Megan MurphyHistory 7690

tHE aMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Colonization, Freedom, and Citizenship among Native Americans and African-Americans 1800-1890

Colonization, Freedom, and Citizenship among Native Americans and African-Americans 1800-1890

The purpose of this work will be to connect two different nineteenth century philosophies

and show how the Civil War changed the course of their completion. The first ideology is

manifested in the politics surrounding Indian removal policies. For much of the early nineteenth

century, some politicians recognized individual tribal sovereignty within claimed American

territories. However, leading into the 1820s and early 1830s, American Indian policies shifted

towards full native removal, opening up considerable lands for white settlement. By1851, the

American government passed the Indian Appropriation Act, establishing defined territories

known as reservations for the Indian tribes. At the same time, officials began to consider

problems related to a large population of African-Americans—referring to both the free blacks

and African slaves—particularly the concerns surrounding the potential freedom for the

suppressed population. Many leaders started entertaining ideas of colonization which would

remove all African-Americans from white society and place them on a ‘black reservation’, or

colony, much like the established Indian policies for a reservation system. Colonization schemes

heightened with various proposals sending freed blacks to Liberia, Texas, Haiti, Central

America, and even Mexico. Such proposals subsequently gained support from influential leaders

like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln.

Interestingly though, colonization never materialized to the scale of Native American1

reservations. This raises the question of why black colonies never emerged, while there are

numerous Indian reservations still in existence today. This paper will examine how the Civil

War swayed political policies towards abolition and black citizenship rights, rather than to follow

the schemes of removal via colonization. The prolonged Civil War conflict forced the Union to 1 Throughout this work, I will use Native American, indigenous people, Indians, natives, etc. interchangeably; moreover, the same will be done for blacks and African-Americans.

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formally allow black soldiers to enlist in their regiments, which to some degree prompted the

Emancipation Proclamation. Combined, the two developments demonstrate a political shift from

the philosophy of removal and brought about questions of black citizenship rights, signifying a

total reversal from earlier policies regarding Native Americans rights in the American republic.

Before delving into the complexities of Indian removal and colonization, a few concepts

must be outlined. Firstly, citizenship is malleable. At its most basic level, citizenship is simply

belonging and having membership in one’s community and as such, the process of American

citizenship has “been defined, by those who have it and therefore speak for all citizens, as

universal and inclusive (the so-called American Creed).”2 Because of this, definitions and

enforcement of rights differ between time and place. Notions of standing, which recognizes an

individual as a full adult capable of exercising choice and assuming responsibilities, changes

based on the ruling public’s ideology, as does the idea of nationality, which is being identified as

part of the people who constitute a sovereign ethnic culture. The maintenance of such

“boundaries relies on [the] ‘enforcement’ not only by designated officials but also by so-called

members of the public.”3 Likewise, the classifications of public fluctuate over time, space, and

ruling society. Prominent social theorist and author, Michael Warner tells that there are

Several senses of the noun “public” [that] tend to be intermixed in usage. People do not always distinguish even between the public and a public, though in certain contexts the difference can matter a great deal. The public is a kind of social totality. Its most common sense is that of the people in general. It might be the people organized as the nation, the commonwealth, the city, the state, or some other community. It might be very general, as in Christendom or humanity. But in each case, the pub lic, as a people, is thought to include everyone within the field in question. This sense of totality is brought out by speaking of the public.4

2 Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor, (Harvard University Press, 2002), 24.3 Glenn, 52.4 Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics (New York: Zone Books, 2002), 65-66

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As Warner suggests, the public often refers to the dominating culture and the rules and

expectations that govern their society. Moreover, the American public itself varies; hence, their

classifications for American citizenship vary as well. For early American Indians and African-

Americans, much of their citizenship was shaped by race. According to University of California-

Berkeley professor, Evelyn Nakano Glenn,

The concept of biological race rose in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to replace religious paradigms for viewing differences between Europeans (Christians) and ‘others’ (non-Christians) encountered in the age of conquest. With the waning of religious belief in a god-given social order, race differences and the superiority of white Europeans to ‘others’ came to be justified and legitimized by ‘science’.5

In other words, since the United States’ independence, a dominant white majority generally

viewed native peoples and African-Americans as ‘others’ and separate from themselves. Part of

defining the ‘other’ came from the creation of scientific racism through biological anthropology.

As Wake Forest University professor, Thomas Gossett wrote, the science of eighteenth and

nineteenth century anthropology divided “mankind into five varieties–Caucasian, Mongolian,

Ethiopian, American, and Malay… [but] most often, the races [were] named by colors: white,

yellow, black, red, and brown.”6 From physical differences among people (like skin color or

cranial measurements), various scientists, whether they were European naturalists, craniologists,

or even ethnologists, established intellectual racism that shaped American theology and policies

towards the supposed inferior Indians and African-Americans. Examples of racial separation are

inherent in the 1830 Indian Removal Act and colonization. Advocates supported separation to

protect the American public and to allow the ‘others’ to achieve prosperity outside the white

public sphere.

5 Glenn, 11.6 Thomas Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 37.

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American Indian Policy 1780-1860

Trouble between European settlers and indigenous peoples reaches back to their first

encounters during the 1400s. The two cultures engaged in violent conflicts that resulted in

extraordinary death tolls. Then, when Americans began fighting for their independence, some

indigenous tribes chose to fight on the side of the Americans, whereas others chose allegiances

with the European powers. Regardless of the varying tribal alliances, once America won its

independence, the newly established government seemingly ignored Indian land rights and

excluded many tribes from their homeland. When Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris,

ending America’s War of Independence, they ceded all territory east of the Mississippi, north of

Florida, and south of the Great Lakes to the United States.7 While the victory essentially created

the boundaries for a new nation, Great Britain transferred land ownership that never truly

belonged to them. The land they relinquished was in fact Indian homelands; consequently

placing tribal nations between the actual possession and protection of their lands, against the

“formally” and “legally” processed Treaty of Paris. In a message to the Commissioners of the

United States, roughly thirteen different tribes responded that

We never made any agreement with the king (of Britain), nor with any other nation, that we would give to either the exclusive right to purchase our lands, and we declare to you that we consider ourselves free to make any bargain or cession of lands whenever and to whomever we please. If the white people, as you say, made a treaty that none of them but the king should purchase us, and he has given that right to the United States, it is an affair which concerns you and him, and not us. We have never parted with such power.8

7 “Treaty of Paris 1763,” accessed November 19, 2015, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/paris763.asp. Found in articles VII, XX, and XXIV. Also, Colin Calloway, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012), 228.8 Calloway, 261.

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The newly established American government conflicted greatly with the Indian tribes over land

claims, and this troubled relationship created genuine fear in many American citizens. In 1791,

the Secretary of War, General Arthur St. Clair, wrote to Congress insisting that they “dictate [an]

adequate military force [to] be raised as soon as possible, [and place] them upon the frontier” to

protect their own families and prevent the Indians from “spreading terror and destruction.”9 As

General St. Clair’s requests suggests, the bordering white settlements feared Indian retaliation,

and thus military protection became essential. The violent disputes among tribal and American

land claims continued into the 1800s and forced the American government to take action.

