266 5^-63391 l ndian Missions and policy 1870.1834. Keep Your Card in This Pocket Books will be issued only on presentation of proper library cards. Unless labeled otherwise, books may be retained for two weeks, Borrowers finding books marked, de- faced or mutilated are expected to report same at library desk; otherwise flie last borrower will be held responsible for all imperfections discovered. The card holder Is responsible for all books drawn on this card. Penalty for over-due books 2c a day plus cost of notice. , Lost cards and change of residence must be re- ported promptly. Public Library Kansas City, Mo. TENSION ENVK.OK CORP., KANSAS CITY, MO PU BLIC LI BR AR Y D DDD1 DBDlflEb 3 THE CATHOLIC INDIAN MISSIONS AND GRANT'S PEACE POLICY 1870 1884 The Catholic Indian Missions and Grant's Peace Policy 1870-1884 by PETER J. RAHILL St. Louis University FOREWORD by THE MOST REVEREND EDWIN V. O'HARA Bishop of Kansas City THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS WASHINGTON, D. C. 1953 NihU obstat: JOHN TRACY ELUS Censor Deputatus Imprimatur : S JOSEPH E. RITTER Archbishop of St. Louis MAY 12, 1952 COPYRIGHT 1953 BY CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, INC. PRINTED BY SCHUSTER PRINTING SERVICE , DUBUQUE, IOWA DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER, OUT OF LOVE OF MY MOTHER, AND IN SINCERE GRATITUDE TO THE MOST REVEREND JOSEPH E. RITTER ARCHBISHOP OF ST. Louis PREFACE Tlie interest of the Catholic Church in the conversion of the American Indian may be said to have followed directly from the commission of Jesus Christ to His Apostles : "Go, there- fore, and make disciples of all nations" (Matt., 28:19). From the discovery of the islands, and then the continent of the West, that divine command was made specific for the red race by ex- plicit direction of popes and bishops. While a veritable legion of Catholics of both sexes sought out the aborigines to instruct and civilize them, Catholic Indian missionaries in North Amer- ica have come to be associated with the fame of a few. Isaac Jogues on the North, Pierre-Jean DeSmet in the Northwest, and Junipero Serra on the Pacific Coast have stood for all the devoted souls who were dismayed neither by the threat of a martyr's death nor the tedium and hardships of lonely toil. Despite a lack of both numbers and material resources, from the beginning of the American Republic the Catholics worked harmoniously with the federal government to give all the bene- fits of Christianity to the red men. The Church, then making the largest religious effort for the Indian, found both oppor- tunity and attendant complications in the invitation of Presi- dent Grant to participate in his Peace Policy. But the Catholic response to that offer of December 5, 1870, by the chief execu- tive of the United States did not generate another individual figure who overshadowed all others. In this instance it was rather through an agency of the Church that the activities of all Indian missionaries were co-ordinated with the program of the government. The present study is, then, the account of the or- ganization and the work under the Peace Policy of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. The Catholic bureau was highly important in the administra- tion and interpretation of the Peace Policy, and this official vii viii Preface agency of the Church continues today in much the same form as it developed during the years from 1870 to 1884. But strange to say, the story of that period has never been related. Both general and church histories have mentioned the vital part of Catholics in the Peace Policy, hut few particulars have been added because of the lack of a specific treatment. This study represents an attempt to remedy that defect. Once again in these operations for a new race in the New World apostles sought to carry out the command of our Lord: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations." Though concerned primarily with a section of the story of the Catholic Church, this account must necessarily touch upon the history of the United States in which it took place. Be- cause the Catholic bureau was a direct consequence of Grant* s announcement of his Peace Policy, the actions and attitudes of government officials were woven into the cloth of the story. Moreover, the federal program was important in the American relations of Church and State, for it marked the active entry of a national administration into a field previously filled by the religious teacher alone. The history of these years discloses that even, under adverse circumstances the Catholic Church successfully carried on her missionary work in co-operation with the federal program. Only insofar as the labors of Catholic missionaries of the period serve to illustrate the operations of the Catholic Indian bureau has that story of work in the field been given in the present study. Several good treatments have already been pub* lished of the Peace Policy and its general effects. Hence, dis- cussion of the government's plan and its operation has been re- stricted to those incidents which had a direct bearing upon Catholic participation in it. The Indian missions of the various Protestant denominations are not included in the scope of this work. Mention has been made of them solely with the intent of explaining the entire problem which confronted the Catho- lics under the Peace Policy. Preface ix The direct beneficiaries of the Catholic bureau in Washing- ton were the Indian missions in widely scattered sections of the United States. Since it was not possible to relate the activities of all, or even most of them, the labors for and among the Sioux in Dakota Territory have been offered as an illustration. The large number of Indians then in that part of the country, as well as the diversity and complexity of the problems encoun- tered, prompted the selection of these operations as an exem- plification of the interdependence between Catholic mission- aries and the Washington office. Then, as now, the training of youth was essential, especially for guiding the nomads of the prairies into the paths of civili- zation. The great benefit of the Peace Policy was the support of the religious schools by the federal government. The zenith of that instruction of the Indian children was not reached until more than a decade after the close of this story. But even in the period to which this account is restricted the approval of government supervisors was well nigh universal for the schools then being conducted by Catholic priests, sisters, and brothers. This acclaim was not simply from those above and outside of the actual instruction. The recipients themselves, the Indians, sought and enthusiastically received the teaching by the " black gowns" and their devoted auxiliaries. To the Most Reverend Joseph E. Ritter, Archbishop of St. Louis, the writer is supremely grateful for the opportunity so graciously bestowed of knowing and telling the story of this section of Catholic mission work. Because of the absence of previous treatment, the tale was based principally upon unpub- lished correspondence and records. First among these were the files of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, and to the present director of that organization, the Reverend John B. Tennelly, S.S., the writer is thankful for the facilities he made available. Others to whom sincere appreciation is offered must include the Right Reverend John J. Duggan, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Very Reverend Daniel E. Sheehan and the Reverend Edward P. McCaslin, Chancellor x Preface and Vice-Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Omaha, the Right Reverend John M. A. Fearns, Rector of St. Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers, the Reverend Thomas T. McAvoy, C.S.C., archivist of the University of Notre Dame, the Reverend James P. Gal- vin, of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, the Reverend Emery J. Blanchard, of the Archdiocese of Seattle, and the Very Reverend Daniel H. Conway, S.J., Provincial of the Mis- souri Province of the Society of Jesus, as well as to their cour- teous assistants. Relatives of the late General Charles Ewing were helpful in making private papers readily available, and among all of these Mr. John K. M. Ewing, Miss Eleanor Ewing, and Miss Eleanor Sherman Fitch deserve special thanks. To the Most Reverend Edwin V. O'Hara, Bishop of Kansas City, the writer is grateful for the introduction. The foreword has special pertinence from Bishop O'Hara's familiarity with the American Northwest through both experience and author- ship. Among the number who kindly sent material for this study were Sister Marian Josephine Thomas, S.H.N., Sister Margaret Jean Kelly, S.H.NL, Sister Consuela Maria Ford, S.H.N., and the Reverends Albert Kleber, O.S.B., and Albert S. Foley, SJ. Two men who have died since this work was undertaken, John P. O'Hara and Frederick P. Kenkel, were generous with their assistance. At the National Archives, Of- fice of Indian Affairs, the officials were both competent and cordial, which was likewise true at the Library of Congress. The attendants at the Mullen Library of the Catholic Univer- sity of America performed a multitude of services with the ut- most willingness. In its original form the present work appeared as a doctoral dissertation. For the selection of the subject and the wise direc- tion throughout its development there could have been no substi- tute for the Reverend John Tracy Ellis, professor of American church history in the Catholic University of America. The writer is also grateful to John T. Farrell, professor of Amer- ican history, and the Reverend Henry J. Browne, archivist of the same University, for their careful reading and judicious Preface xi criticism of the manuscript. To all of these, and to the host of others who have contributed to the completion of this work the writer gives his heartfelt thanks. J. Feast of All Saints November 1, 1952 FOREWORD This volume by Father Rahill centers in a carefully docu- mented account of the establishment and work of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions during the heart-breaking years when President Grant's so-called Indian "Peace Policy" was in ef- fect. A dismal chapter of American history in the nineteenth century has been unfolded in which military force and political corruption took precedence over the claims of justice and the welfare of the Indians. The attempt of Archbishop Blanchet of Oregon, with the aid of General Charles Ewing and Father Brouillet to reverse this trend, constitutes the story of the establishment of the Catholic Indian Bureau. We are indebted to Father Rahill for an ade- quate account of the later labors of Father Brouillet who as an Indian missionary in Oregon thirty years earlier had made an important contribution to Indian history in his Protestatism in Oregon; Account of the Murder of Dr. Whitman. The painful story of sectarian opposition to the labors of Ewing and Brouillet was to be expected, but the apostles of In- dian, rights might have hoped to be spared embittered calumny at the hands of the Catholic editor of an influential newspaper. The record of the penury of financial resources for the new bureau and of the indifference of important personages to whom "the problem seemed very far removed'* is the burden of many pages. The success of the bureau in establishing a large number of efficient boarding schools which are still serving the Indian missions was extraordinary in view of the nomadic habits of the Indians. The self-sacrifice on the part of the missionaries and the various sisterhoods is an epic of heroism in American Catholic annals. Xlll xiv Foreword Baraga, Blanchet, DeSmet, Marty, Brouillet, Malo and a score of others become alive again in these pages. Two re- markable names, those of General Charles Ewing and of his sis- ter, Ellen Ewing (Mrs. W. T. Sherman, wife of the general) add luster to the record of American lay apostles. It should be added that the Bureau of Catholic Indians is not of historical interest alone. Even today that agency of the Church is justifying the hopes and the efforts of its founders of more than three-quarters of a century ago. EDWIN V. O'HARA Bishop of Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri December 8, 1952 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE vii FOREWORD ............................................................. ...................................................... xiii ABBREVIATIONS USED IN FOOTNOTES ................................................ xix CHAPTER I. A Tradition of Protection and Care .................................... 3 II. Groping Toward Unified Action ................................... . ......... 29 III. An Official Organization Achieved ....................................... 76 IV. Financing the Bureau ........................................................................ 119 V. Attacks from Within ........................................................................ 169 VI. Operations Among the Sioux of Dakota ........................ 221 VII. A Victory for Religious Liberty ............................................ 273 EPILOGUE ......................................................... ........................................................... 332 THE SOURCES ..................................................................................................... . ...... 345 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................... ................. 349 INDEX ............................................... .............................................................................. 361 MEANING OF INITIALS APPEARING IN TEXT .............................. 363 xv ILLUSTRATIONS Page Indian Missions in Michigan , 18 Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley .... 70 Operations among northwestern Indians to 1873 110 Annals of the Catholic Indian Missions 163 Annalen der Katholischen Indianer-Missionen 164 "Order No. 11" , 203 General Charles Ewing 259 Operations among western Indians to 1879 292-293 Father Jean-Baptiste Abraham Brouillet 335 xvii ABBREVIATIONS USED IN FOOTNOTES AAB AAI AANY AAO AAP AAS ADP ABCIM AMP ASVA AUND EC Guilday Collection LC Archives Archdiocese of Baltimore Archives Archdiocese of Indianapolis Archives Archdiocese of New York Archives Archdiocese of Omaha Archives Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon Archives Archdiocese of Seattle Archives Diocese of Portland, Maine Archives Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Archives Missouri Province, Society of Jesus, St. Louis Archives St. Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania Archives University of Notre Dame Ewing Collection, in the possession of John K. M. and Eleanor Ewing, son and daughter of General Charles Ewing, Sil- ver Spring, Maryland Guilday Collection, Department of Arch- ives and Manuscripts, The Catholic Uni- versity of America Library of Congress, Division of Manu- scripts Ewing Papers Grant Papers Schurz Papers Sherman Papers xix xx Abbreviations RBIA National Archives, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs* RBIC National Archives, Records of the Board of Indian Commissioners* RSI, ID National Archives, Records of the Secre- tary of the Interior, Indian Division* *In the designation of these three collections, L.R. is used for Letters Received; L.S. for Letters Sent BJ.C. Report of the Board of Indian Commis- sioners (followed by proper year) C.I.A. Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (followed by proper year) RS.L Annual Report, Secretary of the Interior (followed by proper year) Freeman's Journal New York Freeman's Journal and Cath- olic Register THE CATHOLIC INDIAN MISSIONS AND GRANT'S PEACE POLICY 18701884 CHAPTER I A TRADITION OF PROTECTION AND CARE In the words of a seventeenth-century Spanish jurist, "the Indies were conceded to the kings of Castile principally in or- der to favor and convert the Indians/' 1 That there were no- table lapses from this ideal may be readily granted, as in any age self-examination reveals the gap between attainment and aspirations. Nevertheless, the goal of giving a knowledge of Christianity to the natives of the New World was persistently held forth to the Spanish. Nearly a century after the first voy- age of Columbus a six volume work for the direction of mis- sionaries was published by Joseph Acosta. He gave practical advice in urging, for example, that they promptly learn the tribal languages and dialects. And for effective and lasting teaching the missionary needed the personal attributes of "probity, piety, purity, charitableness, and kindness." Suc- cessive editions and translations attest not only the worth of Acosta's treatment but the wide European interest in the con- version of the American Indians. 2 But even before the publication of this work, Catholic mis- sionaries from Spain had been preaching the gospel within the present boundaries of the United States. Religious societies which are well known in the United States today were leaders in the apostolic effort of the early sixteenth century. For ex- ample, Dominicans accompanied Ayllon to the Carolina coast in 1526; Franciscans were with Narvaez in 1528 f and Jesuits, 1 Antonio de Leon Pinelo, Tratado de Confirmation's Reales (Buenos Aires [Madrid, 1630], 1922), p. 241, quoted by Lewis Hanke, "Pope Paul III and the American Indians," Harvard Theological Review, XXX (April, 1937), 66. 2 Joseph Schmidlin, Catholic Mission Theory, translated by Matthias Braun, S.V.D. (Techny, Illinois, 1931), pp. 12-13. Acosta's work was en- titled De procuranda Indorum salute libri sex (Salamanca, 1588; Cologne, 1596, 1606; French translation, 1670). 3 James A. Robertson, "Notes on Early Church Government in Spanish Florida," Catholic Historical Review, XVII (July, 1931), 156. 4 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy who had helped Menendez de Avites make the first perma- nent settlement in the later United States at St. Augustine in 1565, visited Indians as far north as present-day Georgia and Virginia. The missions in Florida reached their peak of suc- cess around 1634, when the Franciscans had forty-four sepa- rate stations, in which approximately 30,000 converted Indians were attended. The spiritual sons of St. Francis had replaced the Jesuits in Florida in 1573 when the latter were transferred to Mexico. Yet the harvest of souls by the missionaries was not reaped without a heavy toll being exacted. Five Francis- cans died in Florida in as many years, and before that, in 1549, the blow of a tomahawk made the Dominican, Luis Cancer, the proto-martyr of Florida. 4 Seven years previously, and sixty- five years prior to the settlement of Jamestown, Friar Juan de Padilla, who had gone on foot with Coronado to the Quivira country in the present State of Kansas, was killed by Indians hostile to those he had converted. 5 Before turning to the Church's labor under other flags in the behalf of the Indians, it should be noted that the judgment of one authority has been that Spain's program "was the most suc- cessful of the colonial period/' 6 On the other hand Shea, the eminent Catholic historian of the last century, believed that the superlative labors of the Spanish Indian missionaries were dis- sipated by having embraced a multitude of separate projects over too widely-extended a territory. 7 The apparent contradic- tion is solved by remembering that the former wrote of actual conditions, while the latter was longing for an unrealized per- fection. Because the Southwest and California were not in the 4 Michael J. Curley, C.Ss.R., Church and State in> the Spanish Florida*, 1783-1882 (Washington, 1940), pp. 7-8. 6 Anon., "Father Padilla Memorial," Columbia, XXX (December, 1950), 20, October 15, 1950, at a point west of Lyons, Kansas, a memorial to Padilla, donated by the Knights of Columbus in Kansas, was blessed by the Most Reverend Mark K. Carroll, Bishop of Wichita. 6 Evelyn C. Adams, American Indian Education (New York, 1946), p. 106. 7 John Gilmary Shea, History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, 1529-1854 (New York, 1855), p. 123. A Tradition of Protection and Care 5 original thirteen colonies the labors of the padres in that section will be left for a more detailed telling. Leaving the Spanish, it was probably true that international power and prestige, as well as individual profit and adventure, inspired the foundation of New France. Nevertheless, inter- twined and often paramount among these motives was the con- version of the natives to Catholicity. Jacques Cartier stressed that responsibility in his memorial to Francis I, and Henry IV included it in his provisions for the settlement of Acadia. 8 In their Indian relations the French were favored by the har- monization of fur trading with the mode of living of the na- tives. Again, national interests were aided by the incomparable ability of the French missionaries to make friends of the In- dians. Father Isaac Jogues may, perhaps, exemplify the work of all the Recollect, Capuchin, and Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth- century New France. Jogues' petition to be a foreign mission- ary was granted shortly after his ordination as a Jesuit priest in 1636. In New France he was soon known for his zeal and energy. With Father Charles Raymbault, S.J., Jogues had preached the gospel to the Chippewas a thousand miles in the interior in the year 1641, "five years/' as George Bancroft wrote, "before the New England [John] Eliot had addressed the Indians that dwelt within six miles from Boston harbor." 9 Though most of his labors were in what is now Canada, Jogues had traversed New York from north to south a generation be- fore the name of the future state had been coined. During twelve months of captivity among the Iroquois the physical and moral stamina of Jogues was tested daily by inde- scribable tortures. With the help of the Dutch of New Am- sterdam he succeeded in returning to France, but he was in- capacitated for celebrating Mass because of the loss of fingers which the savages had torn from his hands. In granting per- 8 Sister Mary Celeste Leger, The Catholic Indian Missions in Maine, 1611-1820 (Washington, 1929), . 17. 9 History of the United States (Boston, 1879"), II, 308. 6 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy mission for the exercise of his priestly office despite this handi- cap, Pope Urban VIII exclaimed: "It is not fitting that a mar- tyr for Christ should not drink the Blood of Christ." From France Jogues returned at once to the missions and there suf- fered martyrdom from the Iroquois at Ossenienon, near Au- riesville, in the present Montgomery County, New York. 10 To another Jesuit, Father Gabriel Druillettes, the Indians of northern Maine were far more tractable. So completely did they embrace his teaching that, as Parkman declared, their prayers were "for forgiveness and the conversion of their ene- mies, the Iroquois," which led the historian to comment, "This is the most remarkable record of success in the whole body of the Jesuit Relations! 311 The Jesuits also were highly useful to the Governor General of New France in making treaties both with the Indians and the English colonies. This fact was exemplified in Druil- lettes, for as Jogues had given his life for the red men, so Druil- lettes tried to help the Abenakis of Maine by diplomacy. Act- ing as their ambassador and that of the Quebec government, he sought the co-operation of the English settlements against the Iroquois confederacy. The Mohawks 7 virtual destruc- tion of the Hurons in 1648-1649 had rendered the former tribe the terror of the whole country. For the priest to enter Massachusetts was contrary to a law passed three years before, which provided for immediate expulsion of any Jesuit entering the colony, and his death by hanging should he dare to return. Nevertheless, from Augusta south to Boston Druillettes re- ceived a warm welcome from such militant Protestants as John Winslow, Governor Thomas Dudley, John Eliot, and John En- dicott. At Plymouth "Governor [William] Bradford invited 10 F. W. Grey, "The Jesuits and New France in the Seventeenth Cen- tury," American Catholic Quarterly Review, XXI (July, 1896), 746. Cf., Francis X. Talbot, S.J., Saint Among Savages; the Life of Isaac Jogues (New York, 1935). 11 Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (Boston, 1894), II, 319. Of Catholicity he added (p. 320) : "how- ever Protestants may carp at it, it was the only form of Christianity likely to take root in their crude and barbarous nature." A Tradition of Protection and Care 7 him to dine, and, as it was Friday, considerately gave him a dinner of fish." 12 Although the clerical ambassador again was well received when he returned in 1651, the alliance failed to materialize. As with the Spanish, the success of the French missionaries to the Indians affected only the perimeters of the present United States. Arnold J. Toynbee has traced the general policy of ex- termination of the Indians by the English colonists to the habit of mind acquired when the Saxons preyed on the outposts of the Roman Empire and revived in the harsh treatment of the conquered inhabitants of Ireland. 13 However, though it is outside the province of this work, mention should be made that by 1636 the New England Congregationalists had commenced missionary efforts among the Indians, with Roger Williams in the vanguard. George Fox, the Quaker, preached to the In- dians when he was in America (1671-1672), and later from England he repeatedly encouraged the Friends to do likewise. 14 In the colony of Pennsylvania William Penn's fair treatment of the red men is a bright chapter in American history. Mary- land, the one English colony founded by Catholics, had settle- ment and the conversion of the Indians going on simultaneous- ly. The consent of the Piscataways was obtained by Governor Leonard Calvert and the Jesuit missionary John Altham before a landing was made at St. Mary's in March, 1634. Through the efforts of another priest among the Maryland colonists, An- drew White, SJ., almost all of the Piscataways and the Pa- tuxents were converted. Unfortunately for the permanence of this successful labor, continued attacks by the Susquehan- nas brought about the disappearance or migration of the Mary- land Indians by the year 1700. 15 12 Ibid., II, 321-330. Leger, op. cit., pp. 42-43, gave "a list of all the docu- ments now available which throw light on the mission of Druillettes to New England." Parkman used a variant spelling, Druilletes. 13 A Study of History (London, 1934), I, 465-467. 14 Rayner W. Kelsey, Friends and the Indians, 1655-1917 (Philadelphia, 1917), pp. 11-59, passim. 15 Thomas Hughes. S. J., History of the Society of Jesus in North America (Cleveland, 1907), Text, I, 322-340, 547-555; ibid. (Cleveland. 1908), Documents, I, 103-104 (No. 8, A, Andrew White's Relatio Itineris in Marilandiam). 8 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy In a broad summarization of the colonial period, it may be said that the Indian was a ward to the Spanish, a partner-ally to the French, and an enemy alien to the English. What change did the independence and unification of the colonies bring? As early as July 12, 1775, the Continental Congress created a Bu- reau of Indian Affairs, with northern, middle, and southern departments. While neutralization of the red men during the revolution was the ideal, force was resorted to when it best served the infant government. For example, Iroquois power was destroyed for all time by John Sullivan's expedition up the Susquehanna River in 1779. Of those who remained the Sen- ecas received a grant of land from the Pennsylvania assembly, and the education of their children was promised to their chief, Cornplanter, in 1792 by President Washington. 16 Nine years before Washington had declared that Indian territory was to be regarded as conquered provinces, and this idea was incorpor- ated in instructions given to commissioners who negotiated with the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix in 1784. This treaty provided that the United States received the Indians "into their protection." That clause has been regarded as the foundation of the concept of the Indian being a ward of the federal gov- ernment. 17 While the founding fathers discussed the Indian question very little, the Constitutional Convention did confer on Con- gress power "to regulate Commerce . . . with the Indian Tribes/' 18 Within a five-week period the first Congress en- acted four statutes concerning the red men, including the as- signment of Indian affairs to the Department of War. Exactly a month before the institution of this department its de facto secretary, General Henry Knox, wrote to Washington that many thought civilization of the Indians to be impracticable. 19 The immediate reaction of the first President is not known, is Felix S. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Washington. 1942), pp. 238-239. i? Ibid., p. 48. 18 The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 8. 19 July 7, 1789, American State Papers, Indian Affairs (Washington, 1832), I, 53 (hereafter cited as AS.P. f A Tradition of Protection and Care 9 but six years later he emphasized that in relations between white and red men the scales of justice must be balanced evenly. Washington added that civilizing the Indian would "reflect undecaying luster on our national character and administer the most grateful consolations that virtuous minds can know/' 20 While General Knox had expressed pessimism about achieving this goal, he nevertheless recommended that missionaries should be appointed to reside with the Indians. His suggestion was not adopted literally, but the first Congress did provide for agents to live among the red men in order to promote their wel- fare. 21 Fathers Jean Rivet and Pierre Janin were so commis- sioned by the government to go among the tribes of the Wa- bash and Illinois Countries, each to receive a salary of $200.00 annually from federal funds." 22 In reply to the proposal of John Carroll, first Catholic bishop in the United States, that the Indians be instructed in the prin- ciples and duties of Christianity, President Washington ex- plained that the hostilities then existing prevented any such action with the western Indians. For those in the northeastern part of the United States the President suggested that the mat- ter be taken up with the State of Massachusetts, of which com- monwealth they were inhabitants. 23 From the government's agent in what is now Maine, Bishop Carroll had heard the pre- vious year (1791), one John Allan having written to the Bishop of Baltimore to request a priest be sent to attend the Catholic Indians there. Not a Catholic himself, Allan praised the strict 20 Seventh annual address to Congress, December 8, 1795, James Daniel Richardson, editor, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Pres- idents (New York, 1897), I, 177. ?i ASJP. f LA., I, 54 ; 1 United States Statutes at Large, I, 331 (herb- after cited as $tat. L.). 22 Thomas Timothy McAvoy, The Catholic Church in Indiana, 1789-1834 (New York, 1940), pp. 77-78. Of the salary to Father Rivet a contempo- rary missionary, Father Charles Nerinckx, commented: "I would rather refuse the offer, because I have not the least doubt that the allowance is hurtful to freedom of religion, as too plainly appears from the papers left in the house of the deceased priest." Schmidlin, Catholic Mission History, translated by Matthias Braun, S.V.D. (Techny, Illinois, 1933), p. 688. 23 Jared Sparks, editor, The Writings of George Washington (Boston, 1836), X, 228-229. 10 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy adherence of his charges to what was termed "The Roman Catholic profession/' In addition, he ascribed their knowledge and devotion to the zeal of the French missionaries who had formerly labored among them. Already beleaguered by pleas from all sections of his nation- wide diocese for clergy he did not have, Carroll wrote to the Maine Indians on September 6, 1791, promising a priest as soon as available. Several more letters were exchanged between Carroll and Allan before the excesses of the French Revolution brought the Sulpician, Father Frangois Ciquard, to the United States. Thereupon, in a letter exuberant with gladness the bishop wrote to his "children in Jesus Christ" that the priest they desired was on his way to them. 24 For four years Ciquard fulfilled his difficult assignment. He then transferred to the Diocese of Quebec, and Father John Cheverus, another French refugee, took charge of these Indians. In 1798 the General Court of Massachusetts assumed a share of the expense by al- lotting a yearly salary of $200.00 for this ministry. Elsewhere the spirit of co-operation and support of Indian missionaries was reflected in the record. William Henry Har- rison, later the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, negotiated a treaty with the Kaskaskias in 1803, which stipulated: Whereas, the greater part of said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually for seven years one hundred dollars toward the support of a priest of that religion. The agreement provided that in addition to the duties of his of- fice, the priest was also to instruct the children in literature. 25 Education of the Indians by the missionaries in this manner re- 24 AAB, l-A-2, Indians to Carroll, Bay of Passamaquaddy, May 17, 1791 ; l-A-3, Allan to Carroll, n.p,, May 21, 1791 ; l-A-3^, Allan to Carroll, n.p., June 17, 1792; l-A-354, Carroll to Indians, Baltimore, n.d., 1792; l-A-4, Al- lan to Carroll, Passamaquaddy, July 28, 1792. Cf., Peter Guilday, The Life and Times of John Carroll (New York, 1922), II, 604-614. For the mean- ing of AAB and other symbols, cf. "Abbreviations used in Footnotes." 