How the States Got Their Shapes Too

by Mark Stein

  The U.S. attorney’s legal argument matched the attitude of many Americans at that time, as expressed by Kemble in his later Senate testimony:

  A: If the Senator will permit me to say, in dealing with Indians, we must sometimes do as we do in dealing with children … and may have to decide for them what is best … in order to bring them to see things correctly.

  Q: To see things as you see them?

  A: To see things correctly.

  Q: As you see them?

  A: As white men see them.

  On May 12 Judge Elmer Dundy ordered that Standing Bear and the other Poncas, having committed no crime nor having been charged with committing any crime, be released from custody. In rendering his decision, Dundy rejected the U.S. attorney’s claim that Indians had no legal right to a writ of habeas corpus. “The district attorney … claimed that none but American citizens are entitled to sue out this high prerogative writ in any of the federal courts,” he ruled. “The habeas corpus act describes applicants for the writ as persons or parties who may be entitled thereto. It nowhere describes them as citizens.”

  The significance of the judge’s decision detonated in the pages of the press. “The decision of Judge Dundy … virtually declares Indians citizens of the United States, with the right to go where they please, regardless of treaty stipulations,” Boston’s Daily Advertiser reported in May 1879. “The district attorney at Omaha has been instructed to take the necessary steps to carry the case to … the Supreme Court, if necessary. It is felt that to surrender this point is to surrender the whole Indian system.”

  The ruling also detonated in the halls of government. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, whose department included the Commission on Indian Affairs, wrote in his memoirs that President Rutherford B. Hayes, in meeting with his cabinet, ultimately opted not to appeal the decision:

  The judge’s decision opened up an alarming vista of … restless braves and ambitious attorneys [who] could … thwart the government in its efforts to control the movements of the Indians. Despite this prospect, however … [it was] decided not to take an appeal to the Supreme Court.… [W]rong had been done to the Poncas … but far greater wrongs would result if … [the Supreme Court were] to undo the action of Congress.

  Technically, Dundy’s decision applied only to Standing Bear and his companions. If, however, the Supreme Court upheld his decision, it would apply to American Indians nationwide. The Hayes administration feared that, because of the wrongs done to the Poncas, not to mention the legal basis for Standing Bear’s case, the Supreme Court might well uphold Dundy’s decision.

  The case reverberated in other directions as well. It stirred public sentiments regarding the treatment of Indians. The Senate launched an investigation into the manner in which the Poncas had been relocated (at which no one testified about the Senate having ratified a treaty with the Sioux that conflicted with a treaty with the Poncas). At these hearings, the most significant reverberation of Dundy’s decision was voiced by Interior Secretary Schurz. Asked about the future security of tribal lands in the Indian Territory, he answered:

  I have no doubt that, in the course of time, the land in the Indian Territory not occupied by Indians, will be occupied by whites. But there are certain things that ought to precede that development. The title to the lands occupied by the Indians ought to be … divided among the Indians in severalty … each upon his own farm, like the white people, and get individual titles.… When such an arrangement as this has once been made, the question whether that part of the Indian Territory not occupied by Indians shall be open to occupation by whites changes entirely.

  To shift Indian land from tribal ownership to individual ownership—and with it, the right of each Indian to sell his land—would end the tribal way of life in all but its spiritual aspects (the dismantling of which was being handled by missionaries and their schools). On the other hand, as tribes had increasingly been forced to relinquish good land for desolate land in return for payments, rations, and supplies, the tribal way of life had become vulnerable to massive graft and fraud on the part of government agents, their suppliers, and on occasion the Indians’ own leaders.

  Among the committee members hearing this suggestion was Massachusetts Senator Henry L. Dawes. Quite likely, Dawes played a role in getting the suggestion into the record, for seven years after the 1880 hearings, the Dawes Act mandated exactly the change in land ownership that Schurz had described. For better or for worse, Indian life would never be the same (see “Alfalfa Bill Murray, Edward P. McCabe, and Chief Green McCurtain” in this book).

