Native Americans in the US Civil War

For a majority of Americans, the American Civil War was a war to end slavery in the South. The nuances of the debate over a state’s right to secede or the degree of control by the federal government, indeed most issues related to the United States Constitution, are ignored in favor of a narrow, easy to understand idea. Yet within the indigenous nations of North America a separate Civil War was raging. The motivations for Indians were often similar to white Americans, but also included past grievances against the United States that were unique to Native Americans. Unlike the states that seceded from the Union, the American Indians who enlisted, either as part of their tribes’ support for a side or as individuals, considered themselves as sovereign people with the power to decide their own fate. However, the choices made by the leaders of the Indian nations gave further impetus to the white war on Native Americans.

The motivations for choosing a particular side in the Civil War compared favorably to white motivations, but were dissimilar in a number of respects. For the Cherokee, the plight of the South bore more than a passing similarity to the centuries of strife Native Americans faced from Europeans. In declaring themselves independent from the United States, the leaders of the Cherokee nation declared that

Foreign mercenaries and the scum of cities and the inmates of prisons were enlisted and organized into regiments and brigades and sent into Southern States to aid in subjugating a people struggling for freedom, to burn, to plunder, and to commit the basest of outrages on women; while the heels of armed tyranny trod upon the necks of Maryland and Missouri, and men of the highest character and position were incarcerated upon suspicion and without process of law in jails, in forts, and in prison-ships, and even women were imprisoned by the arbitrary order of a President and Cabinet ministers…[1]

Aside from the references to Maryland and Missouri, this declaration seemed more a reiteration of wrongs committed against Indians than an enumeration of Union injustices against the South. Further, a core issue raised by the Cherokee in their declaration of independence was the “fate befallen those of their race in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon…” which was very much a separate issue than the issue of slavery or states’ rights. The Cherokee, then, found common cause with other Indians as well as with the Confederacy.

The Cherokee declaration of independence from the United States did not come immediately with the secession of the South. A principal signer of the Declaration of Causes, John Ross, was a conditional Unionist. While other members of the Cherokee leadership, most notably among them the future Confederate general Stand Watie, urged Ross to accept an alliance with the Confederate States, negotiated by Confederate agent Albert Pike, Ross urged his people to forego any alliance with the Confederacy and adhere to a policy of strict neutrality.[2]

Other Indian nations, such as the Chippewa, were actively pursuing support for the Union. Hole-in-the-Day, a prominent Chippewa chief in Minnesota, volunteered a hundred of his warriors for the war against the Confederacy on May 1, 1861, but was dismissed out-of-hand a week later by Secretary of War Simon Cameron with the statement that the secession of states “forbids the use of savages.”[3] H.B. Branch, of the Central Superintendency, explained his opposition to the enlistment of Native Americans by stating, “The Indians…must follow the chase, and they cannot engage in war and also pursue the hunt, while civilization and humanity demand that they confine themselves to peaceful avocations…”[4] The imperial paternalism expressed, by viewing Indians as outside “civilization and humanity”, was a further contrast to the South’s willingness to accept Indians as a slaveholding class within its society.

For Native Americans who lived in Border States, such as Arkansas and in Indian Territory, the choice between the Union and the Confederacy was a choice similar to whites. However, for American Indians living on reservations far to the north of significant sectional conflict, the alliances formed between the CSA and Indian nations had profound repercussions on a people already willing to submit to US authority. A cartoon published in Harper’s Weekly during the war illustrates Northerners’ disregard for distinctions in Native American relations. In Figure 1, Indians attack two white settler families. The native men are shown with knives raised above the family in the foreground, with one native holding an infant by the foot and preparing to kill the baby while the baby’s mother begs for mercy for her child. The woman is being pulled backward by the hair, an Indian standing with arm raised in preparation to scalp her. A man, possibly her husband, lies on the ground beside the woman. Another man is shown knifed by an Indian. A jug of whiskey lies at the feet of the third Indian with the words “agent C.S.A.” on the jug. The caption of the cartoon is a quote from Confederate president Jefferson Davis with an explanatory comment

“I am happy to inform you that, in spite both of blandishments and threats, used in profusion by the agents of the government of the United States, the Indian nations within the confederacy have remained firm in their loyalty and steadfast in the observance of their treaty engagements with this government.” The above extract from Jeff Davis’ last message will serve to explain the news from Minnesota. [5]

The situation in Minnesota in 1862, however, was only marginally related to the War Between the States. Rather than being encouraged by Confederate agents, the Sioux in Minnesota were fighting for their treaty rights and for survival. In 1851, the Santee Sioux, now known as the Dakota, ceded 24 million acres to the US government, which immediately opened the land to settlers. The Santee then were forced to cede control of an additional 1 million acres, reducing their reservation by half. Congress only paid 30 cents per acre two years later, less than the average price for prime farmland. 

