The National Congress Of American Indians Resolution #Tul: Fill & Download for Free

I’m Canadian technically, but let’s go with India.Map of the Indian Subcontinent, circa 1782On January 14, 1761, tens of thousands of Marathas march to break the siege at Panipat. Knowing the desperate nature of their struggle, they know they must win.The battle starts. The Marathas fight bravely, but their adversary, the Afghans, right with better tactics. Maratha after Maratha falls, but unlike in our timeline, the Maratha commander issues a retreat order. When the Marathas retreat and regroup, they launch one final attack, capturing an Afghan camp. And tons and tons of food. With more time before they starve, the Maratha commanders send desperate pleas to the Jats and Sikhs to intervene. With no response for the next four days, the Marathas lose hope. They leave the camp for one final fight with the Afghans. However, before both sides can battle each other, in the distance, the Marathas spot thousands of Jat and Sikh troops charging the Afghan lines. Within hours, the Afghans are smited and Abdali runs away, back to Afghanistan. With the Marathas severely weakened, and their Mughal enemies still in Delhi, Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, the leader of the Sikhs, and Suraj Mal, the leader of the Jats, decide to unite their armies, and over the next few days, they steamroll through to Delhi, conquering the Taqt-e-Hind, while the Marathas focus on restoring order. With the now domains of the Sikhs and the Jats now united, they have greater bargaining power over the Marathas, and keep their domains, while the Marathas are stuck with their own weakened Empire. The Marathas retain control over their core land of Maharashtra, the Malwa region (Madhya Pradesh), and Gujarat. Meanwhile, the Sikh-Jat Union gains full control of Eastern Punjab, Delhi, and Haryana. The united armies of the Sikhs, Marathas, and Jats pacify Rajasthan, and it is annexed into the Maratha domains. Over the next year, both unions build their power as Abdali cowers from Peshawar. Then, the Marathas quickly annex the Sindh, while the Sikhs and Jats conquer Western Punjab all the way up till the doorstep of Afghanistan, due to their newfound wealth from Delhi. With the Marathas and Sikhs and Jats occupied with the West, new developments take place in the East. The Zamindars of Oudh, bolstered by the fall of the Mughal Empire, quickly annex all of modern day Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, establishing the Dominion of Oudh, which is ruled by noble Zamindars. Inspired by the changes throughout the rest of India, in a near-miracle, Southern Indian regions come together, despite their differences, and merge into Dravida, a benevolent oligarchy ruled by the former Kings. Soon, Dravida invades Sri Lanka as well, conquering it. Meanwhile, with most of India united under the Maratha Empire, Dravida, the Punjab Raj (the new union between the Jats and Sikhs), and the Dominion of Awadh, Clive’s Bengal feels the pressure of united front. Soon enough, a revolution occurs in Bengal, lead by the mercantile elite of Bengal. Supported by the Oudhis, who need a friendly state with access to the sea, the British are slowly driven out of Bengal, and Bengal is established as a (semi-flawed) republic dominated by the merchants who eventually lead Bengal to conquer lots of the other areas of India too. Now, this is the map of India circa 1776, when Bengal got its freedom:Blue: The Republic of PunjabPurple: The Maratha FederationGreen: The Republic of BengalGold: The Dominion of Awadh (formerly Oudh)Red: The Dravidian ConfederationEach of these nations, by 1782, turns out to be very different, with quite interesting politics playing out.The Maratha FederationCentred in the city of Pune, a new competent Maratha administration decentralizes the power to an extent. The Marathas, realizing that their idea of religious unity will not necessarily work in the Sindh, decide to secularize, and instead espouse intense nationalism. The Marathas are especially close with the Punjabis, who had come to their rescue a mere 2 decades ago at Panipat, a relationship Punjab is more than happy to reciprocate.The Marathas form a massive army and navy, with their navy patrolling the Arabian Sea alongside the Ottomans, with whom relations are relatively cordial. . The Maratha administration pumps vast capital into developing the Gujarat coastline, and Surat essentially turns into the Antwerp of the East, with tens of thousands of merchants from around the world settling there. Along with them, these merchants bring innovations from around the world, and it was in the Gujarat region that the Marathas started to create their world-class ports for the first time, and turned into a trading powerhouse. From gems to metals, the Maratha ports, such as Surat and Goa, grew to become the largest ports in India. The vast majority of India’s wealth ends up passing somewhere through the Maratha Federation, and India’s first bank, the Bank of Pune, is established in Pune, eventually forming branches in Calcutta, Lahore, Lucknow, and Kochi. Dutch traders inspire the formation of the Surat Stock Exchange, and the Western corporate structure spreads to the rest of India from Surat. Thus, without having much physical production of goods, the Marathas still manage to create a massive and wealthy state.The Marathas, being a federation, have multiple different semi-autonomous