Replacing Henry L. Dawes’ Policies in Their Conceptual Framework

Bergeron, David

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-38174-5_4

David Bergeron¹⁰

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Abstract

This chapter studies the debate concerning the Native and the allotment themes. We will study Henry Dawes by comparing his ideas—always relatively to Locke’s theoretical framework—with those of political colleagues and adversaries and with those of different types of political or social actors—groups or individuals. For Dawes, the Indian has been treated unfairly. To give him “justice” is to give him his liberal individuality—i.e. his capacity to be a free and moral agent by and through his property. Dawes’ plan consists in rationalizing—i.e. de-collectivizing—the Native through direct physical work, meaning through “property creation” conceived as an epistemological and developmental process which end is to make each Indian self-sufficient. Encapsulated in Locke’s “cultivator stage,” this pedagogy consists in a corporal and rational learning process which is gradual and systematic. By making the Native sedentary, his traditional lands can be colonized. Contrary to many of his more pragmatic, unsystematic, hurried and often irrational colleagues, Dawes’ gradualist and principled approach reveals a direct Lockean influence through a universal conception of man as an entity inherently capable of self-property. In the end, his proposal and its means will only bring the cultural and territorial demise of the tribes.

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Notes

1.
For the idea of a moral duty towards the Indian—his education—to repair past injustices inflicted on him, see Dawes’ words in Otis, The Dawes Act, p. 8.
2.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Section 3.
3.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Section 6.
4.
Ibid., T. II, Section 41; Grande, p. 41. For individualism, see also Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Sections 27–34.
5.
Ibid., T. II, Sections 26 and 48.
6.
Grande, p. 41.
7.
Locke quoted in ibid., p. 41. Also, Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Section 28.
8.
Ibid., T. II, Section 44.
9.
Dawes, “Solving the Indian Problem” (1884), in Prucha (ed.), Americanizing the American Indians, pp. 29–30.
10.
Ibid., p. 30.
11.
Here we have to refer again to Locke’s notion of the inherency of property in man. Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Section 44.
12.
Dawes, “Defense of the Dawes Act,” (1887), in Prucha (ed.), Americanizing the American Indians, p. 102.
13.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Sections 102, 105 and 108.
14.
Dawes, “Solving the Indian Problem,” p. 28.
15.
Dawes, “The Indians of the Indian Territory” (1894), in Prucha (ed.), Americanizing the American Indians, p. 318.
16.
Dawes, “Have we failed with the Indian?,” p. 284.
17.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Sections 34, 40 and 42–43.
18.
Ibid., T. II, Section 34.
19.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Sections 52, 93, 107–108 and 110.
20.
Dawes, “Solving the Indian Problem,” p. 30.
21.
Dawes, “Have we failed with the Indian?,” p. 281.
22.
Ibid., pp. 280–282.
23.
Dawes, “Defense of the Dawes Act,” p. 108.
24.
Prucha, “Introduction,” in idem (ed.), Americanizing the American Indians, pp. 8–9.
25.
Dawes will call his law of 1887 the “Indian Emancipation Act.” Stremlau, Sustaining the Cherokee Family, p. 89.
26.
Dawes, “Solving the Indian Problem,” p. 30.
27.
Congressional Record, 49th Congress, 2nd session (Senate, December 6, 1886), vol. 18, part 1, p. 10.
28.
Ellinghaus, Blood Will Tell, p. 53.
29.
See the speeches of Democratic Representatives Emory Speer and Peter V. Deuster, in Congressional Record, 47th Congress, 1st session (House, March 18, 1882), vol. 13, part 3, p. 2028 and 2030.
30.
Historian Jason E. Pierce gives the example of American settlers in the Los Angeles area late in the century, trying to create a privileged and “purified”—unmixed—Anglo-Saxon dominated society, thus marginalizing and isolating the Hispanic and Native populations. Pierce furnishes the example of the ethnologist, adventurer and journalist, Charles Fletcher Lummis. The excuse of respecting the “Indian’s purity” is often used. See particularly Pierce, “INDIANS NOT IMMIGRANTS,” pp. 106–109.
31.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, p. 37; Prucha, “Introduction,” p. 7.
32.
Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 2nd session (Senate, December 1, 1879), vol. 10, part 1, p. 7.
33.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, p. 50.
