A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

“There is but one hope of righting this wrong. It lies in appeal to the heart and the conscience of the American people. What the people demand, Congress will do. It has been—to our shame be it spoken—at the demand of part of the people that all these wrongs have been committed, these treaties broken, these robberies done, by the Government.”

The US government bears responsibility for its broken treaties, forced removals, and periodic violence. In a republic, however, one cannot entirely separate the behavior of public officials from the demands of citizens. Relentless pressure for western expansion came from frontier settlers, miners, land speculators, and railroad corporations. No doubt the US government’s record of dishonorable dealings with Indigenous Americans encouraged this public pressure, but public pressure also drives dishonorable dealings. As an “appeal” to the American conscience, this quotation supports the theme of History as Advocacy.

“I have not yet seen, in any accounts of the Indian hostilities on the Northwestern frontier during this period, any reference to those repeated permissions given by the United States to the Indians, to defend their lands as they saw fit. Probably the greater number of the pioneer settlers were as ignorant of these provisions in Indian treaties as are the greater number of American citizens today, who are honestly unaware—and being unaware, are therefore incredulous—that the Indians had either provocation or right to kill intruders on their lands.”

In Chapter 1, Jackson identifies “permissions” as a regular feature of early treaties. Here, she offers an example from the early 1790s, when the US government acknowledged by treaty the Delawares’ right to punish intruders upon their lands. Jackson refers to these “permissions” here because they amount to an explicit acknowledgement of Indigenous Americans’ right to the land they occupy and of their corresponding power to defend that right by force if necessary.

“There are no records of the practical working of this order. Very possibly it fell at once, by its own weight, into the already large category of dead-letter laws in regard to Indians. It is impossible to imagine an Indian who had served four years as an officer in the army (for the Delawares officered their own companies) submitting to be disarmed by an agent on any day when he might need to go to Atchison on business.”

During the Civil War, some tribes, including what was left of the Delawares in Kansas, sent troops into the Union Army. After the war, one federal official instructed his agent to disarm the returning Delawares. The agent protested, which might account for the absence of “records” regarding the “practical working of this order.” In any event, the mere suggestion that federal agents might forcibly disarm Delaware war veterans highlights the US government’s disregard for the rights of Indigenous Americans.

“With a magnanimity and common-sense which white men would have done well to imitate in their judgments of the Indians, he recognized that it would be absurd, as well as unjust, to hold all white men in distrust on account of the acts of that ‘fool-band of soldiers.’”

Here Jackson refers to Black Kettle, the Cheyenne chief whose people were slaughtered by US troops in the Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864. Black Kettle’s refusal to blame all white men for the barbaric behavior of a few calls to mind Benjamin Franklin’s frustrated comment in the aftermath of the 1763 Paxton Boys’ murders of the peaceful Conestogas: “If an Indian injures me, does it follow that I may revenge that injury on all Indians?” (“From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Hawkins, 18 February 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives)

“Early in the autumn, after this terrible summer, a band of some three hundred of these Northern Cheyennes took the desperate step of running off and attempting to make their way back to Dakota. They were pursued, fought desperately, but were finally overpowered, and surrendered. They surrendered, however, only on the condition that they should be taken to Dakota. They were unanimous in declaring that they would rather die than go back to the Indian Territory. This was nothing more, in fact, than saying that they would rather die by bullets than of chills and fever and starvation.”

In 1877, the Northern Cheyennes were removed to Indian Territory, where they found conditions deplorable, and 300 fled. Notwithstanding their surrender, they were imprisoned at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. When a smaller band of Northern Cheyennes escaped from Fort Robinson, they were pursued by US troops and shot dead. The deplorable conditions on US government-run reservations are noteworthy, as is the murder of the Cheyenne fugitives. Both, however, follow as logical consequences of the fact that US troops hunted down runaways from reservations.

“It is difficult to do full justice to the moral courage which is shown by Indians who remain friendly to whites under such circumstances as these. The traditions of their race, the powerful influence of public sentiment among their relatives and friends, and, in addition, terror for their own lives—all combine in times of such outbreaks to draw even the friendliest tribes into sympathy and co-operation with those who are making war on whites.”

