The Origins and Character of Grant's Peace Policy

The lyrics of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," written by abolitionist Julia Ward Howe in November 1861, make clear that the Civil War was, among other things, a religiously-charged event.[1] Yet, once the war had ended, America's reforming spirit was still alive. Its interests now turned toward justice for American Indians. More than anything else, news of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre sparked public interest in real change. It symbolized a long series of American misdeeds. Acknowledging those misdeeds meant a new demand for national repentance. As Francis Paul Prucha describes the reaction, America experienced "an upsurge of Christian sentiment demanding Christian justice for the Indians that would be proper to a Christian nation."[2] The practical answer has been called "Grant's peace policy." But its ideas antedated the Grant Administration (1869-77), and lasted till the end of the century. It was, essentially, "a state of mind" according to which an old, inhumane, and ineffective system would be replaced by new one characterized by "kindness and justice."[3]

Notes

[1] Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 1:479, refers to the Civil War as "a great Christian crusade."

[2] Ibid., 480.

[3] Ibid.

Thomas Moore's "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp"

Nothing in Moore's introduction or in the poem itself demands that the "maid" is an Indian. However, it might be said that Moore suggests as much since the maid "paddles her white canoe," while her beloved, in order to search for her, hollows "a boat of the birchen bark."[1] Whatever Moore's intent regarding the ethnic identity of the two--assuming he had an intent--a distinction between them certainly is part of the poem's reception in America. Evidence for this derives from, of all things, an Indian phantom.

In a monograph titled Ghosts of Futures Past: Spiritualism and the Cultural Politics of Nineteenth-Century America, historian Molly McGarry reports that in 1853, Powhatan, the great Algonquian leader of tidewater Virginia during the early seventeenth century, spoke through "a thirteen-year-old medium in Lebanon, New Hampshire."[2] McGarry notes that Spiritualists would sometimes conjure the apparition of a famous historical figure. As one would expect, the expertise or unique experience of that person served as the basis for his or her message to people of the present. When the spectral figure was an American Indian, the message was often "much more ambiguous and, indeed, haunting."[3] In such cases, the apparition typically would cast blame on whites for the disappearance of Indians. Sometimes these indictments were followed by notes of resignation and reports of the happiness of Indians in the afterlife.[4] When in 1853 Powhatan spoke through the teenager in New Hampshire, he not only seemed familiar with Moore's poem, but also designated the ethnicity of the maid:

There are but few left to lament the departure of a once powerful race, none to sit by the council fire, to seek friendship or to plot revenge. No daring footsteps now climb the hills and precipices of our native land. And where is now the Indian maiden, who roamed through the glens and valleys, or skimmed o'er the lake in her swift canoe?[5]

In all likelihood, then, Meta Chestnutt did not imagine, but rather received this part of her interpretation of "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp."

Notes

[1] "A Ballad. The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," appears in Thomas Moore, Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems (Philadelphia: John Watts, 1806), 33-35.

[2] Molly McGarry, Ghosts of Futures Past: Spiritualism and the Cultural Politics of Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), 66.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 69.

[5] "An Indian Spirit's Speech," Spiritual Telegraph 1 (1853): 20-21, as quoted in McGarry, Ghosts of Futures Past, 68. See notes 1 and 7 on 197-98.

The Great Dismal Swamp

The Great Dismal Swamp, known by that name since the early eighteenth century, is a forested marshland in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Although it has been shrinking over the centuries, it still covers about 175 square miles. Gazetteers and travel writers often note that it was surveyed in 1763 by George Washington. A vast wilderness, the area once served as a haven for Native Americans avoiding colonists, and as a hiding place for runaway slaves, the theme of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1842 poem "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp."[1] At its center is Lake Drummond, sometimes called the Lake of the Dismal Swamp. Writer John Tidwell has described the lake as a place that "feels ancient and dreamlike," where "huge cypresses form prehistoric-looking islands in the black, shallow water."[2] It must have made a similar impression on the Irish poet Thomas Moore. In late 1803, Moore was taken to see the Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond by John Hamilton, the British consul at Norfolk, Virginia, and Moore's host in America. Hamilton told Moore the story he used as the inspiration for a ballad he titled "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," first published in 1806. Moore's introduction to the ballad reads as follows:

They tell of a young man, who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp; it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses.[3]

According to Howard Mumford Jones, Moore's biographer, the ballad was "greatly admired" by "that sentimental epoch."[4] The poem's popularity in the nineteenth century and the close proximity of the Dismal Swamp to Meta Chestnutt's home in Lenoir County, North Carolina, helps to explain why she would have memorized the poem in her youth.

Notes

[1] William S. Powell, North Carolina Gazetteer: A Dictionary of Tar Heel Places (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), 145;  Archie Hobson, ed., Cambridge Gazetteer of the United States and Canada (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 176; Saul B. Cohen, ed., Columbia Gazetteer of the World, ed. Saul B. Cohen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 1:839. Ridwaana Allen, "Wild Paradise: Hope in the Great Dismal Swamp." Southeastern Geographer 61, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 1-4, reports that in 2021 the swamp covers 112,000 acres, which comes out to approximately 175 square miles. For Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp," see Poems on Slavery, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: John Owen, 1842), 18-20.

[2] John Tidwell, "The Great Dismal Swamp," American Heritage 53, no. 2 (April-May 2002), 68.

[3] Thomas Moore, Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems (Philadelphia: Hugh Maxwell, 1806), 28. For Moore's trip with John Hamilton to the Dismal Swamp and its lake, see Howard Mumford Jones, The Harp That Once--A Chronicle of the Life of Thomas Moore (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1937), 69-70; B. J. Lossing, "Tom Moore in America," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 55 (September 1877), 537-41.

[4] Jones, The Harp That Once, 70.

A. D. Nock on Adhesion and Conversion

Arthur Darby Nock (1902-1963)

In his 1933 book, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo, the Harvard classicist A. D. Nock distinguished between two understandings of and approaches to religious initiation: adhesion versus conversion.

Adhesion, said Nock, involves the "acceptance of new worships as useful supplements" but "not as substitutes." It does not involve "the taking of a new way of life in place of the old."[1] Adhesion is an understandable, maybe even preferable practice whenever two non-exclusive religious traditions meet. It simply involves the adoption of whatever one finds useful in a tradition that is new to him. The tradition, or folkway, has no absolute truth to tell. It has an outlook, accompanied by rituals or other practices, that might be attractive to the newcomer.