34.
Republican Senator Justin Smith Morrill criticizes the fact that Iroquois are not taxed. He sees them as not partaking of the nation’s growth while benefiting from its protection. Congressional Record, 49th Congress, 2nd session (Senate, December 6, 1886), vol. 18, part 1, p. 59.
35.
Ibid., 47th Congress, 1st session (Senate, March 21, 1882), vol. 13, part 3, p. 2119.
36.
Carlson, Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land, pp. 109–160.
37.
Otis, The Dawes Act, pp. 14–15.
38.
Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 3rd session (Senate, January 26, 1881), vol. 11, part 2, p. 934.
39.
Both quotations and content at ibid., 46th Congress, 2nd session (House, December 18, 1879), vol. 10, part 1, p. 179.
40.
Ibid., pp. 179–180.
41.
Many Westerners seem to conceive the advance of settlement and “civilization” as a stronger catalyst for the Natives’ “progress” than allotment. One example would be railroads crossing reserve lands. St. Paul daily globe, December 27, 1886, image 1, in Chronicling America.
42.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. I, Section 131, and T. II, Section 108.
43.
Ibid., T. II, Sections 102, 105 and 107–108.
44.
Senate Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty (1881), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, p. 1733.
45.
Stremlau, Sustaining the Cherokee Family, p. 19; generally, Weisman, “Chipco’s House,” pp. 161–171, for the example of the Seminoles in Florida.
46.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, pp. 72 and 96–98.
47.
Fayette County herald, February 26, 1880, image 2, in Chronicling America.
48.
Phillipsburg herald, January 17, 1885, image 6, in ibid.
49.
Prucha, “Introduction,” p. 3.
50.
House Committee on Indian Affairs, “Minority Report,” pp. 122–129.
51.
Two notable examples would be Representatives Charles E. Hooker of Mississippi (Dem.) and Omar D. Conger of Michigan (Rep.). Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 2nd session (House, December 18, 1879), vol. 10, part 1, p. 180 and 182.
52.
Otis, The Dawes Act, p. 37.
53.
Carlson, Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land, pp. 122–123. The same is proposed by an official working on the Devils Lake Agency with Sioux, and from 1884, with Chippewa Indians. Otis, The Dawes Act, p. 90. This option was already considered in the first days of the Republic. Lucas, “Civilization or Extinction,” p. 242.
54.
For Dolph, see infra, no. 109.
55.
For Plumb, see The Wichita city eagle, February 10, 1881, image 1, in Chronicling America; for Dolph, Congressional Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty. December 15–16, 1886; January 18, 25, 1887, in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, pp. 1878–1879.
56.
Ibid., p. 1879.
57.
Ibid., p. 1860.
58.
For the Ponca Indians: The Salt Lake herald, January 27, 1881, image 2, in Chronicling America.
59.
See the Annual Report of Indian Commissioner John D. Atkins (1886): Emmons County record, November 12, 1886, image 2, in ibid.
60.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Section 48.
61.
For the Act, Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, Sect. I, p. 2188. For the creation of the private space or “home” through the Dawes Act, see Cahill, Federal Fathers & Mothers, p. 42.
62.
National Republican, January 26, 1887, image 3, in Chronicling America. Italic characters ours.
63.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Sections 33–43. Again, the example of the Indian “king” is at T. II, Section 41. See Chapter 3, no. 65.
64.
Grande, Red Pedagogy, p. 42.
65.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Section 76.
66.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, pp. 30–36 and 50.
67.
For example, in Lewis Henry Morgan’s stage theory of social evolution. Lyons, “The Science of the Indian,” p. 321.
68.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Section 75.
69.
For self-determination and reason dominating instincts and passions, see also ibid., Sections 33 and 107.
70.
Senate Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty (1881), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, p. 1786. Italic characters ours.
71.
The Abbeville press and banner, February 10, 1886, image 6, in Chronicling America. He will affirm the contrary in 1890 at the Lake Mohonk Conference: “The Indian as an Indian has already disappeared in this country.” Otis, The Dawes Act, p. 91.
72.
