1. Megan Murphy
History 7690
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
Colonization, Freedom, and Citizenship among Native Americans and African-
Americans 1800-1890

2. 1
Colonization, Freedom, and Citizenship among Native Americans and African-Americans 1800-
1890
The purpose of this work will be to connect two different nineteenth century philosophies
and show how the Civil War changed the course of their completion. The first ideology is
manifested in the politics surrounding Indian removal policies. For much of the early nineteenth
century, some politicians recognized individual tribal sovereignty within claimed American
territories. However, leading into the 1820s and early 1830s, American Indian policies shifted
towards full native removal, opening up considerable lands for white settlement. By1851, the
American government passed the Indian Appropriation Act, establishing defined territories
known as reservations for the Indian tribes. At the same time, officials began to consider
problems related to a large population of African-Americans—referring to both the free blacks
and African slaves—particularly the concerns surrounding the potential freedom for the
suppressed population. Many leaders started entertaining ideas of colonization which would
remove all African-Americans from white society and place them on a ‘black reservation’, or
colony, much like the established Indian policies for a reservation system. Colonization schemes
heightened with various proposals sending freed blacks to Liberia, Texas, Haiti, Central
America, and even Mexico. Such proposals subsequently gained support from influential leaders
like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln.
Interestingly though, colonization never materialized to the scale of Native American1
reservations. This raises the question of why black colonies never emerged, while there are
numerous Indian reservations still in existence today. This paper will examine how the Civil
War swayed political policies towards abolition and black citizenship rights, rather than to follow
1 Throughout this work, I will use Native American, indigenous people, Indians, natives,etc. interchangeably;
moreover, the same will be done for blacks and African-Americans.

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the schemes of removal via colonization. The prolonged Civil War conflict forced the Union to
formally allow black soldiers to enlist in their regiments, which to some degree prompted the
Emancipation Proclamation. Combined, the two developments demonstrate a political shift from
the philosophy of removal and brought about questions of black citizenship rights, signifying a
total reversal from earlier policies regarding Native Americans rights in the American republic.
Before delving into the complexities of Indian removal and colonization, a few concepts
must be outlined. Firstly, citizenship is malleable. At its most basic level, citizenship is simply
belonging and having membership in one’s community and as such, the process of American
citizenship has “been defined, by those who have it and therefore speak for all citizens, as
universal and inclusive (the so-called American Creed).”2 Because of this, definitions and
enforcement of rights differ between time and place. Notions of standing, which recognizes an
individual as a full adult capable of exercising choice and assuming responsibilities, changes
based on the ruling public’s ideology, as does the idea of nationality, which is being identified as
part of the people who constitute a sovereign ethnic culture. The maintenance of such
“boundaries relies on [the] ‘enforcement’ not only by designated officials but also by so-called
members of the public.”3 Likewise, the classifications of public fluctuate over time, space, and
ruling society. Prominent social theorist and author, Michael Warner tells that there are
Several senses of the noun “public” [that] tend to be intermixed in
usage. People do not always distinguish even between the public
and a public, though in certain contexts the difference can matter a
great deal. The public is a kind of social totality. Its most common
sense is that of the people in general. It might be the people
organized as the nation, the commonwealth, the city, the state, or
some other community. It might be very general, as in
Christendom or humanity. But in each case, the pub lic, as a
2 Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor,
(Harvard University Press, 2002), 24.
3 Glenn, 52.

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people, is thought to include everyone within the field in question.
This sense of totality is brought out by speaking of the public.4
As Warner suggests, the public often refers to the dominating culture and the rules and
expectations that govern their society. Moreover, the American public itself varies; hence, their
classifications for American citizenship vary as well. For early American Indians and African-
Americans, much of their citizenship was shaped by race. According to University of California-
Berkeley professor, Evelyn Nakano Glenn,
The concept of biological race rose in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries to replace religious paradigms for viewing
differences between Europeans (Christians) and ‘others’ (non-
Christians) encountered in the age of conquest. With the waning
of religious belief in a god-given social order, race differences and
the superiority of white Europeans to ‘others’ came to be justified
and legitimized by ‘science’.5
In other words, since the United States’ independence, a dominant white majority generally
viewed native peoples and African-Americans as ‘others’ and separate from themselves. Part of
defining the ‘other’ came from the creation of scientific racism through biological anthropology.
As Wake Forest University professor, Thomas Gossett wrote, the science of eighteenth and
nineteenth century anthropology divided “mankind into five varieties–Caucasian, Mongolian,
Ethiopian, American, and Malay… [but] most often, the races [were] named by colors: white,
yellow, black, red, and brown.”6 From physical differences among people (like skin color or
cranial measurements), various scientists, whether they were European naturalists, craniologists,
or even ethnologists, established intellectual racism that shaped American theology and policies
towards the supposed inferior Indians and African-Americans. Examples of racial separation are
inherent in the 1830 Indian Removal Act and colonization. Advocates supported separation to
4 Michael Warner, Publicsand Counterpublics (New York: Zone Books, 2002), 65-66
5 Glenn, 11.
6 Thomas Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 37.

5. 4
protect the American public and to allow the ‘others’ to achieve prosperity outside the white
public sphere.
American Indian Policy 1780-1860
Trouble between European settlers and indigenous peoples reaches back to their first
encounters during the 1400s. The two cultures engaged in violent conflicts that resulted in
extraordinary death tolls. Then, when Americans began fighting for their independence, some
indigenous tribes chose to fight on the side of the Americans, whereas others chose allegiances
with the European powers. Regardless of the varying tribal alliances, once America won its
independence, the newly established government seemingly ignored Indian land rights and
excluded many tribes from their homeland. When Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris,
ending America’s War of Independence, they ceded all territory east of the Mississippi, north of
Florida, and south of the Great Lakes to the United States.7 While the victory essentially created
the boundaries for a new nation, Great Britain transferred land ownership that never truly
belonged to them. The land they relinquished was in fact Indian homelands; consequently
placing tribal nations between the actual possession and protection of their lands, against the
“formally” and “legally” processed Treaty of Paris. In a message to the Commissioners of the
United States, roughly thirteen different tribes responded that
We never made any agreement with the king (of Britain), nor with
any other nation, that we would give to either the exclusive right to
purchase our lands, and we declare to you that we consider
ourselves free to make any bargain or cession of lands whenever
and to whomever we please. If the white people, as you say, made
a treaty that none of them but the king should purchase us, and he
has given that right to the United States, it is an affair which
7 “Treaty of Paris 1763,” accessed November 19, 2015, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/paris763.asp. Found
in articles VII, XX, and XXIV. Also, Colin Calloway, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian
History, (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012), 228.

