Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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The Native American Press
Tribal editorial pressure was great even 160 years
ago
The free speech issues Native American journalists
are experiencing are nothing new; in 1828, a Cherokee newspaper’s editor
felt the same pressure
By Mark N. Trahant
The "Indian country" press has presented a free-speech conundrum since
it began: While its practitioners live in a country where free-speech rights
are guaranteed by law, the First Amendment doesn’t apply to those journalists.
To appreciate the conundrum, some history is required. This story starts
near what is now Rome, Ga., the 19th century capital of the Cherokee Nation.
Elias Boudinot, editor of the first tribal newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix,
faced not one but two tests regarding an independent press. He lost both.
"As the liberty of the press is so essential to the improvement of the
mind, we shall consider our paper, a free paper, with, however, proper
and usual restrictions," Boudinot wrote.
"But the columns of this newspaper shall always be open to free and
temperate discussions on matters of politics, religion, and so forth."
However the only temperate discussion Georgians wanted to read was picking
a date for the Cherokees to voluntarily pick up their homes and move West.
The state enacted a number of laws in the 1820s designed to destroy Cherokee
sovereignty — and the will of tribal members to resist "removal." The greed
of Georgians only intensified after gold was found in 1828 and Cherokees
were forbidden by law from mining, even on their own land.
Liberty was as dear to Boudinot and to the Cherokee as it was to the
nation’s founders. He found it inconceivable that any of these freedoms
could be denied. The Midgeville Statesman and Patriot said it was time
for the Cherokees to submit to inevitable destiny. "What destiny?" Boudinot
replied. "To be slandered and then butchered?"
Boudinot wrote letters to newspapers, correcting them on factual errors
and pleading the Cherokee case for their own land. Boudinot also printed
the Georgia side of the dispute in the columns of The Phoenix.
Boudinot misunderstood the intentions of the Georgians; he did not see
inherent racism. Instead, Boudinot believed that if he could just convince
his neighbors that the Cherokees were civilized, then they would be accepted.
The problem was that the Cherokees were already more civilized than their
neighbors — and that made things worse. More than two out of every three
Cherokees could read and write — a literacy rate much higher than in Georgia
or the rest of the country at the time.
But Georgia was indifferent to Cherokee progress. It did not matter
that Cherokee citizens were more literate or successful than their neighbors.
All that mattered, at least to state officials, was that the Cherokee people
were Indians and had their own government.
Boudinot wrote in the June 17, 1829, edition, that perhaps Washington,
Jefferson, Madison and Monroe "were only tantalizing us when they encouraged
us in the pursuit of agriculture and government. ... Why were we not told
long ago that we could not be permitted to establish a government within
the limits of any state? The Cherokees have always had a government of
their own. Nothing, however, was said when we were governed by savage laws."
The Georgia Guard’s Col. C.H. Nelson regularly harassed Boudinot. The
editor was brought before the state militia for a "libel" action against
the Phoenix. Once in custody, Nelson told Boudinot that he could not be
prosecuted under Georgia law but if the reportage of the Guard’s activities
did not cease Nelson would tie him to a tree and give him a sound whipping.
Boudinot responded with a series of editorials on the Guard and freedom.
"In this free country, where the liberty of the press is solemnly guaranteed,
is this the way to obtain satisfaction for an alleged injury committed
in a newspaper? I claim nothing but what I have a right to claim as a man
— I complain of nothing of which a privileged white editor would not complain."
Tribal leaders afforded Boudinot complete editorial freedom — until
he came to the conclusion that Cherokee removal was inevitable. Cherokee
leaders maintained the discussion about removal was illegal, an act of
treason.
The Cherokee constitution did not guarantee a free press. And tribal
politicians argued that the editor, and the newspaper, were instruments
of public policy. Chief Ross even called the Phoenix a "public press" and
said it "should be cherished as an important vehicle in the diffusion of
general information, and as a no less powerful auxiliary in asserting and
supporting our political rights ...
"The press being the public property of the nation, it would ill become
its character if such infringements upon the feelings of the people should
be tolerated. In other respects, the liberty of the press should be as
free as the breeze that glides upon the surface."
On Aug. 11, 1832, Boudinot resigned as editor. "Were I to continue as
editor, I should feel myself in a most peculiar and delicate situation.
I do not know whether I could, at the same time, satisfy my own views,
and the views of the authorities of the nation. My situation would then
be as embarrassing as it would be peculiar and delicate. I do conscientiously
believe it to be the duty of every citizen to reflect upon the dangers
with which we are surrounded; to view the darkness which seems to lie before
our people — our prospects, and the evils with which we are threatened;
to talk over all these matters, and, if possible, come to some definite
and satisfactory conclusion."
A few days after Boudinot’s resignation, Ross wrote to the National
Council that the Phoenix ought to be continued under the leadership of
a new editor. He hired his brother-in-law, making certain that the newspaper’s
views would match tribal leaders’.
More than 150 years later many tribal politicians continue to view the
native press as a mere extension of government. Most tribal newspapers
are even owned by the government. What is more, neither the states nor
federal government has jurisdiction over the 500 tribal homelands, or reservations,
the legal islands called "Indian country." Each of these jurisdictions
has its own charter that limits or grants freedom of the press. Some directly
spell out constitutional protection, emulating the language of the First
Amendment. Other tribal documents say nothing. However the point is often
meaningless because the final say rests with the tribal government and
not federal or state courts.
Limits on tribal press freedom began with Boudinot, but the pattern
continues with an almost regular cycle. A tribal editor tests freedom —
and is fired or punished for pursuit of journalism.
When Peter MacDonald announced his re-election bid in the fall of 1982,
a Navajo Times reporter estimated the crowd at less than a thousand. But
MacDonald aides ordered Duane Beyal to inflate the crowd size in the Navajo
Times’ account. Because he received an order from a superior, Beyal complied.
However on the editorial page, Beyal wrote a note apologizing to the Navajo
people for lying. Beyal was suspended from his job and removed as editor
of the Times.
Two years later, a Pueblo editor wrote that 800 community members had
signed a petition to remove the Zuni Pueblo’s governing body. That story
was stripped from the Pueblo News. A few weeks later the tribal government
said it could no longer afford to publish the News.
Another newspaper editor was fired in North Dakota. A whole staff was
fired, and a newspaper closed, all too routine.
The good news is that two newspapers are proving that an independent
tribal press can be both successful and as free as the breeze. The largest
newspaper, Indian Country Today, publishes regional editions across the
country from its Rapid City, S.D., plant. In Reserve, Wis., News From Indian
Country, is one of the largest employers on the Ojibwa Reservation. The
notion of freedom in the press is a quiet success story.
Trahant is editor and publisher of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News
in Moscow, Idaho. He is a former president of NAJA.