An example would be the bill for the “allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the Umatilla reservation and the sale of the surplus acres for their benefit.” The true northerner, March 5, 1885, image 6, in Chronicling America. For a short summary of the act (1885), see Emily Greenwald, “Re-ordering American Indians’ Spatial Practices: The 1887 Dawes Act,” in Andrea Fisher-Tahir and Sophie Wagenhofer (eds.), Disciplinary Spaces: Spatial Control, Forced Assimilation and Narratives of Progress since the nineteenth Century (Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2017), p. 101.
73.
Locke, Essai philosophique, II—for such notions consult generally the second book of Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding.
74.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Sections 38–39, 52, 61, 107 and 110.
75.
Speech of Dawes at the Lake Mohonk Conference in 1890, taken from Otis, The Dawes Act, p. 109.
76.
Ibid., p. 109.
77.
Ibid., p. 109.
78.
Dawes, “Have we failed with the Indian?,” pp. 282–283.
79.
Los Angeles daily herald, August 27, 1887, image 1, in Chronicling America.
80.
Otis, The Dawes Act, p. 118.
81.
Ibid., p. 111.
82.
Grande, Red Pedagogy, p. 42.
83.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Sections 45–51, differentiating clearly between both stages. Through commerce and the un-perishable nature of money, there is no “wastage.” Nature’s and rationality’s preservative finality is respected.
84.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Sections 70 and 177.
85.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, p. 71.
86.
Ibid., pp. 71–72.
87.
A later example concerns the allotment of the Puyallup tribe’s lands in the Pacific North-West, and the debate it will generate in the 1890s, of which Dawes will partake. Ibid., p. 151.
88.
Ibid., p. 72.
89.
Ibid., p. 72.
90.
Otis, The Dawes Act, p. 91.
91.
As does Dawes’ opponent Alvin Saunders. Supra, no. 35. Congressional Record, 47th Congress, 1st session (Senate, March 21, 1882), vol. 13, part 3, p. 2119. Again, President Cleveland approves of this gradual civilizing of an “idle and dependent population.” Supra, no. 27. The Minnesota Constitution promotes such civilizing. The state’s Congress will request of the Federal Government “such arrangements with the Indians”—which imply conferring parcels of 160 acres and a 30 years restriction on alienation. St. Paul daily globe, February 19, 1883, image 7, in Chronicling America.
92.
The Federal Government for Dawes should be able to use freely the money obtained from the sale of Native lands remaining in surplus after allotment, but only as a mean for the Natives’ good. As a temporary steward, he is justified in doing so. Congressional Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty (1886–1887), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, pp. 1876–1879.
93.
For example, Locke, Some Thoughts, Section 89.
94.
Dawes, “Defense of the Dawes Act,” p. 104, 107 and 109; Senate Debate on the Indian Appropriation Bill (1885), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, p. 1841.
95.
Dawes, “Defense of the Dawes Act,” p. 104.
96.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, p. 37.
97.
Dawes in Senate Debate on the Indian Appropriation Bill (1885), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, p. 1841; Pratt in Congressional Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty (1886–1887), in ibid., p. 1850.
98.
The McCook tribune, February 4, 1886, image 2, in Chronicling America.
99.
Among other passages, Locke, Some Thoughts, Section 18.
100.
Locke, Essai philosophique, I: 3 (Section 23); IV: 1 (Section 8), and generally 14–15. Also, see idem, Some Thoughts, Sections 67, 73, 76, 78–85, 89–93, 107, 110, 116, 167 and 185.
101.
Ibid., Section 180, and Grande, Red Pedagogy, p. 42.
102.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Section 181.
103.
For such notions, see Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Sections 45–51.
104.
See for example ibid., T. II, Sections 35 and 42–43; for the government’s finality, T. II, Sections 135 and 138.
105.
Senate Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty (1881), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, p. 1786; The Chicago daily tribune, January 27, 1881, image 1, in Chronicling America; Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 3rd session (Senate, January 26, 1881), vol. 11, part 2, p. 940. The amendment proposed was rejected greatly through Dawes’ efforts. The County paper, February 11, 1881, image 6, in Chronicling America.
106.
The Phillipsburg herald, January 17, 1885, image 6, in ibid.
107.
The Wheeling register, February 1, 1881, image 1, in ibid.
108.
Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 3rd session (Senate, January 26, 1881), vol. 11, part 2, p. 940.
