, as sovereigns, "reserved" to themselves, and those parcels came to be called "reservations". The term remained in use after the federal government began to forcibly relocate nations to parcels of land to which they had no historical connection.

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July 26, 1847 – Liberia declares its independence.

7/26/2021

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On July 26, 1847, the Americo-Liberian colonists of the Pepper Coast of Africa declared their independence , adopting a constitution that established the first modern republic on the African continent.  The Pepper Coast was nominally a American Colony at the time, though British, Dutch and Portuguese traders also maintained trading posts there.  American influence in the region began in the early 19th century with a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born people of color who faced social and legal oppression in the U.S., along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia.  Although many succumbed to tropical diseases and violent encounters with native African tribes, the resettled former slaves developed a society that adopted the principles democracy based on the example of the United States.

he United Kingdom was the first country to recognize Liberia's independence. The United States did not recognize Liberia until 1862, after the Southern states, which had strong political power in the American government, declared their secession and the formation of the Confederacy.  The leadership of the new nation consisted largely of the Americo-Liberians, who initially established political and economic dominance in the coastal areas that the ACS had purchased; they maintained relations with U.S. contacts in developing these areas and the resulting trade. 

There was a decline in production of Liberian goods in the late 19th century, and the government struggled financially, resulting in indebtedness on a series of international loans. On July 16, 1892, Martha Ann Erskine Ricks met Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and presented her a handmade quilt, Liberia's first diplomatic gift. Born into slavery in Tennessee, Ricks said, "I had heard it often, from the time I was a child, how good the Queen had been to my people—to slaves—and how she wanted us to be free."

Liberia remained neutral during World War I until August 4, 1917 upon declaring war on Germany. Subsequently, it was one of 32 nations to take part in the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, which ended the war and established the League of Nations; Liberia was among the few African and non-Western nations to participate in both the conference and the founding of the League.

In the mid-20th century Liberia gradually began to modernize with American assistance. During World War II the United States made major infrastructure improvements to support its military efforts in Africa and Europe against Germany. It built the Freeport of Monrovia and Roberts International Airport under the Lend-Lease program before its entry into the Second World War.

After the war, President William Tubman encouraged foreign investment, with Liberia achieving the second-highest rate of economic growth in the world during the 1950s. The country also began to take a more active role in international affairs: It was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and became a vocal critic of the South African apartheid regime. As one of the few African nations to escape colonization, Liberia also served as a proponent both of African independence from European colonial powers and of Pan-Africanism, and helped to fund the Organization of African Unity.

In the late-20th century, tension between indigenous and repatriated-descended Liberians resulted in two civil wars and periods of military rule.  Liberia became a pariah state because of its trade in "blood diamonds."  In 2003, pro-democracy forces gained the upper hand and established a new democratic state.

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May 28th, 1830 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which denies Native Americans their land rights and forcibly relocates them, paving the way for the "Trail of Tears"

5/29/2021

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The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern (including Mid-Atlantic) Native American tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for white settlement of their ancestral lands.[The act has been referred to as a unitary act of systematic genocide, because it discriminated against an ethnic group in so far as to make certain the death of vast numbers of its population. The Act was signed by Andrew Jackson and it was strongly enforced under his administration and that of Martin Van Buren, which extended until 1841.

The Act was strongly supported by southern and northwestern populations, but was opposed by native tribes and the Whig Party. The Cherokee worked together to stop this relocation, but were unsuccessful; they were eventually forcibly removed by the United States government in a march to the west that later became known as the Trail of Tears.

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May 24, 1626 – Peter Minuit "buys" Manhattan.

5/24/2021

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PicturePeter Minuit (Public Domain)
Minuit is credited with purchasing the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans in exchange for traded goods valued at 60 guilders. According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the Canarsees, who were only too happy to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks.

According to researchers at the National Library of the Netherlands, "The original inhabitants of the area were unfamiliar with the European notions and definitions of ownership rights. For the Indians, water, air and land could not be traded. Such exchanges would also be difficult in practical terms because many groups migrated between their summer and winter quarters. It can be concluded that both parties probably went home with totally different interpretations of the sales agreement."

A contemporary purchase of rights in nearby Staten Island, to which Minuit also was party, involved duffel cloth, iron kettles, axe heads, hoes, wampum, drilling awls, "Jew's harps", and "diverse other wares". "If similar trade goods were involved in the Manhattan arrangement", Burrows and Wallace surmise, "then the Dutch were engaged in high-end technology transfer, handing over equipment of enormous usefulness in tasks ranging from clearing land to drilling wampum."

Minuit conducted politics in a measure of democracy in the colony during his time in New Netherland. He was highest judge in the colony, but in both civil and criminal affairs he was assisted by a council of five colonists. This advisory body would advise the director and jointly with him would develop, administer, and adjudicate a body of laws to help govern the colony. In addition there was a schout-fiscal, half-sheriff, half-attorney-general, and the customs officer.


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May 8, 1973 -- End of the Wounded Knee Occupation

5/9/2021

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The Wounded Knee Occupation began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota (sometimes referred to as Oglala Sioux) and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Friar 

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​Paul Manhart S.J. and ten other residents of the area were apprehended at gunpoint and taken hostage. The protest followed the failure of an effort of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to impeach tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents. Additionally, protesters criticized the United States government's failure to fulfill treaties with Native American people and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations to hopefully arrive at fair and equitable treatment of Native Americans.

Oglala and AIM activists controlled the town for 71 days while the United States Marshals Service, FBI agents, and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area. The activists chose the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre for its symbolic value. In March, a U.S. Marshal was shot by gunfire coming from the town, which ultimately resulted in paralysis. A member of the Cherokee tribe and a member of the Oglala were both killed by shootings in April 1973. Ray Robinson, a civil rights activist who joined the protesters, disappeared during the events and is believed to have been murdered. Due to damage to the houses, the small community was not reoccupied until the 1990s.

The occupation attracted wide media coverage, especially after the press accompanied the two U.S. senators from South Dakota to Wounded Knee. The events electrified Native Americans, and many Native American supporters traveled to Wounded Knee to join the protest. At the time there was widespread public sympathy for the goals of the occupation, as Americans were becoming more aware of longstanding issues of injustice related to Natives. Afterward AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means were indicted on charges related to the events, but their 1974 case was dismissed by the federal court for prosecutorial misconduct, a decision upheld on appeal.

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Today in the History of the Rule of Law

4/26/2021

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At various times, the Center for Teaching the Rule of Law has made short posts about significant events in the history of the Rule of Law -- for Black History Month, for Women's History Month, etc.  Approximately 1 month ago, we began making daily posts of historical events related to the Rule of Law on Facebook and Twitter.  Starting today, we will be adding these posts directly to the CTROL website through this blog.

April 26, 1798 (or 1800, sources differ) -- James Beckwourth is born in Frederick county Virginia, the son of a white plantation owner and an enslaved woman. Beckwourth's father apprenticed him to a blacksmith and eventually manumitted him. As an adult, Beckwourth moved first to St. Louis and then became a mountain man, trapping and living among the Crow people who adopted him into their tribe. Beckwourth participated in the Gold Rush of 1849 and later served as an Army scout. The civil rights movement of the 1960s celebrated Beckwourth as an early African-American pioneer. He has since been featured as a role model in children's literature and textbooks.
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