The Bureau's War on 'Prostitution and Concubinage'
The Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Olympia issues a directive banning relationships between white staff and Indigenous women.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, OLYMPIA, W. T., Aug. 12th, 1861. The Superintendent of Indian Affairs calls the attention of all persons attached to the Indian service to the absolute necessity of cultivating and encouraging correct ideas of morality among all the various tribes of Indians scattered throughout Washington Territory. The practice of open prostitution and concubinage, between the whites and Indians, while degrading to both classes, is calculated to destroy that respect which is due from the Indians to their official protectors, to retard materially the gradual elevation of character among the natives, to diminish sensibly our means of ameliorating the condition of those pupils of the General Government, and is so utterly subversive of good order and opposed to correct principles for their government, that it must be at once abolished wherever it has existence in your Agency District. Any future infraction of these instructions will be considered as sufficient cause for dismissal or suspension. W. W. MILLER, Superintendent Indian Affairs, W. T.
“The practice of open prostitution and concubinage, between the whites and Indians... is so utterly subversive of good order... that it must be at once abolished.”
This 1861 directive exposes the paternalistic and coercive nature of the Indian Agency, framing intimate relationships as 'subversive' to federal control. It reflects a colonial logic that sought to regulate Indigenous bodies and lives under the guise of 'morality' and 'elevation,' a theme that remains central to the history of the Washington Territory's treatment of Indigenous people.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.