By contrast, Nock defined conversion as “a re-orientation of the soul, a deliberate turning from indifference or from an earlier form of piety to another, a turning which implies a consciousness that a great change is involved, that the old was wrong and the new is right.”[2] Conversion takes place when the truth claims of a religion, which are thought to extend to all of humanity, require the hearer to make an either-or choice. It requires "either the renunciation of his past and entry into a kingdom, . . . or the refusal of this dream as chimerical."[3]

As this overview suggests, Nock explained these two distinct approaches as stemming from two separate types of religion. Adhesion correlates to religion that is merely traditional. It is common wherever one's religion has for him "the emotional value attaching to a thing in which he has grown up."[4] In this circumstance, religion amounts to a set of time-honored customs. The religion has been "hallowed by preceding generations."[5]

Again by contrast, conversion is not rooted in traditional religion, but rather in prophetic religion. According to this type of religious lifeway, at some point in the past, an individual received a non-mediated message from the deity. Because it is the deity who has spoken to him, the deity then speaks through him, for now the prophet "has a message which he feels an inward and instant impulse to deliver."[6] And conversion is "the positive response of a man to the choice set before him" through the claims of evangelists representing a prophetic religion."[7] Such a changeover, said Nock, depended on a common cultural matrix, one that enabled hearers to make sense of the truth claims they were called upon to accept and the commands they were expected to obey. Human beings are not likely to accept what to them is entirely new. Prophetic religion truly succeeds only where it "finds men's minds in a measure prepared," which is a critical distinction.[8]

As the subtitle of his book indicates, Nock used the lens of his theory in order to examine distinctions between paganism of the ancient world as compared to Judaism and Christianity. In short, to the extent that ancient paganism reached newcomers, the new condition was the result of adhesion. But Judaism and Christianity, with their claims issued by the only true and living God, claims communicated by the prophetic figures known as Moses and Jesus, demanded conversion.

My guess is that Nock's distinction between adhesion and conversion might go a long way in explaining the religious interface between the first peoples of North America and later Euro-Americans. More about that later.

Notes

[1] Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (London and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 7.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 5.

[4] Ibid., 2.

[5] Ibid., 3.

[6] Ibid. Here, many passages from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament come to mind. In Amos 3:8, for example, the prophet asked, "The lion has roared-- who will not fear? The Sovereign LORD has spoken-- who can but prophesy?" (New International Version).

[7] Ibid., 7.

[8] Ibid., 9.

The Historic Conferences at Lake Mohonk, NY

Beginning in 1883, Albert and Alfred Smiley, twin brothers and devout Quakers, hosted the "Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian." These annual gatherings met at the brothers' Mohonk Mountain House, a 259-guestroom resort nestled in the mountains west of the Hudson River in upstate New York. There, white middle-class Protestant reformers delivered speeches, shared ideas, refined their plans, and issued recommendations. Their goal was to lift up and civilize the American Indian. Their plans always assumed the vitality of education and the necessity of schools.

Many of the attendees held membership in the Indian Rights Association, the greatest such organization of the time, founded and led by Henry Welsh. Many of them had read Helen Hunt Jackson's 1881 book, A Century of Dishonor, which sought to do for Indians what Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, had done for slaves. In the words of historian Francis Paul Prucha, the conferences at Lake Mohonk "had tremendous impact on formulation of federal policy."[1]

Note

[1] Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, 3rd ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 161. For an excellent overview of the origins, activities, and legacy of the conferences at Lake Mohonk, see Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890, rev. ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), ch. 7. Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, North American Indians: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), ch. 5, esp. p. 90, note the significance of the Mohonk conferences to the period that emphasized assimilation and allotment.

James J. Trott: Missionary to the Cherokees, 2

In the fall of 1830, James J. Trott, a Methodist missionary to the Cherokee Indians in Georgia, was immersed into Christ at Overall's Creek, four miles from Murfreesboro, Tennessee.[1] Upon hearing the news of Trott's baptism, Methodist leaders set out to diminish his influence. By that time, he had served among their clergy for nearly a decade. Yet, the next published minutes of the regional Methodist conference included the following note: "James J. Trott, without an appointment." No reason was given.[2]

Trott soon realized that his separation from the Methodists was inevitable. Not only were they refusing to employ him anymore, more importantly, his disagreements with the denomination extended far beyond questions about the proper subject and mode of baptism. In the spring of 1832, he wrote a letter to a Mr. McLeod, Methodist Superintendent of Cherokee Missions. Trott stated that in addition to the practice of sprinkling infants, he had come to reject the authority of all human creeds and the denominational habit of treating human opinions as though they were matters of revealed faith. In particular, he renounced the notion, spelled out in the Methodist book of discipline, that the Lord expected him to adhere to John Wesley's creeds as his standard for teaching. He also rejected the polity of the Methodist Church with its four orders of bishops and five types of tribunals. He concluded his letter by describing his predicament and announcing his decision:

Thus, you see, I am compelled to refrain from preaching what I believe to be the truth, to preach what I cannot believe, to suffer expulsion, or to withdraw. I prefer the latter.[3]

From then on, Trott considered himself a mere Christian and associated with the movement that Alexander Campbell called "the present reformation."

But this change did not dampen his commitment to making disciples among the Cherokee Indians. As noted in the previous post, in the early 1830s, the State of Georgia had brutally persecuted Trott, along with dozens of other missionaries, because he refused to take an oath of loyalty to the state which denied all Indian land claims. Still, according to the Cherokee Census Roll of 1835, he was then still residing in Georgia. According to the census, he lived near Oothcaloga Creek where he owned a mill. The record further indicates that Trott, whose first wife died in 1830, had since remarried, and that the two children from the first marriage were also living with him.[4]

Notes

[1] Tolbert Fanning, "James J. Trott: Messenger of the Church of Christ at Franklin College, Tenn., to the Cherokee Nation," Gospel Advocate 11 (March 25, 1869), 271-73.

[2] James J. Trott, Letter to Alexander Campbell, Millennial Harbinger 3, no. 8 (August 6, 1832), 389.

[3] Ibid., 389-90.

[4] Copies of Manuscripts in the Office of the Superintendent for the Five Civilized Tribes, Muskogee, Oklahoma: Cherokee Census Roll of 1835, Compiled from Original Record selected by Grant Foreman, 14: 224. The entire entry for James J. Trott reads as follows: "Three Cherokees, 1 white marriage; 2 readers of English, they owned a mill; one weaver, 1 spinster, 2 descendants of reservees."

Assassinations, American Indians, Van Halen, and More! My 17 Favorite Books of 2017

I spent the first week of 2018 sick. The next thing I knew, we were halfway through January! So, a little later than I had meant to post it, here's my annual list of "best books." I'd love to hear about what you read last year. So please leave a note about some of your 2017 books, and why you liked them, or didn't.

U.S. Presidents

1. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine,and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard (2011). A well-written, easy-reading book about President James A. Garfield, his assassin, and the political world they lived in. From the bibliography, it's clear that Millard knows much more about Garfield's religious life, and how it made him the great man he was. But for some reason, she neglects this vital theme. Why?

2. The Kennedy Assassination--24 Hours After: Lyndon B. Johnson's Pivotal First Day as President, by Steven M. Gillon (2009). Take the TV series "24" and make it about the first day after the Kennedy assassination. That's what Gillon does in this interesting, detailed book. Gillon provides plenty of insight for those who want to understand Kennedy, Johnson, their politics, and their presidencies.