109.
Another example already referred to would be Republican Senator Joseph N. Dolph from Oregon. See supra, no. 55. We decided to put Dolph in a footnote since his case covers elements similar to Plumb’s case and to Teller’s, which is studied below. In 1887, Dolph questions Dawes in the Senate, a few weeks before the passage of the General Allotment Act, to know if the minimal time limit of 25 years before “the lands owned by Indians could be alienated had been reduced.” Dawes promptly answers no. On the contrary, the President now has in his power to extend this period on his judgment as to whether the Indian has adopted or not a civilized way of life. The Indianapolis journal, January 26, 1887, image 5, in Chronicling America. We have already seen how Dolph tends towards a vision of tribes as collectivities to be respected—through negotiation—and Natives as autonomous bearers of property rights—here concerning the free access and use, after 25 years but hopefully less, of their own money from the sales of their lands. One here has to question his motive for bringing forth the theme of alienation, here freedom and facility—reduced time prohibitions—to sell. If real respect would be showed, wouldn’t the territory’s preservation be considered before its alienation? Here again, we have to suspect that respect for collectivity and rights conceals hidden motives, i.e. facilitating and accelerating the process of land sales and reduced government meddling. Frederick Hoxie quotes Dolph in the Senate at a later date (1894) to that effect: “The sooner the Indians are absorbed in the body politic the better […] we shall never be able to solve the Indian problem until that is done.” Hoxie, A Final Promise, p. 150. If the Native Americans are respectable, autonomous and self-governing, why even mention a “problem”? It would seem that Dolph’s earlier doubts about the capacity of severalty to achieve civilization and his preference in defending Natives’ rights to negotiate and to property ownership—money—and autonomy—disposal—could be interpreted as using a supposed respect for the Indians as Indians to promote their autarchy, and so to reduce the government’s interventionism, thus creating conditions where the territory is more quickly and readily accessible. See again his words in Congressional Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty (1886–1887), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, pp. 1878–1879.
110.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, p. 53, and generally, pp. 51–53.
111.
Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 3rd session (Senate, January 26, 1881), vol. 11, part 2, p. 936 and 938.
112.
Ibid., pp. 934–939.
113.
Ibid., p. 939.
114.
Hoxie, A Final Promise, pp. 71–72; Cahill, Federal Fathers & Mothers, p. 42.
115.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Sections 107 and 122.
116.
Otis, The Dawes Act, pp. 152–153.
117.
See Chapter 3, no. 34, taken from Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Section 64; idem, Some Thoughts, Section 127, where Locke says it is the tutor’s duty “to stir up vigour and activity in him [the child].” See also ibid., Sections 10 and 107–115.
118.
Locke, Essai philosophique, IV: 12 (Section 11).
119.
Locke, Some Thoughts, Sections 18 and 66.
120.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, in order: Sections 63, 60 and 57.
121.
Locke doesn’t recommend excess control or severity towards the child, but to maximize liberty in the learning process—or more fundamentally as a learning process. Locke, Some Thoughts, Sections 63, 65–67and 78.
122.
Dawes, “Defense of the Dawes Act,” p. 101.
123.
Locke, Two Treatises, T. II, Section 60.
124.
Dawes, “Defense of the Dawes Act,” p. 106.
125.
Vine Deloria and Clifford M. Lytle, The nations within: the past and future of American Indian sovereignty (New York, Pantheon Books, 1984), p. 8.
126.
Senate Debate on Bill to Provide Lands in Severalty (1881), in Washburn (ed.), The American Indian, vol. III, pp. 1785–1786.

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Department of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Political Science, Political and Native History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Moncton, Moncton, NB, Canada
David Bergeron

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Bergeron, D. (2020). Replacing Henry L. Dawes’ Policies in Their Conceptual Framework. In: Philosophy and Allotment : John Locke's influence on Henry L. Dawes. SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38174-5_4

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