Indian Renaissance in the Southeast

In 1980 the Baton Rouge State Times ran a front-page story describing a modern Indian "attack" perpetuated by the ironically named Indian Angels. Part of the Red Power movement, formed in the wake of the Indian occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, the pan-tribal organization was described by the press as "angry" and "militant." Whether one agreed with their tactics or not, the Indian Angels were certainly causing a stir in the Bayou State. According to the State Times article, Indian Angel protesters wearing war paint and headdresses had descended upon the governor's mansion with a list of demands. Yelling, "You can tell the governor he doesn't want a Wounded Knee in Louisiana!" and threatening to take scalps, they demanded that Native concerns be heard. They were noticed, though opinions about the protest varied.

While many whites were excited by the appearance of Indian activists in their midst, the generally conservative rural tribes of the state were appalled by the Indian Angels' tactics. They felt that the group's vocal, confrontational style was not at all the "Indian way." Probably unbeknownst to most Louisianans at the time, the Indian Angels were part of a larger Indian groundswell in the southeastern states. At the most basic level, groups like the Indian Angels were alerting local government leaders that Native Americans still existed in the region and that they had needs that were unfulfilled. They also gave notice that there were potential problems associated with forgotten, generally unrecognized Native communities scattered across the southern states.

The Indian Angels' protest in Louisiana's capital capped a momentous era: the southeastern Indian renaissance that began developing after World War II. In the 1960s and 1970s especially, slumbering Native enclaves seemed to awaken, and Indian culture and identity flowered, as reflected in the growth of tribal organizations, economic development projects, and a desire by once-invisible groups to demonstrate their pride in Indian heritage and to preserve, reintroduce, or import indigenous cultural traditions. For isolated Native Americans these were exciting times. The renaissance they helped foster proved central to the continuing survival of Indian cultures in the region, especially for those Native people off-reservation, who had been submerged and forgotten within the popularly perceived black-and-white society of the South. The revival had a more troubling side, however, spawning contentious issues that continue to trouble intertribal and Indian-government relations in the region to the present day. It provided the context and inspiration for the appearance of questionable Indian groups and tribes that served to undermine the aspirations of longsuffering Native communities, ones struggling mightily to preserve their identities and reignite the traditions of their ancestors while gaining acceptance in the larger national community.

The transformations of these years were immense. Southeastern Indians entered the period almost invisible in local and national affairs and ended it as significant forces in each. An Indian alive in Louisiana in 1940 would scarcely believe the changes the next decades would unfurl. By the 1970s, southern Indians had emerged from their second-class citizenship of the Jim Crow era, gaining civil rights and a voice in local politics. They had established formal tribal governments that provided a host of services, joined in intertribal organizations, and become fixtures in local politics. Throughout the Southeast, powwows and other Indian celebrations became anticipated annual events. Once-scorned peoples were now celebrated citizens. By the 1980s, some southeastern Indian enclaves had secured state recognition, and a few had achieved federal acknowledgment. The privileged federally recognized tribes enjoyed a status that allowed them to exercise sovereignty and pursue self-determination in various areas of tribal life. All gained the simple but important public recognition that they were surviving Indian peoples in a region long thought to be devoid of Indians.

SURVIVING AS INDIAN IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH

After the removal era initiated officially in 1830 and the Seminole Wars of the 1840s, most Americans had the misperception that no Indians remained in the Southeast. Small communities of Indians persisted, however. Largely hidden in isolated pockets of their former homelands, southeastern Indians struggled to survive, both physically and culturally, in the harsh social and political climate of the nineteenth-century South. The groups that remained found refuge in generally undesired places: mountain hollows, swamps, coastal marshes, and pine-barrens were their homes. The survivors varied considerably in community composition, ethnic makeup, and retention of aboriginal culture. There were remnants of the once-powerful Five Tribes that lived scattered about their former homelands, such as the Eastern Band of Cherokees in North Carolina, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and the Seminoles of Florida. These groups possessed various forms of traditional culture and were generally acknowledged as Indians, both at the local and national level. Before the 1960s, the Mississippi Choctaws, the Eastern Band of Cherokees, and the Seminoles and Miccosukees of Florida had secured federal tribal recognition and small reservations that served as homelands for their peoples. Small tribes such as the Chitimachas and Coushattas of Louisiana had also managed to secure federal recognition by this time. Despite federal acknowledgment, most of the reservation tribes in the region faced efforts by non-Indians to challenge their status. Most communities had intermarried with non-Indians and faced challenges to their racial status as Indians—local and state politicians repeatedly questioned their tribal acknowledgment and tried to break up their reservations. Another class of Indians consisted of lesser-known tribal groups that survived on state-sponsored reservations, such as Virginia's Pamunkey and Mattaponi Tribes, the Catawba of South Carolina, and the Alabama-Coushattas of Texas. The latter two tribes have had on-and-off relations with the federal government but are currently federally recognized. While the state-recognized tribes generally lacked the protections of their federally recognized kin, as land-based groups these tribes were widely acknowledged as Native Americans despite some challenges as to their "racial purity." A third...