25 Charles J. Kappler, editor, Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, (Wash- ington, 1904), II, 67-68. A Tradition of Protection and Care 11 ceived congressional endorsement both in theory and practice during the first administration of James Monroe. A report of the House Committee on Indian Affairs in 1818 designated ed- ucation as the best method of civilizing the red men. A perma- nent annual appropriation of $10,000 was made for their indus- trial and scholastic training in 1819, and in the following year treaty annuities were assigned to the same purpose. In the ab- sence of federal machinery to implement the program mission- ary organizations were entrusted with the task. By 1842 $214,500 of federal funds had been expended for the work, with church societies supplying an additional $180,000 to ex- pand the teaching facilities. 26 What of the Indians themselves? were they hostile, passive, or eager for the word of God? A petition to Congress in 1823 by the Ottawas around Lake Michigan demonstrated the anxiety for missionaries by these tribesmen. As early as the seventeenth century they had known Jacques Marquette, S.J., the co-explorer of the Mississippi, but in the succeeding years spiritual attention was limited by the fewness of the clergy. When another French priest, this one a refugee from the revo- lution in his native land, stayed with the Ottawas in 1799, he was saddened by their plight. This Father Gabriel Richard, S.S., told Bishop Carroll that "English rum has destroyed more Indians than ever did the Spanish sword/' 27 Notwithstanding the degradation into which liquor had plunged them, Richard believed these Ottawas would one day want Christianity. He lived to see that conviction fully real- ized. The visits of the priest so impressed the Indians that on August 12, 1823, Blackbird and nearly a score of lesser Otta- 26 A.S.P., LA., II, 151; Stat. L., Ill, 516. The permanent annual ap- propriation was repealed February 14, 1873; Stat. L., XVII, 461. 27 p. Chrysostomus Verwyst, O.F.M., Life and Labors of Rt. Rev. Fred- eric Baraga (Milwaukee, 1900), p. 53. Richard was born at Saintes, France, on October 15, 1767, and died while attending the victims of a cholera epi- demic in Detroit on September 13, 1832. For an excellent account of the missionary labors of this 'gifted priest, cf., George Pare, The Catholic Church in Detroit, 1701-1888 (Detroit, 1951), pp. 267-385; for his efforts in behalf of the Indians, ibid. f pp. 592-596. 12 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy wa chiefs appealed to Congress for Catholic missionaries. 28 No immediate action was taken on this petition. However, while Father Francis Vincent Badin was caring for these red men as an itinerant missionary, in Washington Richard learned from the Secretary of War of the requirements for an allotment from the appropriation for education. 29 How well the early priests labored for their charges was given an oblique compli- ment in a comment about immigrants to Michigan in the 1830's. Therein it was said: Each group put up its own place of worship except the Catholics, who had found theirs waiting for them. These had been built by the missions ; the Jesuits and Recollects had a church for every fur-trading post, however remote. 30 The name of Gabriel Richard likewise figures in another in- stance of the friendly co-operation of the government with the Catholic missionaries to the Indians. While the delegate in Congress from Michigan Territory he was the instigator of federal aid to Indian missions around Lake Michigan. At the request of John C. Calhoun, who as Secretary of War was in charge of Indian affairs, the priest sent information about this so-called "Civilization Fund" to the Bishop of Cincinnati, Ed- ward D. Fenwick, O.P. Bishop Louis William Du Bourg of Louisiana also became aware of the offer of federal aid for work among the Indians. 31 Du Bourg went to Washington late in 1822, one of the rea- sons for his journey having been to arrange for the establish- ment of Catholic missions among the Indians along the Mis- 28 RBIA, Records of the Secretary of War for Indian Affairs, Black- bird et al. to the President, n,p., [August 12, 1823]. 29 Anon,, "Religion in Western States, 1824," American Catholic Histor- ical Researches, X (October, 1893), 154-156, printed Richard's report to the Bishop of Cincinnati on the Indian policy of the government. 30 Marguerite Merington, editor, The Custer Story (New York, 1950), p. 18. 31 Du Bourg to Father Pfhilip] Borgna, C.M., Washington, D. C., Feb- ruary 27, 1823. The original is in the Archives of the Congregation of the Propaganda, Rome; it was edited by John Rothensteiner, "Early Mission- ary Efforts among the Indians in Diocese of St. I^ouis " St. Louis Catholic Historical Review, II (April-July, 1920), 68-69. A Tradition of Protection and Care 13 souri River. Calhoun was sympathetic to his plan, and a yearly subsidy of $800 was granted for its fulfillment. On the same trip the bishop was delighted in having the Maryland Jesuits accept his invitation to undertake the evangelization of the Missouri tribesmen. Du Bourg wrote that in Washington "a hint was given me that the Government would be pleased to see the Fathers of the Society of Jesus take up these mis- sions." He happily recalled that eight years previously in Rome Pope Pius VII had made the same recommendation to him. 32 Having agreed with Du Bourg to the change, in 1823 the Jesuits transferred their novitiate to Florissant, Missouri. Among those who made the journey westward from Maryland was a young Belgian novice destined to become famous as an Indian missionary, Pierre-Jean DeSmet With the aid of the government allowance Father Charles Van Quickenborne, S. J., the superior, supervised the establishment of a boarding school for Indian lads at Florissant. Also in 1824 at nearby St. Ferdi- nand, Missouri, the Religious of the Sacred Heart opened a school for girls. The most renowned of these sisters was Mother Philippine Duchesne. In 1841, when she was seventy- two years of age and in poor health, Mother Duchesne persist- ed in setting out for the Potawatomi mission at Sugar Creek, Kansas, where she won from the Indians themselves the title of "the woman who prays always." 33 The progress which the Church had been making in her care of the Indians was complicated by developments in federal pol- icy during the presidency of Jackson. To replace the abolished office of Superintendent of Indian Trade, Secretary Calhoun 32 Du Bourg to the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda, Baltimore, March 29, 1823. The original is in the Archives of the Congregation of the Propa- ganda, Rome; it was edited in the St. Louis Catholic Historical Review, III (January- April, 1921), 130-132. For Calhoun's benevolent Indian policy, cf. Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun, Nationalist, 1782-1828 (New York, 1944), pp. 186,226, 296-297. 33 Gilbert J. Garraghan, S.J., The Jesuits of the Middle United States (New York, 1938), II, 207. Cf. ibid., I, 28-91, for a detailed discussion of the transfer of the Jesuits from Maryland to Missouri. Frederick Webb Hodge, editor, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Wash- ington, 1907) is followed for the spelling of all Indian names. 14 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy in 1824 set up the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Elbert Her- ring was named the first Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1832. An act passed by Congress two years later has since been regarded as the organic law of the Indian Office. In 1849 the Indian Bureau, which had long been staffed by civilians, was officially transferred from the War Department to the newly established Department of the Interior. 34 But it was not in the language of legal forms that the radical alteration in Indian relations occurred. As long as the tribes- men represented the balance of power between the contending forces of Spain, France, and England, they were treated as sov- ereign nations. The cession to the United States of Florida in 1819 by Spain removed the last shadow of possible foreign al- liance with the Indians. With relief had from this foreign pressure, force was to supplant treaty stipulations for imposing the will of the dominant race. More truly than the contro- versy over slavery an "irresistible conflict" was in the making because of the constant intrusion of white settlers into land re- served for the red men. Under James Monroe and John Quincy Adams voluntary and gradual emigration by the Indian was the national policy, but Andrew Jackson's impetuosity brooked no delays. The President attacked this problem with the same dispatch he had employed in quelling the Seminole disturbances on the southeastern frontier of the United States in 1818, In compliance with his demand, Jackson's first Con- gress in 1830 provided for removal of the original inhabitants of eastern states to the West. Ironically it was stated once again that these Indians would be vested with a perpetual title to the lands so exchanged. 35 Striving to halt this forced transfer, in the courts of the white man the civilized Cherokee Nation won a signal legal victory against the State of Georgia. Chief Justice John Mar- shall used the very terminology of the congressional legislation 34 Cohen, vp* cit., pp. 10-11. Section 9 of the Act of June 30, 1834, pro- vided that in appointments "a preference shall be given to persons of In- dian descent," 4 Stat. L,., 735. 35 Laurence F. Schmeckebier, The Office of Indian Affairs (Baltimore, 1927), p. 33. A Tradition of Protection and Care 15 in ruling that "such a measure could not be 'for their benefit and comfort' or for 'the prevention of injuries and oppres- sion/ " The decision excoriated the construction of the so- called treaty as surely resulting in the political extermination of these Indians. 36 Much sooner than the venerable justice an- ticipated was his direful prophecy fulfilled. "Old Hickory" ex- claimed: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it" With presidential blessing Georgia ignored the rul- ing of the United States Supreme Court. Jackson advised Congress at the commencement of his second administration that the removal had been a success, but almost as a refutation this same Twenty-Third Congress made an appropriation to re- lieve the distress of the Indians already expatriated. 37 Three-quarters of a century afterwards a favorable view of the removal policy was expressed by a student of the debated question, though it was granted that the action itself was hasty and incomplete. 38 At the time many writers refused this quali- fied endorsement. On his first trip up the Mississippi River in 1838 as a young missionary from France, Father Joseph Cretin, was dismayed at the sight of the discontented and dis- gruntled Creeks who were then being transported from their ancestral home in Georgia to Indian territory. 39 De Tocqueville was a critical contemporary foreign observer, while Frances Trollope desisted from her trenctiant digs at the Domestic Manners of the Americans to mourn: "If the American char- acter may be judged by their conduct in this matter, they are most lamentably deficient in every feeling of honour and in- tegrity." 40 36 Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Peters 553 (1832). 37 Congressional Globe, I, 386. In American Conflict (Hartford, 1865), I, 106, Horace Greeley wrote that Jackson's remark was told to him by Congressman George N. Briggs of Massachusetts. 38 Annie Heloise Abel, "The History of Events Resulting in Indian Con- solidation West of the Mississippi," American Historical Association, An- nual Report for the year 1906 (Washington, 1908), I, 412. 39 John Ireland, "Life of the Rt. Rev. Joseph Cretin, First Bishop of the Diocese of St. Paul," Ada et Dicta, V (July, 1918), 203. 40 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York, n.d.), I, 367-372. Trollope, op. cit. (New York, 1949), p. 221. 16 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy A moving first-hand account of the hardships attendant upon Indian removal was contained in the letters and journal of Fa- ther Benjamin-Marie Petit. An advocate in his native Rennes, France, Petit had accompanied Bishop Simon Brute to Vin- cennes, Indiana, where he was ordained a priest in October, 1837. His first and his only assignment was to the Potawatomi Indians near South Bend. In connection with an edict ordering his charges to Kansas, Petit stated : My heart is proudly Indian, and they themselves love me well, too. It is strange how God disposes all things through His providence: on this trip I gave advice to the sick, grandmother's advice; I prescribed bread-crumb poultices, applications of soap and sugar, and I am a great doctor among them. I took Father Frangois to see them in their rush huts, and he was very much surprised to hear me chat with them without an interpreter, as well as sing In- dian hymns during his Mass. I am astonished myself sometimes. I have a father's yearning for them, and I feel oppressed by a profound anguish whenever I think of seeing them forced to depart 41 During the march of exactly two months the priest recorded forty-three deaths in his journal. At the end of the three-mile- long procession rumbled forty baggage wagons. In some of these the sick were jolted over the rough roads, the canvas covers over the wagons more nearly suffocating than protecting these Indians from the burning sun. In Kansas Father Petit, through correspondence with General John Tipton, secured an allowance from Secretary of War Joel R. Poinsett to cover the erection of a house and chapel for his beloved Potawatomi. 42 Having entrusted his charges to a Jesuit missionary, Petit started homeward but died on the way, not yet two years a priest. 41 AAI, Petit to M. the Vicar General [Clestin de la Hailandiere] South Bend, Indiana, March 25, 1838. 42 Ibid., Petit to Monseigneur [Bishop Brute], Osage River, Indian Country, November 15, 1838. The facts of Petit's life are taken from Rothensteiner, "Early Missionary Efforts Among the Indians," op. cit.> A Tradition of Protection and Care 17 With the subsiding of open resistance, a more benign federal policy was discerned for the years after 1845. But the truth was uttered by William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, when he observed that it was vain to talk to starv- ing Indians about learning and religion. 43 Joseph Cretin, who had become the first Bishop of St. Paul in 1850, understood this fundamental fact. To Archbishop John Hughes of New York and to the future Archbishop of Baltimore, James Roo- sevelt Bayley, he related his success in obtaining in Washing- ton an educational grant for the Winnebagoes. But this tribe had been so harried by frequent removals from one alleged "permanent home" to another that the Bishop of St. Paul fore- saw that most of the money would have to be spent for the pri- mary needs of clothing and food, with little or nothing left for the expense of teaching the Indians. 44 Nevertheless, fortitude and zeal did partly overcome deficiencies such as this. During this same period the Indians of Upper Michigan were blessed with a missionary of remarkable talent and dogged determination. Frederick Baraga, who belonged to a branch of the Hapsburg imperial house in the Austrian Empire, had been the first candidate sent by the Leopoldine Society of Vien- na for work among the American Indians. Having arrived in New York on the last day of 1830, Baraga met the Michigan Indians for the first time the following May. At this time he had been a stranger to the country and to the English as well as the Indian languages, but notwithstanding, a little more than a year later he came to Detroit to have his own Indian reading- and prayer-book printed. This work of Baraga was the first book ever published in the pure Ottawa tongue, and later he translated a revised and extended edition of 300 pages into the Chippewa language. These literary achievements, and the fact his weight did not exceed 100 pounds, might argue against Baraga having done much work in the field; yet the contrary was, nevertheless, true. To reach his charges in the winter 43 Schmeckebier, op. cif., p. 41. 44 AANY, Cretin to Hughes, St. Paul, August 12, 1852; Cretin to Bay- ley, St. Paul, January 15, 1853. 18 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy INDIAN MISSIONS IN MICHIGAN Map made by Frederick Baraga in 1833 From original in the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library A Tradition of Protection and Care 19 months he traveled on snow shoes through deep drifts and bit- ter temperatures, on one occasion walking twenty-four con- secutive hours with no shelter nor rest. 45 If forced removal had hampered and curtailed the spiritual care of the Indians affected, the secularization of the California missions in the 1830's by the Mexican government almost stifled it in the West and Southwest. It has been stated that "Indian education was almost entirely carried on by mission- ary groups/' and it was no exaggeration to add that the padres were not only scholars but often able organizers, too. 46 Any question about the necessity for the continuance of the Spanish paternalism was answered by the rapid degeneration of the In- dians, once the mission property cared for by the Franciscans had been confiscated by greedy Mexican politicians. In stark contrast to the attention the missionaries had devoted to him, the Indian of California was neglected entirely for forty years. All title of these red men to the mission lands, which had been held for them by the Franciscan padres, was lost through fail- ure of the Indians to comply with congressional legislation of 1851, a fact of which, of course, they were unaware. A solu- tion which was by no means unique was offered by Indian Agent John Wilson in the gold rush year of 1849; he judged northern Utah to be unfit for white settlement and so proposed that it be made a home for the Indians ! 47 Approximately 7,000 Indians in the Pacific Northwest were more fortunate in several respects. True enough, the "fire- water" distributed among them early in the nineteenth century had the usual degrading effect on the red men. The American 45 Richard R. Elliott, "Frederick Baraga Among the Ottawas," Amer- ican Catholic Quarterly Review, XXI (January, 1896), 111-121; ibid., "The Chippewas of Lake Superior," XXI (April, 1896), 370. Consecrated in 1853, Baraga became the first Bishop of Sault Ste Marie (now Marquette), Michigan, in 1857. He died in 1868. Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Sanc- tity in America (Paterson, New Jersey, 1941), pp. 53-56. 46 Edward Everett Dale, The Indians of the Southwest (Norman, 1949), p. 175 ; Adams, op. cit. t p. 7. Cf. Gerald J. Geary, The Secularization of the California Missions, 1810-1846 (Washington, 1934). 47 Alban W. Hoopes, Indian Affairs and Their Administration with Spe- cial Reference to the Par West, 1849-1860 (Philadelphia, 1932), pp. 132-133. 20 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy government, moreover, was charged with doing nothing to pre- vent commerce with vagabond white men. On the other hand, for many years these Indians were blessed with the beneficent influence of Dr. John McLoughlin, agent of the Hudson's Bay Company. And long before "Fifty-four-forty or fight" had been a presidential campaign slogan in the American states, Fathers Francis N. Blanche! and Modeste Demers, two mission- aries from Canada, had been at work in the territory south of Vancouver. A striking instance of so-called savages longing for a "black gown/' as the Catholic missionary was called, was given by the Nez Perce and Flathead Indians of the North- west. As early as 1820 these Indians had learned something of the doctrine and practices of the Church from French-Cana- dian trappers. To gain a fuller knowledge four separate dele- gations were sent to far-distant St. Louis (in 1831, 1835, 1837, and 1839) to ask that a priest be given them. The first bishop of the Missouri trading post, Joseph Peter Rosati, could do no more than hold out a hope to the petitioners because of the lack of clergy. 48 Left-handed Peter and Young Ignatius, the two volunteers for the trip of 1839, on their way to St. Louis met Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet at the Jesuit mission for the Potawatomi at Council Bluffs. DeSmet was selected to return with them in 1840, and in the spring of the following year he crossed the great plains to open the first American Catholic Indian mission west of the Rocky Mountains, 49 More will be said of this Bel- gian-born Jesuit who had journeyed to Missouri in 1823 as a religious novice from Whiternarsh, Maryland. "Until his death in 1873 his dominant interest and concern were the Indians, and in his labors for the salvation of the red men he became 48 Two of the Flatheads died while in St. Louis and were buried from the St. Louis Cathedral, Book of Sepultures, St. Louis "Old Cathedral," entries of October 3-1 and November 17, 1831. 49 Garraghan, op. cit., II, 248. Cf. Rothensteiner, "The Flat Head and Nez Perce Delegation to St. Louis, 1831-1839," 5*. Louis Catholic His- torical Review, II (October, 1920), 183-197. Garraghan and others have rendered the Jesuit missionary's name De Smet, which apparently is in conformity with the priest's handwriting. The writer has, however, de- cided to follow the practice of other authors in using DeSmet. A Tradition of Protection and Care 21 highly valuable to the white men as well. In 1852 Senator Thomas H. Benton wrote that Father DeSmet could do more for peace than "an army with banners/ 1 adding that this was not only his own opinion but that of the authorities in Wash- ington as well. 50 DeSmet traveled about 180,000 miles, in- cluding nineteen trans-Atlantic voyages, on behalf of the In- dians. The Civil War diverted national attention from the monu- mental work of DeSmet and the other missionaries; in fact, concern for civilizing the Indian receded far into the back- ground. Several other developments during the 1860's were baneful to the temporal happiness of the red men and, of course, reacted adversely on spiritual development The Home- stead Act of 1862, as an instance, resulted in the pre-emption of 15,000 tracts during the war years, which was but one of the ways that the range was wrenched from the copper-skinned hand, no longer gradually but almost over night. With over seven million acres of land having been disposed of annually by this method, hunting parties shooting from trains merely accelerated the extinction for the plains Indian of his staff of life, the buffalo. Few concrete proposals for the betterment of the lot of the redskin were offered during this decade. Yet the pressing need might have been deduced from a special survey which revealed the California Indians had been reduced in numbers to 21,000. For several years Congress considered setting up boards of in- vestigation for the condition of the Indian, but the proposal finally was rejected. The expanding westward migration con- firmed the system of confining the redskins to reservations, though this method tended to rob the Indian of his distinctive culture. In the administration of this policy little effort was made to abide by 1 the provisions of the act of 1834, which had called for staffing the Indian service with tribesmen whenever possible. Instead a whole horde of white functionaries was attached to each reservation, and the Indian agent set the tenor 50 AMP, IX, D-2, Benton to DeSmet, St. Louis, April 7, 1852. 22 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy for all. Too frequently this official was approved by his con- gressman solely on the score of the votes he had produced. The agent and his subordinates often justified the condemnation of Episcopalian Bishop Henry B. Whipple, who once said; "They are often men without any fitness, sometimes a disgrace to a Christian nation; whiskey sellers, barroom loungers, debauch- ees, selected to guide a heathen people." 61 As the squeaky wheel of the old prairie schooner was the one greased, on a higher level of authority the policy was to appease the tribes which were prone to take the war path. In 1852 Superintendent Edward F. Beale, for instance, proposed using the entire appropriation for California for the southern tribes of that state because only from them did he fear an out- break. 52 A recent student of the question has explained the odious comparison with Canadian Indian policy by pointing out that the United States promised more than actually was done, while the Dominion government, initially not so heavily committed, pleased their Indians with unexpected concessions. 53 Representative James A. Garfield (the later President) ex- pressed the general feeling of 1869 in charging that "no branch of the national government is so spotted with fraud, so tainted with corruption, so utterly unworthy of a free and enlightened government, as this Indian department." 54 Yet there were re- freshing exceptions that did not contribute to the deteriora- tion of Indian morale which oftentimes stemmed from the cor- ruption of their guardians. An 1869 decision of the New Mexico Supreme Court de- clared that less "vastly less" crime would be found among a thousand of the worst of the Pueblo Indians than among an equal number "of the best Mexicans or Americans in New 51 Schmeckebier, op. dt. } pp. 47-52. 52 Beale to Luke Lea, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. September 30, 1852, Sen. Doc. 4, pp. 366-367. 53 Loring Benson Priest, Uncle Sam's Stepchildren (New Brunswick, 1942), p. 173. Episcopalian Bishop Whipple urged that the United States government imitate the Canadian method. The Churchman [New Yorkl. XXXIII (March 3, 1877), 8. 54 Congressional Globe, 40 Cong., 3 sess., p. 881. A Tradition of Protection and Care 23 Mexico." 55 Again, a United States Indian agent reported of the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles : "The missionary labors of the reverend Fathers have not been in vain, for many of them are exemplary Christians." 56 To these Flatheads Father DeSmet had gone almost thirty years before in answer to their repeated pleas to the Bishop of St. Louis, but others were equally faithful without having been actually received into the Church. Because of lack of time for full instructions this Belgian-born priest had not baptized Pananniapapi (The Man that strikes the Ree) when he first met the Yankton head-chief in 1844; nevertheless, for twenty- two years the chief and his tribe waited for the missionary's return. Pananniapapi was not satisfied with baptism alone when the sacrament at last was given him in 1866. A letter signed by him and other Yankton chiefs, written shortly there- after, begged for the Catholic teachers whom the "Great Fa- ther" in Washington had promised. Not only did he want the children of his tribe taught what he called "your religion," but he also asked that all be instructed in the American language and manners, for "we know enough," he wrote, "of the Indian ways." 57 The military, too, judged DeSmet to have been a valuable ally. William T. Sherman in 1866 echoed the accepted opin- ion of those who were dealing with Indians on the frontier. The general informed the officers of the Mississippi military 65 Cohen, op. cit. t p. 387. In 1876 the United States Supreme Court said of these same Indians : "Since the introduction of the Spanish Catholic mis- sionary into the country, they have adopted mainly not only the Spanish language, but the religion of a Christian church. In every pueblo is erected a church, dedicated to the worship of God, according to the form of the Roman Catholic religion, and in nearly all is to be found a priest of this church, who is recognized as their spiritual guide and adviser. . . . The criminal records of the courts of the Territory scarcely contain the name of a pueblo Indian. In short, they are a peaceable, industrious, intelligent, honest, and virtuous people"; ibid., pp. 387-388. 56 M. M. McCauley to E. S. Parker, Missoula Mills, Montana Territory, September 27, 1839; C.I.A., 1869 (Washington, 1870), p. 294. 57 AMP, IX, D-12, The Man That Strikes the Ree, et d., to DeSmet, Greenwood, D. T., July 26, 1866. Cf. Sister Mary Claudia Duratschek, O.S.B., Crusading Along Sioux Trails (St. Meinrad, Indiana, 1947), pp. 48-51. 24 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy division that every possible assistance was to be given to this Jesuit, for, Sherman added, he "has always been noted for his strict fidelity to the interests of our Government, for indefatig- able industry, and an enthusiastic love for the Indians under his charge." 58 DeSmet, for his part, found that the co-operation of the army was of great assistance to his spiritual embassy to the Indians. Fair dealing with the Indians was the essence of his recommendations to the government officials for the at- tainment of improved relations between the red and the white men. Apparently DeSmet acquiesced in the ultimate consign- ment of all tribes to reservations, but he counseled Nathaniel G. Taylor, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, that patience on the part of the federal government was required. 59 Less than a year after this advice had been offered in 1867, DeSmet ably fulfilled his priestly role of the ambassador of the Prince of Peace by what his biographers have entitled as "the most important mission of his whole career." 60 Sitting Bull had sworn to kill the first white man he saw, and still the priest, alone, went to the mighty chief amidst 5,000 war-inflamed Sioux in their southern Dakota camp. It was solely due to DeSmet' s influence that a treaty of peace was signed on July 2, 1868, by Sitting Bull and all the chiefs. The twin loves of this Jesuit were, as General Sherman had discerned, his adopted country and her native Indians. Upon his return from Belgium the following summer of 1869, he exclaimed : "Though old and pretty much broken, I continue to feel great interest in the welfare of the Indians." 61 That 68 AMP, IX A, Sherman to "All Officers of the Army within this Mili- tary Division," St. Louis, April 9, 1866 (AMP, IX, A, the same day a let- ter of commendation of DeSmet was written by Peter Richard Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis). 59 AMP, IX-DeSmetiana, D-12, DeSmet to Taylor, St. Louis, Septem- ber n,d., 1867, copy. 60 Hiram M. Chittenden and Albert T. Richardson, eds., Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre- Jean DeSmet, $J., 1801-1873 (New York, 1905), I, 92. The famed New York Republican, Thurlow Weed, said of DeSmet: "Every administration sought his services as a mediator of peace." Western Watchman (St. Louis), April 24, 1875. 61 DeSmet to Madam [Mrs. W. T. Sherman], St. Louis, July 21, [18] 69; the original is in the possession of Miss Eleanor Sherman Fitch of New York City. A Tradition of Protection and Care 25 welfare for him was primarily their spiritual life. In this same letter he spoke feelingly of the Upper Missouri tribes. These Indians, he said, had for years earnestly begged for religious instruction from " black gowns/' but co-operation from the government was needed for the enterprise. And in 1870 he reminded the Indian commissioners that the Sioux chiefs, at the very moment Sitting Bull and the others had signed the 1868 peace treaty, had asked that Catholic priests be given them for the instruction of their children. 62 The government had done nothing toward fulfilling the promise. DeSmet was not attempting to speak for the Catholic Church, but his successful labors among the Indians commanded re- spect in every quarter as the problem of handling the red race grew increasingly acute. Yet it was very gradually and with hesitant steps that the federal government attempted to solve this perplexing question. Only a few small day schools for Indians had been operating, and these were but a token of the many which were called for by treaties. Reviving the dictum of the House of Representatives committee of 1818 that edu- cation was the most potent accelerator of civilization, Ulysses S. Grant's administration sponsored a vast expansion of the school program. 63 Notwithstanding this step forward, the lack of religious in- struction in federal Indian schools rendered them insufficient for a people who for centuries had been steeped in the super- stition of crafty medicine men. The Indian might be in- structed, but the education of the whole man was not achieved. That need was supplied for a few by the opening of the first contract school on September 12, 1869, under the direction of the Reverend Eugene C. Chirouse on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington Territory. Under this system the government paid a fixed sum for each Indian child of this Puget Sound 62 AMP, IX-DeSmetiana, DeSmet to Indian Commissioners, St. Louis, January 5, 1870, copy. 63 Stat. L., XVI, 359. On July 15, 1870, $100,000 was appropriated for the support of industrial and other schools among the Indian tribes not oth- erwise provided for. 26 Catholic Mission and Grant's Peace Policy area. About fifty children were taught academic subjects, re- ligion, and vocational arts by the staff, which consisted of two assistants to Chirouse and three Sisters of Charity. 