Upholding Indigenous Freedoms of Religion and Medicine: Peyotists at the 1906–1908 Oklahoma Constitutional Convention and First Legislature
The American Indian Quarterly March 1, 2012 Dennis Wiedman 4 citations
In early 1908, over a hundred representatives from tribes including the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Osage, Ponca, Arapaho, Iowa, and Sac and Fox filled the Oklahoma legislative hall to voice concerns about laws restricting their medicine and religious practices. This occurred during the state's constitutional convention and first legislature, shortly after Oklahoma was formed by merging Indian and Oklahoma Territories. These debates helped create the legal foundation for the Native American Church, chartered in 1918, which became the largest intertribal Indigenous religion in North America. The article argues that such inclusion of Indigenous peoples in state formation is rare in the history of European and American colonization.