Developing Reservation Economies: Native American Teamsters, 1857–1921

Abstract

The Act of March 1, 1877 (19 U. S. Stats. 291), accorded American Indian entrepreneurs the right to transport almost all freight shipped by the Indian Department to Indian agencies, reservations, agency schools and Indian Department hospitals. American Indian teamsters, stevedores and seamen who had worked in these capacities for decades, adopted the Act as their own. Native Americans moved millions of pounds of freight from ships, docks, overland, and over long and short hauls for government contractors, federal Indian agencies, Indian traders, and the military and for private individuals. The entrepreneurs were essential to logging, fishing and whaling, home building, lumber industries, haying and farming, milling, and building and maintaining Indian agency infrastructures, schools, local communities and military posts. American Indians managed ponies, horses, oxen and mules, captained sailing schooners and contracted seagoing canoes, and traversed climatic and topographical challenges as they carved their places in the history of Indian Country.