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concerns you and him, and not us. We have never parted with such
power.8
The newly established American government conflicted greatly with the Indian tribes over land
claims, and this troubled relationship created genuine fear in many American citizens. In 1791,
the Secretary of War, General Arthur St. Clair, wrote to Congress insisting that they “dictate [an]
adequate military force [to] be raised as soon as possible, [and place] them upon the frontier” to
protect their own families and prevent the Indians from “spreading terror and destruction.”9 As
General St. Clair’s requests suggests, the bordering white settlements feared Indian retaliation,
and thus military protection became essential. The violent disputes among tribal and American
land claims continued into the 1800s and forced the American government to take action.
Following their British predecessors, the United States established an Indian department
(under the War Department) that created guidelines toward the sale or transfer of Indian lands
and regulated American advancement into the western frontier.10 After the resignation of
General St. Clair, the Indian Office appointed Anthony Wayne in his place. While engaged in
yet another bloody Indian war, in 1814 Wayne proposed the Treaty of Greensville, which offered
peace to “the Delawares, Shawanoes, Miamis, and Wyandots…and to all other Indian nations,
northwest of the Ohio, whom it may concern.”11 The Treaty of Greensville recommended that
the Indian tribes relinquish all land claims surrounding, in, or near American territories, and in
return the United States would relinquish “their claims to all other Indian lands northward of the
Ohio river, eastward of the Mississippi, and westward and southward of the great lakes and the
8 Calloway, 261.
9 George Manypenny, Our Indian Wards, (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1860), 73.
10 Note the Bureau of Indian Affairs was not established until 1824 and it stayed underthe War Department until
1849 when it transferred to the Department of the Interior. Calloway, 235.
11 It is believed that St. Clair was forced to resign after his humiliating defeat in the 1791 Battle of the Wabash.
Manypenny,81.

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waters uniting them.”12 Most importantly, Wayne promised that “The Indian tribes who have a
right to the lands, are quietly to enjoy them…without any molestation from the United States.”13
Wayne’s peace proposal did not account for the tribal claims already placed inside American
territories, which to the Indians holding this land meant an “open invasion by the whites, who
were not slow in improving the opportunity thus offered to intrude on the Indian lands.”14 The
America people may have gained their independence but the battle over land had just begun.
Perhaps following the Indian Office’s peace attempts, in 1802 the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that “the Indian nations possessed a full right to the lands they occupied…[and] that their
territory was separated from that of any State within whose chartered limits they might reside by
a boundary line.”15 The Supreme Court’s decision recognized tribal sovereignty, which placed
Indian boundaries outside federal and state powers. Although the Court’s rulings seemed to
create a new start between the rivaling nations, the peace time did not last. Although the 1802
Supreme Court recognized Indian internal sovereignty, the justices could not pass or enact any
laws that made this declaration enforceable—let alone enforceable on a federal level that ruled
over individual states’ rights. Because of this conflict between ostensible legal rights and actual
legislative practice, when American territories like Alabama wanted to expand before entering
into statehood, the local government demanded their rights from the federal government to rid
the Indian nations from the wanted territory.16
No one took this problem more seriously than President Andrew Jackson. In his opening
message to the 21st Congressional Session, he exclaimed, “It gives me great pleasure to announce
12 Manypenny,81.
13 Manypenny,82.
14 MAnypenny,83.
15 “U.S. Supreme Court: Worcester v. Georgia,” accessed December 7. 2014,
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/31/515/case.html.
16Michael Green, The Politicsof Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis, (University of Nebraska
Press, 1982).

8. 7
to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty
years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond white settlements, is approaching to a
happy consummation.”17 Continuing, he insisted that
a speedy removal will…separate the Indians from immediate
contact with settlements of whites;…and perhaps cause them
gradually, under the protection of the Government, and through the
influences of good councils, to cast off their savage habits, and
become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.18
Specifically in regards to the government’s responsibility to its new states such as Mississippi,
Ohio, Alabama, and Indiana, President Andrew Jackson told Congress that
the General Government should…remove every obstruction to the
complete jurisdiction of the State Governments over the soil…It is,
therefore, a duty which this Government owes to the new States, to
extinguish, as soon as possible, the Indian title to all lands which
Congress themselves have included within their limits.19
Intending a speedy removal, Jackson thought that the “good citizens” needed to be relieved
“from the evils, [whether] real or imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may
be…threatened.”20
While a huge part of Jackson’s enthusiasm for removal stemmed from the fear of Indian
reprisal and even the states’ demands for more territory, another important aspect to his policy
aspired to make the Indian “civilized.” A popular political belief, going as far back as Thomas
Jefferson’s presidency, argued that “too much [Indian] land was a disincentive for Indians to
become ‘civilized’…[because they] would continue to hunt rather than settle down as farmers.”21
In other words, if Indians continued to have access to the vast majority of lands in the U.S., they
17 “A Century of Lawmaking for a new Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875- 21st
Congress,2nd Session,” accessed October 20, 2015, p. ix, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=llrd&fileName=010/llrd010.db&recNum=439.
18 “A Century of Lawmaking,” ix.
19 “A Century of Lawmaking,” x.
20 “A Century of Lawmaking,” x.
21 “A Century of Lawmaking,” x.

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could not reach their full potential as agriculturists like the citizens under the American
government. By and large, Jackson believed the United States, and the Indians for that matter,
would be better suited apart from one another. Only through the white and Indian cultural
separation, would each society flourish in the lands they call home. With the enthusiastic
support of President Jackson, the Indian Removal Act passed in 1830, forcing all Indian nations
west of the Mississippi in exchange for their existing lands within state borders.22
Although the Indian Removal Act passed, that did not mean that the Indian tribes were
willing to relocate. As evidence, in 1831, the eastern Cherokee Nation sued the state of Georgia
over their constitution power in regards to Indian removal—a case that is known as Cherokee
Nation v. Georgia. In response to this lawsuit, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall wrote
that the “Cherokees constituted a ‘domestic, dependent nation’ that existed under the
guardianship of the United States;”23 and therefore, the court did not have the power to enforce
Georgia’s laws (particularly those of forceful relocation). Following this case, Georgia
prohibited all “white persons,” including missionaries and teachers, from living within the
Cherokee Nation. A missionary by the name of Samuel Worcester, and numerous other
missionaries and teachers were arrested for failing to comply with these orders. Upon his arrest,
Worcester sued the Georgian government over unlawful detainment. Within his case, Worcester
v. Georgia, Chief Justice Marshall again stated that the “Cherokee Nation remained a separate,
sovereign nation with a legitimate title to its national territory,” ruling against the Georgia laws
one more time and in favor of Worcester.24 Between Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester
22 “Primary Documents in American History,” accessed on October 20, 2015,
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html.
23 “Government & Politics: U.S. Supreme Court Cases,” accessed November 20, 2015,
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/worcester-v-georgia-1832.
24 Fun fact, Worcester’s lawyers were hired and paid for by the Cherokee Nation. “Government & Politics.”

