US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations (The Evolving American Presidency) 3030835731, 9783030835736

Table of contents :
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Tables
1 Introduction: Building an “Empire of Reason” on Stolen Land
America’s Two Original Sins
2 Europeans Arrive in the (Not-So) New World
Native Governments
The Iroquois Confederacy
Leadership
Impact on the Framers
Early Encounters
The Founding Myth
The Genocide Question
Conclusion
3 The Founding Era: Establishing Relations—George Washington to John Quincy Adams
George Washington
Washington’s Impact
Washington as Author of Federal Indian Policy
John Adams
John Adams: ‘White Father’ to Indian Nations
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson: Architect of Indian Removal Policy
James Madison
James Madison: Pushed Intermarriage Between Settlers and Indians
James Monroe
James Monroe: A Mixed Record
John Quincy Adams
Indian Policy “Fraudulent and Brutal,” Says John Quincy Adams
4 The Jacksonian Hammer: Andrew Jackson to James Buchanan
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson: Instigator of Indian Removal
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren: The Force Behind the Trail of Tears
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison: Shady Treaty Maker and Indian Land Taker
John Tyler
John Tyler: Squatting Advocate and White Supremacist
James Polk
James Knox Polk: ‘No President Less Human’
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Hunted Indians with Bloodhounds
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore: The Racist Who Didn’t Like Anyone
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce: Fierce Protector of White Settlers in ‘Indian Territory’
James Buchanan
James Buchanan: Indian Genocide Was ‘Collateral Damage’
5 Civil War and Manifest Destiny: Abraham Lincoln to Benjamin Harrison
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln: Enigmatic President, and Full of Contradictions
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson: Racist Determined to ‘Relocate’ Indians
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant: Mass Genocide Through ‘Permanent Peace’ Policy
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes: Introduces Allotment and Dreaded Boarding Schools
James A. Garfield
James Garfield: Happy to See Natives Sink into ‘Extinction’
Chester A. Arthur
Chester Arthur: Assimilation His Answer for ‘Great Permanent Problem’ of Indians
Grover Cleveland (I and II)
Grover Cleveland: Pushed Land Ownership as a Way to ‘Civilize’ Indians
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison: Busted Up Sioux Nation, No Remorse for Wounded Knee
6 America: A World/Imperial Power—William McKinley to Herbert Hoover
William McKinley
William McKinley: Dismantled Five Civilized Tribes
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: ‘The Only Good Indians Are the Dead Indians’
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft: Let Derogatory ‘Wild West’ Movies Slide
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson: ‘The Great White Father Now Calls You His Brothers’
Warren Gamaliel Harding
Warren Harding: Wanted Assimilation by Way of Citizenship
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge: First Sitting President Adopted by Tribe, Starts Desecration of Mount Rushmore
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover: Only U.S. President to Have Lived on Indian Reservation
7 The Rise of the Global Superpower: FDR to Kennedy
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A New Deal for Indians
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman: Beginning of Indian Termination Era
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower: Tried to Knock Out Jim Thorpe, and Assimilate Indians
John F. Kennedy
The Unfulfilled Promises of John F. Kennedy: He Vowed a New Frontier for Natives
8 The Civil Rights Era and Beyond: Bypassing Native Americans—Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson: Indians Are “Forgotten Americans”
Richard M. Nixon
Richard M. Nixon: “Self-Determination Without Termination”
Gerald Ford
Gerald R. Ford: Hoping to Heal Wounds
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter: Signed ICWA into Law
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan: “Maybe We Should Not Have Humored [Natives]”
George H.W. Bush
George H. W. Bush: Establishing NMAI, NAGPRA; Corruption in BIA
William Jefferson Clinton
Bill Clinton: Invites Tribal Leaders to White House
George W. Bush
George W. Bush: “Actively Ignored” Indians; Struggled with Sovereignty
Barack Hussein Obama
Barack Obama: ‘Emotionally and Intellectually Committed to Indian Country’
Donald J. Trump
Trump: Decades of Antagonism Toward Native Americans
9 Conclusion
Presidents and Native Americans
Index

Citation preview

THE EVOLVING AMERICAN PRESIDENCY

US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations Michael A. Genovese · Alysa Landry Foreword by Russell Begaye

The Evolving American Presidency

Series Editors Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA Todd L. Belt, Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

This series is stimulated by the clash between the presidency as invented and the presidency as it has developed. Over time, the presidency has evolved and grown in power, expectations, responsibilities, and authority. Adding to the power of the presidency have been wars, crises, depressions, industrialization. The importance and power of the modern presidency makes understanding it so vital. How presidents resolve challenges and paradoxes of high expectations with limited constitutional resources is the central issue in modern governance and the central theme of this book series.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14437

Michael A. Genovese · Alysa Landry

US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations Foreword By Russell Begaye

Michael A. Genovese Political Science and International Relations Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA, USA

Alysa Landry School of Arts, Humanities, and English Diné College Tsaile, AZ, USA

The Evolving American Presidency ISBN 978-3-030-83573-6 ISBN 978-3-030-83574-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Andrew Jackson as the Great Father, courtesy of William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

When researching how U.S. Presidents or U.S. Congress developed American Indian policies, it’s important to understand that Indian Nation leaders have always attempted to help shape these policies—but often to no avail. Historically, some presidents more than others have attempted to listen to these Indian leaders, but in the end, even the most conscientious presidents revert to their own agendas, which largely ignore Native Americans in favor of other priorities. As a Native American advocate and, later, as an elected leader of the country’s largest Indian Nation, I have met with half a dozen sitting U.S. Presidents. It is disheartening for Native Americans to sit before a President or a member of Congress and see unrelenting stone faces as elected leaders either try to understand our perspective or, worse, seek to convince us to accept an alternate agenda. Today, Native Americans comprise only 2.5% of the total U.S. population. Our numbers are not what they once were. Yet, beginning with George Washington and continuing to the present, we have always sought a seat at the table where decisions are being made. Since before the United States was established, Native Americans have traveled long distances to request an audience with federal leaders—a gesture only a few Presidents have returned by visiting us on our lands. Too often, these meetings in federal buildings have resulted in simply a nice trip, a good meal, and the opportunity to shake the President’s hand and pose for a photo.

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Our desire is to engage in real dialog and authentic government-togovernment agreements. Instead, too often, we return home without hope. Decisions are still being made without us. Lengthy pieces of legislation often dedicate a single sentence—or less—to Native Americans. Federal executives and lawmakers may consult with tribes, but their consultation is just a box to check off and move on. This has been the status quo for centuries. We have not been heard. In the end, we know that a law or a policy will be written that will diminish our rights, take away our land and resources, steal our water, disrespect our culture, or keep us on our “reservations.” History tells us that, despite our best attempts to consult with the federal government, we will return home to find that a new law has been passed and we will be forced to move, or we’ve lost authority over something, or another freedom has been eroded. Time and again, federal policies yield negative results for tribes. But in the end, every Indian Nation leader knows that their people have been here before the birth of the United States and they will be here long after. Our teachings on how to live in harmony with all of creation will sustain as through the coming centuries. Our respect and practice of our culture will continue to give us good, enjoyable, and healthy lives. Indian Nations have survived the policies of every U.S. President since George Washington and they will continue to flourish in their own way under every coming president and their policies. Yes, our leaders will continue to communicate with presidents and members of Congress to try and help them develop policies that will honor us as Nations. The president that develops a Council of Tribal Leaders imbedded in the White House and halls of Congress will have taken a historical step to develop and implement Indian Nation policies that honor our people. This book traces the history of past U.S. Presidents and their attitudes and policies toward Native Americans. The research presented here will help future Native leaders understand the mindset of past presidents, and to hold future presidents accountable for better relationships. This book should be read and studied by tribal leaders and academics who want to understand the development of federal Indian policy. It should also be read by state and federal lawmakers—both current and future—who will

FOREWORD

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need to know the history of federal–tribal relationships as they author the Indian policies of the next era. Window Rock, AZ, USA

Russell Begaye Navajo Nation Council Delegate, 2011–2015, Navajo Nation President, 2015–2019

Preface

Michael Genovese remembers sitting in a college freshman U.S. history class many, many years ago. Early in the semester, the professor, a Christian Brother named Ronald Isetti, began his lecture about the arrival of the first Europeans onto America’s shores. In the most memorable line of the entire freshman year, he said, “The first thing the Puritans did when they arrived on our shores was to fall on their knees; the second thing they did is fall on the Indians.” This got more than the usual required polite chuckle. But he then brought the class to silence when he asked us to finish the phrase “The only good Indian is...” to which we all responded, “a dead Indian.” What would that signify to us? It was, we realized, a phrase baked into our psyches. He then asked us to imagine what it might have been like if that phrase referred to OUR ancestors? How might that have shaped our lives and sense of self-worth? Alysa Landry remembers sitting in her seventh-grade classroom waiting anxiously to discover whether she’d survived her most recent move in the computer game The Oregon Trail. As a white pre-teen, it never occurred to her to question her role in the game: a white settler facing questions about what kind of wagon to take; what supplies to buy; how fast to travel; whether to use horses, oxen or mules; and whether to interact with people encountered along the trail. Her objective was to travel safely from Independence, Missouri, to the Oregon Territory, overcoming obstacles and achieving a “new life in the new territories.” She never had to consider the fact that, by default, every player was given a white identity. The only

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way to win The Oregon Trail is to be white. It took a quarter of a century before Alysa learned to question the game, or the realities it presented. What must it be like to grow up Native in America, and to learn a version of history that celebrates the white victor, the white settler, the white trespasser? How does America’s “Founding Myth” affect the people who have been deleted from history? Los Angeles, USA Tsaile, AZ, USA

Michael A. Genovese Alysa Landry

Acknowledgements

Many people beyond the co-authors of this book gave of themselves to bring this project to completion. Editors, proof-readers, typists (special thanks here to Noura Alavi, typist extraordinaire; and Leeanne Root, editor, fact-checker, and friend), researchers, copyeditors, manuscript reviewers, and others made this a group-project. We thank you all for your hard work and professionalism. While writing is a very solitary art, writers are not islands. We live in this world and are impacted by the world around us. This book was written during the deep isolation of the coronavirus pandemic. We were each hunkered down, one at home in Los Angeles, the other in Farmington, New Mexico. And while writing is an isolated activity, we were isolated with others. Michael Genovese had very good fortune to be sequesteredin-place with a wonderful wife, Gabriela (who gave me the gift of guiltfree writing time) and the Tres Perros Locos, three crazy dogs: Frank, better known as “Oompa Loompa” (I don’t know why), Zazu, better known as “little stinker” (because she is), and Lucca, whom we call “Little Man.” They made social isolation and writing bearable and at times joyful. They are my everything. Alysa Landry practiced social distancing in Farmington, N.M., where she taught online courses at Diné College while sitting on the floor in her home office. Her husband, Ray, who has always granted her the time and space needed to write, took on most of the domestic duties so she could

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focus on this book. Cedar, their two-year-old golden retriever, took long naps under Alysa’s desk. Author’s note: Portions of this manuscript were previously published as news articles by Indian Country Today Media Network.

Contents

1

Introduction: Building an “Empire of Reason” on Stolen Land

1

2

Europeans Arrive in the (Not-So) New World

9

3

The Founding Era: Establishing Relations—George Washington to John Quincy Adams

27

The Jacksonian Hammer: Andrew Jackson to James Buchanan

67

Civil War and Manifest Destiny: Abraham Lincoln to Benjamin Harrison

105

America: A World/Imperial Power—William McKinley to Herbert Hoover

139

7

The Rise of the Global Superpower: FDR to Kennedy

171

8

The Civil Rights Era and Beyond: Bypassing Native Americans—Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump

197

Conclusion

251

4 5 6

9

Index

255

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2

Approach to Native Americans Policy options

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Building an “Empire of Reason” on Stolen Land

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. —Former U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey1

One would be hard-pressed to give the government of the United States a passing grade if the measure applied to its relations with the Native Americans were the Humphrey Test. In over 230 years, in test after test, by generation after generation, under president after president, our government has almost always failed to treat Native populations with dignity, fairness, and generosity, or even grant them basic legal rights. Instead, the indigenous peoples of North America for centuries were seen as subhuman savages, treated unfairly, dealt with through broken promises and violence, and nearly exterminated. This book is about how America’s presidents, from George Washington to Donald Trump, have treated the Native American people who were living on the lands that became the United States, land they occupied long before the arrival of Europeans. It is not always a pretty picture. In fact, most of this story deals with the one-sided imposition of harsh and inhumane policies by the powerful against the powerless. It is a story of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_1

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how power is used and misused, and it demonstrates that might does not always make right. It is also a story of revolution, evolution, conquest, submission, violence, injustice, cruelty, racism, and genocide,2 where a “master race” felt free to impose a harsh rule on peoples often believed to be inferior or inhuman. And some of history’s presidential “heroes” reveal themselves to be painfully “human;” with feet of clay. Why is this story important? Because it reveals a portion of truth about who we are and how we came to be that way: It reveals our capacity for good and evil, generosity and cruelty. When confronted by a relatively weak and vulnerable group of people who were “different,” and who stood in the way of our goals, we often responded not by being guided by the “better angels” of our spirits, but by greed, violence, and raw power. We must face up to some dark historical truths. Our original sins of slavery and Native American genocide should be seen in conjunction with the democratic myths upon which we are founded. A nation founded on calls to freedom and equality was a slave state. The Declaration of Independence inspired political movements across the globe, while at home, our growth was centered in white supremacy and colonial domination. The new nation threw off the colonial yolk of British domination yet we did not learn our own lesson in our treatment of slaves and indigenous peoples. We did not practice what we preached.3 The “master narrative” was one of the American empires of freedom marching forward. But that march was built on slave labor and genocide against native peoples. Our counter-narrative is designed to bring that story into balance; to recognize the achievements along with the crimes. Along the way you may ask yourselves, how could so civilized a people be so barbaric? What excuse or reason did we give for our behavior? The simple fact is that we chose to dehumanize both the African slaves brought to the new world, and the Native people we found in this new land. It is, in this way, an old and a sadly universal story. When Europeans came to “the New World,” they faced a people who were already settled across the land, and who came to be referred to as Indians on the mistaken impression that Europeans had discovered a route to India. The tribal nations had long histories, sophisticated societies, complex governments, rich traditions, and a deeply rooted connection to “place.” The Europeans, when they realized that they had not found India, began to see the potential in this new land for resource

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extraction, colonization, and imperial conquest. They settled along the eastern seaboard, and from the beginning, squeezed out the indigenous populations to make room for “establishing civilization” in this “savage” New World. It was not long before clashes—often violent—and demands for land led to conflicts with most of the indigenous peoples who were reluctant to pick up and leave their generational homes to make room for these new settlers. As the British—the most powerful nation in the world at that time—developed colonies, clashes between settlers and Native populations increased. Competition also raged among the British, French, and Spanish, all of whom had imperial ambitions for the new land, and each of whom made and then broke alliances with tribal nations, changed alliances and made war, changed alliances again, and set one European nation against another, always with the help of one Native group or another, and always with the promise that an alliance with one tribal nation would lead to the protection of their lands and the maintenance of their ways of life. These promises were found to be worthless, as each European power saw the indigenous populations as pawns in the larger games of imperial conquest and global power politics. When the American revolutionary forces finally “liberated” the new land from foreign domination (as the colonists viewed their situation), one problem was settled (for a time) and another (what to do with the Native populations) came into high relief. With the creation of the new government of the United States, one of the most pressing problems was in dealing with the tribal nations. What may be surprising to many is that the new government spent a great deal of time trying to sort out a policy toward the many tribes that populated the country, and how they could reconcile their revolutionary rhetoric about equality, individual rights, the rule of law, and the search for justice, with their goals of settling the land, limiting violence and war, fending off rival European powers (the British were still in control of the land north of the new nation, and the Spanish controlled the land to the south), and then expanding westward. It would prove to be a difficult balancing act. Because of the vast frontier, this new nation was being constantly reborn and renewed. With consistently changing borders, the country could feel limitless—as long as white settlers could claim the land. Go West, find a rebirth of freedom, redefine yourself, and let nothing stand in the way of progress. This ethos spelled doom for tribal nations in the Americas.

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This book deals with how the U.S. government, through the lens of presidential leadership, tried to come to grips with the many and complex issues pertaining to the plight of the indigenous peoples who were here when the Europeans arrived. Government—Native American relations highlight many of the core contradictions and difficulties the new nation faced as it tried to establish itself as a legitimate independent nation, while fending off rival European powers and dealing with tribal nations who had a moral if not a strictly legal right to the lands they historically occupied but that the settlers wanted. Additional challenges included: • relations between the federal and state governments (often at odds over Indian policy), • the role of genocide, war, and violence in the making of this new nation, • separation of powers issues within the new government (the president’s power to “make” treaties comes from Washington trying to work with the Senate in the “advise and consent” role in making treaties with Native American tribes), • trying to build a true union where interests between the North and the South often clashed, • why a standing army was needed, • the role of militias in the new government, • what it meant to be truly “human” in a legal and practical way (“savages” like Africans were not seen as truly human), • the role of westward expansion and manifest destiny, • how diplomacy and war interacted, • what the character of the new nation would be in the face of the challenges posed by the Native American tribes and nations. So many of these questions were raised at the very beginning of the republic, and George Washington confronted and spent a tremendous amount of time trying to sort out the complexities of competing interest and values. But every president confronted questions about how to solve the “Indian problem.” While early presidents like Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson set the tone for relationships between the federal government and tribal nations, every president is part of this story. This longitudinal study unpacks the choices presidents made. Presidents are not fully free to choose; they work within historical and structural

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parameters, but they do make choices, decisions, up or down, yes or no, go here or go there. In their 2016 book All the Real Indians Died Off (Beacon Press) Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilia-Whitaker debunk the myth that “U.S. Presidents were benevolent or at least fair minded toward Indians,” claiming that mainstream America has no idea how the vast majority of U.S. presidents felt about Native Americans, or how specific actions individual presidents took impacted America’s indigenous people. In fact, Dunbar-Ortiz and Gilio-Whitaker argue, with very few exceptions, that presidents treated Indians as a “problem” that needed to be solved. Even presidents like Calvin Coolidge, who in 1924 extended to all Native Americans the right to vote, viewed such measures as tools to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream culture. In this book, we deal chronologically with all the presidents from George Washington to Donald Trump. In the end, we ask what relations between the government and the Native peoples tell us about who we are and how we operate as a people and as a nation.

America’s Two Original Sins Throughout its history, America has been hounded by, perplexed with, and troubled by its inability to come to grips with and bring resolution to its racial history. America’s two original sins are slavery and its treatment of the Native populations. The White European settlers, guilty of genocide and enslavement , were able to take command of the New World, exploit people and resources, develop a cheap-labor economy, and expand westward by displacing and killing Native populations and enslaving abducted Africans. Today, the nation continues to feel the effects of these sins as we struggle to reconcile our past with our ideals. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” The only way to reconcile those words with our treatment of Native and black populations is to dehumanize entire peoples. Such dehumanization has implications for both the conqueror and the conquered. Life as sinner or subjugated, winner or loser, creates poisoned relationships and toxic politics. And we suffer still from the sins of the fathers as we attempt to heal centuries-old wounds. Victor and vanquished alike suffer today from these original sins.

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These exploitative relationships, applied against people of color, had to be rationalized and made acceptable to the stated goals of the dominant class. Thus, a racialist theory of superiority permeated and justified the “right” of one group to exploit, and even eliminate, others. The sense of Christian common humanity gave way to a quasi-scientific doctrine of hierarchically ordered racial species. The “civilized” Europeans saw themselves in contrast to lower orders. Such dichotomies and hierarchical thinking permitted Whites to declare common humanity while simultaneously practicing racial discrimination, or as Mannoni noted, “the Calibans served psychic as well as material functions for the Prosperous.”4 The early American presidents spent time and political energy developing federal Indian policies. And the indigenous peoples of the Americas faced the inevitable clash between traditional ways and the demands of the new settlers.5 John Locke, who had such a powerful impact on the writers of the U.S. Constitution, noted of the new world: “In the beginning, all the world was America.”6 Seeing in these Native peoples man in the state of nature, the colonists were torn between a desire to “civilize” these primitives or merely displace them. Were these Native people salvageable or disposable? (see Tables 1.1 and 1.2). Settlers came to the New World and confronted Native inhabitants. In order to grow and expand their control over these new lands, something had to be done with (or to) the Native populations. A clash was inevitable, and expansion west would become a key characteristic of the history of the United States. American development necessitated Indian destruction. Table 1.1 Approach to Native Americans

Paternal

Fraternal

Fratricidal

Table 1.2 Policy options Accommodate

Assimilate

Regulate

Delegate

Accept

Domesticate Indoctrinate

Reservations Bureau

To states

Subordinate

Exterminate

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Notes 1. Remarks at the dedication of the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, November 1, 1977; see: Congressional Record, November 4, 1977, Vol. 123, p. 37287. 2. Madley, Bejamin. An American Genocide, Yale University Press, 2017. 3. Kolsky, Elizabeth. “It Is Time to Reconsider the Global Legacy of July 4, 1776,” The Washington Post, July 3, 2020. 4. Mannoni, Octave. Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization, University of Michigan Press, 1990. 5. Axtell, James. The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America, Oxford University Press, 1982; Jennings, Frances. The Invasion of America, University of North Carolina Press, 1975; and Nash, Gary. Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America, Pearson, 2014. 6. Locke, John. Second Treatise on Government, Cambridge University Press, 1988.

CHAPTER 2

Europeans Arrive in the (Not-So) New World

Was there room for everyone? Vast, seemingly unexplored lands stretched into the West, and European settlers set their sights on expansion and development. But if the land was vast, it was also the home of indigenous populations uninterested in merely stepping aside and allowing their ancestral lands to be gobbled up by these newcomers. Settling their new land would be a challenge, especially given the fact that the British, French, and Spanish all had imperial ambitions in this New World. Battles between these European powers often involved temporary and shifting alliances with tribal nations. As Europeans began to colonize the New World, they came face-toface with a land populated by independent, sovereign tribes intent on maintaining their sovereignty and control over their lands. With the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas came both the birth of the United States’ origin story (Puritan settlers who had a Covenant with God arrived at the new land God had ordained for their use), and the confirmation of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” (deriving from papal bulls from the late fifteenth century) wherein Europeans were entitled to the lands they “discovered,” leaving the indigenous populations displaced.1 It was also the beginning of what would become a pattern: AngloEuropean settlers would claim indigenous populations’ land and, if the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_2

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Indians refused to leave, conflict, violence, and struggle for land would come to characterize relations. Race and power, not loyalty or justice, would guide virtually all interactions.

Native Governments Much has been written about the European roots of the American Constitution, but little has been written about the role of tribal nations in the development of the Constitution. This oversight neglects the important contribution made by Native Americans to the invention of the American system. The framers of the Constitution drew on their knowledge of the Iroquois Confederacy for guidance in the development of a separation of powers system. On July 27, 1787, the drafting committee of the Constitutional Convention met at the Indian Queen Tavern, in Philadelphia, to agree on a draft of a Constitution to submit to the full convention. The committee’s chair, John Rutledge of South Carolina, opened the meeting by reading aloud an English translation of the Iroquois’ tale of the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy. Rutledge’s goal was to underscore the importance, for the new nation, of a concept embedded in the tradition of the Iroquois Confederacy: “We” the people, from whence all power derives.2 This concept also has European roots, but nowhere in the old world was it being practiced. The neighbors of the Constitution’s framers, however, had, for decades, been living under a Constitution that brought this concept to life. The framers of the U.S. Constitution drew insight and inspiration from a number of sources: European philosophers, such as John Locke, ancient Athenian democracy and the Roman Republics, the experience of state governments, and the Native American forms of government with which they were very familiar. No one would argue that the Native Americans provided a blueprint, but (usually lost in the history books) it is clear that they did provide some examples which the framers sought to emulate and incorporate into the new government. As was the case with European influences, the framers engaged in “selective borrowing” from the governments of many Native nations. As George F. Carter writes: No civilization arose in isolation, as the flowing genius of a single people. Great civilizations illustrate that genius lies in the ability of a group of

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persons to assemble ideas borrowed from far and wide into some new pattern suited to their needs, tastes, and opportunities.3

Given the hundreds of tribal nations that populated the Americas, it should come as no surprise that the styles and structures of government varied widely. Plus, the many indigenous people in the New World were not monolithic. Having said this, one is struck by certain common themes or styles that seem to cross most regions and tribes. The indigenous nations practiced a variety of different forms of governance. Each was self-governing and autonomous. And while many shared common rituals and a spiritual connection to the land, their governing mechanisms varied. Most reached agreement after widespread discussion and the arrival at a group consensus. The tribal governing system most familiar to the American Framers was the Iroquois Confederacy, or the Haudenosaunee people, who were governed by The Great Law.4 They had been practicing a form of democracy for 15 generations by the time European settlers arrived on the shores of America.

The Iroquois Confederacy One of the most sophisticated of the Native American governing systems was the Iroquois Confederacy. Made up of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes (by the early eighteenth century the Tuscarora joined the confederacy), what is most striking about this confederacy is the way it practiced a form of egalitarian, even democratic politics, while uniting disparate tribes. “In an age of European monarchies and absolutism, the Indians’ constitution… was based on principles of individual freedom and government by consent of the governed that white men themselves did not enjoy.”5 The Iroquois Confederacy was a kinship state, bound together by a clan and chieftain system. This system began with the “hearth,” where ancestry was traced through the mother. Each hearth was a part of a larger “originator” and a larger still “clan.” This matrilineal system was headed by a clan mother. A group of clans made up a tribe, and several tribes formed the confederacy. Young people were taught to enter into an egalitarian collaborative society in which power was distributed roughly equally between men and women. Few formal instruments of authority existed. Behavior was

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governed primarily by a sense of pride, belonging, and connectedness to the group via common rituals and, where necessary, the shame of ostracism. “Each nation,” Colden wrote in 1727, “is an absolute Republic by itself, govern’d in all Publick Affairs of War and Peace by the Sachems (Chiefs)… whose Authority and power is gain’d by and consists wholly in the Opinion the rest of the Nation have of their Wisdom and Integrity.”6 Governed by Ne Gayaneshagowa (loosely translated as the Great Binding Law), the Iroquois had a constitutional system of government that existed prior to the founding of the United States. The basis of governmental legitimacy came from the community and flowered upward to the chiefs and council. It was grounded in a concept of natural rights, consensus-oriented decision-making, consent not coercion, a sophisticated system of checks and balances, public discussion and deliberation, and the protection of individual rights and liberties (although the individual was secondary, the tribe primary). In all important decisions, the Great Law required that chiefs submit the issue to the tribe for approval.7 The Great Law even contained provisions for impeachment and removal of chiefs, and upon the death of a chief, the women of the clan deliberated about who would assume the title. Their nomination of a new chief then went to the entire clan for approval, then to a governing council for final approval. The Ne Gayaneshagowa describes the leadership selection process as follows: When a Lordship title becomes vacant through death or other cause, The Royaneh women of the clan in which the title is hereditary shall hold a council and shall choose one from among their sons to fill the office made vacant. Such a candidate shall not be the father of any Confederate Lord. If the choice is unanimous the name is referred to the men relatives of the clan. If they should disapprove it shall be their duty to select a candidate from among their number. If then the men and women are unable to decide which of the two candidates shall be named, then the matter shall be referred to the Confederate Lords in the Clan. They shall decide which candidate shall be named. If the men and women agree to a candidate his name shall be referred to the sister clans for confirmation. If the sister clans confirm the choice, they shall then refer their action to their Confederate Lords who shall ratify the choice and present it to their cousin Lords, and if the cousin Lords confirm the name then the candidate shall be installed by the proper ceremony for the conferring of Lordship titles.

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Women thus played a prominent role in leadership selection as well as the daily life of the tribe. The lineal descent of the people of the Five Nations shall run in the female line. Women shall be considered the progenitors of the nation. They shall own the land and the soil. Men and women shall follow the status of the mother.

The Great Law contained a number of elements that would later appear in different form in the U.S. Constitution. This excerpt from the Great Law demonstrates how the constitution of the Iroquois League dealt with checks and balances in decision-making: In all cases the procedure must be as follows: when the Mohawk and Seneca Lords have unanimously agreed upon a question, they shall report their decision to the Cayuga and Oneida Lords who shall deliberate upon the question and report a unanimous decision to the Mohawk Lords. The Mohawk Lords will then report the standing of the case to the Firekeepers, who shall render a decision… as they see fit in case of a disagreement by the two bodies or confirm the decisions of the two bodies if they are identical. The Firekeepers shall then report their decision to the Mohawk Lords who shall announce it to the open council.

Leadership Georgia Governor James Oglethorpe, speaking in 1764 of the role of leadership in the Muscogee Tribe said: … there is no coercive power… Their Kings can do no more than persuade. All the power they have is no more than to call their old men and captains and to propound to them the measures they think proper. After they have done speaking, all the others have liberty to give their opinions also; and they reason together with great temper and modesty, till they have brought each other into some unanimous resolution. They call in the young men and recommend the putting in execution the resolution with their strongest and most lively eloquence. In speaking to their young men, they generally address to the passions: in speaking to their old men they apply to reason only.8

Most tribal nations had not one but several chiefs. Determined by the consent of the people and based on a functional view of power, tribes had

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different chiefs for different tasks: one chief in war, another for diplomacy, another for planting, etc. In Comparison to European political leaders, both peace and war chiefs exercised only limited control over their followers. Unlike that of Old World sovereigns who held a mortal power over their people, a peace chief’s authority was limited primarily to persuasion and his ability to reflect the attitudes and values of his tribesman. He led because he epitomized the will of his people. If a significant number of the people in his village disagreed with him, they turned to another leader and his power diminished. Most Indian villages were rife with factionalism, a problem that greatly limited the influence of any particular peace chief. He could not force those tribesmen who disagreed with him to accept his decisions. If the factionalism became too intense, villages split and opposing factions formed new villages. Similarly, war chiefs did not “command” the tribesmen in their war parties. They led only because their followers had confidence in them. If the war chief insisted upon policies opposed by individual warriors, those individuals were free to leave the war party and return to their homes.9

The chiefs had little “power” in the conventional sense. As French anthropologist Pierre Clastres writes, “The chief has no authority at his disposal, no power of coercion, no means of giving order. The chief is not a commander; the people of the tribe are under no obligation to obey…”10 According to Parker, the duties of chief were spelled out in great detail: [They] shall be mentors of the people for all time. The thickness of their skin shall be seven spans, which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism. Their hearts shall be full of peace and good will and their minds filled with a yearning for their welfare of the people of the confederacy. With endless patience they shall carry out their duty and their firmness shall be tempered with a tenderness for the people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgment in their minds, and all their words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation… [They] must be honest in all things… self-interest must be cast into oblivion… [They shall] look and listen for the welfare of the whole people, and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground…11

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Unlike Europe of the time, rights of birth were generally inconsequential. Chiefs were generally selected for ability in a given task. They were expected to devote themselves to the tribe, and govern by persuasion, not command. In general, tribal governments were democratic, decentralized, and egalitarian. Leaders lacked coercive power and their role depended upon maintaining the support of the tribe. Consensus, not individual rights, predominated. There was no inherent right to leadership. While leadership often fell to elders, even they governed only with the support of the community. When support was withheld, the leader fell from his position. Most leaders were men, but on rare occasion a woman assumed a chief’s role. (In recent years Wilma Mankiller [what a great name!] was elected Chief of the Cherokee Nation.)12 While chiefs exercised power/influence in different ways, depending on the tribe and circumstances, several characteristics apply to almost all tribes. Chiefs were generally expected to: • • • • • • •

Practice Self-Denial Bear the Traditions of the Tribe Serve the Community Practice Persuasion not Coercion Develop Consensus Work Collaboratively Link Spiritual Life to Governing

Many of these concepts seem alien to us, and to an extent, those in the West may see these elements of leadership as a sign of weakness. In this sense, the Native styles of leadership may have more in common with Zen concepts of leadership than with those in the West. The Industrial Model or the Command Model of leadership, so prevalent in the West, is hierarchical and power oriented. It seeks to give the leader control. The Native American style is more compatible with the emerging PostIndustrial Model of leadership, which is more open, democratic, and collegial.13

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Impact on the Framers Ample evidence exists to support the view that Native American forms of government, most especially the Iroquois Confederacy, had an impact on the views of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. While the Native American legacy is still disputed in some academic circles,14 many historians and anthropologists now argue that indeed, the framers drew a good deal from the Native peoples. Historian Donald A. Grinde argues that “the United States Constitution owes much of its emphasis on unity, federalism, and balance of power to Iroquois concepts.”15 And while the evidence is to some slightly speculative, even the U.S. Senate has paid tribute to the Native influences.16 The Iroquois insist they had a significant influence on the framers, and many historians agree.17 Many of the framers were familiar with the styles of government practiced by the Native Americans. Benjamin Franklin was well versed in Native traditions. Franklin, commenting on the government of the Iroquois, wrote: The Indian Men, when young are Hunters and Warriors; when old, Counsellors; for all their Government is by the Counsel or Advice of the Sages; there is no Force, there are no prisons, no Officers to compel Obedience, or inflict Punishment. Hence, they generally study Oratory; the best Speaker having the most influence. The Indian Women till the Ground, dress the Food, burse and bring up the Children, and preserve and hand down to Posterity the Memory of Public Transactions… Having frequent Occasions to hold public Councils, they have acquired great Order and Decency in conducting them. The old Men sit in the foremost Ranks, the Warriors in the next, and the Women and Children in the hindmost. The Business of the Women is to take exact notice of what passes, imprint it in their Memories, for they have no Writing, and communicate it to their Children. They are the Records of the Council, and they preserve Tradition of the Stipulations in Treaties a hundred Years back, which when we compare with our Writings, we always find exact. He that would speak, rises. The rest observe a profound Silence. When he has finished and sits down, they leave him five or six Minutes to recollect, that if he has omitted anything he intended to say, or has anything to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another, evening common Conversation is reckoned highly indecent. How different it is from the Conduct of a polite British House of Commons, where scarce a Day passes

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without some confusion that makes the speaker hoarse in calling to order; and how different from the mode of Conversation in many polite Companies of Europe, where if you do not deliver your Sentence with great Rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, & never suffer’d to finish it.18

Franklin’s 1754 Albany Plan of Union called for the colonists to model their confederation after the Iroquois Confederacy. “It would be a strange thing,” he wrote, “If Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union and be able to executive it in such a manner as that is has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary to be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interests.”19 According to Grinde, Franklin met with Iroquois chiefs and delegates of the Continental Congress to “hammer out a plan that he acknowledged to be similar to the Iroquois Confederacy;” and that Franklin’s work “is resplendent with stories about Indians and Indian ideas of personal freedom and structures of government.”20 Franklin was quite knowledgeable of Iroquois and Native American customs and government. Thomas Jefferson’s papers refer on several occasions to “the forms of Iroquois governance.” Even James Madison made trips to study and speak with Iroquois leaders.21 John Adams wrote about the separation of powers of the Native Americans as a model for the colonists.22 And James Wilson, arguing for confederation 1776, stated that “Indians know the striking benefits of Confederation [and they] have an example of it in the union of the Six Nations.”23 De Witt Clinton called the Iroquois “the Romans of the Western World.”24 And John Adams, in his influential Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, published in 1787, included an analysis of Native American traditions and governments, acknowledging that some of the “great philosophers and politicians of the age [want to] set up governments of… modern Indians.”25 As Grinde writes: Adams felt that instead of attempting to implement Indian governments as Franklin saw them it would be more helpful to have “a more accurate investigation of the form of governments of the… Indians” In addition, Adams believed that it would be “well worth the pains… to collect… the

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legislation of the Indians” while developing a new constitution for the United States. Adams urged leaders of the time to investigate the “government of… modern Indians,” since the separation of powers in their government “is marked with a precision that excludes all controversy.” Indeed, Adams remarked that the legislative branch in modern Indian governments is so democratic that the “real sovereignty resided in the body of the people.” Personal liberty was so important to American Indians, according to Adams, that Mohawks have “complete individual independence.” Moreover, Adams also pointed out that every American Indian nation in North America had three distinct branches of government.26

Legal Scholar Felix Cohen wrote that: It is out of rich Indian democratic tradition that the distinctive political ideals of American life emerged. Universal suffrage for women as for men, the pattern of states that we call federalism, the habit of treating chiefs as servants of the people instead of their masters, the insistence that the community must respect the diversity of men and the diversity of their dreams – all these things were part of the American way of life before Columbus landed.27

John Adams, in his three-volume survey of different forms of government, written to assist the Framers in their task of writing a new constitution, included, in addition to the usual suspects (Athenian democracy, the Rome Republic, John Locke, and Montesquieu), information on the Iroquois Confederacy, as well as other indigenous governments.28 The Iroquois Confederacy served the framers as an example of selfgovernance, proof that monarchy was not inevitable, and proof that a republic could survive and flourish. Given that there is no comparable example in Europe at the time of the framers, the living example of the Iroquois Confederacy gave the framers some reason for hope. But there are limits that must be noted. As Robert W. Venables writes: At many levels, the Constitution composed at Philadelphia – that is, prior to two centuries of amendments – was a betrayal of values held in esteem by the Iroquois. Women were originally omitted from the United States’ political system. Black human life was valued at three-fifths the value of

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white human life. The Constitution separated government into branches intended more to check than to balance each other, because the checks and balances were achieved through tension. Moreover, the Constitution specifically rejected the Iroquois idea that government is by consensus. Instead, the Constitution mandates the rule of the majority. And under the Constitution, church and state are separate whereas the Iroquois integrate religion and politics. Finally, the Constitution was defined in terms of private, individual property rights, not communal property rights. Despite these differences, it must be emphasized that replication should not be the only standard which the twentieth century should seek to understand how the Iroquois and other Indian people influenced the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. This is seen in a reference by John Adams, who in refuting a similarity to Indians in one instance, admitted another similarity – the similarity being that the United States derived its power just as Indian nations did: from “we the people.”29

If structurally, the presidency bears only marginal similarity to the Chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy, there may be a closer connection to the mode of operation or style of politics practiced in both systems. Presidents, like chiefs, were dependent upon others for their authority and power. If a president’s (chief’s) acts are to be legitimate, they must gain the consent of the Congress (Council) and ultimately of the voting public (tribe). The president has few “powers” but, like the chiefs, is well positioned to exert influence. While originally the president was removed as much as possible from the pressures of public opinion, the chiefs depended on popular support. Today, of course, presidents often seem slaves to the popular will.30 Presidents are expected to practice a brand of politics that is coalitionoriented and consensus-building in nature. They have little independent authority to act and therefore must build bridges to other political actors. Likewise, Iroquois chiefs had to build bridges to the community, never losing sight of their core constituency. The presidency, which emerged from the Philadelphia convention, did not in itself resemble the position of chief(s) as practiced by the Iroquois. However, the separation of powers and other elements of the Iroquois confederacy did find comparable institutional provisions written into the U.S. Constitution. If the lessons of the Iroquois were somewhat lost in the invention of the presidency, are there lessons that may be relevant to us today in their style of leadership?

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Clearly, tribal nations and governments had some impact on the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Precisely how much influence is difficult to determine. What, if anything, can we learn from the styles of governing and leadership practiced by the first Americans? The literature in the field of Leadership Studies suggests that we are currently going through a transformation in the understanding and practice of leadership. The Industrial Model of leadership (hierarchical, power oriented, “male”) is giving way to a Post-Industrial Model (cooperative, collegial, influence oriented, “androgynous”).31 In this transformation, we can learn much from the styles of leadership practiced by Native Americans. In many ways, these Native American styles are a precursor to the PostIndustrial models of leadership with their emphasis on: • • • • • • •

Service Persuasion, not Coercion Influence, not Power Consensus-building Collaborative Coalition-building Situational Styles of Leadership Style-Flexing

The emerging style of leadership practiced in the West corresponds with much of what was practiced in the Iroquois Confederacy. It may be a lesson late in coming, but there are things we can yet learn from the Iroquois. The Iroquois were a pre-industrial people living in relatively small groups who were required to work collaboratively in order to survive. What possible relevance can their understanding of political authority and leader–follower relations have for us? During the rise of industrialism, the example of the Iroquois may have been of only limited utility to us. But today—as we enter a post-industrial era, an age of Globalism—the Iroquois present us with some attractive, even tantalizing, opportunities. In many respects, globalization and advances in communications technology give us at least pseudo face-toface interactions with a vast network of people in far places. Also, we are increasingly forced—especially in the workplace—to work collaboratively in order to survive. The relevance then, of Native American patterns is

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perhaps just as important to us as it was to the framers of the Constitution: a demonstration of what is possible.32

Early Encounters For much of the pre-Revolutionary War period, tribal nations were caught in the middle of the super-power conflicts of the day. French, British, and Spanish imperial interests conflicted, and each side assiduously courted tribal nations to aid in their causes, always with the (false) promise that the interests of the tribe coincided with their interests. During the French and Indian War (1754–1763) which set the British colonists against “New France,” many tribal nations sided with the French (George Washington engaged in or led several key battles of this war, usually against Indians). The British relied mainly on the Iroquois, Catawba, and Cherokee tribes while the French were allied with the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Algonquian, Ottawa, Shawnee, and other tribes. The British “won” the war, and the forces of France diminished in the New World. The revolutionary rhetoric of the colonists was expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration, of the many charges leveled against the Crown was that of unleashing “merciless Indian Savages” against innocent colonists. And the Declaration also admonishes the King for preventing the colonists from appropriating western lands. Thus, Native tribes were understandably worried about their fate should the colonists emerge victorious. During the Revolutionary War, the British, hoping to use Indian tribes as a force multiplier against the colonists, recruited several tribes to their cause. When George Washington found out that the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois confederacy) had joined the British side, he instructed Major General John Sullivan to immediately attack the Haudenosaunee “to lay waste all the settlements around… that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed … [Y]ou will not, by any means, listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected … Our future security will be in their inability to injure us … and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them.” To this, Sullivan replied, “The Indians shall see that there is malice enough in our hearts to destroy everything that contributes to their support.”33 Native American allegiances were split, with most supporting the British and others supporting the Colonists. The original hope among

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tribal nations was to remain neutral in the coming war,34 but animosities, past grievances, and ongoing land grabs by British settlers set several tribes against the British and others against the Colonists.35 Shortly after the colonies defeated the British in the war for Independence, many Native leaders, recognizing the changed political circumstances, attempted to establish diplomatic relations with the victors. But there wasn’t much of a government with which to deal. Especially troubling was that with the British disposed of, the new nation, in disregard of the land rights of tribal nations, began to press westward. Despite treaties protecting Indian lands, white settlers began to move into western territories and there was no national military to enforce treaties if they wished to do so. The Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the war for independence, transferred control of Indian lands in the former colonies to the new United States. And while the treaty ceded Indian lands to the new government, it did so without any input or participation from the affected tribes. Shortly before the new Constitution went into effect, the Congress of the Articles of Confederation passed several versions of the Northwest Ordinance, an effort to set policy regarding the white settlements being carved out of the greater Ohio Valley. It was, as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes, a “blueprint for occupying and driving out the substantial agricultural societies of the formally British-protected Indian territory (“Ohio County”) on the other side of the Appalachians and Alleghenies.”36 These Ordinances (1785 and 1787) set into motion a policy of auctioning off Indian lands “to the highest bidder.”37 It was an effort to extend the government’s blessing that would lead to settler colonization. In the time between the Revolutionary War and the writing of the Constitution, the seeds of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion were being planted in the soil of the new nation. It would end up devouring the Native peoples.

The Founding Myth All countries need founding myths, creation stories that explain, justify, and glorify; stories we tell our children to help socialize them into the status quo and develop generational loyalty and support for the state. In America, the Founding Myth revolves around the Framers—Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, and others—who fought

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for liberty, equality, and democracy, men who risked life and fortune so that future generations could live free. Of course, reality is a bit more complex than that. Some framers (Hamilton, for example) feared democracy; others (e.g., Washington) preferred a republic; and still others preferred modeling the new government on the old British system (Hamilton, again). The myth, however, was a powerful one, transmitted from generation to generation, giving each new cohort something to believe in and commit to. Part of the American founding myth is the conquest myth. Brave settlers confronted challenge after challenge to tame the West, establish a civilized order, and bring democracy and the rule of law to a savage land. It was a myth of white settlers overcoming adversity, brave men (and women) who settled the wilderness. But the myth was in part built on contradictions. How could we speak of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” when slavery prevented Africans brought here against their will from enjoying the benefits of this newfound freedom? How could we celebrate justice and equality when the white settlers treated the Native population with contempt, violence, and duplicity? The myth was a white male myth. Citizenship was denied to people of color. And full citizenship was denied to women.38

The Genocide Question Is it fair, is it accurate to say that a “policy,” of genocide was implemented by the United States government against the Native populations? In 2009, a rider was added to a dense congressional appropriations bill acknowledging the role of the government in massacres against Indigenous Tribes (e.g., Wounded Knee, Sand Creek), along with forced removals and relocations, and “years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes.” It went on to express “regrets for the ramifications of founder wrongs.” The word “genocide” did not appear in the bill.39 Legally, politically, and morally, a narrative of invisibility and erasure allowed the Christian, white settlers to dehumanize “savages” or turn a blind eye to their existence.40 Only then could the violence on such a mass scale be legitimized if not justified. In 1948, in Resolution 260 [III] of the General Assembly, the United Nations Convention on Genocide defined genocide as follows:

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Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a. Killing members of the group; b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.41

This definition highlights the two elements of genocide as physical—one of the five areas—and mental—“intent” to destroy. The policies of the U.S. government and of presidents were the result of choice. Nothing was preordained. Reasons such as racism, greed, religious bigotry, colonial arrogance, and cultural superiority all allowed settlers to impose a harsh dominance on Native American populations. They chose to destroy and dislocate Native populations. It was intentional.

Conclusion American presidents mattered to Native Americans. From George Washington’s early efforts to balance the rights and sovereignty of Native people with the pressures to expand westward, to Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark expedition, to Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears and beyond, presidential policies and actions toward Native Americans would reveal the true nature of colonization, power politics, and the role of racism in the history of the United States.

Notes 1. Watson, Blake A. Buying America from the Indians, University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. 2. Barry, Richard. Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942. 3. Carter, George F. “Cultural, Historical Diffusion,” in Peter Hugill and D. Bruce Dickson, eds., Transfer and Transformation of Ideas, Texas A&M University Press, 1988, p. 19. 4. Johansen, Bruce E. Forgotten Founders: How The American Indian Helped Shape Democracy, Harvard Common Press, 1982. 5. Josephy, Jr., Alvin M. The Patriot Chiefs, Penguin Books, 1978, p. 8.

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6. Quotes in Josephy, The Patriot Chiefs, pp. 8–9. 7. Lyons, Oren., et al. Exiled in the Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations and the U.S. Constitution, Clear Light Publishers, 1992. 8. Edmunds, David R. Americana Indian Leaders, University of Nebraska Press, 1980, pp. viii–ix. 9. Ibid., pp. viii–ix. 10. Clastres, Pierre. Society Against the States, Urizen Books, 1977, p. 228. 11. Parker, Arthur H. Parker on the Iroquois, ed., William Fenton, Syracuse University Press, 1968. 12. O’Brien, Sharon. American Indian Tribal Government, University of Oklahoma Press, 1989, p. 16. 13. Culp III, Kenneth, and Cox, Kathryn J. “Leadership Styles for the New Millennium: Creating New Paradigms,” The Journal of Leadership Studies, Winter 1997, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 3–17; and Kielson, Daniel C. “Leadership: Creating a New Reality,” The Journal of Leadership Studies, Fall 1996, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 104–116. 14. Haupton, Laurence. Tribes and Tribulations, University of New Mexico Press, Ch. 3, “Speculations on the Constitution,” 1995. 15. Lyons, Oren., et al. Exiled in the Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations and the U.S. Constitution, Clear Light Publishers, 1992, p. 240. 16. United States Congress, Senate Resolution No. 76, Washington, DC, Government Printing Office, 1988. 17. Kammen, Michael. Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture, Knopf, 1991. 18. Exiled in the Land of the Free, pp. 103–104. 19. Josephy, The Patriot Chiefs, pp. 28–29. 20. Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred, p. 233. 21. Grinde, Donald. The Iroquois and the Founding of the American Nation, The Indian Historical Press, 1977. 22. Exiled in the Land of the Free, p. 254. 23. Exiled in the Land of the Free, p. 256. 24. Campbell, William B. The Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton, Baker & Schibner, 1849. 25. Quoted in Exiled, p. 262. 26. Exiled in the Land of the Free, p. 274. 27. Cohen, Felix. “Americanizing the White Man,” The American Scholar, 1952, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 179–180. 28. Little, Becky. “The Native American Government That Inspired the U.S. Constitution,” History, November 9, 2020; and Grinde, Jr., Donald A., and Johansen, Bruce E. Exemplar of Liberty: Native American and the Evolution of Democracy, American Indian studies Center, UCLA, 1991. 29. Venables, Robert W. “American Indian Influences on the America of the Founding Fathers,” Ch. 3 of Exiles, pp. 116–117.

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30. Genovese, Michael A., and Streb, Matthew. Polls and Politics, SUNY Press, 2004. 31. Genovese, Michael A., ed. Women as National Leaders, Sage, 1995. 32. Genovese, Michael A. Unearthing the Buried Foundations of the American Presidency: What the Native-Americans Taught the Framers About Political Leadership, and What They Can Teach Us, White House Studies, 2005, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 393–404. 33. Quoted in Drinnon, Richard. Facing West: The Metaphysics of IndianHating and Empire-Building, University of Minnesota Press, 1980, p. 331. 34. Trafzer, Clifford E., ed. American Indians/American Presidents, Harper Collins, 2009, p. 36. 35. Calloway, Colin G. The American Revolution in Indian Country, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 26–31 and 288–308. 36. Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne and Gilio-Whitaker, Dina. “All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans, Beacon Press, 2016, p. 68. 37. Holton, Woody. Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, Macmillan, 2007, p. 14. 38. Lepore, Gill. These Truths: A History of the United States, Norton, 2018. 39. Dunbar Ortiz, Roxanne and Gilio-Whitaker, Dina. “Myths: The United States Did Not Have a Policy of Genocide,” All the Real Indians Died Off , Beacon Press, 2016, p. 59. 40. Diamond, Neil (director). Reel Injuns, film documentary, Lionsgate, 2011. 41. Dunbar-Ortiz and Gilio-Whitaker, pp. 61–62.

CHAPTER 3

The Founding Era: Establishing Relations—George Washington to John Quincy Adams

The presidency of today is the result of more than 230 years of development. In fits and starts, the presidency has grown and shrunk; presidential power has expanded and contracted. But, if the presidency has been the product of these fluctuations, the overall trend has been toward growth—unsteady and uneven—but growth, nonetheless. Some presidents enlarged the office; others diminished it. Some left new tools for their successors; others left their successors in seemingly impossible situations. Of all the framers’ inventions, the presidency was left least formed. Thus, while the office may have been invented by the framers, it was created and brought to life by Washington and his successors. The office that emerged from the Philadelphia Convention was incomplete and unformed. Thus, Washington, the first president, ventured into largely uncharted territory. Everything was new. There was precious little constitutional guidance to follow. Washington would have to invent as he went along. The presidency is an office made in practice as much as one drafted in Philadelphia.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_3

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George Washington Unusually tall for his time, at 6’3” George Washington was a towering figure.1 Beyond his imposing height, the first president of the United States was the towering political figure of his era as well, due to his accomplishments, character, and the high esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries. Washington was seen as a man of virtue and honor. He was the man who could have been king but chose to be president. That alone endeared him to his countrymen. In some ways, George Washington is today an icon perched upon a pedestal, more myth than man; a monument, statuesque, and seemingly impenetrable; a classical hero in a modern world. He viewed the American experiment in republican government as promising, but fragile. He knew his role in establishing a presidency was of enormous significance. Hoping to establish dignified republican norms and standards, he tried to lead by example that which was required of the new government. Washington was an enormously complex, even contradictory, man. He was a truly self-created person. Over the years, Washington worked hard at inventing himself, becoming the person of honor and integrity he strove so hard to become. He could be vain, ambitious, and statusseeking. He was driven to succeed. Much of his life was an effort to control and direct these ambitions toward noble and selfless goals. He needed public acclaim, and yet he was personally remote, aloof, even cold. He was, in this sense, an unlikely hero. He was consumed with achieving success, yet when he could have been king, he refused. Harnessing such ambitions in the service of republican goals made Washington different. Near the end of the revolution, King George III, Washington’s adversary, asked the painter John Trumbull, who had just returned to England after a trip to America, what he thought Washington would do after the war. “Go back to his farm,” answered Trumbull, to which George III replied, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”2 That is just what Washington did. Several years later, George III again praised Washington’s humility, saying that his voluntary withdrawal from power “placed him in a light the most distinguished of any man living,” and referred to him as “the greatest character of his age.”3 What was it about Washington’s character that so impressed his contemporaries? Washington had what in Latin is referred to as “gravitas”—dignified seriousness; he was a man of substance. He had a dignity

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and presence that reminded people of the noble Roman, Cincinnatus, who left the plow to save Rome from the barbarian hordes, and then, having saved Rome, returned to his plow. Washington derived honor from selfless service. As Commander of the Army for eight years, he repeatedly rejected offers of dictatorial powers. When independence was won, he voluntarily laid down his command to return to the life of a private citizen. His huge ego was employed in the service of his community. But his ego and ambition—dangerous attributes in most men—were under strict self-control. Washington’s ambition drove him to succeed, and his skills allowed him to achieve much; his self-discipline let him give up power and glory. This is what made him truly great. He wanted power but did not overtly seek it. He was driven by ambition but controlled and subjugated that personal ambition to a higher goal. At the time of his inauguration, the United States was still a fledgling nation. Most Americans worked the land, felt more loyalty to their state than their country, and possessed a rugged pioneer spirit. There were, at this time, only three commercial banks in the entire nation. The western territories were controlled by European powers and populated by Native tribes. The nation’s largest cities, Philadelphia (population 42,000), New York (31,000), and Baltimore (13,000) were tiny by European standards. When Washington took the oath of office as first president of the new United States in 1789, people had great confidence and trust in him. There were, however, grave doubts about the legitimacy and role of this new office, called a “presidency.” The Constitution, far from settling the question of presidential power, left more questions than answers. The Constitution was vague and ambiguous, barely charting a skeletal organization for the new office. There was confusion over the political role and character of this presidency. Article II, “the executive power shall be vested in a President,” settled little. What powers? What limits? What relation to Congress, to the Courts? What connection to the people? Leader or manager? Washington had no deep political or partisan agenda. His goal was to establish the legitimacy of the office, place it on secure footing, give it some independence, and establish legitimacy of the new republican government. As president, he attempted to be a national unifier, bringing the two bitter rivals, Hamilton and Jefferson, together in his cabinet, hoping to forestall, if not stamp out, the emerging partisan division

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between these two powerful adversaries and the ideas that animated their public hostility. Aware of the importance of every step, act, decision, and non-decision, Washington told James Madison: “As the first of everything, in our situation will serve to establish a precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles.” “I walk,” he noted, “on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct that may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.” He further noted, “Many things which appear of little importance in themselves and at the beginning may have great and durable consequences from there having been established at the commencement of a new general government.” Here was a man creating an institution as he went along. The Constitution of 1787 was painted only in very broad strokes. It was left to Washington (and his successors) to fill in the details. This left considerable leeway for Washington to invent an office. He was not handed a blank page on which to draw, but the openness of the Constitution left room for individuals and events to complete the job the framers started. Every act had meaning, and Washington was able to establish a number of important and lasting precedents. One of his key contributions was in wrestling some executive independence from Congress in several important areas. He established a precedent of hiring and firing (the latter a serious bone of contention) a cabinet and key executive officers. Washington also fought for a modicum of independent control over foreign affairs and treaty making. Some ongoing negotiations with tribal nations put executive-congressional relations to the test early in his administration. The Constitution called for the president to seek the advice and consent of the Senate in making treaties, but what form should this advice take? Washington asked James Madison how to proceed: “Would an oral or written communication be best? If the first, what mode is to be adopted to affect it?” On August 22, 1789, the president asked the Senate for consultation regarding a proposed treaty. Vice President John Adams read a message to the Senate from President Washington, which concerned several points about the treaty, hoping to get the Senate’s advice and consent. A confused Senate, surprised and unprepared to meet Washington’s request, couldn’t figure out how to respond. Washington grew progressively angrier, declaring, “This defeats every purpose of my coming here.” So off-put was Washington that he resolved never to seek Senate consultation again.

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In truth, most of the fault rested with the president. Had he informed the Senate prior to dropping the treaty on their laps, they might have been better prepared to engage in serious consultation. But this event marked the last time Washington attempted to use the Senate in an advisory capacity. Such consultation that subsequently took place was in private, and thereafter the Senate was not seriously involved in the advise part of Advise and Consent. Washington’s Impact What was Washington’s contribution to this new government and this new presidency? While James Madison is rightfully called the Father of the U.S. Constitution, no one contributed more to the operation of the new government than George Washington. It was Washington who put the new constitutional framework on solid footing and who served when the Bill of Rights was adopted.4 He is considered a great man and a great president. In an age when the skilled used of power marked greatness, Washington proved a great man because he willingly relinquished power. In July 1799, Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut implored Washington to serve a third term as president. Only Washington, Trumbull wrote, could save the nation from a “French President” (Thomas Jefferson). But Washington refused, claiming that new political conditions in the nation made his presidency unnecessary. It was a new era of more democratic and more party-oriented politics. “Personal influence” no longer mattered as much. Party, not character, determined how people voted. Even if he ran, Washington wrote, he was “thoroughly convinced I should not draw a single vote from the anti-federalist side.”5 President George Washington has been one of our Mount Rushmore presidents. He usually is ranked as the third best U.S. President (after Lincoln and FDR). He was also a slave owner and the first president to deal from a place of authority with Native Americans. Washington, like all of us, was a man of his place and times; a southern landowner in an age of slavery. Washington was the source and symbol of national unity for the European settler population at a time when the result of this experiment in republican government was very much in doubt. He domesticated power and facilitated the development of a republican culture to go along with republican institutions.

