Dyed-In-The-Wool History
The Indian Wars – The Final Conquest of America
While the conquest and subjugation of the South removed the principal barrier to forming a modern nation state led by Northeastern financial and industrial interests, there were other people yet to be subdued in order to complete the 48 continuous states. The timeframes here overlap but the events were largely independent. We’ll look first at the California Indian population.
California Indians: California prior to and during the War Between the States received immigrants from New England and the Midwest who settled in the North of the State along more desirable coastal areas while the Southern and Interior areas were populated by Hispanics and then other groups initially starting arriving during the gold rush years of the 1850’s. Like several other western states, California was rapidly admitted to the Union prior to the war with Union friendly governments. During the War, Northern California was strongly pro-Union while the Southern and interior areas were largely Confederate and the last duel in California was fought between pro-confederate and pro-Union legislators.
California had a large and diverse Indian population with estimates ranging between 200,000 and 300,000 but this population came under fairly intense pressure starting with the gold rush and continuing with the growth of the railroads and other industries in the state. In 1848 alone app. 300,000 migrated through San Francisco from the east coast and South America. In 1850, under Republican Governor Peter H. Burnett, the California state government passed the so-called 'Protection of Indians' Act that addressed the punishment of Native Americans, and helped to facilitate the removal of their culture and land. Burnett called for a "war of extermination" to continue "until the Indian race becomes extinct" (1 p. 107). His successor John McDougal, was equally aggressive warning that if the Indians refused to “negotiate”, a war would ensue that would result in the “extermination of many of the tribes.” Indian lands included rich mineral deposits. (1 p. 107)
Military actions against California Indians increased sharply just prior to and during the war years although most of this has little traceable documentation. The most documented incident occurred in Alta California on April 12, 1860 under militia captain W.S. Jarboe which was described in the Alta California newspaper as follows: (2 p. ch. 7)
"The attacking party rushed upon them, blowing out their brains and splitting their heads open with tomahawks. Little children in baskets, and even babes, had their heads smashed to pieces or cut open. Mothers and infants shared the same phenomenon.... Many of the fugitives were chased or shot as they ran.... The children, scarcely able to run, toddled toward the squaws for protection, crying with fright, but were overtaken, slaughtered like wild animals and thrown into piles." (2 p. ch. 7)
By the mid-1860's only 34,000 Native Americans remained alive in California which was an estimated 90% attrition rate. In the 1870's, the federal post-war reconstruction government began moving on creating 'Indian' reservations in southern California. 13 were created between 1875 and 1877.(2)
Plains Indians: The wars against the plains Indians started in 1862 in what was then the Northwest or modern Minnesota and Wisconsin when General Pope was dispatched to deal with the Lakota Sioux (1 p. 102). General Pope declared, “It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux”. This would require the death or removal of as many Indian men, women, and children as possible and reeducation of the remainder (1 p. 103). In the 1862 campaign against the Sioux in Minnesota General Pope defeated the Indians and captured 300 warriors. The white settlers wanted all 300 killed in response to back and forth violence that originated from the federal government not honoring treaty commitments and Lincoln needed their votes in the next election. Some Sioux raiding parties did kill a number of women and children but others denounced this. These incidents led to the common saying from the time period that, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” (3 p. 276). Lincoln was initially inclined to do this but eventually down selected 39 unfortunate individuals who were to be made examples. A special gallows was built and they were hung in unison in what was the largest mass execution in US history. (1 pp. 108-09)
The primary problem faced by Plains Indians was that their culture was fundamentally at odds with the dominant American culture which had become that of the Puritan or Yankee. Theirs was a non-materialist nomadic culture. An Indian religious leader of the Nez Perce tribe described the spirit of the American Indian as follows:
“My young men shall never work. Men who work cannot dream; and wisdom comes to us in dreams … You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s bosom?..You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men. But can I cut off my mother’s hair?”(1 p. 103)
