Ohio History Journal

KENNETH E. DAVISON

President Hayes and the Reform of

American Indian Policy

The closing of the frontier by the white man's unbridled expansion into the trans-

Mississippi West during the post-Civil War years created the most critical period of

Indian-white relations in American history. No longer could the Indians simply re-

treat or be removed to lands farther west beyond the pale of white culture. A ma-

jority of "Uncle Sam's 300,000 stepchildren" lived directly in the path of two ad-

vancing white settler lines from East and West which steadily compressed the

Indian tribes into ever smaller corridors of freedom. Alarmed and menaced by the

constant diminishing of their lands and buffalo, the red men gamely resisted white

penetration of their reservations and hunting grounds. Meanwhile the government

in Washington found itself compelled to resolve two urgent questions: what to do

about the Indian, and what agency should handle the coming crisis-the Depart-

ment of the Interior or the War Department?'

For sixty years prior to the creation of the Interior Department in 1849, Indian af-

fairs had been under the complete jurisdiction of the War Department. Thereafter,

a confusing system of divided responsibility evolved, caused by the transfer of the

Indian Bureau, along with various other burdensome agencies from the Treasury,

War, and Navy departments, to the newly created Department of the Interior. Un-

der the system of dual control, a skeleton frontier Army shared authority over In-

dian affairs with a host of civilian agents. In general, the Army sought to protect

frontier settlements and overland routes, suppress warlike tribes, discipline reserva-

tion Indians, and safeguard the Indians from the white men. The Interior Depart-

ment's Indian service, meanwhile, attempted to fulfill treaty commitments, to pro-

vide for the Indians' welfare, and to educate and Christianize the tribes. Although

the policy of neither department operated by unanimous consent, the Army tended

to favor pacification by force, while the Interior program promoted conciliation of

the tribes.

Mixed with government inertia, inefficiency, and indifference, this system had

1. Important studies of the Indian question that have helped in the preparation of this paper include

Loring B. Priest, Uncle Sam's Step-Children: The Reformation of United States Indian Policy, 1865-1887

(New Brunswick, 1942); Henry E. Fritz, The Movement for Indian Assimilation, 1860-1890 (Philadelphia,

1963); Henry G. Waltmann, "The Interior Department, War Department and Indian Policy, 1865-1887"

(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nebraska, 1962). See also Donald J. D'Elia, "The Argu-

ment Over Civilian or Military Indian Control, 1865-1880," The Historian, XXIV (February 1962),

207-225.

Mr. Davison is chairman American Studies Department, Heidelberg College.

205

206                                                             OHIO HISTORY

many drawbacks and proved impossible to administer with full justice to the In-

dians. Attempts to define authority more carefully failed, and much confusion and

recrimination over failures of policy resulted. The Army regularly agitated for the

return of the Indian Bureau to the War Department, arguing that this would be a

more efficient, honest, and economical way of handling the Indian problem. With

equal vigor, the Interior Department, arguing that the Army's policy really meant

extermination of the Indian tribes, stoutly resisted any transfer of Indian affairs

back to the War Department.

In practice both departments were open to criticism. Reports of fraud and mis-

management had long plagued the Indian Bureau, and recurrent Indian uprisings

seemed to disprove the validity of its policy of conciliating the tribes. The Army,

on the other hand, had dealt harshly with Indian prisoners and was responsible for a

number of unwarranted frontier massacres.

Other conditions complicated the problem of divided jurisdiction. The Interior

Department suffered under the burden of the sheer breadth of its administrative re-

sponsibilities and a continual shortage of funds. The undermanned Army could

scarcely wage a major Indian war if required. Fortunately, only a few of the 943

engagements against the Indians from 1865 to 1898 necessitated masses of three or

four thousand men. Faced with an enemy using hit-and-run tactics, the Army's di-

lemma was to balance adequate strength with adequate mobility. To do that, it

broke up into several columns, but this method posed the danger of defeat, as Cus-

ter's annihilation in June 1876 so horribly demonstrated.² To the lack of organic

unity in the administration of Indian affairs must be added the constant turnover of

leadership in the Interior and War Departments. Between 1865 and 1887, no fewer

than ten Secretaries of the Interior, twelve Commissioners of Indian Affairs, thirteen

Secretaries of War (three ad interim), and three generals-in-chief of the Army super-

vised Indian policy, making any kind of continuity and improvement in the quality

of Indian life difficult to attain.

