Read the entire article from Cultural Survival

Hidalgo is a quasi-historical production about Frank Hopkins, a Wild West rider who takes his mustang on a treacherous race through the Arabian desert. At face value, it’s fun and attractive and more of a family flick than a plausible historical epic. But once you’ve seen it (and the epilogue explaining that the whole thing was a true story) your first thought is to find out more about this amazing guy who used his outstanding feats on horseback as a catalyst for one of the greatest efforts of wild mustang preservation.

Aside from the mustang outreach, the film’s other attraction was its roots in Plains Indian culture. Hopkins isn’t just a cowboy; he’s a born-and raised Lakota struggling to come to terms with his mixed white heritage, serving as an army scout and finding himself involved in the fateful events at Wounded Knee. By movie’s end he is able to reconcile his purpose in life by embracing his Indian heritage and working to preserve the horse lifestyle.

It’s obvious to any objective viewer that the story line is a little far-fetched, slightly on the feel-good side of reality. The reinvented cowboy figure sanctified by his Indian heritage, making it more politically correct for a modern audience; damsels in distress (an Arabian princess, no less); a journey of self-discovery and redemption, and the impossible victory of the underdog in a typical Disney-ish fashion.

Add to this the faux pas of having a half-Lakota portrayed by a blond Nordic (you probably already know my feelings about Indians played by non-Indians), and some really deplorable geography (Damascus is nowhere near the sea, and a 3,000 mile race would take a rider far out of the range of the film’s setting). But that’s my more abrasive approach. You’d really have to see it to get that it really works. It’s good in a genuine, almost-but-not-really-believable sort of way.

The Hopkins Controversy

But back to my investigation. Unbeknownst to me, the movie had already stirred up a long-standing, long-winded debate about this marvelous legend of a man, Frank Hopkins. “Camp A” lauded Hopkins’s accomplishments as a champion endurance racer, and his landmark efforts of preserving the mustang and traditional Lakota knowledge of horsemanship. “Camp B” called him a hopeless huckster, and Hidalgo merely the cheap and devious sequel to his colossal fraud. Some of these even purport that he may never have ridden a horse in his life, and the whole legend was the pipe dream of a thwarted wannabe cowboy. Oddly enough, this time, the cry of stretched or embellished facts was not aimed directly at Hollywood.

I was interested in what first provoked such a vociferous debate. It seems that if Hopkins were half the man he was claimed to be – and did half the things he was claimed to have had accomplished – he should literally be the most famous man on earth. Excuse my ignorance but I had never heard of him before I saw the movie. Apparently, the historical record is none too familiar with him either. A quick read of his biography and you can easily sympathize with Hidalgo’s detractors:

“As well as spurring his mustang to victory in (to be exact) 452 endurance races around the globe, Frank Hopkins also has an impressive list of other achievements. He claimed to be the most famous dispatch rider in the West, an associate of Buffalo Bill Cody and one of the “cowboys” from the Congress of Rough Riders of the World performing in Buffalo Bill’s internationally famed Wild West Show. He says he was Chief Crazy Horse’s protégé, put on a two-hour equestrian performance before Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and helped famed plainsman Buffalo Jones capture and tame the first buffalo.
 
Hopkins also said he served with the Pinkerton detective agency, was a secret agent of the US government during World War I, a guide in the Grand Canyon for big game hunters including novelist Zane Grey, and once charged up San Juan hill with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. All this, of course, was in addition to mentoring Billy the Kid.”
 
“Hidalgo: A Film or Flimflam?” by Peter Harrigan, Arab News

Please give me a break. Either he suffered from borderline personality disorder, senility, or the world’s worst midlife crisis – or someone was seriously messing with this man’s memoirs.

I am not about to get embroiled in the convoluted debate over whether Hopkins was the world’s greatest endurance racer, or which episodes of his exploits are plausible and which are merely spin; there’s far too much literature on the subject for me to add more (and almost nothing about the man is not in question, starting with his date of birth!) But the material points here are 1) what’s the best evidence for and against the legend of Frank Hopkins, and 2) what to make of Hidalgo the movie?

Supporters vs. skeptics

In Camp A are such supporters as writer John Fusco, the administrator of FrankHopkins.com, mustang preservation activist, and last but not least, author of the Hidalgo screenplay. He has spent many years researching Hopkins’s life and offers the testimonies of first-hand acquaintances and friends of Hopkins. They vouch for his vast knowledge of unorthodox horsemanship gleaned from many years of intimate association with mustangs and Native horsemen:

“Whoever Frank Hopkins was—whether or not he made some spectacular long rides in underground competitions; whether or not he or Gert [Gertrude Hopkins, who published her husband's biography after his death] padded a more modest history with purple prose– one thing is now incontrovertible fact, supported by living witnesses:
 
The man was acknowledged and respected as “the ultimate in horsemanship”, a skilled trainer who used natural techniques long before they became trendy, and a passionate and eloquent spokesman for the preservation of an endangered breed. He was extremely knowledgeable about Native American horsemanship and Native horse medicine. He was an inspiration to later preservationists… and he remains an inspiration to the new wave of preservationists. He was also–according to everyone who has come forward to say they knew him—a very decent and quiet man.”
 
John Fusco, from FrankHopkins.com

Fusco and others also tout Native oral traditions which may or may not support the story of the epic desert race depicted in the movie. This draws the ire of opponents such as Vine Deloria Jr., renowned Lakota scholar, and likewise of Arab scholars who contest the idea of screenwriters with insider knowledge of a grand ceremonial race which has apparently defied all historic record – even in the Middle East.

The rallying cry of the Hopkins supporters is the adage “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” – this in response to the fact that there is no concrete information about his upbringing, his pony express career, his racing record, or any overseas performance; no record of his service as an army scout and interpreter; and no documentation of his being in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Oddly enough, the only extant employment records for Mr. Hopkins are from the early 1900s – as a manual laborer in the shipyards and subways of the Eastern seaboard, and as a horse handler for the Ringling Brothers Circus (the irony there being that the show horses were Arabians, not mustangs).

A History Channel documentary entitled “The True Story of Hidalgo” featuring many of Camp B’s Hopkins opponents outlines many of the arguments discrediting the Hopkins story. Most damning perhaps is the text of the autobiography itself, with its outlandish Quixotic exploits (some of which no doubt were added at a later date) and its egregious distortions of Native history. In this respect it was a dubious move on the part of Fusco and the producers to use such a distasteful example of cultural appropriation as a source for a film supporting a Native image. Really, would it have been so difficult to start from scratch?

The most extreme naysayers paint a portrait of Hopkins as the most insidious kind of charlatan, slandering the movie Hidalgo and conjuring every possible criticism to the point of crying conspiracy. But between those who claim he is a neglected and maligned hero, and those who claim that he never rode a horse in his life, my instincts tell me that the truth is to be found somewhere in the middle. Our best bet is to work backwards – before the movie, before the publications.

Hopkins did work as a horse handler, so it’s likely he was able to pick up a good bit of the trade. Unfortunately any evidence of his prowess as a rider is circumstantial at best. If he was anything as good as he is claimed, then it is highly suspect that no more substantial record exists in all the annals of the West. (Movie fans should also remember that the film depicts only one hand-picked episode from Hopkins’s fantastic memoirs; if we had been presented with the lump sum of his Wild West escapades, it would certainly never pass for reality.) Until Hopkins researchers come up with more solid evidence to support his reputation as a champion horseman, his case is shaky at best. The fact that almost nothing is known about his life outside of his memoirs remains the primary obstacle, and explains why the story is such fertile ground for imagination.

What about his real role in mustang preservation? Supporters claim that he started the first wild mustang preserve in eastern Oklahoma, where his beloved Hidalgo was released to run free with a wild herd. I haven’t been able to find record of any such preserve. In fact the next best thing is the project organization of none other than writer John Fusco, who founded a mustang refuge for the Indian ponies of the Oklahoma reservations. This, incidentally, is the place where he claims Hidalgo’s descendents can be found today – an uncanny and somewhat confusing find that brings the search full circle. (I’ve got to admit, I’m not totally on board with Fusco’s line of logic through all of this.)

