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Historical Studies Colloquium
- Wed, Feb 05, 2025
- 4:00 pm–5:15 pm
Hekman Collab Space 102
Securing Citizenship: Senator Dawes on ‘Freedmen,’ Indians, Immigrants, and Citizenship
The same reformers who supported abolition and equal rights for freed slaves in the 1860s and 1870s also often advocated breaking up “tribal” lands and forcibly assimilating Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s. What made sense to “Friends of the Indian” reformers that is hard to imagine today? This paper looks at the career of Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts to answer this question, examining his views of “Freedmen,” Indians, immigrants, and citizenship.