U.S. Government & Military

Andrew Jackson, about 1860.  Courtesy of the Library of Congress."That those tribes cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. . . . Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear."

President Andrew Jackson, Fifth Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1833

 

From the late 1700s, when the United States won its independence from Great Britain, through the 1900s, U.S. leaders focused on westward expansion. A system was created  to assimilate or remove Indian peoples from their homelands in order to aid American territorial expansion. Chief Justice John Marshall, in an 1823 Supreme Court ruling, declared that, "based on the Doctrine of Discovery, the European states, and the United States as their successor, secured a superior legal title to Indian lands." 

The government created new federal offices, agencies, and posts to control trade and relationships between the United States and Indian nations, as well as those between Indian people and settlers. 
 
The government's policy of assimilation would drastically alter traditional Indian cultural identities. Many historians have argued that the U.S. government believed that if Indians did not adopt European-American culture they would become extinct as a people.
 
This paternalistic attitude influenced interactions between Indian nations and the U.S. government throughout the first half of the 1800s, and its effects continue to be felt today.
 
 
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Bibliography

Anderson, Gary Clayton. Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650-1862. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984.

Newcomb, Steve. Five Hundred Years of Injustice:The Legacy of Fifteenth Century Religious Prejudice. Shaman's Drum. Fall 1992, p. 18-20.

Prucha, Frances Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.

Prucha, Frances Paul. Documents of United States Indian Policy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Abridged Ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

Sheehan, Bernard W. Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1973.

Spicer, Edward H. A Short History of the Indians of the United States. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969.

Wallace, Anthony F. C. Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Resources for Further Research

Websites

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Rickert, Levi. U.S. Presidents in Their Own Words Concerning American Indians. Native News Network. 2012.

Primary

Northwest Ordinance, July 13, 1787; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M332, roll 9); Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789, Record Group 360; National Archives.

Richardson, James D. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. U.S. Congress, 1897.-or-The Project Gutenberg Ebook online compilation.

Tales of the Territory. Minnesota Historical Society.

Secondary

Anderson, Gary Clayton. Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650-1862. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984.

Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. New Haven: Yale UP, 2007.

Meyer, Roy W. History of the Santee Sioux: United States Indian Policy on Trial. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

Newcomb, Steve. Five Hundred Years of Injustice:The Legacy of Fifteenth Century Religious Prejudice. Shaman's Drum. Fall 1992, p. 18-20.

Prucha, Frances Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.

Prucha, Frances Paul. Documents of United States Indian Policy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Abridged Ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

Sheehan, Bernard W. Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1973.

Spicer, Edward H. A Short History of the Indians of the United States. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold., 1969.

Stannard, David E. American Holocaust. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992

Wallace, Anthony F. C. Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.

Key People

Alexander Ramsey

Alexander Ramsey

"Our course then is plain. The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of Minnesota."

Alexander Ramsey to a special session of the Minnesota legislature, September 9, 1862

Alexander Ramsey was born September 8, 1815, at Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

In 1849, Ramsey was appointed governor of Minnesota Territory by President Zachary Taylor. In this role, he also acted as the territory’s Indian superintendent. Aware that his political future depended on his ability to open lands west of the Mississippi River for white settlement, Ramsey teamed up with his friend Henry Sibley, a former fur trader who was also the territory's delegate to the U.S. Congress. Together with Luke Lea, U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, they negotiated the treaties of 1851. Ramsey was investigated and acquitted by the U.S. Congress on allegations of fraud connected to the 1851 treaty negotiations.

During his political career, Ramsey held many offices in Minnesota and Washington, D.C.: territorial governor, mayor of St. Paul, state governor, U.S. senator, and Secretary of War under President Rutherford B. Hayes. He was also a shrewd businessman, and made a sizeable fortune in real estate. Ramsey was also the first president of the Minnesota Historical Society, a post he was holding when the U.S.-Dakota War broke out in 1862.





View full article: Alexander Ramsey

Lieutenant Zebulon Pike

Lieutenant Zebulon Pike




Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Jr. was born in 1779. He was an American military officer and explorer.