During Hopkins’s time in the limelight, and up to his death in Queens, New York in 1951, he was an outspoken advocate for the mustang and urged for steps to be taken to ensure its survival:

“In my day I watch the destruction of the buffalo and the antelope, We say their destruction was due to a benighted profligate generation, If we permit the MUSTANG to disappear we may be accused of the same qualities and we will deserve the accusation, The MUSTANG is as AMERICAN as George Washington and AMERICA is a vast enough land and IMPORTANT enough Nation to have A HORSE of our very own, HE IS FACING HIS LAST STAND, TO LET HIM GO WOULD IN MY OPINION BE A MAJOR AMERICAN NATIONAL TRAGEDY.”

Frank Hopkins, quoted from Reno Wild Horse Tours – About Nevada and Mustangs

Whether his interest in the mustang was from personal experience, or merely part of some fantasy, wild horses were the height of romance in the early 1900s – part and parcel of the “vanishing frontier” that spawned so much sensational spin and so many hollow heroes. Hopkins’s legend survived because it embraced the lure of the West, interwove it with popular fantasies about its Native peoples, and captured the romance of the horse in much the same way as the Wild West shows, dime novels, and early Western movies. If Hopkins was a complete fraud, then he’s by far not the biggest or the worst that has been perpetuated into the present day.

The mustang – and by extension the man who rides it – has always captured our imaginations and embodied our wildest fantasies of adventure and freedom. That’s the natural reason most people will be biased in favor of this kind of story: just like enthralled audiences of the early 1900s, we’d really love to believe it’s true. It’s why the Hopkins’s legend still looms large and the movie has caused such a huge splash.

The legend and the movie

“As far as I’m concerned, if they [the producers] would’ve made it clear from the very beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Juti Winchester, curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyo. (Quoted from “Hidalgo the Horse Hoax” – Blue Corn Comics

This is only partly so, given that the Hopkins controversy was seething long before Hidalgo ever saw the light of day. But the interest stirred by the movie’s production has certainly served to intensify the public debate over historical accuracy, and added a few more questionable elements to the mix.

For instance, the movie makes a focal point of Hopkins’s Native heritage, whereas beyond his memoirs’ aggrandized tales of kinship with several well-known Native leaders, there’s no indication that he had any Lakota ancestry. As far as it’s presented in the movie, it’s pure literary license. And the part about his using the winner’s purse from the Arab race to save a herd of doomed mustangs that still roams free today, is likewise pure fiction. It appears that the film writer has channeled his own honest desire to protect and celebrate the mustang into a partly fictional persona who was less real than his on-screen portrayal.

“I took what was a very banal, saddle-tech account of Hopkins’ own desert memories of 1891 and turned them into an action-adventure celebration of a story that has long fascinated me. Today, some critics actually believe that Hopkins himself dreamed up bandit ambuscades, hunting leopards, daring rescues, a three second victory margin, and the dramatic name of the race: the Ocean of Fire. He did not. I did.”

John Fusco (FrankHopkins.com)

In my mind, tacking on the “true story” line was the clincher – an underhanded marketing spiel that contributed absolutely nothing to the efforts of validating Hopkins’s life and achievements. It merged the Hopkins controversy with what should have been a completely separate issue about film making and performance. If writers or producers want to take a few liberties with a historical idea and make it into a movie, we can all live with that. But using already disputed material, embellishing it, and then passing it off as the real thing, is a recipe for disaster – hence the ridiculously voluble debate that’s still going strong several years after the film’s release.

Critic Roger Ebert’s 3-out-of-5-star review sums it up perfectly (in addition to describing the movie to a tee):

“Whether you like movies like this, only you can say. But if you do not have some secret place in your soul that still responds even a little to brave cowboys, beautiful princesses and noble horses, then you are way too grown up and need to cut back on cable news. And please ignore any tiresome scolds who complain that the movie is not really based on fact. Duh. ”

“Hidalgo” Review – RogerEbert.com

The Long Riders Guild “The Hopkins Hoax” – a huge directory of Hopkins-related research (mainly debunking the legend)

Weaving a Cinematic Web: Hidalgo and the Search for Frank Hopkins By Juti A. Winchester, Ph.D., Former Curator, Buffalo Bill Museum

FrankHopkins.org Article about the Hopkins debate – from John Fusco’s site dedicated to Hopkins research

“Hidalgo – the Horse Hoax” from Blue Corn Comics – more research about Hopkins and the movie Hidalgo and correspondence with John Fusco

“Hidalgo” on Internet Movie Database

Images:
Brego.net – Hidalgo
Wikipedia

Watch Reel Injun – Trailer on PBS. See more from INDEPENDENT LENS.

A film about the modern-day Wampanoag people and the resurrection of the Wampanoag language. Members talk about living with their nation’s past and dealing with their popular image as “the Thanksgiving Indians” or “the Pilgrim’s Indians.”

You can watch the complete episode online through Thanksgiving (Thursday the 24th) at PBS Video.

(See also: We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower)

An exhaustive writing about Native stereotyping in film and particularly its effects on Native youth.

Below: Heroine or hazard? Legend or liability?

Recently I posted about research positing a link between peoples of the Na-Dene/Athabaskan family (e.g. Navajo, Apache, Tlingit) and Central Asian refugees of Genghis Khan’s conquests. The connection, based on physical, cultural & religious similarities and linguistic and genetic evidence, has been proposed for decades but is only now being verified by concrete evidence.

The implications of such a realization are staggering – but no more than those of other recent discoveries challenging our conceptions of the early Americas.

In time for Columbus Day this year I thought it would be appropriate to note a few of the major convulsions in the established historical record that highlight the fact that the “era of Columbus” is now over. It’s already firmly established that Columbus didn’t discover America; and the illusion that the Americas existed in a bubble of cultural isolation is being shattered with every new finding of global interchange. But beyond that, it’s time to observe this ideological regime change by questioning whether Columbus is really so important after all – and what that means in the context of America’s colonial and imperialist legacy.

1: Norse Colonies & the First Native American in Europe

The presence of Scandinavians in North America before Columbus is well-established. At present they lay title to being the first Europeans to set foot on American soil. But one of the major revelations of the past year was the evidence of the earliest Native Americans in a European country – not as chattel transported via the English and Spanish slave trades, or even as diplomatic attaches to European monarchs – but as part of the saga of Norse exploration along the Atlantic seaboard.

The ill-fated Norse colony of L’anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, dating to the 11th century, may have shared less than ideal relations with their Beothuk neighbors, according to extant records; but their association may have been closer than those records indicate. It remained for DNA science to reveal that many present-day Icelanders carry the genes of Newfoundland’s extinct indigenous populations, indicating that this Norse emigration was, at least on one occasion, a two-way street. This discovery marks a milestone in our understanding of early European involvement in North America and raises numerous questions about the nature and extent of the interaction between these groups.

2: Polynesian Trade with the Pacific Coast

There is a growing body of evidence that Polynesian sailors reached the Americas long before the 15th century, setting up an exchange that left clues on both sides of the Pacific. The Polynesians are an optimal candidate in the search for pre-Columbian contact, because they had both the technology and the motive to reach the Americas.

The prime evidence:

• Chickens – Ancient remains of chickens found on the coast of Chile predate the arrival of domesticated breeds introduced by European colonists. There were no chickens indigenous to the Americas; they are native to southeast Asia where they were first domesticated and later brought as far east as the Pacific islands. Obviously their presence in Chile could not be explained as a simple case of migratory spread. The carbon dating of the chicken bones gave them a tentative age of 600 years, right around the peak of the Polynesian’s Pacific expansion.

