John Collier

John Collier (May 4, 1884 – May 8, 1968), a sociologist and writer, was an American social reformer and Native American advocate. He served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, from 1933 to 1945. He was chiefly responsible for the "Indian New Deal", especially the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, through which he intended to reverse a long-standing policy of cultural assimilation of Native Americans. During the second World War, in part due to his position in the BIA, Collier also became involved with the incarceration of Japanese Americans at the Poston War Relocation Center and desired greater involvement at the Gila River War Relocation Center. Collier was instrumental in ending the loss of reservations lands held by Indians, and in enabling many tribal nations to re-institute self-government and preserve their traditional culture. Some Indian tribes rejected what they thought was unwarranted outside interference with their own political systems that the new approach had brought them. Early life and education John Collier was born in 1884 and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where his father Charles A. Collier was a prominent banker, businessman, civic leader, and mayor of Atlanta (1897–1899). He had a tragic family life: his mother died of pneumonia and his father died, possibly a suicide, before Collier was sixteen.