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PUBLISHED REPORTS OF COMMISSIONERS

This collection currently includes the narrative reports of the commissioner of Indian affairs for 1871, 1872, 1874, 1875, and 1876, and three additional reports for 1871. It also includes a map of western reservations published with the 1875 report.

The 1871 report of the commissioner of Indian affairs and the report of the Board of Indian Commissioners cover about the same ground, but from slightly different angles. The commissioner was the chief administrator of the Office of Indian Affairs. The board of commissioners, made up of would-be reformers who tended to hold Protestant views, was authorized by Congress in 1869 as a watchdog that would put an end to corruption and maltreatment of Indian people. Although corruption and maltreatment continued, the board stayed in operation for sixty-four years.

There are two appendices to the board's report, one dealing with the visit to the Oglala Lakotas by the chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners (this is the largest of the four documents in this set), and the other a brief letter from Ely S. Parker, who resigned as commissioner during the year, concerning the board's duties.

The 1871 reports have an subject index.

The collection also includes:

•	The extensive (102-page) 1872 narrative report of the commissioner of Indian affairs, which includes tables showing the reported population, number of employees, and employee compensation at seventy-seven agencies.
•	The 1873 narrative report of the commissioner of Indian affairs (23 pages).
•	The 1874 narrative report of the commissioner of Indian affairs (83 pages).
•	The 1875 narrative report of the commissioner of Indian affairs (101 pages).
•	The 1876 narrative report of the commissioner of Indian affairs (22 pages), which includes a description, with an interesting spin, of the events leading up to the destruction of Custer's detachment in Montana in that year.
•	The 1877 narrative report of the commissioner of Indian affairs (27 pages).

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ALLOTMENT DATA

What were the results of allotment? This description of allotment includes links to tables of data concerning the results of allotment between 1887 and 1915.

Descriptive list of tables with links.

Alphabetical list of reservations for which specific data is given with links to the data for each.

Comparing allotment and homesteading, 1900-1915, with links to relevant tables.

Legislation:

• The Dawes Act (or General Allotment Act) of 1887, which allowed the government to order allotment at will and served as the basis of most future allotments.

• The 1891 amendment to the Dawes Act, which permitted smaller allotments.

• The Act for the Relief of the Mission Indians (1891), which expedited the loss of Indian water rights in Southern California.

• The Burke Act (1906), an amendment to the Dawes Act that effectively eliminated the twenty-five-year trust period for allotments

• The 1910 omnibus act, which deals with a number of issues arising from allotment.

Readings for further study of allotment.

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ROGUE RIVER WAR AND SILETZ RESERVATION DOCUMENTS

The subject is introduced in a brief interpretive history of the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation to 1894, with many links to the document collection. The same file also includes a short list of suggested readings.

Documents numbered through D115 are included in the subject index.

All documents are included in the chronological list of documents.

      This project was begun in 1992 by E.A. Schwartz at California State University, San Marcos, to develop methods for making documents of federal Indian policy history accessible by computer.
     The original format, before the dawning of the age of the graphical user interface, was text files on a floppy disk accessed using a simple menu-driven reading program.
     The first documents used, now in the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation collection, were originally gathered for dissertation research.
     The material about allotment was compiled originally for two conference papers intended to refute the once-conventional interpretation of the enormous Indian loss of land after allotment as a result of Indian unwillingness to take up "civilized" responsibilities.
      This project began with the transcription of documents in the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation collection in 1992 and 1993 at California State University, San Marcos, with the assistance of Cheryl Coates, Caroljeanne Starr Forman, Annie Hall, and Diana McIntosh.
     The work was made possible by grants from the CSUSM Multicultural Studies Center and other California State University sources.

FINDING AIDS

      This site includes a number of indexes and explanatory articles. The explanatory articles concerning allotment and the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation provide tours of the main topics represented in the documents with links to indexes.
      The site includes topical indexes for most of the Siletz documents and the 1871 published reports, and an index of reservations listed in the allotment tables.
      Perhaps the most useful finding aid is the comprehensive chronological list of documents in the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation collection. A student can follow particular developments through the documents using this list.

SOURCES

      Many of the documents on this site were taken from microfilmed collections of reports and letters published by the National Archives. Others were taken from official publications, mainly the annual reports of the commissioner of Indian affairs. These were published under as many as four different names – as reports of the commissioner, in the reports of the interior secretary, and in Senate and House versions published in the U.S. Serial Set, containing all congressional documents.
      Many university libraries have some volumes of reports. A few have complete runs of printed serial sets, although the nineteenth-century volumes are now becoming too fragile to be handled. The most common form taken by the serial set in libraries seems to be microfiche.
      Some of the documents in the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation collection were taken from newspapers on microfilm in the University of Oregon library, and some from documents that can be found at the National Archives or its Seattle branch.