Warren King Moorehead
And His Papers
By JOHN W. WEATHERFORD*
The enduring love of Warren King
Moorehead (1866-1939)
may be summed up in one word: Indians.
When not busied with
their ancient remains he was struggling
with the manifold problems
they face in this century. Penobscot and
Pueblo alike shared his
attention. When (through the generosity
of Ludwig King Moore-
head and Singleton Peabody Moorehead)
the Ohio Historical
Society acquired his papers, it was
principally because he had con-
tributed so much to the development of
archaeology in this region.
Moorehead's papers, mirroring his
career, are national in scope and
social and political in import, passing
the borders of Ohio and of
archaeology. But of these wider things,
more later.
Moorehead's first interest was
archaeology. He spent nearly all
his life at it, and, like the late Henry
Shetrone, was once buried
alive in line of duty. He started
digging at the age of twelve,
around Xenia, Ohio (his home town
despite the fact that he had
been born in Siena, Italy, of American
parents). In among the
letters and diaries now in the Society's
charge lay an Indian bone--
his first find. Sentiment saved this
first trophy, but not some later
ones. Moorehead advertised and sold the
artifacts and remains he
found, and bought others. In those days
the line between scientist
and curio merchant was thin. Several
prominent archaeologists of
that generation began as collectors or
dealers. Moorehead was
tempted by success to be a dealer, or
mound-miner. His father
helped resolve his adolescent doubts on
this subject and sent him
to Denison University in 1884, whence he
emerged no longer com-
mercial but academic. Long afterwards
Moorehead was himself to
* John W. Weatherford is manuscripts
librarian of the Ohio Historical Society.
180
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
play a major role in preserving an
important mound from souvenir
hunters and vendors.
Having left Denison, Moorehead began the
serious explorations
that won him his earliest renown. In
1888 and 1889 he investigated
Fort Ancient, and described his
conjectures and discoveries in his
first book, Fort Ancient, the Great
Prehistoric Earthwork of Warren
County, Ohio. This appeared in 1890, when Moorehead was already
engaged in explorations on the Little
Miami near Oregonia. The
next August explorations in the Scioto
and Paint Creek valleys
carried him to the farm of Capt. M. C.
Hopewell, who little dreamt
of the manner in which his name would be
preserved to posterity.
There Moorehead and his crew uncovered,
fragment by fragment,
some of the best artifacts of the famed
Hopewell culture. The
Hopewell people built Fort Ancient, and
many of the most notable
earthworks in the Ohio Valley. Of all
the mound-building folk,
they are reckoned the most advanced. The
novelty and richness of
these revelations, the fear of vandals
and of the elements, and the
engrossing nature of the discoveries,
impelled Moorehead to the
extraordinary course of continuing the
digging through the winter.
Groping in mud and cold water, the crew
went on. Only Sunday
was an island of comfort in that winter,
and once even that failed
when, a few minutes before quitting time
on Saturday, an elaborate
copper head-dress protruded from the
clammy soil. This and
many other Hopewell discoveries appeared
at the Chicago Fair of
1892-93.
After these services it seemed natural
when, in 1894, Moorehead
became curator of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical
Society. In this position he
investigated the Muskingum and Scioto
valleys. During his three years with the
Society he increased its
holdings of prehistoric objects many
times over. He also began the
work that William C. Mills carried to
maturity in his Archeological
Atlas of Ohio.
In 1901, after a bout with tuberculosis,
Moorehead went to the
Phillips Academy at Andover,
Massachusetts, to be the first curator
of the new department of archaeology
just set up there. Here
Moorehead (who succeeded Dr. Charles
Peabody as director in
1920) was to spend the rest of his life.
