John Collier

John Collier (May 4, 1884 – May 8, 1968), a sociologist and writer, was an American social reformer and Native American advocate.

John Collier was born in 1884 and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where his father Charles A. Collier was a prominent banker, businessman, civic leader, and mayor of Atlanta (1897–1899).

He had a tragic family life: his mother died of pneumonia and his father died, possibly a suicide, before Collier was sixteen.

He was educated at Columbia University and at the Collège de France in Paris.

At Columbia, Collier began to develop a social philosophy that would shape his later work on behalf of American Indians.

He was concerned with the adverse effects of the industrial age on mankind.

He thought society was becoming too individualistic and argued that American culture needed to reestablish a sense of community and responsibility.

He lobbied for repeal of the Dawes Act, Indian General Allotment Act of 1887.

It had been directed at Indigenous assimilation by allotting Indian reservation land into individual household parcels of private property.

Some communal lands were retained, but the US government declared other lands "surplus" to Indian needs and sold them privately, much reducing reservation holdings.

He graduated from Columbia in 1906.

From 1907 to 1919, he worked as secretary of the People's Institute, where he developed programs for immigrant neighborhoods, emphasizing pride in their traditions, sponsoring lectures and pageants, and political awareness.

Collier centered his career on trying to realize the power of social institutions to make and modify personalities.

In 1908, Collier made his first significant contribution to a national magazine; his article describing the socialist municipal government in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was published in Harper's Weekly.

Collier moved to California in October 1919.

In 1920, Collier was introduced to the Pueblo tribes by the artist Mabel Dodge, at the Taos Pueblo in Taos, New Mexico; for much of that year he studied their history and current life.

By the time Collier left Taos in 1921 he believed that Native Americans and their culture were threatened by the encroachment of the dominant white culture and policies directed at their assimilation.

Collier's encounter with the Taos Pueblo made a lasting impression on him.

Collier was brought into the forefront of the debate by the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), when it appointed him the research agent for its Indian Welfare Committee in 1922.

The GFWC took a leadership role in opposing assimilation policies, supporting the return of Indian lands, and promoting more religious and economic independence.

Collier rejected the contemporary policies of forced assimilation and Americanization.

He worked for the acceptance of cultural pluralism to enable Native American tribes to preserve their own cultures.

Collier believed Indigenous survival was based on their retention of their land bases.

He emerged as a federal Indian policy reformer in 1922, and strongly criticized the BIA policies and implementation of the Dawes Act.

Prior to Collier, criticism of the BIA had been directed at corrupt and incompetent officials rather than the policies.

He formed the American Indian Defense Association in 1923 to fight back through legal aid and to lobby for Indian rights.

He failed to secure positive legislation to guarantee Indian religious freedom, but his efforts did force the Bureau to curb its program of cultural assimilation and to end its religious persecutions.

Collier believed that the general allotments of Indian reservation land was a complete failure that led to the increasing loss of Native American land.

His work led Congress to commission a study in 1926–1927 of the overall condition of Native Americans in the United States.

The results were called the Meriam Report.

Published in 1928 as The Problem of Indian Administration, the Meriam Report revealed the failures of federal Indian policies and how they had contributed to severe problems with Native American education, health, and poverty.

He served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, from 1933 to 1945.

For the next decade, Collier fought against legislation and policies that he thought were detrimental to the well-being of Native Americans and was associated with the American Indian Defense Association, serving as executive secretary until 1933.

He was chiefly responsible for the "Indian New Deal", especially the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, through which he intended to reverse a long-standing policy of cultural assimilation of Native Americans.

During the second World War, in part due to his position in the BIA, Collier also became involved with the incarceration of Japanese Americans at the Poston War Relocation Center and desired greater involvement at the Gila River War Relocation Center.

Collier was instrumental in ending the loss of reservations lands held by Indians, and in enabling many tribal nations to re-institute self-government and preserve their traditional culture.

Some Indian tribes rejected what they thought was unwarranted outside interference with their own political systems that the new approach had brought them.

Collier was outraged at the Americanization programs imposed by the federal Office of Indian Affairs, which was the name of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) before 1947, because they suppressed key elements in Indian culture, many of which had deep religious roots.

The BIA was supported by numerous Protestant organizations, such as the YWCA Indian Department, as well as the Indian Rights Association.

Descended from the pioneers who had suffered from Indian raids, they denounced the dances as immoral and pagan.