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The Election of 1852 A

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The Election of 1852 A. Crisis in Politics *As the nation approached the presidential election of 1852 tempers were running high over the issue of slavery spreading *The Whigs split over the Fugitive Slave Act with southerners in favor of it and northerners adamantly opposed to it *In the end the southerners left the party and from that point on the Whig Party ceased to function *The Democratic Party also faced a severe crisis as northern Democrats wanted settlers to have the right to vote on whether to allow slavery in the newly acquired territory, while southerners strongly argued that Congress should be stripped of its power to regulate slavery in all territories *Yet, as the Democrats watched the Whig Party begin to fall apart, the Democratic leadership scrambled to find some candidate that could hold the party together just long enough to take over the White House *The man the Democrats picked was Franklin Pierce *Pierce was thought to be a moderate and a pragmatist and he assured the party leadership that he would do nothing as president that would further rend the party or the nation apart *With the Whigs unable to field a strong candidate, Pierce won B. Franklin Pierce 1852-1856 *As soon as Pierce became president he reneged on his promise to not do anything that would lead to further conflict in the nation *Instead, he came out in favor of the southern initiative to take over Cuba *This action infuriated northerners, especially abolitionists because Cuba was the last American colony Spain still controlled and slavery was still legal there C. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 *In the middle of all the turmoil President Pierce was causing a new irritant popped up *Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas wanted to secure territory for building a transcontinental railroad with the eastern hub being in none other than his home state of Illinois *By making Chicago the starting point for a westward rail line Douglas was trying to ensure economic prosperity for his state for the long term *Once southerners heard his plan they immediately countered with their own plan to put the eastern rail hub in the south *To get his way Douglas began wheeling and dealing *He knew what most southerners wanted and believed he knew how to give it to them in return for votes on his rail line bill *Southerners wanted the Missouri Compromise repealed *The deal Douglas eventually negotiated became known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 *According to this act: 1. The Missouri Compromise would be repealed to allow slavery to exist above that state's southern border 2. Two territories would be created just to the west and north of Missouri *The Northern Territory would be called Nebraska and slavery would not be allowed there (this wasn't such a big deal as the climate was too cold for plantation agriculture anyway) *The Southern Territory would be called Kansas and the people who settled the territory would be allowed to vote on whether slavery would be allowed or not *Douglas privately assured northern politicians that there was nothing to worry about as Kansas wasn't suitable for plantation agriculture either *And he won over southerners as they were more than happy to see the despised Missouri Compromise line eliminated *The bill barley passed over the loud protests of abolitionists and Free Soilers who cried conspiracy *They felt that a slaveholding conspiracy had been hatched in which southern forces would secretly take over the federal government and then turn the US into a giant slaveholding nation *This wasn't true, yet it sure did look like it at the time II. Bloodshed Before War A. Bleeding Kansas *Allowing settlers to decide whether slavery would be allowed in Kansas opened the door to the first bloodshed over slavery *Both pro and anti slavery forces rushed to Kansas as soon as the territory came open for settlement *Both sides elected territorial legislatures and petitioned Congress for recognition *President Pierce extended formal recognition to the pro slavery legislature, which caused abolitionists and Free Soilers to once again cry conspiracy *The pro slavery legislature then passed laws recognizing and protecting slavery *Anti slavery settlers were extremely upset over this and violence began to break out *In response, President Pierce sent troops to Kansas to protect the pro slavery settlers *Abolitionists saw this as further confirmation of the slaveholding conspiracy B. Vigilante Violence *Emboldened by the federal troops protecting them, pro slavery settlers began attacking anti slavery towns *At about this time a radical abolitionist named John Brown and his equally fanatical followers arrived in Kansas *Brown declared a holy crusade against the pro slavery settlers and went on a murdering rampage *A cycle of attack and revenge took hold with over 200 people killed in the end *This was the first bloodshed over the issue of slavery III. Digging the Hole Deeper A. The Republican Party *With the Whig Party defunct moderate abolitionists and Free Soilers joined to form a new party in 1856 *They called their new organization the Republican Party (this is the birth of the modern Republican Party) *Officially the Republicans adopted a Free Soil view of slavery: Leave it alone in the original south, but keep it from spreading to the new territories *This made the Republicans against the expansion of slavery, not for the freeing or granting of equal rights for slaves *To strengthen the party the Republicans also invited the nativist Know-Nothing Party to join with them; this added an anti immigrant ideology to the Party's platform *The Republicans nominated western hero John C. Fremont as their candidate for president in 1856 B. The Democrats *The split between northern and southern Democrats continued into the 1856 election *No one trusted Pierce, but it took a knock down fight before the party finally nominated James Buchanan as their candidate for president C. The 1856 Election *The Republicans carried much of the northern and western vote, yet almost no votes in the south *The Democrats once again split north and south, but Buchanan was able to win *In many ways Buchanan was like Martin Van Buren: Good political strategist, but not very pragmatic *Buchanan was unable to go against his party's official ideology when he needed to make important decisions D. Dred Scott v. Sandford 1857 *Had nothing of great importance happened during his term in office, James Buchanan, as Martin Van Buren, would have been a perfectly acceptable president *But, unfortunately, as with Van Buren, lady luck wasn't on his side *One year into his presidency one of the most important Supreme Court ruling was handed down and lit the ignition fuse for the Civil War *Since 1819 there had been a long running debate over whether the Constitution gave Congress the right to regulate slavery in newly acquired territories *One side said yes it did as it gave Congress the ability to bring new territory into the Union, while the other side said no because no where in the Constitution did it explicitly say that Congress had the right to regulate slavery *Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Taney decided to use the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford to put the debate to rest *While the ruling did put an end to the debate, it also sets off a domino effect that led to war *Dred Scott was the slave of an army surgeon who had been moved to states where slavery was illegal during his master's time in the service *Scott hired a lawyer and went to court to have it ruled that his master's moving him into free states had ended his status as a slave *All the lower courts said no, and a majority on the Supreme Court agreed that Scott was not free *Yet Chief Justice Taney convinced a majority of the justices to hear the case to establish the fact that Congress did not have the power to regulate slavery *Taney should have left the case alone; his reputation was ruined because of it and it became one of the main causes of the Civil War *The Dred Scott ruling established four things: 1. No Black person, free or slave, could be a citizen of the US, therefore they had no right to sue in US courts *This infuriated abolitionists who had been working in the north to change laws so that free blacks could receive all rights of citizenship 2. The 5th Amendment forbids Congress from taking or interfering with private property without due process of law, therefore Congress could no longer interfere with slavery in the new territories as this would be a violation of private property rights 3. Congress had no Constitutional power to regulate slavery anywhere in the US, therefore federal laws that regulated slavery in any way were null and void *These two stipulations infuriated Free Soilers 4. If Congress had no power to interfere with slavery, then it could not give settlers the power to reject slavery through popular sovereignty *This infuriated members of Congress who saw this as an attack on their authority *Chief Justice Taney understood that the ruling would generate a lot of controversy, but he figured that any conflict would quickly die down *He was wrong *When the ruling was announced President Buchanan hailed it as a monumental decision *This gave abolitionist forces the proof they needed that a slaveholding conspiracy did exist and its operatives had taken over the Supreme Court and