WI Grant appts you head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

NapoleonXIV

Banned
And gives you special powers. You are now the Indian czar, as it were, as the President will back you all the way.

He wants the Indians treated fairly, but he also wants the West settled and prosperous. He wants solutions.

You're you but you back then. You're a fairly well-known lawyer. Your area of expertise is property law and you were trained to work for the Railroads by no less than Abraham Lincoln. You're tough, no-nonsense and a man of integrity who did a good job for the Railroads and an equally good job for the govt as a prosecutor against them. You've also done some successful work for the remnants of the Cherokee and won a few large settlements for some other remaining Eastern Indian tribes. You've been West, commanded a troop of Indian scouts for Ambrose Burnside (sp) and are blood brother to several Indian chiefs.

What do you do?
 
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David S Poepoe

Banned
I'm going to guess that this is at the beginning of Grant's first administration, at least that way one will have some time to avoid the unpleasantness of 1876.

Off hand:

1. Suggest that Bureau of Indian Affairs be moved under the State Department or perhaps made its own Department.

2. Indian tribes that sided with the Confederacy and where initially stripped of their lands in the Indian Territory get them back.

3. Organize the Indian Territory with an eye towards allowing the Indians to eventually elect their own government officials.

4. Establish second Indian Territory in the Dakota Territory with the Black Hills at the center.

5. Advocate the establishment of 2-3 additional Indian 'states' in the West into which white settlement will be restricted. Indians offered land to resettle. One may be against the Canadian border.

6. Establish elementary schools on reservations and set money away to fund eventual Indian students to colleges and university.

7. Send scholars west to write down the native languages and myths.

8. Allow railroads to cross Indian lands, but they must lease the land and pay the tribes.
 
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