Pike worked at a series of frontier posts. In 1805, General James Wilkinson, governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory, ordered Pike to find the source of the Mississippi River. Wilkinson wanted to obtain sites for future military posts in case of war with Great Britain. Pike met with a party of about 150 Dakota at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers and made a deal with two Dakota leaders for about 100,000 acres of land. It was the future site of Fort St. Anthony, later called Fort Snelling.

In 1810 Pike published an account of his expeditions. He later achieved the rank of brigadier general in the Army, and served during the War of 1812. He was killed by British forces during the Battle of York, which, however, was won by the American side.

View full article: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson


"If we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down until that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi."

Thomas Jefferson to Secretary of War General Henry Dearborn, 1807.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia in 1743. He was the principal author the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and served as President George Washington's secretary of state, and then as vice president under President John Adams. In 1791, he helped organize one of America's first political parties, the so-called Democratic-Republican Party. He became the third President of the United States in 1801, leaving office eight years later. As president he oversaw the 1803 purchase of Louisiana Territory from France, and in 1804 sent the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the "new lands" with the idea that it would help U.S. expansion in the future.

As governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson had recommended forcibly moving Cherokee and Shawnee tribes that fought on the British side to lands west of the Mississippi River. In 1803, as president, Jefferson proposed in private letters a policy that under Andrew Jackson, in 1830, would take shape as the Indian Removal Act. He also made a deal with elected officials of the state of Georgia that would help expel the Cherokee people from their land, violating an existing treaty between the Cherokee Nation and the U.S Government.

Jefferson believed in acculturation: that Native peoples should give up their cultures, religions, and lifeways and take on the ways of white men, including Christianity and European-style agriculture and government. Jefferson believed that without this, Indians "will relapse into barbarism & misery, lose numbers by war & want, and we shall be obliged to drive them with the beasts of the forest into the Stony mountains." (Letter to John Adams, 1812). He believed that assimilation of Native Americans into white economy would make them more dependent on trade, and that they would eventually be willing to give up land in exchange for goods or to resolve unpaid debts.

"To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.... In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us a citizens or the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi."
Jefferson to William H. Harrison, 1803





View full article: Thomas Jefferson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Born in 1767, Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States, servng from 1829 to 1837. As a politician and army general, he served in Tennessee defeating the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814 and the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He earned the nickname "Old Hickory" because of his tough personality and aggression. A wealthly slaveholder, he fought against aristocracy and appealed to common citizens.
His political idealogy was called "Jacksonian Democracy". Him and his followers believed in small and limited federal government and states' rights, but the ultimate strength of the presidency. Jackson is often considered the first president from what became today's Democratic Party. A wealthly slaveholder, he nevertheless fought against aristocracy and appealed to common citizens.

Jackson supported slavery and initiated forced relocation and resettlement of Native American tribes from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi River in what was called the Indian Removal Act. This act pressured Indian tribes to relocate west of the Mississippi River to aid U.S. expansion. All tribes would eventually be affected, but its initial impact was on the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. The violence, deaths, and starvation caused by these Indian removals created what came to be known as the "Trail of Tears."

View full article: Andrew Jackson

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

"If we get through this war, and I live, this Indian system shall be reformed."
Abraham Lincoln to Bishop Henry Whipple, September 1862
Born in 1809, Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He led the United States through the Civil War, preserving the Union while ending slavery and promoting economic and financial modernization. As president, he played a critical role during the U.S.-Dakota War and its aftermath.
Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator in the 1830s, and a one-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1840s. After losing a Senate race to his arch-rival Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln, a moderate, secured the Republican Party nomination for president in 1860. His election led to seven southern states seceding from the Union and the formation of the Confederate States of America--and eventually to war.
With the Civil War monopolizing the government’s attention, any attempts at reforming the Indian system that Abraham Lincoln might have hoped for simply never materialized. Lincoln dealt directly with the situation in Minnesota after the U.S.-Dakota War, calling for a review of the trial transcripts of 303 Dakota men sentenced to death. Lincoln commuted the sentences of all but 39 of the convicted men.
If Lincoln had stepped in earlier to address his administration’s handling of Indian affairs, events in Minnesota might have taken a different course.

