Indian Peace Medals in American History

December 11, 2019 Posted by: Tom Dewey, Librarian

Indian Peace Medals in American History, by Francis Paul Prucha. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.

The history of the nation’s Indian policy is revealed through Indian peace medals, which are equally important to the story of American art.  In Indian Peace Medals in American History, author Francis Prucha provides an interesting story of the peace medals and traces the designing and producing of these pieces.

The author explains that the peace medals were tokens of friendship and symbols of allegiance. The United States government took great pains to see that the medals were of high merit. Among the Indians the medals were cherished possessions, to be buried with the chiefs or passed down from generation to generation.

Medals were given to Indian chiefs on important occasions, such as the signing of a treaty, a visit of important Indians to the national capital, or a tour of Indian country by some federal official. They were also distributed by Indian agents on the frontier at their own discretion, but according to established norms.

Prucha explains that honoring Indian leaders with medals did not originate with the United States. “Though the ultimate origin of the usage is obscure, the French, Spanish, and British had distributed medals for many decades,” he writes.  The book further states that Thomas Jefferson spoke of the use of medals among the Indians as “an ancient custom from time immemorial” which had its beginning in the European practice of giving medals to negotiators of treaties and other diplomatic characters, or visitors of distinction.

The park has one of the largest collections of peace medals in the country; perhaps second only to the Smithsonian, and in the new museum exhibit, nearly all of the medals are on display.