President Lincoln and the Sioux Indian uprising in Minnesota in 1862

[David Lockmiller]

(06-05-2017 05:12 PM)Gene C Wrote:  I'm in the middle of reading this book, interesting....
It was a very blood thirsty, violent, incident.

How do you respond to broken promises by the government, promised food and money for your family not delivered?
People assigned to assist you that steal from you.

The following is from a posting (with some revisions) to this thread that I made on August 15, 2013:

Gene C wrote in this thread on April 16:

"This was an unfortunate situation, as the United States Govt frequently did not uphold their end of the bargain in dealing with the different tribes, and showed almost no respect for the Indians way of life. President Lincoln probably knew this and took the fairest method to deal with this problem. I wonder what impact on the problem he could have had if he had lived to deal with it."


Episcopal Bishop Henry B. Whipple lobbied the President to reform the corrupt Indian agency system. In the spring of 1862, the bishop had recommended more humane treatment of the Minnesota Sioux. Lincoln promptly asked the secretary of the Interior to investigate, which he did and suggested numerous reforms.

The President told a friend that Whipple "came here the other day and talked with me about the rascality of this Indian business until I felt it down to my boots."

In reply to Whipple's appeal, Lincoln characteristically recounted a story:

"Bishop, a man thought that monkeys could pick cotton better than Negroes could because they were quicker and their fingers smaller. He turned a lot of them into his cotton field, but he found that it took two overseers to watch one monkey. It needs more than one honest man to watch one Indian agent."

[President Lincoln] pledged to Bishop Whipple that "[i]f we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed."

(Henry B. Whipple, "Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate,etc.," pages 136-137.

So, at least two things would have been different had Lincoln lived: Reconstruction and the treatment of native Americans.