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DS as president, signed “R. B. Hayes,” one page, 7.75 x 9.75, March 14, 1877. President Hayes directs the Secretary of State to cause the Seal of the United States to be affixed to “the Pardon of ‘Crow Man,’ an Arapaho Indian.” Signed neatly at the conclusion by Rutherford B. Hayes. In fine condition. President Hayes was an egalitarian and a supporter of social causes, particularly education and civil rights. Closely linked to this was his strong interest in prison reform, and he issued many pardons while in office and came to oppose the death penalty.
Accompanied by printed images of the referenced pardon for ‘Crow Man’ of the Arapaho Nation, which reads, in part: ‘Whereas, Crow Man, an Arapaho Indian, having been convicted of Murder, in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas, was by the said Court sentenced, on the 26th day of February, A.D. 1877, to suffer death by hanging.
And whereas, the late President of the United States, after the conviction aforesaid, and before sentence thereupon was pronounced, upon information communicated to him by the Secretary of the Interior, that an application for the pardon of the said ‘Crow Man’ was contemplated, did signify in writing, under date of January 25, 1877, that the penalty of death would, in the case of the said ‘Crow Man,’ be commuted to imprisonment for life:
Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Rutherford B. Hayes. President of the United States of America, in consideration of the premises…do hereby commute the sentence of the said ‘Crow Man’…to imprisonment at hard labor, in the Penitentiary at Moundsville in the State of West Virginia, for the term of his natural life.’
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