American Indians

3. The Chickasaws, Arrell M. Gibson (1971). The old acknowledged masterwork on the subject. Gibson often cities interesting primary sources. Still, Richard D. Green, the current historian of the Chickasaw Nation, notes that Gibson produced this book without interviewing a single Chickasaw. Since then, of course, a newer day in the historiography of American Indians has dawned.

4. American Indians in U.S. History, by Roger L. Nichols (2003). An engaging, brief survey by an expert. Longer and, in my opinion, more useful than the introduction by Perdue and Green (see next entry). Like them, Nichols takes a chronological approach. His text is not accompanied by reference notes, but each chapter ends with a brief list of “Suggested Readings” that represent the classic titles for that historical period.

5. North American Indians: A Very Short Introduction, by Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green (2010). More serviceable than most of the other volumes in the Very Short Introductions series that I’ve read. Chapter 4, “Indians in the West,” corresponds closely to Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890, listed below.

6. The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890, by Robert M. Utley (2003). An interesting survey. The author essentially says, “For the moment, let’s hold onto the Frederick Jackson Turner thesis, but include Indians along that all-important frontier.” Just after I finished reading Utley, I posted a full summary of his book.

Mostly Just for Fun

7. Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal, by Greg Renoff (2015). Renoff begins with the early lives of the original members of Van Halen, and ends with the 11-month world tour that followed the release of their first album in 1978. The book is mostly about Van Halen before hardly anyone outside of Southern California knew who they were. I read it just after passing my qualifying exams, which made the experience that much better. Anyway, if you're interested here's a bit more about it.

8. Ford County: Stories, by John Grisham (2009). This book is Grisham's only published collection of short stories. Not many people like short stories anymore. I've always liked them. With novels, you sometimes don't know if you're going to like them until you're several pages in. With a short story, by that point you're done, and you know not to necessarily trust that author. For one thing, Grisham tends to write long short stories. I know, that's a weird description. But for comparison, check out one of the really-short short stories by Raymond Carver.

9. Bound for Glory, by Woody Guthrie (1943). Woody Guthrie's unique and colorful descriptions of early-twentieth century America will sometimes make you smile and laugh. At other times, his recollections of personal struggles--a family ravaged by disease, financial disaster, house fires, and destitution--might just make you cry. Through it all, you will admire and appreciate Guthrie's unbreakable spirit. Here we have on full display the mind and heart of a creative genius who never took himself too seriously.

Restoration Movement History

10. Among the Early Evangelicals: The Transatlantic Origins of the Stone-Campbell Movement, by James L. Gorman (2017). This is the most significant monograph dealing with the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement to be published in the last several years. In this revision of his doctoral dissertation, Gorman reveals the transatlantic, pre-American roots of the Campbell Movement in America. A signal achievement, Gorman's work breaks new ground and resets the agenda for studying "Campbellism" in America.

11. The Sun Will Shine Again, Someday: A History of the Non-Class, One Cup Churches of Christ, by Ronny F. Wade (1986). The subtitle says it all: “A History of the Non-Class, One Cup Churches of Christ.” The author, Ronny F. Wade, is a long-time, widely-regarded preacher within this group. As one might expect, the history he writes is characterized by advocacy. He is much like the sports announcer who, while calling the game, always cheers for his team. Sometime back, I posted a brief review of Wade's book.

12. Oklahoma Christians: A History of Christian Churches and of the Start of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Oklahoma, by Stephen J. England (1975). England was a great biblical scholar, teacher, and leader within the Disciples denomination during the 20th century. Because he spent so much of his career serving as a professor and school administrator in Oklahoma, he took an interest in the history of his people in the Sooner State. For that particular topic, this book is a unique resource.

Still Other Sorts of History

13. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer (1989). The pick of the litter. This book, all by itself, is an education in several broad streams of American history. Fischer is one of those force-of-nature historians, and Albion's Seed is a delightful masterpiece. You'll never think of the various regions of the U.S. the same way after reading it.

14. Contesting the Reformation, by C. Scott Dixon (2012). Dixon has done a great service to students of the Protestant Reformation. A true expert on the literature, he writes each chapter as a detailed historiographical essay on some aspect of this massive topic. I found it to be an indispensable resource, especially as I prepared for qualifying exams on the Reformation! So, if you're getting ready for exams, or you just want to get a handle on the secondary literature about, say, Calvinism or the Radical Reformation, Dixon's book should be your first stop. It is both thorough and detailed. At least in English, there's nothing else quite like it.

15. Heading South to Teach: The World of Susan Nye Hutchison, 1815-1845, by Kim Tolley (2015). An outstanding new example of microhistory American style. By closely examining the life of an ordinary woman who did extraordinary things, Tolley is able to identify something of how the early U.S. changed especially as a result of the Second Great Awakening.

Texas History

16. Gone To Texas: A History of the Lone Star State, by Randolph B. Campbell (2003). This is likely the very best general survey of Texas history. Campbell relates the story of Texas "from prehistoric times to the beginning of the twenty-first century" (ix). The book is easy-reading, and is complemented by dozens of maps and illustrations. The history of the Lone Star State has often been told according to the traditional, great-people-and-events model. Some readers, especially Texans, might argue that given the topic, this approach is only natural. Either way, Campbell's book is no exception to the rule. Immigration, politics, and conflict, often violent conflict, are major features of the coverage. Neither footnotes nor endnotes accompany the text. Instead, each chapter has its own selected bibliography.

17. Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett's Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution, by James E. Crisp (2005). In this delightful, unusual little book, a native Texan combines memoir and original research as he takes up two specific questions about the Texas Revolution. First, was Sam Houston, a president of the Republic of Texas, an anti-Mexican racist? Or, did someone else put words in his mouth? Second, did Davy Crockett really go down fighting at the Alamo, or did he surrender to Santa Anna's troops? Along the way, Crisp uncovers long-lost evidence, detects mistranslations, reveals secrets, and teaches the reader some of the deeper significance of history. He concludes that when, for whatever reason, we attempt to bury and silence the past we just wind up diminishing ourselves.

The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890, by Robert M. Utley

Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890. Revised Edition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003. Pp. xix, 325.

First published in 1984, The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890 was revised and then reissued in 2003. The revised edition is part of the Histories of the American Frontier Series published by the University of New Mexico Press. The rich narrative is supplemented by 99 illustrations and 12 useful maps.

According to the back cover, author Robert M. Utley is "a retired Chief Historian of the National Park Service and has written over fifteen books on a variety of aspects of history of the American West." In his Foreword, the eminent historian Howard R. Lamar called Utley "one of the most popular and productive historians of the American West" (xiii).

Of course, no historian who writes about the American frontier can avoid Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis first presented in 1893. In his Preface, Utley explains that as Turner saw things, experiences on the frontier--"a trader's frontier, farmer's frontier, rancher's frontier, miner's frontier"--are what made Americans and America exceptional. Turner did not completely neglect the Indians on the American frontier. However, he did treat them merely as "an influence in shaping the special American character" (xv). In other words, as Turner described things, Indians were not characters on the stage that was the American West. They were more like props in a drama that kept the spotlight on whites who were moving west. Nevertheless, unlike some other historians who regard "frontier" as just another f-word, Utley refuses to reject the Turner thesis. He prefers instead to treat it as "a conceptual framework, however simplistic, within which to develop themes of western American history" (xv). By design, Utley's work revises, qualifies, and supplements Turner's outlook. That is the book's most prominent feature from the standpoint of theoretical perspective. How could anyone move west in nineteenth-century America without encountering and dealing with Indians? Utley brings the obvious answer to that question into this exploration of the American frontier. Hence the title of his book.