64 Another scheme, originally proposed by representatives of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was for a citizens' supervi- sory board. A group of Philadelphians having made a similar suggestion in 1869, President Grant heartily approved and Congress eagerly adopted the experiment. The initial inten- tion Vas for the Board of Indian Commissioners, as it was called, to supervise and control the disbursement of all appro- priations for Indians. However, Grant's first Secretary of the Interior, Jacob D. Cox, objected, and the measure was amended to have the board exercise joint control with the Indian Office. 65 The Board of Indian Commissioners was thus organized at a meeting on May 26, 1869, and William Welsh of Philadelphia was named chairman, assisted by eight other volunteers. "No difficulty was found in securing the services of men of the highest character and known benevolence," exulted Cox. But retaining them, he discovered, was to be quite another matter. Foreseeing that the group's powers were to be emasculated already begun through, its lack of control over expenditures Welsh promptly resigned. 66 Felix Brunot of Pittsburgh suc- ceeded, but the board suffered a progressive decrease of influ- ence throughout its existence, although its life extended to 1933. Meanwhile the club over the Indians of superior military force had never been forsaken. In addition to not effecting peace, this was the most expensive phase of the United States policy. Before the Civil War it had been conceded that it was cheaper to feed the Indians for a year than to fight them for a 64 Anon., "Father Chirouse and the United States Government," Indian Sentinel, I (January, 1918), 18. In the same issue was a biographical sketch, "Reverend Eugene Casimir Chirouse, O.M.I./' by Charles M. Bu- chanan, pp. 10-14. 65 Elsie Mitchell Rushmore, The Indian Policy Duping Grant's Adminis- trations (Jamaica, New York, 1914), pp. 19-21. 66 RBI A, Miscellaneous Correspondence, L.R., W339J4 Welsh to E. S. Parker, Philadelphia, June 27, 1869. A Tradition of Protection and Care 27 single day. Again, according to an official estimate of 1870, more than $1,000,000 had been spent for every Indian killed in warfare. Notwithstanding, General Sherman had told Grant in 1866: "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and chil- dren. 3 ' 67 Two years later, as has been related, Father DeSmet had persuaded this same Indian nation to agree to a peace treaty without a shot or an arrow having been fired. 68 The next move was the herald of a radical, far-reaching al- teration in the Indian service. On September 14, 1867, the Weekly Chronicle of Washington, D. C., had suggested that the Society of Friends be enlisted in the work for the red men. In his initial message to Congress two years later Grant an- nounced that the management of a few reservations was to be given to the Friends. The President declared that his choice stemmed from the historic friendliness between the Pennsyl- vania Quakers and the redskins, without making any reference to the rupture of that amity soon after the death of William Penn. One authority has ascribed the proposal of the Presi- dent rather to a desire to circumvent senatorial opposition to his appointments. 69 In presenting this idea Grant had given no hint that any other religious societies were receiving consideration for Indian work. Actually there was to be no place for them, for the ad- ministration intended placing the remaining agencies under army officers who were soon to be mustered out of service be- cause of a reduction in force. This latter plan had to be tabled when Congress hastily erected a barrier of the "feather-bed- ding" by closing the doors of civilian service to the retired military men. 70 With this avenue blocked but the Indian prob- lem remaining unsolved, in the following December President Grant announced his Peace Policy. 67 Lloyd Lewis, Sherman, Fighting Prophet (New York, 1932), p. 597. 68 Supra, p. 24. 69 Richardson, op. cit. f IX, 3992-3993. Cf, Schmeckebier, op. cit., p. 54. 70 $tat. L., 315, 319. 28 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy As a new chapter in the relations between the white and red races was being opened, it would be well to evaluate the ac- complishments of the Catholic Church among the American Indians up to 1870. The ideal of the conversion of all of them, held forth to the Spanish from the first contact with this pagan people, had not been realized else no Indian problem would have existed. Notwithstanding, there was glory for the Church in her predominance in the field in which her Indian mission- aries had been the pioneers. Though restrictions had been im- posed upon Catholics in all of the thirteen original colonies, the attempt to guide the redskin toward Christianity had never been entirely forsaken even under those conditions. With the establishment of the republic the external limita- tions to missionary activity were in general removed, but the Church was hampered from within by a dearth of both mate- rial and human resources. As far as possible the evangelization of the red men was expanded, however, and in this effort the Church had received encouragement and sometimes assistance from the federal government. During almost a century of American independence the names of outstanding Catholic mis- sionaries had become synonymous with the promotion of In- dian welfare. This success in widely separated sections of the United States and with red men of virtually every tribe and nation was a favorable omen for further progress under the program then being launched by President Grant. CHAPTER II GROPING TOWARD UNIFIED ACTION The year of 1869 brought the inauguration of the first Pres- ident whose administration had not even a partial involvement in the War Between the States. While reconstruction still had eight years to run, the country was then far enough removed from actual hostilities for many people to have a quickened in- terest in the problem and the plight of the Indian. Congres- sional attention had been officially called to the serious situa- tion by the report in January, 1867, of a joint special commit- tee. 1 While the report itself was out-dated because based on surveys made two years before, Congress and the people were made aware of the need for correction of conditions. In addi- tion to the moral obligation many influential citizens demanded action because of their financial interest in the construction of railroads to the west. Congress accordingly established a so- called "peace commission," 2 which did nothing to alter Indian policy though recommending administrative changes. The agreements which this commission made with the tribes were nullified by the failure of the legislative branches of the govern- ment to appropriate funds for the fulfillment of the promises to the Indians. 3 By the last year of the 1860's many public offi- cials and private citizens had become aroused to the point of insisting upon a betterment of the entire Indian administration. As an explanation for the treatment, as well as the abject poverty of the Indian, it had been freely asserted by many that the aborigines would not work. The persistent encroachment of white men upon the lands of the red men was a powerful 1 Senate Reports, 39th Congress, 2 sess., No. 156. 2 Act of July 20, 1867, Stat. L., 15:17. 3 R.S.I., 1869 (Washington, 1869), p. 9. Cf. "Abbreviations Used in Footnotes" for meaning" of symbols. 29 30 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy deterrent to care and cultivation, as the Board of Indian Com- missioners pointed out in the initial report of that body. Again, the annuity system supplied the red men with more than ample provisions for the satisfaction of their simple wants. For ex- ample, in this very year of 1869 the government supply de- partment fixed the food allowance for every Sioux, whether a papoose or an ambitious brave, at a pound and a half of beef daily, with a variety of other rations in corresponding quanti- ties. 4 For a nation totally uninterested in providing for the distant and uncertain future, little incentive was present for toiling in the sun with a hoe or a plow. William Welsh, Philadelphia philanthropist, had resigned his position as first chairman of the Board of Indian Commission- ers only a little more than three weeks after President Grant had issued his executive order confirming the establishment of the commission. Grant's message confutes the assertion of the first report of the Board for 1869, wherein it was said that the presidential order was for the purpose of confirming the powers of the commissioners. An inspection of Grant's directive of June 3, 1869, reveals not a vestige of authority had been con- ferred. The most that the commissioners could do was to in- spect and advise. 5 Nevertheless, the areas in which the Indian tribes were living were divided among the volunteer members, and a meticulous inspection of actual conditions was planned. The very prominence of the volunteer members of the board ar- gued against their possessing the physical energy or the time for personal visits to the rough terrain still inhabited by the aborigines. It developed that ill health and the pressure of business were the exact excuses offered. These, coupled with the tesignation of Welsh as chairman, limited the inspection tour to the southern district alone. However they may have been denuded of jurisdiction, the members still did not lack courage to name abuses they en- 4 DeWitt C. Poole, Among The Sioux of Dakota (New York, 1881), p. 46. 5 B.I.C., 1869 (Washington, 1870), p. 6, referring to Ulysses S. Grant's letter of June 3, 1869. Groping Toward Unified Action 31 countered, the blame for which was directed mainly against the white race. Indian outbreaks were recognized as having occurred, but these were called exceptional and due to the white men having heaped up "a sickening record of murder, outrage, robbery, and wrongs. " The board report observed that the principal hurdle to be surmounted in bringing about the civili- zation of the red men was the white man. Secretiveness, bar- barity, and theft, if true of some of the Indians, were labeled as vices acquired from their white "guardians and protectors," for the descendants of the original inhabitants of the United States were recognized as wards of the government Several legal and administrative changes were suggested, but these were not expected to affect the core of the problem. For a true guardianship by the white man which would im- prove his red neighbor the report recommended educating the Indian. And this training was not to be merely in worldly knowledge but in the totality of human living through the truths of Christianity. Pertinent for this study is the sentence which reads : "The teachers employed should be nominated by some religious body having a mission nearest to the location of the school/' 6 This conclusion of the board members was not the first of its kind reached by representatives of the federal Indian service. The previous year Commissioner of Indian Affairs Nathaniel G. Taylor had condemned the federal policy as a violation of the national veneration of liberty and of the fundamental principles of Christianity. For harmonious rela- tions Taylor insisted that both ideals must be cherished. 7 From an administrative viewpoint the failure in the past with Indian affairs has been ascribed to the conflict over authority between the two cabinet departments of War and the Interior. A third component was added to the administrative machinery in the Board of Indian Commissioners, but it was sadly lacking in actual control. Chairman William Welsh, as has been noted, recognized that the board's authority over expenditures had Ibid., pp. 8-10. The italics are the writer's. CJ.A., 1868 (Washington, 1869), p. 16. 32 Catholic Missions and Grant* s Peace Policy been nullified by Grant's letter of June 3, 1869. At once Welsh resigned. The other members were unwilling to take the same action, being placated by the assurance of the Secretary of the Interior that power would be conferred as the need was demon- strated. 8 It may be said by way of anticipation that the philan- thropists never were vested with anything more than a purely advisory office. With the passage of time the voice of the group became increasingly less potent in affecting the procedure of professional politicians and office holders. This same year of 1869 brought into the thrice-divided ad- ministration a fourth participant in this ring of physicians for the sick Indian. Members of the Society of Friends from Iowa capitalized on the previous newspaper suggestion in favor of that religious body by having an audience with the Presi- dent-elect, Ulysses S. Grant. On January 25 these Friends met with the successful presidential candidate of the Republican Party. They presented a petition for "a more liberal and at- tentive consideration of the welfare of the Indians than had recently been given to the subject by his immediate predeces- sors/' 9 The very next day a committee headed by Thomas Wistar and speaking for a Philadelphia assembly of the Quak- ers interviewed the future President for the same purpose. Both delegations reported a sympathetic hearing from Grant and his agreement with their desire to improve the lot of the Indian. 10 Grant acted upon the approach made by the Friends by hav- ing one of his aids, the Seneca Indian Ely S. Parker, write identical letters the following February 15 to the two branches of this religious denomination, called the Orthodox and the Liberal (or Hicksites) in contemporary accounts. Therein the promise was made that Grant as President would do all he could to assist and encourage the Friends in caring for the In- 8 RSI, ID, L.S., VIII, 327-330, Jacob D. Cox to Felix R. Brunot, Wash- ington, July 5, 1869. 9 B.I.C., 1870 (Washington, 1871), p. 93. 10 Kelsey, Friend* and the Indians, 1655-1917, p. 167. Groping Toward Unified Action 33 dian. Positive action was indicated by Parker asking that the Society of Friends submit the names of members who had been approved for the position of Indian agents. After the inauguration of Grant for his first term on March 4, 1869, additional meetings were held between leaders of the Friends and of the government. Various tribes in the Middle West were assigned to agents named by the two branches of the So- ciety. What was known as the Central Superintendency, which encompassed some of the red men in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and the State of Kansas, was placed in charge of the Orthodox Friends. Nebraska tribes farther north were as- signed to the Hicksites, and in this Northern Superintendency as well as in the south the superintendent, as well as the agents under him, were to be chosen by the Friends. 11 By the summer of 1869 the new plan was in operation. In his report for that year Ely S. Parker, who was Grant's first Commissioner of Indian Affairs, hailed its success. 12 His su- perior, Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox, explained that it was felt the naming of the Friends would indicate to the na- tion that peaceful relations with the Indians was the object sought. He added that it was not implied that the Friends were the only ones wh,o were so qualified by honesty and good intentions. 13 A section of the first of Grant's annual messages to Congress was devoted to an explanation of the move. Therein the President, on December 6, 1869, said that the friendly har- mony between Indians and whites two centuries before in the colony of Pennsylvania was still remembered by the country. He lauded the Friends for their own peacefulness, as well as their honesty and fairness as a group. All these considerations, the President said, had prompted the entrusting of a few reser- vations to them under the supervision of agents selected by the society itself. 14 11 Ibid., pp. 168-169, 187. 12 C.I.A., 1869 (Washington, 1870), p. 5. i RS.L, 1869, p. 10, 14 Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, IX, 3992-3993. 34 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy In his words about the Indian service Grant had not ex- pressed any intention of extending the care of the tribesmen to other religious groups, save the 25,000 entrusted to the Friends. The record indicates that he had no such plan, for the Department of the Interior report carried the proposal of giving the remaining Indian agencies to military officers. These men were awaiting orders because of reduction in force from 34,000 to 30,000. As had been done for the Friends, an ap- peal was made to the public to give these officers full confidence as Indian agents. 15 Strictly as party measures no effective opposition could have been mustered to the administration's program, for the Forty- First Congress included only nine Democratic senators and seventy-five representatives of the same political affiliation. But Grant as President continued to act as the commander of the Union army. 16 Few of the senators and then only his close friends had been consulted in this first year of his adminis- tration. Yet the approval of the Senate was required in the appointment of Indian agents. Congress promptly gave the Civil War hero a lesson in the observance of congressional protocol by enacting, on January 21, 1870, a measure which forbade the placing of army officers in civil positions. The following July 15 further legislation forced army officers to choose between retaining appointments as Indian agents or re- linquishing their commissions. In consequence more than 5,000 vacated posts, and some fifty Indian agencies were open. 17 This law was posterior to the original commissioning of the Society of Friends with the two midwestern Indian super in- tendencies already mentioned. Hence the extension of the pol- icy to all reservations at this time seems to have been a direct result of the thwarting of Grant's plan for his former com- rades in arms. is R.S.I., 1869, p. 10. 16 E. Benjamin Andrews, History of the Last Quarter-Century in the United States, 1870-1895 (New York, 1896), I, 23-24. l? Martha L. Edwards, "A Problem of Church and State in the 1870's/' Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XI (June, 1924), 47. Groping Toward Unified Action 35 To Vincent Coyler of New York, secretary of the recently formed Board of Indian Commissioners, has been given credit for proposing that the management of the Indian reservations throughout the United States be turned over to the missionary societies. Through the Secretary of the Interior the sugges- tion was brought to the attention of Grant. The President probably gave provisional approval, for Colyer proceeded to New York to confer with representatives of religious bodies having offices in that city. In person or by letter Colyer con- tacted the respective secretaries of the missionary boards. These included Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Protestant Episco- pal, Reformed, American Episcopal, and Congregational Churches, together with Dr. Samuel B. Treat, secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The office of getting in touch with the Catholics was given to Wil- liam F. Cady, a Catholic who was chief clerk in the Indian Of- fice. These men having agreed to the tentative proposal, (with the approval of the President) Colyer began official corre- spondence with the missionary groups. 18 In the commission- ers' report for 1870 these letters were reproduced, but no ref- erence was made to communicating with the Catholics save a single statement in Colyer's letter of June 25, 1870. To the secretary of the American Episcopal Missionary Society, he said : "The Roman Catholics will take hold with eagerness." 19 Ultimately Colyer reported acceptance of the responsibility of naming Indian agents by all of the groups consulted. The Indian Office not having information on the location of mis- sion schools, the Secretary of the Interior was supplied with data by Colyer. The secretary had visited some of the Indian tribes the previous fall of 1869. 20 Accordingly, on December 5, 1870, President Grant made the formal announcement of the launching of his Indian policy in his second annual message to Congress. Because the following paragraph was so often cited is BJ.C., 1870, p. 4. 19 Ibid., p. 95. 20 B.I.C., 1869, p. 6. 36 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy in later discussion, this part of his statement is quoted in full. Indian agencies being civil offices, I determined to give all the agencies to such religious denominations as had hith- erto established missionaries among the Indians and per- haps to some other denominations who would undertake the work on the same terms that is, as missionary work. 21 One commentator has ascribed much of the succeeding con- troversy over the assignment of the red men to the vague word- ing by the President. 22 Regardless of the interpretation, Grant spoke of what had already taken place. The initial designa- tion of agencies had been made the previous summer in abso- lute conformity with the recommendations of Colyer, secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners. In a comparatively brief letter of August 11, 1870, Colyer had answered a request made the day before by Secretary Cox. Therein he made an apportionment of the Indian tribes of almost the whole United States. With his letter Colyer presented a sketch or map, and together with the board report for 1870 these indicate that the assignments were made primarily according to geographical propinquity. In other words, not one, but several Indian na- tions in an area were entrusted to the same religious denomina- tion. 23 On August 20 Secretary Cox advised that he had writ- ten to the various missionary associations the previous day, in- viting them to take charge of the agencies which had been allot- ted to them. Catholics were not included among the groups which Cox had addressed, but the final paragraph of his letter read : "The missions in California and other places, under the control of the Catholics, are not embraced in the foregoing list, but are included in the general plan." 24 By a curious juxtaposition a letter of Father Pierre J. De- Smet was placed in the report immediately after Colyer's letter 21 Richardson, op. cit., IX, 4063-4064. 22 Rushmore, The Indian Policy During Grant's Administrations, p. 28. 28 B.I.C., 1870, pp. 5, 98. Colyer's map was not reproduced nor could it be found in the files of the Board of Indian Commissioners. _ 2 4 RBIC, L.R., Tray 118, Cox to Felix R. Brunot, Washington, August 20, 18/0. Groping Toward Unified Action 37 to Cox. 25 Therein the Jesuit told of the repeated appeals of the Sioux and other tribes for "black gowns." He also mentioned that the Catholic missions among the Potawatomi and the Osages had been highly successful for the preceding twenty years. DeSmet's letter was the sole communication from a Catholic representative printed in the report. Notwithstanding his statement, Colyer had recommended the assignment of the Indians mentioned to other than Catholics. Two changes were made in original assignments in time to have been included in the second report of the Indian Com- missioners. The Nez Perce reservation in Idaho had been placed in charge of the Catholic Church, but on February 1, 1871, Grant ordered this reservation at Lapwai, Idaho, reas- signed to the Presbyterians. Colyer, as a result of his trip to the West, also reported that the Umatilla Reserve in Oregon, previously designated for the Methodists, should be given to the Catholics. Father G. Adolphe Vermeersch, S.J., had been the only teacher of these Indians for six years, and prior to his coming the tribe had repeatedly asked for a priest. The Presi- dent approved the recommendation and directed that this res- ervation be given to the Catholic Church. 26 In the month following Grant's formal announcement of the entrusting of Indian agencies to religious bodies the annual conference of the Board of Indian Commissioners convened in Washington. To this council a number of missionary figures were invited, thus rendering it the first joint conference of the board members with the representatives of religious societies engaged in Indian work. In addition to seven Indian Commis- sioners, present also at this gathering on January 3, 1871, were thirteen members of various religious groups. Ely S. Parker, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Columbus Delano, of Mount Vernon, Ohio, who had succeeded Cox as Secretary of 25 B J.C., 1870, p. 99. 26 Ibid., pp. 33-36. 1871 is the correct year instead of 1S70 as given in the Report A variant spelling of the missionary's name was Vermersch. Reserve is used as a synonym for reservation by the United States Indian Office. 38 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy the Interior, spoke for the government. Pierre J. DeSmet, who had been working for the Indians almost since his arrival in Missouri in the year 1823, represented the Catholic Church at this joint session. Three months afterwards he wrote a re- port of the proceedings, which will be discussed fully later. Though the official report of the meeting is in summary form, two declarations by Secretary Delano are worthy of not- ing. ' First, the head of the Department of the Interior told the missionary representatives that the agents named by them were to be entirely responsible to the religious societies. "The only right we reserve is the right of instantaneous dismissal where they are unworthy." 27 Yet in his remarks before quit- ting the assembly Delano said something quite different relative to the same Indian agents. While the nomination of a man for an agency by the denomination to which it had been as- signed would be tantamount to confirmation, Delano cautioned that "the Administration will reserve to itself the right to chop off the political heads of your friends whenever occasion may require it, and you must not complain of this." 28 This open statement of intervention solely for political con- siderations may not have surprised the delegates ; at least no ob- jection on the part of any of them was recorded in the report. Perhaps, the importance of this declaration of policy was not then sufficiently appreciated by any of them, or they may have simply hoped for the best. Yet political interference was to be- come one of the major causes for the downfall of the system then being inaugurated. Grant's own incompetence as a civil executive and the lamentable choices he made in his principal aids, such as Delano himself, were other important contributors to its lack of success. Authorities have differed on the prime reason for the disintegration of the plan, though in each analy- sis there is agreement with the Supreme Court opinion of 1870 27 Ttid., p. HI. 23 Ibid., p. 112. Groping Toward Unified Action 39 that Indian relations with the government presented many diffi- cult and perplexing questions. 29 One writer had placed the failure of Grant's scheme in the red man having been treated as a subject for missionary evan- gelization instead of as a ward, though no explanation was made of why the guardian should not have permitted instruc- tion for soul as well as body. 30 Two other commentators have agreed that Indian culture was shaken without a compensating substitute having been supplied. The reservation system may have been the first cause in this case and the entrusting of the agencies to the religious groups no more than an occasion. Particular fault has been found with the imposition of the pub- lic school system on people to whom it "was more foreign. . . than the facing on a garment." 31 That would agree with the joint condemnation by Father Vermeersch and agent William H. Boyle of the day school system imposed at their Umatilla Reservation in Oregon. 32 This was further borne out by the Department of Interior's report that Pueblo and Mission In- dians, who had been trained by Catholic priests to be Christian husbandmen, were far advanced over other members of their race. 33 Before taking up the 1870 plan for Indians mention should first be made of the abolition of the century-old practice of the United States making treaties with the tribes living within the limits of the country. Begun by the Continental Congress in 1775, the formal signing of agreements persisted through and 29 Karrahoo v. Adams, I Dillon 344, 347 (1870). For an excellent evalu- ation of Grant and his cabinet, cf., Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fish (New York, 1936), pp. 124-141. 80 Rushmore, op. cit, p. 39. 31 Adams, American Indian Education, pp. 106. Cf. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law, p. 28. 32 BJ.C., 1870, p. 33. 33 R.SJ. t 1874 (Washington, 1874), p. 9. Because of the enduring care of the Spanish padres it has been asserted: "The Pueblo Indians have therefore been in more continuous contact with the activities of the Chris- tian Church than any other American Indian people" ; "Historical Sketch of Indian Missions," Board of Indian Commissioners, Bulletin No. 280 (1927), p. 2. (Mimeographed.) 40 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy after the Civil War. In 1865 several treaties included a clause that unilateral changes by the Senate would be binding upon the red men, even though not submitted to them for approval. 34 Five years later the Supreme Court ruled that congressional legislation might supersede a treaty, with the latter document ceasing to exist as far as judicial decision was concerned.* 5 The window dressing of formal agreements came to an end with the passage of an Indian appropriation act of March 3, 1871.^ A clause in this legislation forbade future treaties but provided for the continuance of those already ratified. 36 One writer has accounted for such a clause being added to the appropriation measure by stating that its adoption solved a quarrel between the two branches of Congress hence a politi- cal agreement rather than progressive legislation. 37 Yet the actual passage must have been a happy event for some congress- men. It was hailed as a reason for congratulation and the su- preme triumph of the decade for the benefit of the country's welfare. 38 This action has been termed the real and the great- est contribution of the Indian policy of Grant. Another au- thority found therein the ultimate destruction of the authority of the Indian chiefs, since the prestige and power associated with treaty making no longer were theirs. 39 A violent critic of the whole Indian policy of our government declared that the treaties were abolished in name only because of the merited embarrassment of Congress at the government's failure to abide by their provisions. Subsequently negotiations were con- ducted and signatures affixed to what were called conventions or agreements instead of treaties. 40 Even to the present day 3* Kappler, Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, II, 883 f f. 35 Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wallace 616, 621 (U.S., 1870). 36 16 Stat. L., 566. The Board of Indian Commissioners had urged this change, BJ.C., 1869, p. 10. 37 Priest, Uncle Sam's Stepchildren, pp. 96-97. 38 Congressional Globe, Part 3, 41st Congress, p. 1823; ibid., Appendix, p. 263. 39 Rushmore, op. cit., p. 62: Priest, op. cit. f pp. 104-105, 40 H. H. [Helen Hunt Jackson], A Century of Dishonor (New York, 1881), pp. 27-28, Groping Toward Unified Action 41 the enforcement of past treaties has continued, and their pro- visions constitute a primary source of current Indian law. The same congressional act of March 3, 1871, extended to the Indians the right of acquiring land under the Homestead Act of 1862. That Civil War measure had excluded the In- dians from its benefits ; nine years later the privilege of claim- ing free land was given to the red men, provided tribal relations were severed. However, Indian entries were few in number. The reservation method became an imposition of necessity as white settlers used the transcontinental railroads to fan ever more widely over the former hunting grounds of the braves. The refusal of the newcomers to observe either the restrictions of treaties or the boundaries of reservations resulted in periodic outbreaks of trouble. Of these the extermination of Ouster's force by the Sioux in 1876 is the most memorable. Though the immediate cessation of money annuities had been urged in the initial report of the Board of Indian Commission- ers, 41 that practice continued during the 1870's. Not only were the red men themselves perfectly agreeable to receiving grants in currency or in provisions, but many whites advocated perpetuation of the system. Probably the major benefit accrued to the latter, sometimes in the collection of fees or handling charges and often in illegal diversion of the goods. Such cor- ruption as did exist has been ascribed to the system in use within the Indian Bureau. This procedure permitted frauds to escape detection for long periods of time and when discov- ered by chance, to go unpunished because of failure to enforce the penalties which had been written into the law. Some slow improvement was made in the annuity system during these years by the substitution of seeds and farm implements for is- suances of food. It was hoped that thereby the Indians might be stimulated to combine their industry with the largess of the federal government. B.LC. 3 1869, p. 10. 42 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy The Indian, then, was sorely in need of care at the beginning of the decade of the 1870's. It is not strange that enthusiasm was general for the plan proposed by President Grant in his second annual message to Congress in December, 1870. 