During most of the nineteenth century, the Indian policies of the United States government were largely focused on reservations. According to the dogma of the time, on the reservations Indians were to become English-speaking, Christian farmers with an increased appreciation for greed and the ownership of property. Many of the reservations functioned as concentration camps or prisons: Indians were not allowed to leave the reservations and those who attempted to leave could be jailed or simply killed as “hostile” Indians.
Reservations had been established as a way of removing Indians from their homelands so that the land could be developed by non-Indians. By 1870, the non-Indians greedy for land were demanding that the reservations be reduced, eliminated, or broken up for development.
Reservation Indians were viewed as being incompetent in managing their own affairs. Indian agents assumed autocratic powers on the reservations, often viewing Indians as racially inferior. Corruption was common. Poorly paid, untrained for the job, many Indian agents saw this as an opportunity to get rich. It was not uncommon for the Indian agent to have a store in an off-reservation town which sold the goods that had been intended as annuities for the reservation.
American policies, values, and attitudes are best summed up by Lakota Sioux leader Sitting Bull, commenting on the Americans:
“Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes of the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule.”
Council
In Wyoming, the Americans under the leadership of Felix Brunot, the chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners, met in council with the Sioux under Red Cloud and the Cheyenne under Dull Knife and Little Crow. In reference to Brunot, James Olson, in his book Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, reports:
“He believed that the nation’s Indian policy should be designed to lead the red men as rapidly as possible toward civilization and Christianity, and that this could be accomplished only through education and the abandonment of the reservation life.”
Felix Brunot opened the council with a prayer. James Olson writes:
“It was a long prayer, an incongruous mixture of piety and nonsense.”
Red Cloud then stood up and gave his own prayer. Red Cloud then gave a speech in which he reminded the Americans that in 1852 he had been promised annuities for 55 years but had received them for only 10. He reminded them that in 1868 he had been told that no Americans would pass through his country, and yet they continued to do so.
On the second day of the council, Brunot again opened the meeting with a prayer. Red Cloud then walked out into the crowd of Indians. James Olson reports:
“Not to be outdone by the Commissioner—although he might well have wondered what prayer had to do with the whole business—he raised his right hand to the sky and invoked the blessing of the Great Spirit; he then touched the ground and returned to his seat.”
With regard to the success of the council, James Olson reports:
“Aside from pleasing the Oglalas with presents, however, the Commissioners, for all their praying and all their high hopes, had nothing to show for their efforts.”
Arapaho
In Wyoming, Arapaho leaders Medicine Man, Sorrel Horse, Black Coal, and Friday met with American officials and attempted to obtain permission for the Arapaho to settle near Fort Caspar. They were advised to either move north and join with the Gros Ventre (a culturally and linguistically related people) on the Milk River in Montana or to join the Sioux at the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska.
Paiute
Paiute spokesperson Sarah Winnemucca traveled to San Francisco where she met with General John Schofeld. She then went to Gold Hill, Nevada where she met with Senator John Jones. In both meetings she complained about the mistreatment of the Paiutes by the Indian agents. Both General Schofeld and Senator Jones, however, claimed that this problem was not under their jurisdiction.
In Arizona, the American explorer John Wesley Powell and Mormon missionary Jacob Hamblin met in council with the Paiute at Pipe Spring. Hamblin spoke Paiute and was felt to have great influence over the Indians of the area. In an article in the Utah Historical Quarterly, Don Fowler and Catherine Fowler write:
“During this meeting Powell recorded a number of myths and tales, miscellaneous data, and vocabulary items by the light of the campfire. He would draw on this collection and his later ones for his writings on North American mythology.”
Cherokee
Cherokee Chief Lewis Downey spoke out against the establishment of territorial government, the abrogation of treaties, and forcing United States citizenship on Indians:
“all these various movements spring from a common source and look to a common end – the extinguishment of our land titles.”
Under President Grant’s policy of allowing missionary groups to select Indian agents, missionary John Jones was appointed Indian agent for the Cherokee in Oklahoma. According to historian William McLoughlin, in his chapter in Between Indian and White Worlds: The Cultural Broker:
“he used all his skills and influence to protect Cherokee interests and to encourage the rebuilding of the war torn nation.”
In Oklahoma, the Cherokee Advocate resumed publication; the Cherokee constructed a new two-story brick capitol on the capitol square in Tahlequah; and 770 Shawnee were incorporated into the Cherokee Nation as citizens.