To most today this would probably be seen as being lazy and in western society this has not worked out well but in the context of the world they knew it, it did. The Nez Pearce under Chief Joseph waged a skillful war against the federal troops until being cornered in the Montana territory in October 1877. At that time he was seeking asylum in Canada along with the Lakota people under Sitting Bull. Until his death he was a symbol for the injustices done to his people. Chief Joseph’s father had converted to Christianity giving his son a New Testament name. Joseph said of his resistance, “I clasped my father's hand and promised to do as he asked. A man who would not defend his father's grave is worse than a wild beast" Holding to a higher standard than his pursuers he said this, “Nez Perce never make war on women and children…We could have killed a great many ... while the war lasted, but we would feel ashamed to do so" (1 p. 108)
The South also had a non-materialist culture that regionally included American Indian influences. This was described by historian Forrest MacDonald as follows:
“The late great Richard M. Weaver, in The Southern Tradition at Bay, addressed himself to analyzing the qualities that distinguish the South from North, and for the nineteenth century he was perfectly on target. “The North had Tom Paine and his postulates assuming the virtuous inclinations of man,” Weaver wrote; “the South had Burke and his doctrine of human fallibility and of the organic nature of society.” The North embraced rationalism and egalitarianism; the South had a “deep suspicion of all theory, perhaps of intellect,” and clung to a hierarchical and deferential social order. The North bowed down before science and material progress; the South “persisted in regarding science as a false messiah,” and remained into “our own time” (the 1940s) “the last non-materialist civilization in the Western World.” (4)
Contrasting these cultural perspectives to what had now grown from Yankee culture to American culture, the contrast is stark. The following quote from Admiral Raphael Semmes of the CSS Alabama, aptly describes the world view into which the Plains Indians were to be made to adapt: “the Yankee as one that held the acquisition of money as the highest if not the only reason for living: He is ambitious, restless, scheming, energetic, and has no inconvenient moral nature to restrain him from the pursuit of his interests, be the path to these never so crooked. In the development of material wealth, he is unsurpassed.… But is like the beaver, he works from instinct, and is so avid of gain, that he has no time to enjoy the wealth he produces. Some malicious demon seems to be goading him on”. One culture was intent on gaining material possession with little regard as to how this was done and the other trying to live out a traditional life handed down through generations with only gradual adaptations through time.(1 p. 104)
The wars against the Plains Indians were directed by the same group that waged total war against the South a few years’ earlier including Sherman, Sheridan, and Custer. Custer met his fate against Sitting Bull at Little Bighorn in Southern Montana in June of 1876. Today there is a sprawling display with a store and tour guides on one side of the road that receives large numbers of tourists and visitors. On the left side of the road as you walk up the hill is a small monument to the Sioux that a few people stop by and fewer still would understand. Like Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull was not a pagan or animists. He was Catholic as were many of his men. Sitting Bull always kept and cherished a cross given him by Fr. De Smet (3 p. 280). A large percentage of Custer’s doomed troops were Germanic immigrants and Civil War veterans, many or most of whom would be “48’ers”. While this encounter went favorably for Indians, virtually all others did not with several resulting in the slaughter of significant numbers of non-combatants four of which are recounted below:
Bear River: In the Northwestern state of Idaho on January 23, 1863, the Bear River Shoshoni encampment was attacked. The attack resulted in the killing of 400 Shoshoni, many of them unarmed men, women, and children. Some 21 Shoshoni women who survived the attack were raped by the troops.(1 p. 107)
Sand Creek Massacre: In 1864 the Third Colorado Cavalry under Colonel John Chivington, attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho killing and mutilating between 150 and 500 victims two thirds of which were women and children. Chivington was from Ohio and was both a Methodist minister and an abolitionist. This event was depicted in James Michener’s epic “Centennial”.(1 p. 107)
Battle of Washita River: On November 27, 1868 Col Custer’s 7th US Cavalry attacked a Cheyenne Camp under Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River near what is now Cheyenne Oklahoma. There were thousands of native Americans encamped along this river for the winter and this group was the most isolated. An undetermined number of Cheyenne were killed and others were taken hostage.(1 p. 107)
