Unhappily
the relinquishment of the Iowa country had not
been free from a strong suspicion of wrongs done the Indians.
The Indians had obstinately contested the giving up of these
lands, and at no time was a treaty of relinquishment signed that
may be said to have expressed the tribal will. These treaties of
cession had instanced bad faith toward the natives, unwarranted
interference on the part of the trader element, compulsion which
at times approached intimidation in the securing of signatures,
allotment of lands to the Indians as reserves that appeared
worthless from the Indian viewpoint, undue urgency of
prospective settlers anxious to "squat" upon the vacated lands,
and the forceful effect of the presence of the military. All of
these factors had operated to secure cessions at the doubtful
price of irritating the Indian and arousing his resentment.
Officers in administrative charge of Indian affairs, far removed
from actual contact with the Indians, too often failed to
realize that Indian treaties should be regarded with some
deference to their observance. Promises were made concerning the
payment of annuities which were long delayed in their
fulfillment or never kept: to the Indian these promises seemed
to be made only to be broken‐as happened in the treaty of
Traverse des Sioux. According to second chieftain Cloudman, the
Indians for five years following the making of this treaty
remained quietly upon their reserve. At the expiration of that
time, not having heard of or received any of the money promised,
they began raiding the adjacent frontiers in an effort to
produce action.
Lack of good faith in treaty matters often precipitated long
periods of bad feeling, and occasionally blood was shed before
the Indians could be convinced that faith was being kept or that
agreements entered into were in turn to be kept by them. If
treaties had been honestly and faithfully carried out in every
instance it is not unlikely that the Sioux and other Indians
might have been far readier to refrain from wrong‐doing than was
often the case. Altogether the conditions on the frontier tended
to create disaffection among the Indians and a loss of respect
for government promises.
Not infrequently, as has been noted, the Indians were allotted
lands that were wholly inadequate to supply their needs. The
Sioux had outlived "the means of subsistence of the hunter
state", they were unable longer to eke out an existence
exclusively through the spoils of the chase. The buffalo and
larger game were rapidly disappearing. But what was still worse,
the Sioux often found upon going to the specified reserves that
their coming had been anticipated by other hunters and the game
was gone, if indeed any had ever been there. In the presence of
such conditions it was useless to appeal to the garrison
commanders‐to whom such complaints seemed absurd. On the other
hand, the killing of intruders was nearly always resorted to as
a warning against marauders. To live it was necessary to resist
the encroachment of others not of their kind, for barbarism
demands a wide range of untrammeled activity. Thus the Indians
came to think that if they would have game to kill, they must
kill men too.
A great deal of Indian discontent is traceable in the final
analysis to another cause: the presence upon the Indian reserve,
as well as on the white frontier, of a large number of
undesirables, both red and white. As forerunners of white
settlement, many adventurous characters found their way to the
frontier posts and systematically preyed upon the Indian.
Undesirable as elements of civilization, they were equally
troublesome on the frontier. In civilized communities it was
possible to restrain them, but along the borderland this power
was either lacking or not organized. Oftentimes when these
adventurers pushed matters to an extremity, the outraged
feelings of the Indian would demand a settlement or make one.
Unhappily, post commanders were often only too willing to take
up the needless quarrels of these frontier disturbers and exact
a severe and not always just settlement in their behalf. Later
when the more peaceably disposed settlers‐the real pioneers‐
began to arrive the Indian refused to make any distinction
between them and their more turbulent predecessors.
Again, the National government when settling the Indians upon
their reserves took no account of the fact that there were both
good and bad Indians‐ that there were Indian criminals as well
as Indians willing to abide by the rules of tribal law. Both
good and bad were settled indiscriminately upon the same
reserve. The seditiously disposed were constantly creating
trouble, and the Indian people as a whole incurred the blame and
displeasure arising from the misdeeds of a few. These matters
irritated those Indians who were well disposed and created an
ever-ready excuse for an attack.
Such, in the main, had been the attitude of the government
toward the Sioux as the last of the Indian races inhabiting the
Iowa country. It had not been an altogether enlightened policy ;
nor had it been one that was calculated to secure their good
will. Instead, it had stirred the Indians to wreak vengeance at
every convenient opportunity. However mistaken this policy
toward the Indians had been, the attitude toward the frontier
and its white inhabitants had been no wiser and at times
scarcely as wise. Much Indian trouble and no few massacres
resulted from the loose administration of frontier affairs ‐more
specifically from the lack of control exercised over various
commercial interests whose chief justification for existence
seemed to have been that they might prey upon the near-by red
inhabitants.