When the Rutherford Hayes administration took office in 1877, it inherited the

unsolved Indian question and all of its ramifications. At first, conditions seemed

not to improve, but by 1879 a new era in Indian policy began to emerge, and by the

time President Hayes and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz left office in March

1881, a decided change in Indian-white relations had occurred. Several factors con-

tributed to the new departure.

In the first place, the last of the major Indian wars was fought.³ No longer would

there be any danger of a general Indian uprising against the American Govern-

ment. The Sioux War of 1876-1877 was the high water mark of Indian resistance

on the Great Plains, and Custer's defeat, just a few days after Hayes was nominated

for President, proved to be the final great Indian victory over the United States

Army in the West. Sitting Bull's isolated band of Sioux escaped to Canada, but at

length, hungry and destitute, recrossed the border and surrendered at Fort Buford,

North Dakota, in July 1881.

Meantime, one of the most remarkable Indian leaders and a superb military strat-

egist, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe, conducted a brilliant retreat of more than

2. Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York, 1967), 267-268.

3. An excellent brief resume of the Indian wars may be found in U. S. National Park Service, Soldier

and Brave: Indian and Military Affairs in the Trans-Mississippi West, Including a Guide to Historic Sites

and Landmarks (New York, 1963), Part I, 1-89. For details of Sitting Bull's surrender, see Gary Penna-

nen, "Sitting Bull: Indian Without a Country," The Canadian Historical Review, LI (June 1970), 123-140.

208                                                                OHIO HISTORY

policy was the ultimate defeat of the "transfer issue" in February 1879 after "one of

the most heated polemic arguments in the history of Congress."⁶ Two major efforts

were conducted after the Civil War (1867-1871 and 1876-1879) to transfer the In-

dian Bureau back to the War Department. The advocates of transfer tended to be

military leaders or westerners, while the defenders of the status quo were largely In-

dian service employees or easterners. Another generalization to note is that the

Democrats, who controlled the House of Representatives, voted for transfer, and the

Republicans, who held a majority in the Senate, opposed transfer. During the sec-

ond great debate, Generals W. T. Sherman and George Crook, both friends of Pres-

ident Hayes, testified in favor of transfer, while Senator William Windom of Min-

nesota, Secretary Schurz, and Indian Commissioner Ezra Hayt led the forces

opposing it. The proposal finally was rejected by Congress for a variety of reasons:

abatement of the Indian wars; effective lobbying by friends of the Indians; and a

rather general feeling that the military was unsuited to govern the Indian tribes.

The significance of the defeat of the transfer movement is that for the first time the

Indian Bureau did not have to be constantly on the defensive but could now turn its

attention to much-needed reform activities.

A third event making the Hayes Indian policy unusual was the appointment of

Carl Schurz, a well-known reformer of independent proclivities, as Secretary of the

Interior.⁷ Schurz held the post for four full years, the first Interior head to do so

since before the Civil War. He not only provided greater continuity and stability

for the department but also worked harder at the job than any of his six predeces-

sors appointed by Johnson or Grant. Furthermore, Schurz, of all the Hayes Cabi-

net officers, most nearly conducted his department in the spirit of the civil service re-

form crusade. He purified the Indian service and led the critical fight to preserve

civilian control over Indian affairs.

Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior, headed a department involving probably

more work and care than any other under the government in 1877. In his charge

were the Indian service with its many officers, over a quarter of a million Indians,

and millions of acres of reservations; the public lands; hundreds of thousands of

government pensioners; the Patent Bureau; all business dealings of the government

with the land-grant railroads; the Bureau of the Census; the Geological and Geo-

graphical Surveys; the charitable institutions of the capital; and many of the public

grounds and parks.