(National Geographic: Polynesians – And Their Chickens – Arrived in Americas Before Columbus)

• Sweet potatoes – As part of the Columbian Exchange, many of the New World’s important native foodcrops – including maize, potatoes, and cacao – were transported to Europe, Asia, and Africa where they became fundamental commodities. One of these crops, the sweet potato, has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years by peoples in Central and South America, where it first originated. Apart from direct human introduction, it is difficult to account for sweet potato cultivation by the Polynesians dating back more than a millennia. (Sweet potatoes propagate through tubers or plant cuttings, not by seeds that can be windblown or spread by birds.) It is even more difficult to explain how they came to be called by almost identical names in both regions.

There are even deeper connections on the horizon. Many researchers point to linguistic similarities and parallels in artifacts found in the Polynesia Pacific (including Easter Island) and in America’s Pacific coast cultures. Such suggestions of an information and technology exchange may be circumstantial at best. But there is considerable support rising from other fronts, not the least of which is recent DNA research confirming the exchange of much more than just trade goods.

3: Tibetan origins of Athabaskans

Historians and scientists have long understood that the genetic origins of most Native Americans lie in Central Asia, where they lived before crossing into the Americas sometime during the last Ice Age, and where their nearest living relatives can be found today. There are already observable parallels in language and culture that demonstrate this link. But in the case of the Athabaskan peoples (a linguistic group encompassing an extended range from Alaska to the Southwest) a much later entrance onto the historical stage supports a more recent connection.

The spread of Athabaskans – in particular the Navajo and Apache – is documented by archaeology and by the ancient records of Pueblo peoples who witnessed their arrival to the region around 1400. They were originally warlike migratory peoples seen by others as outsiders – and while this alone does not prove a recent origin beyond the Americas, the striking congruities between Athabaskan and Yeniseian languages pose important questions first asked by scholars as early as the 1800s. Why would one ethnic branch of Native Americans have such a well-preserved connection to an ancestral Asian tongue?

The research into this area has since evolved far beyond linguistic analysis to include technologies such as modern genetics and physical anthropology which further corroborate the recent timeline, and have helped to hone in on a more exact point of origin. The evidence points towards a conglomerate of Central Asian peoples in what is today Tibet who absconded from the region under the scourge of Genghis Khan’s Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The examination of Native oral accounts describing an exodus from a dangerous world, and an exhaustive comparison of ceremonial/ritual practices all bear this out in astonishing clarity. It’s pointless for me to describe the issue in further detail when it has been so deftly laid out in this well-annotated academic paper:

Relatives Halfway Round the World: Southern Athabaskans and Southern Tarim Fugitives

While controversial, these are three examples of scenarios that are rapidly gaining credence within the academic community and among Native leaders and scholars eager to re-examine their respective cultures’ roles on the broader stage of global history. It is interesting that these studies are so unfamiliar to the general public, and are rarely or never mentioned among the ranks of “fringe theories” about seafaring Egyptians, wandering Celts, marauding Templars or even Atlanteans. And it is also hard to believe that old misconceptions about the exploration of the Americas should die so hard in the face of so much information, when the reality is potentially much more incredible than we could have imagined.

These theories raise provocative questions about both Native and non-Native perceptions of Indian identity, and about of the role of colonialism in shaping the history of the Americas. If they were not always isolated, as previously thought, and carried on as lively and extensive an interchange with other cultures as new evidence leads us to believe, then was the high cost of European settlement – and the subsequent cultural dominance it has always taken for granted – really so inevitable? What transpired in these other contacts that set them so much apart – or in what ways were they more similar than we suppose? As time is quick to remind us, history is not always clearly in black and white.

What an irony that in the wake of a massive cultural genocide, where lost lifeways and endangered languages define much of the discussion of America’s indigenous peoples, we are on the threshold of such breakthroughs unveiling the staggering complexity of America’s culturally dynamic past. Of course it is hardly necessary to add to the topic by mentioning the continuous stream of new discoveries steadily demolishing the old view of pre-Columbian America at every turn. These paint a new landscape of astonishingly complex and advanced infrastructures, economies, and methods of land management: the point being that today’s Native Americans don’t need the establishment of these discoveries as a device to reinvent their modern identity or to legitimize their past. At present, the prospect of a profound interchange of shared knowledge and experience with other cultures – beyond the confines of colonial exploitation – does more than enrich our understanding of history and challenge prevailing concepts of pre-colonial America. It offers the vision of a new gateway of communication between modern Native Americans and cultures beyond the borders of the Americas, many of whom have far more in common than the shared experience of a colonial past.

Bottom line: the native peoples of the New World are not a subcategory of American or Western culture – a relic, frozen in time, leftover from the story of European colonialism. They are, as they have always been, a living part of the spectrum of the human family. It could never be said that it was Columbus who played the role of introducing the Americas to the world. If we can take away anything new from this Columbus Day, perhaps it should be that there’s no longer any reason to continue seeing America from the point of view of Columbus. It’s about time we can all start looking at our world from a wider, more complete perspective.

References:

• Weatherford, Jack: “Reexamining the Reputation of Columbus” (Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 1989)

• Wilson, Joseph: “Relatives Halfway Round the World: Southern Athabaskans and Southern Tarim Fugitives” LIMINA University of Western Australia (PDF)

• National Geographic: “Native Americans Sailed to Europe With Vikings?” (Nov 23, 2010)

• Ebenesersdottir, et al: “A new subclade of mtDNA haplogroup C1 found in icelanders: Evidence of pre-columbian contact?” American Journal of Physical Anthropology (November 10, 2010)

• Inman, Mason: “Polynesians — And Their Chickens — Arrived in Americas Before Columbus” (June 4, 2007) National Geographic News

• Montenegro, Alvaro, et al: “Modeling the Prehistoric Arrival of the Sweet Potato in Polynesia” (April 2, 2007) – Journal of Archaeological Science (PDF)

• Lebot, Vincent: Tropical root and tuber crops: cassava, sweet potato, yams and aroids (CABI, 2008) p. 94

• Thorsby, et al: “Further evidence of an Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool on Easter Island” Tissue Antigens, Immune Response Genetics (March 16, 2009)

She was born in 1871 and grew up during a time of great turmoil and upheaval for Native people. She attended the Hampton Institute, one of the era’s famous Indian boarding schools, where like many other Indian children she faced the twin hardships of separation from family and the systematic indoctrination of a deeply racist policy.

Her remarkable academic and artistic achievements earned her a ticket to advanced art training in Philadelphia and Boston under some of the country’s most renowned instructors. She absorbed multiple styles and incorporated them into a unique illustrating signature.

Right: Illustration from the book “The Middle Five” (Image: AngelDeCora.com)

Angel was reluctant to part with her heritage and stood out by making her skills a catalyst for expressing her people’s culture and experience in a modern context. By being such a “media maverick” she defied common stereotypes about Indians (and about women) and became a trend-setter in the field of Native American art. She was a conundrum to a public eager to categorize Indians into two classes: the backward, recalcitrant outsiders who needed to be assimilated into white society, or the romanticized “children of nature,” the noble savages of a lost age.

She illustrated her own stories as well as books by Zitkala Sa and Elaine Goodale Eastman. Her husband William ‘Lone Star’ Dietz, a Hampton alumnus, was also an artist and together they collaborated on many projects.

Some of her most important contributions were made during her appointment as an art teacher at the Carlisle Indian School, where she often pushed the boundaries of traditional teaching methods, using art to help her students rediscover rather than suppress their roots.

Left: DeCora and her husband William Dietz (Image: AngelDeCora.com)

She acted as a kind of cultural liaison with several government agencies and was constantly bombarded by the prejudice and incompetence of the cumbersome bureaucracy. She often traveled to Indian communities throughout the Midwest gathering ethnographic information, not only to reinforce her teaching skills but to contribute to a permanent artistic record of Indian cultures. In this role she was a major force in bringing Native arts and crafts into the public spotlight.

She died in 1919 at the age of 47. Few of her original works survive, but reproductions in books and magazines such as the popular Harper’s offer a rich glimpse of her versatile techniques, from the intricate realist detail of her early pieces, to the strong tonal style of her late works.

