her husband’s explorations and adventures (as described in her writings of her husband’s exploits), to her playing the role of Spanish missionaries domesticating and Christianizing their Indian subjects. Her maternalism was the counterpart to the paternalism that fostered Indian servitude, and she was as consistent in her “free soil” views as she was inconsistent on the subject of slavery. In this way she was her husband’s wife.
It must be remembered that “abolitionism” and the “free soil” movement were not identical, and that, as aforementioned, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison denounced the Free Soil Party as a white man’s party that was only concerned with ending slave labor’s competition with free white labor. Garrison, by the way, had written an editorial as early as 1829 criticizing the forced removal of Indians from the Southeast. In the 1850s many abolitionists and crusaders, like John Beeson and Wendell Phillips, spoke against Indian slavery and in favor of reform of the Indian service of the United States government.62 Frémont, while consistently favoring the anti-slavery point of view when talking about African chattel slavery, was ultimately a white man who ignored the rights of Indians as human beings and saw them as useful sources of labor to be exploited. His views on these matters were shared by many northerners, including the Abraham Lincoln of 1863 and after.
Lincoln and the Indians
The path to emancipation of the Afro-American slaves was a rocky one, and who better to follow that road then the “great pathfinder,” John C. Frémont. But the trail was narrow with many false exits, and as luck and fate would have it, Lincoln and Frémont crossed and met on that trail several times. Most of these engagements were less than friendly, especially the emancipation edict controversy of 1861.
As already mentioned, on August 30, 1861 Frémont, as commander of the Western Department, issued a controversial proclamation putting Missouri under martial law and declaring that anyone who took up arms against the Federal government, or supported those who did so, will have their property, including slaves, confiscated. By November Lincoln had rescinded the proclamation and relieved Frémont of his command, telling Jessie Benton Frémont in person that “General Frémont should not have dragged the Negro into it.” Yet, the second Confiscation Act passed by Congress and issued by Lincoln in July 1862 was very similar to Frémont’s proclamation in regard to the confiscation of property of persons disloyal to the United States.63
Another major confrontation came in May 1864 when Radical Republicans, meeting in a separate convention one month before the Republican convention, nominated Frémont as their candidate for president. These were anti-slavery zealots who thought that Lincoln was too moderate in his plans for the reconstruction of the South. With the Civil War still raging, Lincoln was later nominated in June as the Republican candidate for president, while a pro-Union Democrat from Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, received the vice-presidency nod.64 In the very near future Lincoln would be assassinated, and Frémont, over the next 26 years, would die a slow death after a series of scandals and financial and political failures.
Most presidents, including Lincoln, had limited experience with Indians, and even less knowledge. On those occasions in the White House when he met with Indians personally he would speak to them in Pidgin English saying to them “Where live now?” and “When go back to Iowa?” He had little doubt that they were an inferior people, and an obstacle to America’s progress and development. His major concern was winning the Civil War, after that his highest priority was settling and developing the west. The Homestead Act of 1862 accelerated white settlement of lands formerly occupied by Indians, and many of the treaties he signed opened up Indian lands for the development of the transcontinental railroad. His Indian policy mainly was one of making treaties with the Indians that would remove them from the lands the settlers coveted.65
Lincoln’s Indian policy was carried out by the Office of Indian Affairs, a bureaucratic entity that was created by the secretary of war in 1824 and moved to the Interior Department in 1849. The major and minor posts of the Indian system were filled by “spoils of office.” The commissioner of Indian affairs reported to the secretary of the interior, who in turn was responsible to the president. Lincoln’s appointees were William P. Dole of Pennsylvania for commissioner and Caleb Smith of Indiana for secretary of interior. Both men were politicians with no special expertise in Indian matters. A variety of Indian agents assigned to tribes and reservations reported to regional superintendents, which in turn were responsible to the commissioner. Claimants, contractors, and traders all milked the Indian system for federal monies. All of these offices together comprised the Indian patronage system of the Lincoln administration, and many people believed, as did Bishop Henry Whipple of Minnesota, “that the Indian Department was the most corrupt in our government.”66 When it came to Indian affairs, Lincoln was more the politician than the statesman.
Apart from making some limited attempts to keep the Confederacy from allying with the Native Americans of the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), the only Indian matter that drew Lincoln’s attention away from the Civil War was the Minnesota rebellion of Santee Sioux (also known as the Eastern Dakotas) in the summer of 1862. The insurrection began when several starving and hungry Sioux killed several hundred white settlers ostensibly because the government had failed its treaty responsibilities to provide the Natives with annuities and rations. Corruption in the Indian system was the main reason for the Sioux’s plight. Monies earmarked for Indian care had been funneled to Minnesota from its congressmen and ended up in the pockets of Indian agents and contractors. Corruption at the higher levels of the Indian system had worked its way down throughout the entire bureaucratic network.67
Sioux testimony, like that of Wabasha, a Dakota leader, suggested that the war was caused by crooked traders who took advantage of his people. According to Wabasha, the traders first tricked a small faction of his people to sign an agreement in which the Sioux agreed to sell land on the north side of the Minnesota River in exchange for “horses, guns, blankets, and other articles.” As Wabasha continues, “By the result of this paper signed without my consent or knowledge, the traders obtained possession of all the money coming from the sale of land … and also half of our annuity for the year 1862.” Soon after he learned that a war party had been formed by Little Six’s band and fighting had commenced. “I got on my horse and rode up to the store,” Wabasha said, and “I saw that the traders were already killed.”68
The rebellion triggered a full-scale war. The uprising resulted in a terrible tragedy in which hundreds of Indians and whites lost their lives, most of whom were innocent and had not condoned the war.69 This occurred at a precarious time for the Union as the federal forces were in disarray, with General John Pope being defeated at the Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) and Robert E. Lee about to attack Washington. Rumors circulated that the Minnesota rebellion was a Confederate conspiracy designed to bring the British to the southern cause. It’s no wonder that Lincoln responded by ordering General Rufus Saxton to organize black soldiers, an action that was later formalized in the famous Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The Indian rebels were defeated two months after it started. About fifteen hundred Indian women, children, and old men were among the prisoners. Many of the men were put on trial in front of a military tribunal—the result, 303 warriors were sentenced to death.70
Lincoln reviewed the cases of the 303 accused men. Attempting to moderate the military’s decision and the demands of the Minnesota voter, Lincoln carefully walked the tightrope of public opinion. As he said, “Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak of one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I … [ordered] the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females.” Since only two Indians were guilty of rape, he then decided to distinguish those who participated in “massacres” from those who fought “battles.” On December 26, 38 Indians were hung at Mankato, Minnesota.71
The aftermath of the Minnesota rebellion shaped Lincoln’s Indian policy for the west. First, the western Indians would be treated strictly as a military
