American Indian Culture and Research Journal

For the nation, there is an unrequited account of sin and injustice that sooner or later will call for national retribution. -George Catlin, 1844 One of the more pernicious myths shrouding the realities of Indian-white relations in the United States is that the United States has historically comported itself according to uniquely lofty legal and moral principles when interacting with “its” indigenous peoples. The idea has been around in the form of official rhetoric since at least as early as 1787, when Congress, already pursuing a practical policy going in exactly the opposite direction, used its enactment of the Northwest Ordinance as an opportunity to pledge itself to conducting its Indian affairs in “utmost good faith.” As President Harry S. Truman would put it 159 years later, it should be “perfectly clear.. .that in our transactions with Indian tribes we have.. .set for ourselves the standard of fair and honorable dealings, pledging respect for all Indian property rights.” In 1985, the late Wilcomb E. Washburn, then preeminent “American Indianist” historian for the federal government’s Smithsonian Institution, waxed a bit more expansive when he observed that “[because US. Indian policy is.. .supportive of Indian values and aspirations, questions that in other countries would not arise are the subject of intense debate in the United States.... [Hence,] in broad, general perspective, one is impressed with the extraordinary recognition to the now powerless Indian tribes of this country not only to maintain a secure trust-guaranteed and tax-free land base, but to exercise aspects of sovereignty that normally derive from the control of territory held by a powerful sovereign.”