By Dr. Jack Campisi
Dr. Campisi is an author and consultant to the MPMRC.

One thought to keep in mind when studying American Indian policy is that it is chock full of contradictions. There is no better example of this than the subject of this essay – Indian Peace Medals. Produced by the United States government, they were given to Indian leaders in the course of our nation’s negotiations with the multitude of tribes that owned the land coveted by the national and state governments.

Nearly every president from George Washington through Benjamin Harrison had medals issued with his likeness engraved on the front or obverse side; however, it is the reverse side that draws our interest. Here was emblazoned in pewter, bronze, or silver the central justification for our nation’s policy toward Indian tribes. This policy contrasted a Euro-American definition of civilization with a perceived Native condition of savagery. The components of this perception are presented on the medals in bas relief as bipolar: agriculture versus hunting, settlement versus nomadism, war versus peace, and ultimately assimilation versus tribalism. 

The giving of gifts – medals in particular – to tribal leaders had a 200-year history before the first Washington medal was struck. The French, Spanish and British used such items to win and maintain tribal loyalties during their colonial struggles to control trade and land. Thus, as the wars of Europe spread to North America, the images of European kings and queens came to festoon the chests of many tribal leaders from the bayous of Louisiana to the forests of Canada, from New York to the Rocky Mountains.

The conclusion of the Revolutionary War in 1783 did not end colonial rivalries in North America. The British were firmly ensconced to the north and west of the new nation. The French had been evicted (at least temporarily), but Spain held a vast territory ranging from Louisiana to California. The Continental Congress had failed to make peace with the tribes within its borders and, by 1789, there was open warfare in the Ohio Territory and the threat of war in the north and southeast. President Washington faced critical issues of survival in the first days of the republic. Establishing peace with the tribes and securing title to the land in the Ohio Valley was essential to the nation. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on point of view) the United States did not have the military and financial resources to secure peace by force, as demonstrated by the defeat of General Harmar in 1789 and the disastrous defeat of General St. Clair a year later. National policy dictated war with a few tribes and neutrality with the remainder. Enter the peace medals.

 To achieve by diplomacy what was impossible to achieve by war, the United States government had to convince the tribes that their way of life was the impediment to a better, more prosperous future. The tribes would be forced to change their lifestyles, if they could be induced to sell portions of their land. As Secretary of War Henry Knox’s words said in 1789, “As the settlements of the whites shall approach near to the Indian boundaries established by treaties, the game will be diminished, and the lands being valuable to the Indians only as hunting grounds, they will be willing to sell further tracts for small considerations.”

Guided by Knox’s words and his own long, close experience with tribes, Washington ordered the minting of the first medals in two styles. The first shows the national seal on the reverse and a depiction of Minerva, Greek goddess of wisdom, on the obverse. The second and  later style also shows the national seal of the reverse. The obverse depicts Washington and an Indian sharing a peace pipe.

Behind them a farmer plows a field near his rural home. The message of the medals was clear: agriculture (read civilization) is inevitable. Washington’s second set of medals more directly brought the message of the inevitability of civilization to the medal wearers. Three types were minted depicting animal husbandry (cows, calves, sheep, lambs, and a shepherd), farming (men plowing, sowing wheat), and domesticity (a woman in a house weaving, another spinning, children playing).

President Jefferson (1801 - 1809) changed the medal design by stressing the need for peace.  Jefferson’s bust appears in a profile on the obverse. The reverse shows two hands clasped on a handshake.   The sleeve above one hand is adorned with bars, representing the American government. The sleeve above the other hand is decorated with a fringe and an embossed eagle, representing the Indian tribes. Written across the medal is the message “Peace and Friendship.” Above the hands were a crossed tomahawk and peace pipe. This motif was used successively by presidents Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren, Tyler, Polk, and Taylor.

Millard Fillmore shifted the message. His medal depicts an Indian in headdress and blanket facing an American. Between them are an axe and a plow – the tools of civilization – and behind them an American flag and a pastoral scene.  Franklin Pierce used this medal, but when James Buchanan took office, he adopted a more dichotomous approach. The central part of his medal contains a pastoral scene showing an Indian in a headdress plowing a field, a house and a church and children playing. Contrasted with this are the figures of two Indians reclining around the center image. One holds a knife in his right hand and the hair of the other in his left. Along the sides are a bow and arrows and a peace pipe, and at the bottom center, the head of an Indian woman.
 
Lincoln used the Buchanan medals, but when Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency, he changed the design to a more classical one. In the center is the bust of Washington on a pedestal, and as the engraver described it, “on the left the figure of an Indian with bow and arrow and other Indian insignia – and in the background buffalo hunting; on the right a figure representing America shaking hands with the Indian – surrounded with flags; in the background a railroad with engine and a train of cars – instruments of agriculture and machinery covering the foreground – showing the advance of civilization – on the front of the altar the word Peace encircled with myrtle” (Prucha 1971: 124). To avoid any confusion, the Indian wears a headdress and a blanket, while the American wears a wig and a robe.

President Grant’s medal is a total departure from his predecessors in that, with one exception, it has no Indian images or icons. The reverse pictures a globe (with North America facing the viewer) resting on the tools of agriculture. Behind and above the globe is an open bible, and around the medal is the inscription “ON EARTH PEACE GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN.”  On the obverse, in addition to the president’s bust, is another inscription: “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LET US HAVE PEACE LIBERTY JUSTICE AND EQUALITY.”  Below the bust are an olive branch and a peace pipe.

President Hayes reverted back to a more scenic and traditional design.  Unlike the previous medals (except for Washington’s first), his cast is oval instead of round. On the obverse is his bust with his name and title. The center of the reverse shows a farmer talking to an Indian, who is wearing a headdress. The farmer is holding an axe, the first tool of civilization, and the Indian, a bow, the quintessential tool of a way of life thought soon to disappear. In the background is a family, a mother holding a baby in front of a log cabin and a man using a plow, the second tool of civilization. Above the scene are a sunburst, the date and the word “PEACE.” Below are crossed a tomahawk and a peace pipe, resting on a wreath. Presidents Garfield, Arthur and Cleveland used the same medal design on the reverse, but with each of their images on the face of the medals.

The final medal in the series was cast during Benjamin Harrison’s presidency. It contains two circles, one overlapping the other. The one to the left, partially covered by the other circle, depicts an Indian standing by a teepee, holding a staff or spear. In the overlapping circle is an Indian holding a shovel and leading a work horse. In the background are a plow, houses, wagons and chickens. Above the circles are the proverbial tomahawk, peace pipe and laurel wreath. Below, just above another plow, is the word “PROGRESS.” 
 
The giving of medals ended with President Harrison, as did the frontier, which was declared closed by the census of 1890.  The practice lasted 100 years and saw the transcontinental migration of millions of immigrants, and the loss by Native people of millions of acres of land. It would be easy to see the national government’s policies toward the tribes within its boundaries as an example of misguided benevolence. However, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the medals, and the philosophy they represented and the policies they documented, were nothing more than a cynical attempt to put a pious face on impious actions. In the words of the historian (soon to be president) Theodore Roosevelt, writing in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the policies were justified. “The settler and pioneer,” Roosevelt wrote, “have at bottom had justice on their side: this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages.”

That the recipients of the medals (and their descendants) valued them is clear; the abundance of paintings and photos depicting men wearing them attests to this.  But wearing the medals is not the same thing as accepting their message. That, too, is plain on its face, as evidenced by the existence of more than 700 state and federally recognized tribes today.