the White House *Anti slavery Democrats abandoned Buchanan and many commoners in the north were very upset IV. On the Doorstep of War A. Abraham Lincoln *Abraham Lincoln did come from a poor background, but that doesn't mean that he reached the pinnacle of political success just by pulling himself up by his bootstraps *Lincoln was smart and understood that it was often more who you know than what you know that got a person ahead in life *The stories about him being born in a log cabin and being self educated are partly true, but were embellished during his campaign for the presidency to enhance his "common man" image *As a young man Lincoln found a well-respected lawyer who agreed to take him on as an apprentice (there were no real law schools back then) *Then, after Lincoln began practicing law on his own, he met and married the daughter of a wealthy slaveowner, Mary Todd *Mary's father then used his connections to get Lincoln a plum job as a lawyer for the railroad and gave the young couple an ample monthly allowance to get them on their feet and to allow Mary to have the creature comforts she had grown up with *In 1834 Lincoln joined the Whig Party and was elected to the Illinois state legislature *In 1846 he was elected as a Whig Congressman from Illinois to the federal House of Representatives *It was at this time that Lincoln first made a national name for himself by opposing President's Polk's push to start a war with Mexico and then annex all of Mesoamerica and the Caribbean *Lincoln joined the Free Soilers even though he personally believed that slavery was a moral sin that needed to be banished from the United States *He hoped that by isolating slavery in the deep South, it would eventually suffocate and die out on its own *He also believed that whites and blacks were equal in every way, but after hundreds of years of oppression the two groups would never be able to coexist peacefully *Because of this Lincoln also joined a group promoting the return of freed African Americans to a colony in Africa *In 1856 Lincoln joined the newly organized Republican Party and quickly rose to a leadership position *In 1858 he ran against Stephen Douglas for the Senate; he lost, but during the campaign he made a name for himself B. John Brown, Part II *Fleeing murder charges in Kansas, John Brown organized a raid on Harper's Ferry, VA *Brown planned to capture the federal arsenal there and use the weapons to begin a massive slave rebellion *One of his men, however, had loose lips and leaked the information so that Virginia officials were lying in wait and captured Brown *When news of this began to circulate, pro slavery Democrats cried that it was a Republican plot to bath the south in blood, while radical abolitionists saw it as a sign from God that a slave rebellion was the way to stop the crime of slavery *They elevated Brown to the status of martyr C. The 1860 Election *By 1860 battle lines were already drawn and both political parties understood that one bad move could send the country careening off into civil war *The Democrats once again could not reconcile the positions of pro and anti slavery forces and so ended up fielding two candidates for the presidency *Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, while Southern Democrats went with John C. Breckinridge *Republican leaders tried their best to straddle as many issues as possible *In their platform plank on slavery the Republicans opposed both the institution of slavery and the idea that freed slaves should be given an equal position in American life *In this vein, the Republicans decided to nominate a man who was known for his pragmatism and ability to reach compromise *Lincoln came through for his party by making sure that nothing he said was overtly radical and he repeatedly assured southerners that while he believed that the federal government did have the right to restrict the spread of slavery to new territories, he would never use that power to interfere with slavery as it existed in the original south *This wasn't just campaign rhetoric, Lincoln was very serious and had the south not seceded from the Union, he would not have freed the slaves in the original south *After the vote tallies came in, it was clear that Lincoln was going to have a difficult four years ahead of him *Lincoln's name wasn't even allowed on the ballot in the deep southern states *With four candidates running the vote was split four ways *While Lincoln won 51% of the electoral college vote, he only received 40% of the popular vote *This meant that his supporters constituted less than half of the American population; he had no majority mandate V. Secession A. Lincoln Wins the Presidency *Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in Nov. of 1860, but according to the original rules of the Constitution, the new president was not sworn in until March 4 of the following year *As soon as it was announced that Lincoln was the winner the state with the most to lose if Lincoln emancipated the slaves--South Carolina, because the majority of the people in the state were slaves--called for an emergency convention to draw up articles of secession *On Dec. 20, 1860 South Carolina officially left the Union *In January and February of 1861 7 more deep southern states followed suit and seceded *These states then formed the Confederate States of America and drew up a constitution modeled on the Articles of Confederation (it was probably not a good idea to base their founding document on a system of government that had failed miserably) *In the new Confederacy states were to be sovereign and the central government weak *Unlike the US Constitution, the Confederate Constitution explicitly protected slavery as the cornerstone of Southern society B. The Problem for the Upper South *The leaders in 7 Upper South states: Virginia, N. Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri all had a tough decision to make *These states had all but abandoned slavery back at the beginning of the 1800s, yet culturally they were still very much a part of the south *So they had to decide whether to go with their economic interest and side with the north, or go with their cultural interest and side with the deep south *Most chose to straddle the issue and stay in the Union, but to pledge support for state's rights C. Lame Duck Buchanan Makes his Last Mistake *By the time of the 1860 election Buchanan was known as someone who consistently made the wrong decisions during a crisis *He did nothing to dispel this reputation when the deep southern states left the Union *As Lincoln would not assume the presidency until March 4th, it was up to Buchanan to make the initial response to those states leaving the Union *Buchanan made an announcement that he believed secession was illegal and unconstitutional, but that the Constitution gave him no authority to bring those states back *This sent a message of tacit approval to southerners and northerners alike; it was the last straw for many northerners who vowed to support a declaration of war as soon as Lincoln was inaugurated D. Lincoln Assumes Office *March 4, 1861 Abraham Lincoln assumed the presidency and in his inaugural address he repeatedly assured southerners that if they would just return to the Union, he would do nothing to interfere with their internal state affairs *But he also warned those southerners who had seceded that if provoked he would not hesitate to use military force against them, just as Andrew Jackson had promised to do when South Carolina had threatened to leave the Union in the 1830s E. Fort Sumter, South Carolina *Soon after Lincoln assumed office the federal fort in South Carolina sent a request to be reprovisioned *Lincoln decided that he had to be a man of his word and enforce all federal laws in the seceded states, and so authorized federal troops to take provisions to the men at Fort Sumter *As soon as the Confederates heard of this they preemptively attacked the fort and took it over *This was in April of 1861 *When Lincoln heard that the fort had fallen into Confederate hands, he called the state militias into federal service and asked Congress for a declaration of war *Pro slavery politicians then left Congress and the anti slavery forces gave Lincoln his declaration F. The Upper South Must Choose Sides *The Upper Southern states now had to pick a side *It was very important for Lincoln that these states stay in the Union *The Upper Southern States contained 2/3 of the South's population; 3/4 of the South's industrial output; and supplied 1/2 of the South's food and fuel *If Lincoln could deny all of these things to the deep south, he figured he could easily force them back into the Union with a minimal amount of bloodshed *And if those upper southern states stayed in the Union Lincoln could use them as a military buffer between the deep south and the north *Virginia, N. Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas all seceded from the Union, but Unionists in Virginia then seceded from the their state and formed West Virginia *The remaining states, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri all stayed in the Union G. The Southern Strategy *The Southern Goal: To be left alone *To achieve this goal all the southern leaders had to do was fight a defensive war and achieve a stalemate; they just had to dig in H. The Northern Strategy *The Northern Goal: Crush the Southern rebellion and reunify the Union *This meant that the north had the much harder goal and would have to fight an offensive war and achieve a clear victory Example Assignments You will complete three types of assignments in this class; discussion questions, papers, and paper responses. I will use the rubric below to grade your assignment. If you do not follow the instructions, demonstrate that you’ve read, watched, and listened to all the Module materials, provide enough details to explain the information, and use proper grammar and spelling, I will deduct points. This is a college class, so I will expect correct capitalization and spelling as well as the proper use of paragraphs. The Discussion Question and Paper instructions will often ask you to write as the people we are reading about in history.You must become the person referenced in the instructions and state who you are to be able to receive the full points. For example, the instructions will say something like: Instructions: Become Malinche and explain your role in the conquest of the Aztecs, please besure to include the following: a. How did Malinche become a Mayan slave? b. Why was Malinche given to Cortez? c. Why would Malinche help Cortez go to Tenochtitlan? Answer: I am Malinche, an Aztec woman who was sold into slavery by my family. Many years before today my family borrowed resources they could not repay, so I have entered slavery to pay off my family’s debt. I am fluent in both the Aztec and Mayan languages and I understand the various languages of the tribes who trade with my Mayan family. Before prayers to thank the sun this morning, I noticed something happening on the beach that is frightening the men of the village. I am not sure if the god Huitzilopochtli has returned, if he has, today is the day of reckoning before our ancestors. The whole village is active now as the strange beasts approach the village center. The strange creatures appeared at first to be part man and part beast, but truthfully, we discovered the beasts are men with face fur riding large noisy animals. Our chief was not sure if these strange looking men were gods or if they were merely men, so he chose to treat the creatures as gods to ensure we all stayed safe. He asked me to become the sexual partner of the invader’s leader to discover their secrets. Women often do this in our society. After some time, I found one invader spoke the Mayan language and he revealed that their name is the Spanish and they want to go to my homeland, Tenochtitlan. I saw an opportunity to go home. If I could take the invaders, the Spanish, to my homeland, the land of the Mexica, I would no longer be a slave, I would be free and home. My main goal was to make it back to my family, so I helped the Spanish to survive and reach Tenochtitlan. Now that it is many years later, I am very sad because my people are mostly dead and defeated. If I had not helped the Spanish in their journey to my homeland, my family would not all be dead. I weep. Explanation: As you can see in the above answer, all titles and proper nouns are capitalized, just as those words and terms appear in the textbook and lecture materials. If a word or term is capitalized in the textbook, lecture materials, or the instructions, you must also capitalize those words and terms. If you do not, I will deduct points. Also, notice that the answers follow the order of the questions asked in the instructions and use the same words from the instructions. No paragraph is longer than six sentences and I avoided using vague words; instead, I’ve used words that specifically identifies an idea, person, or system. You have the textbook and Module materials available to you while you write your papers, so I will expect that you will use the specific names, terms, and dates provided in the textbook and Module materials. You must follow the instructions, use specific details, and demonstrate that you have read the textbook and listened to the lectures. Each discussion question draws on information from the lectures, so you will have difficulty earning the full points if you skip the lectures. When you arrive at the Post and Respond assignment, you will see these instructions, which must be followed: 1. Copy and Paste your paper into a Reply box. You cannot see other papers until you Copy and Paste your paper. 2. Please Respond to each paper individually, do not combine your responses in one post. 3. Read and respond to 3 other papers. 4. Your response must include: • One thing you learned from the paper. • The greatest strength of the paper. • What do you think the paper says about American history (i.e. Your paper shows how many people struggled to achieve the American dream, but didn't make it). 4. Your response must be at least 10 sentences long. 5. Your response must include specific details from the paper. For instance, "I appreciated the part of your paper where you listed the immigrants' home countries as they came through Ellis Island." 6. Do NOT directly quote from the paper; use your own words to describe the details. 7. Treat others with respect and only make positive comments. Do not critique the paper in the response. I. Indian Policy 1838 to 1860 A. Continuing Removal *Many more tribes were removed to Indian Territory after the Cherokee refugees arrived *Then, when news of the gold discovery at Sutter's Mill in California reached the east, a stampede of not only Americans, but also Europeans, Asians, Australians, and Latin Americans began *Now, all the Indians who had been removed beyond white settlement were once again being trampled upon by aggressive whites who only cared about getting rich *On the miners' heels came all sorts of other Americans hoping to cash in on the mining strike: ranchers, merchants, lawyers, and a whole host of scoundrels *This meant that there was no longer a boundary beyond which Indians could live without being in constant conflict with white strangers *At first there was only isolated skirmishes between whites and Indians angered by white behavior and broken treaty promises, but over time full-blown wars began *Unable to match the Indians'' guerilla warfare tactics, the Americans were at first perplexed as to how to conquer the Indians *In addition to official conflicts between Indians and the American government, many white vigilantes also created mayhem among the Indians as they exacted revenge for real or imagined wrongs the Indians were supposed to have committed *With removal now no longer a viable option for the government, a new way of eliminating conflict was needed *American officials decided to follow the suggestions of religious groups and adopted the boarding school model of acculturation *Usually run by evangelical Christian Churches (mainly because they had the organizational skills to establish and run such an endeavor, but also due to the fact that they would offer their services for virtually no pay) boarding schools were places where young Indian children were placed after being forcibly removed from their homes *Boarding school advocates argued that if they could remove the current generation of Indian children from their homes and families, it would only take the time needed to raise these children to create a fullyAmericanized Indian population *Boarding schools, however, ended up being more like prisons complete with torture than benevolent institutions that gently guided their charges through the acculturation process *One of the first things that happened to Indian children who went to boarding school was to have their hair cut, then they were informed that they were to no longer speak their own language *Both of these things were mighty blows to the children's psyche as many Indian cultures associated long hair with strength and their language with their own uniqu identity *The children were then put to work doing menial chores associated with gender-appropriate vocations *In many instances Indian children's labor was used free of charge to actually run the schools *Indian parents, for the most part, were terrified of sending their children to government boarding schools as the close quarters and unhealthy conditions in the schools led to numerous disease-related deaths among the students B. White Retreat *Conflict between Native Americans and whites was especially harsh on the Great Plains and in the Southwest *The Plains Indians were masters of horses as a weapon of war and wielded the rifle expertly *In the Southwest the Indians were equally savvy of white ways and groups like the Apaches had been honing their war skills fighting the Spanish for over two hundred years *When all of this territory plus more became U.S. soil at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, tensions increased even more *U.S. military officials convinced many Mexicans living in what would become U.S. territory that they would be better off as Americans because the U.S. military would be able to control the vicious, nomadic tribes *Once the war was over, however, the U. S. government had to uphold its promise made to Mexican citizens living in the newly conquered territory to defeat the Plains and Southwestern Indians *This was not a fruitful venture as the Indians continued to use guerilla warfare to their advantage *A watershed point arrived in 1860 when the Civil War broke out in the east and federal and confederate officials recalled their western soldiers to the east *Being oriented only to their own territory, therefore unaware of the political battles plaguing the Americans in the east, the Plains and especially southwestern Indians interpreted the soldiers' abandonment of their western posts as a surrender to the Indians *Thus, during the Civil War, militarily strong tribes reasserted