areas, with the Sindh, Rajasthan, and Malwa being further away from the homeland and thus less directly ruled, but Maharashtra and Gujarat essentially form the core of the nation. It is ruled by an authoritarian yet capable cadre of administrators, similar to the Qing administration.Dominion of AwadhUnlike the Marathas, the Awadhis are not primarily trading folks. Awadh is a small but heavily populated tract of land. The Zamindars of the area take control, and the agriculture is controlled by this feudal class of landowners. There are massive cities like Lucknow, Agra, Allahabad, etc, and they mainly deal with a domestic economy. Awadh is the least developed region of India and the poorest as well. It is the breadbasket of the nation but as a result does not produce high value goods. The government is run from Lucknow, and is a highly decentralized system of city-states and massive feudal estates, with the capital and its Raja being more symbolic. Awadh has a very close relation with Bengal, exporting its food mainly from Bengal’s ports, and it makes good revenue through merchants travelling across India through the land routes.The Republic of PunjabRuled from Lahore, the Sikhs had a great influence on how the government would be run. Inspired by the Sarbat Khalsa, a democratic convention of Sikhs during time of war and crisis to vote on resolutions, Punjab became a republic, with the Misls electing a representative for their jurisdiction who then went to the Lahore Durbar, and took part in the debates constantly rocking the Durbar. The Sardar of the Nation was chosen by massive democratic conventions as well. In 1782, after the death of the great Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, the founder of the Punjab state, Akali Phula Singh was chosen by the people to become the leader of the people of United Punjab.While Punjab was also an agrarian economy like Awadh, it was not dominated by Zamindars thanks to the land reforms of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur (true story). With increased productivity and a lack of natural resources, Punjab embarked on industrialization. While industrialization originally occurred due to Akali Phula Singh desiring to modernize the army, he was convinced of the other benefits of industrialization, and Punjab essentially became the Japan of India: a heavily militarized state constantly at war on the Afghan Frontier, and mainly focussing on the production of steel and things like that (yes, they did produce steel back then, and India actually used to make the best steel back then). Thus, the Punjabi economy became heavily dependant on the coal from Benga’s Dhanbad mines, the transport route of Awadh, and the ports of Mumbai from where to export the iron and all, or even to Bengal.The Republic of BengalA merchant-based republic, it was really more like an oligarchy. Bengal was extremely prosperous, and a manufacturing economy. Bengal had been the world’s largest shipbuilder since Mughal times, and supplied by European technology and Punjabi steel, Bengal experimented with steel ships, which were quite successful. In addition, it was the world’s largest textile manufacturer. Overall, Bengal became the factory of India for finished goods. Bengal had very close relations with almost all the nations of India. The government was ran from the grand city of Calcutta.Dravida:A confederation of quite autonomous semi-nations, Dravida had no particular specialty. Like Punjab, it experimented with production of industrial goods. Like Bengal, it produced some finished products. Like the Marathas, the Malabar coast was a major trade hub. As a jack of all trades, Dravida was a mainly consumption based economy with quite high income and a strong navy with which it exerted influence in the East Indies, much the its predecessors, the Cholas. It was almost like a Proto-USA. Each semi-nation in Dravida had a different government style, ranging from the Nizam’s autocracy to the mercantile republics of the Malabar region.By the early 1800s, the nations of India had been at peace (surprisingly) for a long time. However, it seemed that the Europeans might have made a come-back soon, so a representative from each nation travelled to the Bharat Mahasangh (Grand Assembly of India) in the newly created city of Delhi in 1816, with the old areas demolished by the Punjabis and rebuilt in the European style by a Francophilic Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Popularly called the Congress of Delhi, due to its similarity to the Congress of Vienna which had just concluded the Napoleonic Wars, Maharaja Ranjit Singh represented Punjab, the Nizam of Hyderabad represented Dravida, the wealthy Bengali shipbuilder Satendranath Bose represented Bengal, the Zamindar of the Agra area represented Awadh, and the Marathas were represented by the Peshwa of Pune. All five nations agreed to form a union where each nation would have great autonomy, and would be ruled from a joint command centre in the city of Delhi, which the Maharaja handed over to the newly appointed confederal government.By the 1860’s, India had fully caught on with the industrial revolution. The ports of Gujarat and Cochin had massive ships floating in and out laden with goods, the dockyards of Bengal were spouting out ironclad after ironclad, the Awadhis were frantically building these new novel railroads, inspired by the British, all over India (mostly funded by the Zamindars, who wanted to diversify), and