In the United States, the freedom to exercise one’s spiritual beliefs is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Sadly, people from Indigenous cultures have faced multiple avenues of discrimination since the advent of European colonization in North America. Both in the past and in modern times, Native Americans have fought for the right to engage in their religious practices. Understanding some of the deeper issues involved requires an examination of American history.
Manifest Destiny and the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Prior to the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, Indigenous people were usually regarded as either citizens of their own sovereign nations or wards of the United States government. The Pluralism Project at Harvard University reveals that Indigenous peoples have been deprived of their religious liberties through a mix of cultural prejudices, antagonistic government policies, and exploitation of their nebulous legal statuses.
As territories were slowly claimed, several agencies formed to handle trading and relations with the land’s Indigenous tribes. By 1824, these offices had been replaced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Organized under the War Department, the BIA adopted a hostile stance toward the Indigenous societies it encountered. Viewing their cultural and ceremonial practices as obstacles to assimilation, the BIA made policy as it saw fit to obliterate these customs. Its actions resulted in several violations of Native American religious expression:
- Outlawing the Great Plains nations’ Great Sun Dance practices
- Attempting to suppress the Ghost Dance movement, leading to the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890
- Withholding treaty payments of food, clothing, livestock, and farming capital until Native people gave up the public practice of their religious traditions
- Separating Native children from their families and sending them to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their languages or engage in religious practices
Although the BIA was commanded to change its policies in 1924, this did not end the religious discrimination experienced by Indigenous people. As Native Appropriations blogger Adrienne Keene documents, it was not until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 that Indigenous religions were granted explicit protection under United States law. Nevertheless, two contemporary criticisms of AIRFA include its lack of enforceability and dearth of protections for sacred sites.
Contemporary Religious Freedom Issues
Indigenous spiritual practices and ceremonial expressions are typically based on different concepts than those in Abrahamic faiths, especially Western Christianity. As the Encyclopedia Britannica clarifies, many Native religious traditions are not based on written texts or static doctrinal codes. Thanks to Western prejudices, some of these have been characterized as unenlightened superstitious beliefs.
Conflicts between Native and Western-based ideologies have led to modern religious freedom issues. Laws restricting the possession of eagle feathers to those with recognized tribal affiliations disadvantage Native people who cannot produce this documentation. Meanwhile, Indigenous men and boys with long hair or braids encounter school and workplace dress codes that prohibit these practices. Ritualistic peyote use can also be criminalized, and some employers fire Indigenous people who test positive regardless of religious liberty protections.
Disputes concerning sacred land and ancestral burial sites are also salient. As a Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine piece divulges, the fight to protect these sites has produced mixed results. Recent successes include the return of New Mexico’s Blue Lake region to the Taos Pueblo people, but similar efforts did not prevent the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
Continued Challenges and an Unclear Future
American history has not been kind to Indigenous people, especially when it comes to their religious liberties. Aggressive government policies fueled by colonialism and prejudice once threatened to completely wipe out their traditions. Although legal protections have been broadened within the last century, Native people still encounter many modern challenges while engaging in their spiritual practices.