their dominance over their own territory and even began to expand into neighboring lands *This made the Indian "situation" out in the west particularly precarious once the Civil War ended I. The Meriam Report Lewis Meriam A. The Result of Progressive Reform *At the end of the 19th century an array of Progressive reformers set their sights on "helping" Native Americans *Some used evolutionary theory and new scientific ways of thinking to basically do exactly what some previous Christian reformers had done in centuries passed; they labeled the Indians inferior, identified themselves as superior, and endeavored to force Indians to abandon their immature cultures for more advanced, mature white ways *Others agreed that Indians needed to be forced to abandon their tribal ways for a more advanced industrial, capitalist lifestyle, yet not because they were inferior, but instead because they needed to be helped to evolve faster *These reformers assumed that after the Indians realized that white practices were far better, they would be grateful and forgive the reformers for their harsh tactics *And then there were the cultural relativists who believed that the Indians should be assisted in resisting any program that would deny them self determination *Needless to say, most Indians felt like rag dolls being torn asunder by muscular Rottweilers *It seemed that no matter what they did, their lives only got worse *Of all the plans and schemes, it was the Dawes Severalty Act that struck the most devastating blow *As tribal lands were divided, allotted to individual families, and then surplus lands sold to whites, Indians found that maintaining any semblance of solidarity in face of white pressure was almost impossible *Most Indians ended up leasing their lands for cash and then lived on this rent money *Native Americans on the Plains and in the Southwest were particularly against allotment as they had already adopted ranching and needed large expanses of unfenced land to run their cattle *But few said, "Hey, the Indians have figured out how to live off their land without having to work, just like rich white people." Or "Leave the Indians alone, they seem to be doing just fine ranching just like white men." B. The Early Twentieth Century: More of the Same *The early decades of the twentieth century brought more of the same: Indians should be individualized, shaped into American farmers/workers, and then set free from federal oversight *Underneath this dominant mantra was a current of dissent from cultural relativists who labeled the policy as immoral *Their voices grew progressively louder as it became strikingly obvious by the 1920s that federal Indian policy was bankrupt and in desperate need of revision *One of the most glaring inadequacies of federal Indian policy by 1920 was a lack of money *After WWI the nation had experienced a period of hyper-inflation caused when American factories closed after the war to retool in order to start producing consumer goods again *As most Americans had been forced to save their high, war-time wages due to government-enforced rationing during the war, once the war was over Americans went on a spending spree and bid up the price of available consumer goods *To fight price inflation, the Wilson administration pulled money out of the economy by cutting the federal budget; one of the first agencies that felt the ax was the Office of Indian Affairs *As Indians were unlikely to vote, politicians saw taking money away from them as a painless way to trim the budget *Reservation health care, education, and economic development all suffered devastating blows *As the effects of the budget cuts became clear in the early 1920s a few groups began protesting Office of Indian Affairs policies *One such group was the Indian Rights Association, led by a man named John Collier Guess which one is John Collier? *Collier was a former social worker from New York who had become enamored with the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico *Having witnessed the destructive force of "rugged individualism" on immigrant families in New York, Collier looked to Indian communalism as a cure for America's urban ills *Collier accepted the reasoning of cultural relativists and labeled federal treatment of Indians as barbaric *Criticism escalated until finally, in 1926, Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work, engaged the independent Institute for Government Research to undertake a comprehensive survey of Indian affairs and policy *Sec. Work hoped that this would at least placate dissenters for a time *The head of the investigative team was Lewis Meriam, an expert in government administration and efficiency studies *Meriam was assigned a nine member staff to aid him in compiling a report on federal Indian policy and its effects *Their report came out on February 21, 1928 under the title The Problem of Indian Administration, also known as the Meriam Report *The report was not flattering in the least; the researchers found inhumane and deplorable conditions on reservations and among Indians living off reservation C. An Abbreviated Version of The Meriam Report's Conclusions THE PROBLEM OF INDIAN ADMINISTRATION Report of a Survey made at the request of Honorable Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior, and submitted to him, February 21, 1928 http://www.alaskool.org/native_ed/research_reports/IndianAdmin/Indian_Admin_Problms.html CHAPTER I GENERAL SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Conditions Among the Indians. An overwhelming majority of the Indians are poor, even extremely poor, and they are not adjusted to the economic and social system of the dominant white civilization. The poverty of the Indians and their lack of adjustment to the dominant economic and social systems produce the vicious circle ordinarily found among any people under such circumstances. Because of interrelationships, causes cannot be differentiated from effects. The only course is to state briefly the conditions found that are part of this vicious circle of poverty and maladjustment. Economic Conditions & Causes of Poverty: The income of the typical Indian family is low and the earned income extremely low. From the standpoint of the white man, the typical Indian is not industrious, nor is he an effective worker when he does work. He generally ekes out an existence through unearned income from leases of his land, the sale of land, per capita payments from tribal funds, or in exceptional cases through rations given him by the government. The number of Indians who are supporting themselves through their own efforts, according to what a white man would regard as the minimum standard of health and decency, is extremely small. What little they secure from their own efforts or from other sources is rarely effectively used. In justice to the Indians, it should be said that many of them are living on lands from which a trained and experienced white man could scarcely wrest a reasonable living. In some instances the land originally set apart for the Indians was of little value for agricultural operations other than grazing. Often when individual allotments were made, they chose for themselves the poorer parts, because those parts were near a domestic water supply or a source of firewood, or because they furnished some native product important to the Indians in their primitive life. Frequently the better sections of the land originally set apart for the Indians have fallen into the hands of the whites, and the Indians have retreated to the poorer lands remote from markets. In many places crops can be raised only by the practice of irrigation. Many Indians in the Southwest are successful in a small way with their own primitive systems of irrigation. When modern, highly developed irrigation systems have been supplied by governmental activities, the Indians have rarely been ready to make effective use of the land and water. If the modern irrigation enterprise has been successful from an economic standpoint, the tendency has been for whites to gain possession of the land either by purchase or by leases. The remoteness of their homes often prevents them from easily securing opportunities for wage earning, nor do they have many contacts with persons dwelling in urban communities where they might find employment. Even the boys and girls graduating from government schools have comparatively little vocational guidance or aid in finding profitable employment. The economic basis of the primitive culture of the Indians has been largely destroyed by the encroachment of white civilization. The Indians can no longer make a living as they did in the past by hunting, fishing, gathering wild products, and the extremely limited practice of primitive agriculture. They are by no means yet adjusted to the new economic and social conditions that confront them. Several past policies adopted by the government in dealing with the Indians have been of a type which, if long continued, would tend to pauperize any race. Most notable was the practice of issuing rations to able bodied Indians. Having moved the Indians from their ancestral lands to restricted reservations as a war measure, the government undertook to feed them and to perform certain services for them which a normal people do for themselves. The Indians at the outset had to accept this aid as a matter of necessity, but promptly they came to regard it as a matter of right, as indeed it was at the time and under the conditions of the inauguration of the ration system. They felt, and many of them still