Indian peace medal

Last updated

Kiowa Chief Satanta (White Bear) wearing an Indian Peace Medal William S. Soule - Satanta (SPC BAE 3912-B Vol 1 01158200).jpg
Kiowa Chief Satanta (White Bear) wearing an Indian Peace Medal

Indian peace medals refer to ovular or circular medals awarded to tribal leaders throughout colonial America and early United States history, primarily made of silver or brass and ranging in diameter from about one to six inches. [1] Medals were often perforated and worn suspended around the neck of the recipient. [1] Controversy remains surrounding the use and impact of peace medals in furthering diplomatic relationships between Native Americans and the federal government. Many Indian peace medals today are archived in museums, libraries, and cultural centers. [2]

Contents

Early peace medals

During the colonization of America, European nations issued the earliest peace medals to build alliances and negotiate with tribes, dating as far back as the seventeenth century. [1] Medals were given to North American Indians by the British, French, and Spanish in the eighteenth century as sentiments of peace, often in conjunction with national flags and other gifts. [1] A number of silver medals issued under Kings George the First and Second have been excavated in Pennsylvania, the reverse of which show an American Indian figure offering a peace pipe to a Quaker. [3] Medals were also used by European nations to curry favor and secure military alliances with tribes during wartime. [3] For Native Americans, the early medals represented a pledge to supply and trade commodities such as kettles, beads, ornaments, clothes, and weapons. [1] In return, they would supply much of the raw materials that Europeans' overseas trade depended on, including animal hides, furs, and feathers. [1]

Indian Peace Medal 1792 Obverse.jpg
Indian Peace Medal 1792 Reverse.jpg
Indian Peace Medal, 1792

Like many European medals, early US medals incorporated Indian figures on their design. What are thought to be the earliest peace medals issued by the US government carry the date 1789, the year of President Washington's inauguration, along with the inscription G. WASHINGTON. PRESIDENT above. [4] The medals show an Indian man wearing a headdress, draped in a blanket. With his right hand he drops his tomahawk while simultaneously receiving a pipe of peace with his left from a figure of Minerva, symbolizing the young America. On the reverse is an eagle with wings extended and thirteen stars above its head, the arms of the United States. [4] US medals issued from 1792 to 1795 are similar in design, but replace the figure of Minerva with George Washington himself. [4]

Medals were an expression of promise: that the United States was invested in furthering peace and diplomacy with the Indians who called this land home. Consequently, the awarding of peace medals often accompanied a formal treaty or negotiation. One of the first known uses of peace medals by the US government dates back to the Treaty of Hopewell, the culmination of Colonel Joseph Martin's mission to the Cherokee nation in 1785. [5] While the medals were issued in accordance with the treaty, the records do not confirm whether or not they were actually distributed to Cherokee leaders. [5]

The ultimate origin of Indian peace medals is not known. Thomas Jefferson himself noted that the usage of the medals is "an ancient custom from time immemorial." [6]

Presidential medals

While early peace medals issued by European nations and the US government frequently incorporate images of European and tribal figures in cultural exchange, peace medals issued during and after the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (1801 – 1809) are almost exclusively presidential medals, displaying the bust of the President in office at the time they were issued. [6] Jefferson medals were the first of their kind, and inspired a long series of presidential medals that continued until the presidency of Benjamin Harrison (1889 – 1893). [4] Presidential medals were minted in mass using engraved dies, replacing the practice of engraving individual medals. [6]

Dies for the Thomas Jefferson Indian Peace Medal Jefferson peace medal dies.jpg
Dies for the Thomas Jefferson Indian Peace Medal
Peace medal at the Idaho State Museum Indian peace medal.jpg
Peace medal at the Idaho State Museum

Jefferson medals, first issued in 1801, display on one side a bust of Thomas Jefferson and on the other, the clasped hands of an Indian and a US soldier. The one to the right bears a metal wristband worn by Native American chiefs, and the one to the left wears the braided cuff of a US military officer. [7] Above the hands is an overlaying tomahawk and pipe, with the legend "Peace and Friendship." [8] Above Jefferson's profile is his name, title, and date he took office, 1801. Jefferson medals consist of two thin silver discs joined by a silver rim and a wooden core. The medals were issued in three standard sizes: 55mm, 75mm, to 105mm in diameter. [8]

Thomas Jefferson Peace Medal, 1801 Thomas Jefferson Peace Medal.jpg
Thomas Jefferson Peace Medal, 1801

