FEDERAL INDIAN POLICY FROM REMOVAL TO RECONSTRUCTION

I. Removal and the Fiction of a Permanent Indian Frontier.

II. Treaties and Reservations.

III. Early Treaty making the West.

A. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.

B. The Stevens Treaties.

IV. Indian Policy During the Civil War and Reconstruction.

A. Lincolns Indian Policy.

B. Grants Peace Policy.

C. The End of Treaty Making.

I. Removal and the Fiction of a Permanent Indian Frontier.

What are Reservations?

Reservations are homelands reserved from a larger aboriginal land base. They are not given to Indian tribes.Many white policy makers have viewed reservations as temporary solutions.Native people have a very different view! They see reservations as a permanent means to continue their traditional lifeways in spite of colonization and conquest.

Colonial Reservations

Earliest precedent in colonial Virginia.New Jersey and South Carolina also establish reservations.Never the central facet of colonial Indian policy.

The Treaty Making Clause of the Constitution.

Article 2, section 2: Reserved to the President the power, . . . by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.

Common Treaty Provisions

Peaceful Relations.Land Cessions.Reservations or Boundaries.Assimilation/Agricultural Assistance.Resource Rights.

Reservations at the Center of Policy.

It is indispensably necessary that they be placed in positions where they can be controlled and finally compelled by sheer necessity to resort to agricultural labor or starve. . . . 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. There should be assigned to each tribe, for a permanent home, a country adapted to agriculture, of limited extent and well-defined boundaries, within which all, with occasional exception, should be compelled constantly to remain until such time as their general improvement and good conduct may supersede the necessity of such restrictions. In the meantime the government should cause them to be supplied with stock, agricultural implements, and useful materials for clothing, encourage and assist them in the erection of comfortable dwellings, and secure to them the means and facilities of education, intellectual, moral, and religious. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea, 1852.

Map of 1851 Territories by Fr. De Smet.

Isaac I. Stevens.

Army engineer and railroad surveyor.First governor of Washington Territory.Uses multi-treaty approach to facilitate white settlement.Forceful negotiation tactics.

The Chinook Jargon.

Trade language of fewer than 500 words.Based on the Chinook language with the addition of French and English words.Common throughout the West.Not effective in translating technical legal concerns.

Edward S. Curtis photo of Chinook Woman

Off-Reservation Rights and Identity.

. . . the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places in common with citizens of the Territory; and of erecting temporary buildings for curing, together with the privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses and cattle upon open and unclaimed lands.

Celilo Falls.

Walla Walla Council, June 1855.

IV. Indian Policy During the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Lincolns Indian Policy is generally a series of responses to Crises.

Ely S. Parker

U. S. Grant

Outlines of the Peace Policy.

Board of Indian commissioners.

Church nominations for agents.

WAR!

Forerunner of the Assimilation Policy.

Reaching Agreements.

Some Congressmen argue that tribes can no longer be considered sovereign.Main impetus, however, is the House of Representatives desire to have a say in process.Act of Congress March 3, 1871.Process or understanding for Native peoples does not change radically and does not affect treaties already in effect.