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

Chapter 27: XII. WOOD-CUTTING BY INDIANS IN DAKOTA.

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About This Book

A documentary account of the United States' relations with indigenous tribes, drawing on official reports, treaties, testimonies, and court records to reveal recurring patterns of broken promises, legal ambiguity, displacement, and violent incidents. The narrative presents case studies of multiple tribes and specific outrages, traces administrative and congressional failures, and compiles appendices of laws, reports, and eyewitness material. The work emphasizes evidence of systemic injustice and administrative mismanagement and urges moral and practical reforms to secure rights, fulfill obligations, and ameliorate the material and legal suffering documented throughout the text.

XII.

WOOD-CUTTING BY INDIANS IN DAKOTA.

In his report for 1877 the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Dakota says: "Orders have been received to stop cutting of wood by Indians, to pay them for what they have already cut, to take possession of it and sell it. This I am advised is under a recent decision which deprives Indians of any ownership in the wood until the land is taken by them in severalty. If agents do not enforce these orders, they lay themselves liable. If they do enforce them, the Indians are deprived of what little motive they have for labor. In the mean time, aliens of all nations cut wood on Indian lands, sell to steamboats, fill contracts for the army and for Indian agencies at high prices. *** Cutting wood is one of the very few things an Indian can do in Dakota at this time."