Wounded Knee: The final and most well-known incident happened on December 29, 1890 at the now infamous Battle of Wounded Knee (more appropriately the Massacre at Wounded Knee) when the US 7th Cavalry attempted to unconstitutionally disarm a group of Lakota Sioux. This resulted in the death of several hundred Indian men, women, and children along with 25 of their attackers.(1 p. 108)
The objective of the wars against the plains Indians and subsequent efforts at “reconstruction” was principally depopulation to make way for European migrants largely from the Midwest to settle the new lands. This was done directly by military action in some cases but, on a far broader scale, by social and economic dislocation making it impossible for them to sustain themselves resulting in malnutrition. The Indians were put on small reservations suitable perhaps for small farming but not for their previous semi-nomadic lifestyle that required a far lower population density. Their source of meat, the Buffalo, was rapidly almost eradicated. The next phase in addressing the “Indian problem” was re-education and this was done by subsidizing denominational schools and by putting religious and educational life at the various Indian agencies under the control of different Christian bodies. It was further decided that the only missionaries permitted at these agencies would be those of the first denomination to have reached each tribe but in practice this was biased heavily towards the Northern Progressive Evangelical groups and against Catholics. Other liturgical and orthodox protestant groups were, with rare exception, not active in these areas at the time. (3 pp. 282-83)
In modern politics, the Indian is commonly portrayed as the victims of both Christianity and the White man without making any distinction as to what type of white man as if there was really only one common group identity. This is somewhat ironic in that this “gate keeper” perspective is held by the cultural and intellectual decedents of those who committed the acts previously described (3 pp. 283-84). The book Black Elk Speaks: the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by John D. Neihardt from 1932 contains a collection of sayings arranged in such a way as to make them seem superior to Christianity but this presentation is not supported by Black Elk’s actual testament:
BLACK ELK SPEAKS AGAIN—THE FINAL SPEECH
“I shake hands with my white friends. Listen! I will speak words of truth. I told about the people’s ways of long ago and some of this a white man put in a book but he did not tell about current ways. Therefore I will speak again, a final speech.
Now I am an old man. I called my priest to pray for me and so he gave me Extreme Unction and Holy Eucharist. Therefore I will tell you the truth. Listen my friends!
For the last thirty years I have lived very differently from what the white man told about me. I am a believer. The Catholic priest Short Father baptized me thirty years ago. From then on they have called me Nick Black Elk. Very many of the Indians know me. Now I have converted and live in the true faith of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, I say in my own Sioux Indian language, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” as Christ taught us and instructed us to say. I say the Apostle’s Creed and I believe it all….
All of my family is baptized. All my children and grandchildren belong to the Catholic Church and I am glad of that and I wish very much that they will always follow the holy road.
I know what St. Peter has to say to those men who forsake the holy commandments. My white friends should read carefully 2 Peter 2:20-22. I send my people on the straight road that Christ’s church has taught us about. While I live I will never fall from faith in Christ.” (3) (5)
There was a cultural conflict but not with Christianity in general; only with a highly politicized and secularized form of it that was very different from any form of historical Christian orthodoxy. The fate of the western Indian tribes was similar to that of the Southern confederacy varying principally in size and scope. The justification again is much the same generally looking to a “greater good” where events like this were either necessary to achieve a greater good in the end (end justifies the means) or ultimately caused by the victim’s lack of compliance.
Bibliography
1. Kennedy, James Ronald and Kennedy, Walter Donald. Yankee Empire. Colombia, South Carolina : Shotwell Publishing, 2018.
2. Madley, Benjamin. An American Genocide. New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 2016.
3. Coulombe, Charles A. Puritans Empire A Catholic Perspective on American History. s.l. : Tumblar House, 2008.
4. McDonald, Forrest. Abbeville Institute. The Abbeville Institute. [Online] August 6, 2015. https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/why-yankees-wont-and-cant-leave-the-south-alone/.
5. Coulombe, Charles A. Tumblar House. [Online] 2010. https://www.tumblarhouse.com/pages/the-appendix-for-puritans-empire.