George Washington Manypenny

George Washington Manypenny (1808-1892) was the Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the United States from 1853 to 1857.

George Washington Manypenny
Born1808
Uniontown, Pennsylvania
Died1892
Bowie, Maryland

Manypenny was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He moved to Ohio in 1830 where he worked in the newspaper business and served as clerk of the circuit court based in Zanesville, Ohio.[1] His appointment as Indian Commissioner came during the administration of Franklin Pierce. He was responsible for settling 52 treaties during his tenure, many of them in Kansas and Nebraska.[2]

From 1859 to 1862 he was editor of the Ohio Statesman. He then retired from the newspaper business to become manager of the state public works. In 1876 Manypenny was appointed chair of a special commission to investigate the issues that led to the Sioux outbreak that year, which included the defeat of the American forces under George Armstrong Custer at the battle of the Little Bighorn.[3] In 1880 he wrote Our Indian Wards which detailed a variety of wrongs perpetrated on the Indians, along with recommendations for reforms.[4]

References
  1. Evening Star 1892.
  2. Dix 1985, p. 94.
  3. Wisconsin Magazine History 1918, p. 324.
  4. Manypenny 1880.
Attributions
  • "Death of George W. Manypenny". Washington Evening Star. July 16, 1882. Retrieved April 12, 2014.
  • Dix, Mary Seaton; Lasswell, Lynda Crist, eds. (1985). The Papers of Jefferson Davis. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0807112402. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
  • "The Career of Col. G. W. Manypenny". Wisconsin Magazine of History. 1 (3). March 1918. Retrieved April 12, 2014.
  • Manypenny, George W. (1880). Our Indian Wards. Cincinnati: R. Clarke.


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