Chronology of American Indian History

June 26

Congress passed the Oklahoma Indian
Welfare Act.
Because the governments of the large Indian tribes
of Oklahoma were dissolved when it became a state,
Congress specifically excluded them from the land-
mark Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) (JUNE 18,
1934). With the passage of the Oklahoma Indian
Welfare Act, this decision is reversed. The act
gives Oklahoma Indians the same benefits that the
IRA awarded to the rest of the Native American
population.

1937

The Indian Civilian Conservation Corps is
established.
The Indian Emergency Conservation Work pro-
gram (see entry for APRIL 1933) is renamed the
Indian Civilian Conservation Corps (ICCC). The
new program offers increased on-the-job training
and vocational education for Indian laborers hired
by the corps. Before the program is disbanded in
1942, the ICCC will employ 85,000 Native Ameri-
cans and train thousands for wartime jobs.

1938

The federal government creates a new
Navajo (Dineh) council.
Although the Navajo (Dineh) voted against ac-
cepting the Indian Reorganization Act, which set
guidelines for drafting tribal constitutions (see entry
for 1935), they choose to hold a constitutional
convention on their own terms. The resulting con-
stitution, which declares the tribe’s independence
from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is rejected by the
U.S. government, which instead establishes a set
of bylaws—nicknamed the “Rules of 1938”—that
creates a new tribal council consisting of 74 elected
representatives.

The Museum of the American Indian returns

a Hidatsa medicine bundle.

The Museum of the American Indian (see entry for

1916) in New York City becomes the first institu-

tion to repatriate a sacred Indian object when it

returns a medicine bundle to the Midipadi clan of

the Hidatsa. Four years earlier, following the death

of Wolf Chief, the clan asked to have the medicine

bundle back. Under pressure from missionaries and

government officials to abandon his traditional re-

ligion, Wolf Chief in 1907 had sold the bundle to

anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson, who in turn gave

it to the museum.

May 2

The first tribal museum opens.

During a ceremony overseen by Osage chief Fred

Lookout, the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska,

Oklahoma, is opened to the public. The museum,

which chronicles the history of the Osage and serves

as a cultural center, is the first to be owned and op-

erated by an American Indian tribe.

May 11

Congress allows for the leasing of

reservation land to mining companies.

At the urging of Commissioner of Indian Affairs

John C. Collier, Congress passes the Indian Lands

Mining Act, which permits reservation lands to be

leased to commercial mining companies. Collier

holds that the leases will provide much-needed jobs

and royalty income for reservation residents. How-

ever, many of the long-term mining leases approved

by the secretary of the interior will destroy Indian

resources while offering only extremely low royal-

ties fixed at levels set during the Great Depression.

1939

The Tekakwitha Conference is founded.

Headquartered in Great Falls, Minnesota, the

Tekakwitha Conference is established by several