1907

Hennepin, Minnesota

Health Care, Cultural Assimilation, Boarding Schools, Native Americans

In 1907, the parents of a Native American child Lizzie received a heartbreaking letter. The letter was from the superintendent of the Flandreau Boarding School where Lizzie attended. The Superintendent wrote that Lizzie had died from slow tuberculosis days before the letter was written. In the letter he claimed that he had been away at the time of Lizzie’s death, and was unable to write her mother...

December 14, 1921 to December 20, 1921

Whatcom, Washington

Boarding Schools, Cultural Assimilation, Native Americans

On December 14, 1921 a worried mother wrote a letter to the Superintendent at the Tulalip Indian Agency. In the letter she addressed her concern for her son Robert’s failing health, and asked the Superintendent to let Robert return home for the holiday season. Six days later, she received the Superintendent’s typed response denying her request. He stated that none of the school’s students would...

1862

DATOKA TERRITORY, Territory

Sioux Wars, Sioux, Buffalo, Indians, Native Americans

Amos H. Gottschall traveled across the North American continent four times from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which took him twelve years to do.  During his travels, Gottschall lived with the Indians he came across.  Gottschall wrote all his experiences down, especially with the Sioux from whom he later picked up the Sioux language.  Gottschall became very fascinated with the Indians and decided...

June 20, 1824 to August 30, 1830

TERRITORY, Territory

Territory, Native Americans

James O. Pattie, on a trip through the southwest of America, had been traveling in Pawnee territory for multiple days. After enjoying a peaceful time with the Pawnees, partaking in traditional Pawnee activities like the smoking of pipes and eating buffalo meat together, he was impressed with their hospitality and even went so far as to, in his travel notes, call the chief paternal. Because of these...

1890

LOS ANGELES, California

Native Americans, Railroad, Transportation

During the 1890s Susie Champney Clark left Boston on a Raymond & Whitcomb Co. organized railroad trip across the country to California, recording her observations and notes along the way.  Though this trip may have seemed impossible to make earlier in the century, as Ms. Clark said in the first chapter of her book The Round Trip from Hub to the Golden Gate, “California [was] much nearer Boston than...

April 16, 1790 to December 1, 1790

Ontario, New York

Native Americans, Journal, Five Tribes, French

European settlers and the Native American tribes had always had barriers that prevented them from fully understanding each other. In 1768, a man named John Long had started keeping a journal where he planned to record the customs and languages of the various tribes across the land that would become the United States. By taking on this task, Americans and the Native tribes would be able to communicate...

February 2, 1831

ONTARIO, New York

Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Indians, Native Americans, 1832 election, Henry Clay, Five Civilized Tribes, Creek Indians, American Indian Policy, Indian Removal, Land Policy, Manifest Destiny

February 2nd 1831 Geneva Courier: “American Systems. For President, Henry Clay.” There were two major contenders in the 1832 presidential election, the incumbent Andrew Jackson and the challenger Henry Clay. Jackson was quite popular, which was largely due to the fact that he was the first modern politician who had carefully crafted an image for himself. His popularity led to great power which,...