What follows here is my summary, chapter by chapter. I made fuller notes for some parts more than for others. So, some chapter summaries are quite long, while others are much more concise.

Chapter One: The Indian West at Midcentury

Utley begins with the growing presence of white people in the Indian country during the 1840s. With the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the ensuing U.S.-Mexico War, American citizens moved further west into newly acquired lands. "[T]he United States at midcentury boasted a population of more than 20 million, a counting utterly beyond the comprehension of the western natives. By 1860, 1.4 million would live in the West; by 1890, 8.5 million" (4). The author discusses various influences that forever changed the Indian frontier: European diseases, the horse, and the gun. Dependence upon the gun changed balances of power and, of course, meant that Indians were dependent on the white man for gun "powder, lead, and repairs" (14). And, all such impact meant environmental change, what William Cronon has called Changes in the Land.

First contact between Indians and white men was almost always due to the arrival of a trader. This created new tastes and wants, especially liquor. The trader was most often the first white person an Indian ever saw, as opposed to a missionary. Utley summarizes a central point of this chapter as follows: Many natives of the Trans-Mississippi West had changed in response to the arrival and presence of white people "in or near their world." However, until the 1840s, "the changes had been evolutionary and mostly within the bounds of traditional culture. Henceforth they would be revolutionary and finally destructive of traditional culture" (26).

Chapter Two: Foundations of a New Indian Policy, 1846-1860

White imagination saw Indians in basically two ways: There was the good Indian, the noble savage, to be destroyed by civilizing him. Then, there was the bad Indian, the ignoble savage, to be destroyed by killing him. Either way, as part of the landscape of the frontier, Indians would have to be conquered (29-31).

When push came to shove, possessing Indian land was more important, more pressing than the question of how to civilize Indians (31). The making of treaties with Indians often ascribed to chiefs an authority that did not match up with tribal realities. Chiefs were not elected officials with constitutional authority. Indian politics operated much more by consensus. A chief's leadership utterly depended on a group that was willing to follow.

Founded in 1824, by 1890 the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs "was the most powerful force in the lives of Indians" (37). "The Indian Bureau had two purposes: to extinguish Indian land titles and to grapple with the vexing problem of what to do with people whose title had been extinguished. . . . Only in Texas was there no immediate question of title; on entering the Union, the state had retained jurisdiction over all its vacant land and refused to concede that the Indians owned any of it" (38). "Besides the army and the Indian Bureau, a third institution of government dominated Indian relations: Congress" (41).

The environmental impact of white westward travel and immigration was considerable. The arrival of white traders, and especially U.S. agents with their desire to establish treaties that favored the whites, treaties that Indian leaders often did not understand, led to a radical decline in Indian population (48-49).

Unlike the situation in the rest of America, Texans were having none of the treaty business. Texas never acknowledged Indian right to or ownership of any land in the state (52). Part of the "solution" to Indians in Texas was to drive them north of Red River into the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, where the Texas government leased land from those nations for the incoming Indians (esp. 52).

Chapter Three: When the White People Fought Each Other, 1861-1865

Apache leaders in places like New Mexico began to having violent interactions with whites in 1860-61. Much of this was precipitated by the discovery of gold in old Spanish copper mines and the subsequent influx of miners (66). Following deadly encounters, the Apaches noticed soldiers marching away to the east. The Indians assumed that the whites were giving up and going away. Of course, what they did not realize was that whites were now mobilizing for the Civil War. But the whites were not gone for long. They soon returned to the Indian frontier due to "Abraham Lincoln's need for western gold and silver and western political support for the prosecution of the war." This "dramatized how little the war slowed the pace of the western movement" (72).

"No Indians experienced more trauma than the Five Civilized Tribes of the Indian Territory. Many of those people owned slaves and felt a natural affinity for southerners. Also, geographical proximity gave the Confederacy an edge over the Union. The Choctaws and Chickasaws went overwhelmingly with the South" (73).

Utley describes troubles in Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado. He details the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado. "By 1865 military force as the solution to the Indian problem had achieved virtually unchallenged supremacy. In Indian matters President Lincoln had shown himself a humanitarian, but the struggle with the Confederacy ruled his White House years, and he left Indian affairs almost entirely to Congress and the Indian Bureau" (92).

Then, in 1864, U. S. Grant put John Pope in charge of the Great Plains. Pope basically regarded all Indians in that huge swath of territory as hostile. Many were, thanks to incidents like Sand Creek. Pope's policy was essentially war against all plains Indians, all the time. Many Indians fled north. Some of them were looking merely to escape. But others looked to join up with tribes of the northern plains in order to take the fight to the white man.

Utley tells the story of Adobe Walls in 1864. The War came to an end. Stories about Sand Creek horrified many Americans. So, there were new attitudes regarding Indian policy. Some argued for a policy of "conquest by kindness" (96-97). Thus, sometime around 1865, the U.S. political leaders spoke in terms remarkably different from previous years. Whereas the earlier times had been bloody, beginning in 1865 the language was rhetoric of peace, which was confusing to the Indians.

Chapter Four: War and Peace: Indian Relations in Transition, 1865-1869

This chapter describes a post-war period during which mistrust and atrocities on both sides led American federal policy in the direction of "the rifle" as opposed to "the peace pipe"; this, in spite of the peace rhetoric that became popular at war's end. In other words, by fits and starts U.S. policy towards the Indian became more aggressive and hostile. Thus, the years that immediately followed the war were characterized by broken treaties, ambushes, massacres, and the failure of the treaty policy. It is no coincidence that leaders of the U.S. Army at this time were battle-hardened veterans of the war.

Chapter Five: Grant's Peace Policy, 1869-1876

Grant began his presidency with the promise of a Peace Policy. At the same time, he said, "Those who do not accept this policy will find the new administration ready for a sharp and severe war policy" (128). So, although the official rhetoric emphasized peace, it seems that Grant's effective policy had two sides. Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a full-blooded Seneca, Commissioner of Indian Affairs (130). Again, this was part and parcel of a dedication to "conquest by kindness." Still, Grant's policies were enacted by dozens of army officers, not to mention that the Indian Bureau was part of the War Department. Nonetheless, there were sometimes genuine attempts at kindness and justice (132).

Utley describes the frustrations for both Indians (in his specific example, Apaches) and U.S. representatives to Indians. The Great Father was slow in making decisions and providing the promised means of survival. Frequently, after a long wait, the Indians would be delivered a unsatisfactory message. However, some officials like Vincent Colyer and General Oliver Otis Howard did well as advocates of the Indians and made good decisions.

