Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824-1977

The position of commissioner of Indian Affairs was one of the most important yet most anonymous in the federal bureaucracy. The commissioners figured prominently in the formulation of policy, negotiation of treaties, adjudication of claims, and a host of other matters that involved the federal government and its relations with the Indian population. Although a few commissioners have received considerable scholarly attention, almost nothing is known about most of them other than that they held office. This collection makes available, for the first time, biographical sketches of the forty-three men who served as Indian commissioner from 1824, when Thomas L. McKenney was appointed to the position (not yet formally established), to 1977, when the office was superseded by that of assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs. Information on their personal lives is provided where available, but the emphasis is on their careers as commissioner: the policies and procedures they favored, their relations with Congress and the president, and the achievements and failures of their administrations. Each sketch is followed by a bibliographical essay describing the important sources relating to the commissioner in question. In addition, the final chapter discusses major primary and secondary sources common to a majority of the commissioners. Indispensible as a reference tool as well as a guide to further research in the history of goverment-Indian relations, the biographies represent the work of thirty-one scholars, each an authority on his subject's administration. Both editors are archivists who have spent a great deal of time working with the records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and answering requests for information about the commissioners.