Transcript California 1850 - University of Idaho

California 1850
Territories and Treaties
“Killed some of them myself”
 California
Statue 133
 An Act for the Government and Protection
of Indians
 3. “Any person having or hereafter
obtaining a minor Indian, male or female
from the parents or relation of such Indian
minor, and wishing to keep it, such a
person will go before a justice of the
Peace in his Township….”
6. “Complaints may be made before a Justice
of the Peace, by white person or Indian;
 but in no case shall a white man be
convicted of any offence upon the testimony
of the Indian”
 10. “If any person or persons shall set the
prairie on fire, or refuse to use the proper
exertions to extinguish the fire when the
prairies are burning, such a person or
persons shall be subject to fine or
punishment, as the Court may adjudge
proper”

 20.
“Any Indian. . . Who shall be found
loitering and strolling about . . . If said
Justice, Mayor or Recorder shall be
satisfied that he is a vagrant . . . He shall
make out a warrant. . . authorizing and
requiring the officer having him in charge
or custody, to hire out the vagrant within
twenty four hours to the best bidder . . .
For any term not exceeding four months”
 State laws ruled Indian life
 Where was the federal Government?
 California

had been taken by the military
Still had a presence
 Official
military often the Indians friend
 Temporary militia the problem
 So why did the Federal Government in
the form of the military step in to avert the
Genocide?
William M. Gwin
John B Weller
 Gwin

and Walker
we will meet a different Walker later today
 Senators
from California
 very influential in the status of the
California Indians
 Same year as California’s as passed,
1850
 Congress passed an act authorizing three
commissioners to negotiate treaties in
California

On the thirteenth day of January, 1851,



Redick McKee of Virginia
George W. Barbour of Kentucky and
Oliver M. Wozencraft of Louisiana
“met in San Francisco to determine the
procedure of the commission. . .
 . . .appointed in pursuance of an act
passed by congress the last day of the
preceding September; theirs was the
task of formulating a definite policy
with regard to the aboriginal tribes of
California.

 "George
W. Barbour"
 Negotiated
18 with 139 California tribes
 Tribes agreed to




End wars
Acknowledge jurisdiction of the United States
Accept reservations and agents
Cede land to the United States
 From


“owning” all of California
Secured 7,488,000 acres
7.5% of state land
 Gwin
and Weber led the charge in Congress
that defeated ratification
And now for the second Walker of
the day
Texas declared Independence 1835
1845 United States annexed Texas
Texas inserted a clause allowing
Texas to retain its public land
Texas refused to recognize native
title to any land
Texas Rangers formed to
Hang horse thieves, cattle rustlers,
general outlaws
And most importantly
Kill problematic Indians
Native Americans
and Treaties

Problems in Texas
and California based
mainly to lack of, or
problems with,
Treaties
 “They made us
many promises but
they never kept but
one.. They promised
to take OUR land,
and they TOOK IT.”
 Chief Red Cloud,
the Oglala Sioux
 Since
1775 both colonists and
British sought active help of the
Indians in war
 1778 first treaty, signed at Fort
Pitt

 in
United States first treaty with
Indians
return for guarantees of the
Delawares' support in the war
 Revolutionary
government recognized
tribe as a sovereign nation and
guaranteed its territorial rights.
 Promised the Delaware’s
 food
 clothing
 utensils,
 and implements of war
Invited
Delaware's and other
friendly tribes
to form a state of their own
join the newborn nation and
send their own representative
to Congress.
 America
would eventually make 375
treaties with Native Americans
 Texts of Treaties compiled by Kappler
 Can be found in digital form at
Oklahoma
State
University

