Investigation and Exposure
One of the most significant and least-known dimensions of Zitkála-Šá’s work was her involvement in investigating corruption in the administration of Oklahoma’s Native nations and their resources.
Oklahoma had a specific history related to Native nations that made it different from other parts of the country. The “Five Civilized Tribes” — Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muskogee (Creek), and Seminole — had been forcibly relocated to what became Oklahoma Indian Territory in the 1830s and 1840s (the Trail of Tears for the Cherokee was the most famous of these forced removals). By the early twentieth century, when Oklahoma became a state in 1907, the oil discoveries on lands held by Native nations had created enormous economic stakes in the management of those resources.
The exploitation of Native people in Oklahoma — the theft of oil royalties, the manipulation of allotment records, the corrupt practices of guardians appointed to manage the affairs of Native individuals who were deemed unable to manage their own resources — was one of the worst examples of the ways in which the federal trust responsibility was systematically violated.
In 1923 and 1924, Zitkála-Šá worked with her husband Raymond and with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs to investigate conditions in Oklahoma. She wrote a report — Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery — that documented the systematic theft and exploitation of Native people’s resources in Oklahoma.
The report named names, described specific cases, and presented evidence of the corruption that characterized the management of Native estates and resources in Oklahoma. It was a piece of investigative journalism and political advocacy combined, and it brought national attention to practices that had been occurring largely outside of public scrutiny.
The work was dangerous. She was exposing powerful interests, and the people she was exposing had resources and political connections. But the report contributed to congressional hearings and to increased scrutiny of the conditions in Oklahoma.
This aspect of her work — the investigative reporter and political advocate, documenting corruption and demanding accountability — is as significant as her literary work, and it demonstrates the breadth of what she was doing throughout her career.