VILLANOVA HISTORY PROFESSOR DETAILS THE PATH TOWARD NATIVE AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IN NEW BOOK
250 years ago, as news of the Declaration of Independence’s signing spread across the Thirteen Colonies, America's revolutionaries were not the only ones facing new citizenship. The region's Indigenous communities faced a difficult question: would joining the new nation protect their way of life, or place it in peril?
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“A number of scholars have explored Native American citizenship, but in limited studies that focus on a particular Native nation or region such as the American South,” said Dr. Rosier. “By stretching the chronology back to America’s founding in the revolution, I was able to identify early efforts of Native people to gain citizenship rights to create a middle ground between forced removal and assimilation.”
The book invites audiences to connect earlier Indigenous histories with modern Native struggles, informed heavily by America’s development into a global and economic superpower. “Besides the physical violence Native people endured, it's important to understand the extraordinary economic violence Native people suffered via allotment, forced relocation, and natural resource extraction,” Rosier explained. “The gaining by white people of Native land, water rights, timber, minerals, and other resources fueled the growth of American industry and agriculture in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, while generating lasting poverty in many Native communities.”
Native people served in the US military as an obligation in their path to American citizenship, which they pursued to protect their tribal citizenship and cultural identity.
The book opens with the story of World War II veteran and Klamath tribal citizen Edison Chiloquin (b. 1923). As an American citizen, Chiloquin served in the Philippines during World War II, for which he earned the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. At home, he fought for the economic, social and spiritual foundation of many Native identities: his ancestors’ land.
“Chiloquin believed it was his right to retain his Klamath identity after the federal government terminated the Klamath people’s political sovereignty in 1954 and sold much of their land base, rich in timber resources, giving each Klamath a portion of the proceeds,” Rosier said.
Believing his homeland was priceless, Chiloquin refused the government’s payment. Instead, in 1976, he lit a sacred fire to mark his commitment to regaining his ancestors’ land, keeping the blaze lit for five and a half years. President Jimmy Carter later signed the Chiloquin Act in January 1980, giving the Chiloquin title to 580 acres of tribal land within southern Oregon.
“During his memorial service, Chiloquin received a Veterans of Foreign Wars honor guard and gun salute, and his family was presented with an American flag, which they placed in Chiloquin’s casket. Although willing to serve the United States as an obligation of his citizenship, he did so to preserve his right to be Klamath, to be both an American and an Indigenous citizen.”
Dr. Rosier will present a lunchtime book talk on this latest work on March 24, 2026, at 12 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner at Villanova University. The event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.
About The Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest: The Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest generates historically informed conversations that further public understanding of the present moment. Founded on the belief that historical scholarship and historical perspective are essential for understanding contemporary local, national and global issues, the Center organizes diverse events and programs that gather scholars, educators, journalists, policymakers, activists and students to reflect upon the present through the lens of the past. The Lepage Center is made possible by the vision and generosity of Albert Lepage ’69 CLAS, a history major at Villanova and retired co-chairman of Lepage Bakeries Inc.
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