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v. Georgia, the Cherokee people “hoped the decision[s] would persuade the federal government
to intervene against Georgia and end the talk of removal;” however, “Georgia ignored the
Supreme Court’s ruling…[and] President Jackson did not enforce the decision against the state
and instead called on the Cherokees to relocate or fall under Georgia’s jurisdiction.”25 Even
though these cases still resulted in the eastern Cherokee removal, the decisions became the
foundations for recognizing tribal sovereignty throughout the remaining nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.
Shaping its Native American outlook around fear, the American government consistently
viewed native inhabitants as the ‘others’ and separate from themselves. Consequently, within
the mid-1800s, the U.S. government created a defined space for Native Americans. Termed
“reservations,” the government clearly articulated borders that separated the American public
from the predominantly viewed “dependent race.” As 1848 Indian Commissioner William
Medill claimed,
The policy already begun is, as rapidly as it can safely and
judiciously be done, to colonize our Indian tribes beyond the reach,
for some years, of our white population, confining each within a
small district of country. 26
As such, in 1851, Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act, which forced American Indians
to live on designated territories, typically in the Midwest/western United States. Importantly, the
Appropriation Act represented a total political shift from Anthony Wayne’s Treaty at Greensville
and the 1802 Supreme Court declaration, which acknowledged tribal sovereignty as an extension
to Indian land claims, and instead altered the government’s stance to the creation of the
25 “Government & Politics.”
26 “The Reservation System: Overview,” accessed August 19, 2015.
http://www.ndstudies.org/articles/the_reservation_system_overview.

11. 10
reservation system.27 Disputes over land claims forced the American government to rid the
territory of Indians; but, equally as important was the fear of retaliation from the ‘others’—
referring to those unlike the white culture—that many Americans experienced. Rather than
acknowledging individual native citizenship rights in the United States, the government chose to
relocate the Indian tribes and completely remove their presence from America territory and
culture.
Colonization
Although the Indian removal and reservation policies developed because of land claim
disputes and retaliation fears, the American relocation plans were not limited to only Native
Americans. By the 1800s, many Americans supported African colonization plans that would
remove all free blacks from United States territory. This distinct philosophy of African-
American colonization progressed during America’s antebellum years, because at this time,
Americans were becoming divided among the issue of slavery and its future within the United
States. On one side lay the philanthropists and abolitionists, and on the other, slave owners that
feared a slave rebellion (one of the many aftermaths of the Haitian Revolution). In his book, The
Half Has Never Been Told, historian Edward Baptist explains how within the newly emerging
world economy, American slavery came to play an important role in capitalism. For one, as
cotton production grew, its transformation into a textile rose, the supply of enslaved people on
the national slave market increased; or as Baptist explains
the price of slaves had begun to track closely with the revenue
generated by the average cotton hand. Demands from cotton-state
slave buyers increased when the product of two factors multiplies
27 “Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness,” last modified December 5, 2013,
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/317.html.

12. 11
together—the number of pounds picked times the price per
pound—was high.28
The increasing value of slaves allowed Southern slave owners to claim their slaves as assets,
which banks viewed as collateral for loans.
The term ‘bubble’ gets used to describe a situation which an
important asset has become wildly overvalued compared to
realistic predictions of future returns. From 1800 onward, the price
of slaves—the most important asset in the southern economy—had
always tracked that of cotton, or, more specifically, the rate of
individual productivity times the price per pound of cotton. In
1834, however, slave prices detached themselves from that of
cotton and soared upward on a new trajectory. By the time [one
Louisiana man] bought dozens of slaves on credit…in 1836…he
paid…more than twice the 1830 price, even though cotton prices
had declined.29
Concurrently, locally and federally unregulated banks freely printed and lent money based on
irrationally high asset bubbles. Baptist argues that slavery drove the economy and undoubtedly
contributed to the cause of the Civil War.
Likewise, in In The Presence of Mine Enemies, historian Edward Ayers follows two
counties—Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania—and shows how these
counties seemingly transitioned from peaceful neighbors into enemies divided by the Civil War.
Ayers argues that leading up to the 1860 election, the American people—particularly the voting
individuals—profoundly disagreed on the future of their country. Mostly, their differences
derived from the varying economic securities and prospects affecting daily life. According to
Ayers, many white southerners relied on slavery to continue their agricultural dominance. For
example, in Virginia, “Augusta’s farms, productive and valuable, were worth nearly eleven
million dollars, the highest in Virginia…[and] none of this would have been possible without the
28 Edward Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making ofAmerican Capitalism, (New York:
Basic Books, 2014), 173.
29 Baptist, 269-270.

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skill and sweat of slaves.”30 Slavery influenced nearly every aspect of southern life. Therefore,
when Northern morality and free labor ideals started shifting, Southern populations began
fearing the loss and transition away from slavery.
Colonization provided somewhat of a middle ground for the opposing views; and like
Indian removal, aimed to relocate the free black population, thus forming a new colony or
reservation rather than granting slaves full equality in the United States.31 Believing that blacks
could never fully assimilate into American culture, Quaker ship captain Paul Cuffee gained much
Congressional, British, and free black leader’s support to annually bring freed blacks to Sierra
Leone and establish a new colony.32 On January 2, 1811, Cuffee took his first all African-
America voyage to Freetown, Sierra Leone with the hopes of launching businesses and trade
from the African continent. Joining the previously established British colony, which was the
headquarters for the Royal British Navy’s West African Squadron whose mission captured
illegal slave ships and released their cargo into Sierra Leone, Cuffee’s voyagers integrated into
their existing community.33 Similarly, in 1816, Presbyterian minister Robert Finley, continued
the colonization effort and founded the American Colonization Society (ACS). Rather than
bringing blacks to Cuffee’s Sierra Leone colony, the ACS believed in establishing a new
settlement in Liberia. “Between 1820 and1831, nearly 3,000 black emigrants” went to the
30 Edward Ayers, In the Presence of Min Enemies: War in the Heart of America 1859-1863,(W.W. Norton &
Company: New York, 2003), 18.
31 “American Colonization Society 1816-1865,” accessed August 19, 2015,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1521.html.
32 Interestingly, Paul’s mother, Ruth Moses,was Native American. “The African-American Mosaic,” accessed
October 21, 2015. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam002.html.
33 This voyage brought 38 African-Americans for the new settlement. “Cuffee, Paul, Sr. (1759-1817),” accessed
November 20, 2015, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/cuffe-paul-sr-1759-1817. Also,
“Freetown, Sierra Leone (1792- -),” accessed November 20, 2015, http://www.blackpast.org/gah/freetown-sierra-
leone-1792.

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ACS’s Liberian colony.34 Advocates for colonization, like Cuffee and the ACS, argued that this
plan would cleanse the United States of racial violence and slavery via voluntarily relocation. As
such, many religious ACS activists claimed that “it is impossible, in the nature of things, that
unkind feelings or prejudices towards a people can long survive benevolent efforts for their
improvement.”35 Even though some free blacks experienced some measure of equality within
the states, their experiences would not outlast the destructive and negative bigotries thriving in
American society at that time. Correspondingly, a northern democratic newspaper, the
Pennsylvania Valley Spirit, encouraged colonization by arguing
It is a law of nature…that two antagonistic races cannot exist side
by side without one holding the other in subjection. It must then
become a struggle between the white man and the black man for
supremacy.36
The Valley Spirit proclaimed that in order to reach full emancipation freed black men cannot stay
within the same borders. But for many colonization supporters, colonization was more than
simply ridding the prejudices that doomed freedmen of color, relocation was the only way to free
the blacks from a narrow-minded environment and give them hopes of becoming fully
civilized—a remarkably similar philosophy that President Jackson utilized while removing the
Indians in 1830. Renowned historian David Brion Davis explains that “Freed blacks and
coloreds everywhere occupied a marginal and ambiguous status, neither slave nor genuinely
free…circumscribed by legal disabilities and barred from the more prestigious occupations and
professions;”37 ultimately impeding their progress towards civilization. Given full freedoms
34 “American Colonization Society (1816-1964),” accessed November 20, 2015,
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/american-colonization-society-1816-1964.
35 David Brion Davis, The Problem with Slavery in the Age of Emancipation, (Borzoi Book, 2004), 107.
36 “Civil War-Era Newspapers-Valley Spirit: March 12, 1862,” accessed August 19, 2015,
http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/news/vs1862/pa.fr.vs.1862.03.12.xml.
37 Davis, 57.

