Illinois News
Illinois Public Perception 1868-1877
This section will examine a variety of newspaper articles published in Illinois from 1868-1877 and what they report on the Native Americans and the Cavalry in the West. Illinois is an interesting state to examine because it was highly populated and a linking point between the East and the American West. General Phil Sheridan commanded the Military District of the Missouri and his headquarters was located in Chicago. Sheridan ran the departments of the West and the campaigns against the Native Americans from Chicago, although he did at times travel closer to the respective campaigns. With his headquarters located in such a large city, it was common for reporters to seek stories and information from his command. One would assume therefor that the West, Indians, Sheridan, and the actions of the cavalry would be reported on in greater detail in Illinois than in other states because of this access to information. Of the 105 articles published in Illinois at this time fourteen were selected from Illinois from three different papers ranging from 1868 to 1877. A list of these sources is available below in the Works Cited section of this page. By examining this variety of articles over this period it is hoped that this analysis can not only infer public opinion in the Midwest at this time and how it changed, but also what opinions were of Sheridan and his leadership.
If any of the Voyant Tools below do not load, please click on the tool title to see an image file of the results, or go to the Sources page where all the visuals for this project are listed on the left hand side of your screen.
This TermsBerry shows the top 15 terms for the Illinois articles examined. A smaller number of terms are chosen for this examination than previously used with this tool because the articles are shorter than those examined in the military section. The number of terms can still be increased or decreased using the sliding bar at the bottom of the tool. This tool is fantastic for examining terms frequency across a set of documents. In this instance the terms Indian, Cavalry, and Infantry are the most used terms in these documents and appear in every document in this list. The terms camp and fort are referenced frequently as well, most likely referring to the places that these men operated out of. These terms as well are also mentioned in almost every document. There are also references to Miles which can refer to the distance these troops were traveling or the Colonel fighting in the Army. This word is used in some way in each of these documents. This tool would imply that these articles focus on the military and the Army in the West. However, Sheridan is not referenced frequently in these articles when his headquarts was located in Chicago during this time.
This tool shows the trends that the terms "Cavalry", "Infantry", "Sheridan", and "Indians" appeared across these articles. This tool not only shows how frequently these terms appear in each document but it also shows how this frequency changes from article to article. The terms used more in each article are reflective of how important that term is to the focus of that article. This selection of articles is valuable to look at using this tool because this is the first time that the infantry have been mentioned as frequently as the cavalry. By using this tool's visuals, just how often these two terms are used in each document comparatively can be seen. This also shows how these terms relate to the use of Indians throughout these articles and we can see the relationship between there of them. It is interesting that the article that mentioned the infantry far more than any other barely mentions the Indians and is written on troop positions and distributions across the West. This is example of how surface analysis of these documents can be misleading and suggested a larger role of the infantry in the West and the fight against the Native Americans. It appears that there is only one instance that they are discussed more than the cavalry and that instance can be explained simply by the fact that there were infantry units scattered across the West but they were not more active in the field than the cavalry. As previously mentioned, Sheridan's headquarters was in Illinois and he was responsible for the entire American West. Sheridan is included in this tool to see when he is mentioned and try to understand why he is of little relevance in these articles. Sheridan is only mentioned fourteen times in these articles and his name only appears in three documents in total. In military documents Sheridan had phased out of the discussion at this time and it appears that the same can be said in newspapers.
In this Collocates Graph tool for the Illinois news articles, the terms selected to focus on appear in blue. The words "Indians", "Indian", "Cavalry", and "Infantry" were selected to see how the two types of troops correspond to the words associated with the Native Americans. This tool explores similar results from the Trends tool but looks at these words in more detail of how they are used in these documents. It is important to note that while the Infantry are mentioned quite often, the term often links to officers or units. In comparison the cavalry are linked directly to the Indians, which would mirror how articles seen in Montana described the cavalry. Illinois news further depicts the cavalry as the primary force used to fight the Native Americans. These results continue to reflect others as the Indians are also linked to the verbs "attacked" and "killed" which further depicts them in a negative light in the Midwest news. It appears that the view of the Native Americans in the Midwest and Illinois was overall negative.
Opinions in the Midwest
It is unclear if having access to Sheridan's headquarters and reports provided reporters with more information from the West. However Sheridan surpassingly was not included in these articles on the West which mostly focused on the cavalry and the Indians. Illinois yielded similar results to Montana, showing how news coverage during this period continued to focus on the violent interactions with the Indians and in particular the U.S. Cavalry in the West. The Cavalry were directly linked to the Indians who were depicted as attackers and killers in the West while the Cavalry were pursuing these fleeing Native Americans. These newspaper articles further influenced public opinion of the Indians in a negative way as the work of Coward argues as well. Upon closer examination of the articles from Illinois, there is little difference between the coverage of the Western state of Montana and Illinois when it comes to their depiction and coverage of the cavalry and the Indians in the West at this time.