peace and amity at White House
In February 1867 a delegation of about 100 Native Americans were in Washington, D.C. on treaty-making business with the Indian Bureau. 150 years ago today they visited President Johnson at the White House. According to the February 24, 1867 issue of The New-York Times. The natives, about half of whom were “in full Indian costume,” were accompanied by Secretary of the Interior Orville Hickman Browning and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Lewis Vital Bogy. Commissioner Bogy told the president that the Indians wanted to pay their respects to “their great father,” “the big chief of the nation.” Mr. Bogy said the Indians looked to the great father “for protection and care. Our government looks upon these people as dependents and wards of the nation, and since I have held the responsible under you as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, I have endeavored to give to them that to which they are justly entitled.”
The natives approved the commissioner’s words upon translation. President Johnson told the Indians that the government and the natives’ great father would “cultivate peace and amity between the races, although the United States has grown strong and powerful in its march onward, and your tribes have greatly diminished, there will be nothing left undone that a great and powerful nation can do, for the care and protection of its wards.”
first peoples, first wards of the nation?
The image of the reception was published in the March 16, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly. On page 173 the periodical noted that the Indians were Sioux and Yancton from Dacotah accompanied by the territorial governor. “The reply of the President, unlike most of his speeches, also met with approval.”