Following their British predecessors, the United States established an Indian department

(under the War Department) that created guidelines toward the sale or transfer of Indian lands

and regulated American advancement into the western frontier.10 After the resignation of

General St. Clair, the Indian Office appointed Anthony Wayne in his place. While engaged in

yet another bloody Indian war, in 1814 Wayne proposed the Treaty of Greensville, which offered

peace to “the Delawares, Shawanoes, Miamis, and Wyandots…and to all other Indian nations,

northwest of the Ohio, whom it may concern.”11 The Treaty of Greensville recommended that

the Indian tribes relinquish all land claims surrounding, in, or near American territories, and in

return the United States would relinquish “their claims to all other Indian lands northward of the

Ohio river, eastward of the Mississippi, and westward and southward of the great lakes and the

waters uniting them.”12 Most importantly, Wayne promised that “The Indian tribes who have a

right to the lands, are quietly to enjoy them…without any molestation from the United States.”13

9 George Manypenny, Our Indian Wards, (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1860), 73.10 Note the Bureau of Indian Affairs was not established until 1824 and it stayed under the War Department until 1849 when it transferred to the Department of the Interior. Calloway, 235.11 It is believed that St. Clair was forced to resign after his humiliating defeat in the 1791 Battle of the Wabash. Manypenny, 81.12 Manypenny, 81.13 Manypenny, 82.

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Wayne’s peace proposal did not account for the tribal claims already placed inside American

territories, which to the Indians holding this land meant an “open invasion by the whites, who

were not slow in improving the opportunity thus offered to intrude on the Indian lands.”14 The

America people may have gained their independence but the battle over land had just begun.

Perhaps following the Indian Office’s peace attempts, in 1802 the U.S. Supreme Court

ruled that “the Indian nations possessed a full right to the lands they occupied…[and] that their

territory was separated from that of any State within whose chartered limits they might reside by

a boundary line.”15 The Supreme Court’s decision recognized tribal sovereignty, which placed

Indian boundaries outside federal and state powers. Although the Court’s rulings seemed to

create a new start between the rivaling nations, the peace time did not last. Although the 1802

Supreme Court recognized Indian internal sovereignty, the justices could not pass or enact any

laws that made this declaration enforceable—let alone enforceable on a federal level that ruled

over individual states’ rights. Because of this conflict between ostensible legal rights and actual

legislative practice, when American territories like Alabama wanted to expand before entering

into statehood, the local government demanded their rights from the federal government to rid

the Indian nations from the wanted territory.16

No one took this problem more seriously than President Andrew Jackson. In his opening

message to the 21st Congressional Session, he exclaimed, “It gives me great pleasure to announce

to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty

14 MAnypenny, 83.15 “U.S. Supreme Court: Worcester v. Georgia,” accessed December 7. 2014, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/31/515/case.html.16Michael Green, The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis, (University of Nebraska Press, 1982).

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years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond white settlements, is approaching to a

happy consummation.”17 Continuing, he insisted that

a speedy removal will…separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites;…and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government, and through the influences of good councils, to cast off their savage habits, and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.18

Specifically in regards to the government’s responsibility to its new states such as Mississippi,

Ohio, Alabama, and Indiana, President Andrew Jackson told Congress that

the General Government should…remove every obstruction to the complete jurisdiction of the State Governments over the soil…It is, therefore, a duty which this Government owes to the new States, to extinguish, as soon as possible, the Indian title to all lands which Congress themselves have included within their limits.19

Intending a speedy removal, Jackson thought that the “good citizens” needed to be relieved

“from the evils, [whether] real or imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may be…

threatened.”20

While a huge part of Jackson’s enthusiasm for removal stemmed from the fear of Indian

reprisal and even the states’ demands for more territory, another important aspect to his policy

aspired to make the Indian “civilized.” A popular political belief, going as far back as Thomas

Jefferson’s presidency, argued that “too much [Indian] land was a disincentive for Indians to

become ‘civilized’…[because they] would continue to hunt rather than settle down as farmers.”21

In other words, if Indians continued to have access to the vast majority of lands in the U.S., they

could not reach their full potential as agriculturists like the citizens under the American

17 “A Century of Lawmaking for a new Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875- 21st Congress, 2nd Session,” accessed October 20, 2015, p. ix, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llrd&fileName=010/llrd010.db&recNum=439.18 “A Century of Lawmaking,” ix.19 “A Century of Lawmaking,” x.20 “A Century of Lawmaking,” x.21 “A Century of Lawmaking,” x.

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government. By and large, Jackson believed the United States, and the Indians for that matter,

would be better suited apart from one another. Only through the white and Indian cultural

separation, would each society flourish in the lands they call home. With the enthusiastic

support of President Jackson, the Indian Removal Act passed in 1830, forcing all Indian nations

west of the Mississippi in exchange for their existing lands within state borders.22

Although the Indian Removal Act passed, that did not mean that the Indian tribes were

willing to relocate. As evidence, in 1831, the eastern Cherokee Nation sued the state of Georgia

over their constitution power in regards to Indian removal—a case that is known as Cherokee

Nation v. Georgia. In response to this lawsuit, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall wrote

that the “Cherokees constituted a ‘domestic, dependent nation’ that existed under the

guardianship of the United States;”23 and therefore, the court did not have the power to enforce

Georgia’s laws (particularly those of forceful relocation). Following this case, Georgia

prohibited all “white persons,” including missionaries and teachers, from living within the

Cherokee Nation. A missionary by the name of Samuel Worcester, and numerous other

missionaries and teachers were arrested for failing to comply with these orders. Upon his arrest,

Worcester sued the Georgian government over unlawful detainment. Within his case, Worcester

v. Georgia, Chief Justice Marshall again stated that the “Cherokee Nation remained a separate,

sovereign nation with a legitimate title to its national territory,” ruling against the Georgia laws

one more time and in favor of Worcester.24 Between Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester

v. Georgia, the Cherokee people “hoped the decision[s] would persuade the federal government

to intervene against Georgia and end the talk of removal;” however, “Georgia ignored the

22 “Primary Documents in American History,” accessed on October 20, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html.23 “Government & Politics: U.S. Supreme Court Cases,” accessed November 20, 2015, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/worcester-v-georgia-1832.24 Fun fact, Worcester’s lawyers were hired and paid for by the Cherokee Nation. “Government & Politics.”

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Supreme Court’s ruling…[and] President Jackson did not enforce the decision against the state

and instead called on the Cherokees to relocate or fall under Georgia’s jurisdiction.”25 Even

though these cases still resulted in the eastern Cherokee removal, the decisions became the

foundations for recognizing tribal sovereignty throughout the remaining nineteenth and twentieth

centuries.

