A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

“It is sometimes said, by those seeking to defend, or at least palliate, the United States Government's repeated disregard of its treaties with the Indians, that no Congress can be held responsible for the acts of the Congress preceding it, or can bind the Congress following it; or, in other words, that each Congress may, if it chooses, undo all that has been done by previous Congresses. However true this may be of some legislative acts, it is clearly not true, according to the principles of international law, of treaties.”

Jackson here refers to a constitutional principle: Each Congress is independent of, and equal to, other Congresses, which means that each Congress has the power to undo acts of its predecessors. This power, however, does not apply to treaties, which fall under the constitutional purview of the president and senate. This quotation thus supports the theme of US Government Lies.

“There is but one hope of righting this wrong. It lies in appeal to the heart and the conscience of the American people. What the people demand, Congress will do. It has been—to our shame be it spoken—at the demand of part of the people that all these wrongs have been committed, these treaties broken, these robberies done, by the Government.”

The US government bears responsibility for its broken treaties, forced removals, and periodic violence. In a republic, however, one cannot entirely separate the behavior of public officials from the demands of citizens. Relentless pressure for western expansion came from frontier settlers, miners, land speculators, and railroad corporations. No doubt the US government’s record of dishonorable dealings with Indigenous Americans encouraged this public pressure, but public pressure also drives dishonorable dealings. As an “appeal” to the American conscience, this quotation supports the theme of History as Advocacy.

“I have not yet seen, in any accounts of the Indian hostilities on the Northwestern frontier during this period, any reference to those repeated permissions given by the United States to the Indians, to defend their lands as they saw fit. Probably the greater number of the pioneer settlers were as ignorant of these provisions in Indian treaties as are the greater number of American citizens today, who are honestly unaware—and being unaware, are therefore incredulous—that the Indians had either provocation or right to kill intruders on their lands.”

In Chapter 1, Jackson identifies “permissions” as a regular feature of early treaties. Here, she offers an example from the early 1790s, when the US government acknowledged by treaty the Delawares’ right to punish intruders upon their lands. Jackson refers to these “permissions” here because they amount to an explicit acknowledgement of Indigenous Americans’ right to the land they occupy and of their corresponding power to defend that right by force if necessary.