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abroad, African-Americans would not be hindered with racial bias and could grow into their
natural potential. The ACS furthered the belief by portraying the freed blacks as saviors or
“latter-day Pilgrims who would carry to Africa the seed of Christianity and American
civilization.”38 Furthermore, in its third annual report (published in 1821), the ACS reported that
the African natives welcomed the new black American colony and depicted that “they go to meet
their friends and brothers…as the harbinger of civilization and social happiness.”39 For the ACS
and others, colonization provided an opportunity to spread Christianity and shape another part of
the world.
Even though the American Colonization Society supported a new colony in Africa, it was
not the only colonization proposal during this time. Following President Jackson’s 1830 Indian
Removal Act, proponents of black colonization began searching west for a potential black
settlement. In 1859 Senator James Doolittle suggested purchasing a cheap homestead in the
West that gives whites an opportunity to settle in the Great Plains, and for freed blacks to
relocate in Central America and Mexico. Doolittle felt this proposal served as “A generous
homestead policy for both races” that may even provide economic benefits for the U.S. later
down the line.40 To turn this plan into reality, Senator Doolittle needed Mexico’s approval and
acceptance for an African-American colony in their territory. For proponents of colonization
like U.S. consul Robert Shufeldt, Secretary of State William Seward and U.S. ambassador
Thomas Corwin, the 1861 Mexican Civil War provided just the right opportunity. Coincidently,
the civil war was draining Mexico’s national treasury. Mexico defaulted on its foreign loans,
causing England, France, and Spain to seize Mexico’s largest port in Veracruz. The new Liberal
38 Davis, 99.
39 Davis, 107.
40 Nicholas Guyatt, “The Future Empire of Our Freedmen: Republican Colonization schemes in Texas and Mexico
1861-1865,” in Civil War Wests (University of California Press, 2015),98.

16. 15
government under Benito Juarez needed help.41 Recognizing the unfortunate, yet opportunistic
situation, Shufeldt, Seward and Corwin developed a plan to aid Mexico and relieve the United
States of emancipated blacks. The proposition allowed the U.S. to lend money to the Mexican
government if they allowed an African-American colony in Tehuantepec—an underdeveloped
territory that was perfect for tropical labor. 42
In a letter dated October 23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln told the Secretary of the Interior,
Caleb Smith, to
direct there [sic] negroes to some of the unoccupied lands of
Central America, and…to secure the removal of negroes from this
country. I, therefore, recommend that all these points be considered
and that the contract be so drawn as to secure such advantages as
may in your judgement seem desirable for the United States to
hold.43
At the president’s order, colonization schemes moved forward. Later that year, Lincoln told
Congress that “It might be well to consider…whether the free colored people already in the
United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.”44
Such claims pushed the original voluntary colonization schemes, like those proposed by the
American Colonization Society, to mandatory racial separation resembling the forced Indian
removal schemes passed thirty years earlier. Finally, on December 31, 1862, one day before the
Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln meet with James R. Doolittle and Bernard Kock—a
Charleston businessman—to plan African removal to Cow Island (just off the Haitian coast) too
cut timber.45 Historian Eric Foner argues that this meeting was President Lincoln’s ‘most
41 Guyatt, 95.
42Guyatt, 95-99.
43 Roy Basler, edit., “To Caleb Smith October 23, 1861,” in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Rutgers
University Press: N.J., 1953-1955). This source will be referred to as CW.
44 Michel Vorenberg, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization,” Journal of Abraham Lincoln
Association volume 14, issue 2 (1993), 28.
45 Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, (W.W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2010),
239-240.

17. 16
concrete’ step towards colonization because it was Lincoln’s final effort to colonize blacks
outside the American republic.
Prior to his presidential election, Abraham Lincoln entered into a series of debates
challenging the current Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, to his senatorial seat. In the 1850s,
racism was predominant in Midwestern states, like Illinois, and as such, Democratic Douglas
often accused Republican Lincoln of favoring racial equality and a friend to the blacks.46 For
this reason, Lincoln often mentioned his plans for colonization, and its support by the Republican
Party. During a speech in Springfield, Illinois on June 26, 1857—made in response to
Democratic Stephen Douglas’s speech made just two weeks prior—Lincoln told the crowd:
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to
the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black
races…I think the authors of that notable instrument (referring to
the Declaration of Independence) intended to include all men, but
they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They
did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral
developments, or social capacity…[thus] I have said that the
separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of
amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the
Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they
are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the
subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are
for it, and that the chief plank in their platform—opposition to the
spread of slavery—is most favorable to that separation. Such
separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by
colonization…it is morally right…to transfer the African to his
native clime.47
Upon hearing this speech and then Lincoln’s subsequent victory as the United States President,
many of those opposed to his views found real threats to colonization and feared forceful
deportation. Considering the American government supported removal once—leading to the
Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears—colonization could happen at any moment.
46 Vorenberg, 23-27.
47 CW, “Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857.”

18. 17
Yet, Lincoln was a skilled politician. In his article, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of
Black Colonization,” Brown University Professor and historian Michael Vorenberg argues that
Lincoln not only advocated for colonization because of his personal views toward blacks, but he
was equally motivated to support colonization as a means of gaining political support. Within
his analysis, Vorenberg suggests that Lincoln “cared less about the actual details of colonization
[and more] about offering it as a way of gaining border state acceptance of emancipation.”48 As
the Emancipation Proclamation came closer to its final enactment, Lincoln continued to push for
colonization. Lincoln recognized “the political necessity of keeping emancipation tied to
colonization…[because] any plan of emancipation that did not include colonization would be
constructed as a program of racial equality,” which would be disastrous to his political career, as
well as, provide the ignition for border state secession.49
Likewise, historian Eugene Berwanger believes President Lincoln used colonization as
part of a larger, and more gradual, emancipation plan. In his work, “Lincoln’s Constitutional
Dilemma: Emancipation and Black Suffrage,” Berwanger explains that Lincoln launched a
‘gradual emancipation effort’, which would lawfully allow him to issue a full emancipation by
gently gaining border state abolition support without pushing them too far away and causing
secession. According to Berwanger’s analysis, “if the individual states were empowered to
legalize slavery, they might just as legally abolish it;” therefore, if Lincoln could gain such
approval, then each state would be employing their freedom of choice to support the Union,
allowing Lincoln to grant full emancipation within his legal power.50 As part of his ‘gradual
48 Vorenberg, 31.
49 Connecting with Eric Foner’s analysis that Lincoln’s ‘most concrete’ step toward colonization happened on
December 31, 1882. Vorenberg, 40.
50 Eugene H. Berwanger, “Lincoln’s ConstitutionalDilemma: Emancipation and Black Suffrage,” Journal of the
Abraham Lincoln Association volume 5, issue 1, 30.