Left: Illustration from the novel “Yellow Star” (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Angel DeCora: American Artist and Educator – Sarah McAnulty (a very good biography of DeCora)

Wikipedia: Angel de Cora

In a post I did a couple of months ago I wrote about Edward Curtis and the “smiling Indian” controversy. My question was, how much responsibility did early 20th century photographers have in manufacturing stereotypes of Native Americans – in particular the image of the “stoic” Indian – and how did that influence popular opinion through the mass-media later in the century?

The reason the works of early photographers have come under such scrutiny is because their pieces became the groundwork for the way media would approach Native Americans for the next century. The popular appeal of Native Americans as a cultural symbol was much the same around the turn of the 20th century as it is today. It was customary to portray them with the usual templates – the noble, stoic warrior race; the romanticized breed of nature’s children; the “vanishing kind”; and so on.

Granted, the period around turn of that century might well have been the worst time to be an Indian. Tribal lands (and sovereignty) had been wrested away in shocking proportions; resistance movements had been brutally crushed one by one; Indian children were being forcibly re-educated under the residential school system; Native languages and religions were outlawed and the very existence of many Native lifestyles was in question. In this setting it is partly understandable why so many people would be interested in projecting that idea that Indians were about to disappear altogether.

But as we know today, Indians did not disappear. Their perennial humor, ingenuity, and fortitude have helped carry them through the horrors of colonialism and the reservation system. And while their ways of living have changed and adapted, they have been largely successful in reclaiming their cultural identity. Part of that is by actively challenging and confronting false or misconstrued representations of their history and heritage.

It’s not only the Indians who are concerned with this kind of integrity. Artists, and those seeking to be well-informed about art, bear the responsibility of seeing works of historical or cultural significance in a critical way. When evaluating such pieces, one asks what the photographer or artist is trying to communicate when they represent their model in a certain way – what are they saying, both intentionally and unintentionally, about their concept of the subject? What is the overall tone of the portrait? Is the apparel authentic? This is where details such as a mere facial expression can become such a hotly disputed topic.

Case Study: Gertrude Kasebier

Bio

Kasebier was born Gertrude Stanton in 1852 and grew up alternately in the environments of the industrialized East and the frontier West, giving her an early taste of both worlds. An unhappy marriage led her to seek a creative outlet in photography, and in her late thirties she began formal study in the US and abroad. Counter to all decorum, she began to establish herself professionally, and by the 1890′s she was operating out of her own studio and was in demand for lectures and commissions.

Kasebier’s first foray into Native American portraiture came when Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West Show” visited New York. Like many artists, she was drawn to the expressiveness in the faces of the Indians she saw. She began by photographing the Lakota performers and later expanded to documentary work during a brief tour with the show. While the project comprised a relatively small portion of her output, it resulted in some of her finest and best-known pieces.

Above right: Gertrude Kasebier, c1900 (Wikimedia Commons)

During the pinnacle of her career, Kasebier was considered one of the elite of modern photographers, complete with a distinguished clientele – and scathing professional rivalries. Her strong business sense – and certainly her ambition – not only preserved her career but made her a role model for many enterprising young women of the new century. She was a leading figure of the emerging pictoralist movement. By the 1920′s, an elderly woman past 70, she retired and dismantled her studio. She died in 1934, leaving her collection in the hands of her daughter, who followed in her footsteps.

Kasebier’s Indians

So what makes Kasebier’s Indian portraits different from those of her contemporaries such as Curtis or Rinehart? Also, what bearing did the fact that she was a woman trying to make a career in a male-dominated society have on her portfolio?

Some of Kasebier’s portrait pieces appear to represent Indians in what to our modern sensibilities seems the most detached, iconic, and predictable way.

Take this one for instance: a person who sees it is likely to think, “That’s the quintessential Indian chief.” Complete with the feather headdress, he could have been the model for a college sports mascot – which is exactly why pictures like it are such a problem for people today who recognize the “stoic Indian” stereotype and the false connotations that go along with it. So often there are underlying ideologies that are implied, like the elephant in the room, that once accepted become part of a passive stereotype – like the myth of the vanishing race.

Above: Whirling Horse, an Indian Chief (Library of Congress)

But my argument is that it’s not necessarily the fault of the artist if the subject he/she presents has a double-life as a pop icon. It isn’t equitable to accuse the photographer of contributing to a harmful stereotype without at least examining both the method and the motive behind the work. Certainly Kasebier’s pieces bear a closer look.

The Bonnin Photographs

Many of the portraits, like her photographs of the musician Zitkala Sa (aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) would have been considered quite avant-garde in her day, both in the way the model is presented and the kind of statement it makes to the viewer.

The strong pictoralist styling creates a close, evocative mood, while the depiction of Bonnin in both Indian and white garb actively challenged prevailing stereotypes about assimilation. Kasebier presents her as a woman and an artist foremost, with her ethnicity taking second place. She seems uniquely qualified to have photographed Bonnin; maybe it took a fellow woman and artist to appreciate these qualities.

(College of Staten Island Library “Images of Zitkala Sa“)

The thing that struck me the most about Kasebier’s Indians is how frequently they are shown smiling – even laughing – relative to the total number of portraits. Just imagine if “smiling Indians” made up as large a proportion of Curtis’ portfolio (although there are quite a few they are obscure by comparison).

Joseph Black Fox (Library of Congress)

Charging Thunder, American Indian (Library of Congress)

This one below is my favorite (as a matter of fact it is part of the banner of my website). One wonders what was making William (left) smile and Luke (on the right) have to hold in a laugh? Was Kasebier in on the joke? (Library of Congress)

(Click to enlarge)

If we are to judge what is reflected in these portraits, Kasebier’s Lakota subjects must have felt quite at ease. With the photography taking place in a quiet studio setting, rather than the indignity of the performance stage, and the subjects actively participating in the portrait process, it’s no wonder she was able to capture such a palpable human essence.

Fortunately, Kasebier’s Indian pictures also include a balanced variety of gender and age combination, so while portraits of adult men still predominate in the collection, women and children of various age groups also receive ample attention.

Samuel American Horse and his wife – A sensitive and rather domestic portrait. Note the wedding ring on her hand. (Library of Congress)

Mary Lone Bear (Smithsonian)

One of the most poignant and emotionally haunting portraits, Charles American Horse in his Wild West Show costume. (Library of Congress)

The point Kasebier seems to make with this photo is, “What a way to grow up” – a young person whose nation was invaded and resettled, and as if to add insult to injury, made into a public exhibition. It serves as an example of how the collection does a good job of portraying individual humanity, but not at the price of ignoring stark reality.

Summary

Based on the recommendation of these facts, Kasebier’s work stands quite favorably as both a historic record and an artistic product.

A few key observations of what defines Kasebier’s portraits:

• Approach

  Kasebier’s approach was completely different from Curtis’s – in fact almost opposite – in that her portraits are deeply personal and introspective. But while they are intimate in nature, they avoid melodrama. It would have been all too easy to lapse into a sorrowful, elegiac “vanishing breed” tone. They do not politicize the Indians or cast them as ethnographic objects.

• Authenticity

  Kasebier’s portraits are refreshingly honest and un-contrived. She never used artificial poses, apparel or props to achieve a more “photogenic” result at the expense of authenticity. In fact she often portrayed her models without their signature regalia, so as not to detract focus from the individual. Frequently the subjects chose their own costumes and posed in the way that seemed most natural to them. This difference gives Kasebier’s pictures a more dynamic and spontaneous, less “picture book” quality.

• Motive

  Kasebier’s Indian project was a purely personal and artistic one; while she stood to make a considerable profit off of the pieces, she never offered any of them for sale, and only produced prints for a select few individuals.

• Human connection

  Finally and (in my opinion) most importantly, Kasebier didn’t just take pictures of these people – she built a rapport with them, and in some cases, became a close friend. In this light, one wonders whether she felt more than a passing kinship with them; both experienced the constraints of a society that denied them their identity. Both experienced the personal rewards that resulted from this mutual understanding and respect – and that’s ultimately the biggest take-away from the end result of this unique collaboration.