feel, that the government owes them a living, having taken their lands from them, and that they are under no obligation to support themselves. They have thus inevitably developed a pauper point of view. Some of the allotments were of such a character that they could not be effectively used by anyone in small units. The solution was to permit the Indians through the government to lease their lands to the whites. In some instances government officers encouraged leasing, as the whites were anxious for the use of the land and it was far easier to administer property leased to whites than to educate and stimulate Indians to use their own property. The lease money, though generally small in amount, gave the Indians further unearned income to permit the continuance of a life of idleness. Some people assert that the Indians prefer to live as they do; that they are happier in their idleness and irresponsibility. The survey staff found altogether too much evidence of real suffering and discontent to subscribe to the belief that the Indians are reasonably satisfied with their condition. The amount of serious illness and poverty is too great to permit of real contentment. Health: The prevailing living conditions among the great majority of the Indians are conducive to the development and spread of disease. With comparatively few exceptions, the diet of the Indians is bad. It is generally insufficient in quantity, lacking in variety, and poorly prepared. The two great preventive elements in diet, milk, and fruits and green vegetables, are notably absent. The use of milk is rare, and it is generally not available even for infants. The diet consisting mainly of meats and starches. The housing conditions are likewise conducive to bad health. Both in the primitive dwellings and in the majority of more or less permanent homes, there is great overcrowding, so that all members of the family are exposed to any disease that develops. Education in housekeeping and sanitation has not proceeded far enough so that the Indians living in more or less permanent shacks practice ventilation and domestic cleanliness. From the standpoint of health, it is probably true that the temporary, primitive dwellings that were not fairly air-tight and were frequently abandoned were more sanitary than the permanent homes that have replaced them. Sanitary facilities are generally lacking. Except among the relatively few well-to-do Indians, the houses seldom have a private water supply or any toilet facilities whatever. Even privies are exceptional. Water is ordinarily carried considerable distances from natural springs or streams, or occasionally from wells. Since its salaries are sub-standard, the Indian Service has not been able to set reasonably high entrance qualifications and to adhere to them. In the case of doctors, the standards set for entrance have been too low. In the case of public health nurses the standards have been reasonable, but it has not been possible to secure at the salary offered a sufficient number of applicants, so that many people have to be employed temporarily who do not possess the required qualifications. The statement is sometimes made that, since the Indians live according to a low scale, it is not necessary for the government to furnish hospital facilities for them which are comparable with those supplied for poor white people in a progressive community. The survey staff regards this basis of judging facilities as unsound. The question is whether the hospitals and sanatoria are efficient institutions for the care and treatment of patients, and this question must generally be answered in the negative. Hospitals and sanatoria should be administered by persons fitted by training and experience for that class of work. The per diem expenditure for maintenance should approximate what is spent in other federal hospitals, with due allowance for the additional costs that sometimes result from isolation. Patient labor should be utilized only when the physician certifies that it will not injure the patient and retard his cure. Additional expenditures for labor will be necessary not only to replace patient labor but also to provide for higher standards in maintenance. Formal Education of Indian Children: The survey staff finds itself obliged to say frankly and unequivocally that the provisions for the care of the Indian children in boarding schools are grossly inadequate. The outstanding deficiency is in the diet furnished the Indian children, many of whom are below normal health. The diet is deficient in quantity, quality, and variety. The effort has been made to feed the children on a per capita of eleven cents a day, plus what can be produced on the school farm, including the dairy. The great protective foods are milk and fruit and vegetables, particularly fresh green vegetables. The diet of the Indian children in boarding schools is generally notably lacking in these preventive foods. Next to dietary deficiencies comes overcrowding in dormitories. The major diseases of the Indians are tuberculosis and trachoma. As a vital measure in preventive medicine the Indian Service should take immediate steps to increase the quantity, quality, and variety of the diet of Indian children in boarding schools. For this purpose largely increased appropriations must be made. Money must be available for the purchase of milk, fruit, and vegetables until such time as a sufficient supply can be produced by the school farms and dairies. The boarding schools are frankly supported in part by the labor of the students. Those above the fourth grade ordinarily work for half a day and go to school for half a day. The question may very properly be raised as to whether much of the work of Indian children in boarding schools would not be prohibited in many states by the child labor laws, notably the work in the machine laundries. To operate on a half-work, half-study plan makes the day very long, and the child has almost no free time and little opportunity for recreation. Also, as a measure in preventive medicine, the existing overcrowding in boarding schools should be eliminated. As will be discussed more at length in the recommendations relating to schools, the first step in this direction should be the maximum possible elimination of young children from boarding schools. They should be left with their families and be provided with local school facilities. Also, as a health measure, the amount of routine production, as distinguished from educational labor, in boarding schools should be materially decreased. Now that Indian children are entering boarding schools at a comparatively early age, the half-day work plan for children above the fourth grade results in too much work for children even in normal health. Economic Education and Development on the Reservations: Even under the best conditions, it is doubtful whether a well-rounded program of economic advancement framed with due consideration of the natural resources of the reservation has anywhere been thoroughly tried out. Under the poorest administration there is little evidence of anything which could be termed an economic program. Everywhere the lack of trained subordinate personnel in immediate contact with the Indians is striking. Even less has been done toward finding profitable employment for Indians. As has been said, the schools do little for their graduates. Little is done on the reservations. Although the problem of the returned Indian student has been much discussed, and it is recognized that in many instances the child returns to his home poorly adjusted to conditions that confront him, the Indian Service has lacked the funds to attempt to aid the children when they leave school either to find employment away from the reservation or to return to their homes and work out their salvation there The work of the government directed toward the education and advancement of the Indian himself, as distinguished from the control and conservation of his property, is largely ineffective. The chief explanation of the deficiency in this work lies in the fact that the government has not appropriated enough funds to permit the Indian Service to employ an adequate personnel properly qualified for the task before it. In securing teachers for the government schools and in recruiting other employees for the boarding schools the Indian Service is handicapped by low salaries and must accordingly adopt low standards for entrance. The Indian Service must seek to find suitable employment off the reservation for Indians who have no real chance there or who desire to seek other employment. In some instances, as in the Navajo country, the situation can be met in part by securing them more land, but, in general, the solution lies in an intelligent employment service. In developing an employment service the Indian Office will have to supply the motive force and the directing brains. The Indians should not be exploited as a source of cheap labor. In the execution of this program, scrupulous care must be exercised to respect the rights of the Indian. This phrase "rights of the Indian" is often used solely to apply to his property rights. Here it is used in a much broader sense to cover his rights as a human being living in a free country. Indians are entitled to unfailing courtesy and consideration from all government employees. They should not be subjected to arbitrary action. Recognition of the educational nature of the whole task of dealing with them will result in taking the time to discuss with them in detail their own affairs and to lead rather than to force