Carl P. Thorpe: What His Obituary Didn't Say

IdT's good friend Carl Thorpe died last March. His obituary is printed on the last page of this letter. Carl led a full and productive life. He was a much decorated veteran of 3 wars, a dedicated civil servant, the devoted son of an illustrious father and a caring mother, a loving husband, father and grandfather. In addition to those things he was an Indian-a Native American who could claim membership in the Sac and Fox Tribe through his father, or the Pawnee through his mother. He had a deep and abiding concern for all Native Americans, rooted in a visceral fear that through time, by whatever devious method, Indian rights would be eroded, Tribal Governments terminated, Indian land and water alienated and Indian people estranged from their culture and set adrift in an alien and hostile society .He was obsessed with the idea of doing all he could to prevent that from happening.

When Carl retired from active duty in the military he joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs-first as its Equal Opportunity Officer and later as its Assistant Director for Management These were his visible duties. He also participated with a small group of co-workers who took up the problem of the future of Indian peoples and the governmental organizations that served them.

What is the Mission of the Bureau of Indian Affairs? What are the present implications of Public Law 93-638. Indian Self-determination and Educational Assistance Act? What specifically is the trust? Is it just a fiduciary function. as in holding Indian lands in trust or is it broader and deeper? Does the trust include all the promises made to Indians by the United States Government in exchange for their land? Are those promises binding today ? What is Tribal sovereignty? What is Tribal jurisdiction? What is the special relationship between the Federal Government and the Tribal Governments? Is self-determination real or is it just an exercise? And finally. TERMINATION-could it happen again? Was it happening now ? Was it a threat waiting to happen in the future.

The United States Government has had 199 years to settle the Indian question. It is not settled to this day. The Constitution has an indirect reference to Indians as the .tall others not taxed" and a direct reference to whit, "The Congress shall have the Power To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; " For all other matters Congress exercises its plenary powers over Indian affairs, in precisely the same way it exercises them over the territories, with several exceptions. The Territories have delegates to the Congress, Indian Tribes do not. While citizens of Tribes and citizens of Territories are also citizens of the United States, Indian citizens are wards of the Federal Government, citizens of Territories are not. The history of Indian affairs in the United States has been one of an unrelenting and inexorable transfer of assets from Indians to the United States. It is going on as I write this letter. It goes on day and night, day in day out, year in year out, decade by decade and century by century .Whigs and Jeffersonian democrats, Know Nothings, Greenbackers, Agrarian Radicals, Progressives, Republicans, Democrats all have participated in this transfer of assets. A relatively small proportion of Indian lands was acquired by conquest-the present State of Ohio for example. What are the current assets? Fifty-three million acres of land on which can be found forty-five percent of the Nation's uranium, fifteen percent of its oil and five percent of its coal. In addition, fish and wildlife, but above all water. Much of the precious water the West thinks it needs for its continuing development and much of the water that is presently being carried in the Colorado and Missouri Rivers is owned by Indian Tribes. We do not question the large holdings of rich people, but we as a nation with our sacred respect for private property, can't seem to stand the idea that poor people, Indians, can have vast property rights. Not as individuals but as sovereign entities.

The Federal Courts have systematically upheld Indian Rights. -- Congress and the Executive Branch have had a mixed record. Indian Tribes have, under self-determination laws, the right to have their own school boards and to run their own schools. Present policy would force Indian children into the local public (non-Indian) schools, in order to contain the cost of Indian education to the Federal Government. Do Indians have a relationship with the States or the Federal Government? Indians abhor States as potential usurpers of their sovereignty. The relationship is clearly with the Federal Government, yet the pressure is not to extend Federal support for Indian elementary, secondary or college level education, but to force attendance in State public schools. The matter of schools is merely one example.