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Talleyrand, Napoleon’s foreign minister, delivered the following tribute to Washington after the great president’s death, describing him as “the man who… first dared believe that he could inspire degenerate nations with the courage to rise to the level of republican virtue.”6 Washington was a great doer and a great teacher of the style and substance of republican government. What he did was of immeasurable importance. But what he did not do may have been even more significant. He did not take sides in the continental wars that swept Europe as a result of France’s revolutionary experiment, buying precious time for the United States to evolve a sense of nationhood. He did not organize a king’s party, nor regard himself as a democratically chosen monarch. Most important of all, by voluntarily relinquishing office at the end of two terms, Washington forced a world more accustomed to Caesar than Cincinnatus to revise its definition of greatness. “George Washington was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power,” Robert Frost said without a hint of poetic license. Poignant confirmation of this came from none other than Napoleon Bonaparte, who, on his deathbed at St. Helena, far removed from military pomp and glory, sighed, “They wanted me to be another Washington.” Washington as Author of Federal Indian Policy Thirty years before George Washington became the first president of the United States, he renovated Mount Vernon, his legendary plantation on the banks of the Potomac River. Then a 27-year-old army commander, Washington in 1759 transformed his family’s modest farmhouse into a mansion. He also moved the main entrance, reorienting the home from eastward-facing to westward, symbolizing one of his deepest convictions: “that the future lay in those wild and wooded lands”7 of the Ohio Country and beyond. Biographer Joseph Ellis writes that, “even when ensconced on the eastern edge of the continent at Mount Vernon, Washington spent a good deal of his time and energy dreaming and scheming about virgin land over the western horizon.” When Washington became president in 1789, he brought to the office the uneasy conviction that Native Americans were destined to be displaced as white settlers moved westward. He also brought a nickname: Members of the Iroquois Confederacy called him “Conotocarious,” which means “devourer of villages.”8

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As the first president of a new country, Washington inherited a problem already hundreds of years in the making: what to do with the indigenous population. During his two terms as president, Washington forged the first relationships between the federal government and Native Americans, setting the tone of federal Indian policy. Mary Thompson, a research historian at Mount Vernon, noted that “Indians were part of Washington’s life from the time he was 16 years old until he retired from the presidency. He was the first president to worry about boundaries, about white people encroaching on Indian land, about the treaty-making process.” The original relationship of the United States to the indigenous peoples was political and diplomatic. It resembled a nation-to-nation relationship. Tribal delegations went to Philadelphia—then the nation’s temporary capital—to meet with “the Great American Chief” and discuss policy. In those days, the government dealt with tribes as foreign nations rather than domestic subjects. Still powerful, Native Americans posed real problems to the precarious republic, and Secretary of War Henry Knox advised Washington that “every proper expedient that can be devised to gain their affections, and attach them to the interest of the Union, should be adopted.”9 As president, Washington frequently hosted delegations of Native Americans in his Market Street home, where they engaged in the “performative aspects of Indian diplomacy,” dining, smoking pipes, and meeting in council with tribal leaders. He also accepted and displayed gifts of wampum belts and other traditional items. Yet “Washington’s entire Indian policy,” writes historian Colin G. Calloway, “and his vision for the nation depended on the acquisition of Indian territory.”10 As Washington and his administration grew, future growth of the United States was dependent on acquiring—one way or another—vast tracks of Indian land. Strictly speaking, the Congress was constitutionally empowered to conduct Indian affairs, the President was to make—with the advice and consent of the Senate—treaties, and the States, so powerful under the Articles of the Constitution, were to have a more limited role. Initially, Indian affairs were conducted on a “county-to-county” basis, thereby giving to the President the authority to make treaties and, in practical if not constitutional terms, set policy toward the Indian nations. This privileged position placed George Washington at the center of U.S.–Indian

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relations and meant he would deal directly with representatives of the tribal nations. One of the first goals of Washington’s Native diplomacy was to rebuild relations with the Iroquois tribes that had sided with the British during the Revolution. The Iroquois were understandably suspicious of Washington and this new government. Washington tried to reassure the Iroquois, telling their sachems (chiefs) that he wanted to “remove all causes of discontent,” and to “cement the peace between the United States and you,” further expressing his hope that they could all become “brothers.” He then pleaded with the Indian leaders to “forget the misunderstandings of past times.” Then, Washington declared that the new government would “acquire no lands but those obtained by treaties, which we consider as fairly made.”11 Washington’s message was simple: Trust us. The Seneca leader Red Jacket expressed his appreciation for correctly addressing the sachems as “free men,” and added that the only way “two brothers speak freely” was if both were on “equal ground.”12 Not all Indian leaders were persuaded. Joseph Brant, the Mohawk statesman and soldier who had supported the British during the Revolution, told the Delaware Tribe that he had seen the President’s “heart and bowels.” If the Indians trusted him, “you could be greatly deceived,” he said. While Washington spoke of peace, in reality he coveted their lands.13 Brant, also known as Thayendanegea, had recognized one of Washington’s goals, and the hunger of the white settlers for their lands. By force or treaty, the settlers were determined to gain control of Indian lands. And if treaties were the preferred method—between 1778 and 1868, three hundred and seventy-seven treaties were signed—the new government also resorted to force in its explosion west.14 Westward expansion—what would later be referred to as fulfilling our “Manifest Destiny”—was, from day one of the new administration, the issue that would plague policy makers, inflame conflicts between Native populations and white settlers, and become the chief impetus for the government of the United States as it tried to gain valuable lands while still dealing inexorably (where possible) or deceptively (where workable) with Indian tribes. The West represented the hopes and dreams of a new empire and the promise of a new prosperity for settlers. The clash was inevitable. The settlers wanted what the Indians had. In the end, they would get it. But at a high price.

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Washington knew that “if westward expansion was to unite rather than divide the states, it must be a national endeavor, with the federal government controlling Indian affairs and the process of acquiring Indian lands.” If only it were so simple. Calloway notes the dilemma: “Expansion was inevitable, but the destruction of Indian people was not.”15 While the Constitution established the federal government’s authority in Indian affairs, several states dissented. Practically from day one of his administration, George Washington tried to establish federal control over Indian affairs, and he would devote time and energy to this endeavor. Settlers and land speculators demanded that the new government pave the way—militarily if necessary—for westward expansion. Tribal leaders lobbied the president for the protection of their rights and property. As resident “foreign nations” hoping for just treatment, they lobbied Washington to reach agreements—treaties—to protect their sovereignty. At first, Washington hoped to pursue a prudent course of balancing interests. In his August 7, 1789, message to Congress, Washington called on the government to protect citizens from attack but “a due regard should be extended to those Indian tribes whose happiness in the course of events so materially depends on the national justice and humanity of the United States.”16 He delivered a singular message to Congress in what is now referred to as the State of the Union address a month later. The making of Indian policy was clearly not a side issue for the new nation—it was central to its identity as a nation. On October 25, 1791, in his annual message to Congress, Washington presented six principles that should guide U.S. Indian policy: 1. An “impartial dispensation of justice” toward Indians. 2. A “defined and regulated” method of purchasing Indian lands, since this was “the main source of discontent and war.” 3. A regulated and fair trade. 4. “Rational experiments… for imparting to them the blessings of civilization.” 5. “That the Executive of the United States should be enabled to employ the means to which the Indians have long been accustomed for uniting their immediate interests with the preservation of peace”; in other words, the president should have authority to give presents to Indians.

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6. Adequate penalties should be imposed on those who infringed Indian rights, broke treaties, and thereby endangered the peace of the nation. The result of extensive internal executive branch discussions, this policy was designed to balance competing interests, while still hoping that westward expansion—that Washington saw as inevitable—could be managed short of all-out war.17 In 1790 in the Northwest Territory, U.S. forces under the command of Governor St. Clair, sought peace and prepared for war. Washington pressed St. Clair to act. Believing the British were behind the acts of certain tribes against white settlers, Washington hoped to deliver a message: cross us and you will pay. But Washington and St. Clair miscalculated. St. Clair’s forces—in a war against another “nation” undertaken without the consent of Congress— were badly defeated. Washington would not back down. His secretary of war, Henry Knox, went to Congress asking for an expansion of the army. But even with new troops, a coalition of tribes defeated St. Clair’s troops. This new nation was vulnerable; it was not omnipotent. It could not always get its way. What went wrong? In the congressional investigation, a special committee was formed to study the matter. The committee requested materials and communications from the executive, but Washington was reluctant to cooperate. It was a key early test of the separation of powers, checks and balance system of the new constitution. Could Congress hold a president accountable? Did it have the right to demand that the president turn over materials? Washington—always conscious of setting a precedent—consulted with his cabinet. This small group consisting of Knox, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph concluded that indeed, Congress did have the right to request documents, but recommended the president release only those documents “which the public good would permit” and to “refuse those the disclosure of which would harm the public good” (in the view of the president). This early effort of establishing “executive privilege.”18 The new government hoped to gain Indian lands via treaties, would where they thought necessary, resort to force, and some even hoped to “civilize” these Native tribes and assimilate them into White European culture. But did the Native tribes want this?

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Throughout his two terms, President Washington had to deal with war and the threat of wars with Native tribes. In the Ohio Valley, violence between Indians and settlers was—for a time—diminished by the passage of the Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790. But some states—Georgia being most prominent among them—insisted that “they” and not the federal government had the right to set Indian policy within their state borders. These states-rights advocates were often at odds with the federal government, and often undermined federal efforts at peace. This was the case with the Creeks, who clearly saw their plight and decided that in order to limit the encroachment of white settlers onto their lands, war should be declared against Georgia. Washington interfered, inviting Creek sachem Alexander McGillivray to then-capital New York City where a treaty was signed. Conflict between states, the federal government, and white settlers who saw themselves as free agents not bound by treaties against different Native tribes continued, occupying a great deal of Washington’s attention. Added to this list of difficulties, the frontier population expanding into the Allegheny Mountains, upset that the new government would not (could not) guarantee their safety, threatened to secede. Some even threatened to align with the British, who still had troops in Canada, or with the Spanish to the South. Washington saw the need for a professional army to replace the haphazard militias that had been called in occasionally. A “real” army gave the United States options. The president lobbied Congress, which eventually gave in. In his generally praiseworthy biography of Washington, bestselling historian Ron Chernow recognizes that as president, Washington’s “most flagrant failings remained those of the country as a whole – the inability to deal forthrightly with the injustice of slavery or to figure out an equitable solution in the ongoing clashes with Native Americans.”19 Near the beginning of his first term, Washington declared that one of his highest priorities was an Indian policy “directed entirely by the great principles of justice and humanity.” The first federal Indian policy was enunciated in June 1789, two months after Washington took office. During his eight years in power, Washington oversaw seven treaties with tribes, including the treaties of Canandaigua and Greenville—both of which established terms of negotiation for the transfer of Native lands to the United States.

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On November 11, 1794, Washington and 59 leaders representing the Six Nations of Iroquois signed the Treaty of Canandaigua, which established “a firm and permanent friendship” between the two entities. Article II of the treaty recognized Iroquois sovereignty and declared that the United States would never “disturb them or either of the Six Nations, nor their Indian friends residing thereon and united with them.” While the treaty promised “free use and enjoyment” of the reservations, it also states that the land “shall remain theirs, until they choose to sell the same to the people of the United States.”20 Nine months later, with the Treat of Greenville in August 1795, the United States seized most of the present-day state of Ohio. While he always had one eye on the acquisition of land, Washington also worked with Secretary of War Henry Knox to create sovereign “homelands” for Indians, believing that Indians were “prior occupants” and should be considered as foreign nations rather than subjects of the state. In July 1790, Congress passed the first Indian Trade and Intercourse Act, which “articulated a sharp divide between settlers’ lands and Indian country, and restricted access to Indian country only to federal agents and licensed Indian traders.”21 The law also introduced federal policies regarding the prosecution of non-Indians who commit crimes in Indian country and federal oversight of Indian land. Washington’s Indian policies were pragmatic, supporting limited contact between Indians and settlers. But the President also pushed to change Indian behavior, believing that the federal government could not hold back the avalanche of white settlers. In 1796, Washington concluded that settlers, not the government, controlled the national agenda regarding Indians. “I believe scarcely anything short of a Chinese wall or a line of troops will restrain land jobbers and the encroachment of settlers upon the Indian territory,” he wrote.22 Washington knew the government didn’t have a strong enough army to keep the settlers out. Instead, he initiated treaties with individual tribes and sought audiences with others, recommending they settle down and live like white people. This “civilization policy” became an essential part of Indian policy into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. “Washington was ready to put money into buying farm equipment and spinning wheels,” historian Mary Thompson said. “He wanted to pay people to teach them how to live the settled agricultural lives. He encouraged the sending of missionaries. He really felt that as cultures got

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closer together and got more alike, it would make it easier for them to live together.” Yet Washington agreed with Henry Knox, who insisted that to dispossess the Indians of their land would constitute a moral failure that would “stain the character of the nation.”23 In an open letter to the Cherokee Nation in 1796, Washington promised that if the Cherokee did their part, the federal government would enforce the treaties and ensure Cherokee survival. Washington meant the commitment to be a matter of law and personal promise, but it was one he could not keep. In the end, Washington’s efforts to expand westward while still protecting the rights and interests of the Native people was an impossible task. It was more “either-or” than “a bit of both.” As Calloway notes, The Indian policy that Washington envisioned and implemented continued with variations for more than one hundred years. Indian tribes were nations, but they were not fully independent nations like Britain and France; their sovereignty was limited by the sovereignty of the United Sates, and their autonomy declined as the United States grew. They would give up most of their land -voluntarily by purchase if possible, by coercion or conquest if necessary, and inevitably, as they made the transition from hunting to agriculture. There would ultimately be no room left for Indian tribes, but individual Indians could survive as farmers. They must adjust to their new circumstances by learning to live as white men.24

“The irony is that the Indians did what they were told,” Thompson said. “They bought land, lived on plantations, had slaves, raised crops, wore the same clothing as the white settlers, and then Andrew Jackson came along with the extermination policies.” But What of Native Americans? The new Constitution stipulated that everyone in the United States was to be counted in an every-tenyear census, except “Indians not taxed.” This odd turn of phrase was designed to exclude native people from citizenship while also allowing for some form of sovereignty of the Native nations. And thus began the tortured effort to deface, categorize, disenfranchise, erase, and racially discriminate against people of color in the United States.25 Perhaps Washington himself summed up the attitude of the white settlers regarding how to view the Native-American population: “Indians and wolves are both beasts of prey, tho they differ in shape.”26

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John Adams Short (5’6”), stocky, balding, and habitually in poor health, John Adams had a reserved, distant personality. While ambitious and in need of personal recognition, John Adams27 was nonetheless uncomfortable in public situations, of a suspicious nature and prone to bouts of depression. Following the dignified and statuesque Washington, Adams seemed almost a comic figure, pompous, vain, and yearning for a stature that nature denied him. Biographer Gilbert Chinaid called Adams “honest, stubborn, and somewhat narrow,” but he was a fierce patriot who contributed to the making of America. Peter Shaw saw in Adams a man of contradictions, at war with himself. His passion for fame led to a pomposity which in the end deflated him. He could be his own worst enemy. Private writings revealed a pettiness and resentment, a vanity and smallness unbecoming a person of his political stature. He could be rude and grumpy, stubborn and strong-willed, cold and narrow-minded, conceited and overly ambitious. In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote of Adams: “He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern men.” Benjamin Franklin said Adams was “always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.” In private, George Washington ridiculed Adams (his vice president) for his “ostentatious imitations and mimicry of Royalty.”28 Accused of being too sympathetic to monarchy, Adams once proposed the new president be referred to by the pompous title “His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of the Rights of the Same.” Besides being a mouthful, this suggestion aroused ridicule among his contemporaries. Adams was known to preside over the Senate dressed in a powdered wig, and he often appeared at ceremonial functions with a sword strapped at his waist. Such things made him the object of abuse and derision, earning him the sobriquet “His Rotundity.” George Washington was a tough act to follow. Succeeding an icon is an unenviable task. It was, Adams himself notes, “a novelty” in political affairs, this “sight of the sun setting full-orbit, and another rising (though less splendid).”29 Adams’s inauguration marked the first of what would be many peaceful and orderly transfers of power. As he entered office, the United Sates

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was a mere child, eight years old. The settler population was less than 5 million; two-thirds of whom lived within 100 miles of the Atlantic coast. Adams’s presidency was not a happy one.30 Marked by the beginning of a bitter partisan split between the Federalists (Adams and Alexander Hamilton), versus the Jeffersonians, this split signified the beginning of party politics in the new nation.31 Adams believed himself to be limited in the art and craft of politics because he was “unpracticed in intrigues of power.” Nowhere is this statement more evident than in one of his first presidential decisions. Hoping to establish continuity with the Washingtonian past, Adams asked all of Washington’s department heads to remain in his cabinet. This was a grave mistake, as these men proved disloyal to Adams and often looked to Hamilton for guidance. He later described this decision as his greatest mistake, which he believed resulted in the destruction of his presidency. The cabinet, led by the ambitious and resentful Alexander Hamilton, was often in conflict with the president. Adams’s political foe, Thomas Jefferson, noted the internal disputes within Adams’s Cabinet, remarking that the “Hamiltonians who surround him (Adams), are only a little less hostile to him than to me.”32 From the moment he entered office, Adams was confronted with a crisis: a possible war with France. Still smarting from Washington’s neutrality proclamation, the leaders of France pressured the United States to join them in the ongoing war against Great Britain. France, in an effort to press the issue, refused to recognize U.S. diplomats and threatened to hang any American sailor captured on British ships. Adams called a special session of Congress, and boldly declared he would not permit the United States to be intimidated by these French threats. He called upon Congress to pass legislation to prepare for the nation’s defense. In early 1798, Adams received word that the French were interested in a deal. Agents of the French government, referred to simply as X, Y, and Z, secretly demanded the payment of bribes before the American envoy could see the foreign minister, Talleyrand. Furious, Adams at first favored war. But the United States was not prepared for war. Adams went to Congress with a request that American merchant ships be armed. Congress resisted. Adams then made the XYZ dispatches public and proclaimed, “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.”

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As preparation for war moved ahead, Adams called General Washington back into the active service of his country. Washington reluctantly agreed. During this war scare, the Federalists who controlled Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, granting extraordinary powers to the government. These acts, clear and direct violations of the Bill of Rights, were used by Adams to shut down opposition-controlled newspapers and threaten political opponents. During Adams’s time, the government became firmly established in what Jefferson called “that Indian swamp in the wilderness,” Washington, D.C. Jefferson was not alone in his criticism of the nation’s capital city. In 1862, novelist Anthony Trollope said, “I… found the capital still under the empire of King Mud… Were I to say that it was intended to be typical of the condition of the government. I might be considered cynical.” John Adams: ‘White Father’ to Indian Nations When John Adams took office in March 1797, his concerns about Native Americans came from two fronts: threats from overseas and tensions along the western border. Fourteen years after the Revolutionary War ended, Great Britain and France continued to occupy territory in North America, and Adams feared either force, allied with Native Americans, could wreak havoc on the young nation. Adams also inherited land-hungry settlers on the western frontier and growing tensions between fledgling state governments and tribes. In his first annual message to Congress, delivered in November 1797, Adams referred to relationships with the Indians as “this unpleasant state of things on our western frontier.” Foreign agents, he said, were trying to “alienate the affections of the Indian nations and to excite them to actual hostilities against the United States.” The same year, the newly formed Tennessee legislature informed Adams that the Cherokee Indians were occupying their territories as “tenants at will,” or at the forbearance of whites.33 In response, Adams sent a letter to “his beloved chiefs, warriors and children of the Cherokee Nation,” explaining that squatters had gone beyond the boundary established in a 1791 treaty and had protested when the federal government tried to remove them.

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In the letter, Adams asked the Cherokee to acknowledge the “Sincere friendship of the United States,” but said his “stronger obligations” were to “hear the complaints, and relieve, as far as in my power, the distresses of my white children, citizens of the United States.”34 The result was the 1798 Treaty of Tellico, in which the Cherokee ceded more of their homelands in eastern Tennessee. Born in Massachusetts in 1735, Adams was an intellectual, political theorist, attorney, author and statesman. A sixth-generation American, Adams’ ancestors immigrated to the colonies in 1638. His first encounter with Native Americans occurred when he was a boy and leaders of the Punkapaug and Neponset tribes called on his father. The visit excited a “fascination” with the Indians. Yet as a leader and one of the founding fathers, Adams harbored a “dread fear of the British unleashing Indian war parties on the frontiers.” In a letter penned to a friend, Adams called Natives “blood hounds” who, let loose, could scalp men and butcher women and children.35 Settlers, land speculators, and ornery state governments continued to press the federal government to act on their behalf in protecting their move westward. Additionally, foreign intrigues related to the Indian tribe continued to hound the Adams administration. And Adams was pressured from within the government to develop a consistent policy toward the Indians. Should they be assimilated and “civilized,” converted to Christianity, or conquered, even destroyed? His was a term marked by “paternalistic” attitudes toward Native Americans, said Sara Martin, editor in chief of the Adams Papers, an editorial project overseen by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Much like the other founding fathers, Adams held conflicted beliefs about Natives and their role in the nation’s future. “If you look at it from today, you could call it paternalistic,” Martin said. “But back then, his views were similar to others of his race and class.” In his inauguration speech, Adams pledged himself to a spirit of “equity and humanity” toward the Indians. He promised to “meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them.” But Adams also ignored existing treaties and established the Indiana Territory in 1800, granting settlers nearly 260,000 acres of land in the Northwest Territory. “In terms of his Indian policy, at least politically, he very much followed the same path as Washington,” Martin said of Adams. “Many of the policies in place during Washington’s administration were finalized or funded

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or enforced during the Adams administration, so it was really more of a continuation of ideology. As president, if Adams thought of Indians, it was in political terms. But if you take a step back and look at his personal writings, you can see the conflict in rhetoric and practice.” Daniel Usner, a history professor at Vanderbilt University, calls Adams’s views paradoxical. Although Adams contributed little to the creation of federal Indian policy and, indeed, expressed very little interest in their customs, he “did plenty to embed them… deeply within the founding generation’s contrived rationale for American independence from Great Britain,” Usner wrote. This “Age of Adams” established many of the “inconsistencies and shortcomings that have occurred in U.S. Indian policy ever since.”36 In short, Adams “alternated his sentiments between a derogatory apprehension of Indians’ means of warfare and a condescending admiration for their dignified style of peace-making,” Usner wrote. “This interweaving of dread with delight, righteousness with respect, would endure as a major pattern of ambivalence toward American Indians in popular thought and culture.”37 Adams lived to the age of 90. In his later years, he revived his intellectual study of Indians, spending his leisure time reading about their history, culture, and religion.

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson38 is perhaps best known for his role as principal author of the Declaration of Independence. But the third president of the United States was also the first to propose broad policies that called for the removal of Indians from their homelands. Would the change in party control of the government also bring a change to U.S. Indian policy? While Jefferson, as George Washington’s Secretary of State, was a contributor to Washington’s Indian policy, when he split with the president, he—and his party—could have learned from his predecessors’ mistakes and taken a fresh look at the issue. If anything, Jefferson took a more aggressive turn against the Native populations, and while Jefferson believed that the Native Americans could move from “savagery to civilization,” their insistence on maintaining their hunting traditions were at cross purposes with Jefferson’s ideal of creating a country of “yeoman farmers.” But Jefferson adamantly stood by the goal of assimilation, hoping to bring the benefits of the Enlightenment

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to the Native peoples. To reject that future left but one option for the Native people: self-deportation to the great desert west of the Mississippi. Jefferson took office in March 1801 and served two terms as president in a political system that viewed tribes as international sovereign entities. During his eight years in office, however, Jefferson pushed relentlessly for westward expansion, believing “Indian country belonged in white hands.”39 Jefferson: Architect of Indian Removal Policy As president, Thomas Jefferson exhibited a “passion for land,” historian James Rhonda wrote. That passion became the central feature of federal Indian policy—what Jefferson called “our final consolidation” or the acquisition of lands east of the Mississippi River and removal of Indians of territories in the West. Yet Jefferson and his contemporaries never pretended the West was empty. In fact, they referred to it as “the crowded wilderness,” signaling both concern about the indigenous population and a fantasy about the West that would fuel everything from homesteading to dude ranches in the coming centuries. “Jefferson invented much of what we call ‘the American West,’” Rhonda wrote. Although he never ventured west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Jefferson held on to a vision of a “garden of boundless fertility” where “the American republic would thrive and remain forever free.” Thomas Jefferson may be America’s great Renaissance man; some say the greatest American of all. Inventor, statesman, philosopher, diplomat, lawyer scientist, humanist, art collector, musician, farmer, founder of the University of Virginia, politician, writer, revolutionary, architect, botanist, and so very much more. A man of insatiable curiosity and unlimited talent, Jefferson was one of the most important figures in American history, and one of the most important presidents. Tall (6’2”) with sandy red hair, hazel eyes, and a weak speaking voice, Jefferson was both loathed and loved. The Connecticut Courant (a Federalist newspaper) warned voters prior to the election of 1800: “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.” But years later, President Kennedy, speaking to a gathering of Nobel Prize winners at the White House, said “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at

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the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Jefferson’s inauguration was a precedent setter. At midday on March 4, 1801, Jefferson walked from his boardinghouse to the capitol. There, Federalist and newly appointed Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office to the 57-year-old Jefferson. A peaceful transfer of power, not just from one leader to another, but from one political party to another, took place. Recognizing the partisan divisions that split the nation, Jefferson attempted to strike a chord of harmony in his inaugural address, noting “We are all republicans, we are all federalists.” Jefferson wanted to de-pomp the presidency and bring it back to more democratic manners. He did away with bowing, replacing this regal custom with the more democratic handshake. Republican simplicity replaced monarchical pomp. Jefferson abolished the weekly levee, ended formal state dinners, and abandoned Washington’s custom of making personal addresses to Congress. This practice continued until 1913 and the Wilson presidency. Jefferson utilized the cabinet as a powerful instrument of presidential leadership. His cabinet was loyal, experienced, and committed to pushing the Jeffersonian agenda in Congress. Jefferson also exerted increased influence over the Congress. Employing the president’s power as party leader, Jefferson, while respecting the constitutional prerogatives of Congress, nonetheless used a variety of means to press his goals in the legislature. He lobbied key party leaders, drafted bills for his supporters to introduce, authorized key party members to act as his spokesmen in Congress, informally lobbied legislators at social gatherings in the White Hose, and had cabinet members work closely with the legislature. Jefferson’s success in Congress was matched by equally impressive failures in his dealings with the judiciary. While the Congress was controlled by Jefferson’s Republicans (what today is the Democrat party), the courts were in Federalist hands. In fact, the Supreme Court issued a direct challenge to the President in Marbury v. Madison, the famous “midnight judges” case, in which the Court established the doctrine of “judicial review.” Prior to that time, it was not settled who the final arbiter of the Constitution would be. Logic and some indications from the framers pointed to the judiciary, but presidents too claimed some authority in determining what the true meaning of the Constitution was.

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If George Washington talked of asserting executive privilege, it was Jefferson who first fondly asserted it. Subpoenaed to testify at the treason trial of Aaron Burr, Jefferson flatly refused to appear. He did, however, release selected documents. This bold assertion established a precedent that partially insulates the executive branch from some intrusions by the legislative and judicial branches. One of the greatest challenges to Jefferson’s somewhat minimalist view of government came in the Louisiana Purchase controversy. An opportunity presented itself for the United States to double its size for a small cost. France was willing to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States. The negotiations were delicate, and Jefferson needed to seize the moment. But nowhere did the Constitution authorize the acquisition of territory by the president or the federal government. What to do? Jefferson believed that the purchase required a constitutional amendment, and he went so far as to draft one to give the government power to purchase the Louisiana territory. “The constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory,” he admitted. Jefferson’s argument, made to Senator John Breckenridge of Kentucky, noted that The Executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution. The Legislature in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties, and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify to pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had they been in a situation to do it. It is the case of a guardian, investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory and saying to him when of age, I did this for your good. I pretend to no right to bind you: you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can: I thought it my duty to risk myself for you.40

But opportunity outweighed constitutional questions, and Jefferson soon changed his tune. Fearing that delay would jeopardize the deal, Jefferson concluded that “the less that is said about my constitutional difficulty, the better; and that it will be desirable for Congress to do what is necessary in silence.”41 For $15 million (a mere three cents per acre), Jefferson acquired the Louisiana territory from France. Several Indigenous nations lived in the Louisiana Territory. But constitutional questions weighed heavily on Jefferson’s mind. In a February 3, 1807, letter to W.C. Clairborne, the

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president wrote: “On great occasions every good officer must be ready to risk himself in going beyond the strict line of the law, when the public preservation requires it; his motive will be a justification.”42 Several years later (September 20, 1810), in a letter to J.B. Clovin, Jefferson revisited this issue, writing A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of a higher obligation… To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.43

Jefferson was known as a “man of Indian enlightenment,” said Gaye Wilson, a senior historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, Jefferson’s historic plantation home in Virginia, which now operates as a museum and education center. As an intellectual outside the public sphere, Jefferson sought a deeper understanding, Wilson said. “From his boyhood in Virginia, he was fascinated by Indians,” she said. “He had a curiosity, an admiration. He had a romantic streak and the Indians caught his imagination, so he was interested in studying them, being with them, collecting languages and determining their origins.” But as a leader, Jefferson wrangled with the conflicting interests of Indian nations and white settlers. Removal of the Indians was his answer to questions of national security. “Overall, Jefferson had to do what was best for security, the economy,” Wilson said. “He was pushing westward and if the Indians resisted, they would have to be dealt with.” Jefferson’s deep sense of humanity did not preclude advocating brutal counterinsurgency warfare against Native populations. As he noted, “If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi… [I]n war, they will kill some of us, we shall destroy them all.”44 For all his expressions of support for the dignity of men and the rights to which we were all guaranteed, Thomas Jefferson is considered one of the worst in his attitude and treatment of Native Americans. This is due

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especially to his support of Indian removal at a time when support for Indigenous peoples could have made a real difference.45 At first, Jefferson advocated a removal policy, but later arrived at a more complex—and morally dubious—objective. Jefferson’s scheme, to leave Indians in debt so they would be compelled to sell their land to white settlers, died in the crib, as it should have. But Jefferson’s mixed motives and mixed up policy proposals reveal just how much attention the early presidents paid to developing a viable policy toward Native Americans, and just how far they were willing to go to develop policies that, first and foremost, meant Indians giving up their land—the catch-22 of all U.S. policies toward the Indian nations. Jefferson first wrote about Indian removal in 1776, 15 years before he was president. Frustrated by growing conflicts between settlers and the Cherokee, Jefferson, then at work with the Continental Congress, reacted harshly, writing: “Nothing will reduce those wretches so soon as pushing the war into the heart of their country. …But I would not stop there. I would never cease pursuing them while one of them remained on this side of the Mississippi.”46 In 1803, two years into his presidency, Jefferson was more succinct. He outlined his administration’s policy toward Indians with two objectives: “The preservation of peace” and “obtaining lands.” Jefferson was also the author of a more ominous strategy to acquire Indian land: the use of trading posts to drive Indians into debt, forcing them to relinquish acreage to pay their bills. His result was treaties with a dozen tribal groups that ceded to the United States nearly 200,000 square miles of land in nine states. Jefferson’s intentions and methods were clear as early as 1801: However our present interests may restrain us within our limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits and cover the whole northern, if not the Southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar form by similar laws.47

Jefferson outlined this plan in a letter to William Henry Harrison, the territorial governor of Indiana: “To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want… we shall push our trading houses and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt,” he wrote in February 1803.48 “We observe that when

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these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.” Near the end of his presidency—and as the War of 1812 approached— Jefferson offered only two options to Indian people. Indians could “be absorbed” into the United States or face military obliteration.49 In response to growing resistance among the Shawnee and other tribes in the Great Lakes region, Jefferson in January 1809 invited Native leaders to Washington. There, he warned that “the tribe which shall begin an unprovoked war against us, we will extirpate from the earth or drive to such a distance as they shall never again be able to strike us.” “In time you will be as we are,” Jefferson told them. “You will become one people with us; your blood will mix with ours and will spread with ours over this great land.”50 Jefferson sponsored the Lewis and Clark expedition, an overland exploration of the newly acquired territory. It helped open up the new territory to Americans, and soon afterward, expansion westward would become both a blessing and a curse. He oversaw 33 treaties with Indian nations. Thomas Jefferson added to the growth of the presidency and the growth of the nation. As the first president as party leader, he led Congress with great skill, used his cabinet very effectively, and began to develop a more direct link between the president and the people. While articulating a more minimalist view of government than his Federalist predecessors, once in office Jefferson fully used, and even expanded, the power of the presidency to achieve his goals.

James Madison At 5’5”, and weighing only 100 pounds, James Madison51 was the U.S. president of smallest stature. Known as the Father of the U.S. Constitution, Madison was the last of the framers to serve as President. He appeared slightly rigid, and historian Richard Morris argued that he “lacked human warmth.”52 But he was also a man of principle and honor. During Madison’s presidency, power shifted from the presidency to the Congress. One reason for this was the development of the congressional nominating caucus which, for a time, chose the party nominees for president and thus made presidents, to a degree, servants of the legislature. Also, the rise of the House Speaker (Henry Clay) as a major force in government shifted power to the Congress.

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Madison, like Jefferson, had a republican and limited view of executive power. Unlike Jefferson, Madison was reluctant to abandon this view when necessity warranted. The seminal event of Madison’s presidency was the War of 1812. Upon taking office, Madison’s most pressing issue was how to keep the United States out of war. France and Britain were still engaged in the Napoleonic wars, and both nations, but especially Britain, seized American ships at sea and pressed American sailors into service on British war ships. Pressure for war was strong, and Madison finally gave in to congressional pressure and reluctantly asked for a declaration of war (the first president to do so). In this, Madison followed rather than led. Had he more forcefully exerted presidential leadership, war might have been averted. The war was badly managed by Madison. The most humiliating moment came when, in August 1814, British troops attacked Washington, DC, and burned the Capitol. Madison witnessed the burning of the White House from the Virginia Hills. His wife, Dolley Madison, remained long enough to save some priceless objects, among them Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington. The war ended inconclusively. Madison’s performance as commanderin-chief, while personally courageous, was strategically flawed. Even one of Madison’s more sympathetic biographers found the president’s leadership lacking: “The hour had come but the man was wanting. Not a scholar in governments ancient and modern, not an unimpassioned writer of careful messages, but a robust leader to rally the people and unite them to fight was what the time needed, and what it did not find in Madison.”53 James Madison hoped to integrate the Indians into a European-style existence. To the Cherokees, he wrote that “a father ought to give good advice to his children.” This meant the voluntary transfer of their lands to settlers, the abandonment of historic traditions, and the embrace of a wholly new lifestyle. It should have been obvious that such an offer would be rejected, and yet so sure were the federal officials that their culture was so superior and so highly developed, that anyone should leap at the opportunity to enter into “civilization.”54 James Madison: Pushed Intermarriage Between Settlers and Indians Just six months after James Madison took office as the fourth president of the United States, tribes in Indiana and Illinois signed the Treaty of Fort

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Wayne, trading 3 million acres of land for $5250 in goods and annual subsidies. Signed in September 1809, the treaty triggered an explosive response from Tecumseh, a powerful Shawnee leader. “Sell a country!” Tecumseh said. “Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth?” A group of Wyandot chiefs in the Great Lakes area also reacted to the treaty. One year earlier, the Wyandot had ceded a portion of their own land to the United States. “We love the land that covers the bones of our fathers,” the chiefs said in a speech delivered on the same day William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana territory, signed the Treaty of Fort Wayne with the Delaware, Potawatami, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami, and Eel River tribes. “It surprises us, your children, that Our Great Father, the president of the United States, should take as much upon himself as the Great Spirit above, as he wants all the land on this island.”55 The treaty was the first of 30 signed during Madison’s presidency, which spanned two terms, from 1809 to 1817, and encompassed the War of 1812 and several smaller skirmishes. Born in Virginia in 1751, Madison got his start in politics as a Virginia state legislator. He later served on the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, where he earned the title of “Father of the Constitution” because of his pivotal roles in both drafting and ratifying the document. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Madison served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and secretary of state before being elected as president in 1808. During his eight years in office, Madison dealt with tensions on the country’s western, northern and southern borders. In 1811, U.S. troops marched on Prophetstown, Indiana, the home of Tecumseh and a burgeoning Indian alliance that planned to halt American expansion. In a surprise, predawn attack known as the Battle of Tippecanoe, the troops defeated the Native forces. The Indian alliance never recovered. In 1812, American forces tried three times to invade Canada, but met resistance from British troops and their Indian allies. In 1813, conflict erupted between U.S. and Indian forces in the South during the Creek Civil War. At the close of the war, in August 1814, the Creeks signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson, ceding to the United States more than 20 million acres of land in present-day Alabama and Georgia.

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Yet for a president who “pushed hard” for expansion, Madison rarely spoke about Indians, said John Stagg, professor of history at the University of Virginia and editor of The Papers of James Madison. Instead, he deferred to policies put in place by his predecessors that called for the continued pressuring of Indian nations to give up more of their homelands. “On the face of it, Madison didn’t appear to say much about the Indians,” Stagg said. “The assumption is that Madison’s policy toward Indians was a continuation of what came before. Madison perpetuated [Thomas] Jefferson’s treatment. Like Jefferson, he looked at the map and, seeing undefended frontiers, wanted to get land for the settlers and extinguish Indian claims.” Privately, however, Madison was skeptical of the beliefs behind federal Indian policy, which at that time focused on civilization, or transitioning Indians from their “savage” state to agricultural societies, Stagg said. Madison believed that Indians were unwilling “to transition from the hunter, or even the herdsman state, to the agriculture.” “There is a disinclination in human nature to exchange the savage for the civilized life,” Madison said in a speech delivered after he left the presidency. “The Indian tribes have ever shewn an aversion to the change.”56 French writer Baron de Montlezun, who visited the White House in 1816, recalled that the President worried about the influence of “uncivilized” Indians on white settlers who choose to “mingle with them.” Madison believed settlers were “irritably attracted by that complete liberty, that freedom from bonds, obligations, duties, that absence of care and anxiety which characterize the savage state,” Montlezun wrote.57 One of the answers proposed by the Madison administration was an amalgamation of cultures, Stagg said. In March 1816, Secretary of War William Crawford sent to Congress a report on Indian Affairs in which he offered some solutions, including intermarriage. “Let intermarriages between them and the whites be encouraged by the government,” he wrote. “It will rebound more to the national honor to incorporate, by a humane and benevolent policy, the Natives of our forests in the great American family of freemen, than to receive with open arms the fugitives of the old world.”58 That suggestion, which came as Madison was beginning his final year in office, was met with outrage from the American public. It also prompted a

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series of hostile letters directed at Madison and published in a Philadelphia newspaper. “The idea of intermarriage with Indians was viewed as disgraceful and disgusting,” Stagg said. “When the letters were published, they really represented a shift to harsh and hostile attitudes toward Indians.” If Madison disagreed with the Indian policies of the time, he never articulated that publicly. “Whatever his private thoughts were, he didn’t use them to reverse the thrust of federal Indian policy,” Stagg said. “He never openly rejected the assumptions.”

James Monroe The last of the “Virginia Dynasty” (four of the first five presidents were from Virginia), James Monroe,59 a rugged 6-footer with gray-blue eyes and stooped shoulders, was more caretaker than leader. Chosen for the nomination by the congressional “King Caucus,” Monroe presided over relative peace and prosperity, what a Boston newspaper proclaimed as an “era of good feelings.” Although personally forceful, Monroe could also be stiff and formal. John Adams ungraciously called him “dull, heavy, and stupid.” Others saw him as honest and straightforward. Henry Clay was still the very powerful Speaker of the House, and Congress continued to dominate the political arena. Monroe was unable to control his party and thus, it, and the Congress at times, controlled him. Monroe also had a limited view of the executive’s role in the political system. Monroe saw himself as head of the nation, not of a political party. Being “above politics” had its consequences. The Federalist party all but disappeared in the aftermath of the War of 1812, and new conflicts—those taking place within the Republican party—animated politics. Internal strife and rivalries, jockeying for inside position in the selection of presidents, and sectional disputes all caused powerful cleavages. James Monroe: A Mixed Record “Monroe took office after the British and French were defeated and serious Indian resistance was removed,” said Dan Preston, editor of The Papers of James Monroe. “America started looking more internally and

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there was really this euphoria about progress, this unspoken feeling that they could get on with things.” Monroe, like Jefferson and Madison before him, strongly supported Indian removal. He actively pushed for appropriations to give him leverage over Native tribes on lands he—and frontier developers and speculators—coveted. And he supported military atrocities—war—against Native people if they refused to accede to his wishes. Settlers were moving west, and they demanded that the government support and protect them. Conflicts and wars increased, as did the militarization of policy. To some, a move-or-die approach to Native peoples meant that the West belonged to the settlers and that Indian tribes had to move out. The concept of Native sovereignty was all but lost during the push west. The American landscape changed drastically during Monroe’s two terms as president, from 1817 to 1825. Five states were admitted to the Union, territories were organized, canals filled with water, steamboats churned on rivers, and roads cut through western frontiers. Monroe also oversaw 40 treaties with Indian nations—23 of which involved land acquisition—and the formation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Indian policy during Monroe’s presidency was largely dictated by lingering fears among the white settlers about security on the northern and southern borders. That fear was most pronounced in the South where the Seminole, allied with the Spanish, continued to wage war on the United States. During his first months in office, Monroe sent Gen. Andrew Jackson to the South on a successful campaign against the Seminole, which included the recapture of black slaves living among the tribes. Monroe also pushed for the “voluntary” removal of the Cherokee from Georgia, promising them land in Arkansas if they cooperated. In the north, Monroe contended with the Seneca of western New York, the largest nation within the Iroquois Confederacy. Monroe pushed for the Seneca—who lived on 11 reservations—to consolidate into one, clearing the way for construction of the Erie Canal. The Seneca successfully resisted, and Chief Red Jacket, wearing a silver peace medal given to him by George Washington, protested. “We had thought that all the promises made by one president were handed down to the next,” he said. “Now the tree of friendship is decaying; its limbs are fast falling off, and you are at fault.”

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Although Monroe expressed concern for the Indians, he believed their best chance at survival was “amalgamation,” Preston said. With his “absolute belief in the superiority of the political, social, and economic system of the United States,” Monroe saw little value in Native lifestyles. During his first messages to Congress, in December 1817, Monroe recommended that federal Indian policy include provisions for “their improvement in the arts of civilized life,” thus loosening their hold on land. During Monroe’s presidency, a series of wars with tribal nations took place, the United States won control of Florida from Spain, and the Missouri Compromise—an attempt to strike a peaceful balance between the slave and free states—was reached. The issue of slavery was approaching a boiling point and Monroe’s solution was resettlement of blacks back to Africa. It wasn’t much of a solution. The split over slavery led to secessionist calls by some southern states. The “compromise” was that for every slave state added to the Union, a free state had to be added. Thus, Missouri came in as a slave state, Maine as a free state. It also set up a boundary in the Louisiana Territory, north of which was free, south was slave. This compromise merely postponed confrontation. Thomas Jefferson wrote of the compromise: “This momentous question, like a fore-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.”60 It was in foreign affairs that Monroe is best remembered. After the collapse of the Spanish empire, several European powers attempted to make political headway in the Americas. In response to fears that France, Russia, or Britain might set up colonies in the hemisphere, President Monroe included the following policy pronouncement in his 1823 State of the Union message: The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United Sates are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

He added:

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… We owe, it therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

In so announcing, Monroe reinforced a president’s power to take the initiative and make policy in foreign affairs. This Monroe Doctrine was not confirmed by Congress, nor did Monroe have to enforce it during his presidency, but it became one of the pillars of U.S. foreign policy. In an age of relative executive weakness, the president could still pull his weight in the making of foreign policy. In spite of governing in an era of congressional ascendancy, Monroe did manage to strengthen the power of the presidency in foreign affairs and postponed sectional disputes that were soon to change the era of good feelings to the era of bad feelings and secessionist revolts. Monroe continued to press for the Jeffersonian goal of opening up nation lands to settlers. He was—like most of his era—a product of his times. Like his predecessors and those who followed him into office, Monroe lived at a time when people of color, Indians and African slaves, were considered by many to be sub-human, incapable of reaching the heights of reason, and thus incapable of fully integrating into European civilization. Such biases, while grating to the modern ear, were quite common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is not to excuse their behavior, but it does place into context the accepted “truth” of the time. If the framers were progressive and enlightened in some areas, they were distinctly behind the times where race was concerned. “The earth was given to mankind to support the greatest number of which it is capable,” Monroe, said. “No tribe or people have a right to withhold from the wants of others more than is necessary for their own support and comfort.” Treaties poured into Washington and were sent in batches to the Senate, where they were almost always unanimously approved.61 Some

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were peace-making treaties or “treaties of friendship,” Preston said. Others called for the cessation of land and relocation of eastern tribes to territories west of the Mississippi River. “The treaties vary,” Preston said. “We had white Americans on one side, pushing for immediate removal. On the other side, we had tribes. Some were willing to relocate west of the Mississippi while others wanted to stay put. And in the middle, Monroe was resisting forcible action and insisting removal had to be voluntary.” A solution came in 1819 when Congress approved $10,000 yearly for Indian Education through the Indian Civilization Act. The act, designed to provide “against the further decline and final extinction of the Indian tribes,” granted the president authority to “employ capable persons of good moral character” to teach Indian children. The act led to the formation of 52 schools during the next 11 years, administered by the federal government or Christian missions. The goal was to civilize the Indians by teaching them “in the mode of agriculture suited to their situation,” as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic. By the end of his first term, facing continued pressure from Georgia to remove the Cherokee, Monroe was less optimistic. During his second inaugural address, in 1821, he admitted that the government had failed in treating tribes as independent nations “without their having any substantial pretensions to that rank.” That distinction has “flattered their pride, retarded their improvement and in many instances paved the way to their destruction,” he said. Like other nineteenth-century leaders, Monroe’s Indian policy was cast in terms of “helping” Native people. Beginning with Washington, American presidents firmly believed that Indians would be better off if they accepted Christianity and traded their traditional lifestyles for agriculture. In late 1821, a delegation of Pawnee, Omaha, Oto, Missouri, and Kansa Indians visited President Monroe at the White House. After Monroe spoke of the benefits of embracing white civilization and offered to send missionaries to convert Native Americans to Christianity, Pawnee Chief Petalesharro delivered this message: My Great Father, some of your good chiefs, as they are called, have proposed to send some of their good people among us to change our habits, to make us work and live like the white people. I will not tell a lie—I am going to tell the truth. You love your country— you love your people—you love the manner in which they live, and you think your people

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are brave. I am like you, my Great Father, I love my country. I love my people. I love the manner in which we live, and think myself and warriors brave. Spare me then, my Father; let me enjoy my country, and pursue the buffalo, and the beaver, and the other wild animals of our country, and I will trade their skins with your people. I have grown up and lived this long without work—I am in hopes you will suffer me to die without it.

Petalesharro added this plea for sovereignty and for Monroe to grant Native Americans the right to maintain control of their own land: We have plenty of buffalo, beaver, deer and other wild animals. We have also an abundance of horses. We have everything we want. We have plenty of land—if you will keep your people off of it.62

When he left office four years later, however, Monroe had reluctantly embraced forced removal. In a special message to Congress in January 1825, he recommended all Indians east of the Mississippi be relocated to settlements in the West. Monroe was the first president to openly advocate the transfer of all eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River. While the Indians balked, Monroe (and John Adams as well) insisted he would only pursue Indian removal with the consent of the tribes. “Experience has clearly demonstrated that, in their present state, it is impossible to incorporate them in such masses, in any form whatever, into our system,” he said. “Their degradation and extermination will be inevitable.”

John Quincy Adams Dour and disagreeable, enigmatic and prone to bouts of depression, the 5’7”, balding John Quincy Adams63 was the first president elected without receiving a plurality of either the popular or electoral college votes. The son of President John Adams, John Quincy Adams was a distinguished diplomat and a mediocre president. “I am a man of reserved, cold, austere, and forbidding manners,” Adams said of himself. William Henry Harrison said of Adams: “It is said he is a disgusting man to do business with. Coarse, dirty, and clownish in his address and stiff and abstracted in his opinions, which are drawn from books exclusively.” The election of 1824 was one of the most bitter and hostile in history. The results of the general election were inconclusive:

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Jackson Adams Crawford Clay

99 84 41 37

electoral electoral electoral electoral

votes votes votes votes

153,544 popular votes 108,740 popular votes 46,618 popular votes 47,136 votes

Thus, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. Andrew Jackson led the race but was 32 electoral votes short of victory. Clay, who came in fourth, was dropped from the race, and he could turn his votes over to Jackson or Adams and, in effect, determine the outcome. On January 9, 1825, Clay met with Adams. The details of their conversation are not known but shortly thereafter, Clay’s support went to Adams, prompting Jackson to complain of a “corrupt bargain.” Adams later appointed Clay as secretary of state. As a result of the questionable nature of his election, Adams took office with a severely wounded ego. In his inaugural address he noted he was “less possessed of [public] confidence in advance than any of my predecessors.” Undeterred, Adams decided to work to strengthen the presidency, and was the first president to attempt to lead Congress openly. In his first annual message to Congress, he called for expansive internal improvements and a variety of other new programs. Adams’s predecessors harbored doubts about the constitutionality of such spending measures, but Adams rejected this narrow view. “His four years in the White House were a misery for him… For the remaining twenty years of his life, he reflected on his presidency with distaste, convinced that he had been the victim of evildoers. His administration was a hapless failure and best forgotten, save for the personal anguish it cost him.”64 The Adams years were a time of harsh political strife, but also of great economic expansion and growth. By the end of his presidency, King Caucus, the method whereby congressional caucuses selected presidential candidates, was being replaced by political party conventions. Adams was not a strong president, but his bold reform proposals did open the door for future presidents to promote more openly their legislative programs. Indian Policy “Fraudulent and Brutal,” Says John Quincy Adams The federal government continued to support the appropriation of Native lands by whatever means necessary. Adams, however, frequently expressed

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respect for the Native peoples, seeing many as “civilized and civil,” adding, “the manners and deportment of these men have in no respect differed from those of well-bred country gentlemen.”65 Adams was, to a degree, persuaded that assimilation might be possible. A treaty was waiting on John Quincy Adams’ desk when he took the oath of office on March 4, 1825, and became the sixth president of the United States. The Indian Springs Treaty, which called for the Creek Nation of Georgia to cede to the state all its land and move west, passed through Congress weeks earlier. In exchange for the land, the United States agreed to give the Creeks $400,000 and an equivalent parcel of land, “acre for acre, westward of the Mississippi.” “Congress had already voted in favor, so he went ahead and signed it,” said Sara Sikes, digital projects editor at The Adams Papers. It was Adams’ first official act as president. The treaty was the second in four years that acquired land from the Creek. Under a treaty by the same name that passed in January 1821, the Creek ceded all their land east of the Flint River in Georgia. With the second treaty, Georgia sought to completely remove the Creek from inside state boundaries. Shortly after Adams signed the 1825 document, however, he had a change of heart. Creek leaders met with him in his office and convinced him that the treaty had been unfairly negotiated. “Almost immediately, the backlash began,” Sikes said. “Georgia was pushing the treaty, but it was totally unfair to the Creeks. A lot of the tribal members weren’t even aware of what was being negotiated.” Adams became “acutely aware of his mistake,” Sikes said, and he tried to annul the treaty. While Congress blocked Adams’ attempts to restore the land to the Creek, Georgia began threatening military action. The government and the Creek Nation resumed negotiations and two additional treaties followed. The Treaty of Washington in 1826 nullified the Treaty of Indian Creek, but still called for the Creek to cede twothirds of their land in Georgia. Continued outrage in Georgia prompted negotiation of a third treaty in 1827, in which the Creek Nation relinquished all remaining land “found to lie within the chartered limits of the state of Georgia.” The conflict in Georgia defined Adams’ presidency, Sikes said. It also prompted him to scrutinize the way the federal government dealt with Indian nations—an undertaking that spanned his presidency and the rest of his life. “It started on the day he was inaugurated, so it plagued him

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throughout his presidency, on both sides of the issue,” Sikes said. “But you also see how his thought process starts evolving while he’s in office, how he starts to process the issues more deeply.” Early in his political career, Adams agreed with those who wanted to end Indian rights. When he helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, he “resolutely denied Britain’s suggestion of creating a permanent Indian nation in the old Northwest.”66 As secretary of state under James Monroe, Adams defended the execution of Seminole prisoners without trial. As president, however, Adams refused to support Georgia’s aggressive pressure for Indian removal, arguing that removal should be voluntary. Even so, during his four years as president, he oversaw 30 treaties with Indian nations, many of which called for the “extinguishing” of their titles to the land. Throughout his presidency, Adams wrestled with the question of whether to give Indians land west of the Mississippi or incorporate them into the Union, he wrote in his personal diary in December 1825. Adding to the confusion was Secretary of State Henry Clay, who predicted that Indians would be gone within 50 years and “their disappearance from the human family (would) be no great loss to the world.” Although dismayed, Adams found “too much foundation” in Clay’s words, he wrote in his diary. By the beginning of his third year in office, Adams’ personal writings began to reflect a deep disillusionment with Indian policy. “We have talked of benevolence and humanity, and preached them into civilization,” he wrote in his diary in January 1828. “But none of this benevolence is felt where the right of the Indian comes in collision with the interest of the white man.” Yale University historian Greg Grandin called John Quincy Adams “the president most sympathetic to the plight of Native Americans in U.S. history.”67 For Indian nations, the repeated redrawing of boundaries and borders meant that in addition to losing their ancestral lands, they could never truly feel “at home” in these new lands as the white settlers continued to covet their lands and successive governments often responded by uprooting Native tribes and moving them to new lands. Adams felt that the repeated uprooting cycle was unsustainable in the long run. Referring to the New York Indians relocated to Green Bay, and the Cherokees removed to the Arkansas Territory, Adams wrote in his private diary in 1828, on the last day of his presidency, that “we have scarcely given them time to build their wigwams before we are called

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upon by our own people to drive them out again.” Adams believed the best solution was assimilation but admitted that “the people of the States within which they are situated will not permit.”68 Adams lost to Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828, but he went on to serve nine consecutive terms in the House of Representatives. In 1841, he was offered the chairmanship of the House Indian Affairs Committee, but he tuned the position down, calling federal Indian policy fraudulent and brutal. “It is among the heinous sins of this nation,” Adams wrote in his diary in June 1841. “I turned my eyes away from this sickening mass of putrefaction and asked to be excused from serving as chairman of the committee.”

Notes 1. Biographical information on the presidents is drawn primarily from: Genovese, Michael A. The Power of the American Presidency, 1789–2000, Oxford University Press, 2000. 2. Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Vintage Books, 1993, p. 206. 3. Brookhiser, Richard. Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, Free Press, 1996, p. 103. 4. Smith, Richard Norton. Patriarch: George Washington and the New Nation, Houghton Mifflin, 1993; Flexner, James Thomas. Washington: The Indispensable Man, Little Brown, 1974; Brookhiser, Richard. Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, Free Press, 1996. 5. Wood, Gordon S. “Foreword,” in John Rhodehamel, ed., The Great Experiment: George Washington and the American Republic, Yale University Press, 1998, p. xi. 6. Mansfield, Jr., Harvey C. Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power, Free Press, 1989. 7. Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency George Washington, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. 8. Ibid., p. 8. 9. Calloway, Colin G. The Indian World of George Washington, Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 2. 10. Ibid., p. 3. 11. Trafzer, Clifford, American Indians American Presidents, Smithsonian Institution, p. 9. 12. Turner, Katherine C. Red Man Calling on the Great White Father, University of Oklahoma Press, 1951, p. 10. 13. Turner, p. 22.

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14. “Treaties,” in Hoxie, Frederick E. Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Houghton Mifflin-Company, 1996, pp. 643–646. 15. Calloway, Colin G. The Indian World of George Washington, Oxford University, 2008, pp. 323 and 331. 16. Papers of George Washington, Press, 3:398; OHFFC 3:138; ASPIA 1:12. 17. Calloway, pp. 340–341. 18. Rozell, Mark. Executive Privilege, University Press of Kansas, 2010; and Calloway, pp. 378–396. 19. Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life, Penguin, 2010; Quoted in Moss, Walter G. “Which Presidents—If Any—Did Right by Native Americans?” History News Network, October 7, 2018, p. 3. 20. “A Treaty Between the United States of America, and the Tribes of Indians Called the Six Nations,” November 11, 1794. 21. Encyclopedia of United States Indian Policy and Law, Vol. II, p. 763. 22. Harless, Richard. “Native American Policy,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, www.mountvernon.org. 23. Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency, George Washington, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004, p. 212. 24. Calloway, p. 345. 25. Whitby, Andrew. The Sum of the People: How the Census Has Shaped Nations, From the Ancient World to the Modern Age, Basic Books, 2020. 26. Quoted in Dunbar-Ortiz and Gilio-Whitaker, p. 67. 27. Ketcham, Ralph. Presidents Above Party, University of North Carolina Press, 1984, p. 9. 28. Quoted in Ferling, John. John Adams : A Life, Henry Holt, 1992, p. 306. 29. Ferling, p. 335. 30. Brown, Ralph Adams. The Presidency of John Adams, University Press of Kansas, 1975. 31. Borden, Morton. Parties and Politics in the Early Republic, Thomas V. Crowell, 1967. 32. Ferling, John. John Adams: A Life, p. 333. 33. Trafzer, Clifford. American Indians American Presidents, Smithsonian Institution, 2009. 34. “From John Adams to Cherokee Nation, 27 August 1798,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders/archives/gov/documents/ Adams/99-02-02-3892. 35. McCullough, David. John Adams , Simon & Schuster, 2001. 36. Usner, Daniel H. “‘A Savage Feast They Made of It’: John Adams and the Paradoxical Origins of Federal Indian Policy,” Journal of the Early Republic (Winter, 2013), Vol. 33, p. 614. 37. Ibid., p. 618.

