From education to exile: The Indian Civilization Fund Act, the dispossession of Seneca land, and education's impact on Indian Removal policies

This research examines the importance of the Indian Civilization Fund Act to the development of Indian policy in the nineteenth century, its subsequent impact on Indian Removal policies, and how the Seneca people strategically engaged with US policy as an expression of sovereignty. Historians have yet to investigate the full impact that these government-funded mission schools had on the creation of Indian policy throughout the 1820s and the larger impact on Native American Boarding Schools. This study establishes the US government officials’ motivations behind passing educational policies and then removal policies, while also investigating how Indigenous peoples navigated these federal policies to best benefit their nations. Utilizing sources including speeches, newspapers, government reports, missionary documents, and letters, this research helps place the Indian Civilization Fund Act in conversation with histories of the Early Republic, Boarding Schools, and Indian Removal. This research centers on the Seneca Nation of Indians' experiences on the Alleghany, Buffalo Creek, and Cattaraugus Reservations throughout the 1820s to examine the discussions happening at the local level amongst the tribe to understand how Indigenous nations interacted with early American attempts at Indian policy. The Indian Civilization Fund Act and Seneca narratives expand our understanding of the Early Republic, as this Act functioned as a transitional program that led to further projects of attempted genocide. The government’s funding of Indian education started during the 1820s and left an impact on Indian policy for the next century. The Indian Civilization Fund Act is integral to the development of Indian policy throughout the 1820s, as it represented a transitional period in US Indian policy that emphasized a potential partnership between Indigenous nations who engaged with assimilative policies and the emerging United States government. This study pushes the timeline of Boarding School histories back by sixty years to explain the longer legacy of assimilative policies and the ways Indigenous nations engaged with policies in ways that best benefited their nation.