Richard Nixon in the early
1970s
 Russia was bad because
she has not kept any treaty
or agreement signed with
her
 “Indian people laugh
themselves sick when they
here these statements.
America has yet to keep one
Indian treaty or agreement”
 Vine Deloria Jr.
 1794
Washington sent secretary of war,
Timothy Pickering, to make a treaty with
the Seneca Nation
 "The United States,will never claim the
same, nor disturb the Seneka [sic] nation."
 1950's a dam was planned that would
flood the Seneca Reservation
 Senecas offered an alternative site for the
dam that would cost less and would be
more efficient.
 Their claims were to no avail.
 Land
theft has been a continuing part of
the Indian-federal relationship
 Original ideological basis for taking land
from Christian doctrine of discovery
 Discovery negated rights of the Indian
tribes to sovereignty and equality in the
world
 1496 John Cabot instructed to discover
countries unknown to Christian people
 Alongside
land the other main factor for
treaties was peace


2/3 land
1/3 peace
 Often
came along with the promised
protection of the United States
Government
 Submission the first step from freedom
to classification as incompetents
 People who had to be taken care of
 Frequently,
what the treaty failed to
do congress could shift by law
 Unilateral action of Congress
 Treaty promised one thing,
subsequent legislation, changed
agreements
 Could, and often did, totally change
the implementation of Treaty
 1867
United States entered into the
first of three treaties referred to as the
Medicine Lodge Treaty
 Kiowa and Comanche tribes

Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne and
Southern Arapaho
 Treaties
created a reservation for
their use
 Required approval of ¾ of adult
males for any of the reservation to be
ceded.
Lone Wolf V Hitchcock
“Plenary authority over the tribal
relations of the Indians has been
exercised by Congress from the
beginning, and the power has
always been deemed a political one,
not subject to be controlled by the
judicial department of the
government.”
 i.e. Indians had no title to land
 All land owned by the United States
 Tribes had mere occupancy rights

 Power
to dictate conditions of life
and possession on reservation,
held by Congress
 Many other treaties between
Native American tribes and the
United States were unilaterally
modified by Congress
 in part relying on the decision in
Lone Wolf
 From
1787 until 1860 all treaties
with the five Civilized Tribes
contained a clause providing that
all
 " fugitive slaves belonging to
citizens of the United States must
be restored to their owners"
 1789
to1850 United States negotiated and
ratified 245 treaties.
 In the 245 ratified treaties the Indians
ceded some 450 million acres in return for
less than $90 million less than twenty
cents an acre.
 None of the treaties was observed for
long.
 Many of those treaties have been in
litigation for years.
 Remain today the legal and moral bases
for Indian claims
 Indian
Appropriations Act of 1871,
 Congress ended the practice of treaty
making with the Indians.
 Act provided that obligations of the
treaties already made would remain
 "unimpaired and in effect."
 In its more than 370 treaties the
United States had gained nearly
 a billion acres of territory....
 Supreme
Court has ruled that
 "treaties made with the Indian nations
are the most sacred obligations of the
Federal government.”
 “if interpretation of an Indian treaty is
doubtful, it should be decided
according to what it meant to the
Indians.”
 But…….
Native
Americans and
the Civil War
But first…
 Quick
quiz
 Who was:



born in a log cabin in Kentucky
served in the army during the 1832 Black
Hawk War
went on to lead his country through the Civil
War?
 Answer:
 Abraham
Lincoln or Jefferson Davis
Leading
up to the civil war
Native Americans faced an
uncertain future
1) threat of forced removal
2) extermination
3) political shifts
Kansas-Nebraska Act

Proposed by Stephen A.
Douglas of Illinois
 Land west of the Missouri
to be organized into two
territories
 Kansas west of Missouri;
Nebraska west of Iowa and
Minnesota
 Territorial legislatures
would decide on slavery
Kansas Nebraska act and
Native Americans
 1834
Trade Act defined "the Indian
country" as
 all that part of the United States west of
the Mississippi and not within the states of
Missouri, Louisiana, or Arkansas Territory,
or any other organized territory.
 Creation of new territories drastically
reduced Indian Territory
 Act

stimulated expansion into region
Pressure on Native Americans
 Became

the site of sectional tension
White and Black America
 But
also a new era of frontier
violence aimed at Native Americans
 Especially in Eastern Kansas
 Expulsion
of eastern nations and Americas
rush to pacific
 created a continental nation
 But at huge cost to Native Americans




