Roosevelt's Forest Army · Episode 10 of 14 · 43 min
The CCC Indian Division: A New Deal on the Reservations
The CCC had a second, separate corps that let Native men work their own reservation land partly on their own terms. The episode tells the story of the Indian Emergency Conservation Work program and John Collier's Indian New Deal. It holds together real agency for tribes and persistent federal paternalism.
Who's who
- John CollierCommissioner of Indian Affairs and architect of the Indian New Deal
- Franklin D. Roosevelt+28 more episodesPresident who approved the separate Indian program
Where it happens
- Navajo Nation+1 more episodeSite of the contested livestock reduction
Timeline
- June 1933Executive Order 6147 directs conservation work on Indian reservations
- 1934Indian Reorganization Act passed
- July 1933 to June 1936More than 30,000 Native men employed
- 1937Program renamed the CCC Indian Division
- 1942Division shut down as Congress declines to fund it
Still debated
Lifetime participation estimates range from about 15,000 to 85,000 depending on how counted. Historians debate how much real self-determination tribal selection of enrollees and projects represented under Bureau of Indian Affairs control.
← PreviousThe CCC's Jim Crow: 250,000 Black Men, Segregated by OrderNext →Were People of Color in the CCC? The Enrollees History Didn't Count
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