Links

Smithsonian Institute: Gertrude Kasebier Collection Images

Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs Division – Results for Gertrude Kasebier

Wikipedia: Gertrude Kasebier

Smithsonian Research: “Portraits offer intimate look at Wild West performers” (If you don’t mind the missing html symbols then this is a pretty good article)

Edward Curtis and the Myth of the Vanishing Race

Related Posts

Edward Curtis and The Curtis Collection

Edward Curtis and Smiling Indians

Jay Silverheels was born Harold Smith in Canada on the Six Nations Indian Reserve. His father was a Mohawk chief who had served in World War I. At the time, the Iroquois – like most First Nations people in Canada and their counterparts in the United States – were not considered citizens.

As a young man, Silverheels was incredibly athletic and quickly rose to the status of lacrosse & boxing champion. He came to the US to pursue an athletic career off-rez and soon caught Hollywood’s eye, landing him his first roles as a stuntman and movie extra.

At the time very few Indians were involved in the media spotlight; they almost never received leading roles of any kind and were often overlooked for Native roles in favor of white actors. When Silverheels entered the movie business, Native casting was dominated by actors such as “Iron-Eyes Cody” (an Italian who was billed as an Indian) or by any spray-tanned performer who could be passed off as Indian. It was common practice for white actors with a make-up job to play the lead role of an Indian, while Indians like Silverheels were relegated to being stuntmen or nameless extras with no lines.

Whether the motive was a dependence on big-name actors, or racism, or a need to portray Indians in an artificial and contrived way, this kind of industry provided difficult competition for aspiring Native actors.

Perhaps it was an attempt to create a more “photogenic” Native identity that Silverheels took on his more Indian-sounding screen name in 1945. Originally his nickname on the lacrosse court, “Silverheels” was admittedly more Indian than “Harry Smith.”

His first major movie role was 1948′s Key Largo, the Bogart and Bacall classic also featuring another Native great of Hollywood, Rodd Redwing.

The following year he made his debut in his most famous role as Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick. The series made history by making an Indian actor a household name; but in the process a generation of Americans were raised with the image of Indians as nodding, grunting sidekicks.

While he continued to star in the low-budget Westerns that were so prolific in the 40′s and 50′s, he was discontented with the availability of good work opportunities for Native actors and the typecasting of Indians on-screen. He later went on to found the Indian Actors Workshop, a project to which he devoted enormous amounts of time and resources. It still operates today.

In 1963 he was inducted into the Screen Actors Hall of Fame, but it was a hollow triumph; the social constraints of the day had limited his achievements in film to a dubious legacy that ran counter to his advocacy efforts off-screen. In addition, racial issues and activism were coming to the forefront in America, and the kind of roles that made him famous also made him an effigy of outdated thinking for a new generation to attack.

Regardless of the controversy surrounding his career, he is still widely recognized as an important television pioneer. His persistence and talent paved the way for a new class of Native actors and actresses, causing many to wonder what he might have achieved had he lived under different circumstances, in another era of film. Jay Silverheels died in 1980 at his ranch in California. He continues to receive posthumous awards for his accomplishments.

Wikipedia: Jay Silverheels

Haudensosaunee Confederacy – Notable People

Jay Silverheels’ “Tonto spoof” on the Johnny Carson Show (1969)

Much of the discussion centers around the photographic work of Edward Curtis and his impact on the public image of Native Americans. Granted, for better or for worse, Curtis has always had a huge monopoly in this field – mainly because his output was so enormous that very few photographers could have matched the exhaustive effort he put into documenting his travels through Indian country.

There is ongoing controversy about Curtis’ methods and motives (more on that here…) We know he was a major proponent of the “vanishing race” doctrine, and admittedly, he occasionally doctored his photos with props and artificial poses. But what the debate really hinges on is whether the way Indians are reflected in his work is detrimental, and with what attitude they should be approached today.

In terms of the article mentioned above, the issue is that the Curtis photos reinforce the static image of the stern, solemn, downcast and downtrodden native – the noble has-been; because Curtis’ Indians, as well as those of his peers, just don’t smile.

Being closely familiar with Curtis’ work, I felt inclined to offer up a few thoughts.

1. Don’t ignore the reality
   Granted, if many of the Indians in historical photos looked grim or solemn, it was very likely due to the fact that they had very little to smile about. If you were an Indian living anytime around the advent of the camera, then you were admittedly facing one of the worst periods ever faced by Native Americans. The Indians participating in these early photographs were often doing so in the midst of the bleakest of circumstances themselves.
2. Customs of the day
   Add to this the simple fact that it wasn’t customary to smile in photographs in that age. To be fair, how many smiling Civil War soldiers have you seen? Or even common family portraits full of grinning faces? If it wasn’t considered dignified to put on a happy face for a photo in those days (which in many cases would have been difficult considering the prolonged exposure times) then why would anything different be expected of the period’s Native American subjects?
3. Take the photo into account
   Some of the portraits, particularly common in Curtis’s documentary-style work, are quite random and spontaneous. If the person was caught in action, working at their daily duties or engaged in some other activity then it’s understandable that they didn’t just stop to say “cheese.” In other words, he could not have been expected to go out of his way to have his models smile.

I think reasons like these would account for a large portion of the photos in Curtis’ inventory.

Additionally I would like to point out the considerable number of portraits that do show their subjects in a pleasanter light – one of the things that first drew me to these photos is the incredibly confident, self-assured, even serene outlook of many of the Indian people portrayed.

That said, there’s always going to be ambivalence surrounding Curtis’ portrayals of Indians, and the way Curtis’ portrayals are used – which brings up an important point: that even the most objective record can be warped by misappropriation. Fundamentally, it’s the mindless repetition stemming mainly from ignorance that spawns and feeds a stereotype. People take it for granted, the notion spreads, and what begins as a thoughtless generalization becomes doctrine.

Above: “Young Girl Smiling” (Navajo); Left: “Okuwa Tsire” (“Little Bird,” San Ildefonso Pueblo); Below: “Zuni Girl.” If photos like these lesser-known Curtis works were given ample representation, would this be a non-issue?

In the case of the “stoic Indian,” it goes like this: “Way back in the day of the noble savage, Indians never smiled because they were tough and solemn and humorless. After they lost their land and their way of life, they never smiled because there are so few of them left and they are vanishing fast.”

That may not be how most people think, but that’s what is presented to them on a subconscious level when Indians are portrayed this way.

The real gaff is that humor is and always has been an integral characteristic of all Native American cultures. And it was a way of life long before it became a survival tactic. Anyone who has spent time with Indian people can instantly vouch for this. Once again, it’s a case of cultural projection, where the mainstream says, “they are what we imagine them” – and quite often it’s the opposite of the truth.

Bottom line: If you want to show an Indian looking intense and serious, do it because he/she is intense and serious – not because he/she is an Indian. In art or media they should be treated exactly the same as any other subject, without the sociopolitical overtones. Doing so loses the human element – and with the richness of humanity found in the faces of Indian country, that would be a crying shame.

And the verdict on Curtis? I concede that much of his effort was overshadowed by misconception and this is doubtlessly betrayed in his work. But it is also surrounded by irony on multiple levels. For one, the end result – despite its flaws – was certainly the most extensive and complete visual record of early 20th century Native America. And, in his eagerness to preserve the visage of what he thought was a doomed race, Curtis has become a prime witness to the resilience and vitality of Indian cultures.

Just as perceptions of Native people have changed through the years, and will continue change, so will the thoughts and feelings about the Curtis photographs. Might it be said that in some ways, Curtis and his work have also become the victims of stereotype?

Case study: Pimas and Yaquis

One thing that caught my attention was the particular usage of Pima and Yaqui Indians in plots featuring hostilities against white settlers. Had I encountered this just once or twice, I would have passed it off as a fluke – but repeatedly in various scripts, these southwestern peoples were singled out for their particularly aggressive and brutal behavior (replete with totally concocted accounts of their infamous atrocities against whites).

