“American Progress” by John Gast, 1872.
When the U.S. government forced American Indian tribes into signing treaties in which they ceded millions of acres of land in exchange for reservations they could call their own, the purpose of the treaties had less to do with recognizing tribal nationhood and more to do with acquiring property and ownership rights for corporate interests and white settlers.
In his new book, The Relentless Business of Treaties (Minnesota Historical Society Press), Martin Case argues that, contrary to the American myth of the intrepid pioneer moving on to indigenous territory to raise cattle and grow wheat, it was corporate land speculators who were the driving force behind western expansion. These were men holding political and military positions, with a specific interest in securing access to Indian land and natural resources. They were often present at treaty signings.
“From soldiers to settlers, from townsite development to land office agents, men involved in land speculation dreamed of making fortunes by being the first buyer when indigenous land went on the American market,” writes Case.
Mining was integral to these treaties as early as the 1820s. Lead was mined in Illinois. Copper mines were established in Michigan and Minnesota.
Today that legacy of mining on ceded Indian lands continues. Though a proposed low grade iron ore mine in the Penokee Hills located next to the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin was abandoned (for now), efforts by a Canadian corporation to mine zinc, copper and other minerals at the mouth of the Menominee River have been given the go-ahead by the state of Michigan.
In California, it wasn’t just gold feeding the Gold Rush; timber was a major resource these speculators wanted to extract. And individual sawmill owners were a driving force for the move into Indian territory, changing it forever through indiscriminate clear-cutting of trees. “One of the most stable and profitable ventures in any location was the operation of the saw mill that would process lumber for local use. It might sound like an unassuming enterprise, but sawmills were the springboards to minor fortunes, on which larger fortunes were sometimes built,” Case writes.
Today the legacy of outside corporations mining on ceded Indian lands continues.
As tension grew between Indian nations and white settlers, the U.S. government established the Department of War to keep the Indians in check. Military forts were built near tribal reservations in order to protect pioneers. Indian agents, many of them corrupt, were hired to negotiate with tribes and facilitate the delivery of food, money and other goods.
One infamous example was Perry Fuller, who opened three stores in Minneola, Kansas, in 1858. His scam was to steal Indian annuity payments and funnel the money into his stores. He also stole wagon trains of goods intended for the Indians and sold these in his stores as well.
A core question during the treaty-making era was, what to do with the Indian? Should the Indian be assimilated, or removed entirely from this newly created white American society?
Treaty negotiations were designed to disrupt Indian relationships with the land, and thus disrupting their communities. These efforts were facilitated mainly by Christian proselytism (many Catholic missionaries were treaty co-signers) and the 1887 Dawes Act, which broke up land held in common by members of a tribe into smaller allotments to be parceled out to individuals.
Ultimately, the Act ensured that the land would be available to white ownership. Thanks to the Dawes Act, Native American lands totaling 138 million acres in 1887 had fallen to 48 million acres by 1934. Today, many reservations are like a checkerboard—parcels of Indian land lost to whites.
It was never enough to merely place Indian tribes within confining borders. The Indian Boarding School Era of the twentieth century saw Indian children hauled off to military schools to be assimilated. Indian families were lured off their reservations to poor, dilapidated urban centers across the country.
It was never enough to merely place Indian tribes within confining borders.
Eventually the siege against indigenous culture and land slowed. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 led to Indians gaining a small amount of sovereignty. It would lead to more. Case writes: “Beginning in the 1960s activism by indigenous people led to a new era of Self Determination. In 1978, for instance, Congress passed the Indian Freedom of Religion Act, which stopped government-restrictions on the practice of traditional indigenous religions.”
But the devastating impact of Indian treaties has not disappeared. Case describes them as part of a mythology in which the facts of Indian genocide are disappeared and the focus is all on the heroic work of the white settler. But the drive to acquire Indian land and resources is still evident today.
The taking of Indian land to serve corporate interests in natural resources, and to open up land to private white owners, is the defining history of the treaty era. Tribal land continues under constant threat from multinational corporations—from uranium mining in the Southwest, to hydrological power in the Northwest, to copper mining in the Great Lakes. And, as Case points out, the chances are good that the land deed you hold rests on the treaty system.
Mark Anthony Rolo is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and author of the memoir My Mother Is Now Earth.