them to sound conclusions. The government as guardian should conserve the capital of the ward and not permit him to dissipate his capital for living expenses. Let him know definitely that he must earn his living expenses, though he can use his capital as means for increasing his earnings. These principles in the use of capital are believed to be sound, and the Indian must be taught them. In supplementing the Indian incomes and in home decoration, encouragement should be given to native Indian arts and industries. They appeal to the Indians' interest, afford an opportunity for self-expression, and, properly managed, will yield considerable revenue, much more than can be secured by encouraging them to duplicate the handiwork of the whites. Family and Community Development: The Indian Service has not appreciated the fundamental importance of family life and community activities in the social and economic development of a people. The tendency has been rather toward weakening Indian family life and community activities than toward strengthening them. The fact has been appreciated that both the family life and the community activities have many objectionable features, but the action taken has often been the radical one of attempting to destroy rather than the educational process of gradual modification and development. Both the government and the missionaries have often failed to study, understand, and take a sympathetic attitude toward Indian ways, Indian ethics, and Indian religion. The exceptional government worker and the exceptional missionary have demonstrated what can be done by building on what is sound and good in the Indian's own life. Experience has abundantly demonstrated that the family as a whole is the social unit of major importance in the development of a people. The importance of community activities has also been generally recognized. Among the Indians, community activities are probably even more important than among white people because the Indians' social and economic system was and is communistic. Individualism is almost entirely lacking in their native culture. That some of their dances and other activities have objectionable features is, of course, true. The same thing is true of the recreation and the community activities of almost any people. The object should be not to stamp out all the native things because a few of them have undesirable accompaniments but to seek to modify them gradually so that the objectionable features will ultimately disappear. The native activities can be supplemented by those activities borrowed from the whites that make a distinct appeal to the Indians, notably athletics, music, and sewing, and other close work demanding manual skill. Legal Protection and Advancement: Although the Indian Service has rendered much valuable service in conserving Indian property, it has not gone far enough in protecting the individual Indian from exploitation. The explanation is in part the usual one of lack of adequate personnel, both in the Washington office and in the field, but the division of jurisdiction between the Department of the Interior and the Department of Justice must be noted. The Department of Justice conducts the court cases through the United States District Attorneys. Under this system long delays are inevitable, minor cases are likely to be ignored as too small to warrant starting the involved machinery, and at times, the United States District Attorneys are not active and aggressive in protecting the Indians' rights, even if their sympathies are not actually with the Indians' opponents. All Indians born in the United States are now citizens. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that citizenship is not incompatible with continued guardianship or special protective legislation for Indians. True friends of the Indians should urge retention of restrictions until the Indian is economically on his feet and able to support himself by his own efforts according to a minimum standard of health and decency in the presence of white civilization. Failure to Develop Cooperative Relationships: Cooperation with state and local governments offers outstanding possibilities because the Indians will ultimately merge with the population of the states wherein they reside, and every forward step taken cooperatively will simplify and expedite the transition. Had the Indian Service the funds and the personnel to devote to effective cooperation with the governments of these states it could go a long way toward writing the closing chapters of federal administration of the affairs of the Indians. By actively seeking cooperation with state and local governments and by making a fair contribution in payment for services rendered by them to untaxed Indians, the national government can expedite the transition and hasten the day when there will no longer be a distinctive Indian problem and when the necessary governmental services are rendered alike to whites and Indians by the same organization without discrimination. In from five to ten years the heavy expenses for outlays to bring the plant and equipment of Indian Service institutions to a standard comparable with that maintained by other national, state, and private institutions should materially decrease. From that time on, if the Service is brought to a high state of efficiency, a gradual but progressive reduction should be possible in the number of positions required as more and more Indians become self-supporting by their own efforts and as progress is made in getting the states and local governments to render the service necessary for Indians in return for taxes paid by the Indians. The question must also be raised as to whether the relationship of the Indian Service to the churches and the missionaries could not be materially improved by closer cooperation, particularly in developing and executing social and economic programs. The outstanding need in the field of missionary activities among the Indians is cooperation. Cooperation is needed both in the relationships between the government and the missionaries and in the relationship among the churches and the missionaries themselves. A national advisory council composed of representatives of each of the churches engaged in missionary work among the Indians would, it is believed, serve a valuable purpose. To it the government officers might refer for consideration and recommendation those major problems in the administration of Indian affairs which involve missionary activity. Thus, the churches would get a clear, definite understanding of their problems from the standpoint of responsible government officers. The missionaries should consider carefully a material broadening of their program and an increase in the number and kinds of contacts with the Indians. Their best work has usually been in the field of education. For adult Indians their main offering has been church activities similar to those conducted in white communities, and those activities apparently make little appeal to the Indians. The missionaries need to have a better understanding of the Indian point of view of the Indian's religion and ethics, in order to start from what is good in them as a foundation. Too frequently, they have made the mistake of attempting to destroy the existing structure and to substitute something else without apparently realizing that much in the old has its place in the new. General Summary: The fundamental requirement is that the task of the Indian Service be recognized as primarily educational, in the broadest sense of that word, and that it be made an efficient educational agency, devoting its main energies to the social and economic advancement of the Indians, so that they may be absorbed into the prevailing civilization or be fitted to live in the presence of that civilization at least in accordance with a minimum standard of health and decency. The belief is that it is a sound policy of national economy to make generous expenditures in the next few decades with the object of winding up the national administration of Indian affairs. The people of the United States have the opportunity, if they will, to write the closing chapters of the history of the relationship of the national government and the Indians. The early chapters contain little of which the country may be proud. It would be something of a national atonement to the Indians if the closing chapters should disclose the national government supplying the Indians with an Indian Service which would be a model for all governments concerned with the development and advancement of a retarded race. http://www.alaskool.org/native_ed/research_reports/IndianAdmin/Chapter1.html#chap1 II. Collier's Response A. Unsatisfied With the Meriam Report *Collier and his associates were unsatisfied with the Meriam Report *They complained that the report merely concluded that it wasn't federal Indian policy that was to blame for the deplorable state of Native life, but instead a bureaucratic failure to provide the funding needed to properly implement federal Indian policy *They argued that the report was skewed in favor of the status quo and did not question the correctness of forced acculturation and individualization *Collier and associates demanded the Senate hold investigative hearings to determine the validity of the report *Beginning even before the report was released, the Senate convened an investigative committee to hold hearings on the foundation and effects of federal Indian policy *Those hearings lasted until August of 1943 B. The Hoover Administration *When Herbert