Utley turns to the Fort Sill Agency in the western Indian Territory. Kiowas and Comanches were the tribes of interest here. Lawrie Tatum, a determined Quaker, became agent. Tatum tried to get the Kiowas to stop raiding in Texas. Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson at Fort Sill was the military complement to Tatum's agency. Grierson was devoted to the peace policy, even though that meant that some of his military peers looked down on him.

Ultimately, the Salt Creek Prairie Massacre of 1871 frustrated Tatum and set off William Tecumseh Sherman. Satanta, a Kiowa chief, was proud and unrepentant. Like most tribes, encroachment by whites and U.S. federal policy divided the Kiowas. The Kiowa war chief was Lone Wolf. Kicking Bird led the Kiowa peace faction (see photos pp. 144-45).

The final paragraph of the chapter reads, "But in essence Grant's Peace Policy was chiefly about peace, and peace it did not achieve. The public could thus hardly be faulted for failing to note the persistence of the Peace Policy when war so dominated the Indian news. Indeed, the era of the Peace Policy featured some of the bitterest warfare in the history of Indian relations" (154).

Chapter Six: Wars of the Peace Policy, 1869-1886

" 'The campaigns in Arizona did not owe their ultimate success to any particular Waterloo-like victory, as much as they did the covering of a great deal of ground by a comparatively small number of men, permitting the Indians no rest and rendering any and every hiding place insecure.' " (155, quoting a report from 1890).

Utley relates the army's Walter Schuyler and his troops tracking down Apaches in Arizona in 1873 (155-58). The freedom of the Kiowas and Comanches came to an end in 1875 (160). The general rule was: Those Indians on the reservation are friendly and the federal Indian Bureau is responsible for them; Those off the reservation are hostile and the army must be responsible for them (161). This made sense, but the realities were never quite that simple (162-63). When war was brought to Indians, it tended to be the "total war" made (in)famous by the likes of Sherman and Sheridan during the Civil War (164).

"Man for man, the [Indian] warrior far surpassed his blueclad adversary in virtually every test of military proficiency; but unit for unit--however great the numbers--the Indians could not come close to matching the discipline and organization of the army. When Indians made the mistake of standing and fighting on the army's terms, they usually lost." However, the west was not won as a result of military conquest. Instead it was "an aggressive and highly organized society" (166).

Events like the Modoc War on the west coast in 1872-73 and especially "Custer's Last Stand" in 1876 marked the demise of the Peace Policy (171). Utley also tells of the Red River War of 1874-75.

Finally vanquished, the Nez Perces wound up in I.T., just like the Modoc had before them, in spite of promises made to the Nez Perces by the army. By 1881, only the Apaches "had not yet been made to face the truth that the reservation represented their only possible destiny" (187). Their leaders were Victorio and Geronimo. The reservation designated for them was a terrible place to live: no game, lots of snakes, etc. Eventually, Geronimo and other Apaches gave up and "the Indian Wars of the United States came to a close in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, on September 4, 1886" (196). The Apaches were loaded up on trains that took them to Florida.

Chapter Seven: The Vision of the Reformers, 1865-1890

The chapter begins by describing the Mohonk House resort in upstate New York. The Smileys, Quaker twin brothers, were the owner-operators. Beginning in 1883, this was the cite of an annual Mohonk Conference of reform leaders and organizers, self-appointed friends of the Indians. The conference did not include Catholics, nor groups who fought for the right of Indians to simply be Indians. The official name of the gatherings was the Lake Mohonk Conference of the Friends of the Indians.

The emphasis of virtually all of these reformers was education. Utley tells the story of how in the 1870s and 80s especially, it seems, various crusaders, leaders, and reformers fighting in behalf of their visions for Indians were active and influential in American politics. For example, Helen Hunt Jackson, who published A Century of Dishonor in 1881, hoped that her book would do for Indians what Uncle Tom's Cabin did for slaves. Another factor that promoted reform interest were the stories about and statements from Indians themselves. These "aroused public sympathy and reinforced what the crusaders were saying" (201).

Such interest in Indians led to cooperation. The greatest organization of the time was the Indian Rights Association, founded and led by William Welsh. Groups like this one set out to "civilize" Indians. "This vision of the ideal Indian sharply delineated the paramount self-image of American society in the late nineteenth century. It was a vision of an 'Americanized' American Indian. By the 1880s and 1890s, despite conventional platitudes about separation of church and state, 'Americanism' represented virtually a fusion of nationalism and Protestantism" (203).

According to reformers, the first step was to "detribalize" Indians, that is to "individualize" them. "Once the individual had broken free of the tribal heritage, the reformers' program would power the final stage, the leap into the mainstream of American life" (204). Eventually, "all Indians could be submerged in the body politic of America" (205).

"In the Indian reform crusade of the 1880s, four issues overshadowed all others, both in their potential consequences for the Indians and in the zeal with which the reformers attacked them: land, education, law, and purification of the Indian Bureau. Give the Indians fee ownership in their own plot of land. Educate them in preparation for citizenship and self-support. Extend law for their protection against whites and other Indians. Upgrade reservation management to speed the civilization process and the dissolution of the reservations" (205).

Henry L. Dawes, U.S. senator from Massachusetts, was the champion of severalty for Indians (206). His leadership generated the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 (207).

Beginning in the 1880s, the U.S. began appropriating funds for the establishment and operation of schools among the Indians. By then, of course, church groups had been conducting educational work for many years, especially Roman Catholics. Various denominations had conducted virtually all formal schooling among the Indians. Thus, they received much of the funding that the federal government had appropriated. This was true because government schools could not set up and start running as fast as the money was becoming available. The churches were more than willing to accept any surplus funds. This situation naturally generated religious contests for government money.

Captain Richard Henry Pratt was founder and president of the Carlisle School, Pennsylvania, the greatest of the off-reservation boarding schools for Indians. Pratt spoke of a sudden and total immersion "in our civilization" (211).

"Not amid the cushioned comforts of Lake Mohonk, but on the reservations, where spoilsmen ran the programs, were the theories of the reformers put to the test. Lake Mohonk provided the perfect setting for spinning the theories, for it so perfectly mirrored the life and values of the reformers themselves, and therefore the life and values considered ideal for the Indians. But the polished lobby of Mohonk House differed from the hard environment and society of the reservation as night differed from day, and what seemed so ideal and attainable at Mohonk proved considerably less so on the reservation. There, to their pain and sorrow, several generations of Indians were fated to grapple with the legacy of Mohonk" (217-18).

Chapter Eight: The Reservation, 1880-1890

Utley narrates the obliteration of the buffalo in the 1870s and 80s. This "doomed the Plains Indians' way of life and forced them to settle on the reservations." How? Because going off reservation was for the purpose of hunting buffalo. The animals also provided the means of survival when Indians killed one. So, the demise of the buffalo basically took all the fun out of going off the reservation.

Utley distinguishes between nonprogressives (traditionalists) versus progressives among the Indians (223). A third distinction can be described as those who resisted when they could, but who gave in when they had to (225).