View full article: Abraham Lincoln

Thomas J. Galbraith

Thomas J. Galbraith

"For what reason we have commenced this war I will tell you. It is on account of Major Galbraith."
Little Crow in a letter to Henry Sibley, 1862.
Thomas J. Galbraith was an American politician. In 1857, he signed the Republican version of the Minnesota State Constitution. In the wake of Lincoln’s election in November 1860, Republicans swept the federal jobs in the Northern Superintendency of Indian Affairs and the thirty-six-year-old Galbraith was appointed Sioux Agent. As an agent appointed by the U.S. government, he was charged with fulfilling treaty obligations to the Dakota and with enforcing Indian affairs code, including regulating the traders.

By the spring of 1862, fed up with the inefficiencies of the Indian system in which he was enmeshed, Galbraith resigned his post as Agent, then agreed to hold his resignation until after the annuity payment was made. Throughout the summer he tried to deal with an impossible situation. When annuity payments were delayed, he tried to convince the Dakota to accept greenbacks rather than the gold promised them. He kept the few government rations he had left locked in a warehouse at the Lower Agency and he tried to convince traders to extend more credit to Dakota clients for much-needed food.

On August 18, Galbraith and a group of Civil War recruits known as the Renville Rangers took off from the Upper Agency. Galbraith believed he would deliver the recruits to Fort Snelling, return to the reservation to make the annuity payment, then accept a leadership position in a Minnesota regiment as thanks for his recruiting efforts.

News of the outbreak of war overtook Galbraith and his recruits at St. Peter on August 19. The Renville Rangers changed course and marched to the aid of Fort Ridgely. Meanwhile, Galbraith’s wife, Henrietta, and their two children were being led to safety from their home at the Upper Agency by the Wahpeton Dakota leader Anpetutokeca (John Other Day). Galbraith helped defend Fort Ridgely and was wounded at the battle of Birch Coulee. After the war Galbraith was exonerated in two congressional investigations into allegations that his conduct at the Agency brought on the U.S.-Dakota War. Galbraith died in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1909.

View full article: Thomas J. Galbraith

Related Images

Counties, 1850

Minnesota Counties, 1850

Map of the organized counties of Minnesota in 1850 by Thomas Cowperthwait & Company. Zoom in on the map. 
 
The U.S. government created territories to impose order on vast areas of "unorganized" land. Indians owned most of the 166,000 square miles of land at the beginning of Minnesota's Territory period--and almost none of it at the end.
 
Minnesota became a territory in 1849. White settlers were eager to establish homesteads on the fertile frontier. Pressured by traders and threatened with military force, the Dakota were forced to cede nearly all their land in Minnesota and eastern Dakota in the 1851 treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota.

Minnesota 1857

Minnesota Territory, 1857

A map of Minnesota Territory in 1857, by J.H. Young. 

The Constitution of the State of Minnesota was signed in 1857. On May 11th, 1858, Minnesota was admitted into the Union as the 32nd state. Minnesota's non-Indian population grew dramatically between the 1850 and 1860 censuses, from 6,077 to 172,072--a 2,813-percent increase.

MN Territory

Minnesota Territory, 1852

This map was made in 1852 by J.H. Young. 

Melish Map_0

Map of the United States

The map so constructed shows at a glance the whole extent of the United States territory from sea to sea; and in tracing the probable expansion of the human race from east to west, the mind find an agreeable resting place on its western limits. The view is complete, and leaves nothing to be wished for.

John Melish, 1819

John Melish, a Scottish-American mapmaker in Philadelphia, drew this map  in 1819 as he envisioned the U.S. to be after expansion. It echoed U.S. hopes at the time. Military posts were constructed in the regions of expansion, many still occupied by Indigenous peoples, as the U.S. spread westward.

Related Documents

MN Constitution

Minnesota Constitution

From Minnesota's Constitutions. Minnesota Historical Society. 

The United States Congress passed an enabling act on February 26, 1857, that permitted the voters of Minnesota Territory to decide if they wanted to become a state. Among other provisions, this act called for a constitutional convention to draft a constitution that would be the foundation for state government. At an election on June 1, 1857, Minnesota voters elected delegates to this constitutional convention. Between July 13 and August 29, this convention met in St. Paul to fulfill its obligations.
 
