Samuel F. Tappan

Samuel Forster Tappan (June 29, 1831 – January 6, 1913) was an American journalist, military officer, abolitionist and a Native American rights activist. Appointed as a member of the Indian Peace Commission in 1867 to reach peace with the Plains Indians, he advocated self-determination for native tribes. He proposed the federal government replace military jurisdiction over tribal matters with a form of civil law on reservations, applied by the tribes themselves.

Samuel Tappan, a native of Manchester, Massachusetts, near Boston was a member of the prominent New England Tappan family. It included clergymen, politicians, merchants, sea captains, cabinet-makers, inventors, poets, philanthropists, educators, and abolitionists. He was a first cousin once removed of the noted brothers Arthur Tappan (1786–1865) and Lewis Tappan (1788–1873) who were silk merchants in New York; they were known as philanthropists and abolitionists, as well as their eldest brother, Senator Benjamin Tappan (1773–1857) of Ohio, who mentored Edwin M. Stanton, later Secretary of War under Abraham Lincoln.

Sam Tappan received a common school education and then went to work in the cabinet-making trade in his native town, learning to make chairs from his father. He next worked in Boston at an uncle's clothing store.

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