Removal
Wars of “Pacification”
Imposition of American laws and jurisdiction
Assimilationist policies
 Making
Native Americans aliens in their
own land
Between Two Fires
 Unsettling
world that Native
Americans knew
 Worsened by secession
 Single country that had
pressured them was now
two separate countries
 With two separate leaders
 Both veterans of Indian
wars
East Coast
 Increased
efforts to extended state
jurisdiction over them and their lands
 Increased racist treatment towards
them
 By the time two white armies began
fighting in their lands
 Many helped Unionists in a effort to
preserve their lives and their
communities
such group were the Pamunkey’s
of Virginia
 Mostly employed as guides and spies
for the northern army
 Their land lay in the route of McClellan’s
delayed peninsula campaign
 The Pamunky Indians are descendents
of the Powhatan empire
 But had gradually been forced into one
of the two main racial identities of the
south
 One

Non-white
 By
the time Virginia seceded on April 4
1861
 Descendents of the Powhattan empire had
little love for Virginian
 Local officials had circumscribed the their
world



Economically
Politically
Socially
 As
“Free persons of color” they were
linked with freed slaves and subject to
racist attitudes
 1802
all free non whites were required to carry
their proof of freedom at all times
 This included Native Americans who had never
been anything but free
 No certificate could mean arrest and sale into
slavery
 1843 the ‘Gregory petition’ was drawn up
attempt to claim that they were no longer Indian
and therefore land could be taken
 1859 a result of John Brown’s attack on
Harpers Ferry
 All Pamunkey were disarmed
 McClellan,
hesitant in warfare, was an excellent
planner
 When he began on the peninsular campaign he
had excellent knowledge of the complex terrain
 Most of which came from Native American
scouts such as the Pamunkey
 Utilized by the Union army as



Land guides
River Pilots
Spies
 Terrill
Bradby
 Most documented
Pamuncky to serve
 Born William Terrill
Bradby in 1803
 No formal education
 Married in 1850

4 children
 Reported
to be
between 5’ 6” – 5’ 8”
and approx 170lbs
 Enlisted
in the Union Army in May
1862

Illiterate and recruiting officer wrote name
 Initially
served as a land guide for
the advancing Union army
 Also for Allan Pinkerton’s Secret
Service as a spy
 Gathering intelligence on
Confederate positions and
movements

In 1863 transferred to water duty
 Served initially as a pilot second class on the
James River
 May 1864 became pilot in North Atlantic
Blockading Squadron
 Union attempt to strangle confederate war effort
 Served on the
 USS Schockhon
 USS Onondaga
 USS Huron
 Service ended on May 29, 1865
 Received a war pension
 After
war went on to be a “show
Indian”
 Giving information on culture to
anthropologists
 Also was ‘put on display’ at the
Chicago World fair of 1893
 Remained a respected member of
the Pamunkey community until his
death in the early twentieth century
 Video
Native American's
in the Civil War III





Student Grant Program
Next week offering two Grant Writing Workshops
Sarah Koerber from the University Research Office
will present tips on writing competitive grants
Kelly Morgan from the Office of Sponsored Programs
will explain why you shouldn't be intimidated by the
grant proposal forms and or the budget preparation.
Workshop times and locations:
- Thursday, February 5th, from 1:30pm - 2:30pm in
the Clearwater room of the Commons
- Friday, February 6th, from 10:00am - 11:00am in the
Crest room of the Commons
Delaware or
Lenape
Originally a mid-Atlantic
costal people
Had been the first tribe
to sign a treaty with the
USA
Subsequently faced
removal and
fragmentation at the
hands of the American
government
Yet
despite this the Delaware
supported the Union
Of 201 eligible males from the
nation
Between ages of 18 & 45
170 served in the Union Army
Why?
 Small,
weak nation
 Been battered frequently
 Been removed repeatedly
 Chance that support of the “Great
Father”
 May come from supporting the
“Great Father”
 Tribal survival not anti-slavery or
other moral issues dictated decision
“a
patriotism unequaled in the
history of our country”

