Carl Schurz and the Indians
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 1984 Carl Schurz And The Indians Hans L. Trefousse Brooklyn College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Trefousse, Hans L., "Carl Schurz And The Indians" (1984). Great Plains Quarterly. 1768. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1768 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. CARL SCHURZ AND THE INDIANS HANS L. TREFOUSSE Carl Schurz's importance as an immigrant lead how would you feel should he take a bitter er and ethnic politician is well documented; his opponent of yours into his Cabinet?,,2 Schurz efforts on behalf of civil service reform and was accused of being an unrealistic dreamer, anti-imperialism have often been commented an impractical philosopher with no ability in upon.1 His role as an administrator, however, business. Roscoe Conkling and his allies hated is less familiar but by no means insignificant. him; James G. Blaine distrusted him and John Because it contributed to the more rational A. Logan was jealous of him. His desertion of treatment of native Americans and the con the Republican party in 1872 had never been servation of natural resources, it deserves to be forgotten, and when even the moderate James explored more fully. A. Garfield thought the appointment unfor In March 1877, when President Rutherford tunate, there was some question whether the B. Hayes sent to the Senate his nomination of Senate would confirm it.3 In the end, however, Carl Schurz for secretary of the interior, party Hayes prevailed, and the controversial appointee regulars were outraged. "In the selection of Mr. became Zachariah Chandler's successor in the Schurz as one of your Cabinet, you will offend, Department of the Interior. of course, President Grant and his warm friends, as Mr. S. was a bitter enemy of Grant, and did CARL SCHURZ'S CAREER his best to make him odious in the minds of the people," one Republican wrote to the presi It is not surprising that Schurz's elevation dent. "Change places with President Grant, and caused such a row. One of the most colorful figures in nineteenth-century America, the young German revolutionary from the Rhine Hans L. Trefousse is professor of history at land had become famous at the age of twenty Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center one, when he liberated his professor, Gottfried of the City University of New York. His most recent book is Carl Schurz, A Biography Kinkel (then serving a life term for revolution (1982). ary activities), from a jail near Berlin. Schurz, who in 1849 had himself narrowly avoided [GPQ 4 (Spring 1984): 109-20.] Prussian capture by fleeing through a sewer 109 110 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1984 from the besieged fortress of Rastatt, succeeded in bribing one of the professor's guards. After Kinkel was lowered to the street from the roof, his liberator took him to the coast and from there he escaped by ship to Britain. In 1852 Schurz came to America. Learning English quickly and well, he settled in Water town, Wisconsin, where his oratorical gifts, his good education, and his journalistic enterprise were useful to the newly founded Republican party, then trying to wean the German-Amer icans away from their Democratic allegiance. Appealing to his numerous fellow countrymen, Schurz campaigned tirelessly for the Republi can ticket in election after election, until in 1860 he was widely believed to have contributed materially to Abraham Lincoln's success. The president rewarded him with the legation in Madrid, where he served for half a year before returning to join the army. Eventually pro moted to major general, he took part in the battles of the second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga. Although his military record was mixed, he was useful to Lincoln by speaking to his compatriots in sup port of the administration. FIG. 1. Carl Schurz After the Civil War, Schurz undertook a trip to the South for Andrew Johnson, but because blacks-the administration's southern policy of his radicalism, he soon fell out with the new was a disaster for the race-he was anxious to president. Moving to St. Louis in 1867, he be deal fairly with Native Americans.S He defi came an editor of the local Westliche Post and nitely did not share some westerners' beliefs within a short time was elected United States that a "reservation 6 feet long, 4 feet deep and senator from Missouri. As a strong advocate of three feet wide was large enough for any In civil service reform, he played a prominent role dian." In fact, if any of U. S. Grant's measures in the Liberal Rpublican movement, even pre appealed to him, it was the inauguration of the siding over its ill-fated convention in 1872. "peace policy" in dealing with the Indians, al Hayes's election to the presidency gave Schurz though Schurz was determined to go much a chance to tryout some of his ideas of liberal further and lessen the influence of the various reform, and the Interior Department became a denominations on the reservations.6 laboratory for social change.4 Until he became secretary of the interior, Schurz had had little contact with Indians or SCHURZ'S ATTITUDE TOWARD INDIANS with the problems facing them. Sharing the prevalent ethnocentric view that Native Amer The new secretary of the interior brought to icans were "savages," he had rejoiced at the his job a useful heritage of constructive ideas. gradual disappearance of the frontier. In 1869, His lifelong liberalism had originally led him during a trip west, he reported his impressions into the antislavery crusade, and although he of Nebraska and Wyoming to his newspaper, had temporarily abandoned the cause of the the St. Louis Westliche Post. The plains, the CARL SCHURZ AND THE INDIANS 111 antelopes, the prame dogs had all caught his as possible. General John Pope, who had long eye, as had the military posts, a reminder, he standing experience with the Indians, was one wrote, that "until recently Indians were threat source of information. At the secretary's re ening advancing civilization here with barbaric quest, the general sent him papers dealing with resistance." But because he was a humanitarian, Indian affairs during the past fifteen years. the mistreatment of any minority, be it Jewish, Showing that the army had not dealt fairly black, or Indian, repelled him in the long run.7 with Native Americans, Pope pointed out that Nevertheless, Schurz was a nineteenth-century soldiers were expected to kill Indians when liberal, not a twentieth-century pluralist. While they left their reservations but, in fact, drove he favored the retention of ethnic traits for them to desperation by virtually starving them German-Americans along with their American inside. General Robert H. Milroy likewise sent ization, he could hardly be expected to see any his impressions. Convinced that the trouble in parallels between European immigrants and the West was caused by the Indians' "barbar Native Americans, habitually described as "bar ism," he believed the solution was speedy baric" and "uncivilized." In keeping with the assimilation. He argued that children must be trends of the time and his own liberal ideas, separated from their parents, preferably by Schurz was naturally inclined toward the placing them into industrial boarding schools policy of assimilation long advocated by many where they might learn the arts of white "civi of his predecessors. Eventually, he believed, lization." Other knowledgeable correspondents Indians ought to be full-fledged citizens. But had similar ideas, many of which Schurz soon he was equally certain that this process would made his own.10 take time and could not be accomplished im When the secretary took over his duties, he mediately.8 was determined to rid the Interior Department of the corruption for which it had long been REFORM OF THE DEPARTMENT known. First, as a passionate civil service re former, he started to introduce civil service The Department of the Interior, which now rules in the department.ll Then he began a became Schurz's laboratory, has been called thorough cleanup, including an investigation of the "great miscellany." An incongruous collec the Indian office and the work of Chief Clerk tion of various unrelated agencies, it consisted of the Bureau, Samuel A. Galpin. Schurz had of the Land, Indian, and Patent offices, the not been in office for two months before he Bureau of Education, the Census Office and learned that Galpin, in response to a question that of the commissioner of railroads, as well whether he expected to retain his position, had as a host of minor jurisdictions. This disparate replied: "If the dam dutch secretary don't constellation of bureaus and agencies presented give it to some dam imported dutchman [sic 1 I a challenge to anyone trying to head it; the think I will be able to remain.,,12 In addition, department was difficult to manage not only there were serious questions about the clerk's because it involved an immense "span of con competence, if not his probity, as the depart trol," but also because it entailed responsibility ment's Indian agents had habitually been de for the guardianship of vast natural resources. frauding both the government and the Indians The Indian Territory and reservations as well as they were supposed to serve.