Uncle Sam Adopts His Plains "Stepchildren"

The distinguishing feature of the early United States Indian policy was its reliance on British precedents. These included the recognition of Indian communal rights to the land they occupied, the invader's legal right to negotiate land-cession treaties with the various "tribes" as sovereign nations, and the righteousness of converting Native Americans to the social, economic, and moral precepts of West-European "civilization." President Washington subscribed to this strategy, as did President Jefferson when the purchase of the Louisiana Plains was consummated with Napoleon in 1803.

Crazy Bear: Traditional Kiowa dignitary.

In view of the tremendous white appetite for land east of the Mississippi in the early nineteenth century, President Jefferson developed the strategy of removing the eastern Indians - principally the remnants of the Iroquois Confederation, the various Algonkian People of the upper Ohio Valley and the "Five Civilized Tribes" of the southeast - to a more isolated setting where they might live apart from the negative influences of white culture, while still responding to the supposedly positive influences of government agents, educators, farmers, and philanthropists of various persuasions. This strategy, which was implemented by President Jackson in the 1830's, viewed the Louisiana country as the ideal settling for this ill-fated experiment in human relations.

Consequently, in a secret message to Congress even before the deal with Napoleon had been finalized, Jefferson requested legislation for the promotion of trade with the Indian tribes of the Far West. A fund of $2,500 was provided and the instructions landed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1804 included the importance of promoting trade with the Indians "for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States."

Merriwether Lewis William Clark

The expedition across half a continent was very important. Accounts of Lewis and Clark's generally peaceful experiences with the greatly feared Plains Indians fired the imaginations of restless Americans, as did the unusual possibilities of westward expansion. In their trip from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia, they encountered more than a dozen Plains tribes - the Osages, Kansa-Kaws, Otoe-Missouris, Omahas, Arikaras, Mandans, Shoshones, Blackfeet, and various divisions of the Dakotas. Excluding a potentially violent situation with some Teton Sioux warriors near present Pierre, South Dakota, and a brief encounter with a Blackfoot band on the Marias River in northern Montana, the expedition was notable for its friendly relations with the Indians. Indeed, without the assistance and guidance of the Shoshones and Flatheads, it is doubtful if Lewis and Clark would have completed their mission.

Subsequent expeditions led by Thomas Freeman, Zebulon Pike, and Stephen Long brought back much less optimistic reports, so much so that by the 1820's it was commonly agreed by even the most knowledgeable white Americans that the region west of the Missouri was "The Great American Desert," an inhospitable region suitable only for "savage" Indians. In a few decades, however, developments in Texas, the Oregon Country, and Alta California radically altered this perception. The catalyst was an expansionist ideology known as "Manifest Destiny" - the belief that the United States was manifestly destined to extend its political institutions, economic influence, and cultural values from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Englishmen, Mexicans, and Indians were obliged to accept this revelation or suffer the consequences.

Following William Becknell's demonstration in 1821 that a commercial highway between Missouri and Mexican Santa Fe had great economic potential, the focus of expansion shifted to Oregon. Here itinerant fur traders and Christian missionaries, with the assistance of the British, established a foothold in the Willamette Valley. In 1841, the first migration of settlers left Missouri over a route soon to be famous as the Oregon Trail. This and other trails served as great highways across the "Desert," and by the mid-1840's, the Plains Indians were becoming restive regarding the white invasion. Had they understood the more intricate details of the massive land cessions already secured (in 1825) from the Kansa-Kaws and Osages, their apprehension would surely have given way to outright rage. But it was another decade before the unfolding tragedy was clearly understood.

In 1845, Texas was annexed to the United States. In 1846, in a compromise agreement with Britain, ownership of Oregon north to the 49th parallel was secured. That same year war broke out with Mexico over the Rio Grande boundary and control of the Alta California coast, and two years later, by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the United States obtained title to the Great Southwest. Thus, within a period of just three years, Uncle Sam had in effect "adopted" hundreds of thousands of Indians, including the Kiowas, Comanches, Utes, and Jicarilla Apaches of the Southern Plains.

In the final analysis, however, it was the discovery of gold on the south fork of the American River in California even before the treaty ending the Mexican War had been signed, that released the forces of misery and destruction on the Plains Indians. A veritable horde of white miners rushed across the Plains in 1849, and by 1851, it was apparent to Washington officials that the time to enter into formal negotiations had arrived.