John Sibley

Who was John Sibley?

Dr. John Sibley lived from 1757 to 1837. He lived in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, until moving to Louisiana in 1803. He married Elizabeth Hopkins in 1780, and they had two sons. One of their sons, Samuel Hopkins, would later father the Confederate General, Henry Hopkins Sibley. During the Revolutionary War, John Sibley was a surgeon's assistant, giving him the experience to continue his practice after the war, however, in 1784, John moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina and started his own newspaper, the Fayetteville Gazette. His wife and family soon joined him, but, in 1790, his wife died. In 1791, Sibley married a widow named Mary W. Winslow.

In 1803, after the Louisiana Purchase, Sibley moved to Natchitoches and was hired by the Army as a contract surgeon for five years. From 1805 to 1815, Sibley was also the official Indian Agent of New Orleans Territory. His diary and sketches of Native American tribes survive as evidence of early American Louisiana. As well, letters from Sibley to Thomas Jefferson have survived; in them, Sibley described important political moments in early Louisiana, and gave the President reports on his one-on-one relationship with the inhabitants of the Louisiana territory, including Native Americans, Spaniards, and French. His letters also reveal the tension within the US government on how to handle the new territory, and whether or not they should heavily guard the border between the two. In his position of Indian Agent of New Orleans, he was instructed to stay in contact with the Governor and the War Department, with populations, the names of important people, and their overall living situations, as well as to help smaller tribes prepare for land surveying by the government. Along with all of these duties, Sibley was to report any Native American tribes which seem that they would ally with either the American or Spanish forces within the area.