New York News
New York Public Perception 1868-1877
This section is intended to examine newspapers from a prominent northern state at this time and how these papers portrayed the cavalry, Indians, and Sheridan. For this section the state of New York was selected not only because of its size and location but also because of its importance in the news of the time. As the examination of newspapers and their influence on national opinions conducted by Minor and Coward show, a plethora of papers were published in the state of New York that were popular across the country. Prior to the Civil War alone the New York Daily Tribune by itself had a larger circulation than the sixty six daily papers being distributed in the south (Minor, ii). Well over five thousand articles and editorials written in the New York Times during this period that mention Indians in some way and about 2200 articles and editorials written about the cavalry at this time. This shows just how frequently these papers were being published and the large numbers of articles contained in each day's issue. In Chronicling America, New York as a state contained the most results for the search of cavalry and Indians compared to other states in the North. Unlike the online achieve of the New York Times , this site draws from the New York Herald . This was another of the popular and widely distributed publications from New York at this time and is an excellent example of an influential press from the North. In total eleven articles were selected from various years to examine how the cavalry and Indians were depicted in New York. Since the Herald was the only publication with results available in this time period from New York, it is the only newspaper examined in this section.
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.
Since there are not a variety of publications present in this analysis and the papers all come from the same source, TermsBerry was not used here and instead Cirrus tool will show similar results. In this case the most used word in these articles is general which appears a total of 107 times. Next would be Indians at 100 times and comparatively the cavalry are not mentioned as much at only 69 times but this is more so on average than the previous news sources. These articles contain a variety of military ranks that appear relatively frequently throughout these documents like Captain and Lieutenant. These ranks appear in the documents as often as the cavalry do. From a surface level analysis this is most likely due to the variety of officers being listed from various units fighting in the West. It is different as well that in these articles the tribal names for Indians being examined, like the Sioux and Modoc, appears frequently. This is interesting because it implies a level of detail in this reporting that has not been seen in previous newspapers. There are also numerous references to time and times of day like morning, as well as places like the Lava beds, camp, and village. While none of the terms in this tool present any groundbreaking evidence in the analysis of New York news articles, it is important that these publications contained such a wide variety of frequently used terms. There are some small themes in this list, however this is the first list to not have a recognizable theme throughout it.
This Trends tool focuses on the terms "Indians", "cavalry", "Sheridan", and "attack" to show the frequency that these terms were used in each article and how their use varied between them. The term Indians appears relatively consistently throughout these articles and so too does the cavalry. This is an interesting consistency for these words since they often appear fluctuating much more in other articles. Sheridan was added to see where the General commanding the West was mention and how many times. In total he only appears 8 times and most of these are in an article discussing General Sherman's views on the Indians and how to deal with them. With that context, it is understandable that Sheridan would be mentioned as the commander of US forces fighting the Native Americans presently in the West in Sherman's discussion of the Native Americans. Furthermore it is interesting that Sheridan is reported on so little at this time in news pertaining to the Indians and the cavalry as a whole considering he is the leader of US forces in the West. Sheridan was a well-known cavalry leader in the north from his service in the Civil War and hundreds of articles were printed that referenced him. It is interesting that the term attack only appears in two of the articles examined showing that the conversation about the cavalry and the Native Americans in northern publications was not solely focused on military engagements but was a multi layered discussion about the situation on the plains and what could be done to find a solution besides violence.
Since the terms cavalry and Indian are both frequently used in these works, the Terms in context tool created a large list of examples of how these terms were used exactly. There is a long list of cavalry units that seem to appear throughout these documents that is listing who was in command of what group of men. There are also examples of cavalry being described in the field was common in this period. They are seen charging or pursuing the Native Americans across the West. While this is not unique to see this description of the cavalry, it is further evidence of the argument that cavalry were emphasized in the newspapers as the primary source depict them as the primary Indian fighters in the West. These just further build local, state, and national opinions when it comes to the cavalry. Similarly the Indians when examined in context are used in a variety of ways. These articles depicted the Native Americans as attacking in a few instances while they were also shown as fleeing in multiple articles, and killing people in multiple instances. The Native Americans are also described as wild Indians which reflect back to the view of the Indian as an "uncivilized savage" compared to the spread of civilization that was brought by the United States (Coward, 10). While these descriptions of the Native Americans in the west continue the theme of negative interpretations of the Native Americans, they provide instances of a expanded vocabulary on the topic and shows how a broader discussion of the problems was taking place.
What they thought in the Northern States
During the period of 1868 to 1877 while campaigns were being launched against the Native Americans in the West the newspapers in the North, specifically out of New York, experienced some noticeable changes. Despite how prevalent he appeared to be in the searches from the New York Times, Sheridan did not appear often in the Articles discussing the Indians during this period. This is most likely because he was no longer commanding these men in the field against the Native Americans. Instead officers of the, captains, majors, and Colonels began to be referenced more often in this works, giving the front line leaders credit in the news. These articles from the New York Herald have a wider range of words used compared to the other papers published during this time. This makes them more unique comparatively. The narrative that they present is still much the same as those in the North and out West. The Cavalry were depicted as the primary tool used to defend the American's in the West and combat the Native Americans. The Herald also gives credit to a variety of line officers in the cavalry and other units and their actions leading troops on the plains. The Indians too were still presented in a negative way. While this is typical of this century as a whole, the vocabulary used by these New York articles was much wider than other states. Rather than limiting the descriptions of these Native Americans to being hostile or violent, details about their origins and tribes were included in these papers which arguably provided the readers with a more throughout understanding of these Native Americans. On the next page, all of the newspaper articles will be examined in greater detail.