The Sioux began to experience the confinement of the reservation, and agents discouraged the hunt because hunting, it was said, perpetuated in the Indians "all the cruel and wicked propensities" (226). The vision quest was directly related to the hunt and to warfare. So, due to reservation life, the vision quest fell into irrelevance (230). It was much the same story for the sun dance as well (230-31).

" . . . the main explanation for the spread of Christianity lay in the nature of the Indian spiritual belief, which did not bar the new from living comfortably next to the old--so long as the Christian holy men did not demand too insistently that the old be cast aside. The Indian spiritual life centered on a quest for personal power. The white man visibly possessed power. Therefore, his God might also be petitioned for power along with the traditional Sioux deities" (231).

"Like Christianity, education elicited ambivalent reactions from the Sioux. On the one hand, they sensed its importance in helping them to cope with the white people in the new world forced on them. On the other hand, they feared what it would do to the hearts and minds, indeed the Sioux identity, of their children. On both counts, of course, they were right" (231).

Federal officials pressed individual homesteads and farming on the Indians (232). Major General George Crook to the leaders of the Sioux Indians: "It strikes me that you are in the position of a person who had his effects in the bed of a dry stream when there was a flood coming down, and instead of finding fault with the Creator for sending it down, you should try and save what you can" (236).

In 1890, President Harrison announced that the land ceded by the Sioux was now open to settlement, news which came as a shock to the Sioux (239).

Chapter Nine: The Passing of the Frontier, 1890

The "spoils system" had one of its most abusive manifestations at the Pine Ridge reservation in Dakota. Two incompetent, desperately in-debt government agents were there: Royer and Gleason. Around this time, a desperate attempt by the Sioux and other tribes showed up in the form of the Ghost Dance. The dance had apocalyptic dimensions. Its participants hoped for the emergence of a world of bliss. And, it promised protection from the white man's bullets and cannon balls. In the standoff between the two sides, Sitting Bull was killed. Then, there was a melee in which 150 more Indians were killed, and 50 wounded. "Instead of armed challenge to the reservation, the Ghost Dance was a desperate bid for divine salvation where all else had failed. It ended in violence because of an incompetent Indian agent and a tragic accident born of mutual distrust, misunderstanding, and fear" (248-49).

Utley relates the histories of Indian Territory, Oklahoma Territory, and early statehood. There was no Indian warfare in Alaska. There just weren't many Indians there, and the land was so vast.

The Dawes Act succeeded in only one of its goals: it moved Indian land into white ownership. All of the other idealistic goals of the act never came true for Indians. Still, Utley insists that it is unfair to refer to 19th reformers "racists."

Some Recent Books on Choctaws and Chickasaws

In his most recent book, This Indian Country: American Indian Political Activists and the Place They Made (New York: Penguin, 2012), Frederick E. Hoxie offers a broad observation: in the United States, forgetting and ignoring American Indians is an old habit, one with deep historical roots. But, he notes, it was not always this way. Hoxie goes on to relate that during the decades leading up to the American Revolution, Europeans typically maintained both formal and informal alliances with Native Americans. Two Indian leaders who personified these arrangements were Joseph Brant, a Mohawk war captain, and Alexander McGillivray, a Creek merchant and soldier. Both men were significant figures upon whom the British could always depend.

But the treaty between the North American colonies and European states, signed in Paris in 1783, left out the Native Americans and their long-standing relations with the British and other colonial powers. The new American nation sought to sever all ties to Europe and to begin fresh on the North American continent. Because of these interests, the American colonists ignored all previous alliances, leaving the Indians of North America without a political friend. As Hoxie puts it, the Paris agreements "accomplished the double trick of erasing Native people from the international diplomatic arena, while placing them under the authority of a nation that took no formal notice of their existence" (23). According to the arrangement that was finally worked out, "the Americans laid the foundation of a new country that sought to ignore the Indian nations within its borders" (36). Consequently, citizens of the the new nation looked out over the vast expanse to the west and, in spite of the presence of tens of thousands of Indians, considered the land unoccupied and open for settlement. Indians soon concluded that if the United States had their way in North America, then they would be left with only two choices: death or surrender (43).

However, subsequent U.S. history bears out that unlike leaders such as Crazy Horse, Geronimo, and Sitting Bull, many Indians neither died nor surrendered. Rather, they learned to close an earlier chapter in which they established and maintained diplomatic relations with the Spanish, British, and French, and open a new chapter in which Indians would do legal battle with the new United States of America. In other words, shortly after the American Revolution, a good number of Native Americans came to realize that in the new political climate, in addition to a charismatic chief, it was just as important to have a sharp lawyer and a persuasive lobbyist. Consequently, from the days of the early American republic until the present moment, legal and political issues have held a central position in histories of American Indian tribes. A handful of recent studies emphasize this theme in connection with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. The first three of the four books in the discussion and evaluation that follows fall into this category.

I.

Clara Sue Kidwell, The Choctaws in Oklahoma: From Tribe to Nation, 1855-1970 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), can be seen as a specific example of Hoxie's broad point. It is no accident that Kidwell's book was the second volume in the American Indian Law and Policy Series, a title that clearly emphasizes the legal and political contours of Native American life.

Early on, Kidwell explains the specific dates of her subtitle. It was in 1855 that the Choctaw national government "appointed a delegation to initiate negotiations for a new treaty that would redefine its relationship with the U.S. government." In 1970, "the federal government acknowledged the right of tribal members to choose their own leaders by popular election" (xvii). 

As Kidwell narrates in detail, between the times "the Choctaw Nation underwent a transition from a tribal society whose cultural values were based on communal land-holding, obligations to kin, oral traditions and language, and traditional food and game, to a political, corporate national entity that in 2001 had a budget of over $300 million dollars; whose tribal leaders traveled regularly to Washington, D.C., to lobby for legislation favorable to the tribe; and whose membership included approximately 128,000 people living in all fifty of the United States" (xvii).

In short, through one hundred and fifteen years of struggle, the Choctaws went "from tribe to nation." Almost always, Kidwell's approach to the history of the Choctaws focuses on legal and political struggles vis-a-vis the United States, but also within the tribe itself. Her method is thoroughly descriptive, treating the story as an historical narrative inherently worthy of being told.

In at least two points, however, it becomes clear that, for the author, Choctaw history is always part family history. Series editor, Lindsay G. Robertson refers to Kidwell as both "a seasoned scholar" and "a citizen of the Choctaw Nation" (xi). Later, in Chapter 13, the author tells some of her personal family history, beginning with her great-grandfather, Gilbert Webster Thompson, a Choctaw Indian, and one of his daughters, Susie Ellen Thompson Kidwell, the author's grandmother (176-82). An interesting story, it brings some relief to the reader who has, by that point, digested page after page of often-detailed legal and political description. Kidwell placed her autobiographical chapter so that it would fit into the chronological scheme of her book. But one wonders if it might have been better to have put this chapter where it more likely belongs, at the beginning. How might this book have been different, even more insightful, if sometimes the author had included recollections of her childhood, and things told to her by her parents and grandparents, relating them to the overall story of the Choctaw past?

