The American Indian under Reconstruction

The present is the concluding volume of the Slave holding Indians series. Its title may be thought some what misleading since the time limits Of the period covered by no means coincide with those commonly understood as signifying the Reconstruction Period of United States History. In that history, the word, reconstruction, which ought, etymologically, to imply the process of re-building and restoring, has attained, most unfortunately, a meaning all its own, a meaning now technical, nothing more nor less, in fact, than political re-adjustment. It is in the light Of that meaning, definite and technical, that the limits Of this book have been determined.

The treaties made with the great southern tribes in 1866 were reconstruction treaties pure and simple and this volume, therefore, finds its conclusion in their negotiation. They marked the establishment of a new relationship with the United States government; but their serious and far-reaching effects would constitute too long and too painful a story for narration here. Its chapters would include an account Of tribal dissensions without number or cessation, of the pitiful racial deterioration of the Creeks due to unchecked mixture with the negroes, Of the influx Of a white population out numbering and over-reaching the red, and, finally, of great tragedies that had for their theme the compulsory removal Of such tribes as the inoffensive Nez Percés, the aggressive Poncas, and the noble Cheyennes.