US government use of presidential medals

The distribution of presidential medals accompanied nearly every formal interaction between Native Americans and the US federal government. So established was the practice that Thomas L. McKenney, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, wrote in 1829, "Without medals, any plan of operating among the Indians, be it what it may, is essentially enfeebled." [6] In a short string of correspondence between the US House of Representatives Committee of Ways and Means and the Department of the Interior in 1865, an appropriation was requested "to provide for the usual distribution of medals to leading and influential chiefs," as the funds provided in 1861 for the same purpose had been exhausted. [9]

The growing popularity of peace medals compelled regulation, and as a result, presidential medals, in comparison to early peace medals given alongside treaties, were increasingly awarded to select individuals. [6] A report issued in 1908 by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, for example, recommended the passage of a bill that awards medals to a group of Indian policemen who arrested Sitting Bull, the Sioux chief, near Fort Yates in 1890. [10] Additionally, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark famously distributed about eighty-seven peace medals, many of which were issued under Jefferson, to Indian leaders during their 1803-1806 expedition across the United States as demonstrations of goodwill from the government. [11] In the 1960s, one of the five surviving Jefferson peace medals distributed by Lewis and Clark was found associated with human remains discovered at the Marmes Rockshelter in southeastern Washington state.

In 1829, Lewis Cass, the Governor of Michigan Territory and William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, issued a proposal to the US government: "Regulations for the Government of the Indian Department." [12] The regulations they set forth were never formally adopted, but do represent the established norms of presidential medal distribution. Among other rules, the medals were to "be given to influential persons only." [6] The largest medals were reserved for the chiefs, while the mid-sized medals would be given to war chiefs. The smallest medals were given to less distinguished chiefs and warriors. The awarding of the peace medals required "proper formalities," and any foreign medal previously worn would be replaced by an American medal if the recipient is deserving of a medal. [6]

Chief Red Shirt wearing Ulysses S. Grant Medal, 1904 Chief Red Shirt by Henry W. Wyman 1904.png
Chief Red Shirt wearing Ulysses S. Grant Medal, 1904

Native American acceptance of peace medals

Great value was prescribed by the peace medals, which were to be buried with the owner or passed down from generation to generation. [13] A considerable amount of portraiture made of Native American figures accentuating the medals worn around their neck serves as a testament to their importance. [12]

Peace medals assumed a role within many Native ethea akin to earlier worn shell gorgets, associating the wearer of the medal with the individual engraved on its surface. [14] The imagery presented on the medals, of both royal and political figures, was understood as a symbol of access into the world of the White man. This world brought with it new trade goods and technologies of Europe and later the United States, notably the rifle. [14] The medals became a physical representation of a spiritual dimension that linked the medal wearer to a source of power, for example, the "Great Father" as President Washington was referred to by medal recipients. [15] The distribution of peace medals both reinforced and furthered a political order within the tribes. [15]

Criticisms of peace medals

Black Hawk, a Sauk chief, represents a number of tribal leaders who were critical of US peace medals and their actual use in advancing relations between the federal government and Native Americans. Black Hawk wrote in his autobiography, "Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak" (1833), that he never accepts or wears a US peace medal, though he openly wore those given to him by the British, particularly during the War of 1812. [16] Black Hawk writes, "Whilst the British made but few [promises]- we could always rely upon their word." [16] Towards the end of his narrative, Black Hawk reflects on his tour of the federal mint in Philadelphia, the source of the United States' "medals and money." [17] He relates the coins to the US peace medals; both are "very hand-some," and both are unreliable. [17]

Other contemporary criticisms of Indian peace medals demand a reconsideration of what peacekeeping implies and who the kept peace belongs to. In his analysis of the peace medals issued by the United States government between 1789 and 1889, art historian Klaus Lubbers describes the changing composition of the medal engravings, and how those changes reflect the government's increasingly assimilationist Indian policy. [18] In comparison to the first peace medals that display full Indian figures and little in the background, Lubbers notes that subsequent peace medals incorporate typical agricultural backdrops with a house, oxen, and farm land. [19] Over time, the Indian figures take up less space in the compositions, which Lubbers attributes to a receding equality in rank between the White man and the Indian. [15] The issuing of the Rutherford B. Hayes medal in 1877 coincided with the final efforts endorsed by the Indian Removal Act, and unsurprising to Lubbers, the Hayes medal affords little space to the Native American figure. Its backdrop displays the world of the White man, who stands in the center of the composition leaning on an ax with a chopped tree at his feet. Behind the figures appears a log cabin, and there sits a woman and infant while a man plows. [20]