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38. Padover, Saul K. Jefferson, Mentor, 1952; Peterson, Merrill D. Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, Oxford, 1970; Cunningham, Jr., Noble E. In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, Ballantine, 1987; Bober, Natalie S. Thomas Jefferson, Aladdin, 1988; Randall, Willard Steine. Thomas Jefferson: A Life, Henry Holt, 1993; and Ellis, Joseph T. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, Random House, 1997. 39. Rhonda, James. Thomas Jefferson and the Changing West: From Conquest to Conservation, University of New Mexico Press, 1997. 40. Ellis, American Sphinx, pp. 248–250. 41. Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to Secretary of State, James Madison; see Ellis, American Sphinx, p. 249. 42. Jefferson, Thomas. Writings, Library of America, 1984, p. 1172. 43. Jefferson, Writings, p. 1231. 44. Quoted in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Gilio-Whitaker, p. 67. 45. Wallace, Anthony C. Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans, Belknap Press, 2001. 46. “From Thomas Jefferson to John Page, 5 August 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/ 01-01-02-0202. 47. Quoted in Dunbar Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Beacon Press 2014, p. 3. 48. “From Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, 27 February 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/doc uments/Jefferson/01-39-02-0500. 49. Trafzer, Clifford. American Indians American Presidents, Smithsonian Institution, 2009. 50. “From Thomas Jefferson to Indian Nations, 10 January 1809,” Founders Online, National Archives. 51. Matthews, Richard K. If Men Were Angels: James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason, University Press of Kansas, 1995; Ketcham, Ralph. James Madison: A Biography, University Press of Virginia, 1990. 52. Morris, Richard. Witness at the Creation, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985, pp. 96–101. 53. Hunt, Gaillard. The Life of James Madison, Russell and Russell, 1902, p. 325. 54. Quoted in Rogin, p. 211. 55. American State Papers, Class II, Indian Affairs, 1832, Vol. 4. 56. “Address to the Agricultural Society of Abermerle, 12 May 1818,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/doc uments/Madison/04-01-02-0244. 57. Moffatt, L.G., Carriére, J., and Moffatt, J. “A Frenchman Visits Norfolk, Fredericksburg and Orange County, 1816,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1945, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 197–214.

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58. American State Papers, Senate, 14th Congress, 1st Session, Indian Affairs, Vol. 2. 59. Cresson, W.P. James Monroe, University of North Carolina Press, 1946; Ammon, Henry. James Monroe, University Press of Virginia, 1990; Cunningham, Jr., Noble E. The Presidency of James Monroe, University Press of Kansas, 1996. 60. Letter from Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, in Paul Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904, p. 12:158. 61. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly, UC Press, 1997. 62. Monkman, Betty C. “An Eloquent Visitor from the Great Plains: Chief Petalesharro Visits the White House, 1821,” White House History, Fall 2013, No. 34. 63. Bemis, Samuel Flagg., Adams, John Quincy., and the Foundation of American Foreign Policy, Knopf, 1998; and Hargreaves, Mary W.M. The Presidency of John Quincy Adams, University Press of Kansas, 1985. 64. Nagel, p. 296. 65. Quoted in Trafzer, p. 70. 66. Clemmons, Linda M. Encyclopedia of United States Indian Policy and Law, CQ Press, 2008. 67. Grandin, Greg. The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, Metropolitan Books, 2019, p. 63. 68. Ibid.

CHAPTER 4

The Jacksonian Hammer: Andrew Jackson to James Buchanan

In 1859, Horace Greely, the influential editor of the New York Tribune, expressed the widely held view that “The Indians are children,” adding that they were “a slave of appetite and sloth, never emancipated from the tyranny of one passion save by the ravenous demands of another … These people must die out… God,” Greely noted, “has given the earth to those who will subdue and cultivate it.”1 The Indian Removal Act not only removed Native Americans from ancestral lands, but it also required the federal government to protect the Indian nations in their new lands. The language mandated the government to “forever secure and guaranty” that these Native Americans who were relocated be protected from “all interruption and disturbance.” President Martin Van Buren wrote that “we as a nation are responsible in foro conscientiae to the opinions of the great family of nations” to protect “a people comparatively weak, upon whom we were perhaps in the beginning unjustifiable aggressors, but of whom in the progress of time and events, we have become the guardians, and, as we hope, the benefactors.”2 The Indian Removal Act, which Andrew Jackson signed into law in 1830, directed the federal government to force Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi River. It also extinguished their titles to their ancestral lands, often in direct violation of previously agreed upon treaties. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_4

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During Andrew Jackson’s first term, roughly fifty thousand Native Americans were uprooted and many were force-marched to what are today Oklahoma and Kansas. Thousands died along the way. And what became of the twenty-five million acres of what was Indian lands? White settlers and slave owners in Georgia and Alabama moved in, as Indians moved out. The act failed to decide whether the Native Nations were sovereign and independent or if they were within and apart of the United States. Numerous treaties between the federal government and various Indian Nations suggested—because one makes a treaty only with an independent foreign nation—that the Indian tribes were “outside” the United States, sovereign and independent, but the lines were blurred and the Indians were neither and both within and outside of the United States, depending on what best served the needs of the federal government. Several Supreme Court decisions issued in the 1830s did little to clarify the situation, arguing that, for example, the Cherokee Nation was both sovereign and non-sovereign; was and was not a part of the United States. One court decision went so far as to assert that “perhaps” native peoples could be called “domestic dependent nations,” a unique and wholly unhelpful category.3

Andrew Jackson One of the most influential if controversial of presidents, Andrew Jackson,4 “Old Hickory,” was a cantankerous, dueling, determined, ironwilled, ill-tempered fighter for “the people.” John Quincy Adams called him “a barbarian who cannot write a sentence of grammar and can hardly spell his own name.” At 6’1”, 140 pounds, with bushy, iron-gray hair brushed high above his forehead and clear dark eyes, Jackson was tough and wiry, self-educated, a brawling street-fighter, a man whose opponents called him a savage and a barbarian. In frail health, in part due to the bullets lodged in his body as a result of duels, Jackson was a charismatic figure who “democratized” the presidency and won the support of the people, enhanced the power of the office, and caused trouble for his political adversaries. The first political “outsider” to serve as president, he changed the presidency and changed the nation. The Jacksonian era was a turning point in the history of the presidency, as well as the nation. His tenure marked the end of the patrician politics of the founding era. Jackson came into office proclaiming the sanctity of

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the common man. “The majority is to govern,” he stated in 1829, in his first annual message to Congress, calling for the Republic to become a democracy. At the time of Jackson’s election, eleven new states had been added to the Union, and the number of white males who were eligible to vote had reached nearly universal proportions, as property requirements for voting were eliminated in nearly all the states. From 1824 to 1828, the number of males eligible to vote increased from 359,000 to 1,155,400), democratization challenged republican traditions, and the presidency became the tribune of the people, in what carried the potential for a plebiscitary form of political leadership. It was the age of Jacksonian Democracy. “The president,” Jackson said, “is the direct representative of the American people.” While today such a view seems mundane, in the 1820s it was radical. The framers did not want the president to speak for, or even to, “the people.” Such a link risked demagoguery. The framers hoped to give the president protection from the will of the people so he could better exercise sound, independent judgment; likewise, they wanted to protect the people from the president so that the president could not manipulate public passions and impose his will on Congress. Jackson, in his first inaugural message to Congress in 1829, proposed a voluntary migration of Indigenous people to lands west of the Mississippi River. Shortly thereafter, he signed the Indian Removal Act—forced migration—into law. Voluntary became compulsory, and tens of thousands of Native Americans were forced off their homelands. In the decade of the 1830s, the federal government spent roughly $75 million removing indigenous people from their homes (roughly $1 trillion in today’s money), thus averaging a cost of over $12 million dollars per Indian moved. This program was a “budget buster” with approximately 40 percent of the federal budget devoted to this effort.5 The economic costs pale in comparison to the human costs inflicted on the Native Americans who were force-marched west. The U.S. Supreme Court was periodically drawn into Native American policy questions. It will surprise no one that in most—but not all—legal disputes between Native nations and the U.S. federal government, the Courts sided with the government.6 Jackson fundamentally reordered the relationship of the president to the people, laying the groundwork for populist leadership as a way to overcome the roadblocks inherent in the separation of powers. In dismissing the Whig notion that the president was merely to execute the

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will of the people as filtered through the Congress, Jackson insisted that it was the president who was the direct representative of the people and, as such, spoke for the people. The Congress should thus follow the will of the people as expressed through the president. During Jackson’s presidency issues of slavery and states’ rights continued to plague the nation. South Carolina, objecting to a new tariff law, declared the new law “null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens.” Jackson’s response to this effort at nullification was firm: I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.

Jackson sent U.S. troops to the region. Senator Henry Clay came up with a compromise, and the tensions waned, but not before Jackson’s vice president, John C. Calhoun, resigned his office to return to South Carolina, run for the Senate, and lead the opposition to Jackson. In the aftermath of this nullification crisis, President Jackson prophetically warned, “The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.” Jackson’s hostility toward Native Americans became visible early in his career. He earned significant legal fees representing land claims of settlers against Native peoples. And he is believed to be the only president to have driven slave coffles, whereby enslaved people would usually be tied with ropes around their necks and marched to their destinations.7 Jackson himself wrote, after leaving the presidency, that Indian removal was the “most arduous part of my duty, and I watched over it with great vigilance.”8 In doing so, Jackson both modified and extended his predecessors’ paternalistic attitude toward American Indians, promising to help his “red children,” while also ordering their removal from ancestral lands. For Jackson, Indian removal was, as his successor Martin Van Buren said, one of “the old Hero’s major achievements.”9 In 1820, 125,000 Indians lived east of the Mississippi River; by 1840 that number had been reduced to fewer than 30,000. While most historians are highly critical of U.S. policies toward American Indians,10 some suggested a more benign motivation.11

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Andrew Jackson: Instigator of Indian Removal Andrew Jackson took office with one goal set firmly in mind: Indians must be moved “beyond the great river Mississippi.” If George Washington set the precedents and established the early parameters of U.S.–Indian policy, parameters that each president—more or less—followed up until 1829, it was Andrew Jackson who ratcheted up the stakes and the U.S. response to the “problem” of the Indians. For all Jackson’s egalitarian rhetoric, Native peoples were not a part of his democratization plans. Legal scholar Gerard N. Magliocca noted that Jacksonian Democracy was… the most prejudiced movement that ever won the support of the American people… As the first generation to advocate equality for white men regardless of wealth, Jacksonians needed to explain why African Americans should not share in this new birth of freedom. Their basic answer was that these groups were culturally or racially inferior and did not deserve inclusion.12

Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, began implementing his policies even before his vice president arrived in Washington. Two weeks after taking the oath of office, Jackson sent a letter to the Creek Nation, appealing to them to move west “in order that my white and red children may live in peace.” “Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it,” he wrote. “There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty.” The letter set the tone for Jackson’s two terms in office, from 1829 to 1837, said Daniel Feller, a history professor at the University of Tennessee and director of The Papers of Andrew Jackson. A former U.S. Army general who inherited a nation of 13 million people, Jackson wavered on other federal policies while he was in office. The only constant throughout his presidency was Indian removal. “With the economy, tariffs, the Bank of the United States, Jackson either did not have settled views or if he did, those changed,” Feller said. “Indian removal was the thing that he came in to the White House knowing that he wanted to do. For the country’s good—and for their

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own good—the Indians, if they were not to simply shrivel and die away, had to move west.” Born somewhere in the Carolinas in 1767, Jackson was 13 when he joined the Continental Army and fought in the Revolutionary War. Captured by the British, Jackson was held as a prisoner of war, where he contracted smallpox and was permanently scarred by a British officer’s blade. After the war, Jackson studied law and quickly climbed the ranks of the legal and political systems, earning his first elected position as congressman for the state of Tennessee in 1796. In 1797, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but he stepped down to become a member of the Tennessee Supreme Court. During the same time, Jackson earned the rank of officer in the state militia. Jackson, a member of the Democratic Party, was elected president in 1828, but he negotiated treaties with Indian nations long before he got to the White House. After defeating the Red Stick Creeks in March 1814, Jackson dictated the terms of the Treaty of Fort Jackson, forcing the Creek to surrender more than 20 million acres of land. During the following decade, he negotiated treaties with the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Seminole. As president, Jackson faced escalating tensions between southern states and tribes that began to assert their autonomy. The Creeks had already annulled a land-cession treaty and the Cherokee had established a sovereign nation within the state of Georgia. Native tribes claimed rights over the territories they and their ancestors had occupied for generations. Did the law allow white settlers to merely dispose of these peoples? To Jackson, the answer was simple. As Magliocca wrote: Jackson’s position on the constitutional issues raised by the Tribes’ presence was harsh and clear – Native Americans had no right and were aliens that could be ruled by Congress and the states as they saw fit. We argued that the government should start legislating for, rather than treating with, the Indians.13

Jackson’s antipathy toward the Native populations was visceral. His was no mere policy preference; it was a deep, fundamental element of his sense of self. And Jackson said, “Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or

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seeking to control them, they [the tribes] must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.”14 As a function of personality, temperament, and operating blithe, it will surprise no one that Jackson took the next step in what was increasingly becoming a war against the Native American population. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1829, Jackson proffered but one sentence to Native Americans: It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people.15

Only nine months later, in his first annual message to Congress (December 1829), Jackson called for the “voluntary” emigration of Indians to designated lands west of the Mississippi river. This was the real Andrew Jackson as Martin Van Buren, who would later become Jackson’s vice president, noted, “there is no measure in the whole course of his administration of which he was more exclusively the author than this.”16 The 1830s were the decade of “Indian removal.” But as historian Claudio Saunt notes, “removal” is far too mild a word to use to describe forced migration, ethnic cleansing, deportation, expulsion, and genocide or extermination.17 All of this was made possible by the passage of the Removal Act. Signed into law on May 28, 1830 by President Andrew Jackson, the act provided for an exchange of Indian territory for lands west of the Mississippi River, and gave the president the authority to negotiate such deals. Jackson saw it as a green light to force march Indian tribes to land in Oklahoma and other areas west of the Mississippi. As Saunt wrote, The United States was embarking on a grand scheme with minimal preparation and little good will for the people targeted by the law. Jackson believed he could drive indigenous Americans west by being remorseless and strong-willed, but his confidence quickly gave way to the hard truth that the country’s oldest residents were determined to remain in their homelands. Warnings became threats, and threats were soon made at the point of a bayonet.18

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The act, which came with a $500,000 appropriation, was the only major piece of policy legislation passed during Jackson’s eight years in office. “It came at his personal behest,” Feller said. “Everyone understood that what mattered with the act was not the provisions, the wording, but the fact that the administration was going to take this as authorization to pursue Indian removal hard and fast.” During his second message to Congress, in December 1830, Jackson spoke of the “philanthropy” of Indian removal. “True philanthropy,” he said, reconciles the mind “to the extinction of one generation to make room for another.” Tribes in the Southeast already “were annihilated, or have melted away, to make room for the whites,” he said, yet “philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers.” “The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual states and to Indians themselves,” Jackson told Congress. He promised the act would extend to Indians the freedom to pursue happiness in “their own way” and, gradually, “to ease off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized and Christian community.” In September 1830, four months after the act passed, the Choctaw Nation ceded all its land west of the Mississippi in exchange for land in present-day Oklahoma. The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first negotiated under the Indian Removal Act, served as a template for treaties to come—including the 1835 Treaty of New Echota, in which the Cherokee relinquished all their land east of the Mississippi. The treaty, though fraudulently negotiated, became the legal basis for the Trail of Tears. Ironically, the Choctaw had fought side-by-side with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. In the 1830s, this method of removal was repeated from Alabama to Ohio and led to the displacement of roughly 80,000 Indians. In the process, more than 25,000 Indians died. Jackson utterly failed to uphold his end of the treaties, Feller said. In exchange for land east of the Mississippi, the United States promised to provide for tribes once they moved west. “One thing I think Jackson can, without question, be held personally responsible for is that those promises weren’t kept,” Feller said. “I can find no evidence that Jackson particularly cared that they weren’t

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kept. Indian removal was a logistical disaster almost from the beginning. It happened under Jackson’s watch and he didn’t care.” Two camps developed in the federal government: expulsion or conversion. Get them out or “civilize” them. Land speculators and white settlers demanded the former. Those advocating the latter were no match. But the horror of what became known as the Trail of Tears required sanitized rhetoric. Jackson was eager to supply a benign rationale: “I feel conscious of having done my duty to my red children, and if any failure of my good intention arises, it will be attributable to their want of duty to themselves, not to me.” He later wrote to a friend, “I have used all the persuasive means in my power; I have exonerated the national character from all imputation, and now leave the poor deluded Creeks and Cherokees to their fate, and their annihilation.”19 Translation: they didn’t do what we wanted so we got rid of them. The U.S. government never came to grips with one of the most fundamental questions regarding the people who originally populated the land. Were they a true part of the U.S. population? If so, they could be encompassed under U.S. law. This implied that they were “citizens” (although the Constitution has a lower bar, referring to “persons”) with full legal rights. And if so, the goal of “civilizing and integrating” should be applied. But if the Indians were not citizens, what were they? Interlopers? No. Independent tribes or nations? If so, one would expect that their sovereignty would be respected, and they had to be dealt era-bending treaties. There was a third alternative. The Supreme Court decided in The Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia (30 U.S. 1, 1831), that the Cherokee Nation was a “domestic dependent nation” (an interesting turn of phrase, one pregnant with meaning), and not a foreign state, and that, as Chief Justice John Marshall noted, the Cherokee relation to the United States was that of a “ward to his guardian.”20 Marshall’s view has become both law and policy. If Indians were wards of the state, and not citizens, the federal government could dictate to their wards the circumstances under which they would live. The government decided to displace the Indians from their homes and “reserve” lands west of the Mississippi River for them. Thus, the term “reservations.” While this move was technically the result of “treaties,” such land concessions were by no means fairly given. Today,

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roughly 56.2 million acres in 326 land areas are held in trust for the Indian nations.

Martin Van Buren Andrew Jackson’s handpicked successor was the 5’6” Martin Van Buren.21 Van Buren proved weak in an area for which his skills were legend: as a politician. President Van Buren’s critics could be brutal. John Quincy Adams wrote: “There are many features in the character of Mr. Van Buren strongly resembling that of Mr. Madison – his calmness, his gentleness of manner, his discretion, his easy and conciliatory temper. But Madison had none of his obsequiousness, his sycophancy, his profound dissimulation and duplicity.” Folk hero and Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett said: Van Buren is as opposite to General Jackson as dung is to diamond…. [He] travels about the country and through the cities in an English coach; has English servants, dressed in uniform – I think they call it livery…; no longer mixes with the sons of little tavern-keepers; forgets all his old companions and friends in the humbler walks of life…; eats in a room by himself; and is so stiff in his gait, and prim in his dress, that he is what the English call a dandy. When he enters the Senate-chamber in the morning he struts and swaggers like a crow in a gutter. He is laced up in corsets, such as women in town wear, and, if possible, tighter than the best of them. It would be difficult to say, from his personal appearance, whether he was a man or woman, but for his large red and gray whiskers.

Weeks after his inauguration, an economic panic hit the United States. Cautious and unsure of himself, Van Buren’s response to the panic was modest. As the depression worsened, Van Buren’s response to the panic was modest. He exercised caution, not leadership. Van Buren’s lukewarm response to the crisis led critics to dub him “Martin Van Ruin.” Van Buren governed during tough times. That he failed to respond adequately to the demands of the times marked a failure both in his conception of what the office and times required, as well as a failure of will. In the aftermath of Jackson’s activist, expanded presidency, Congress reasserted its prerogatives and the presidency once again began to shrink. This dynamic and elastic institution, stretched by Jackson, now contracted in the face of an assertive Congress. While Van Buren helped shape the

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politics of the two-party system in the United States, he was unable to put it to full presidential use, and Congress, not the president, rose to the forefront. Martin Van Buren: The Force Behind the Trail of Tears When Martin Van Buren took office, Indian removal was already going full force. Van Buren admired Andrew Jackson’s bloody legacy and built on it. Tens of thousands of Native Americans were already being removed from their homelands, and Van Buren defended it by placing himself within a long tradition of forced removal, asserting that it “has been steadily persevered in by every succeeding President and may be considered the settled policy of the country.”22 Van Buren, who served as secretary of state during Andrew Jackson’s first term in office and vice president during Jackson’s second term, pledged to continue enforcing policies put into place by his predecessor. That included the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which granted the president authority to negotiate treaties that swapped Indian lands east of the Mississippi River for reservations in the West. In his autobiography, Van Buren praised Jackson’s vision of Indian removal: “No man ever entered upon the execution of an official duty with purer motives, firmer purpose or better qualifications for its performance,” he wrote. “We were perhaps in the beginning unjustifiable aggressors” toward the Indians, but “we have become the guardians and, as we hope, the benefactors.”23 Shortly after Congress approved the Indian Removal Act, Jackson and his War Department began enforcing it, targeting tribes in the Southeast. By Jackson’s second term in office, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek were already being relocated west of the Mississippi. Jackson’s agents also negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, in which a dissident faction of Cherokee ceded the tribe’s land east of the Mississippi. Signed in December 1835, the treaty required the Cherokee to relinquish their land and depart for Indian Territory within two years. When Van Buren took office in 1837, he inherited the nation’s bitter battle with the Cherokee. Although the Treaty of New Echota had been fraudulently negotiated, Van Buren sent troops to the Cherokee Nation to round up every member of the tribe and imprison them in internment camps.

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In his first message to Congress, in December 1837, Van Buren touted the benevolence of removal as the country’s settled Indian policy. “The decrease in numbers of the tribes within the limits of the states and territories has been most rapid,” he said. “If they be removed, they can be protected from those associations and evil practices which exert so pernicious and destructive an influence over their destinies.” During the fall and winter of 1838, the Cherokee people traveled the Trail of Tears to their new lands. Under Van Buren’s watch, an estimated 4000 Cherokee died and entire Indian nations were relocated, with some losing as much as half their populations. Born in Kinderhook, New York, in 1782, Van Buren studied law and served as a state senator, governor, secretary of state and vice president before being elected as president. A member of the DemocraticRepublican Party, Van Buren’s one term in office was tarnished by economic insecurity. As Van Buren wrestled with the economy, federal Indian policy took a back seat, said Mark Cheathem, project director for The Papers of Martin Van Buren. “For Van Buren, fixing the nation’s economic depression and avoiding war with Great Britain over disputed border claims was a higher priority than Indian removal, particularly since the Jackson administration had already outlined and begun the process,” Cheathem said. “His course regarding Native Americans seemed to be simply to finish the process of removing the southeastern Indian tribes and expanding land cessions in other areas of the nation.” During Van Buren’s four years in office, the United States negotiated 19 treaties with Indian nations, including removal agreements with several tribes in the North: the Miami, Winnebago, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox, Chippewa, and Dakota Sioux. Van Buren also contended with the Seminole in Florida, who engaged U.S. troops in a seven-year battle. Known as the Second Seminole War, the battle began in 1835 and spanned Van Buren’s presidency. Unable to peaceably remove the Seminole, Van Buren publicly blamed them. “In Jacksonian style, Van Buren clearly blamed the Seminole for the war,” Cheathem said. “He justified the nation’s continued prosecution as necessary to maintain its authority over the Native Americans.” In his second message to Congress, Van Buren said the Seminole had to be “totally expelled” from Florida because their continued resistance served as an “evil example of our intercourse with other tribes.” In his

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third message to Congress, he claimed the Seminole had “without any provocation, recommenced their acts of treachery and murder.” In his final message, having failed for his entire presidency to reconcile with the Seminole, Van Buren blamed the continued fighting on the “wily character of the savages.” Yet it was also during Van Buren’s presidency that New York writer John O’Sullivan coined the term “Manifest Destiny.” In an edition of The United States Democratic Review, O’Sullivan asserted that it was America’s “Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”

William Henry Harrison At 68, Harrison was the oldest president ever elected (an honor he would hold until Ronald Reagan, and, later, Joe Biden).24 He delivered his 8578-word inaugural address (never mentioning Indians) in a driving rainstorm, caught cold, and died a month later. He was the first president to die in office and served the shortest term in history. Andrew Jackson derisively called Harrison “our present imbecile chief,” and John Quincy Adams spoke of Harrison’s “active but shallow mind.” Harrison was a Whig (smaller government) president who believed Congress should set the national agenda. He declared in his inaugural address: … it is preposterous to suppose that a thought could for a moment have been entertained that the President, placed at the capital, in the center of the country, could better understand the wants and wishes of the people than their own immediate representatives, who spend a part of every year among them, living with them, often laboring with them, and bound to them by the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection.

Harrison did leave his footprints on one aspect of the presidency. His activist campaign of 1840, using placards, hats, effigies, campaign songs, banners, stump speeches, parades, and other electoral paraphernalia, was the beginning of modern public campaigning. In this sense, the Jacksonian revolution had truly transformed the presidency. Even Whig candidates had to appeal to the people for authority and power.

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William Henry Harrison: Shady Treaty Maker and Indian Land Taker Harrison’s tenure as president was the shortest in history, but as an Army general, governor of the Indiana Territory, and federal Indian commissioner, he left a long legacy regarding Native American affairs. “For Harrison, there was a very strong streak for opportunism with Indian policy,” said Robert Owens, associate professor of history at Wichita State University and author of Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy. “Harrison figured out how effective he was at making these shady treaties with Indians, and he used that to his benefit,” Owens said. “One thing white Americans agreed on was Indian policy, so he pushed it aggressively.” Born in Virginia in 1773, Harrison studied medicine before joining the army at age 18. He served as an ensign during the Old Northwest Indian wars, from 1791 to 1794, and secretary of the Northwest Territory from 1798 to 1799. President John Adams appointed Harrison as governor of the Indiana Territory in 1800. One of Harrison’s primary responsibilities as governor was to acquire as much Indian land as possible. Between 1801 and 1809—serving under President Thomas Jefferson—Harrison was responsible for the acquisition of most of present-day Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. “Harrison saw the rapid and cheap purchase of Indian lands as both his duty, and the key to President Jefferson’s political favor,” Owens said. “To do so, he skillfully and ruthlessly exploited intertribal rivalries and played Indian peoples against each other. With a mix of bribes and threats, he knowingly purchased land from Indians who had little claim to them, and then publicly denied such knowledge.” In an “unofficial and private” letter sent to Harrison in 1803, Jefferson outlined his view of federal Indian policy, which included the use of trading posts to drive Indians into debt, forcing them to relinquish land to pay their bills. In time, Indians would either incorporate as U.S. citizens or “remove beyond the Mississippi.” Jefferson wrote: We presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motivates of pure humanity only.

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Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.25

Following Jefferson’s orders, Harrison became the driving force behind land-cession treaties with the Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Wea and Eel River, often paying as little as one penny for 200 acres of land. In late 1804, he negotiated a largely fraudulent treaty with the Sac and Fox, in which he served chiefs alcohol then persuaded them to exchange 50 million acres for an annual payment of $1000 in goods. He also negotiated the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne, which acquired nearly 3 million acres of Indian land and antagonized Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (also known as The Prophet), who started organizing a confederacy of Native allies near the Tippecanoe River in present-day Indiana. Fearing a resurgence of Indian power, Harrison in November 1811 ordered his army to march on Tecumseh’s village, allegedly to hold a council with Tenskwatawa. When the Shawnee launched a predawn attack on November 7, Harrison’s troops fought back, defeating Tenskwatawa and wiping out the village of Tippecanoe. Harrison’s victory earned him the nickname “Old Tippecanoe” which three decades later gave rise to his presidential campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” Harrison continued to fight the Indians during the War of 1812. He erected the 10-acre Fort Meigs along the rapids of the Maumee River to prevent the combined forced of the British and Indians from approaching Ohio Country. In 1813, Harrison led a victorious attack in the Battle of the Thames and defeated Tecumseh’s Indian confederacy. After the battle, Harrison signed an armistice with the tribes, which called for them to “retire to their usual hunting grounds” and “behave themselves peaceably.” He then solidified American land holdings with the 1814 Treaty of Greenville and the 1815 Treaty of Springwells before retiring to civilian life.

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John Tyler John Tyler26 was the nation’s first “President by act of God.” When William Henry Harrison died one month after his inauguration, his vice president, the 6-foot-tall John Tyler, became president. But at that time, it was unclear whether a vice president who replaces a president became Acting President or President. In the House of Representatives, John McKeon of Pennsylvania introduced a resolution giving Tyler the title “Acting President.” The resolution did not carry. But Tyler acted swiftly, claiming both the office and title of President. While critics dubbed Tyler “His Accidency,” the new president was determined to exercise fully his new powers, much to the dismay and disappointment of his fellow Whigs. However, asserting and actually grabbing power are two different things. Tyler faced an early test of strength with “his” cabinet (Harrison holdovers, all). Daniel Webster, the secretary of state, tried to put Tyler in his place, announcing at the first cabinet meeting: Mr. President, I suppose you intend to carry on the ideas and customs of your predecessor, and that this administration inaugurated by President Harrison will continue in the same line of policy under which it has begun. It was our custom in the cabinet of the deceased President, that the President should preside over us. Our custom and proceeding was that all measures whatever, however, relating to the administration were brought before the cabinet, and their settlement was decided by a majority – each member, and the President, having one vote.

After a pause, Tyler responded: I beg your pardon, gentleman. I am sure I am very glad to have in my cabinet such able statesmen as you have proved yourselves to be, and I shall be pleased to avail myself of your counsel and advice, but I can never consent to being dictated to as to what I shall or shall not do. I, as President, will be responsible for my administration. I hope to have your co-operation in carrying out its measures; so long as you see fit to do this, I shall be glad to have you with me – when you think otherwise, your resignations will be accepted.27

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Cabinet resignations followed shortly. Tyler was a believer in states’ rights, and vetoed bill after bill of the Whig legislative agenda; this alienated his Whig cohorts and his cabinet. On September 11, 1841, every member of his cabinet, except Webster, sent Tyler their resignations. Later, Tyler’s veto of a minor revenue bill was overturned by Congress—the first override in history. (Tyler was also the first president to face an impeachment resolution, which failed to get the necessary votes.) Tyler became, in Henry Clay’s words, “a President without a party.” In domestic affairs, Tyler’s vetoes led to gridlock, as the Whig Tyler repudiated nearly every plank of the Whig program. Tyler wanted to run for reelection, but was, not surprisingly, repudiated – by the Whigs. In between vetoing legislation, Tyler had time to father fifteen children (the last, Pearl, was born when Tyler was seventy), by far the most productive president in history in this area. John Tyler: Squatting Advocate and White Supremacist Five months after he took office as the 10th president of the United States, John Tyler signed the Preemption Act of 1841, granting purchasing rights to squatters already living on federal lands. The act permitted squatters to buy up to 160 acres of “public land” for as little as $1.25 per acre before it was surveyed and offered for sale. To qualify, squatters had to be U.S. citizens, heads of household, single men over 21, or widowers, and they must have lived on the land for at least 14 months. Ten percent of the proceeds from land sales were granted to states to “be faithfully applied to objects of internal improvement,” including roads, railways, bridges, canals and draining of swamps. The act applied to land in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Michigan – and to any other states admitted into the Union. It helped establish the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and led to the settlement of the Kansas and Nebraska territories. In a special message to Congress in June 1841, Tyler wrote that preemption laws were “necessary” and he supported them “for the benefit of actual settlers.” He also wrote of a population of 17 million Americans and his vision for continued expansion. “The old states contain a territory sufficient in itself to maintain a population of additional millions, and the most populous of the new states may even yet be regarded as but partially settled,” he said. “While of

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the new lands on this side of the Rocky Mountains, to say nothing of the immense region which stretches from the base of those mountains to the mouth of the Columbia River, about 770,000,000 acres, ceded and unceded, still remain to be brought into market.” Born in Virginia in 1790, Tyler studied law and worked as an attorney before entering the political arena. He served as governor of Virginia and as a member of Congress. He was elected as vice president in 1840. A member of the Whig Party, Tyler took over after William Henry Harrison’s death and completed Harrison’s term and some of Harrison’s unfinished business—including Indian removal treaties. One month after taking the oath of office, Tyler signed a treaty with the Wyandot Nation, calling for the cession of all their remaining lands in Ohio, or about 109,000 acres. In exchange, the Wyandot received 148,000 acres west of the Mississippi River and $17,500 per year. He also signed land cession treaties with the Seneca, Chippewa, and Sac and Fox. Tyler was the fourth president to contend with the Seminole in Florida during the Second Seminole War, which began in 1835 and is regarded as one of the costliest Indian conflicts in U.S. history. By the end of the war in 1842, the U.S. had spent more than $40 million and transported more than 3000 Seminoles to the West. In his first annual message to Congress, in December 1841, Tyler outlined his policy on the Seminole. He pushed for “untiring activity and zeal” in the war and stated that the Seminole “have been captured, and still greater numbers have surrendered and have been transported to join their brethren on the lands elsewhere allotted to them by the government.” The war ended in August 1842, and all but about 300 Indians were removed from Florida. Four months later, Tyler reported that the “vexations, harassing and expensive war” against the Florida tribes “has happily been terminated.” In his second message to Congress, Tyler also called for “parental vigilance” in helping the remaining Indians become civilized. Eager to prevent further conflict between white settlers and remaining Indians in Florida, Congress passed another act aimed at getting settlers to populate the land—and build up a militia against the Seminole. The Armed Occupation Act of 1842 granted 160 acres of Florida land to settlers who were “able to bear arms” and agreed to cultivate land located within two miles of a permanent military post.

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As the U.S. annexed more land, Tyler also contended with the issue of slavery, said Edward Crapol, author of John Tyler, the Accidental President. Tyler favored westward expansion and pushed for the annexation of Texas, which joined the Union as a slave state in 1845. “Tyler believed in white supremacy and viewed both Indians and Blacks inferior to whites,” Crapol said. He “was a proponent of Manifest Destiny and believed that territorial aggrandizement would preserve the institution of slavery and save the Union.” Yet Tyler also inherited the Panic of 1837, the worst economic depression in the nation’s short history, and his term was plagued with economic and political insecurity, said Christopher Leahy, a history professor at Keuka College and author of President without a Party: The Life of John Tyler. After he vetoed bills that would have created a third national bank, the Whig Party banished him from its ranks, ultimately costing him reelection in 1845. “Tyler made the annexation of Texas – so, to some extent, westward expansion – his top priority,” Leahy said. “He was able to accomplish this by a joint resolution with Congress right before he left office.” Even in his last months as president, Tyler continued to lobby for the removal of Indians from the southeast. Five months before he left office, Tyler wrote a letter imploring the military to “resort to all peaceful means to get the Indians remaining in Florida to migrate.”

James Polk After the Whig difficulties with Whig president John Tyler, the Democrats were able to elect the first “dark horse” in history. James Polk28 wasn’t considered a candidate when the Democratic convention began; in fact, his name did not even appear on the first seven ballots. But after a stalemate between Martin Van Buren and Lewis Cass, the convention turned to a compromise candidate: the 5’8”, white-haired James Polk. Referred to as “Young Hickory” because he was a protégé of Andrew Jackson, Polk was an assertive president who expanded the office and used war to expand America. While he accomplished much, he had his critics. John Quincy Adams said of Polk: He has no wit, no literature, no point of argument, no gracefulness of delivery, no elegance of language, no philosophy, no pathos, no felicitous

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impromptus; nothing that can constitute an orator, but confidence, fluency, and labor.

In his inaugural address, Polk enunciated an expansive view of the presidency: Although… the chief magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States. While he… faithfully carries out in the executive department of the Government the principles and policy of those who have chosen him, he should not be unmindful that our fellow-citizens who have differed with him in opinion are entitled to the full and free exercise of their opinions and judgements, and that the rights of all are entitled to respect and regard.

Historian Page Smith called Polk “a petty, conniving, irascible, smallspirited man,” and historian Bernard De Voto said that “Polk’s mind was rigid, narrow, obstinate, far from first-rate.” Like his mentor Andrew Jackson, Polk saw the presidency as an office of force and leadership. In his first two years in office, his fellow Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and Polk used this opportunity to chart a bold course in domestic policy, referred to as the “New Democracy.” With Polk in the lead, Congress passed tariff reductions and established an independent treasury system. It was a time of “Manifest Destiny,” a phrase coined by John L. O’Sullivan, editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. It reflected the spirit of expansionism, territorial and otherwise. The movement westward was in full swing, and the age recognized few limits. Was Manifest Destiny merely a rationale for aggressive acquisition, belligerent and militaristic, or was it the realization of a providentially blessed grand design? Whatever it was, Polk exploited the nationalistic mood and led the nation to significant territorial expansion.29 Polk’s expansionist agenda advocated annexation of Texas and expanding the Oregon border. Getting the Texas territory required some sleight of hand. After being rejected in an effort to purchase the Texas territory from Mexico, Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to lead an expedition into Texas. In April 1846, U.S. and Mexican troops clashed, setting off a war in which the United States acquired Texas, New Mexico, and California. By brute force, Polk acquired a tremendously valuable

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chunk of land. Next to Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory, this was the most important acquisition of land in U.S. history. Abraham Lincoln, a congressman at the time, spoke of Polk and the Mexican War, calling the president “a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man.” But acquisition of new territory raised thorny issues of sectional balance and slavery. A storm was brewing. From this point until the Civil War, slavery and sectional rivalries would dominate American Politics. Polk was a powerful, assertive president who expanded the Jacksonian model of presidential power. Under his leadership, the president began openly to coordinate the development of the federal budget. He chose to serve only one term, but it was a time of great change and expansion. James Knox Polk: ‘No President Less Human’ James Knox Polk oversaw the greatest acquisition of territory in U.S. history. The 11th president, Polk increased the size of the United States by two-thirds, roughly 800,000 square miles, by acquiring present-day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Washington, and Oregon, as well as parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana. He also completed the annexation of Texas, expanding the nation by an additional 400,000 square miles and increasing its jurisdiction over hundreds of thousands of Native Americans. “In the earlier stages of our national existence the opinion prevailed with some that our system of confederated states could not operate successfully over an extended territory,” Polk said in his inaugural address. Yet, “the title of numerous Indian tribes to vast tracts of country has been extinguished; new states have been admitted into the Union; new territories have been created and our jurisdiction and laws extended over them. As our population has expanded, the Union has been cemented and strengthened.” Born in North Carolina in 1795, Polk later moved to Tennessee, where he practiced law, served in the state militia, and became a firm supporter of Andrew Jackson. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor of Tennessee before successfully running for president in 1844. A member of the Democratic Party, Polk served one term, from 1845 to 1849, during which he oversaw 10 treaties with Indian nations, seven of which negotiated acquisition of Indian land.

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In his first message to Congress, he urged a comprehensive adoption of Jacksonian policies—including Indian removal—and called Jackson “the most eminent citizen of our country.” He also reasserted the Monroe Doctrine, warning against European interference with America’s plans to advance across the continent. Printed copies of the message were rushed by train to citizens all over the country. In Philadelphia, crowds reportedly shouted, “Hurrah! Jackson is alive again!” Known as the last strong president before the Civil War, Polk took office with four goals: reduce the tariff, reform the banking system, acquire California, and settle the boundary dispute over Oregon.

Zachary Taylor Zachary Taylor,30 5’9”, with blue eyes, the last true Whig president, and the first president elected with no previous political experience, served only two years as president. An outsider with no clear agenda, he was a relatively ineffective president. He had a narrow view of the presidential office and chose not to actively lead the nation. Of Taylor, Polk said, “General Taylor is, I have no doubt, a well-meaning old man. He is, however, uneducated, exceedingly ignorant of public affairs, and I should judge, of very ordinary capacity.” Taylor’s election was the last gasp of a dying Whig party. Given Taylor’s Whig view of a limited presidency, he neglected the possible role of legislative leader and even eschewed patronage as beneath the office. Taylor’s self-imposed limitations prevented him from attempting the exercise of strong presidential leadership. The Executive… has authority to recommend (not to dictate) measures to Congress. Having performed that duty, the Executive department of the Government cannot rightfully control the decision of Congress on any subject of legislation… the … veto will never be exercised by me except… as an extreme measure, to be resorted to only in extraordinary cases…

Taylor was, prior to the presidency, known for his anti-Indian sentiments. He was quite willing to engage in the extermination of Indians, and as an army officer, rose to the rank of general largely because of his experience as an Indian fighter against the Sac and Fox nations during the Black

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Hawk War. He earned his nickname, “Old Rough and Ready,” for his brutal treatment of Seminole Indians.

Zachary Taylor Hunted Indians with Bloodhounds Zachary Taylor took office as the 12th president of the United States with 40 years of experience as a career soldier. As a U.S. Army major during the War of 1812, Taylor battled the British and Shawnee forces. He also fought for Indian removal during the Black Hawk War in 1832 and the Second Seminole War from 1837 to 1840. During his campaigns against the Seminole, Taylor requested special permission to use bloodhounds to track Indians through the swamps of Florida. “I am decidedly in favor of the measure, and beg leave to urge it as the only means of ridding the country of the Indians, who are now broken up into small parties that take shelter in swamps and hummocks, making it impossible for us to follow or overtake them without the aid of such auxiliaries,” Taylor wrote in a July 1838 letter. “I wish it distinctly understood, that my object in employing dogs, is only to ascertain where the Indians can be found, not to worry them.” The Florida legislature authorized acquisition of the dogs and sent Taylor 33 bloodhounds and five handlers. Taylor did not use the dogs, however, as they were trained to track the scent of black slaves and proved worthless in finding Indians. Unable to subdue the Seminole, Taylor resigned from his post in 1840—two years before the war ended. But Taylor’s reputation as an Indian fighter had already set the course of his life, said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “At that time, most politicians got their experience in one of two ways: fighting against the Indians or fighting in the Mexican War,” Gerhardt said. “Taylor did both.” When Taylor took office in 1849, gold miners were heading to California by the thousands, setting off the bloodiest stage of westward expansion in history. By Taylor’s second year in office, 80,000 miners had poured into California, where lawmakers pursued policies of genocide. In 1851, California Gov. Peter Burnett predicted that “the war of extermination will continue to be waged until the Indian race becomes

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extinct.” In the next 20 years, California’s Indian population would decrease by 80 percent, from 150,000 people to 30,000. Born in Virginia in 1784, Taylor later moved with his family to a plantation in Kentucky. He joined the U.S. Army in 1808 and by 1810 had purchased a plantation of his own, along with 83 slaves. In 1811, on the cusp of the War of 1812, Taylor went to Indiana to assume control of Fort Knox. His military career spanned the next 40 years, culminating with his service as major general during the Mexican-American War, which ended in 1847 with Mexico ceding onethird of its land to the United States. Taylor’s victory earned him the title of national hero, which he used in his campaign for president the following year. Taylor served as president for only 16 months. He died in July 1850. During his short tenure as president, Taylor pushed for Indian assimilation and removal. He expanded the reservation system with the hope that “confined Indians” would embrace agriculture and Western civilization. “President Taylor used the position of commissioner of Indian Affairs to reward his political supporters.” Two commissioners, Orlando Brown and Luke Lee, “believed that Native culture was inferior to that of white Americans but that it could be elevated by education.”31 Taylor inherited a country that was rapidly expanding. Under James K. Polk, the United States had increased by more than 1 million square miles, and with new states petitioning to enter the Union, Taylor faced a battery of questions about how the land should be governed and whether new states should allow slavery. “His policies largely had to do with tariffs, trade, and slavery,” Gerhardt said. “All of his policies played into Indian affairs because it was all about acquiring territory. Every time they acquired territory, they had to decide about slavery.” Taylor also oversaw three treaties with Indian nations and one with Hawaii. The Navajo and Ute in 1849 entered into agreements with the United States that guaranteed U.S. citizens maltreating Indians on their land would be subject to federal laws. These treaties also required tribes to grant citizens “free and safe passage” through their territory. In February 1850, Taylor signed a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation with Hawaii, calling for “perpetual peace and amity between the United States and the king of the Hawaiian Islands, his heirs and his successors.” The treaty opened the way for annexation of Hawaii in the late nineteenth century.

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Five months before his death, Taylor ordered the removal of the Chippewa from northern Wisconsin. In his executive order, signed February 6, 1850, Taylor revoked the Chippewas’ rights to hunting, fishing and gathering wild rice on land already ceded to the United States. “All of the said Indians remaining on the lands ceded as aforesaid are required to remove to their unceded lands,” he wrote. During their march from northern Wisconsin to Minnesota during the following winter, an estimated 400 Chippewa died. The issue of slavery dominated Taylor’s short time as president. The threat of disunion haunted the politics of the day. Taylor, a southerner, was appalled by talk of secession, but felt helpless in the face of fast-moving events.

Millard Fillmore After Zachary Taylor’s death, Millard Fillmore32 assumed the presidency. At 5’9”, with blue eyes and thinning gray hair, Fillmore was nonetheless an imposing figure. He took office as a crisis was looming over slavery. But as Harry Truman said of Fillmore, “At a time we needed a strong man, what we got was a man that swayed with the slightest breeze.” Fillmore accepted the resignations of all department heads and appointed his own cabinet. This assertion of control, however, did not extend to the domain of public policy. Fillmore’s whiggish tendencies were self-limited in an age when the issue of slavery demanded political leadership. Shortly after taking office, Fillmore signed the Compromise of 1850. Under the Compromise, California was admitted into the union as a free state, the borders of Texas were defined, the territories of New Mexico and Utah were established, and slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia. The Compromise also contained the controversial Fugitive Slave Law, which required that northerners help return escaped slaves to their southern owners. The Compromise of 1850 may have postponed the Civil War, but it did little to end the strife caused by slavery. In 1852, the Whigs refused to nominate Fillmore for another term as president. He ended up joining the nativist Know-Nothing party. As the 1856 presidential nominee of the Know-Nothings, Fillmore won only the state of Maryland. He was offered an honorary degree from Oxford University, but declined, stating, “I had not the advantage of a classical

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education, and no man should, in my judgement, accept a degree he cannot read.” In 1850, during the first census under the newly established Census Board, individual-level data was collected for the first time (as opposed to family data), it was the first census to record an immigrant’s country of birth. And the first to ask about “color.” In the new census form, white respondents were to leave the space blank, black persons were to write “B,” and if “mulatto,” used an “M.” There was no designation for indigenous peoples.33 In 1860, a new “color” was added for indigenous peoples who had become American citizens. While “Indians not taxed” were to remain uncounted, those who chose to renounce tribal rule and become citizens were counted. In such cases, into the blank space, “IND” was to be written opposite the name. After the Civil War, an “Indian Division” was established in the Census Bureau.”34 Over time, the counting of indigenous peoples became more complicated, and was linked to government efforts to expand control of Plains and Western Indian lands, and to force assimilation. An instruction in the 1860 census read: Where persons reported as ‘Half-breeds’ are found residing with whites, adopting their habits of life and methods of industry, such persons are to be treated as belonging to the white population. Where, on the other hand, they are found in communities composed wholly or mainly of Indians, the opposite construction is taken.35

The post-Civil War Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments gave legal rights to the formally enslaved Africans of the U.S. South. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection of the laws to “any person” within the jurisdiction of the United States. But it did not automatically extend rights to all indigenous peoples. Millard Fillmore: The Racist Who Didn’t Like Anyone During his 32 months in office, Millard Filmore earned a reputation for being anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigration, and anti-black. The 13th president of the United States, Fillmore supported federal policies that targeted minorities, religious groups, and other disenfranchised populations, biographer Paul Finkelman said. A stubborn, insecure

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and unpleasant man, Fillmore is perhaps best known for signing the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, which allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves. “Fillmore signed it without any qualms at all, and then he vigorously enforced it,” Finkelman said. “A lot of what he did was horrendously unfair. He was pretty much on the wrong side of history every time he turned around: the wrong side of slavery, the wrong side of religious tolerance. He didn’t like anyone.” Born into poverty in 1800, Fillmore was raised in the burned-over district of upstate New York, a region made popular by religious revivals and political reform movements. Fillmore grew up where famous abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass would come to live, yet he remained “totally oblivious” to issues of human rights. “He didn’t seem to care about slavery one way or the other,” Finkelman said. “He had abolitionists as some of his closest neighbors, and yet he ignored them all.” On his second day as president, Fillmore’s entire cabinet resigned, and it took him months to find replacements. In his first messages Congress, in December 1850, Fillmore estimated 124,000 indigenous people had come under the jurisdiction of the United States because of the Mexican cession. He recommended that Congress “provide for the raising of one or more regiments of mounted men” to help protect settlers in the new territory. He continued: Texas and New Mexico are surrounded by powerful tribes of Indians, who are a source of constant terror and annoyance to the inhabitants. …Separating into small predatory bands, and always mounted, they overrun the country, devastating farms, destroying crops, driving off whole herds of cattle, and occasionally murdering the inhabitants or carrying them into captivity. The great roads leading into the country are infested with them, whereby traveling is rendered extremely dangerous and immigration is almost entirely arrested.

Shortly before the nation acquired the California Territory in 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill. By the time California was admitted to the Union in 1850, miners were pouring in from as far away as Europe, China, and Australia.

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In 1851, federal Indian agents negotiated 18 secret removal treaties with tribes in California. These agents worked with 402 Indian leads representing 139 tribes or bands, who agreed to cede their land in exchange for reservations, education and a supply of livestock and dry goods. Yet the three U.S. commissioners charged with negotiating the treaties were part of a “corrupt Indian system” and most of the treaties were fraudulently negotiated. The Senate, finding the treaties problematic, failed to ratify them and “Indian title to the land was left unresolved…It was unclear if Mexico – from which California was acquired – recognized Native land titles. If Mexico did not, then Indians in California came under U.S. sovereignty without legal claims to the land.”36 California lawmakers also feared the designated reservations were on the most valuable agricultural and mineral land in the state. In 1852, a California Assembly report proposed that senators “induce the federal government to remove the Indians of this state beyond its jurisdiction.” Suggested destinations included Oregon, New Mexico, Utah, and Catalina Island. During his partial term in office, Fillmore supervised dozens of treaties with Indian nations, including 13 with Oregon tribes. Anson Dart, superintendent of Indian Affairs, was ordered to remove the Oregon tribes, including several Chinook and Tillamook bands, to the east of the Cascade Range. Congress never ratified these treaties.

Franklin Pierce As the conflict over slavery escalated, the new president, the 5’10”, Franklin Pierce,37 declared in his inaugural address, “I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions.” Such sentiments, while comforting to the southern states, did little to calm the approaching storm. Pierce, who had penetrating dark eyes and a drinking habit that led adversaries to call him “a hero of many a well-fought bottle,” was a believer in limited government and was perceived as a “Doughface,” a northerner who supported the south. Theodore Roosevelt called Pierce “a small politician, of low capacity and mean surroundings, proud to act as

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the servile tool of men worse than himself but also stronger and abler.” Harry Truman referred to Pierce as “another one that was a complete fizzle. Pierce didn’t know what was going on, and even if he had, he wouldn’t of known what to do about it.”38 Pierce was probably the last president who might have been able to prevent the Civil War. His inability to resolve what may have been an unsolvable situation contributed to the coming war. During his presidency, a new political alignment was emerging. The Whigs were collapsing and a new Republican faction was forming. This instability, mixed with deep sectional divisions, made Pierce’s efforts at party control of the legislature difficult. In 1854, the United States acquired land—now southern Arizona and New Mexico—from Mexico for $10 million in the Gadsen Purchase. This purchase made possible a direct rail link across Texas and the newly acquired territories all the way to California. Pierce also attempted, but failed, to acquire Cuba for the United States. Of course, slavery remained the most important and most divisive issue of the era. The controversial Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed Missouri Compromise of 1829 and allowed settlers in Kansas and Nebraska to decide the question of slavery for themselves. Senator Douglas played the lead role in passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, as it was an era when senators were more “event-making” than presidents. In general, the North opposed the bill, but Pierce supported it, hoping to diffuse the tension over the slavery controversy. But it was too little, too late, as slavery polarized the nation and took it to the brink of Civil War. Franklin Pierce: Fierce Protector of White Settlers in ‘Indian Territory’ A staunch believer in the concept of Manifest Destiny and the acquisition of land, Franklin Pierce took office in 1853 with his eye on Alaska, Hawaii, and Cuba. The 14th president of the United States, Pierce is credited with initiating the first discussions about purchasing Alaska, an arctic territory twice the size of Texas. He also sent ambassadors to negotiate with Hawaii and Cuba as part of his conviction that acquiring new territory was necessary to boost national security. “The policy of my administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion,” Pierce said during his inauguration

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speech. “Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of certain possessions not without our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection, if not in the future essential for the preservation of the rights of commerce and the peace of the world.” Although Pierce failed to acquire any of the three territories he wanted, he did expand the borders of the United States with the Gadsen Purchase, a 30,000-square-mile strip of land in present-day Arizona and New Mexico. He also signed the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, organizing the Kansas and Nebraska territories—compromising parts of present-day Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming—and opening them to white settlers. The bill paved the way for a transcontinental railroad joining Chicago with California. The biggest obstacle to the railroad, however, was more than 10,000 members of the Kickapoo, Delaware, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kansas, Ottawa, Wyandot, and Osage tribes. These residents had rights to the land guaranteed by treaties, yet the federal government was already chipping away at them. In the decade before the Kansas–Nebraska Act passed, Congress appropriated thousands of dollars to pay for railroad surveys and liquidate Indian titles to the land. Meanwhile, a triumvirate of politicians, railroad companies, and land spectators formed the Indian Ring, a “union of dishonor that bought off congressmen, bilked the public purse and expropriated Indian homelands.”39 Indian agents forged blatantly corrupt deals, negotiating dozens of treaties with eastern tribes that had already been relocated to Kansas. The new treaties removed them a second time, and additional treaties forced other tribes to give up lands to make room for them. Between 1854 and 1871, the Indian Ring used “threats, bribes, and promises to force Native people to cede thousands of acres of land, ushering in a second era of Indian removal in which the government forcibly relocated all but a handful of Indian bands from eastern Kansas, opening the territory for railroad development and white settlement.”40 In his second annual address, in December 1854, Pierce urged Congress to increase military force to protect settlers in Indian Territory. “The settlers on the frontier have suffered much from the incursions of predatory bands,” he said. “The recurrence of such scenes can only be prevented by teaching these wild tribes the power of and their responsibility to the United States.”

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Pierce inherited a country on the brink of civil war. His greatest tension came from the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the slavery ban in Kansas and sparked violence between abolitionists and pro-slavery opponents. The situation, known as “Bleeding Kansas,” propelled the nation closer to war and cost Pierce the Democratic nomination in 1856. But even as civil war threatened the nation, Pierce was eyeing other territories. Between 1852 and 1856, government agents negotiated 52 treaties with tribes in the trans-Mississippi West, acquiring more than 170 million acres of Indian homelands in present-day Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, and Oklahoma. In the Pacific Northwest in 1855, agents held treaty councils with the Cayuse, Umatilla, Yakima, Walla Walla, and Nez Perce Indians, urging them to relinquish their land. Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon, told the Indians that the whites and their railroads were unstoppable. “Can you prevent the wind from blowing? Can you prevent the rain from falling? Can you prevent the whites from coming? You are answered No!” he said. Yakima chief Ou-hi responded, “Shall I give the lands that are part of my body and leave myself poor and destitute? Shall I say that I will give you my land? I cannot say so. I am afraid of the Great Spirit. Shall I give the lands that are part of my body and leave myself poor and destitute? Shall I say that I will give you my land? I cannot say so. I am afraid of the Great Spirit.”41 Indian leaders eventually signed three treaties, ceding more than 60,000 square miles for approximately three cents per acre. When they realized they had been tricked into giving up their lands, Natives attacked white settlers and miners, triggering the Yakima War, a bloody three-year skirmish with the United States. Led by Maj. Gabriel L. Rains, who promised that he would “war forever, until not a Yakima breathes in the land he calls his own,” the army massacred Native villages and killed Chief Peo-Peo-Mox-Mox. Soldiers dismembered his body, removing his eyes, ears, and hands, and cut his body into pieces to be used as souvenirs displayed in Oregon towns. The Yakima War raged until 1858.