19. 18
emancipation’, Lincoln arranged to compensate the slaveholders in each state that abolished
slavery within a short time frame. In doing so, he was advocating for the eventual decline of
slavery over time and not its immediate deterioration. Lincoln carried these same thoughts into
his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by linking northern emancipation to compensation
and colonization to ensure border state approval.51
Within the fluctuating wartime climate, it was essential for President Lincoln to appease
as many people as possible. In his work, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American
Slavery, Eric Foner details the complex political strategies that Lincoln undoubtedly utilized
throughout his career. Fearing that “a direct assault on slavery would drive the border to
secede,” Lincoln strategically advocated for a gradual and compensated emancipation plan that
would end their territorial slavery by 1900.52 Additionally, Foner tells that President Lincoln
relied on colonization schemes to ease the anxieties of the Northern states, particularly those
with slave-holding territories on the southern border, that the growing freed black population
would not burden their state or working American citizens. In fact, Lincoln argued that along
with the gradual emancipation, colonization would benefit the white population, “Labor is like
any other commodity on the market…Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black
laborer [and]…you increase the demand for and the wages of white labor.”53 Hence, within his
annual message to Congress on December 1, 1862, Lincoln asked for “a constitutional
amendment authorizing…appropriate fund[s] for colonization” because this plan “offered a
‘compromise’ between advocates of abolition with the freed-people remaining ‘with us’, and
51 James McPherson, “How President Lincoln Decided to Issue the Emancipation Proclamation,” The Journal of
Blacksin Higher Education,no.37, 108-109.
52 Foner, 210. Additionally, Foner explains how this action prevented “half the army” from laying down their arms
as well.
53 Foner, 236.

20. 19
those who favored gradual abolition and their ‘removal’.”54 Ever the adroit politician, President
Lincoln used colonization schemes to unite the Lower North on the inevitable emancipation of
slaves within the United States.
Despite significant attempts made by President Lincoln, the American Colonization
Society, and even Paul Cuffee, Eric Foner tells that many attempts failed because “colonization
could not go forward without the agreement of the relevant governments,” and Lincoln never
received concrete treaties securing removal of black peoples from America.55 Yet, the American
Colonization Society, or colonization efforts in general, did not die with Lincoln and the Civil
War; merely, colonization activities were much stronger and more apparent from 1816-1863—
so, what changed? Put simply, the prolonged Civil War battle swayed the Union to formally
allow enlistment of black soldiers in their regiments, as well as pass the Emancipation
Proclamation. Combined, the two acts demonstrate a political shift from removal philosophies
and influenced the Union government to approach black citizenship rights within their territory.
Black Union Soldiers and the Emancipation Proclamation
Throughout Lincoln’s political career, he often stated that annulling slavery was against
the U.S. Constitution, “Congress…has no power under the Constitution to interfere
with…slavery in the different states,” and that he has “no purpose directly or indirectly to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists [because] I have no lawful
right to do so.” 56 Hence, when the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861,
54 Foner, 236.
55 Foner, 233.
56 Berwanger, “Lincoln’s Constitutional Dilemma,” 28-29.

21. 20
Lincoln avidly denied that this was a war against slavery. Even more than a year later, Lincoln
wrote to the editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley and defended himself
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is
not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union
without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by
freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing
some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do
about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps
save the Union.57
Around this same time, in the summer 1862, the War Department called for 300,000 volunteers
to enlist, first in July and then again in August, and twice their enlistments fell drastically short.58
For Congress, as well as Lincoln, the Civil War was evolving into a hard war, and for the Union
to win, they needed to utilize every resource at their disposal. Additionally, more and more
radical Republicans and abolitionists started believing in Fredrick Douglass’s words,
To fight against slaveholders, without fighting against slavery, is
but a half-hearted business. War for the destruction of liberty must
be met with war for the destruction of slavery.59
Douglass was effective, and President Lincoln began drafting his plans for emancipation.
Granting freedom to slaves definitely appeased northern abolitionists, but it also directly
threatened Southern leadership. Slave labor was crucial to the Confederacy. Thousands of
slaves worked as agriculturists, providing the Southern armies with butchered meat and produce,
as well as other intensive labor duties, which freed white Confederates for military service.
Hence, in May 1861, at Fort Monroe along the Virginia Peninsula, Major General Benjamin
Butler met with a Confederate officer regarding three escaped slaves now under Butler’s
57 CW, “Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862.”
58 Foner, 29.
59 McPherson, “How President Lincoln Decided,” 108.

22. 21
protection. Citing the Fugitive Slave Act, the Confederate officer demanded the three men be
released into his custody, but Butler responded
You say you have seceded…so you cannot consistently claim
them. I shall hold these negroes as contraband of war, since they
are engaged in the construction of your battery and are claimed as
your property. The question is simply whether they shall be used
for or against the Government of the United States.60
Afterwards, Fort Monroe, as well as other Union lines close enough for runaway slaves, became
refuges for hundreds of enslaved “contrabands” escaping the Confederate grasp. Perhaps
following Butler’s lead, in August of that year, President Lincoln signed the First Confiscation
Act, lawfully permitting Union militia to confiscate all slaves fighting with the Confederate
troops “in or upon any fort, navy yard, dock, armory, ship, entrenchment, or in any military or
naval services whatsovever,” as contraband of war.61 However, “the escalating number of
former slaves (contrabands), [combined with the] declining number of white volunteers, and the
increasingly pressing personnel needs of the Union Army,” forced the Northern government to
think otherwise.62 Therefore, in July 1862, Congress passed two interrelated laws, the Second
Confiscation Act and the Militia Act, authorizing “into the service of the United States, for the
purposes of…performing camp services or any other labor…persons of African descent;”
ultimately allowing blacks into the Union military services. 63 Although these acts did not
support African-American service in combat, many abolitionists reviewed them as first steps
towards equality. Additionally, Section Thirteen of the Militia Act emancipated all slaves owned
60 Hari Jones, “The Road to Emancipation,” Saving America’s Civil War Battlefields:Civil War Trust, accessed
October 30, 2015, http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/emancipation-150/the-road-to-emancipation.html.
61 Jones, “The Road to Emancipation.”
62 “The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War,” accessed October 30, 2015,
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war/.
63 “The Militia Act of 1862,” accessed October 30, 2015, http://www.freedmen.umd.edu/milact.htm.