Punjab had become one of the steel capitals of the world, with its agrarian past simply a memory. The newly modernized Indian navies were asserting their dominance over the Indian Ocean, and the most authoritarian national leader yet turned out to be an avid reader of Malthus, and instituted population controls, keeping the booming Indian population in the range of 200 million people, and turning India into an educated state at the same time.On July 21, 1870, the Punjabi city of Multan received word from Persia through its new telegraph lines, a novelty from Europe, that France had declared war on Germany. With Prussophiles in power in India, especially in Punjab, which viewed itself as the Prussia of the East, most French businesses were acquired forcibly by the governments of India and German businesses were invited to set up in India, a wise decision since Germany won the 1870 war. Thus began the entanglement of India in European affairs. By now, India was once again technologically behind Europe, but by supporting Germany, the Germans started sending their technology to make sure India doesn’t turn into the next Ottoman Empire.In September of 1884, multiple Indian nations decide to send troops to aid the Qing Dynasty with their war against France. While most Indian leaders were against it, the aggressive leaders of Bengal and Punjab managed to push through, realizing that this is exactly how the European powers will try to take India once again. The Bengali dockyards commissioned ships into their navy and fought on the coastlines of Indochina, whilst tens of thousands of Sikh troops arrived in Tonkin in North Vietnam to push back the French. The war results in a stalemate, and French and British hatred builds for India.In July of 1887, British troops invade Bengal. Troops from Awadh rush to support Bengal, and the British begin to dig trenches in the conquered areas. Indian troops, flabbergasted by the skill of the British troops, realize they are tactically behind their counterparts, and observe the trench tactics very carefully. The northeast jungle kingdoms of Bengal have been taken by the British, leaving Bengal’s economy starved of wood. Little do the British know they made things worse for themselves, because now, Bengal is an all steel economy. India had fallen to the 5th largest economy by now, behind the British Empire, the United States, the French Empire, and the German Empire, however, after the switch to a fully steel economy, both the Bengali and Punjabi economies grow very fast. Awadh railroad barons learn the art from the Americans and start building railroads throughout India, employing hundreds of thousands of Awadh workers.1894 becomes a watershed year for India. Realizing that the Qing Dynasty has become the sick old man of Asia, India aids Japan, another similar emerging Asian power, in the First Sino-Japanese War. While Japan diverts China’s attention northwards towards Korea and Taiwan, troops from India land on Hainan Island in China, occupy with, and try to turn it into an Indian Hong Kong for the next few years, but they fail due to the lack of a lucrative trade like opium to base the economy around.Bolstered by their successes, by 1898, India tries its luck at conquering Burma from the British, chanting cries of “Asia for Asians”, starting the first Indo-Burmese war. While previous Bengali territory is recaptured, the outdated troops from Bengal, Awadh, and Dravida are humiliated at the Battle of Mandalay and are pushed back close to the original border. Meanwhile, Punjab and the Marathas coordinate an attack on Yemen to capture the port of Aden. While they eventually capture Aden, it is at the cost of dozens of ships and thousands of men, showing that once again, the Indian armies are not keeping up with technology. Determined now to fully industrialize and have cutting edge technology, all the nations of India essentially turn into military states, with most of the revenue being poured into developing ships and artillery and guns. The hawks in the Indian nations, especially in the highly militaristic Punjab, are on the lookout for any new technology that can be weaponized, and eventually discover the plane, becoming one of the pioneers of aerial warfare alongside Japan and Britain.In 1905, Japan defeats the Russians at Tsushima. The first major victory of an Asian power over a European power in decades, the people of Asia rejoice. Determined that now is the time, the Indians launch an invasion of Burma, and make it all the way to Rangoon, in a massive surprise attack British troops were unprepared for. The French bolster their defences, and India launches another war on Persia, resulting in a stalemate but India becomes one of the nations with access to Persian oil as part of the treaty of Tehran. Trade between Japan and India grows exponentially, and India opens up to US trade.In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution overthrows the Qing Dynasty. Quietly biding their time, revolutionaries in India force the abdication of the monarchies of the nation, and every Indian state is officially turned into a republic. Public opinion turns against the extravagant military spending, and once again, the Indian economy starts to grow when the democratically elected pour those military funds back into infrastructure. India is now the fourth largest economy, behind only the US, the British Empire, and the French Empire.World War One breaks out in 1914. Far too