Henry Rowe Schoolcraft begins publishing Indian Tribes of the United States.

Ethnologist and former Indian agent Henry Rowe Schoolcraft publishes the first volume of his Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (1851—57). The six-volume work will be the first major ethnological study of the American Indian tribes. Since 1822 Schoolcraft has traveled extensively among Indian groups, with his most important research conducted among the Ojibway. His work will provide source material for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s narrative poem Song of Hiawatha (see entry for 1855).

The Dakota Sioux cede 24 million acres in the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.

After decades of conflict with the Ojibway (see entry for 1825), the Dakota Sioux surrender 24 million acres of contested land during treaty negotiations at Traverse des Sioux. In return, they are granted two reservations along the Upper Missouri River. To encourage the Dakota’s assimilation, the government also promises to build mills, blacksmith shops, and manual labor schools for the tribe. The treaty plants the seeds of disaster; as the Dakota’s displeasure with reservation conditions and resistance to assimilation will erupt into violence 12 years later during the Minnesota Uprising (see entry for AUGUST 18 TO SEPTEMBER 23, 1862).

Lewis Henry Morgan’s League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee is published.

Lewis Henry Morgan compiles the results of years of research as a manuscript titled League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois. A lawyer born near Aurora, New York, Morgan, long fascinated with the Iroquois Indians of the region, is the founder of the Grand Order of the Iroquois, a men’s social club of elite white men with similar interests. Morgan’s participation in the group led to a cursory study of the Iroquois tribes, but a chance meeting with Ely S. Parker (see entry for 1869), a young Seneca man who served as translator for his tribe, brought a new sophistication to Morgan’s efforts. Parker introduced Morgan to Seneca leaders and elders, who in time came so to trust the white man that in 1846 they adopted him as a tribal member.

Although Morgan’s history romanticizes precontact Iroquois life, the book is the first account of a tribe’s culture that attempts to present the Indians’ beliefs and ways in their own terms. It also represents one of the earliest close collaborations between a white researcher and an Indian informant. Morgan himself acknowledges Parker’s vital contribution by dedicating the book to his Seneca friend and identifying the work as the “fruit of our joint researches.”

The Oatman family is attacked by Yavapai Indians.

Traveling by covered wagon from Illinois to California, Royce and Mary Ann Oatman and their seven children are set upon by Yavapai Indians about 80 miles west of Fort Yuma in present-day Arizona. The parents and four children are killed. Two girls, Olive and Mary Ann, are taken captive, and one boy, Lorenzo, is wounded and left for dead. The Yavapai sell the girls to the Mojave as slaves, and Mary Ann soon dies.

Olive Oatman will remain with the Mojave for five years before she is rescued and reunited with Lorenzo. The story of her ordeal, published as Life among the Indians (1857), will become the most popular captivity narrative since Mary Rowlandson’s account of her capture by the Wampanoag (see entry for 1682).

“A large company of Americans, Indians and Mexicans, were present and witnessed the meeting of Lorenzo and his sister. . . . [N]ot an unmoved heart, nor a dry eye witnessed it. Even the rude and untutored Indian, raised his brawny hand to wipe away the unbidden tear, that stole upon his cheek as he stood speechless and wonder struck!”

—from Lorenzo and Olive Oat-man’s Life among the Indians

January

Treaty commissioners begin negotiating treaties with California tribes.

Setting off from San Francisco, a three-person commission travels throughout California to negotiate peace treaties with all of the Indians within its borders. The commission was formed by Congress to bring an end to a recent rash of skirmishes between Indians and miners in the new state. None of the three men appointed to the commission by President Millard Fillmore is familiar with the culture and ways of California Indians.

The group carries out its mission haphazardly, attempting to negotiate agreements with any group of Indians it comes upon. The commissioners make no effort to distinguish Indian tribes from local bands or villages, and they fail to meet with many large groups altogether. The treaties they conclude call for the cession of the Indians’ land to the United States in exchange for a small reservation and a range of goods and services. Although an interpreter accompanies the commission, he most likely does not know the languages of most of the groups the commissioners encounter. Probably most Indians

Olive Oatman, who became a celebrity after surviving five years as a captive among the Mojave. Her chin is marked with tattoes in the style worn by Mojave women. (Photograph Courtesy Douglas County Museum of History and Natural History) signing the treaties have no understanding of their provisions. (See also entry for JULY 8, 1852.)

February

Congress appropriates $100,000 for the “Concentration” policy.

In the Indian Appropriation Act, Congress earmarks $100,000 to implement a policy of “Concentration” endorsed by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea. He recommends that each tribe should be assigned to an area of “limited extent and well-defined

Boundaries” within which they “should be compelled constantly to remain until such time as their general improvement and good conduct may supersede the necessity of such restrictions.”

September 8

Indian leaders of the northern Plains sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie.

Indian agent Thomas Fitzpatrick calls a treaty conference at Fort Laramie, in what is now Wyoming. His goal is to end both intertribal warfare and Indian raids on settlers moving through the northern Plains on their way to Oregon Territory and California. More than 10,000 Indians—including Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Shoshone, Man-dan, and Hidatsa—come to the meeting, making it the largest gathering of Indians ever assembled. Some groups, such as the Pawnee, Kiowa, and Comanche, refuse to attend, largely because of their ill-will toward the Lakota.

Following several days of pageants, during which warriors in full war regalia try to impress other tribes with their power and strength, Indian and army leaders come together to discuss treaty terms. In the final treaty, the Indians agree to live in peace with one another, stop their attacks on whites on the Oregon Trail, and allow the government to build forts and roads in their lands. In return, they receive a great store of goods and promises of more.

The peace established by the Treaty of Fort Laramie will be short-lived. As the number of whites arriving in the Plains increases and the threat to Indian land and ways grows, the promises made in the treaty will have little meaning to either Indians or whites.

November

Antonio Garra leads a California Indian uprising.

Organized by Cupeno Indian leader Antonio Garra, the Cupeno and a small number of Ca-huilla, Quechan, and Cocopa join together to resist the illegal attempts of the new state of California to compel the Indians to pay property taxes. When the state will not relent, the Indians soon resolve to expel all non-Indians from their lands. When the rebelling Indians kill two whites and two Mexicans, the Cupeno rise up against Juan Jose Warner, a white man who was granted ownership of their homeland by the governor of California and has since held the Cupeno living there in virtual slavery. The Cupeno burn down Warner’s house and kill four whites before the state militia and U. S. troops attack and destroy the Indians’ village of Cupa.

The uprising is quelled when a Cahuilla leader betrays Garra and turns him over to the U. S. Army. In a military court, Garra is tried for treason, but because he declares that he has never pledged allegiance to the United States, he is convicted of murder instead. Garra and four other rebel leaders are executed. Although fewer than 50 Indians ever joined Garra, news of the uprising, with exaggerated accounts of white deaths, spreads through California. The reports create a panic and inflame anti-Indian sentiment throughout the white population.