Jackson describes the “moral courage” of the Nez Perces in war-torn Oregon Territory. Many tribes were friendly toward the US, or at least disposed toward peace. In times of conflict, however, Indigenous people found themselves caught between US settlers, who suspected their loyalties, and hostile neighboring tribes, who threatened them if they did not join the fight. This was the plight of the Nez Perces. It was also the plight of friendly Sioux and Winnebagoes in Minnesota, of Cheyennes in Colorado, of the Aravapa Apaches in Arizona, and of many others.

“Had the provisions of these first treaties been fairly and promptly carried out, there would have been living today among the citizens of Minnesota thousands of Sioux families, good and prosperous farmers and mechanics, whose civilization would have dated back to the treaty of Prairie du Chien.”

Jackson traces the source of Sioux grievances to the US government’s unfulfilled promises in the 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien. These promises included annuities and education expenditures. Before their forced expulsion from Minnesota following the war of 1862, the Sioux had shown both proficiency in agriculture and a favorable disposition toward Christianity. This quotation, therefore, supports both the theme of US Government Lies and the theme of History as Advocacy.

“When we see the men of Lorraine, or of Montenegro, ready to die for the sake merely of being called by the name of one power rather than by that of another, we find it heroic, and give them our sympathies; but when the North American Indian is ready to die rather than wear the clothes and follow the ways of the white man, we feel for him only unqualified contempt, and see in his instinct nothing more than a barbarian's incapacity to appreciate civilization. Is this just?”

Jackson presents numerous examples of Indigenous Americans who choose to adopt elements of European-American culture and practice, but she does not base her argument on assimilation alone. Some tribes prefer to live as they always have lived, and this preference does not diminish their rights, nor does it authorize the US government to defraud them.

“The annuities are still in arrears. Every branch of the industries and improvements attempted suffers for want of the promised funds, and from delays in payments expected. The worst result, however, of these delays in the fulfillment of treaty stipulations was the effect on the Indians. A sense of wrong in the past and distrust for the future was ever deepening in their minds, and preparing them to be suddenly thrown by any small provocation into an antagonism and hostility grossly disproportionate to the apparent cause. This was the condition of the Minnesota Sioux in the summer of 1862.”

The Minnesota Sioux War of 1862 was so costly that it required the diversion of US troops to Minnesota in the middle of the Civil War. Jackson describes the circumstances that prompted the outbreak of violence on the part of hostile Sioux. She does not attempt to justify the worst of Sioux atrocities, but she does provide context in the form of legitimate Sioux grievances.

“It is an intricate and perplexing task to attempt now to follow the history of the different bands of the Sioux tribe through all their changes of location and affiliation—some in Dakota, some in Nebraska, and some on the Upper Arkansas with the hostile Cheyennes and Arapahos—signing treaties one summer, and on the warpath the next—promised a home in spring, and ordered off it before harvest—all the time more and more hemmed in by white settlers, and more and more driven out of their buffalo ranges by emigrations—liable at any time to have bodies of United States soldiers swoop down on them and punish whole bands for depredations committed by a handful of men, perhaps of a totally distinct band—the wonder is not that some of them were hostile and vindictive, but that any of them remained peaceable and friendly.”

The Minnesota Sioux War of 1862 convulsed an entire region, scattering both hostile and friendly Sioux into so many different places that it becomes difficult for the historian to trace their movements. In any event, all were caught up in the same injustice. Hence, this quotation supports the theme History as Advocacy.

“That all this should be true of these wild, warlike Sioux, after so many years of hardships and forced wanderings and removals, is incontrovertible proof that there is in them a native strength of character, power of endurance, and indomitable courage, which will make of them ultimately a noble and superior race of people, if civilization will only give them time to become civilized, and Christians will leave them time and peace to learn Christianity.”

The final paragraph of the book’s longest chapter constitutes Jackson’s closing appeal on behalf of the Sioux, a large and powerful tribe consisting of many different bands. Some of these bands adhere to ancient Sioux traditions, while others appear inclined to assimilate and should be given the chance to do so.