W. K. MOOREHEAD AND HIS PAPERS 181
There is perhaps no easier way to
summarize Moorehead's archae-
ological contributions than to list his
major books. That on Fort
Ancient has been mentioned. It was
followed in two years by
Primitive Man in Ohio. Then came: The Field Diary of an Archae-
ological Collector (1904); Narrative of Explorations in New
Mexico, Arizona, Indiana, Etc. (1906); The Stone Age in North
America (1910); The Cahokia Mounds (1922); The
Hopewell
Mound Group of Ohio (1922); A Report on the Archaeology of
Maine (1922); Archaeology of the Arkansas River Valley (1931);
and The Merrimack Archaeological
Survey (1931). This partial
bibliography illustrates the
geographical breadth and diversity of
Moorehead's studies.
In addition to these publications, all
long available, we now have
his archaeological manuscripts. These
come to thirteen two-inch
manuscript boxes, besides a large
minority within fifty boxes of
letters. Altogether, about a third of
the collection is archaeological.
One of the boxes holds the data
Moorehead gathered on the stone
age in America, including many drawings
of artifacts. Another holds
his manuscript on Fort Ancient--whether
it is identical with the
book or contains material not finally
published, must be for some-
one else to determine. The most
promising of the archaeological
papers, however, are the six boxes of
diaries and field notes ex-
tending from 1884 to 1894. As the
techniques of the archaeologist
have multiplied, details once thought
irrelevant have assumed mean-
ing. In expert hands these notes may
reveal to modern archaeologists
just such data as were ignored in the
earlier stages of the science.
Moorehead, realizing that there were
more things in the earth than
were dreamt of in his philosophy, once
wrote in favor of leaving
mounds partially intact for the benefit
of future archaeologists be-
cause they would know a great deal more
in fifty years. The diaries,
which are now over fifty years old, may
prove next best to a mound.
Moorehead's enthusiasm embraced live
Indians as well. In 1889
he worked as an aid in anthropology at
the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1890 he went to Pine Ridge
reservation in South Dakota and ob-
served the new, messianic ghost dances
then stirring the Sioux. He
was at Pine Ridge during the ensuing
violence, which began with
the murder of Sitting Bull and ended
with the Battle of Wounded
182
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Knee. To Moorehead the whole episode was
another chapter to
Helen Hunt Jackson's Century of
Dishonor, which had been his
first intimation of the problems of
living Indians. This revelation
drew his attention to governmental
relations with the Indians. In
December 1908 Theodore Roosevelt
appointed him to the board of
Indian commissioners. For the next
twenty-five years Moorehead
divided his time between archaeology and
the board. His papers, of
course, reflect this dual interest.
Indeed, about two-thirds of the
Moorehead papers grew out of board
business. Besides the larger
part of the correspondence already
mentioned, Moorehead's work on
the board produced thirty-two boxes of
papers. Of these, one box
represents investigations he made of
Oklahoma Indian reservations,
and nine, those of Minnesota
reservations. One box contains records
of tribal councils; another of
organizations for the protection of
Indians.
The board of Indian commissioners was
made up of ten men, as
the basic law stipulated, "eminent
for their intelligence and philan-
thropy." A cursory look through the
names of Moorehead's col-
leagues certainly turns up respectable
citizens: Archbishop Patrick
Ryan, James Cardinal Gibbons, Colonel
Frank Knox, the brothers
A. K. and Daniel Smiley of Mohonk
Conference fame, the Rev.
Samuel Eliot of Boston, Edward E. Ayer
of Chicago, Father William
Ketcham, General Hugh Scott, George
Vaux, and Admiral Charles
Lowndes are only a part of those who at
one time or another sat
on the board with Moorehead. They served
without compensation.
Intended originally, in 1869, as a kind
of auditor or inspector to
suppress the graft and jobbery
flourishing on the reservations, the
board held considerable powers of
investigation. In addition, it had
become an advisory body which gave
thought and counsel to the
whole question of relations between
government and Indians. It
was quite independent of the bureau of
Indian affairs of the de-
partment of the interior, and thus free
to make suggestions un-
hampered by political considerations.