  For journalist Tibbles, the news event ended with Dundy’s decision … unless a new event were to occur. Tibbles therefore replaced his reporter’s hat with that of an impresario and undertook arrangements for a speaking tour for Standing Bear—a challenging project, since the speaker spoke no English. To serve as a translator, Tibbles arranged for an appealing young woman from the Omaha tribe, Susette LaFlesche, whose uncle was one of the Ponca chiefs. Miss LaFlesche spoke impeccable English, having recently graduated from the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies in New Jersey. Tibbles introduced her to the American public using the English translation of her Omaha name, Bright Eyes. Five months after the court case concluded, the trio spoke at a church gathering in Omaha; in October 1879 they began a nationwide tour. The Chicago Inter-Ocean found it to be a highly polished performance:

  Last evening at the New England Congregational Church … Bright Eyes, a comely young Indian maiden … attired in Indian costume … [detailed] the wrongs committed by the federal authorities … in simple but forcible style.… Mr. Tibbles, who seems to be a sort of a manager for the Indian troupe … gave a bragging account of what he had done for the Poncas.… Standing Bear, the Ponca Chief, was then introduced and spoke in his own language, which was translated by Bright Eyes. The chief … wore a bright blanket in sash form and a heavy necklace.

  Meanwhile, back among the Poncas in the Indian Territory, life continued as if nothing had ever happened. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported in early November:

  Some time ago, a report was received by [Indian] Commissioner Hayt from the Ponca Reservation … that Big Snake … who last summer caused his arrest and imprisonment for a month at Fort Reno for brutal and disorderly conduct, was making himself a terror to the Indians as well as the agency employees. His rearrest was ordered.… Big Snake, resisting arrest, was shot dead by a soldier. The occurrence caused considerable excitement among the Indians, but it was soon quieted.

  Despite the death of Standing Bear’s brother (and, days later, the death of Tibbles’s wife), the show went on. The tour made its way to Boston, where standing-room-only audiences energetically responded. Carefully choreographed or not, the event made its point: Indians were people with the same inalienable rights as other Americans to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That point became ironic as they arrived at their final destination, New York City. In the Fifth Avenue hotel where they were staying, Standing Bear mentioned to Tibbles that he was going to the hotel’s barber shop to get a haircut. Tibbles was aghast; he insisted that Standing Bear keep his braids. The day after the tour ended, Standing Bear got a haircut and changed into his normal clothes.5

  Standing Bear returned to his ancestral land, but it was now desolate. The Poncas were gone. The Sioux had never settled there. The homes and structures had been demolished on government orders.

  But big things were about to happen, beginning with the arrival of the Central Pacific Railroad. The only thing in its way, from Nebraska’s point of view, was the state line. The now extraordinarily valuable land was in the Dakota Territory. To remedy this, Nebraska Senator Alvin Saunders sought to relocate that segment of his state’s border northward to the Missouri River. Dakotans were not happy, but in 1882, lacking voting representation in Congress, they had to rely on others to speak on their behalf. None spoke, though some asked:

  Sen. Plumb: What is the feeling of the people of Dakota about i
t? We are taking away what is apparently valuable property from the Territory of Dakota, which is here seeking admission as a state. It seems to me we ought to have regard for the wishes of those people.…

  Sen. Saunders: This bill was before the Senate more than a year ago.…

  Sen. Hale: Is there any population there?

  Sen. Saunders: There is no population.…

  Sen. Teller: I should like to inquire if the Indians are not affected by it? …

  Sen. Dawes: The Indians have all been removed to the Indian Territory.

  Sen. Edmunds: At the point of the bayonet.

  Sen. Dawes: They have been removed at the point of the bayonet, so that the bill does not affect them.

  Relocation of Nebraska border

  Congress relocated the boundary.

