User:Linifer38

Lincoln’s Indian Policy

According to his legacy, Gearoge washington' was a good and honest man. In a letter to William H. Herndon from Joseph Gillespie in Wilson & Davis’ Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interview, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln(1998), it was noted that in his practice of law “Lincoln could not argue a false position” (p. 186). Evidently he was unable to trick his conscience into doing that which he did not believe. With that, one must alternatively conclude that he also did do or followed through with that which he did believe. Taking that into consideration does it seem more reasonable to conclude that perhaps his Indian policy was also a reflection of what he believed, or was this lapse in focus an exception to his principles?

One may think that in light of his eloquence and empathy as evidenced by way of the Emancipation Proclamation that in all matters humane, Abraham Lincoln was equally attentive. Unfortunately for his seemingly untarnished legacy and as well his neglected believers the Native Americans, priorities such as the Civil War and Manifest Destiny took precedence over a politically unrepresented group of people. Claims made by Indians against white people generally fell on deaf federal government ears because as David A. Nichols put it in his book, Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Politics and Policy, “white people voted -Indians did not” (1999, p.11).

On March 4, 1861 President Abraham Lincoln gave his inaugural address. One month later, the Civil War broke out as confederate soldiers fired on Ft. Sumter, South Carolina. The Civil War lasted until April 9, 1865. President Lincoln was assassinated April 14, 1865, five days after the war ended. His entire administration, short 35 days, was flanked by a war that was being fought on fundamental idealistic and humanitarian grounds.

In the Emancipation Proclamation it was clear that Lincoln understood about the importance of humanitarianism. Wikisource's The Emancipation Proclamation(2009) cites the legislation, “by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said person” (n.p).

Not only was this proclamation honorable, it was necessary and mandatory in order to first view another group of people as just that…people, not the animals or savages as had been earlier alluded to by slave-owners as justification for their inhumane treatment of African Americans; and second, to bring about a series of events that eventually led to the observed and protected civil rights of those same people.

Lincoln’s Blight

Why didn’t this necessary application of humanity transfer over to an equally entitled group of people? According to Nichols (1999), “In the years before he became president, Lincoln apparently never challenged the American consensus on the necessity of Indian removal to make way for White progress” (p. 3), regardless of a second option of effecting and enforcing legislation that could have required Indians and Whites to integrate into a workable co-operative lifestyle.

In 1862 the Homestead Act was passed and signed into law. The law provided that citizens over the age of majority (21), who had never borne arms against the United States government or given aid or comfort to its enemies, could purchase one quarter section of land for $1.25 an acre, or 80 acres for $2.50 an acre, or if they settled and cultivated the land for five years it would be theirs for $10.00 (Homestead Act Wikisource, 2009).

Six months after the Homestead Act was passed, the Railroad Act of 1862 was signed, and by May 1869 (four years after the death of Lincoln) the Transcontinental Railroad provided a means for supplies and people to be transported relatively quickly across the 690 miles of desolate terrain between Council Bluffs, IA and Sacramento, CA. This was Lincoln’s crowning achievement not only technologically speaking, but logistically and politically as well. According to Wikipedia’s article, First Transcontinental Railroad, “the road established a mechanized transcontinental transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West” (2009, p.1), without which, the combination of a hostile environment and lack of supply outlets, rendered the area virtually unlivable. The combination of the Homestead Act and the First Transcontinental Railroad enabled rapid population for the purposes of Manifest Destiny.

According to Dale Mason in his paper entitled, The Indian Policy of Abraham Lincoln, he states that, “during his (Lincoln’s) four years in office he routinely signed treaties with the western tribes and all (of them) provided for the cession of Indian land” and further adds that “treaties with tribes also lead to the loss of Indian land for the construction of railroads” (2009, p.3).

The way this “cession” was mitigated was through the implementation of the “tried and true” precepts of the Indian System which was driven primarily through the treaty system whereby Indians were paid for land that was the focus of some such treaty and the money was then put into annuities that were held in trust by the federal government. There was an incredible amount of money that was being held by the federal government and the fact that it was in existence at all motivated clever manipulation of a bureaucracy devoid of proper accountability.