Indian peace medals today

By the 1840s, Indian peace medals had come to be known as a "presidential series" for which there was growing interest. [21] The federal mint in Philadelphia started collecting dies for the previously issued medals. This began the practice of striking bronze replicas of medals for presentation to government officials or historical societies. [21] Production of the bronze medals began in 1842 with the Jefferson medal. The dies of the Washington and John Adams medals were missing during initial production, however. [21] The John Adams die was not collected until 1878, and the George Washington die was ultimately reproduced in 1903, completing the series. [22]

The American Numismatic Society in New York has the most extensive collection of Indian peace medals, containing an example of nearly every medal issued. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. has a similarly large collection. [2] Significant medal collections may be found in the Denver Natural History Museum, the Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, the Henry Ford Museum, and the Massachusetts Historical Society. [2] Other locations, including the Arizona Pioneer's Historical Society, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn Museum, and the Chicago Historical Society, have smaller collections. A number of peace medals also belong to private collectors. [2]

Related Research Articles

The Alien and Sedition Acts were a set of four laws enacted in 1798 that applied restrictions to immigration and speech in the United States. The Naturalization Act increased the requirements to seek citizenship, the Alien Friends Act allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens, the Alien Enemies Act gave the president additional powers to detain non-citizens during times of war, and the Sedition Act criminalized false and malicious statements about the federal government. The Alien Friends Act and the Sedition Act expired after a set number of years, and the Naturalization Act was repealed in 1802. The Alien Enemies Act is still in effect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian removal</span> Early 19th-century United States domestic policy

Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River – specifically, to a designated Indian Territory. The Indian Removal Act, the key law which authorized the removal of Native tribes, was signed by Andrew Jackson in 1830. Although Jackson took a hard line on Indian removal, the law was enforced primarily during the Martin Van Buren administration. After the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, approximately 60,000 members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands, with thousands dying during the Trail of Tears.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louisiana Purchase</span> 1803 acquisition of large region of Middle America land by the U.S. from France

The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi in Middle America. However, France only controlled a small fraction of this area, most of which was inhabited by Native Americans; effectively, for the majority of the area, the United States bought the "preemptive" right to obtain "Indian" lands by treaty or by conquest, to the exclusion of other colonial powers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trail of Tears</span> Forced relocation of the southeastern Native American tribes

The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to newly designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The Cherokee removal in 1838 was brought on by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manifest destiny</span> Cultural belief of 19th-century American expansionists

Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Madison, Iowa</span> City in Iowa, United States

Fort Madison is a city and a county seat of Lee County, Iowa, United States along with Keokuk. Of Iowa's 99 counties, Lee County is the only one with two county seats. The population was 10,270 at the time of the 2020 census. Located along the Mississippi River in the state's southeast corner, it lies between small bluffs along one of the widest portions of the river.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treaty of Ghent</span> 1814 peace treaty ending the War of 1812

The Treaty of Ghent was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands. The treaty restored relations between the two parties to status quo ante bellum by restoring the pre-war borders of June 1812.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay Treaty</span> 1794 treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain to relieve post-war tension

The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1794 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted war, resolved issues remaining since the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which began in 1792. The Treaty was designed by Alexander Hamilton and supported by President George Washington. It angered France and bitterly divided Americans. It inflamed the new growth of two opposing parties in every state, the pro-Treaty Federalists and the anti-Treaty Jeffersonian Republicans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffersonian democracy</span> American political persuasion of the 1790s until the 1820s

Jeffersonian democracy, named after its advocate Thomas Jefferson, was one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The Jeffersonians were deeply committed to American republicanism, which meant opposition to what they considered to be artificial aristocracy, opposition to corruption, and insistence on virtue, with a priority for the "yeoman farmer", "planters", and the "plain folk". They were antagonistic to the aristocratic elitism of merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, distrusted factory workers, and were on the watch for supporters of the Westminster system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Hawk (Sauk leader)</span> American Indian tribal leader (1767–1838)

Black Hawk, born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, was a Sauk leader and warrior who lived in what is now the Midwestern United States. Although he had inherited an important historic sacred bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man and then a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.

