The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

In 1775, the Second Continental Congress created the first three agencies to handle treaties and trade with Indigenous tribes. The American colonists were worried that the Indigenous tribes would ally with the British during the Revolutionary War. Some tribes, notably most of those within the Iroquois Confederacy, allied with the British anyway, prompting George Washington to order an occupation of Indigenous settlements, under the command of Major General John Sullivan.

The Sullivan expedition resulted in the destruction of over 40 villages around upstate New York. The Iroquois called Washington by a name that meant “Devourer of Towns.” The Oneida tribe were also members of the Iroquois Confederacy but chose to ally with the Americans, providing supplies, particularly corn, when Washington and his troops were starving at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78. In recognition of the Oneida’s contributions, the United States acknowledged Oneida land as their property.

After the Revolutionary War, the US government created the Office of Indian Trade within its new War Department to regulate trade with tribes. The system was further mandated by the passage of a series of Indian Intercourse Acts, starting in 1790. Supposedly, the laws were intended to protect Indigenous tribes from “unscrupulous traders or unauthorized and invalid exchanges of land” (105), but it truly extended American trade into territories the US government wanted to control (105).