Intense rivalry between the convention's Democratic and Republican factions prevented the entire body of delegates from convening in one place and drafting a single constitution. Eventually, a conference committee of five members from each faction met to propose language that was designed to be acceptable to both bodies. On August 28, 1857, after bitter debate, both factions approved the conference committee's proposed language. However, the members of each faction refused to sign a single document that contained the signatures of the other faction's members. On August 29, 1857, fifty-three Republican members signed one document of 39 pages and fifty-one Democratic members signed one document of 37 pages.
 
Although the two documents were intended to be identical and to have the same meaning, the copyists, who worked feverishly through the night of August 28, 1857, to prepare the two documents for signature, created numerous differences. A detailed comparison of the two versions shows over 300 punctuation, grammatical, and wording differences. No substantive differences in meaning or interpretation are present.
 
Governor Alexander Ramsey's proclamation dated December 28, 1860, which ratifies the first three amendments to the state constitution, appears as part of the Republican version of the constitution.
 
See both transcripts

Northwest Ordinance Document
Northwest Ordinance2

The Northwest Ordinance

The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

An Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio, 1787

The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, and also known as the Freedom Ordinance or "The Ordinance of 1787") was an act of the Second Continental Congress, passed July 13, 1787. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River.

It outlined government and method for admitting new states to the Union and listed a bill of rights guaranteeing freedom in the territory. Following the principles outlined by Thomas Jefferson in the Ordinance of 1784, the authors of the Northwest Ordinance (probably Nathan Dane and Rufus King) created a plan that was used as the country expanded to the Pacific.

 
 
Source: Northwest Ordinance, July 13, 1787; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M332, roll 9); Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789, Record Group 360; National Archives
 