“In 1876 the project of consolidating all the Indians in the United States upon a few reservations began to be discussed and urged. If this plan were carried out, it would be the destiny of the Poncas to go to the Indian Territory. It was very gratuitously assumed that, as they had been anxious to be allowed to remove to Nebraska and join the Omahas, they would be equally ready to remove to Indian Territory—a process of reasoning whose absurdity would be very plainly seen if it were attempted to apply it in the case of white men.”

Notwithstanding the US government’s myriad treaty promises, the “project” of removing all tribes to a handful of reservations in Indian Territory is “discussed and urged.” In this case, smaller and weaker tribes such as the Poncas had no recourse. This is the logical conclusion of a century of removals.

“Judge Dundy took several days to consider the case, and gave a decision which strikes straight to the root of the whole matter—a decision which, when it is enforced throughout our land, will take the ground out from under the feet of the horde of unscrupulous thieves who have been robbing, oppressing, and maddening the Indians for so long, that to try to unmask and expose their processes, or to make clean their methods, is a task before which hundreds of good men—nay, whole denominations of good men—disheartened, baffled, and worn-out, have given up.”

In 1879, Judge Elmer Dundy ruled that the Ponca chief Standing Bear qualifies as a “person” under US law and thus enjoys the legal protection afforded by habeas corpus. Dundy’s decision freed Standing Bear from federal custody. Dundy’s ruling deserves to be placed in context: Despite the fact that the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, in which the Supreme Court ruled that an enslaved Black man could not be a citizen of the US and thus could not sue in federal courts had been reversed by the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the US government attorney in the Ponca case attempted to apply the same argument to Standing Bear and, by extension, to all Indigenous Americans.

“The time was not far distant. In 1862 we find the Winnebagoes in trouble indeed. A ferocious massacre of white settlers by the Sioux had so exasperated the citizens of Minnesota, that they demanded the removal of all Indians from the State. The people were so excited that not an Indian could step outside the limits of the reservation without the risk of being shot at sight. The Winnebagoes had utterly refused to join the Sioux in their attack on the whites, and had been threatened by them with extermination in consequence of this loyalty. Thus they were equally in danger from both whites and Indians: their position was truly pitiable.”

References to the unfortunate plight of peaceful tribes recur throughout the book. This is particularly true with respect to tribes caught in the middle of the Minnesota Sioux War of 1862. The Winnebagoes’ futile attempt to distance themselves from this conflict supports the theme of unnecessary violence Jackson highlights throughout the book.

“These quotations from this report of the Interior Department are but a fair specimen of the velvet glove of high-sounding phrase of philanthropic and humane care for the Indian, by which has been most effectually hid from the sight of the American people the iron hand of injustice and cruelty which has held him for a hundred years helpless in its grasp.”

The “quotations” to which Jackson refers appeared in the Secretary of the Interior’s 1876 Annual Report, which insisted on moving the Winnebagoes and other tribes to Indian Territory so those tribes might feel secure in their own permanent home. Jackson expresses contempt for this hypocrisy and denounces the secretary’s misleading rhetoric as deception, for the Winnebagoes had already been moved from one “permanent home” to another several times.

“There is no instance in all history of a race of people passing in so short a space of time from the barbarous stage to the agricultural and civilized. And it was such a community as this that the State of Georgia, by one high-handed outrage, made outlaws!”

In the early 19th century, the Cherokees of the American South so thoroughly assimilated into European-American practices that some Cherokees even become slaveholders. The US government had existing treaties with the Cherokees, and the US Constitution denied individual states sovereignty over any tribes residing within state borders. Nonetheless, the Georgia legislature attempted to invalidate all Cherokee laws and harassed the Cherokees to such a degree that the tribe begged for federal protection. Jackson denounces Georgia’s “high-handed outrage” and reminds readers that Indigenous Americans are more than capable of assimilation.

“The record which the United States Government has left in official papers of its self-congratulations in the matter of this Cherokee removal has an element in it of the ludicrous, spite of the tragedy and shame.”