entangled in the rivalries, India joins on the side of the Central Powers, aggravated by tensions in former Burma. Bengal starts exporting ships en masse to Germany, and the naval war becomes a stalemate. India assimilates Afghanistan, which allies closely with India to prevent annexation, and together, they launch offensives into Central Asia, easing the burden off Germany. However, the Russians abandon Central Asia to India and focus on the Eastern Front. Over time, the Germans are pushed back, but due to aid from India, the Germans are able to deal a lot more damage, and the British Empire is left too weak to hold onto all its colonies, as is France. India forges close relations with these former colonies. India is not bound under the treaty of versailles because it was never actually defeated in the war. India gains most of south-central Asia as a protectorate.The post war era is booming for India. While Bengal is essentially in a recession due to the Treaty of Washington limiting the sales of battleships and the naval race over, the rest of India prospers from increased trade with new colonies and the demand for steel and concrete to build up infrastructure. India especially forges amazing relationships with Eastern Africa. Later on, the Great Depression doesn't hit India so hard because it doesn’t rely so much on trade with Western powers. India is now the third largest economy, although the USSR quickly overtakes India by the late 1930s.WW2 starts. India finds itself more aligned with the Allies this time, and fights uneasily alongside Britain. India liberates Ethiopia and Somalia from Italy, and it takes over the East Indies from Japan (although the ulterior motive is to secure the supply from the East Indies). By the end of the war, India has practically secured the independence of the entire South East of Asia, at a great monetary cost. However, now, India has huge access to a new market of independent nations that need navies in the island nations of the South East, and also has exclusive rights to the oil in the East Indies. Out of goodwill, India allows the UK to keep Singapore without any hassles, due to their alliance during the war. Decolonization is almost complete at this point, and the Communists take power in China. China and India maintain good relations till the end of the Maoist era when relations get even better. While Japan and China are constantly tense, India has good relations with both. As a nation that was once poor but became wealthy based on free market economics, India constantly opposes the USSR ideologically. Eventually, the USSR collapses. By the 1990s, India’s population, thanks to the Malthusian leader who came to power a century ago and educated the population on population control, remains stable at around 400 million. The American and Chinese economies are larger than the Indian economy (due to India’s smaller population), and India has evolved into a more centralized state which is heading in the direction of becoming one nation. The world is far more multipolar, with China and India practically being the undisputed powers of Asia.This is what Asia kind of looks like by 2010:In the red is Indian territory. Orange is Indian “vassals” (more like REALLY close allies), and green is Indian-influenced states that are not vassals, but allies (kind of like, say, America’s influence over Europe). Clearly, India didn’t annex all of Myanmar after WW2, there would most probably have been ethnic agitations in the far East of the nation. Greater Iran would be closely allied with India, as would the ASEAN nations. Yemen/Oman/Persian gulf would never be as prominent as they are today because the Indian hawkish companies would probably have bought up the oil fields. Afghanistan and Central Asia would also be heavily influenced by India even all these years after World War One.India, in this scenario, turns out far more powerful and wealthier as well (per capita). Why? Because the leaders are smart and united. Not constantly fighting amongst themselves. For those cynical of India playing such a major part in the world at that time, let’s not forget that Bengal during the Mughal Empire WAS the largest manufacturer in the world. Had Indian leaders been more united (allying with each other instead of trying to conquer one another), maybe India would be the USA of the Indian Ocean. I dunno, would this be better? I say it would. Far less people, far less overpopulation, higher standards of living. Greater cooperation between Asian countries. Let’s be clear here, when I color those nations orange, they aren’t colonies, they are just VERY heavily dependant on India, kinda like how countries like Canada are dependant on the USA (true story, I’m Canadian). Green countries would have a brotherhood with India, like say the US and UK. So yeah, none of that neocolonialist stuff.