An ORDINANCE for the GOVERNMENT of the TERRITORY of the UNITED STATES, North-West of the RIVER OHIO. BE IT ORDAINED by the United States in Congress assembled, That the said territory, for the purposes of temporary government, be one district; subject, however, to be divided into two districts, as future circumstances may, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient. Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the estates both of resident and non-resident proprietors in the said territory, dying intestate, shall descend to, and be distributed among their children, and the descendants of a deceased child in equal parts; the descendants of a deceased child or grand-child, to take the share of their deceased parent in equal parts among them: And where there shall be no children or descendants, them in equal parts to the next of kin, in equal degree; and among collaterals, the children of a deceased brother or sister of the intestate, shall have in equal parts among them their deceased parents share; and there shall in no case be a distinction between kindred of the whole and half blood; saving in all cases to the widow of the intestate, her third part of the real estate for life, and one third part of the personal estate; and this law relative to descents and dower, shall remain in full force until altered by the legislature of the district,------And until the governor and judges shall adopt laws as herein after mentioned, estates in the said territory may be devised or bequeathed by wills in writing, signed and sealed by him or her, in whom the estate may be, (being of full age) and attested by three witnesses;---and real estates may be conveyed by lease and release, or bargain and sale, signed, sealed, and delivered by the person being of full age, in whom the estate may be, and attested by two witnesses, provided such wills be duly proved, and such conveyances be acknowledged, or the execution thereof duly proved, and be recorded within one year after proper magistrates, courts, and registers shall be appointed for that purpose; and personal property may be transferred by delivery, saving, however, to the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskies, Saint Vincent's, and the neighbouring villages, who have heretofore professed themselves citizens of Virginia, their laws and customs now in force among them, relative to the descent and conveyance of property. Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That there shall be appointed from time to time, by Congress, a governor, whose commission shall continue in force for the term of three years, unless sooner revoked by Congress; he shall reside in the district, and have a freehold estate therein, in one thousand acres of land, while in the exercise of his office. There shall be appointed from time to time, by Congress, a secretary, whose commission shall continue in force for four years, unless sooner revoked, he shall reside in the district, and have a freehold estate therein, in five hundred acres of land, while in the exercise of his office; it shall be his duty to keep and preserve the acts and laws passed by the legislature, and the public records of the district, and the proceedings of the governors in his executive department; and transmit authentic copies of such acts and proceedings, every six months, to the secretary of Congress: There shall also be appointed a court to consist of three judges, any two of whom to form a court, who shall have a common law jurisdiction, and reside in the district, and have each therein a freehold estate in five hundred acres of land, while in the exercise of their offices; and their commissions shall continue in force during good behaviour. The governor and judges, or a majority of them, shall adopt and publish in the district, such laws of the original states, criminal and civil, as may be necessary, and best suited to the circumstances of the district, and report them to Congress, from time to time, which laws shall be in force in the district until the organization of the general assembly therein, unless disapproved of by Congress; but afterwards the legislature shall have authority to alter them as they shall think fit. The governor for the time being, shall be commander in chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same, below the rank of general officers; all general officers shall be appointed and commissioned by Congress. Previous to the organization of the general assembly, the governor shall appoint such magistrates and other civil officers, in each county or township, as he shall find necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order in the same: After the general assembly shall be organized, the powers and duties of magistrates and other civil officers shall be regulated and defined by the said assembly; but all magistrates and other civil officers, not herein otherwise directed, shall, during the continuance of this temporary government, be appointed by the governor. For the prevention of crimes and injuries, the laws to be adopted or made shall have force in all parts of the district, and for the execution of process, criminal and civil, the governor shall make proper division thereof---and he shall proceed from time to time, as circumstances may require, to lay out the parts of the district in which the Indian titles shall have been extinguished, into counties and townships, subject, however, to such alterations as may thereafter be made by the legislature. So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants, of full age, in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect representatives from their counties or townships, to represent them in the general assembly; provided that for every five hundred free male inhabitants there shall be one representative, and so on progressively with the number of free male inhabitants, shall the right of representation increase, until the number of representatives shall amount to twenty-five, after which the number and proportion of representatives shall be regulated by the legislature; provided that no person be eligible or qualified to act as a representative, unless he shall have been a citizen of one of the United States three years and be a resident in the district, or unless he shall have resided in the district three years, and in either case shall likewise hold in his own right, in fee simple, two hundred acres of land within the same:---Provided also, that a freehold in fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the states, and being resident in the district; or the like freehold and two years residence in the district shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a representative. The representatives thus elected, shall serve for the term of two years, and in case of the death of a representative, or removal from office, the governor shall issue a writ to the county or township for which he was a member, to elect another in his stead, to serve for the residue of the term. The general assembly, or legislature, shall consist of the governor, legislative council, and a house of representatives. The legislative council shall consist of five members, to