19th-century commission had long reach to 20th-century Native Alaska

Not many have heard of the Indian Peace Commission, established in the same year (1867) as the U.S. purchase of Alaska. But in one of those interesting historical relationships with wholly unimagined consequences, the commission had a good deal to do with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

In the confusing years after the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination, the U.S. Army turned its attention to the Great Plains and continuing skirmishes between west-moving settlers and displaced Indians. Particularly alarming was the brutal massacre of 133 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly women and children, at Sand Creek in eastern Colorado in 1864. In the months following the Civil War, Indians and Army detachments fought a series of pitched battles across the Plains with many casualties on both sides.

The Army, Congress and the Indians wanted an end to the violence, and Congress created a seven-member commission to go west, survey conditions, talk with Indian leaders and make suggestions for peace. In summary, the Commission's proposals advocated a policy of forced acculturation of Indians. Perhaps the most salient recommendation was that Congress cease making Indian treaties. In 1871, the Indian Appropriation Act included a provision that "no Indian nation or tribe" would be recognized as "an independent nation, tribe or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty." This had consequences for Alaska.

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For readers who explore it, when they begin to become familiar with Alaska Native history one question that arises is why there were no traditional Indian reservations in Alaska. There were a few: the Annette Island Indian Reserve at Metlakatla, created in 1891, Tetlin in 1930 and Venetie in 1941. These were unlike the reservations in the contiguous states. There weren't any other large Native reserves. That's because reservations, as initially established, were a function of treaties. The treaties crowded Indians into what we can call treaty boxes, reservations, where the land was held in trust by the government, while any potential Indian land title outside the box was extinguished by the treaty. On the reservations, Indians were subject to the paternalistic supervision of the government.

But there were no treaties with Alaska Natives, because the U.S. Congress ceased treaty-making shortly after the Alaska purchase, and before Congress, or any agents of the government, had an opportunity to fully survey Alaska Natives and make any recommendations. And in any case, such recommendations would have been against treaties.

Congress was slow to determine what to do with Alaska land. The reasons are complex, but essentially, at first Alaska geography was poorly understood, and then as it came to be better known, was so vast, unique and sparsely populated, and much of it populated mostly by Alaska Natives, as to overwhelm federal agency attempts to determine how to dispose of and distribute it.

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Cultural perceptions evolved, and in 1941 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a remarkable decision, found for the validity of aboriginal title, which is title to land indigenes have ever utilized or occupied, whether they continue to utilize and occupy it or not, unless said title has been formally extinguished by the U.S. Congress. Virtually all such land in the contiguous states was extinguished by Indian treaties. But in Alaska, there were no treaties, and thus no substantial extinguishment of aboriginal title. In the years before statehood, Congress had withdrawn some lands, about 54 million of Alaska's 375 million acres, in national forests, parks and monuments and towns, and withdrawals extinguished Native title. But the rest was unreserved, and all of that was potentially subject to Native title.

That was the status of most Alaska land in 1969, 1970 and 1971 when Congress, under pressure from the oil industry because of the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay field, from Alaska Natives newly awakened to threats to their lands, and other potential investors, undertook the settlement of Alaska Native claims.

It's speculative to imagine what the status of Alaska Natives and their lands might have been in 1967-68 when Prudhoe Bay oil was discovered, had Congress not ceased treaty-making in 1871. But it's easy to imagine treaties and reservations all across Alaska, and a far less expansive land settlement than that provided by ANCSA in 1971.

Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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