No, not exactly true. Native people could vote in many states earlier that that. However, it is partly true in that in some states Native people were being prevented from voting before the 1970s. In some states Native people continue to be prevented from voting to this day. It has been a very long path for voting rights for Native people in the US. It has much in common with voting rights for other minorities but with its own twists and turns and it is less well known.In 1924, Native Americans got US citizenship in the Indian Citizenship Act. Before that about 1/2 were citizens by other means. After 1924, in theory, all Natives should have been able to vote. But it was not the case for many people. It should be noted that this was also the case for man minorities in many places in the 1920s.It helps to go back over the history. In 1880 John Elk, who was Winnebago tried to registrar to vote in Omaha. He said he was a citizen under the 14th amendment. In Elk v Wilkins the Supreme Cort ruled he was not a citizen. Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884)In 1890, the United States Census formally enumerated all of the Indians of the country. According to the Census, there were a total of 248,253 Indians in the United States. However because of racism in some places Native people did not report that were Native. In New England many passed as French Canadians, for example.The Indian Naturalization Act of 1890 was passed and finally granted citizenship to some Native Americans by an application process. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs announced that the 8th of February was to be celebrated as Franchise Day. It was on this day that the Dawes Act was signed into law. The Dawes Act provided the legal mechanism for Indians to become citizens of the United States, its primary purpose was to break up communal land holdings on reservations and to give each Indian family a small plot of land to farm.Then, in Matter of Heff, the Supreme Court held in 1905 that Indians became American citizens as soon as they accepted their land allotment as was happening under the Dawes Act. The decision infuriated Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs who had insisted that Indians who accepted allotments could not become citizens until the end of their trust period of twenty years.Matter of Heff, 197 U.S. 488 (1905)In 1916 the United States v. Nice, had the Supreme Court take away some rights and said that Native people could be citizens and also treated as minors. United States v. Nice, 241 U.S. 591 (1916)Ethan Anderson (of the Pomo tribe) first attempted to register to vote with the Lake County clerk in 1915, and was denied. He and several members of his met and worked to raise money for two years so that he might take his case to court. A state court ruled in his favor in 1917, for under the Burke Act of 1906 any Native American who had received a patent-in-fee or left a reservation to lead a “civilized life” was granted citizenship and through that the right to vote. The court case (Anderson versus Mathews) gave non-reservation Indians the right to vote. Anderson had attempted to register to vote in Mendocino County and was refused. The court case, which was decided by the California Supreme Court, was funded by the Indian Board of Cooperation. Anderson v. MathewsDuring World War I, Indians were required to register for the draft but were ineligible to be drafted since they were not citizens. Yavapai physician Dr. Carlos Montezuma protested the draft policy and urged the United States to make Indians citizens and then draft them. They enlisted in large numbers. Around 10,000 Indians served in the military in WWI. In 1919, Congress passed an act which provided citizenship for all Indians who served in the military or in naval establishments during World War I.In North Carolina, the Eastern Cherokee tribal council drafted a resolution which argued that the fact that the Eastern Cherokee were denied the right to vote in North Carolina also denied them fair treatment and equal rights by county draft boards. The council asserted that“any organization or group that would deprive a people of as sacred a right as the right of suffrage would not hesitate to deprive them of other constitutional rights including the three inalienable rights – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if the opportunity to do so presents itself.”After WWI there was a great deal of pressure to grant citizenship by Native rights groups and allies. The 1924 act was promoted by progressives who were concerned about the constitutional rights of Indians and who wished to free Indians from federal control.Two days after passing the Indian Citizenship Act, Congress passed a bill to allot the Eastern Cherokee in North Carolina. However they neglected to upgrade the language in the bill to account for the Indian Citizenship Act. The bill said that the Eastern Cherokee would become citizens only after receiving and registering their allotments. The NC State Attorney General said that the Eastern Cherokee were not citizens because this bill superseded the Indian Citizenship Act. The Bureau of Indian Affairs said they were citizens. The Cherokee NC were treated as though they were not citizens and were not allowed to register to vote.Charles Curtis was the 31st Vice President of the United States from 1929 to 1933. He was a Native American from the Kaw tribe (and also Osage and Potawatomi). He had been Senator from Kansas from 1907 to 1929 (except for 2 years) and was majority leader. During his time in the Senate, Curtis became an original sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Republican part had the ERA on its part platform plank from 1940 until 1980. Before that he had been in the House from 1893 to 1907.Here is VP Curtis campaigning on the in Montana with Crow tribal members in 1928. In the Depression he pushed Hoover to create a 5 da work week to help with jobs.In Congress passed another act in 1928 which specifically granted citizenship to the North Carolina Cherokee. Two years later Eastern Cherokee leader