Native American Scouts Enlistment Papers and more...

5fish

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Here a site about enlistment paper of Native Americans in the U S Army as scouts...


snip...

A year after the fighting ended in the Civil War, Native Americans began serving as enlisted Indian Scouts in the U.S. Army. There were several types of scouts: those who enlisted as Indian Scouts for brief terms and those hired as scouts by the U.S. Army. Sometimes an individual may have served at different times as a hired scout and an enlisted scout, but never at the same time. In addition to enlisted and hired scouts, some Native Americans served in Regular Army infantry and cavalry regiments in short–lived Indian companies in the 1890s.

snip...

The Army Reorganization Act of 1866 authorized the President "to enlist and employ in the Territories and Indian country a force of Indians not to exceed one thousand to act as scouts, who shall receive the pay and allowances of cavalry soldiers, and be discharged whenever the necessity for further employment is abated, at the discretion of the department commander." One of the most significant measures in the act was that Indians would receive the same pay as white cavalry soldiers.

snip... pension files too...

Pension files are an excellent source of information on Indian Scouts, not only about the scout, but also about his family and others with whom he may have served or who knew him or his wife. Indian Scouts and their widows became eligible for pensions with the passage of an act on March 4, 1917, relating to Indian wars from 1859 to 1891.

snip... Native American Scout earned Medals of Honor... @diane

Several Indian Scouts were awarded the Medal of Honor. The files relating to the recommendations for the Medal of Honor award or the action or campaign for which Indian Scouts were honored are found in the letters received by the Adjutant General’s Office, which have been reproduced on Microfilm Publications M666, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main Series), 1871–1880, and M689, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main Series), 1881–1889. For a list of Indian Scouts who were awarded the Medal of Honor, including the related file citations, see the sidebar accompanying this article.

Snip... There were all Indian companies in the regular army... @Leftyhunter

War Department General Order No. 28, issued March 9, 1891, authorized Native Americans to be enlisted in the Regular Army and serve in Indian Companies within Regular Army infantry and cavalry regiments. The order stipulated that Company I of Infantry Regiments (excluding the 24th and 25th) and Company L of Cavalry Regiments (excluding the 9th and 10th) would contain Indian soldiers. Each existing regiment of cavalry and infantry, except the Buffalo Soldiers (black regiments), would contain one Indian Regiment. A maximum of 55 Indians were authorized for each company or troop. This change was not well received by the Army, and although the general order authorized a maximum of 1,485 Indians for Regular Army service, the actual number of recruits only reached a little over half that number at 780. The Indian Company "experiment" proved to be a complete failure in the eyes of the Army, and the men of Company L of the Seventh Cavalry were the only Indian soldiers who served out their entire enlistments, serving until 1895.
 
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5fish

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@Leftyhunter so how does this work into your Segregated units notions. WE did have some Segregated Indian units in our army. I looked up 7th Cavalry company L nothing...
 

diane

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Good article on Indian scouts, 5fish!

My Catawba/Cherokee 3ggrandfather was a ranger with George Washington and was shot in the knee at Brandywine - in his 80s he applied for a pension and finally got it. Those papers are what got me into the DAR and was that ever a fight! Their sticking point was Natives weren't citizens but my contention was neither were your ancestors until the revolution succeeded! He was Briton George - his father had been a scout for Washington when he was a surveyor.

I've got a Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War - a Cherokee cousin from North Carolina.

 

Leftyhunter

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@Leftyhunter so how does this work into your Segregated units notions. WE did have some Segregated Indian units in our army. I looked up 7th Cavalry company L nothing...
There were
@Leftyhunter so how does this work into your Segregated units notions. WE did have some Segregated Indian units in our army. I looked up 7th Cavalry company L nothing...
There are segregated US military Regiments raised in the Indian Territory during the ACW listed in Dyers Compendium. Basically the difference between the Spanish and American Indian units is the Spanish ones from what I gather were more independent and more of an ally vs the American ones were under the direct control of the US Army and led by US Army officers.
Leftyhunter
 

5fish

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@diane, Here is a Smithsonian article about Native Americans...

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Native Americans demonstrated their patriotism again during the Vietnam era. More than 42,000 Native Americans fought in Vietnam, more than 90 percent of them volunteers. Among the nearly 60 thousand names of individuals killed or missing in action on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall are 232 identified as Native Americans or Alaska Natives.

Private First Class Lori Piestewa (Hopi) was the first woman killed in action during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Native American woman known to have died in combat overseas.
 

5fish

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1964–75: 42,000 Native men and women serve in Vietnam
During the Vietnam War, more than 42,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives join the U.S. armed forces. Poor military record keeping may have undercounted the number. American Indians seek each other out and share dismay that stereotypes about Indians influence officers to send them out front during dangerous missions.

The Vietnam Memorial lists 248 American Indians and Alaska Natives killed in action.

THEME Federal-Tribal RelationsREGION Arctic, California, Great Basin, Great Plains, Northeast, Northwest Coast, Plateau, Southeast, Southwest, Subarctic

Here is a link but it has a table about why Native Americans went to fight in Vietnam its table one... a second table in which type of units they fought in...


Typical of the images conjured up of Indians was Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes’ description of American Indian “inherited talents” for Collier’s in 1944. According to Ickes, the Native American fighting man had:

endurance, rhythm, a feeling for timing, coordination, sense perception, and an uncanny ability to get over any sort of terrain at night, and, better than all else, an enthusiasm for fighting. He takes a rough job and makes a game of it. Rigors of combat hold no terrors for him: severe discipline and hard duties do not deter him.2 Even the motion picture industry, perh
 
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