冷戦期アメリカの先住民政策と土地問題――インディアン請求委員会とウェスタン・ショショーニ

抄録

After World War II the federal Indian policy in the United States changed from the Indian New Deal to the Termination Policy to promote the assimilation of Native Americans into American society. The Indian Claims Commission (ICC) which existed from 1946 to 1978 was established to solve the historical land issues with the Indian tribes, and as part of the Termination Policy, decided whether the federal government should compensate the Indian tribes for their loss of lands. Although there are many studies on the history of the ICC, its relations with Cold War policy in the United States have not been sufficiently discussed. This article analyzes the land issues of Western Shoshones through the ICC by considering the development and militarization of the American West after World War II. It explores the responses of the Western Shoshones as well as the federal Indian policy, using the archival records and historical materials.

Politicians from the Western states supported the creation of the ICC and the Termination Policy as well as the land development for promoting regional economies in the 1950s. Based on the Treaty of Ruby Valley in 1863, the Western Shoshone submitted claims for their ancestral land to the ICC in 1951. The Te-Moak Bands council, which was organized in 1938, under the Indian Reorganization Act became the representative of the Western Shoshone in the procedures of the ICC. However, the Nevada Test Site was established in 1951 on their ancestral land and the militarization of the West developed during the Cold War. It became the National Sacrifice Area after repeated tests of atomic bombs caused cancers and other diseases among downwinders including Shoshones.

The traditionalists of the Western Shoshone tried to resist the process of the ICC because they sought not compensation but the return of their ancestral lands. Especially during the 1960s they organized the new tribal movement to claim the lands and even the members of the Te-Moak Bands council joined it in the 1970s. The court battles over the land between the Bureau of Land Management and the Shoshone sisters, Mary and Carrie Dann, started in 1974.

Notwithstanding their conflicts, in 1977 the ICC decided to pay the Western Shoshone about $26 million compensation for the loss of 24 million acres of land and the Court of Claims supported this decision in 1979. Although the Western Shoshone resisted receiving the compensation the decision was never changed. The plan to install the MX missile in the central Nevada in 1979 was abandoned after the storm of protests by local residents including Shoshones. However, the Yucca Mountain in the Nevada Test Site became a proposed site for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste in 1987. Thus the Federal Indian policy through the ICC aimed to incorporate Indian Tribes and their lands into Cold War America against the background of the militarization of the West.