The penalty for this enviable
position was, simply, that the bureau
was equally free to disregard
the suggestions of the board. Still, the
commissioners had their
statutory power to investigate federal
Indian reservations, and used
W. K. MOOREHEAD AND HIS PAPERS 183
it to expose abuses and needs that
neither public nor government
would otherwise have noticed.
Among the friends of the Indians the
very multiplicity of Indian
problems made for discord. Board
members of equally good will
could differ strongly over the means
needed to help their proteges.
Some bore down on the red man's morals,
and strove to better him
by discouraging the old pagan dances
(and new pagan dances, too,
for that matter) and by making marriage
more formal and monog-
amous. Some placed their hope in
schooling the young. Others re-
torted that, as long as classrooms
helped distribute tuberculosis,
Indians must be forgiven a certain
reluctance to send their children
to them. They stressed public health
measures, and felt that an
absolute prerequisite for Indian
progress was the defeat of tuber-
culosis and trachoma.
And so it went. Moorehead's salient
ambitions were to preserve
Indian culture, to prevent land frauds,
and to take Indian affairs
out of politics. These came to much the
same thing. Political pres-
sures prevented adequate protection of
Indian lands, and loss of
land by fraud went far to disrupt
Indian society.
Moorehead, as might be expected,
sympathized strongly with the
Indians, liked their ways and customs,
and felt that the government
would be wise to show them a great deal
more understanding.
Perhaps recalling the fatal
interference in the ghost dances, he de-
fended Indian dances against
missionaries and the department of the
interior. Even peyote, condemned by
missionaries and by the board
of Indian commissioners itself, had a
friendly judge in Moorehead.
This unusual and fascinating drug, the
subject of books from Have-
lock Ellis to Aldous Huxley, is used by
Indians (especially in the
Southwest) in religious ceremonies, or
ecstasies. Moorehead's as-
sertion that peyote had never been
proved harmful apparently re-
mains valid. The question is still an
open one. Though sometimes
crossing swords with the clergy,
Moorehead generally approved of
Christian missions to the Indians. To
be sure, he wished that more
missionaries might have the courage to
protect their charges from
immoral whites.
Keeping Indian communities whole, and
their culture intact, was
referred to as the "glass case
policy," with the possibly contemptuous
184
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
implication that it was advocated
chiefly by anthropologists, to pre-
serve specimens for their own research.
When the Meriam report
in 1928 used this phrase, Moorehead
recorded his annoyance:
There are several references to the
"glass case policy," i.e., preserving
Indians as museum specimens. This idea
was commented on more or less
sarcastically by several past commissioners and other
officials. I have as-
sociated with scientific men engaged in
study of Indians all my life. Most of
them understand our aborigines, and have
a far clearer conception of what
should have been done than many of their
critics. Most unfortunate that no
ethnologist served on the [Meriam]
survey.
Yet, after all, keeping the Indian and
his land together proved a
more pressing problem. When the
"glass case" was broken, it was
usually to steal the contents. Assaults
on the Indians' landholdings
came from many sides. Grazing, mining,
oil, and lumbering in-
terests, professional guardians,
attorneys, white neighbors, and state
governments all coveted these lands, and
pressed congress to sim-
plify the process by which they could be
alienated. The Dawes
severalty act, which at its passage in
1887 had been the hope of
many reformers, in practice opened the
way to abuses by parceling
out tribal lands to individual Indians.
As a protection, these several-
ties were to be initially only trust
allotments, the estate, or title,
remaining with the United States for twenty-five
years. Those In-
dians whose tribal lands were allotted
in severalty to them were
thus, it was hoped, protected from fraud
for twenty-five years, since
they could not sell or mortgage their
land. There were, however,
too many loopholes in this law, and
subsequent legislation added
more. The Dawes severalty act, far from
protecting the Indian lands,
led in its forty-seven years to the
alienation of over eighty percent
of the total value of lands held by
Indians.
