[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on What Happened To The Indian Nations
The war between North and South, 1861 to 1865, was the greatest misfortune of all for the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes. Failure of the Federal Union to solve differences of interest between the two sections was not the fault of any Indian tribe; yet the people of the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Nations suffered more terrible losses than white citizens in any part of the country. The Choctaws and Chickasaws, with relatively little internal strife, were not completely demoralized; but the Indians who lived north of the Canadian were the victims of unendurable pressure from both sides and devastating violence in all stages of the war.
Indian leaders would have preferred neutrality to active participation in the conflict; yet all of the tribes were involved. Losses of the Seminoles, Creeks, and Cherokees were heavier in percentage of total population than the losses of any southern or northern state.Early in the war, the Indians began to lean toward the Confederate side. Removal of federal troops from the forts of Indian Territory, failure of federal annuity payments, the presence of trusted Indian agents who were committed to support of the Confederacy, and active Confederate diplomacy among the Indians, all worked in favor of the South.
Removal of federal troops from the Indian country at the outset of the Civil War, was one of the maneuvers that threw the Five Civilized Tribes into Confederate hands. The all-important problem in the South was to find the best means for winning independence; in the North, the long-range need was to discover the strength for binding the states together in a perpetual union. The relative value of the Indian country, by comparison with the portion of Virginia that was in the Ohio Valley, or by comparison with St. Louis, Louisville, Baltimore, or the District of Columbia, was a matter of judgment......
