Highlights from the “Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824–1880” (Microfilm M234)

Today’s post is by Rose Buchanan, Archivist and Subject Matter Expert for Native American Related Records

When you hear the phrase “administrative correspondence,” what do you think of?

It would not be surprising if you conjured up an image of dry, tedious paperwork full of legalese. Sometimes, that image is accurate! But in many cases at the National Archives (NARA), administrative correspondence series are rich sources of information about federal agencies and the people, places, and events they interacted with, and records that may have seemed routine when they were created often take on new significance today.

We can see this in the series Letters Received, 1824–1880, which is part of Record Group 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). This series consists of letters that the BIA (known as the Office of Indian Affairs during the 19th century) received from sources all over the country about a wide variety of topics. The records were microfilmed as NARA Microfilm Publication M234, and “M234” is used throughout this post as shorthand for the series’ title.

M234 is digitized and available to research online in the National Archives Catalog. Today, we are highlighting just a few of the unique gems you can find among these letters.

Tribal Rolls

Although the United States government has never created a list of all people who have Native American ancestry, the BIA historically created numerous rolls (i.e., lists) of Native Americans to identify members of federally recognized tribes and bands. These tribal rolls can include useful information for genealogy researchers, such as names, tribal affiliations, family relationships, residences, and more.

Select tribal rolls are interspersed throughout M234, and each collects different information depending on the BIA’s needs at the time. For example, within the letters received from the BIA’s Texas Agency in 1855, there is a census of Caddo members who had settled on a reservation by the Brazos River. As was common for the era, the census lists the names of the heads of families and the number of household members who fell into particular categories, such as males over the age of 12 years.

Another example is the 1875 census taken at the BIA’s Spotted Tail Agency, which had jurisdiction over multiple bands of Lakota Sioux, including the Brule, Sans Arc, Oglala, Hunkpapa, and Miniconjou, in Dakota Territory. Like the 1855 census of the Caddo, the 48-page census from the Spotted Tail Agency lists the names of heads of families and the number of household members in specific categories. Unlike the Caddo census, however, the categories in the Spotted Tail Agency’s census correspond in part to family relationships, i.e., the number of husbands, wives, sons, and daughters in a particular household.

The 1878 census taken at the BIA’s Fort Hall Agency also includes family relationship categories. But this 12-page census, which documents members of the Shoshone and Bannock Tribes in Idaho, contains additional columns to document each household’s government-allotted rations of beef, flour, sugar, and salt. In this way, the Fort Hall Agency’s census is similar to a much earlier list of provisions issued to tribes and individuals by Lewis Cass, the governor of Michigan Territory and ex officio superintendent of the Michigan Superintendency of Indian Affairs, between September 1823 and September 1824. The six-page list of provisions is inconsistent in naming individuals when they received provisions as a group. But when individuals are listed by name, their tribal affiliation is often given, as is the amount of pork, beef, beans, four, salt, or whiskey they received.

Sometimes the rolls and lists found in M234 are tied closely to other records in Record Group 75. For example, within the letters received from the Choctaw Agency in 1837, there is a two-page list of individuals who were designated land reserves under the 1830 Choctaw Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Separate files documenting Choctaw land reserves are available, as described in this History Hub blog post from 2025. Likewise, within the letters received from the Potawatomi Agency in 1868, there is a 16-page list of applicants for patents to land allotted under the Potawatomi Treaty of 1861, followed by an eight-page list of Potawatomi allottees (both men and women) who had been naturalized. These lists relate to the series Potawatomi Allotment Certificates and Stubs, April 12, 1866–April 27, 1868, Tract Books Relating to Potawatomi Lands in Kansas, 1866–1873, and Records Concerning Payments to Citizen Potawatomi, 1868–1870, among others in Record Group 75 that are located at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Rolls and lists found in M234 can relate to records in other record groups as well. For example, this 1853 copy of a muster roll lists the members of the Delaware Tribe who served in the Florida War (i.e., Seminole War) and who either obtained or applied for a bounty land warrant based on their service. Likewise, this 1853 list indicates the members of the Shawnee Tribe who obtained bounty land warrants based on their service in the Florida War. Additional records documenting these veterans’ service might be found in the series Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Volunteer Organizations During the Indian Wars, 1899–1927 in Record Group 94, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, and the series Bounty Land Warrant Application Files of Indians Based on Service Between 1812 and 1855, ca. 1812–ca. 1900 in Record Group 15, Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs. For more information about these records, please see Compiled Military Service Records and Pre-World War I U.S. Army Pension and Bounty Land Applications.

