Eric Poole

NAS 306

Broken and Scattered, But Not Destroyed

Following years of policy aimed at dispossessing Native Americans from their

ancestral homelands, attitudes about how to deal with Native Americans, particularly in

regard to the continued white settlement within “Indian Territory” and other lands in the

west still populated with natives. Seeing the inevitable point of conflict in regard to

continued settlement, Sen. Morrill observed that there was, “no place to beyond the

population to which you can remove the Indian … and precise question is, will you

exterminate him, or will you fix an abiding place for him?” (Nabokov 172) While the

latter might seem the more humane choice, it was perhaps economics that forced the

issue, as indicated by the advice given to the Grant administration in 1870, in which it

was assessed that it would be cheaper to placate and force assimilation (through

education, land-ownership and agricultural practice) among the remaining native

population, that it was to continue fighting additional wars (Nabokov 171). Further, other

well intended reformers like Dolittle thought that the salvation for the “disappearing

Indian” lie not just in the halting of military brutality and corrupt dealings of natives, but

also in the adaptation of white behavior and culture, that only through self-sufficiency

and land ownership would the problems of dependency and cultural incompatibility

would be erased (Nabokov 188-9).

While whites looked at the redistribution of lands and forced allotment as a

solution, several tribes found themselves being uprooted yet again, forced onto smaller,

unproductive plots, their children forced to attend hash and abusive boarding schools.

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While the “Great Father” in Washington kept making assurances and promises, often he

(Grant) would be unable to keep the peace (Nabokov 192), or Congress would be at odds

and undermine Native American efforts to unite or establish some degree of autonomy.

This occurred even among those who had tried to assimilate and adopt white ways long

before. DeWitt Clinton Duncan of the Cherokee, for instance, having seen his 300 acres

of land cut to 1/5th, lamented the futility of working his diminished lands: “I have exerted

all my ability […] to make my living out of that 60 acres, and, God be my judge, I have

not bee able to do it.” (Nabokov 266). It is a great shame then, that the 20 tribe

delegation’s plans to unite and form an all Indian state were blocked by Congress with

the Curtis Act of 1898, which had dissolved their tribal authority and legitimacy.

Sources Cited

Nabokov, Peter. Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-white Relations from

Prophecy to the Present, 1492-1992. New York, NY: Viking, 1991. Print.

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