The government failed to appreciate the need for an adequate
defense of the frontier.
Venders of whiskey and other intoxicants frequented the
frontiers and Indian villages‐unmolested, oftentimes, in pushing
their sales. It is true that laws had been enacted by Congress
with a view to putting an end to the liquor nuisance among the
Indians; but the effective enforcement of these measures had
scarcely been attempted. If a more than usually zealous Indian
agent forbade dealers to carry on their nefarious business
within reserved grounds, they would erect their cabins upon the
ceded lands immediately adjoining the reserves‐ places to which
the Indians were at all times free to go. To make matters yet
worse the agent was in some cases powerless to act even though
he desired to do so. The Chippewa agent, for example, complained
that the treaty of 1855 deprived him of assistants or force
through which to punish or apprehend violators of departmental
rules and regulations.
Thus was produced that state of affairs where the Indian was
being robbed and debauched, while innocent settlers were
threatened by Indian violence during the periods of his drunken
orgies. Not infrequently the massacre of isolated settlers
completed the tale of an Indian visitation to a near-by liquor
dealer's establishment. Fortunate it was that the Sioux, "the
Iroquois of the West", were slow to take up and make their own
the vices of their white neighbors.
To the activities of another type of frontiersman, the trader,
Indian wars were sometimes due. In many instances the trader was
an individual who was unable to earn an honest living among his
white neighbors further east: necessity had made of him an exile
from civilization. These traders secured the confidence and good
esteem of the Indians in various and devious ways, and the
latter soon became indebted to them. In fact their deliberate
aim in most cases was to secure upon the Indian a leverage of
such a character as to render necessary the surrender of most of
the Indian's profits from the chase or treaties. Because of the
Indian's profligacy it was necessary that he should buy on
credit if he bought at all. When government payments became due,
traders were always on hand, and their books invariably showed
Indian indebtedness enough to absorb a considerable portion if
not all of the payment. The Indians kept no books as a matter of
course; and not understanding those of the traders, they could
not deny the debt. As a matter of fact, the Indians were always
willing to anticipate the next payment in order to get credit.
In the face of this situation "the poverty and misery of the
Indian were continually growing". Again, the Indian could not
sue in the courts if he had so desired. Out of such conditions
trouble or bad feeling inevitably arose.
Owing to their long residence in the Indian country and their
keen knowledge of Indian character, the traders had become "the
power behind the throne". This was especially true in
treaty-making. The Indian commissioners grew to realize the
power of the traders in the securing of treaties and were not
slow to request their services. It was to the financial interest
of the traders that treaties should be made, for thus there was
insured a steady supply of money with which the Indians could
pay their debts. "The commissioners did not do much more than
feed the Indians and indicate what they wanted; the traders did
the rest. Due to their influence, the government habitually
incorporated in treaties a clause providing for the compulsory
payment of the Indian debts to the traders. These debts, in some
cases, were in the aggregate equivalent to small fortunes.
To prevent abuses, the traders were to be paid out of the first
cash annuities. It was not an uncommon thing to have these debts
absorb even more than these first annuities. Hence, the Indian
had to wait long for his first money. Concerning this plan the
Indians were not always consulted, but the traders expressed
their satisfaction.
In time matters grew so bad and the Indians became so rebellious
that Congress, in March, 1843, stipulated by law that no payment
of Indian debts to traders should henceforth be provided for in
treaties. But the traders were ingenious and evaded the law.
Matters came to a crisis in 1853 when the Indians rebelled,
claiming that by misrepresentation in the treaties of Traverse
des Sioux and Mendota in 1851 they had signed away their
annuities to the traders to the amount of two hundred thousand
dollars. Investigation proved nothing. As Superintendent Cullen
remarked upon this act of fraud, "it is equally important to
protect the Indians from the whites as the whites from the
Indians." It is safe to say that if the traders had been curbed
in their operations many a frontier horror might have been
averted. It is no wonder that the Indian's "untutored mind was,
now and then, driven to the distraction of savage vengeance."
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