Petitions

Petitions from Native American groups and from non–Native American groups are also interspersed throughout M234. These records typically communicate a petitioning group’s grievances against the BIA or against a federal policy relating to Native Americans; urge the BIA to address an unresolved issue of importance to the group; or, in the case of petitions from Native groups, to make good on treaty promises.

Sometimes, petitions came from tribal councils or leaders. In this five-page petition from 1851, for instance, leaders of the Munsee Tribe protested against the conduct of Moravian missionaries toward their people. Also in 1851, the Delaware Tribe, in a seven-page petition addressed to President Millard Filmore, brought up multiple grievances they hoped the federal government would resolve, including their objection to unauthorized removal of wood and coal from their lands by soldiers and settlers near Fort Leavenworth and their dissatisfaction with the quality of education that their children were receiving.

Other times, petitions came from Native individuals, families, or other groups. For example, in a three-page petition from 1840, a dozen members of the Tuscarora in New York wrote to express their dissatisfaction with the BIA agent assigned to the New York Agency, accusing him of showing favoritism in the debate over removal to the west. They also protested the government’s failure to provide promised funds for groups who wanted to move. Similarly, in this four-page petition from 1851, Hannah Zane and her children petitioned the BIA regarding their rights as members of the Wyandot Nation, quoting from the Wyandot Treaty of 1842 in defending their rights to annuity payments. In this six-page petition from 1867, dozens of individuals who lived near Fort Laramie in Dakota Territory and identified as “heads or members of Indian families” petitioned the BIA and Congress to permanently set aside land along the Missouri and White Earth Rivers for them and their families. As the petitioners explained, construction of a railroad across the Great Plains had made it more difficult for the petitioners and their families to support themselves, as many had made their living assisting overland travelers through the region. The petitioners hoped to receive “some good agricultural land” in Indian Country where they could settle and begin farming.

Petitions from non-Native groups often related to land as well. For example, in this 1836 petition, eight individuals who had leased lands from the Chippewa in Michigan Territory asked for the right to purchase the lands with the consent of the tribe’s chief. Other petitions from non-Native groups shed light on conflicts between Native communities, non-Native communities, and the federal government. For instance, in this four-page petition from 1837, a group of slaveholders from St. Augustine and eastern Florida protested an Army order issued during the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) that barred them from entering certain territory along the Florida coast to find missing slaves who were allegedly among the Seminoles. Other examples include the multiple petitions from 1863 in which Minnesota residents demanded that the Winnebago be removed from the state after the U.S.–Dakota War.

Tribal Resolutions

In addition to petitions from tribal members and groups, M234 can include copies of resolutions passed by tribal councils and leaders as well. The letters received from the Kansas Agency in the early 1850s include numerous examples. For instance, in this two-page resolution from 1851, the chiefs and headmen of the Delaware Tribe conveyed 24,960 acres of land to the Wyandot Nation in exchange for $46,080.00. In this two-page resolution from 1852, the chiefs, headmen, and counselors of the Shawnee Tribe designated four individuals to visit Washington, DC, and negotiate with the federal government over the tribe’s outstanding claims. In this two-page translated resolution from 1851, Munsee, Delaware, Stockbridge, and other descendants of the Ohio Christian Indians living in Kansas proclaimed the rules and regulations that individuals had to follow to be members of their community. At the end of the document is a list of community members and their tribal affiliations.

