Mcgillivray Moment And Chief Joseph's Surrender: A Comparative Analysis

Tension and tribulation between white settlers and Native Americans make up much of America’s early history. Two landmark events, The McGillivray Moment and Chief Joseph’s Surrender, provide a few similarities and differences, and changes and continuities of how American policies and ideas about Native Americans varied greatly as time progressed. During both The McGillivray Moment and Chief Joseph’s surrender, the American-made policies acted as nothing more than broken promises, and Native Americans were not seen as citizens of the United States; however, the policies concerning the forced migration of Native Americans were the opposite of each other, and the Creek nation chiefs were praised while the Nez Perce were punished.

Throughout both

One of Washington’s goals was to have Native Americans “gradually, over the course of the very next century, become assimilated as full-fledged American citizens,”(Ellis 54). However, Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924, long after both the McGillivray Moment and Chief Joseph’s Surrender. Although the Creek nation chiefs in the McGillivray Moment were seen as a sign of hope, and treated with respect, “celebrated, feted, honored, and ‘speechified’ by local officials eager to acknowledge their passing presence,”(Ellis 52), they were still seen as the lesser race--Native Americans. White settlers refused to recognize them as citizens of the United States, regardless of the fact that they were here first. The Nez Perce Indians in Chief Joseph’s Surrender were, of course, treated with less respect, but were still not seen as fellow citizens. During the standoff, Chief Joseph was taken as a prisoner. At one point, “behind him a couple of soldiers assigned to feed the mules began to toss small pebbles at his head while trying to conceal their laughter,”(Stevens 197). General Miles himself was “well aware that this was a gross violation of the rules of war,”(Stevens 197-198), yet he continued to let it happen. “He would certainly never have treated a Confederate officer in this manner, but did the rules of war apply to renegade

When the twenty-seven Indian chiefs were paraded into New York City, “a military band trumpeted their arrival. Citizens lined the streets to applaud them as exotic and fully feathered versions of Roman senators, marching with conspicuous dignity to a meeting with President Washington,”(Ellis 52). White settlers saw these chiefs as a sign of hope for the future--a future a peace. The chiefs “traveled nearly a thousand miles for this conference, and all along the way had been celebrated, feted, honored, and ‘speechified’ by local officials eager to acknowledge their passing presence,”(Ellis 52). Over the three weeks that these Native American chiefs spent in New York City negotiating the peace treaty, “there were nightly banquets that gathered together congressmen, senators, dignitaries from the city government and commercial exchanges alongside the lustrously feathered chiefs… Pipes were ceremoniously smoked, wampum belts were enthusiastically exchanged, arms were locked hand-to-elbow, Indian style,”(Ellis 57). President George Washington even instructed the members of his cabinet to treat the chiefs “more royally than any ambassadors from Europe,”(Ellis 57-58) because he was aware that the outcome of this negotiation could make or break America’s peaceful future. “Traditionally, the Nez Perce were known as friendly Indians (they’d helped save