Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act


The Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 is a United States federal law that extended the 1934 Wheeler-Howard or Indian Reorganization Act to include those tribes within the boundaries of the state of Oklahoma. The purpose of these acts were to rebuild Indian tribal societies, return land to the tribes, enable tribes to rebuild their governments, and emphasize Native culture. These Acts were developed by John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1933 to 1945, who wanted to change federal Indian policy from the "twin evils" of allotment and assimilation, and support Indian self-government.
The Thomas-Rogers Act was adopted in order to enable Native American tribes in Oklahoma to rebuild governments that had been dissolved in order to prepare the territories for Oklahoma being admitted as a state in the Union in 1907. As part of this effort also to encourage Native American assimilation, Indian land title was extinguished in Indian Territory by the break-up and allotment of communal lands. Under the Dawes and Curtis acts, the communal land of the former reservations in Oklahoma was:
  • allotted to individual Indian Tribal members with 160 acres per household
  • held in trust by the United States for the benefit of tribal members.
  • What the government determined to be "surplus" was sold off or otherwise distributed, including to non-Natives, in a series of land runs.
In addition to surplus lands being sold, many Native Americans lost their allotments to speculators and unscrupulous businessmen. The Native Americans suffered major losses of land in Oklahoma. In addition, the disruption of their societies and cultures resulted in considerable breakdown of their worlds.

Major points of the act

As issues arose, Department of Interior officials sought the opinion of its Solicitor General about the effects of this legislation. This correspondence is part of the agency records. As the Five Civilized Tribes began to reorganize and set up new governments, the question arose as to whether they could change their membership rules, specifically, to exclude the Freedmen. Each of the tribes had been required under terms of new 1866 treaties to extend citizenship to their Freedmen. In 1941, the Solicitor General noted that Congress had approved the law that enabled tribes to reconstitute their governments and, by extension, enabled them to create new constitutions and rules. It said that the tribes could pass new constitutions with new membership rules that limited membership to persons of Indian descent. While some of the tribes resisted providing Freedmen with full tribal benefits, they did not generally take action to exclude them as members until the late 20th century, at a time of increasing assertion of tribal sovereignty. Freedmen descendants have filed suit against the Cherokee and Creek tribes over such exclusion.