James Buchanan The presidency of James Buchanan42 was overwhelmed by tensions between the North and South over the issue of slavery. While Buchanan thought slavery was a moral evil, he also recognized a constitutional right

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of southern states to allow slavery to exist. He tried to steer a middle course between the pro- and anti-slavery forces. He failed. The nation’s only bachelor president, Buchanan, 6-feet tall and droopy-eyed, proved a weak and ineffective president who failed to head off southern secession. Ulysses S. Grant, in a letter to a friend, referred to Buchanan as “our present granny executive.” Although Buchanan was a strong Unionist, his limited conception of presidential power prevented him from taking steps to stem the breakup. Once secession began, Buchanan sat paralyzed, believing the federal government had no authority to coerce the southern states to remain part of the Union. He sat idly by when action was needed. Buchanan was a strict constitutional constructionist. He believed the president was authorized to take only the action clearly permitted by the Constitution or authorized by Congress. This view of the office limited Buchanan’s efforts to end domestic strife and allowed events to accelerate beyond hope. In his final message to Congress, Buchanan said of the president: “After all, he is no more than the chief executive officer of the Government. His province is not to make but to execute the laws.” Two days after Buchanan took office, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the Dred Scott case. Finding slavery to be lawful under the Constitution, it ruled that blacks whose ancestors had arrived in America as slaves did not qualify as U.S. or state citizens and did not have a citizen’s right to sue in federal courts. Also, an enslaved black who escaped to a free state or territory must be returned as property to his or her owner. It further held that Congress had no right to ban slavery in a territory and that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional. The Dred Scott case, rather than resolving the slavery question, added fuel to the already hot flames. To make matters worse, in August of 1857, a severe economic downturn hit the banking industry, leading to the Panic of 1857. This plunged the nation into a depression and further heightened the already explosive tensions. But it was the secession threat that most concerned Buchanan. While he believed secession was unconstitutional, he also believed the federal government’s hands were tied and it could not use force against a secessionist state. Buchanan’s unwillingness to be flexible and move beyond this very limited (and given the times, dangerous) view further emboldened southern secessionists. In his last message to Congress, delivered on December 3, 1860, Buchanan meekly noted: “Apart from the execution

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of the laws, so far as this may be practical, the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal Government and South Carolina…” On December 20, 1860, South Carolina officially seceded from the Union. Two weeks later, Buchanan sent a special message to Congress claiming it was not too late for a compromise. Within weeks, six more southern states withdrew from the Union. It was either disunion or war. James Buchanan: Indian Genocide Was ‘Collateral Damage’ On the brink of the Civil War, the federal government had abandoned any pretense of Indian policy, leaving the “Indian system” to the mercy of dishonest and greedy Indian agents who largely earned their positions as rewards for political service. Corruption penetrated the federal government, funneling illegally obtained money to officials at many levels. As the South threatened to secede from the Union, the only cohesive Indian policy Buchanan entertained was the belief that they needed to be quarantined on reservations, biographer Jean Baker said. “As settlers moved further west, the idea of assimilating Indians disappeared,” she said. “The treaty was the new vehicle, and this modern construct of sticking the Indians on pieces of land and giving them a little food was the policy that Buchanan supported.” Preoccupied with the impending war, Buchanan turned a blind eye toward the Indians, who grew increasingly desperate by the year. Traders with exclusive rights to do business with Indians cheated them, and the Senate bought land from starving Indians then dispersed it to white settlers. Left to their own accord, state and territorial governments also took advantage of Indians, often calling on the military for support. “Settlers were still moving across the West, so Buchanan supported the construction of forts to protect them,” Baker said. “Buchanan was a huge expansionist. He supported taking over huge swaths of land and justified this in the way his generation of policymakers did. He believed in the superiority of the white man, and that the white men used the land in a better way than the Indians did.” In his inaugural address, Buchanan pointed to the vast public lands reserved for “a hardy and independent race of honest and industrious citizens,” including generations of settlers to come, along with exiles from foreign shores.

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“No nation in the tide of time has ever been blessed with so rich and noble and inheritance as we enjoy in the public lands,” he said. “We should never forget that it is our cardinal policy to reserve these lands, as much as may be, for actual settlers.” Much of the slavery conflict took place in the Kansas Territory, created in 1854 under the Kansa-Nebraska Act. When Kansas petitioned for statehood, residents had to decide by popular sovereignty whether to allow slavery, a battle that presaged the civil War. Meanwhile, tribes in Kansas were overlooked. “When you look at Kansas, you’re not looking at Indians,” Baker said. “The focus is on the North and the South. Indians become collateral damage.” Buchanan oversaw 11 treaties with Indian nations, acquiring millions of acres of land in New York, the Dakotas, and Kansas, and sending Indians to live on reservations. In April 1858, the Yankton Sioux ceded 11 million acres in southeastern South Dakota. Chief Struck-by-the-Ree, whose name appears on the treaty, warned his people that they had little choice but to abandon their land. “The white men are coming in like maggots,” he said. “It is useless to resist them. They are many more than we are. We could not hope to stop them. Many of our brave warriors would be killed, our women and children left in sorrow, and still we would not stop them. We must accept it, get the best terms we can get and try to adopt their ways.” In his final speech to Congress, Buchanan said, “I at least meant well for my country.” But well-meaning or not, Buchanan left his successor a seemingly unsolvable crisis. “If you are as happy, Mr. Lincoln, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home,” Buchanan told his successor, “you are the happiest man in this country.”

Notes 1. Quoted in Grandin, p. 65. 2. Quoted in Rogin, Michael Paul. Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian, Routledge, 2017, p. 4. 3. Quoted in Grandin, p. 62. 4. Latner, Richard. The Presidency of Andrew Jackson: White House Politics, 1829–1837, University of Georgia Press, 1979; Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821, Harper

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7. 8. 9. 10.

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12. 13. 14.

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& Row, 1984; Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832, Harper & Row, 1984; Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845, Harper & Row, 1984; Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. The Age of Jackson, Little, Brown, 1946; and White, Leonard. The Jacksonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1829–1861, Macmillan, 1954. Treuer, David. “This Land is Not Your Land,” Foreign Affairs, July/August, 2020, p. 171. For several key court cases, see: Trade and Intercourse Act, July 22, 1790 (I Stat. 137); Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) (30 U.S. [5 PET.] 1); Worcester v. Georgia (1832) (31 U.S. [G PET.] 515). Grandin, p. 51; See also J.M. Opal, Avenging the People: Andrew Jackson, the Rule of Law and the American Nation, Oxford University Press, 2017. Quoted in Rogin, p. 207. Quoted in Rogin, Michael Paul. Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian, Transaction, 1995, p. 4. Forman, Grant. Indian Removal, University of Oklahoma Press, 1932; and Young, Mary E. Redskins, Ruffle Shirts, and Rednecks, University of Oklahoma Press, 1961. Prucha, Francis Paul. “Andrew Jackson’s Indian Policy: A Reassessment,” Journal of American History, December, 1969, Vol. 56, pp. 527–529; and Satz, Ronald. American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era, University of Nebraska Press, 1975; and Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson (3 Volume Set): The Course of American Empire 1767–1821, The Course of American Freedom 1822–1832, and the Course of American Democracy 1833–1845, Harper and Row, 1977. Magliocca, Gerard N. Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of Generational Regimes, University Press of Kansas, 2007, p. 13. Magliocca, p. 15. Rickert, Levi. “US Presidents in Their Own Words Concerning American Indians,” Native News Online, February 16, 2015, http://Nativenewson line.net/currents/us-presidents-words-concerning-American-Indians. Saunt, Claudio. Unworthy Republic, “The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory,” Nortion, 2020, pp. 48–49. Ibid., p. 49. Ibid., pp. xii–xiv. Ibid., pp. 82–83; Magliocca, pp. 20–29. Quoted in Saunt, p. 97. Norgren, Jill. The Cherokee Cases: The Confrontation of Law and Politics, McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 167. Cole, Donald B. Martin Van Bure and the American Political System, Princeton University Press, 1984; Wilson, Major L. The Presidency of Martin Van Buren, University Press of Kansas, 1984.

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22. Van Buren, Martin. “State of the Union Address,” December 5, 1837. 23. Van Buren, Martin, and Clement Fitzpatrick, John. The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, Nabu Press, 2010. 24. Peterson, Norma Lois. The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, University Press of Kansas, 1989. 25. “President Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indian Territory, 1803.” 26. Chitwood, Oliver Perry. John Tyler: Champion of the Old South, Appleton, 1939; Morgan, Robert. A Whig Embattled: The Presidency under John Tyler, University of Nebraska Press, 1954; Peterson, Norma Lois. The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, University of Kansas Press, 1989; and Seager, II, Robert and Too, Tyler. A Biography of John and Julia Gardiner Tyler. Random House, 1963. 27. Boller, Jr., Paul E. Presidential Anecdotes, Penguin, 1981, p. 96. 28. Bergeron, Paul H. The Presidency of James K. Poll, University Press of Kansas, 1987; McCormac, Eugene I. James K. Polk: A Political Biography, University of California Press, 1922; McCoy, Charles A. Polk and the Presidency, University of Texas press, 1960; and Sellers, Charles G. James K. Polk: Continentalist, 1843–1846, Princeton University Press of Kansas, 1988. 29. On Manifest Destiny see, James Shapiro, Shakespearian Divided America, Penguin Press, 2020, Chapter 2, “1845: Manifest Destiny,” pp. 23–47. 30. Bauer, K. Jack. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest, Louisiana State University Press, 1985; and Smith, Elbert B. The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, University Press of Kansas, 1988. 31. Mishra, Patti. Encyclopedia of United States Indian Policy and Law, CQ Press, 2008. 32. Millard Fillmore Papers, Microfilm Collection. Buffalo Historical Society; Rayback, Robert. Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President, Henry Steward, 1959; and Smith, Elbert B. The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, University Press of Kansas, 1988. 33. Schor, Paul. Counting Americans: How the U.S. Census Classified the Nation, Oxford University Press, 2017. 34. Lepore, Jill. “But Who’s Counting?: The Coming Census,” The New Yorker, March 23, 2020, pp. 16–17. 35. Ibid., p. 14. 36. Miller, Larisa K. “The Secret Treaties with California’s Indians,” Prologue, Fall/Winter 2013, p. 39. 37. Gara, Larry. The Presidency of Franklin Pierce, University Press of Kansas, 1991; Nichols, Roy Franklin. Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills Rev. ed., University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958. 38. Agar, Herbert. The Price of Union, Houghton Mifflin, 1951, p. 357.

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Trafzer, p. 87. Ibid., p. 88. Quoted in Trafzer, p. 90. Hagar, Herbert. The Price of Union, Houghton Mifflin, 1951, p. 357.

CHAPTER 5

Civil War and Manifest Destiny: Abraham Lincoln to Benjamin Harrison

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln1 transformed the presidency and the nation. No president more fully assumed the powers of the office than Lincoln. He entered the White House when several southern states had seceded, and war seemed inevitable. “We must not be enemies,” said Lincoln, but added that “the Union of these States is perpetual.” But it was too late. He couldn’t have it both ways. Lincoln came to power on the eve of the great Civil War. His accomplishments—seeing the nation through the Civil War, serving as a war president, freeing the slaves, exercising extraordinary emergency power with skill and grace, preserving the Union and re-creating the American sense of nationhood—serve as a tribute to his greatness in many ways. A nation on the verge of self-destruction was re-created as a fuller, more democratic, and more just country.2 Lincoln was a complex, contradictory man, whom historian Richard Hofstadter called “thoroughly and completely the politician.” Lincoln was capable of eloquence and humor, but also melancholy and depression. Tall, a lanky 6’4”, Lincoln looked anything but a president. Yet his external gawkiness masked a dignity and honor of truly remarkable proportions. A man of unquenchable ambition yet deep principle, he commended a savage war while speaking to our “better angels.” © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_5

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Longfellow saw Lincoln as “a colossus holding up his burning heart in his hand to light up the sea of life.” But Harper’s Weekly referred to Lincoln as “Filthy Story-Teller, Despot, Liar, Thief, Braggart, Buffoon, Usurper, Monster, Ignoramus Abe, Old Scoundrel, Perjurer, Robber, Swindler, Tyrant, Field-Butcher, Land-Pirate” and the New York Herald called Lincoln “cowardly, mean, and vicious,” adding that the president was “incompetent, ignorant, and desperate.” The Civil War began during a Congressional recess. Lincoln did not call the newly elected Congress into the session; nor did he wait for Congress to authorize action—he acted. The President asked, “Must a government of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?” Lincoln exercised extraordinary and extraconstitutional emergency power. Lincoln used emergency powers with relative restraint; he used these powers not to subvert democracy, but to save it. Rejecting normal constitutional limitations, the president believed it his duty to save the Union. This higher goal justified his emergency actions.3 In an effort to meet the challenge of Civil War, Lincoln took a series of dramatic and constitutionally questionable steps in absence of a declaration of war or congressional authorization: he called for new troops, declared a blockade of southern ports, commenced military action, and suspended habeas corpus. Later, in 1862, he would unilaterally order the emancipation of slaves. This Emancipation Proclamation, which Charles A. Beard called “the most stupendous act of sequestration in the history of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence,” was ordered without the consent of Congress. Lincoln justified his actions on the basis of a “doctrine of necessity”: [My] oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government… Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life, and limb must be protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery or any

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minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together.

The Civil War forced Lincoln to change the very relationship of the presidency to the constitutional order. The unprecedented emergency of the Civil War, Lincoln believed, allowed him to assume powers no previous president claimed. He would not allow the Union to dissolve and the nation to crumble. The southern rebellion was preventing that. And so, Lincoln asked: “Are all of the laws but one to go executed, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated?”4 Critics charged Lincoln with setting up a dictatorship. Lincoln felt he had no other choice. So broadly did Lincoln interpret his emergency power that some scholars describe it as a “constitutional dictatorship.”5 Lincoln admitted that some of his actions were not “strictly legal,” but they were necessary. As the war proceeded slowly toward Union victory, Lincoln used the opportunity to redefine American nationhood. He did so in a variety of ways, but nowhere is his vision more clearly articulated than in the Gettysburg Address, and his Second Inaugural Address. On the battlefield at Gettysburg, Lincoln sanctified the sacrifice made by the troops who fell, but he also distilled the meaning of the war into a very few words. The blood of the dead and the sacred honor of the past merge to create “a new birth of freedom.” The address fused the sacred with the secular, with images of sacrifice and redemption. These brave men died for an abstract but powerful idea: “the proposition that all men are created equal,” and that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” In a mere 272 words, Lincoln transformed the purpose of the nation. Lincoln gave meaning to the events of Civil War by linking the past (founding of the U.S. and the Declaration of Independence), with the present (tragedy of war, loss, and sacrifice), and to the future (the survivors were to create “a new birth of freedom.”) It was a shift from negative liberty to positive liberty, a dramatic transformation of the American ethos. Lincoln elevated the Declaration of Independence over the Constitution as a primary American icon. As historian Gerry Wills noted, “Lincoln not only put the Declaration in a new light as a matter of founding law, but put its central proposition, equality, in a newly favored position as a principle of the Constitution.”6 Of course, this equality did not extend to Native Americans.

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In Lincoln’s second inaugural address he revisited some of the themes presented at Gettysburg, but his tone was more religious. The war was divine punishment for the sin of slavery. With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Abraham Lincoln: Enigmatic President, and Full of Contradictions The largest mass execution in American history occurred under Abraham Lincoln’s watch. On December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota warriors were publicly hanged after being convicted of war crimes. The charges, originally brought against 393 Dakotas, stemmed from their attack on farmers and villagers in Minnesota earlier that year. Known as the Dakota Uprising or the Sioux War, the one-month skirmish came after the Santee Sioux of Minnesota ceded their land to the U.S. and agreed to live on reservations. Then, as the federal government turned its attention to the Civil War, corrupt Indian agents failed to provide food and white settlers stole horses and timber. “Too many Dakotas were hungry and too many people were suffering,” Trafzer wrote. “The Sioux believed that it was better to die as a warrior than to watch families slowly waste away from starvation.”7 Fully aware that the Civil War was under way and military troops were elsewhere, Dakota warriors killed about 500 people who had illegally settled on Dakota land. The U.S. immediately moved troops to Minnesota and, after several battles, crushed the uprising. Under Gov. Alexander Ramsey, Minnesota held military trials, convicting 323 Dakotas of war crimes, and sentencing 303 to death by hanging. Under U.S. law, death sentences could not be carried out unless the President signed the orders. Lincoln ordered a complete review of every charge, and ultimately confirmed only 39 of the sentences (one prisoner was granted a reprieve).8

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A large scaffold was constructed in Mankato, Minnesota, where nearly 4,000 spectators watched the hangings. Lincoln later explained his motives to the U.S. Senate: Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I ordered a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females.9

The 16th president of the United States, Lincoln often is credited for his sympathy toward minorities and forward-thinking attitudes about equality. The author of the Emancipation, which freed slaves and set in motion massive social and political challenges, Lincoln also represents a shift in federal Indian policy. In the 1860s, the U.S. fought a Civil War over one of its original sins. Less well known is the role Native Americans played both in the war and in the battle for control of the West. And while Native Americans affairs took a decidedly back seat, such matters were eclipsed by the war but could not long be ignored.10 In his Third Annual Message delivered to Congress in December of 1863, Lincoln described his goals for Native Americans: The measures provided at your last session for the removal of certain Indian tribes have been carried into effect. Sundry treaties have been negotiated, which will in due time be submitted for the constitutional action in the Senate. They contain stipulations for extinguishing the possessory rights of the Indians to large and valuable tracts of lands. It is hoped that the effect of these treaties will result in the establishment of permanent friendly relations with such of these tribes as have been brought into frequent and bloody collision without outlying settlements and emigrants. Sound policy and our imperative duty to these wards of the Government demand our anxious and constant attention to their material well-being, to their progress in the arts of civilization, and, above all to that moral training which under the blessing of Divine Providence will confer upon them the elected and sanctifying influences, the hopes and consolations, of the Christian faith.

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If Lincoln emerged as the “Great Emancipator,” such Emancipator bypassed Native Americans. In fact, during his campaign for the presidency, Lincoln openly appealed to white settlers—known as “free soilers”—who wanted the government to open up Indigenous lands west of the Mississippi. Fearing what President Lincoln might do, Indian tribes sided with the confederacy. To a great extent, Lincoln focused on the war with the Confederacy and efforts to preserve the union. He left Indian affairs to the Indian Office. He viewed Native Americans as wards of the state and expressed little concern for their plight. In this, Lincoln reflected the dominant views of the times.11 He was willing to let others guide policy, as he often did on other domestic issues and as such his oft-stated preference for settling the West proceeded without much of a push from Lincoln. And as political scientist David A. Nichols notes, The combination of civilization on the march, sanctioned by God buttressed by white supremacy, and personified in homestead, gold mines, and railroads was too powerful for the Indian. In the white men’s mind he was the opposite—a static, uncivilized impediment to the progress of civilization.12

The centerpiece of Lincoln’s presidency was the Civil War, but he also contended with Indian conflicts and genocide on the Western frontier, where army generals dictated Indian policy. In 1862, Gen. James Carleton began a war against Apaches and Navajos in New Mexico, where gold had been discovered on Indian land. Carleton told Col. Kit Carson that “All Indian men … are to be killed whenever and wherever you can find them.” Carson forced about 9,500 Navajo to march from their traditional homelands to a prison camp at Bosque Redondo. The 300-mile trek, during which hundreds of Navajos died, is known as the Long Walk. In November 1864, Col. John Chivington led the Colorado militia against Chief Black Kettle in the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. The incident, which began when thousands of settlers in search of gold trespassed on Cheyanne and Arapaho land, ended with a dawn attack during

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which soldiers killed and mutilated more than 100 people, mostly women and children. Meanwhile, Lincoln entertained Indian delegates at the White House, where he sometimes lectured them about civilization. “I really am not capable of advising you whether, in the providence of the Great Spirit, who is the great Father of us all, it is best for you to maintain the habits and customs of your race, or adopt a new mode of life,” he told Indian leaders in March 1863. “I can only say that I can see no way in which your race is to become as numerous and prosperous as the white race except by living as they do, by the cultivation of the earth.” In his third annual message to Congress, in December 1863, Lincoln urged Indians to reject tribal culture and embrace civilization, which included principles of Christianity. “Sound policy and our imperative duty to these wards of the government demand our anxious and constant attention to their material well-being, to their progress in the arts of civilization, and, above all, to that moral raining which under the blessing of Divine Providence will confer upon them elevated and sanctifying influences, the hopes and consolations, of the Christian faith,” he said. During his four years in office, Lincoln oversaw 19 treaties with Indian nations, including land-cession treaties with the Sauk and Fox, Chippewa, and Tabequache Band of Utah Indians. Other treaties called for the establishment of forts, railroads, stage lines, and telegraphs through Indian territory. Lincoln also signed the Homestead Act of 1862, which promoted westward expansion and further displaced Indians. The act allowed prospective homesteaders to receive 160 acres of land that would become theirs after a five-year residency. Aware of rampant government corruption during the Civil War, which often led to Indians’ starvation and suffering, Lincoln promised to remodel the Indian system. Urged by activists who pushed for the system to be overhauled, Lincoln replied, “If we get through the war and I live, this Indian system will be reformed.” Although Lincoln was re-elected as president in 1864, he didn’t live to fulfill his promise to the Indians. One month into his second term, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, signaling the end of the Civil War.

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On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, just five days after the Union victory in the Civil War, Lincoln was killed. “Now he belongs to the ages,” Secretary Stanton said. Poet Walt Whitman wrote: Oh Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

Andrew Johnson The reaction against presidential power that followed the Civil War led to a dramatic shrinking of executive power, as congressional government characterized the American system for 30 years. Congress could have had no better foil in beginning this process than the stubborn and abrasive Andrew Johnson.13 No sooner did Johnson take the oath of office than clashes broke out between the new administration and a Congress determined to reassert its power and shape the coming Reconstruction. Johnson became embroiled in a divisive battle with Congress over Reconstruction. Johnson followed Lincoln’s lead in promoting a mild reconstruction designed to restore the Union quickly. But the Republican leadership in Congress, the “radicals,” led by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, were determined to extract a harsh price from the vanquished southern states. The separation of powers sets up a tug-of-war between the executive branch and Congress for control of policy. The Republican Congress of the Reconstruction era had little patience before Johnson and was determined to undermine his efforts and grab control of policy. It did so on Reconstruction, and, after the Republicans won a convincing victory in the 1866 midterm elections, passed measure after measure designed to strip the presidency of its powers. Johnson seemed helpless in the face of Congress. Determined to protect the authority of his office, Johnson fought back. The radicals in Congress were livid when Johnson, during a congressional recess in December 1865, proposed a lenient reconstruction policy. When Congress reconvened, Johnson announced that Reconstruction was

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complete and that every rebel state met his qualifications for readmission to the Union. However, it was anything but finished. Congress dumped the President’s plan for Reconstruction, replacing it with one of its own, a harsher peace than the President preferred. Congress pushed for the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which would forbid any state to deny any citizen “due process” or “equal protection” of the law. Johnson took his case directly to the people. His appeals fell mostly on deaf ears. Johnson engaged in bombast and name-calling. The Nation magazine characterized Johnson’s charges as “vulgar, egotistical and occasionally profane.” When congressional Radicals passed the Tenure of Office Act, a blatant effort to reclaim the power possessed by the president to fire certain executive branch employees without the consent of the Senate, Johnson reacted. He fired secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton (who barricaded himself in his office in an effort to stave off removal), and claimed the act was unconstitutional. This was just what Congress needed to begin impeachment proceedings against Johnson. Andrew Johnson: Racist Determined to ‘Relocate’ Indians America was just beginning to recover from the bloodiest war in its history when Andrew Johnson—Lincoln’s vice president—took both the oath of office and a firm stance against progressive thought. Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, took office on April 15, 1865, just hours after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He inherited a nation in the final throes of the Civil War and still deeply divided over issues of race and slavery. “The great issue of the time was how to restore the South to the Union and what changes to impose,” said Michael Les Benedict, emeritus professor of history at The Ohio State University. “There was a great deal of conversation about race, and Southern states were still governed by white supremacists who used racism as a way to undermine efforts to reconstruct the nation.” Johnson implemented his own reconstruction policies, which directed seceded states to hold elections and re-establish civil governments. But Southern states re-elected former leaders and enacted Black Codes designed to deprive African Americans of civil liberties.

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Northern outrage over the Black Codes shifted Congressional power to the radical Republican Party, fueled by sympathetic and progressive views toward people of color. Johnson sided with the South, vetoing bills that sought to override racist actions, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first federal law to define citizenship and extend equal protection under the law to all citizens (excluding Indians on reservations). In his veto message, Johnson asked whether it was “sound policy to make our entire colored population” U.S. citizens. “Four million of them have just emerged from slavery into freedom,” he said. “Can it be reasonably supposed that they possess the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States?” Johnson also opposed the 14th Amendment, which affirmed civil rights and citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” including former slaves but excluding non-taxed Indians. The amendment prohibited states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” In a special message to Congress, Johnson voiced “grave doubts” about the amendment and questioned whether “the action of Congress (was) in harmony with the sentiments of the people.” Conflicts with the Republican-dominated Congress culminated in Johnson’s impeachment by the House of Representatives in February 1868. The first president to be impeached, Johnson was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. But he had already earned a reputation for his strong opposition to federally guaranteed rights for people of color. A member of the National Union Party, Johnson served only one month as vice president before Lincoln was assassinated. He completed Lincoln’s second term, from 1865 to 1869. During his 47 months in office, Johnson negotiated the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 billion, expanding the country by 586,000 square miles. He also oversaw 38 treaties with Indian nations, including the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867, which relocated Southern Plains tribes to reservations far away from white settlements. The treaties, signed by the Kiowa, Comanche, and Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho at Fort Larned, Kansas, came after a Congressionally established Indian Peace Commission determined that the U.S. government had contributed to Indian warfare by failing to fulfill treaty obligations. In his third annual message to Congress, in December 1867, Johnson spoke of the need to relocate Indians to “reservations remote from the traveled routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific.” Calling the

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Plains Indians “warlike” and “instigated by real or imaginary grievances,” Johnson said the territories should be exempt from Indian outbreaks and that hostile tribes should not be allowed to interrupt the construction of the Pacific Railroad. “These objects, as well as the material interests and the moral and intellectual improvement of the Indians, can be most effectually secured by concentrating them upon portions of country set apart for their exclusive use and located at points remote from our highways and encroaching white settlements,” he said. Johnson also oversaw three treaties signed in the spring of 1868 at Fort Laramie, in the Dakota Territory. The Sioux, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho signed treaties calling for peace and friendship with the United States. In June 1868, the U.S. signed a similar peace treaty with the Navajo at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The agreement ended the four-year forced exile of the Navajo and allowed them to return to their homeland. By the fall of 1868, however, warfare again broke out as Gen. George Armstrong Custer led the 7th U.S. Cavalry in a surprise dawn attack of the Southern Cheyenne village of Washita. Hailed as one of the first substantial American victories against the Southern Plains Indians, the massacre left as many as 100 Cheyenne dead. Johnson did not mention the massacre in his final message to Congress, in December 1868. Instead, he encouraged the “aboriginal population” to abandon their “nomadic habits” in favor of agriculture and industry. “Whilst we furnish subsistence and instruction to the Indians and guarantee the undisturbed enjoyment of their treaty rights, we should habitually insist upon the faithful observance of their agreement to remain within their respective reservations,” he said. “This is the only mode by which collisions with other tribes and with the whites can be avoided and the safety of our frontier settlements secured.” Navigating the choppy waters of the post-Civil War era required tact, subtleness, nuance, and flexibility—qualities Johnson lacked in abundance. He could not bend, so Congress decided to try to break him. Some historians give Johnson credit for protecting the authority of the presidency by preventing a coup by the Radicals in Congress. But the reality is probably that he much weakened the presidency by intemperate behavior and bad decision making and invited a harsh response by a Radical Congress that was looking for an opportunity to humble the president and limit the presidency. Johnson gave them the opportunity.

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Ulysses S. Grant After the turmoil of Civil War, impeachment, and years of strife, the voters turned to a popular military hero for leadership: Ulysses S. Grant.14 In the post-Civil War years, the U.S. experienced an unparalleled period of growth. The railroads opened the West, and agriculture and industry flourished. Immigration also expanded greatly. The age of the Robber Barons ensued, and the Congress, as well as the Supreme Court, lent support to corporate expansion and development. After the executive-congressional hostility of the Johnson years, Grant made peace with Congress—but usually on Congress’s terms. Politically unexperienced and managerially lax, Grant saw the presidency as an administrative office, not as a vehicle for national leadership. That suited Congress just fine. During the Grant years, congressional power reached its zenith. Grant’s limited view of his role as president not only fostered weak political leadership but allowed abuses of power and corruption to overwhelm his administration. A series of scandals plagued Grant’s administration, including the Whiskey Ring scandal, bribery of cabinet officials, the Credit Mobilier scandal, and others. All attest to Grant’s weak management of his own administration. Grant was personally honest but irretrievably inept. He was never himself implicated in the scandals of the administration, but his lax management and naïve views allowed those whom he trusted to take advantage of their positions and to poison the administration. During Grant’s term Reconstruction continued, civil service reform was promoted (unsuccessfully), and troubling military clashes with Native American tribes escalated. In 1873, an economic panic brought about a financial crash. Ulysses S. Grant: Mass Genocide Through ‘Permanent Peace’ Policy Native Americans experienced some of the worst massacres and grossest injustices in history while Ulysses S. Grant was in office. A celebrated Civil War hero whose campaign slogan was “Let us have peace,” Grant took office in 1869 with plans to drastically reform federal Indian policy. In his inaugural address, the 18th president pledged to rethink the management of Natives and resolve problems in the deeply corrupt Indian Bureau.

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“The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land – the Indians – (is) one deserving of careful study,” he said in his inaugural address. “I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.” Shortly after taking office, Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, as commissioner of Indian Affairs. An attorney, engineer, and tribal diplomat, Parker had served as a lieutenant colonel under Grant during the Civil War and wrote the final draft of the Confederate surrender terms. He was the first Native American to hold the post of Indian Commissioner. Two months into his presidency, in an effort to curb abuses by Indian agents, Grant established regulations for a new Board of Indian Commissioners. Even as Grant worked to reform federal agencies, he also supervised the development of millions of acres of federal public lands and presided over the private acquisition of land by pioneers, spectators, and railroad and mining companies. During his eight years in office, Grant approved the Timber Culture Act (granting homesteaders additional acreage if they agreed to plant trees), the General Mining Act (authorizing prospecting and mining for minerals on public lands), and the Desert Lands Act (issuing arid Western lands to individuals who agreed to reclaim and irrigate). He also created the first national park at Yellowstone. Yet Grant realized that his expansionist goals required the removal of Indians from desirable land. His Indian Peace Policy, designed to reform the Indian Bureau and remove corrupt agents, also called for rigorous agricultural training on reservations and established schools and churches that would transform Indians into Christian citizens. “From the foundation of the government to the present the management of the original inhabitants of this continent – the Indians – has been a subject of embarrassment and expense,” Grant told Congress in December 1869. Calling the Indians “wards of the nation,” he proposed a new policy to establish “permanent peace” between white settlers and Indian nations. He said: No matter what ought to be the relations between such settlements and the aborigines, the fact is they do not harmonize well, and one or the other has to give way in the end. …A system which looks to the extinction of a race is too horrible for a nation to adopt without entailing upon itself the wrath of all Christendom and engendering in the citizen a disregard for human

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life and the rights of others, dangerous to society. I see no substitute for such a system, except in placing all the Indians on large reservations, as rapidly as it can be done, and giving them absolute protection there.

Grant viewed his policy as an alternative to violence, said Brooks Simpson, a history professor at Arizona State University. As Indians and settlers clashed over a decreasing expanse of land, Grant’s plan to assimilate Indians into white culture came as a “moral” solution to a centuries-old problem. “Some historians see it as generous, humane, thoughtful – and that would be part of the story,” Simpson said. “The other part would be that it called on Natives to assimilate, to retreat to reservations and become more like white Americans. You could argue that he was committing cultural genocide.” When he took office in 1869, Grant inherited a nation still recovering from the Civil War and wrestling with questions about civil rights. In support of freed slaves, Grant signed the 15th Amendment, giving black men the right to vote, and the Ku Klux Klan Act, designed to counter the rise of anti-black terrorism in the South. Yet Grant’s policies toward Indians fell far short of what he promised. White settlers continued to push Indians off the land, relying on the Army to prevent retaliation. While Indians on reservations experienced poverty and increasing desperation, Grant oversaw the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad and the great slaughter of buffalo on the Plains, which destroyed much of the Indian economy. The peace policy, ironically, led to some of the worst massacres in history. Grant’s strategy to contain Indians on reservations involved aggressive military pursuits, resulting in the Modoc War in California, the Red River War in Texas, the Nez Perce conflict in Oregon, the Black Hills campaign by Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Indian chiefs Sitting Bull, Gall, Chief Joseph, Geronimo, and Cochise led their people into wars against the United States in efforts to preserve their land and ways of life. In 1870, Oglala Chief Red Cloud visited Grant at the White House, where he condemned Indian policy and described his peoples’ suffering: “The riches we have in this world… we cannot take with us to the next world,” he said. “Then I wish to know why agents are sent out to us who do nothing but rob us and get the riches of this world away from us.”

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Two years into his presidency, Grant signed the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, which ceased federal recognition of tribes as entities “with whom the United States may contract by treaty.” The act ended the government’s treaty-making process and the practice of acknowledging tribes as sovereign nations. It also signaled the start of official Indian assimilation policies. In his annual messages to Congress, Grant regularly lauded his Indian policies and their “favorable” results: “Many tribes of Indians have been induced to settle upon reservations, to cultivate the soil, to perform productive labor of various kinds, and to partially accept civilization,” he said in 1871. “They are being cared for in such a way, it is hoped, as to induce those still pursuing their old habits of life to embrace the only opportunity which is left them to avoid extermination.” In 1874, Grant predicted that “a few years more will relieve our frontiers from danger of Indian depredations.” Grant left the presidency in 1877, after two terms. His last State of the Union message was an astonishing admission of failure. It began, “It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training. From the age of 17, I had never even witnessed the excitement attending a Presidential campaign but twice antecedent to my own candidacy, and at but one of them was I eligible as a voter.” Because of his political inexperience, “it is but reasonable to suppose that errors of judgement must have occurred.” He did not shoulder all the blame: “It is not necessarily evidence of blunder on the part of the Executive because there are these differences of views. Mistakes have been made, as all can see, and I admit…” He went on to place the blame indirectly on himself; saying that the mistakes were “oftener in the selections made of the assistants appointed to aid in carrying out the various duties of administering the Government” than in his own actions. Grant is considered a failure as president. His limited view of the office, limited experience, and limited abilities all contributed to this failure, as did the rise of congressional assertiveness. He is most remembered for the scandals that took place during his tenure; a time snidely referred to as the Era of Good Stealing.

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Rutherford B. Hayes After the failed presidencies of Johnson and Grant, in the midst of congressional ascendency, Rutherford B. Hayes15 came along and arrested, but could not reverse, the trend toward congressional dominance. Hayes, at 5’8”, with a long beard, governed during what was called the Gilded Age. It was a time of economic growth, a rise in immigration, harsh labor-business disputes, and a growing women’s movement. Henry Adams said of Hayes, “He is a third-rate nonentity whose only recommendation is that he is obnoxious to no one.” But Hayes was much more than this. His motto, “He serves his party best who serves his country best” is an admirable sentiment in any age. The weakness of the presidency in this period was noticed by the observant Englishman Walter Bagehot, who found fault with the American constitutional system and the weakness of the presidency, writing: “The executive is crippled by not getting the law it needs, and the legislature is spoiled by having to act without responsibility; the executive becomes unfit for its name, since it cannot execute what it decides on; the legislature is demoralized by liberty, by taking decisions of which others [and not itself] will suffer the effects.”16 Hayes came to the presidency after the hotly contested and harshly disputed election of 1876. One of the dirtiest campaigns in history featured two of the cleanest candidates ever. Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New York, won 51 percent of the popular vote and Hayes conceded defeat to a reporter. But Republicans charged voter fraud in three southern states, and the disputed election went to the House of Representatives for resolution. Congress named a special commission to recommend a solution to the dispute. After a bizarre back-and-forth process, the commission awarded Hayes all the disputed votes, and he won the election. In “exchange,” Republicans in Congress agreed to withdraw all federal troops from the South and end Reconstruction. Hayes was president. But charges of a stolen election hounded him, and opponents referred to Hayes as Rutherfraud B. Hayes and His Fraudulency.

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Rutherford B. Hayes: Introduces Allotment and Dreaded Boarding Schools Rutherford B. Hayes’ four years in the White House, from 1877 to 1881, marked a distinct change in federal Indian policy, as the government moved away from forced removal of Indians to reservations and toward a system that allotted land to individuals. Billed as a solution to the government’s insatiable hunger for land, Hayes’ policies reduced the size of reservations and called for acculturation of Indians into Western society. His strategies, which came amid ongoing conflicts with Indian nations, also included the approval of the first Indian boarding school. “Hayes started out his term believing in the reservation system, then he realized that Natives weren’t going to stay on reservations and white settlers wouldn’t stay off their land,” said Nan Card, curator of manuscripts for the Hayes Presidential Library and Museum. “He changed his policy and it became one that was based on land ownership, citizenship, and education. Native Americans would be assimilated into the mainstream of American life.” Hayes, who was the first sitting president to visit the West Coast, inherited Grant’s Indian Peace Policy. Designed to reform the corrupt Indian Bureau, the policy installed rigorous agricultural training on reservations and established schools and churches that converted Indians into Christian citizens. In his second message to Congress, in December 1878, Hayes pledged to “purify” the Indian Bureau and establish “just and humane” Indian policies that would preserve peace. His “ultimate solution to what is called the Indian problem,” however, was to “curb the unruly spirit of the savage Indian” and train them to be agriculturalists or herdsmen. “It may be impossible to raise them fully up to the level of the white population of the United States; but we should not forget that they are the aborigines of the country and called the soil their own on which our people have grown rich, powerful, and happy,” Hayes said. “We owe it to them as a moral duty to help them in attaining at least that degree of civilization which they may be able to reach.” In the same speech, Hayes called for the organization of “mounted Indian auxiliaries,” or special troops of young Native men who, under control of the Army, kept Indians on their reservations.

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During his four years in office, Hayes issued several executive orders creating new reservations and reducing the size of existing reservations. The most drastic was the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, which was cut from 7.8 million acres to 1.2 million. Hayes’ actions came as Indian nations, fed up with forced removal and encroachment of white settlers, fought back. These battles included the Nez Perce War in 1877, the Bannock War in 1878, and the Ute and White River wars, both in 1879. By the end of his third year in office, Hayes admitted that he lacked the power to keep Indians on reservations and white settlers off. Despite issuing a proclamation warning people unlawfully settling in Indian Territory that they would be removed by military force, Hayes determined that the reservation system was not working. “It would be unwise to ignore the fact that a territory so large and so fertile, with a population so sparse and with so great a wealth of unused resources, will be found more exposed to the repetition of such attempts as happened this year when the surrounding states are more densely settled and the westward movement of our population looks still more eagerly for fresh lands to occupy,” he told Congress in December 1879. “The difficulty of maintaining the Indian Territory in its present state will greatly increase, and the Indian tribes inhabiting it would do well to prepare for such a contingency.” In the same speech, Hayes previewed the allotment system, which would privatize Indian land. Land ownership—and the ability to sell to non-Indian buyers—would benefit the Indians and “relieve the government,” he said. Hayes also called for the education of Indian youth. In 1878, he supported the establishment of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in eastern Pennsylvania. The flagship Indian boarding school, Carlisle was the brainchild of Capt. Richard Henry Pratt, who notoriously plotted to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Carlisle opened in October 1879. In his third message to Congress, Hayes spoke of the “experiment” of boarding schools where children received “an elementary English education and practical instruction in farming and other useful industries.” Early results from these experiments were “promising,” he said. Throughout his presidency, Hayes contended with issues surrounding Chief Standing Bear and the Ponca Nation of Nebraska. In early 1877, the Office of Indian Affairs ordered the tribe to move to Oklahoma, a journey that cost about one-quarter of its population.

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In March 1879, Standing Bear’s son died, and he began walking back to Nebraska to bury him. Standing Bear was arrested and imprisoned in a case that captured national media attention and American sympathies. The incident sparked an Indian-rights lawsuit, and a judge ruled that Native Americans were full persons with rights under the law. With three months left in office, Hayes commissioned an investigation into the incident. In February 1881, he reported that the Ponca were “grievously wronged” and called for Indians to have the same rights as all Americans. “Nothing should be left undone to show to the Indians that the Government of the United States regards their rights as equally sacred with those of its citizens,” he said. “The time has come when the policy should be to place the Indians as rapidly as practicable on the same footing with the other permanent inhabitants of our country.” Hayes kept to the Republican deal and ended Reconstruction. He also promoted civil service reform and good government. He stood firm in asserting the rights of the executive in the face of Congressional pressure. While his accomplishments were few, he stopped the steady draw of power away from the presidency and attempted to reassert some executive authority.

James A. Garfield James A. Garfield,17 6 feet tall, with blue eyes, a full beard, and reddishbrown hair, served as president for a mere 200 days (80 of which he spent as an invalid). He was the second president to be assassinated and served the second shortest term ever. He embraced a Whig view of the presidency and did not intent to lead Congress. “My God,” he proclaimed on assuming office, “what is there in this place that a man should even want to get into it?” Ulysses S. Grant said of him, “Garfield has shown that he is not possessed of the backbone of an angleworm.” A polished orator, Garfield was, however, a rather weak man who often bent to the pressure of party bosses. In the summer of 1881, after only four months in office, he was shot twice in the back by a disgruntled office seeker. He died two months later, on September 19.

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James Garfield: Happy to See Natives Sink into ‘Extinction’ Thirteen years before he took office as president of the United States, James Abram Garfield predicted the extinction of Native Americans. “The race of the red men will… before many generations be remembered only as a strange, weird, dreamlike specter, which once passed before the eyes of men, but had departed forever,” he said in 1868 when, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he proposed a bill that would transfer Indian Affairs from the Interior Department to the War Department. The Indians had unpronounceable names, crude clothing, and habits of “roaming,” Garfield said. He called it a “mockery… for the representatives of the great Government of the United States to sit down in a wigwam and make treaties with a lot of painted and half naked savages.” Garfield’s bill, designed to purge Indian Affairs of widespread corruption, failed despite his promises to “vote in the negative” on every appropriation for funding until the whole service was purified. He reintroduced the bill several times, sometimes trying to sneak it by the House as a rider on other bills. When it continued to fail, Garfield spoke despairingly about the future of the Indians, believing nothing could be done to stop “the passage of that sad race down to the oblivion to which a larger part of them seem to be so certainly tending.” Perhaps, he concluded, it was best to let the Indians slip into extinction “as quietly and humanely as possible.” Garfield grew up in poverty, working on canal boats to put himself through school. He served as a major general in the Civil War, then held positions as a professor and college president before serving nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1871, Garfield served as special commissioner to carry out President Ulysses S. Grant’s executive order to remove the Flathead Indians from Montana’s Bitter Root Valley. Grant negotiated a contract with the Flathead, promising to pay for their land. By December 1873, the Bitter Root Valley was opened to white settlers. Garfield took office on the heels of some of the century’s most controversial battles over Indian land, including the forcible removal of the Ponca from Nebraska in 1877. A peaceful tribe, the Ponca lost about onequarter of its population during the march to Oklahoma, an incident that sparked public outrage and the 1881 publication of Helen Hunt Jackson’s book about white betrayal, A Century of Dishonor. In March 1881,

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the same month Garfield took office, Congress voted to compensate the Ponca for their land. Garfield also inherited an American population that was growing sympathetic to Indians. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, several reform movements were established to lobby for Indian education and citizenship. Yet, benevolence was more abundant in the east, Justus Doenecke wrote in his 1981 book, The Presidencies of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. “Humanitarianism, of course, grew increasingly more pronounced the farther one got from the frontier,” he wrote. “It was at its fullest strength in new England (and) Westerners were still inclined to condemn Indians.” In early 1881, for example, the Colorado Legislature introduced a bill calling for the “destruction of Indians and skunks” and offering a bounty of $25 for every “scalp or scalps, with ears entire.” The bill illustrated the divide between eastern sentimentalism and western prejudice, states a New York Times editorial published in February 1881—one month before Garfield took office. “A policy which presupposed that the Indian is a human being is stigmatized as ‘Boston philanthropy,’” the editorial states. “The sentimentalists of the East, we apprehend, will regard this bill as cowardly and inhuman. … (Yet) in the free and boundless West where the people are not fettered by traditions, nor swayed by considerations of sickly sentimentality, it is the custom of the country to class Indians with vermin, both of which are to be exterminated.” During his partial term, Garfield contended with several groups of unpopular minorities, including the Chinese, the Mormons, and the Native Americans. Although he was a vocal supporter of civil rights for African Americans, Garfield did little to improve life for other marginalized populations. In his inaugural address, Garfield spoke of “both races”—the master and the slave—that benefited from the liberation of 5 million people following the Emancipation Proclamation. “The elevation of the Negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787,” he said. The speech proved to be the only public address Garfield gave as president. He ignored other disenfranchised populations but called for honest

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local governments and equal suffrage in communities where African Americans were denied the vote. “There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States,” he said. “Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.”

Chester A. Arthur At 6’2”, sporting full side whiskers and a mustache, Chester A. Arthur18 cut quite an imposing figure. Nicknamed “The Gentleman Boss,” Arthur was a machine politician whom The Nation referred to as “a mess of filth.” Woodrow Wilson called him “a non-entity with side whiskers.” Congress continued to dominate in this age of smaller presidents, but forces were brewing that would soon contribute to an enlarging of the presidency and a shrinking of Congress. The United States was emerging as an economic force in the world, and soon the U.S. would take a more prominent place on the world stage. Institutional tugs-of-war aside, the presidency, even in this period of congressional ascendency, was continuing to be subtly transformed. In 1881, William Graham Sumner noted that “the intention of the constitution-makers has gone for very little in the historical development of the presidency.” To Sumner, “the office has been moulded by the tastes and faiths of the people.”19 President Garfield’s assassination enflamed public passions against machine politics and the spoils, or patronage, system. Surprisingly, Arthur supported and worked for civil service reform, culminating with the passage of The Pendleton Act. Chester Arthur: Assimilation His Answer for ‘Great Permanent Problem’ of Indians Chester A. Arthur viewed cultural diversity as a threat to America. The 21st president of the United States, Arthur took office in September 1881, after the assassination of James Garfield. He inherited a country still wrangling over civil rights for African Americans and bristling with anti-immigration sentiment.

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The animosity was particularly pronounced in the West, where large populations of immigrants and Native Americans lived, said Tom Sutton, a professor of political science at Baldwin Wallace University. “The country was growing more diverse, more industrialized, and out West, we were starting to get to the end of the development of the frontier,” Sutton said. “Arthur wanted consistency in population. He had this idea that everyone needed to be assimilated into American society, and those who couldn’t assimilate were excluded.” The most notorious exclusion was of Chinese immigrants, who had flocked to America by the thousands for railroad or mining jobs. Following the economic crisis of 1873, the U.S. blamed the Chinese for depressing workmen’s wages. The remedy was the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers and denied citizenship to current Chinese residents. The act marked the first time a specific ethnic group was prohibited from immigrating to the United States. Arthur signed it into law in May 1882. The federal government used similar anti-immigration language to exclude Native Americans, who were not considered citizens. Indians were required to go through a naturalization process similar to that of immigrants in order to qualify for the same rights and protections as other citizens. “Arthur wanted what he thought was best for Native Americans – this idea that they needed to be assimilated into American society,” Sutton said. “In terms of citizenship, we continued to treat them as foreign nations, so they had to go through a naturalization process.” This applied even to Indians born in the United States who voluntarily separated themselves from their tribes. In 1880, a Winnebago Indian born on a reservation in Nebraska tried to register to vote. In a case that reached the Supreme Court in 1885, John Elk claimed he surrendered his tribal allegiance and was, therefore, a U.S. citizen. His claims were denied, and the high court ruled that Indians were not considered citizens until after they had been “naturalized, or taxed, or recognized as a citizen either by the United States or by the state.” Arthur, who had natural empathy for the plight of American Indians, did little to protect them from oppression. Instead, he viewed assimilation as the answer to what he called the “great permanent problem.”

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A member of the Republican Party, Arthur took office as the nation contended with corruption in the federal government, Mormons practicing polygamy in Utah, an active Ku Klux Klan and occasional violent uprising among Indians on the dwindling western frontier. In his first message to Congress, in December 1881, Arthur pointed to historic errors in Indian affairs: It was natural, at a time when the national territory seemed almost illimitable and contained many millions of acres far outside the bounds of civilized settlements, that a policy should have been initiated which more than aught else has been the fruitful source of our Indian complications. …I refer, of course, to the policy of dealing with the various Indian tribes as separate nationalities, of relegating them by treaty stipulations to the occupancy of immense reservations in the West, and of encouraging them to live a savage life, undisturbed by any earnest and well-directed efforts to bring them under the influences of civilization.

Arthur called for three measures to help assimilate the Indians: robust education funding, individual land ownership, and an act that made state laws applicable on Indian reservations. The goal of these measures was to convince Indians to “sever their tribal relations” so they could be gradually absorbed into American society and earn the rights of citizens. “The Indian should receive the protection of the law,” Arthur said in 1881. “He should be allowed to maintain in court his rights of person and property. He has repeatedly begged for this privilege. Its exercise would be very valuable to him in his progress toward civilization.” During his partial term in office, Arthur faced dwindling Indian violence, and in his annual messages to Congress, he reported fewer incidents every year. “The only outbreaks of Indians during the past year occurred in Arizona and in the southwestern part of New Mexico,” he said in December 1882. “They were promptly quelled.” The following year, Arthur reported only a single instance of “any disturbance of the quiet condition of our Indian tribes.” He predicted “that the Indian tribes which have for so many years disturbed the West will hereafter remain in peaceable submission.” In his final message to Congress, three months before he left office, Arthur reported that, “both as between the different Indian tribes and

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as between the Indians and the whites, the past year has been one of unbroken peace.”

Grover Cleveland (I and II) The only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms, Grover Cleveland,20 5’11”, 260 pounds, rotund, with a drooping mustache, was, given the revelations of his personal character foibles, an unlikely president. In the election of 1884, Cleveland had a sizable lead over his opponent James G. Blaine. But the Buffalo Evening Telegraph blared in huge headlines, “A Terrible Tale,” and followed it with the accusation: Cleveland was the father of an illegitimate child! Rather than dissemble, Cleveland took full responsibility. Blaine supporters mocked Cleveland with the taunt “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?”, to which Cleveland’s supporters retorted, “Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!” The scandal turned the tide toward Blaine. But shortly before the election a group of Protestant clergyman visited Blaine. One of the clergymen referred to the Democrats as the party of “rum, Romanism and rebellion.” Blaine did not disavow the remark, and it backfired. Cleveland won the election. Cleveland attempted to defend the authority of the presidency against an aggressive Congress, and he fought for tariff reform. He was known as the “veto president” because of his record 301 vetoes in his first term, and 584 total in his two terms (all previous presidents combined vetoed only 132 bills). In his second term, an economic panic hit—the Depression of 1893. A year later, there was the Pullman strike. Cleveland used federal troops to break up the strike just outside of Chicago (over the objection of the governor), a significant extension of presidential power (later endorsed by the Supreme Court In re Debs ). Grover Cleveland: Pushed Land Ownership as a Way to ‘Civilize’ Indians The day before Grover Cleveland took office, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act of 1885, providing for federal jurisdiction over seven major crimes committed by Indians on their own land. The act came in response to Ex Parte Crow Dog, an 1883 Supreme Court decision that upheld tribal sovereignty over criminal matters. The

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case, which marked the first time in history an Indian was tried for the murder of another Indian, began in 1881 when Crow Dog, a member of the Brule band of the Lakota Sioux, shot and killed Spotted Tail, a chief on the Rosebud Sioux reservation. In a unanimous and condescending decision, the Supreme Court found that federal courts lacked jurisdiction over Indian-on-Indian crimes on reservation land and that Brule law—not federal—governed the reservation. Subjecting Indians to federal law, the court ruled, would “impose upon them the restraints of an external and unknown code” that Indians lacked the ability to understand. “It tries them not by their peers, nor by the customs of their people, nor the law of their land, but by superiors of a different race,” the justices wrote in their opinion. Doing so would amount to “measur(ing) the red man’s revenge by the maxims of the white man’s morality.” Congress reacted to the ruling with the Major Crimes Act, claiming the high court undercut federal efforts to assimilate Indians into mainstream America. The act placed under federal jurisdiction the crimes of murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, maiming, rape, incest, and assault with intent to commit murder. The act was one of three devastating measures enacted during Cleveland’s first term in office that undermined tribal sovereignty and robbed Indians of land. Cleveland in 1887 signed the Dawes Act, which authorized the President to divide Indian land into individual allotments. Two years later, he signed the Indian Appropriations Act, officially opening “unassigned lands” to white settlers. Cleveland, who was born in New Jersey in 1837, avoided military service during the Civil War by hiring a replacement for $150, a common practice. When he started his first term, an estimated 260,000 American Indians lived on 171 reservations comprising 134 million acres of land in 21 states. A supporter of Indian assimilation policies, Cleveland sought to integrate Indians into white society by means of education, private land ownership, and paternal guidance from the federal government. “By the time Cleveland was elected, most of the major Indian wars were over,” biographer John Pafford said. “During the late 19th century, there was a dispute concerning whether American Indians should be integrated into the mainstream, and so while he was president, the long, slow process of acculturation moved forward.” Although he supported the acquisition of Indian land, Cleveland also took a firm stance against illegal white settlements that often led to Indian

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violence. Nine days after he took office, Cleveland issued a proclamation prohibiting non-Indian settlement of Indian territory in Oklahoma. Four months later, he issued another proclamation prohibiting white settlers from grazing cattle on the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation. Yet the “intricate and difficult” task of managing the Indians was not going to be solved by punishing settlers, or by exterminating Indians, Cleveland told Congress in his first annual message. Indians “are properly enough called the wards of the Government; and it should be borne in mind that this guardianship involves on our part efforts for the improvement of their condition and the enforcement of their rights,” he said, predicting that, surrounded by “advanced civilization,” Indians would “readily assimilate with the mass of our population.” But Cleveland also noted “marked differences” in individual Indians’ personalities and attitudes toward civilization. “While some are lazy, vicious, and stupid, others are industrious, peaceful, and intelligent,” he said. “While a portion of them are selfsupporting and independent, and have so far advanced in civilization that they make their own laws, administered through officers of their own choice, and educate their children in schools of their own establishment and maintenance, others still retain, in squalor and dependence, almost the savagery of their natural state.” Cleveland’s solution was laws that more closely monitored individual Indian behavior, including creation of a six-member commission charged with carefully inspecting all the Indians to determine how to move them toward “complete civilization.” Commissioners would ascertain which of the reservations might be reduced in area, which Indians might be consolidated to other reservations, and which Indians “should be invested with the right of citizenship.” Early in his presidency, Cleveland also called for surveys of all the reservations “in order to carry out the policy of allotment of Indians lands in severalty”—a preview of what would come under the Dawes Act of 1887. Authored by Massachusetts Sen. Henry Dawes, who believed land ownership had the power to civilize, the Dawes Act allowed the President to divide tribal land into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments of 40–160 acres and lived separately from their tribes for 25 years would be granted U.S. citizenship. Under the law, remaining land was declared “surplus” and sold to non-Indians.

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Cleveland signed the act in February 1887. By 1934, more than 90 million acres of Indian land had been lost, or about two-thirds of the 1887 land base. Two days before the end of Cleveland’s first term, he signed the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, officially opening “unassigned lands” in Oklahoma to white settlers under the tenets of the Homestead Act. Cleveland left office in 1889 and was succeeded by Benjamin Harrison. He was re-elected in 1892 and served a second term, during which he continued to encourage efforts to civilize the Indians. Even as he claimed the government had a “sacred duty” to improve conditions for Indians, he also worked to open “surplus lands”—lands taken from tribes—for white settlers. “I am sure that secular education and moral and religious teaching must be important factors in any effort to save the Indian and lead him to civilization,” Cleveland said during the first message to Congress during his second term, in December 1893. “I believe, too, that the relinquishment of tribal relations and the holding of land in severalty may in favorable conditions aid this consummation.” In 1893, President Cleveland was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth, the growth necessitating the removal of his upper left jaw. The operation was performed on July 1, 1893, aboard Commodore E.C. Benedict’s yacht Oneida on Long Island Sound. In a second secret operation, on July 17, other parts of the growth were removed, and the President was fitted with an artificial jaw of vulcanized rubber.

Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison,21 grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was a “dark horse” presidential candidate. Harrison was president at the end of the era of Westward Expansion. Soon the nation would look beyond its borders to extend its influence, shifting the intent of expansion from Native Americans to nations abroad. Theodore Roosevelt called Harrison “a cold-blooded, narrow-minded, prejudiced, obstinate, timid old psalm-singing Indianapolis politician.” Known as “Little Bee” by his Civil War troops, Harrison was ill-equipped. Harrison, 5’6”, with full beard and blue eyes, the first president to watch a professional baseball game (Cincinnati seven, Washington four, in eleven innings) was president during the waning days of congressional dominance.

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Harrison willingly surrendered power to Congress, and the presidency seemed in retreat. While the nation would soon witness the reversal of this trend, during Harrison’s term, the presidency continued to sink in power. In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first piece of antitrust legislation aimed at curbing monopolistic practices in business. In the same year, the Dependent and Disability Pensions Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the McKinley Tariff Act were passed. Excessively formal, even dour, Harrison was described by a visitor to the White House as having a handshake “like a wilted petunia.” Harrison’s very limited view of the president’s authority led him neither to propose nor dispose. He saw himself more as figurehead than leader. While Harrison was president for only thirty-one days, it was in his pre-presidential years that he won fame as a genocidaire. As an officer in the U.S. military, Harrison, serving on the western frontier, led troops against Indians in a series of brutal encounters. He fought in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and was a signatory of the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, which grabbed Indian lands for white settlers. Later, as territorial governor of Indiana, Harrison led troops against Tenskwatawa in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. His victory was so legendary that he ran his successful 1840 campaign for president on the theme “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Harrison earned a pre-presidential reputation as governor of Indiana when he adopted from other states legislation that denied legal rights to non-whites. A September 20, 1803 law denied “negroes, mulattos, and Indians “the right to testify against whites in court.”22 Benjamin Harrison: Busted Up Sioux Nation, No Remorse for Wounded Knee Nineteen days after taking office, Benjamin Harrison signed a proclamation opening Indian Territory in Oklahoma to settlers. The March 23, 1889, proclamation made 1.9 million acres of “unassigned lands” available to white settlers and kicked off one of the most chaotic chapters in American history. At high noon on April 22, a gunshot rang out and an estimated 50,000 settlers crossed into the territory by wagon, horseback, bicycle, train, or foot and claimed all the available land before nightfall.