II.

Published in the same year, Valerie Lambert's book, Choctaw Nation: A Story of American Indian Resurgence (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), offers both a supplement and contrast to Kidwell. Two basic differences between them stand out. First, while Kidwell's survey deals with Choctaw history before 1970, the bigger part of Lambert's book takes up episodes in the story after 1970. Second, unlike Kidwell, whose treatment is mostly phenomenological, Lambert looks at the history of the Choctaws through the eyes of a social anthropologist. Not surprisingly, then, her research  involves Lambert as an observer-participant. In fact, prior to writing, she conducted seventeen months of field study in Oklahoma. Consequently, unlike Kidwell, Lambert identifies and discusses the potential of cross-cultural parallels to Choctaw history. On the other hand, like Kidwell herself, Lambert is a member of the Choctaw Nation. In her "Acknowledgements," she expresses thanks to "the Choctaws" and refers to "our tribe"(ix). She also gives thanks to her academic mentors among whom is Clara Sue Kidwell (x).

Following her Introduction and an insightful, brief overview of Choctaw history to 1970, Lambert tells four separate political stories taken from the tribe's recent past. The first narrates the post-1970 reconstitution of the tribe as a legal entity, which culminated in a 1983 constitution, "the first since 1860" (90). The three chapters that follow go on to "explore the consequences of the late-twentieth-period of Choctaw nation building" (4). But instead of speaking in generalities, or of giving a blow-by-blow description of Choctaw history since the new constitution, Lambert takes up three specific recent episodes: the 1995 election of a Choctaw chief, ethnic conflicts associated with the construction of a travel plaza at Kalichito in the 1990s, and the 2001 water-rights battle between the Choctaw Nation and the State of Oklahoma, a conflict that was and is ultimately about tribal sovereignty.

Interestingly, although her treatment focuses on Choctaw resurgence since the near demise of the nation in 1970, early on Lambert radically expands the historical scope of her investigation in order to interpret the significance of the most recent period. In tracing out Choctaw history, Lambert identifies three special times that were characterized by what she styles as "massive rupture followed by a dramatic rebirth" (4). First, during the sixteenth century there occurred a "complete disintegration of the the great Mississippian chiefdoms," after which the group likely migrated and established what is the modern Choctaw tribe. Second, in 1830 the Choctaws "became the first tribe to experience the mass removal of their entire tribe by the U.S. government." Nonetheless, almost immediately upon resettlement in what is now southeastern Oklahoma, "Choctaw leaders launched a period of intensive tribal nation building and rebirth" (5). Third, although the nation nearly died as a political entity in 1970, since then, the tribe has once again experienced a restoration. Thus, according to Lambert's interpretation, recorded Choctaw history includes three periods of deep disruption and crisis that were followed by some sort of resuscitation. Her point is that the previous three and a half decades have been not only a time of resurgence, but also as a time equaled in significance only twice over the last five centuries.

Lambert also raises broad anthropological and political questions that the recent history of the Choctaw Nation helps both to answer and to illustrate. So, for example, one question the book explores involves nation building. Specifically, does the process arise more or less organically, like a natural reef? Or is it rather that nations are built  by individuals and leading groups who make critical decisions? To ask another way, is nation building the result of accidental process or deliberate action? Lambert believes it is the latter, and so do Choctaws who think of the recent rise of their tribe as the result of the efforts of Chief Hollis Roberts. Again, Lambert's work is especially important as a supplement to Kidwell. Too, Lambert's book would be more immediately interesting to contemporary Choctaws, and to those who monitor the the political life of their nation.

III.

A third book, Wendy St. Jean, Remaining Chickasaw in Indian Territory, 1830s-1907 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2011), "is a study of the Chickasaw Nation's struggle, in the wake of encroachments by the federal government and groups of noncitizen immigrants, to restrict tribal membership and assert its flagging sovereignty in the nineteenth century" (5). St. Jean's book is significantly shorter than and not nearly as detailed as Kidwell's. But aside from that and the incidental differences in the dates given in their subtitles, St. Jean on the Chickasaws is a counterpart to Kidwell on the Choctaws.

St. Jean relates that upon removal from Mississippi to Indian Territory in the 1830s, Chickasaws faced trouble on many sides. To the east lived the more numerous Choctaws, who agreed to sell land to the Chickasaws provided they would forfeit their political autonomy and merge with the Choctaws. To the west were "wild" (as opposed to "civilized") Indians--Apaches, Kiowas, Comanches, and other fierce tribes--who considered the Chickasaws intruders and who commonly came into their land, stealing what they could. To the south were Texans, who often mistook Chickasaws for dangerous, "wild" Indians, which made the Texans as dangerous as any of the western tribes.

By the 1850s, the U.S. government came to recognize a political distinction between Choctaws and Chickasaws, giving the Chickasaw Nation an independence that they had never known before in Indian Territory. But following the Civil War, Chickasaws were required to deal with former slaves and white intruders, all of whom sought from the tribal nation citizenship with its tremendous economic opportunities. St. Jean notes the most remarkable aspect of this story, and the events that ensued, as follows:

"Despite the nation's small population and internal divisions, the Chickasaw government managed to hold on to a measure of independence and inheritance longer and more effectively than its Indian neighbors. In state and federal courts and in the court of public opinion, the Chickasaws challenged noncitizens' claims and sometimes won privileges that other Indian nations surrendered without a fight. For example, the Chickasaw Nation delayed Indian Removal the longest, got the best payments for its southeastern lands, secured the right to tax and use force against white intruders, excluded intermarried whites from voting in critical national elections (1880s through the 1890s), surrendered its schools last, and was the only tribe to gain compensation for allotments that the U.S. government granted to freedpeople. The Chickasaws' leadership methods and attempts to redefine tribal membership helped them to accomplish these political and legal feats" (6-7).

Thus, in successive chapters, St. Jean takes up different parts of the history of Chickasaw political resistance and cultural maintenance. Along the way, she tells various stories like the Chickasaw's post-War decision not to adopt former slaves, the claim to the right to tax or eject U.S. citizens in tribal lands, and the attempt to maintain schools conducted by and for the Chickasaw people. By the end of the book, the reader can only admire the courageous battle the Chickasaws waged for one long decade after another, and lament the loss of what might have been.

Again, much like Clara Sue Kidwell's book, St. Jean's deeply-researched study focuses almost exclusively on the political and legal aspects of one tribe's history. In much the same way that political surveys of U.S. history leave out so much of the American story, both books present portraits that should be supplemented by works that take into account other contours of the histories of the respective tribes. 

IV.

First published in 1980, Theda Purdue, Nations Remembered: An Oral History of the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles in Oklahoma, 1865-1907 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993) is the perfect follow-up to the books examined to this point. So much of what they lack, this book provides, and vice versa.

