Lincoln and Native Americans

[Angela]

(07-07-2016 10:40 AM)L Verge Wrote:  

(07-07-2016 01:49 AM)Angela Wrote:  

(07-06-2016 02:21 PM)L Verge Wrote:  "That woman historian that liked Mary Lincoln so much actually came to Washington to demand that every one of the Indians should be executed."

David - please tell me who that woman historian was! My first thought was Jane Swisshelm, but she was a reporter, not really a historian. I spent about an hour this morning trying to find an answer. Never did find the answer, but did find this link, an excellent history of the Sioux situation, and lo and behold, it was written by a member of the Surratt Society and a friend that I had not conversed with in several years! Unfortunately, he didn't know who the woman was either. Both of us are guessing that Jane Swisshelm must be the person. Are we correct?

https://www.dcbar.org/bar-resources/publ...incoln.cfm

I think Jane Swisshelm is it. She was part of a delegation that went to Washington.
She makes a brief mention of it in her book "Half a century". This is also the chapter that holds the quotes about her meeting Lincoln.

"After the Sioux had finished their work of horror, Minnesota men, aided by volunteers from Iowa and Wisconsin, pursued and captured the murderers of one thousand men, women and children; tried them, found them guilty, and proposed to hang them just as if they had been white murderers.
But when the general government interfered and took the prisoners out of the hands of the State authorities, and when it became evident that Eastern people endorsed the massacre and condemned the victims as sinners who deserved their fate, one of the State officers proposed that I should go East, try to counteract the vicious public sentiment, and aid our Congressional delegation in their effort to induce the Administration either to hang the Sioux murderers, or hold them as hostages during the war."

I did not know until hunting this down that Mrs. Swisshelm had lived in Minnesota during this period and, therefore, understood the ire of the people of that state.

I am not sure that she actually understood much but she sure had opinions.
As she wrote in the St. Cloud Democrat:
"Exterminate the wild beasts, and make peace with the devil and all his hosts sooner than these red-jawed tigers"
"shoot them and be sure they are shot dead, dead, DEAD, DEAD!"

She was a really odd person. I enjoyed some of her nonpolitical writings and thoughts but she had little sense of politics and in her articles there is a lot of acid.