42 The hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest shared the belief that the allotment of the agencies to religious societies would correct past evils and abuses. The ranking ec- clesiastic on the northern Pacific slope was Francis Norbert Blanchet, Archbishop of Oregon City. More than thirty years before he had come to that territory with Father Modeste Demers to lead the vanguard of Catholic apostles to the In- dians. In the 1840's both of these priests from Quebec were elevated to the episcopacy, though in no sense being any less the actual missionaries of their territories. Not much more time than was necessary to read and fully digest the announcement of the chief executive had passed when Blanchet wrote to E. S. Parker, Commissioner of Indian Af- fairs. With joyful words he hailed the President's action as the manner in which the lot of the red men would be improved. But these words were simply the preamble to the archbishop's reason for writing to Parker. Catholics had long awaited the opportunity of regaining missions which were then under agents whom he considered hostile. "This wise plan will put an end to the sufferings of the poor Catholic Indian missions/' he said, adding that he expected condemnation of it from the friends of the system previously in force. Blanchet entered his request for the three reserves of Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Grande Ronde. All were within the limits of his own ecclesi- astical jurisdiction which was coterminus with the State of Oregon. A detailed history of the foundation and care at each of these missions where reservations had been established was related. Blanchet had warmly extolled the proposal for church care and earnestly set forth why the three missions named should have been assigned to the Catholic Church. Yet plantive trust was contending with doubt in the conclusion of his letter, when he said: "Hoping that the time of reformation 42 Priest, op. dt p. 28. Groping Toward Unified Action 43 has arrived, and that the new system proposed by our excellent President is not a mere show of vain words. , ." 43 The Catholic diocese to the north of Oregon City was Nes- qually, 44 comprising the whole of Washington Territory. In charge of this part of the Northwest was A. M. A. (Magloire) Blanchet, who had followed his brother Francis from Canada to Oregon Territory in 1847, also to act as an Indian mission- ary. Letters he wrote on successive days late in January, 1871, expressed his happiness over the news of the assignment of In- dian reservations to the care of religious groups. The first of Bishop Blanchet's communications was to Eugene Casserly, United States Senator from California, while the second was addressed, like that of Archbishop Blanchet, to Commissioner Parker. 45 Both of these epistles were much the same, insisting upon justice in the assignment of Indian agents under the new plan. Blanchet wrote that he had been told that the President desired Catholic bishops to forward the names of suitable men for these positions in the territory within their charge. He cited a statement by Senator Henry W. Corbett of Oregon that all points established by Catholics would be assigned to that Church. Blanchet then devoted most of his letter to a request for the help of Senator Casserly in obtaining the reservation of Yaki- ma. The Catholic mission there had been established the year he arrived on the Pacific coast (1847) and had been maintained until an Indian uprising had forced a temporary withdrawal. 43 Catholic Sentinel (Portland, Oregon), March 25, 1871, and Catholic Advocate (Louisville, Kentucky), April 22, 1871, both gave the full text of Blanchet's letter to Parker, Portland, Oregon, January 27, 1871. 44 The spelling was at first "Nesqualy"; from about 1879 until the dio- cesan seat was transferred to Seattle in 1907 "Nesqually" was most fre- quently used. Today the name of the river is spelled "Nisqually"; Sister Marian Josephine Thomas, S.H.N., "Abbe Jean-Baptiste Abraham Brouil- let, First Vicar General of the Diocese of Seattle," unpublished master's thesis, Seattle University (1950), p. 47, footnote. Seattle was named after an Indian chief who was the only Catholic layman present when the first Mass was offered on the site of the present city in December, 1852, by Bish- op Modeste Demers; St. Louis Register, November 23, 1951. 45 AAS, Blanchet to Casserly, Vancouver, Washington Territory, Janu- ary 26, 1871 ; Blanchet to Parker, Vancouver, January 27, 1871, both copies. 44 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy In language which in its forcefulness was characteristic of sub- sequent letters of the two Blanchets, the Bishop of Nesqually charged that James H. Wilbur, a Methodist minister, had moved into the agency. Once there, Wilbur had remained with the assistance of another Methodist minister who was Indian Superintendent for Washington Territory. Nevertheless, Blanchet contended that 500 of the Yakima Indians were still members of the Church. Sixty had been found properly pre- pared for their first Holy Communion shortly before he wrote, Catholic services having been offered in a chapel outside of the government reserve. For this agency a man was nominated by Blanchet, but for the Tulalip and Colville establishments the names would be presented by others with whom the bishop agreed. In tone the letters of A. M. A. Blanchet were more confident than the one of his brother-archbishop, and certainly more aggressive in approach. Within three weeks Bishop Blanchet wrote again to Parker in Washington, repeating the nominations for the three agen- cies which he had requested in his first communication. From that premise he proceeded to claim the agencies on Puget Sound and those for the Chehalis Indians, all in Washington Terri- tory. The foundation of his request was a statement of the Indian superintendent to whom reference had been made in his letter of January 27. This Methodist official was quoted as saying that none but two, or three at the most, of the reserva- tions should be given to the Protestant clergy. Of the trio only one was located in the Diocese of Nesqually, that of Spokane. The questionable agency of the three was that of Grande Ronde, which Francis N. Blanchet had requested in his letter of January 27 to the same official, E. S. Parker. Blanchet at- tached great weight to the conceding of the agencies to the Catholic Church by the representative of a denomination which he classed as the most opposed to Catholics. 46 Probably before Bishop Blanchet's letter of February 16 was delivered in Washington Commissioner Parker addressed a 46 AAS, Blanchet to Parker, Vancouver, February 16, 1871, copy. Groping Toward Unified Action 45 reply to Francis N. Blanchet at Portland, Oregon. Parker claimed that the assignment of agencies had been made after mature deliberation and that no changes were intended at that time. Though he refused to accede to the requests for more reservations to be placed in the hands of the Catholics, the commissioner readily acknowledged that religious liberty was- the policy for both Indian and missionary. Any mission or church already established could be used for religious worship, and this, of course, applied to all denominations. 47 Subsequent controversy over this point demonstrated that a radical altera- tion took place in the original conception of the Indian policy of the Grant administration. Bishop Blanchet resumed his part in the struggle by appeal- ing not to Parker but to Secretary of the Interior Delano. He said that the cabinet officer had been recommended to him as a man who was guided by principles of equity and justice to all. On the strength of this the bishop repeated his request for the Yakima and Puget Sound assignments, again citing the words of Superintendent Edward R. Geary that all of these should be given to the Catholic clergy. To this statement by a Methodist Blanchet added the declaration which had been made at the Oregon conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. There a statement had been made that the Catholic missionaries had always been ready to work for the salvation of the Indians. These compliments by non-Catholics and the history of Catho- lic missionary work which the bishop gave from his own ex- perience in Washington Territory since 1847 were the foun- dation of his arguments. For those reasons he asked Delano to review the assignments of agencies and to make the adjust- ments requested. 48 47 Catholic Sentinel (Portland, Oregon), March 25, 1871, and Catholic Advocate (Louisville, Kentucky), April 22, 1871, reproduced the entire let- ter of E. S. Parker to F. N. Blanchet, Washington, February 23, 1871. The letters exchanged by Archbishop Blanchet and Parker were sent by the former to the Catholic Sentinel on March 20, 1871, with a letter to the editor in which he said that Grant's policy "has become a dead letter, a mere show of vain words, a perfect deception." The fault, however, was not ascribed to the President but to the friends of the old system who had subverted his design ; Catholic Sentinel, March 25, 1871. 48 AAS, A.M.A. Blanchet to Delano, Vancouver, March 31, 1871, copy. 46 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy The apportionment of agencies which Parker stated had been made "after mature deliberation" was essentially that which Secretary Colyer had recommended the previous August 11 in response to the request received the day before from Secretary of the Interior Cox. 49 In the record no consultation with Catholic representatives was shown. That, however, may be accounted for by other than design on the part of any govern- ment official. Father DeSmet was invited twice to a meeting of the Executive Committee of the United States Indian Com- mission in May, 1870. In each instance he replied that a pre- vious intention of visiting the Sioux and his own declining health would prohibit his making the trip east. 50 Had he gone possibly his opinion would have been sought in regard to the assignment of agencies. And at this particular time very few of the Catholic hierarchy were available for consultation, for most of them were then attending the Vatican Council in Rome. As has been mentioned, DeSmet was the only representative of the Catholic Church at the first joint meeting of the Board of Indian Commissioners with officials of religious bodies in- terested in the government's program. It has been asserted that this Jesuit missionary was chosen as deputy by the episcopacy of the United States. 51 Apparently the fact was that Secre- tary of the Interior Delano first invited the priest and then communicated with five of the country's archbishops, omitting those of New Orleans and San Francisco. In his letter written slightly more than a week before the actual meeting in Wash- ington, Delano inquired if DeSmet was the proper representa- tive of the Catholic Church relative to the appointment of In- 49 B.I.C. t 1870, p. 98. 50 AMP, DeSmet Letter-book, IX, D-14, pp. 122-123, 125-132. During the previous summer DeSmet had written Mrs. W. T. Sherman, St. I^ouis, July 21, 1869, that he was in feeble health and confined to the Jesuit house. The original of this letter is in possession of Miss Eleanor Sherman Fitch. New York City. 51 Cf. Duratschek, Crusading Along Sioux Trails, p. 21, n. 26. Groping Toward Unified Action 47 dian agents. 52 At that late date there was little choice but to accede. DeSmet later remarked that he had been recommended by four archbishops. That delegates from dioceses all over the nation which had Indian subjects would have been present had ample notice been given cannot, of course, be decided now. DcSmet's reactions to the meeting in Washington were re- corded two months later in a letter to Archbishop Blanchet of Oregon City. The report of the Board of Commissioners for 1870 had included a summary of the aforementioned gathering in the first fortnight of the following year, but nothing was contained therein about reapportionment of Indian agencies. DeSmet did say that a formal decision of the President con- firmed by the United States Senate was required for any modi- fication of the list. And he observed that liberty of choosing the religion they would practice, the constitutional right of Americans, was denied to the Indians. Three-quarters and more of the race, he contended, would have asked for Catholic priests. To his presence at the convocation DeSmet ascribed the assigning of Catholic agents for the agencies at Devil's Lake, Dakota Territory ; Tulalip in Washington Territory, and Umatilla in Oregon. However, he stated that Archbishop Blanchet's letter had decided the approval of Narcisse Cor- noyer for the last-named post, since the senators from Oregon had desired another man as agent. While placing himself at the service of Blanchet, the veteran missionary readily admit- ted that he was poorly informed about any missions save those 52 AAB, 38-0-7, C[olumbus] Delano to Mfartin] J. Spalding, Washing- ton, January 4. 1871, advised that the same inquiry was being made of the archbishops of Cincinnati, New York, St. Ix>uis, and Portland, Oregon. Ibid., Spalding to Delano, Baltimore, January 9, 1871, copy, approved DeSmet because of his honesty and his acquaintance with the character and wants of the Indians. DeSmet later said he was appointed in December, 1871, but the context of the letter indicated that he meant this earlier approval by the archbishops ; AMP, IX, DeSmet to Delano, St Louis, June 19, 1872, copy. 48 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy cared for by his own Society of Jesus in Idaho and Montana. DeSmet hoped that fuller information about other Indian reser- vations where Catholics had a prior claim might influence the government officials to make a more equitable distribution. 53 A non-Catholic authority on the Indian situation in the 1870's has written that the opposition slowly generating against the program of the Grant administration was not surprising. 5 * This commentator has maintained that the assignment of less than a tenth of the reservations to the care of the Church which had been contributing over half the funds spent on In- dian missions was ample cause for dissatisfaction. He further testified that government officials frankly admitted that there had been poor recognition of the rightful claims of the Catholic Church. But regardless of the merits of the case in particular instances, the possessors of the agencies naturally desired to retain them. Against a single contender for what they held jointly, the non-Catholic holders were determined to resist. Nor was the policy of the government hailed with enthusiasm by some in physical contact with the uncivilized tribes of the plains. The term "peace policy" was scornfully applied to the program by a Texan newspaper as it reported in March, 1871, that another Indian raid on frontier settlements had forced more whites to quit their homes. 55 To test the validity of the reports of outrages General William T. Sherman made a three- months' inspection tour of the Texas frontier, starting in April, 1871. While traveling overland between Jacksboro and Fort Griffin the official party escaped an attack by Kiowa and Comanche Indians only because the savages preferred to seize a baggage train which was close behind. Seven of the white men with the loaded wagons were brutally murdered in the on- 53 AAP, DeSmet to F. N. Blanche!, St. Louis, March 11, 1871. With the addition of details already familiar to Blanchet, DeSmet sent the same information to a Jesuit in England; AMP, IX, D-15, p. 201, DeSmet to Peter Gallwey, SJ-, St. Louis, May 3, 1871, copy. 54 Priest, op. cit., p. 34. 55 San Antonio Daily Express, March 7, 1871. Groping Toward Unified Action 49 slaught. 56 After his fortunate escape Sherman was quoted at great length as condemning the "benevolent civilizing peace policy/' which he contended was advocated by residents of eastern states who were far and safely removed from contact with uncivilized red men. 57 Three years later Sherman was still irritated by the incident. Upon Governor Edmund J. Davis of Texas releasing two Indian chiefs who had been convicted of first degree murder for this raid, the general bluntly up^ braided the governor and said he would not again voluntarily visit the Texan frontier. 58 In the same month in which he had reported to Archbishop Blanchet the proceedings of the January meeting in Washing- ton, DeSmet resorted to a personal appeal to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. DeSmet wrote with the assurance of a man who was far more familiar with the Indian mind than most of the other thirty-eight million Americans of the time. Not quite a year previously the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad had made feasible a trip through the West for most of his countrymen, but DeSmet had been traveling to and with Indians clear to the Pacific slope since 1840. To Commis- sioner Parker, himself a full-blooded Seneca, the missionary recalled the trip of 1867 which they had taken together in the interests of the red men. From that close contact DeSmet as- serted he was certain of Parker's fairness. The Jesuit apolo- gized, as he had to Archbishop Blanchet, for not knowing com- plete statistics about the Catholic missions at the council in Washington. Having obtained them in the meantime from Joseph Giorda, Jesuit superior of the Rocky Mountain area, DeSmet expatiated on them in detail, adding his own experi- ences in each place during the preceding thirty years. Already Bishop Blanchet of Nesqually had complained to Parker about the exclusion of Catholic priests from the Yakima Reserva- 56 Martin L. Crimmins, "General Randolph B. Marcy's I^ast Tour of Tex- as," West Texas Historical Association Yearbook, XXV (October, 1949), 74-75. Roys ton Campbell Crane, "Damage Claims for Attacks on Warren's Wagon Train," ibid., XXI (October, 1945), 72. 57 San Antonio Daily Express, June 13, 1871. Cf. Priest, op. cit. t p. 86t 58 LC, Sherman Papers, Sherman to Davis, n.p., February 16, 1874, copy. 50 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy tion. This charge was repeated by DeSmet from the informa- tion supplied by Father Giorda, who had been so treated by agent James H. Wilbur. DeSmet granted that the Presby- terians had a claim to the care of the Nez Perce Indians be- cause of priority in the field. Nevertheless, he was acquainted with several hundred of the tribe who were Catholics. On the same grounds he petitioned Parker for reassignment of the Yakima Reservation, where Catholic missionaries had first gone in 1847, Still writing of Indians he had been attending himself for the preceding three decades, DeSmet said that he presumed giv- ing the Dakota Sioux to the Episcopalians would not prohibit his visiting his converts among them. He had personally bap- tized several thousand of that nation. Though his health re- mained poor, the Jesuit anticipated soon going to the Grand River agency to introduce two priests to his Indian friends there. The missionary's familiarity with this Dakota reserva- tion was revealed through his passing comments on the arid soil and the sparseness of timber. Strange to say, neither the renown of this missionary nor their previous personal associa- tion induced Parker to send a reply of any kind. That this lack of acknowledgment became widely known was apparent from the text of DeSmet's letter having been printed in a West coast Catholic newspaper in 1873, two years after it had been written. In an accompanying editorial sorrow was expressed that no notice had been taken of the communication either by Parker or by the Board of Indian Commissioners. The mem- bers of this board had been in session at the time the letter was delivered in Washington. 69 Since no action was taken in regard to reapportionment, Archbishop Blanchet again wrote Parker on July 8, 1871. The immediate concern at that moment was the resignation of 59 RBIC, L. R., Tray 2, DeSmet to Parker, St. Louis, March 27, 1871. On the back of the letter is this notation: "Action: Placed on file." Free- man's Journal, May 3, 1873, published the letter in full, as did the Catholic Sentinel (Portland, Oregon), April 11, 1873. The editorial in the latter paper was entitled "Our Catholic Indians." Groping Toward Unified Action 51 Charles LaFollet, Indian agent at the Grande Ronde Reserva- tion, southwest of Oregon City. The day before Blanchet had telegraphed to request that the resignation not be accepted. The agent was not a Catholic but he had permitted Catholic mis- sionaries to work at Grande Ronde. Though Blanchet re- peated his statement of the previous January to the effect this reservation belonged to the Catholic Church, the archbishop had not objected to LaPollet because of the agent's neutrality. Blanchet claimed it was for this very reason that the Methodists were trying to force the agent out. The occasion was taken to reiterate his request for the Oregon reservations which, he as- serted, had been cared for originally by Catholic missionaries. He cited, as had DeSmet, the restoration of the Lapwai reserve of the Nez Perces to the Presbyterians as precedent for a like reversal of the department's initial designation. 60 Much of Blanchet's letter was similar to the one DeSmet had written to Parker in March of that same year, but the two communications differed radically in the manner of approach. DeSmet had been conciliatory and laudatory; Blanchet was sharply critical. In reference to some non-Catholics he used the designation of "infidels/' and scored the various denomina- tions for teaching contradictory doctrines to the Indians. The long letter of thirteen handwritten pages has been used as an example of how government officials were at times needlessly irritated. 61 On the other hand Bishop Edwin V. O'Hara re- garded it as a vigorous and indignant protest by a veteran of Indian missionary labor in the Northwest who antedated even DeSmet. 62 Official reply was made by the Secretary of the Interior, Co- lumbus Delano, for Parker had just resigned. 63 Indirectly he 60 RBIC, L.R., Tray 2, Blanchet to Parker, Portland. AAP has the original draft of this letter. 61 Priest, op. tii., p. 35. 62 O'Hara, Pioneer Catholic History of Oregon (Portland, Oregon, 1911), pp. 205-206. 63 RBIC. L.S., Tray 2, Delano to Archbishop Blanchet, Washington, July 31, 18/1. Henry R. Clum was acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs until the appointment of Francis A. Walker. 52 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy took exception to Blanchefs authority by reminding the arch- bishop that Father DeSmet was the recognized representative of the Catholics in the appointment of Indian agents. How- ever, for the time being he acceded to the request to decline the resignation of Agent LaFollet. As for the apportionment of the reservations, Delano disclaimed responsibility in that all as- signments had been made before he assumed office. He added that fairness had been intended but that the allotment would prove acceptable in every case had not been expected. "It was hoped, however/ 7 he said, "that a spirit of Christian charity" would induce everyone to agree to the appointments and there- by help the Indian Bureau. Delano made numerous ironical allusions to Blanchet's use of the terms, "dissenting sects" and "infidels," which were designations he refused to accept. In conclusion he claimed that the Catholics were to be treated on the same basis as all other denominations, which, he contended, had been true in the past. The irony in the Secretary of the Interior's letter did not daunt the venerable archbishop, nor did the protestation of equality of treatment convince him that he should be satisfied. Again he forwarded another lengthy protest, but this one was more conciliatory in tone. 64 Goodly portions of Blanchet's re- marks were devoted to rectifying misunderstandings by Delano. The first was in regard to the secretary's statement that DeSmet was the official representative of the Catholic Church for In- dian matters. Blanchet replied that he had not been so ad- vised either by DeSmet himself or by the Department of the Interior. Delano had said that he supposed Blanchet was in- formed about Oregon and was authorized to act for the Catho- lics there. The Archbishop of Oregon City pointed out that according to the law of the Church every bishop had full juris- diction over his diocese, being "what a father is in a family, a governor in a state," but with the added obligation of the spiritual welfare of his children. Delano's query as to whether he was familiar with Oregon and its needs Blanchet accepted AAP, Blanchet to Delano, Portland, September 12, 1871, copy. Groping Toward Unified Action S3 in good spirit, for his more than thirty years of activity in the state required no defense of his competence and knowledge of the area. The second misunderstanding he sought to correct was that the term "infidels" had not been applied to Protestants, the archbishop explaining that men of no religion were in charge of Indians in the Northwest. "Dissenting sects" he continued to use in referring to Protestants, contending that this expres- sion was in accord with general custom. He admitted that the secretary could not choose between the various denominations. Yet Blanchet' s recalcitrant spirit showed forth in refusing to credit this to the official's charity, he ascribing it rather to the duty to which Delano was bound by the American Constitution. Immediately he returned to his basic argument, namely, that freedom of worship was not being granted to the Indians. In previous correspondence Blanchet had reviewed missionary la- bors by Catholics in his own Northwest. He now expanded his field to most of the tribes of the nation, citing with surpris- ing familiarity the work of Catholic priests in Indian territory far distant from that under his jurisdiction. Again he recalled the President's promise that missions would be assigned first of all to their founders among the religious groups, and asked if this had been actually done. Mere equality on the basis of the Catholic Church being one among the total number of religions then having an interest in the Indians would not, he contended, be satisfactory. The President's standard of priority in the work would thereby be disregarded, and in number of members in the total population of the United States he said that the Catholic Church was almost equal to all others. Instead of the four agencies Blanchet said had been given to the Catholics, they should have had three-quarters of the whole. As he figured the total, it would have been seventy-five out of one hundred. In reporting about the Washington conference of the pre- vious January, DeSmet had said that the Board of Indian Com- missioners sought the particular benefit of the non-Catholic 54 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy groups. 65 At this time Blanche! protested strenuously against the failure of Grant to appoint even one Catholic to that board. Calling attention to the fact that he was the senior among all the Catholic bishops of the United States, Blanchet professed to speak in the name of all of them, a fact which has been rec- ognized by later commentators. 66 In conclusion he thanked the Secretary of the Interior for his declaration that justice would be done and asked that the professed fairness be expressed in action by a rectification of the unjust partition of the agencies. The elderly archbishop had written strongly as well as at length, but apparently with small expectation that his demands would be granted. Not two weeks after addressing Secretary Delano, he told another missionary of long experience in the Northwest: "There is little hope of obtaining justice. . . . Methodist influence is too strong with the President to let him carry out the new policy. How weak the Government shows itself with regard to everything pertaining to Catholics." 67 Two writers, not members of the Catholic Church, have agreed that Blanchet' s contention of hostility to Catholics was borne out by the few references in official reports to their extensive missionary labors and the continued absence of any Catholic among the members of the Board of Indian Commissioners. 68 May the antagonistic spirit in high places and in low be at- tributed to any single cause? One commentator has said that a white heat of acrimony was reached by the publication as an 65 Ibid., DeSmet to Blanchet, St. Louis, March 11, 1871. His English confrere was told: "In England you will hardly be able to believe that such a state of things exists in the much boasted free Republic of the United States"; AMP, IX, D-15, p. 201, DeSmet to Gallwey, St. Louis, May 3, 1871, copy. 66 AAP, Augustin Verot, S.S., to F. N. Blanchet, St. Augustine, Decem- ber 14, 1871. The Florida bishop added that he feared Blanchet would not succeed in changing the application of the government's Indian policy, but from the effort "all Catholics at least may know the iniquitous' ways of the Administration, [and] perhaps shame will inspire them with better coun- sels." Cf., O'Hara, op. cit., p. 206. 67 Blanchet to Toussaint Mesplie, Portland, September 21, 1871. Letter in full was given by Cyril Van der Donckt, in "The Founders of the Church in Idaho," American Ecclesiastical Review, XXXII (January, 1905), 12. 8 Priest, op. cit., pp. 34-35; George W. Fuller, The Inland Empire of the Pacific Northwest (Spokane, 1928), II, 90. Groping Toward Unified Action 55 official document by the United States Senate of the Spalding version of the Whitman massacre. 69 Not only for an under- standing of the account contained therein but because of the direct involvement of figures active in Indian work in the 1870's a brief review of the case is here necessary. Reference has been made previously to the first delegation to St. Louis in 1831 by Flathead Indians to request that Bishop Joseph Rosati send a priest to their tribe. Three more trips were made across country by Indians from this area before Pierre DeSmet was sent to them in 1840. Meanwhile ministers of the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches acted upon a re- port of the initial petition. Among those who went to the Oregon area were Dr. Marcus Whitman and the Reverend Henry H. Spalding. They took up residence among the Cayuse Indians at Waiilatpu, close by the Walla Walla River. 70 In a letter written jointly by Whitman and the Reverend Asa B. Smith, on September 28, 1840, they concurred in advising the Reverend David Greene, Secretary of the American Board (Presbyterian-Congregational-Dutch Reformed) , that "Mr. Spalding has a disease in the head, which may result in derange- ment, especially if excited by external circumstances/' 71 In 1847 Whitman refused to heed repeated warnings of ris- ing discontent among the Indians, and on November 29 he was slain, together with Mrs. Whitman and twelve others. Father Jean-Baptiste Abraham Brouillet, a Canadian who had arrived in Oregon Territory that fall, had been charged with the care of all the Cayuse Indians by Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet but three days before. 72 The evening after the slaughter he came to Waiilatpu to visit some sick Indians and was horrified to find the victims of the massacre. The following morning he buried Whitman and the others, and as he gladly left the 69 O'Hara, op. cit., p. 208. 70 Charles H. Carey, History of Oregon (Portland. Oregon, 1922), II, 351. 71 William I. Marshall, Acquisition of Oregon and the Long Suppressed Evidence about Marcus Whitman (Seattle, 1911), II, 116. 72 AAS, Blanchet a Brouillet, n.p., November 26, 1847. 56 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy blood-crazed Indians he met the Reverend Mr. Spalding on his way to the camp. Persuading the Cayuses not to kill the min- ister Brouillet enabled him to escape, to the great irritation of the Indians. When he had reached safety Spalding wrote to Bishop Blanchet at once to express his thankfulness for the help from one whom he called "my dear friend" [Brouillet]. 73 From this gratitude Spalding had an amazing change of heart. The next year he published in the Oregon American a number of charges, the chief of which was that the Catholics had in some way been responsible for the Indian attack. Archbishop Blanchet lamented to the Coadjutor Bishop of Quebec these calumnies but expressed the conviction that the truth would eventually be made clear. 74 Brouillet himself wrote a refutation of the charges in a booklet of 107 pages, which was published in several Catholic newspapers and finally was included in the official report of J. Ross Browne, special agent of the United States Treasury Department. 75 The long simmering contro- versy regarding the massacre of 1847 came to a boil twenty- four years later with the inclusion in the Senate record of the Forty-First Congress of a pamphlet written by Spalding. Most of the eighty-one pages was taken up with copies of resolutions by various Protestant assemblies and an account of the mis- sionary work in the Northwest of Whitman, Spalding, and others. But hatred of Catholics was provoked by a qualified statement that the slaughter "at Waiilatpu was evoked, there is abundant evidence to believe, by the Jesuit Fathers." 716 73 Executive Document No. 38, House of Representatives, 35th Con- gress, 1st Session, January 25, 1858, pp. 36-43. 74 F. N. Blanchet, Historical Sketches of the Catholic Church m Oregon (Portland, Oregon, 1878), pp. 173-176. Cf. Sister Mary Letitia Lyons, S.H.N., Francis Norbert Blanchet and the Pounding of the Oregon Mis- sions, 1838-1848 (Washington, 1940), p. 186, quoting letter of Blanchet to Coadjutor Bishop Pierre-Flavien Turgeon, n.p., March 3, 1848, original of which is in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Quebec. 