The general policy of the government,
from the Dawes act on
to 1934, was to assimilate the
individual Indian, and to pry him
loose from his tribe. What delays were
imposed on this process
were meant to shield the Indian from
white avarice and his own
improvidence until he could protect
himself. There was not much
of this protection. In 1914 the board
complained of "the haste of
Congress and of the Indian Bureau to
individualize the land hold-
W. K. MOOREHEAD AND HIS PAPERS 185
ings of Indians, who have had centuries
of life under the com-
munistic system of land
ownership," and asserted that fraud usually
followed the free alienation of land.
Yet, even on the board, there
were differences of opinion on this
subject. In 1918 Daniel Smiley
of Lake Mohonk suggested that if there
were "no reasonable chance
to reform" an Indian and make him
competent to handle his own
affairs, then he should be given his
property outright, to squander
as he pleased. Only Indians showing
progress towards competency
deserved protection until their goal
had been reached. "A paternal
Government," he asserted,
"except to a limited extent, is un-
American."
One case of land fraud resulting from
the free alienation of land
particularly concerns Moorehead, and so
deserves our attention.
On the Ojibwa reservation at White
Earth, Minnesota, the allot-
ments were subjected to just the type
of assault that was facilitated
by the Dawes act. In 1904
Representative Halvor Steenerson suc-
ceeded in having passed a bill granting additional
allotments to the
White Earth Indians. Now it had been
usual for the department of
the interior to allot only agricultural
land and withhold timber land,
keeping the latter intact as tribal
property. The Steenerson act, by
increasing allotments to such an extent
that all of the tribal lands
would be consumed by the increase, left
the department of the
interior with no choice but to hand out
in severalty not only the
agricultural but the timber land.
These allotments were made in 1905 by
the local agent in such
a manner that perhaps half of the
recipients were mixed bloods. In
1906 Senator Moses Clapp amended the
annual Indian service ap-
propriation to give all White Earth
mixed bloods the right to sell
their allotments. In three years three
quarters of the White Earth
Ojibwas sold their lands. By 1909
suspicion had been aroused.
Moorehead was sent as a special agent
to White Earth to investigate
the reports. There, with E. B. Linnen
of the bureau of Indian af-
fairs, he gathered over five hundred
affidavits from the Indians,
recounting fraud after fraud, and
combining to make a scandal of
a magnitude not expected by the
authorities. It arose from the right
of mixed bloods to sell their
severalties. The essence of it was
simply that certain lumbering companies
bought valuable timber
186
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
lands from incompetent Indians for very
small sums. Since the law
had set no test for the distinction of
mixed and full blood, the pur-
chasers had but to induce the Indian to
say that he had mixed blood.
This was easily accomplished, for the
Indian was eager to sell his
lands for even a little cash. He was
always gullible, and often drunk.
Even the small amount promised was not
paid in full. High "fees"
were subtracted from it, and sometimes
the Indian who had just
sold all his land was shooed off with
half his money and the promise
of the rest later.
All this is an oversimplification of
complex legislation and
tortuous practices. There is no room to
give adequate attention to
the hostility of the press, the
rivalries of lumber firms, the local
political power of a French-Canadian
clique, the equivocal role of
some government employees on the
reservation, or the ambiguous
behavior of the Indian bureau in
Washington.
Much money lay behind the lumber
companies. Moorehead stated
on oath that a certain Dr. W--- had offered him first $10,000,
then $25,000, and finally $50,000, to
jumble the evidence or write
back to Washington that the reports of
chicanery had been grossly
exaggerated. These offers were
interspersed with threats that certain
congressmen would have him off the
board, and even that someone
planned to assassinate him.
The government instituted civil and
criminal proceedings, but
both went lamely. Detecting mixed bloods
was one of the legal
difficulties, and even with the
testimony of Moorehead's friend
Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, the anthropologist,
the prosecution found this
question an impediment. Still, Moorehead
believed that the depart-
ment of justice had not pressed its case
with any energy. As delays
extended, attorney succeeded attorney on
the government side and
had to learn the cases anew, while their
adversaries grew ever more
familiar with the peculiarities of the
litigation. Before long, cases
awaiting their turn for prosecution
began to be outlawed by lapse of
time. Moorehead was not alone in
thinking that many a rogue in
Minnesota was saved by the statute of
limitations. The civil suits
(in which, the government being a party,
the limitations did not
apply) dragged on and were generally
compromised cheaply.
