1870 Census of Indians

1870 Census of Indians
Name	1870 Census of Indians
Country	United States
Year	1870
Authority	Department of the Interior
Conducted by	Census Office
Previous	1860 United States census
Next	1880 United States census

1870 Census of Indians The 1870 census of Native Americans was an enumeration conducted in the aftermath of the American Civil War, occurring during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant and under the supervision of the Department of the Interior and the United States Census Office. It sought to record Indigenous populations amid rapid westward expansion linked to the Homestead Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, and policies shaped by the Sioux Wars and treaties such as the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868). The results influenced Indian policy deliberations in United States Congress debates and in reports circulated to officials including Henry M. Teller and Elihu B. Washburne.

Background and legal context

The enumeration was framed by postbellum legislative activity including acts of the United States Congress and directives from the Department of the Interior, reflecting competing priorities voiced by members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the House Committee on Indian Affairs. It followed precedents set in earlier federal counts such as the 1860 United States census and intersected with legal instruments like the Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 and the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, which redefined federal relationships with tribes including the Cherokee Nation, Choctaw Nation, Sioux (Lakota), and Navajo Nation. Judicial contexts like decisions from the United States Supreme Court influenced interpretations of tribal status and property, as seen in contemporaneous litigation involving the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia precedent and later disputes reaching the Supreme Court of the United States.

Methodology and scope

Administratively, the count was organized by the United States Census Office working with agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and local Indian agents such as Samuel F. Tappan and E. A. Belknap, relying on stationed personnel and military officers from units like the United States Army in western posts including Fort Laramie, Fort Sill, and Fort Leavenworth. Instructions drew on statistical practice from census officials such as Francis Amasa Walker and earlier enumerators like Joseph C. G. Kennedy. The scope targeted Indigenous individuals living both on tribal reservations recognized in treaties—e.g., Medicine Lodge Treaty signatories—and those residing off-reservation in settlements near frontier towns like Santa Fe, New Mexico and St. Louis, Missouri, with enumeration forms modeled after the schedules used in the United States census series.

Data collection and enumeration challenges

Enumerators confronted obstacles including mobility of bands like the Comanche, language barriers involving speakers of Lakota (Sioux language), Navajo language, and Cherokee language, and jurisdictional conflicts between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and military commanders such as General Philip Sheridan. Violence from conflicts tied to the Red Cloud's War and the Great Sioux War of 1876 complicated access to communities, while epidemics such as smallpox and cholera affected population stability in regions including Oklahoma Territory and the Dakotas. Recordkeeping suffered from inconsistent reporting by Indian agents like Brigadier General George Crook and by civilian traders, and the lack of standardized tribal rolls—contrasting with later documents like the Dawes Rolls—reduced comparability.

Demographics and key findings

Reported totals varied by source and often undercounted groups such as the Pueblo peoples, Yakama Nation, Umatilla, and Nez Perce; aggregate figures submitted to Congress and archived in the National Archives and Records Administration showed concentrations in areas including the Great Plains, Southwest United States, and the Pacific Northwest. Data highlighted skewed sex ratios in some bands, age distributions altered by recent conflicts, and household structures differing from Euro-American norms among nations such as the Sioux (Dakota), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Shoshone, Pawnee, and Blackfeet. The census informed contemporary estimates used by ethnologists like Franz Boas and policymakers including Carl Schurz, and it played into debates on allotment policies that culminated later in measures like the Dawes Act.

Impact and contemporary reactions

Reaction to the enumeration appeared in periodicals such as the New York Times, the Harper's Weekly, and congressional reports circulated by figures like Senator John B. Henderson and Representative William Windom. Advocates for Indigenous rights including Helen Hunt Jackson and officials sympathetic to tribal claims criticized inaccuracies, while proponents of assimilation and allotment—associated with political actors like Henry M. Teller and later Carl Schurz—used the data to argue for policy changes. The counts influenced administrative planning by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and shaped testimony during hearings before committees chaired by legislators such as James Harlan.

Legacy and use in historical research

Historians, demographers, and ethnographers have used the 1870 enumeration alongside sources like the Dawes Rolls, treaty files, missionary records from organizations such as the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and military reports from officers like George Armstrong Custer to reconstruct population trends, migration, and the effects of federal policy. Scholars including Amy Earhart (historian), Richard White (historian), and Philip J. Deloria have referenced these data in work on settler colonialism, while archivists at the National Archives and Records Administration and librarians at institutions like the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Institution have digitized related material to support research on the Indian Appropriations Act era and on the transition to later registers such as the Dawes Rolls. The enumeration remains a contested but invaluable source for reconstructing Indigenous demography in the Reconstruction and Indian Wars period.

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