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Timeline / Defining Rights and Responsibilities / 1917: American Indians volunteer for WWI

1917: American Indians volunteer for WWI

Though not yet U.S. citizens, more than 10,000 American Indians serve in the U.S. Army and more than 2,000 in the U.S. Navy, according to Bureau of Indian Affairs records. American Indians enlist at high rates; fewer than one-quarter of Indians serving in the military are drafted. The rate of death and injury among American Indian soldiers is extremely high because they are often assigned dangerous scouting assignments—missions that many of them view as opportunities to demonstrate their strength as warriors.

Warrior traditions in American Indian cultures are part of the education even of young recruits born after the last Indian Wars. Stories of the strength and discipline of warriors are part of the oral tradition that parents and grandparents share with them.

Theme
Federal-Tribal Relations
Region
Arctic, California, Great Basin, Great Plains, Northeast, Northwest Coast, Plateau, Southeast, Southwest, Subarctic

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James Blackhawk, Cherokee, fireman 2nd class, U.S. Navy, on board USS North Dakota

Courtesy Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Indiana University

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Corporal George Miner, Winnebago, 12th Infantry, in Niederahran, Germany, 1919

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration

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A letter from the commanding officer of the 142nd Infantry to the commanding general of the 36th Division in 1919, stating how two of his officers, who were Choctaw, had successfully transmitted orders in their native language so that the enemy “could not decipher the messages.”

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration

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A letter from the commanding officer of the 142nd Infantry to the commanding general of the 36th Division in 1919, stating how two of his officers who were Choctaw had successfully transmitted orders in their native language so that the enemy “could not decipher the messages.”

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration