The Bureau of Indian Affairs establishes Indian police forces on reservations.
At the request of the secretary of the interior, Congress authorizes the Bureau of Indian Affairs to hire Indian men to police reservations. The Indian police forces are meant to replace U. S. troops in settling small disputes and subduing angry and starving Indians. Indian policemen will also serve as assistants to non-Indian agents by alerting them to reservation gossip and rumors and performing routine tasks, such as rounding up truant Indian students and forcing them to attend reservation schools.
Although intended to help keep the peace, Indian police forces often increase friction within reservation communities. Many of their fellow tribespeople resent following the orders of Indian policemen, whom they regard as traitors to their people. Indian police forces also undermine the authority of traditional leaders, who in the past had taken responsibility for settling intratribal disagreements.
The Hubbell Trading Post opens on the Navajo Reservation.
A former Spanish interpreter for the U. S. military, John Lorenzo Hubbell purchases a trading post in the Ganado area of the Navajo Indian Reservation. From the post, Hubbell offers the Navajo food and non-Indian manufactured merchandise for sale or for trade.
The non-Indian trader with the closest relationship and greatest influence on his Navajo (Dineh) customers, Hubbell encourages Navajo women to weave larger blankets for sale to whites for use as rugs, thus helping to create a new industry among the Navajo. Hubbell also redirects the traditional Navajo craft by encouraging weavers to use the patterns and colors most popular with his white clientele.
Hubbell exerts an even greater influence on Navajo craftwork by bringing silversmiths from Mexico to Ganado to instruct Navajo men. Although some Navajo are already familiar with silversmithing, it becomes a Navajo art only after Hubbell demonstrates to Navajo men that it can be a money-making enterprise. In addition to selling Navajo silverwork and rugs from his network of trading posts and stores, Hubbell offers the items in a mail-order catalog, thereby creating a demand for these wares among whites throughout the United States.
The first salmon cannery opens in southern Alaska.
With the opening of the first salmon cannery, the non-Indian-operated salmon industry begins to compete with Native fishers for the salmon catch in the waters of Alaska. As the industry grows it will take control of all major salmon streams, impoverishing the Alaska Natives who depended on fishing for their livelihood, and threatening their traditional culture.
Kiowa war leader Satanta dies from a fall.
Satanta, the Kiowa chief who most strongly resisted confinement on a reservation (see entry for MAY 1871), is imprisoned in Huntsville, Texas, for violating parole. When he falls headfirst from a second-story prison window, his death is ruled a suicide. The prison authorities refuse to allow an investigation of the incident by the Kiowa, who suspect Satanta was murdered.
The Hampton Institute admits Indian students.
Founded in 1868, the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, was established as a school for freed African-American slaves, who after graduation were encouraged to share their knowledge with others of their race. Wanting to extend this same educational philosophy to Native Americans, Hampton’s administrators allow 17 Indian men to attend the institute.
The Indians were among the prisoners of war sent to Fort Marion, Florida, after their defeat in the Red River War (see entry for 1875). At the end of three years in jail under the watch of Richard Henry Pratt, a former army officer and Indian reformer who tried to introduce his charges to the ways of whites, the prisoners are offered the opportunity to stay in the East and receive non-Indian educations. Those who agreed are sent to Hampton, because it is the only school Pratt could convince to take Indian students. Quickly deemed a success by Pratt, the Hampton experiment in Indian education will inspire the establishment of boarding schools as a tool for assimilating Indians into non-Indian society. (See also entry for AUTUMN 1879.)
To supplement their government rations, the Bannock Indians of present-day Idaho have relied on gathering camas roots that grow wild in their homeland. Although their right to gather these roots is guaranteed by treaty, white ranchers allow their hogs to trample and destroy the areas where the wild camas grow. Angered by this continuing threat to their food supply, the Bannock join with their Northern Paiute (Numu) relatives to rise up against non-Indians in their territory. Troops led by General Oliver O. Howard, a veteran of the Nez Perce War (see entry for JUNE 15, 1877, and for OCTOBER 5, 1877), are sent out to suppress the rebellion.
Although not all of the Bannock participated in the uprising, the United States decides to punish the entire tribe by disbanding their Malheur reservation. The Bannock are sent to live at the Yakima Indian Reservation in western Washington. The Yakama, however, are not eager to share their land with the Bannock. After five years of misery and conflict, the Bannock will be permitted to relocate to other reservations in present-day Oregon, Nevada, California, and Idaho.
World History
