In this essay, it will also be explored the reason why some Native Americans’ tribes did participate in the Civil War. In addition, in a third time, it will be discussed the shift in many Native Americans’ women lives and also the problems families were facing at home. Stand Watie and Ely S. Parker were to Native Americans that experienced the war in very different ways. Indeed, these two men were enlisted in the two different armies, the Confederate Army and the Union Army. In fact, Stand Watie was a member of the Cherokee. The Cherokee at first had proclaimed neutrality which in fact meant supporting the Union Army. However, Stand Watie was a fervent supporter of the Confederacy and he defied the neutrality wish that has been made by his tribe. In his defiance, he took with him and led a significant number of unhappy Cherokees off the Cherokee lands in order for them to join the Confederate Army. Stand Watie would, at term, find his way up through the ranks of the Confederate Army and rise as a Brigadier General. In fact, Stand Watie would become one the mostly feared commanders in the western theatre. In addition, General Watie was the last Confederate general to surrender. Indeed, Stand Watie surrendered on June the twenty-third eighteen sixty five, which is at least two months after General Lee surrendered at Appomattox. On the other hand, Ely S. Parker was a member of the Seneca, one of the six nations of the Iroquois in the area of the upstate New York. In addition, Parker’s father had fought for the United States during the war of eighteen twelve, and maybe it is possible to assume that Ely S. Parker wanted to follow his father’s footsteps when he joined the Union Army. At terms, Ely S. Parker, just as Stand Watie, found his way up through the ranks of the Union Army and became a Brigadier General as well. In addition, Ely S. Parker served for quite a long time under the orders of General Ulysses S. Grant. Moreover, when General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, it was General Ely S. Parker that wrote the document that Lee had to sign in order to surrender. After the Civil War, Ely S. Parker served as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. As for a fact, more than twenty eight thousands Native Americans participated in the Civil War.
In most cases, the side a Native American tribe chose to take during the Civil War, mostly depended on opinions. As for an example, in the state under the influence of the Union, Native Americans had greater opportunities to decide whether to get involved in the conflict or to stay out of it but, as it will be explained later on, Native Americans in the Union states were better off fighting in the conflict. Indeed, for Native Americans, participating in the conflict meant the potential to earn respect and to help them preserve their culture inside a constantly growing country. However, as it will be explained afterwards, the situation was a little more complicated in the Southern states. Indeed, in the Confederate states, earning respect was an attractive benefit and could be considered as a great source of motivation, however, since many tribes in the South were slave owners. In fact, the Choctaw for example had about six thousands slaves when the Civil War started and, because the Confederation loss of the war would mean the end of slavery, Native American tribes such as the Choctaw the Chickasaw and the Cherokee through Stand Watie defiance of the neutrality that was at first proclaimed by the Cherokee’s, sided with the Confederate Army during the Civil War. In addition, another very important factor of decision in whether a tribe was going to side with the Confederacy or not, particularly for the Chickasaw, was the growing hatred toward the Federal government that had forced the tribes off their ancestral lands to another land that belonged to another tribe and then the Federal government did not protect them from that other tribe. Moreover, part of the Confederate propaganda included some suggestions of an Indian state within the Confederate states and also
citizenship.
Native American men were not the only one affected during the Civil War. In fact, the war also changed the home lives of the wives, children, and families of those involved in the Civil War. Indeed, Native American women were at home caring for their families while the Native American men were fighting. In fact, Iroquois women experienced a major shift in their roles as wives during the Civil War. Indeed, before the Civil War, Iroquois women’s condition shifted from being outside the house to being inside the house. Moreover, these women were no longer harvesting the crops like they used to and in fact, that part of the Iroquois’ women identity progressively disappeared. In addition, Iroquois children were sent to white schools and educated by white missionaries in the white living ways. In fact, this was made in the hope that the children would teach the white habits and customs to their parents. But, since the war had greatly affected the Native Americans’ economic status, school was not an easy thing to afford in both the North and the South. In addition, in the Cherokee nation, things were as hard as in the Iroquois’ nation. Stand Watie, which status in the war was discussed previously, received a letter from his wife that was saying “I wanted to send [the children] to school but the board is 200 a month apiece and 12 in provision what must I do . . . I will have to look to you for advises about the children schooling. I don’t know how about the board it is high everywhere”. In fact, this letter illustrates quite impressively the condition of Native American women at the time of the Civil War and that if paying for school for those women that were not receiving much money was too expensive, they were not likely to send their children to school. Moreover, there is another issue in the Cherokee nation which is the marriage between Indians and white or black people. Indeed, according to Katja May, whom is an expert in the Cherokee tribe, Cherokee laws stipulates that in order to marry a Cherokee woman a white man had to have at least ten signatures from Cherokees by blood. Katja May also stated that black immigrants had to fulfil the same terms as white men in order to marry a Cherokee woman. This law was not helping the Cherokee nation since interracial marriage, sometimes, was granted with money from the government. Moreover, the government was offering pension to those whom had lost relatives during the Civil War. However, there is a very interesting case that is going to be discussed it is the case of Achsah Shongo who lost her husband in the eighteen sixties after he had drowned falling off a boat. In this case, the government had asked miss Shongo to bring documentation in order to prove that her husband had actually drowned that day, that she had married him when she was fourteen and to swear that she had not lived with another man since his death. Ironically, miss Shongo was neither able to read nor write and that no one that had witnessed her marriage was still alive. As a result of facts, she could not prove the statement she had made. However, in 1903 she finally was able to prove her case and received pension from the government.
To conclude, Native Americans often faced difficult choices during the Civil War. Indeed, it has been discussed in this paper that women had to choose between sending their children to schools for them to be educated meanwhile they would not have sufficient means to survive or to choose not to send their children to schools. In addition, after Stand Watie left the Cherokees for the Confederate Army, the Cherokee nation offered support to the South until the Union forces arrived in the middle of eighteen sixty two. However, even if switching sides this way could appear to me damaging to their reputation, it seemed to be the only possible way to avoid the destruction of their nation. Moreover, even if some Native Americans such has Ely S. Parker ended up succeeding during the Civil War, many other Native American were to see greater horror because after the war, the United States was to refocus on their expansion to the west. As a result of facts, freedom for African Americans did not really mean freedom for Native American.