Eastern Cherokee
Not all of the Cherokee were removed to the West during the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee who remained in their Southeastern homes became the Eastern Cherokee and governed themselves independently from the Oklahoma Cherokee. In North Carolina, the Eastern Band of Cherokee established a new constitution and elected Flying Squirrel as Principal Chief.
Choctaw
Choctaw leader Peter Pitchlynn sent a protest to Congress which concluded:
“The said Choctaw nation doth solemnly appeal to the sense of justice and honor of the Congress of the United States, sacredly to observe the faith of treaties and to guard and to preserve their guarantees and that of the Constitution which makes them the supreme law of the land.”
Citizen Potawatomi
In Oklahoma, the Citizen Potawatomi from Kansas began to settle on their new reservation. Their purchase of the new reservation was approved by the Secretary of the Interior. However, their new reservation included land which had been already settled by the Absentee Shawnee. In an article in the Chronicles of Oklahoma, anthropologist Lisa Kraft puts it this way:
“A few Shawnee Indians may have already been living on the new Citizen Potawatomi reserve.”
Lisa Kraft also writes:
“The existence of the Absentee Shawnee in that location was the culmination of several decades of migrations from various directions, finally bringing them to the central part of Indian Territory by virtue of a treaty made in Kansas in 1867 but never ratified by Congress.”
Railroad
In Oklahoma, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad, commonly called the Katy, crossed the border into Cherokee territory and then veered southwest into the Creek Nation, the Choctaw Nation, and the Chickasaw Nation. This opened the way for the corporate invasion of Indian lands that would divest the tribes of their natural resources, land, and sovereignty. Regarding the Katy, historian David Bowden, in an article in the Chronicles of Oklahoma, writes:
“It did not pay for the right-of-way; it obtained exemption from taxes; and it bought raw materials from individuals in violation of tribal laws.”
David Bowden also writes:
“The company ran roughshod over the Indian Territory, extracting as much as it could while putting in as little as possible.”
According to Theda Perdue and Michael Green, in their book The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast:
“The railroad companies imported their rails but depended on local supplies for ties. Cedar, which grew in huge forests in eastern Indian Territory, seemed ideal.”
The railroad construction used up 2,700 ties per mile which resulted in much deforestation. Both the Choctaw and Chickasaw governments passed legislation to limit the exploitation of tribal resources to its tribal members. While many tribal members cut timber for the railroads, there was a great deal of poaching by non-Indians. Theda Perdue and Michael Green report:
“With no judicial jurisdiction over Americans, the tribal courts could do nothing to enforce laws that regulated timber cutting.”
With regard to the Katy’s attitude toward Indians, David Bowden writes:
“They believed that it was high time to push the Indians out of the way once and for all. They considered it wrong for the ‘unproductive’ Indians to hold claim to such a rich and abundant land when thousands of white settlers were ready and willing to make full use of all the land’s resources.”
Often the company refused to carry Indian freight and to stop at Indian communities.
Intertribal Meeting
In Oklahoma, the first of a series of intertribal meetings known as the Okulgee Convention was held. Delegates from many Indian nations attended: Creek, Cherokee, Seminole, Ottawa, Eastern Shawnee, Quapaw, Seneca, Wyandotte, Peoria, Sac and Fox, Wea, Osage, and Absentee Shawnee. The delegates drew up a memorial to President Ulysses S. Grant, asking him to uphold the treaties of 1866-1867, to prevent the creation of a territorial government, and to deny access to the territory to any new railroads.
Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, Gay Head became a town. This meant that the Indians were now citizens. Most of the communal land was allotted and the land could be bought and sold freely.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts eliminated the legal distinctions which protected Indian reserves. All restrictions regarding the sale of Indian land were removed and Indians were given the right to vote.
California
There were now only 30,000 Indians living in California. This was down from an estimated 300,000 prior to the European invasion and an estimated 150,000 in 1846. Carey Caldwell, Chief Curator of History at the Oakland Museum of California, writes of the population decline since the gold rush in an article in News From Native California:
“They died from disease, starvation, forced labor, and state-sanctioned murder.”
About 40% of the deaths were due to extermination killings as state-funded militias were paid for obtaining Indian scalps.
In California, the San Pasqual Pala Reservation was established by presidential executive order. Anthropologist Edward Castillo, in a chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians, notes the local response to this order:
“Immediately, local citizens enraged at the thought of giving land to the Indians carried on an abusive crusade in San Diego newspapers against the establishment of the reservation.”
