Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations by Vine Deloria

Author:Vine Deloria
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Texas Press

The First Amendment: The Establishment of Religion

The first section of the First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion,” and this clause, with respect to American Indians, has been honored far more in its breach than in its enforcement. And while constitutional law experts agree that the establishment clause of the First Amendment forbids the creation of a single “official” religion in the United States, there is no doubt that for much of this nation’s history most federal policy makers and non-Indian reform organizations made a concerted effort to establish Christianity as the official religion among tribal nations.

Historical practices originally determined the interplay of religious groups and federal Indian policy. On the frontier it was more often than not the missionary who represented civilization, and quite frequently missionaries were among the first people to have contact with an Indian tribe on a continuing basis. By the time of the American Revolution, it was already an established practice that missions and missionaries would be provided for tribes if they desired them. French, Spanish, and English missionaries had already visited tribes on the frontier and converted large numbers of people. Among the Iroquois and the tribes of the Michigan-Ohio-Indiana-Illinois country, the predominant denomination was Roman Catholic. In New England, as might be expected, various Protestant denominations were well represented among the tribes. In general, we can describe the situation as one in which the United States inherited a colonial practice that, if it had rigorously enforced a separation of church and state, would have been considered unconstitutional by its courts and regarded as a hostile act by the Indians involved.

The missionaries at this time functioned as interpreters of European civilization, advocates for Indian rights, and avenues for helping Indians gain the necessary skills to deal with the white men rushing into the territories of the tribes. Missionaries commanded some respect from the whites on the frontier. And in spite of their zealous and rigid behavior in attacking the traditional tribal customs and ceremonies, they were often seen as allies of the tribes when crises threatened. Most active missionaries had sought permission of the chiefs of the tribes when they entered Indian country, and some tribes even decreed when and where missionary activities could take place. This condition existed until quite late in the nineteenth century.4

With the expansion of programs for civilizing the Indians in the early 1800s (e.g., the 1819 Civilization Fund Act), the federal government naturally turned to the missionaries for assistance. Promises to provide education for the children of the tribe, or on occasion health services, generally involved the federal intent to use existing facilities and personnel, which meant that missionaries were provided with funds from the treaties to carry out these activities. This use of federal funds probably cannot be described as the establishment of a religion because the missions were usually in place prior to the signing of treaties. Additionally, the funds promised were derived from the sale of tribal lands and therefore

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