William P. Dole

William Palmer Dole (December 3, 1811 – September 30, 1889) was an American politician who served as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1861 to 1865. Born in Danville, Vermont, he moved to Ohio at a young age before attending school near Terre Haute, Indiana. After leaving home, he worked as a grocer and pork packer in Clinton, Indiana, making a series of trips via flatboat to sell produce along the Mississippi. In 1838, he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives as a Whig. Six years later he was elected to the state senate, and served in this role until 1851. After leaving the Indiana Congress, he returned to merchant work in Paris, Illinois, and joined the nascent Republican Party. He served as a delegate at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, and helped to negotiate support for Abraham Lincoln from the Pennsylvania and Indiana delegations, where it was agreed that he would be appointed as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He received a number of recommendations from Indiana and Illinois politicians, and was appointed by Lincoln following his election.

Dole, like Lincoln, had very little experience with Native Americans. As commissioner, the Office of Indian Affairs largely followed its current course. Dole was a proponent of dividing communally-held reservation land into private plots via the allotment system, seeing it as a way to assimilate Native American nations into American society, with the eventual goal of termination of the reservation system. Dole's efforts to expand treaty negotiations to California was rejected by Congress, while attempts to negotiate with plains tribes were blocked by regional military commanders. Dole faced heavy political backlash following the 1864 Sand Creek massacre, with many attributing corruption and incompetence with the office to his leadership. Following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President Andrew Johnson considered Dole a political liability, and replaced him as commissioner with Dennis N. Cooley. Dole retired from politics after leaving federal office, and died in Washington in 1889. Provided by Wikipedia