It became clear to Carl that if Indians were to survive as nations, tribes, bands, or whatever, with any semblance of their culture, sovereignty or rights to self-determination, they would have to take matters into their own hands. Neither the Federal Government nor the States would take any initiative to preserve Indian Rights, but to the contrary would (if by nothing but default) allow them to deteriorate. Indians are notoriously independent. The most ardent liberal or conservative pales in comparison to Indian independence. Some groups barely tolerate a government of any kind. The Hopi, for instance, who have occupied their places on this continent longer than any of its other inhabitants, are organized into separate village entities, tiny villages by our standards, in which even at this level authority and power are widely shared. Indians are not anarchists, but more than any other people they recognize the rights of individuals, to be individuals. The Crow Nation as individuals and as a group have such deep suspicion of government that they give very little power to elected Chiefs, and exercise most of the governmental power themselves, in Great Council meetings, where binding decisions are made by ordinary citizens in attendance at the meetings. New England colonists used a similar system in their town meetings, some of which persist to this day. Fredrick Kaplan, author of American Indian Law, claims the U.S. Constitution is patterned after the Iroquois Confederation. Consider the World in 1787, the year of the birth of our Constitution. How many democracies were there in the world? How many of the peoples of the world elected their leaders? How many of them had legislative and governing bodies with elected representatives. Switzerland became a Republic in 1798. There were many Indian Tribes who had these rights. Indians are so independent and so different, that virtually no generalities can be made about them. What might be true of the Sioux will certainly not hold for the Crow or the Blackfeet. The Mohawk and the Seminole have little in common. There were perhaps 500 Tribes of which only 287 have been recognized by the Federal Government. Consequently, who speaks for Indians? The late Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson of Washington, who was the champion of Indian rights said repeatedly, "If you could only speak with one voice all would listen."

Our little group examined these problems. We examined the concepts of sovereignty for the Navajo or Crow Nation, each of them bigger than many eastern states, and for the California Rancherias and Alaska Native Villages, many of them the size of a township or smaller. We looked at the Oklahoma Tribes, most of which do not have reservations at all. We looked at existing organizations such as the National Tribal Chairman's Association or the National Congress of American Indians. We reasoned that if these groups were the ones to bring about Indian unity , they would have done it, or would give some indication that they could do it. No such evidence.

Then it came to us that if Indians were ever to get together, to do anything, it would have to be on their terms, in their own way, with their own initiative leading and guiding the way, so that no existing organizational structure, governmental or otherwise could serve as the unifying mechanism. But what do Indians have? What do they pride themselves in? What have they lived and died and fought for all these years? Their customs and traditions, that's what. And so we looked at customs and traditions, and what sprang out at us was the Pow Wow. Why not have a great Pow Wow Ground someplace, in Indian Country of course, where all the tribes could come together for the purpose of discussing their common problems and concerns and where in true native American fashion they could reach a concensus on the issues most sacred or important to themselves.

Such a place, if it existed, would have to be the sacred ground of no one tribe, for all should come as equals and none should come as guests. Such a place would have to be consecrated by the wise and holy men of the various tribes since if it were to become adopted as a Great Pow Wow Ground it would become sacred to all tribes.

At the Great Pow Wow Ground there would have to be a great lodge or tent which could serve as a Great Council and the tribes themselves would have to discuss and debate how they wanted to be organized, what rules of debate they wished to follow, what conduct would or would not be allowed in the Great Pow Wow Grounds.

It was becoming apparent in our discussions that the strengths and weaknesses of Indian life were its traditional character. Because of their independence they could be divided and conquered, but because of their steadfast adherence to tradition, they could be counted on to hunker down and survive. If tradition could be used to bring them together, with lots of opportunity for discussion and dissent, but with the promise of concensus, that could be the touchstone of their strength. There were technical discussions of sovereignty. What was it? How did Indians get it? Did they always have it? [Yes.] How was it lost? Could it be extinguished? [Yes.] How to account for Navajo and the California Rancherias and the Alaska Native Villages, the large and the small of Indian Reservations. How to account for the Oklahoma tribes whose reservations, with the exception of the Osage, were disestablished. Navajo was easy-it's big enough to be a state. It's bigger than Connecticut and Rhode Island put together and has about as many residents as Vermont. They could run their own government, schools, general assistance program and in every way function as we understand a government functions. Could Navajo become a state? There have been articles published from time to time in Harper's and Atlantic which indicate they could. Could they lead the way for other tribes to become states? [The early commissioners negotiating with the Delaware for land in Ohio invited the Delaware to become a state, and the offer is part of a treaty.] We thought not. Too many tribes, too much a dilution of the present form of representation, too many entities and too few people. Were there stages between the States and the Reservations where Indians could be more nearly in charge of their affairs? More so than the present system where the U .S. Government, acting as trustee for Indian lands (and assets), on the one hand prevents their alienation and on the other had promotes and accelerates their alienation, as in the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, when the Federal Government assigned to each Indian living on their own reservation 160 acres, and permitted the excess to that amount to be homesteaded. Indians lost in excess of 100 million acres of land through the direct action of the trustee. In later days they have been compensated for some of this land through the court of Indian Claims, but at land prices that were current at the time of the alienation.

It is difficult to alienate tribal lands because tribes as a rule don'/t sell their land. By making allotments to individual Indians, however, the alienation process was simple since individual Indians readily sell their land expecting to still share in the tribal fortunes. Not only was a great deal of land taken directly in the homesteading process, but individual allotments were also sold and the land usually went out of Indian ownership.