Other examples include multiple resolutions adopted by the Eastern Band of Cherokee during their annual council meeting in 1879. One such resolution created a committee to investigate the buying and selling of improvements within the tribe’s lands. Another resolution challenged a court order authorizing the sale of certain tribal lands. A third resolution called on the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to furnish the tribal council with a copy of the deed to their lands in Swain and Jackson Counties in North Carolina. Similar to the Shawnee Tribe’s resolution from 1852, the Eastern Cherokee also adopted several resolutions in which they designated individuals to serve as tribal delegates during a visit to Washington, DC. Yet another resolution adopted by the council—and unique among the materials discussed in this post—affirmed a contract and included signatories’ names in both English and Cherokee.

Student Information

Microfilm rolls 772–799 of M234 are dedicated to letters about schools established for Native American children. Although the letters rarely include comprehensive information about students, select lists and reports included in these records can provide students’ names, ages, and tribal affiliations, as well as a snapshot of their academic progress at the time the records were created.

For example, an 1843 report from the Mayhew School, a mission school for Choctaw children, lists the names and ages of male and female students, as well as the date they entered the school, their standing at the time of entry, the studies they pursued at the school, and the date they left the school. As such, we are able to learn that Amaziah Folsom, age 18, entered the Mayhew School on December 2, 1842, already knowing how to read and write, and he pursued reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography until he left the school on June 5, 1843. We also learn that Rebecca Belvin, one of the younger Mayhew students at age 7, entered the school on April 3, 1843, as “a tyro” (i.e., a beginner or novice) and was learning the alphabet until the end of the school year.

We see another example in this three-page letter from 1866, written by William Jemerson of the Cattaraugus Reservation (Seneca) in New York. Jemerson requested additional funds so that two girls, Salina Jemerson and Sarah White, could continue attending Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York. As Jemerson writes, the girls were studying so they could become teachers for their people, and both had received praise from school officials. While most school-related letters in M234 are part of microfilm rolls 772–799, information about students appears elsewhere in the series as well. For example, within the letters received from the Michigan Superintendency, there is a four-page list of students attending the Carey Mission School in Michigan Territory in 1827. Like the 1843 report from the Mayhew School, the list of students at Carey Mission School includes their names, ages, and remarks on their academic progress. However, unlike the Mayhew School’s list, the Carey Mission School’s list also includes students’ tribal affiliation and blood degree, and when a student had an English and a Native American name, the list often includes both. As such, we learn that Manotule or Thomas Baldwin was a 14-year-old Potawatomi boy attending the Carey Mission School in 1827. We also learn from the remarks in his entry that he could read and write and that he was to be sent to Vermont to receive a medical education.

Other examples are found within the letters received from the Cherokee Agency in 1880. Two lists from April 1880 document children from the Eastern Band of Cherokee who were selected to attend either the Boy’s School in Weaverville (spelled “Weaversville” in the records), North Carolina, or the Female College in Asheville, North Carolina. The lists provide students’ names and ages. Another letter from October 1880 includes a list of Eastern Cherokee children attending Trinity College, which is now part of Duke University. The list provides each student’s name, county of residence, and age.

Maps and Diagrams

Although the letters in M234 consist primarily of handwritten text, occasional maps and diagrams are included with the letters. An example is the two-page “Map of the Seat of War in Florida,” which was compiled and published by order of Brigadier General (and future U.S. president) Zachary Taylor and sent to the BIA headquarters in 1849. Examples of hand-drawn maps include this 1880 map of Eastern Cherokee lands in North Carolina and this 1879 map of the Shoshone and Bannock Reservation in Idaho.

Hand-drawn diagrams in the records often depict agency buildings or planned buildings. For example, this diagram from 1857 depicts a proposed agency building at the Osage River Agency in Kansas Territory, while this diagram, also from 1857, illustrates the proposed dwelling house for the U.S. agent for the Kickapoo. Another example is this 1866 floor plan for a manual labor school at the Ponca Agency.

Additional maps created or compiled by the BIA are found in the Central Map File, 1824–1960 and in other series in Record Group 75 that are maintained by NARA’s Cartographic Branch.

Additional Resources

For more information about M234, please see the M234 descriptive pamphlet. For information about other BIA correspondence series in NARA’s holdings, please see Bureau of Indian Affairs Records: Correspondence Files.

For questions related to these records, please contact the Archives 1 Reference Branch in Washington, DC, at archives1reference@nara.gov.