Commissioner Ely S. Parker is investigated by Congress.
Responding to charges of corruption leveled by William Welch, the former chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners (see entry for APRIL 10, 1869), Congress launches an investigation into the activities of Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. Parker. Parker, the first Indian to serve in this post (see entry for 1869), is cleared of the charges, but his judgment in many matters is questioned, prompting Congress to pass a law that limits the commissioner’s powers. As a result of the investigation, Parker resigns and retires to his home in Fairfield, Connecticut.
Whites begin slaughtering buffalo on the southern Plains.
When eastern tanneries start using buffalo hides as a source for cheap leather for machine belts, whites flock to the southern Plains to hunt the great buffalo herds there. They are aided by improved firearms and the new western railroads, which allow professional hunters to ship hides inexpensively to markets in the East. (See also entry for 1875.)
The United States ends the negotiation of Indian treaties.
At the urging of Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. Parker, Congress, with the passage of the Indian Appropriations Act, votes to prohibit the United States from negotiating treaties with Indian groups. Advocates of the decision hold that Indian nations are no longer sovereign entities capable of entering
Tucson vigilantes massacre the Camp Grant Apache.
Seeking revenge for an Apache raid, residents of Tucson in Arizona Territory attack a camp of peaceful Apache near Camp Grant. While the Indians’ agent looks on, the vigilantes slaughter as many as 100 people—nearly all women, children, and elders—and capture 29 children to be sold as slaves.
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“That evening they began to come in from all directions, singly and in small parties, so changed in forty-eight hours as to be hardly recognizable. . . . Many of the men, whose families had all been killed, when I spoke to them and expressed sympathy for them, were obliged to turn away, unable to speak. . . . The women whose children had been killed or stolen were convulsed with grief, and looked to me appealingly, as though I was their last hope on earth. Children who two days before had been full of fun and frolic kept at a distance, expressing wondering horror.”
—U. S. Army lieutenant Royal E. Whitman on encountering the survivors of the Camp Grant Massacre
The eastern press reports the murders as an outrage, but local whites largely support the killers. In the aftermath, only one of the vigilantes is brought to trial; he is found not guilty by a jury of whites after 19 minutes of deliberation.
The Kiowa raid a Texas wagon train in the Salt Creek Massacre.
Although the Kiowa have settled on the reservation laid out for them by the Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek (see entry for OCTOBER 21 TO 28, 1867), they display open contempt for their Quaker agent and refuse to stop attacking whites in Texas. On one such raid, Kiowa leader Satanta and 100 warriors fall on a train of 10 wagons traveling through the Salt Creek Prairie. The Indians kill seven men and mutilate their corpses before riding off with 41 mules.
News of the massacre quickly spreads to General in Chief William Tecumseh Sherman, who is visiting Texas to investigate Kiowa raids there. At Fort Sill on the Kiowa reservation, Sherman confronts the Kiowa’s leaders, including Satanta, who boasts of his participation in the raid. As Sherman orders his arrest, Satanta reaches for his revolver but stops when he realizes the building they are in is surrounded by troops. Satanta and two other Kiowa, Satank and Big Tree, are arrested and transported to Texas. Satank is killed in an escape attempt, while Satanta and Big Tree are tried, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to hang. Due to Quaker lobbying, the Indians are later pardoned.
The decision in the Cherokee Tobacco Case erodes tribal sovereignty.
In Boudinot v. United States, Cherokee businessmen Elias Cornelius Boudinot and Stand Watie bring suit against the United States for imposing a tax on tobacco produced in their factory in the Cherokee Nation. The tax, instituted in 1868, was levied on all tobacco and liquor products sold within U. S.
Borders. The Cherokees claim, however, the tax cannot legally be applied to them because it violates an 1866 treaty that guaranteed tribe members the right to sell any product without having to pay tax to the federal government.
The Supreme Court finds that because the 1868 tax law and the 1866 treaty contradict one another only the one made last is legally enforceable. This “last-in-time” rule is devastating to Indian tribes. It allows Congress to create new laws that completely override treaty promises. It also erodes tribal sovereignty by establishing that general laws can be applied to sovereign Indian nations if these nations are not explicitly excluded.
Creek traditionalists join the Sands Rebellion.
Accompanied by 300 armed men, Sands, a leader of the traditionalist faction of the Creek tribe, storms the annual meeting of the Creek National Council. Sands and his followers oppose the new Creek constitution and government, which was founded after the tribe made peace with the United States at the end of the Civil War (see entry for JULY 14, 1865). Samuel Checote, principal chief of the Creek, sends in the tribal militia, which quickly quells the Sands Rebellion. The anger of the traditionalists, however, will continue to drive a wedge into Creek politics for many years to come.
World History
