Indian Appropriations Act, which calls for the
formation of the Board of Indian Commissioners.
The group is made up of non-Indian businessmen
and philanthropists appointed by the president
and charged with overseeing the expenditures of
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The board is
established primarily to root out corrupt Indian
agents (see entry for JANUARY 7, 1868) and BIA
officials and to advance the Grant administra-
tion’s Assimilationist agenda in Indian affairs.
The organization will remain in place until 1933,
when it will be disbanded by President Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
May 10
The first transcontinental railroad is
completed.
At Promontory Point, Utah, a ceremony is held
to celebrate the driving of the last spike joining
the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads to
create the first transcontinental railroad. For most
Americans, the event is great moment for their
country. For Indians of the West, however, the
transcontinental railroad spells disaster: It will bring
many more whites into their lands, including buf-
falo hunters, who will decimate the great herds on
which Plains Indians depend for their survival (see
entries for 1871, 1875, and 1876).
October 11
The Métis drive government surveyors from
their lands.
Beginning in the early 19th century, Manitoba,
Canada, was settled by Métis—a culturally dis-
tinct people of Indian and European (primarily
French and Scottish) ancestry. The Hudson’s Bay
Company, a fur-trading operation, held a grant
to the land of the Red River Métis, but it gave
the Métis permission to live there (see entry for
JULY 19, 1816). After confederation in 1867, the
new Canadian government bought the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s land, including the Red River ter-
ritory. Fearing that Canada will allow their lands
to be overrun by non-Métis migrating from the
East, the Métis drive off government surveyors,
who arrived in their lands unannounced. For lead-
ership, the rebel Métis turn to Louis Riel Jr., a
former law student who is the son of a prominent
Métis man and the first French-Canadian woman
to live in Canada’s western provinces. (See also en-
tries for NOVEMBER 2, 1869; JUNE 23, 1870; and
AUGUST 24, 1870.)November 2The First Northwest Rebellion erupts in
Canada.
Maintaining that the Métis occupation of Manito-
ba’s Red River region is ordained by God, Louis Riel
Jr. (see entry for OCTOBER 11, 1869) leads a group
of armed Métis in taking Fort Garry, in the center
of their territory. The rebels seize the fort without
any bloodshed.
In what will become known as the First
Northwest Rebellion, Riel’s followers establish a
provisional government, with Riel as its president,
and declare the Métis’s independence from Canada.
The rebels arrest several people in the area for vio-
lating Métis law and execute one non-Métis man
for plotting an attack on the Métis-held fort. The
execution alarms non-Indian Canadians and turns
public opinion against Riel. (See also entries for
JUNE 23, 1870, and for AUGUST 24, 1870.)1870McKay v. Campbell denies citizenship to
Indians born with a “tribal allegiance.”
In McKay v. Campbell, the Supreme Court finds
that the Fourteenth Amendment’s granting of
citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in
the United States” does not apply to Indians with
a “tribal allegiance.” The Court reasons that
such Indians are not technically born in the
United States but in “distinct and independent
political communities, retaining the right to self-
government.”