Shaping its Native American outlook around fear, the American government consistently

viewed native inhabitants as the ‘others’ and separate from themselves. Consequently, within

the mid-1800s, the U.S. government created a defined space for Native Americans. Termed

“reservations,” the government clearly articulated borders that separated the American public

from the predominantly viewed “dependent race.” As 1848 Indian Commissioner William

Medill claimed,

The policy already begun is, as rapidly as it can safely and judiciously be done, to colonize our Indian tribes beyond the reach, for some years, of our white population, confining each within a small district of country. 26

As such, in 1851, Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act, which forced American Indians

to live on designated territories, typically in the Midwest/western United States. Importantly, the

Appropriation Act represented a total political shift from Anthony Wayne’s Treaty at Greensville

and the 1802 Supreme Court declaration, which acknowledged tribal sovereignty as an extension

to Indian land claims, and instead altered the government’s stance to the creation of the

reservation system.27 Disputes over land claims forced the American government to rid the

territory of Indians; but, equally as important was the fear of retaliation from the ‘others’—

referring to those unlike the white culture—that many Americans experienced. Rather than 25 “Government & Politics.”26 “The Reservation System: Overview,” accessed August 19, 2015. http://www.ndstudies.org/articles/the_reservation_system_overview.27 “Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness,” last modified December 5, 2013, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/317.html.

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acknowledging individual native citizenship rights in the United States, the government chose to

relocate the Indian tribes and completely remove their presence from America territory and

culture.

ColonizationAlthough the Indian removal and reservation policies developed because of land claim

disputes and retaliation fears, the American relocation plans were not limited to only Native

Americans. By the 1800s, many Americans supported African colonization plans that would

remove all free blacks from United States territory. This distinct philosophy of African-

American colonization progressed during America’s antebellum years, because at this time,

Americans were becoming divided among the issue of slavery and its future within the United

States. On one side lay the philanthropists and abolitionists, and on the other, slave owners that

feared a slave rebellion (one of the many aftermaths of the Haitian Revolution). In his book, The

Half Has Never Been Told, historian Edward Baptist explains how within the newly emerging

world economy, American slavery came to play an important role in capitalism. For one, as

cotton production grew, its transformation into a textile rose, the supply of enslaved people on

the national slave market increased; or as Baptist explains

the price of slaves had begun to track closely with the revenue generated by the average cotton hand. Demands from cotton-state slave buyers increased when the product of two factors multiplies together—the number of pounds picked times the price per pound—was high.28

The increasing value of slaves allowed Southern slave owners to claim their slaves as assets,

which banks viewed as collateral for loans.

The term ‘bubble’ gets used to describe a situation which an important asset has become wildly overvalued compared to

28 Edward Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 173.

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realistic predictions of future returns. From 1800 onward, the price of slaves—the most important asset in the southern economy—had always tracked that of cotton, or, more specifically, the rate of individual productivity times the price per pound of cotton. In 1834, however, slave prices detached themselves from that of cotton and soared upward on a new trajectory. By the time [one Louisiana man] bought dozens of slaves on credit…in 1836…he paid…more than twice the 1830 price, even though cotton prices had declined.29

Concurrently, locally and federally unregulated banks freely printed and lent money based on

irrationally high asset bubbles. Baptist argues that slavery drove the economy and undoubtedly

contributed to the cause of the Civil War.

Likewise, in In The Presence of Mine Enemies, historian Edward Ayers follows two

counties—Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania—and shows how these

counties seemingly transitioned from peaceful neighbors into enemies divided by the Civil War.

Ayers argues that leading up to the 1860 election, the American people—particularly the voting

individuals—profoundly disagreed on the future of their country. Mostly, their differences

derived from the varying economic securities and prospects affecting daily life. According to

Ayers, many white southerners relied on slavery to continue their agricultural dominance. For

example, in Virginia, “Augusta’s farms, productive and valuable, were worth nearly eleven

million dollars, the highest in Virginia…[and] none of this would have been possible without the

skill and sweat of slaves.”30 Slavery influenced nearly every aspect of southern life. Therefore,

when Northern morality and free labor ideals started shifting, Southern populations began

fearing the loss and transition away from slavery.

Colonization provided somewhat of a middle ground for the opposing views; and like

Indian removal, aimed to relocate the free black population, thus forming a new colony or

29 Baptist, 269-270.30 Edward Ayers, In the Presence of Min Enemies: War in the Heart of America 1859-1863, (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2003), 18.

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reservation rather than granting slaves full equality in the United States.31 Believing that blacks

could never fully assimilate into American culture, Quaker ship captain Paul Cuffee gained much

Congressional, British, and free black leader’s support to annually bring freed blacks to Sierra

Leone and establish a new colony.32 On January 2, 1811, Cuffee took his first all African-

America voyage to Freetown, Sierra Leone with the hopes of launching businesses and trade

from the African continent. Joining the previously established British colony, which was the

headquarters for the Royal British Navy’s West African Squadron whose mission captured

illegal slave ships and released their cargo into Sierra Leone, Cuffee’s voyagers integrated into

their existing community.33 Similarly, in 1816, Presbyterian minister Robert Finley, continued

the colonization effort and founded the American Colonization Society (ACS). Rather than

bringing blacks to Cuffee’s Sierra Leone colony, the ACS believed in establishing a new

settlement in Liberia. “Between 1820 and1831, nearly 3,000 black emigrants” went to the

ACS’s Liberian colony.34 Advocates for colonization, like Cuffee and the ACS, argued that this

plan would cleanse the United States of racial violence and slavery via voluntarily relocation. As

such, many religious ACS activists claimed that “it is impossible, in the nature of things, that

unkind feelings or prejudices towards a people can long survive benevolent efforts for their

improvement.”35 Even though some free blacks experienced some measure of equality within

the states, their experiences would not outlast the destructive and negative bigotries thriving in

31 “American Colonization Society 1816-1865,” accessed August 19, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1521.html.32 Interestingly, Paul’s mother, Ruth Moses, was Native American. “The African-American Mosaic,” accessed October 21, 2015. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam002.html.33 This voyage brought 38 African-Americans for the new settlement. “Cuffee, Paul, Sr. (1759-1817),” accessed November 20, 2015, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/cuffe-paul-sr-1759-1817. Also, “Freetown, Sierra Leone (1792- -),” accessed November 20, 2015, http://www.blackpast.org/gah/freetown-sierra-leone-1792.34 “American Colonization Society (1816-1964),” accessed November 20, 2015, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/american-colonization-society-1816-1964.35 David Brion Davis, The Problem with Slavery in the Age of Emancipation, (Borzoi Book, 2004), 107.