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The Oklahoma Land Run came on the heels of two acts signed by Harrison’s predecessor, President Grover Cleveland. The Dawes Act of 1887 authorized the President to divide Indian land into individual allotments and the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889 officially opened surplus or unassigned lands to white settlers. Known for its “boomers”—settlers campaigning for the land to be opened—and “sooners”—those who illegally entered the territory ahead of time—the land rush has become an iconic era in the history of the West. Thousands of Americans gained new hope as they claimed 160-acre parcels and the opportunity that came with land ownership. But the rush also set the tone for Harrison’s presidency, which was marked by similar land grabs and last-ditch efforts by Indians to hold on to their territory. During Harrison’s four years in office, six states were admitted to the Union, including four during his first year alone: North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Montana. Idaho and Wyoming were admitted in 1890. Harrison also forced the Sioux Nation in the Dakotas to divide into separate reservations and relinquish 11 million acres of land, and the Crow to give up 1.8 million acres of land for general settlement in Montana. As more Indians accepted land allotments, Harrison also opened to white settlers “surplus” lands acquired from the Cheyenne and Arapaho nations and the Sac and Fox. During Harrison’s presidency, Congress passed the first Forest Reserve Act, granting the President power to create national forests. Harrison used the act 17 times, setting aside land in Colorado, Oregon, California, Washington, and the New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska territories. He also opened the second, third, and fourth national parks and set aside the first prehistoric Indian ruin to come under federal protection, at Casa Grande, Arizona. Harrison was less inclined to preserve the lives and ways of living Indians. In his first message to Congress, in December 1889, Harrison called Indians an “ignorant and helpless people” whose best chance at survival was assimilation. Reservations were generally surrounded by white settlements and the only way to manage the Indian was to “push him upward into the estate of self-supporting and responsible citizen,” he said. Adults should be located on farms and children should be enrolled in school.

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“It is to be regretted that the policy of breaking up the tribal relation and of dealing with the Indian as an individual did not appear earlier in our legislation,” Harrison told Congress. “Large reservations held in common and the maintenance of the authority of the chiefs and headmen have deprived the individual of every incentive to the exercise of thrift, and the annuity has contributed an affirmative impulse toward a state of confirmed pauperism.” Indians viewed these policies as campaigns to take their land, and some sought answers from spiritual sources. In the winter of 1889, a Paiute man named Wokova had a vision of the Creator and the dead of his nation. When he returned from the vision, Wokova encouraged his people to work hard and live peacefully with the white settlers, promising that “eventually they would be reunited with the dead in a world without death or sickness or old age.”23 Wovoka also brought back a ceremonial dance to bring about this transformation. Known as the Ghost Dance, the ceremony quickly spread to other tribes, including the Sioux at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Burned by a legacy of broken promises, the Sioux adopted the Ghost Dance and “gave to the prophecies a hostile content: In their version, the whites were to be annihilated by a massive whirlwind.” Government officials in Washington, fearing the ceremony could incite violence, sent military troops to Pine Ridge. Leaders of the Ghost Dance movement retreated to the reservation’s isolated northern boundary. In the early morning of December 15, 1890, agents surprised Chief Sitting Bull and tried to arrest him. When Sitting Bull resisted, agents shot him at close range, escalating tensions between the Sioux and the U.S. military. On the morning of December 29, 1890, soldiers from the Seventh Cavalry perched on a hill above Wounded Knee Creek and shot unarmed men, women, and children. An estimated 146 Sioux and 29 soldiers were killed in the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre, which marked the last time the U.S. militia systematically slaughtered Indians. Harrison, who had a reputation as “the human iceberg,” took no responsibility for what happened at Wounded Knee. He honored the Seventh Cavalry for their distinguished service, and 20 soldiers later received the Medal of Honor for their part in the massacre. In his third message to Congress, a year after the massacre, Harrison admitted that the Sioux had some “just complaints” stemming from the reduction of rations and the delay in receiving government services. But, Harrison said, “the Sioux tribes are naturally warlike and turbulent” and

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posed a threat to white settlers near the reservation. The “uprising” was handled with a militia that prioritized the “thorough protection” of the settlers and “of bringing the hostiles into subjection with the least possible loss of life.” During his final year in office, Harrison commemorated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America. In a proclamation issued in July 1892, Harrison appointed October 21 as a general holiday set aside for citizens to “honor the discoverer and their appreciation of the four completed centuries of American life.” As one of the late Whiggish presidents, Harrison was in office toward the end of the era of congressional supremacy. Content to let Congress rule, Harrison exerted little direction or leadership. But events would soon overwhelm this model of government. The United States was experiencing massive social, cultural, political, and economic changes. These changes, brought on by industrialization and America’s new role as a major player on the world stage, demanded a stronger central government. And a stronger central government meant a stronger presidency.24

Notes 1. Klein, Phillip S. President James Buchanan, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962; and Smith, Elbert B. The Presidency of James Buchanan, University of Kansas Press, 1975. 2. Randall, J.G., and Current, Richard N. Lincoln: The President, 2 vols., Da Capo, 1997; Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln, Touchstone, 1995; and Paludan, Phillip Shaw. The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, University Press of Kansas, 1994. 3. Lamon, Ward H. Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, Century, 1911. 4. Lincoln, Abraham. “Special Session Message,” July 4, 1861, in Edward Keynes and David Adamany, eds., Borzoi Reader in American Politics, Knopf, 1973, p. 539. 5. Rossiter, Clinton. Constitutional Dictatorship, Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1963. 6. Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America, Simon and Schuster, 1992, p. 145. 7. Trafzer, Clifford E., ed. American Indians/American Presidents, Harper Collins, 2009, p. 95. 8. Heard, Isaac V.D. History of the Sioux War and Massacres of 1862 and 1863, Harper & Brothers, 1863; Meyer, Roy Willard, History of the Santee Sioux: United States Indian Policy on Trial, University of Nebraska, 1993; Isch, John, The Dakota Trials: The 1862–1864 Military Commission Trials,

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10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

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Including the Trial Transcripts and Commentary, Brown County Historical Society, 2012; and Chomsky, Carol. The United States-Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice, Stanford Law Review, November, 1990. It should be noted that Lincoln did not order the execution of any confederate officials after the Civil War. The only confederate officer executed was the commander of the Andersonville Prison for war crimes, not rebellion. Nelson, Megan Kate. The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, Scribner, 2020; and Nichols, David A. Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Politics and Policy, University of Illinois Press, 1999. Mason, W. Dale. “The Indian Policy of Abraham Lincoln,” Indigenous Policy Journal, 2009, Vol. 20, No. 3; See also, Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Movement and the American Indians, University of Nebraska, 1984; and Black, Sherry Salway. “Lincoln: No hero to Native Americans,” Washington Monthly, January/February, 2013. Nichols, David A. Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Politics and Policy, University of Illinois Press, 1999, p. 109. Castel, Albert. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson, Regents Press of Kansas, 1979; Dewitt, David Miller. The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson, Macmillan, 1903, p. 1967; McKitrick, Eric L. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, University of Chicago Press, 1960; Milton, George Fort. The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals, 1930; and Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography, Norton, 1989. Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs, 2 vols., Da Capo, 1885–1886; McFeeley, William S. Grant: A Biography, Norton, 1981; Simpson, Brooks D. Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861–1868, University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Hoogenboon, Ari. The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes , University Press of Kansas, 1988; and Williams, Charles R. Life of Rutherford B. Hayes, 2 vols., Scribner’s, 1914. Bagehot, Walter. The English Constitution, 1867; reprint, Fontana, 1993, p. 70. Smith, Theodore Clarke. James Abram Garfield: Life and Letters, University Press, 1925. Doenecke, Justus D. The Presidency of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, Regents Press of Kansas, 1981. Sumner, quoted in. Ellis, Richard J., ed. Speaking to the People: The Rhetorical Presidency in Historical Perspective, University of Massachusetts Press, 1998, p. 13.

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20. Welch, Jr., Richard E. The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland, University Press of Kansas, 1988; Cleveland, Grover. Presidential Problems, Century, 1904. 21. Socolofsky, Homer E. The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison, University Press of Kansas, 1988. 22. Kimberly, Margaret. Prejudential, Steerforth Press, 2020, p. 42. 23. Cornell, Stephen. The Return of the Native: American Indian Political Resurgence, Oxford University Press, 1988. 24. Milkis Sidney and Nelson, Michael. The American Presidency, Congressional Quarterly, 1994, p. 195.

CHAPTER 6

America: A World/Imperial Power—William McKinley to Herbert Hoover

The movement west became the groundwork for the romanticization of conquering the frontier and charting a new course for the nation. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner developed a “frontier thesis ,” suggesting that American democracy was strengthened by the frontier – and the conquest of white settlers moving into the new frontier. He saw the expansion west, or moving the frontier line, as an egalitarian movement to both conquer and expand democracy to all (white male) Americans. This conquest was a victory of the common man making his way, forging a new society, building a New World in uncharted territory. Of course, all this was done at the vast expense of the Native Americans already living on the lands the new white settlers conquered.1 Violence played a significant role in achieving the conquest of the frontier, and the embrace of it, if not the celebration of violence, became part of the frontier myth that would influence the self-image of the settlers. Conquest by white settlers also, to Turner, brought democracy to the new frontier. As he wrote, American democracy was born of no theorist’s dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_6

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To Turner, the trek west made Americans into something new: selfdisciplined, more equal, pragmatic, action oriented, individualistic, optimistic, and even democratic. The frontier became more than a metaphor; it became a definition of a “new” nation. But this would be a new “Caucasian democracy.” Native Americans were not a part of this and had to be moved away to make room for the nation to fulfill its destiny. Turner romanticized the concept of “frontier,” attributing a variety of prominent American qualities, going so far as to assert that “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.” Just as Lincoln redefined the American experiment in his Gettysburg Address thirty years earlier, Turner redefined the role of the frontier in the American experiment.3 As historian Greg Grandin wrote, Turner’s main argument was that “America’s vast, open west created the conditions for an unprecedented expansion of the ideal of political equality, an ideal based on a sense that the frontier would go on forever.” He goes on: Left alone with their visions of unlimited resources, pioneers would transform nature and deepen democratic values: independence, personal initiative, and above all, individualism.4 This brand of “Frontier Individualism” became America—for Whites. In linking democracy to violence and conquest, American democracy morphed into a cultured and aspirational ideology that stressed the use of violence to achieve “progress,” the utility of violence in paving the way for superior races to civilize native savages by force, and the romance of violence as a way of achieving manhood. Could “democracy” survive such a link to violence and conquest? The frontier allowed Americans to pursue freedom, make a new life, throw off the shackles of European class distinctions, and give the common man (yes, it was about men) a chance to experience—grab—a new birth of liberty and self-reliance. In the West, a man could be free.

William McKinley The presidency of William McKinley,5 5’7” and about 200 pounds, marked the beginning of a shift away from congressional government and toward a more presidency-centered system. The last U.S. president to have served in the Civil War, McKinley was something of a paradox. Frequently portrayed as personally weak, he nonetheless exerted presidential and American power on the world stage.

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In some ways he displayed a regressive brand of conservatism, promoting high tariffs and embracing jingoistic imperialism. Yet, he also led the nation into the global arena, declaring, “Isolation is no longer possible or desirable.” He expanded American and presidential power and began the nation’s venture into empire and imperial conquest. He helped transform the role of president from Clerk to Leader. McKinley was more swept up by events than in control of them. It was a time of growth and change. A passive president was no longer possible. Events demanded more assertive leadership. As America became a global power, it became a presidential nation. McKinley, aided by his experience as a congressman, developed a sound working relationship with Congress. But it was not executivelegislative relations alone that marked a change in power. Dramatic changes in foreign relations brought forth a new presidency. The Spanish-American War, in 1898, was a major transformational event in the life of the nation. The war itself lasted only a few months, but its impact was revolutionary. After the U.S. victory, Spain lost nearly all its colonial interests in the Americas, and the U.S. became a recognized world power—an imperial power that controlled and occupied nations outside its borders. The U.S. now controlled the fate of Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. As a result of the Paris Peace Treaty in December 1898, the U.S. had become an imperial or colonial power. During the McKinley presidency a significant shift in power occurred. Congress declined and the executive rose. The Constitution’s meaning changed as well, as McKinley, along with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, extended presidential power to fill America’s new global role. In the area of foreign affairs, McKinley greatly enhanced presidential authority. He conducted a presidential war, largely on his own, claiming authority; he acquired the Philippines (using an Executive Agreement and bypassing the Senate); he and Secretary of State John Hay established an Open Door policy for China; in 1900, without congressional approval, he dispatched 5000 troops to China to suppress the Boxer Rebellion. By waging war, acting unilaterally, bypassing Congress, establishing an empire, and doing this “solely” on executive authority, McKinley shifted the balance of power (especially in foreign affairs) in favor of the presidency.

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William McKinley: Dismantled Five Civilized Tribes One of the last major armed conflicts between Native Americans and the U.S. Army occurred during William McKinley’s watch. Nineteen months after McKinley took office, the Third Infantry chased an Ojibwe man to his reservation on the shores of Leech Lake, a 110-acre body of water in central Minnesota, where the man sought refuge from white laws. Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig, 62, was being transported to Duluth as a witness in a federal bootlegging trial when he escaped, triggering military action to recapture him. The incident came as relationships deteriorated between the federal government and the Ojibwe, who subsisted on the sale of timber from the reservation. Timber companies, exploiting a loophole in the law that allowed them to take dead pine and pay a fraction of what it was worth, were setting brush fires on the reservation to make the trees appear dead and then harvesting the wood on the inside. Frustrated, Ojibwe leaders at Leech Lake sought redress from the government. In late September 1898, they petitioned McKinley to stop the practice. “Our people are carrying a heavy burden, and in order that they may not be crushed by it, we humbly petition you to send a commission to investigate the existing troubles here,” they wrote in a letter. “We now have only the pine lands of our reservations for our future subsistence and support, but the manner in which we are being defrauded out of these has alarmed us.” McKinley did nothing to intervene. Meanwhile, a U.S. Marshal arrived on the reservation to arrest two men accused of helping Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig escape, but a group of 40 Ojibwe overtook the marshal and set the men free. The marshal returned to his base and requested military assistance to arrest everyone who helped free the men. On October 5, 1898, an army of 80 soldiers—mostly inexperienced— descended by boat on the eastern shore of Leech Lake. A soldier fired first, and a force of 19 Ojibwe responded in a conflict known as the Battle of Sugar Point. Six soldiers and one white civilian were killed. Five days later, Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Jones peacefully counseled with Ojibwe leaders and convinced them to give up the accused men. Jones also condemned “the frequent arrests of Indians on trivial causes, often for no cause at all,” and the practice of transporting

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Indians 200 miles from home to stand trial, and then “turning them adrift without means to return home.” In his second message to Congress, in December 1898, McKinley called the conflict an “outbreak of a serious character … which happily has been suppressed.” Twelve Ojibwe men were arrested for their roles in the battle, but in January 1899, McKinley granted all of them full pardons. McKinley took office as the Dawes Commission, headed by Henry Dawes, was dismantling the Five Civilized Tribes. Established in 1893, the commission was charged with convincing the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Cherokee to accept individual land allotments and register with the federal Dawes Rolls. Prior treaty agreements exempted the Five Civilized Tribes from the Dawes Act of 1887, which allowed the President to break up reservation land and reassign it to individual allottees. But the Curtis Act of 1898, whose purpose was to dismember the sovereign status of the Five Civilized Tribes, overturned those treaties and abolished the tribes’ governments, invalidated their laws, and dissolved their courts. More formally known as An Act for the Protection of the People of the Indian Territory, the Curtis Act also extinguished land ownership claims, allowing the President to break apart tribal lands into smaller portions and open “surplus” lands to white settlers. A proponent of assimilation policy and the allotment program, McKinley signed the act in June 1898. Six months later, he told Congress that the Five Civilized Tribes were showing “marked progress.” The act was “having a salutary effect upon the nations composing the five tribes,” he said. “The Dawes Commission reports that the most gratifying results and greater advance toward the attainment of the objects of the Government have been secured in the past year than in any previous year.” During his four and a half years in office, McKinley prioritized his goals of expanding U.S. territory and increasing trade agreements in the Far East. McKinley wanted control of the Caribbean and the Pacific, and in early 1898, he led the nation into war with Spain over the issue of Cuban independence. The war ended with the Treaty of Paris, which granted the United States possession of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Also in 1898, McKinley signed a joint resolution annexing the Hawaiian Islands.

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In his final message to Congress, in December 1900, McKinley spoke of the “uncivilized tribes” on the newly annexed islands. “Many of those tribes are now living in peace and contentment, surrounded by a civilization to which they are unable or unwilling to conform,” he said. “Such tribal governments should, however, be subjected to wise and firm regulation, and, without undue or petty interference, constant and active effort should be exercised to prevent barbarous practices and introduce civilized customs.” In September 1901, McKinley traveled to Buffalo, New York, to open the Pan-American Exposition. As he greeted visitors, he noticed a man whose hand was wrapped in a bandage. As McKinley reached out to shake the man’s other hand, two shots rang out from a pistol concealed beneath the bandage. A week later, McKinley died, leaving the presidency to Vice President Theodore Roosevelt and prompting Sen. Mark Hanna, a Republican from Ohio, to exclaim, “Good Lord. That Goddamn cowboy is President of the United States.”

Theodore Roosevelt “It is,” Theodore Roosevelt6 wrote to a friend, “a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way; but it would be a far worse thing to be morbid about it. Here is the task, and I have got to do it the best of my ability; and that is all there is about it.” With his puffy face, droopy mustache, pince-nez eyeglasses with thick lenses, prominent teeth, and a high voice, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), 5’10”, helped transform the presidency and convert the office into a national leadership institution. TR was an activist who stamped his personality onto his age. The sheer force of his will compelled action. Roosevelt transformed the presidency into a more public office, using (some would say abusing) the “bully pulpit” to elevate the rhetorical presidency to new heights, and developing a more sophisticated relationship between the president and the press. Historian Louis Hartz called TR “America’s only Nietzschean president.” A contemporary of Roosevelt’s said, “At every wedding, Theodore wants to be the bride. At every funeral he wants to be the corpse.” “He is,” said Henry James, “the very embodiment of noise.” Roosevelt’s need to lead every parade compelled him to exert himself, even force himself

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to center stage. He courted and cultivated public opinion; he was the president as “national celebrity.” Did any other president delight in the exercise of power as much as Teddy Roosevelt? Few presidents needed power as much as TR. Few needed to achieve greatness as much as TR. But conditions, as he recognized, were not ripe for greatness. “If there is not the great occasion,” he noted, “you don’t get the great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in times of peace no one would have known his name now.” Oh, how he needed power and greatness. “If this country could be ruled by a benevolent czar,” he wrote in 1897, “we would doubtless make a good many changes for the better.” TR’s obsession with masculinity bordered on the pathological. As political scientist Bruce Miroff writes, “He portrayed a world divided between the timid men of words, sitting in the stands and carping at their betters, and the heroic men of action, gladiators in the political arena.”7 In 1886, a young Theodore Roosevelt noted that “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, but I believe nine out every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely with the case of the tenth.” Roosevelt’s views did evolve later in life, but only marginally, as historian Douglas Brinkley wrote. Theodore Roosevelt “consistently saw the Indians’ future in North America in stark Darwinian terms,” and quotes TR in a pre-presidential statement saying that “we must turn them loose, hardening our hearts to the fact that many will sink, exactly as many will swim.”8 The America of Roosevelt’s era was a more urban, industrial nation; a nation ready to take its place on the world stage. In 1890, there were 63,000,000 Americans. By 1900, the U.S. population topped 75,000,000. When TR left office, the number had risen to more than 90,000,000. It was also an age of political change. The Progressive Movement was sweeping America, promoting activist government, presidential leadership, more open political participation, and control of corporate capitalism. Roosevelt fit perfectly in this new age. Theodore Roosevelt: ‘The Only Good Indians Are the Dead Indians’ When Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, he already had a long legacy of animosity toward American Indians. Seventeen years earlier, Roosevelt, then a young widower, left New York in favor of the Dakotas, where he built a ranch, rode horses, and

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wrote about life on the frontier. When he returned to the east, he famously asserted that “the most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.” In 1899, British poet Rudyard Kipling sent his poem “The White Man’s Burden,” which included the lines: Take up the white man’s burden – Send forth the best ye breed…

Theodore Roosevelt, to encourage him to bring the values of the Anglo-American enlightenment to the Philippines: Your new caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child…

Born in New York in 1858, Roosevelt dropped out of law school to seek a career in politics, stating he wanted to be part of the “governing class.” He served on the New York State Assembly, as assistant secretary of the Navy and governor of New York. During the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt led a volunteer cavalry nicknamed the Rough Riders, comprising cowboys, ranchers, miners, and Native Americans. A member of the Republican Party, Roosevelt completed McKinley’s term and was re-elected to a second term, serving from 1901 to 1909. His seven and a half years in office were marked by his support of the Indian allotment system, the removal of Indians from their lands and the destruction of their culture. Although he earned a reputation as a conservationist—placing more than 230 million acres of land under public protection—Roosevelt systematically marginalized Indians, uprooting them from their homelands to create national parks and monuments, speaking publicly about his plans to assimilate them, and using them as spectacles to build his political empire. TR saw the Native nations as standing in the way of progress. They had to be removed by force if necessary. “Let the sentimentalists say what they will,” wrote Roosevelt, “the man who puts the soil to use must of right dispossess the men who does not, or the world will come to a standstill.” He even went so far as to celebrate “frontier vigilantism” arguing that “good men” should band together “as regulators and put down the wicked with ruthless severity, by the exercise of lynch law, shooting and hanging the worst off-hand.” Although admitting that torture was also often used, TR nonetheless thought this force of “rough justice” was

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“healthy for the community,” and that “men of lawless, brutal spirit” in conquering native peoples, brought forth civilization.9 “He was a man of his times,” said Tweed Roosevelt, a great-grandson to Roosevelt and interim director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association. “In his presidency, he wanted the Native Americans to experience the American dream, but to do that by assimilating. The Indian population had been shrinking for a long time, and he believed that if they assimilated, that meant prosperity for everyone.” In his first message to Congress, in December 1901, Roosevelt called the General Allotment Act “a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mass.” Under the act, passed in 1887, more than 60,000 Indians had already become citizens, but “the effort should be to steadily make the Indian work like any other man on his own ground,” Roosevelt said. “In my judgment the time has arrived when we should definitely make up our minds to recognize the Indian as an individual and not as a member of a tribe,” he said. “The Indian should be treated as an individual – like the white man.” But Indians were not equal to whites, Roosevelt told Congress. Although he viewed education as a vehicle of assimilation, Roosevelt stressed that Indian education should be “elementary and largely industrial,” and that the need of higher education was “very, very limited.” In January 1902, five months into Roosevelt’s presidency, Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Jones issued a letter to superintendents of federal agencies and reservations demanding that Native men cut their hair. This famous “haircut order” argued that “the wearing of short hair by the males will be a great step in advance and will certainly hasten their progress towards civilization.” The male student returning to the reservation too often fell into the “old custom of letting his hair grow long,” the order stated. “He also paints profusely and adopts all the old habits and customs which his education in our industrial schools has tried to eradicate.” Jones suggested that agents withhold rations from male and female Indians who refused to stop painting or discard “Indian costumes and blankets.” Traditional gatherings also should be prohibited, he said, because “in many cases these dances and feasts are simply subterfuges to cover degrading acts and to disguise immoral purposes.” In his second message to Congress, in December 1902, Roosevelt called on Indian schools to teach the young to earn a living, making them “indistinguishable” from their white associates. “In dealing with

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the Indians, our aim should be their ultimate absorption into the body of our people,” he said. Two years later, Roosevelt urged Indian agents to force their wards to work. A policy that reduced the amount of subsistence available to Indians would force them “out of sheer necessity, to work for a livelihood,” he said. He also called for better cooperation between Washington and Indian agents, claiming that more efficient work would “lift up the savage toward that self-help and self-reliance which constitute the man.” Roosevelt began his second term in office with a bombastic inaugural parade, which featured 35,000 participants, including members of his Rough Riders outfit and six Indian chiefs. Geronimo, still a prisoner of war, rode in the parade, along with Quanah Parker, Buckskin Charlie, Little Plume, American Horse, and Hollow Horn Bear. The chiefs, wearing full regalia, waved as they passed Roosevelt, “uttering whoops as they did so,” The New York Times reported on March 5, 1905. When asked why he invited Indians to participate in his parade, Roosevelt answered, “I wanted to give the people a good show.” Yet Roosevelt did very little to assist Indians who sought help from him individually. Because the allotment program transitioned Indians into private citizens, Roosevelt largely ignored them when they journeyed to Washington. In March 1905, a group of Sioux Indians from Yankton, South Dakota, traveled to Washington to seek redress from settlers who had taken their lands and homes. Because they were private citizens instead of representatives of a tribe, neither Roosevelt nor his commissioner of Indian Affairs would see them. During his second term, Roosevelt expanded the Navy, started construction on the Panama Canal and earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in mediating the Russo-Japanese War. He also supervised the completion of the Dawes Rolls, which collected membership information from the Five Civilized Tribes, and dissolved the Indian Territory in Oklahoma, opening the region for statehood. Oklahoma became a state in 1907. In his final message to Congress, in December 1908, Roosevelt called for the transition of the Indian Service from a political organization to a civil one. Such a shift would clear the ground for “larger constructive work on behalf on the Indians, preparatory to their induction into the full measure of responsible citizenship,” he said.

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TR was a dynamo, a bundle of energy, a man of action. He left the presidency bigger than he arrived. Future presidents could lay claim to roles of chief legislator, tribune of and spokesman for the people, world leader, steward of the people, and national leader. Not all did, but TR paved the way for those who embraced an expansive view of presidential power. More than anything, TR wanted to be a great president. But governing in a period of relative calm did not allow for the opportunity for true greatness. He did change and enlarge the presidency. The presidency TR left behind contained the capacity to do good, but the enlarged presidency could also be used for unsavory ends. One of the dilemmas of the twentieth century was how to empower yet control the presidency. Upon leaving office in 1909, TR said: “No President has ever enjoyed himself as much as I have enjoyed myself, and for the matter of that I do not know any man of my age who has had as good a time…” He died at age 60, and his face was later carved into Mount Rushmore.

William Howard Taft A newspaper of the day said Taft looked “like an American bison – a gentle, kind one.” Six feet, 350 pounds, with deep-set eyes and a turnedup mustache, William Howard Taft10 was the largest president in history. During Taft’s pre-presidential stint as governor-general of the Philippines, he cabled Secretary of War Elihu Root with news of his illness, adding, “Took long horseback ride today. Feel fine” to which Root wired back: “How is the horse?” Before running for president as Teddy Roosevelt’s handpicked successor, Taft had never been through an election. He was the first president to throw out the opening ball of the baseball season (Walter Johnson threw a one-hitter, and the Washington Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 3-0). Anyone who followed Teddy Roosevelt into the White House would have had trouble filling TR’s enormous shoes. Taft actually never wanted to be president, but prodded by his ambitious wife, he finally agreed to run. He found the presidency “the lonesomest place in the world.” Several years after leaving the presidency, President Harding nominated Taft as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. A poor president, Taft was a highly regarded Justice.

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Taft had a much more limited conception of presidential power than TR. A public accustomed to presidential leadership expected more of Taft. The mood of the age was progressive, but Taft was a status quo president. Taft argued for a strict construction of Article II. The executive should exercise only power that is expressly or implicitly granted by the Constitution. After leaving office he wrote: The true view of the executive function … is that the president can exercise no power which cannot be reasonable or fairly traced to some specific grant of power or justly implied or included within such express grant as necessary and proper to its exercise. Such specific grant must be either in the Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof. There is no undefined residuum of power which he can exercise because it seems to be in the public interest…

Where TR loved politics, Taft hated the political fray: “I don’t like politics,” he once said, “especially when I am in it.” Taft did not attempt to exert executive domination, and while dedicated to a fairly ambitious agenda, he was much more reluctant than TR about promoting it. During his presidency, the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act passed, as did the Maw-Elkins Act. Also, the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution (which gave Congress the power to levy an income tax) was approved. An independent Department of Labor was established, and more antitrust suits were launched by Taft than TR. Abroad, Taft promoted what was known as “Dollar Diplomacy” (in which U.S. military intervention was used to promote American corporate interests). William Howard Taft: Let Derogatory ‘Wild West’ Movies Slide Taft took office the same year America’s first permanent movie studio opened in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Champion Film Company, the precursor of Universal Studios, used its location along the Jersey Palisades to film scenes from the “Wild West,” launching a movie genre that from its beginning proved problematic. Years before Hollywood was established as America’s film capital, more than a dozen companies made movies from Fort Lee, transforming local scenery and historic buildings into scenes from the stereotypical West. These early westerns often portrayed Indians in derogatory ways, prompting a delegation of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians to travel to

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Washington in early 1911. Concerned that Indians were “discreditably depicted in moving pictures,” the delegates sought an audience with Taft and Robert Valentine, the commissioner of Indian Affairs. As part of their visit, chiefs Big Buck and Big Bear accompanied a Washington Post reporter to a local theater. The movie they watched followed the story of an Indian woman who, after falling in love with a white man, stabbed the man’s wife with a poison arrow, the Post reported in February 1911. “If the white people would only take the pains to study Indian characteristics … he could possibly produce something worthy of presentation to the public,” Big Buck told the Washington Post. After viewing the movie, he and Big Bear planned to ask Taft to “close up” the movie house. “It is bad to be lied about to so many people (and to be) helpless to defend yourself,” Big Bear told the Post. Valentine was sympathetic and said that he had “seen productions wherein the Indian was pictured as a cannibal, thief, and almost every evil thing one can imagine,” the Post reported. Yet Taft did not respond to requests from Big Bear and Big Buck, and the National Board of Censorship continued to approve the films. Known as one of the “progressive presidents,” Taft continued much of what TR started, pledging in his inaugural address to “render the reforms lasting.” Taft also continued Roosevelt’s legacy of conservation, placing millions of acres of land under public protection. Less than two weeks after taking office, Taft established the Navajo National Monument, a collection of cliff dwellings and pueblo ruins on the Navajo Nation in Arizona. The dwellings were “new to science and wholly unexplored,” Taft said in his March 20, 1909, proclamation establishing the monument. “Their isolation and size are of the very greatest ethnological, scientific and educational interest, and it appears that the public interest would be promoted by reserving these extraordinary ruins of an unknown people.” Navajo National Monument was the first of a dozen national parks, monuments, and forests Taft set aside during his four years in office. But Taft rarely considered the impact his conservation efforts had on tribes. In May 1910, less than nine months after white explorers first set eyes on a 290-foot sandstone bridge in southern Utah, Taft issued an executive order establishing Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Yet he failed to

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consult with the Navajo or other tribes in the Southwest who had long considered the land sacred. Like his predecessors in the White House, Taft continued to encourage Indians to accept allotments under the Dawes Act of 1887 so he could open “surplus” land to white settlers. During his presidency, Taft issued more than three dozen proclamations and executive orders that opened Indian land for settlement, restored land under Indian claim to the public domain, or created, expanded, reduced, or otherwise changed the size of existing reservations. Taft also signed proclamations admitting Arizona and New Mexico into the Union, making him the first president to govern the 48 contiguous states. Throughout his presidency, Taft contended with the rise of the Native American Church and its sacramental and medicinal use of peyote, which the Bureau of Indian Affairs viewed as a threat to Christianity. In 1909, the BIA began investigating peyote meetings and in 1912, the Board of Indian Commissioners lobbied Congress for a law criminalizing its use. “The danger of the rapid spread of the habit, increased by its so-called religious associations, makes the need of its early suppression doubly pressing,” commissioners wrote in their annual report. In his final message to Congress, in December 1912, Taft spoke of the government’s role as guardians of the Indians and its responsibility for their “condition of health.” “In spite of everything which has been said in criticism of the policy of our government toward the Indians, the amount of wealth which is now held by it for these wards per capita shows that the government has been generous,” Taft said. He called on Congress to allocate funding for Indian health “in order that our facilities for overcoming diseases among the Indians might be properly increased.” As Taft presided, Teddy Roosevelt became restless and began openly to challenge the president. Finding a new, more radical message, in 1912 TR announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. But the Old Guard controlled the party machinery and maneuvered the nomination toward Taft. Not to be deterred, Roosevelt bolted the party and ran as a Progressive or Bull moose candidate. Taft and Roosevelt viciously attacked each other (TR called Taft a “fathead” with “brains less than that of a guinea pig,” and Taft called Roosevelt a “demagogue” who “can’t tell the truth.”) Taft and Roosevelt split the vote, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president.

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Two weeks before leaving office, Taft broke ground with a silver shovel on the proposed 1650-foot National American Indian Memorial, to be built on Staten Island. Although Congress set aside the federal land for the project, it did not receive funding and was never constructed. Taft left office in 1913. In 1921, he was appointed as the 10th chief justice of the United States, becoming the only person in history to serve as both president and chief justice. As ex-president, Taft lamented, “for all the sins of omission and of commission of society, the president cannot make clouds to rain, he cannot make the corn to grow, he cannot make business to be good.”

Woodrow Wilson The only president to earn a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson,11 who was president of Princeton University and reform governor of New Jersey, resumed the activist tone of presidential leadership established by Teddy Roosevelt. At 5’11”, 170 pounds, at times aloof, withdrawn, and temperamental, Wilson added to the presidency and cemented the role of world leader onto the office. Wilson was a progressive, activist reformer who used party and popular leadership to move Congress. He was also a wartime president who not only exerted extraconstitutional leadership in war, but in the aftermath of the war promoted an expansive and idealistic peace. Wilson seemed motivated by a mix of Puritan idealism, burning ambition, and intellectual superiority. He saw the world in starkly simplistic terms as a struggle between good and evil. This made it difficult for Wilson to compromise. In a way there were three different Wilson presidencies: the very successful domestic reformer of the first term; the very successful war president during World War I; and the idealistic, but in the end tragic, crusader for world peace toward the end of his presidency. Wilson was a political scientist who got the opportunity to put his academic theories of the presidency into practice. In his twenties he wrote: “the President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.” A quarter century later, Wilson had a chance to do just that. Wilson broke precedent by personally addressing a special session of Congress—the first time this occurred since the presidency of John Adams. This was the beginning of an annual tradition, when the president delivers his State of the Union to Congress himself.

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Wilson aggressively pursued his legislative agenda in Congress. In his first term, he used party and popular leadership as a source of domestic reforms, known as the New Freedom. Legislation to break monopolies, assist unions, and lower tariffs were approved, along with child labor laws and a newly created Federal Reserve. Wilson noted that “it is only once in a generation that a people can be lifted above material things. That is why conservative government is on the saddle two-thirds of the time.” Thus, when he became president, he pushed hard to achieve as much as possible. But there was also a dark side to his leadership. Wilson’s attitude about race relations led him further to impose segregation in several government departments, and his administration engaged in a massive internal repression during World War I. Wilson’s great success as a reformer during his first term led to easy reelection, as Wilson promised to keep the U.S. out of war in Europe. But war was in the cards, and Wilson soon became a war president. During the war, Wilson demonstrated skill and determination. On January 8, 1918, he delivered his “Fourteen Points” speech to Congress, a comprehensive post-war plan for peace, calling for greater justice for small nations, self-determination for “enslaved” nations, and arbitration of international dispute. After the war, Wilson went to work building a lasting peace. He went to Europe to negotiate not only a settlement to the war, but a plan for peace as well. The result was the Treaty of Versailles, which Wilson brought back to the U.S. for Senate approval. (He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.) But the Senate, now controlled by Republicans, balked at the plan, rejecting Wilson’s scheme, along with the League of Nations the president was proposing. Wilson took his case directly to the people. World War I was to “make the world safe for democracy,” and Wilson was not about to let the Senate interfere with his ambitious and idealistic plans for a League of Nations and post-war peace. Wilson was too rigid to compromise. He wanted it all and would settle for nothing less. His inability or unwillingness to compromise with Senate Republicans doomed the treaty. As matters went from bad to worse, Wilson became more and more rigid. He took an exhausting national tour on behalf of “his” treaty. Soon fatigue and illness overtook him. Finally, he suffered a stroke that left him bedridden.

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During his incapacitation, Edith Wilson, his wife, all but ran the country, leading critics to protest the “petticoat government.” The physically weakened Wilson remained uncompromising about the League of Nations. His all-or-nothing attitude led to nothing. Wilson’s presidency ended with a debilitated and disappointed president, unable to achieve his final and biggest victory. Woodrow Wilson: ‘The Great White Father Now Calls You His Brothers’ Shortly after taking office in 1913, President Thomas Woodrow Wilson delivered a phonograph address signaling a change in the relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes. This “message to all the Indians,” played on a phonograph donated by Thomas Edison, was part of a traveling expedition to each of the nation’s 169 recognized Indian reservations. Wilson’s voice echoed from the phonograph during ceremonies held beneath the American flag. In his speech, Wilson quoted Thomas Jefferson’s words from a century earlier, predicting that a day would come when the red men would “become truly one people with us.” One hundred years later, America was “nearer these great things than hoped for, much nearer than we were then,” Wilson said as he boasted about the successes of assimilation policies like land allotments, agricultural training and the more than 30,000 Indian children enrolled in government, state, and mission schools. “The Great White Father now calls you his brothers, not his children,” Wilson said. “You have shown in your education and in your settled ways of life staunch, manly, worthy qualities of sound character.” Wilson acknowledged “some dark pages in the history of the white man’s dealings with the Indians,” but he claimed the “remarkable progress” of the Indians was proof of the government’s good intentions. “Many parts of the record are stained with the greed and avarice of those who have thought only of their own profit,” he said. “But it is also true that purposes and motives of this great government and of our nation as a whole toward the red man have been wise, just and beneficent.” The message, part of an “Expedition of Citizenship to the North American Indian” organized by Philadelphia department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker, was played on every Indian reservation. Joseph Dixon, education director at the Wanamaker department store, led the

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six-month, cross-country expedition, which left Philadelphia in June 1913. Dixon sought to “obtain a pledge of allegiance to the government from all the North American Indian tribes,” The New York Times reported at the conclusion of the journey, in December 1913. Dixon had traveled 25,000 miles and visited 189 tribes in an expedition he said “had planted new ideals in the lives of the Indians, and would give great impetus to education, industry, and Christianity among them.” The expedition came amid promises of a national American Indian memorial to be built on Staten Island, overlooking the main entrance into New York Harbor. The memorial was Wanamaker’s brainchild, and designs called for a statue of an Indian standing atop a pyramid, along with a complex of museums, galleries, and libraries below. “Wanamaker and others of his time were interested in preserving the memory of the Indians,” said Andrew Phillips, curator for the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, Virginia. “He viewed them as this soon-to-be-lost race.” Congress set aside federal land for the memorial and President William Taft broke ground less than two weeks before leaving office, in a massive ceremony attended by at least 30 Indian chiefs. Ten months later, Dixon returned from his expedition and promised the memorial would be built “to perpetuate for future generations a record of the history and superstitions of that great race, their mentality and strength of character.” But Wanamaker failed to fund the project and it never came to fruition. Wilson, meanwhile, was occupied with World War I and didn’t follow through with the memorial. Wilson served two terms, from 1913 to 1921, during which he continued to open “unallotted, unreserved” or “undisposed” Indian land to white settlers—authority given to him under the Dawes Act of 1887. Like his predecessors, he also used his executive authority to create new Indian reservations or modify boundaries of existing ones. In April 1917, just one month after beginning his second term, Wilson declared war on Germany, leading the United States into World War I. Although they were exempt from being drafted, an estimated 10,000 American Indians—or about 25 percent of the total Native population—enlisted in the military and served during the war.

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World War I officially ended in June 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles. Shortly afterward, Wilson embarked on a public speaking tour to promote the treaty (which Congress never ratified) and U.S. participation in the new League of Nations—efforts that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. Near the end of his tour, in September 1919, Wilson suffered a massive stroke, leaving him ill and paralyzed for his final 17 months in office. Two months later, in November 1919, Congress rewarded Indian veterans with U.S. citizenship. The law, known as An Act Granting Citizenship to Certain Indians, extended “full citizenship” to Indians who served during the war, granted they received honorable discharges and could produce proper identification. Wilson, then an invalid, did not sign the act, but it became law without his approval. If failure marked the end of the Wilson presidency, we should not forget how much success there was: major domestic reforms, victory in war, an idealistic (if unsuccessful) hope for the future. “Whatever his failings,” writes historian John Morton Blum, “he phrased and symbolized some of the best hopes of liberalism and its possibilities for the country and the world.”12 Wilson played the part of president as prime minister, leading party, public, and legislature. He expanded and strengthened the presidency. He demonstrated that the presidency could truly be a place of moral leadership.

Warren Gamaliel Harding Warren G. Harding13 promised a “Return to Normalcy.” At 6 feet tall, handsome, and charming, Harding was passive and uninterested in the details of government. His nomination was so much of a surprise that The New York Times called Harding’s Senate record “faint and colorless.” The Times added, “We must go back to Franklin Pierce if we would seek a President who measures down to his political stature.” Harding was the first president to broadcast a speech over radio (dedicating the Francis Scott Key Memorial at Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 14, 1922) and the first to win an election in which women voted. His inauguration was the first ever described over radio. He is considered by many historians as the worst president in history. A poor manager and disinterested president, Harding saw his role as primarily ceremonial. He did not attempt actively to lead Congress. This allowed Congress, determined to reassert its authority after TR

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and Wilson, to take command during the Harding years. Harding once admitted, “I am a man of limited talents from a small town. I don’t seem to grasp that I am President.” He once confessed to his secretary, “Jud, you have a college education, haven’t you? I don’t know what to do or where to turn … Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it … But I don’t know where that book is, and maybe I couldn’t read it if I found it! … My God, but this is a hell of a place for a man like me to be in!” Harding preferred gambling to politics and policy. He had a weakness for women and had several long- and short-term “relationships.” His father once said of him, “If you were a girl, Warren, you’d be in the family way all the time. You can’t say ‘No.’” During the Harding years, American participation in the League of Nations died when the president announced he would not support U.S. membership in the League. Under Harding, the 1921 Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armament limited the spread of the arms race. The Bureau of the Budget was created in 1921, and the president was required to submit a federal budget proposal to Congress. The most noteworthy and notorious event of the Harding years centered around corruption. The Harding scandals ran deep. Harding himself was never implicated in these scandals, but he was guilty of lax management. Harding appointed friends and cronies, and he did not properly supervise them. Among the numerous scandals that plagued the Harding administration, the biggest was Teapot Dome. Harding’s secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall, was convicted of accepting a $100,000 bribe for granting oil leases under value to some “friends.” He was the first cabinet member ever convicted of a crime while in office. Fraud in the Veterans Bureau, graft in the Office of Alien Property Custodian, criminal conspiracy in the Justice Department (which was known as the “Department of Easy Virtue”), suicides, and a slew of other crimes and scandals haunted the administration. Harding’s “friends” from the Ohio Gang used a weak and indifferent president to feather their financial nests. And the president remained blissfully unaware and pleasantly disinterested. After being victimized by so many of his underlings, an exasperated Harding opined: “My God, this is a hell of a job! I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my god-damn friends They’re the

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ones that keep me walking the floor nights!” He finally admitted, “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.” Warren Harding: Wanted Assimilation by Way of Citizenship Less than three months before Warren Gamaliel Harding was elected 29th president of the United States, he stood on his front porch in Marion, Ohio, and promised Indians he would look out for their indigenous rights. Harding, then a U.S. senator, announced his bid for president in June 1920 and subsequently gave hundreds of official and off-the-cuff speeches to audiences numbering in the tens of thousands—all from the comfort of his front porch. This “front porch campaign” reached a total of 600,000 visitors who traveled to Harding’s crushed-gravel lawn “by car or chartered trains, representing Republican state delegations or farmers or veterans or businessmen or blacks or women or first voters, or, even, traveling salesmen,” David Pietrusza wrote. “Each contingent, properly escorted by a brass band, would march up ‘Victory Way,’ festooned every twenty feet by white columns surmounted by gilt eagles.”14 On August 19, Harding met on that porch with about 20 delegates of the Society of American Indians who, “arrayed in tribal feathers and beadwork,” attended the speech to plead “for extension of their racial rights,” the Lancaster Eagle reported. Harding, who would inherit a country still recovering from World War I, replied that the United States “might do well to bestow ‘democracy and humanity and idealism’ on the continent’s native race rather than to ‘waste American lives trying to make sure of that bestowal thousands of miles across the sea.’” Yet Harding, whose presidency was rocked by political corruption and personal scandal, ultimately did little to advance the rights of Native Americans. His predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, granted citizenship to the 10,000 Indians who served in World War I, and though Harding advocated for citizenship rights for all Indians, his primary goal was assimilation. “During this whole time period, the push was for assimilation of the Indians,” said Sherry Hall, manager of the Harding Home Presidential Site. “Harding was no different in that respect. He pushed for citizenship, but as a way of assimilation. He believed that it made sense to honor the Natives with citizenship as a way to improve their condition.”

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Born in Ohio in 1865, Harding’s earliest aspiration was to own and edit his hometown newspaper—a goal he met by age 19. He entered politics when he was elected as Ohio state senator in 1899. Harding served as lieutenant governor of Ohio and as a U.S. senator before running for president in 1920. A member of the Republican Party, he served only 29 months in office, dying in August 1923. Harding took office as the nation was still recuperating from the First World War and in the face of drastic social changes. He spoke in favor of the suffragette movement and won the first election in which women were allowed to vote. Eight months after taking office, Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, a monument for service members who died without their remains being identified. Crow Chief Plenty Coos (or Plenty Coups) was invited to participate in the ceremony and, “attired in full war regalia, feathered bonnet, furs, and skins of variegated colors,” was seated on the platform with Harding and military leaders from Europe, the Associated Press reported on November 14, 1921. “Thus, the uniform of the first American took its place with those of its Allied Powers in the last war,” the AP reported. “A group of Indian braves appeared in the audience, tiptoeing in their beaded moccasins down the aisle to their seats.” After the burial ceremony, Plenty Coos laid a coup stick and the war bonnet from his head on the tomb. Although organizers had insisted that Plenty Coos remain silent during the ceremony, the chief addressed a crowd of about 100,000 spectators in his Native language. “I am glad to represent all the Indians of the United States in placing on the grave of this noble warrior this coup stick and war bonnet, every eagle feather of which represents a deed of valor by my race,” he said. “I hope that the Great Spirit will grant that these noble warriors have not given up their lives in vain and that there will be peace to all men hereafter.”15 The decision to invite Indians to participate in the dedication signaled a shift in the way the country viewed its indigenous population, Hall said. Although stereotypes persisted in films, carnivals and Wild West shows, leaders were beginning to take Indians seriously. “We still had the stereotypical views of the Natives as curiosities, but with this dedication, they were given more of a public platform,” Hall

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said. “The fact that they were asked to participate in this ceremony was a big step.” As president, Harding also entertained “educated” Indians at the White House, including a 1921 visit from Zitkala-Sa, a Yankton-Nakota woman educated at White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, and a 1922 visit from Jim Thorpe, the Sac and Fox athlete who attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. In June 1923, Harding embarked on a six-week, fact-finding journey he called the “Voyage of Understanding,” during which he visited the West Coast and became the first sitting president to visit Alaska. While there, he met with Alaska Natives, accepted gifts, and pledged to help conserve natural resources. “He wanted to see for himself what was going on,” Hall said of Harding. “He wanted to listen and observe. He wanted people to live there, he envisioned statehood for Alaska, but he also heard loud and clear what the Natives were saying.” On a trip to the West, Harding contracted several “unspecified” illnesses. He died in August of 1923. After his death, his wife, Florence Harding, refused to permit an autopsy (fueling endless speculation of foul play). After Harding’s death, investigations into administrative corruption revealed a dark underbelly to the Harding team. Three high officials went to jail. One of the president’s friends committed suicide, and a series of crimes was revealed. Until the Nixon years, the Harding administration was considered the most corrupt in U.S. history.

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge,16 thin and standing 5’9”, known as “Silent Cal” due to his quiet, taciturn manner, was probably America’s first “feel good” president. “Keep Cool with Coolidge” was his motto, and Coolidge kept cool by sleeping more than any other president in U.S. history. He seemed convinced that the less a president did, the better. Coolidge was a man of few words. George Creel said he was “distinguishable from the furniture only when he moved.” In a way, Coolidge fit the mood of the times. “I think the American public wants a solemn ass as a president. And I think I’ll go along with them,” he once said. And humorist Will Rogers said, “He didn’t do nothing, but that’s what we wanted done.”

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Coolidge was strait-laced and a man of unbending grayness. TR’s daughter, Alice, said Coolidge “looked like he had been weaned on a pickle.” In 1921, automobile registration in the U.S. was at 9.3 million. By 1929, that number soared to 26.7 million. The telephone was revolutionizing communication. Radio was introduced. And moving pictures became a popular pastime. In 1922, 40 million movie tickets were sold per week. By 1929, the number climbed to 100 million. And in 1920, women won the right to vote. Coolidge rejected the activist view of the presidency and was deferential to congressional leadership. One of his few strongly held beliefs was that “the business of the American people is business,” and Coolidge vowed nonintervention in the affairs of business. This gave the commercial interests in America a free hand to pursue their goals unencumbered by government supervision. Coolidge was president in the midst of the “Roaring Twenties.” Prohibition was in force, “The Jazz Singer” was released, Sacco and Vanzetti were executive, Babe Ruth went on his home run binge, Al Capone and Mickey Mouse captured the popular imagination, Charles Lindbergh flew the first solo flight across the Atlantic, and an economic boom swept the land. It was a time of individualism and materialistic extravagance. Silent Cal let Congress do the talking. Other than proposing tax reductions, Coolidge had virtually no legislative agenda. During the Coolidge years, the Harding scandals were exposed, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924 (which limited the number of Italians and Jews who could enter the country, raised quotas for northern Europeans, and excluded Japanese; “America must be kept American,” Coolidge said), the Revenue Acts of 1924 and 1926 (tax cuts) were enacted, the Veteran’s Bonus Act of 1924 was passed (over Coolidge’s veto), the McNary-Haugen Bill of 1927 was passed (over Coolidge’s two vetoes), and in Myers v. United States (1926) the Supreme Court gave constitutional sanction to a broad interpretation of the president’s removal power. In foreign affairs, the Pact of Paris (the Kellogg-Briand Pact) of 1928 was approved. Coolidge’s reluctance to regulate business in spite of some early warning signs helped lead to the Great Depression, which hit six months after he left office. Coolidge, committed to a laissez faire approach, decided to leave business alone. He ignored the mounting economic troubles that would soon plunge the nation into a deep depression.

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Calvin Coolidge: First Sitting President Adopted by Tribe, Starts Desecration of Mount Rushmore With a sweep of his pen in June 1924, John Calvin Coolidge granted automatic citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. In signing the Indian citizenship act in 1924, President Coolidge paved the way for automatic citizenship for “all noncitizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States.” Added to that significant step, Coolidge also ordered an in-depth government investigation into the quality of life on Indian reservations. Afterward, Coolidge, wearing a dark suit and grasping a hat in his hands, posed for a photo outside the White House with four tribal leaders—three of whom were dressed in traditional attire. Although the photograph likely was taken several months after Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, it came to symbolize a new era in federal Indian relations. “This act acknowledged what the Constitution already said,” said Rushad Thomas, program and editorial associate at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. “Anyone born on American soil gets citizenship. This enfranchised Native Americans, giving them voting rights and all other rights and privileges of citizenship.” Also known as the Snyder Act, the Indian Citizenship Act sought to reward Indians for service to their country while also assimilating them into mainstream American society. Because two-thirds of the indigenous population had already gained citizenship through marriage, military service or land allotments, the act simply extended citizenship to “all noncitizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States.” Passage of the act came partly in response to Indians’ overwhelming service during World War I. About 10,000 Indians enlisted in the military and served during the war, despite not being recognized as U.S. citizens. Congress in 1919 extended citizenship to Indian veterans. Four and half years later, the government recognized all Indians as citizens— 50 years after the 14th amendment had already granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Prior to 1924, any other person residing in the United States who was not considered a citizen could apply and take the oath without much trouble. That did not apply to Native Americans. The Indian Citizenship Act was different from previous legislation in that it conferred citizenship without mandating any prerequisites.

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The act also guaranteed to Indians other civil rights already enjoyed by other minorities, including the right to vote as spelled out in the 15th amendment, which declares that the vote shall not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Yet the act’s diction proved ambiguous, sparking questions about sovereignty and dual citizenship. It states that the granting of citizenship “shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property,” language that failed to address how Indians would operate as citizens of both the United States and their respective tribes. Further, state laws governed voting rights, and for decades after Coolidge signed the federal act, states refused to comply with it, routinely denying Indians the vote. Arizona and New Mexico—two states with large Native American populations—failed to recognize the right to vote until 1948. Although the Indian Citizenship Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation for Natives, it received very little publicity at the time—and Coolidge himself failed even to mention it in his autobiography. During the summer of 1927, Coolidge became the first sitting president to be adopted by an Indian tribe when he and his wife, Grace, vacationed for three months in South Dakota. When the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe learned the President would be in the area, Chief Chauncey Yellow Robe suggested he be adopted, urging his people to extend “a united welcome and genuine western hospitality.” Afterward, Coolidge posed with the Sioux for a photo, in which he is wearing a feathered headdress. Coolidge’s stay in South Dakota also coincided with the opening of work at Mount Rushmore. In August 1927, Coolidge dedicated the cornerstone of a monument that would boast 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four presidents, and claimed its location was significant. “Here in the heart of the continent, on the side of a mountain which probably no white man had ever beheld in the days of Washington, in territory which was acquired by the action of Jefferson, which remained an unbroken wilderness beyond the days of Lincoln, which was especially beloved by Roosevelt, the people of the future will see history and art combined to portray the spirit of patriotism,” he said. When Coolidge took office in 1923, he inherited the Advisory Council on Indian Affairs, already tasked with examining federal programs dealing with Indians. The council, also known as the Committee of One

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Hundred, met briefly in December 1923 and recommended an in-depth investigation into life on Indian reservations. Commissioned by the Interior Department, funded by John D. Rockefeller, and headed by social scientist Lewis Meriam, the investigation spanned eight months and included visits to more than 90 reservations. The final report, “The Problem of Indian Administration” (the Meriam Report), was published in February 1928 and described the “deplorable conditions” on reservations. “An overwhelming majority of the Indians are poor – even extremely poor,” the report states. “They are not adjusted to the economic and social system of the dominant white civilization.” The report goes on to detail alarming disease and mortality rates, crowded schools, and stark poverty. Nearly half of all Indians survived on a per capita income between $100 and $200 per year, the report found. The national average was $1300. The report also concluded that the government’s widespread assimilation policies, including the allotment program, were failures and had, in fact, caused many of the existing problems. Researchers ultimately recommended that Indians be “fitted to live within the dominant society without being obliterated by it.” In his final message to Congress, ten months after Meriam Report was published, Coolidge pointed to the “intensive study” of Indian Affairs and praised the Interior Department for increasing services. “The government’s responsibility to the American Indian has been acknowledged by several annual increases in appropriations to fulfill its obligations to them and hasten the time when federal supervision of their affairs may be properly and safely terminated,” he said. “A complete participation by the Indian in our economic life is the end to be desired.” Coolidge built up a meager record as president. He probably wanted it that way. He shrunk the presidency and left several key problems unaddressed. His failure to supply leadership, to recognize and even anticipate problems, contributed to the Great Depression. “Silent Cal” died of a heart attack on January 5, 1993. On hearing the news of Coolidge’s death, writer Dorothy Parker asked, “How can they tell?”

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Herbert Hoover The “Great Engineer,”17 as Hoover was called, brought to the presidency a reputation for skill, accomplishment, and public service that was truly impressive. He was food administrator during Wilson’s presidency, secretary of commerce under Harding and Coolidge, an able administrator, and a man of integrity. Few presidents stood so high in public esteem as they entered office. Yet this same man who had accomplished so much, and from whom so much was expected would, four years later, leave office amid scorn and abuse. This dramatic reversal is due to one thing: The Great Depression of 1929. In October 1929, the stock market plunged. From a high of 469, it sunk to 85 by 1932. Unemployment soared. Some estimates put the unemployment rate at 35 percent. Businesses failed, banks closed, the poor took to the streets and to the roads. Hoover at first responded with pep talks designed to instill confidence in the midst of chaos. “Prosperity is just around the corner,” he would say. When that failed, he turned to intervention in the economy, launching public works programs, tax reductions, and the establishment of a Reconstruction Finance Corporation. These small steps also failed. Herbert Hoover: Only U.S. President to Have Lived on Indian Reservation Fifty years before he took office, Hoover spent eight months living on the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, where he “learned much aboriginal lore of the woods and streams, and how to make bows and arrows.” Hoover, who was six years old at the time, lived with an uncle who was an Indian agent. He attended “Indian Sunday-school” and “had constant association with the little Indians at the agency school,” he wrote in his memoirs. Born to a Quaker family in Iowa in 1874, Hoover also had relatives who worked as Indian agents in Oregon and Alaska. He is the only U.S. president to have lived on an Indian reservation. “Hoover had an empathy for the Indians,” said Matt Schaefer, an archivist at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. “He had all these touch points with Indians as a child and young adult that led to this more enlightened Indian policy.”