Henry M. Owl was denied the right to register to vote in 1930. The state of NC said he was not a citizen. So, Congress passed another act once again reaffirming citizenship for the Eastern Cherokee. The Southern states said is was interfering with “States Rights”. The same lies they used to stop African American voting. Henry Owl had a MA in Cherokee history from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is his dissertation: The Eastern band of Cherokee Indians before and after the removalIn Arizona two Pima Indians (Gila River Indian Community), Peter H. Porter and Rudolph Johnson, attempted to vote in 1928. The Arizona Supreme Court in Porter v. Hall concluded that Indians were not entitled to vote because they were “wards of the government” and persons “under guardianship” were prohibited from voting by the state constitution. Porter v. Hall, 34 Ariz. 308Other states continued to fight voting b Native Americans as well. The Montana state constitution was amended in 1932 to permit only taxpayers to vote. Since Indians on reservations did not pay some local taxes, they could not become voters.A 1937 report by the US Solicitor General found that several states denied Indians the right to vote. It found that four states—Idaho, New Mexico, Maine, and Washington. Colorado’s attorney general replied: “It is our opinion that until Congress enfranchises the Indian, he will not have the right to vote.” Indians were not allowed to serve on juries in Colorado until 1956. Tribal members on reservations were not allowed to vote there until 1970.NC continued to deny Cherokees the vote until after World War II. North Carolina now claimed that Indians were illiterate. The superintendent of the Cherokee Agency reported: “We have had Indian graduates of Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools in stances much better educated than the registrar himself, turned down because they did not read or write to his satisfaction.”In 1940 the Nationality Act which again conferred citizenship on American Indians and required that Indian men register for the draft. In spite of the reconfirmation of citizenship, some states, such as New Mexico and Arizona, refused to allow Indians to vote. The Act was opposed by the Indian Defense League of America. Tuscarora leader Clinton Rickard urged those who wish to volunteer for the armed services do so as alien non-residents.At the Tohono O’Odham village of Toapit in Arizona, 30 men under the leadership of Pia Machita refused to register for the draft in 1904. Marshalls and Indian police attempted to arrest the leader, but they were roughed up and forced to release the 84 year old Machita. The Tohono O’Odham escaped into the desert.During the World War II, 24,521 American Indians served in the military and received the following awards: Air Medal (71), Silver Star (51), Bronze Star (47), Distinguished Flying Cross (34), and Medal of Honor (2). More than 480 Indians were killed during the war. Brigadier General Clarence Tinker, an Osage from Oklahoma, headed the Hawaiian Air Force. Joseph (“Jocko”) Clark, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, was the only Indian naval admiral.In the Pacific, two American Indian Marines were involved in raising the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.Louis Charlo, the great-grandson of the Bitterroot Salish Chief Charlo, was born in Missoula, Montana in 1926. In November 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Marines. The battle for Iwo Jima started on February 19, 1945 and four days later Private Charlo and seven other Marines reached the summit of Mount Suribachi. At 10:20 AM, Charlo and the other Marines used a 20-foot section of pipe to raise an American flag from Missoula at the top of the mountain. Several hours later, this flag was replaced by a larger flag. Charlo was killed by a sniper on March 2, 1945Ira Hayes was born in 1923 on the Gila River Pima Indian Reservation. He enlisted in the Marines in August, 1942. He became a “paramarine”. On top of Mount Suribachi, he was one of six Marines photographed raising the second larger American flag. He did not want to be identified but later was. He did not like the attention and had troubles after the war. He was found dead of exposure near his home in Arizona on January 24, 1955, only 32 years old.The draft board in Gallup, New Mexico decided that non-English speaking Navajo were not eligible to be drafted. Tribal leaders objected to the ruling because many Navajo wanted to serve.In Arizona, six Hopi men were arrested for not registering for the draft. The Hopi claimed that registration was against their religious traditions, but a federal judge ruled that these traditions did not have any bearing on draft registration. The Hopi men were sentenced to a year and a day in a prison camp.In New York, the Six Nations Iroquois – Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Cayuga – declared war on the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in 1942.The Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board (Sioux and Assiniboine tribes) in Montana passed a resolution supporting U.S. involvement in the war and pledged men, women, and materials to the war effort. The Board asked to use $10,000 of their tribal money to purchase defense bonds.On Attu Island in the Aleutians Aleut people were the primary inhabitants. On June 7, 1942, six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 301st Independent Infantry Battalion