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Thomas Loraine McKenney
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McKenney, Thomas Loraine (Mar. 21, 1785 - Feb. 20, 1859), author and administrator of Indian affairs, was born in Hopewell, Somerset County, Md. He attended school at Chestertown, Md., and, after preliminary experience in his father's counting-house, opened stores in Georgetown and in Washington, D. C. During the War of 1812 he was adjutant and aide with militia and volunteer companies. His first government appointment, made by President Madison in April 1816, was as superintendent of the Indian trade. He continued in this office until that attempt at federal control of the Indian trade was abolished in 1822, largely owing to the opposition of private fur-traders, merchants, and manufacturers who had not profited by the administration.
Charges of favoritism and abuse of trust were brought against him at the same time, particularly by Thomas H. Benton, and, although he considered himself triumphant in the congressional investigation, nevertheless, contemporary slanders were long in dying out, and he appears to have been indiscreet in permitting his notes to be indorsed by John Cox, a merchant from whom he bought large quantities of goods, as well as in persuading the Columbian College to take over his own notes to the amount of $11,958 (House Report 104, 17 Cong., 2 Sess., n.d., Sen. Doc. 103, 20 Cong., 1 Sess., n.d., see also Sen. Doc. 60, 17 Cong., 1 Sess., 1822). On Aug. 7, 1822, he began the publication of a semi-weekly newspaper, the Washington Republican and Congressional Examiner, devoted to the interests of John C. Calhoun. After some months of bitter attack he gave up the editorship on May 31, 1823.
Disappointed in his desire to be appointed first assistant postmaster-general, he was, on Mar. 11, 1824, given charge of the newly organized bureau of Indian affairs under the War Department. While superintendent of the Indian trade he had been instrumental in obtaining an annual appropriation of $10,000 for the civilization of the Indian tribes adjoining the frontier settlements. Most of this sum was distributed to the mission schools of the various denominations, which developed steadily during the years he was in charge of the Indian bureau so that, when he was forced out of the Indian department in 1830, about 1800 children were in mission schools. As joint commissioner with Lewis Cass, he negotiated the treaty of Aug. 11, 1827, at Butte des Morts on the Fox River with the Chippewa, Menominee, and Winnebago. His Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes (1827) described this expedition. Continuing down the Mississippi on a second expedition, he helped to influence the Chickasaw and Creeks to agree to migrate west of the Mississippi, and he negotiated the agreement of Nov. 15, 1827, with the Creek Indians.
Although his Memoirs, Official and Personal (post) are lavish in defense of his own motives and actions and although all of his reports express his philanthropic interest in the Indian, he seems rather to have been a man hard pressed financially, holding desperately to his jobs, promising impossible things from the languishing Indian trade, constantly prating of Indian betterment, yet siding eagerly with politicians in their argument of state rights and in their desire to move the natives westward. Besides other controversial writings he published Essays on the Spirit of Jacksonism as Exemplified in its Deadly Hostility to the Bank of the United States (1835), and with James Hall, a History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs (1836-44), three folio volumes chiefly valuable for the 120 portraits, in color, from the Indian gallery in the War Department. He died from typhoid fever in New York City.
FURTHER READINGS
[T. L. McKenney, Memoirs, Official and Personal (2 vols. in 1, 1846); a different estimate of motives and accomplishment in A. H. Abel, "The Hist. of Events Resulting in Indian Consolidation West of the Mississippi," Am. Hist. Assoc. Report ... 1906, vol. I (1908); Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, ed. by C. F. Adams, vols. VI, VII, VIII (1875); Bibliographical Soc. of America Papers, vol. XIX (1925), p. 63; spelling of middle name taken from Lib. of Cong. on authority of niece; transcript of death certificate by department of health with date of Feb. 21 but death notice in N. Y. Times, Feb. 21, 1859, with date Feb. 20.]
SOURCE CITATION
"Thomas Loraine McKenney."Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936.
Dondore, Dorothy Ann. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
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