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American society at that time. Correspondingly, a northern democratic newspaper, the

Pennsylvania Valley Spirit, encouraged colonization by arguing

It is a law of nature…that two antagonistic races cannot exist side by side without one holding the other in subjection. It must then become a struggle between the white man and the black man for supremacy.36

The Valley Spirit proclaimed that in order to reach full emancipation freed black men cannot stay

within the same borders. But for many colonization supporters, colonization was more than

simply ridding the prejudices that doomed freedmen of color, relocation was the only way to free

the blacks from a narrow-minded environment and give them hopes of becoming fully civilized

—a remarkably similar philosophy that President Jackson utilized while removing the Indians in

1830. Renowned historian David Brion Davis explains that “Freed blacks and coloreds

everywhere occupied a marginal and ambiguous status, neither slave nor genuinely free…

circumscribed by legal disabilities and barred from the more prestigious occupations and

professions;”37 ultimately impeding their progress towards civilization. Given full freedoms

abroad, African-Americans would not be hindered with racial bias and could grow into their

natural potential. The ACS furthered the belief by portraying the freed blacks as saviors or

“latter-day Pilgrims who would carry to Africa the seed of Christianity and American

civilization.”38 Furthermore, in its third annual report (published in 1821), the ACS reported that

the African natives welcomed the new black American colony and depicted that “they go to meet

their friends and brothers…as the harbinger of civilization and social happiness.”39 For the ACS

and others, colonization provided an opportunity to spread Christianity and shape another part of

the world.36 “Civil War-Era Newspapers- Valley Spirit: March 12, 1862,” accessed August 19, 2015, http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/news/vs1862/pa.fr.vs.1862.03.12.xml.37 Davis, 57.38 Davis, 99.39 Davis, 107.

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Even though the American Colonization Society supported a new colony in Africa, it was

not the only colonization proposal during this time. Following President Jackson’s 1830 Indian

Removal Act, proponents of black colonization began searching west for a potential black

settlement. In 1859 Senator James Doolittle suggested purchasing a cheap homestead in the

West that gives whites an opportunity to settle in the Great Plains, and for freed blacks to

relocate in Central America and Mexico. Doolittle felt this proposal served as “A generous

homestead policy for both races” that may even provide economic benefits for the U.S. later

down the line.40 To turn this plan into reality, Senator Doolittle needed Mexico’s approval and

acceptance for an African-American colony in their territory. For proponents of colonization

like U.S. consul Robert Shufeldt, Secretary of State William Seward and U.S. ambassador

Thomas Corwin, the 1861 Mexican Civil War provided just the right opportunity. Coincidently,

the civil war was draining Mexico’s national treasury. Mexico defaulted on its foreign loans,

causing England, France, and Spain to seize Mexico’s largest port in Veracruz. The new Liberal

government under Benito Juarez needed help.41 Recognizing the unfortunate, yet opportunistic

situation, Shufeldt, Seward and Corwin developed a plan to aid Mexico and relieve the United

States of emancipated blacks. The proposition allowed the U.S. to lend money to the Mexican

government if they allowed an African-American colony in Tehuantepec—an underdeveloped

territory that was perfect for tropical labor. 42

In a letter dated October 23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln told the Secretary of the Interior,

Caleb Smith, to

direct there [sic] negroes to some of the unoccupied lands of Central America, and…to secure the removal of negroes from this country. I, therefore, recommend that all these points be considered

40 Nicholas Guyatt, “The Future Empire of Our Freedmen: Republican Colonization schemes in Texas and Mexico 1861-1865,” in Civil War Wests (University of California Press, 2015), 98.41 Guyatt, 95.42Guyatt, 95-99.

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and that the contract be so drawn as to secure such advantages as may in your judgement seem desirable for the United States to hold.43

At the president’s order, colonization schemes moved forward. Later that year, Lincoln told

Congress that “It might be well to consider…whether the free colored people already in the

United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.”44

Such claims pushed the original voluntary colonization schemes, like those proposed by the

American Colonization Society, to mandatory racial separation resembling the forced Indian

removal schemes passed thirty years earlier. Finally, on December 31, 1862, one day before the

Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln meet with James R. Doolittle and Bernard Kock—a

Charleston businessman—to plan African removal to Cow Island (just off the Haitian coast) too

cut timber.45 Historian Eric Foner argues that this meeting was President Lincoln’s ‘most

concrete’ step towards colonization because it was Lincoln’s final effort to colonize blacks

outside the American republic.

Prior to his presidential election, Abraham Lincoln entered into a series of debates

challenging the current Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, to his senatorial seat. In the 1850s,

racism was predominant in Midwestern states, like Illinois, and as such, Democratic Douglas

often accused Republican Lincoln of favoring racial equality and a friend to the blacks.46 For

this reason, Lincoln often mentioned his plans for colonization, and its support by the Republican

Party. During a speech in Springfield, Illinois on June 26, 1857—made in response to

Democratic Stephen Douglas’s speech made just two weeks prior—Lincoln told the crowd:

43 Roy Basler, edit., “To Caleb Smith October 23, 1861,” in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Rutgers University Press: N.J., 1953-1955). This source will be referred to as CW.44 Michel Vorenberg, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization,” Journal of Abraham Lincoln Association volume 14, issue 2 (1993), 28.45 Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, (W.W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2010), 239-240.46 Vorenberg, 23-27.

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There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races…I think the authors of that notable instrument (referring to the Declaration of Independence) intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity…[thus] I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are for it, and that the chief plank in their platform—opposition to the spread of slavery—is most favorable to that separation. Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization…it is morally right…to transfer the African to his native clime.47

Upon hearing this speech and then Lincoln’s subsequent victory as the United States President,

many of those opposed to his views found real threats to colonization and feared forceful

deportation. Considering the American government supported removal once—leading to the

Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears—colonization could happen at any moment.

Yet, Lincoln was a skilled politician. In his article, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of

Black Colonization,” Brown University Professor and historian Michael Vorenberg argues that

Lincoln not only advocated for colonization because of his personal views toward blacks, but he

was equally motivated to support colonization as a means of gaining political support. Within

his analysis, Vorenberg suggests that Lincoln “cared less about the actual details of colonization

[and more] about offering it as a way of gaining border state acceptance of emancipation.”48 As

the Emancipation Proclamation came closer to its final enactment, Lincoln continued to push for

colonization. Lincoln recognized “the political necessity of keeping emancipation tied to

colonization…[because] any plan of emancipation that did not include colonization would be

47 CW, “Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857.”48 Vorenberg, 31.

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constructed as a program of racial equality,” which would be disastrous to his political career, as

well as, provide the ignition for border state secession.49

Likewise, historian Eugene Berwanger believes President Lincoln used colonization as

part of a larger, and more gradual, emancipation plan. In his work, “Lincoln’s Constitutional

Dilemma: Emancipation and Black Suffrage,” Berwanger explains that Lincoln launched a