  Standing Bear lived out his remaining days on his ancestral land along the Niobrara River. Thomas Tibbles and Bright Eyes married each other in 1882 and continued to write on Indian issues. Other Poncas returned to what, by then, were their individually owned plots of lands. Most of the tribe, however, now settled and adjusting to the Indian Territory, opted to remain where they were. Standing Bear died in 1908 and was buried on his allotment of land in Nebraska. In the 1920s the property was sold to a white farmer who plowed the land, with the result that the location of Standing Bear’s remains is now unknown.

  · · · HAWAII · · ·

  LILI’UOKALANI AND SANFORD DOLE

  Bordering on Empire

  They were followed by her Majesty the Queen, dressed in a light colored silk which tended to add somewhat to her dark complexion and negro-like features, and more plainly exhibiting in the facial outlines a look of savage determination.… Next came four homely ladies-in-waiting, dressed in the loud colors so much admired by all dark-colored races.… And then the dignified [white] justices of the supreme court, whose manly bearing and intellectual appearance gave a relief to what had preceded. One of them, Mr. Dole, afterwards became President of the Republic.

  —LUCIEN YOUNG, THE REAL HAWAII, 1899

  Of all the American boundaries, Hawaii’s is, far and away, the most far and away. How and why did the United States extend its border to such an extreme?

  In 1893 citizens in Hawaii overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani, replacing the island chain’s monarchy with a democratic republic. Being a small, remote nation, the new Hawaiian government sought the protection of a powerful but like-minded democracy, the United States, in the form of annexation.

  Or one could say: In 1893 a cabal of wealthy white people living in Hawaii overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani and established a government in which representation was gerrymandered to ensure that the white population would rule. The first president of this new government was Sanford Dole. Since Hawaii’s white population—composed primarily of Americans or descendants of Americans—was a small minority in this remote chain of islands, Dole and his associates sought increased protection and control through annexation to the United States.

  Both of these versions of events are true. But there are buts in both. Numerous white people in Hawaii, including some wealthy owners of sugar plantations, opposed the overthrow of the monarchy; others opposed annexation to the United States. Multiple issues were involved. Each of those issues remains a major factor in American politics today: involvement in foreign affairs, cheap immigrant labor, racism, and an issue that was new at the time: the power of Japan.

  American annexation of Hawaii had first been proposed in the mid-nineteenth century by Hawaiians. King Kamehameha V feared that his realm was being eyed by Europe’s colonial empires, particularly France. Since Hawaii had only scant experience with foreign governments, its king turned to the few whites living on his islands for advice. They urged numerous changes, including an elected legislature to advise the king and a cabinet to administer government functions, and suggested that the king ask the United States for protection since that nation shared Hawaii’s value of self-rule. Kamehameha initially resisted this last idea, but in 1851, fearing that a French attack was imminent, he sent a formal request to the United States seeking cosovereignty in the event that France invaded.

  But the United States declined. Secretary of State Daniel Webster told Kamehameha that while “the government of the United States was the first to acknowledge the national existence of the Hawaiian government … acknowledging the independence of the Islands, and of the government established over them, it was not seeking to promote any peculiar object of its own … or to exercise any sinister influence itself over the counsels of Hawaii.”1 Even as Webster wrote those words, Americans 3,000 miles from his desk were developing a coastal region the nation had only recently acquired: California. Its highly populated port city of San Francisco constituted both a market for, and a direct connection with, Hawaii. While American missionaries had lived in Hawaii since 1820, a new motive sent a second wave of Americans and, to a lesser extent, Europeans. Hawaii’s climate and soil were perfect for growing sugarcane. Big money could be made.

