Why was an Indian on the cent while we were somewhat at war with them?
ambro51
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I’ve always wondered that…..
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ambro51
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It is called an Indian cent, but actually it was just a young Caucasian female in a head dress. There is a popular story that James Longacre used his daughter as a model for the piece - but that has never been proven.
Me thinks the portrait is an iteration of Liberty not a Native American. IMHO.
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That's the version that I read. There were several Indians touring Philadelphia at the time and the US Mint was one of the stops. While there, one of the Indians let Longacre's daughter try on his war bonnet which inspired Longacre. I think it's a cute and mostly harmless myth.
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"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
They were also not so friendly towards the buffalo
It's Liberty, as others have said. Virtually all classic coinage used Liberty motifs. Shield nickels, 3 vent silvers and two cent pieces may be notable exceptions.
Well, there’s no denying we have Indians (and buffalo) on many of our coins and currency. There seems to have been a romanticized notion of the frontier and the Wild West from early times. Franklin famously wore a coon skin cap and beaver coat to the French court. Subjugating all of it was seen by many as a natural progression. The thinking is a bit schizophrenic in retrospect. We do it in other areas too.
In Africa and Australia, we all have a respect for the abilities and tenacity of the native bushmen, but we’ve worked hard to move them to regular homes, schools, and churches….. We love the thought of wild grizzly bears and lions, but we don’t really want them near our homes.
We (the US) were never at war with all Indians. We were signing Peace Treaties (
) with various tribes for centuries.
They were a common subject for coins (even if it was Lady Liberty decked out as an Indian), banknotes, checks, etc.
I believe that after the Trail of Tears and the Black Hawk Wars there was lull in the genocide while we filled in the lands already taken. Then after the Civil War the westward expansion started up big time, and since there was no more worthless land to push the Native Americans onto the genocide resumed.
This was the first actual Indian on a coin.
Far better coinage in those days, before the obsession with dead people on coins. Lady Liberty took many forms, just as the Bald Eagle did.
First Indian on a US Mint struck coin. The Indian appeared on the 1788 Massachusetts state cents.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
The Indian on the Indian Head Cent was and is still is a Native American representation of Liberty. Previously, we had used allegorical depictions of Liberty on our coins. Yes, it IS indeed an Indian on the Indian Head Cent AND an allegorical representation of Liberty AS AN INDIAN. Both can be true. It doesn't need to be modelled after an actual Indian in order to be a depiction of an Indian. Talk about nitpicking.....
Liberty was frequently depicted as a Native American well before anyone conceived of the Indian Head cent or even small size cents. Here are a few examples of Natives as "Liberty".
One could call them allegorical representations of America, too, but the Phrygian cap, visible on each, defines the representations as "Liberty". Also common is their depiction with Liberty (or "America", sometimes with corn representing "Agriculture".
Bringing it back to the O/P, our relationship with the Natives went back hundreds of years and was long and complicated. Complicated because we weren't dealing with a single group with a single problem in one time and place but rather an ongoing series of problems with multiple tribes of different issues in different times and places. The U.S. had a much the same policy towards these disputes but they were carried out in different ways at different places and times. We weren't really unified against the Native population in the same way that we tend to get unified against a foreign enemy. Although there were hostilities and battles, I don't think that the U.S. citizens ever considered themselves at war in the same way that they did with foreign enemies.
By the time that the Indian Head Cent was discontinued, I think that many Americans had some degree of respect for the Natives now that they were no longer a threat. The romanticization of them had begun. And buffaloes were being bred back into existence at the Bronx zoo after ALMOST losing them to hunters.
Peace treaties from what? While rarely referred to a war specifically, there is a picture in the Pentagon of all the forts and battles in the Indian wars and it is one of the largest conflicts in American history (according to serval categories). It was a very large, long and bloody conflict with clear cut losers and winners. The tears were not of joy during the trail of tears. The bulk removal really didn’t differentiate between the tribes even if a few situational allies or exceptions were granted often briefly. Even assimilation or forced cooperation which was the bases of most of the treaties is a form of conquering.
No slat to my statement either as conflicts have consequences and viewing historical actions through modern lenses will always cause blurring but those lenses shouldn’t be rose colored either.
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I’ve always found it interesting that “Custer’s Last Stand” occurred the same year as the ‘76 Centennial Expo.
The Expo included the introduction of the telephone, the monorail and popcorn.
Feel free to add any historical details I am missing, but weren't peace treaties and peace medals given to various tribes? Not that they meant much, but they represented peace with those Indians, at least at that moment.
Anthony Paquet designed the 1865 Andrew Johnson Indian Peace Medal. He also designed many U.S. Patterns including the 1861 "Paquet Reverse" $20 Liberty Double Eagle.
These two unique splashers were struck in white metal on thick plain paperboard. The obverse die splasher is Julian IP-41, obverse. 64mm. 315.9 grains. AU. It is a splasher from the die that struck the obverse of the medium size Andrew Johnson Indian Peace Medal. The reverse die splasher is Julian IP-41, reverse. 63.3mm. 270.0 grains. AU. It is a splasher from the die that struck the reverse of the medium size Andrew Johnson Indian Peace Medal.
These unique die trials are in high relief. Paquet struck this pair of uniface splashers during the Civil War commemorating President Andrew Johnson on the obverse and portraying a fascinating Indian Peace pictorial on the reverse. The reverse also portrays a bust of Washington, making this medal well known to collectors of Washingtoniana.
https://mikebyers.com/indianpeacemedal.html
Beautiful medal that illustrates the dichotomy between our ideals and practice at the time.
I guess we were trying to make peace with our neighbors. But first , we had to nearly decimate them and vast herds.
We were not very friendly toward the buffalo. Were the Indians the only source of the buffalo decline we would be overrun by them. JMO
Jim
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I always was under the impression the very first Indian that appeared on a U.S. coin for circulation was the 1907 gold eagle.
It's another "Liberty in a headdress" rendition.