If titles were vested in the tribes, and deed for the land transactions had to be obtained from Indian Government, the alienation would stop-or would it? Would the well known tribal shenanigans of the tribal legal system defeat the responsible process? Numerous incidents of miscarriage of justice have been noted on reservations and it was considered likely that they would continue. What to do about the tribal justice system if Tribes were to get more autonomy? Under what circumstances could tribal courts be considered honest and fair, free from tribal prejudices and familial or council interference? The two questions had to be handled at the same time-sovereignty and jurisdiction.

We could conceive of three levels of jurisdiction leading to three levels of sovereignty. First there was exclusive jurisdiction. Places like Navajo and Crow, Blackfeet, Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Wind River, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, Red Lake, et al, are capable of governing themselves. Their governments may be weak but they are complete. Secondly there are the Oklahoma tribes, which with the exception of the Osage, do not have reservations, but which own a lot of land and have their governments intact. Concurrent jurisdiction was thought to be the proper form for those Oklahoma tribes. They would share jurisdiction with the State of Oklahoma. Finally there are the tiny reservations-typically the California Rancherias. It is hard to think of a relatively small parcel of land with few people as an independent government, although certainly places like Monaco and Lichtenstein come to mind. We could not believe a jurisdiction beyond proprietary was needed to properly govern a Rancheria. Proprietors have considerable power up to and including police authority with regard to trespass. Jurisdiction told us how the Tribes would relate to their neighbors, the States, but it didn't answer the question of sovereignty. The Courts have repeatedly held that Tribes are sovereign and are endowed with sovereign immunity. They cannot be sued without their consent, just like a State or the Federal Government. If Tribes can't be sued how can they be held accountable particularly since many of them are in business with Tribal enterprises? What good is a business code on the Reservation if the Tribal court is not fair. How could one be comfortable with tribal jurisdiction over non-Tribal residents of the Reservation when family influence can easily determine the decision of a Tribal judge? Our answer to this problem was to posit the establishment of a set of U.S. Federal Indian Appeals Courts. Modeled after and equivalent to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but hearing only cases from Tribal courts. The local U.S. District Courts are felt by Indians to be "white courts" and prejudiced against Indians and representing the interests of the States in which they are located. The U .S. Courts of Appeals, while not subject to precisely the same complaints, would not be staffed with Indian judges except by chance. We felt that an Indian Court of Appeals should be staffed by Indian judges promoted from the Tribal courts. Indian Country would need about five of them: one in Alaska, two in the far West, one in the Plains States and one in the Mid-Atlantic States. We were comfortable with the question of jurisdiction but we hadn't solved the question of sovereignty.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs was established a couple of decades before its parent organization, the Department of the Interior. Its fIrst home was the War Department and its first functions were the "pacification" of Indians. The Indian Wars had decided who the "boss" was and it was now the duty of the War Department to get the Indians on the Reservations and keep them there. As an early commissioner of Indian Affairs put it, "To make their life on the reservation as comfortable as possible and their life off the reservation as uncomfortable as possible." It was only fitting that Indian Affairs should be in the War Department when Indians were for the most part subject to the police actions of the Army. The Seventh Cavalry is still hated in Indian Country. When the business with Indians became transfers of land from Indian ownership to that of the U.S. Government and the subsequent homesteading programs that followed, it was natural that Indian Affairs be placed in that agency of the government that deals with the public land. If Indians are organized into governments and the relationship between them and the United States is government to government, is it logical to have Indian Affairs in a "land managing" agency? We thought about this and considered that perhaps the Bureau of Indian Affairs should be more like the State Department and that the BIA, rather than managing Indian assets, should be managing relationships between Indians and the United States. What about an independent commission reporting directly to the Congress?

After the Trail of Broken Promises and the trashing of the BIA Headquarters in Washington in 1973, a task force was established that recommended the formation of an Indian Commission. We followed that same lead and said further that an Indian Commission established by the Congress might be the answer, fashioned after the independent regulatory commissions, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, or the Federal Communications Commission. It could be created with 15 Indian Commissioners appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and they would be the legal entity that would administer Indian Affairs for the nation. The BIA would be transfered to the Commission and would serve as the Secretariat for the Commission. We rejected the notion. Even if it worked well it would only be a variation of the BIA, which is staffed 85% by Indians and is led by an Assistant Secretary who is an Indian. The Commission still does not give full play to Indian sovereignty-the sovereignty of dependent nations, but sovereignty nevertheless.

