Alice Mae Lee Jemison (1901–1964) was a Seneca political activist and journalist. She was a major critic of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the New Deal policies of its commissioner John Collier. She lobbied in support of California, Cherokee, and Sioux Indians during her career, supported by the Seneca Tribal Council. Her work was condemned by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and she was described harshly in press conferences and before Congressional committees, and for a time she was put under FBI surveillance.
Personal life
Jemison was born on October 9, 1901, in Silver Creek, New York, near the Cattaraugus Reservation. Her mother, Elnora E. Seneca, was from a prominent Seneca family, and her father, Daniel A. Lee, was "a cabinetmaker of Cherokee descent." Her goal was to become an attorney and she worked in the office of Robert Codd Jr., but could not afford law school. In 1919, she graduated from Silver Lake High School and was married to Le Verne Leonard Jamison; they were separated nine years later because of his chronic alcoholism. She financially supported her mother and her two children. In addition to her careers in journalism and activism, she worked at various times as a beautician, salesperson, factory worker, clerk, peddler, dressmaker, and theater usher. She also mothered Jeanne Marie Jemison, who became a judge in the Seneca Nation.
Early career
In March 1930, Colthilde Marchand, wife of sculptor Henri Marchand, was murdered in Buffalo, and authorities charged two Iroquois women, one of the artist's models, Lila Jimerson and her friend Nancy Bowen with the crime. Jemison supported their defense when the District Attorney, Guy Moore, called it an "Indian" crime and conducted warrantless searches of Seneca and Cayuga homes. She worked with Chief Clinton Rickard and Seneca President Ray Jimerson to appeal to political leaders, including U.S. Vice President Charles Curtis. Because of their efforts, the Bureau of Indian Affairs arranged for the U.S. Attorney to help represent the defendants.
Jemison worked part time for Seneca President Ray Jimerson in the early 1930s and also wrote for the Buffalo Evening News. Her articles were syndicated by the North American Newspaper Alliance.
In 1931, she was the spokesperson for the Seneca when they rejected an offer from New York State officials to settle a longstanding claim on the part of the Cayuga and the Seneca. The settlement would have given the Seneca $75,000 and the Cayuga $247,000 and the right to continue to live on the Seneca reservation.
In the early 1930s she conducted legal research, wrote newspaper articles, campaigned for the Six Nations' candidate, and lobbied against the Indian Reorganization Act.
Jemison moved to Washington, DC, in 1943 and began writing for the Washington Star.
Lobbying against New Deal policies and the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Jemison's attacks on BIA Commissioner John Collier centered on his ideas about how the Indians should govern themselves. She fought for a diversity of Indian lifestyles, fighting against a monolithic, romantic notion of primitives living on the pueblo. Her ideas were influenced by the writings of Carlos Montezuma and Montezuma's one-time secretary, Joseph W. Latimer.
In May 1933, she responded to criticism from the Indian Rights Association by herself criticizing Collier's appointments of Indian Commissioner Rhoades and Assistant Commissioner Scattergood without holding a hearing and without allowing Indian representatives to testify on their appointments. She said her argument was:
Jemison and her allies viewed the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 as a violation of treaty rights and a denial of tribal sovereignty. Following this principle, she also fought the federal government's plans to subject the Seneca to the Selective Service Act of 1940 as U.S. citizens, insisting such authority belonged to the Iroquois Confederacy.
Jemison also protested when Roosevelt vetoed the Beiter Bill in June 1935, which would have "restored tribal jurisdiction over fishing and hunting on [Seneca] reservations which had been taken away by the government in the Conservation Act of 1927", which she considered a violation of the Treaty of Canandaigua (1794).