Lakota delegation at the White House, 1877. The Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho who fought Red Cloud’s War composed one of the last tribal alliances to make a formal treaty with the United States. They continued to send delegations to Washington, D.C., even after the legislated end of treaty-making. Standing (from left): Unidentified man, Red Bear, Young Man Afraid of his Horse, Good Voice, Ring Thunder, Iron Crow, White Tail, Young Spotted Tail. Seated: Yellow Bear, Jack Red Cloud, Big Road, Little Wound, Black Crow.
old, decentralized republic into a powerful, centralized national state. Washington created a national paper currency and banking system, levied new taxes and formed an internal reve- nue bureau to collect them, imposed a draft to fill the ranks of the army, launched the Freed- men’s Bureau, the nation’s first social welfare agency, and inaugurated a generous pension system for Union Army veterans. The emergence of a consolidated nation-
state nourished a powerful nationalist ideol- ogy. In 1865, a new magazine, aptly titled The Nation, began publication. In its second issue, the editors asserted that the Civil War had achieved the “territorial, political and his- torical oneness of the nation . . . .” Now, said U.S. Sen. John Sherman (R. – Ohio), brother of Union General William T. Sherman, “The policy of this country ought to be to make everything national….” The celebration of consolidated nation-
hood left little scope for tribal sovereignty. After Appomattox, the idea of independent tribal nations came under increasing attack from land-hungry settlers, ranchers, mining and railroad companies and politicians who found tribal sovereignty an obstacle to eco- nomic development and an affront to Ameri- can society. Unwilling to countenance the existence of “savage” tribes in a “civilized” na-
tion, Americans insisted that Indians should spurn tribalism and accept Christianity, private property ownership and, eventually, full citizenship and assimilation into Euro- American society. The full-bore assault on tribal culture and institutions fueled pressure for Congress to prohibit future treaty-making with Indian tribes.
III
Congressional opposition to Indian treaty- making emerged from the House of Repre- sentatives. When the House’s proposal for eliminating treaty diplomacy arrived in the Senate, however, it received an icy reception from lawmakers who warned that it would infringe on the treaty-making authority of the president. Fewer constitutional concerns were evident in the House, where opponents of treaty-making assailed the notion that Indian tribes were nations with whom the United States should make treaties. Equating popula- tion with nationhood, lawmakers insisted that Indian tribes were now too small to merit the moniker, “nation.” “Eighty or a hundred years ago, perhaps when there were great confeder- ated nations upon our borders. . . we might treaty with them,” said U.S. Rep. Aaron Sar- gent (R. – Calif.). But now, Sargent observed,”
U.S. Rep. Aaron Sargent (R. – Calif.)
INDIAN TRIBES, HE CONCLUDED, WERE “SIMPLY . . . NOT INDEPEN- DENT NATIONS WITH WHOM WE ARE TO TREAT AS OUR EQUALS.” THE UNITED STATES SHOULD CONTINUE TO MAKE TREATIES WITH FOREIGN NATIONS, SARGENT ADMITTED, “[B]UT I DENY THAT THERE CAN BE SUCH NATIONS ON OUR OWN SOIL.”
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 43
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, BRADY-HANDY PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