Hoover came into office in 1929 Collier and his associates cheered and began planning for their role in reforming the Office of Indian Affairs *Hoover was known as a no-nonsense businessman as well as a humanitarian *Hoover placed a friend, Ray Lyman Wilbur, who was president of Standford University, in as Sec. Of the Interior and empowered him to act on the Meriam Report's emergency recommendations *Through Wilbur, the Hoover administration convinced Congress to increase appropriations to Reservation schools *Wilbur then proposed that the Indian Office determine some way that Indians could control their own reservation resources so as to benefit the tribes solely *And lastly, Wilbur proposed creating a commission that would hear and settle all outstanding claims Indians had with the US government regarding land sales, resource royalties, and treaty obligations *Collier and the Indian Rights Association applauded these proposals *Yet the applause soon turned to grumbling as the new leaders of the Office of Indian Affairs ran headlong into the politics of the Depression and career bureaucrats who didn't like being criticized and told how to behave (I know, it's ironic) The Civil War, Grant's Peace Policy, and the Indian Wars I. A Re-Cap of Antebellum Federal Indian Policy A. The Goals of Federal Indian Policy Pre-Civil War *Indian policy between 1828 and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860 was designed foremost to remove Indians from land white settlers desired, but it was also intended to create a segregated region of the country in which Indians could be isolated, indoctrinated with American culture and values, and then incorporated into American society *Many citizens thought, as President Thomas Jefferson had, that it would take Americans about one thousand years to settle the North American continent, therefore there would be plenty of time for the original generation of removed Indians to pass away and their acculturated offspring to mature and blend into American society *The very act of removing the Indians, however, pointed to a fatal flaw in this thinking: most Americans were unwilling to ever accept open competition for resources or power from any group who could be subordinated and denied rights based on arbitrary criteria such as the color of skin, language, or culture *Despite this disconnect between reality and government social policy, in the years leading up to the Civil War, presidential administrations removed Indians to the west each time white settlers demanded access to an expanded national domain *The immediate problem was that with each passing year it became harder and harder to find open places to move these dislocated Indians *This was especially true after the 1840s, when Americans leap frogged to the Pacific coast in search of gold *Citizens and foreigners alike then pushed back eastward in search of new mining strikes, putting them on a direct collision course with resident and removed Indians alike *By 1860 adventurers, miners, merchants, and settlers had surrounded set-aside, Indian territories and were beginning to encroach on treaty-protected lands *When the Civil War began in 1861, Presidential Indian policy was moving toward concentrating western Indians on fewer, larger reservations in order to open more land for settlers and transcontinental railroad construction *On these concentrated reservations Indians were expected to quickly lose their "Indianess" and to become, in every way, Americanized *Indians simply had to recognize and accept the American agricultural lifestyle as correct and proper or simply cease to exist *Congress had already signaled its new vision for Indians and their role in American political life in 1848 by transferring control over Indian matters from the War Department, where it had been since the founding of the country, to a newly created Department of the Interior *Indian policy under the Interior Department was no longer a military matter, but instead one of many issues related to the settlement and management of the expanding American frontier *The first Commissioner of Indian Affairs under the new Interior Department was a man named Luke Lea; he was clear in what he saw his job to be: "It is indispensably necessary that they (Indians) be placed in positions where they can be controlled and finally compelled by sheer necessity to resort to agricultural labor or starve. Considering, as the untutored Indian does, that labor is a degradation, and that there is nothing worthy of his ambitions but prowess in war, success in the chase, and eloquence in council, it is only under such circumstances that his haughty pride can be subdued, and his wild energies trained to the more ennobling pursuits of civilized life." *Lea strongly believed that once the Indians had been induced to accept an agrarian economic system, their reservations could be eliminated by allotting land individually to Indian families *He did not understand that farming was "women's" work that Indian men would resist *He as others thought that the move from communal farming to individual homesteads would not only benefit the Indians, who would become private property holders, but also other Americans, as surplus reservation lands could then be thrown open to white settlers *Before this envisioned transformation of Indian identity could take place, however, wave after wave of whites, Hispanics, and peoples of various other nationalities crossed or settled on Indian land, wreaking ecological destruction whereever they went *These outsiders diverted streams and then rivers to irrigate their own crops and to provide water for their own settlements *They cut down trees to use as fuel and to build their houses, shops, and sundry other buildings *They even cut down trees to process into charcoal with which to smelt precious metals *Outsiders diminished the Indian food supply as they hunted the same animals as the Indians, fished for the same fish, and ate many of the same plants *The cumulative result of this increased environmental competition was devastating for many Indians, even for those Indians who had agreed to adopt agriculture *Desperation born of starvation led many of these Indians to begin raiding white travelers and settlers for food and other material goods, and it even drove some to lash out violently at any whites who happened to have the misfortune of crossing their path B. A New Kind of Treaty *The 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty was the first whose sole purpose it was to consolidate many different Indian groups onto a few, large reservations *Treaty negotiators knew that they had to locate these new reservations in places suitable for farming for federal assimilation plans to work, yet they were also under pressure from powerful interests, such as railroad and mining companies, that demanded exploration and right-of-way access across the best western territory *In many instances, this pressure led government negotiators to locate Indians on marginal, agricultural land instead of plots more suited to a farming life *Some Indian groups refused to even enter into negotiations for new treaties either because they felt they were still strong enough to resist government pressure to relinquish control over their territory, or because a handful of reckless whites had disregarded government efforts at peaceful interactions and had infuriate these Indians with their abusive behavior *The Indians who resisted the most resided mainly on the Great Plains and in the Southwest; they were the groups who had had prolonged contact with the Spanish and the French prior to coiming into contact with the Americans *Unlike the many eastern Indians whose misunderstanding of Euro-American ways cost them their autonomy, their territory, and at times even their lives, these Indians clearly understood Euro-American culture and political tactics *These Indians were angry not because they couldn't grasp what the Americans were up to, but instead, because the Americans refused to live up to their own rules *For example, when the Gila Apaches, who lived in the mountains that divided New Mexico and Arizona, demanded that American miners pay them rent for the right to prospect in their territory, the Americans scoffed at them *This angered the Apache leaders who wondered why the Americans refused to abide by their own rules of private property use *The Apaches reacted by evicting the American miners for failure to pay rent *The U.S. government, however, refused to see the Apache's behavior this way; instead, the War Department dispatched soldiers to punish the Indians for "depredations" against whites *In many such instances, the Plains and Southwestern Indians viewed themselves just as the Americans did: Powerful people who had a god-given right to completely control a defined territory and its resources *When the Americans refused to acknowledge the Indians' right to use and control their property in EuroAmerican ways, the Indians were furious and declared their determination not to be bullied into submission *Compounding this problem was the related issue of jurisdiction *Under the annexation agreement that brought Texas into the Union, federal officials had agreed to allow Texas officials to continue managing Indian affairs within the new state *As Texas officials were much more beholden to their local constituents than federal officials were, Texas leaders were particularly ruthless in punishing Indians accused of committing "depredations" against whites *In fact, the original mission of the