As a student of politics suddenly thrust into high executive office, Schurz was not

expected to be a very practical administrator let alone one up to the standards of his

immediate predecessor, Zachariah Chandler, the Secretary of the Interior, consid-

ered the best official among the practical politicians who had held the post up to

that time.⁸ But Schurz confounded his critics. Whereas Chandler adhered to a

regular office schedule of ten in the morning until four in the afternoon, Schurz,

even though he had a quicker and better-trained mind, established a nine to six rou-

6. Waltmann, "The Interior Department," 304.

7. A very good contemporary analysis of Schurz as Secretary of Interior is Henry L. Nelson, "Schurz's

Administration of the Interior Department," International Review, X (April 1881), 380-396. Other de-

tails are provided by Claude Moore Fuess, Carl Schurz, Reformer, 1829-1906 (Port Washington, New

York, 1963), chaps. 19 and 20.

8. Nelson, "Schurz's Administration," 381. A recent appraisal of Secretary Chandler may be found in

Sister Mary Karl George, R.S.M., Zachariah Chandler: A Political Biography (East Lansing, 1969),

241-248.

Hayes' Indian Policy                                                        211

monly regarded as incapable of being civilized. In April 1878, Pratt and General

Samuel Chapman Armstrong, head of Hampton Institute, a Virginia school for

blacks, began an experiment at Hampton in Indian education by overseeing the

training of seventeen Indian ex-prisoners of war. Armstrong then got Schurz' con-

sent to train an additional fifty Indian pupils. Meanwhile, Pratt, who preferred to

educate Indians separately from Negroes, requested permission to open an Indian

school in the deserted Army barracks at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a proposal endorsed

by both Schurz and Secretary of War George W. McCrary.¹³ Pratt opened the Car-

lisle Indian School in October 1879 with eighty-two Sioux students. Enrollment

climbed steadily, until Congress, faced with a successful experiment, formally au-

thorized the school and voted it financial support in May 1882.

The progress of Indians at Hampton and Carlisle had three immediate effects: it

led to the establishment of a third boarding school for Indians of the Pacific region

at Forest Grove, Oregon; by demonstrating that Indian children were "as bright

and teachable as average white children of the same ages," it helped to arouse a

strong interest in Indian assimilation among benevolent people; and it produced the

most vituperative attack upon advocates of Indian education that western sponsors

of the inferior-race concept could deliver.¹⁴

The hostile view of the West toward Indians had prevailed throughout the 1870's

because public opinion could not be aroused in favor of an undefeated people.

However, the passing of the major Indian wars, the decline of the transfer issue, and

the reforms instituted by Schurz and Pratt brought about a new attitude by the end

of the decade. The time for healing the wounds inflicted on the Indian by the na-

tion had arrived, and the new crusade for Indian reform was sparked by two in-

fluential books published in 1879 and 1881. The first, Our Indian Wards written by

George W. Manypenny Commissioner of Indian affairs under President Pierce,

called attention to the foolish jurisdictional discord between the Department of the

Interior and the Army and arraigned the latter for sharing the worst prejudices of

the frontier against the Indians.15

Far more powerful in its impact on public opinion and the Congress was Helen

Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor which indicted the civil arm of the govern-

ment and, in particular, Secretary Schurz for the wrongs and neglect of Indians.

The irony in this situation was strange indeed. Schurz, the very epitome of sympa-

thetic reform, a man who devoted himself to improving the lot of the helpless tribes,

became the target of a vicious and unrelenting attack by an obscure lady magazine

writer who made literary warfare on behalf of the Indians into a personal crusade.

Her book consisted of a series of powerful vignettes documenting the relations of

twelve important tribes with the federal and state governments. It showed clearly

how the Indian had been obviously victimized by white civilization. Each member

of Congress received a copy as part of the author's campaign to get the nation to

correct its record of Indian mistreatment. In a period of four years prior to her

13. Both Secretary of War McCrary (1877-1879) and his successor, Alexander Ramsey (1879-1881),

had prior experience with Indian affairs. As a Congressman from Iowa, McCrary had served with the

House Committee on Indian Affairs and Ramsey, as a former governor of both the Territory and State of

Minnesota, had firsthand knowledge of red men on the warpath.

14. Fritz, Movement for Indian Assimilation, 166.

15. A Democrat in politics and for many years editor of an Ohio paper, Manypenny had retired from

active participation in public affairs until he was invited by President Hayes to take the chairmanship of

the committee appointed under Act of Congress to treat with the Sioux.

