Indians Now Taxed: Citizenship and Taxation in Settler-Colonial South Dakota

Abstract In 1915, the United States sued the treasurer and sheriff of Dewey County, South Dakota, on behalf of six Lakota men at Cheyenne River Reservation. The suit alleged that Dewey County officials had improperly taxed the Lakota men before illegally seizing property for back payment. The case, US v. John Pearson (1916), became a turning point in Indigenous taxation case law. Analyzing the events leading up to the case, this article shows how the relationship between good citizenship and taxation was deeply contested in Dewey County. The primacy of fiscal citizenship was a product of Indigenous dispossession, internal migration, and foreign immigration, which shaped not only South Dakota but also the nation writ large. Local governments and migrants coveted Indigenous lands and the potential tax revenue from Native American citizens, creating a national push to expedite the conferral of citizenship to Indigenous individuals. The events preceding US v. Pearson illustrate how United States officials used citizenship and taxation as settler-colonial tools and tell a story about how an Indigenous community fought back.