Cultures in Contact

ANT 326L (30410) Spring, 2008
Samuel M. Wilson

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1830-1920: Removal to the 1920 Nadir

Land Transfers 1820-1864

The Removal Bill

•    Became law in 1830

•    hotly contested in Congress

•    defined area in the Plains, esp. Oklahoma

•    allocated money for improvements, removal, and 1 year's subsistence

Divide and Conquer

•    Removal negotiations created divisions among the southeastern groups

•    treaties were negotiated separately with the groups

The "Five Civilized Tribes"

•    Cherokee

•    Choctaw

•    Chickasaw

•    Creek

•    Seminole

Chickasaws and Creeks

•    Chickasaws

–  Signed treaty in 1832 for substantial amount, and were moved to a part of the Choctaw reserve in Oklahoma

•    Creeks

–  Signed treaty but delayed in moving.  White encroachment led to the 1836 Creek War

Worcester v. State of Georgia

•    supported U.S. claims to land, but not enforced by Jackson or Georgia

The Cherokee Struggle

•    1827 Adopted a constitution modeled on the U.S.'s

•    Declared sovereignty over territory

•    Filed for allotments of ancestral lands

•    Supreme Court: Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia

–  court ruled the Cherokees were "domestic dependent nations"

•    Victories weren't enforced

John Marshall

“domestic dependant nations”

•     The Indian nations had always been considered as distinct, independent, political communities, retaining their original natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the land, from time immemorial. . . . The settled doctrine of the law of nations is, that a weaker power does not surrender its independence–its right to self-government–by associating with a stronger, and taking its protection. A weak state, in order to provide for its safety, may place itself under the protection of one more powerful, without stripping itself of the right of government, and ceasing to be a state.

“dependant nations” and the “Trust relationship”

Marshall

 the court ruled that the Cherokee nation was a "distinct community" with self-government, "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force"

Jackson

"the decision of the supreme court has fell still born, and they find that they cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate."

The Cherokee Trail of Tears

•    1838 - left late and caught by early winter

Alexis de Tocqueville (1831)

Further legal developments

•    1871 - Congress takes over

•    President cedes “Nation to Nation” role

•    “hereafter no Indian nation or tribe” would be recognized “as an independent power with whom the United States may contract by treaty.” 

U.S. Constitution
article 1, section 8, clause 3

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

•     To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

•      To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

•      To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

Seminoles

•     Less cohesive than the others, no single agreement could be reached

•     Signed treaties in 1832 and 1833, but these were not accepted by other Seminoles

•     War between Federal troops and the Seminoles raged from 1835 to 1842

Contact and changing ethnic identities

The Black Seminoles

–   unity of the two groups was split in the intense battle

•     Refugees from the southeast combined forces in Florida

•     "This, you may be assured, is a Negro and not an Indian war" -Jesup

•     1,500 Federal troops killed; cost $40M

•     In the Indian Territories, Seminoles were mistreated

•     1849 ruling that Black Seminoles were slaves -- escape to Mexico

Seminole Wars

After Removal

•     Annexation of Texas - 1845

•     Mexican War - 1848

•     Increasing pressure by expanding Anglos

Texas

•     Sam Houston's policies

–   pacification and mutual defense

•     Mirabeau B. Lamar

–   expulsion and extermination

Texas Reservations

•     When Texas entered the Union, it didn't cede public lands to the Federal Government

•     compromise allowed for two reservations on the Brazos, Comanches and everyone else

Indians in the Civil War

•    The Revolutionary War dilemma replayed -- whom to fight with?

•    "5 Civilized Tribes" fought on both sides

•    Confederate ties led to reduced rights in Indian Territories

The Confederacy

•    Southeastern Tribes had southern connections

•    Confederacy agreed to

–  uphold Federal agreements

–  Protect from invasion

–  Give representation in Confed. Congress

•    Tribes had to provide troops (10,000)

Indian Civil War

•    Split between Confederates and Neutrals

•    Tide turns against Confederacy in Arkansas

•    Chief Ross shifts to support of Union

1863

•    Confederates with 5,000 Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee troops

•    Union Indian Home Guard with about 3,000 Indian troops

•    Huge battles

Anarchy in Indian Territories

•    16,000 refugees allied with Union

•    11,000 pro-Confederate Indians

•    Breakdown of order, gangs, looting

•    Union officers take 300,000 cattle

Aftermath, July 14, 1865

•    25% of Creeks, Seminoles, and Cherokees

•    Estimated 60,000 killed from the 5 Civilized Tribes

•    Economy destroyed, almost every building burned

•    Although Indians were evenly split between Union and Confederacy, Union declared treaties void

1865-1900 War on the Plains

•    Cheyenne vs. Seventh Cavalry in battle near Fort Wallace on June 26, 1867.

Major battles, 1855-1865

Land Transfers, 1865-1987

Squeezing the Indian Territories

•     Land in Oklahoma purchased from the 5 C.T.

•     Indians from northern plains and north were moved to Oklahoma

•     Fox, Potawatami, Osage, Iowa, Nebraska Pawnee, S.D. Ponca

•     5 C.T. had to emancipate slaves

Congress's Position

Ulysses S. Grant's pension problem