23. 22
by the Confederate army, freeing all African persons held in Union contraband camps—a
precursor for the Emancipation Proclamation.
While passing the Confiscation and Militia Acts may have seemed inevitable, many
abolitionists and freed black advocates would disagree. Within his work, The Wars of
Reconstruction, historian Douglas Egerton highlights many of the hurdles politicians and other
supporters had to achieve for black enlistment. With the Dred Scott decision in March 1857, the
Supreme Court denied federal citizenship rights to all African-Americans in the United States.
After this ruling, many free blacks feared they could never gain basic American rights and turned
to colonization hoping it would grant them equality.64 But as the fight over the Union rapidly
progressed into the bloodiest battle the American people have ever experienced, black activists
and many political supporters started promoting blacks for military service. Not only was
voluntary military service beneficial to winning the war, but activists argued, “If we establish our
right of equal claims of citizenship with other American people, we shall have done all that is
desirable in this view of our position in the country,” and if “blacks joined the army, white
Americans could no longer deny them a political voice.”65 Fredrick Douglass proclaimed that
once black men got “an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and a bullet in his
pocket, [there was] no power on earth [that could] deny that he has earned the right of citizenship
in the United States.”66
In a letter to Ulysses Grant, the commander of all Union forces, General-in-Chief Halleck
wrote
64 Douglas Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction:The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era
(New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2014), 24-25.
65 Egerton, 25.
66 Egerton, 36.

24. 23
There is now no possible hope of reconciliation. We must conquer
the rebels or be conquered by them. Every slave withdrawn from
the enemy is the equivalent of a white man put hors de combat.67
The wartime political climate shifted, and for Lincoln, the time had come to announce his plans
for total emancipation. Depending on the historian, President Lincoln offered the Emancipation
Proclamation for a variety of reasons: to follow his moral beliefs towards racial equality; as a
military maneuver compelling southern blacks, particularly the labor force, to abandon the
Confederacy; to encourage more black Union enlistment with the promise of emancipation; or
even as a wartime tactic to gain the support of anti-slavery Britain. On January 1, 1863,
President Lincoln publicly issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which states “I do declare that
all persons held as slaves within said designated States…henceforward shall be free.”68
Importantly, the Emancipation Proclamation decreed that “such persons (freed blacks) of suitable
condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions,
stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service;” extending the 1862
Militia Act and allowing the enlistment of black volunteers to serve as more than laborers.69
Roughly 179,000 freed blacks, or 10% of the Union Army, served during the Civil War.70 As
historian Eric Foner explains, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation differed quite dramatically
from his Preliminary draft because black enlistment and slave emancipation was undoubtedly a
war time necessity. Accordingly, Foner tells that on January 1, 1863, Lincoln
abandoned the idea of seeking the cooperation of slaveholders in
emancipation, and of distinguishing between loyal and disloyal
owners. [Emancipation] was immediate, not gradual; contained no
mention of monetary compensation for slaveowners; did not
67 Hors de combat translates to ‘out of combat.’ McPherson,108.
68 Transcription of the Emancipation Proclamation, Accessed October30, 2015,
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/transcript.html.
69 “The Emancipation Proclamation: A Transcription,” accessed October 30, 2015,
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/transcript.html.
70 “The Fight for Equal Rights.”

25. 24
depend on action by the states; and made no reference to
colonization…Lincoln still retained an interest in colonization…
but he would never again publically advocate for this policy.71
As many Civil War historians have critiqued, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the
slaves within the Southern states participating in the rebellion, and not to those still in the Union.
Yet, as Lincoln made clear throughout his presidency, legally, the commander-in-chief could
only act over enemy property; therefore, he constitutionally did not have the power to
emancipate all slaves within the confines of Union-controlled territories without the individual
states choice to do so. Regardless, Lincoln’s promise of emancipation publically shifted political
policies away from removal via colonization, and now pressed the matters of black citizenship
following the Union victory at the conclusion of the Civil War.
As Lincoln enlisted black volunteers in the Union army, it appeared that he considered
colonization schemes less and instead shifted towards black citizenship policies like suffrage
rights for those intelligent men that served. After Robert E. Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox
on April 9, 1865, the Civil War was over; and six days later, John Wilkes Booth assassinated
President Abraham Lincoln. The fight for black equality and the nation’s reconstruction was
now out of Lincoln’s control, sparking another struggle over America’s political future.
Native Americans in the Civil War
In spite of the negative aspects accompanying the 1830s removal, many Indian tribes
agreed to take up arms during the Civil War. In “Native Americans and the Civil War,” historian
Arrell M. Gibson explains how many Indians joined the Civil War by enlisting in either the
Union or Confederate militia, and how others tribes, who were trying to remain impartial,
71 Foner, 244.

26. 25
resisted direct involvement by holding off American militarization. In 1861, a Confederate
supply officer surveyed the Indian Territory and reported that “its farms, plantations, and ranches
could provide beef, hide, horse, and grain, as well as salt and land—items particularly important”
for their war effort.72 Yet, despite the abundant resource potential within the western Indian
lands, the 1861 Union Secretary of War ordered the military to abandon all posts from Indian
Territory. In doing so, the Union violated its treaty pledges to protect the Indian tribes, as well
as, left massive regions, like Texas and Arkansas, exposed to Confederate domination. 73 As
Gibson explains, “just as the Union was abandoning the Indian Territory, the Confederacy was
showing strong interest in it as a source of supply…and manpower for Southern armies.”74 The
Southern government enlisted Albert Pike to negotiate with the Five Civilized Tribes, the
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee, to take up the Confederate cause. By
aligning with the Southern war effort, the Five Tribes directly terminated their previous treaties
with the United States government and chose to fight against it.75
On the other hand, some Native American tribes sided with the Union army. For
example, on October 1, 1861, the Delaware Nation proclaimed its Union support, and in January
1862, when the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, William Dole, asked for Indian volunteers, he
received remarkable enlistment from the Seminole, Kickapoo, Osage, Shawnee, Delaware,
Chickasaw, and Choctaw, forming the 1st and 2nd Indian Home Guard.76 Moreover, perhaps the
most famous Indian regiment was Company K of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters, which served
72 Arrell Morgan Gibson, “Native Americans and the Civil War,” American Indian Quarterly volume 9 number 4,
(1985), 387.
73 Gibson, 387.
74 Gibson, 388.
75 Gibson, 388.
76 Notice how parts of the Five Civilized Tribes sided with both the Confederacy and the Union. Often times,
Indians have been too generalized and people forget that as a vast and intermixed culture, Native American tribes
could split and follow new leadership. This is what happened during the Civil War and pieces of the Cherokee tribe,
for example, divided and aligned with different powers.

