The First Amendment, Anglo-Conformity and American Indian Religious Freedom

Abstract

National public policy to insure freedom of religious belief and practice for American Indians in the United States has been very difficult to establish. When the federal reservation system was established in the 19th century Christian missionaries with federal sanction were established on nearly every reservation. Native religion and religious practices were rigorously persecuted by the missionary groups with the active intervention of the Indian Service, through its employees, especially in the U.S. Indian police. The Indian Service as a federal agency had the power to request the army to intervene with military force when a reservation superintendent thought it necessary. The ideology of the organizations and individuals who have sought federal and state legislation and sanctions against indigenous religions could be classified under the broad category of the doctrine of Anglo-conformity. The term has the central assumptions of the desirability of maintaining Anglo-American institutions, the primacy of the English language, Anglo-American cultural patterns, Protestant Christian religious supremacy as dominant and standard in the United States, along with unquestioned white supremacy.1 When the more spectacular religious observances, such as the Sun Dance, were suppressed in the 1880s, less visible religions remained. T1wo of these were the peyote religion in the Plains and the religion of the Indian pueblos of the Southwest. The intent of the campaigns against the peyote religion and the religion of the Pueblos was to move around the First Amendment dictate that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The campaign organizers decided to use a national public policy approach which for public beneficial secular reasons would (1) control a dangerous drug, peyote; and (2) prevent vicious sexual practices. The objective of controlling these religions then was disguised as being necessary for compelling national secular interests, not prejudicial denial of religious freedom.