Paying the Indians - 1856
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
After dispossessing Native American Tribes of their land, culture and religion, the U.S. Government placed the people on tribal reservations. Each tribe was given a small subsistence ration in goods and money. The following might give coin collectors a different view of how their beloved silver was used in the mid-1850s.
Extract from a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Indian affairs by Francis Huebschmann, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Paul, Minnesota dated 11 April 1856.
“Dimes and half dimes should be furnished in bags of one hundred dollars; and all bags should be sealed officially and the amount marked on them, at the Mint, and at other places where the facilities for weighing coin are at hand. The coin would be put up in this way, I propose, with very little additional trouble.
“At the last Menominee [Indian Tribe] payment, I had two kegs of silver. I had had previously no time to open the kegs and arrange the silver. Neither kegs nor bags were sealed, and if the amount was incorrect, it was my loss. I found two bags with $2,000 in half dimes, and since I could not very well take back any of them after they had been opened and paid out, I had to hire several men to make dollar piles to be handed over to the Indians, with some gold. Since I receive nothing for disbursing funds, I presume it is not asking too much that they should be in [a] shape convenient to be turned over to the agents, or to be paid out.”
Comments
Amounts paid to the tribes are given in the Bureau of Indian Affairs archives (RG-75) at NARA.
Sounds about right.
Dispossess them of the land, force them onto reservations and then give them piles of half dimes.
Which in turn were taken back most likely by Bureau of Indian Affairs sanctioned storefronts/whiskey sellers/contractors (crooks, kick-back schemes.)
Now that is interesting.... a departure from mint memorandum, but certainly coin related. I wonder if his memo caused corrective action? Cheers, RickO
Since most Indians did not have pockets but had satchels or purses, I need to find out where these payments were actually made....great opportunity for metal detectorist!! Probably more than a few of those small babies lost onto the ground almost immediately!
bob
Interesting. Unsealed bags in two kegs.
Camps would have probably been in the same area from season-to-season, but not in the exact spot. Might be easier to find the location of the nearest exchange post or Army fort.
I've been looking for a follow-up letter or memo, but nothing so far.
GEE..............We really DID give them something back. Except for their dignity.
Pete
Casinos, syphilis, small pox, measles, diabetes, poverty and alcohol .... now for the negatives...
Our treatment of Native Americans was shameful, to put it nicely. We could be (and in some cases are) learning a lot from how they lived an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.
At least the Menominee didn't put holes in coins to make jewelry like some of the Western tribes.
Coins and the Menominee have had a peaceful history.
I assume that this money was then to be used by the Native Americans to buy things with at the local commisary? If so, what would they do for change if everything were paid out in solid dollars?
The excerpt mentions "dollar piles."