75 Jean-Baptiste Abraham Brouillet, "Protestantism in Oregon," pub- lished in Executive Document No. 38; cf . n. 73 supra. 76 'gxecutwe Document No. 37, Senate, 41st Congress, 3rd Session, con- tained the pamphlet sent by Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior, February 9, 1871. In an editorial, "Slanders Against the Church," the Cath- olic Mirror (Baltimore), April 13, 1872, denounced the charges as "a mon- strous falsehood from beginning to end." Groping Toward Unified Action 57 From St. Louis Father DeSmet tried to quell the storm pro- voked by sending a copy of Brouillet's forgotten refutation to a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners. He added his own vigorous protest against the publication of Spalding's charges by Congress without any attempt at investigation of them. 77 However, that action on the part of a missionary who was actually a Jesuit (Brouillet and the brothers Blanchet were not) did not stem the tide of bigotry, nor did the reminiscences which Archbishop Blanchet published in 1878. Complete refu- tation had to await the twentieth century in the two-volume work of William I. Marshall which has already been cited. 78 The hope which Francis Blanchet had expressed in 1848 of the truth being known sooner or later was then fulfilled but far too late to aid in his struggles of 1871. Because Spalding's pam- phlet had been placed in the Senate record at the request of Secretary Delano, on this official was laid the blame for the barbs at the Church, and at Brouillet and the Blanchets in par- ticular. Brouillet himself bore witness against the notion that Delano was the culprit. In 1873 the missionary notified a Cath- olic newspaper that Delano was in no way to be charged with that attack upon him. 79 So much, then, for this special cause of the anti-Catholic feeling of 1871 which rendered Archbishop Blanchet so pessimistic of the success of his efforts in behalf of the Catholic Indians. 77 RBIC., L.R., Tray 2, DeSmet to Robert Campbell, St. Louis, April 18. 1871. 78 Cf. n. 74 and 71 supra. Marshall, a non- Catholic public school prin- cipal in Chicago, was aroused by popular disbelief he found on the Pacific coast of the printed accounts of the 1847 disaster. From a study of all the documents cited in his work he concluded that the charge the Whitman massacre had been instigated by Catholics was "as atrocious and as inex- cusable a slander as ever was uttered." American Ecclesiastical Review, XXXII (January, 1905), 13-14. The causes Marshall assigned were ac- cepted in "Historical Sketch of Indian Missions/ 7 Board of Indian Com- missioners, Bulletin No. 280 (1927), p. 6. (Mimeographed.) While Mar- shall published the first book devoted entirely to the refutation of the story about Whitman, the charges of Spalding had been rejected as a complete fabrication by Edward G. Bourne in "The L,egend of Marcus Whitman," American Historical Review, VI (January, 1901), 276-300. 79 ABCIM, Brouillet to Editors, Catholic Mirror, Washington, June 3 y 1873, copy. 58 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy The courage which had been required of an Indian mission- ary in the Pacific Northwest of 1838 had not been lost to Blanchet in the assumption of the office of archbishop. Once again he resumed the fight from which he felt he could not de- sist without being guilty of grave wrong. 80 But the futility of individual protests to Washington from the most remote of the union's thirty-seven states must have occurred to the Arch- bishop of Oregon City. He and his brother at Nesqually were speaking for only two of the fifty-six dioceses and nine vicari- ates apostolic in the United States at that time. 81 Together the hierarchy of the country would be much more impressive. That conviction was expressed in Francis Blanchet's next ef- fort, which was not directed to the government offices in Wash- ington but to his fellow archbishops and bishops of the nation. 82 Having reviewed the correspondence witti Parker and Delano, he asked that in future negotiations he not only claim to repre- sent all by reason of his seniority, but that he be furnished the written evidence in the form of letters from those he was then addressing. In fact, he requested these endorsements of his role be sent to him in duplicate, that one copy might be for- warded to the Secretary of the Interior. His appeal concluded with a summary of the wrongs the Church had already suffered in regard to the Indian missions and an exhortation to prompt counteraction. This project never materialized, however, at least in the form implied in Blanchet' s letter to the bishops. A month later he told of his appeal to James A. McMaster, editor of the New York Freeman's Journal^ The first to approve his proposal had been Martin J. Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, who had sent Blanchet a copy of the approbation which had been addressed directly to Washington. To the judgment of Mc- so AAP, Blanchet to Delano, Portland, September 12, 1871, copy. 81 Sadlier/ Catholic Directory, Almanac, & Or do, 1871 (New York, 1871), passim. 82 AUND, Blanchet to John Baptist Purcell, Portland, November 6, 1871. A similar letter is in AAB, 72-F-4, Blanchet to James Gibbons, Portland, September [November] 6, 1871. 83 AUND, Blanchet to McMaster, Portland, December 5, 1871. Groping Toward Unified Action 59 Master Blanchet left the publication of his circular letter to the American hierarchy, it having been his intention to release it to the public. But the columns of the Freeman's Journal in the waning days of 1871 were devoted to the seizure of the Papal States the previous year by the troops of King Victor Em- manuel II, and the letter of Blanchet was not printed. However, a few days before there had been published in this newspaper its first attack on Vincent Colyer, secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners. In criticizing that official for alleged arbitrary treatment of the Apaches in Arizona, care was taken to exculpate President Grant. 84 That same first week of December the President in his third annual message to Congress reported results in the care of the Indians. In ask- ing for liberal appropriations to provide for its continuance Grant himself for the first time used the term which others had already applied to his program, "the Indian peace policy/' 85 But the satisfaction which the chief executive expressed was not echoed by Catholics acquainted with the actual operation. Two days after Christmas of that year Francis P. McFarland, who as Bishop of Hartford, Connecticut, had no direct connec- tion with the redskins and their problems, told Archbishop Blanchet of a letter from a Protestant gentleman. Therein the writer had given as his belief that an organized plan had been made to drive Catholics from their missions in the Far West and to compel the Indian members of the Church to abandon their religion in favor of Methodism. This man urged the same course as Blanchet had been advocating, name- ly, a strenuous effort to maintain religious freedom for all Americans. 86 There was no representation for the Catholic Church at the joint conference between the Board of Indian Commissioners and the missionary societies, which convened in Washington on Jauary 11, 1872. Father DeSmet had been invited to attend 84 Freeman's Journal, December 2, 1871. 85 Richardson, ed., op. cit., IX, 4106. 86 Anon., Official Construction of President Grant's Indian Peace Policy (Washington, [1876]), p. 6. 60 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy but was prevented by his absence from the country for his last trip to Europe in behalf of the Indians. 87 Noteworthy in the proceedings of this assembly was the first external rift in the blanket of acclaim which had hitherto covered the Indian pro- gram of Grant. William A. Phillips, soon to be a member of Congress from Kansas, was called upon to address the meet- ing. In extended remarks he climaxed his criticism of the gov- ernment's dealings with the Indians by declaring that actually no policy at all existed. 88 The figment of the board possessing any true power would have been dissipated by reading its own reports, such as the minutes of the fruitless council of the Sho- shone Indians of Wyoming with Chairman Felix R. Brunot in September, 1872. 89 While the commissioners have been cred- ited with continuing to exert influence in Indian affairs, 90 even the red men were becoming conscious of the members' lack of any power to make a binding decision. But however illusory its authority, the Board of Indian Commissioners was to con- tinue in existence until long after abandonment of the Peace Policy. On the other side of the nation Francis Blanchet was far from satisfied with the division of Indian agencies under that same Peace Policy. At the time of the January meeting Catho- lics had charge of some 17,000 red men on seven reserves. This was far less than the number of tribesmen which had been giv- en to the Society of Friends which had scarcely 70,000 mem- bers in the whole country. In contrast the Episcopalians, Bap- tists, Presbyterians, and Methodists had all been assigned much greater numbers of Indians, ranging up to more than 54,000 for the last denomination. 91 The small improvement which had been attained, Blanchet was convinced had been owing to the personal efforts of a Jesuit priest at St. Aloysius Church in the capital. This Father Bernard A. Maguire had presented and 87 BJ.C. 3 1871 (Washington, 1872), pp. 158-159. 88 i#d., pp. 174-176. 8^ Ibid., 1872 (Washington, 1872), pp. 60-61. 90 Rushmore, op. cit. } p. 25. 91 Schrneckebier, The Office of Indian Affairs, p. 55. Groping Toward Unified Action 61 explained his pleas to the government officials. This success prompted Blanchet to make a complete reversal of the attitude expressed the previous September to Secretary Delano that he preferred direct correspondence with the department to media- tion by another. 92 At this time the archbishop frankly admit- ted that nothing at all would have been accomplished without Maguire's personal contact. Accordingly, in order to have a representative constantly available he had asked the Archbishop of Baltimore to appoint one at once. His recommendation was never acted upon because Archbishop Spalding was already gravely ill and three weeks later was dead. His successor did not take charge in Baltimore until the following fall, and in the meantime nothing was done about Blanchet's proposal. The change of mind on the part of Blanchet was in no way the result of a lack of confidence in the original representative of the archbishops, Pierre J. DeSmet Many times in the fol- lowing six months the Archbishop of Oregon City was to voice the fervent hope that the veteran Jesuit would accept the post permanently. More than anything else, Blanchet' s own inabil- ity through letters to secure any revision of the assignment of reservations must have caused the idea of an agent in Washing- ton to become more desirable. Failure had also greeted his plan for making his name more potent through accrediting him as the official spokesman for the entire hierarchy. His appeal in this regard to the bishops of the country had elicited only twenty approbations and not a single one of the fiery protests against the government's policy which he had requested. 93 It may very well have been that the seemingly reckless zeal of this remote and elderly member of the Catholic hierarchy had frightened the more conservative of his fellow bishops. This may have been especially true in the East where the problem must have seemed very far removed. 92 AUND, Blanchet to Purcell, Portland, January 18, 1872. Cf., AAP, Blanchet to Delano, Portland, September 12, 1871, copy. 93 AANY, Blanchet to John McCloskey, Portland, January 24, 1872, la- mented that he had "neither copies nor notices of any complaints made against the unjust distribution of assignments by bishops having Indian reservations." 62 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy In any event Blanche!, once he had proposed naming a Wash- ington agent, pursued the idea throughout 1872, though with a multitude of false starts and grievous disappointments. De- Smet, the one he believed would be ideal, was in Europe, and while awaiting his return Blanchet summarily drafted one part- time deputy after another. Already he feared that the favor- able moment had passed for impressing the government offi- cials with the justice of the claim to missions originally estab- lished by Catholics. The opposition, as he termed it, would probably retain their holdings. Undaunted nevertheless, the archbishop alternately called upon Father Maguire, another Jesuit named Bernardine F. Wiget, and a third priest whom he had ordained himself more than twenty years before, Toussaint Mesplie. 94 The archbishop's correspondence with Mesplie is the most revealing, not only because of the latter's long, gos- sipy letters in the Canadian French native to both but also be- cause the priest had been an Indian missionary himself in the territory of the archbishop. Though Blanchet was laudatory of Maguire because of the results attributed to him principally the assignment of the Grande Ronde to the Church Mesplie gave an omen of Ma- guire's quitting the task. In February, 1872, he observed that the Jesuit was worn out and did only what was forced upon him. Wiget, on the contrary, was energetic, capable, and ac- quainted in official circles in Washington ; but the complete un- familiar ity of both Maguire and Wiget with Indian affairs gave Mesplie an opportunity for self-praise he was not reluctant to grasp. He went so far as to write, "If I was not here to direct, they would accomplish nothing; they would be as two blind men groping about/' 95 Mesplie made frequent grandiose claims about the influence he exerted, and though he had many sterling qualities as a missionary, the aged prelate in Oregon City never had enough confidence in Mesplie to suggest that he might be the agent in the capital. Nor at this time was a 94 Blanchet, op cit., pp. 163, 183. 95 AAP, Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, February 28, 1872. Groping Toward Unified Action 63 layman ever mentioned as a possibility for the Washington in- termediary. As far as the correspondence reveals, Mesplie was the first to suggest the idea to Blanchet the following May. 96 Political influence was weighed as a possible weapon in the struggle for better recognition of Catholic claims, a fact which was not surprising in view of Delano's declaration at the Jan- ury, 1871, meeting that all other considerations would have to give way to party advancement. DeSmet had reported that men presented for Indian agents by the religious bodies must favor the re-election of Grant, else they would not be confirmed by the Republican majority in the Senate. 97 In this election year of 1872 the pace was accelerated, and there was scarcely a letter of Mesplie' s that did not contain a reference to the ap- proaching presidential and senatorial contests. As has been mentioned before, DeSmet had stated that the man whom Arch- bishop Blanchet had nominated for the Umatilla Reservation had met with Oregon senatorial opposition. Mesplie unquali- fiedly blamed Oregon's Senator Henry W. Corbett as a fanat- ical opponent and the source of trouble in Washington. For a replacement he favored ex-Senator George H. Williams, whom Grant had named to his cabinet in 1871 after he had been de- feated for re-election. Apparently Mesplie saw Williams fre- quently and on one occasion consulted with the attorney general after having been refused his request for an interview with Secretary Delano, whom he labeled "this iniquitous Herod/' 98 Eugene Casserly, the senator from California who had be- friended the Blanchets the previous year, was in failing health and resigned his seat before the end of 1872. In his discussion of election prospects and their effect upon the petitions for the assignment of reservations to Catholics Mesplie introduced a name which was to figure prominently in the development of the Catholic program under Grant* s policy. 96 Ibid., same to same, Washington, May 24, 1872. 97 Ibid., DeSmet to Blanchet, St. Louis, March 11, 1871. 98 Ibid., Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, February 28 and April 22, 1872. John H. Mitchell actually was chosen senator from Oregon in 1872. 64 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy In connection with the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho the Ca- nadian-born priest wrote Blanchet in these words : Mrs. Sherman and all the "big guns" in Congress are tak- ing an interest in our just claims. Mrs. Sherman, this noble and pious lady, will one of these days, go to the Pres- ident with a petition signed by all the congressmen, friends of the Administration. If that is not a success, we shall try some other means." Much more will be said of this lady who as Ellen Ewing, the daughter of a Whig senator from Ohio, had married the later Civil War general, William T. Sherman, at Blair House in Washington on May 1, 1850. 100 But the political miscalculations of Mesplie will be closed with an instance which must have destroyed all of Blanchet' s confidence in his correspondent's judgment. The priest wrote in May, 1872, that he had mate- rial in his possession which would take 100,000 votes from Grant and that he intended using it if justice were not done. In characteristic overstatement he promised to remain quiet pro- vided the action of the President was satisfactory, and in that case "give him the chance of being re-elected, if he can, al- though it is said Horace Greeley would be better for us." 101 The New York publisher was to need many more than 100,000 additional votes the following November, for his defeat was by a plurality of three-quarter million. The particular subject of Blanchet's Indian efforts during most of 1872 were the agencies of Klamath and Fort Hall, 99 Ibid., Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, April 5, 1872. "Big guns" is not a translation, as this expression was written in English by Mesplie. 100 Katherine Burton, Three Generations (New York, 1947), p. 77. Ten years before Mrs. Sherman's "great influence with General Grant" had been mentioned by her mother (IyC, Sherman Papers, Mrs. Thomas Ewing to El- len [Mrs. W. T. Sherman], Lancaster, Ohio, July 22, 1862). However, after Grant's inauguration Mrs. Sherman said: "Neither my husband nor my Father's family belonged to the party in power and in consequence I get but few favors except from personal friends." She added that General Sher- man had no influence outside of the War Department (AAB, 36A-T8, Ellen Ewing [Mrs. W. T.] Sherman to Mfartin] J. Spalding, Washington, July 13, 1869). 1 01 AAP, Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, May 24, 1872. Groping Toward Unified Action 65 the first in southern Oregon and the other beyond the limits of his own jurisdiction in the Territory of Idaho. In an attempt to secure a favorable decision he telegraphed the Department of the Interior late in February. The following day Mesplie, in turn, reported that Fort Hall probably would be returned to Catholic auspices at the expense of Klamath. 102 The priest had himself attended these very Indians for a decade. At this time he said that the two reserves were being balanced against each other and that one apparently would have to be sacrificed to quiet the protests of the Methodists. About five weeks later Mesplie stated that Delano was determined to give Fort Hall to that denomination, but he ascribed the decision to the per- sonal rascality of Delano rather than to the secretary's favor- ing the Methodists. Mesplie's revelation was that Delano wanted to replace the Catholic agent, Montgomery R. Berry, with a friend who desired the reservation as the best place to raise his own herd of 1,500 cattle. Later in this same month Delano was delaying the decision, according to Mesplie, be- cause Klamath was being retained as a safeguard for the friend in the event he was uanble to use Fort Hall for his cattle busi- ness and at the same time serve as agent. But another month made the former missionary highly optimistic. He assured Blanchet that Klamath had all but officially been given to the Catholics and Fort Hall would probably follow in three or four days. 103 While the award had been altered, Mesplie wrote with re- strained exultation in early June that Secretary Delano had as- signed Fort Hall to the Catholics that morning and, in his opinion, similar action would be taken in regard to the Oregon reserve. Blanchet was urged to write a letter of thanks imme- 102 Jbid. f same to same, Washington, February 28, 1872. The archbishop thought that Klamath had been awarded to the Church in January, for he then wrote letters of thanks for the reassignment ; ibid., Blanchet to Delano, Portland, January 11, 1872, copy, and Blanchet to President Grant, Port- land, January 13, 1872, copy. When the promise did not become a reality he said that it was painful to think the Secretary of the Interior had im- posed upon him; ibid., Blanchet to Delano, Portland, January 29, 1872, copy. 108 Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, April 5, April 22, and May 24, 1872. 66 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy diately to the President or to the Secretary of the Interior/ 04 These advices must have pleased the anxious ecclesiastic in Oregon, but still he refused to act without official confirmation. On June 20 he inquired of Father Wiget if he might rely upon the information from Mesplie, 105 and nine days later he told the latter that the award of Fort Hall had been published in Pacific coast newspapers but the official documents had not been received. Wise old warrior that he was, Blanchet re- marked he would thank the President and Delano "as soon as I know for sure." loe On the same day he credited Wiget with securing Fort Hall, while dubiously expressing the hope there was no mistake in the matter. Though he was surprised that the Idaho agency had been thus assigned, in view of the power- ful influence he said the Methodists possessed in official circles, attainment of one goal did not lessen his desire for the other. "But what about Klamath?" was his anxious question. 107 The same month of June, 1872, another well-known figure entered the lists for Fort Hall in the person of Pierre DeSmet. No direct request was made to Secretary Delano, for the St. Louisan was too adept and suave to risk a definite refusal. Instead he quoted a letter he had received from George L- Woods, Governor of Uath Territory, in which that official re- ported a meeting in Salt Lake City with Delano himself. Woods quoted the Secretary of the Interior as saying he would like to make Major Berry, former Fort Hall agent, a superintendent of Indian affairs for Utah, and Woods thought the Catholic Church would be better satisfied with the superintendency thereby created than with the agency. DeSmet told Delano that the Governor of Utah was greatly mistaken. The Church had no such pretensions and simply wanted her missionaries to be able to remain where they had been for years in behalf of the Indians. Seemingly this was a subtle hint that restoration of 104 iMd %9 same to same, Washington, June 5, 1872. 105 ABCIM, Blanchet to Wiget, Portland, June 20, 1872. 106 Blanchet to Mesplie, Portland, June 29, 1872, in Van der Donckt, "The Founders of the Church in Idaho/' op. cit., p. 16. 107 ABCIM, Blanchet to Wiget, Portland, June 29, 1872. Groping Toward Unified Action 67 Fort Hall would be the action for which Catholics were wait- ing and not the creation of a new superintendency to provide for their ousted agent. 108 But neither DeSmet's diplomacy nor Blanchet's intercessors, plus his own letters to Washington, availed anything in the end. Mesplie twice repeated in July that Fort Hall had been given to the Catholics. Yet when he asked for the official papers Delano expressed regret, saying that the Methodist-Episcopal Bishop William Logan Harris was not willing to consent to the restoration. Mesplie declared the matter had not been settled and that he would get the Idaho reservation before he left Washington, but his diffident manner betrayed his own waning hope. 109 In August a midwestern Catholic newspaper criticized the parcelling out to Protestant care of missions long tended by Father Mesplie, declaring the historic partition of Poland ex- ceeded it in extent only and not in atrocity. 110 Blanchet be- wailed that Klamath had been promised but never received, while Fort Hall had actually been given to the Catholic Church and then taken back. In early September he chided Mesplie with having been duped and advised him not to accept the post of army chaplain which he had been offered. 111 If the archbishop conceded defeat at this moment, his hopes may have been revived temporarily when the ever-optimistic Mesplie 3 s letter of October 2 was received. Writing from New York, the priest recounted a visit he and Father George Deshon had had with the President in Grant's resort home at Long Branch, New Jersey. A classmate of Grant's at West Point, Deshon later had joined the Catholic Church. After complet- ing his studies for the priesthood, he had become a member of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle (known as the Paul- ists), which was founded in New York in 1858. The Indian 108 AMP, IX-DeSmetiana, B, DeSmet to Delano, St. Louis, June 19, 1872, copy. 109 AAP, Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, July 9 and July 20, 1872. no Western Watchman (St. Louis), August 3, 1872. ill ^Blanchet to Mesplie, Portland, September 9, 1872, in Van der Donckt, op. clt :> p. 18. Notwithstanding, Mesplie did accept the position of army chaplain. 68 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy reservation assignments had been discussed by the three men for an hour. According to Mesplie, the President understood the Catholic position and was determined to rectify every in- justice the Church had suffered. However, Grant said he could not act until after the approaching presidential election. Once the voting was over, Mesplie made the familiar prediction that Fort Hall would be immediately restored. He went fur- ther and asked Blanchet to send him at once a list of the agen- cies desired, not only in the Northwest but in all the United States. 112 A week later Mesplie repeated that Deshon had full faith in the word of the President, and he now counseled the archbishop in any case to restrain his ire rather than to repeat the mistake he had previously made of irritating Secretary De- lano with strong words. "Let us ask and pray," he suggested, "that the next government will give us a Christian administra- tion or at least one less impious." 113 Grant overwhelmed Gree- ley at the polls the following month, but meanwhile apparently some one else had caught his willing ear and his promise was not fulfilled. Two days before the end of 1872 Bishop Louis Lootens, Vicar Apostolic of Idaho, was hoping that Fort Hall might still be regained. 114 But the year closed with both that reserve and Klamath in the hands of the Methodists, though the official reports stated for each that "there is neither mission nor school at this agency." 115 However it might have been at- tended or not attended by others, Blanchet and his aids had failed in their year-long quest. Both the favorable decision the Secretary of the Interior had given to Mesplie and the campaign promise of Grant had there- fore proved to be illusions. Notwithstanding, Blanchet had 112 AAP, Mesplie to Blanchet, New York, October 2, 1872. The priest also reported a visit with Horace Greeley. However, he corrected his pre- vious opinion on the outcome of the presidential election, saying in this and his letter of October 8 that he believed Grant would win. us Ibid., same to same, New York, October 8, 187Z As will be brought out later, Deshon and Grant had been roommates while both were attending West Point Military Academy. H4 ABCIM, Lootens to Brouillet, Granite Creek, Idaho Territory, De- cember 29, 1872. H5 BJ.C., 1872, pp. 38-39. Groping Toward Unified Action 69 made considerable progress during 1872 toward the establish- ment of permanent representation in Washington of the Church's interests. Though the path was devious and lined with the briars of disappointments, the ultimate fulfillment may have been hastened by the failure to secure the lost missions of the Northwest. The archbishop continued to bombard Wash- ington with telegrams and letters. There never was a direct admission to that effect, and still the aging prelate probably re- alized that these were doing little to further his cause and may, indeed, have had the contrary effect. He confessed to Mesplie in May that the telegrams he had sent to Delano must have angered the secretary and consequently everything had been re- fused. 116 From Washington he learned that Maguire, his first envoy to the government, had refused to carry a demanding letter of his to Delano. Later Mesplie advised that another communication, while a good statement, might have been a lit- tle too strong. A third dispatch even Mesplie had not dared to show to the Secretary of the Interior because of the threaten- ing terms in which it was expressed. 117 A hint of self -recrim- ination appeared in Blanchet' s admission of mid-June that he might have gone too far in striving to retrieve the Idaho mis- sion. 118 Despite his habit of composing many long letters, Blanchet's native language was French. This no doubt ac- counted for unintended awkward expressions when he wrote in English. Frequently Blanchet had referred to the need for a Wash- ington agent to promote the cause of Catholic Indian missions on government reservations. Although his suggestion to the Archbishop of Baltimore had been temporarily thwarted by the latter J s death, he continued to mention, but for the time being did not push, the selection of such a man. During the first six months of 1872 he entertained the fond hope that DeSmet would accept the position, for in his opinion the Belgian-born us Blanchet to Mesplie, Portland, May 4, 1872, in Van der Donckt, op cit., p. 15. H7 AAP, Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, April 22 and May 24, 1872. us ABCIM, Blanchet to Wiget, Portland, June 20, 1872. 70 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy JAMES ROOSEVELT BAYLEY Eighth Archbishop of Baltimore, 1872-1877 From the large portrait by G.P.A. Healy in the archiepiscopal residence; courtesy of Frick Art Reference Library. Groping Toward Unified Action 71 missionary had the experience and the standing in official cir- cles. While as early as May 4 he said that DeSmet, who mean- while had returned from Europe, would not accept the appoint- ment, that disappointing news was not accepted at once. 119 . More than six weeks later the archbishop was still persisting in the hope that DeSmet would take the office. During this period, however, he not only literally drafted Father Wiget to act as his legate but apparently told others to do so also. 120 As for DeSmet, it was no longer possible for him to think of comply- ing, even with the evident will of all the hierarchy. Renal dis- ease had undermined his health so that the best he could do was to work at a desk in St. Louis. His illness as well as his age and his un familiarity with any but the Jesuit missions all were given in the definitive resignation he sent to Secretary Delano in June. 121 Eleven months later his death brought an end to Father DeSmet's extraordinary labors for the American Indians. No doubt to counteract the suggestion of Mesplie that a lay- man be engaged, Blanchet had stated positively to Bernardine Wiget that the agent desired must be a clergyman. But already he had reversed his stand in regard to the need for representa- tion in Washington. So in this instance the passing of the sum- mer brought the archbishop to the point of not only being will- ing to approve a layman, but if it were thought better, a com- mittee of laymen. Mesplie had made the initial proposal, but in approving of a group of laymen Blanchet seemed to have drawn from the example of Protestant denominations in hav- ing boards or conferences attending to the religious and tem- poral affairs of the Indian agencies. 122 Notwithstanding his having been the initiator of the entire movement in behalf of H9 Blanchet to Mesplie, Portland, May 4, 1872, in Van der Donckt, op. cit., p. 15. 120 ABCIM, Brouillet to Wiget, Walla Walla, April 9, 1872, asked the Jesuit to handle a case for him. 121 AMP, IX-DeSmetiana, B, DeSmet to Delano, St. Louis, June 19, 1872, copy. Cf. Garraghan, The Jesuits of the Middle United States, III, 104-105. 122 ABCIM, Blanchet to Wiget, Portland, September 3 and 17, 1872. 