continue in office five years, unless sooner removed by Congress, any three of whom to be a quorum, and the members of the council shall be nominated and appointed in the following manner, to wit: As soon as representatives shall be elected, the governor shall appoint a time and place for them to meet together, and, when met, they shall nominate ten persons, residents in the district, and each possessed of a freehold in five hundred acres of land, and return their names to Congress; five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as aforesaid; and whenever a vacancy shall happen in the council, by death or removal from office, the house of representatives shall nominate two persons, qualified as aforesaid, for each vacancy, and return their names to Congress; one of whom Congress shall appoint and commission for the residue of the term; and every five years, four months at least before the expiration of the time of service of the members of council, the said house shall nominate ten persons, qualified as aforesaid, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as members of the council five years, unless sooner removed. And the governor, legislative council, and house of {page image} representatives, shall have authority to make laws in all cases for the good government of the district, not repugnant to the principles and articles in this ordinance established and declared. And all bills having passed by a majority in the house, and by a majority in the council, shall be referred to the governor for his assent; but no bill or legislative act whatever, shall be of any force without his assent. The governor shall have power to convene, prorogue and dissolve the general assembly, when in his opinion it shall be expedient. The governor, judges, legislative council, secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall appoint in the district, shall make an oath or affirmation of fidelity, and of office, the governor before the president of Congress, and all other officers before the governor. As soon as a legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and house, assembled in one room, shall have authority by joint ballot to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a right of debating, but not of voting, during this temporary government. And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory,---to provide also for the establishment of states, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the federal councils on an equal footing with the original states, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest: It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, That the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original states and the people and states in the said territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to wit: Article the First. No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments in the said territory. Article the Second. The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law; all persons shall be bailable unless for capital offences, where the proof shall be evident, or the presumption great; and fines shall be moderate, and no cruel or unusual punishments shall be inflicted; no man shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by his judgment of his peers, or the law of the land; and should the public exigencies make it necessary for the common preservation to take any person's property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same;---and in the just preservation of rights and property it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said territory, that shall in any manner whatever interfere with, or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide and without fraud previously formed. Article the Third. Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty, they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorised by Congress; but laws found in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made, for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them. Article the Fourth. The said territory, and the states which may be formed therein, shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the articles of confederation, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made; and to all the acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled, conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in the said territory, shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expences of government, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other states; and the taxes for paying their proportion, shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the district or districts or new states, as in the original states, within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. The legislatures of those districts, or new states, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the United States; and in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Missisippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory, as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other states that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost or duty therefor. Article the Fifth. There shall be formed in the said territory, not less than three nor more than five states; and the boundaries of the states, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The western state in the said territory, shall be bounded by the Missisippi, the Ohio and Wabash rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post Vincent's due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, and by the said territorial line to the lake of the Woods and Missisippi. The middle state shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Post Vincent's to the Ohio; by the Ohio, by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to the said territorial line, and by the said territorial line. The eastern state shall be bounded by the last mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line: Provided however, and it is further understood and declared, that the boundaries of these three states, shall be subject so far to be altered, that if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two states in that part of the said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of lake Michigan: and whenever any of the said states shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such state shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United states, on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever; and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and state government: Provided the constitution and government so to be formed, shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the state than sixty thousand. Article the Sixth. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and c ..........Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, relative to the subject of this ordinance, be, and the same are hereby repealed and declared null and void. DONE by the UNITED STATES in CONGRESS assembled, the 13th day of July, in the year of our Lord 1787, and of their sovereignty and independence the 12th.