When we tried to find a model, for large and small nations, potent interests and some not so potent, who differ in almost every way except that they all have sovereignty, the model that spring to mind was the United Nations. Instantly the Great Pow Wow Ground and the United Indian Nations fused into a single concept.

The United Nations was created by a group of independent nations who differ widely in language, custom, tradition, form of government, stage of development, etc., etc. The United Nations was created when each of these nations, using its inherent treaty making powers, which are an integral part of the sovereignty, signed the treaty forming the United Nations. Why couldn't Indians do the same thing? The only requirement for memberships: (I) a sovereign status; and, (2) a willingness to join. Indians formed alliances and confederations long before European man set foot in the Hemisphere. They have time honored methods and procedures for exchanging ambassadors to other tribes. (The newly elected Chief of the Mille Lacs Band of Nonreduceable Chippewas said in his inauguaral address that one of his first acts would be to send ambassadors to the other tribes.) If the United Indian Nations were to be created in this same time honored and traditional fashion and if the meeting place of the "Grand Council" that would result from such a treaty were to be the Great Pow Wow Ground, there would be a great chance for success, but only if the traditional customs were employed since this is virtually all that the numerous tribes have in common. The United Indian Nations should not be a work of the lawyers, but should be the work of the tribal elders, spiritual leaders and wisemen, the senior women, and the political leaders. The United Indian Nations must come from the heart.

These were the ideas that came tumbling out. By this time a good number of people were involved, making suggestions and giving advice. Indians were a warrior people, so the Great Pow Wow Ground must have places where the time honored ceremonies can be performed, the time honored dances can be danced, playing fields where stick ball can be played, where an all Indian Rodeo can be held, where the archers can meet and compete, and where the best Indian horses can be raced. There should be an Indian Hall of Fame, to commemorate the Great Ones of Indian history. There should be a museum to recreate Indian history for the Indian youth of tomorrow to learn of the greatness of their ancestors. But, more importantly, the Great Pow Wow Ground could become the seat of anew governmental function to serve all American Indians and Alaska Natives. The United Indian Nations would have only the power given to it by its members. It would not be a government; it will be the creature of the existing governments of American Indians and Alaska Natives. It would provide a forum for the expression of Indian hopes and aspirations and the debate of propositions to carryout and achieve those hopes and aspirations, and finally it would become the voice of Indian Country.

This was Carl Thorpe's last project What does all this have to do with domestic Tranquility? The Constitution establishes a government that among other things is to insure the domestic Tranquility, yet its provisions don't seem to apply very well to Indians or their processions. The same Constitution calls for a more perfect union-yet to achieve it Indians are being mainstreamed (read disenfranchised). If our organization stands for the application of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence to our daily lives, then surely we must see the need to solve the Indian problem equitably.

Not by giving the Indians equality before the law-as citizens they already have that-but by allowing them to keep their share of this great land, and their languages, religions, their governments and their way of life. The enlightened ecological solution to the Indian problem is to let them be themselves. The fulfillment of Carl's last project would go a long way to accomplish that.

...Ted Sudia...

CARL P. THORPE, 58, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior, died of cancer March 18 at Walter Reed Hospital.

Col. Thorpe was the son of Jim Thorpe. the American Indian who won two gold medals at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm and then had them taken away on the grounds that he had once played professional baseball. The colonel participated in the campaign to have his father's medal returned. In 1982. 29 years after the star athlete's death, the campaign succeeded when the International Olympic Committee voted to restore his honors.

Col. Thorpe retired from the Army in 1974 with 30 years of service, most of which were spent in intelligence and communications security assignments. He was a veteran of World War II, the Korean conflict and the war in Vietnam. His decorations included a Bronze Star and four Legions of Merit.

A resident of the Washington area since 1968. Col. Thorpe lived in Vienna. He attended the University of Maryland's University College program during and after his Army service, and graduated with a bachelor's degree.

Since his retirement from the military he had been a civilian equal employment opportunity officer for the Department of the Army at Arlington Hall and a special assistant to the deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs at the Interior Department.

Col. Thorpe is survived by his wife, Bobbie, of Vienna; three daughters, Carla McKittrick of Falls Church, Karen Newberry of Reston and Teresa Thorpe of Alexandria; his mother, Freeda V. Thorpe of Cleburne, Tex.,. three brothers, William K., of Cleburne, Richard A., of Oklahoma City, and John R., of Shawnee, Okla.; three half-sisters, Grace and Gail Thorpe, both of Yale, Okla.. and Charlotte Thorpe of Phoenix, Ariz., and three grandchildren.

[From The Washington Post, Friday, March 21, 1986]

© Copyright 1986
Institute for domestic Tranquility