Moorehead was especially annoyed to see
the years pass without
W. K. MOOREHEAD AND HIS PAPERS 187
any of the reforms he suggested for
White Earth being instituted.
He blamed the bureaucracy of the Indian
service more than any
individual.
The full extent of the scandal was not
revealed to the public.
Moorehead longed to break his
discoveries to the country and raise
a posse comitatus of respectable
gentlemen to see that right was
done at White Earth and in Washington.
He had meant to write
an article for Theodore Roosevelt's Outlook,
and to lecture on the
subject at Lake Mohonk. He was dissuaded
from these courses by
Robert G. Valentine, the Indian
commissioner, who, he said,
promised to remove certain dishonest
government employees in
Minnesota reservations. In the course of
time some of these persons
were not dismissed or were restored,
while some who had cooperated
with Moorehead's investigation were
dismissed. Moorehead felt ever
after that he had been cheated.
The "purification of the White
Earth rolls"--that is, the removal
of French-Canadian mixed bloods from the
list of Indians eligible
for allotments--failed, as the suits,
the prosecutions, and the reform
of employees failed. Moorehead blamed
the succeeding secretaries
of the interior:
We presented enough evidence to Secretary
Garfield to make our position
impregnable. We were backed by all the
decent Indians, yet he hesitated,
passed the matter to Mr Ballinger. This
Secretary passed it to Mr Fisher,
and "the buck was then passed"
to Honorable Franklin K. Lane. The net
result was that the French Canadians were continued on
the roll.
This first affair at White Earth proved
to be the most spectacular
for Moorehead, but troubles haunted the
reservations year after
year. Moorehead continued, like his
colleagues, to inspect reserva-
tions. In 1913 he reported on the Five
Civilized Tribes; in 1915, on
the Choctaws of Oklahoma. His visits
carried him to New York
and to New Mexico. In Albany the state
legislature claimed juris-
diction over the reservations. In Santa
Fe the state legislature
claimed some Pueblo lands. In Oklahoma
more happened than else-
where, because there were more Indians
in that state. Perennially
congressmen from states with Indian
reservations introduced bills
to make it easier for the wards to
dispose of their lands without
188
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
federal interference. Moorehead's part
in all these affairs is recorded
in his correspondence. So, too, are the
many personal cases that
encroached upon his attention.
Moorehead's reputation as a pro-
Indian white had obviously spread
through the lodges and councils,
for his papers abound in Indian letters,
at once comic and pathetic.
The government is late with my check;
you are a friend of the
Indian; tell it to hurry. Why do I have
to buy a fishing and hunting
license? My ancestors did not have to.
When I go to town, the
white men make me drunk, and then they
fine me. I need more
money. And so on. "The reason the
government does not give you
Indians more money," wrote
Moorehead to a chief's daughter, "is
because so many of the men use
skiddi-wah-boo. Tell them to quit."
Moorehead disliked handling these
individual cases, because his
villain was the system itself, the
reform of which he considered
more important than being a big brother
to any number of indi-
vidual red men. White Earth placed the
Indian bureau under his
scrutiny. The weak, dilatory, and
disingenuous treatment of that
episode convinced him that it was
essential to make the Indian
service non-political. He suggested this
reform in 1913. In 1925,
after seventeen years of observing the
bureau and its reservations,
he published his Plan of
Reorganization of the United States Indian
Service.