The Indians were afraid to settle on the new reservation as the Americans had threatened to kill any Indians who moved to the area. The government returned the land to public domain.
Arizona
In Arizona, an informal reservation for the Western Apache was established near Fort Apache.
In Arizona, General George Stonewell met with four principal Western Apache chiefs—Eshkeldahsilah, Pedro, Miguel, and Captain Chiquito—at Camp Apache. The Apache leaders explained that they had no food as they were no longer raiding. The army seemed to be disinterested in Apache subsistence and survival.
Nebraska
The Nebraska Legislature passed another memorial to Congress calling for the removal of all Indians from the state so that Indian land could pass into more enterprising non-Indian ownership. The memorial states:
“we deny the so-called original rights of the aborigine to the soil” and asks that Indians be removed to “more congenial and advantageous localities where their presence will not retard settlement by the whites.”
Oregon
In Oregon, the state legislature passed a memorial to Congress asking for the removal of the Indians from both the Siletz and the Alsea Reservations and for the concentration of all the western Oregon Indians on the Klamath Reservation. The legislature claimed that 40,000 acres of good farmland were being used by only 800 Indians (there are actually 2,800Indians on the reservation). The non-Indian squatters on the reservation circulated a petition demanding the closure of the reservation. Congress did not respond to the memorials.
Fort Berthold
In North Dakota, President Ulysses S. Grant created the Fort Berthold reservation for the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara.
In North Dakota, internal conflicts among the Hidatsa resulted in a number of people under the leadership of Crow Flies High moving from Like-a-Fishhook and establishing their own village. The new band refused to accept government annuities.
Oneida
In Wisconsin, the Oneida council of chiefs, going against tribal custom which called for a consensus among the chiefs, votes 8 to 5 in favor of allotment. The pro-allotment faction, under the leadership of Daniel Bread, wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs explaining that they wanted their land surveyed and allotted. Furthermore, they wanted the allotted lands exempt from taxes as long as they remained under the Homestead Law. They asked that state laws be extended over the reservation to prevent trespassing on the newly allotted lands. Finally, they asked that any Oneida, after five years, could become a U.S. citizen.
Ottawa
In Michigan, annuities to the Ottawa ended. Ethnohistorian James McClurken, in his chapter in Native Americans and Wage Labor: Ethnohistorical Perspectives, reports:
“Even if they had invested money and made fine farms, there were no local markets for Ottawa produce, and they had no cost-efficient way to deliver their crops to market even if ready purchasers had awaited.”
Gosiute
In Utah, the Indian superintendent for the Gosiute noted that they had a predilection for farming, but that non-Indians were now encroaching on their farmlands. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs replied that the Gosiute were to be removed to the Uinta Reservation and that this should be done as soon as possible. The agent replied by informing the Commissioner that the Gosiute were not culturally related to the Ute and therefore refused to move to the reservation. If they must be removed, the agent wrote, they should be removed to a Shoshone reservation.
Modoc
In Oregon, Modoc leader Captain Jack led 371 of his people off the Klamath Reservation and returned to the Modoc homeland. On the reservation, the rest of the Modocs, under the leadership of Schonchin Jim settled in Yainax, away from the Klamath with whom they were feuding.
In an article in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, Doug Foster reports:
“Once back in his homeland, Captain Jack steadfastly refused to budge.”
In her biography of Captain Jack in Notable Native Americans, Lisa Wroble writes:
“The Modoc presence in northern California caused unrest among the white population. Settlers in the area began to demand the removal of Captain Jack and his band.”
Warm Springs Reservation
In Oregon, Tygh prophet Queahpahmah had a dream in which he left the Warm Springs Reservation. Citing this dream as a reason, he asked the reservation superintendent for a pass to leave the reservation. The agent refused. Queahpahmah left the reservation without a pass and avoided capture.
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 explores American Indian topics. More nineteenth-century history from this series:
Indians 101: American Indian court cases 150 years ago, 1870
Indians 101: American Indian Nations 150 years ago, 1870
Indians 101: The federal government and American Indians 150 years ago, 1870
Indians 101: American Indian religions 150 years ago, 1870
Indians 101: Indian Removal 200 years ago, 1820
Indians 101: American Indians 200 years ago, 1820
Indians 101: Indian treaties 200 years ago, 1820
Indians 101: Manifest Destiny Begins