Jeffersons Secret Message

Jefferson's Secret Message to Congress

This letter was written by Thomas Jefferson to members of Congress in 1803, outlining his plan of sending Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on an expedition west of the Mississippi River to lands not then a part of U.S. territory. The expedition was to gather information on people, geography, geology, and animal life so that the U.S. was in a better position to expand as a nation in the coming years.

He hoped that the expedition and expansion would encourage Indians to the West, who had refused to sell further land to the U.S., to change their minds, sell territory, and adapt to white life-ways. He was also aware of the bad reputations of some private traders among Indian nations, and hoped to gain the respect, favorable opinion, and business for U.S. government trading houses. 

Source: President Thomas Jefferson's confidential message to Congress concerning relations with the Indians, January, 18, 1803; Record Group 233, Records of the United States House of Representatives, HR 7A-D1; National Archives. [Electronic Record]

Confidential Gentlemen of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives: As the continuance of the act for establishing trading houses with the Indian tribes will be under the consideration of the Legislature at its present session, I think it my duty to communicate the views which have guided me in the execution of that act, in order that you may decide on the policy of continuing it, in the present or any other form, or discontinue it altogether, if that shall, on the whole, seem most for the public good. The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States, have, for a considerable time, been growing more and more uneasy at the constant diminution of the territory they occupy, although effected by their own voluntary sales: and the policy has long been gaining strength with them, of refusing absolutely all further sale, on any conditions; insomuch that, at this time, it hazards their friendship, and excites dangerous jealousies and perturbations in their minds to make any overture for the purchase of the smallest portions of their land. A very few tribes only are not yet obstinately in these dispositions. In order peaceably to counteract this policy of theirs, and to provide an extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for, two measures are deemed expedient. First: to encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture and domestic manufacture, and thereby prove to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them in this, better than in their former mode of living. The extensive forests necessary in the hunting life, will then become useless, and they will see advantage in exchanging them for the means of improving their farms, and of increasing their domestic comforts. Secondly: to multiply trading houses among them, and place within their reach those things which will contribute more to their domestic comfort, than the possession of extensive, but uncultivated wilds. Experience and reflection will develop to them the wisdom of exchanging what they can spare and we want, for what we can spare and they want. In leading them to agriculture, to manufactures, and civilization; in bringing together their and our settlements, and in preparing them ultimately to participate in the benefits of our governments, I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good. At these trading houses we have pursued the principles of the act of Congress, which directs that the commerce shall be carried on liberally, and requires only that the capital stock shall not be diminished. We consequently undersell private traders, foreign and domestic, drive them from the competition; and thus, with the good will of the Indians, rid ourselves of a description of men who are constantly endeavoring to excite in the Indian mind suspicions, fears, and irritations towards us. A letter now enclosed, shows the effect of our competition on the operations of the traders, while the Indians, perceiving the advantage of purchasing from us, are soliciting generally, our establishment of trading houses among them. In one quarter this is particularly interesting. The Legislature, reflecting on the late occurrences on the Mississippi, must be sensible how desirable it is to possess a respectable breadth of country on that river, from our Southern limit to the Illinois at least; so that we may present as firm a front on that as on our Eastern border. We possess what is below the Yazoo, and can probably acquire a certain breadth from the Illinois and Wabash to the Ohio; but between the Ohio and Yazoo, the country all belongs to the Chickasaws, the most friendly tribe within our limits, but the most decided against the alienation of lands. The portion of their country most important for us is exactly that which they do not inhabit. Their settlements are not on the Mississippi, but in the interior country. They have lately shown a desire to become agricultural; and this leads to the desire of buying implements and comforts. In the strengthening and gratifying of these wants, I see the only prospect of planting on the Mississippi itself, the means of its own safety. Duty has required me to submit these views to the judgment of the Legislature; but as their disclosure might embarrass and defeat their effect, they are committed to the special confidence of the two Houses. While the extension of the public commerce among the Indian tribes, may deprive of that source of profit such of our citizens as are engaged in it, it might be worthy the attention of Congress, in their care of individual as well as of the general interest, to point, in another direction, the enterprise of these citizens, as profitably for themselves, and more usefully for the public. The river Missouri, and the Indians inhabiting it, are not as well known as is rendered desirable by their connexion with the Mississippi, and consequently with us. It is, however, understood, that the country on that river is inhabited by numerous tribes, who furnish great supplies of furs and peltry to the trade of another nation, carried on in a high latitude, through an infinite number of portages and lakes, shut up by ice through a long season. The commerce on that line could bear no competition with that of the Missouri, traversing a moderate climate, offering according to the best accounts, a continued navigation from its source, and possibly with a single portage, from the Western Ocean, and finding to the Atlantic a choice of channels through the Illinois or Wabash, the lakes and Hudson, through the Ohio and Susquehanna, or Potomac or James rivers, and through the Tennessee and Savannah, rivers. An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprise, and willing to undertake it, taken from our posts, where they may be spared without inconvenience, might explore the whole line, even to the Western Ocean, have conferences with the natives on the subject of commercial intercourse, get admission among them for our traders, as others are admitted, agree on convenient deposits for an interchange of articles, and return with the information acquired, in the course of two summers. Their arms and accoutrements, some instruments of observation, and light and cheap presents for the Indians, would be all the apparatus they could carry, and with an expectation of a soldier's portion of land on their return, would constitute the whole expense. Their pay would be going on, whether here or there. While other civilized nations have encountered great expense to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge by undertaking voyages of discovery, and for other literary purposes, in various parts and directions, our nation seems to owe to the same object, as well as to its own interests, to explore this, the only line of easy communication across the continent, and so directly traversing our own part of it. The interests of commerce place the principal object within the constitutional powers and care of Congress, and that it should incidentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent, cannot be but an additional gratification. The nation claiming the territory, regarding this as a literary pursuit, which is in the habit of permitting within its dominions, would not be disposed to view it with jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did not render it a matter of indifference. The appropriation of two thousand five hundred dollars, "for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States," while understood and considered by the Executive as giving the legislative sanction, would cover the undertaking from notice, and prevent the obstructions which interested individuals might otherwise previously prepare in its way. TH. Jefferson Jan. 18. 1803.

T1SS4

George E.H. Day to Abraham Lincoln

...voluminous and outrageous frauds upon the Indians in Minnesota.