This took me by surprise, since both peoples were peaceful agriculturalists, and I was not aware of any history that would precipitate such a mythology.

“Although the Akimel O’odham [Pima] did have conflicts with other groups they are thought to have been primarily a peaceable people, because they never attacked Euroamerican settlers and they were most well known for their aid to immigrants.”(Wikipedia)

And again:

“The Pima have always been peaceable, though when attacked, as in former times they frequently were by the Apache and others, they have shown themselves by no means deficient in courage… Prisoners were rarely cruelly treated; on the contrary they shared the food and clothing of their captors, usually acquired the Pima language, and have been known to marry into the tribe.” (Access Genealogy)

The Yaqui likewise had little or no history of warfare up until the time of the Spanish conquest. Eventually, brutalities by Spanish authorities and later the Mexican government forced them into the mountains of the American southwest, where resistance movement similar to the Cheyenne “dog soldiers” sprang up. The only significant engagement with US forces was a skirmish in 1918 during the Mexican border war.

So what led to the choice of the Pimas and Yaquis being cast in this light? My guess is arbitrary ignorance; the writers cared just enough about historical authenticity to select a tribe from the correct geographical region (they could never get away with staging a Seminole uprising in Arizona, right?) but not enough to get the story straight. After all, they weren’t writing a history book – it’s just entertainment. And who’s going to differ, if anyone should even bother to look it up? After using the Apache so often, it was time for a change.

So this device was used once in a plot, and it caught on, the fallacy firmly implanted; small matter if the Pima became permanently maligned in the process.

Right: A collage of Pima people (Wikipedia). In the center, Ira Hayes, of Iwo Jima fame.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Unfortunately, it is exactly this kind of selective ignorance that characterizes so much of what American culture perceives about Native Americans. And when the line between history and popular myth becomes blurred, one has to wonder, who stands to lose more – the Indians who are stuck with a phony label, or average Americans of the non-Native variety who carry around a trumped-up version of their nation’s past?

Of course the all-around worst part is that most people watching these films probably believe that the Pima and Yaqui nations don’t even exist anymore – a misperceived fate dogging much of Indian country. Classic tv unwittingly helped to propagate the myth of the vanishing Indian.

Even in entertainment, the media has long played a powerful role in shaping public perception of Native Americans, and in doing so has influenced the course of both Native and non-Native populations.

Right: Modern-day Pima actor Gregory Zaragoza, in costume as the Half-King for the docudrama The War that Made America – an outstanding production about the French and Indian War.

Some of my biggest gripes about Indian portrayals in the movies:

1. Native roles being played by non-natives

   (Particularly very obvious gaffs like choosing a blue-eyed actor to play an Indian.) Unfortunately this is a practice that has not been abandoned altogether – as if there aren’t enough qualified Native actors to fill these positions!

   If I had grown up in the 50′s, for instance, I would have assumed like most people that “real” Indians were so rare that it was only the exception to find one for a movie role. In this way, the modern Indian came to be seen as a relic, only appearing in sideshow fashion a la the Wild West shows.

2. Contextual inaccuracies

   E.g., uniformly portraying all Indians as living in tipis, or wearing buckskins and the stereotypical “big chief” headdress; warped portrayals of the roles of Indian women in Native culture; and taking gross liberties in recounting actual historical events.

3. Extremely predictable stereotypes

   “Savage” Indians villainized for the antagonistic role vs. the cowboy hero; or the more sympathetic role of the “noble savage” (often sidekicks) who stand above their comrades by helping out the white guys, or by their eagerness to assimilate, etc; or in another version, Indians are portrayed as victims, in such a way that it sets up the white protagonist to become their advocate/avenger. Either way these portrayals are both misleading and demeaning.

   Of course, these kinds of films were all made before the infamous “eco-Indian” stereotype became popular in the later part of the 20th century.

Recently, portrayals of Indians in film have become more complex than the traditional two-dimensional depictions, in keeping with popular culture’s slightly more developed view of them. The stereotyping tendencies are still present, but are more subtle.

One common example is the “sage & warrior” pair: the wise, spiritual chief/medicine man type contrasted with the stoic, temperamental fighter. Still the “big chief” and “brave” images – just in modern garb.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

The strangest thing in my mind is the way that portrayals of Native Americans have morphed through time to reflect the changes in public consciousness. What the general public wanted to be, or how they wanted to see their world, was projected onto Native Americans. You can see this especially in the rise of the environmental movement after the 70′s, when the Indian in film changed radically to become the mystical, connected-to-nature ideal that so much of society yearned for. That said, it’s an exception rather than a rule to find a film in which Indians are cast in any other light other than how mainstream America sees them.

The famous “Keep America Beautiful” commercial of the 70′s. The actor, Iron Eyes Cody, was in fact Italian.

When directors and screenwriters (including Indians, since there’s plenty of Native talent coming to the forefront these days) do go beyond the narrow bounds of misconception and generalization, however, the results are often powerful and dynamic. The goal isn’t a “white guilt trip” but rather a work that is thoughtful, objective, and realistic – the same standards by which we would judge any other subject. These will be the kind of films that all kinds of people will watch generations from now and think, “These people were thinking outside of the box – they weren’t stuck in their own era, they saw their subject in a critical way that makes their work still valid today.”

There’s a lot of make-up work to be done in terms of Native portrayals in film. Hopefully we can do a good job to raise our grade average.

What do you consider to be the best representations of Indians in the movies? What Native actors, actresses, and directors have made the biggest impact? Log in and share your opinions.

An interesting reminder of how a popular image doesn’t always reflect historical fact. Makes one wonder why we’ve deified Squanto as a part of our “national mythology.” Maybe exalting one Indian in the traditional Thanksgiving story sublimates the reality of what really transpired between colonists and Native Americans and English settlers – e.g., the Indians get due credit for helping out the early colonists, so now they can be shamelessly incorporated in a skewed national stereotype.

Smithsonian Magazine: Native Intelligence – Charles C. Mann

Looks like an interesting angle on the subject of American Indians in the military. I like the last part of the interview, where Clevenger’s work seems to challenge the mentality of the “Indian warrior” stereotype.

NPR: America’s First Warrior’s
Excerpts from Clevenger’s book here at the NPR archives, also featuring a story from the Cheyenne.

“…The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself…”

- Chief Seattle

The famous oration by Chief Seattle is believed to have been made in 1854; the venue was supposedly a public meeting called by the governor in Seattle, Washington to discuss the transfer of native lands to the whites. There, the chief of the local Suquamish and Duwamish tribes stood up to deliver his eloquent final word on the massive changeover taking place in his world.

It’s been touted as one of the most compelling environmental messages ever spoken, a moving plea from an Indian watching his culture and his natural homeland disappear. Millions of copies have sold across the world; it’s been used throughout the media, from radio to movies to books (including an appearance in an Al Gore book). But a closer look may reveal a disappointing past to this iconic bestseller.

The speech with many faces

There are several versions of the speech in circulation, so obviously they can’t all be right. And each is littered with subtle anachronisms and other textual flaws that raise red flags about their authenticity.

The most popular (and most quoted) version was written by Texas professor Ted Perry as part of a screenplay for a 1972 film called “Home.” It was this version that soon became a war-cry for environmentalists – and the one that contains the biggest gaffs.

Buffalo and iron horses?

“…I’ve seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive…”

Readers will notice that Chief Seattle speaks of the “iron horse” or railroad. The first railroad in Washington was built by the Cascades Railroad Company in 1858 – several years after Chief Seattle supposedly delivered his speech. The Transcontinental Railroad wasn’t completed until 1869.

Above all, the “lament over the buffalo” is a dead giveaway. Chief Seattle lived in the Pacific Northwest – not the Great Plains – and never traveled beyond his homeland. We all know there are no buffalo anywhere near the Puget Sound. But I doubt it would have been as effective if the chief was quoted mourning over a diminishing seafood population. That just wouldn’t sell.