Simultaneously, the US government was attempting to force American Indians to turn to farming. White traders fronted the Indian farmer’s credit on supplies and then, when the tribe was paid annuities, claimed inflated charges, leaving the native farmers with little or no money. Finally, in the winter of 1861-1862, a major crop failure left the Santee near starvation. Ultimately, the last straw came when the white traders refused to provide credit for food during the winter and spring, because Congress, engaged in funding a war with secessionist states, had not yet appropriated money for the Sioux. When the money did come, $71,000 in gold, it was two months late. On September 5, 1862, the Santee Sioux revolted, attacking the traders and white settlers who cheated them.[6]

The caption of Figure 1, then, becomes a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. The Sioux in Minnesota rose against white authority, therefore, the fallacy states, the violence in the northern plains must be a result of Confederate incitement. Unfortunately, the split among Americans during the Civil War was not limited to Euro-Americans, but also to Native Americans. When war erupted between the states, the fourteen thousand Creeks in Indian Territory split roughly evenly along social and cultural lines. The Southern faction was comprised predominantly of educated, mixed-heritage slave-owners who were offered favorable treaties with the Confederacy. The Southern faction of the Creeks signed an alliance in 1861 and began raising troops for service in Indian Territory, Arkansas, and Missouri; the Northern Creeks, less formally educated and non-slaveholders, continued to support the Union.

One of the most ardent supporters among the northern Creeks was Opothleyoholo, who had led three thousand of his people into Kansas late in 1861. He considered Chief Ross “a man lying on his belly, watching for the opportunity to turn over.”[7] Opothleyoholo’s men were the nucleus of the First, Second, and Third Home Guards of Kansas. He best states the cultural split that occurred when he said, “The educated part of our tribes is the worst.”[8] It would ultimately be his fierce resistance against Confederate forces that would encourage the Union to accept the mass enlistment of Native Americans.

The Civil War rent asunder American society. Not only did white Americans face the agony of families divided, but Native Americans faced a more uncertain future if they chose the wrong side. The view that the Minnesota Sioux strife was connected to the Civil War only further muddied the politics surrounding Indian policy. While chiefs like Hole-in-the-Day and Opothleyoholo were as supportive of the United States as any white citizen, their ethnicity set them apart as unworthy, initially, to be Union soldiers. The Confederacy, ironically, had little issue with the formation of native units and the enlistment of Native Americans. The Civil War fought by Native Americans, then, was a war unto themselves.

Figure 1

Bibliography

Freeman, Charles. “The Battle of Honey Springs.” Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 13, No. 2, June 1935, http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v013/v013p154.html

Kachuba, John B. “Sioux Terror on the Prairie.” America’s Civil War vol. 10, no 1 (1997):30

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1900, Series 3, Vol. 1, pg 184, http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ANU4519-0122

 “The Cherokee Nation Declaration of Causes.” October 28, 1861, http://www.civilwar.com/cherokeecauses.htm

Seccia, Patrick T. “An Officer and an Indian.” Civil War Times, vol. 45. no. 7 (2006): 46-52

Trickett, Dean. “The Civil War in the Indian Territory, 1862”, Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol, 19, No. 1, March 1941, http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v019/v019p055.html

unknown artist, Harper’s Weekly. September 13, 1862, http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=September&Date=13

---

[1] “The Cherokee Nation Declaration of Causes,” October 28, 1861, http://www.civilwar.com/cherokeecauses.htm

[2] Charles Freeman, “The Battle of Honey Springs,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 13, No. 2, June 1935, http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v013/v013p154.html

[3] Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1900), Series 3, Vol. 1, pg 184, http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ANU4519-0122

[4] Dean Trickett, “The Civil War in the Indian Territory, 1862”, Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol, 19, No. 1, March 1941, http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v019/v019p055.html

[5] cartoon, Harper’s Weekly, September 13, 1862, http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=September&Date=13

[6] John B. Kachuba. “Sioux Terror on the Prairie.” America’s Civil War vol. 10, no 1 (1997):30

[7] Trickett, “The Civil War in Indian Territory 1862”, 64

[8] Ibid