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July 7
The Navajo Business Council holds its
first meeting.
In 1921 the Midwest Refining Company began ne-
gotiating with the Navajo (Dineh) to drill for oil
on their reservation near Shiprock. The Navajo,
however, had no formal government structure at
the time, so it was unclear with whom the company
should be negotiating. To remedy the situation,
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1922 ap-
pointed three prominent Navajo—Henry Chee
Dodge, Charlie Mitchell, and Dugal Chee Bekiss—
to handle Navajo business arrangements.
Seeking to make this arrangement more formal
and permanent, the agency encourages the creation
of a representative council. Following guidelines
established by the BIA, the tribe elects 12 rep-
resentatives and 12 alternates to serve as spokes-peo-
ple for the Navajo as a whole. Henry Chee Dodge is
chosen to be chair of the council. In its first annual
meeting, the council concentrates on deciding the
terms of oil leases. In years to come, it will broaden
its focus to include a wide array of issues affecting
the Navajo.
1924Virginia passes the Racial Integrity Law.
With the Racial Integrity Law, the state of Virginia
defines whites as people with no non-Caucasian
ancestry. However, the law makes an exception for
Caucasians with no more than one-sixteenth Indian
blood. This provision is made to accommodate the
socially prominent whites who proudly claim they
are the descendants of Pocahontas (see entry for
APRIL 5, 1614).
June 2
The Indian Citizenship Act makes all Indians
citizens of the United States.
Drafted by the Indian Rights Association (see
entry for 1882), the Indian Citizenship Act ex-
tends U.S. citizenship to all Indians born in the
United States. Before its passage, a series of con-
gressional acts had already granted citizenship to
more than two-thirds of the Indian population. In
the aftermath of World War I, however, universal
Indian citizenship became a focus of Indian rights
organizations, who chastised the federal govern-
ment for denying some Indians citizenship while
allowing Indian soldiers to fight and die for the
United States.
Despite the hopes of Indian activists, citizenship
will leave Indians’ relationship to the government
largely unchanged. It will not alter their position
as wards of the U.S. government, nor will it affect
their tribal membership“[I]t has [finally] pleased Con-
gress to admit the descendants
of the original American peo-
ple to the same legal status as
aliens who have gone through
the necessary procedure
after five years of continu-
ous residence here.... If there
are cynics among the Indians,
they may receive the news of
their new citizenship with wry
smiles. The white race, having
robbed them of a continent,
and having sought to deprive
them of freedom of actions,
freedom of social custom and
freedom of worship, now at
last gives them the same legal
basis as their conquerors.”
—from an editorial in
the New York Times on the
grantingof U.S. citizenship
to Indians