small disputes and subduing angry and starving In-
dians. Indian policemen will also serve as assistants
to non-Indian agents by alerting them to reservation
gossip and rumors and performing routine tasks, such
as rounding up truant Indian students and forcing
them to attend reservation schools.
Although intended to help keep the peace,
Indian police forces often increase friction within
reservation communities. Many of their fellow
tribespeople resent following the orders of Indian
policemen, whom they regard as traitors to their
people. Indian police forces also undermine the
authority of traditional leaders, who in the past
had taken responsibility for settling intratribal
disagreements.
The Hubbell Trading Post opens on the
Navajo Reservation.
A former Spanish interpreter for the U.S. military,
John Lorenzo Hubbell purchases a trading post in
the Ganado area of the Navajo Indian Reservation.
From the post, Hubbell offers the Navajo food and
non-Indian manufactured merchandise for sale or
for trade.
The non-Indian trader with the closest re-
lationship and greatest influence on his Navajo
(Dineh) customers, Hubbell encourages Navajo
women to weave larger blankets for sale to whites
for use as rugs, thus helping to create a new indus-
try among the Navajo. Hubbell also redirects the
traditional Navajo craft by encouraging weavers to
use the patterns and colors most popular with his
white clientele.
Hubbell exerts an even greater influence on
Navajo craftwork by bringing silversmiths from
Mexico to Ganado to instruct Navajo men. Al-
though some Navajo are already familiar with
silversmithing, it becomes a Navajo art only after
Hubbell demonstrates to Navajo men that it can
be a money-making enterprise. In addition to sell-
ing Navajo silverwork and rugs from his network
of trading posts and stores, Hubbell offers the
items in a mail-order catalog, thereby creating a
demand for these wares among whites throughout
the United States.
The first salmon cannery opens in
southern Alaska.
With the opening of the first salmon cannery, the
non-Indian-operated salmon industry begins to
compete with Native fishers for the salmon catch
in the waters of Alaska. As the industry grows it
will take control of all major salmon streams, im-
poverishing the Alaska Natives who depended on
fishing for their livelihood, and threatening their
traditional culture.Kiowa war leader Satanta dies from a fall.
Satanta, the Kiowa chief who most strongly re-
sisted confinement on a reservation (see entry for
MAY 1871), is imprisoned in Huntsville, Texas,
for violating parole. When he falls headfirst from
a second-story prison window, his death is ruled a
suicide. The prison authorities refuse to allow an
investigation of the incident by the Kiowa, who sus-
pect Satanta was murdered.AprilThe Hampton Institute admits Indian
students.
Founded in 1868, the Hampton Institute in Hamp-
ton, Virginia, was established as a school for freed
African-American slaves, who after graduation were
encouraged to share their knowledge with others
of their race. Wanting to extend this same educa-
tional philosophy to Native Americans, Hampton’s
administrators allow 17 Indian men to attend the
institute.
The Indians were among the prisoners of war
sent to Fort Marion, Florida, after their defeat in the
Red River War (see entry for 1875). At the end of
three years in jail under the watch of Richard Henry
Pratt, a former army officer and Indian reformer
who tried to introduce his charges to the ways of
whites, the prisoners are offered the opportunity to
stay in the East and receive non-Indian educations.
Those who agreed are sent to Hampton, because it
is the only school Pratt could convince to take In-
dian students. Quickly deemed a success by Pratt,
the Hampton experiment in Indian education will