Struggle for Power

O0N MAY 25, 1929, THE CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO tribes of Oklahoma adopted their first written constitution. It predated by eight years a better-known constitution that grew out of 1937 Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (OIWA). The 1929 constitution was a brief document containing only four articles. A general was empowered discuss all tribal matters and conditions leading to uplift and advancement and to securing of the rights of citizenship and justice to which tribes' members were entitled. The powers and duties of council's president and four other officers, elected by council, were those usually prescribed for officers of similar bodies. Members of council were elected from eight Cheyenne and six Arapaho districts, each with four council representatives, by local councils that were authorized to establish their own election rules and procedures. Officers and council members were elected for two-year terms.' Previously, representation of tribes was prerogative of chiefs, headmen, and elders. Chiefs conducted treaty negotiations and signed documents, and were looked to by their people for fulfillment of treaty or agreement provisions by federal government. Restricted to their executive order reservation by armed force after 1875, relations between tribes and national government became crucial to tribes' welfare. Although federal government attempted to diminish chiefs' influence, they remained unchallenged leaders within tribes. By heredity or consensus, chieftainship passed to next generation of leaders who continued to conduct relations with United States government. Tribal leaders were disturbed by inequitable treaty provisions and terms of 1891 cession agreement that opened their reservation to white settlers. Frequently they also lodged complaints about effects of government's assimilation and acculturation efforts upon their people. Until 1917, tribal chiefs acted as unquestioned spokesmen during Washington conferences with government officials

Archaeology · Cheyenne · Genealogy · Geography · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Anthropology · Canadian Identity and History · History · Law

• Compositional Stasis and Flexibility in American Indian Tribes

  Raymond Orr, Raymond I Orr et al.•Ethnohistory•2021

  Add to list