72 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy the Catholic missions, Blanchet made no attempt to decide the issue himself. Frequent mention was made by him that all the bishops might decide. On the other hand, he was entirely agree- able that the selection be made by the occupant of the oldest see in the United States, that of Baltimore. James Roosevelt Bay- ley, Bishop of Newark, was named to the vacant archbishopric in mid-summer, and Blanchet anxiously awaited his installation that he might urge the same proposal he had made to his prede- cessor, namely, Washington representation. The natural delay which ensued in Archbishop Bayley as- suming charge at Baltimore, as well as the frail health of this ecclesiastic, caused some deferment of Blanchet's plan. During this interval, as has been mentioned, Father George Deshon entered the picture by seeing his former West Point room- mate, Ulysses Grant, to obtain better recognition for the Cath- olic Church in the assignment of the Indian agencies. Even before it was recognized that the President would not fulfill his promise, another priest was introduced into the Washington scene, Jean-Baptiste Abraham Brouillet. Unlike the others he was to be a permanent participant in the affairs of the Catholic Indian missions, work for which he was well qualified by abil- ity and experience. He had been both zealous missionary and chief lieutenant of Bishop Magloire Blanchet since he first vol- unteered to accompany the latter to the Northwest from his na- tive Canada in 1847. In addition, he had already made several official trips to Washington in behalf of the Indians, as will be treated more fully later. Again it was Mesplie who made the first suggestion, for from Washington he recommended to Archbishop Blanchet that the latter's brother should send Father Brouillet to represent the interests of the Diocese of Nesqually at the capital during the three winter months. Mesplie frankly said that the Jesuit fathers in Washington did not want to be bothered with any more requests from the Northwest, for, as he explained, they knew nothing about Indian matters and did not want to learn. Referring to the power of attorney which Francis N. Blanchet Groping Toward Unified Action 73 had sent unasked to Wiget on June 20, Mesplie archly ob- served: "This power would have been as useful in effect if you had intrusted it to the Indian chief of the Nez Perces." The proposal about sending Brouillet was brought up again by the same writer in successive letters in mid-November, 123 Prob- ably before either of them was delivered, the Bishop of Nes- qually advised Mesplie that after mature consideration by the two Blanchets, Brouillet had been asked to go to Washington to represent both of them. 124 Brouillet accepted the commis- sion and was also given Archbishop Blanchefs power of attor- ney, but without any of the parties intending that the assign- ment was to be permanent. 125 On November 28, 1872, two days after Brouillet had re- ceived legal authority to act for the Blanchets while in Wash- ington, Deshon himself notified the Archbishop of Oregon City of his willingness to handle all negotiations about Indian reservations for him and for all the bishops until a better ar- rangement was made. 126 In the same vein the Paulist had writ- ten to Baltimore the week before. Possibly because he did not receive an answer at once, he had next addressed Blanchet, who he knew was eagerly seeking a deputy in the capital. The Ore- gon prelate promptly sought to gain approval for Deshon' s po- sition by communicating with others. For instance, he request- ed Purcell of Cincinnati to send his authorization of the ap- pointment to Baltimore immediately. He repeated his state- ment that the Archbishop of Baltimore should be the head and soul of the move, with all requests and directions being made through Bayley. In this he included not alone the authoriza- tion for Deshon but also the long-term objective of a perma- nent legate. 127 The silence of Bayley was explained when he 123 AAP, Mesplie to Blanchet. Washington, October 24, November 14 and 16, 1872. 124 A.M.A. Blanchet to Mesplie, November 18, 1872, in Van der Donckt, op. cit., p. 18. 125 ABCIM, power of attorney from Francis Norbert Blanchet to J.B.A. Brouillet, Portland, November 26, 1872. 126 AAP, Deshon to F. N. Blanchet, Sandusky, Ohio, November 28, 1872. 127 AUND, Blanchet to Purcell, Portland, December 13, 1872. 74 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy wrote Deshon two days before Christmas from a sick-bed, to which he had been confined for more than a month by a severe illness. An easterner by birth and residence, Bayley admitted his unfamiliarity with the proper recognition due the Church in the allotment of Indian agencies. Because of Deshon's ac- quaintance with the matter he requested the priest to assume the post of Catholic representative at Washington. He added that it was his own understanding that the President was anx- ious to correct any mistakes by doing full justice to all. 128 Several bishops other than the Blanchets soon gave approval to the decision of Bayley in messages to the latter archbishop and to Deshon. Having received a copy of Deshon's letter from the Archbishop of Oregon City, Bishop John B. Lamy told the Baltimore prelate of his eagerness to make use of the offer, especially since Deshon was well liked by the authorities in Washington. Lamy, a veteran of twenty-two years in his mis- sion Diocese of Santa Fe, stressed his belief that the use of an accredited agent should be the continued practice of the Church for dealings with the government agencies. 129 With his letter to Bayley Lamy enclosed a copy of another he had written to Deshon. Therein he told the priest he would be willing to ac- cept as representative whomsoever the priest recommended or whoever was approved by General Charles Ewing, a zealous Catholic who was an attorney in the capital. Two days later Lamy began to avail himself of the services offered by sending Deshon a petition for Catholic teachers which had been drawn up by the Pueblo chiefs of New Mexico. 130 From the Far West Joseph S. Alemany authorized the Paulist to work for the red men of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. 131 The bishop of the territory in which the Fort Hall agency was lo- cated told Brouillet that not only should Deshon be thanked 128 ABCIM, Bayley to Deshon, Baltimore, December 23 r 1872. 129 Ibid., Lamy to Bayley, Santa Fe, December 27, 1872. 130 Ibid., Lamy to Deshon, Santa Fe, December 27 and 29, 1872. 1 31 Ibid., Alemany to Brouillet, San Francisco, February 18, 1873, said: "Before the end of December last I wrote to Father George Deshon of the Paulists of N[ew] York commissioning him to plead in Washington for my Indians." Groping Toward Unified Action 75 but Mesplie should be credited with having given a start to the actuality of an agent in Washington by having asked the Paul- ist to undertake the assignment for the interim. 132 At least something tangible had resulted from the year of insistence by Francis Blanchet on the necessity of an agent. Yet that auspicious development was not enough to cheer Bay- ley on the last day of the year, if his letter to his friend, the Archbishop of Cincinnati, was a true indication of his feeling. Perhaps he had found time to survey the Indian situation inso- far as it affected the interests of the Church. Anyway, the hopeful note sounded in his previous correspondence with Deshon was missing entirely as he told Purcell to put no reli- ance on obtaining justice from the administration then in Washington. 133 Inasmuch as Grant was two months and more removed from even taking the oath of office for the second term to which he had been elected, the apprehension expressed was, indeed, serious. That the fear was more than justified by the ensuing reality seems to have been the studied judgment of at least one serious observer. 134 132 lUd Lootens to Brouillet, Granite Creek, Idaho Territory, December 29, 1S72. 133 AUND, Bayley to Purcell, Baltimore, December 31, 1872. 134 Priest, op. cit., pp. 34-35. CHAPTER HI AN OFFICIAL ORGANIZATION ACHIEVED Two years and more of the Peace Policy in operation were enough to convince interested Catholics that intensified action was badly needed. Though more than half of the Indian agen- cies had been claimed on the basis of the prior success of her missionaries, eight agents actually were credited to the Church. Since these were in the official list of January 12, 1872, which gave a total of eighty agencies, the portion of one-tenth was scarcely satisfying. 1 Some adjustments had been and would thereafter be made in the assignments, such as the transfer of the Nez Perces from Catholic to Presbyterian control. Yet the over-all status had remained essentially the same in the thirty months which had elapsed since the first allotments by the De- partment of the Interior. 2 Thus far Archbishop Blanchet has been used to exemplify the efforts of an individual to secure a readjustment from the Indian Bureau. The Oregon City prelate, though not unique, has been chosen because from his activity more results were discernible in the end. To this point the attempts by him and by other members of the hierarchy had been stultified by the lack of both unification and persistence. Blanchet himself had observed that a bishop would be aroused by a specific injustice, write to Washington or send emissaries, but when his plea was 1 B I.C., 1871, pp. 182-183. (Cf. "Abbreviations used in Footnotes" for explanation of symbols.) Because different sets of figures were used and some reserves classified as agencies or again as sub- agencies, an exact nu- merical computation is subject to exceptions or explanations. 2 Ibid., 1873 (Washington, 1874), p. 245. This report persisted in the mis- take of the one of 1872 in crediting the Fort Hall, Idaho Territory, Reserve to the Catholic Church, The ill success of the effort to secure that agency has been related. In the Catholic Sentinel (Portland, Oregon) of May 10, 1873, an account was printed of the disorderly conduct there of the Boise Indians because the agent, Henry W. Reed, a Methodist, prevented a "black robe" from, visiting them. 76 An Official Organization Achieved 77 disregarded, he would abandon the struggle. The same method (or rather lack of system) would in turn be followed by an- other ecclesiastic. 3 Father George Deshon had supplied a tem- porary avenue of approach to the departments of the federal government. But while the Paulist was capable, energetic, and well acquainted in the capital, care of Indians either in the mis- sions or through intercession in Washington was not the field of endeavor of the religious congregation to which he belonged. Another was needed to replace him. Deshon had said plainly that he did not want to attend the meeting in Washington of the Board of Indian Commissioners with the representatives of the religious societies. Neverthe- less, the rosy expectations which he and Mesplie had enter- tained of its results were enough to guarantee his presence. The reasons for these hopes were communicated to Archbishop Blanchet in November by both of these priests. The voluble French-Canadian wrote the Saturday after the presidential election to report that Deshon already had come to Washington to follow up the promise which Grant had made to him in their previous talk at Long Branch. 4 A few days later the Paulist recalled that Mrs. Grant had warmly taken the part of the Catholic missions, she having been present during the hour- long visit of the two priests with her husband. 5 In this month of November Deshon had talked with the President twice, the second time in the company of the Secretary of the Interior, as Grant had sent for Delano in order to introduce him to his West Point classmate. In the joint session the cabinet official had promised that the Indian agency assignments would be re- adjusted during the meeting with the representatives of the re- ligious societies the following January. Delano planned using as a principle that the denomination which had first established 3 AAP, Blanchet to B. J. Wiget, S.J., Portland, September 17, 1872, copy. 4 Ibid., Mesplie to Blanchet, Washington, November 23, 1872. The meeting of Mesplie and Deshon with Grant had been reported by the former in a letter to Blanchet from New York, October 2, 1872. 5 AAB, 43-M-15, Deshon to Blanchet, Sandusky, Ohio, November 28, 1872. 78 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy itself with a tribe and had acquired a foothold should have the preference. Since this basis had been the contention of Catholics from the time of inauguration of the Peace Policy, Deshon must have felt fully justified in expecting that a great deal if not ev- erything to which the Church was entitled would be obtained. Mesplie added that a Catholic would be named to the Board of Indian Commissioners and perhaps two of that faith would be placed in the super intendencies. According to his computation, the Church would have a total of twenty-nine Indian agencies in its care after Delano had made the readjustment. In a gen- eral request Deshon had asked Blanchet for full information about the Catholic Indian missions to guide him at the January meeting, but Mesplie was much more explicit. He enumerated every member of the hierarchy from Washington Territory to New Mexico by name, and urged that each one of these and any others that had business with the Indian Department send documented summaries of the situation within their terri- tories. His conclusion was as roseate as Deshon's: "We will have all the agencies in which the Indians are Catholic." Both of the priests had mentioned that Charles Ewing, a Washington attorney of whom they spoke in glowing terms, would attend the January conference with Deshon. Whether Ewing did so cannot be determined, for his name was not given among those present at the Arlington House in Washington on January 15. However, he could very well have been included in the clause with which the roster was concluded: "and many other friends of the Indians." 6 Ewing was of a distinguished Ohio family. His late father had been Thomas Ewing, United States Senator and a member of the presidential cabinets of both William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, During the War between the States Charles Ewing had served in six 6 Journal of the Second Annual Conference of the Board of Indian Com- missioners with the Representatives of the Religious Societies Co-operating with the Government (Washington, 1872), p. 3. Though mentioned in^the minutes of the meeting, no copy of the Journal was found in the archives of the Board of Indian Commissioners. The copy consulted is in the Library of Congress. An Official Organisation Achieved 79 major campaigns and attained the rank of general. When he was assigned to Dakota Territory in 1868 Ewing had resigned his commission and resumed the practice of law. In this single instance the Board of Indian Commissioners did not enter the report of the joint conference in the annual report, but as an indication of its importance, printed a journal of the day-long meeting in a separate book. As far as the promises of the President and the Secretary of the Interior to Deshon were concerned, the journal was a complete blank. Lengthy discussions were reported verbatim, but the question of reassigning the agencies was not even brought up. In fact, very little time was given to religion in the talks, most of the speakers concerning themselves with the civil and political rights of the red men. However, no objection was made to the Reverend Jay L. Backus setting forth the principle for the Indians of "root hog or die/ 77 On the following day the Board of Indian Commissioners recommended that Benjamin Rush Cowen, assistant to Delano, be named the successor of Francis A. Walker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 8 That appoint- ment would have met with Ewing' s approval because Cowen and he had been friends in Ohio and later in the Union army. But as with the promises of Grant, this expectation never ma- terialized. Eventually the post was awarded to Edward P. Smith, who represented the American Missionary Association (Congregationalist) during the January 15 conference. After the Washington meeting had such an unhappy termination for Catholic expectations, the need for forceful representation be- fore the government was clearly apparent. Who took the first decisive steps to bring it about? The Archbishop of Baltimore, James Roosevelt Bayley, was the one to whom the interested bishops seemed willing to leave 7 Ibid., p. 57. Backus was secretary of the American Baptist Home Mis- sionary Association. Later Deshon told the President : ". . .they refused to take up my matter in the Conference" ; ABCIM, Deshon to Grant, New York, May 13, 1873, copy written by Deshon. 8 RBI A, Minutes of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners, p. 78. 80 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy the choice. But however well intended the archbishop was, his unfamiliarity with the entire situation rendered him dependent upon the assistance of others who were more conversant with the problems. 9 That initiative seems to have been supplied by two priests who were already prominent for their interest in the welfare of the red men, Fathers Brouillet and Deshon. In fact, it appears that Brouillet had made some preliminary moves for the establishment of an office to handle episcopal business connected with Indians as long as eight years before, 10 Dur- ing the third week of January, 1873, Brouillet and Deshon wrote to several western bishops who had Indians within their dioceses. Their opinion was solicited in regard to a general agent being appointed to attend to the affairs of the Catholic missions and to contact the officials of the Department of the Interior and of the Board of Indian Commissioners. The actual number of bishops to whom a joint letter was addressed cannot be determined because at that time no files of corre- spondence were maintained by these priests. The replies which are on hand were favorable, and also concurred in leaving the selection of the Washington representative to the Archbishop of Baltimore, a suggestion which may have been included in the proposal by the priests. 11 The authority vested in him to act in their names was not formally used by Bayley for another two months. In the mean- 9 ABCIM, Bayley to Deshon, Baltimore, December 23, 1872. In a memo- randum of January 12, 1872, Bayley noted : "I have written a large number of letters during the last two months of which I have made no mention to Archb. of Cincinnati & other Bishops in regard to Indian affairs to Father Deshon to whom the matter has been committed: R Deshon was a classmate & roommate to Genl. Grant at West Point and thro' his influence we may be able to get some justice, tho j I have my fear about it" ; AAB, 43-N-l. 10 AAS, A.M.A. Blanchet to J.B.A. Brouillet, yancouver, Washington Territory, January 2, 1865, copy, reprimanded the priest who was in Wash- ington, D. C., for spending time on a project which the bishop had not ap- proved. 11 ABCIM, Bishop James M. O'Gorman, O.C.S.O., to Brouillet and Deshon, Omaha, Nebraska, January 23, 1873, was one of the half-dozen an- swers. AAO, Bishop James O'Connor to the Congregation of the Propa- ganda, Omaha, September 22, 1880, copy, advised that O'Gorman, his prede- cessor, had retained no correspondence. This fact has been borne out by the writer's own search in the archives of the Archdiocese of Omaha. An Official Organisation Achieved 81 time, however, he must have indicated his favorable considera- tion to the man who was ultimately appointed, General Charles Ewing. Archbishop Blanchet's disapproval of the idea had kept Mesplie from revealing whether Ewing was the honest and capable gentleman he described in making the initial pro- posal, in May, 1872, that a layman handle Catholic Indian bus- iness in Washington for all concerned. 12 The name of this veteran of six major campaigns of the War Between the States certainly had been mentioned by several correspondents late the previous year, but then as a person whose advice should be sought rather than as the representative himself. 13 Yet Ewing, as an attorney practicing in the capital, must have commenced working for the Catholic missionaries shortly after January 1, 1873. As early as January 14 Robert C. Walker, a brother-in- law of James G. Blaine of Maine, wrote to ask his intervention for a Jesuit who had been working in Montana. 14 Inasmuch as Walker requested that the matter be brought to the attention of the President in the manner which Ewing judged best, it would be reasonable to assume that the lawyer was willing to act and was familiar with the situation. Several years later a report of the treasurer of the Catholic Indian Mission Fund contained the statement that the services of General Ewing were secured to defend Catholic interests early in that month of January. Again, a pamphlet published in 1884 related that Archbishop Bayley had made the appoint- ment at the instance of Fathers Deshon, Maguire, Brouillet, and Leopold Van Gorp, all of whom were concerned with the affairs of the Indians. Lastly, in an address made in St. Louis in 1877 Brouillet declared that the organized activity in the In- 12 AAP, Mesplie to Blanche!, Washington, D. C., May 24, 1872. In any case, Mesplie was the first to mention Ewing by name for the post, he hav- ing written to Blanchet late in November that Deshon thought the general was the man to be appointed permanent agent for the bishops of the United States; ibid., same to same, November 23, 1872. 13 ABCIM, John B. Lamy to Deshon, Santa Fe, New Mexico, December 27, 1872, was one example of such letters. 14 EC, Walker to Ewing, Helena, Montana Territory, January 14, 1873. 82 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy dian affairs field was under way shortly after the first of the year, 1873. 16 Father Brouillet had then co-operated in drawing Swing from his legal work on Indian claims to act as representative in Washington of all Catholic Indian interests. Soon this priest was participating in the negotiations with the federal government with the same energy and concern for the redskin's spiritual advancement as he had displayed during twenty-five years as a missionary in the Northwest. His experience both in the field and in previous visits to Washington had given him a familiarity with all phases of the Indian questions which probably no other Catholic cleric of the time possessed. 16 His own bishop credited him with a major part in bringing to reali- zation the long-delayed dream of an agent in the capital. A.M. A. Blanchet later asserted that it was partly for this pur- pose that he and his brother, the Archbishop of Oregon City, had sent Brouillet to Washington late in 1872. 17 The foresight of the Canadian-born priest in discerning the proper solution for Indian problems was demonstrated by his attempt to pro- mote a Washington representative for Catholic interests as early as 1864. The first government school for Indian chil- dren under religious auspices has been correctly designated as that conducted by Father Eugene C. Chirouse, O.M.I., at the Tulalip agency in 1869. Not only was Brouillet the proposer of this national innovation in Indian education in Washington Territory, but records reveal that two years before (in 1867) 15 Ibid., Report to the Treasurer, December 1, 1876; The Work of the Decade, pamphlet report of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (n.p., n.d. [1884] ), p. 3. DeSmet brought Van Gorp from Belgium to St. Louis in 1853, where he joined the Jesuits; Garraghan, The Jesuits of the Middle United States, I, 653. ABCIM, original draft of Brouillet's lecture deliv- ered before Ladies' Catholic Indian Missionary Association of St. Louis, May 22, 1877. 16 Freewaris Journal, February 16, 1884. 1? AAS, Blanchet to Editor, Catholic Sentinel, Vancouver, October 18, 1879. An Official Organisation Achieved 83 he had entered into contracts with the government for schools of the same type for reservations in Oregon and Idaho. 18 Before the actual appointment of Ewing as official inter- mediary between the hierarchy and the federal officials in Washington calls upon his services and those of Brouillet be- gan to come from the missionary field. Joseph Giorda, S.J., who held the office of superintendent of Jesuit missions in the Rocky Mountains, was one of the first to ask Ewing to act for him, and he gave high praise to the former Union general for undertaking the task 19 That all were not aware of Ewing's position was indicated by the Archbishop of San Francisco suggesting to Brouillet late in February that he would do well to enlist the assistance of the general and of his sister and brother-in-law, General and Mrs. William T. Sherman, the former Ellen Ewing. 20 Publicized or not, the Washington attorney was not await- ing an official designation to embark upon his office. In mid- February he filed two petitions which were to be the subject of prolonged controversy in the years to come. In them the act- ing Commissioner of Indian Affairs was petitioned for author- ity to construct a church and auxiliary buildings on the Yakima Reservation, Washington Territory, and also on that of the Nez Perces in Idaho. 21 Apparently other business not so read- ily a matter of permanent record was being conducted. For instance, Martin Maginnis, the newly elected territorial repre- sentative from Montana, was asked to see both Brouillet and Ewing about a school at Stevensville, Montana, in which Sis- ters of Charity had been teaching Indian girls for many years. 18 ABCIM, William H. Ketcham, original draft of lecture on "Our Cath- olic Indian Missions," which was delivered in Chicago, Illinois, on Novem- ber 16, 1908. Ibid., Brouillet to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washing- ton, D. C., August 30 and September 2, 1873, asking for fulfillment of con- tracts signed in 1867. A committee which investigated Oregon, Washington, and California reservations reported of Tulalip: "The most successful feat- ure of the reservation is the school" ; B.I.C., 1871, p. 112. 19 Ibid., Giorda to Ewing, Helena, Montana Territory, February 5, 1873. 20 ibid., Joseph S. Alemany to Brouillet, San Francisco, February 18, 1873. 21 Ibid., Ewing to H[enry] R. Clum, Washington, February 14, 1873. 84 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy In another field Brouillet was reminded of Deshon's long friendship with the President by a Jesuit at St. Louis Univer- sity, who suggested the name of a friend for a group of super- visors which rumor had reported were soon to be appointed by the government. 22 All this and much more was being done as, perhaps, a trial before the definitive appointment was made. Deshon must be credited with presenting Ewing's name to Archbishop Bayley through a letter he wrote on February 20 to his own superior in the Paulists, Isaac Hecker. Deshon, a trifle sanguine about the promises he had received from Grant, was actually de- scribing his own character in stating that Ewing was just the man for the Indian missions because the general was indus- trious, hopeful, and agreeable. He asked Hecker to speak to Bayley about the man and to request that he be appointed the agent of all the Catholic bishops who had authorized the Balti- more archbishop to act in their name. Deshon was not reneging upon the offer he had made to Blanchet the previous fall. But as he reminded Hecker, he was known to comparatively few of the hierarchy who naturally would prefer to work through Archbishop Bayley. Deshon mentioned that the Secretary of the Interior had promised a general overhauling of the Indian department, and he thought Catholic affairs were certain to im- prove thereby. 23 About a month later Bayley wrote to Father Brouillet, as Deshon had suggested, saying that Hecker had given him the letter of his fellow Paulist. In accord with that recommendation the archbishop gladly appointed General Ewing the Catholic commisioner before the federal govern- ment, and the Secretary of the Interior in particular. As most if not all of the bishops who had Indian missions under their jurisdiction had requested him to name such an agent, Bayley stated that he was acting by virtue of that authority. He mir- rored the hopeful tone of Deshon in anticipating that the In- 22 Ibid., Gforda to Maginnis, Helena, Montana Territory, February 24, 1873; Van Gorp to Brouillet, St. Louis, February 18, 1873. 23 AAB, 41-K-16, Deshon to Father [Isaac Hecker], Washington, Febru- ary 20, 1873. An Official Organization Achieved 85 dians and the United States would benefit from the bestowal of simple justice, all that Catholics asked. 24 Thus Bayley's letter of March 17 invested Ewing with full authority to represent Catholic interests regarding the Indians before the government. The archbishop had mentioned that he would be glad to draw up a more formal document were it needed, but that was not done until several months later when Ewing was given a letter to show to the Secretary of the In- terior. 25 That the appointment was not made known at once to all the Catholic clergy in the West may be inferred from appeals later directed to others, asking their intervention or help. DeSmet in the last months of his life mentioned the ac- tivity of Deshon but never spoke of Ewing as the representa- tive of the hierarchy. 26 While Bishop Blanchet certainly was acquainted with the status authorized for the general, he con- tinued to address others about the missions of his diocese and ask their assistance. 27 Although in Ewing' s appointment Fran- cis Blanchet 's desire for a Washington agent was realized, the Oregon prelate persisted in his original avenue of direct com- munication with the federal departments. 28 His letters might be regarded as supplements to the services of Ewing and those of Brouillet, for he and his brother Magloire considered this priest their personal emissary in the capital. Two days before his appointment was officially approved by the Archbishop of Baltimore Ewing made the first move in a campaign which was to be typical of the methods he employed. To the Bishop of St. Paul he sent word that the Chippewa agency in northern Minnesota had become vacant by the selec- 24 ABCIM, Bayley to Brouillet, St. Augustine, Florida, March 17, 1873. Bayley had gone to St. Augustine for his health ; he started back to Balti- more on March 26. Cf. Sister M. Hildegarde Yeager, C.S.C., The Life of James Roosevelt Bayley,, First Bishop of Newark and Eighth Archbishop of Baltimore, 1814-1877 (Washington, 1947), pp. 355-356. 25 EC, Bayley to Ewing, Baltimore, May 28, 1873. 26 AMP, DeSmet Letters, IX, D-16, DeSmet to Archbishop Blanchet, St Louis, February 4, 1873, copy. 27 AAS, Blanchet to Deshon, Vancouver, April 9, 1873, copy. 28 ABCIM, Blanchet to Felix R. Brunot, Portland, March 19, 1873, copy. 86 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy tion of its agent, Edward P. Smith, as Commissioner of In- dian Affairs. Since he understood that most of the tribe were Catholics, Ewing asked for full information about the true status in order that prompt application for the agency might be made to the Department of the Interior. 29 The bishop, Thomas L. Grace, at once replied that the Indians and also the half-breeds were mostly members of the Church, and he con- sidered it not only desirable but very necessary that they be in the care of a Catholic agent. Grace added that for fourteen years he had been begging Washington for such action without any response to his pleas. The bishop was so anxious for suc- cess in this instance that he omitted all reference to Ewing un- dertaking the work for him and the other bishops of the coun- try. Two days later he rushed his profuse thanks for the effort. 30 29 Ibid., Ewing to Bishop [Thomas L.] Grace, Washington, March 15, 1873, copy. Edward P. Smith was a Congregatiotialist minister who had represented the American Missionary Association at the January meeting in Washington; Journal of the Second Annual Conference, etc., p. 3. In an editorial entitled, "Indians Robbed by the Wholesale and Left Starving," St. Paul Dispatch (September 18, 1873) charged that as agent of the Chip- pewas he had entered into a contract on November 8, 1872, with Amherst H. Wilder of Minnesota for the sale of timber on the Leech Lake Reservation. According to its terms Wilder could take all the pine and cedar timber on the land for a period of ten years, paying for only the very largest trees. Moreover, the paper said that since he had become commissioner Smith had given Wilder contracts for transportation on the Missouri River, and for supplying beef cattle to the Sisseton and Devil's Lake Indians, all of which were labeled as fraudulent. Meanwhile, the paper said, the Chippewas, who had owned the timber, were starving in the cold along the shores of Lake Superior. The Minneapolis Daily Tribune of October 1, 1873, in an article entitled "Smith as a Shah," reported the same facts and added that when the Indians learned of the contract the Indian agent had to call in United States troops to quiet them. 30 Ibid., Grace to Ewing, St. Paul, March 22 and March 24, 1873. A de- tailed report of the Catholic missionary work of two decades before among these tribesmen may be seen in RBIA, L.R., Schools C 701, Francis Pierz to Bishop Joseph Cretin, Crow Wing, Minnesota Territory, January 25, 1854. Later the same year the territorial governor warmly commended the work of Father Pierz, saying that as a result "a great majority of the half- breeds and some Indians belong to his church" ; RBI A, L.R-, Minn. Miscel. x, Willias A. Gorman to George W. Manypenny, n.p., September 30, 1854. In the same period after twenty years of effort the Methodists claimed only about five Indian converts a year; John H. Pitezel, Lights and Shades &f Missionary Life (Cincinnati, 1859), p. 373. Of the Indian missions in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, William E. Strong-, the official Prot- estant historian, admitted in The Story of the American Board (Boston, 1910), p. 47: "Though the work in these new fields was bravely begun. . .it became more and more clear that little was being accomplished/' An Official Organization Achieved 87 With his formal petition for the Chippewa Agency Ewing sent a lengthy statement of the reasons upon which the request was founded. Though the attorney was to file many other pe- titions later, this one deserves examination not only because it was the first but also because most of the others followed its pattern. The document commenced with a review of the his- tory of missionary work among these Indians who lived along the shore of Lake Superior. The non-Catholic historian, George Bancroft, was the authority cited for the statement that the first mission of the Catholic Church among these tribesmen was likewise the oldest settlement of Europeans within the boundaries of the present State of Michigan. Ewing next referred to official reports of the Commissioner of In- dian Affairs, whose superior officer was the Secretary of the Interior. In the 1868 publication Father John Chebal was praised for his great energy and deep interest in both the tem- poral and spiritual welfare of these red men. The same report mentioned that the Protestant missionary had abandoned his station among the Chippewas. Much the same was contained in the report for 1869, Chebal again being commended for his untiring labors, while regret was expressed that the Protes- tants had no missionary. From the official government papers Ewing took the declaration of 1870 that ninety-nine out of a hundred Chippewas were Catholics. Tfiere was no change the following year, for again the priest in charge was singled out for laudatory remarks, and the good accomplished thereby was part of the departmental record. From the government reports Ewing turned to the statement of the Bishop of St. Paul that a Catholic priest had been assigned to the Chippewas exclusively and continuously since 1830. The facts from these various sources were the basis for Ewing asking that these Indians be assigned to Catholics as both the oldest and the only successful missionaries among them. 31 31 Ibid., original draft of memorandum drawn by Ewing and copy of his letter to Columbus Delano, Washington, D. C., March 19, 1873. All of the correspondence and papers were printed in a pamphlet, Petition of the Cath- olic Church for the Agency of the Chippewas of Lake Superior (Washing- ton, 1873). 