John Collier (May 4, 1884 – May 8, 1968), a sociologist and writer,[1] was an American social reformer and Native American advocate. He served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, from 1933 to 1945. He is considered chiefly responsible for the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, in which he intended to correct some of the problems in federal policy toward Native Americans. Although generally considered by historians to aid in ending the loss of reservations lands held by Indians, and making some progress for enabling tribal nations to re-institute self-government, the Act and related policies were seen by some Indians as unwarranted interference with their own political systems.[2]
Early life and education
John Collier was born in 1884 and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where his father Charles Collier was a prominent banker, businessman, civic leader, and mayor of Atlanta (1897–1899). He had a tragic family life: his mother died of drug addiction and his father of suicide before Collier was sixteen.[3]
He was educated at Columbia University and at the Collège de France in Paris. At Columbia, Collier began to develop a social philosophy that would shape his later work on behalf of American Indians. He was concerned with the adverse effects of the industrial age on mankind. He thought society was becoming too individualistic and argued that American culture needed to reestablish a sense of community and responsibility. From 1907 to 1919, he worked as secretary of the People's Institute, where he developed programs for immigrant neighborhoods, emphasizing pride in their traditions, sponsoring lectures and pageants, and political awareness.[4]
Collier centered his career on trying to realize the power of social institutions to make and modify personalities. In 1908, Collier made his first significant contribution to a national magazine; his article describing the socialist municipal government in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was published in Harper's Weekly.[5] Collier moved to California in October 1919.
Indian advocate (1919–1933)
In 1920, Collier encountered American Indians while visiting a friend, the artist Mabel Dodge, at the Taos Pueblo in Taos, New Mexico.[6] For much of the next two years, he spent time at an art colony near Taos, where he studied the history and current life of American Indians. By the time Collier left Taos in 1921 for a teaching job in San Francisco, he believed that Indians and their culture were threatened by the encroachment of the dominant white culture and policies directed at their assimilation.
He rejected the contemporary policies of forced assimilation and Americanization. He began to work for the acceptance of cultural pluralism to enable Native American tribes to preserve their own cultures. Collier believed Indian survival was based on their retention of their land bases. He lobbied for repeal of what was generally known as the Dawes Act, Indian General Allotment Act of 1887. It had been directed at Indian assimilation by allotting Indian reservation land into individual household parcels of private property. Some communal lands were retained, but the US government declared other lands "surplus" to Indian needs and sold them privately, much reducing reservation holdings.
Collier believed that the general allotments of Indian reservation land was a complete failure that led to the increasing loss of Indian land. He emerged as a federal Indian policy reformer in 1922, and strongly criticized the Bureau of Indian Affairs policies and implementation of the Dawes Act. Prior to Collier, criticism of BIA had been directed at corrupt and incompetent officials rather than the policies. For the next decade, Collier fought against legislation and policies that were detrimental to the well-being of Native Americans and was associated with the American Indian Defense Association, serving as executive secretary until 1933.[7]
His work led Congress to commission a study in 1926–1927 of the overall condition of Indians in the United States. The results were called the Meriam Report. Published in 1928 as The Problem of Indian Administration, the Meriam Report revealed the failures of federal Indian policies and how they had contributed to severe problems with Indian education, health, and poverty.
Publication of the Merriam Report in 1928 and Collier's efforts raised the visibility of American Indian issues within the federal government. As a result of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, economic and social conditions worsened for most Americans, including Native Americans. The administration of President Herbert Hoover reorganized the BIA and provided it with major funding increases.
At the urging of Secretary of the InteriorHarold Ickes, who knew Collier personally, President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated John Collier as Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1933. Collier set up the Indian Division of the CCC. The CCC provided jobs to Native American men in soil erosion control, reforestation, range development, and other public works projects and built infrastructure such as roads and schools on reservations.[8]
Collier introduced what became known as the Indian New Deal with Congress' passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. It was one of the most influential and lasting pieces of legislation relating to federal Indian policy. Also known as the Wheeler–Howard Act, this legislation reversed fifty years of assimilation policies by emphasizing Indian self-determination and a return of communal Indian land, which was in direct contrast with the objectives of the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887.
Collier was also responsible for getting the Johnson–O'Malley Act passed in 1934, which allowed the Secretary of the Interior to sign contracts with state governments to subsidize public schooling, medical care, and other services for Indians who did not live on reservations. The act was effective only in Minnesota.[9]
Evaluations
Anthropologist Stephen J. Kunitz argues that Collier romanticized the community dimension of Indian society as part of his reaction against individualism in the larger American society, and as part of his reaction against industrialization.[10]
Although historians generally praise the Indian New Deal, they also note Collier's attitude could be paternalistic, authoritarian, and that his policies were not equally welcomed by Indians. Historian Laurence Hauptman described how Collier's BIA administraion antagonized the Iroquois "by its rejection of Iroquois definitions of sovereignty, by acceding to the damming and flooding of Iroquois lands in Oklahoma, and by placing Iroquois, viewed as "obstructionist," under surveillance through the use of Indian informangs the the Federal Bureau of Investigation".[2] Hauptman noted Collier's "spiritual infatuation with Northen Pueblo lifeways in part blinded him to the different realities of other Indians' needs" but also added the uniformity of his approach was partly because Collier believed his tenure as Commissioner would be short, meaning packaging large, lengthy legislative reforms seemed politically necessary.[11]
New Deal policies were criticized by Indian contemporaries Seneca people, including Alice Lee Jemison and Seneca president Ray Jimerson, for not recognizing the diversity of Native American lifestyles.[12]
Collier was also criticized by others in the government; one year prior to his appointment as Commissioner of the BIA, a Department of the Interior press release described him as a "fanatical Indian enthusiast with good intentions, but so charged with personal bias and the desire to get a victim every so often, that he does much more harm than good ... his statements cannot be depended upon to be either fair, factual or complete".[13] Thus, Collier was attacked from both sides in the challenge he faced to reconcile the two Progressive ideals of "social justice and managerial efficiency".[14]
Post-government career
Collier remained active as the director of the National Indian Institute and as a sociology professor at the College of the City of New York. John Collier died in 1968 in Taos, New Mexico, at age 84.[15]
Family
John Collier married. He and his wife had a son John Collier, Jr. (1913—1992). He became an anthropologist and photographer.
John Collier married his second wife, Grace. Grace lived with John on the Taos Pueblo and took care of him until his death, in 1968. Grace moved to Tucson, AZ, where she spent the remainder of her life.
Works
Collier, John (1963). From Every Zenith: A Memoir; and Some Essays on Life and Thought (NY: Sage books)
Collier, John (1962). On the Gleaming Way: Navajos, Eastern Pueblos, Zunis, Hopis, Apaches, and Their Land; and … (NY: Swallow Press)
Collier, John (1947). Indians Of The Americas (NY: Mentor Books)