The origins of the War of 1812 (1812-1815), between the United States and the British Empire and its First Nation allies, have been long debated. The War of 1812 was caused by multiple factors and ultimately led to the US declaration of war on Britain:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Armstrong (Illinois)</span>

Fort Armstrong (1816–1836), was one of a chain of western frontier defenses which the United States erected after the War of 1812. It was located at the foot of Rock Island, in the Mississippi River near the present-day Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa. It was five miles from the principal Sac and Fox village on Rock River in Illinois. Of stone and timber construction, 300 feet square, the fort was begun in May 1816 and completed the following year. In 1832, the U.S. Army used the fort as a military headquarters during the Black Hawk War. It was normally garrisoned by two companies of United States Army regulars. With the pacification of the Indian threat in Illinois, the U.S. Government ceased operations at Fort Armstrong and the U.S. Army abandoned the frontier fort in 1836.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of George Washington</span> U.S. presidential administration

The presidency of George Washington began on April 30, 1789, when Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1797. Washington took office after the 1788–1789 presidential election, the nation's first quadrennial presidential election, in which he was elected unanimously. Washington was re-elected unanimously in the 1792 presidential election, and chose to retire after two terms. He was succeeded by his vice president, John Adams of the Federalist Party.

Federal Indian policy establishes the relationship between the United States Government and the Indian Tribes within its borders. The Constitution gives the federal government primary responsibility for dealing with tribes. Some scholars divide the federal policy toward Indians in six phases: coexistence (1789–1828), removal and reservations (1829–1886), assimilation (1887–1932), reorganization (1932–1945), termination (1946–1960), and self-determination (1961–1985).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political ideologies in the United States</span> Ideologies and ideological demographics in the United States

American political ideologies conventionally align with the left–right political spectrum, with most Americans identifying as conservative, liberal, or moderate. Contemporary American conservatism includes social conservatism, classical liberalism and economic liberalism. The former ideology developed as a response to communism and the civil rights movement, while the latter two ideologies developed as a response to the New Deal. Contemporary American liberalism includes progressivism, welfare capitalism and social liberalism, developing during the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. Besides modern conservatism and liberalism, the United States has a notable libertarian movement, and historical political movements in the United States have been shaped by ideologies as varied as republicanism, populism, separatism, socialism, monarchism, and nationalism.

The Meriam Report (1928) was commissioned by the Institute for Government Research and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The IGR appointed Lewis Meriam to be the technical director of the survey team to compile information and report of the conditions of American Indians across the country. Meriam submitted the 847-page report to the Secretary of the Interior, Hubert Work, on February 21, 1928.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Peace Commission</span> 1867 US government body

The Indian Peace Commission was a group formed by an act of Congress on July 20, 1867 "to establish peace with certain hostile Indian tribes." It was composed of four civilians and three, later four, military leaders. Throughout 1867 and 1868, they negotiated with a number of tribes, including the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho, Kiowa-Apache, Cheyenne, Lakota, Navajo, Snake, Sioux, and Bannock. The treaties that resulted were designed to move the tribes to reservations, to "civilize" and assimilate these native peoples, and transition their societies from a nomadic to an agricultural existence.

Thomas Jefferson believed Native American peoples to be a noble race who were "in body and mind equal to the whiteman" and were endowed with an innate moral sense and a marked capacity for reason. Nevertheless, he believed that Native Americans were culturally and technologically inferior. Like many contemporaries, he believed that Indian lands should be taken over by white people.

<i>Progress of Civilization Pediment</i> Marble sculpture in Washington, D.C.

The Progress of Civilization is a marble pediment above the entrance to the Senate wing of the United States Capitol building designed by the sculptor Thomas Crawford. An allegorical personification of America stands at the center of the pediment. To her right, a white woodsman clears the wilderness inhabited by a Native American boy, father, mother, and child. The left side of the pediment depicts a soldier, a merchant, two schoolchildren, a teacher with her pupil, and a mechanic.