The gist of its nineteen points can be
given briefly. To free the
Indian bureau from political control,
Moorehead suggested that the
commissioner and his assistant be
nominated by a committee com-
posed of the secretary of the interior,
the secretary of the Smith-
sonian Institution, and the president of
the National Academy of
Sciences, and not change with
administrations. The board of Indian
commissioners was to be changed to a
board of advisors with nine
paid, full-time members, who were
authorities on public health,
education, property rights and finance,
agriculture, conservation and
irrigation, mineral resources, forestry,
native crafts, and social serv-
ice. Compared to the United States,
Moorehead found Canada a
model in Indian administration. Several
of his reforms were in-
spired by Canadian precedents. Thus, in
recommending the codi-
fication of Indian law, he pointed out
that the laws passed between
1890 and 1914 relating to the Five
Civilized Tribes took up 587
W. K. MOOREHEAD AND HIS
PAPERS 189
pages. The entire Canadian Indian code
made a 54-page booklet.
The Indian police were to be modeled on
the Royal Mounted Police.
American confusion as to who was
legally an Indian was to be
resolved by counting persons with less
than a quarter Indian blood
as white--again a Canadian inspiration.
Moorehead also suggested
that the department of the interior
stop transferring its employees
from reservations where they had
acquired experience to reserva-
tions where they were novices. Finally
(and it cannot surprise us),
Moorehead asked that the allotting of
severalties be curtailed. "A
high government official . . . believes
. . . that 75% to 85% sell
or mortgage their lands soon after
coming into unrestricted pos-
session of them," he argued.
"It is one of the most serious and
discouraging features of our entire
Indian problem."
Moorehead's was not the first nor the
last scheme for reform.
"One of the aggravating features
of our 'Indian System' is the doing
again, by new people what has already
been done by others," wrote
Moorehead three years later when the
Brookings Institution pub-
lished its Problem of Indian
Administration, known also as the
Meriam report. The right course had
long been open to the govern-
ment, he believed. What was needed was
not to restate it, but to
adopt it.
When, in 1933, the government did begin
to act, one of its first
steps was surprising and mortifying.
The board of Indian com-
missioners was ended; apparently
economy was given as the reason.
Although Moorehead, on hearing rumors
in December 1932 of this
possibility, had said, "We don't
care a Continental," he was angry
when it happened. As senior member of
the board he wrote to
Harold Ickes, the new secretary of the
interior, asking the real
reason for the action. This might be
called giving the Lie Circum-
stantial, and may account for the
question's not being answered.
Moorehead found economy an implausible
motive for abolishing a
board of which the members received no
pay. Thus ended this long
period in Moorehead's life. He left the
board convinced that the
Indians were getting from Washington "NOT A NEW DEAL, BUT A
RAW DEAL!"
In ending the board the New Deal had
made a beginning scarcely
calculated to win Moorehead's
affection. In any case, his political
190
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and economic views differed so widely
from Franklin D. Roosevelt's
that it was probably hard for him to
accept measures that in other
times he might have applauded. The
Wheeler-Howard act of 1934,
for example, reversed the whole policy
of the Dawes act. It stopped
allotments and encouraged tribal
self-government. Might this not
have rejoiced his heart in Taft's or
even in Wilson's day? It is
too bad that we do not have letters
after 1933 to see how Moorehead
regarded the Indian measures of the
thirties. Immediately after the
abolition of the board Moorehead had
said: "Now is the time for
my Indian history. I already have the
rights from the publishers
and heirs for a revision of Helen Hunt
Jackson's 'Century of
Dishonor.'" Instead, however, he
seems to have withdrawn from
the hurly-burly of Indian administration
in his last years, as if em-
bittered by long frustration.
In January 1935 Moorehead suffered a
stroke, but recovered and
resumed his archaeological work. His
hope was, one suspects, to
crown his career with a magnum opus on
stone axes in America.
This labor filled his last years, until
he was carried off by a second
stroke in 1939. This work and the rest
of his pioneer archaeological
research may well be awaiting
exploitation. Surely his long de-
votion to the Indians of the present
wants studying. This summary
review of Moorehead's papers is meant to
raise questions, not to
answer them; the answers await thorough
research.