Asserting Native Sovereignty and Contesting Western Statehood at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair

Laura Crossley

Advisor: C Joseph Genetin-Pilawa, PhD, Department of History and Art History

Committee Members: Alison Landsberg, Gabrielle Tayac, Lincoln Mullen

Horizon Hall, #3225
November 07, 2025, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Abstract:

By commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair highlighted the ongoing effort to integrate Western lands into the United States. During the transitional years preceding statehood, land conflicts intensified between Native nations and non-Native settlers. 

This dissertation argues that Natives and settlers from New Mexico Territory, Arizona Territory, the District of Alaska, Oklahoma Territory, and Indian Territory used the Louisiana Purchase Exposition as a key site to negotiate control over Indigenous lands, the terms of statehood, and the future of Indigenous sovereignty and citizenship. Settlers built territorial exhibits that showcased their readiness for statehood and cast Native assimilation as an established fact. Although the federal government was actively dismantling Native nations' landholdings and political power, the process remained inconsistent and unfinished. 

Faced with threats to their land, sovereignty, and identity from both federal and local authorities, Native nations resisted. Increasingly excluded from the official political sphere, Native groups and individuals used strategies of production, performance, and display at the 1904 World’s Fair to protect their land, defend their sovereignty, oppose assimilation policies, and negotiate U.S. citizenship. In doing so, they not only challenged the destructive narratives of neighboring settlers but articulated creative paths toward political power and cultural recognition. While scholars of world’s fairs acknowledge that Indigenous participants exercised agency despite the objectifying nature of colonial displays, they have focused mainly on isolated acts of resistance and economic opportunities. This dissertation expands the scope by demonstrating how Native peoples used the World’s Fair to advance their ongoing political objectives. As they challenged settler visions for the future of the West, Native participants argued that U.S. citizenship could strengthen rather than weaken Indigenous sovereignty and called on the federal government to use its increasing authority to restrain settlers and protect Native interests. The 1904 World’s Fair offered a prominent platform that enabled Native nations to redefine their relationships with colonial power, as well as influence the course of statehood, the concept of citizenship, and the balance of federal and local authority.