The United States Government Fur Trade Factory System was a system of government trading without profit with Native Americans that existed between 1795 and 1821.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Reilly, Kent (2011). "Displaying the Source of the Sacred: Shell Gorgets, Peace Medals, and the Accessing of Supernatural Power." Ed. Robert Pickering. Peace Medals: Negotiating Power in Early America. Tulsa, OK: Gilcrease Museum. p. 9.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Prucha, Francis Paul (1976). Indian Peace Medals in American History. University of Nebraska Press. p.  172. ISBN   0-8032-0890-1. OCLC   2048192.
  3. 1 2 Butler, Amos W. (January 1, 1935). "An Old Indian Peace Medal". Indiana Magazine of History. 31 (4): 318. JSTOR   27786762.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Prucha, Francis (1994). Indian Peace Medals in American History. Bluffton, SC: Rivilo Books. p. 133.
  5. 1 2 Julian, R. W. (January 1, 1976). "The First Indian Peace Medal of the United States". Museum Notes (American Numismatic Society). 21: 257–259. JSTOR   43566286.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Prucha, Francis Paul (January 1, 1962). "Early Indian Peace Medals". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 45 (4): 280. JSTOR   4633775.
  7. Lubbers, Klaus (January 1, 1994). "Strategies of Appropriating the West: The Evidence of Indian Peace Medals". American Art. 8 (3/4): 83. doi:10.1086/424224. JSTOR   3109173. S2CID   191981613.
  8. 1 2 Engeman, Richard H. (January 1, 2006). "Research Files: The Jefferson Peace Medal: Provenance and the Collections of the Oregon Historical Society". Oregon Historical Quarterly. 107 (2): 290–298. doi:10.1353/ohq.2006.0079. JSTOR   20615640. S2CID   165220499.
  9. US Congress. House of Representatives. The Department of the Interior. Letter from The Secretary of the Interior Asking for an Appropriation for Medals for certain Indian Chiefs. 38th Cong., 2d sess., 1865. Ex. Doc. 47.
  10. US Congress. Senate. Committee on Indian Affairs. Medals for Certain Indian Policemen Who Arrested Sitting Bull. 60th Cong., 1st sess., 1908. Report. 461.
  11. Engeman, Richard H. (January 1, 2006). "Research Files: The Jefferson Peace Medal: Provenance and the Collections of the Oregon Historical Society". Oregon Historical Quarterly. 107 (2): 291. doi:10.1353/ohq.2006.0079. JSTOR   20615640. S2CID   165220499.
  12. 1 2 Prucha, Francis Paul (January 1, 1962). "Early Indian Peace Medals". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 45 (4): 279–289. JSTOR   4633775.
  13. Lubbers, Klaus (January 1, 1994). "Strategies of Appropriating the West: The Evidence of Indian Peace Medals". American Art. 8 (3/4): 79–95. doi:10.1086/424224. JSTOR   3109173. S2CID   191981613.
  14. 1 2 Reilly, Kent (2011). "Displaying the Source of the Sacred: Shell Gorgets, Peace Medals, and the Accessing of Supernatural Power." Ed. Robert Pickering. Peace Medals: Negotiating Power in Early America. Tulsa, OK: Gilcrease Museum. p. 17.
  15. 1 2 3 Lubbers, Klaus (January 1, 1994). "Strategies of Appropriating the West: The Evidence of Indian Peace Medals". American Art. 8 (3/4): 82. doi:10.1086/424224. JSTOR   3109173. S2CID   191981613.
  16. 1 2 Johnson, Kendall (January 1, 2007). "Peace, Friendship, and Financial Panic: Reading the Mark of Black Hawk in "Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak"". American Literary History. 19 (4): 773. doi:10.1093/alh/ajm031. JSTOR   4497012.
  17. 1 2 Johnson, Kendall (January 1, 2007). "Peace, Friendship, and Financial Panic: Reading the Mark of Black Hawk in "Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak"". American Literary History. 19 (4): 774. doi:10.1093/alh/ajm031. JSTOR   4497012.
  18. Lubbers, Klaus (January 1, 1994). "Strategies of Appropriating the West: The Evidence of Indian Peace Medals". American Art. 8 (3/4): 79–95. doi:10.1086/424224. JSTOR   3109173. S2CID   191981613.
  19. Lubbers, Klaus (January 1, 1994). "Strategies of Appropriating the West: The Evidence of Indian Peace Medals". American Art. 8 (3/4): 81. doi:10.1086/424224. JSTOR   3109173. S2CID   191981613.
  20. Lubbers, Klaus (January 1, 1994). "Strategies of Appropriating the West: The Evidence of Indian Peace Medals". American Art. 8 (3/4): 85. doi:10.1086/424224. JSTOR   3109173. S2CID   191981613.
  21. 1 2 3 Francis Paul Prucha, Indian Peace Medals in American History, (Bluffton, SC: Rivilo Books, 1994) 135.
  22. Francis Paul Prucha, Indian Peace Medals in American History, (Bluffton, SC: Rivilo Books, 1994) 138.

Further reading