‘gradual emancipation effort’, which would lawfully allow him to issue a full emancipation by

gently gaining border state abolition support without pushing them too far away and causing

secession. According to Berwanger’s analysis, “if the individual states were empowered to

legalize slavery, they might just as legally abolish it;” therefore, if Lincoln could gain such

approval, then each state would be employing their freedom of choice to support the Union,

allowing Lincoln to grant full emancipation within his legal power.50 As part of his ‘gradual

emancipation’, Lincoln arranged to compensate the slaveholders in each state that abolished

slavery within a short time frame. In doing so, he was advocating for the eventual decline of

slavery over time and not its immediate deterioration. Lincoln carried these same thoughts into

his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by linking northern emancipation to compensation

and colonization to ensure border state approval.51

Within the fluctuating wartime climate, it was essential for President Lincoln to appease

as many people as possible. In his work, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American

Slavery, Eric Foner details the complex political strategies that Lincoln undoubtedly utilized

throughout his career. Fearing that “a direct assault on slavery would drive the border to

secede,” Lincoln strategically advocated for a gradual and compensated emancipation plan that

49 Connecting with Eric Foner’s analysis that Lincoln’s ‘most concrete’ step toward colonization happened on December 31, 1882. Vorenberg, 40.50 Eugene H. Berwanger, “Lincoln’s Constitutional Dilemma: Emancipation and Black Suffrage,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association volume 5, issue 1, 30.51 James McPherson, “How President Lincoln Decided to Issue the Emancipation Proclamation,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 37, 108-109.

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would end their territorial slavery by 1900.52 Additionally, Foner tells that President Lincoln

relied on colonization schemes to ease the anxieties of the Northern states, particularly those

with slave-holding territories on the southern border, that the growing freed black population

would not burden their state or working American citizens. In fact, Lincoln argued that along

with the gradual emancipation, colonization would benefit the white population, “Labor is like

any other commodity on the market…Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black

laborer [and]…you increase the demand for and the wages of white labor.”53 Hence, within his

annual message to Congress on December 1, 1862, Lincoln asked for “a constitutional

amendment authorizing…appropriate fund[s] for colonization” because this plan “offered a

‘compromise’ between advocates of abolition with the freed-people remaining ‘with us’, and

those who favored gradual abolition and their ‘removal’.”54 Ever the adroit politician, President

Lincoln used colonization schemes to unite the Lower North on the inevitable emancipation of

slaves within the United States.

Despite significant attempts made by President Lincoln, the American Colonization

Society, and even Paul Cuffee, Eric Foner tells that many attempts failed because “colonization

could not go forward without the agreement of the relevant governments,” and Lincoln never

received concrete treaties securing removal of black peoples from America.55 Yet, the American

Colonization Society, or colonization efforts in general, did not die with Lincoln and the Civil

War; merely, colonization activities were much stronger and more apparent from 1816-1863—

so, what changed? Put simply, the prolonged Civil War battle swayed the Union to formally

allow enlistment of black soldiers in their regiments, as well as pass the Emancipation

52 Foner, 210. Additionally, Foner explains how this action prevented “half the army” from laying down their arms as well.53 Foner, 236.54 Foner, 236.55 Foner, 233.

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Proclamation. Combined, the two acts demonstrate a political shift from removal philosophies

and influenced the Union government to approach black citizenship rights within their territory.

Black Union Soldiers and the Emancipation Proclamation

Throughout Lincoln’s political career, he often stated that annulling slavery was against

the U.S. Constitution, “Congress…has no power under the Constitution to interfere with…

slavery in the different states,” and that he has “no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with

the institution of slavery in the States where it exists [because] I have no lawful right to do so.” 56

Hence, when the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Lincoln avidly denied

that this was a war against slavery. Even more than a year later, Lincoln wrote to the editor of

the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley and defended himself

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps save the Union.57

Around this same time, in the summer 1862, the War Department called for 300,000 volunteers

to enlist, first in July and then again in August, and twice their enlistments fell drastically short.58

For Congress, as well as Lincoln, the Civil War was evolving into a hard war, and for the Union

to win, they needed to utilize every resource at their disposal. Additionally, more and more

radical Republicans and abolitionists started believing in Fredrick Douglass’s words,

56 Berwanger, “Lincoln’s Constitutional Dilemma,” 28-29.57 CW, “Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862.”58 Foner, 29.

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To fight against slaveholders, without fighting against slavery, is but a half-hearted business. War for the destruction of liberty must be met with war for the destruction of slavery.59

Douglass was effective, and President Lincoln began drafting his plans for emancipation.

Granting freedom to slaves definitely appeased northern abolitionists, but it also directly

threatened Southern leadership. Slave labor was crucial to the Confederacy. Thousands of

slaves worked as agriculturists, providing the Southern armies with butchered meat and produce,

as well as other intensive labor duties, which freed white Confederates for military service.

Hence, in May 1861, at Fort Monroe along the Virginia Peninsula, Major General Benjamin

Butler met with a Confederate officer regarding three escaped slaves now under Butler’s

protection. Citing the Fugitive Slave Act, the Confederate officer demanded the three men be

released into his custody, but Butler responded

You say you have seceded…so you cannot consistently claim them. I shall hold these negroes as contraband of war, since they are engaged in the construction of your battery and are claimed as your property. The question is simply whether they shall be used for or against the Government of the United States.60

Afterwards, Fort Monroe, as well as other Union lines close enough for runaway slaves, became

refuges for hundreds of enslaved “contrabands” escaping the Confederate grasp. Perhaps

following Butler’s lead, in August of that year, President Lincoln signed the First Confiscation

Act, lawfully permitting Union militia to confiscate all slaves fighting with the Confederate

troops “in or upon any fort, navy yard, dock, armory, ship, entrenchment, or in any military or

naval services whatsovever,” as contraband of war.61 However, “the escalating number of

former slaves (contrabands), [combined with the] declining number of white volunteers, and the

increasingly pressing personnel needs of the Union Army,” forced the Northern government to 59 McPherson, “How President Lincoln Decided,” 108.60 Hari Jones, “The Road to Emancipation,” Saving America’s Civil War Battlefields: Civil War Trust, accessed October 30, 2015, http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/emancipation-150/the-road-to-emancipation.html.61 Jones, “The Road to Emancipation.”

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think otherwise.62 Therefore, in July 1862, Congress passed two interrelated laws, the Second

Confiscation Act and the Militia Act, authorizing “into the service of the United States, for the

purposes of…performing camp services or any other labor…persons of African descent;”

ultimately allowing blacks into the Union military services. 63 Although these acts did not

support African-American service in combat, many abolitionists reviewed them as first steps

towards equality. Additionally, Section Thirteen of the Militia Act emancipated all slaves owned

by the Confederate army, freeing all African persons held in Union contraband camps—a

precursor for the Emancipation Proclamation.

While passing the Confiscation and Militia Acts may have seemed inevitable, many

abolitionists and freed black advocates would disagree. Within his work, The Wars of

Reconstruction, historian Douglas Egerton highlights many of the hurdles politicians and other

supporters had to achieve for black enlistment. With the Dred Scott decision in March 1857, the

Supreme Court denied federal citizenship rights to all African-Americans in the United States.