This reminds me of the scene in the movie Smoke Signals where Victor tries to teach his friend Thomas the “stoic” Indian look:

Victor: You gotta look mean or people won’t respect you. White people will run all over you if you don’t look mean. You gotta look like a warrior! You gotta look like you just came back from killing a buffalo!

Victor: What! You want to look like you just came back from catching a fish? This ain’t “Dances With Salmon” you know!

This illustrates how much the stereotype of the Plains Indians has permeated the white view of Native Americans. In the perception of many people, Indians = vast herds of buffalo roaming the prairie, wild ponies running through the wind, and tepees silhouetted against the sunset. One image becomes a mass-scale stereotype of all Indians, everywhere. Then, out of sight, out of mind: no more buffalo, no more tepees = no more Indians – thus the “vanishing race.” Cut and dry, two-dimensional thinking.

This is the kind of thinking that is projected all through the Chief Seattle speech. And it’s perhaps one of the biggest indicators that it’s nothing more than a fake – well-intentioned, perhaps, but still a fake.

A troubled history

The speech was reworked on at least three separate occasions before its most famous reincarnation in the 1970′s.

The earliest publication of the speech purportedly dates to an 1887 Seattle newspaper article by Washington pioneer Henry Smith. He was a doctor (and a poet, curiously enough) who claimed to have “taken notes” on Seattle’s words at the 1854 land conference.

Years later, in 1929, it was adapted for a book on Washington history. In 1932, John M. Rich created a pamphlet allegedly based on the Smith article; it became widely circulated and landed a copy in the Library of Congress. This was later revised in the 1960′s (by another poet, no less) in an attempt to modernize the speech for a more contemporary audience.

Even though the oldest versions of the speech contain nothing about buffalo or railroads (proving that these were later interjections), many researchers have pointed out that the validity of the original version is in doubt. The flowery, ornate language is strongly indicative of the poetic style of the day. What’s more, there’s no support for the assertion that Henry Smith was present at any of the public meetings attended by Chief Seattle, or that he ever witnessed an oration given by the chief.

Lost in translation?

One minor detail commonly overlooked is the fact that Chief Seattle couldn’t speak English. So the speech is quite a feat, either for the chief, or for some very accomplished mystery translator of the little known Lushootsheed dialect. More likely, any words spoken by the chief would have been loosely translated into the Chinook jargon – the lingua franca used by native peoples throughout the Pacific coast. It’s open to debate whether any text relayed through translation several times over can preserve much of its original character.

Moreover, the fact that the earliest draft of the Smith version didn’t appear until more than 30 years later, gives rise to suspicions about Smith’s motives in publicizing his memoir.

Jerry Clark, of the National Archives and Records Administration, says “…this memorable statement loses its moral force and validity if it is the literary creation of a frontier physician rather than the thinking of an articulate and wise Indian leader.”

In fact, Chief Seattle’s only officially documented words are found in the minutes of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, recorded at an 1855 conference with several coastal tribes to discuss the Point Elliot Treaty. They consist of two very brief paragraphs discussing the chief’s willingness to cooperate with the American officials. That’s all – nothing about the environment, or the spirit world, or anything remotely resembling later versions of his famous speech.

The real Chief Seattle

The real Duwamish chief, also known as Sealth, See-ahth, or Si’ahl, was born around 1780 near present-day Blake Island, Washington. He inherited his position from his maternal uncle and became a leader renowned for his imposing presence and his speaking ability.

As Salish lands throughout the Northwest became overrun with white settlers, particularly in the period following the Oregon Trail, he was notable for his eagerness to accommodate and even extend friendship towards whites. His negotiations helped the Duwamish avert conflicts and secure a more peaceful transition to reservation life.

His close friend “Doc” Maynard was responsible for naming the city of Seattle in his honor. Seattle died on the reservation in 1866.

Left: The only known real photo of Seattle, taken in 1865, just a year before his death.

Right: A supposed portrait of Chief Seattle, reworked and touched up – just like his words.

Right: Princess Angeline, or Kikisoblu, was the last living descendant of Chief Seattle. This photo was taken in 1895 by an up-and-coming photographer named Edward Curtis. It was the first of more than 40,000 portraits of Native Americans he took over the course of his career.

See also:

Snopes.com:
Chief Seattle’s Speech (includes the complete text of the most popular version by Ted Perry)

“Thus Spoke Chief Seattle: The Story of An Undocumented Speech” – an excellent essay from the National Archives

Human Ecology Review: The Myth of Chief Seattle by William S. Abruzzi [PDF]

NY Times: Chief’s Speech of 1854 Given New Meaning (and Words) by Timothy Egan

March Point – a real look at environmental issues from the point of view of the Coast Salish (who, contrary to some, have not “vanished”…) This independent documentary hinges on the lives of three Swinomish youths growing up on the rez in Washington state.

George Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, into the large family of a Revolutionary War veteran. His mother’s and grandmother’s accounts of their experiences as Indian captives may have sparked his early fascination with Native Americans that later became a lifelong passion. As a young man he abandoned a law career to accompany expeditions researching and documenting indigenous peoples throughout North and South America.

During the 1830s, he traveled extensively through the Midwest and the Great Plains, where he spent weeks and months at a time among the Indian nations of the Mississippi and Missouri river valleys – becoming one of the first Europeans to do so. The notes and drawings he compiled during this tour formed the basis of his collection of documentary paintings, which he later published in a two-volume work entitled Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians. He amassed a huge collection of artifacts and kept a detailed record of the customs and appearances of the Native American peoples he encountered. His total output consisted of more than 600 original paintings and over 700 drawings and sketches, making him one of the premier painters of Native Americana.

Catlin attempted unsuccessfully to sell his portfolio to the United States government as a public historical exhibit; eventually he sold his original works to a private collector. He spent much of his later career traveling, writing memoirs, and marketing his work in European tours. He died in New Jersey in 1872; his works were later donated to the Smithsonian Museum.

About His Work

George Catlin is certainly not a painter who became famous solely on account of his artistic skills. In technical terms, his works range from mediocre to downright primitive, as some critics have labeled it. What drove his career was an almost obsessive desire to portray Native Americans from across the continent in the most original setting possible.

Like Edward Curtis, he felt compelled to portray the appearance and customs of peoples whom he felt were a “vanishing race.” In some cases, this proved to be fateful; for example, his extensive work among the Mandan barely preceded a smallpox epidemic that reduced their number to a mere handful. As a result, Catlin’s depictions of the Mandan are valuable today because no artist after him was able to produce such a successful pictorial record of them.

Above: The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas; Below: Mandan Buffalo Dance

There is much controversy over the duplicity in Catlin’s portrayals of Indians. On one hand, his genuine appreciation of Native Americans fueled his eagerness to preserve their cultural record; on the other, he stooped to using white models in Indian apparel for some paintings, and staging performing acts similar to later wild west shows as part of his marketing scheme. Both of these contributed to spreading and reinforcing damaging stereotypes that are still prevalent today.

Right: Sha-kó-ka (“Mint”), a Mandan girl (1832)

The fact remains that his personal mentality in regards to American Indians was far ahead of his time. Whatever his motives in promoting his own work, and his means for marketing it, his profound respect for the cultures he encountered was remarkable, and would have still been uncommon a generation or more ahead of his time.

His confidence in the character of Indian society as a whole was boundless. “The very use of the word savage, as it is applied in its general sense, I am inclined to believe is an abuse of the word, and the people to whom it is applied,” Catlin asserted. Towards the end of his career, he remarked, “No Indian ever betrayed me, struck me with a blow, or stole from me a shilling’s worth of my property.” And this at a time when Indians were still perceived largely as inferior humans predisposed toward aggression and brutality.

Right: Stu-mick-o-súcks, Head Chief of the Blood tribe (Blackfoot)

At its best, it could be said that Catlin’s work helped to graduate the public perception of Native Americans from bloodthirsty savages to that of a more noble race that deserved to be saved from oblivion. It was this perspective that persisted through the end of Catlin’s century – through the climax of the removals, the Indian Wars, and the boarding school era – and into the 20th century, when Native American identity began to re-assert itself in a newer and more permanent context.