Texas Rangers was to at least reduce local Indians into a state of subjugation and at most to exterminate all Indian living within Texas' borders *Variations of such local hostility and brutal treatment of Indians was prevalent across the west, with the exception of the Utah territory where the resident Mormons viewed the Indians as one of the lost tribes of Israel who they were charged with peacefully converting to the Mormon religion *Federal Indian officials found themselves further straightjacketed following the annexation of New Mexico and Arizona as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo stipulated that in return for taking the Southwest and California from Mexico, the American government would stop local Indians from raiding back into Mexican territory *Because of this, American officials had to punish resident Indians for their "misdeeds" in Mexico *Yet, in many instances the Indians were justified in their attacks on Mexican citizens as their actions were rightful revenge for wrongs Mexicans committed against the Indians *U.S. officials extricated themselves from this role with the 1854 Gadsden Purchase Agreement II. The Civil War and the Frontier A. The Five Civilized Tribes Choose Sides *Just as the tribes of Iroquois Confederacy had to make the fateful decision of whether to support the British or the Americans during the American War for Independence, the Five Civilized Tribes were compelled to choose between the Union and the Confederacy once the Civil War broke out *Even though it had been the Confederate states who had expelled them westward, mixed bloods who owned slaves and knew that it was the southern states who provided the tribes with money and allotments of supplies were in political control and decided to side with the Confederacy *Ultimately, this choice was as misguided as that of the Iroquois tribes who sided with the British *Once the Union won the war, federal officials declared the Five Tribes as defeated combatants and stripped them of land and treaty guaranteed rations B. The Civil War and the West *In the west most Indians, and even a good majority of Americans, were not fully aware of the crisis that was unfolding in the east *All that both sides were acutely aware of was the fact that regular army soldiers had been ordered to abandon their forts (and in some instances to burn their forts and any supplies they couldn't take with them) and to head east *As the soldiers left a power vacuum opened that many Indian groups leaped into *Seeing the soldiers' retreat as a surrender, the Indians began to assert their power *When settlers began to loudly cry for help, federal officials told them it was absolutely necessary to keep the regular troops in the east to fight the war *Instead, government officials authorized local militias to battle the western Indian groups back into submission *These local units contained a polyglot group of rag-tag men who often had no real military or policy training *The one thing these men shared was their hatred for Indians and their desire to see them defeated once and for all *From California to Colorado, Wyoming to Arizona militia men applied slash and burn tactics to Indian settlements, killed innocent women and children, and even created their own reservations for captured natives *Once news of the militias' tactics reached eastern officials a public cry went up to remove the "soldiers" and to re-introduce regular troops *With the Civil War raging, however, there was no way for the Union government to address the problem III. Post War Politics and Indian Policy A. Grant's Peace Policy *Following the Civil War abolitionist reformers took control of Congress and reformers of other stripes became much more vocal *Many of these men and women had been following what was happening on the frontier during the war and immediately called for a new federal Indian policy *After Andrew Johnson's disastrous presidency following Lincoln's assassination, General Ulysses S. Grant was elected President *Being a practical, military man, Grant fully supported programs that fixed problems before they reached a state that required military intervention *Grant was also justly horrified at the massacres of Indian women and children and the general vigilante, state of lawlessness that was plaguing the west *Most reformers wanted the President to do two things: 1. Reinvigorate the program of educating the Indians in the ways of American civilization. 2. Stand down the brutal militias and remove government officials who were abusing the Indians. *Grant agreed to do both through one solution *He turned Indian Affairs over to the various Protestant church leaders and gave them the power to remake federal Indian policy in the image of Christian charity *Grant and complicit members of Congress completely ignored the Constitution's command for the federal government not to directly support any one religious view or organization *Instead, they created a theocratic branch of government by dividing the tribes up among the different Protestant sects *Catholics were completely shut out of this process, which demonstrated why James Madison was so smart in establishing a separation of church and state to avoid any one religious group being able to use government power to discriminate against any other religious group *Church leaders were allowed to pick new Indian agents for their reservations and were given federal money to distribute among the Indians as they saw fit *President Grant believed he could rid himself of greedy and incompetent Indian agents and gain honest, hardworking replacements by allowing the Churches to select men who were exemplars of Christian piety *Unfortunately, the Indians paid the price for Grant's ignorance and blind trust *While removing the brutal state militias' control over western territories did eliminate the immediate cause of Indian abuse, replacing them with men and women who had absolutely no training in managing Indian affairs only created new problems *These reformers often lacked the training that was need to manage thousands of dollars worth of supplies; hundreds of employees; and the day to day decision-making duties that went with each reservation *Christian charity was an admirable trait, but what the Indians needed were honest bureaucrats who knowledgeable and could do their job *In addition, Christian reformers were also at a loss for what to do to stop whites from harassing and abusing their Indian charges *Unable or unwilling to assert their power over settlers, ranchers, and various other groups, reservation agents often stood helplessly by as whites attacked their Indians and then the Indians answered back in kind *When news of the general chaos on the reservations reached Washington, critics of Grant's Peace Policy demanded that regular troops be sent west to assert some semblance of control B. The Indian Wars *In the years before the Civil War, the Antebellum period, the U.S. military had great difficulty matching the Plains and Southwestern Indians' guerilla warfare tactics *Frustrated by hit and run attacks, cunning ambushes, and various other forms of deception, the small U.S. army was ineffective in their attempts to "defeat" renegade Indians *As the American citizenry had a strong aversion to the federal government maintaining a standing army (Americans viewed a standing army as an invitation for rulers to become tyrants), since the founding, the federal government had done little to create a professional military class *This changed somewhat after the Civil War when many men choose to stay in the service as a career *Military leaders began to look to European models for organizing the U. S. armed services and adopted many of General Grant's strategies used to defeat the Confederacy as their training curriculum *Fresh news of Arizona citizens massacring Indian women, children, and old men at Camp Grant, and the Colorado militia murdering peaceful Indians at Sand Creek kept most Americans in favor of using benevolence instead of force to manage Indian affairs *Yet competing news of Custer's supposed massacre at the Little Big Horn and Colonel Fetterman's slaying by Indian warriors (both events were caused by plain stupidity on the parts of Custer and Fetterman, but this was not reported at the time) tempered public opinion to also accept a military solution for Indians who refused to accept reservation life under the Peace Policy *This time around, the U.S. military was better prepared to meet the Indians' guerilla tactics tit for tat *Using Grant's Total War strategy, military leaders set out to drive recalcitrant Indians to the point of extermination and beyond if the need arose *On the Plains, the U.S. army destroyed Indian crops regardless of which group owned them; they pursued the Indians even in the winter; and they were willing to kill noncombatants (women, old men, and children) if the warriors did not surrender *In the Southwest General George Crook hired friendly Apaches to locate rebellious Apache bands and he abandoned the use of horses in favor of mules in order to relentlessly pursue fleeing groups *The result of such tactics by 1890 was the elimination or surrender of all Plains and Southwestern tribes who had refused to settle on designated reservations *Every Indian was either on a reservation or were in a jail unable to cause the Americans any further problem *With the end of the Indian Wars, reformers quickly reasserted their power and demanded that they be given another chance at creating a class of Americanized Indian citizens