Sam Houston
Thanks to Nicomacheus to making me focus again on whom one of his OTL Texan detractors termed a "drunken old Cherokee"
I can certainly see Houston continuing to have importance after his presidential election defeat to Zachary Taylor. Indeed with the formation of the American Party and the election of Kearny and Worth, Houston's "Third Way" can be said to have been resurrected. Taylor's administration could in many ways be retrospectively cast as something of an unfortunate blip, and the suppression of the Southern industrial risings cast, somewhat unfairly, as a Whig act that the American Party stands above and apart from
I see Houston as taking something of a dual role - on the one hand, I see him returning to the Cherokee Nation to take up a leading role there, but on the other I see him as an advisor on and promoter of Indian rights within the USA. Both Kearny (whom I have great admiration for in OTL) and Worth (of whom I know less) in this timeline have fought alongside and had command over Indian Volunteer regiments, and both have seen them turn battles their way. The Ten Civilised Tribes have their homelands long secured by federal writ, and the idea of undoing this would seem insane by this time in the ATL - as insane probably as the idea of moving the federal capital, or of getting rid of Rhode Island because it was too small.
As a note to new readers, and to those older ones, like myself indeed, who can't fully remember, the Ten Civilised Tribes are the Five of OTL *(Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee and Seminole) plus five from the North West (including Winnebago and Osage, but I'd need to look the rest up - please forgive me, its 6am and I've been up 2 1/2 hours due to noisy neighbours)
I could see President Kearny appointing Houston as Secretary of State for Indian Affairs, or something like that, a post which would not require him to abandon his political career within the Cherokee Nation but which would work alongside it. The obvious focus would be on bringing additional Indian Nations into the fold - the Nez Perce and Shoshoni would be the immediate focus, the various political treaties with them (which the USA inherited from Russia and made great play of) almost REQUIRING their placing on an equal footing with the Ten within the US federal structure
It is far more complicated in the South-West - a Nation such as the Navajo probably would be someone that the US federal government could work with, but the Apache are not going to remain lying down, and are not going to easily submit to federal writ. In the past where this has been the case, with the Shawnee and Delaware for instance, the USA has pursued a two-fold policy - on the one hand deal with amenable chiefs (usually those who can be bought out) to buy up their lands, and on the other hand defeat militarily the rest and drive them from the body of the USA
Now, of course, this latter aspect is increasingly difficult because the US has expanded, Fredonia has expanded, Spain has diminished etc. It will increasingly become a conflict between whether an Indian Nation is fit for, and will accept, Civilised status (the federal guarantee of its homelands in return for integration within the agreed structure of relations) and whether it needs to be forcibly subjugated.
Sam Houston would be seen as being in an ideal position to work through this.
- - -
Thus, Kearny's administration is taking on some shape here :-
President Stephen Kearny
Vice President (and President of the Senate) William Worth
Secretary of State Franklin Pierce
Secretary of War Robert E Lee
Secretary of Indian Affairs Sam Houston
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Thanks to Nicomacheus to making me focus again on whom one of his OTL Texan detractors termed a "drunken old Cherokee"
I can certainly see Houston continuing to have importance after his presidential election defeat to Zachary Taylor. Indeed with the formation of the American Party and the election of Kearny and Worth, Houston's "Third Way" can be said to have been resurrected. Taylor's administration could in many ways be retrospectively cast as something of an unfortunate blip, and the suppression of the Southern industrial risings cast, somewhat unfairly, as a Whig act that the American Party stands above and apart from
I see Houston as taking something of a dual role - on the one hand, I see him returning to the Cherokee Nation to take up a leading role there, but on the other I see him as an advisor on and promoter of Indian rights within the USA. Both Kearny (whom I have great admiration for in OTL) and Worth (of whom I know less) in this timeline have fought alongside and had command over Indian Volunteer regiments, and both have seen them turn battles their way. The Ten Civilised Tribes have their homelands long secured by federal writ, and the idea of undoing this would seem insane by this time in the ATL - as insane probably as the idea of moving the federal capital, or of getting rid of Rhode Island because it was too small.
As a note to new readers, and to those older ones, like myself indeed, who can't fully remember, the Ten Civilised Tribes are the Five of OTL *(Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee and Seminole) plus five from the North West (including Winnebago and Osage, but I'd need to look the rest up - please forgive me, its 6am and I've been up 2 1/2 hours due to noisy neighbours)
I could see President Kearny appointing Houston as Secretary of State for Indian Affairs, or something like that, a post which would not require him to abandon his political career within the Cherokee Nation but which would work alongside it. The obvious focus would be on bringing additional Indian Nations into the fold - the Nez Perce and Shoshoni would be the immediate focus, the various political treaties with them (which the USA inherited from Russia and made great play of) almost REQUIRING their placing on an equal footing with the Ten within the US federal structure
It is far more complicated in the South-West - a Nation such as the Navajo probably would be someone that the US federal government could work with, but the Apache are not going to remain lying down, and are not going to easily submit to federal writ. In the past where this has been the case, with the Shawnee and Delaware for instance, the USA has pursued a two-fold policy - on the one hand deal with amenable chiefs (usually those who can be bought out) to buy up their lands, and on the other hand defeat militarily the rest and drive them from the body of the USA
Now, of course, this latter aspect is increasingly difficult because the US has expanded, Fredonia has expanded, Spain has diminished etc. It will increasingly become a conflict between whether an Indian Nation is fit for, and will accept, Civilised status (the federal guarantee of its homelands in return for integration within the agreed structure of relations) and whether it needs to be forcibly subjugated.
Sam Houston would be seen as being in an ideal position to work through this.
- - -
Thus, Kearny's administration is taking on some shape here :-
President Stephen Kearny
Vice President (and President of the Senate) William Worth
Secretary of State Franklin Pierce
Secretary of War Robert E Lee
Secretary of Indian Affairs Sam Houston
Best Regards
Grey Wolf