88 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy A little over a week later Secretary Delano declined to com- ply with the request. For his own part he merely stated that he concurred with the chairman of the Board of Indian Com- missioners in opposing the transfer to the Catholic Church. Delano said that the foundation for the rejection was a letter written by Felix R. Brunot, the chairman who has been cred- ited with suppressing in his official actions a personal anti- Catholic feeling. 32 This Pittsburgh philanthropist began by ex- pressing regret that the official agents of the Catholic Church persisted in misconstruing the Indian policy of Grant. He con- tended that the President intended the welfare of the Indians primarily, which it was hoped could be achieved through the co-operation of the religious societies. As a refutation of Ewing' s historical argument, Brunot went back to 1866 to quote the agent among the Chippewas as saying then that the Protestant missionary had opposed granting the right of com- ing on the reservation which the Catholics had been asking for the preceding five years. He asserted that the government's policy had been to allow one denomination to have the field and exclude all others. Having cited that report, the board chair- man maintained that the present rather than the past should be the determining factor. Since the actual holder of the agency had not abused its trust, he was against transferring control of the reservation to the Catholic Church. 33 Before his formal reply was made Ewing hastily drew up a memorandum in regard to the 1866 statement by the Chippewa Indian agent which Brunot had employed as undermining all the historical data the general had assembled. In this supple- 32 ibid., Delano to Ewing, Washington, D. C., March 28, 1873. Cf., Priest, Uncle Sam's Stepchildren, p. 50. 33 Ibid., Brunot to Delano, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 25, 1873; a copy of this letter was sent to Ewing by Delano. A memorandum in the handwriting of Brunot in the files of the Board of Indian Commissioners read: "One of the Christian bodies has 'claimed* as its 'right' the control of a number of reservations which had already been allotted to others. It should be understood that no 'rights' enter into the question except those of the Government and of the Indians. ... I am in doubt about this so use your own judgment"; RBIC, L.R., July, 1871, to January, 1872, unsigned and unaddressed, n.d. and n.p. An Official Organisation Achieved 89 ment the entire report of August 6, 1866, was reproduced, thereby revealing that Brunot had quoted correctly but far from in full. Agent Luther E. Webb had, indeed, said that he realized the government policy had been to restrict missionary endeavors on a reservation to one denomination. Notwith- standing, in view of the highly salutary results which the Catholic priest had brought about, he recommended strongly that an affirmative answer be given to the petition of the In- dians for the erection of a Catholic church. Because Brunot had emphasized that the welfare of the Indian was the para- mount consideration of the Peace Policy the exact words of Webb are important. The Chippewa agent had written that he was compelled to assent to the Indians' request because, as he said, "I am satisfied that the best interests of the Indians would be subserved by encouraging the labors of the Catholic Missionary among them/' 34 With the rejoinder given above Ewing was content to let his historical summation stand. But in his formal reply to Secre- tary Delano he answered Brunot by quoting the 1870 statement of Grant about the program of assigning agencies to the care of religious denominations. The Washington attorney recalled that the President had made priority of missionary work and its success the basis of allotment, and in that Ewing was in per- fect agreement with the board chairman that the welfare of the Indian was the primary consideration. Ewing then con- tended that Grant had committed himself and bound his subor- dinates to the appointment of agents on the basis of these two principles. The President's unqualified assertion, as the gen- eral saw its meaning, was not a promise to bestow federal patronage and influence on churches which were ready to com- mence Indian work under the program. Nor was it Grant's in- tention to succor those who had tried in the past but unfortu- nately failed, but rather to give the agencies to the religions which had succeeded in years past in the evangelization of the Indians. Therein Ewing believed that the President had the 34 Petition of the Catholic Church for the Agency of the Chippezvas, pp. 10-11. 90 Cath-olic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy good of the red men in mind. Following the principle set forth would not be for the benefit of any particular church. Ewing warned that the christianization of the redskins could not succeed were the missionaries who were known and respect- ed pushed aside, and unknown and unproved substitutes put in their place. Relative to the statement of Brunot that no com- plaint had been made of the administration of the reservation and, therefore, no change should be made, the Catholic repre- sentative replied that as far as he knew the employees in the Indian service when the Peace Policy was formulated were not bad. Nevertheless, some 900 of them had been subject to re- placement when the religious societies took charge. This con- troverted Brunot's point that only in the case of abuses or complaints should the existing status be altered. 35 The map which Vincent Colyer had attached to the recom- mendations about assignments given to Secretary Cox in Au- gust, 1870, was the subject of several pages of comment by Ewing. The secretary of the board had said that he had sug- gested allotment of agencies in accord with the missionary work which was then in progress, insofar as he was acquainted with it. The 1870 report of the Indian commissioners had repro- duced this letter of Colyer. The same publication had noted the reassignment of the Nez Perces to the Presbyterians and of the Umatillas to the Catholics because of more correct in- formation that the original designations had not been accord- ing to the successful missions in operation on the reservations. Once these mistakes had been rectified, Ewing pointed out that a precedent had been set which could be followed for the Chip- pew as, who on Colyer } s map had been alloted without refer- ence to priority of care nor its past success. 36 Brunot had seen the absence of trouble among the Chippewas as reason for 35 ABCIM, Ewing to Delano, Washington, April 10, 1873, copy. 36 L,C> Second Annual Report, Board of Indian Commissioners, Execu- tvve Document No. 30, Senate, 41st Congress ; 3rd Session, February 10, 1871, p. 98. In his letter to Cox, Colyer wrote: "In Northern Minnesota the Chippewas, if not already provided for, might be recommended to the able supervision of the Unitarians." He cited not past attention nor any other reason. Cf. B.I.C., 1870, p. 5. An Official Organisation Achieved 91 refusing to change the assignment. Ewing on the contrary re- garded the report of the agent as having covered the public business alone and having no reference to the mission work. In conclusion Ewing again called attention to the long history of successful ministrations by Catholics among the Chippewas, which was precisely what Grant had set as the principle for as- signing a reservation to a particular religious denomination. 37 In writing to Bishop Michael Heiss of La Crosse, Wiscon- sin, several weeks later Ewing stated that his petition for the agency of the Chippewas of Lake Superior was his first work as Catholic commissioner. 38 Not only was it the initial under- taking of the attorney but it also was probably his best single effort as a written plea. In form and language the petition bore a close resemblance to a lawyer's brief, but unfortunately for its success in moving the Secretary, Delano had made his position clear at the January conference of 1871. Then he had warned the representatives of the missionary societies that they must not complain at intervention in the program for political considerations, and the interpretation of both intervention and its advisability rested with him. 39 Before this petition for the Chippewa agency had been rejected, the acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs had notified Ewing that the application he had made in February in the name of Bishop Lootens for au- thority to build a Catholic church on the Nez Perce reserve in Idaho had been referred to Delano, who had not deemed it ad- visable. The request for a similar permission at the Yakima Reservation in Washington Territory was not refused at that time, Clum saying that the petition was still under advise- ment. 40 Meanwhile a western Catholic publication scored the administration for having given only seven of the Indian agen- 37 Grant's words were contained in his second annual message to Con- gress, on December 5, 1870, and read : "I determined to give all the agencies to such religious denominations as hitherto established missionaries among the Indians." Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, IX, 4063-4064. 38 ABCIM, Ewing to Heiss, Washington, May 19, 1873, copy. 39 BJ.C., 1870, p. 112. 40 ABCIM, H. R. Clum to Ewing, Washington, March 22, 1873. 92 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy cies to the Catholic Church. At the same time it offered salu- tary advice in urging the agents and all the employees of that small number of reservations to be truly apostolic in their work for the Indians. 41 While his petition had not been finally rejected, it must have been evident to Ewing that the Secretary of the Interior was opposed to granting the Chippewa Agency to the Catholic Church. The spirit of politics was much in the air at this time. As an example, on the final day of its existence, March 3, 1873, the Forty-Second Congress had passed the notorious "salary grab" bill which provided for retroactive increases for ^ the members voting. Ewing attempted to counteract the partisan influences at work against him by calling upon Father Deshon to intercede with the President. The priest, who had stood second in the class at West Point of which Grant was a mem- ber, had received glowing promises not only before the 1872 election but from both Grant and Delano after the results had been known. 42 It was less than a week after Ewing had replied to the initial rejection by Delano and Brunot of his Chippewa petition that he wrote to Deshon. The Paulist had left Wash- ington in Grant's company a few minutes before the printer de- livered the pamphlet of the correspondence relative to the as- signment of the Chippewa Indians. Ewing sent this and other documents pertaining to the case to Deshon with permission to show them to the President or not, according to his judgment. 43 A month later Deshon reported that Grant had told him that day that he desired a readjustment of the assignments and promised to review any case in which the decision of the De- partment of the Interior had seemed unjust. Acting upon this assurance the Paulist asked Ewing to take the Chippewa peti- tion to the President in Washington. While the general was getting the decision of the chief executive in regard to the Lake 41 "Catholic Indian Agencies," Catholic Sentinel (Portland, Oregon), March 15, 1873. Cf. n. 1 supra, stating that different methods of comput- ing accounted for slight variations in the number of reservations assigned. 42 AAB, 43-M-15, Deshon to F. N. Blanchet, Sandusky, Ohio, November 28, 1872, related three different interviews. 43 ABCIM, Ewin'g to Deshon [Washington, D. C], April 15, 1873. An Official Organisation Achieved 93 Superior agency, Deshon proposed that he ask Grant to issue instructions to his cabinet officer about the procedure in future instances of this kind. 44 Deshon wrote a second time to Ewing on May 16. As far as his own letter was concerned, it contained much the same as the other save the observation that Deshon suspected under- hand methods had been employed in the Department of the In- terior of which the President was ignorant. 45 But with the sec- ond note Deshon sent a copy of a communication addressed three days before to "My old friend and classmate/' Quite frankly the priest told the President that all of his hopes in the Indian matter rested entirely on him, for Delano and Brunot had both laid down the principle of abiding by the existing arrangement. He reminded Grant of the promises made to him the previous November and the failure of the secretary to car- ry out the readjustment at the January conference of the re- ligious bodies. The President had directed him to lay the matter before B. R. Co wen, then expected to be the next Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and to await the adjournment of Congress. Deshon recalled that he had made four journeys to Washington for interviews with Delano, and that he could not understand why he was invited by the secretary if the latter intended to abide by his fiat : "the present arrangement is not to be disturbed/" Deshon remarked that he no longer had any hope of favorable action from the Interior officials, who would not concede anything unless obliged to by Grant himself. The Paulist recounted that he had written to many of the bishops who had Indians under their care to beg them to be pa- tient until the President had fulfilled his promise. His past faith and his belief at that moment were expressed in these words : You would rather tell me frankly to dismiss all hopes in the matter, if you meant to do nothing, rather than allow me to waste my time and worry myself with much anxiety 44 ibid., Deshon to Ewing, New York, New York, May 16, 1873. 45 Ibid., same to same, New York, May 16, 1873. 94 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy and trouble, and finally be discredited as a credulous en- thusiast, who expected much and realized nothing. The letter was amazingly outspoken and may be explained solely as having been written to an intimate friend rather than having been a petition for redress to the chief executive of the nation. Deshon reported that in his interview three days later at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York the President had promised "to act at once. He said distinctly that he wanted a readjustment of the agencies." 46 Ewing later explained that he had been very well received when he went to the President as Deshon had requested, but nothing had been done then because of the absence of Delano from Washington. Grant had taken the Chippewa petition from Ewing and placed it with the papers which Deshon previously had given to him, promising that he would take up the case as soon as the Secretary of the Interior returned. That the gen- eral had felt the prospects were hopeful may be inferred from his concluding remarks, when he said : "We will have a jolly big row over the Chippewas, I expect/ 747 Ewing was more de- termined than ever in advising Grant's friend a week later that the Chippewa case had been called to Delano's attention, and the latter had referred the matter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Writing as one ex-soldier to another, Ewing said that he was satisfactory for the skirmish line, but in the hand-to- hand conflict he wanted Deshon to lead the fight. 48 46 Ibid., Deshon to Grant, New York, May 13, 1873, copy in Deshon' s handwriting. The statement about Grant's promise was in Deshon's letter to Ewing; cf. n. 45 supra. 47 Ibid., Ewing to Deshon, Washington, May 20, 1873. Ibid., copy of un- addressed, unsigned note in Ewing' s handwriting, n.d., n.p,, presumably left by him with the President during his interview: "Please direct as follows: That you want a reconstruction of the Indian Agencies, assigning the Agen- cies to the various Christian Churches under the following rules : 1st, Each church to have the agency for the Indians among whom it had a mission at the inauguration of your policy, & other churches had not. 2nd, When it is shown that a church had the oldest & most successful missions within an agency, such church is to have the agent. f 3rd, When it is requested by the representative of any church, the ques- tion of an assignment will be sent to the President." 48 ibid., same to same, Washington, May 27, 1873. An Official Organisation Achieved 95 It would seem that Swing's position as the representative of Catholic interests should have been sufficiently established by that time. Nevertheless, on May 28 Archbishop Bayley sent him a formal letter of appointment as Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, that he might present it to the Secretary of the Interior, which the general did the very next day. 49 But the final result of all the negotiations was rejection of the Catholic petition for the Chippewa agency. That it was not so assigned may be ascertained from the records, 50 but the re- fusal may have been somewhat in the nature of a compromise. On June 3 Ewing had another personal interview with Delano, who told him that while he could not give the agency to the Catholic Church, he did not want to go on record with an offi- cial reply to the Catholic commissioner. However, he must have offered to discuss the matter further, for Ewing main- tained that it was imperative that Deshon should be in the cap- ital two days later. 51 Because the two allies were both present at the conference with the Secretary of the Interior there was no necessity of one reporting to the other. Much of what happened was contained, however, in a letter which Ewing dispatched immediately to fourteen bishops who were anxious over the Indians in their dioceses. Despite Deshon having told Grant that he feared be- ing labeled a "credulous enthusiast/' in the interview of June 5 both he and Ewing were satisfied with a fresh promise by Delano. The Washington attorney advised the bishops that the cabinet member had explained he could not do full justice without offending and probably alienating some of the Prot- estant denominations, who had entered a new field of labor. Because of the large number of votes which would be thereby lost, Ewing continued, Delano could not consign to the Catho- lics all of the reservations to which they were entitled. How- ever, control shortly would be given to the more important re- 49 EC, Bayley to Ewing, Baltimore, May 28, 1873 ; ABCIM, Ewing to Delano, Washington, May 29, 1873, copy. 50 BJ.C., 1873, p. 245. 51 ABCIM, Ewing to Deshon, Washington, June 3, 1873. 96 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy serves to which the Church rightly was entitled, Ewing ex- pressed the hope that in a few years full justice would be done. No rearrangement had been made at the meeting, for the Secre- tary of the Interior had said that he intended to review the entire list of agencies. To provide him with accurate informa- tion Ewing requested the bishops to send the names of those places which they considered due to the Church in their respective dioceses. With the list he wanted complete data con- cerning the past and present status of both the Indians and their care. 52 Among those to whom the letter was addressed was, of course, Archbishop Blanchet. Despite the amplitude of his correspondence on file in Washington and the presence there of Father Brouillet, the venerable prelate nevertheless wrote a lengthy reply. Therein he laid claim to seven agencies in the State of Oregon, two of which were then assigned to the Church. 53 And exactly two agencies were his total in the end, for the rearrangement of assignments so often promised never became a reality. The entire profit from the numerous written and personal requests was revealed at the end of June. Ewing then told the Paulist that he had received from the In- dian Bureau and forwarded to the West coast authority for Catholic churches to be built on the Nez Perce and Yakima reservations. This permission had been asked the previous February but refused, and Ewing ascribed the final allowance of the request by the Department of the Interior to the Chip- pewa petition. 54 The redskins of Klamath, an Oregon reserva- tion for which Archbishop Blanchet had contended at the same time as these other two, had meanwhile gone on the warpath. A veteran observer on the West coast said the trouble would have been prevented had Delano entrusted the reserve to Cath- olic missionaries. 56 The Chippewa Indians sought a reconsid- 52 Ibid., Ewing to Caspar H. Borgess, et aliis, Washington, June 7, 1873, copy. 53 Ibid., F. N. Blanchet to Ewing, Portland, July 12, 1873. 54 Ibid., Ewing to Deshon [Washington], June 29, [18] 73, copy. 55 Catholic Sentinel (Portland, Oregon), May 10, 1873. An Official Organization Achieved 97 eration from the President by sending a memorial requesting Catholic teachers for their sons and daughters, but they were no more successful than had been Grant's long-time friend, George Deshon. 56 During the first months in his capacity as Catholic com- missioner Charles Ewing depended primarily on the assistance of Deshon. Therefore, little mention has been made of the other priest who had promoted his appointment, J.B.A. Brouil- let. From the available files it is apparent that the latter had been handling matters of detail for Ewing, though the greater part of his time had been devoted to the business in Washing- ton of his own Bishop of Nesqually and the Archbishop of Oregon City. Brouillet's qualification was derived from his experience as an Indian missionary in the Northwest since 1847 and from his personal conviction that the pagan red men could be improved and elevated only by the truths of Christianity. 57 The two Blanchets had sent him on his fourth trip to the na- tional capital after the election of 1872, that he might handle their joint interests until a representative for all the hierarchy was named. 58 Even before Ewing actually was decided upon for this post Bishop Magloire Blanchet began in February to urge Brouillet to return to Washington Territory. Immediate- ly after Archbishop Bayley definitely appointed the general this insistence was repeated, Blanchet reminding the priest that Deshon and Mesplie were available for whatever assistance from the clergy Ewing might need. 59 Never debating the matter, Brouillet rather temporized by bringing up additional business with which he was becoming concerned. Late in April his bishop stated that he had con- 56 ABCIM, Memorial of 140 Chippewa men to the President of the United States, June 23, 1873, copy. 57 AAS, Brouillet to the Members of the Central Council of Paris for the Work of the Propagation of the Faith, Nesqually, November 7, 1852, copy. Cf. Sister Marian Josephine Thomas, S-H.N., "Abbe Jean-Baptiste Abraham Brouillet," passim. 58 A.M.A. Blanchet to Mesplie, Vancouver, November 18, 1872; in Van der Donckt, "The Founders of the Church in Idaho," op. cfa, p. 18. 59 AAS, Blanchet to Brouillet, Vancouver, March 20, 1873, copy. 98 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy suited with Francis Blanchet and the two had decided that Brouillet should resume his work on the West coast at once. Train fare for the transcontinental journey was a major item of expense for Bishop Blanchet. Hence he instructed his vicar general to arrange his affairs for departure from Washington while he sought to secure the money. Ten days later a draft for $200 was forwarded to Brouillet, but it reached him when negotiations for the agency of the Chippewas were at their height. 60 More and more Ewing had come to depend upon the French-Canadian priest. To retain his services he must have asked help of Baltimore, for Bay ley acknowledged in May that he had requested the Bishop of Nesqually to permit Brouil- let to remain sometime longer in Washington. 61 To this request Blanchet replied that it was still the belief of himself and his brother that the handling of Indian affairs in Washington would have to be left to Ewing. The vastness of the territory and the fewness of the clergy of the Diocese of Nesqually made every priest desperately needed by the bishop. In addition to his general qualifications Blanchet said that Brouillet's ability to speak French made him irreplaceable for some sections. The principal consideration, however, was that the Washington Territory jurisdiction was too poor to bear Brouillet's expenses away from home. The two Blanchets felt that all the bishops who were benefiting should share the bur- den. Despite the many uses to which the services of his priest could be put in the diocese, Blanchet, nonetheless, left the door open for his remaining in Washington. In fact, he recommend- ed Brouillet strongly as being well qualified to work for the good of all the Indian missions of the various dioceses because of his more than twenty-five years' experience. All that was needed to please the bishop with Brouillet's assumption of the duties was an equitable distribution of his living expenses among the bishops having the care of Indians. 62 Though 60 Ibid., same to same, Vancouver, April 27 and May 6, 1873, copies. ei EC, Bayley to Ewing, Baltimore, May 28, 1873. 62 AAB, 41-C-13, Blanchet to Bayley, Vancouver, June 15, 1873. An Official Organization Achieved 99 Brouillet prolonged this fourth Washington visit for another sixteen months, the problem of his upkeep was not solved dur- ing that time to his bishop's satisfaction. Apparently Bayley accomplished nothing in that regard, for late the following fall Blanchet was still complaining that the bishops for whom his own priest was working with such devotion were not showing their appreciation by contributing to his support. He thought that a personal appeal by Brouillet would have that happy re- sult, but no evidence was found that the vicar general of Nes- qually made such an attempt. 63 Though neither the sustenance nor the permanence of his co-worker was on a regularized footing, Ewing came to dis- cover that his own position involved a multitude and a wide variety of duties. A few samples of the subjects of his cor- respondence during the remainder of 1873 will demonstrate how quickly many problems other than the Chippewas were placed in his hands. His attention was called to the contro- verted agency of Fort Hall, which had been assigned to the Catholic Church the previous year and then taken back by Sec- retary Delano. A non-Catholic army captain stationed at the military post there wrote to Father Mesplie in western Idaho about the dissatisfaction of the Indians and their desire for missionaries whom they identified by their making the Sign of the Cross. 64 A Jesuit missionary sent in the petition of a chief of the Coeur d'Alenes for the Great Father in Washing- ton to protect his children in the practice of the religion of their own choice, which right the agent had denied to the tribe. 65 From Montana came another complaint of a priest of the same Society of Jesus, this time because the agent at Fort Belknap, Montana, refused Catholic children permission to at- tend Mass on Sundays. 66 Lest it appear that the Jesuits were 6 3 AAS, Blanchet to Brouillet, Vancouver, October 15, 1873, copy. 64 Captain H. A. Finney to Mesplie, Ross Fork Agency, Idaho Territory, June 7, 1873; printed in full in the Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho), June 21 1873 65 ABCIM, Jfoseph] M. Cataldo, S.J., to Ewing, Lewiston, Idaho Terri- tory, June 29, 1873. 6 6 Ibid., Fred Verschweiler, S.J., to Ewing, Harlem, Montana Territory, August 23, 1873. 100 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy unalterably opposed to all non-Catholic employees, mention should be made of Lawrence Palladino, SJ-, asserting that he much preferred an honest liberal-minded Protestant in charge of an agency assigned to the Church than he did to have a poor Catholic. 67 Nor was it only for missionaries or for strictly religious rights that Ewing was willing to protest when the point seemed to justify action. Having been notified by Narcisse Cornoyer at the Umatilla, Oregon, reserve that his discharging two un- satisfactory employees had been challenged, Ewing promptly demanded a ruling upon the powers of an Indian agent. 68 The purchase of Alaska by the United States from Russia was still being dubbed "Seward's folly" when the Washington attorney asked the Secretary of War for permission to have wine im- ported into the new territory for the offering of Mass by Cath- olic missionaries. In this request outside of the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior Ewing was more quickly suc- cessful than he was in his petitions for the Indians. As a re- sult of the letter and his personal interview with William W. Belknap the general was able to advise Archbishop Alemany within a week that the commander at San Francisco had been directed to allow the sacramental wine to be taken into Alaska. 69 These and, many other concerns demanded ever more of the time and attention of this Washington attorney. Neverthe- less, there was no change in the attitude which had impelled Deshon to say that the general was willing to do all of these things out of love of his faith. 70 But his good intentions were ignited into action by his energetic co-worker, Father Brouillet, in the direction of having a bureau in Washington handle the 67 Ibid., Palladino to Brouillet, Missoula, Montana Territory, November 9, 1873. Shortly before he had requested assistance in starting two new In- dian boarding schools; ibid., same to same, Missoula, October 29, 1873. 68 Ibid Having to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, Decem- ber 26, 1873. 69 ibid., Ewing to W. W. Belknap, Washington, December 19, 1873 ; ibid., Ewing- to Alemany, Washington, December 27, 1873, copies. AAB, 43-M-15, Deshon to F. N. Blanchet, Sandusky, Ohio, Novem- ber 28, 1872. An Official Organization Achieved 101 Indian affairs of the hierarchy rather than leaving them to Ewing alone. The general had gone to Berkley Springs, West Virginia, with his family for a late summer rest and vacation, but Brouillet would permit no flagging of interest in the cause of the Catholic missions. On August 21 and again two days later he asked his friend to furnish papers which he would take to Baltimore the following Monday, without, however, men- tioning the nature of the documents other than that they were for the archbishop. 71 From two more letters on the next fort- night the project was revealed together with Bayley 's first re- action. In the interview with Brouillet the archbishop had been completely despondent, both in regard to any favorable action by the government and the possibility of organizing a Catholic office for that purpose in Washington. The only hope which the priest had of a change in outlook lay in a letter from Ewing. 