27. 26
under General Ulysses Grant and participated in the Battle of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania.77
Overall, approximately 20,000 Native Americans served in the Civil War.78
While some tribes directly participated in the Northern and Southern war effort, others
were indirectly pulled into war because of the numerous military encroachments on their
territory. When both Confederate and Union forces assigned military regiments out west, mainly
to secure trade routes and the hugely important transcontinental telegraph line, the troops were
trampling all over Indian reservations.79 Not only was the military presence invading tribal land,
but it also scared away animal herds that were essential to Indian hunting patterns. As a result,
some tribes began fighting back. For example, in Minnesota, the military presence sparked the
Santee Sioux uprising, in which the Sioux killed approximately 700 settlers before retreating
west to the Canadian or Dakota Sioux territories. Moreover, in 1862, Confederate forces
attacked the Southern Kickapoo (or the Mexican Kickapoo), causing ruthless retaliation on the
Texas-Mexico border for the next fifteen years.80 Additionally, in 1863, after heavy military
pressure, the Colorado Ute tribe eventually seceded their San Luis Valley lands in return for new
territory west of the Continental Divide.81 But perhaps the most remembered consequence of
western militarization is the Sand Creek massacre, where on November 29, 1864, Colonel John
Chivington ordered the slaughter of at least two-hundred Cheyenne men, women, and children.82
Because of the continuous battles over Indian land (also known as the Indian Wars which began
77 “We are all Americans – Native Americans in the Civil War,” accessed November 20, 2015,
http://alexandriava.gov/historic/fortward/default.aspx?id=40164.
78 “We are all Americans.”
79 Remember, the 1851 Indian Appropriation Act resettled tribes west of the Mississippi River, creating their
reservations and land ownership undertribal leadership.
80 According to authorArrell Gibson, this violence did not end until 1873 after Colonel Ranald Mackenzie and the
Fourth Cavalry made their raid into Mexico.
81 Gibson, 401.
82 Gibson, 401-402.

28. 27
with European colonization), the 1880s would bring attempted assimilation practices under the
Dawes Act and increased restrictions to Indian reservation territory.
Reconstruction
Once the Civil War ended, the American government had to figure out how to repair and
reunite their divided country. With regards to incorporating Native Americans and freed
African-Americans into the American republic, between 1865 and 1890 the government’s
policies differed quite dramatically. As for African-Americas, in his work, The Wars of
Reconstruction, historian Douglas Egerton recapitulates the complexities of America’s
Reconstruction Era and shows that although the Unionist North won the war, equality was not
necessarily won for blacks. Reformers did not agree on how to acclimate the newly freed slaves
into their existing systems such as voting rights and education. For one, many Southern “whites
resorted to the sort of brutality common in earlier decades in hopes of restoring the lost world of
the old South;”83 and brought Southern society under Jim Crow, ultimately keeping black
citizens from enacting any rights. However, Egerton does not argue racism was the only cause
for violence or ‘wars’ against political and cultural progression, but that class differences proved
overwhelming as well, “Teachers rarely advocated social equality, in part because in their
northern communities they rarely associated with immigrants or the laboring poor.”84
Despite the complex and interweaving webs of reform, reconstruction was not a total
failure. In January of 1865, Lincoln—albeit controversially—persuaded Congress to pass the
Thirteenth Amendment, solidifying his Emancipation Proclamation into the Constitution,
declaring “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any
83 Egerton, 111.
84 Egerton, 150.

29. 28
place subject to their jurisdiction.”85 The Amendment was the first constitutional specification to
directly limit the freedoms and rights of American citizens by outlawing their right to own
slaves.86 Moreover, a large part of reconstruction involved the Bureau of Freedman or the
Freedman’s Bureau. Established in a Congressional act in March 1865, the Bureau was created
to “care for the millions of newly freed slaves and the administration of Southern lands seized by
Union forces during the war.”87 The Bureau distributed food, clothing, fuel, and medical
supplies to the freemen, and sought to regulate labor and contracts in the confiscated Confederate
lands.88 While the Freedman’s Bureau only lasted until 1868, the government tried to establish
black citizenship and stability within the newly conquered southern territory. Additionally, in
July 1868, Congress ratified the Fourteenth Amendment granting “All persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the state wherein they reside.”89 Although these Congressional Amendments and
Acts demonstrated promising reforms after the war, the Reconstruction Era fell short of
becoming Americans most progressive era. As evidence of the lack of sustaining political
reform at this time, Egerton tells that “the wars of Reconstruction had entered a new campaign,
as writers, activists, and intellectuals [on both sides] sought to impose their visions of the period
on[to the twentieth century] American readers.”90
While reconstruction was not finally consummated until the 1960s Civil Rights
Movement, the era was definitely more progressive for black citizenship than the previous years
85 “13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” accessed November 2, 2015,
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html.
86 “Constitution Daily: Abraham Lincoln as Constitutional Radial,” accessed November 2, 2015,
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/07/abraham-lincoln-as-constitutional-radical-the-13th-amendment/.
87 “About the Freedmen’s Bureau,” The Valley of the Shadow,accessed November 2, 2015,
http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/VoS/fbureau/aboutbureau.html.
88 “About the Freedmen’s Bureau.”
89 “U.S. Constitution,” accessed December 10, 2014, http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/overview.
90 Egerton, 319-320.

30. 29
had been for Native American rights. The Civil War encapsulated American politics and
narrowed reformation to the African slave problems. But as politicians and black activism
pushed for racial equality, neither party returned to the 1851 Indian Appropriation Act nor the
1830 Indian Removal Act; leaving Native Americans trapped on reservations, slowly starving to
death due to their infertile lands and hunting restrictions. As William Apess, an Indian advocate,
asserted in his 1833 “An Indian‘s Looking Glass for the White Man,”
Can you charge the Indian with robbing a nation almost of their
whole continent, and murdering their women and children, and
then depriving the remainder of their lawful rights, that nature and
God require them to have? And to cap the climax, rob another
nation to till their grounds and welter out their days under the lash
with hunger and fatigue under the scorching rays of a burning
sun?91
Despite their war contributions, why were Native Americans left separated on reservations while
blacks were integrated into the American republic via citizenship? Perhaps one truth lies with
the fact that both slaves and freedmen were more incorporated into the white American society;
yet, some could argue that Indians were influential in the American culture as well—so what was
different? Put simply, Indians held land. As many businesses and settlers continued moving
west and developed Indian land for resources and profit, the original sphere that was created for
Indians did not remain in place for long. Not only did the intruding white settlements bring
about cultural conflict between native tribes and American society, but it also demonstrated the
general lack of citizenship status attributed to the Indian population at the time. Just fifty years
prior to westward expansion, the American government considered Indian tribes as quasi-
sovereign nations, they remained separate from the U.S. but respected enough to require treaties
establishing fair trade and peaceful relations; yet, by the later 1800s, politicians viewed their
91 Again, President Jackson enforced the Indian Removal Act in 1830 so Apess’s article was written three years
after. Calloway, 319.