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President Hoover chose as his running mate Senate Majority leader Charles Curtis of Kansas. Curtis was a member of the Kaw Nation and served as vice president from 1929–1933. A member of the Republican Party, Hoover served one term in office, from 1929 to 1933. Although he contended with the Great Depression, Hoover’s presidency is often seen as a transitional period in Indian policy, bridging the gap between the assimilation era and a new era of Indian self-determination. “With Hoover, we begin to see a pivot away from segregating Indians on reservations and incorporating them as part of American citizenry,” Schaefer said. “He had a philosophical goal of integrating Indians into society through education and improved access to healthcare.” Hoover appointed Charles Rhoads, a fellow Quaker and president of the Indian Rights Association, as commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the two helped define federal Indian policies that would span the next four decades. Their plan sought to “make the Indians self-supporting and selfrespecting,” Hoover wrote in his memoirs. It also promised to lighten the burden of Indian management. “A certain amount of the time of every President every week, from George Washington down, has had to be devoted to Indian Affairs,” he wrote. “Certainly, our 400,000 Indians consume more official attention than any twenty cities of 400,000 white people.” Hoover and Curtis, recognized as the first persons with non-European ancestry to reach either of the nation’s top executive offices, took office promising to support reforms detailed in the 1928 Meriam Report, a comprehensive study that found life on Indian reservations to be “deplorable” and encouraged Congress to allocate funding to Native communities, reform Indian policy, and reorganize the Office of Indian Affairs. Hoover criticized assimilation policies that were based on the government’s “fervid anxiety” for the Indians’ “moral and spiritual welfare.” These policies aimed to civilize Indians “whether they liked it or not,” he wrote in his memoirs. For generations, Indian policy had varied between two extremes: “from a yearning at one pole to perpetuate the tribal organization and customs to a desire at the other pole to make industrious citizens of them and thus fuse them with the general population,” Hoover wrote. Meanwhile, Indian communities were “infested with human lice in the shape of white

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men” who illegally sold liquor or married Indian women to gain control of land and oil rights. Hoover also decried the loss of Native land through the allotment policy—90 million acres since the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887— and supported legislation that affirmed treaty rights and protected tribes from further exploitation. In February 1931, Hoover vetoed legislation that called for “fair and just compensation” for lands ceded in the late nineteenth century to the United States by the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cheyenne, and Arapaho nations. In his veto message, Hoover argued that “the value of such lands ha(d) obviously increased during the last 150 years” and that the government could not “undertake revision of treaties,” especially in light of subsequent events. The following year, Congress passed the Leavitt Act, which canceled all outstanding debts “in such a way as shall be equitable and just in consideration of all the circumstances under which such charges were made.” The act relieved Indians of federal debts totaling millions of dollars. Yet Hoover still sought for assimilation, Schaefer said. He saw Indians not as wards of the government but as potential citizens who, if properly prepared to function in mainstream society, might abandon their tribal communities. “He spent money to build schools and hospitals on reservations at a time when federal spending was down,” Schaefer said. “His remedy for decades of failed Indian policy was to find ways to assimilate the younger generation.” In a January 1930 statement on Indian Affairs, Hoover called for an increase of $3 million for better reservation schools and hospitals. The existing budget allotted only 20 cents per Indian child per day for food and clothing. Hoover asked Congress to double the allocation so Indian children could be “maintained in reasonable health.” His request came even as America wrangled with the worst economic crisis in its history. “The broad problem is to better train the Indian youth to take care of themselves and their property,” Hoover said. “It is the only course by which we can ultimately discharge this problem from the Nation and blend them as a self-supporting people into the Nation as a whole.” Hoover was a talented, sincere man, overcome by events. He was the victim, not master of these events. In the face of Indian affairs, Hoover

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took clear actions. In the face of the Great Depression, however, Hoover sometimes seemed lost. “This office is a compound hell,” he said toward the end of his presidency.

Notes 1. Grandin, Greg. The End of Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, Metropolitan Books, 2019. 2. Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History, Penguin 1920. Original essay, 1893, p. 293. 3. Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Significance of the Frontier in American History, Penguin Great Ideas, 2014. 4. Grandin, pp. 117–118. 5. Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of William McKinley, Regents Press of Kansas, 1980; and Morgan, H. Wayne. William McKinley and His America, Syracuse University Press, 1963. 6. H.W. Brands, T.R.: The Last Romantic, Basic Books, 1997; Miller, Matthew. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life, Quill, 1992; and Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, University Press of Kansas, 1991. 7. Miroff, Bruce. Icons of Democracy, University Press of Kansas, 2000, p. 161. 8. Moss, Walter G. “Which Presidents—If Any—Did Right by Native Americans?” History News Network, October 7, 2018, pp. 3–4. 9. Roosevelt, Theodore. The Winning of the West: From the Alleghenies to the Mississippi, Skyhouse, 2015. Quoted in Grandin, pp. 120–121. 10. Coletta, Paolo E. The Presidency of William Howard Taft, University Press of Kansas, 1988. 11. Baker, Ray Stannard. Woodrow Wilson, Heinemain, 1932; Walworth, Arthur. Woodrow Wilson, Norton, 1978; Clements, Kendrick A. The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, University Press of Kansas, 1992; and Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson, Collier, 1991. 12. Blum, John Morton. The Progressive Presidents, Norton, 1980, p. 61. 13. Trani, Eugene P. and Wilson, David L. The Presidency of Warren G. Harding, University Press of Kansas, 1977; and Murray, Robert K. The Harding Era, University of Minnesota Press, 1969. 14. Pietrusza, David. 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents, Basic Books, 2008. 15. Viola, Herman J. Warriors in Uniform: The Legacy of American Indian Heroism, National Geographic Books, 2008. 16. Fuess, Claude M. Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont, Little, Brown, 1940; and McCoy, Donald R. Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President, University Press of Kansas, 1988.

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17. Burner, David. Herbert Hoover: A Public Life, Knopf, 1979; Fausold, Martin L. The Presidency of Herbert C Hoover, University Press of Kansas, 1985; Hoff-Wilson, Joan. Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive, Little, Brown, 1975; Nash, George H. The Life of Herbert Hoover, 2 vols., Norton, 1983, 1988; and Schwarz, Jordan. The Interregnum of Despair: Hoover, Congress, and the Depression, University of Illinois Press, 1970.

CHAPTER 7

The Rise of the Global Superpower: FDR to Kennedy

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Considered one of the three greatest presidents in history, Franklin D. Roosevelt1 (FDR) brought the nation through two crises: a depression and a world war, and he transformed the nation and the presidency in the process. FDR is credited with creating the “modern president.” Roosevelt transformed the presidency from a rather small, personalized office, into a massive institution. (In 1931, there were 600,000 federal employees; by 1941, that number topped 1.4 million.) Facing the crises of the Depression and World War II, FDR contributed to the creation of both the welfare state and the warfare state. When Roosevelt died during his fourth term, he left America a vastly different nation than when he took office in 1933. Roosevelt was tall (6’1”), handsome, had riveting blue eyes, and came from an aristocratic background. With his privileged upbringing came training in duty to community and a sense of noblesse oblige. In the midst of a promising political career, Roosevelt contracted polio (1921) and lost the use of both legs. His political career seemed over, but FDR refused to give in. Rather than defeating him, his illness transformed him. His polio was a defining event in his life. Going through a long, difficult

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rehabilitation, he also went through a deeply personal journey of introspection and reinvention. His depth of character was forged in personal crisis. It transformed him from a wealthy politician with a large ego and grand ambitions to a man of substance and character. Frances Perkins, FDR’s secretary of labor, believed that in facing illness, Roosevelt went through a “spiritual transformation,” which helped him understand “the problem of people in trouble.” Roosevelt had a radiant, buoyant personality. Charming, witty, optimistic, and enthusiastic, FDR loved life and loved the give-and-take of politics. His jaunty smile, soothing voice, and confident manner inspired hope and trust. Winston Churchill said that meeting Roosevelt was like opening a bottle of champagne. But he was no angel. He could be duplicitous and manipulative. But he was also open, flexible, and willing to experiment. FDR was less a thinker than a doer, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said he was “a second-class intellect – but a first-class temperament.” And that is one of the keys to Roosevelt’s success. FDR loved politics, and he exuded confidence and optimism. FDR was a leader. He became the model of the modern president. All successors have been compared (unfavorably) to him. He cast, as historian William Luchtenberg noted, “a giant shadow.” FDR is perhaps best known for his New Deal, a combination of legislation, executive orders, and presidential proclamation that dealt with banking reform, social security, public relief, public works projects, and a slew of other programs. Designed to put people back to work, to renew hope, and to prime the economic pump, this hodgepodge of programs was more the result of trial and error than any clear economic philosophy. While the New Deal did not end the Depression, it did renew hope for most and give jobs to some. If an economic depression were not enough, World War II was looming in Europe. Roosevelt saw the war in Europe coming, but the U.S. was self-absorbed and isolationist, with no interest in the problems abroad. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. On December 8, Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. Three days later, war was declared on Germany and Italy.

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If the presidency emerged from the depression stronger and more central to American politics, the second world war placed Roosevelt and the presidency at the pinnacle of power. Based upon Executive Order 9066, over 112,000 Japanese Americans (more than 80,000 of whom were American citizens) were evacuated from their homes and herded into what were called “relocation centers” situated in the western states. “The War” allowed the government to ignore the guarantees within the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and to place American citizens in these detention centers. During the war, Roosevelt masterfully led the Allies to victory over the Axis powers. Exercising expansive executive authority, Roosevelt’s war leadership further contributed to the developing “president-centric” trend of the government. The dual emergencies of the depression and world war not only placed the presidency at center stage, but Roosevelt was so adept at the uses of power that a heroic presidency image came to dominate the public imagination. From that point on, the public looked to the president for leadership. The “Clerk” president of the Adams, Madison, and Monroe eras was not the leader of the nation. A “Superman” image grew around the presidency. FDR was the model, and all subsequent presidents were expected to live up to his elevated status. The U.S. had become a “presidential republic.”2 The president was not only leader-in-chief; he was also a national shaman. Through the use of words and symbols, the president was expected to provide meaning, articulate a vision, and define reality for the public. The rhetorical presidency emerged as central to the American system. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A New Deal for Indians When FDR took office in 1933, as many as 2 million sheep grazed on the Navajo Nation. That was in addition to hundreds of thousands of goats, cattle, and horses that foraged on the 27,000-square-mile reservation spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The Navajo population itself had quintupled since 1870 and, at the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, about 39,000 Navajos lived on the sprawling reservation, embracing a life of pastoralism and moving livestock from winter homes to summer pastures.

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But the Navajo, who were almost entirely dependent on income from sheep and wool, were hit hard by the worst economic disaster in American history. The livestock population skyrocketed while revenues plummeted, and the Navajo Agency reported in 1933 that income had “greatly reduced to the vanishing point.”3 The land was also showing signs of overgrazing and environmental distress, and its deepening gullies and parched vegetation caught the attention of the federal government. Four months after Roosevelt took office, his newly appointed commissioner of Indian Affairs, John Collier, toured the Navajo Nation and proposed an aggressive and often coercive livestock reduction program. Ignoring cultural ties to land and livestock, government agents purchased and removed half of the livestock, sometimes shooting thousands of animals in place and leaving them to rot. The program, which continued through the mid-1940s, was designed to preserve the land and save the Navajo from a wastage of resources that was moving ahead at an “accelerating, catastrophic speed.” The Navajo people launched a resistance that was “sometimes sad, sometimes angry and wild.” During the decade it was in effect, the livestock reduction program devastated the Navajo economy, stripped the tribe of its financial independence, and subjected the Navajo people to spiritual and cultural genocide. The program was part of the Wheeler-Howard Act or the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, a sweeping legislation that proposed comprehensive restructuring of Indian policies while addressing poverty and substandard education on Indian reservations. Also known as the Indian New Deal, the act granted more cultural autonomy and economic rights to tribes, and “helped to modernize reservations and restore some disputed land.” It further established the Indian Division of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which “employed seventy-seven thousand Native Americans…” bringing to reservations “additional homes, schoolhouses, sewage treatment facilities, telephone lines, reservoirs, firebreaks, and truck trails.”4 The act abolished the Dawes Act of 1887—which had contributed to the loss of two-thirds of all Indian land—and promised better Indian education. It also granted the Interior secretary authority to make rules restricting the number of livestock grazing on Indian land and any other regulations “necessary to protect the range from deterioration, to prevent soil erosion, to assure full utilization of the range, and like purposes.”

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Roosevelt encouraged Congress to approve the act, which he believed provided long overdue justice to Indians and signaled a positive change in federal–Indian relations. “Indians throughout the country have been stirred to a new hope,” he wrote in a letter to Congress. “They say they stand at the end of the old trail. Certainly, the figures of impoverishment and disease point to their impending extinction, as a race, unless basic changes in their conditions of life are affected. I do not think such changes can be devised and carried out without the active cooperation of the Indians themselves.” Roosevelt signed the act on June 18, 1934, and 174 Native communities organized their own governments. Seventy-eight tribes, including the Navajo, rejected organization, likely suspicious of American-style constitutions and policies. While the “Indian New Deal” provided relief to some tribes, it devastated others, said Larry Hauptman, emeritus professor of history at the State University of New York. Policies introduced by the New Deal continued to influence federal–Indian relations for several decades. “This one-model, cookie-cutter Indian policy didn’t allow for diversity in the Indian world,” Hauptman said. “For some tribes, the IRA provided money and benefits. To others, it increased bureaucracy and government control. On the one hand, it was very innovative, and it did help in a lot of places. On the other hand, it led Congress to believe that it had the authority, ten years later, to terminate treaties because the Indians were freed under the New Deal.” Historian Douglas Brinkley concluded that “no other president had ever helped Native Americans prosper with the heartfelt conviction of FDR. The New Deal encouraged Indian self-rule, the restoration of tribal government, and the resuscitation of Native culture and religion.”5 Yet by the beginning of World War II in 1939, Congress was already slashing funds from the Indian New Deal, and in 1941, the Office of Indian Affairs relocated to Chicago. Although the legislation remains Roosevelt’s most important contribution to Indian policy, much of its programs were dwarfed by war efforts and reversed by the early 1950s. After Roosevelt, the minimalist state and the minimalist presidency were no longer possible. He utterly transformed America. Serving as president during two of the most difficult periods of American history, facing two major crises, Roosevelt redefined both the role of the federal government and the job of the president. He was the architect of a New Deal coalition—a resilient and long-term political realignment—that made the

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Democrats the nation’s majority party, which dominated the political landscape for half a century. Roosevelt served longer than any other president. He appointed the first woman to the cabinet (Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor), officially recognized the U.S.S.R., broke the “no third term” taboo, fought through the depression, led the nation through World War II, supervised the building of the atomic bomb, and established the presidency as the center of political action. The Roosevelt years mark the high point of executive authority in America. “The essence of Roosevelt’s Presidency,” wrote political scientist Clinton Rossiter, “was his airy eagerness to meet the age head on.” This helped give a frightened and defeated nation the hope necessary to go on. As Roosevelt himself said: The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That is the least of it. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All of our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified. Washington personifies the idea of Federal Union, Jefferson practically originated the party system as we now know it by opposing the democratic theory to the republicanism of Hamilton. This theory was reaffirmed by Jackson. Two great principles of our government were forever put beyond question by Lincoln. Cleveland, coming into office following an era of great political corruption, typified rugged honesty. Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson were both moral leaders, each in his own way and for his own time, who used the Presidency as a pulpit. That is what the office is – a superb opportunity for reapplying, applying to new conditions, the simple rules of human conduct to which we always go back. Without leadership alert and sensitive to change, we… lose our way.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt enlarged the presidency and expanded the scope of government. He was an event-making president.

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Harry S. Truman Harry Truman6 inherited the presidency toward the end of World War II. If the end was in sight, the war was far from over. Important decisions about the conduct of the war had yet to be made. And once the war ended, the U.S. was thrust into a position of global leadership and had to respond to the growing conflict with the Soviet Union. Barely 5’10” and nearsighted, Truman spoke in rough, direct language. He had a common touch and a simple way about him. He had served just 82 days as vice president when Roosevelt died. And yet this unassuming man would make some of the most momentous decisions in history. If FDR refashioned the presidency, Truman gave focus and direction to the post-war era. Few presidents had a greater impact on world history than Truman. His new responsibilities were awesome. Not only was he expected to bring a successful conclusion to the war, but he also had to decide what to do with “the bomb,” how to guide the nation to demobilization, how to deal with the post-war fallout in Europe and create a new post-war world, how to respond to a new antagonist, and how to fill FDR’s shoes. When Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, it became clear that the Soviet Union intended to continue to occupy Eastern Europe and maintain control of the eastern portion of Germany. In July 1945, Truman met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference to discuss this and other issues, but there was no resolution. During the meeting, Truman gave the go-ahead to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and, if necessary, Nagasaki, to hasten Japanese surrender. The bombings, on August 6 and August 9, killed more than 120,000 people and forced the Japanese into unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945. As the problems of the world war ended, the problems of the Cold War began. Stalin quickly imposed communist governments in Eastern Europe. Several Western European nations appeared on the verge of collapse. In an effort to bolster noncommunist governments, in March 1947, Truman promised support for any nation struggling against communist takeover. The Truman Doctrine, as it was called, initially involved emergency aid to Greece and Turkey. The Marshall Plan followed, an ambitious effort to rebuild Western Europe. Then the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was born, a U.S.–Western European security pact. This was the beginning of a “containment” policy designed to contain the spread of

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Soviet influence around the globe. This containment policy was followed, more or less, by every president until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. It was this program, established by Truman, that ended up winning the Cold War. Out of the Cold War, a national security state was established. The National Security Act of 1947 reorganized the military under the control of the secretary of defense and created the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. Truman was the first modern president to attempt civil rights reforms. In 1948, he issued an executive order ending racial discrimination in federal government employment. Further, he created the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, established a civil rights division in the Department of Justice, ordered the secretary of defense to eliminate racial discrimination in the armed services, crafted fair-employment guidelines for the executive branch, and advocated several legislative reforms (which Congress did not pass). There was also a “dark side” to Truman’s usual progressivism. Pushed by the anticommunist hysteria of the times and in an effort to head off criticism, Truman authorized a “loyalty program” in federal employment. Designed to weed out communists from the federal government, this program, along with other reactionary actions of the age, led to significant violations of constitutional rights and liberties. Truman reaffirmed the modern presidency created by FDR. He exercised bold, innovative leadership in tough times. To Truman, the president was the center of the American (and international) universe. A sign on his White House desk read: “The Buck Stops Here.” Harry S. Truman: Beginning of Indian Termination Era One of the most dramatic shifts in federal–Indian relationships occurred under Truman. As President, Truman introduced policies intended to end the federal trust relationship between the Native American nations and the federal government. It was designed to better integrate Native Americans into society, but—while well intentioned—did not have the positive impact Truman desired. When Truman took office in 1945, Indians had unprecedented autonomy under the Indian New Deal. Established more than a decade earlier, the Indian New Deal abolished the allotment program, allowed

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tribal communities to organize their own governments and ushered in an era of hope. Under FDR, Indians enjoyed a 12-year reprieve from aggressive assimilation policies. They had breathing room to regenerate tribal governments and reclaim land. But Truman’s presidency marked the end of this New Deal and the beginning of Indian termination, a series of policies that sought—once again—to assimilate Indians. Billed as vehicles to integrate Indians into the wider nation and protect them from racial discrimination in the post-World War II era, termination policies dismantled trust relationships, relocated Indians to urban centers, and stripped tribes of land and sovereignty. “Truman parted with Roosevelt and with the philosophies of the Indian New Deal,” said Samuel Rushay, supervisory archivist at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. “He adopted the termination policy out of good intentions because he wanted to encourage racial integration.” Truman supported termination because he saw it as a way to protect equal rights and improve Indian lives through full participation as citizens, Rushay said. It also lightened the economic burden Indian services placed on the federal government. “It’s important to remember that Truman tended to conflate Native American rights with the rights of other minorities,” Rushay said. “He saw them as individuals who should have individual rights and freedoms, but he did not take into proper account the importance of tribal culture. He didn’t understand that tribal relationships were an integral part of culture and identity. He didn’t know that by relocating Indians to urban areas he was cutting off their support.” Within the first decade of this era, policies that Truman supported terminated more than 100 tribes, severing their trust relationships with the federal government. Termination defined federal Indian policy for the next 25 years and forever altered the dynamics between tribes and the federal government. Truman’s termination policies called for a claims commission to hear land claims from “any tribe, band or other identifiable group of American Indians.” On August 1946, he signed the Indian Claims Commission Act, establishing a process for resolving long-standing dispute between Indians and the federal government by compensating Indians for lost land.

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At the signing ceremony, Truman promised the measure would affirm Indian property rights in the same manner the federal government protected all citizens. The act, Truman said, removed a “lingering discrimination against our First Americans.” In his statement, Truman denied that the federal government had confiscated Indian lands. Instead, he said, “we have purchased from the tribes that once owned his continent more than 90 percent of our public domain, paying them approximately 800 million dollars in the process.” Truman vowed to correct any mistakes the government had made by allowing “impartial tribunals” to issue judgments. “It would be a miracle if in the course of these dealings – the largest real estate transaction in history – we had not made some mistakes and occasionally failed to live up to the precise terms of our treaties and agreements with some 200 tribes,” he said. “With the final settlement of all outstanding claims which this measure ensures, Indians can take their place without special handicap or special advantage in the economic life of our nation and share fully in its progress.” The act created a three-person commission that defined five categories of claims, including “claims in law or equity arising under the Constitution, laws treaties of the United States, and Executive orders of the President” and “unconscionable consideration,” which awarded money for the government’s taking of land without compensation. Yet the commission had authority only to compensate Indians for past grievances—not to return land. The commission handled more than 600 individual dockets before it was disbanded in 1978. It issued awards totaling about $18 million in efforts to end federal obligations to Indians and resolve, once and for all, every outstanding legal and moral claim Indians had against the United States. In 1947, Truman selected former President Herbert Hoover to head a commission seeking ways to reduce public expenditures. The subsequent Hoover Commission Report found that support for tribal cultures was based on unsound policy and that assimilation remained the best solution to the Indian problem. “The basis for historic Indian culture has been swept away,” the commission wrote. “Traditional tribal organization was smashed a generation ago … Assimilation cannot be prevented. The only questions are: What kind of assimilation and how fast?”

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In 1949, the Office of Indian Affairs changed its name to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the following year Truman appointed Dillon Myer as commissioner. Myer introduced the urban relocation program, encouraging Indians to leave their reservations and seek education or work in cities far from home. Truman’s policies were complicated. While he supported measures that ultimately were detrimental to tribes, he also acted with sympathy toward them. Truman signed legislation calling for the termination of tribes, but he also went out of his way to extend equal rights to Native Americans. In 1949, Truman authorized Operation Snowbound, a large-scale relief effort that delivered food and supplies for people and livestock affected by severe snowstorms in the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska. The Blackfeet people later gifted Truman a war bonnet for his help. In response to a letter from former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman in 1950 signed the Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act, which appropriated $88 million for schools, hospitals, and roads. When Winnebago solider John Raymond Rice was killed in action during the Korean War in 1951, Truman intervened on behalf of Rice’s family and arranged to have him buried in Arlington National Cemetery. But one of Truman’s administrative assistants later criticized Indian policies during the Truman administration. Philleo Nash, who served as commissioner of Indian Affairs under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, did a series of interviews in the late 1960s. “At the end of the Truman administration the Indian people were worse off than they were at the beginning,” he said in a 1967 interview. Truman’s solution to the Indian problem was “to wipe out the reservations and scatter the Indians and then there won’t be Indian tribes, Indian cultures, or Indian individuals.” During Truman’s presidency. Germany and Japan surrendered, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bombs, the post-World War II world of the Cold War and containment were created, Europe was rebuilt, communism was resisted, NATO was created, the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine were implemented, and civil rights became a national issue. But there were also frustrations and mistakes. The Korean War was a stalemate, Truman had rough going with the Republican Congress,

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Joseph McCarthy threatened American liberties, and China fell to the Communists. Truman took America and the West into a new and dangerous age, promoted America’s interests, protected the world’s fragile democracies, held the ambitions of the Soviet Union in check, and pressed for reforms at home. “I must confess,” Winston Churchill told Truman at the end of his presidency, “I held you in very low regard … I loathed you taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt. I misjudged you badly … you more than anyone have saved Western civilization.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower After 20 years of Democrats in control of the White House, the Republicans regained the presidency with the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower.7 Many Republicans believed Ike would reverse both the policies of his predecessors and the president centeredness of politics. Eisenhower was not an activist president in the Rooseveltian sense, and in his eight years as president, he maintained rather than reversed the drive toward presidential government. Thin, 5’10”, partly bald, with an engaging smile and a way of murdering the syntax of a sentence, Ike did a very credible job as president. The nation wanted a calm, apolitical executive, and Ike provided it for them. The era was, as economist John Kenneth Galbraith said unkindly, one of “the bland leading the bland.” A career military man, Eisenhower also knew Washington and how to move in the corridors of power. Eisenhower was personally conservative in his policy views but felt the Republican party had to move to the “middle of the road” to compete effectively with the Democrats. Not consumed with a reformer’s zeal and not driven by an activist agenda, Eisenhower was not to exercise an aggressive form of political leadership. But he also wasn’t about to roll back the New Deal and Fair Deal (much to the chagrin of many of his Republican cohorts). Ike appeared to be nonpolitical, but in reality, he often displayed what political scientist Fred Greenstein referred to as a “hidden-hand” style of leadership.8 Often working behind the scenes, Eisenhower tried to exert soft leadership in nonconscious ways. Sometimes Ike’s hidden-hand leadership was a bit too hidden, as when he failed to confront the irresponsible and bullying tactics of fellow Republican Joseph McCarthy, whose attacks on “communists in the

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government” got progressively more reckless. When McCarthy attacked the patriotism of General George C. Marshall (one of the greatest Americans of the twentieth century), Eisenhower refused to defend his former mentor. Ike did criticize McCarthy “behind the scenes,” but there are times when even a hidden hand must be revealed. Ike’s hidden-hand leadership may have insulated him from public criticism, but it also meant that the president would not exert moral leadership when necessary. On the rising civil rights movement, Eisenhower was reluctant to use the moral authority of the presidency to lead or educate. He did (reluctantly) send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce school desegregation; and he did, again somewhat reluctantly, sign the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, but he never threw the moral weight of the presidency behind this important issue. Eisenhower was generally reluctant to intrude too deeply into the affairs of Congress. He did not see himself as “the” chief legislator. But one area where his leadership of Congress did make a difference was in initiating the building of the Interstate Highway System in 1956. Over forty thousand miles of roads were built as a result of this legislation. Eisenhower’s ambitions were more limited than those of his predecessors. He did not wish to extend, nor did he try to reverse, the New Deal. He succeeded in bringing the isolationist Republicans into a more internationalist perspective, left behind a powerful CIA (and a dangerous temptation to use secret, covert, and sometimes morally repugnant methods), and added to America’s nuclear arsenal. He left a number of key domestic problems, such as civil rights, both unsolved and unattended to. “No president in history,” wrote Clinton Rossiter, “… failed more poignantly to use his power.” Dwight D. Eisenhower: Tried to Knock Out Jim Thorpe, and Assimilate Indians Dwight David Eisenhower was a 22-year-old linebacker for West Point when he skirmished with Jim Thorpe during a 1912 football game against Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, was already famous, having won several Olympic gold medals. The King of Sweden called him the greatest athlete in the world. The November 1912 football game pitted the Army school against American Indians in a competition reminiscent of historic rivalries.

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Eisenhower took the skirmish personally. Ever since he learned that the flagship Indian school’s football team would be playing at West Point, Eisenhower and his teammates made plans to stop Thorpe. “A cadet would become famous, the Army players believed, if he knocked Thorpe out of the game with a hit so powerful it kidnapped Thorpe from consciousness,” Lars Anderson wrote. Eisenhower, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed athlete, had been looking forward to the game for months and “fully expected to be the chosen one – the player who was going to deliver the knockout blow that would send Thorpe out of the game and into a hospital bed.”9 The hit came early in the game. Eisenhower and another linebacker teamed up against Thorpe, throwing themselves as hard as they could at Carlisle’s most valuable player. Thorpe fumbled then writhed on the ground in pain, clutching his shoulder as Eisenhower celebrated. But Thorpe recovered, and in a subsequent play he sidestepped when Eisenhower and a teammate again charged at him. The two linebackers collided violently and were removed from the game. Carlisle won, 27-6. As President of the United States more than four decades later, Eisenhower took a similar stance toward Natives. During his tenure in office, Congress enacted three assimilation programs that dramatically changed the federal government’s relationships with Indians: terminating tribal sovereignty, relocating Indians to urban areas, and transferring federal law enforcement jurisdiction on Indian reservations to the states. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, he inherited a country in the grips of the Cold War and Indian termination policies choreographed by his predecessor, Harry S. Truman. Although Eisenhower did not play a direct role in implementing them, he agreed in principle with the goals of termination, said Aaron Mason, professor of political science at Northern Oklahoma State University. “Eisenhower wasn’t really a hands-on Indian policy guy,” Mason said. “Really, in a low of ways, Truman began the policy of termination and Eisenhower inherited the momentum that was already going.” Six months after Eisenhower took office, Congress enacted House Concurrent Resolution 108, declaring it policy to abolish federal supervision over tribes as soon as possible and to “make the Indians within the territorial limits of the United States subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as are applicable to other citizens.”

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Approved August 1, 1953, the resolution called for an end to Indians’ “status as wards of the United States” and gave rise to the government’s process of termination, or complete assimilation of Natives into mainstream society. Termination called for an end to tribal sovereignty and to reservations, which would be divided into private ownership. It also called for abolishment of all Bureau of Indian Affairs offices and an examination of existing legislation and treaties to determine the most efficient ways to terminate federal responsibility for tribes. Two weeks later, Congress signaled the beginning of termination by enacting House Resolution 1063, which turned criminal and civil jurisdiction of Indians over to the states of California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Voicing “grave doubts as to the wisdom of certain provisions,” Eisenhower asked Congress to amend the measure to require states to consult with tribes and obtain federal approval before taking over jurisdiction. Congress did not respond to his request and in August 1953 Eisenhower signed the resolution, which became Public Law 83–280. In a statement accompanying his signature, Eisenhower said Indians in the five states had “enthusiastically endorsed” the bill as a way to safeguard tribal customs—as long as customs were consistent with general laws of the states. “Its basic purpose represents still another step in granting complete political equality to all Indians in our nation,” he said of the bill. “The Indian tribes regard this as a long step forward in removing them from the status of ‘second class’ citizens.” Three tribes were excluded from the law: The Red Lake Band of Chippewa in Minnesota, the Warm Springs tribe in Oregon and the Menominee tribe in Wisconsin. Ten months later, in June 1954, Eisenhower signed the first termination bill, calling for the Menominee to be removed from federal supervision by December 31, 1958. Eisenhower extended warm commendations to the Menominee who “have already demonstrated that they are able to manage their assets without supervision and take their place on an equal footing with other citizens,” he said. “In a real sense, they have opened up a new era in Indian affairs – an era of growing self-reliance which is the logical culmination and fulfillment of more than a hundred years of activity by the Federal Government among the Indian people.” During the next 20 years, the federal government terminated 109 tribes, despite growing opposition from groups like the National

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Congress of American Indians. In early 1954, the NCAI adopted a Declaration of Indian Rights representing the sincere “Indian feeling” of 183,000 individuals from 43 tribes in 21 states and sent it to Eisenhower, arguing that termination bills pending in Congress constituted a violation of treaty rights. “These proposals, if adopted, will tend to destroy our tribal governments … leave our older people destitute … (and) force our people into a way of life that some of them are not willing or are not ready to adopt,” the declaration states. “If the Federal Government will continue to deal with our tribal officials as it did with our ancestors on a basis of full equality; if it will deal with us as individuals as it does with other Americans, governing only by consent, we will be enabled to take our rightful place in our communities, to discharge our full responsibilities as citizens, and yet remain faithful to the Indian way of life.” This Indian way of life took another hit under Eisenhower’s administration when Congress in 1956 approved Public Law 989. Also known as the Indian Relocation Act or the Adult Vocational Training Program, the law appropriated $3.5 million per year to transport adult Indians to urban centers where they could receive vocational training. In a February 1960 report, the BIA reported that more than 31,000 Indian people had successfully relocated to cities, and 70 percent of them were self-supporting. “When we consider the numerous difficulties which many Indians from reservations face in adjusting to the complexities of life in our larger cities, this stands as a highly remarkably record,” BIA Commissioner Glenn Emmons wrote. “It shows what Indian people can do in taking their place alongside citizens of other races if they are only given a reasonable opportunity.” In his 1961 farewell address, Eisenhower surprised the nation by warning of the dangers of the “military-industrial complex” that was growing to dominate American politics. He warned the country there would be a “recurring temptation” to solve crises through “some spectacular and costly action” that promised to be “the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.” Such a miracle cure, Eisenhower declared, did not exist, nor could “a huge increase” in defense spending find the cure. If U.S. policies toward Native Americans left much to be desired, the cultural attitudes toward indigenous people were far worse. The advent of television brought “cowboys and Indians” into the homes of most Americans. Boys (like one of your co-authors) spent countless hours trying to

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emulate the cowboy heroes of television (and movies). In fact, playing cowboys and Indians was job one for an eight- or nine-year-old boy. And of course, the Indians were always the bad guys who had to be destroyed. No one wanted to be the Indian. We all wanted to be cowboys. Indians were evil. In film, television, and literature, it was the same story. It would not be until the post-Civil Rights era of the 1960s that some popular culture outlets began to present a more nuanced perspective.10 Films and television series such as No Country for Old Men and Deadwood, plus novels such as Tea Obreht’s Inland (2019), and C. Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills is Gold (2020) and Hernan Diaz’s In the Distance (2017) offer a more realistic version of life in the West. And with the rise of Native American authors, and filmmakers, such as Louise Erdrich (The Round House, 2012), Jeff Barnaby, and Sterlin Harjo, Native American voices are beginning to reach a wider and whiter audience.

John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy,11 the Camelot president, wanted an activist administration, and after eight years of Eisenhower, the public seemed ready for action. But try as he might, President Kennedy’s legislative proposals often fell prey to unresponsive leaders in Congress. Stymied by an intransigent Congress, which took the system of checks and balances quite seriously, the Kennedy legislative record was, at best, mixed. The first Roman Catholic to be elected president, and the youngest ever elected (he was 43 when he took the oath of office), Kennedy presided over the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, placed military advisors in Vietnam, and successfully led the nation through the Cuban missile crisis. But his ambitious and progressive domestic initiatives often were blocked by a Congress controlled by conservatives in his own party. Kennedy did achieve tax cuts, actually passed later under LBJ, which stimulated economic growth, and he started the Peace Corps and placed civil rights reform on the presidential agenda, but overall, he was stymied by a reluctant Congress. At 5’11”, Kennedy was young, attractive, and elegant. He was remarkably photogenic, and he, his children, and his glamorous wife, Jackie, became America’s royal family. It was the age of Camelot, a romanticized era when anything seemed possible. Kennedy exuded charm and sophistication. Author John Steinbeck remarked, “What a joy that literacy is no longer prima-facie evidence of treason.” Only in later years would

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we learn of a darker side of Camelot: plots against Fidel Castro and the president’s private affairs. Kennedy was president when television first became a factor in presidential politics. He took full advantage of this new tool for reaching out to the public. His televised press conferences were virtuoso performances as he stood there cool, calm, witty, intelligent. The camera “loved him.” Politics was beginning to cross the line into entertainment, and the president was becoming a national celebrity. Kennedy summoned the nation to action. If Eisenhower left much undone, Kennedy was determined to get much done. But he realized that revolutions are not built on thin electoral victories, so he pragmatically pursued a reformist agenda. The White House, he asserted, “must be the center of moral leadership.” But on some of the pressing moral issues of the day, Kennedy was a reluctant reformer. He avoided civil rights until it became politically unacceptable to do so. Was this wisdom or cowardice? As FDR knew, it was dangerous to get too far out in front of public opinion. Kennedy waited until the civil rights issue gained prominence, then became its champion. As Kennedy took office, the civil rights movement was picking up steam. Several violent confrontations between demonstrators and police officials made headline news. In Mississippi and Alabama, reactionary governors tried to prevent black students from enrolling in state universities. Riots followed. “Freedom riders” flocked into the South, hoping to work for racial equality. At first Kennedy was a “reluctant revolutionary,” but as events built to the boiling point, the president intervened. Blacks desperately needed the moral force of the presidency to help their cause. Kennedy obliged. Speaking over national television from the Oval Office, Kennedy said the nation faced a “moral crisis as a country and a people.” This cannot be the land of the free “except for the Negroes … The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.” Then, in an especially moving passage, he said, “We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can’t have that right; that your children can’t have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them, and we owe ourselves a better country than that.” Another Kennedy priority was to land a man on the moon. The “space race” with the Soviets pushed Kennedy to promote space exploration,

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and the president promised to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade (an American landed on the moon by 1969). Kennedy set in motion an ambitious and successful space program that involved new technologies and gave the nation a great sense of accomplishment. Elsewhere in his domestic program, Kennedy faced frustration after frustration. His efforts at developing a “New Frontier” of domestic programs failed to pass a Democrat-controlled Congress, and Kennedy had to settle for a few meager victories, such as tax cuts and small spending increases in the president’s projects. In foreign affairs, Kennedy began his administration with a blunder. The president approved of plans, drawn up during the Eisenhower administration, for an invasion of Communist-controlled Cuba by Cuban refugees trained and supported by the United States. When the invasion faltered, Kennedy refused to allow the U.S. military to intervene, thereby guaranteeing the failure of the mission. The “Bay of Pigs” taught the young president lessons. “How could I have been so stupid?” he asked. “It’s a hell of a way to learn things.” He took full public responsibility for the disaster (and his popularity shot up afterwards). President Kennedy was cautious about committing U.S. combat forces in Vietnam, and he extended but did not guarantee long-term U.S. support of South Vietnam. Kennedy had several successes in foreign policy: The Alliance for Progress in Latin America, protection of Berlin against Soviet threats, the Peace Corps, and, most dramatically, the Cuban missile crisis. In October 1962, intelligence reports revealed that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile sites in Cuba. The president demanded their removal and ordered a naval quarantine of the island. After several tense days, when the world was poised on the brink of nuclear war, the Russians backed down and removed the missiles. The threat of nuclear war changed Kennedy from a belligerent “cold warrior” to a man determined to reduce the risk of nuclear annihilation. In 1963, the United States and Soviet Union signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which barred atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. It may have been Kennedy’s greatest accomplishment. In a speech, he discussed the futility of the arms race: “For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal … Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points.”

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The Unfulfilled Promises of John F. Kennedy: He Vowed a New Frontier for Natives JFK often gets credit for serving as president during the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s, but the man beloved for championing African American rights and working to eradicate poverty was assassinated before he could fulfill his promises to Native Americans. Just 11 days before winning the 1960 election, Kennedy called for a “sharp break” from past Indian policies. That included termination policy, which severed tribes’ special relationships with the federal government, divided reservations into private ownership, and sought to assimilate Indians into full citizenship. Kennedy pledged to reverse termination policies, making a “specific promise of a positive program to improve the life of a neglected and disadvantaged group of our population,” he wrote in an October 28, 1960, letter to Oliver La Farge, president of the Association of American Indian Affairs. “My administration would see to it that the Government of the United States discharges its moral obligation to our first Americans,” he wrote, promising better education and health care, access to federal housing programs, increased economic opportunity, and “genuinely cooperative relations” between Indians and federal officials. “Indians have heard fine words and promises long enough,” he wrote. “The program to which my party has pledged itself will be a program of deeds, not merely of words.” Yet Kennedy failed to live up to those words, said Thomas Clarkin, a history professor at San Antonio College and author of Federal Indian Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. Kennedy, who was assassinated after serving 1036 days in office, was a transitional president, bridging the gap between the termination policies of the 1950s and the more sympathetic Indian policies enacted during the ’60s and ’70s. “By 1958, termination was already a clearly troubled policy,” Clarkin said. “But Kennedy never took that last step to end termination. He was transitional figure. He knew it wasn’t working, but he never put a mechanism in place wherein Indians were making decisions for themselves in the federal process.” Born into a wealthy political family in Massachusetts in 1917, Kennedy was elected as the 35th president of the United States after campaigning for a “new frontier” of unprecedented equality.

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“The New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not,” he said in his July 1960 speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president. “Beyond that frontier are the uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.” As president, Kennedy introduced sweeping foreign and domestic policies designed to alleviate poverty and promote equality. Although these policies indirectly benefited Indians, Kennedy failed to distinguish Indians from other social minorities. He promoted civil and citizenship rights and increased federal aid, but he did not adjust policies specifically to benefit Indians—contrary to his campaign promises. “At that point in time, no one considered Indian rights as civil rights, and when you look at policies that benefit Indians, they received assistance not as Natives, but as people living in poverty,” Clarkin said. “Kennedy was interested in helping people, helping Indians, but he did not acknowledge treaties or sovereignty or the relationship between Indians and the government.” This failure to understand Indians’ special relationship with the federal government was perhaps most pronounced in Kennedy’s decision during his first year in office to support construction of the Kinzua Dam on Seneca land in Pennsylvania. The dam submerged nearly 10,000 acres of Seneca land, forced 600 residents to relocate, and led to the destruction and desecration of homes and gravesites. Its construction also violated the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, signed by President George Washington. The Seneca proposed alternate routing and took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices refused to hear the case, and Kennedy sent the Seneca a letter expressing his condolences for the lost land but supporting the dam. “It is not possible to halt the construction of the Kinzua Dam,” he wrote. All alternate plans were deemed “clearly inferior to the Kinzua project from the viewpoint of cost, amount of land to be flooded and number of people who would be dislocated.” Kennedy also floated the idea of securing a different tract of land “suitable for tribal purposes” in exchange for the land grabbed from the Seneca. He never followed through. Shortly after taking office in 1961, Kennedy appointed a task force to study Native Americans and make recommendations. This Task Force on Indian Affairs recommended an end to termination policy after it found

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that the BIA emphasized termination over self-sufficiency. Kennedy’s administration failed to act. In June 1961, as many as 800 Indians gathered at the American Indian Chicago Conference to demand—among other things—an end to termination. The seven-day conference, recognized as the largest pan-tribal meeting to date, drew individuals from as many as 90 tribes brought together by “a common sense of being under attack.”12 Conference attendees drafted a Declaration of Indian Purpose, which called for a climate in which “the Indian people will grow and develop as members of a free society” and demanded that Indians be afforded the right to self-government and self-determination. “What we ask of America is not charity, not paternalism, even when benevolent,” the declaration states. “We ask only that the nature of our situation be recognized and made the basis of policy and action.” A year after the conference, Kennedy met on the south lawn of the White House with a delegation from the National Congress of American Indians who read out loud the Declaration of Indian Purpose. In prepared remarked to the delegates, Kennedy acknowledged the social ills still plaguing Indian country. “Your presence here reminds us all of a very strong obligation which any American, whether he was born here or came here from other parts of the world, has to every American Indian,” he said. Kennedy pointed to the visit as a “reminder to all Americans of the number of Indians whose housing is inadequate, whose employment is inadequate, whose security in old age is inadequate – a very useful reminder that there is still a good deal of unfinished business.” Yet Kennedy did not complete this unfinished business. The following month, in September 1962, he signed the final termination bill, calling for the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska to be removed from federal oversight by 1966. More than 400 Poncas were removed from tribal rolls and all their remaining land and holdings were dissolved. On November 22, 1963, while on a political fence-mending visit to Dallas, Texas, President Kennedy was assassinated. Questions of “what might have been” linger. His charm, elegance, and vision brought a whole generation of young men and women into public service. His call for a caring, compassionate America, his call for sacrifice, and his inspiring image of a better America still animate political action. His achievements as president cannot be measured simply by his accomplishments or his failures. It isn’t merely a question of what Kennedy did, it is also a question of what he brought out in the nation: a spirit of sacrifice, a notion

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that public service is honorable, a call to be our better selves. As Thomas Cronin has written, “His greatness lies less in what he achieved than in what he proposed and began.” Cronin added: “In the end he had an impact on all of us who lived in this country at the time. If nothing else he made people think of politics, the presidency, and government in different ways. His impact has less to do with conventional legislative or administrative achievements than it does with attitudes, values, and symbols. His ultimate contributions were far more than the sum of his record in the White House.”13 The onset of the Cold War, and the emergence of the United States as the world leader in an age of bipolar competition greatly added to the power of the presidency. Harry Truman helped establish a national security state, and all of his successors more or less followed his containment policy toward the Soviet Union until the end of the Cold War. In this age, the presidency was—especially in foreign affairs—the vital center of American politics. The romance of western expansion, so powerfully portrayed in classic John Ford films such as The Searchers (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), The Horse Soldiers (1959), and Fort Apache (1948), gave us heroes to root for. John Wayne, and other conquering heroes, became the Saturday television diets of young Americans who—without thinking—often embraced the conquest metaphor and accepted—usually unquestioningly—the Indian as the enemy, savage, and, as such, humans to be destroyed. In glorifying the ideals of the Old West, Ford presented a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. So clear was Ford in his message that his views seemed harsh and extremist. Called a reactionary in his time, Ford’s films did not, until recently, receive serious attention from critics and commentators. Ford, above all, respected tradition and honor. Home, family, law, and a man’s word were his primary values. His films center on the myth of the Old West as a metaphor for the larger issues with which he was concerned. His political viewpoint was conservative in a Burkeian sense. As John Baxter describes Ford’s viewpoint: We live … in a stratified moral and social structure, exercising rightful control over those below and owing a respect to those above that becomes adoration in the case of the truly great.14

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Ford saw a natural and immutable order in life. His films are about the rules of civilization and the glorification of the hero/superman. The West is a world of Thomas Hobbes, where Social Darwinism and Manifest Destiny come to life. There is no equality in Ford’s world, only heroes and the meek. Ford’s conservative views can be seen in a number of his films. In the midst of the Depression, Ford turned John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) into a hopeful vision of an America determined to march on (“Pa, we’re the people”). His 1948 film Fort Apache dealt with “Manifest Destiny.” McBridge and Wilmington have said that My Darling Clementine (1946) was “probably his most whole heartedly militaristic Western … an unambiguous endorsement of militarism as a social principle.”15 In Stagecoach (1939), Ford uses the coach as a metaphor for life in civilized society. Civilization is forced to face a hostile environment: the “savage” Apaches and the untamed West. It is the challenge of the white man to take the West and conquer the savages. In The Searchers (1956), Ford returns to the theme of savagery versus civilization. But here Ford begins to paint a more complex, more disturbing portrait of the hero. He uses the approach of the hero-as-outsider, with John Wayne playing the role of Ethan Edwards. Ethan’s brother’s family is massacred by Indians. Only Debbie (Natalie Wood), Ethan’s niece, survives, but she is taken and raised by the Indians. Ethan dedicates his life to getting revenge and sets out with Martin, a hay-Native raised by the murdered family, to rescue Debbie. Soon his mission changes from its original purpose, which was to find Debbie, and becomes a personal obsession to kill Debbie because she has become, for him, the enemy: an Indian. His neurotic hatred toward Indians and his determination to get revenge drive Ethan on a five-year journey. Ethan’s search represents much more than rescuing Debbie. For Ethan, the Indians represent the threat of anarchism—a world without order. Ford’s conservative impulses forced him to eliminate forces that would destroy order. As the search progresses, Ethan begins to lose touch with reality. His need for revenge takes shape in his determination to kill Debbie. Finally, the moment comes when Ethan and Debbie confront one another, and we are still not sure if Ethan can and will kill her. Then Ethan picks her up and says, “Let’s go home, Debbie.” But there is no

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home for Ethan; he remains—as he must be—the outsider. The movie ends in reverse of its opening, with Ethan riding off alone.

Notes 1. Greenstein, Fred I. “Nine Presidents in Search of a Modern Presidency,” in Greenstein, ed. Leadership in the Modern Presidency, Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 296–352; see also Hart, John. The Presidential Branch, Pergamon Press, 1987; and Shaw, Malcolm, ed. The Modern Presidency: From Roosevelt to Reagan, Harper and Row, 1987. 2. Stuckey, Mary. The President as Interpreter-In-Chief , Chaltham House, 1991, p. 35. 3. Locke, Raymond Friday. The Book of the Navajo, Mankind Publishing, 2001. 4. Moss, Walter G. “Which Presidents—If Any—Did Right by Native Americans?” History News Network, October 7, 2018, p. 4. 5. Ibid., p. 5. 6. Donovan, Robert J. Conflict and Crisis: The President of Harry S. Truman, 1945–48, Norton, 1977; Donovan, Robert J. Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949–1953, Norton, 1982; Lacey, Michael, ed. The Truman Presidency, Cambridge University Press, 1989; McCoy, Donald R. The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, University Press of Kansas, 1984; and McCullough, David. Truman, Simon & Schuster, 1992. 7. Ambrose, Stephen. Eisenhower the President, Simon & Schuster, 1984; Greenstein, Fred. The Hidden-Hand Presidency, Basic Books, 1982; and Parmet, Herbert. Eisenhower and the American Crusades, Macmillan, 1972. 8. Greenstein, Fred I. The Hidden-Hand Presidency, p. 113. 9. Anderson, Lars. Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football’s Greatest Battle, Random House, 2008. 10. North, Anna. “The Lie at the Heart of the Western,” The Atlantic, February 28, 2021. 11. Bernstein, Irving. Promises Kept: John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, Oxford University Press, 1991; Giglio, James N. The Presidency of John F. Kennedy, University Press of Kansas, 1991; Parmet, Herbert S. JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy, Dial, 1983; and Reeves, Richard. President Kennedy: Profile of Power, Simon & Schuster, 1993. 12. McKnickle, D’Arcy. Native American Tribalism: Indian Survivals and Renewals, Oxford University Press, 1993.

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13. Cronin, Thomas E. “John F. Kennedy: President and Politician,” in Paul Harper and Joann P. Krieg, eds., John F. Kennedy: The Promise Revisited, Greenwood, 1988, pp. 2, 17. 14. Baxter, John. The Cinema of John Ford, Barnes, 1971, p. 11. 15. McBride, Joseph and Wilmington, Michael. John Ford, Da Capo Press, 1975, pp. 85–86.

CHAPTER 8

The Civil Rights Era and Beyond: Bypassing Native Americans—Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump

Lyndon B. Johnson The sudden, tragic death of President Kennedy put Lyndon Johnson1 in the White House. Johnson was an experienced legislator, a big (6’3”) burly Texan who seemed larger than life. He was an overbearing, domineering man of monumental ambition, with an earthy sense of humor and a need to be the center of attention. Johnson was a legislative genius. In 1965 and 1966, he and the 89th Congress passed an astounding array of bills: Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, the War on Poverty, the Air Pollution Control Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. They also created the Departments of Transportation and of Housing and Urban Development. The number of major bills passed was truly amazing. While the table may have been set by JFK, it was Johnson who got the bills through Congress. U.S. involvement in Vietnam began quietly, escalated slowly, and eventually led to tragedy. By 1966, the United States was engaged in a war that it could not win and from which it could not (honorably) withdraw. It was a “presidential war,” and it brought the Johnson administration to its knees. As U.S. involvement escalated, and as victory seemed further and further away, blame was placed squarely on the shoulders of President Johnson. Although the Constitution gives the power to declare war © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_8

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to the Congress, in practice since the Truman administration and the “Korean Conflict,” presidents have often acted unilaterally in this regard. By the time Johnson came to office, presidents had been setting policy in Vietnam for 20 years, virtually unencumbered by Congress. As the war escalated, it was the president who was calling the shots. The tragedy of Lyndon Johnson is that after such a sterling start, after such great success, the blunder of Vietnam would overwhelm him and the nation. From such great heights, the president fell to such tragic depths. The nation was torn apart. The glue that bound Americans together had lost its adhesiveness, and in its place, divisiveness and conflict overtook the nation. The strong presidency, so long seen as the savior of the American system, now seemed too powerful, too dangerous, too unchecked—in short, a threat. After years of hearing calls for “more power to the president,” by the late 1960s the plea was to rein in the overly powerful “monster” in the White House. Lyndon B. Johnson: Indians Are “Forgotten Americans” Two months after Johnson took office as the 36th president of the United States, he pledged to put Indians at the “forefront” of his war on poverty. The statistics were grim for the 400,000 Indians living on reservations, Johnson told members of the National Congress of American Indians during a January 1964 speech. The average family income was less than one-third the national average; unemployment rates ranged between 50 and 85 percent; the average young adult had an eighth-grade education; the high school dropout rate was 60 percent; and the average lifespan of an Indian on a reservation was 42, compared with the national average of 62. “Both in terms of statistics and in terms of human welfare, it is a fact that America’s first citizens, our Indian people, suffer more from poverty than any other group in America,” Johnson said. “That is a shameful fact.” The speech came 12 days after Johnson, in his first State of the Union address, urged Congress to declare “all-out war on human poverty and unemployment” and to prioritize civil rights. “Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope – some because of their poverty, and some because of their color, and all too many because of both,” he said. “Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity.”

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This War on Poverty was part of Johnson’s plan to “build a great society, a place where the meaning of man’s life matches the marvels of man’s labor.” This utopia or “Great Society” became Johnson’s central goal, and he pushed for sweeping socioeconomic reform that improved education, health care, conservation, and economic development. Born into an impoverished Texas family, Johnson attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College and held several teaching jobs, including a short stint at a segregated school in south Texas where he taught Mexican-American children. Johnson gave up teaching in 1937 for a career in politics, eventually serving six years as Senate majority leader, two as Senate minority leader, and two as Senate majority whip before being elected as vice president of the United States in 1960. Two years and ten months later, Johnson was thrust into the role of president when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. A Democrat, Johnson completed Kennedy’s term and won reelection in 1964. Johnson inherited a country embroiled in the Vietnam War, racing to put a man on the moon and buzzing with activism from the Civil Rights Movement. He also inherited ideals from Kennedy that he sought to continue. When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, he fulfilled Kennedy’s pleas for legislation “giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public.” The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the first of several landmark pieces of legislation passed during Johnson’s presidency, outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Designed with African Americans in mind, the act ended racial segregation in schools, workplaces, and public accommodations. It also ended unequal application of voter registration requirements, paving the way for all citizens to have equal access to polls. “Johnson became president upon a tragedy when Kennedy was assassinated, and that impacted just about everything he did,” said Anne Wheeler, communications director at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. “The first thing he wanted to do was honor Kennedy’s legacy by passing the Civil Rights Act. That became his first priority.” Six weeks after signing the Civil Rights Act, on August 20, 1964, Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, which stood as the centerpiece of his War on Poverty. Designed to “eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty,” the act established job and youth corps,

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work-study and adult education programs, community action agencies, and assistance programs for needy families and children. Johnson called the act “an opportunity, not an opiate” that would “reach into all the pockets of poverty and help our people find their footing for a long climb toward a better way of life.” Three months into his second term, in April 1965, Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which sought to bridge achievement gaps by granting every child equal and fair access to an exceptional education. In May, he officially launched the Head Start program, administered through the Office of Economic Opportunity and serving half a million children in 2000 centers during its first eight-week summer program. In July 1965, he signed the Social Security Amendments, establishing Medicare and Medicaid and promising to “improve a wide range of health and medical services for Americans of all ages.” Most of Johnson’s Great Society reforms did not directly identify Indians as recipients but, as economically disadvantaged people, Indians benefited. Amid increasing pressure from the National Congress of American Indians, however, an Indian desk was established in the Office of Economic Opportunity and it began to earmark funds for federally recognized tribes. In 1966, Johnson broke with tradition when he appointed Robert Bennett as commissioner of Indian Affairs. Bennett, an Oneida Indian, was only the second Native to hold that office. In March 1968, Johnson made history when he became the first president to deliver a special message to Congress on the problems of Native Americans. In the message, titled “The Forgotten American,” Johnson proposed “a new goal that ends the old debate about ‘termination’ of Indian programs and stresses self-determination; a goal that erases old attitudes of paternalism and promotes partnership.” Johnson pointed to “the words of the Indian” that had become “the names of our states and streams and landmarks.” For more than 200 years, “the American Indian has been a symbol of the drama and excitement of the earliest America,” he said. “But for two centuries, he has been an alien in his own land.” In his message, Johnson outlined his goals for Indians, including living standards equal to those of other Americans. He declared that Indians should be allowed to choose whether they wanted to live on reservations or in cities, and he called for “full participation in the life of modern America,” along with equal access to economic opportunity.

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In short, Johnson proposed an Indian policy of “maximum choice” for Indians, “expressed in programs of self-help, self-development, selfdetermination.” He also issued an executive order establishing the National Council on Indian Opportunity. “In our efforts to meet that responsibility, we must pledge to respect fully the dignity and the uniqueness of the Indian Citizen,” he said. “That means partnership – not paternalism. We must affirm the right of the first Americans to remain Indians while exercising their rights as Americans.” Finally, in April 1968, Johnson signed the Indian Civil Rights Act, which granted individual Indians “equal protection of the law” by extending to them the provisions laid out in the Bill of Rights. Both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon took Native American affairs seriously and, as Trafzer notes, they “developed some of the most comprehensive and innovative Indian policy statements in the history of the United States.”2

Richard M. Nixon Brilliant, but deeply flawed. An innovative foreign policy strategist, but a small, hurtful, angry man. Richard M. Nixon, 5’11”,3 with a receding hairline, was insecure, vindictive, a fighter, morally obtuse, the first and only president to resign from office (to avoid impeachment and conviction) for abuse of power and criminal behavior. He remains an enigma and a paradox. In foreign affairs, Nixon was an innovative thinker and grand strategist. Understanding that the United States was entering an “age of limits,”4 Nixon attempted to refashion U.S. power and position in the world, while maintaining international leadership. The Nixon years were a time of dramatic, bold, innovative approaches and overtures in the field of foreign affairs. They were years when the conventional wisdom was challenged, and conventional solutions eschewed for a new strategic approach to foreign policy. It was a new era that brought about an opening of relations with China, détente with the Soviet Union, and a strategic arms limitation agreement with the Soviets. It was a period when America’s military involvement in Vietnam and Southeast Asia was expanded, then ended, and when a relatively new approach and strategic orientation was introduced into American foreign policy thinking.

