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As Long as the Grass Grows · Episode 10 of 15 · 20 min

The Presidents Who Inherited Andrew Jackson's Playbook

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Andrew Jackson's belief that Native nations must assimilate, remove or vanish outlived him by more than a century, carried by presidents of both parties. The episode follows it from Van Buren and Lincoln's approval of the Mankato executions to Grant's Peace Policy, Cleveland's Dawes Act and 1953 termination. The vocabulary changed, but the premise did not.

Who's who

Where it happens

Timeline

  1. December 26, 1862Thirty-eight Dakota men are hanged at Mankato, the largest mass execution in U.S. history
  2. April 10, 1869Grant signs the act creating the Board of Indian Commissioners, core of the Peace Policy
  3. February 8, 1887Cleveland signs the Dawes Act, dissolving communal tribal land
  4. 1887-1934Tribal holdings fall from roughly 138 million acres to about 48 million
  5. August 1, 1953House Concurrent Resolution 108 declares a policy to end tribal trust status

Still debated

Historians divide on whether Grant's Peace Policy was sincere reform or gentler conquest. The Dawes loss is about 90 million acres by standard figures, and Lincoln's intervention reflects both due-process concern and political calculation. Termination's advocates were often sincere.

indian policydawes actterminationdakota warpeace policy
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