31. 30
once politically defined tribal land as available for public consumption. As a result, American
policies stepped away from isolation via removal onto reservations and shifted towards Indian
assimilation in the American public via individual land ownership under the Dawes Act.
Concern over the exploitation of tribal space forced some U.S. politicians to push for
protective legislation. One notable politician is Senator Henry Dawes. In 1887, Senator Dawes
proposed the General Allotment Act, or the Dawes Act, which stipulates:
The President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized,
whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such
Indians is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes to
cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or
resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservations
in severalty to any Indian.92
In general, the Dawes Act took the larger, reservation land and divided it into smaller segments
for individual tribal members with the hope of aiding their economic independence. By
establishing individual Indian economic independence, the public’s earlier notions of standing
(term that recognizes an individual as a full adult capable of exercising choice and assuming
responsibilities) changed. One main governing public principle grants economically independent
individuals the right to vote. Therefore, the General Allotment Act proposed more than just the
protection of Indian land, it paved the way for full Native American citizenship in the American
republic. Moreover, the Dawes Act states that individual land allottees would benefit as subjects
to the laws, classifying their rights as more than civil citizenship (equality before the law and the
protection of person and property) and bridged the gap towards Indian political citizenship—the
right to vote as qualified individuals via land owning independence.93 Ultimately, Senator Henry
92 New Perspective on the West:The Dawes Act,” accessed March 24, 2015,
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/dawes.htm.
93 Glenn, 26.

32. 31
Dawes General Allotment Act theoretically gave citizenship rights to Indians, signifying their
potential full membership in the U.S.’s collective public/national identity.
Additionally, other supporters of allotment hoped that redefining Native American space
granted Indians “a security which no tribal possession [like reservations] could afford him.”94
Under strict government patents, individual allottees received U.S. recognized documentation
that secured their land from future trespasses. As the1881 U.S. Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz
wrote, “There is nothing more dangerous to an Indian reservation than a rich mine” and
allotment ideologies legally (via U.S. government patents) stopped these threats.95 However, the
General Allotment Act did not contain exact definitions of ‘Indian land’ and as such left the act
vulnerable to loopholes. For one, there are two definitions for individually owned tribal land, (1)
trust land - where the federal government holds the legal land title but the beneficial interest
remains with the individual Indian, and (2) restricted fee land - where an individual Indian holds
the legal land title but with restrictions against alienation or encumbrance. Making matters more
complicated, there are multiple classifications to tribal land ownership that influenced the
American government’s legal claim of such property. There are three kinds of tribally owned
land. The first two are defined as individually owned tribal land—trust land and restricted fee
land. The third type is termed fee land purchased by tribes, which allows the tribe to acquire the
legal land title under specific statutory authority, including land outside the initial reservation.
Typically, fee land ownership outside of a reservation is not subject to the same legal restrictions
against alienation or encumbrance like restricted fee land.96 One loophole that arises with the
many different classifications of land ownership is the American government positioned itself to
94 D.S. Otis, The Dawes Act and the Allotment of Indian Lands (University of Oklahoma Press, 1898), 13.
95 Otis, 13.
96 “Tribal and Indian Land,” accessed 3-25-2015, http://teeic.indianaffairs.gov/triballand/.

33. 32
hold numerous Indian land titles by simply classifying their ownership under a trust. Rather than
giving “every Indian a home that he could call his own,” as the 1870 Commissioner of Indian
Affairs had hoped, reservation land became trusted to individual Indian owners that never fully
held the title and security that legal patents promised to offer.97
Not all opposition to the Dawes Act stemmed within white culture—tribal resistance
existed as well. Some tribesmen felt allotment invited “white economic penetration (in the
matter of both individual lands and tribal holdings)” and they feared what white cultural
penetration would follow as well.98 As author Roger Bromert states, land allotment represents
“an attempt to assimilate the Indians into the white man’s culture by distributing reservation
lands in severalty” causing a communal reservation place to be divided among individuals,
ultimately recreating a system that is more similar to American land policies than tribal
customs.99 Moreover, any unclaimed allotments where made available for non-native purchase,
further dividing Indian communal land to include American settlers. Prior to the 1880s and the
Dawes Act, tribal land governance resembled a communistic or kin-based sociopolitical entity,
meaning individuals sought progress and equality for all their people by contributing their excess
wealth to tribal leaders for broader distribution (a communal access to strategic resources). In
contrast, the American public practiced democracy, which encourages its citizens to achieve
individual success, a philosophy that potentially creates an unequal distribution of wealth and
resources instead of communal donation and redistribution. Overall, allotment policies
encouraged a holistic tribal change (both culturally and politically), and aimed at reshaping
Indian kin-based tendencies to reflect the public’s more ‘civilized’ democracy.
97 Otis, 4.
98 Otis, 93.
99 Edited Richmond L. Clow, The Sioux in South Dakota History (Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press,
2007), 102.

34. 33
Although the Dawes Act was controversial, the fact remains that it tried to ‘civilize’ the
Indians by allowing them to become economically independent, which demonstrates a political
policy aimed at including Native Americans into the American public. While many believed this
step should have immediately followed the war, especially with Native enlistment and military
service, politicians finally approached Native American citizenship in the later 1880s and
continued these policies into the twentieth century. Even though Native rights were discussed
later than African-American rights, some could argue that this left the Indian better off. For
example, by December 1865, the southern state legislators created the first Black Codes
specifically limiting “persons of color” right to vote, travel freely, serve on juries, and work in
occupations of their choice. 100 Moreover, fifteen years later, a “majority of American states
enforced segregation through ‘Jim Crow’ laws,” ultimately denying black citizens their civil
liberties for nearly eighty more years.101 When analyzing Native American and African-
American citizenship from 1865-1890, it is rather ironic that the Dawes Act and segregation
evolved in the same time. The Dawes act sought to incorporate Native Americans into the
American public, whereas segregation targeted black exclusion; representing another political
shift in post-reconstruction policies. Citizenship is malleable and classifications for such
fluctuate over time, leaving historians with endless complexities when dealing with colonization,
freedom, and citizenship among Native Americans and African-Americans from 1800 to 1890.
100 “The Southern ‘Black Codes’ of 1865-66,” Accessed November 24, 2015, http://www.crf-usa.org/brown-v-
board-50th-anniversary/southern-black-codes.html.
101 “Jim Crow Laws,” accessed November 24, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/malu/learn/education/jim_crow_laws.htm.

35. 34
Conclusion
The Civil War changed the American public’s view on citizenship. Prior to the war,
American policies leaned toward the removal of the ‘others’—referring to those different than
the ruling white community—to protect the American public. After the 1830 Indian Removal
Act, Congress passed the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act, establishing defined native territories
in the Midwest/west. Following a similar ideology, in the early 1800s, many free black leaders,
abolitionists, and politicians began campaigning for African colonization. Believing that blacks
could never fully assimilate into the white American culture, colonization sought to remove
blacks and create new colonies, or ‘black reservations’, in various areas throughout the world.
Yet, in 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act and the Militia Act, allowing black
enlistment into the Union military forces. Soon after, President Lincoln enacted the
Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in the Southern Confederacy. Through these
policies, the American ideology completely reversed from earlier removal reform and instead
focused on black citizenship rights. During the Northern reconstruction era, Congress passed the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, outlawing slavery and granting citizenship rights to
African-Americans. With regard to American Indians, in 1889 the Dawes Act tried to
incorporate Native Americans into the American public via individual land ownership, which
ironically occurred with the flourishing Jim Crow laws. Classifications of citizenship change
over time and fluctuate with the ruling society. Therefore, prior to the Civil War, the American
public supported Indian separation onto reservations, but afterwards, replaced black colony ideas
with attempts at citizenship and assimilation into the reconstructed American republic.

36. 35
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