Tag Archives: Civil War

The Enemy of My Enemy

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Cherokee Confederates Reunion in New Orleans, 1903

Cherokee Confederates Reunion in New Orleans, 1903

Native Americans resisted white encroachment on their lands and cultures in a variety of ways (see last two posts). They refused to cooperate with these intruders, refused to send their children to their schools to learn new ways, and held on to their traditions by many strategies. One other significant way Native Americans resisted settlers was to join forces with their enemies. This occurred during the Seven Years War (1754-63) when Britain and France fought over New World territory with the help of native peoples on both sides.

By the time the American Civil War began, Native Americans had had experience with the treachery and false promises of the federal government. Officials in the Confederacy approached various native peoples to remind them of this, offering them better opportunities under Confederate rule for their help in fighting Union forces. The Confederacy created a Bureau of Indian Affairs in March, 1861 and appointed David L. Hubbard as its commissioner. In 1861, the new country’s leaders commissioned attorney Albert Pike as a brigadier general and assigned him to the Department of Indian Territory. There, he was to raise regiments among the Indians and command them in battle. My next post will discuss Native Americans and the Confederacy further.

Fort Davis, Built by Order of General Pike, courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society

Fort Davis, Built by Order of General Pike, courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society

General Albert Pike

General Albert Pike

Shell Shock

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A Shell Shocked Soldier is on the Left

Professionals and laypeople alike have probably always observed that war could affect those who went through it, both physically and mentally. After the Civil War, some people who tried to put their finger on what had changed with returning veterans, discussed the “soldier’s heart” phenomenon. This was a (usually) negative change they saw in their loved ones, which they were sure came from being in a war and exposed to combat. Observers primarily believed that physical changes in the heart were responsible for the changes they saw in the person, though they also believed that pining away for their homes during their period of service could bring on nostalgia-related mental symptoms. During WWI, “shell shock” was a descriptive term for the physical effects constant bombardment took on soldiers engaged in long bouts of trench warfare, but physicians also recognized a mental component that they termed “traumatic neurosis.”

WWI era medical professionals had enough information about war-related mental trauma (now called PTSD) that they anticipated its occurrence. In 1917, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene  formed a task group called “the committee on furnishing hospital units for nervous and mental disorders to the United States Government” which began to canvas likely facilities in which to house mentally ill soldiers. Veterans Hospitals were obvious sites, and the committee also contacted the superintendents of the government’s two insane asylums: St. Elizabeths in Washington, DC and the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in South Dakota.

My next post will examine their responses.

Doctor Attempting to Cure Shell Shock Through Hypnosis

Private Read Was Buried By a Shell in 1917, Which Resulted in Constant Swaying and Nose Wiping

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Indians and Slaves

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The Five Civilized Tribes

Indian Territory may have seemed a world away from the slave-holding South, but slavery was introduced there in 1830. Some of the slaves who ran away from southern slave states were received as free people by tribes in the Territory. However, all tribes except the Seminole eventually began to buy slaves. In the 1830s, about 3,000 African-Americans lived in Indian Territory. Most of them were slaves.

Indian farmers used slaves to help them cultivate their crops. Some masters had large tracts of land, but most Indians were subsistence farmers who worked as hard as their slaves. In the 1830s and 1840s, slaves came with Indians who were removed from the their eastern lands. The Cherokee held about 1,500 slaves, the Chickasaw Nation about 1,200, and the Creek Nation about 300. There were about 8,000 slaves held by Indians by the time of the Civil War. After the war, tribes abolished slavery.

Slaves of Indians, 1893, courtesy Library of Congress

John Taylor (African-American) and Dick Charlie (Ute), 1880-1910?, courtesy Library of Congress

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