As Lincoln embarked upon his presidency he began the job, as all presidents before and after, of staffing the cabinet with “his people”. One such appointment was made to Caleb Smith, a political constituent from Indiana, to the position of Secretary of the Interior. Mr. Smith had been a valuable ally in President Lincoln’s bid for the White House as he delivered a speech that, according to Augustus H. Chapman in a letter to William H. Herndon, in Mr. Lincoln’s opinion “had done him more service than any public speaker” (1998, p.137). Evidently that speech provided Mr. Smith with all the credentials he needed to assume a position, as Nichols’ points out, “regardless of the fact that he had no expertise in Indian affairs” (1999, p.5).

Nichols goes on to say that money was siphoned from the annuities by primarily three methods: - Claimants would sue the federal government for alleged damages to property by Indians which were paid without any further investigation (p.11) - Contracting services to Indians also yielded payment without proper inspection to first make sure that the goods and services were of negotiable standard and some verification that they were delivered at all. “Congressmen would frame legislation or encourage friends to make application designed to tap those monies” (p.12,13). - Licensed traders, as enabled by agents, set up monopolies on the reservations charging up to 400% profit on goods and services. When Indians were unable to pay for extended credit, traders would requisition funds from the federal government, which were paid (p.13). In most cases, these requests for payment had to be signed off by President Lincoln himself in order to be paid.

Another clear indication says Nichols of the “pervasive(ness) of the institutionalized corruption of the Indian System was the sale of Sac and Fox trust lands in Kansas in 1864. Tracts of land were purchased by Commissioner Dole, Secretary of the interior Usher (Smith’s replacement), Comptroller of the Currency Hugh McCulloch, and John G. Nicolay, who was Lincoln’s personal secretary”(Nichols, p.22)

Little Crow’s plight clearly exemplifies the consequences of the corrupt Indian system. According to Little Crow in Wikipedia (2009), Little Crow, chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota Sioux, “agreed to the movement of his band of the Dakota to a reservation near the Minnesota River in exchange for goods and certain other rights, by way of the negotiation of the Treaties of Travers des Sioux and Mendota of 1851” (p.1) .

Clearly Little Crow had it in mind to work with the Government by agreeing to try to do it their way as long as his people would be taken care of. Unfortunately, that was too much to hope for because after the Government neglected to stick to their end of the bargain “Little Crow was forced to support the decision of a Dakota war council in 1862 to pursue war to drive out the whites from Minnesota” (Little Crow, p.1) because, as he attempted to point out to a council gathering of army commanding officers, “When men are hungry, they help themselves”. Andrew Myrick, representative for the traders, replied, “So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung” (Little Crow, p.1). Inevitably, war ensued and though Little Crow’s band at first won against the United States Army, eventually they lost and Little Crow fled.

Perhaps it was because President Lincoln was so intent upon ending a war that was being fought over the preservation of inherent freedoms he felt "all people" should be able to realize that he had no time to intervene on behalf of the American Indian. Maybe his fight for one oppressed minority was all his administration could handle. Or perhaps it was the focus of making way for westward expansion that caused him to be detached from the plight of the indigenous tribes. Whatever his reason, the Native American people were not to be included in his humanitarian effort. His policy was one that was handed down from previous administrations and allowed to continue to the ultimate expense of his otherwise seemingly untarnished legacy.

Bibliography

First Transcontinental Railroad. (2009). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_Transcontinental_Rail-road&oldid=283480414 Homestead Act. (2009). In Wikisource, The Free Library. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Homestead_Act&oldid=984769 Little Crow. (2009). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Little_Crow&oldid=281591051 Mason, W.D. (2009). The Indian policy of Abraham Lincoln. Nichols, David A. (1999). Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Politics and Policy. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Potter, Lee Ann and Wynell Schamel. "The Homestead Act of 1862." Social Education 61, 6 (October 1997): 359-364. The Emancipation Proclamation. (2009). In Wikisource, The Free Library. Retrieved March 30, 2009 from http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_Emancipation_ Proclamation&oldid=1036638 Wilson, Douglas L. and Davis, Rodney O. (Eds.) (1998). Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interview, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. Urbana: University of Chicago Press.