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April 13
Civil service requirements are
extended to Bureau of Indian Affairs
employees.
President Benjamin Harrison declares that Bu-
reau of Indian Affairs hiring for all medical and
educational jobs must adhere to civil service
requirements. His action is a response to reform-
ers who have long maintained that the spoils
system has placed corrupt agents in control of
reservations.
April
Plenty Horses is acquitted of
murder charges.
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a 22-year-old
Sioux named Plenty Horses is tried for the mur-
der of an army officer who was policing the Pine
Ridge Reservation several days after the massacre
at Wounded Knee (see entry for DECEMBER 29,
1890). In his testimony, Plenty Horses explains
that his education at the Carlisle Indian school
(see entry for AUTUMN 1879) in Pennsylvania had
so divorced him from his Sioux friends and rela-
tives that he felt compelled to earn their respect as
a warrior. “I shot the lieutenant so I might make
a place for myself among my people,” the accused
told the court. “Now I am one of them.... They
will be proud of me. I am satisfied.” In a contro-
versial decision, the jury acquits Plenty Horses on
the grounds that at the time of the shooting he was
acting as a combatant during a state of war—the
same justification the U.S. Army is using to avoid
prosecuting the soldiers involved in the Wounded
Knee Massacre.
1892The federal government revises rules for
tribal courts.
The U.S. government approves guidelines for
tribal courts (see entry for APRIL 10, 1883) in
prosecuting several crimes, including the per-
formance of “the sun dance, scalp dance, or war
dance, or any other similar feast.” Indians found
guilty of these offenses can be imprisoned or have
their food rations withheld for up to 30 days. The
guidelines also define polygamous marriages and
the rituals practiced by medicine men and women
as offenses.“Any Indian who shall engage
in the practices of so-called
medicine men, or shall re-
sort to any artifice or device
to keep the Indians of the
reservation from adopting
and following civilized hab-
its and pursuits,... or shall
use any arts of a conjurer to
prevent Indians from aban-
doning their barbarous rites
and customs,... upon convic-
tion... shall be imprisoned for
not less than ten nor more
than thirty days.”
—from the U.S. government’s
1892 rules for Courts of
Indian OffensesJuly 23The U.S. government forbids the sale of
liquor in Indian country.
Throughout the history of contact, unscrupu-
lous non-Indians have tried to take economic and
political advantage of Indians by plying them
with alcohol. Reformers objecting to this exploita-
tion pressure Congress to pass the Intoxication in
Indian Country Act. This law prohibits the sale or
transportation of alcohol in Indian territory.