Fielding Johnson, Indian agent
“Fully
appreciates and
understands the merits of the
war, which are alive to his own
interests, the interests of his
tribe”
 The
most well known
Delaware to support
and fight with the
Union was
 Suck-tum-mah-kway
 Black Beaver
 Born
1806
 1834 served as guide and
interpreter for General Henry
Leavenworth
 Interpreter for Colonel Dodge for
councils with Comanche, Kiowa
and Witchita
 Late 1830s and 40s worked for
the American Fur Company
 When
fur trade
declined
 Acted as guide for
wagon trains
 Guided John Audubon
 Mexican-American
War
 Beaver’s Spy
Company – Indian –
Texas Mounted
Volunteers
 Needing
troops Union recalled troops from
Indian Territory in spring 1861
 Colonial William H. Emory
 Gathered troops for movement
 Black Beaver helped to guide Union forces
through confederate lines on a 500 mile
flight
 “without the loss of a man, horse, or
wagon, although two men deserted on the
Journey”

Continued this role throughout
the war






along with several other
Delaware
Guide for the destruction of
Confederate railroad lines and
other actions
After war
Witnessed the Medicine
Lodge Treaty in 1867
Services required by
Government, military, and
scientific explorers of the
plains and the Rocky
Mountains
Died 1880
THE CHEROKEE
 The
Cherokee had been challenged
and damaged, as much if not more
than other groups, during removal
 During the Trail of Tears and
subsequent relocation in Indian
territory thousands of Cherokee had
died
 Frictions from removal, between the
Ross faction and the Treaty faction,
continued in their new homes
 When
the battle of the Americans
arrived on Cherokee lands
 There developed a civil war within a civil
war
 Cherokees served for both sides during
the American Civil War
 Many Cherokee served as Unionists
 Particularly in the Kansas Indian Home
Guard

Usually union Cherokee were supporters of
Ross
 In
addition approximately 3000
Cherokee served for the Confederate
States of America

Usually Treaty Party supporters
 During





the war
Military death
Disease
Starvation
Impoverishment
reduce the Cherokee population from
21,000 to 15,000






As early as 1863
1/3 of married women were widows
¼ of children were orphans
The most well known and effective
Cherokee leader with the
confederacy was Stand Waite
Born December 1806
Indian Name


Degadoga “He Stands [on two feet]
Christian name
 Issac S. Waite
 Became know as Stand Waite
 In
October 1861 the Confederacy, led in
negotiations by Albert Pike, signed the
Pike-Cherokee treaty
 This committed the Confederacy and
Cherokee to support each other
 Led to a split between northern and
southern Cherokee
 Waite had been made a Colonel in the
CSA 3 months before this
 Shows his strong identification with the
confederacy
 The
majority of Waite’s career as a
confederate officer was based in Indian
territory
 He and his supports constantly harried
and attacked both Union soldiers
 And enemy Cherokees

Not always the same
 Support
not constant from CSA
 But Waite remained loyal

Looking to the future of power structure in
the Cherokee as much as supporting the
CSA
 CSA
made Waite a Brigadier General in
spring of 1864
 He was an efficient military leader
 Considered to be the best CSA leader
in the west at the end of the war
 Two big victories
 First was the capture of
 The J.R. Williams
 A Union supply ship
 Provided goods for CSA and disrupted
Union supply lines
 The
second raid deep into enemy territory
over 15 days in September 1864
 Waite along with General Richard Gano
 Ventured 400 miles in to Kansas
 Union held
 Once again skillfully attacked and harried
Union troops along with capturing supplies
 At the battle of Cabin Creek, Sept. 19 1864
captured


129 wagons full of supplies and 740 mules
Killed 200 Union soldiers and took 120
prisoners






June 23, 1865
A man in a tattered CSA
uniform
At the head of a cavalry
detachment
Rode to a meeting place
12 miles from Doaksville
in the Choctaw territory
This was to be the scene
of Waites Surrender
2 months after Lee
surrendered
A
Native American
created the document
which Lee signed
The last southern
General to surrender was
Native American