The Stevens Treaties of 1854-1855

Abstract

KentRichards The Stevens Treaties of 1854-1855 AnIntroduction Early in the nineteenth century, President Thomas Jefferson tapped his prot?g? Meriwether Lewis to lead the epic expe dition that delineated the geography of the Pacific Northwest. Simultaneously, he set inmotion the federal government's policy for the continent's Native inhabitants. Some fiftyyears later, ten Pacific Northwest Indian treaties embodied the essence of that policy. In April 1853,Congress carved Washington Territory out of Oregon, creating a vast new political entity stretching from theRocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Near Olympia, on Christmas day 1854, Isaac I. Stevens, the territory's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs, convened the first of eight treaty councils that during the next year took him from Puget Sound toNeah Bay, across the Cascade Mountains to Walla Walla, over the Bitterroots toHellgate, and on to the confluence of the Judith and Missouri Rivers in present-day Montana. Not surprisingly, Jefferson'spolicy forNative Americans featured farm ing as the key element. For Jefferson ? and perhaps most Americans in the nineteenth century?agrarianism represented not only an economic endeavor but also away of life that fostered initiative, independence, and democracy. In his first annual message, Jefferson optimistically informed Congress that the Indians relied increasingly on husbandry and that "they are becoming more and more sensible of the superiority of this dependence for clothing and subsistence over the precarious resources of hunting and fishing...." Similarly, in an 1803message, he argued for an Indian policy thatwould "encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising [of] stock, to agriculture, and domestic manufacture, and thereby prove 342 OHQ vol. 106, no. 3 ? 2005 Oregon Historical Society to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them in this better than in their former mode of living."1 Jefferson's successors echoed this line of thought. Some stressed the need to combine the salutary effectsofChristianity with an agrarian way of life inorder to shape the Indian into a archetype of theAmerican yeoman. Officialdom, clergy, and intellectuals squabbled over the time frame neces sary for this transformation, but few questioned the ultimate Jeffersonian goal. Even the removal policy of the Jacksonian era contemplated eventual assimilation, not permanent exile from American society. Rapidly changing circumstances in the FarWest necessitated amodifi cationof Indianpolicythatreacheditsfruition duringtheFranklin Pierce administration (1853-1857). This "reservation" policy is most closely associ ated with Pierce's Commissioner of Indian Affairs George W. Manypenny, who observed that the government from the beginning of the Republic had spent liberally "to civilize the Indian and better his condition." But a major flaw in the policy, Manypenny asserted, had been removal of tribes beyond the pale of civilized society,which only served "to confirm him in his savage habits and pursuits" and exclude him from "the example and influence of the industrious pioneer."2 Commissioner Manypenny firmly committed the government to a program that assigned tribes to reduced reservations with provision for al lotment of land inhomestead-sized portions to individuals. These reserva tionswould provide the crucible inwhich civilizing forceswould germinate and grow until the Indians became equal, productive citizens of theUnited States. Or as Manypenny put it,the alternative tobeing "exterminated" was for the Indians to be "colonized in suitable locations, and, to some extent at least, be subsisted by the government, until they can be trained to such habits of industry and thriftas will enable them to sustain themselves."3 At the beginning of his tenure, Commissioner Manypenny negotiated a series of treaties with tribes immediately west of theMissouri River who had come under heavy pressure fromwhite settlement. A provision integral to the nine Manypenny treaties signed between March 15and June 5,1854, allowed allotments to the Indians. The president, when the time was right,would order the land surveyed, with title to a quarter-section of 160 acres going to a family and lesser amounts to individuals. These stipulations comprised Article 6 of theOmaha Treaty, which was specifi cally referenced in the Stevens treaties.4 The Manypenny treaties encapsuled the government's Indian policy at mid-century and provided the template for those negotiated in the Pacific Richards, Stevens Treaties of 1854-1855 Dean Shapiro Indian groups inOregon and Washington prior...