  Queen Lili’uokalani (1838-1917) (photo credit 39.2)

  Sanford Dole (1844-1926) (photo credit 39.1)

  Because it benefited everyone, sugar production quickly grew to the point that, in 1855, a free-trade agreement was negotiated by President Franklin Pierce and Hawaii. But sugar producers in the United States successfully lobbied the Senate to reject the treaty. In 1867 California sugar refiners lobbied the Senate to ratify a more limited free-trade treaty. That same year the purchase of Alaska reflected the fact that the nation’s attitudes about boundaries were expanding beyond the continental United States. President Andrew Johnson expressed the new view in his statement to Congress on the proposed trade agreement with Hawaii:

  I am aware that upon the question of further extending our possessions it is apprehended by some that our political system cannot successfully be applied to an area more extended than our continent; but the conviction is rapidly gaining ground in the American mind that, with increased facilities for intercommunication between all portions of the earth, the principles of free government … would prove of sufficient strength and breadth to comprehend within their sphere and influence the civilized nations of the world.

  Though attitudes were changing, they were not completely changed. The Senate again rejected the treaty.

  An additional reason for the Senate’s reluctance to ratify either treaty can be inferred from its third time at bat. In 1873 the Senate did ratify a trade agreement with Hawaii … and Britain immediately protested. Quite likely, until this time, the Senate had not thought it wise to risk military conflict in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with the world’s preeminent empire.

  Once the United States and Hawaii had established this free-trade agreement, the islands’ sugar industry expanded exponentially. Not everyone in Hawaii was thrilled, however. “Some foresaw that this treaty with the United States might become the entering wedge for the loss of our independence,” Queen Lili’uokalani later reflected in her memoirs. “What would be the consequences should the Islands acquire too great a commercial attraction, too large a foreign population and interests?”

  The fear of too large a foreign population soon took on an additional dimension. The sugar plantations could produce far more sugar than Hawaii had natives to provide the labor. Workers would have to be imported. The white plantation owners were as cognizant of the risk they were taking by importing foreign workers as Hawaii’s king had been in entering into the free-trade treaty. Initially the plantation owners paid for immigrants from Portugal, which had a surplus labor supply. (China and Japan, too, had a surplus of workers, but the planters considered the Portuguese, being Europeans, to be a more “desirable for permanent settlement.”)2 Providing transportation from Portugal, however, proved to be so costly that planters began opting for Chinese and Japanese workers. As feared, these immigrants came to constitute half the population over the next fifteen years. Native Hawaiians now made up roughly 45 percent of their nation, with the whi
te population, which controlled nearly all the wealth, constituting the remaining 5 percent.3 While political power remained in the hands of the monarch, the rapid change—and lack of change—led to racial, religious, and political friction.

  By the summer of 1887, white residents had acquired influence with a sufficient number of King Kalākaua’s advisers that the king, not knowing whom among those closest to him he could trust, acceded to what became known as the “bayonet” constitution. It provided for voting representation by the people, while preserving power for the nobility in a creatively revolutionary way. To be or vote for a representative, a citizen had to be a Hawaiian or white male, thereby excluding the nation’s 25,000 or so Chinese and Japanese residents. To be or vote for a noble, however, one had to be a Hawaiian or white male with an annual income of at least $600 or $3,000 in property. Few Hawaiians had that.

  Kalākaua’s heir to the throne was his sister Lili’uokalani, who opposed these changes, despite the fact that she was steeped in Western culture. Born in 1838, Lili’uokalani had been educated at elite Hawaiian boarding schools run by missionaries. She was well versed in history, literature, science, and math, and a gifted pianist and composer. Nevertheless, when she ascended the thrown in 1891, Lili’uokalani embarked on an effort to restore power to—depending on one’s point of view—Hawaii’s natives or herself:

  I inquired at the opening of the cabinet meeting what was the business of the day, to which reply was made that it was necessary that I should sign without any delay their commissions, that thus they might proceed to the discharge of their duties. “But gentlemen,” said I, “I expect you to send in your resignations before I can act.” My reasoning was that, if they were new cabinet ministers, why should they appeal to me to appoint them to the places that they already filled?