As Perdue explains, her book actually began during the Great Depression. One of the many branches of the Works Progress Administration was the Writers' Project. During the 1930s, under the auspices of the the WPA, the Writers Project "employed between eighty and one hundred individuals to send questionnaires to and conduct interviews with Oklahoma citizens who were knowledgeable about the days before statehood" (xviii). Decades later, once oral history began to democratize a discipline previously dominated by elitism, Purdue made her way through the dozens of volumes that had been produced. She then selected, cropped, and organized scores of transcribed oral reports. Thus, anyone who picks up her book can easily access representative statements in various sections that Perdue created, chapters like "War and Its Aftermath," "Entertainment," and "Religion and Education." In each of her chapters, Perdue not only gives the entries, but also provides a helpful introduction at the beginning, and notes at the end.

For those not yet acquainted with the history of the Five "Civilized" Tribes in Indian Territory, the selections found in this book are a great entry into the subject. But perhaps the opposite direction is better. For anyone already acquainted with standard surveys, to read the reports copied in Purdue is nothing short of an eye-opening delight. 

For example, though St. Jean can describe and discuss Comanche raids on the recently-arrived Chickasaws beginning in the 1830s (see St. Jean, Chapter 2), there is simply no substitute for reading for oneself the extended, harrowing report of an eyewitness found in Purdue (21-23). Thus Perdue is the perfect supplement to the surveys found in Kidwell, St. Jean, and in the first two chapters of Lambert.

Remaining Chickasaw in Indian Territory, 1830s-1907

St. Jean, Wendy. Remaining Chickasaw in Indian Territory, 1830s-1907. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2011.

As Wendy St. Jean explains, this book "is a study of the Chickasaw Nation's struggle, in the wake of encroachments by the federal government and groups of noncitizen immigrants, to restrict tribal membership and assert its flagging sovereignty in the nineteenth century" (5).

The author relates that upon removal from Mississippi to Indian Territory in the 1830s, Chickasaws faced trouble on many sides. To the east lived the more numerous Choctaws, who agreed to sell land to the Chickasaws provided they would forfeit their political autonomy and merge with the Choctaws. To the west were "wild" (as opposed to "civilized") Indians--Apaches, Kiowas, Comanches, and other fierce tribes--who considered the Chickasaws intruders and who commonly came into their land, stealing what they could. To the south were Texans, who often mistook Chickasaws for dangerous, "wild" Indians, which made the Texans as vicious as any of the western tribes.

By the 1850s, the U.S. government came to recognize a political distinction between Choctaws and Chickasaws, giving the Chickasaw Nation an independence that they had never known before in Indian Territory. But following the Civil War, Chickasaws were required to deal with former slaves and white intruders, all of whom sought from the tribal nation citizenship with its tremendous economic opportunities. St. Jean notes the most remarkable aspect of this story, and the events that ensued, as follows:

Despite the nation's small population and internal divisions, the Chickasaw government managed to hold on to a measure of independence and inheritance longer and more effectively than its Indian neighbors. In state and federal courts and in the court of public opinion, the Chickasaws challenged noncitizens' claims and sometimes won privileges that other Indian nations surrendered without a fight. For example, the Chickasaw Nation delayed Indian Removal the longest, got the best payments for its southeastern lands, secured the right to tax and use force against white intruders, excluded intermarried whites from voting in critical national elections (1880s through the 1890s), surrendered its schools last, and was the only tribe to gain compensation for allotments that the U.S. government granted to freedpeople. The Chickasaws' leadership methods and attempts to redefine tribal membership helped them to accomplish these political and legal feats (6-7).

Thus, in successive chapters, St. Jean takes up different parts of the history of Chickasaw political resistance and cultural maintenance. Along the way, she tells various stories like the Chickasaw's post-War decision not to adopt former slaves, the claim to the right to tax or eject U.S. citizens in tribal lands, and the attempt to maintain schools conducted by and for the Chickasaw people. By the end of the book, the reader can only admire the courageous battle the Chickasaws waged for one long decade after another, and lament the loss of what might have been.

Much like Clara Sue Kidwell's book, The Choctaws in Oklahoma: From Tribe to Nation, 1855-1970 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), St. Jean's fine, deeply-researched study mainly focuses on the political and legal aspects of one tribe's history. In much the same way that political surveys of U.S. history leave out so much of the American story, both books present portraits that should be supplemented by works that take into account other contours of the histories of the respective tribes. A good follow-up to both books would be Theda Perdue, Nations Remembered: An Oral History of the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles in Oklahoma, 1865-1907 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).

Native American Religions

When Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, he thought he would eventually land on the east coast of Asia.

To Europeans of the 1400s, anyone living east of the Indus River was Indian. According to their worldview--and here I used that term quite literally--except for small islands nearby, terra firma was unified. The continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa had their distinctions. But they were connected. Together they were called the Orbis Terrarum, "the Island of the Earth."

So when he saw people in that place where he finally landed, Columbus called them los Indios, "the Indians." Who else could they have been? By calling the people he saw "the Indians," Columbus both reflected and reinforced the assumptions with which he had begun.

Aren't we a lot like him? No, we don't have a global concept that requires us to think of the western hemisphere as a new world. But, whenever we say "Indian" or the politically-correct "Native American," don't we see in our minds certain images, and begin with a set of pre-understandings, all of which get reinforced by how we see what we see?

No, I don't imagine that what I'm describing is restricted to the subject at hand. It's just that non-Native Americans have a hard time breaking out of the cycle of reinforced assumptions when it comes to Native Americans.

That's the case partly because of something that happened in the summer of 1550. It was then that Charles V of Spain called a conference of sorts. He summonsed a group that was to hear opposing arguments on the question, What kind of being is the Indian?

The first presenter, a scholar named Sepulveda, picked up Aristotle's idea that some people are slaves by nature. And the Indians, he said, were such people. Therefore, it was only right for Europeans to enslave Indians and to conduct war and use violence in order to conquer them.

The second presenter, a Dominican priest named Las Casas, had spent many years among the Indians. Referring to long treatises he had written, he argued for days on end that the Indians were sophisticated in the arts and languages and government; that they were gentle, eager to learn and, above all, quick to accept Christianity.

Even before that time, and reaching right up to the present, the prevailing images of the Indian are complete opposites: the sub-human being and the noble non-Christian. For some, Indians have been and are pagan, uncivilized, incapable of learning, unable to govern themselves, beastly and inhumane. To others, though not Christian, the Indian is artistic, civil, able to learn, filled with wisdom.

Common to both views has been the notion that Indians are essentially irreligious. Columbus wrote, "they do not hold any creed, nor are they idolaters." A decade later, Vespucci wrote, "They have no church, no religion, and are not idolaters."

Because of such long-held impressions, only within the last few decades have historians of American religion even considered the religions of Native Americans. (!) Until recently, Indians mentioned in the context of American religion were almost always connected to the missionary efforts of Christians.

More recently, though, some scholars have begun drawing up maps of the territory we call "Native American Religions." And that's what we'll be looking at in the "Introduction to World Religions" at Amarillo College this coming Monday night.

Main Source: Gill, Sam D. Native American Religions: An Introduction (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1982), 1-13.