212                                                            OHIO HISTORY

death in 1885, Mrs. Jackson aroused the country to the Indian's plight through ex-

tensive travel, magazine articles, and a highly sentimental second book called

Ramona (1884), a tour deforce novel depicting the decline of California's Spanish

culture and its dependent Indian society.l6

Another event that shook the Hayes administration almost from start to finish

concerned removal of a minor tribe, the Ponca Indians, from their reserve in south-

eastern Dakota to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) during the spring and summer of

1877.17 Through her protest of the Government's treatment of the Poncas Helen

Hunt Jackson first gained prominence as a defender of Indian rights. Public furor

over the plight of the Poncas gradually mounted and finally reached such a pitch

that President Hayes appointed a special commission to deal with the problem.

Hayes and Schurz actually inherited the Ponca question from the Grant adminis-

tration. A peaceful tribe of about eight hundred farming people, the Poncas were

caught in a congressional blunder that gave away their lands to the warlike Sioux.

Just a day before Schurz assumed office, Congress attempted to rectify its error by

transferring the Poncas far to the south. Even though the tribe protested moving to

Indian Territory, the Army forcibly removed them in a pitiful two-month trek com-

plicated by storms, flooding, and epidemic malaria; many died. Upon arrival, the

new reservation proved to have poor soil and bad water. With their farm imple-

ments and most of their cattle gone, the Poncas wanted to return to their Dakota

homes, which by then were in Sioux hands. Schurz could not allow this, but he did

give them new and more fertile lands in the Indian Territory, necessitating still an-

other costly removal attended by more sickness and death. In the spring of 1879,

unable to bear the heat and dust of the Oklahoma plains, some of the Poncas, led by

Chief Standing Bear, attempted to flee to Dakota; but when they stopped for sup-

plies at the Omaha Reservation, soldiers blocked their path and endeavored to

make them go back south. Standing Bear resisted and was promptly cast into

prison.

A violent controversy led by Omaha citizens ensued. Mrs. Jackson entered the

fray and raised a fund to defend Standing Bear in the courts. On January 9, 1880,

she wrote to Schurz demanding that he aid the Poncas by bringing suit to recover

their original reservation. Schurz declined, saying the Supreme Court would not

permit an Indian tribe to sue in a federal court anyway, and pointed out that the

Poncas had already built new homes and planted their crops. He recommended

that the funds raised by Mrs. Jackson be used instead to help the Indians get indi-

vidual titles to their new farms.

Mrs. Jackson refused to be placated, however, and others rallied to her side.

Meantime, Standing-Bear and an Indian girl, Bright Eyes, went on a lecture tour,

under the tutelage of a missionary named Thomas H. Tibbles, to plead their case.

Large crowds come out to hear the pair in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and

Boston where the orator Wendell Phillips added his eloquence to the cause.

President Hayes quite frankly admitted a grievous wrong had been inflicted upon

the Poncas but decided to make restitution by better treatment rather than by re-

16. Allan Nevins, "Helen Hunt Jackson, Sentimentalist vs. Realist," American Scholar, X (Summer

1941), 269-285.

17. Earl W. Hayter, "The Ponca Removal," North Dakota Historical Quarterly, VI (July 1932),

262-275, is sympathetic to the Indians. Stanley Clark, "Ponca Publicity," Mississippi Valley Historical

Review, XXIX (March 1943), 495-516, tends to belittle the evicted Poncas.

Hayes' Indian Policy                                                        213

moval of the Poncas for still a third time.¹⁸ He appointed a presidential commission

in December 1880, composed of Brigadier Generals George Crook and Nelson A.

Miles, William Stickney (a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners) and

Walter Allen who represented a Boston citizens' committee, to visit the Ponca tribe,

ascertain facts, and make recommendations.¹⁹

As an aftermath, in a message to Congress on February 1, 1881, Hayes reported

that the 521 Poncas living in the Indian Territory were satisfied with their new

homes, were healthy, comfortable, and contented, and did not wish to return to

Dakota. Another group of about 150 Poncas, still in Dakota and Nebraska, pre-

ferred to remain on their old reservation. Given this situation, the President urged

that the wishes of both branches of the tribe be recognized. He then outlined a

four-point Indian policy for the future that would include a program of industrial

and general education for Indian boys and girls to prepare them for citizenship.

Also, land allotments would be held in severalty, inalienable for a certain period.