of the Japanese Northern Army landed on the island. Three Natives died in the attack. The 42 Attu inhabitants who survived the Japanese invasion were taken to a prison camp near Otaru, Hokkaidō. Sixteen of them died while they were imprisoned.In 1945, a Japanese bomb carried by balloon landed on the Hupa reservation in Northern California.Indian veterans returned home with different expectations about how they were to be treated. They had fought in Europe and in the Pacific and had been treated as equals. They returned home to find that they were still second-class citizens (and in some states, the recognition of their citizenship lacking). The Indian veterans expected to be able to vote and when states attempted to deny them that right, they took their case to the courts. Throughout the country, barriers to Indian voting began to fall. But just as in the segregated South, some other states tried to refuse voting rights. The last states to refuse with state law were New Mexico and Arizona and UtahAfter WWII in 1946, North Carolina county registrars refused to register Eastern Cherokee war veterans to vote. The Cherokee appealed the decision to the governor and attorney general. Nothing was done.In 1948, Miguel Trujillo Sr fought the case in New Mexico. He was a Isleta Pueblo tribal member. He attended the Albuquerque Indian School and then the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kan. That is where Trujillo met his wife, Ruchanda Paisano. He eventually earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico. He had been in the Marines in WWII. He was back in New Mexico getting his master’s degree from the University of New Mexico. He and his wife also taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Laguna Pueblo Day School.The state’s constitution barred American Indians living on reservations from participating in elections. It prohibited from voting “idiots, insane persons, persons convicted of felonious or infamous crime unless restored to political rights, and Indians not taxed.” That had been condemned by the President’s Committee on Civil Rights in 1947. That line in the constitution was written before American Indians were granted citizenship, but they were paying taxes to the state and federal government like other citizens.This is Trujillo and his daughter.Both his son and daughter, Josephine Waconda (in photo), went into medicine. Dr. Michael Trujillo was director of the Indian Health Service under President Bill Clinton.Felix Cohen, a prominent Indian civil rights lawyer took the case. He was Jewish, from New York, and had written The Handbook of Federal Indian Law in 1941. The Court found that New Mexico had discriminated against Indians by denying them the vote, especially since they paid all state and federal taxes except for private property taxes on the reservations.The federal judge said:“We all know that these New Mexico Indians have responded to the needs of the country in time of war. Why should they be deprived of their rights to vote now because they are favored by the federal government in exempting their lands from taxation.”In that same year, in Arizona a lawsuit by another veteran, Frank Harrison and Harry Austin, both Mohave-Apache at the Fort McDowell Indian Reservation, resulted in Indians being able to vote for the first time in that state. (Harrison and Austin v. Laveen). Cohen was also on that case. Harrison and Austin had tried to register to vote in Maricopa County, Arizona, and been denied by the county recorder, Roger Laveen. The Felix Cohen was also one of the attorneys in this landmark case. The National Congress of American Indians, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Interior also filed amicus curiae (friends of the court) briefs in these cases. In Harrison v. Laveen the Arizona Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiffs that their Arizona and United States constitutional rights had been violated. With this decision, Indians were granted the right to vote in the state of Arizona. Harrison v. LaveenNew Mexico and Utah had said Native people weren’t residents of the state, making them ineligible to vote. The laws remained on the books until 1957 in Utah and 1962 in New Mexico. However Native people were voting in New Mexico after 1948. Here are people registering to vote after the Trujillo decision on 27th of Sept 1948.Utah denied Indians the vote because Indians on reservations were not actually residents of Utah but were residents of their own nations. Indians were thus considered non-residents and hence not eligible to vote. In 1957, the Utah state legislature finally repealed the legislation that prevented Indians living on reservations from voting. It did so only after being forced by a federal judge.New Mexico in 1962, the last state to enfranchise Native Americans. It took five years after that to change the state’s constitution.Today, New Mexico has the highest registration rate for American Indians in the country. According to the National Congress of American Indians, Native Americans 77 percent of potential Native voters are registered to vote, compared to 73 percent for African Americans and 70 percent of white voters, 78 percent Hispanic and 62 percent for Asian Americans.Even with the lawful right to vote in every state, Native Americans suffered from the same mechanisms and strategies, such as poll taxes, literacy tests, fraud and intimidation, that kept African Americans from exercising that right.In 