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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
William Vandever (1817–1893) served as a U.S. Indian inspector from 1873 until early 1878. A lawyer by profession, Vandever had been a Republican congressman from Iowa and a Civil War officer. (Later, he would return to Congress, representing California.). While serving with the Indian Office, he became a critic of the militarization of federal Indian policy, so much so as to be reprimanded and not reappointed. His experience enables a reconsideration of President U.S. Grant's peace policy in at least two areas. First, as one of a new group of Office of Indian Affairs officials, Vandever provides a view of federal Indian policy from the middle level of the federal bureaucracy during the 1870s. His case especially illustrates his bureau's attempts to centralize civilian management of Indian reservations. Second, Vandever's policy criticisms, though they assumed white American “civilization” as normative, more immediately arose from his religious perspective. Although he lost his post, Vandever serves to highlight the privileged role of white Protestantism during Grant's peace policy. He exemplified a set of racialized religious sensibilities that were important at the time and that could be termed Protestant whiteness.
2 This quotation and those in the next four paragraphs are from William Vandever to J. Elliot Condict, Jan. 4, 1877, folder 2, box 7, William Vandever Papers, Special Collections, Charles C. Myers Library, University of Dubuque (hereafter, Vandever Papers). All quotations from Vandever follow his spelling, punctuation, grammar, and use of proper names.
3 Vandever's correspondent,Condict, J. Elliot, was also a devout Presbyterian; a year prior to Vandever's reply, he had published “Our Indians and the Duty of the Presbyterian Church to Them,” Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review 5 (Jan. 1876): 76–93.Google Scholar
4 Photocopy of Vandever to B. A. Stephens, Dec. 28, 1886, folder of documents by Vandever from other collections, unnumbered box, Vandever Papers. Captain Myron VanDerWeer came to New Netherlands in 1635.
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18 Baur provides a brief summary of, Vandever's life in “William Vandever,” 11–25Google Scholar. There has been no critical study of Vandever and Indian policy to date. SeeOlson, James C., Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem (Lincoln, NE, 1965), 220Google Scholar;Stuart, Paul, The Indian Office: Growth and Development of an American Institution, 1865–1900 (Ann Arbor, MI, 1979), 93, 106, 108–09Google Scholar;, Keller, Protestantism and United States Indian Policy, 178Google Scholar;Bender, Norman J., “New Hope for the Indians”: The Grant Peace Policy and the Navajos in the 1870s (Albuquerque, NM, 1989), 101, 171Google Scholar;Sweeney, Edwin R., Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief (Norman, OK, 1991), 386–87, 391Google Scholar.
19 The Bureau of Indian Affairs did not become the official name until 1947. The Gilded Age names—the Indian Office and OIA—will be used in this essay. SeePrucha, Francis Paul, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln, NE, 1984), app. D, 1227–29Google Scholar.
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29 In the prewar and war years, Vandever and Allison were rivals as much as allies. SeeSage, Leland, William Boyd Allison: A Study in Practical Politics (Iowa City, 1956), 42–60.Google Scholar
30 Dubuque Daily Times, Aug. 24, 1865.
31 According to Vandever, an 1867 mining swindle had left him indebted; see Vandever to T. W. Burdick, Dec. 5, 1877, folder Dec. 1877, box 7, Vandever Papers. He also complained of expenses and of his failure to get ahead financially; see Vandever to William B. Allison, Nov. 27, 1873, folder 3, vol. 2, and Jan. 24, 1878, folder 2, vol. 12, William Boyd Allison Papers, State Historical Society of Iowa Library and Archives, Des Moines.
32 For overviews, see for exampleNichols, Roger L., Indians in the United States and Canada: A Comparative History (Lincoln, NE, 1998)Google Scholar;Bowden, Henry Warner, American Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Cultural Conflict (Chicago, 1981)Google Scholar; andPrucha, Francis Paul, The Indians in American Society: From the Revolutionary War to the Present (Berkeley, 1985)Google Scholar.
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40 The initial list of denominations was created in 1870 by Vincent Colyer, secretary of the BIC. In 1872, the white Protestant denominations were the northern Baptists, Congregationalists, Dutch Reformed, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, Friends (Hicksite and Orthodox), northern Methodists, and northern Presbyterians. See, Keller, Protestantism and Indian Policy, 32–36, 218–22.Google Scholar
41 , Prucha, The Great Father, 519.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., 562.
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45 Quotation is from U.S. Indian Bureau, A Compilation from the Revised Statutes of the United States, 2nd ed. (Washington, 1876), 16. The summation of duties is from a two-page document, folder 6, box 3, Vandever Papers.
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48 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Registers of Letters Received, 1824–1880, rolls 95–108, microform M18, NARA, Rocky Mountain Region, Denver. Supplemented by the Vandever Papers, these records provide the outline of Vandever's inspection tours between 1873 and 1878.
49 Vandever to CIA, Sept. 25; Oct. 1; Oct. 5; Oct. 13; Nov. 4; Nov. 5, 1873, in U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Reports of the Field Jurisdictions, 1873–1900, roll 1, microform M1070, Arizona Superintendency, NARA, Denver.
50 Vandever to CIA, Nov. 3; Nov. 4, 1873, in OIA, Reports of the Field Jurisdictions, roll 1.
51 Vandever to CIA, Oct. 18, 1873, in OIA, Reports of the Field Jurisdictions, roll 1.
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72 Vandever to Condict, Jan. 4, 1877, folder 2, box 7, Vandever Papers.
73 See Berkhofer, The White Man's Indian, andDeloria, Philip J., Playing Indian (New Haven, 1998).Google Scholar
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75 Vandever to CIA, May 20, 1877, folder May 1877, box 7, Vandever Papers.
76 Vandever to CIA, May 20, May 25, June 1, 1877; Vandever to George W. Manypenny, June 24, 1877; Vandever to Allison, June 28, 1877, folders May, June 1877, box 7, Vandever Papers.
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78 Vandever to CIA, Aug. 6, Aug. 15 (denial of pamphlet), 1877, folder Aug. 1877, box 7, Vandever Papers.
79 Schurz to CIA, Sept. 6, 1877, folder Sept. 1877, box 7, Vandever Papers.
80 Schurz also reprimanded Vandever over a debt about which a complaint had been made; Schurz to Vandever, Nov. 30, 1877. Vandever's fears appear in his letters to Commissioner Hayt on Nov. 16 and to Senator Allison on Dec. 4, 1877, folders Nov. 1877 and Papers of “special interest,” box 7, Vandever Papers. Vandever's correspondence with Allison once his non-reappointment was clear include Jan. 17 (telegram); Jan. 19; Jan. 21 (telegram); Jan. 24; Jan. 28, 1878, folders 2–3, vol. 12, Allison Papers. Quotations are from Allison to Vandever, Jan. 19, 1878 and Feb. 1, 1878, folders Jan., Feb. 1878, box 8, Vandever Papers.
81 Vandever to Allison, Jan. 24, Feb. 5, 1878, folders 2, 4, vol. 12, Allison Papers.
82 Bancroft, Frederic and Dunning, William A., eds., The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, vol. 3, 1863–1869 with a Sketch of His Life and Public Services from 1869 to 1906 (New York, 1908), 377–90.Google Scholar
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