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Nixon attempted to implement a new “Grand Strategy” for foreign affairs, but like so many aspects of his presidency, grand designs gave way to petty politics, and Nixon’s ambitious plans were eventually crushed by the weight of the Watergate scandal. In domestic policy, Nixon was often a reluctant reformer.5 Pushed by a Congress controlled by the Democrats, Nixon promoted a “New Federalism” to devolve some federal power back to the states, imposed wage and price controls during an economic slump, created the Environmental Protection Agency, and witnessed the first moon landing on July 20, 1969. Because the opposing party controlled Congress, Nixon devised an “Administration Strategy” to govern. He attempted, where possible, to bypass Congress and use administrative discretion to the limit and beyond. This administrative strategy was an innovation that would later be used by President Reagan with great success. The swelling of the administrative presidency added to the tools of presidential leadership. Watergate was the most serious scandal in this history of U.S. presidential politics. It was unusual in presidential history because for the first time the president himself was deeply involved in the crimes of his administration. Watergate was a different kind of scandal. Richard Nixon was a different kind of president. As the Watergate investigations drew the noose tighter and tighter around the president’s neck, it became clear that Nixon would be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. The Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Nixon (1974) compelled the president to release tape recordings (while also adding to the power of the presidency by establishing judicial recognition of limited “executive privilege”) that clearly established the fact that Nixon was involved in criminal behavior. From that point on, Nixon had little support and resigned from office on August 9, 1974. He is the only president to resign his office. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against President Nixon. The aftermath of Watergate led to a decline of the presidency and a rebirth of congressional power. A transformation began to take place. As a result, first of Vietnam, then of Watergate, our superman became an Imperial President. The presidency had become a danger to the republic, using its power not for the public good but for self-aggrandizement. A new image of the presidency developed.

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Richard M. Nixon: “Self-Determination Without Termination” Nixon is the perfect example of a president whose reputation is synonymous with corruption, yet who actually accomplished more for Native Americans than most other presidents. Despite his notoriety over the Watergate scandal, Nixon transformed federal Indian policy. Eighteenth months into his first term, Nixon delivered to Congress a landmark address on Indian Affairs, unveiling policies that ushered in the era of self-determination. In his July 8, 1970, address, Nixon called for a new policy of “self-determination without termination,” instigating lasting changes in federal–Indian relationships. “The first Americans – the Indians – are the most deprived and most isolated minority group in our nation,” he said. “On virtually every scale of measurement – employment, income, education, health – the condition of the Indian people ranks at the bottom.” Nixon called for congressional action to overturn House Concurrent Resolution 108. Indian policy too often was “ineffective and demeaning,” he said. Instead, it should “recognize and build upon the capacities and insights” of Indians themselves. In his address, Nixon unequivocally rejected termination policy, claiming it was based on false premises and its practical results were “clearly harmful.” Instead, the special relationship between Indians and the federal government was based on “solemn obligations” or treaties. “To terminate this relationship would be no more appropriate than to terminate the citizenship rights of any other American,” Nixon said. The United States “must make it clear that Indians can become independent of federal control without being cut off from federal concern and federal support.” Nixon also outlined nine specific changes in federal policy, including restoration of some Native lands, funding for reservation-based healthcare programs, expansion of programs for urban Indians, and creation of a cabinet-level position for an assistant secretary of Indian Affairs. “Both as a matter of justice and as a matter of enlightened social policy, we must begin to act on the basis of what the Indians themselves have long been telling us,” he said. “The time has come to break decisively with the past and to create the conditions for a new era in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions.” Nixon began fulfilling his promises by the end of 1970 when he signed a bill returning the sacred Blue Lake in New Mexico to the Taos

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Pueblo. Six decades earlier, President Theodore Roosevelt grabbed the lake and 48,000 surrounding acres for the newly created Carson National Forest. When he signed Public Law 91–550 in December 1970, Nixon restored Native access to a site the Taos Pueblo considered the heart of its culture. The law also set a precedent of self-determination for all Native Americans. “This is a bill that represents justice, because in 1906 an injustice was done,” Nixon said. “In signing the bill I trust that this will mark one of those periods in American history where, after a very, very long time, and at times a very sad history of injustice, that we started on a new road – a new road which leads us to justice in the treatment of those who were the first Americans.” One year later, Nixon signed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which transferred 44 million acres of land to Alaska Natives. The act also called for $962.5 million in compensation and led to the incorporation of more than 200 indigenous villages. Nixon’s Indian policy followed weaker attempts by presidents Kennedy and Johnson to end termination, said Carole Goldberg, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. While Kennedy and Johnson both prioritized social programs that benefited Indians (along with other marginalized populations), they failed to recognize the special relationship between tribes and the federal government. Nixon’s presidency signaled a “philosophical shift” in the way America viewed its indigenous people, Goldberg said. This shift was the hallmark of Nixon’s Indian policy. “Nixon was the person who grasped the difference between self-determination and anti-poverty programs most effectively,” she said. “He articulated the difference between an anti-poverty agenda and a self-determination agenda.” Born to a Quaker family in California in 1913, Nixon played football at Whittier College, where he formed a lasting relationship with his coach, Wallace “Chief” Newman, a member of the La Jolla Band of Mission Indians. In his memoirs, Nixon said his admiration for Newman was second only to what he felt for his father. “He drilled into me a competitive spirit and the determination to come back after you have bene knocked down or after you lose,” Nixon wrote. “He also gave me an acute understanding that what really matters is not a man’s background, his color, his race, or his religion, but only his character.”

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Nixon went on to study law at Duke University. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he represented California in the U.S. House and the Senate before being elected as vice president with Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952—a position he held for eight years. A Republican, Nixon narrowly lost the 1960 presidential election, but he ran again in 1968 and won. He was reelected in 1972 but served only 19 months of his second term. Nixon took office in January 1969, amid rising Native American militancy. In November of that year, a group of Red Power activists took over Alcatraz Island, reclaiming the land for its original inhabitants and occupying it for 19 months. In November 1972, American Indian Movement (AIM) activists drove from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., intent on delivering to Nixon a list of Indian grievances. But Nixon was out of the country and the activists instead occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs building for 72 hours. In February 1973, one month after Nixon started his second term, AIM leaders and about 200 activists ascended upon the village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in an armed takeover that lasted 71 days. The occupation ended in May after two Indians were killed and a deputy marshal was wounded. Nixon continued to advocate for Native Americans, signing 52 legislative measures to support sovereignty. In December 1973, he signed the Menominee Restoration Act, ending the tribe’s termination status and restoring its right to self-determination. He also increased the BIA budget by more than 200 percent, doubled funds for Indian health care, and created the Office of Indian Water Rights. Indian Country Today ranked Richard Nixon high on its list of presidents whose policies helped Indian populations saying that he changed the “course on many of the policies that had driven so many Indians into bleak poverty.” He also put an end to some of the government’s assimilationist policies and encouraged the development of tribal governments.6 One of Nixon’s greatest contributions to Indians, however, came after he left office. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, signed in January 1975, officially reversed Indian termination and authorized government agencies to work directly with tribes. Championed by Nixon, the act was designed to “provide maximum Indian participation in the government and education of the Indian people.” The Civil Rights era did not entirely bypass the Native American population. In this, as in so many aspects of the two-hundred-thirty-five years

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of American movement(s) to expand rights and expand democracy, largely ignored or in some cases overtly denied Indigenous peoples inclusion into the progress of human rights. Made invisible and irrelevant, Native Americans became a bother to the nation, outside and irrelevant.

Gerald Ford Gerald Ford7 was born a King. Actually, he was born Leslie King, but when his mother divorced and later remarried, young Leslie King took the name of his new father and became a Ford. He was the nation’s only unelected president, having been appointed vice president when Richard Nixon’s first VP, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign his office in the face of several criminal charges. When Nixon was forced to resign or face impeachment, Gerald Ford became president. Square jawed, athletic, friendly, and open, Ford, 6’0”, was a stark contrast to the suspicious loner, Nixon. But if the presidency was imperial during the Nixon years, it was imperiled in the Ford-Carter years. Ford entered office with the nation deeply polarized over Watergate, and he soon fell victim to the Watergate-inspired backlash against the presidency. A series of presidency-bashing laws were passed, and Ford could do little but attempt to veto bills he found objectionable.

Gerald R. Ford: Hoping to Heal Wounds When Ford was sworn in as President in August 1974, he inherited an Indian conflict that was already a century in the making. Ninety-seven years earlier, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the federal government entered into an agreement with a small group of Sioux Indians. The February 1877 act called for the Sioux to relinquish their rights to the Black Hills, a range of sprawling, tree-covered mountains the Sioux had occupied since the 1770s. In exchange for 7.3 million acres of land in the Black Hills—and rights to gold Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer discovered there in 1874— the government promised allotments in Indian Territory, along with “all necessary aid to assist the said Indians in the work of civilization.” It also promised rations of beef, bacon, flour, corn, coffee, sugar, and beans “until the Indians are able to support themselves.” Ten percent of the Sioux Nation’s adult male population signed the agreement, along with representatives from the Northern Arapaho and

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Cheyenne nations. But the agreement, later passed by Congress, directly violated the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, in which the Black Hills were “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians,” and determined that land would not be ceded without approval from three-fourths of the tribe’s adult male population. Although the Sioux believed the 1877 act violated the 1868 treaty, they had no way to pursue litigation against the United States. That changed in 1946 when President Truman signed the Indian Claims Commission Act, establishing a process for resolving long-standing disputes between Indians and the federal government. The Sioux Nation filed an initial claim in 1950. Twenty-four years later, in February 1974, the Indian Claims Commission ruled that the United States took the Black Hills illegally. The commission also determined that the 1877 value of the land—and gold discovered there—was $17.5 million (inflated to $103 million by 1974). Two months after taking office, Ford signed the Indian claims Commission Appropriations Legislation, which he called an opportunity “to take clear and decisive action” to make things right. “Although we cannot undo the injustices from our history, we can ensure that the actions we take today are just and fair and designed to heal such wounds from the past,” he said. Ford called on the government to pay the monetary claim but did not take action to return to the land. The Sioux refused the money, which still sits in the U.S. Treasury, earning interest. A Republican, Ford is the only person in history to serve as both vice president and president without having been elected to office. He served 29 months as president, from 1974 to 1977. It was an era defined by American Indian military. The early 1970s were marked with the armed takeovers of Alcatraz Island, the BIA building in Washington, D.C., and the village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. One month after Ford took office, the Kootenai, a tiny tribe in northern Idaho, declared war on the United States. The Kootenai—only 67 members strong—had lived in poverty since losing their ancestral homelands in the 1855 Treaty of Hellgate. Frustrated by deplorable living conditions and requests for federal assistance that went ignored, the Kootenai formally declared war in September 1974. In a resolution sent to Washington, the tribe claimed that the government had wrongfully taken 1.4 million acres of “aboriginal land”

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in eastern Idaho, western Montana, and Canada. Citing a number of “misdeeds” on the part of the government, tribal leaders decided to assert “complete sovereignty over the area” and demand a negotiated settlement. The tribe posted soldiers on the highway that ran through the small town of Bonners Ferry—located on the tribe’s former homeland—and charged drivers a toll. The Idaho governor reacted by sending 70 state troopers to Bonners Ferry, prompting the Kootenai to call on outside Indian activists for assistance. Ford responded in October 1974 by signing Senate Bill 634, which transferred 12.5 acres of federal land in Idaho into trust status for the Kootenai and allocated funding to construct roads and a community center. Three months later, on January 3, 1975, Ford signed a similar bill returning 185,000 acres to the Havasupai tribe in Arizona. The following day, he signed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which officially reversed Indian termination, authorized government agencies to work directly with tribes, and gave tribes authority to decide how to use funds for children in public schools. Ford called the act “a milestone for Indian people” and said it would give tribes unprecedented strength and sovereignty. “My Administration is committed to furthering the self-determination of Indian communities without terminating the special relationships between the Federal Government and the Indian people,” he said, promising the act would enable the government to “work more closely and effectively with the tribes for the betterment of all the Indian people by assisting them in meeting goals they themselves have set.” In his final months in office, Ford took several steps to ensure Indians had a brighter future. In September 1976, he signed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, elevating the health status of Indians to the highest possible level and encouraging tribes to enter into self-determined contracts with the Indian Health Service. Ford signed the act despite strong resistance from his own advisers. “Indian people still lag behind the American people as a whole in achieving and maintaining good health,” he said. “I am signing this bill because of my own conviction that our First Americans should not be last in opportunity.” Eight days later, Ford designated the second week of October 1976 as Native American Awareness Week. “It is especially appropriate during our Bicentennial Year to recall the impressive role played in our society

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by American Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts,” he said. “In renewing the spirit and determined dedication of the past 200 years we should also join with our Native Americans in rebuilding an awareness, understanding, and appreciation for their historical role and future participation in our diverse American society.” In an October 8, 1976, speech to Indian leaders in Lawton, Oklahoma, Ford spoke of his dedication to Indians. “No domestic matter had given me greater pride than my administration’s record of turning around the discrimination and neglect that all Indians faced for so many years,” he said. While Ford suffered from the fallout of Watergate, he did help restore some dignity to the presidency, and he helped halt the decline in trust in government that took such a steep fall after Vietnam and Watergate. But he was a clerk and not a leader. Circumstances precluded active leadership.

Jimmy Carter As part of the continuing fallout of Watergate, voters in 1976 rejected Gerald Ford and chose instead an unknown former governor of Georgia who spoke openly in biblical terms and promised “I’ll never lie to you.” In the wake of Watergate, it was just what the voters wanted. Jimmy Carter, 5’10”,8 with sandy hair and a toothy smile, came out of nowhere to the White House. President Carter set out to de-pomp and demythologize the imperial presidency. But while he was arguably one of the most intelligent men to serve as president, he never articulated a sense of purpose or overall vision beyond his frequently expressed moralism. “Carterism does not march, and it does not sing,” said historian Eric Goldman. “It is cautious, muted, grayish, at times even crabbed.”9 Carter’s four years as president were difficult and contentious ones. He had trouble leading his party, did a mediocre job at leading Congress, and failed to inspire the public. During his term, inflation rose and productivity faltered. “I learned the hard way,” Carter wrote in his memoirs, “that there was no party loyalty or discipline when a complicated or controversial issue was at stake – none. Each legislator had to be wooed and won individually. It was every member for himself, and the devil take the hindmost!”10 In spite of the many setbacks, there were also some impressive victories. Carter’s emphasis on human rights had significant long-term effects

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across the globe. His Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt were a stunning success; he normalized U.S. relations with China, won the Panama Canal Treaty, pushed Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (Salt II), pressed for the transition to black rule in Zimbabwe; and, on the home front, won civil service reform, appointed the first black women to the cabinet, created both the Energy and Education Departments, and avoided major scandal. On November 4, 1979, a mob of Iranian youths seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 63 Americans hostage. Carter saw no way to get the hostages released short of an attack that would have endangered their lives. Negotiations and sanctions failed to move the Iranians. Carter’s inability to resolve this crisis successfully became the dominating event of his presidency. A failed rescue mission in 1980 only made Carter look more helpless. Eventually Carter was able to win the release of all the hostages, but by then it was too late for him. The Iranians released the hostages on the morning Carter left office.

Jimmy Carter: Signed ICWA into Law James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. made no public mention of Native Americans during his entire first year in office. The 39th president of the United States, Carter only briefly mentioned Indians in his first State of the Union Address, a 12,000-word speech delivered to Congress in January 1978. Even then, Carter’s remarks were vague. “The Administration has acted consistently to uphold its trusteeship responsibility to Native Americans,” he told Congress. “In 1978, the Administration will review Federal Native American policy and will set up efforts to help Indian tribes assess and manage their natural resources.” The reference, likely the work of Carter’s speechwriter, Chris Matthews, set the tone for an administration that—in the beginning— largely ignored Indians. In fact, by the end of 1978, the Carter administration had decided not to announce any formal presidential Indian policy at all, historian George Pierre Castile wrote.11 “Absent a presidential message, the policy of self-determination remained in place by default, but never seems to have gotten a clear endorsement by the Carter domestic policy staff,” he wrote. “Indian matters were dealt with piecemeal.” Carter, who took office in January 1977, followed Nixon and Ford— two presidents who championed for the end of Indian termination and

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ushered in an era of self-determination. Yet Carter, who inherited the new approach to Indian Affairs, maintained minimal involvement and thrust primary responsibility for Indians on the Interior Department. “It seemed he had special advisors on everything else, but not Native Americans,” said Stanly Godbold, emeritus professor of history at Mississippi State University and author of two Carter biographies. “He certainly was interested in Indians because of his emphasis on human rights, but it was a tangential interest.” Born in Georgia in 1924, Carter spent his childhood on lands taken from the Creek Indians more than a century earlier. In fact, some of his family’s property was acquired by lottery after the forced removal of the Creek. As a child, Carter “regularly searched for Indian arrowheads,” biographer Peter Bourne12 wrote. “Ghosts of the evicted Creeks were very much in Jimmy’s mind as he grew up.” Yet Carter’s 1982 autobiography, Keeping Faith, doesn’t mention Indians at all. Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy but left a promising career as an engineer to run his family’s peanut farm. He served two terms as a Georgia state senator and one term as Georgia governor before being elected as president of the United States in 1976. A Democrat, Carter served one term in office, from 1977 to 1981. During his presidential campaign in 1976, Carter’s staff reached out to the National Congress of American Indians and the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association. Carter met briefly with some leaders and his staff drafted a position paper that endorsed the Indian self-determination policy, already in force. “It is time that the Federal government recognized that the Indian tribes have the right to determine the course of their lives,” the position paper stated. “The majority of decisions affecting tribal lives should be made in tribal council rooms not Washington D.C.” Three months after taking office, however, Carter began fielding criticism. In April 1977, Ernest L. Stevens, director of the Joint Congressional American Indian Policy Review Commission, chided Carter for failing to name any key people in Indian Affairs. “The hallmark of the Carter administration has been no participation by Indians,” he said in an article published in Congressional Quarterly. “The administration is relying on career bureaucrats, not Indians.” By the end of 1977, Carter still hadn’t addressed Indian Affairs, but five congressmen had introduced eleven “anti-Indian” bills, including

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legislation that sought to reinstate termination policy, limit water rights, abrogate treaties, limit tribal jurisdictions and access to social services, end Indian hunting and fishing rights, and terminate the statute of limitations on Indian claims. In December 1977, the National Congress of American Indians called a meeting in Phoenix to address these “backlash bills.” Between February and July 1978, Indians from more than 100 tribes marched 3000 miles from Alcatraz Island to Washington, D.C., in a peaceful protest of the bills—none of which passed. By contrast, between August and November 1978, Carter signed into law three bills that benefited Indians: the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act, and the Indian Child Welfare Act. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act affirmed that the federal government would “protect and preserve for American Indians their inherit rights of freedom to believe, express, and exercise” their traditional religions. Carter signed the act in August 1978, calling religious freedom a “fundamental right of every American.” The Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act, signed in October 1978, guaranteed “a needed base of stable funding for postsecondary education” on Indian reservations, Carter said in a statement. The act sought to “provide American Indians with greater education opportunities near their families, their tribes, and their places of employment.” Carter signed the Indian Child Welfare Act in November 1978 but did not make a public statement. The act, which came in response to a disproportionately high rate of Indian children being removed from their traditional homes and placed with non-Indian families, established jurisdiction for the placement of Indian children in foster or adoptive care. This act remains one of the most important federal laws protecting Indian children. Carter took a more proactive approach to Indians in his 1979 State of the Union Address, in which he tackled the long-standing issue of Indian land claims and promised to ensure that “trust relationships and self-determination principles” guide negotiations. “The federal government has a special responsibility to Native Americans, and I intend to continue to exercise this responsibility fairly and sensitively,” he said. “There are difficult conflicts which occasionally divide Indian and non-Indian citizens in this country. We will seek to

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exercise leadership to resolve these problems equitably and compassionately.” Five years earlier, the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes filed suit against Maine, claiming the state had violated a 1790 treaty by grabbing land in 1796, 1818, and 1833—leaving the tribes with only 5000 acres of land. Carter worked throughout his presidency to negotiate an agreement, signing the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act in October 1980—just three months before leaving office. Under the law, the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes agreed to forfeit their land claims in exchange for $81.5 million, which could be used to buy 300,000 acres from nearby landowners. The tribes also received federal recognition. During the signing ceremony, Carter called the conflict in Maine an “intolerable situation” and the settlement act one of the “most difficult issues” he faced as president. “The settlement authorizes a permanent land base and trust fund for the tribes and also resolves once and for all the title to the land for all the people who reside in Maine,” he said. “The settlement act does something else as well. It’s a reaffirmation that our system of government works.” Hedrick Hertzberg, a one-time Carter speechwriter said of his former boss, “He was and is a moral leader more than a political leader,” adding, “He spoke the language of religion and morality far more, and far more effectively, than he spoke the language of politics.” Jimmy Carter was a very good man, but not an especially adept politician. He was the first of several “outsiders” to be elected president in an age of cynicism. Although Carter avoided many of the excesses of other recent presidents, he was unable to generate sufficient support or to exercise decisive leadership. His presidency ended with Gallup poll ratings in the 20-percent range. Consequently, he was defeated in his 1980 bid for reelection. Not since 1932, with Herbert Hoover in the midst of the depression, has an incumbent president been so totally defeated. As a sign of Carter’s low standing, Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 bid for reelection, was still running against the memory of Jimmy Carter!

Ronald Reagan After the crisis of Vietnam, the scandal of Watergate, the weak presidencies of Ford and Carter, and after drift and despair, the nation began to forge about the problems of presidential power, and a hunger for

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leadership reemerged. Problems accumulated, and the nation’s “leaders” seemed powerless in the face of these hardships. The urge for the strong presidency model reclaimed center stage. Enter Ronald Reagan,13 a presidential knight in shining armor. Tall (6’1”), handsome, with a compelling presence, he looked and sounded presidential. Regan seemed to be everything Ford and Carter weren’t: strong, self-assured, a leader. He made grand promises, spoke in grand terms, and created high expectations. He attempted to return America to an era of grandeur. Claiming a bold mandate and focusing on several key economic items, Reagan managed to get most of his top agenda items enacted into law. But after an impressive start, Reagan faltered. Initial success in dealing with Congress gave way to frustration and defeat. The president could not overcome the system’s roadblocks and, unwilling to accept the limits placed upon the office, he and members of his administration went beyond the law and abused power. Reagan’s engaging personality and ready wit helped make him popular, and while his borrow-borrow, spend-spend approach to policy may have added to America’s military might, it also left the nation on the brink of economic insolvency. The United States went from being the world’s largest creditor/lender nation in 1980 to becoming the world’s largest debtor/borrower nation in 1988. Trained as an actor and more conservative than any president in the twentieth century, Reagan seemed the ideal candidate for his age. In a time of cynicism, Reagan blamed big government for all the nation’s ills; in an age of selfishness, Reagan told people to keep and spend their own money and not give their taxes to “Welfare Queens driving Cadillacs.” One of Reagan’s chief characteristics was his confidence and optimism for himself and for the nation. An avid storyteller, he was fond of happy endings, even when he had to reinvent reality to come up with them. There was no doubt in his mind that America’s story could continue to be one of unbounded success. Reagan also possessed an excellent sense of humor and an ability to use that trait effectively. Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president (until Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020). After he left office, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Several observers maintain that signs of the disease showed themselves while Reagan was still in office. In the age of television, Reagan was known as the “Great Communicator.” His use of the rhetorical and symbolic powers of the office

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enhanced his image and added to his power. He had a message to communicate, and he communicated that message with force and clarity. Reagan came to office challenging the principle of the New Deal. He wanted to undo the Roosevelt revolution and replace it with a Reagan revolution: less government, lower taxes, a bigger defense budget, cuts in social welfare spending, and cuts in government regulations on business. In November 1986, a Lebanese publication broke a story accusing the Reagan administration of trading U.S. arms for American hostages being held by Iran. Reagan had publicly condemned dealing with terrorists and pressured U.S. allies not to deal with them. But the Reagan administration had indeed been trading arms for hostages—or at least trying to do so. Led by the Maxwell Smart-like Lt. Col. Oliver “Ollie” North, the United States gave Iran much needed arms, and the Iranians promised to release U.S. hostages. There was only one problem: When the weapons were delivered, the Iranians did not release hostages. So, the United States sent more arms, until the Iranians finally released one hostage. But for every hostage released, another one was taken! The absurd pas-de-deux lasted for two years. The United States continued to play the fool. What to do with the illegal profits from these arms sales? The Keystone Cops in the White House decided to use the profits to fund the “Contras,” the right-wing Nicaraguan rebels fighting the Sandinista (Marxist) government of Nicaragua. This was done in direct violation of the law. The Boland Amendment prevented any such aid to the Contras. But Reagan disagreed with this law, so… When the Iran-Contra scandal broke, Reagan became paralyzed. He became so withdrawn that chief-of-staff Howard Baker even considered invoking the twenty-fifth Amendment to remove a disabled president.14 In the Iran-Contra scandal, the Reagan administration repeatedly lied to the Congress and the American people; they broke a variety of laws, and—had it not been for his affable ways—Reagan might have been impeached. As the Iran-Contra scandal faded, Reagan pursued arms control with the Soviet Union. In one of the premier events of his presidency, the United States and the Soviets signed the INF (intermediate-range nuclear forces) treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. It was a masterful success—especially for someone who had only a few years earlier called the Soviet Union “the focus of all evil in the world.”

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Ronald Reagan: “Maybe We Should Not Have Humored [Natives]” With just eight months to go before the end of his two-term presidency, Reagan declared that the United States might have “made a mistake” in humoring the Indians. His audience was a group of students and faculty at Moscow State University in May 1988. His speech was delivered nearly 5000 miles from Washington, D.C., yet a group of Native Americans reportedly had traveled to the Soviet Union for a chance to bend the President’s ear. When questioned about his failure to connect with the Indians on home soil, Reagan opined about the state of Indian affairs—and in the process revealed a gaping hole in his own understanding. “Let me tell you just a little something about the American Indian in our land,” he began. “We have provided millions of acres of land” for reservations, and “they, from the beginning, announced that they wanted to maintain their way of life.” The government set up reservations, established a Bureau of Indian Affairs, and provided education for the Indians, Reagan said. Yet some still preferred “that early way of life” over becoming mainstream American citizens. “We’ve done everything we can to meet their demands as to how they want to live,” he said. “Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should not have humored them in that wanting to stay in that kind of primitive lifestyle. Maybe we should have said, no, come join us; be citizens along with the rest of us.” Reagan also claimed ignorance about any grievances Indians might have. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “Some of them became very wealthy because some of those reservations were overlaying great pools of oil, and you can get very rich pumping oil.” Reagan’s remarks set off a firestorm among Native Americans at home. Suzan Shawn Harjo, then executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, said she was appalled and claimed Reagan “headed the worst administration for Indians since the days of outright warfare and extermination.” Seven months later—and just days before Regan left the White House—apologized for his Moscow remarks. During a December 1988 meeting with 16 Indian leaders—which lasted only 20 minutes—Reagan praised tribes’ achievements and contributions. He also pledged commitment to policies of self-determination.

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“Indians should have the right to choose their own life, the right to have a say in what happens in Indian country,” Reagan read from a prepared statement. “Our tribes need the freedom to spend the money available to them, to create a better quality of life and meet their needs as they define them. Tribes must make those decisions, not the federal government.” Reagan, who decades before serving as president spoke out against communism, took office during the final decade of the Cold War. During his 1980 campaign, he ran a series of television commercials that urged Americans to look to a brighter future. “We have to move ahead,” he said at the end of the ad. “But we can’t leave anybody behind.” That philosophy included Native Americans, said Reagan biographer Craig Shirley. Reagan rallied Americans to be self-reliant and grow the economy, and he extended the same appeal to Indians. “Just about everything going on with the presidency during the Reagan years was cast in the shadow of the Cold War,” Shirley said. “Part of Reagan’s philosophy as a conservative president was self-sufficiency, and that applied to Native Americans.” Two years into his first term, Reagan issued a statement that defined his administration’s policies toward Indians. The January 1983 statement came after Morton Blackwell, a Cherokee man who served as special assistant to the President, held more than 100 meetings with tribal leaders and compiled a list of concerns, including water rights, federal assistance, and economic opportunity. Reagan addressed all of the concerns in his policy statement. He also recognized the “unique political relationship” between tribes and the federal government. “This administration believes that responsibilities and resources should be restored to the governments which are closest to the people served,” Reagan said. “This philosophy applies not only to state and local governments but also to federally recognized American Indian tribes.” In his statement, Reagan upheld policies introduced in 1975 when former President Richard Nixon signed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. Arguing that there had been “more rhetoric than action” since Nixon, Reagan pledged to remove “excessive regulation and self-perpetuating bureaucracy” that stifled decision-making and “thwarted Indian control of Indian resources.”

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Reagan outlined robust plans to restore tribal self-government, develop reservation economics, repudiate Indian termination policies, support direct funding to tribes, and establish a Presidential Advisory Commission on Indian Reservation Economies to identify and remove obstacles to economic growth in Indian country. Reagan’s plans came amid budget shortfalls that handicapped tribal economic progress. They also came as Interior Secretary James Watt criticized tribal leaders for their dependence on federal handouts. In a television interview conducted less than a week before Reagan issued his Indian policy statement, Watt said Indian reservations offered a better example of the “failure of socialism” than the Soviet Union. Watt described Indians as “incompetent wards of the government” and claimed reservations were hotbeds of unemployment, alcoholism, adultery, divorce, drug abuse, and venereal disease. “Every social problem is exaggerated because of socialistic government policies,” he said. Although he pledged support for Indians, Reagan oversaw severe budget cuts to social service programs that assisted tribes. His policies of self-determination focused on reducing tribal reliance on federal support. “Reagan did much to alleviate the plight of American Indians, but I think he was just as stymied as any other president about what to do about Indian nations and tribes,” Shirley said. “He wanted them to have economic freedom and opportunity, and he wanted them to be able to take care of themselves.” During his last months in office, Reagan signed two major bills affecting Native Americans: the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and the Tribal Self-Governance Act. The first established a mechanism to govern Indian gaming, while the second dictated the transfer of federal programs to Indian tribes. “Tribal self-governance allows tribes more freedom to design programs to serve the specific needs of their members,” Reagan said. But the Tribal Self-Governance Act also called for reduced funding to tribes “if so directed.” The disappointing presidencies of Ford and Carter led to demands once again for strong leadership, and Ronald Reagan “seemed” to provide just that. But budget deficits and the Iran-Contra scandal damaged Reagan and the presidency and left a legacy of difficult problems for his successors.

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George H.W. Bush George H.W. Bush15 had the best resume in Washington: Congressman, U.S. envoy to China, National Chairman of the Republican party, director of the CIA, and vice president for eight years. But critics wondered what he had accomplished in all these impressive posts: he left few footprints, they said. Tall at 6’2”, thin, to the manner born, educated at Yale, Bush was a man of uncompromising grayness. He was elected in the afterglow of the Reagan revolution, but he was not a Reaganite true believer. Bush was more cautious, more moderate, more pragmatic than Reagan. The end of the Cold War opened a window of opportunity to exert creative leadership. But Bush was shackled by a vastly depleted resource base (the legacy of Reagan’s economic mismanagement) and an intellectual cupboard that was bare (no vision for a post-Cold War future). Bush was at his best when he had a clear goal to achieve (e.g., the Gulf War), a goal imposed upon him by events. But when it came time for him to choose, to set priorities, to decide on a direction, he floundered. As conservative columnist George Will commented, “When the weight of the (presidency) is put upon a figure as flimsy as George Bush, the presidency buckles…”. George Bush served as a managerial president, not a leader. In a time that cried out for vision, Bush seemed paralyzed. He appeared to want to be president so as to add another impressive notch on his resume. There was no clear aspiration to accomplish any grand goals. Bush’s successes include the Persian Gulf War and a winding down of the Cold War, but his failures—his inability to build on the concept of a New World Order or to counter rising deficits, his lack of a domestic agenda, and his standoffish attitude as the economy tumbled—opened the door to Bush’s opponents in the 1992 election. When it came time for the public to render judgment on President Bush, it chose another relative unknown instead of him. Bush was a reactive president, not an initiator; a caretaker or maintaining president, not a visionary. He had an aimless style,16 which failed to provide clear direction to his staff or the machinery of government. He often appeared to be a spectator president, content to watch the unfolding of world events but afraid to get involved. By the time he did get involved (for example, the liberation of Eastern Europe, aid to the Soviet republics, the Gulf War) it was either too little or too late, or too lame. How could

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someone with so much government experience, with such an impressive resume, be so devoid of ideas and have so few policy preferences? The Bush leadership style—cautious, prudent, and managerial—did indeed seem a poor fit for times that begged for vision. The procedural presidency of George Bush turned out to be process-centered, but not idea-driven. The times called for leadership, yet Bush supplied prudence. As events moved rapidly, Bush moved slowly; as the world shook, Bush sat idly by, watching. Bush liked to play the insider game (he has been referred to as the Rolodex president), not the grand strategy game. He often acted late; therefore, the United States was given less input as events unfolded around the world. Soon, the other powers sensed that they no longer needed to defer to the United States: Germany unified, and the United States issued a mild reproach; Eastern Europe exploded, and the United States watched. The United States was becoming a less influential player in the game of international politics. It was less feared and less respected. In 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed. Only China, North Korea, and Cuba remained as Communist strongholds. The West had won the Cold War, and George Bush presided over this seminal event. But what would follow (replace) the Cold War? In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. George Bush put together a multilateral coalition, and in January 1991, this coalition invaded Iraq and drove the Iraqis back, out of Kuwait. Bush had done a masterful job of coalition building. After the successful war, Bush’s popularity rose to an unprecedented 90 percent. He seemed all but invincible. But as the economy soured, Bush’s popularity fell. Domestic problems replaced the jubilation over the war, and as Bush had no response to the nation’s domestic and economic problems, the public grew increasingly impatient. By the 1980s, Native Americans were all but off the national agenda. They could afford to be ignored as no active constituency embraced indigenous rights as their big issue. Native people remained an annoyance not a constituency, better left ignored where possible, placated where necessary. For most intents and purposes, Native Americans had been rendered invisible and irrelevant.

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George H. W. Bush: Establishing NMAI, NAGPRA; Corruption in BIA Ten months after assuming office, on November 28, Bush signed a bill establishing the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. The act, which called for the museum to be located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., created a home for more than 1 million Native artifacts already in the government’s possession. The new museum was charged with the “collection, preservation and exhibition of American Indian languages, literature, history, art, anthropology and culture,” Bush said. “From this point, our Nation will go forward with a new and richer understanding of the heritage, culture, and values of the people of the Americans of Indian ancestry.” The act also codified the policy of returning human remains and associated funerary objects to tribes. It called on the Smithsonian to conduct a “detailed inventory” of such objects in its collections, to identify the origins of the objects and to notify appropriate tribes. The act was the first of more than half a dozen passed during Bush’s presidency that directly benefited Native Americans. But Bush also contended with widespread corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1987, the U.S. Senate established a special committee to investigate Indian Affairs. In a report released in November 1989, the committee detailed pervasive fraud, corruption, and mismanagement in institutions serving Indians—and inside tribal governments themselves. After a thorough, two-year investigation, the committee assigned fault to Congress for “failing to adequately oversee and reform Indian Affairs,” the report states. “The pattern of abuse is endemic because Congress has never fully rejected the paternalism of the nineteenth century.” The report also found that the federal government maintained a “stifling bureaucratic presence in Indian country” and failed to deal with tribes as partners. The committee recommended a “new federalism” for American Indians that would allow tribal governments to “stand free, independent, responsible, and accountable.” Bush, who focused much of his time on foreign affairs, was president when Eastern European nations renounced communism, the Berlin Wall collapsed, and the Soviet Union disintegrated. The Cold War ended, but other wars began. In 1991, Bush sent U.S. troops to Kuwait in the military operation Desert Storm.

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But Bush, who also presided over a country celebrating the quincentennial anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landfall in America, was largely mum when it came to the topic of American Indians. He failed for two years to announce his administration’s formal Indian policies. In April 1991, a delegation of 17 Native leaders, led by Onondaga faith keeper Oren Lyons, journeyed to Washington to ask Bush for a policy statement. Two months later, Bush finally complied, issuing a statement that simply reaffirmed the same policies of self-determination he and Reagan articulated eight years earlier. “This government-to-government relationship is the result of sovereign and independent tribal governments being incorporated into the fabric of our nation, of Indian tribes becoming what our courts have come to refer to as quasi-sovereign domestic dependent nations,” Bush said. “Over the years the relationship has flourished, grown, and evolved into a vibrant partnership in which over 500 tribal governments stand shoulder to shoulder with the other governmental units that form our Republic.” In his statement, Bush also firmly relegated “to the history books” the concepts of forced Indian termination and excessive dependency on the federal government. “Today we move forward towards a permanent relationship of understanding and trust,” he said. “A relationship in which the tribes of the nation sit in positions of dependent sovereignty along with the other governments that compose the family that is America.” Although it took Bush two years to announce a formal policy statement, he signed at least half a dozen acts during that same timeframe that fundamentally changed how the federal government viewed Native cultures, artifacts, languages, and livelihoods. Eleven months after Bush established the National Museum of the American Indian, he signed the Native American Languages Act of 1990, which sought to reverse the effects of previous policies calling for suppression or extermination of Native languages and cultures. The act, signed October 30, 1990, acknowledged these languages as unique and addressed the “widespread practice of treating Native Americans’ languages as if they were anachronisms.” The act called on the federal government to work with tribes to ensure the survival of languages and cultures. It also declared it federal policy to “preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native American languages.”

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That freedom reached into BIA schools where Native languages could be used for classroom instruction, and into tribal governing bodies where Native languages were afforded official status. In a statement, Bush affirmed “the right of the Native Americans to express themselves through the use of Native American languages.” Several more bills benefitting Native Americans landed, in quick succession, on Bush’s desk during the fall of 1990. In November, he signed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which required all federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return cultural items to lineal descendants; and the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits the misrepresentation of products as Indian-made. Bush in November 1990 also issued a proclamation commemorating the first Native American Heritage Month, established by an act of Congress to “enhance public awareness of – and appreciation for – these proud peoples.” In December 1991, Bush signed a public law designating the following 12 months as the “Year of the American Indian.” The designation came as America prepared to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage. In a March 1992 proclamation, Bush reflected on the half millennium since the arrival of Europeans explorers. “The contributions that Native Americans have made to our Nation’s history and culture are as numerous and varied as the tribes themselves,” he said. “This year gives us the opportunity to recognize the special place that Native Americans hold in our society, to affirm the right of Indian tribes to exist as sovereign entities, and to seek greater mutual understanding and trust.” The tragedy of Bush’s term is the tragedy of missed opportunities. Bush was at the helm when the Soviet empire collapsed, when Eastern Europe achieved independence, when Western Europe united, and when Latin America embraced democracy. It was an opportunity to engage in visionary leadership, a chance to create a New World order, and an opportunity to refashion the way the international system operated. Such opportunities come along rarely.

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William Jefferson Clinton Bill Clinton17 was a new president, from a new generation, for a new America. The first president born after World War II, Clinton came from the generation that was inspired by John F. Kennedy’s call to public service, that had witnessed the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy, that protested the war in Vietnam, marched for Civil Rights, engaged in the cultural revolution of the 1960s, and observed the degradation of Watergate. The generational shift represented by Bill Clinton made many Americans feel uncomfortable. At 6’2”, weighing between 210 and 230 pounds, with sandy gray hair and blue eyes, Clinton was the first Rhodes scholar to become president. He was also the second president to be impeached. Bill Clinton was a man of contradictions and paradoxes: a policy wonk and a people pleaser; a brilliant mind but an adolescent psyche; a disciplined politician but a victim of his robust appetites. Politically, as Elizabeth Drew pointed out, “He was an activist president in a cynical age,” an era of hyper partisanship. He was an “I feel your pain” president in an “in your face” era. Clinton’s presidency was a roller coaster ride of political ups and downs. His first year saw the most rapid three-month loss of popularity for any president on record. His first-year performance also included the passage of a landmark deficit-reduction package and considerable new progressive legislation. His second year saw the embarrassing defeat of his health-care program, charges of White House scandals, and dramatic rejection of his party in the 1994 mid-term election, as the Republicans gained control of both Houses of Congress, after which Clinton was compelled to insist he was “not irrelevant!” The institutional tug-of-war between the president and Congress had been growing more bitter, as divided government (one party controlling Congress, the opposition party controlling the White House) became common. When Democrats were the majority party in Congress, investigations into the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush administrations uncovered Watergate and exposed the Iran-Contra scandal. During the Clinton years, the urge to probe reached new heights (or depths). Of course, Clinton’s behavior invited some of these investigations, but between the Republican Congress and several special investigators, Clinton was compelled to fend off all sorts of charges, bogus and genuine. So much time, energy, and money were spent by Clinton

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and his top staff in Clinton’s defense that they were less able to perform fully the task of governing—which was largely the intent of his opponents. While accusations and investigations have always been a part of political competition, during Clinton’s term they were elevated to a high political art form. The principle seems to be, when you can’t beat ‘em, investigate ‘em, until you either find something on them or tie them in knots and prevent them from governing. This “gotcha” politics has replaced policy debates as a prime form of political competition. Clinton’s successes are impressive: The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement, which led to budget surpluses, a very strong economy with low inflation and low unemployment, passage of AmeriCorps (a national service program), proposals to “reinvent government” (streamlining government practices), welfare reform, anticrime bills, the Brady Handgun Bill, the Family Medical Leave Act, telecommunications reform, the Motor Voter bill, the line item veto (later found unconstitutional), an increase in the minimum wage, and the longest peacetime economic boom in history. In foreign affairs, Clinton sent U.S. troops to Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti, and brokered peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He helped bring free elections to Haiti, reduced tensions with North Korea, and expanded trade. In 1999, as leader of NATO forces, he orchestrated the bombing of Kosovo in an effort to halt the genocide ordered by Slobodan Milosevic. But there were also some glaring errors. Failure to pass health-care reform was a major setback for Clinton, as was the loss of majority status in Congress. He also failed to pass campaign finance reform. Failures aside, Clinton became the most investigated president in U.S. history. Throughout his presidency, Bill Clinton was hounded by “the character issue.”18 Accusations about Clinton’s extramarital activities surfaced during the 1990 primary season when Gennifer Flowers sold a story to The Star, a sensationalist supermarket tabloid, in which she claimed (and which years later the president seemed to confirm) a long-term affair with then-governor Clinton. Bill Clinton survived an impeachment trial in the Senate, but what were the effects of impeachment on the presidency? In the course of the impeachment proceedings, several presidential powers were diminished. Due to court decisions, the president now may face civil trial while in office (Clinton v. Jones, 1997), his Secret Service guards and White House attorneys can be compelled to testify against him in court, and the

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president’s executive privilege has been eroded. Clinton left a diminished defensive presidency to his successors. The tragedy of Bill Clinton is that he was a man of enormous skill and possibility who could not control his darker impulses. He demeaned himself and his office. Bill Clinton: Invites Tribal Leaders to White House Fifteen months after taking office, Clinton made history by inviting all leaders of federally recognized tribes to the White House. Of the 556 leaders invited, 322 attended the meeting, during which Clinton fielded questions about economic development, tribal sovereignty, health care, education, and government-to-government relationships. The April 1994 event marked the first time since 1822 tribal leaders were invited to meet directly with a sitting president of the United States. In an afternoon speech delivered on the South Lawn, Clinton reaffirmed Native rights to self-determination: “What you have done to retain your identity, your dignity, and your faith in the face of often immeasurable obstacles is profoundly moving, an example of the enduring strength of the human spirit,” he said. “In every relationship between our people, our first principle must be to respect your right to remain who you are and to live the way you wish to live.” Clinton pledged to uphold the government’s trust obligations to tribes, vowing to “honor and respect tribal sovereignty.” That included federal protection of traditional religions and ceremonies, he said as he outlined three guiding principles for federal–tribal relationships. The first principle was to respect “your values, your religions, your identity, and your sovereignty,” he told tribal leaders. The second principle called for a full partnership between the federal government and tribal nations, and the third demanded that the government “improve the living conditions of those whom we serve.” Clinton used his speech to announce that members of his cabinet would participate in unprecedented listening conferences in Indian country. He also publicly signed two memorandums upholding the religious rights of Native Americans—including expedited access to eagle feathers—and called on federal agencies to consult “to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law,” with tribal governments before taking actions that affect tribes.

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“It is the entire Government, not simply the Department of the Interior, that has a trust responsibility with tribal governments,” Clinton said. “And it is time the entire Government recognized and honored that responsibility.” One month after the White House meeting, in May 1994, Clinton signed Public Law 103–263, which prohibited the federal government from distinguishing between “historic” Indian tribes and “created” tribes—roughly 20 tribes that failed to sufficiently document their history. The law extended to all tribes equal autonomy, including the rights to levy taxes and handle law enforcement on Indian lands. In October 1994, Clinton signed two more bills that ensured independence for tribes. Public Law 103–413 made policies of tribal selfgovernance permanent. Public Law 103–412, which came in the wake of criticism over the government’s historic mismanagement of Indian trust funds, allowed tribes to manage their own accounts. The bills, signed during the beginning of Clinton’s first term, signaled a distinct change in the government’s attitude toward Indians, said Robert Miller, a law professor at Arizona State University. “This was the President and the White House that really started to pay attention to Indian country,” said Miller, who is Shawnee. “Tribal governments got more involved, and politicians really started paying attention to the power of tribes.” Born in Arkansas in 1946, Clinton decided at age 16 that he wanted a career as an elected official. A Rhodes Scholar with a penchant for saxophone and rugby, Clinton attended college in the United States and England, eventually graduating from Yale Law School in 1973. Clinton taught law at the University of Arkansas but abandoned his post in 1976 when he was elected as Arkansas attorney general. In 1978, at age 32, he was elected as governor of Arkansas—a position he held for ten years before making a bid for U.S. President. He served two terms in office, from 1993 to 2001. In a nod to both Native Americans and women, Clinton in August 1993 appointed Ada Deer as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs. Deer, Menominee, was the first Native woman to hold the office. Clinton went on to sign numerous laws, memos, and executive orders that restored sovereign rights to tribes. His administration also oversaw two formal apologies extended to indigenous groups. In November 1993, Clinton signed Public Law 103–150, an apology to Naïve Hawaiians on the 100th anniversary of the United States’

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overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. In a September 2000 ceremony honoring the 175th anniversary of the BIA, Kevin Gover, assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, apologized on behalf of the federal agency for the ethnic cleansing and cultural annihilation of Natives. “I stand before you as the leader of an institution that in the past has committed acts so terrible that they infect, diminish, and destroy the lives of Indian people decades later, generations later,” Gover said. “These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin.” As he campaigned for reelection in 1996, Clinton signed two more measures that significantly benefitted Native Americans. In May of that year, he issued an executive order calling for federal protection of Indian sacred sites. Such sites, he said, are defined as “any specific, discrete, narrowly delineated location on Federal land that is identified by an Indian tribe, or Indian individual …. As sacred by virtue of its established religious significance to, or ceremonial use by, an Indian religion.” Five months later, in October 1996, Clinton signed the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act, which recognized the federal government’s responsibility to provide housing to tribes and help improve infrastructure. The act, known as NAHASDA, also provided block grants for tribes. The funds could be applied to building or renovating homes as tribes saw fit. That same year, Clinton contended with the largest class-action lawsuit ever filed against the federal government. In June 1996, plaintiffs in the Cobell v. Salazar case sued the Interior and Treasury departments over the mismanagement of Indian trust funds. The case stretched through Clinton’s second term, spanned the entire presidency of George W. Bush, and was finally settled for $3.4 billion in 2009—under President Barack Obama. In July 1999, Clinton became the first sitting president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to visit an Indian reservation. During a discussion with tribal leaders on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Clinton asked questions about housing, unemployment, educational opportunities, and economic development. The following year, Clinton visited the Navajo Nation, where he spoke in halted Navajo and promised to bridge the digital divide. In a speech delivered to thousands of Navajo spectators in Shiprock, New Mexico, Clinton also pledged to “empower the tribes of our Nation.” “There is nothing more important to me than getting this government-to-government relationship right, but getting it right in a

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way that will empower you to lift yourselves and your children to fulfill your potential and your dreams, not a patronizing relationship but an empowering one, not a handout but a hand up, a genuine partnership so that your children can live their dreams,” he said. “We have never had a better chance to build the right kind of relationship. We have never had a better chance to build new connections between people, between cultures, between nations.” During his final year in office, Clinton helped pave the way for more development and employment opportunities on tribal land. In March, 2000 he signed the Indian Tribal Economic Development and Contract Encouragement Act, which encouraged development on Indian lands by disclosing sovereign immunity in contracts involving tribes. In November 2000, with just two months left in office, Clinton signed an executive order titled “Consultation and Coordination with Tribal Governments.” The order sought to “establish regular and meaningful consultation and collaboration with tribal officials in the development of federal policies that have tribal implications.” It also strengthened the “unique legal relationship” between tribes and the federal government, Clinton said. “Today, there is nothing more important in Federal-tribal relations than fostering true government-to-government relations to empower American Indians and Alaska Natives to improve their own lives, the lives of their children, and the generations to come,” he said. “In our Nation’s relations with Indian tribes, our first principle must be to respect the right of American Indians and Alaska Natives to self-determination.”

George W. Bush The 43rd president and the son of a president, George W. Bush had the highest and the lowest job approval ratings of any president in history.19 After victory in the controversial 2000 election where disputed votes in Florida led to the Supreme Court selecting Bush as president, George W. Bush’s presidency was dominated by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack against the United States. After that attack, Bush’s popularity skyrocketed, reaching the 90 percent mark. He exerted bold and controversial leadership, going so far as to approve torture (or “enhanced interrogation”) of imprisoned suspected terrorists.

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Bush approved a military operation against Afghanistan, which was harboring terrorists. Victory came quickly, but the Taliban government went into hiding and engaged in a long civil war that made hollow the illusion of victory. Not content to go after those responsible for the 9/11 attack, Bush extended his ambitions to Iraq, where he was determined to overthrow the Baath government led by Saddam Hussein. While Hussein was not involved in the 9/11 attack, Bush nonetheless saw the opportunity to expand his ambitions and take out a rival. But to do this, Bush lied about Hussein and insisted that he was developing “weapons of mass destruction” and intended to use them against our allies and perhaps even against the United States.20 In 2003, the United States and a few allies invaded Iraq and overthrew the government. But Bush had no viable plan for a post-war peace in Iraq and things soon descended into chaos. It took nearly a decade to gain a partial settlement in Iraq, but much damage, and many lost lives ensued.21 With the War in Iraq going poorly, Bush’s popularity began to decline, then, in August 2005, a destructive hurricane, Katrina, struck the New Orleans area. It was devastating, and Bush was slow to respond. He seemed not to care. And his popularity dropped to the 20 percent range. In 2008, a deep recession hit the global economy and President Bush, who had previously been a free market advocate, quickly changed tune and advocated a massive investment of government intrusion and money into the economy to stem the recession. This massive infusion of money helped stop the bleeding, but a recession hit. George W. Bush: “Actively Ignored” Indians; Struggled with Sovereignty One year before winning the election of 2000, Bush, then Texas governor and Republican frontrunner in the presidential race, championed for States’ rights, which he believed trumped the rights of tribes. During a trip to Syracuse, New York, in October 1999, Bush, already an adversary to Indian casinos in his home state of Texas, advocated a position that contradicted both the U.S. Constitution and more than 200 years of federal Indian law.

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“My view is that state law reigns supreme when it comes to the Indians, whether it be gambling or any other issue,” he told the Syracuse PostStandard on October 24, 1999. Although Bush later reversed his stance and vowed to “protect and honor tribal sovereignty,” his initial comments set the tone for a lackluster presidency when it came to advancements in Indian Affairs. In fact, Bush spent the bulk of his two terms in office “actively ignoring” Indians and other minorities, said Scott Merriman, a history lecturer at Troy University. “Where Bush was trying to make his mark on history was in foreign affairs,” Merriman said. “Domestic policy took a back seat. Minorities took a back seat. And Native Americans took a back seat to other minorities when he did worry about them. Bush’s Indian policy was one of benign indifference.” Like his father, Bush pursued a career in oil before entering politics. In 1994 and again in 1998, he was elected as Texas governor, a post he held for five years, abandoning it when he was elected as 43rd president of the United States in 2000. From the start, Bush faced a nation of uncertainty, and his eight years in office were colored by other political, natural, and economic disasters. Meanwhile, Bush ignored Native Americans almost entirely, said Michael Oberg, distinguished professor of history at the State University of New York at Genesco. “Of course, Bush had the war on terror and other things that were absorbing his time, but he also was not interested in Indian policy at all,” Oberg said. “He didn’t know about the issues and had very little experience. Also, he just didn’t care.” Despite contending with major national and international crises, Bush did take some minor steps to recognize Native Americans. Six months after taking office, Bush led a ceremony to formally acknowledge the Navajo Code Talkers, presenting the Medal of Honor to the 29 original Code Talkers and silver medals to those who served later. The Code Talkers’ mission was declassified in 1968, but most didn’t live to see the day the federal government officially recognized them. “In war, using their native language, they relayed secret messages that turned the course of the battle,” Bush said of the Code Talkers in his July 6, 2001, speech. “At home, they carried for decades the secret of their own heroism. Today, we give these exceptional Marines the recognition they earned so long ago.”

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As Bush campaigned for reelection in 2004, he stumbled over a question about tribal sovereignty, once again revealing a troubling ignorance of Indian issues. The comment came in August when Bush, speaking at a UNITY convention for journalists of color, responded to a question about what tribal sovereignty meant in the twenty-first century. “Tribal sovereignty means just that; it’s sovereign,” Bush responded. “You’re a – you’ve been given sovereignty, and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity.” The comment, itself nonsensical, set off a firestorm of protest from Native groups that took issue with the word “given.” Sovereignty is “the nearest and dearest, No. 1 issue in Indian Country,” Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians said in response to Bush’s comment. “It’s not something that was given to us. As tribes, we see sovereignty as something we’ve always had.” Bush backpedaled, releasing a memorandum on tribal sovereignty in September 2004—six weeks ahead of the election. Signed in honor of the grand opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, the Memorandum on Government-to-Government Relationship with Tribal Governments reiterated the “unique legal and political relationship” that exists between the United States and Indian tribes. In his memorandum, Bush called on all federal departments and agencies to “adhere to these principles and work with tribal governments in a manner that cultivates mutual respect and fosters greater understanding.” In late October 2004, Bush signed the American Indian Probate Reform Act, which overhauled the federal probate process for Indian trust land. The act also sought to reverse fractionation of Indian land—a consequence of the Dawes Act of 1887 and the allotment era—and consolidate Indian land ownership. During his second term in office, Bush signed the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act, which called for revitalization of Native languages. The act, signed in December 2006, authorized grants to fund teacher training, curriculum development, and instructional programs that immersed students in their Native languages. But Bush also opposed the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s efforts to prohibit Native-themed mascots and tried to cut to zero his proposed 2009 budget for urban Indian health—a loss of $21 million. In 2006, lobbyist and Bush supporter Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to felony charges for his role in defrauding tribes out of more than $25 million.

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In March 2008, Bush acknowledged the late Woodrow Keeble, a master sergeant in the Army during the Korean War and the first Lakota Indian to receive the Medal of Honor. During a ceremony held at the White House more than a quarter-century after Keeble’s death, Bush presented the medal to his family. “Whatever the reason, the first Sioux to ever receive the Medal of Honor died without knowing it was his,” Bush said. “A terrible injustice was done to a good man, to his family, and to history. And today we’re going to try to set things right.”

Barack Hussein Obama The first African American elected president, Barack Obama proved a successful but divisive president. Raised in a multi-cultural, multi-racial family, Obama might be expected to be more sensitive to the plight of Native Americans, and to a degree, he was. Some argue that as president, he was one of the best advocates the Indian community ever had.22 Upon taking office, it became clear that President Obama’s goal of leading a post-racial nation would not take place. Race remained a deeply divisive issue in American society, and much of the opposition to Obama stemmed from his racial makeup. Critics of Obama denied this, and of course not all opponents to Obama were racist, but to many, Obama’s mere presence in the White House brought out a visceral contempt and hatred that went far beyond reason and can be attributed to the lingering ugliness of racism.23 When Obama took office, the nation was still reeling from the 2008 recession. As president, he funneled more stimulus money into the economy, leading to the slow but steady improvement. Obama’s signature success was the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). This law dramatically expanded medical coverage for millions of Americans, but it was repeatedly challenged by Republicans who tried to defeat in court what they could not stop legislatively. President Obama achieved several big reforms in the environment, immigration, and social policy, but he governed in a time of deep partisan division. Republicans all but announced that no matter what the president proposed, they would oppose it. Thus, when Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-term elections, Obama was reduced to seeking administrative rather than legislative victories.

