Thomas Louis Sloan (14 May 186310 September 1940) was a Native American lawyer and activist. Sloan worked alongside his partner, Hiram Chase, for much of his career. Sloan has a history of activism dating back to his teenage years. In 1911, he helped found the Society of American Indians. In addition, he established the first Indian-owned law office in Washington D.C. in 1912. Sloan was an activist for the citizenship of all Native Americans.
Biography
Thomas Louis Sloan was born in St. Louis, Missouri on May 14, 1863. His father, William E. Sloan, was mixed race and his mother, name unknown, was a non-Indian. At a young age, he became an orphan and lived with his paternal grandmother, Margaret Sloan. Together they lived at the Omaha Indian Reservation in Nebraska, as his family was from the Omaha tribe. At the age of 17, Sloan and his future law partner Hiram Chase were deemed troublemakers and imprisoned in an agency blockhouse for protesting agents of cheating the tribe financially.
Both Sloan and Chase participated in the Peyote religion which Sloan originally opposed. Peyote was a combatant against alcoholism within the Omaha tribe and attracted the young and educated members of their tribe.
Under the Native American boarding school system started by General Richard Henry Pratt, Sloan was sent to the Hampton Institute in Virginia in 1886, at the age of 23, and graduated as valedictorian in 1889. Sloan was also a member of the Wigwam Council (a student governing body of the Native American Dorms) and the manager of "Talks and Thoughts", an Indian publication at the University. After graduating, he turned to down a scholarship to Yale Law School, so he could go work as an Indian Agent for Nebraska while he studied law under Hiram Chase.
Before attending Hampton Institute, Sloan had also spent time enlisted in the U.S. Cavalry and served a tour in the Navy.
Sloan believed Native Americans could find the most protection through American Law, and never gave up on his work until his death in 1940, at the age of 77. According to Eli Winkler, one of the reasons for Sloan's support of congressional acts, like the Dawes Act, advocation for working within the framework of the government, and support of and use of his "Indianness" came from his time at Hampton and what he was taught there.
Career
Courts
Sloan practiced law under Hiram Chase after he graduated from Hampton; in 1891, they formed a law firm called "Chase & Sloan, Attorneys at Law". Sloan served in the government on the Omaha-Winnebago reservation until he moved back to practicing private law, working specifically on cases involving Native Americans. By 1911, Sloan appeared in federal courts regularly and also acted as a liaison helping tribal leaders navigate the government bureaucracy.
Sloan was admitted to the Nebraska State Bar in 1892. He was also admitted to the California State Bar in July 1926.
Supreme Court
He was the first Native American to argue a case in the Supreme Court. In 1894 and 1901, Congress passed an act that allowed Native Americans to use the Circuit Courts to claim allotments that they were entitled to, but had not been awarded. Sloan, H. C. Brome, Charles E. Clapp, and Anderson & Keefe represented 25 cases of people who claimed allotments from the Act of 1882. They were told they were ineligible, appealed and were still told that they would be unable to receive the allotments. This argument made its way to the Supreme Court. Titled John M. Sloan v. U.S., the appellants argued that they were entitled to their allotments due to the Act of 1882 and that it redefined eligibility for these allotments, taking the place of earlier acts. The U.S. argued that the case was not within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and moved to dismiss the claims. The case was decided against the appellants in 23 of 25 cases, and the opinion of the court was written by Justice Peckham. However, Thomas Sloan did successfully fight and gain his allotments despite initial rulings that he was ineligible because his grandmother had received allotments in 1830.