George E.H. Day, January 1, 1862

A letter written by George E. H. Day on January 1, 1862. Day was a special commissioner sent from Washington, D.C., to Minnesota in 1861 to report and recommend on the state of affairs between the Indians and the whites. 

Contemporary comment:

Records of the Interior show that warnings like Day's were sent from all over the United States. Unfortunately, they were so common by 1862 that the government was no more alarmed than the father of the little boy who cried, 'Wolf!'-Carrie Zeman, historian; author

Source: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (Washington DC: American Memory Project 2000-02)

St Anthony Minn. Jan 1, 1862. Mr President in August last I was appointed Special Commissioner by Mr Dole1 Comm. Ind. Affairs with the approbation of Hon Mr Smith Sec Interior at the request of Hon J. R. Doolittle2 Chairman of the Senate Com. Ind Affairs & Hon. C. Aldrich3 Chairman of House Com. same subject for 100 days only. I visited the Chippewas of the Miss. first-- then of Lake Superior -- held 3 councils with them-- then I visited the Winnebagoes & then the Sioux or Dacotas held 3 more councils travelling all by land (nearly) about 1800 miles in my own wagon driving my mules, often sleeping in the woods & generally without any companions-- distance between stopping places from 20 to 60 miles frequently. Everywhere I have been treated by the present officers of Gov with courtesy & have reciprocated all civilities & enclose herewith a copy of a letter of the Hon Mr Galbraith4 Sioux Agt, for consideration. I have discovered numerous violations of law & many frauds committed by past Agents & a superintendent. I think I can establish frauds to the amount from 20 to 100 thousand dollars & satisfy any reasonable intelligent man that the indians whom I have visited in this state & Wisconsin have been defrauded of more than 100 thousand dollars in or during the four years past. The Superintendent Major Cullen,5 alone, has saved, as all his friends say more than 100 thousand in four years out of a salary of 2 thousand a year and all the Agents whose salaries are 15 hundred a year have become rich. The Indians are decreasing in numbers & yet their payments never increase but year after year have also decreased to each person & in the aggregate. The whole system is defective & must be revised or, your red children, as they call themselves, will continue to be wronged & outraged & the just vengeance of heaven continue to be poured out & visited upon this nation for its abuses & cruelty to the Indian. I most sincerely desire to aid Mr Dole & Hon Mr Smith in revising & perfecting the trade & intercourse laws & regulations with the cooperation such honest men as Judge Doolittle & others who desire that the placing of the Government in the hands of an honest man shall result in honest & free & humane dealings & transactions with the poor defrauded & degraded Indians of our frontiers. Here are a few of the words of the head Chief of Lake Superior Chippeways spoken at my Council Oct 22, 1861, last, "We send him our Great Father-- our profound respects-- We hope his heart is like the Great spirit all benevolence & that he will listen to our requests". At all my councils the Chiefs desire me to make many requests of their Great Father & tell him of many wrongs they had suffered from the Gov Agents and especially Traders the greatest Curse of the Indians and the Curse of the nation for they boast that they can control Congress & have done it Our Senator Rice6 is an old trader with two living indian wives & he has had, during the past administration, with which he was omnipotent, three old Indian-Traders appointed Agents. I never scarcely heard of an honest indian trader -- & then it is understood he is very liberally supported every way by the Traders The whole pack of traders & ex Agents & Superintendent are making war upon me because I have been looking up their frauds & rascalities & because they can neither frighten nor buy me-- each of those means having been ineffectually tried. I was at two of your receptions last summer desired to see you alone but knowing how overwhelmed with cares you was, never called. If I were not poor & had not a family to support I would go to Washington at my own Cost out of love of country & the poor indian. I have written to the Secretary of the Interior & Commr Dole & do not wish this referred to them-- but desire to be requested to go at Gov expense $135, would pay all I think as above stated I could save nearly as many thousands. A suggestion to Mr Dole or any Course you choose would accomplish it. The Indian Traders & Agents nearly if not quite controul our delegation in Congress except Mr Windom7 whom I consider an honest man neither to be bribed nor frightened-- sound as a rock I feel to trust a man who fears God I have the honor to be your obt servant Geo. E. H. Day Special Commr