During the Removal Era of the 1830s, nearly all public justifications for the theft of tribal land included statements celebrating the US government’s “generous” and “humane” policy of removing Indigenous Americans beyond the reach of white settlement. US government officials lied by breaking treaty promises and then lied about the reasons for it.

“To dwell on the picture of this removal is needless. The fact by itself is more eloquent than pages of detail and description could make it. No imagination so dull, no heart so hard as not to see and to feel, at the bare mention of such an emigration, what horrors and what anguish it must have involved. ‘Eighteen thousand friends!’ Only a great magnanimity of nature, strengthened by true Christian principle, could have prevented them from being changed into eighteen thousand bitter enemies.”

The “picture of this removal” refers to the image conjured by the Cherokees’ forced removal westward along the “Trail of Tears” in 1838. The phrase “Eighteen thousand friends” comes from a post-removal report by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who claimed that the US government has “quietly and gently transported eighteen thousand friends to the west bank of the Mississippi” (286). Much like the previous quotation, this phrase amounts to a lie on top of a lie.

“It is a trite saying that history repeats itself; but it is impossible to read now these accounts of the massacres of defenseless and peaceable Indians in the middle of the eighteenth century, without the reflection that the record of the nineteenth is blackened by the same stains. What Pennsylvania pioneers did in 1763 to helpless and peaceable Indians of Conestoga, Colorado pioneers did in 1864 to peaceable Cheyennes at Sand Creek, and have threatened to do again to helpless and peaceable Utes in 1880. The word ‘extermination’ is as ready on the frontiersman's tongue to-day as it was a hundred years ago; and the threat is more portentous now, seeing that we are, by a whole century of prosperity, stronger and more numerous, and the Indians are, by a whole century of suffering and oppression, fewer and weaker. But our crime is baser and our infamy deeper in the same proportion.”

The victims of the Conestoga Massacre of 1763 and the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 were members of peaceful tribes. The 1763 murders, however, were carried out by frontier vigilantes, whereas US troops were responsible for the 1864 massacre. Moreover, the relative strength of the United States in a century after the colonial era, coupled with the weakened condition of Indigenous Americans relative to their former numbers, renders the Sand Creek Massacre all the more dishonorable. Jackson warns that violence like this is still a danger, referencing to present-day threats against peaceful Utes.

“These are but four massacres out of scores, whose history, if written, would prove as clearly as do these, that, in the long contest between white men and Indians, the Indian has not always been the aggressor, and that treachery and cruelty are by no means exclusively Indian traits.”

Jackson describes massacres at Conestoga in 1763, Gnadenhutten in 1779, and two different atrocities perpetrated against Apaches in the 19th century. Her purpose is not only to expose these cruelties but to refute the common prejudice against Indigenous Americans as violent savages.

“There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless the band, the more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected.”

Jackson’s evidence shows that pressure from both “the Government” and “white settlers” often works toward the same destructive end. Her emphasis on the particular plight of “insignificant” and “helpless” bands almost certainly stems from her special interest in the Ponca case. This quotation supports all three major themes this guide discusses: US Government Lies, A Century of Violence, and History as Advocacy.

“It makes little difference, however, where one opens the record of the history of the Indians; every page and every year has its dark stain. The story of one tribe is the story of all, varied only by differences of time and place; but neither time nor place makes any difference in the main facts. Colorado is as greedy and unjust in 1880 as was Georgia in 1830, and Ohio in 1795; and the United States Government breaks promises now as deftly as then, and with an added ingenuity from long practice.”

This passage, which encapsulates the book’s argument, is Jackson’s thesis and her lawyerly summation in her indictment of the US government and its citizens on behalf of Indigenous Americans. Either way, this quotation.

“All judicious plans and measures for their safety and salvation must embody provisions for their becoming citizens as fast as they are fit, and must protect them till then in every right and particular in which our laws protect other “persons” who are not citizens.”

With Judge Dundy’s Ponca case decision (1879) fresh in her mind, and with the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) having been so recently adopted, Jackson urges citizenship as the ultimate solution for Indigenous Americans. She does not, however, take the position of the US government, which argued that legal protections such as habeas corpus do not apply to non-citizens.