After this ruling, many free blacks feared they could never gain basic American rights and turned

to colonization hoping it would grant them equality.64 But as the fight over the Union rapidly

progressed into the bloodiest battle the American people have ever experienced, black activists

and many political supporters started promoting blacks for military service. Not only was

voluntary military service beneficial to winning the war, but activists argued, “If we establish our

right of equal claims of citizenship with other American people, we shall have done all that is

desirable in this view of our position in the country,” and if “blacks joined the army, white

Americans could no longer deny them a political voice.”65 Fredrick Douglass proclaimed that 62 “The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War,” accessed October 30, 2015, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war/.63 “The Militia Act of 1862,” accessed October 30, 2015, http://www.freedmen.umd.edu/milact.htm.64 Douglas Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2014), 24-25.65 Egerton, 25.

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once black men got “an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and a bullet in his

pocket, [there was] no power on earth [that could] deny that he has earned the right of citizenship

in the United States.”66

In a letter to Ulysses Grant, the commander of all Union forces, General-in-Chief Halleck

wrote

There is now no possible hope of reconciliation. We must conquer the rebels or be conquered by them. Every slave withdrawn from the enemy is the equivalent of a white man put hors de combat.67

The wartime political climate shifted, and for Lincoln, the time had come to announce his plans

for total emancipation. Depending on the historian, President Lincoln offered the Emancipation

Proclamation for a variety of reasons: to follow his moral beliefs towards racial equality; as a

military maneuver compelling southern blacks, particularly the labor force, to abandon the

Confederacy; to encourage more black Union enlistment with the promise of emancipation; or

even as a wartime tactic to gain the support of anti-slavery Britain. On January 1, 1863,

President Lincoln publicly issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which states “I do declare that

all persons held as slaves within said designated States…henceforward shall be free.”68

Importantly, the Emancipation Proclamation decreed that “such persons (freed blacks) of suitable

condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions,

stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service;” extending the 1862

Militia Act and allowing the enlistment of black volunteers to serve as more than laborers.69

Roughly 179,000 freed blacks, or 10% of the Union Army, served during the Civil War.70 As

66 Egerton, 36.67 Hors de combat translates to ‘out of combat.’ McPherson, 108.68 Transcription of the Emancipation Proclamation, Accessed October 30, 2015, https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/transcript.html. 69 “The Emancipation Proclamation: A Transcription,” accessed October 30, 2015, https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/transcript.html.70 “The Fight for Equal Rights.”

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historian Eric Foner explains, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation differed quite dramatically

from his Preliminary draft because black enlistment and slave emancipation was undoubtedly a

war time necessity. Accordingly, Foner tells that on January 1, 1863, Lincoln

abandoned the idea of seeking the cooperation of slaveholders in emancipation, and of distinguishing between loyal and disloyal owners. [Emancipation] was immediate, not gradual; contained no mention of monetary compensation for slaveowners; did not depend on action by the states; and made no reference to colonization…Lincoln still retained an interest in colonization… but he would never again publically advocate for this policy.71

As many Civil War historians have critiqued, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the

slaves within the Southern states participating in the rebellion, and not to those still in the Union.

Yet, as Lincoln made clear throughout his presidency, legally, the commander-in-chief could

only act over enemy property; therefore, he constitutionally did not have the power to

emancipate all slaves within the confines of Union-controlled territories without the individual

states choice to do so. Regardless, Lincoln’s promise of emancipation publically shifted political

policies away from removal via colonization, and now pressed the matters of black citizenship

following the Union victory at the conclusion of the Civil War.

As Lincoln enlisted black volunteers in the Union army, it appeared that he considered

colonization schemes less and instead shifted towards black citizenship policies like suffrage

rights for those intelligent men that served. After Robert E. Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox

on April 9, 1865, the Civil War was over; and six days later, John Wilkes Booth assassinated

President Abraham Lincoln. The fight for black equality and the nation’s reconstruction was

now out of Lincoln’s control, sparking another struggle over America’s political future.

Native Americans in the Civil War

71 Foner, 244.

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In spite of the negative aspects accompanying the 1830s removal, many Indian tribes

agreed to take up arms during the Civil War. In “Native Americans and the Civil War,” historian

Arrell M. Gibson explains how many Indians joined the Civil War by enlisting in either the

Union or Confederate militia, and how others tribes, who were trying to remain impartial,

resisted direct involvement by holding off American militarization. In 1861, a Confederate

supply officer surveyed the Indian Territory and reported that “its farms, plantations, and ranches

could provide beef, hide, horse, and grain, as well as salt and land—items particularly important”

for their war effort.72 Yet, despite the abundant resource potential within the western Indian

lands, the 1861 Union Secretary of War ordered the military to abandon all posts from Indian

Territory. In doing so, the Union violated its treaty pledges to protect the Indian tribes, as well

as, left massive regions, like Texas and Arkansas, exposed to Confederate domination. 73 As

Gibson explains, “just as the Union was abandoning the Indian Territory, the Confederacy was

showing strong interest in it as a source of supply…and manpower for Southern armies.”74 The

Southern government enlisted Albert Pike to negotiate with the Five Civilized Tribes, the

Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee, to take up the Confederate cause. By

aligning with the Southern war effort, the Five Tribes directly terminated their previous treaties

with the United States government and chose to fight against it.75

On the other hand, some Native American tribes sided with the Union army. For

example, on October 1, 1861, the Delaware Nation proclaimed its Union support, and in January

1862, when the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, William Dole, asked for Indian volunteers, he

received remarkable enlistment from the Seminole, Kickapoo, Osage, Shawnee, Delaware,

72 Arrell Morgan Gibson, “Native Americans and the Civil War,” American Indian Quarterly volume 9 number 4, (1985), 387.73 Gibson, 387.74 Gibson, 388.75 Gibson, 388.

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Chickasaw, and Choctaw, forming the 1st and 2nd Indian Home Guard.76 Moreover, perhaps the

most famous Indian regiment was Company K of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters, which served

under General Ulysses Grant and participated in the Battle of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania.77

Overall, approximately 20,000 Native Americans served in the Civil War.78

While some tribes directly participated in the Northern and Southern war effort, others

were indirectly pulled into war because of the numerous military encroachments on their

territory. When both Confederate and Union forces assigned military regiments out west, mainly

to secure trade routes and the hugely important transcontinental telegraph line, the troops were

trampling all over Indian reservations.79 Not only was the military presence invading tribal land,

but it also scared away animal herds that were essential to Indian hunting patterns. As a result,

some tribes began fighting back. For example, in Minnesota, the military presence sparked the

Santee Sioux uprising, in which the Sioux killed approximately 700 settlers before retreating

west to the Canadian or Dakota Sioux territories. Moreover, in 1862, Confederate forces

attacked the Southern Kickapoo (or the Mexican Kickapoo), causing ruthless retaliation on the

Texas-Mexico border for the next fifteen years.80 Additionally, in 1863, after heavy military

pressure, the Colorado Ute tribe eventually seceded their San Luis Valley lands in return for new

territory west of the Continental Divide.81 But perhaps the most remembered consequence of

western militarization is the Sand Creek massacre, where on November 29, 1864, Colonel John

76 Notice how parts of the Five Civilized Tribes sided with both the Confederacy and the Union. Often times, Indians have been too generalized and people forget that as a vast and intermixed culture, Native American tribes could split and follow new leadership. This is what happened during the Civil War and pieces of the Cherokee tribe, for example, divided and aligned with different powers. 77 “We are all Americans – Native Americans in the Civil War,” accessed November 20, 2015, http://alexandriava.gov/historic/fortward/default.aspx?id=40164.78 “We are all Americans.”79 Remember, the 1851 Indian Appropriation Act resettled tribes west of the Mississippi River, creating their reservations and land ownership under tribal leadership. 80 According to author Arrell Gibson, this violence did not end until 1873 after Colonel Ranald Mackenzie and the Fourth Cavalry made their raid into Mexico.81 Gibson, 401.