Smithsonian Magazine: Catlin’s Obsession by Bruce Watson – a highly recommended biography and assessment

George Catlin: The Complete Works – online gallery

See also:

Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians by George Catlin (1857) – Digital Edition from the Internet Archives’ American Libraries (also available as PDF)

George Catlin: Smithsonian Exhibitions

Explore Pennsylvania History: Birthplace of George Catlin

BROWSE THE COMPLETE CATALOG OF GEORGE CATLIN PRINTED WORKS:
(courtesy of the University of Cincinnati Digital Libraries Collection)

There’s not much about this event that hasn’t been said – both true and not so true. It has been studied more extensively, and become more entrenched in popular culture, than possibly any other encounter between Indians and US forces. Maybe that’s because it involved so many influential figures – General Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse – or maybe because it was so shocking to Americans when it occurred that it was instantly and permanently seared into the public memory. Whatever the reasons, our understanding of the conflict and the events surrounding it have changed dramatically through time. The technologies of forensic archaeology and ballistics have reconstructed the course of events on the Greasy Grass, from the movements on the field to weapons used and the nature of the combat.

Perhaps the biggest change in perception is the shift in bias. The role of the US military, and of Custer in particular, is no longer so glorified as it once was, and the Indians not so vilified. We’ve come to understand how the hunger for gold in the forbidden Black Hills motivated the Custer Expedition of 1876. And with more Native accounts coming to light – and being heard – our understanding of the events on the ground has become more objective and comprehensive.

These changes are relatively recent, however. For most of the 20th century, discussing the legitimacy of US Indian policies was strictly taboo – and so was challenging the objectivity of “official” accounts.

This was the obstacle that Edward Curtis encountered when he released the research accompanying his photographic work among the Crow. He made detailed notes from interviews with former Crow army scouts who were present to witness the events at Little Bighorn. But political forces intervened before these reports could be published. President Theodore Roosevelt, while supportive of Curtis’s photographic work, “recommended” that he keep his research under hat. So it was years before the Crow accounts saw the light of day.

Whatever his motives, maybe Roosevelt was just riding the political currents of his day. While public attitudes towards Native Americans were beginning to change, the fact remained that the nation was still embroiled in the aftermath of the Great Indian Wars of the Plains and the Southwest. Vitriolic feelings towards the Indians, and the Lakota in particular, were still high, even a generation after Little Big Horn. The century had barely turned on one of the worst crimes committed on the Indians, the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 – which was motivated in part by a hunger for revenge on the part of soldiers, eager to avenge their fallen compatriots at Little Big Horn.

This was the height of the boarding school era, where Indian children were being taken from their families to be “civilized” and re-educated in hopes of completing the assimilation into white culture. Distorted accounts of events such as Little Bighorn continued to fuel stereotypical images of Indians and justify the military’s reactions. Perhaps by depriving Indians of a voice at this time, it was easier to portray them as a “disappearing race”: a casualty of Manifest Destiny, a lost cause – a thing of the past – in order to whitewash the horror of an outright cultural genocide still in full swing.

See also:
History Channel documentary LITTLE BIGHORN: THE UNTOLD STORY

Wikipedia: Battle of Little Bighorn

Wild West Magazine: Ten Myths of the Little Big Horn (HistoryNet)

Library of Congress Digital Collections “This Day in History: Little Bighorn“

Library of Congress: Edward Curtis

The Curtis Collection

Holidays almost invariably stir up a lot of emotionally-charged issues. The volatile mix of relatives, religion, and politics inevitably leads to a lot of vitriol – and sometimes with good reason. Holidays in our modern culture tend to gravitate either towards crass commercialism or romanticized idealism, often combined with a convoluted view of history. In the case of Thanksgiving, gratitude and togetherness are excellent things to celebrate so long as they are not tinged with antiquated political propaganda and racial stereotyping. When this happens – intentionally or not – the results can be damaging.

In a bitter irony, the whole story of Thanksgiving shrouds what is possibly history’s worst case of ingratitude. No version of the Thanksgiving story would be complete without an account of the horrific sequel that occurred only a generation later. We all know the story of Squanto and the Wampanoag chief Massasoit befriending the Pilgrims and saving them from starvation, and later sharing the seminal “first Thanksgiving.” But few realize that many of the same Pilgrims who grew up in the shadow of that festive occasion later murdered Massasoit’s son and paraded his head through Plymouth in a second “unofficial” Thanksgiving; and that the very same Wampanoag with whom they had pledged friendship were brutally hunted and killed or sold into slavery. In a bitter irony, the whole story of Thanksgiving shrouds what is possibly history’s worst case of ingratitude. It’s hard to find another instance where a country’s ideals stand so high while its history is so contaminated with whitewash, treachery, and genocide. And the worst part is, most of us are completely disconnected with the reality of our past and the true context in which we commemorate it.

It’s easy to understand why so many Indians object to the popular form of Thanksgiving. On face value it seems to celebrate the successful European colonization of America and the exploitation of its bountiful resources at the expense of dispossessing an entire race – and to add insult to injury, it seems to commemorate the Indians’ generosity in helping the process along! Mainstream America eagerly incorporates Indians into its holidays, its entertainment, as sports mascots – almost casually, as if they are the intellectual property of the United States, part and parcel of the American mythology, and not real people who are part of living, sovereign nations. We love to include the Indian stereotype – without the price of telling the full story.

Speaking from experience, encountering the awful truth behind some of this country’s most ingrained myths can be extremely painful. But no matter how ugly the truth is, without it healing can never occur. Not because “we owe something to the Indians” but because we owe it to ourselves. Our past is what we are, what we stand for and where we’re headed. It’s the world we pass down to our kids. When we settle for a second-hand, white-washed version of history, we cheat ourselves out of so much – and defraud all the values we claim to embrace. Without a living history, we fail to learn from the real achievements of the past and continue repeating mistakes that should never occur.

A Lakota proverb says, “A nation without a history is like the wind over buffalo grass.” The United States is the youngest major country in the world and yet it suffers from a pandemic of historical illiteracy. When did we ever form an excuse to be so disconnected with our past? We can’t all depend on the media or our kid’s educators to go the extra step and get the story right. What we pass down to the next generation about our history forms the foundation for the way they look at the world. This is why holidays in indigenous culture are so important – they’re not just a day off, but a way to reinforce the past in a way that strengthens bonds between the family and the community. And it’s why I think that holidays like Thanksgiving are such an enormous opportunity in today’s culture. Why not use this time of year to set the record straight? When parents, teachers, students, journalists, artists, and researchers take the initiative to acquaint themselves with the truth, it’s not history we’re reclaiming – it’s our future.

Thanksgiving as it has come down to us is largely the result of myth and happenstance. It resurfaced in different forms each time pivotal events – like the Civil War and the Great Depression – caused Americans to seek solace and solidarity in “common values” of America’s roots, both real and imagined. In each evolution it reflected different agendas and different levels of historical understanding. The true Thanksgiving, I think, is yet another gift we have been given by this country’s indigenous peoples. Annual thanksgiving celebrations have been practiced by Native Americans across the continent for millennia as an integral part of their culture. And it is arguably the ideals of gratitude and togetherness as put into practice by Native Americans in our early history that gave life and meaning to the holiday in the first place.

When I sit down at the dinner table with my family this year, thankful for our health and many other blessings, I am most grateful for the many generations of Native ancestors who came before me in this country, and cherished this land for millennia, and preserved so many wonderful things to share with the rest of the world. The fact that I’m here today and able to enjoy these things, I owe in large part to them. I’m not being patronizing; it’s an unavoidable fact that the history of Native cultures is inseparable from the past of this country and this continent going back for thousands of years. That makes it part of me too. So I want to be able to embrace that past, even though time and again it went so wrong. Maybe someday soon this country will have the maturity to retrace its steps and see how much it stands to learn by listening once again to indigenous wisdom. And maybe we can share another Thanksgiving celebration together.

If you can think of any better reasons to celebrate Thanksgiving, please let me know.