72 In this letter the priest asked the general to request of Bay- ley and all the bishops of the country only two things : approval of a bureau, and permission to solicit support from the Catho- lic benevolent societies in each diocese. Armed with this double approbation Brouillet said: (i We apprehend no difficulty in providing ample support for the Bureau without interfering in the least with the particular work of each bishop." As ad- ditional assistance a letter of recommendation from Bayley to the charitable attention of the hierarchy was suggested. Es- pecially desirable would this document become if provided in time to be used at a convention of Catholic welfare societies which was to be held in New York the following October, 73 Brouillet's last appeal for speed in composing the letter was sent on Friday, September 5. His hope that the address already was on the way apparently was realized, for the following day the Archbishop of Baltimore wrote to Ewing. Bayley had previously given his approval to the establishment of an office 71 EC, Brouillet to Ewing, Washington, August 21 and August 23, 1873. 72 Ibid., same to same, Washington, September 5, 1873. 73 Ibid. f same to same, Washington, September 1, 1873. 102 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy in Washington to carry on the work which the general had begun, but at this time he was not so enthusiastic. The prin- cipal cause of the archbishop's hesitancy was his conviction that nothing of value was to be derived from such an office. He had liked the petition for the Chippewa agency very much, and its rejection by Secretary Delano persuaded him that nothing would be done for the Church. If the authorities in Washing- ton were motivated by justice, Bayley believed ^that a perma- nent source of accurate information combined with an effective pleader would be highly valuable to the missionary interests of the Church. As he saw it, however, the Indian Bureau had no respect for the justice or injustice of decisions. Moreover, he charged that the disregard of Catholic rights was intentional, deliberate, and unconcealed. The archbishop placed the blame on no unidentified subordi- nates but he attributed the twisted policy to the Secretary of the Interior, with whom the President had declined or at least failed to interfere. Why? The Baltimore prelate was equally specific in stating that the Protestant societies had gained their predominant influence by promising to support the administra- tion in everything. "This of course we could not do, and would not if we could/' Bayley declared. He did not even see any hope in the proposed Catholic bureau gaining justice through influencing public opinion, 74 for he considered the abil- ity of the government to confer political offices too powerful to be overcome. And yet his refusal of Ewing' s plan was not absolute, for he promised to confer with other members of the hierarchy, especially Archbishop John McCloskey of New York, 75 This lengthy letter was written on Saturday, and the fol- lowing Thursday Ewing and Brouillet went to Baltimore to see 74 Catholic Mirror (Baltimore), May 24, 1873, in an editorial, "The Church and the Indians," had called upon the Catholic newspapers of the country to direct public opinion by "making a thorough revelation of the terrible shortcomings of the Government in its management, or rather gross mismanagement of Indian affairs/' 75 ABCIM, Bayley to Ewing, Baltimore, September 6, 1873. AAB, Diary, p. 6, Bayley mentioned having talked about the Indian situation with Ewing during a visit to Washington in the previous May. An Official Organisation Achieved 103 Bayley. The archbishop was out of the city when they called, but he promptly advised the following* day that he had intended going to New York for consultation with McCloskey but a re- currence of his periodic illness and the press of ecclesiastical affairs had prevented his so doing. As he had previously re- marked about the memorandum which Brouillet had left the week before, Bayley promised to forward to McCloskey an- other note which Ewing had written. He expressed supreme confidence in the judgment of his episcopal friend and said that a favorable opinion from New York on the project would alter his own adverse judgment. 76 The quick decision was not forth- coming, however, as Ewing had hoped. The entire nation was distracted during the next month by the Panic of 1873, which was touched off by the failure of Jay Cooke & Company and other financial institutions in New York. With nothing fur- ther from Bayley on the subject, Ewing revived his proposal on October 30. In stating that the Indian business was too much for him to handle alone, Ewing urged immediate action for the establishment of a bureau in Washington. The Church already had lost more than could be regained in two years, ac- cording to his estimate, and unless the deficiency were cor- rected without further delay Catholics would be forced from the field of missionary labor. Failure to be ready at the time the Peace Policy was proposed had put the Church in a situa- tion where it was necessary to contend for her rights instead of simply defending possession of the missions which rightly be- longed to her. Two objections to his suggestion were anticipated by the general, and like a good army officer he had marshaled his forces to best them. The first was that establishment of a bu- reau would coalesce opposition. To him this had no weight, for Catholics would not be initiating but rather following an example which had already been set by the Protestant mission- ary societies. In fact, he thought that it would be a full an- 76 Ibid., Bayley to Ewing, Baltimore, September 12, 1873. Major Alex- ander J. Dallas, who sometimes helped Ewing in the Catholic mission work, also had called with the other two. 104 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy swer to the President's invitation to co-operate with his Indian plan. He considered the hostility of government officials, which was the second objection, as demanding rather than quashing more active methods on the part of Catholics. Ewing radiated enthusiasm and a belief that a central office in Wash- ington was the means for attaining all these objectives. How- ever, he made no appeal to Bayley for unilateral action, but rather he was seeking the approval of Baltimore as the first step toward obtaining the blessing for the project from all the bishops of the United States, or at least those concerned with the Indian missions directly. 77 Only one exchange of opinions on the possibility of a cen- tral office in Washington passed between the general and his archbishop during the next month. In that Ewing gave fur- ther proof of his charitable nature by attributing past hostility toward Catholic mission interests to ignorance of the Church and her works. He again stressed the point that the Board of Indian Commissioners was entirely Protestant because Catho- lics had no representative in Washington in 1870. It was the correction of that condition he was then urging on Bayley. 78 Highly pertinent to the ill effects suffered by the Church from the unfriendly feeling of the chairman of that same board, Felix R. Brunot, was an article which had appeared in a New York newspaper the previous Saturday. It had been published under the heading of "Is This Justice ?" Ewing said the au- thor was an army officer, who had secured his data from re- ports which Ewing had collected since Bayley had named him commissioner for the Catholic missions. Apparently Baltimore was the only one whom Ewing wrote in regard to the full-page account, but he had distributed reprints, as he said, to "all the bishops of the United States, various Government officials, and many others/' 77 Ibid., Ewing to Bayley, Washington, October 30, 1873, copy. Bay- ley noted a visit from Ewing, Brouillet, and Major Dallas on October 16 in regard to the Indian missions and he added: "The conduct of the Gov- ernment in this matter is shameful" ; AAB, 43-N-l, Memorandum. 78 Ibid., same to same, Washington, November 4, 1873, copy. An Official Organization Achieved 105 Brunot had been singled out for discussion by the writer to the newspaper because of an address he had made before the Evangelical Alliance in St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church in New York. There he had cited statistics and reports about the missionary work among the Indians but had not included a single reference to the labors of Catholics. As he was speak- ing to an audience exclusively Protestant, Brunot should not have been criticized for the omission. But the newspaper writ- er was on firmer ground when he took exception to the Indian commissioner speaking of 15,000 Christians among the Indians of the country. Listing the red men by tribes and agencies, the Catholic Review correspondent arrived at a total of 106,911 Indian Catholics. The incongruity noted was that for the 15,- 000 Protestant redskins sixty-six agencies had been allotted, while to the Catholic Church only seven reservations with a total population of about 17,000 had been given. Because of the few reserves in the hands of Catholics, the writer declared that nearly 90,000 copper-skinned members of his faith were under the control and supervision of non-Catholics. 79 During this month of November Brouillet visited New York, but no record remains of whether he had talked with Arch- bishop McCloskey, as Bayley had suggested that he do. It may have been from the priest that Ewing learned the Catholic arch- bishops were to meet early in December in regard to the af- TO Catholic Review (New York), November 1, 1873. While Brunot has been credited with concealing his anti-Catholic feeling in official actions this was not always true. RBIC, L.R., December, 1871 to December, 1872, Brunot to Thomas K. Cree, Pittsburgh, March 5, 1872, warned the secre- tary of the board to avoid giving- an appearance of denominational partial- ity. "I think you will quite understand me and not find it difficult to be on your guard." Ibid., December 12, 1872: "I think the IvOwrie [? Reverend John C. Ix>wrie, secretary of Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions] let- ter is well enough but if you still have R[oman] C[atholic; Brunot fre- quently used these initials in his correspondence to refer to Catholics] cop- ist or employees wd. be sorry to have these things and the like, known to that ch[urch]," Mesptte told Archbishop Blanchet of having made Brunot blush by reminding him of his conduct while visiting Umatilla, Grande Ronde, and other reservations assigned to the Church. The priest had re- marked: "In his visit he insulted the priests and the Catholic agents, and also the Indians if they had been able to understand him"; AAP, Mesplie to Blanchet, New York, October 2, 1872. 106 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy fairs of the American College in Rome. Ewing turned to his best friend among the hierarchy, Archbishop Purcell of Cin- cinnati, who had officiated at the general's marriage in 1870. 80 Indians had ceased to be a problem in Ohio during the already long episcopacy of Purcell, so the general first gave a brief re- view of the developments in that regard under Grant's policy. Again he laid a part of the blame for the Church having been given only seven or eight of the Indian agencies to the failure to present claims properly when the program was begun. While Catholics were silent others had been outspoken. As a conse- quence denominations which were not entitled to a single agency by virtue of past missionary work had been awarded from ten to sixteen appointments. Agents who received their positions through one of these groups naturally would favor that organization, he pointed out, and would be hostile to the Catholics who were seeking to have the agency reassigned. Ewing excused the lesser officials for their opposition, but con- tended that a strong representation was needed in Washington where the department heads had chosen to ignore protests from individual bishops and priests. By this time Ewing realized that he had neither the time nor the financial means to carry on the task unaided. Therefore, he asked his friend to write to Bayley, if Purcell did not intend to go to the approaching meeting. Ewing was hopeful that his proposal would be sanc- tioned, but whether it be acceptance or rejection, he asked the Archbishop of Cincinnati to try to secure a definite decision. 81 Purcell did not attend the New York conference, but the aging prelate sent a strong appeal to the Archbishop of New York to have Ewing appointed commissioner immediately. In acknowledging the general's request Purcell took it for granted that the other bishops would have approved, for he 80 By a strange coincidence Virginia Miller, whom Ewing married, was from Mount Vernon, Ohio, which was also the home of Secretary of the Interior Delano. Not a Catholic at the time of the marriage, Mrs. Ewing entered the Church after the birth of her second child Charles. These facts were obtained from Mr. John K. M. Ewing, son of General Having, in a personal interview on. April 16, 1952. 81 ABCIM, Ewing to Purcell, Washington, December 2, 1873, copy. An Official Organization Achieved 107 thanked God that a man so willing and capable as his friend was taking up the work. Purcell pledged that any assessment for the enterprise would be met gladly. He added that it had often been said that each bishop was so occupied with the af- fairs of his individual diocese that he was prone to neglect projects which would have been for the general good of the Church. Purcell' s letter was effective, for Bayley later told Ewing that the Archbishop of New York was the only one at the episcopal meeting who had an active interest in establishing a Washington office for Indian business. 82 After some delay Archbishop McCloskey acknowledged Purcell's message, at the same time giving his own view of the conference of bishops. An informal discussion of protection for Catholic Indian missions had followed the regular busi- ness, he said, and the sentiment among those present was for co-operation along the lines suggested. While Archbishop Bayley had been empowered to give this assurance to Brouil- let, no appointment of a bureau head had been agreed upon. That action was not to be taken until other members of the episcopacy had expressed themselves. Father Brouillet had told the bishops that about $4,000 would be needed annually for the expenses of the general office. The bishops did not object to the sum, agreeing that it would be raised among themselves and the other members of the hierarchy in the United States. 83 McCloskey was far more optimistic about the realization of the projected Washington office than was Bayley. While the former had interpreted the expressions at the New York meet- ing as favorable, both to the setting up of an office and the un- derwriting of its expense, the Archbishop of Baltimore con- tended that the bishops generally felt the same as he did, name- ly, that little benefit would come of it. Nor was this personal appraisal of the episcopal attitudes all, for Bayley had been ad- vised against the move by Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick of St. Louis and by the Jesuit provincial in Baltimore, James 82 Ibid., Purcell to Ewing, Cincinnati, December 29, 1873 ; Bayley to Ewing, Woodstock, Maryland, December 10, 1873. 88 AUND, McCloskey to Purcell, New York, December 26, 1873. 108 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy E. Keller, SJ. Bayley said that recent events had convinced him more than ever that the Protestant denominations, especi- ally the Methodists, were so much in control of the Indian pro- gram that a Catholic bureau would merely intensify their oppo- sition. He recalled that Chairman Brunot had so expressed himself before the gathering of the Evangelical Alliance in New York. In addition, the entire Board of Indian Commis- sioners had threatened to resign if Grant appointed a Catholic to the body, whereupon the President promptly backed down. With all his influence and connections in Washington, Ewing could only hope to shame the administration into a few small concessions. Bayley dolorously believed that these driblets would be withdrawn again at the first opportunity. For these reasons, rather than to establish a bureau the Archbishop of Baltimore preferred that Ewing should act alone. He was willing to appoint him commissioner for Cath- olic interests, but he could see no need of having a priest em- ployed in the business, an apparent reference to Brouillet. When assistance of an ecclesiastic was needed in some particular mat- ter, Bayley thought that the bishop of the diocese concerned could send one of his clerics to consult with Ewing. As a con- vert to Catholicism himself and as an advocate of respect for authority, Bayley maintained he would like to think differently about those directing the Indian program, but some small in- dication of fair play would first have to be shown. On the In- dian question tempering of judgment was characteristic of the archbishop. Now he expressed unwillingness to stand in the way of even a possible good; it might be true, as Ewing ven- tured, that the government officials had acted from ignorance more than from malice. If the general was willing to be com- missioner anyway, the archbishop promised to furnish creden- tials for presentation to the government and documents to show to societies who were disposed to contribute to the support of the work. 84 At best Bayley's reply could hardly be regarded as more than restrained acquiesence to Swing's proposal, but the apostolic 84 ABCIM, Bayley to Ewing, Woodstock, Maryland, December 10, 1873. An Official Organization Achieved 109 enthusiasm of the attorney was undaunted. His response of December 23 might have been considered a Christmas gift to the Catholic Church of the United States. Without a single qualification he assured his friend in Baltimore that he was en- tirely willing to take charge of all business with the govern- ment for the Catholic Indian missions. The formal letters of appointment which Bayley had offered were thereupon re- quested. The general, on his part, promised to make periodic reports of receipts and expenditures of the office and to keep the archbishop fully informed of the business transacted for the missions in the name of the hierarchy. 85 Thus did the Washington Catholic attorney espouse the duties which were to become his major occupation during the rest of his lifetime. Lest it be assumed that all of Swing's time was devoted to promotion of the central bureau, mention should be made of the promptness with which he undertook the task of regaining the Indian agencies to which he felt the Church had a just title. Late in December the general had an interview with Delano, during which the secretary instructed him to designate the red men whom the Catholics claimed were properly their charges. Just before the end of 1873 Ewing sent a list of forty different groups of Indians, most of them quartered on reserva- tions. A formal petition was filed that they be turned over to the Church in accord with the President's policy. Of this num- ber seven agencies and one sub-agency were already assigned to the Church. Ewing promised that the individual arguments for the other reserves would be forwarded as soon as they had been prepared. However, he stated in advance that the claim in each instance was based upon the same reasoning as had been followed in the petition for the Chippewas; namely, that :he Church was the proper custodian of each reservation be- muse of priority of missionary work which had been both permanent and successful. 86 It was according to that formula .hat extended briefs were filed with the Department of the In- 85 AAB, 41-F-13, Ewing to Bayley, Washington, December 23, 1873. 86 ABCIM, Ewing to Secretary of the Interior, Washington, December 50, 1873, copy. 50 100 2OO 3OO At. o'^r- -^/ * Kl Tovytf / ~^> J^J Operations among the Indians of the Northwest to 1873 An Official Organisation Achieved 111 terior in the first months of 1874. Of the eight charges which had already been given to the Church it was true that the Grand River agency in Dakota Territory had not been filled at this time, a matter which will be treated more extensively here- after. However, in that regard Catholics had been far more prompt in the nomination of agents than had been other re- ligious groups. The Board of Indian Commissioners report for 1873, for instance, showed that thirty-three agencies which had been alloted to the care of non-Catholics were unfilled. 87 If the Grand River Reserve was as yet open, the commis- sioner could have found comfort in the praise of the Catholic schools which had been promptly staffed and put into opera- tion at other points. Inspector Edward C. Kemble was later to be critical of the Catholic contention for religious liberty on all reservations. But in 1873 after he had visited the school of the Tulalip Reservation, Washington Territory, he pro- nounced it the best institution west of the Rocky Mountains. The pupils had advanced so well in their studies that Kemble thought they would have shamed students of white schools, and the reason for the success was found in the devoted efforts of the Catholic sisters who were the teachers. 88 One more in- stance may be taken from a letter of John A. Sims, agent at Colville. Sims reported that the school there was so successful that nearly every day the sisters had to refuse to accept more Indian children, the capacity of the buildings having been al- ready taxed. 89 Ewing had felt that some benefit had been gained from his petition for the Chippewas, however short of his original goal it had fallen, in the permission given by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the erection of a Catholic church on both 87 BJ.C., 1873, pp. 60-65. 88 C.I.A., 1874 (Washington, 1874), p. 83. In a Report of the Joint Special Committee f which body had been authorized by Congress on March 3, 1865, Senator James W. Nesmith of Oregon declared of Tulalip Reser- vation: "Here was the only place upon the Puget Sound where I wit- nessed any attempt being made to educate Indian children": (Washington, 1867), pp. 3-4. 89 ABCIM, Sitns to Brouillet, Fort Colville, Washington Territory, De- cember 27, 1873. 112 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy the Nez Perce and the Yakima Reservations. In his application of February 14 for this authorization he had mentioned that Catholic missionaries had given religious instructions to mem- bers of the Nez Perce tribe for thirty years. During the pre- vious five years a priest had stayed with these Indians during most of the year. The Reverend Henry H. Spalding had been driven out when the Whitman massacre occurred in 1847, and no Presbyterian minister had again visited the tribe until after the Peace Policy had been instituted. 90 Upon instructions from Delano acting Commissioner Clum had rejected the Ewing pe- tition a month after it was filed. 91 Meanwhile the attorney had made his formal request that the Chippewas be entrusted to Catholic care. In failing to achieve this end, he was given the permission to have Catholic churches built on both the Idaho and the Washington Territory reserves. On the last day of June Ewing forwarded official authorizations for the places of worship (to be constructed at Catholic expense) to the bishops in charge of these respective districts. With the air of a man who had successfully completed a piece of business, he told Bishop Lootens that in the end the Church would be given ev- erything to which it was entitled. 92 Unknown to the general when he penned these letters was a turmoil which was already brewing at the Nez Perce Reser- vation. With this authorization for the erection of the churches the crisis became acute at both places. On May 15 John B. Monteith, agent for the Presbyterians at the north-central Idaho reserve, advised the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that the Catholic missionary was holding religious services for the Nez Perce members of the Church. Permission to build a church having been denied in March, the priest had asked to use 90 "Reports and Recommendations of Missionaries," Board of Indian Commissioners Bulletin No. 280 (Washington, 1927), p. 21, quoting Mary M. Crawford, The McBeth (Presbyterian) Mission, Lapwai, Idaho. (Mim- eographed.) 91 ABCIM, Clum to Ewing, Washington, March 22, 1873. 92 Ibid., Ewing to Deshon [Washington], June 29, [18]73. Ibid., Ewing to Louis tootens, Washington, June 30, 1873; ibid., Ewing to A.M.A. Blan- chet, Washington, June 30, 1873, copies. An Official Organization Achieved 113 the school house as a place of worship. Monteith said that had promptly been denied. Father Joseph M. Cataldo, S.J., who lived west of the Indian property at Lewiston, had then held services in the open without any shelter. Monteith inquired : Have I the right, this being a Presbyterian Agency and mission, to exercise such control over the morals of this people as will enable me to prohibit the teaching of the Catholic faith, or the holding of Catholic services among them, even though the Indians desire it and clamor for it. 93 Commissioner Smith replied that the assignment of the res- ervation to the Presbyterian Church did not warrant any intol- erant exercise of power. Also, it was not in keeping with public policy or the spirit of religious toleration to forbid or to hinder services for people who belonged to a particular faith. Smith observed that the arbitrary ban Monteith had suggested would work more harm than any consequence which was likely to develop from missionaries of two religions working on the same reservation. 94 Smith's advice that the Jesuit missionary should be allowed to use the school house as a place of worship for the Indians was superseded by the authorization for the erection of a Catholic church. About the time it was issued, however, Cataldo forwarded a protest from some Catholic In- dian chiefs against Monteith's treatment. 95 The agent's refusal to permit services other than Presbyterian had become known along the Pacific coast. A Portland paper took issue with his action, as well as to the remarks of a Presbyterian minister of that Oregon city that there were no Catholics among the Yaki- ma tribe and almost none among the Nez Perce. 96 93 RBIA, L.R., Nez Perces, 1873, Monteith to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Lapwai, Idaho Territory, May 15, 1873. 94 RBIA, L.S., 1873, 112, 305-306, Smith to Monteith, Washington, May 24, 1873. 95 ABCIM, Cataldo to Brouillet, Lewiston, Idaho Territory, June 29, 1873. Attached was a copy of a letter of Seltis, head chief, and others to Mr. Monteith, Lewiston, June 25, 1873. 96 Catholic Sentinel (Portland, Oregon), June 20, 1873, ia editorial, "That Intolerant Agent," also quoted from address made by Dr. [A. L.?l Lindsley, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Portland, to a Pres- byterian synod in San Francisco. 114 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy The sanction of Commissioner Smith for the erection of the two churches provoked a strong protest from the second reser- vation, that of Yakima in Washington Territory. The agent was James H. Wilbur, who had been nominated to that post by the Methodist Church. He advised Smith that all Protestant Christians had taken the Indian agencies with the expectation that in each instance sole jurisdiction was to be exercised, as it was expressed, "most of all without the interference of the Catholic priesthood." 97 His principal objection to these mis- sionaries was that they followed a persistent policy of counter- acting the instructions of the Protestant teachers. Supple- menting Wilbur's protest was another from the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory, Robert H. Mil- roy, also of the Methodist persuasion. Milroy adopted a differ- ent tack, contending that the permission to Catholic mission- aries was a violation of the treaties between the respective tribes and the United States. According to the clause Milroy cited, no white man could enter these reservations without the consent of the superintendent, the agent, and the Indians them- selves. As Wilbur and he were opposed to the coming of the Catholics, the attitude of the red men did not enter into consid- eration. On this basis the action of the Secretary of the In- terior was regarded as illegal and void by Milroy. 98 In the preceding June, the same month in which Ewing had received official sanction for the erection of churches for these Catholic red men of the Northwest, Congress had approved another division of the Indian Office. By this amendment su- perintendencies were abolished in some districts and five men with the title of inspector were named. These new officials 97 James H. Willem [Wilbur] to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Fort Simcoe, Washington Territory, September 1, 1873; C.I.A., 1873 (Washing- ton, 1874), p. 314. 98 Milroy to Smith, Olympia, Washington Territory, October 20, 1873; CJ.A., 1873, p. 298. ABCIM, Ewing to Secretary of the Interior, Wash- ington, January 14, 1874, copy, suggested that if Superintendent Milroy, who had been suspended, was replaced, a layman of good character be named rather than a cleric^ whether Protestant or Catholic. Ewing's opinion, was that thereby discrimination and, perhaps, dissention might be avoided. Both Milroy and Wilbur were Methodist ministers. An Official Organization Achieved 115 were not under the immediate jurisdiction of the Board of In- dian Commissioners, but like the latter were to serve as a check upon the operation of the Indian service." The President had promised that one and, perhaps, two of the appointees would be Catholics, but this assurance was no more fulfilled than that of adjusting the agency assignments. 100 Edward C. Kemble, who had attended the conference in Washington the preceding January as the secretary of the Protestant Episcopal Indian Commission, was given the position for part of the North- west 101 In response to a petition by the Nez Perces for the op- portunity of Catholic worship Inspector Kemble was ordered to go to Lapwai, Idaho Territory, to hear the interested mem- bers of the tribe. Notice was sent to the Catholics on the re- serve that the new inspector would meet them at the contro- verted school house, but though the Indians were present at the appointed time neither Kemble nor the agent made an appear- ance. 102 E wing requested that a Catholic of proper qualifica- tions and impartial disposition be named by the Department of the Interior to hear the grievances of the Nez Perces. Later he sent the name and address of the Jesuit missionary, that 99 Catholic Sentinel (Portland), June 15, 1873, related the action of Con- gress and the names of the new inspectors. B.I.C., 1873, p. 6, because of the short time the inspectors had been engaged no report was made on their work; ibid., 1875 (Washington, 1875), p. 15, stated that Congress had re- duced the number of inspectors from five to three. 100 AAP, Mesplie to F. N. Blanchet, Washington, November 23, 1872, ad- vised that Grant had promised Deshon that one or two of the new superin- tendents [inspectors] would be Catholics. At the same time the President had said that the Church would be given a place on the Board of Indian Commissioners. ABCIM, Ewing to Deshon, Washington, June 3, 1873, ad- vised that the inspectors had been appointed that morning. Delano had told Ewing that one was a Catholic but would not reveal his name. Ibid., same to same [Washington], June 29, [18] 73, advised that J. C, O'Connor of New York had been credited to the _Church as an inspector ; Ewing had heard O'Connor was dishonest and intended to refuse acceptance of the appointment. In all the records and correspondence of the Indian Office where the name of J. C. O'Connor was used, no instance was found in which his given name was employed. The Pilot (Boston), January 16, 1875, stated that Grant had wanted one inspector to be a Catholic, but this was not per- mitted. 101 Journal of the Second Annual Conference, etc., p. 3; Catholic Senti- nel (Portland), June 15, 1873. 102 idaha Signal (Lewiston, I.T.), December 6, 1873, editorial, "Straws Index the Wind." 116 Catholic Missions and Grant's Peace Policy proper arrangements for an actual meeting with Kemble might be made. 103 Neither of these offers was accepted. Eventual- ly only the agent heard the request of the Indians for a Catho- lic church and school and sent it to Kemble, who was then at Portland, Oregon. 104 No record of any action by the inspector was found. While the final outcome for the Idaho as well as the Wash- ington reservation was that the Catholic churches were never built, the result was even more far reaching. Grant's first Commissioner of Indian Affairs had given assurances that the administration had no intention of hindering Catholics from carrying on a mission which had already been founded, and Commissioner Smith had informed Agent Monteith that any such prohibition would be contrary to public policy. 105 Not- withstanding, the Indian Bureau tended ever more to restrict religious ministrations on an agency to a single denomination, regardless of the wishes of a minority or even a majority of the Indians themselves. A competent observer had said that Protestant advocacy of this procedure flowed from the inabil- ity or disinclination of the red men to follow the principle of private interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. His opinion was that the non-Catholic churches could hope for success only if granted exclusive rights on a reservation. 106 Hence it was that Ewing, instead of having completed the negotiations in June for Catholic churches on these two reservations, found at the end of the year that the right had been lost The agitation which was thereby promoted was to continue throughout the 103 ABCIM, Ewing to Delano, Washington, October 28, 1873; ibid., Ewing to Edward P. Smith, Washington, November 13, 1873, copies. 104 Arizona Citizen (Tucson), October 18, 1873, "I