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Chivington ordered the slaughter of at least two-hundred Cheyenne men, women, and children.82

Because of the continuous battles over Indian land (also known as the Indian Wars which began

with European colonization), the 1880s would bring attempted assimilation practices under the

Dawes Act and increased restrictions to Indian reservation territory.

Reconstruction

Once the Civil War ended, the American government had to figure out how to repair and

reunite their divided country. With regards to incorporating Native Americans and freed

African-Americans into the American republic, between 1865 and 1890 the government’s

policies differed quite dramatically. As for African-Americas, in his work, The Wars of

Reconstruction, historian Douglas Egerton recapitulates the complexities of America’s

Reconstruction Era and shows that although the Unionist North won the war, equality was not

necessarily won for blacks. Reformers did not agree on how to acclimate the newly freed slaves

into their existing systems such as voting rights and education. For one, many Southern “whites

resorted to the sort of brutality common in earlier decades in hopes of restoring the lost world of

the old South;”83 and brought Southern society under Jim Crow, ultimately keeping black

citizens from enacting any rights. However, Egerton does not argue racism was the only cause

for violence or ‘wars’ against political and cultural progression, but that class differences proved

overwhelming as well, “Teachers rarely advocated social equality, in part because in their

northern communities they rarely associated with immigrants or the laboring poor.”84

Despite the complex and interweaving webs of reform, reconstruction was not a total

failure. In January of 1865, Lincoln—albeit controversially—persuaded Congress to pass the

82 Gibson, 401-402.83 Egerton, 111.84 Egerton, 150.

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Thirteenth Amendment, solidifying his Emancipation Proclamation into the Constitution,

declaring “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any

place subject to their jurisdiction.”85 The Amendment was the first constitutional specification to

directly limit the freedoms and rights of American citizens by outlawing their right to own

slaves.86 Moreover, a large part of reconstruction involved the Bureau of Freedman or the

Freedman’s Bureau. Established in a Congressional act in March 1865, the Bureau was created

to “care for the millions of newly freed slaves and the administration of Southern lands seized by

Union forces during the war.”87 The Bureau distributed food, clothing, fuel, and medical

supplies to the freemen, and sought to regulate labor and contracts in the confiscated Confederate

lands.88 While the Freedman’s Bureau only lasted until 1868, the government tried to establish

black citizenship and stability within the newly conquered southern territory. Additionally, in

July 1868, Congress ratified the Fourteenth Amendment granting “All persons born or

naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United

States and of the state wherein they reside.”89 Although these Congressional Amendments and

Acts demonstrated promising reforms after the war, the Reconstruction Era fell short of

becoming Americans most progressive era. As evidence of the lack of sustaining political

reform at this time, Egerton tells that “the wars of Reconstruction had entered a new campaign,

as writers, activists, and intellectuals [on both sides] sought to impose their visions of the period

on[to the twentieth century] American readers.”90

85 “13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” accessed November 2, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html.86 “Constitution Daily: Abraham Lincoln as Constitutional Radial,” accessed November 2, 2015, http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/07/abraham-lincoln-as-constitutional-radical-the-13th-amendment/. 87 “About the Freedmen’s Bureau,” The Valley of the Shadow, accessed November 2, 2015, http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/VoS/fbureau/aboutbureau.html.88 “About the Freedmen’s Bureau.”89 “U.S. Constitution,” accessed December 10, 2014, http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/overview.90 Egerton, 319-320.

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While reconstruction was not finally consummated until the 1960s Civil Rights

Movement, the era was definitely more progressive for black citizenship than the previous years

had been for Native American rights. The Civil War encapsulated American politics and

narrowed reformation to the African slave problems. But as politicians and black activism

pushed for racial equality, neither party returned to the 1851 Indian Appropriation Act nor the

1830 Indian Removal Act; leaving Native Americans trapped on reservations, slowly starving to

death due to their infertile lands and hunting restrictions. As William Apess, an Indian advocate,

asserted in his 1833 “An Indian‘s Looking Glass for the White Man,”

Can you charge the Indian with robbing a nation almost of their whole continent, and murdering their women and children, and then depriving the remainder of their lawful rights, that nature and God require them to have? And to cap the climax, rob another nation to till their grounds and welter out their days under the lash with hunger and fatigue under the scorching rays of a burning sun?91

Despite their war contributions, why were Native Americans left separated on reservations while

blacks were integrated into the American republic via citizenship? Perhaps one truth lies with

the fact that both slaves and freedmen were more incorporated into the white American society;

yet, some could argue that Indians were influential in the American culture as well—so what was

different? Put simply, Indians held land. As many businesses and settlers continued moving

west and developed Indian land for resources and profit, the original sphere that was created for

Indians did not remain in place for long. Not only did the intruding white settlements bring

about cultural conflict between native tribes and American society, but it also demonstrated the

general lack of citizenship status attributed to the Indian population at the time. Just fifty years

prior to westward expansion, the American government considered Indian tribes as quasi-

91 Again, President Jackson enforced the Indian Removal Act in 1830 so Apess’s article was written three years after. Calloway, 319.

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sovereign nations, they remained separate from the U.S. but respected enough to require treaties

establishing fair trade and peaceful relations; yet, by the later 1800s, politicians viewed their

once politically defined tribal land as available for public consumption. As a result, American

policies stepped away from isolation via removal onto reservations and shifted towards Indian

assimilation in the American public via individual land ownership under the Dawes Act.