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It was during the Obama presidency that U.S. troops killed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. On Obama’s orders, U.S. Seals landed in bin Laden’s Pakistani compound and killed him. Obama convinced Iran to agree to halt its nuclear weapons development program, normalized relations with Cuba, ended the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” program toward gay servicemen and woman in the military, signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to combat wage discrimination against women, nominated two women to the Supreme Court, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.24 Barack Obama: ‘Emotionally and Intellectually Committed to Indian Country’ During his eighth and final White House Tribal Nations Conference, President Obama delivered an intimate message to Native Americans. “This whole time, I’ve heard you,” he old tribal leaders who gathered in Washington, D.C., in September 2016. But Obama’s comments were intended for a wider audience—all Natives in their respective home communities. “I have seen you. And I hope I’ve done right by you.” The remarks, which came near the end of Obama’s presidency, revealed an emotional connection to Native Americans, said Kevin Washburn, who served as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs under Obama from 2012 to 2016. “Early on, as a candidate, Obama identified Indian Country as something that was important to him, an area where he personally wanted to make a difference,” said Washburn, a law professor at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma. “From the beginning, we saw that he was intellectually committed to Indian Country. By the end, he was emotionally committed. I don’t think we’ve seen that before.” Obama began championing for Indians prior to taking office. In fact, he announced his federal Indian policy six months before defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in the 2008 election. “Few have been ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans, the first Americans,” Obama, then a U.S. senator from Illinois, said during a May 2008 campaign speech on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. “My Indian policy starts with honoring the unique government-to-government relationship between tribes and the federal

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government and ensuring that our treaty responsibilities are met and ensuring that Native Americans have a voice in the White House.” Obama, who was adopted into the Crow Nation that day, promised to appoint an American Indian policy adviser to his senior staff and “end nearly a century of mismanagement of Indian trust.” He also pledged to host an annual summit with tribal leaders. “That’s how we’ll make sure that you have a seat at the table when important decisions are being made about your lives, about your nations, about your people,” he said. Ten months after taking office, on November 5, 2009, Obama hosted his first White House Tribal Nations Conference, which he recognized as “the largest and most widely attended gathering of tribal leaders” in history. Having already dispatched department secretaries to listening sessions in Indian country, Obama launched a “lasting conversation” with tribal leaders that would span the rest of his presidency. The conversation began by acknowledging “a history marked by violence and disease and deprivation.” Obama recognized that recent history also was marked by too little communication between tribes and the federal government, but said he was “absolutely committed” to changing that. “It’s a commitment that’s deeper than our unique nation-to-nation relationship,” he said. “It’s a commitment to getting this relationship right, so that you can be full partners in the American economy, and so your children and your grandchildren can have an equal shot at pursuing the American Dream.” This conference—the largest ever held—included leaders of nearly 400 tribal nations. Obama was direct and to the point: We know the history that we share. It’s a history marked by violence and disease and deprivation. Treaties were violated. Promises were broken. You were told your lands, your religion, your cultures, your languages were not yours to keep. And that’s a history that we’ve got to acknowledge if we are to move forward. We also know our more recent history; one in which, too often, Washington thought it knew what was best for you. There was too little consultation between governments.

Especially in the area of health care, but more broadly on policies across the spectrum, President Obama made serious attempts to improve conditions for Native Americans.

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Obama used his first Tribal Nations Conference to sign a presidential memorandum directing every cabinet agency to provide a plan within 90 days—and on an annual basis thereafter—detailing its consultations with tribes, plans to implement change in Indian country and regular progress reports. The memorandum came nine years after President Bill Clinton issued a similar executive order, but agencies had largely failed to follow through. “History has shown that failure to include the voices of tribal officials in formulating policy affecting their communities has all too often led to undesirable and, at times, devastating and tragic results,” the memorandum states. “By contrast, meaningful dialogue between Federal officials and tribal officials has greatly improved Federal policy toward Indian tribes.” Obama went on to host a Tribal Nations Conference every year— and hold his cabinet secretaries accountable. As a result, federal agencies rallied unprecedented devotion to Indian Affairs and accomplished more for Indians than any other administration in history. “Virtually every agency improved somehow in what it did for Indian country,” Washburn said. “By the second or third Tribal Nations Conference, secretaries knew they had to deliver. That made them keenly aware of Indians. The conference drove policy like nothing has before.” When he took office in 2009, Obama inherited a country in the throes of an economic recession and a war in Iraq. He also inherited a lackluster Indian policy from his predecessor, George W. Bush, who barely acknowledged Native Americans. Obama quickly tackled some long-standing issues, and his first term was marked by vast legislative and regulatory achievements, Washburn said. By the end of his second year in office, Obama had permanently changed the federal government’s relationships with indigenous people. In July 2010, Obama signed the Tribal Law and Order Act, expanding punitive authority of tribal courts and working to reduce violent crime— especially against women—in Indian country. During a signing ceremony, Obama said the act sent “a clear message that all of our people, whether they live in our biggest cities or our most remote reservations, have the right to feel safe in their own communities.” Five months later, Obama signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, reversing the United States’ 2007 position on the declaration and committing to honor indigenous peoples’ right to exist. That same month, Obama signed a bill settling for $3.4

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billion a lawsuit filed by Elouise Cobell on behalf of 300,000 Indians who alleged the federal government mismanaged trust accounts. “After 14 years of litigation, it’s finally time to address the way that Native Americans were treated by their government,” Obama said as he signed the Cobell settlement. “After years of delay, this bill will provide a small measure of justice to Native Americans whose funds were held in trust by a Government charged with looking out for them.” Obama’s signature ended the largest class-action lawsuit ever filed against the federal government and signaled a dramatic change in the way federal agencies worked with tribes. “For 15 years, the secretary of Indian Affairs was trying to serve Indian country while litigating against the people at the same time,” Washburn said. “Settling means the United States and Indian Country aren’t litigating against each other anymore. The administration is working with Indians and not fighting them.” The Cobell settlement was the first of many Obama signed that allocated dollars or land to tribes. The $680 million Keepseagle settlement also came in 2010, and by 2012, the Justice and Interior departments had reached settlements totaling more than $1 billion with 41 tribes for claims of mismanagement. The Navajo Nation alone got $554 million—the largest settlement in history with a single tribe. In total, the Obama administration infused more than $10 billion into Indian country because of legal settlements. It also restored more than 500,000 acres of Indian land to trust. If Obama’s first term was regulatory, his second was personal, Washburn said. During his final four years in office, Obama did much to protect the most vulnerable Native populations, including women and children. In March 2013, he signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, extending to tribes unprecedented authority to prosecute non-Natives who commit crimes on Indian land. “Indian country has some of the highest rates of domestic abuse in America,” Obama said. “And one of the reasons is that when Native American women are abused on tribal lands by an attacker who is not Native American, the attacker is immune from prosecution. Well, as soon as I sign this bill that ends.” In June 2013, Obama established the White House Council on Native American Affairs, an assembly comprising the heads of all major federal departments and agencies and charged with improving quality of life for Native Americans. Obama also called for stricter compliance with the

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Indian Child Welfare Act, pushed for improvements in Indian schools, and increased funding for suicide prevention programs in Indian country. In June 2014, Obama journeyed to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation for a private meeting with youth—from which he emerged “shaken” because the teens “were carrying burdens no young person should ever have to carry,” he said. Following that visit, Obama called for an aggressive overhaul of Indian education and other efforts to improve the lives of Native youth. In December 2014, on the heels of his visit to Standing Rock, Obama established Generation Indigenous, a network tasked with cultivating the next generation of Native leaders and removing “the barriers that stand between young people and opportunity.” In August 2015, Obama used his executive power to officially restore the Native name of Alaska’s highest mountain peak. For almost a century, the peak was called Mount McKinley after a U.S. president who never visited Alaska. In a nod to Alaska Natives, Obama changed the name back to Denali. As his presidency winded down, Obama continued to contend with several issues concerning Native lands. The most pressing was the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1172-mile conduit spanning North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, and projected to transport 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day. For months, hundreds of Standing Rock Sioux and their allies camped along the route, protesting the pipeline over fears that it would pollute water and destroy sacred land. Obama’s Administration successfully halted pipeline construction. Shortly before leaving office, on December 28, 2016, Obama issued a presidential proclamation establishing Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah, a 1.9-million-acre expanse of land that encompasses 100,000 archaeological sites. The site, constantly under attack from the oil and gas industry, is considered sacred by five tribes. Obama will go down in history as the president who raised national consciousness of Native Americans. He did more for Indians than any other president, shaking the very culture of thought in the country’s highest offices. “One thing we learned is that it takes years to change culture in the federal government,” Washburn said. “You can’t do it in one term, and it looks like you can’t do it in two terms, but we came a long way.”

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Donald J. Trump Donald J. Trump was an unlikely president. The first elected with no political or military experience, Trump weathered several campaign setbacks that would have ended most campaigns (e.g., the Access Hollywood, “I just grab them by the p*@#y” tape). His brash, rude, confrontational attack style, while unpresidential in the extreme, seemed to capture the anger and partisan hatred of the times. Trump spoke to and for the grievances and angst of voters who felt left out and put down.25 Trump signaled the trajectory of his presidency in his inaugural address. In it, Trump leveled an all-out assault on the status quo, arguing that the American elite had been destroying America by stealing its wealth and ignoring the needs of the average American. He called upon average citizens to join his populist movement to overthrow the corrupt establishment. Trump’s inaugural address was delivered amid the backdrop of the Russian hacking scandal. Reports from U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia—on the orders of Vladimir Putin—hacked into computers of leading Democrats, gave the stolen materials to WikiLeaks (which released them), with the intention of hurting Hillary Clinton and helping the Trump campaign. The revelations were met with scorn by Trump loyalists, but some leading Republican officials were incensed and insisted on congressional hearings to get the full story. Four questions were raised: (1) Did the Russians interfere with a U.S. election to hurt Clinton and help Trump? (2) Did this interference affect votes? (3) Was the Trump campaign working with the Russians? and (4) Were the Russians able to hack into voting machines and change votes? With some critics questioning the very legitimacy of Trump, it was clear that Trump’s inaugural address had added significance for the incoming president. Could he “bring us together,” or would we continue to be a deeply divided nation? January 20, 2017, was an overcast day in the nation’s capital, and the day of the 58th formal presidential swearing-in ceremony (six presidents were sworn-in outside Washington, D.C.) it marked the seventy-first time a president has taken the oath of office. Which Trump would we see: the in-your-face smash-mouth Trump, or a new “bring-us-together” Trump? Donald Trump’s first speech as president was relatively short —roughly 17 minutes—and excessively dark—it soon became known as “the

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carnage speech”—and was addressed almost solely to his white, angry, populist base. There was no olive branch to those who voted against him, no call for coming together or national unity, no binding of wounds, no pivot to a presidential style, no lofty summons appealing to “the better angels of our nature.” In a pugnacious tone, delivered to an aggrieved segment of the electorate, his address was little more than a repeat of the acrid tone of campaign 2016. Ungenerous and unwelcoming, it sought not to heal the wounds, but to rub salt into them. It struck an angry tone, not a conciliatory one. It was Trump as Polarizer-in-Chief. Words like carnage, rusted out, bleed, unrealized, sprawl, ripped, tombstone, robbed, trapped, and despair peppered his address. Trump blasted insiders and elected officials: The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumph. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. That all changes starting right here and right now, because this moment is your moment. It belongs to you… the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Trump added that “for too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.” Ironically, that small group was seated behind the new president. Trump painted an unusually glum portrait of the nation: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

Full of disdain for the establishment he now headed, Trump’s speech was backward looking (Make America Great Again) and confrontational (unusual for an inaugural address). It was also unusually negative. It was Donald Trump, bashing the club that for most of his life wouldn’t let him in as a member.

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The new president also announced to the world that: We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power… From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first.

Trump opened with an anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-D.C. note, separating “you, the people” from the government; the first was good, the latter, bad. With a Jacksonian flair, Trump trumpeted “This moment is your moment. It belongs to you.” The “you” was a narrowly defined set of outsiders and insurgents whose anger lifted Donald Trump to these heights as a spokesman for their anger. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he promised. The state of America? A wreck. Trump’s dystopian critique of an America at war with itself would be transformed: “America will start winning again, winning like never before.” Trump would turn the loser nation into a winner nation. He would “make America great again.” Trump called on America to turn in on itself; to eschew the needs and troubles of others and think first of ourselves. That this would create a vacuum internationally was unmentioned, nor did Trump indicate who or what might replace the United States as global leader. In the end, Donald Trump’s inaugural address turned out to be the speech that got him elected. It was not new, more presidential Trump, but the Trump of the campaign, a raw, slightly menacing populist insurgent issuing his populist manifesto. There was brand consistency, not transformational rhetoric reinforcement, not a new, more presidential Trump. He spoke largely to his core constituency, caring little to appeal to those who did not vote for him or did not vote at all, and this was the way Donald Trump governed.26 Dark, dystopian, confrontational, angry, President Trump’s inaugural address can be seen as a mirror of the man or an accurate assessment of the conditions facing America. Was the address about Trump or about the nation? In his speech, Trump viciously attacked the very politicians (of both parties) seated immediately behind him. Ungracious to the point of being mean-spirited, Trump was trying not only to distinguish himself from the political class but also to issue a warning that he would be a disruptive,

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perhaps even a transformational, president. He was here to take down the establishment, not fix things. According to a report in New York Magazine, former president George W. Bush, upon leaving the inauguration grandstand said, “That was some weird shit.”27 Trump was an outsider and a disruptor. He relished in bashing adversaries and eschewed the dignified elements of the presidency. Trump was a gutter-fighter who was at his best when he could lower the level of discussion and get into a catfight with adversaries. He was able to rely upon a unified Republican party to back him up no matter how outrageous or obnoxious he got. It was revealed that he had defrauded students at “Trump University,” misused funds for the Trump Foundation, paid for the silence of several women with whom he had adulterous relationships, and lied repeatedly (see the Washington Post Fact Checker database). None of it mattered to his loyal base. He articulated their anger and attacked their enemies. He was their voice. Virtually from day one, Trump began to dismantle the old order— especially if it had been instilled by his predecessor Barack Obama—and create a new hyper-conservative order. And almost from day one, he was hounded by accusations that the Russians had helped him get elected, a charge he ferociously denied, yet report after report confirmed.28 China policy? Impart harsh tariffs. North Korea and their development of nuclear weapons? Verbally assault and threaten “Little Rocket Man” Kim Jong Un. Allies not warming up to your new anti-NATO approach? Insult them. Climate change? Call it a hoax and pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords. Need an enemy to distract attention away from your foibles? Attack Mexican immigrants and threaten to “build a wall” (which Mexico was supposed to pay for). Need to warm up to rich supporters? Give them a massive tax cut. But throughout his presidency, Trump was hounded by scandals and investigations, from the Mueller investigation (into irregularities in the 2016 presidential Campaign) to impeachment (the House impeached Trump in late 2019, but the Senate acquitted him). In early 2020, the world was threatened by the spread of a coronavirus. This pandemic hit hard and widely. In the United States, the virus spread quickly causing over 50,000 deaths by late April. And by mid-July, the death toll was 141,000. President Trump downplayed the threat of the virus and diminished its potential impact for weeks. Then, when finally, he woke up to the reality, he stumbled and bumbled, making a series of

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mistakes (like suggesting that somehow we inject disinfectants into our bodies to kill the virus). The president was out of his element, and over his head. Trump: Decades of Antagonism Toward Native Americans If Obama was one of the best presidents for Native Americans, Trump undoubtedly ranks among the worst. His animosity toward Native Americans manifested in the early 1990s when Trump, focused on raising his casino empire in Atlantic City, began clashing with gaming tribes on the East Coast. Trump had benefited from Atlantic City’s near-monopoly of East Coast gaming until a 1988 federal law opened the door for more tribal casinos. Two years later, Trump Taj Mahal opened at 1000 Boardwalk. It was Trump’s third casino in a city that was seeking to overtake Las Vegas as the nation’s gambling capital. Bearing a price tag of nearly $1 billion, the casino and hotel boasted 120,000 square feet of gaming space and billed itself in typical Trump hyperbole: the Taj Mahal was not only the world’s largest casino (a claim later proven false), but also the “eighth wonder of the world.”29 Signed by President Reagan in 1988, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act regulated Native-owned casinos and protected gaming as a means of generating revenue on historically impoverished tribal lands. Trump did not respond well to his new competitors—or to their apparent success. In 1993, he launched a series of attacks on Indian gaming and the tribes seeking new sources of revenue. His attacks included a litany of unfounded allegations and explosive claims, often spurred on by “shock radio” hosts like Don Imus.30 During a June 18, 1993, interview, for example, Imus asked Trump about plans by a “bunch of these drunken injuns” to open a casino in New Jersey. Trump’s response was demeaning and racist, not to mention completely absurd: “A lot of these reservations are being … run by organized crime and organized crime elements,” he said. “There’s no protection. There’s no anything. And it’s become a joke.” Imus then insulted the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation of Connecticut, which had opened the successful Foxwoods casino in 1991, claiming tribal members looked like black basketball player Michael Jordan. “I think if you’ve ever been up there, you would truly say that these are not Indians,” Trump responded.

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Revealing his ignorance about Native economies and federal and state tax laws, Trump continued: “So it’s really a double standard and no taxes are paid. No supervision’s there, tremendous crime, and most of the Indians don’t want it themselves. The leaders – you know, all chiefs and no Indians, and the leaders want it for the obvious reason, but I think it’s something that’s going to end or is certainly going to be supervised very, very stringently.” Trump claimed that, should his lawsuits against gaming tribes fail, he would become an Indian himself. “I think I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations,” he said. In a final jab toward indigenous people, Trump joked that questions about his marital status were harder to answer than questions about Indians. “The Indian problem is a much simpler problem,” he said. “That can be solved.” In 2000, when New York was considering expanding Native-owned casinos in the Catskill Mountains, Trump funded a series of television, newspaper, and radio ads that accused the Mohawk Tribe of having long criminal records and ties to the mob. The ads included pictures of cocaine lines and syringes and asked, “Are these the new neighbors we want?” As president, Trump’s public speeches and Tweets (his preferred method of communication) were riddled with similar hyperboles about the size of his empire, comparable false claims about Native Americans, and the same degrading, racist terms for minorities. Throughout his campaign and his presidency, Trump used “Pocahontas”—the nickname given to a young Powhatan woman known for her marriage to the colonist John Rolfe in the early seventeenth century— as a racial slur, designed to demean Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren had dubious claims to Cherokee ancestry, and Trump repeatedly used the name to ridicule her—to the delight of his rallying supporters, who often erupted in war whoops. Trump even used a 2017 White House event honoring the Navajo Code Talkers as an opportunity to mock Warren: “You were here long before any of us were here,” Trump told a small group of Code Talkers— all in their 90 s—who were being honored for their service during World War II. Then he continued: “Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”

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In January 2019, Warren—then seeking the democratic nomination for president—hosted a live Q&A session on Instagram. Afterward, Trump tweeted: “If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash.” Though Trump’s supporters excused the slurs as political humor, his attitudes toward Native Americans and other minorities clearly fueled his anti-Native actions. Intent on undoing anything Obama accomplished, Trump just four days after taking office in January 2017 ordered that the work on the Dakota Access Pipeline recommence—despite ongoing protests from the Standing Rock Sioux and groups of Native American activists. The order expedited an environmental review process Trump described as an “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.” Also in 2017, Trump slashed 85 percent of the land from the new Bears Ears National Monument—a monument whose creation was informed by neighboring tribes—and opened the land to energy exploration. He also decreased the size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Together, this was the largest rollback of public lands in the history of the United States. Trump also supported measures to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act and open the Arctic Refuge to drilling, prompting Native attorneys and activists to speak out. “Trump took the position against Native people first thing in office,” said Matt Campbell, staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund. “That set the tone early on for the relationship.”31 Trump ordered construction of his infamous “border wall,” a 2000mile wall along the southern U.S. border designed to keep illegal immigrants out, without consulting with tribes. In February 2020, crews began blasting along the border—and on the ancestral homeland of the Tohono O’odham Nation—and disrupted a sacred burial ground dating back 10,000 years. As human remains were uncovered, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva protested that the Trump administration “is basically trampling on the tribe’s history—and to put it poignantly, its ancestry.” Although Trump did sign some bills supporting Native Americans— including one that established a limited task force on missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, and one that granted federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana—he also caused lasting harm to other tribes. In 2018,

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the Department of the Interior took Mashpee Wampanoag land in Massachusetts out of trust, marking the first time reservation land has been rescinded since the “termination era” of the 1940s–1960s. Where President Obama engaged intellectually and emotionally with indigenous people, Trump sought to undermine and ridicule them. Even as public schools, municipalities, and professional sporting teams changed their Native-themed names or mascots (after two high-profile wins in federal court allowed them to keep their name, even the Washington Redskins quietly transitioned to the Washington Football Team in 2020), Trump continued to encourage hateful language and the mocking of indigenous people. While pundits claim Trump’s hateful rhetoric is simply that—rhetoric— the misogyny, white supremacy, and blatant racism Trump flaunted at the national level trickled down to embolden the portion of his electorate that nursed imagined grievances—the uneducated, blue-collar, white men who pined for the America of the past, including the laws that limited opportunities for religious and ethnic minorities and women. These men felt left out, slighted by the progressivism of the times, and angered by the empowerment of the underdogs. As Cherokee attorney Mary Kathryn Nagle wrote, Trump used indigenous people “as characters, as almost cartoons in a political feud” and that “gives the American public the implicit permission to do that to the actual Native people living here.” No one was more surprised than Trump when the state of Arizona voted Democrat in the 2020 election. A historically red state, Arizona— home to the Navajo Nation and 21 additional tribes—had only supported a Democrat in a presidential race once since 1952 (Bill Clinton won the state in 1996). Yet high voter turnout on huge swaths of Arizona’s tribal lands helped swing the state for Biden. With an advantage of less than 12,000 votes, Biden could not have taken the state without Native voters. Donald Trump’s controversial presidency came to an end when he lost his 2020 bid for reelection. Trump, however, refused to accept the verdict of the American people. In a race he lost by over 7 million popular votes, Donald Trump cried foul, fraud, and corruption. The election had been stolen. He not only verbally railed against the results, he went to court to try to overturn the election results. Even though he lost over 60 court cases, Trump never gave in. Running out of options, Trump held a Washington, D.C., rally on the morning Congress was set to certify the election results. At the rally, Trump enjoined his loyal followers to march to the Capitol and “fight.”

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And fight they did. Domestic terrorists assaulted the Capitol, legislators scrambled for safety just steps ahead of the angry mob (some protesters shouted “Hang Mike Pence”), Trump’s vice president who refused to block vote certification. It was an ugly, violent mess, and at the end of the day, failed to stop certification of the Joe Biden—Kamala Harris victory.

Notes 1. Borney, Vaughn Davis. The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, University Press of Kansas, 1983; and Goldman, Eric F. The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, Dell, 1968. 2. Trafzer, Clifford E., ed. American Indians, American Presidents, Smithsonian, 2009, p. 183. 3. Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon, 3 vols., Simon and Schuster, 1989, 1991, 1995; Genovese, Michael A. The Nixon Presidency: Power and Politics in Turbulent Times, Greenwood, 1990; Kutler, Stanley. The Wars of Watergate, Knopf, 1990; Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Grosset and Dunlop, 1978; and Genovese, Michael A. The Watergate Crisis, Greenwood, 1999. 4. Genovese, Michael A. The Presidency in an Age of Limits, Greenwood, 1993. 5. Lammers, William W. and Genovese, Michael A. Comparing Presidents: Leadership Styles and Domestic Policy, Congressional Quarterly, 2000. 6. Capriccioso, Rob. “Barack Obama and Richard Nixon Among Best Presidents for Indian Country,” Indian Country Today, February 20, 2017, first published on President’s Day, 2012. 7. Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford, University Press of Kansas, 1995; and Reeves, Richard A. A Ford, Not a Lincoln, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. 8. Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, Boston, 1982; Hargrove, Erwin C. Jimmy Carter as President: Leadership and the Politics of the Public Good, Louisiana State University Press, 1988; Jones, Charles O. The Trustee Presidency: Jimmy Carter and the United States Congress, Louisiana State University Press, 1988; and Kaufman, Burton I. The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr., University Press of Kansas, 1993. 9. Dallek, Robert. Hail to the Chief , New York: Hyperion, 1996, p. 195. 10. Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, Bantam, 1982, p. 27. 11. Castile, George Pierre. Taking Charge: Native American SelfDetermination and Federal Indian Policy 1975–1993, University of Arizona Press, 2006.

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12. Bourne, Peter G. Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Post-Presidency, Scribner, 1997. 13. Cannon, Lou. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, Simon & Schuster, 1991; Reagan, Ronald. An American Life, Simon & Schuster, 1990; and Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, Random House, 1999. 14. Mayer, Jane and McManus, Doyle. Landslide: The Unmaking of the President 1984–1986, Houghton-Mifflin, 1988. 15. Cramer, Richard Ben. What It Takes: The Way to the White House, Random House, 1992; and Duffy, Michael and Goodgame, Dan. Marching in Place: The Status Quo Presidency of George Bush, Simon & Schuster, 1992. 16. Duffy, Michael and Goodgame, Dan. Marching in Place: The Status Quo Presidency of George Bush, Simon & Schuster, 1992. 17. Maraniss, David. First in His Class, Simon & Schuster, 1995; and Walker, Martin. Clinton: The President They Deserve, Vintage, 1997. 18. Cronin, Thomas E. and Genovese, Michael A. “President Clinton and Character Question,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 1998, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 892–897. 19. Mann, James. George W. Bush, Times Books, 2015; and Peter Baber, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Anchor, 2013. 20. Bush, George W. Decision Points, Crown, 2010. 21. Zelizer, Julian. The Presidency of George W. Bush, Princeton University Press, 2010. 22. Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Crown, 2006. 23. Remnick, David. The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, Vintage, 2010; and Maraniss, David. Barack Obama: The Story, Simon & Schuster, 2012. 24. Rhodes, Ben. The World as It Is, Random House, 2018. 25. Genovese, Michael A. The Trumping of American Politics, Cambria Press, 2017. 26. See “President Trump’s Inaugural Address, Annotated,” NPR, January 20, 2017, http://www.npr.org/2017/01/20/510629447/watch-livepresident-trumps-inauguration-ceremony. 27. Ali, Yashar. “What George W. Bush Really Thought of Donald Trump’s Inauguration,” New York Magazine, March 29, 2017. 28. Genovese, Michael A. How Trump Governs, Cambria Press, 2017. 29. Heneghan, Daniel. “For Trump’s Taj Mahal, Only Big Will Do,” Press of Atlantic City, April 5, 1990, p. A15.

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30. Boburg, Shawn. “Donald Trump’s Long History of Clashes with Native Americans,” The Washington Post, July 25, 2016, https://www.washin gtonpost.com/national/donald-trumps-long-history-of-clashes-with-nat ive-americans/2016/07/25/80ea91ca-3d77-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_ story.html. 31. Smith, Anna V. “Trump’s Impact on Indian Country Over Four Years,” High Country News, December 16, 2020.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusion

Let us return to The Humphrey Test, introduced at the beginning of this book. We now have the evidence to give a preliminary assessment of how well or poorly the United States has done in treating one of its most vulnerable populations among us: Native Americans. Data from over 230 years gives us the ability to draw conclusions. From the evidence, what would a reasonable person conclude regarding the treatment of the Indigenous people who Europeans found in this new world? They were pushed out, viewed as sub-human without the “natural rights” otherwise accorded to all (white) men. They were pawns to be moved around the chessboard of America at will. Treaties were made and broken, citizenship was denied, reservations were created to—is imprison too strong a word?—isolate and dispose of the unwanted. Brutal forced marches led Native Americans in the relocation from their ancestral homes. Their living standards were, and generally are, substandard. A third-class citizenship was the option made available to them. Native Americans didn’t get the full citizenship until 1924, and even then, voting rights were routinely denied to Indigenous people. In 1948, in Arizona and New Mexico, litigation was required to get Native Americans the vote. Indians living on reservations in Utah only gained the right to vote in 1957. North Dakota in 1958. Today, structural (e.g., poverty, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3_9

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physical isolation) and political (e.g. voter suppression) have kept Native Participation low. This in spite of the fact that Native American votes can make a significant difference in states such as Alaska, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Montana, and Washington.1 Has the history of presidential policy shifts over time had an impact on the political partisanship of Native Americans? Are Native Americans a small but monolithic voting block? To begin, Native Americans had to overcome barriers to voting, but when able to exercise this right, did Native American voters vote Democrat or Republican? Native American voters register a huge amount of distrust in government. This distrust was observable even before white voters began to distrust the government in the 1970s. In general, Native Americans have voted more for Democrats than Republicans,2 but these voters are not monolithic, and some variations in voting can be seen in tribal and regional differences. Additionally, “Whereas other minority groups have tended to fight for greater inclusion in the U.S. political, economic, and social systems, American Indians have often fought for greater separation, opposing assimilation, and supporting tribal sovereignty. Further, individual tribes or Native nations often differ in what is seen as in their interest. For example, with the advent of gaming, the economic wealth of tribes differs dramatically.”3 The unique nature of the relationship between Native Americans and the U.S. government has led to sporadic participation by Indians in the political process. The United States has a trust responsibility toward American Indians and has a significant impact over the everyday life of tribal members and tribal governments.4 And while federal policy dealing with Native Americans has varied over time, relations between Indians and the government has been ongoing and significant on the lives of Indians from the beginning of the republic. The U.S. Congress has dealt with more legislation directed at Native American issues than of any other single group in the United States.5 The federal government, from the beginning, has had a profound impact on the lives of Native Americans.6

Presidents and Native Americans Is this a linear story with a consistent theme inextricably moving in one direction, or a roller coaster ride of ups and downs with some presidents serving as heroes while others present themselves as villains? And what

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does this story say about the United States, the kind of people we are, and the kind of country we’ve become? What do we learn from this study of presidents and the treatment of Native American nations? What does it tell us of Presidents and the presidency? It is easy to draw harsh conclusions, and often they are entirely justified. But condemnations may not enlighten. Yes, most of our presidents ruled over the indigenous people with cruelty based on the racist view that Native peoples were sub-human. But blanket condemnations take us only so far. And to excuse these presidents as “men of their times” serves as a convenient yet unconvincing argument. Yes, they were men of their times, but none—Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt for example—harbored much worse attitudes than most of their contemporaries. What standards should we use? Today’s sensibilities? Those of the times in which they lived? A high standard of human excellence? An ideal or a real? Is the lesson that might makes regret? Native people stood in the way of “progress.” Was it thus justified in removing them from their lands? Is this the story of all peoples? The strong dominate the weak. Is that the way of the world? And we should never lose sight of the fact that all our heroes have feet of clay, are human, and are thus imperfect. But how much must we withdraw judgment? One standard we might employ is that which asks, are these transgressions isolated incidents, or do they reflect a pattern or policy? The occasional transgression may be understandable, the pattern, not. Another standard might be, were they demonstrably better than the norm or worse? Ahead of their times or behind them? Did they try to live up to Abraham Lincoln’s plea to appeal to the “better angels” within us, or did they appeal to fear, bigotry, and hatred? Did they try to appeal to the best in us or the worst? Americans have long believed that our country is exceptional. American exceptionalism means that we are united in the pursuit of noble ideals. Ours was a special mission for a special nation. And indeed, we are animated by noble ideals. But too often, we bask in the arrogance of a romanticized view of our past. It obscures rather than enlightens. We believe that our country is strong enough to jettison the romantic illusions of the past, and squarely and honestly shine a light on our past, the high and low, the good and the bad. We are a better nation when we face the truth, learn from the truth. It should both give us confidence (in

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high ideals) and humility (for the times we have failed to live up to those ideals). It should remind us that good intentions are sometimes met with bad actions. That we strive, yet sometimes fail. Reaching always for these high ideals makes us a better nation. Acknowledging where we have failed is not a weakness, it is a step on the road to making us better. Thus, we must face up to and hopefully learn from our two original sins: slavery of African Americans, and genocide against Indian populations.

Notes 1. Keeler, Jacqueline. “The Fundamental Law: Native Americans Helped Invent American Democracy. Too Bad They’re Prevented from Practicing It,” Sierra, May/June 2020, pp. 24–29. 2. Min, Joenghun and Savage, Daniel. “Why Do American Indians Vote Democratic?” Social Science Journal, 2014, Vol. 51, pp. 167–180; and Stubben, Jerry D. Native Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC CLIO, 2006. 3. Herrick, Rebekah and Mendez, Jeanette. “American Indian Party Identification: Why American Indians Tend to Be Democrats,” Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2020, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 275–292. 4. Tyler, Lyman S. Indian Affairs: A Study of the Changes in Policy of the United States Toward Indians, A Publication of the Institute of American Indian Studies Brigham Young University, 1964; and Wilkins, David and Stark, Heidi K. American Indian Politics and the American Political System, 4th Ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. 5. Conner, Thaddeus W. “Exploring Voting Behavior on American Indian Legislation in the United States Congress,” Social Science Journal, 2014, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 159–166; and Kickingbird, Kirke., et al. “Indian Sovereignty,” Native American Sovereignty, 1999, pp. 1–65. 6. Turner, Charles C. The Politics of Minor Concerns: American Indian Policy and Congressional Dynamics, University Press of America, 2005.

Index

A Adams, John, 17–19, 22, 30, 40–44, 54, 59, 64, 80, 153 Adams, John Quincy, 59–63, 68, 76, 79, 85 Adult Vocational Training Program, 186 Advisory Council on Indian Affairs, 164 Agricultural Society, 65 Alabama, 52, 68, 74, 83, 188 Alaska, 95, 114, 134, 161, 166, 229, 238, 245, 252 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 204 Alcatraz Island, 205, 207, 212 Alien and Sedition Act, 42 Allotment, 121, 122, 131, 143, 146, 148, 152, 165, 178, 206, 232 American Horse, 148 American Indian Movement (AIM), 205

American Indian Probate Reform Act, 232 American Indian Religious Freedom Act, 212 An Act Granting Citizenship to Certain Indians, 157 Arizona, 87, 95, 96, 128, 134, 151, 152, 164, 173, 208, 246, 251 Arkansas, 55, 83, 97, 183, 227 Armed Occupation Act of 1842, 84 Arthur, Chester, A., 25, 125–128 Articles of Confederation, 22 Assimilation, 44, 61, 63, 126, 143, 159, 165, 180, 252 Association of American Indian Affairs, 190

B Bannock Battle of Battle of Battle of

War, 122 Fallen Timbers, 133 Little Bighorn, 118 Sugar Point, 142

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. A. Genovese and A. Landry, US Presidents and the Destruction of the Native American Nations, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83574-3

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256

INDEX

Bears Ears National Monument, 238, 245 Bennett, Robert, 200 Biden, Joseph R., 79, 214, 246, 247 Big Bear, 151 Big Buck, 151 Bill of Rights, 31, 42, 173, 201 Black Codes, 113, 114 Black Hawk War, 89 Black Hills, 206, 207 Black Hills Campaign, 118 Black Kettle, 110 Blackwell, Morton, 217 Bleeding Kansas , 97 Blue Lake, 203 Boarding schools, 122 Board of Indian Commissioners, 117, 152 Border wall, 245 Brant, Joseph, 34 Breckenridge, John, 47 Buchanan, James, 97–100 Buckskin Charlie, 148 Buffalo slaughter, 118 Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig, 142 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 55, 152, 181, 185, 205, 216, 221 Burr, Aaron, 47 Bush, George H W., 219–224 Bush, George W., 228–233, 236, 242, 248

C Calhoun, John, 70 California, 86–91, 93–96, 102, 118, 134, 185, 204, 205 California removal treaties, 94 Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 122, 161, 183 Carter, George F., 10, 24 Carter, Jimmy, 209–214, 218, 247

Casinos, 243, 244. See also Gaming Census, 39, 92 Century of Dishonor, 124 Chauncey Yellow Robe, 164 Chernow, Ron, 37, 64 Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia, 75 Chief Joseph, 118 Chinese Exclusion Act, 127 Chinese immigrants, 127 Chivington, John, 110 Christianity, 43, 58, 111, 152, 156 Citizenship, 23, 114, 121, 125, 127, 131, 157, 159, 163, 164, 190, 203, 251 Civilian Conservation Corps, 174 Civilization, 10, 35, 57, 58, 109–111, 117, 121, 128, 131, 144, 147, 182, 194 Civil Rights Act of 1866, 114 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 199 Civil War, 87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 99, 100, 105–113, 115–118, 124, 130, 132, 140, 230 Clastres, Pierre, 14, 25 Clay, Henry, 50, 54, 60, 62, 70, 83 Cleveland, Grover, 129–132, 134, 138, 176 Clinton, DeWitt, 17 Cobell v. Salazar, 228 Cochise, 118 Cohen, Felix, 18, 25 Cold War, 178, 181, 184, 189, 193, 217, 219–221 Collier, John, 169, 174 Colonization, 3, 22, 24, 56 Colorado, 96, 110, 125, 134 Columbus, Christopher, 9, 18, 136, 222, 223 Commission on Indian Affairs, 90, 117, 151, 167, 174, 181 Compromise of 1850, 91

INDEX

Confederate Lord, 12 Connecticut, 31, 243 Constitutional Convention, 10, 52 Consultation and Coordination with Tribal Governments, 229 Continental Army, 72 Continental Congress, 17, 49, 52 Coolidge, Calvin, 5, 161–166 Crawford, William, 53 Credit Mobile Scandal, 116 Creek Civil War, 52 Crockett, Davy, 76 Cuba, 95, 141, 187, 189, 220, 234 Curtis Act, 143 Curtis, Charles, 167 Custer, George Armstrong, 115, 118, 206

D Dakota Access Pipeline, 238, 245 Dakota Uprising, 108 Dart, Anson, 94 Dawes Act of 1887, 131, 134, 143, 152, 156, 174, 232 Dawes Commission, 143 Declaration of Independence, 2, 21, 44, 107 Declaration of Indian Purpose, 192 Declaration of Indian Rights, 186 Deer, Ada, 227 Delaware, 34, 81, 96 De Montlezun, Baron, 53 Department of Labor, 150 Dependent and Disability Pensions Act, 133 Dixon, Joseph, 155, 156 Dred, Scott, 98 Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, 5, 22, 26, 64, 65

257

E Economic Opportunity Act, 199 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 182–189, 205 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 197, 200 Elk, John, 127 Emancipation Proclamation, 106, 125 Emmons, Glenn, 186 Enslavement , 5 Environmental Protection Agency, 202 Erie Canal, 55 Esther Martinez Native American Language Preservation Act, 232 Ethnic Cleansing, 73, 228 Ex Parte Crow Dog, 129 Extermination, 39, 59, 73, 88, 89, 119, 216, 222

F Federalist papers, 45 Federal Reserve, 154 Fifteenth Amendment, 118, 164 Fillmore, Millard, 91–94, 102 Florida, 56, 78, 84, 85, 89, 229 Ford, Gerald R., 206–210, 213, 214, 218 Forest Reserve Act, 134 The Forgotten American, 200 Fort Knox, 90 Fort Laramie, 115, 207 Founding Fathers. See Framers Founding myth, 22, 23 Fourteenth Amendment, 92, 113, 114, 163 Fractionation, 232 Framers, 10, 16, 18, 20–23, 27, 30, 46, 50, 57, 69 France, 7, 21, 32, 39, 41, 42, 47, 51, 56

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INDEX

Franklin, Benjamin, 16, 17, 40 Freedom riders, 188 French and Indian War, 21 Frontier thesis , 139 Frontier vigilantism, 146 Front porch campaign, 159 Frost, Robert, 32 Fugitive Slave Law, 91

G Gadsen Purchase, 95, 96 Gall, 118 Gaming, 243, 244, 252 Garfield, James, 123–126 General Allotment Act, 147 General Mining Act, 117 Generation Indigenous, 238 Genocide, 2, 4, 5, 23, 24, 26, 73, 89, 99, 110, 116, 118, 174, 225, 254 Georgia, 37, 52, 55, 58, 61, 62, 68, 72, 101, 209, 211 Geronimo, 118, 148 Gettysburg, 107, 108, 140 Ghost Dance, 135 Globalism, 20 Gover, Kevin, 228 Grant, Ulysses S., 98, 116–121, 123, 124, 137 Great Binding Law, 12 Great Britain, 41, 42, 44, 78 Great Depression, 162, 165–167, 169, 173 Great Law, 11–13 Great White Father, 155 Greely, Horace, 67 Guam, 143

H Haircut order, 147

Hamilton, Alexander, 22, 23, 29, 36, 41, 176 Harding, Warren G., 149, 157–162, 166 Harrison, Benjamin, 132, 133, 138 Harrison, William Henry, 49, 52, 59, 79–82, 84, 132 Hawaii, 90, 95, 172, 228 Hayes, Rutherford B., 120–123, 137 Head Start, 200 Hofstadter, Richard, 105 Hollow Horn Bear, 148 Homestead Act of 1862, 111 Hoover Commission Report, 180 Hoover, Herbert, 166–170, 180, 213 House Concurrent Resolution 108, 184, 203 House Resolution 1063, 185 Humphrey, Hubert H., 1, 7 Humphrey Test, 1, 251

I Idaho, 134, 207, 208 Illinois, 51, 80, 83, 234, 238 Imperialism, 141 Indian as children, 16, 43, 51, 58, 67, 134, 155, 168, 208, 212, 229, 237 as savages, 21, 53, 74, 121, 128, 148, 193 assimilation of, 90, 92, 119, 127, 130, 134, 147, 155, 159, 167, 168, 179, 180, 184, 185 boarding schools, 121, 122 citizenship, 39, 114, 117, 125, 131, 148, 159, 163, 164, 191 civilization of, 51, 53, 62, 90, 110, 111, 119, 131, 132, 165, 206 conversion of, 121 “Kill the Indian”, 122

INDEX

“Only good Indian is a dead Indian”, 145 religions, 44, 212, 228 removal of, 44, 45, 48, 49, 55, 59, 62, 70, 71, 73–75, 77, 78, 84, 85, 88–90, 94, 96, 109, 117, 121, 124, 146, 211 reservations, 38, 75, 77, 90, 94, 99, 100, 114, 117–119, 121, 122, 127, 128, 130, 131, 134, 135, 147, 152, 155, 156, 163, 166–168, 174, 181, 184–186, 190, 198, 212, 216, 218, 228, 244, 251 taxes, 227, 244 termination of, 178, 179, 184–186, 190–192, 200, 204, 205, 208, 210, 212, 218, 222 veterans, 157, 163 women, 135, 168, 227, 236 Indiana, 49, 51, 52, 80, 81, 83, 90, 133 Indian Appropriations Act, 130 Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, 119 Indian Arts and Crafts Act, 223 Indian Child Welfare Act, 212, 238 Indian Citizenship Act, 163, 164 Indian Civilization Act, 58 Indian Civil Rights Act, 201 Indian Claims Commission Act, 179, 207 Indian gaming, 218, 243 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, 218, 243 Indian Health Care Improvement Act, 208 Indian Peace Policy, 117, 121 Indian problem, 4, 121, 180, 181, 244 Indian Relocation Act, 186 Indian Removal Act, 67, 69, 74, 77

259

Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 174 Indian Rights Association, 167 Indian Ring, 96 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, 205, 208, 217 Indians New Deal, 174, 175, 178, 179 Indian Springs Treaty, 61 Indian Territory, 22, 33, 38, 73, 77, 96, 111, 122, 131, 133, 143, 148, 206 Indian Tribal Economic Development and Contract Encouragement Act, 229 Indigenous, 1–6, 9, 11, 18, 23, 33, 45, 47, 49, 69, 73, 92, 93, 110, 159, 160, 163, 186, 204, 206, 227, 236, 244, 246, 251, 253 Industrial Model , 15, 20 Intermarriage, 51, 53, 54 Iowa, 166, 238 Iroquois (Confederacy), 10–12, 16–18, 20, 21, 32, 55

J Jackson, Andrew, 4, 24, 39, 55, 60, 63, 68–79, 85–88, 101, 253 Jackson, Helen Hunt, 124 Jefferson, Thomas, 4, 17, 21, 22, 24, 29, 31, 36, 40–42, 44–51, 53, 55, 56, 65, 66, 80, 81, 87, 102, 155, 164, 176 Johnson, Andrew, 112–116, 120 Johnson, Lyndon B., 181, 197–201, 204, 247 Joint Congressional American Indian Policy Review Commission, 211 Jones, William, 142, 147, 247

260

INDEX

K Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, 95–97 Keeble, Woodrow, 233 Keepseagle v. Vilsack, 237 Kennedy, John F., 45, 181, 187–192, 196, 197, 199, 204, 224 Kentucky, 47, 90 King Caucus, 54, 60 King George III, 28 Kinzua Dam, 191 Kipling, Rudyard, 146 Knox, Henry, 33, 36, 38, 39 Ku Klux Klan, 128

L La Farge, Oliver, 190 Land allotments, 130, 131, 134, 143, 155, 163, 168 cession of, 50, 78, 81, 84, 111 fractionation of, 232 ownership of, 121, 122, 128, 130, 131, 134, 143, 232 surplus , 131, 132, 134, 143, 152, 191 League of Nations, 154, 155, 157, 158 Leavitt Act, 168 Leech Lake, 142 Lee, Robert E., 111 Lewis and Clark (expedition), 24, 50 Lincoln, Abraham, 87, 105–114, 136, 137, 140, 145, 164, 176, 253 Little Plume, 148 Livestock reduction, 174 Locke, John, 6, 10, 18 Louisiana, 83, 97 Louisiana Purchase, 47 Louisiana Territory, 47, 56, 87 Lyons, Oren, 25, 222

M Madison, Dolley, 51 Madison, James, 17, 30, 31, 40, 50, 51 Maine, 56, 213 Major Crimes Act of 1885, 129 Manifest Destiny, 4, 22, 34, 79, 83, 85, 86, 95, 102, 194 Mankiller, Wilma, 15 Marbury v. Madison, 46 Marshall, John, 46 Maryland, 91, 157 Massachusetts, 43, 112, 131, 190, 244, 246 McCarthy, Joseph, 182, 183 McGillivray, Alexander, 37 McKinley Tariff Act, 133 McKinley, William, 140–144, 146, 238 Medicine Lodge Treaty, 114 Memorandum on Government-toGovernment Relationship with Tribal Governments, 232 Meriam, Lewis, 165 Meriam Report, 165, 167 Mexican-America War, 90, 199 Michigan, 80, 83 Minnesota, 91, 108, 109, 142, 185 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, 245 Mississippi, 45, 48, 49, 58, 59, 61, 62, 73, 74, 77, 80, 81, 83, 110, 114, 188 Mississippi River, 45, 58, 59, 67, 69–71, 73, 75, 77 Missouri, 56, 83 Missouri Compromise, 56, 95, 98 Modoc War, 118 Mohawk, 11, 13, 18, 34, 244 Monroe Doctrine, 57, 88 Monroe, James, 54–59, 62, 173 Montana, 87, 96, 134, 208, 234, 252

INDEX

Mormons, 125, 128 Mounted Indian Auxiliaries, 121 Mount McKinley, 238 Mount Rushmore, 31, 149, 164 Mount Vernon, 32, 33 Myer, Dillon, 181 N Napoleon, 32 Napoleonic wars, 51 Nash, Philleo, 181 National American Indian Memorial, 153, 156 National Congress of American Indians, 186, 192, 198, 200, 211, 212, 216, 232 National Council on Indian Opportunity, 201 National Museum of the American Indian, 221, 222, 232 National Parks and Monuments Bears Ears, 238, 245 Casa Grande, 134 Navajo Nation Monument, 151 Rainbow Bridge National Monument, 151 Yellowstone, 117 National Security Act of 1947, 178 National Tribal Chairmen’s Association, 211 Native-American, 39 Native American Church, 152 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 223 Native American Heritage Month, 223 Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act, 228 Native American Languages Act of 1990, 222 Native-themed sports mascots, 232, 246

261

Navajo Code Talkers, 231, 244 livestock reduction, 174 Long Walk, 110 Treaty of 1868, 207 Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act, 181 Navajo National Monument, 151 Nebraska, 83, 95, 96, 122–124, 127, 181, 185, 192 Ne Gayaneshagowa, 12 Neponset, 43 Nevada, 87 New Deal, 172, 175, 179, 182, 183, 215 New Frontier, 139, 189–191 New Jersey, 130, 150, 153, 243 Newman, Wallace, 204 New Mexico, 86, 87, 91, 93–96, 110, 115, 128, 134, 152, 164, 173, 203, 228, 234, 251 New World, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 21, 139, 223 New York, 29, 55, 78, 79, 93, 100, 144–146, 175, 230, 231, 244 Nez Perce War, 122 Nixon, Richard M., 201–206, 210, 217, 224 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 177 North Carolina, 87, 89 North Dakota, 96, 122, 134, 251 Northwest Ordinance, 22 Northwest Territory, 36, 43, 80 O Obama, Barack, 228, 233–238, 242, 243, 245, 246 Office of Indian Affairs, 122, 167, 175, 181 Office of Indian Water Rights, 205 Oglethorpe, James, 13 Ohio, 38, 74, 83, 84, 144, 159, 160

262

INDEX

Oklahoma, 68, 73, 74, 87, 97, 122, 124, 131–133, 148, 166, 209, 252 Oklahoma Land Run, 134 Operation Snowbound, 181 Oregon, 86–88, 94, 97, 118, 134, 166, 185 O’Sullivan, John, 79, 86 Ou-hi, 97

P Palmer, Joel, 97 Panic of 1857, 98 Paris Peace Treaty of 1898, 141 Parker, Ely, 117 Parker, Quanah, 148 Pata, Jacqueline, 232 Peace Corps, 187, 189 Pendleton Act, 126 Pennsylvania, 82, 122, 161, 191 Petalesharro, 58, 59 Philippines, 141, 143, 146, 149 Pierce, Franklin, 94–97, 157 Pine Ridge, 135, 228 Plenty Coos, 160 Pocahontas (as a slur), 244 Polk, James K., 87, 88, 90 Post-Industrial Model , 15, 20 Pratt, Richard Henry, 122 Preemption Act of 1841, 83 Public Law 103-150, 227 Public Law 103-263, 227 Public Law 103-412, 227 Public Law 103-413, 227 Public Law 83-280, 185 Public Law 91-550, 204 Public Law 989, 186 Puerto Rico, 141, 143 Punkapaug, 43

R Rainbow Bridge National Monument, 151 Ramsey, Alexander, 108 Randolph, Edmund, 36 Reagan, Ronald W., 79, 202, 213–219, 222, 224, 243 Reconstruction, 112, 113, 116, 120, 123 Red Cloud, 118 Red Jacket, 34, 55 Red Power, 205 Red River War, 118 Reservation, 75, 77, 90, 94, 99, 100, 108, 114, 115, 117–119, 121, 122, 127, 128, 130, 131, 134–136, 142, 143, 147, 152, 155, 156, 163, 165–168, 173, 174, 181, 184–186, 190, 198, 200, 212, 216, 218, 228, 236, 243, 244, 246, 251 Revolutionary War, 21, 22, 42, 72 Rogers, Will, 161 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 171–173, 175, 176, 182, 228 Roosevelt Theodore, 94, 132, 144–148, 176, 204 Rutledge, John, 10 S Sand Creek Massacre, 110 Saunt, Claudio, 73 Second Seminole War, 78, 84, 89 Self-determination, 154, 167, 192, 200, 201, 203–205, 208, 210–212, 216, 218, 222, 226 Sherman Antitrust Act, 133 Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 133 Sitting Bull, 118, 135 Slavery, 2, 5, 23, 31, 37, 56, 70, 85, 87, 90, 91, 93–95, 97, 98, 100, 106, 108, 113, 114, 125, 254

INDEX

Snyder Act, 163 South Carolina, 10, 70, 99 South Dakota, 96, 100, 134, 135, 148, 164, 205–207, 238, 252 Space race, 188 Spain, 56, 141, 143 Spanish-American War, 141, 146 Spotted Tail, 130 Squatters, 42, 83 Standing Bear, 122, 123 St. Clair, Arthur, 36 Struck-by-the-Ree, 100 Sullivan, John, 21 Sumner, Charles, 112 Sumner, William Graham, 126 Supreme Court, 46, 68, 69, 72, 75, 98, 116, 127, 129, 130, 149, 162, 191, 202, 229, 234 T Taft, William Howard, 149–153, 156 Taxation, 150, 162, 166, 187, 189, 214, 242, 244 Taylor, Zachary, 86, 88–91 Tecumseh, 52, 81 Tennessee, 42, 43, 71, 72, 76, 87 Tenskwatawa (the Prophet), 81, 133 Tenure of Office Act, 113 Termination, 179, 181, 184, 185, 190, 192, 203 Texas, 24, 85–87, 91, 93, 95, 97, 102, 118, 192, 199, 230, 231 Thirteenth Amendment, 92 Thorpe, Jim, 161, 183, 184 Timber Culture Act, 117 Tippecanoe, 52, 81, 133 Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790, 37, 38 Trail of Tears, 24, 74, 75, 78 Transcontinental Railroad, 96, 118 Treaty, 22, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38, 42, 52, 61, 64, 68, 72, 74, 77,

263

81, 84, 90, 97, 99, 100, 114, 115, 119, 128, 143, 154, 157, 168, 186, 207, 213, 215, 235 Treaty of Canandaigua, 37, 38, 191 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, 74 Treaty of Fort Jackson, 52, 72 Treaty of Fort Wayne, 52, 81 Treaty of Ghent, 62 Treaty of Greenville, 37, 38, 81, 133 Treaty of Hellgate, 207 Treaty of New Echota, 74, 77 Treaty of Paris, 22, 143 Treaty of Spring Wells, 81 Treaty of Tellico, 43 Tribal Law and Order Act, 236 Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act, 212 Tribal Nations Conference, 234–236 Tribal Self-Governance Act, 218 Tribal sovereignty, 129, 130, 184, 185, 226, 231, 232, 252 Tribes Algonquian, 21 Apache, 194 Arapaho, 114, 168, 206 as agricultural societies, 22, 53 as domestic dependent nations, 68, 75, 222 as sovereign nations, 72, 119 Catawba, 21 Cayuga, 11, 13 Cayuse, 97 Cherokee, 21, 49, 51, 55, 58, 62, 72, 77, 78, 143, 246 Cheyenne, 114, 131, 207 Chickasaw, 72, 77, 143, 168 Chippewa, 78, 84, 91, 185, 245 Choctaw, 77, 143, 168 Comanche, 114 Creek, 23, 37, 72, 77, 143 Crow, 115 Dakota, 100, 145

264

INDEX

Delaware, 34, 52, 96 Eel River, 52 Five Civilized Tribes, 142, 143, 148 Flathead Nation, 124 Haudenosaunee, 11, 21 Kansa, 68, 87, 96, 100, 114 Kickapoo, 52, 81, 96 Kiowa, 114 Kootenai, 207, 208 Mashpee Wampanoag, 246 Menominee, 185, 227 Miami, 52, 78, 81 Missouri, 58, 97 Modoc, 118 Muscogee, 13 Navajo, 90, 115, 152, 174, 175, 228, 246 Nez Perce, 118 Ojibwe, 142, 143 Omaha Tribe, 58 Oneida, 11 Onondaga, 11, 222 Osage, 96 Oto, 58 Ottawa, 21, 96 Passamaquoddy, 213 Penobscot, 213 Ponca, 124, 192 Potawatami, 52 Red Lake Band of Chippewa, 185 Sac and Fox, 78, 81, 84, 88, 96, 134, 161 Seminole, 55, 72, 78, 79, 84, 143 Seneca, 11, 34 Shawnee, 21, 50, 52, 96, 227 Sioux, 115, 135, 148, 164, 207 Tabequache Band of Utah Indians, 111 Taos Pueblo, 204 Tohono O’odham, 245 Tuscarora, 11 Umatilla Tribe, 97

Ute, 90 Walla Walla, 97 Warm Springs Tribe, 185 Washita, 115 Wea, 81 Winnebago, 78, 127, 181 Wyandot, 52, 96 Yakima, 97 Yankton Sioux, 100 Truman Doctrine, 177, 181 Truman, Harry S., 91, 95, 177–182, 184, 193, 198, 207 Trumbull, John, 28 Trump, Donald J., 239, 243–246 Trust land, 232 Tubman, Harriet, 93 Turner, Fredrick Jackson, 139, 140 Tyler, John, 81–85, 133

U United Nations (UN), 23 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, 236 Urban relocation, 181 Utah, 87, 91, 94, 128, 151, 173, 238, 251 Ute war, 122

V Valentine, Robert, 151 Van Buren, Martin, 67, 70, 73, 76–79, 85, 102 Venables, Robert W., 18 Violence Against Women Act, 237 Virginia, 45, 48, 51–54, 65, 66, 80, 84, 90, 139, 156

W Wabanaki Confederacy, 21

INDEX

War of 1812, 50–52, 54, 62, 74, 81, 89, 90 Warren, Elizabeth, 158, 244, 245 Washburn, Kevin, 234, 236–238 Washington, 4, 42, 50, 51, 57, 58, 71, 87, 134, 135, 148, 151, 164, 205, 207, 211, 212, 216, 219, 221, 222, 234, 239, 246, 252 Washington, George, 1, 4, 5, 21–25, 27–44, 46, 47, 51, 55, 71, 167, 182, 191 Watergate, 202, 203, 206, 209, 213, 224 Webster, Daniel, 82, 83 Westward expansion, 4, 22, 34–36, 45, 85, 89, 111, 132 Wheeler-Howard Act, 174 Whigs, 69, 79, 82, 83, 85, 88, 91, 95, 123 Whiskey Ring Scandal, 116 White House Council on Native American Affairs, 237 White River war, 122 Whitman, Walt, 112

265

Wild West, 150, 160 Wilson, James, 17 Wilson, Woodrow, 126, 141, 152, 153, 155, 156, 159 Wisconsin, 80, 91, 185 Wokova, 135 World War I, 153, 154, 156, 157, 159, 163 World War II, 171, 172, 175–177, 179, 181, 205, 224, 244 Wounded Knee, 23, 133, 135, 205, 207, 245 Wyoming, 87, 96, 134, 181 X XYZ Affair, 41 Y Yakima War, 97 Z ZitKala-Sa, 161