The Economic and Social Status of the American Indian, 1940-1970

There are an estimated 800,000 American Indians living in the United States with approximately 450,000 residing on or adjacent to reservations.1 The remainder have been assimilated, to varying degrees, into the dominant society. Although the vast majority of Indians reside west of the Mississippi River, there are sizable numbers of Indians as far East as Maine and North Carolina. The Navajo Reservation, in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, is the largest in the country with 120,000 Indians occupying an area the size of West Virginia. This paper will indicate trends in the economic and social position of the American Indian. Whenever possible, a distinction will be made between data relating to reservation Indians and that concerning non-reservation (urban) Indians. In order to place this information in proper perspective, the economic and social progress of American Indians will be compared with that of white and black Americans. Until very recently the statistics collected by the Bureau of Indian Affairs regarding the socio-economic conditions of Indians have been inadequate, not only for research purposes, but from the perspective of informing the general public about the standard of living of the first Americans.2 Moreover, the information was not always tabulated with the same degree of precision that characterizes the work of other government agencies. For this reason

Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Socioeconomic status · Socioeconomics · Sociology · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Demography

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