Insurance that there would be fair compensation for Indian lands and that the In-

dian would receive citizenship were other important aspects of the policy. These

proposals clearly foreshadowed events of the 1880's, especially the Dawes Severalty

Act of 1887 which provided for the dissolution of the Indian tribes as legal entities

and the division of tribal lands among individual members. The Sioux were also to

be compensated for relinquishing land to those Poncas who were not removed to In-

dian Territory.

Hayes avoided assessing blame among the Executive branch, Congress, or the

public for the injustices done to the Poncas. He simply asserted, "As the Chief Ex-

ecutive at the time when the wrong was consummated, I am deeply sensible that

enough of the responsibility for that wrong justly attaches to me to make it my par-

ticular duty and earnest desire to do all I can to give to these injured people that

measure of redress which is required alike by justice and humanity."²⁰ In response

to his message, Congress quickly appropriated $165,000 to indemnify the Poncas.

This action seemed wholly to satisfy them.21 Later the President issued several

other decrees affecting Indian rights which met with much less success than his

Ponca message. He was unable to prevent a series of unlawful white invasions of

Indian Territory despite presidential proclamations containing stern warnings and

the threat of imprisonment.22

What had been accomplished in the improvement of Indian rights and status by

the Hayes administration, however, far outweighed any failures of omission or com-

mission. As the 1880's opened, a new approach to the Indian question was evident

in Government policy and public opinion. The idea of Indians being "aliens" or

"wards" was passing. The reservation system was yielding to the movement for

severalty legislation. The success of Carlisle and other early schools discounted the

belief that the Indian was incapable of civilization. It was also obvious that civil-

ians, and not the military, would shape the future of the American Indian. Hayes

consistently advocated a new policy which would encourage Indians to own land as

18. Hayes Diary, December 8, 1880; Hayes to George F. Hoar, December 16, 1880. Hayes Papers,

Rutherford B. Hayes Library, Fremont, Ohio.

19. Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interiorfor the Year Ended June 30, 1881, II, 275.

20. James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (New York,

1897), X, 4582-86.

21. Fuess, Carl Schurz, 263.

22. Richardson, Messages and Papers, IX, 4499-4500, X, 4550-51.

214                                                             OHIO HISTORY

individuals, educate Indian children at government expense in the pursuits of agri-

culture, herding, and freighting, and give the red men citizenship. He also success-

fully instituted on the reservations an Indian police force manned by Indians.

By study of the Indian question, by visits to Indian reservations and schools, by

discussion with Indian leaders in the White House, and by presidential pro-

nouncements, Hayes demonstrated his deep concern for the American Indian. His

personal library also contained many books on Indian history and culture. In his

first Annual Message of December 3, 1877, Hayes proclaimed:

The Indians are certainly entitled to our sympathy and to a conscientious respect on our part

for their claims upon our sense of justice .... Many, if not most, of our Indian wars have

had their origin in broken promises and acts of injustice upon our part.... We can not ex-

pect them to improve and to follow our guidance unless we keep faith with them in respect-

ing the rights they possess, and unless, instead of depriving them of their opportunities, we

lend them a helping hand .... The faithful performance of our promises is the first condi-

tion of good understanding with the Indians. I can not too urgently recommend to Congress

that prompt and liberal provision be made for the conscientious fulfillment of all engage-

ments entered into by the Government with the Indian tribes.23

In July 1878, while preparing some notes for a speech commemorating the cen-

tennial of the Wyoming Valley massacre, Hayes confided to his Diary that the mat-

ter of how the white man should deal with the Indians was a problem which for

three centuries had remained almost unsolved. Taking a cue from William Penn's

philosophy on the subject, he concluded: "If by reason of the intrigues of the whites

or from any cause Indian wars come, then let us correct the errors of the past. Al-

ways the numbers and prowess of the Indians have been underrated."²⁴

Near the end of his term, the President enumerated the points in which he felt his

administration had been successful to a marked degree. One of his proudest boasts

was "an Indian policy [of] justice and fidelity to engagements, and placing the In-

dians on the footing of citizens. "²⁵ It was a rightful claim to fame.

23. Fred L. Israel, ed., The State of the Union Messages of the Presidents, 1790-1966 (New York, 1966),

II, 1350-51.

24. Hayes Diary, July 1, 1878.

25. Ibid., April 11, 1880.