Concern over the exploitation of tribal space forced some U.S. politicians to push for

protective legislation. One notable politician is Senator Henry Dawes. In 1887, Senator Dawes

proposed the General Allotment Act, or the Dawes Act, which stipulates:

The President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes to cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservations in severalty to any Indian.92

In general, the Dawes Act took the larger, reservation land and divided it into smaller segments

for individual tribal members with the hope of aiding their economic independence. By

establishing individual Indian economic independence, the public’s earlier notions of standing

(term that recognizes an individual as a full adult capable of exercising choice and assuming

responsibilities) changed. One main governing public principle grants economically independent

individuals the right to vote. Therefore, the General Allotment Act proposed more than just the

protection of Indian land, it paved the way for full Native American citizenship in the American

republic. Moreover, the Dawes Act states that individual land allottees would benefit as subjects

to the laws, classifying their rights as more than civil citizenship (equality before the law and the

protection of person and property) and bridged the gap towards Indian political citizenship—the

92 New Perspective on the West: The Dawes Act,” accessed March 24, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/dawes.htm.

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right to vote as qualified individuals via land owning independence.93 Ultimately, Senator Henry

Dawes General Allotment Act theoretically gave citizenship rights to Indians, signifying their

potential full membership in the U.S.’s collective public/national identity.

Additionally, other supporters of allotment hoped that redefining Native American space

granted Indians “a security which no tribal possession [like reservations] could afford him.”94

Under strict government patents, individual allottees received U.S. recognized documentation

that secured their land from future trespasses. As the1881 U.S. Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz

wrote, “There is nothing more dangerous to an Indian reservation than a rich mine” and

allotment ideologies legally (via U.S. government patents) stopped these threats.95 However, the

General Allotment Act did not contain exact definitions of ‘Indian land’ and as such left the act

vulnerable to loopholes. For one, there are two definitions for individually owned tribal land, (1)

trust land - where the federal government holds the legal land title but the beneficial interest

remains with the individual Indian, and (2) restricted fee land - where an individual Indian holds

the legal land title but with restrictions against alienation or encumbrance. Making matters more

complicated, there are multiple classifications to tribal land ownership that influenced the

American government’s legal claim of such property. There are three kinds of tribally owned

land. The first two are defined as individually owned tribal land—trust land and restricted fee

land. The third type is termed fee land purchased by tribes, which allows the tribe to acquire the

legal land title under specific statutory authority, including land outside the initial reservation.

Typically, fee land ownership outside of a reservation is not subject to the same legal restrictions

against alienation or encumbrance like restricted fee land.96 One loophole that arises with the

93 Glenn, 26.94 D.S. Otis, The Dawes Act and the Allotment of Indian Lands (University of Oklahoma Press, 1898), 13.95 Otis, 13.96 “Tribal and Indian Land,” accessed 3-25-2015, http://teeic.indianaffairs.gov/triballand/.

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many different classifications of land ownership is the American government positioned itself to

hold numerous Indian land titles by simply classifying their ownership under a trust. Rather than

giving “every Indian a home that he could call his own,” as the 1870 Commissioner of Indian

Affairs had hoped, reservation land became trusted to individual Indian owners that never fully

held the title and security that legal patents promised to offer.97

Not all opposition to the Dawes Act stemmed within white culture—tribal resistance

existed as well. Some tribesmen felt allotment invited “white economic penetration (in the

matter of both individual lands and tribal holdings)” and they feared what white cultural

penetration would follow as well.98 As author Roger Bromert states, land allotment represents

“an attempt to assimilate the Indians into the white man’s culture by distributing reservation

lands in severalty” causing a communal reservation place to be divided among individuals,

ultimately recreating a system that is more similar to American land policies than tribal

customs.99 Moreover, any unclaimed allotments where made available for non-native purchase,

further dividing Indian communal land to include American settlers. Prior to the 1880s and the

Dawes Act, tribal land governance resembled a communistic or kin-based sociopolitical entity,

meaning individuals sought progress and equality for all their people by contributing their excess

wealth to tribal leaders for broader distribution (a communal access to strategic resources). In

contrast, the American public practiced democracy, which encourages its citizens to achieve

individual success, a philosophy that potentially creates an unequal distribution of wealth and

resources instead of communal donation and redistribution. Overall, allotment policies

encouraged a holistic tribal change (both culturally and politically), and aimed at reshaping

Indian kin-based tendencies to reflect the public’s more ‘civilized’ democracy.97 Otis, 4.98 Otis, 93.99 Edited Richmond L. Clow, The Sioux in South Dakota History (Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2007), 102.

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Although the Dawes Act was controversial, the fact remains that it tried to ‘civilize’ the

Indians by allowing them to become economically independent, which demonstrates a political

policy aimed at including Native Americans into the American public. While many believed this

step should have immediately followed the war, especially with Native enlistment and military

service, politicians finally approached Native American citizenship in the later 1880s and

continued these policies into the twentieth century. Even though Native rights were discussed

later than African-American rights, some could argue that this left the Indian better off. For

example, by December 1865, the southern state legislators created the first Black Codes

specifically limiting “persons of color” right to vote, travel freely, serve on juries, and work in

occupations of their choice. 100 Moreover, fifteen years later, a “majority of American states

enforced segregation through ‘Jim Crow’ laws,” ultimately denying black citizens their civil

liberties for nearly eighty more years.101 When analyzing Native American and African-

American citizenship from 1865-1890, it is rather ironic that the Dawes Act and segregation

evolved in the same time. The Dawes act sought to incorporate Native Americans into the

American public, whereas segregation targeted black exclusion; representing another political

shift in post-reconstruction policies. Citizenship is malleable and classifications for such

fluctuate over time, leaving historians with endless complexities when dealing with colonization,

freedom, and citizenship among Native Americans and African-Americans from 1800 to 1890.

Conclusion

100 “The Southern ‘Black Codes’ of 1865-66,” Accessed November 24, 2015, http://www.crf-usa.org/brown-v-board-50th-anniversary/southern-black-codes.html.101 “Jim Crow Laws,” accessed November 24, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/malu/learn/education/jim_crow_laws.htm.

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The Civil War changed the American public’s view on citizenship. Prior to the war,

American policies leaned toward the removal of the ‘others’—referring to those different than

the ruling white community—to protect the American public. After the 1830 Indian Removal

Act, Congress passed the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act, establishing defined native territories

in the Midwest/west. Following a similar ideology, in the early 1800s, many free black leaders,

abolitionists, and politicians began campaigning for African colonization. Believing that blacks

could never fully assimilate into the white American culture, colonization sought to remove

blacks and create new colonies, or ‘black reservations’, in various areas throughout the world.

Yet, in 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act and the Militia Act, allowing black

enlistment into the Union military forces. Soon after, President Lincoln enacted the

Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in the Southern Confederacy. Through these

policies, the American ideology completely reversed from earlier removal reform and instead

focused on black citizenship rights. During the Northern reconstruction era, Congress passed the

Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, outlawing slavery and granting citizenship rights to

African-Americans. With regard to American Indians, in 1889 the Dawes Act tried to

incorporate Native Americans into the American public via individual land ownership, which

ironically occurred with the flourishing Jim Crow laws. Classifications of citizenship change

over time and fluctuate with the ruling society. Therefore, prior to the Civil War, the American

public supported Indian separation onto reservations, but afterwards, replaced black colony ideas

with attempts at citizenship and assimilation into the reconstructed American republic.

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