An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

efore either. He stands today between the two extremes of black and white,
too proud to claim fraternity with either, and yet too weak to withstand the
power of either.” While he did not suggest that Indigenous people would
disappear, he did argue for the permanence of European settlement and
Black belonging, and admitted that “neither the Indian has been treated as a
part of the body politic.” 65
Douglass was able to not only witness but also participate in
Reconstruction. He saw Black American men gain citizenship. But he also
saw further possibility. He believed in the prospects of US democracy, and
rightfully so, though many of the things that Black Americans gained
during Reconstruction were retracted with the passing of the Plessy v.
Ferguson decision of 1896, which ushered in Jim Crow segregation. W. E.
B. Du Bois put it best: Reconstruction “was in a certain sense all a failure,
but a splendid failure.” 66
While African Americans gained their freedom through a civil war, and
Black men later gained citizenship, there continued to be a retreat on
Indigenous rights as the United States continued to expand. For instance,
during the Civil War, when Black people were fighting for their freedom,
the United States participated in wars out west and seized more land. It also
further dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their rights guaranteed under
treaties, including perhaps the most important one, signed in 1871. That
year, the United States formally ended their treaty-making relationship with
Indigenous nations. And in 1887, with the passing of the Dawes Act,
Indigenous people were further dispossessed of their ability to control land,
ultimately altering how they could use, manage, even sell their land. While
Native people continued to resist, they also used a variety of legal tactics to
lobby white sympathizers and politicians to the best of their abilities, such
as those employed by Ely Parker (Seneca). 67 Appointed by President
Ulysses Grant, Parker served as commissioner of the Office of Indian
Affairs from 1869 to 1871. Grant advocated for a “peace policy” with
tribes, a plan designed to remove corrupt agents from reservations and
reform the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The peace policy, however, resulted in
the US government further dispossessing Native people of their land. Still,
people like Parker served an essential role in attempting to provide some
resources to tribes and helping them maintain land titles. 68
After the passing of the Dawes Act, and the murders of Native people at
Wounded Knee in December 1890, Native peoples’ methods of resistance