1965, with passage of the Voting Rights Act and subsequent legislation in 1970, 1975, and 1982, voting protections were reaffirmed and strengthened. However, there has needed to be many law cases brought to tr to force states to stop Native people from voting. There have repeatedly been voting rights abuses against Native Americans in Alaska, South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, and other states with significant Native American populations. At least 70 cases have needed to be brought.The Native American Voting Rights Coalition (NAVRC) was formed in 2015 to address this. It is made up of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF); National Congress of American Indians (NCAI); American Civil Liberties Union, Voting Rights Project (ACLU); Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR); Fair Elections Center; Western Native Voice; and Four Directions. Home - Native American Voting Rights CoalitionSome recent cases are:October 30, 2018, Spirit Lake Tribe and six individual plaintiffs sued to ensure that eligible Native American voters residing on reservations in North Dakota will be able to cast a ballot in the 2018 midterm elections and in all future elections.On December 13, 2017, the Native American Rights Fund again brought action against the state of North Dakota seeking to overturn North Dakota’s newest discriminatory voter ID law.For decades San Juan County in Utah has prevented Native American representation, voting, and presence on juries. It is an area of 7,933 sq mi. That is bigger than Delaware or Connecticut or NJ. County clerks kept Native candidates off the ballot, refused to register Native voters, and held written elections in English, disenfranchising those who were illiterate or didn’t speak the English well. In the mid-1980s, the U.S. Department of Justice sued San Juan County for violating the Voting Rights Act. Then, the county drew its lines still violated the Voting Rights Act, because it packed minority voters into a single district while spreading the white vote over multiple districts. That meant Native voters could only elect one representative. Navajos were kept off the school board too. A U.S. Department of Justice official who later reviewed disparities in course offerings between the county’s white and Native schools said in 1997 that he “hadn’t seen anything so bad since the ’60s in the South.”Even though Native Americans are the majority in the in the 14,750-person county, the county commissioner and school board district lines were gerrymandered to give white Mormon voters disproportionate power for more than three decades. Under both the Voting Rights Act and Utah state law, counties must redraw voting districts at least every 10 years to ensure that the population is spread evenly across districts. But San Juan County hadn’t redrawn its voting districts since 1986. Actions in the last few years changed that. The 2018 election ended that. Navajo are now the majority on the county commission. Grayeyes wins county seat in historic electionHere is one of the Navajo winners, Kenneth Maryboy.In late 2018, Senator Udall introduced the Native American Voting Rights Act of 2018. It has a poor chance of passing right now because of Republican obstruction and racism. Text - S.3543 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Native American Voting Rights Act of 2018“In 1948 – 70 years ago – my grandfather, Levi Udall, served as Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court where he authored the opinion extending the right to vote to Native Americans then living on-reservation. My grandfather wrote, ‘To deny the right to vote… is to do violence to the principles of freedom and equality.’ I wholeheartedly agree. But today, 70 years later, state and local jurisdictions continue to erect insidious new barriers to the ballot box for Native Americans, from the elimination of polling and registration locations to the passage of voter ID laws intentionally designed to prevent Native Americans from voting. These undemocratic barriers have blocked too many Native voters across New Mexico and Indian Country from exercising their franchise.”

THE HISTORY OF THE INDIAN FLAG1)The first flag of India had the Union Jack , a star at lower right side representing India , with British crown surrounding it.Indians obviously had no say in its design.2) The flag that was first hoisted on August 7, 1906,at the Parsee Bagan Square in Calcutta.3)Called the ‘Saptarishi Flag’, this was hoisted in Stuttgartat the International Socialist Congress held on August 22, 1907.4)Associated with the names of Dr. Annie Besant andLokmanya Tilak, this flag was hoisted atthe Congress session in Calcutta during the‘Home Rule Movement’.5)In the year 1921, a young man from Andhra presentedthis flag to Gandhiji for approval. It was only afterGandhiji’s suggestion that the white strip andthe charkha were added.6)This flag was suggested during the All India CongressCommittee session in 1931. However, the Committee’ssuggestion was not approved.7)On August 6, 1931, the Indian National Congressformally adopted this flag, which was first hoistedon August 31.8)Our National Flag, which was born on July 22, 1947,with Nehruji’s words, “Now I present to you not only the Resolution,but the Flag itself”. This flag was first hoisted at the Council Houseon August 15, 1947.(Source 1: The Hindustan Times)(Source 2: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/in-hist.html)