A Century of Dishonor A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes — Text and Context

Official Sources as Evidence

Jackson builds her argument almost entirely from government documents. In the chapter on the Cherokees, she quotes the Report of the Indian Bureau for 1863, which notes that the Cherokees “steadily resisted” rebel efforts before being “compelled to enter into treaty stipulations.” She also cites the 1865 report describing the Cherokee country as “a scene of utter desolation” after the war. These excerpts show Jackson’s reliance on the language of commissioners and agents, not on Native testimony. The appendix extends this method, including items such as “Extracts from the Report of the Commission sent to treat with the Sioux Chief Sitting Bull” and “Prices paid by White Men for Scalps.” The effect is to let the government’s own words indict its actions.

Treaty Obligations and Their Violation

A recurring pattern in the excerpts is the invocation of treaty promises followed by evidence of their breach. Jackson quotes the Commissioner of Indian Affairs expressing concern at “the growing disposition on the part of our citizens to wholly disregard our treaty obligations.” She then details how the government suspended annuity payments to the Cherokees during the Civil War, leaving them without protection. The Confederate government stepped in, “artfully promising to pay what the Northern Government refused.” Jackson notes that thousands of Indians remained loyal and fled to Kansas, where their sufferings were “heart-rending.” The contrast between official rhetoric and actual policy is a central structural device.

The Scope of the Record

The table of contents reveals the book’s ambitious range: chapters on the Delawares, Cheyennes, Nez Percés, Sioux, Poncas, Winnebagoes, and Cherokees, plus a chapter on “Massacres of Indians by Whites” covering the Conestoga Massacre, Gnadenhütten Massacre, and Apache massacres. The appendices extend further, including a letter from Sarah Winnemucca, an account of the Cherokee alphabet inventor, and a report on the “Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California.” This breadth suggests Jackson aimed to compile a comprehensive indictment, but the excerpts provided focus on the Cherokee case. The book’s subtitle calls it “a sketch,” indicating selective coverage rather than exhaustive history.

Readers should approach A Century of Dishonor as a polemical work of documentary history, not a neutral account. Jackson’s selection of sources and her framing of events are designed to provoke moral outrage. The book’s value lies in the primary documents it preserves—treaty texts, commission reports, and official correspondence—which offer a window into nineteenth-century U.S. Indian policy. Pay attention to the gaps: Native voices appear mostly through white intermediaries, and the structure privileges government records over oral tradition.

Reading Jackson’s heavy record of broken promises, I remembered sitting on my grandfather’s porch, turning pages of A Century of Dishonor myself, feeling that same hollow weight. Later, James Madison — Reading Notes gave me a quieter ache — the careful notes of a man trying to hold a republic together, knowing how easily trust dissolves when words mean nothing. Both books felt like listening to a distant, faithful witness.