HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



After being legislated out of office in 1822, McKenney established 

 a newspaper which he conducted for nearly two years, when, in recog- 

 nition of the confidence reposed in him by President Monroe and the 

 Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, McKenney was assigned to "the 

 duties of the Bureau of Indian Affairs," at that time under the control 

 of the War Department. The office was not created at this time by 

 Act of Congress, but was organized by the Secretary of War, with 

 the approval of the President, for the better administration of Indian 

 affairs. McKenney declined the appointment at first because the 

 compensation offered ($1,600) was inadequate to his support, but as 

 the Secretary of War promised that the President would recommend 

 to Congress the organization of an Indian department with a salary 

 commensurate with the importance of the office, McKenney con- 

 sented to accept, and on March 11, 1824, he was assigned the duties 

 of the new bureau. However, from treaties negotiated at Washington 

 in the same year in which McKenney appeared only as a witness, his 

 official authority probably was not very great. But there is no doubt 

 that McKenney's interest in the Indians increased as time went on, 

 for in 1825 he joined Dr C. S. Rafinesque in drafting a circular letter 

 asking information respecting the languages of the tribes, while his 

 official labors were so oppressive and the responsibilities so weighty 

 that his health succumbed to the pressure, and had it not been for 

 the confidence of the President and of the Secretary of War, "I should, 

 in all probability," says McKenney, "have died at my post." In June, 

 1826, McKenney started from Georgetown on a journey to Lake Supe- 

 rior for the purpose of negotiating, jointly with Lewis Cass (later 

 Secretary of War), a treaty with the Chippewa Indians at Fond du 

 Lac, for whom, at that time, the afterward celebrated Henry R. 

 Schoolcraft was agent. 



In addition to the successful negotiations of this treaty on August 

 5, 1826, a result of this journey was a series of letters published at 

 Baltimore in 1827 under the title Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes, etc., 

 illustrated with twenty-nine engravings from paintings by James 

 Otto Lewis, of Detroit, of which the least said the better. 



Meanwhile, during McKenney's incumbency, namely, on Decem- 

 ber 15, 1824, Lewis Cass, then Governor and Superintendent of Indian 

 Affairs of Michigan Territory, addressed Secretary Calhoun as follows: 



I do myself the honour to transmit you a striking likeness of the celebrated 

 Shawnese prophet, the brother and coadjutor of Tecumseh, painted by Mr Lewis, 

 a young artist of this town. 



It has occurred to me, that you might not deem it improper to direct por- 

 traits to be taken of the most distinguished Chiefs, who visit this place, and for- 



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