Jessica Crabtree

February 24, 1831: The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek is proclaimed after being signed the previous year

As part and parcel of the Indian Removal Act, the Choctaw traded lands in what is now Mississippi for an autonomous section of Indian Territory (today Oklahoma).

Choctaw Village by Francois Bernard

This landmark treaty between the US government and chiefs of the Choctaw nation resulted in the largest ever peacetime land transfer from Native Americans. It precipitated the mass-removal of Choctaw people from their homelands in what is collectively known as the Trail of Tears. Over the remainder of the 19th century more than 15,000 Choctaw people were forcibly evacuated, resulting in a similar situation experienced by the Cherokee, with the nation permanently divided by the removals.

The treaty had many important repercussions, both for the Choctaw and as precedent in the US government’s dealings with other Indian nations. Among its terms was a provision making the Choctaw the first non-European ethnic group to acquire American citizenship.

Left: A map depicting major relocation routes of Indians during the removals of the 1830′s

Wikipedia: Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek

Mississippi Band of Choctaws: Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma: Full text and background

Mississippi History Now: Mushulatubbee and Choctaw Removal: Chiefs Confront a Changing World

Wikipedia: Choctaw Trail of Tears

MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO: New documentary remembers largest mass execution in US history

The largest mass execution in U.S. history occurred 148 years ago, when 38 Dakota warriors were hanged from a single scaffold in Mankato.

The shock waves of that mass execution still reverberate today among the Dakota people. A new documentary film remembers the 38, and also a group of Dakota who ride on horseback each year at this time to Mankato to commemorate the executions of Dec. 26, 1862.

This week marks two anniversaries of major conflicts between the Cheyenne and the US army during the Indian Wars – the massacres at Washita and Sand Creek. Although lesser known than its Lakota counterpart, Wounded Knee, the encounter at Sand Creek was one of the most brutal examples of atrocities committed against the Native Americans. Both are powerful examples of the kind of stored memories that people like the Cheyenne still have to live with.

November 27, 1868 – Custer massacres Cheyenne on Washita River

November 29, 1864: Sand Creek Massacre – Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacre at least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants inside Colorado Territory.

PBS The West: Profiles & first-hand accounts from Sand Creek

Photo credit: National Park Service, Sand Creek Historic Site

Charles Eastman was a widely respected, influential and accomplished man in his day; he had much in common with other famous Native Americans – such as Ely Parker – whose lives straddled two different worlds. Born into a Lakota family and raised during a period of grievous conflict for the Plains Indians, he helped to forge a cultural bridge between Indians and white America, and used his talents as a doctor and a writer to confront racism and corruption.

He was born in 1858, the grandson of painter Seth Eastman whose first wife was the daughter of a Santee chief. The artist left his Indian family after returning east, but his daughter Winona passed his name on to her family. Charles, the youngest of five, spent much of his childhood in Canada following the outbreak of hostilities between the Lakota and the US army.

His father converted to Christianity and sent him to mission schools, where his rapid progress placed him on a fast track to Ivy League universities such as Dartmouth and Boston. He graduated with a doctorate in medicine in 1889 – making him the first Native American to become a certified medical doctor.

Eastman began his practice as a staff doctor for the BIA working on reservations, and opened a small private practice. But the rapidly deteriorating situation for the Plains Indians following the Ghost Dance movement and Wounded Knee prompted him to put his skills to further use.

He became active in organizing youth outreach programs, including the Native American departments of the YMCA, and was one of the founders (along with others such as Ernest Thompson Seton) of the scouting movement. He lectured widely and wrote several several books that drew upon his Lakota upbringing. His main goal was to help educate a widely misinformed and biased public, and to shed a more positive light on the traditional Plains Indian lifestyles.

His career became increasingly demanding as he was drawn further into politics, acting in various capacities as a representative of Indian country. He served as lobbyist on behalf of the Lakota, Indian inspector, investigator, and reform activist during the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Roosevelt. His efforts contributed to the eventual citizenship of Native Americans and many sweeping policy changes within the government during the first part of the 20th century.

Right: Eastman and his daughter Dora.

Eastman married writer and social worker Elaine Goodale in 1891, and raised six children. But eventually the pressures of his work and disagreements over their life directions led to their separation. He retired to a cabin he built in the woods near the Great Lakes, where he died of a heart attack in 1939 at the age of 80.

Recently, the role of Charles Eastman was portrayed by Ojibwa actor Adam Beach in HBO’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” (Not having seen it myself, I can’t review – however this page offers some interesting comment on the portrayal.)

See also:

Wikipedia: Charles Eastman

Charles Eastman’s page on Legends of America

Here’s a post series from my blog archives about the evolution of the holiday, facts vs. myth.

10 THINGS ABOUT THANKSGIVING:

#1: Links and Resources – best websites, articles, & documentaries

#2: My Take on Thanksgiving – a few thoughts on perspective

#3: History of a Holiday – the birth of a legend

#4: The Wampanoag Side – the Indians of the “first Thanksgiving”

#5: That’s Not What They Looked Like! – an example of Thanksgiving stereotypes (one of my most popular posts!)

#6: The Indian Guests – more on the Wampanoag

#7: The Real Story – the historical Thanksgiving & archaeology

#8: The Original Thanksgiving Menu – the foods of the Plymouth Thanksgiving

#9: Thanksgiving 1621 – first-hand account

#10: The “First” First Thanksgiving – a little-known precursor to the holiday

Above: A National Geographic photo of the reconstructed Plimoth Plantation settlement.

Ten Myths of the Little Bighorn » HistoryNet
by Gregory Michno

“The Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought on the banks of the river of that name in Montana Territory in June 1876, is the most often discussed fight of the Indian wars. It has been said that we will never know what happened there because there were no survivors. That is nonsense. There were thousands of survivors. The Indians clearly told us what happened. We need only to listen to what they said.”

Library of Congress “Today in History”: New Mexico’s Colonial Past

“On September 21, 1595, Don Juan de Oñate’s petition and contract for the conquest of New Mexico was presented to Luís de Velasco, the viceroy of Nueva Vizcaya.  

Already a wealthy and prominent man, he sought to turn the Indians’ wealth into his own and had requested the assignment after hearing rumors about golden cities in the vicinity. Oñate was granted the commission and set about recruiting men for his expedition.”

Acoma Pueblo photographed by Ansel Adams, 1941 (public domain)

Q: What was the first Indian reservation?

A: The most common answer is the Lenape reservation at Indian Mills, established by the New Jersey colonial assembly in 1758. However, the history of reservations in the colonies goes back much earlier, predating the Lenape reserve by at least a century.

Pamunkey-Mattaponi Reservation
(Virginia, 1658)

The first colonial record of an Indian reservation comes from the Virginia colony, where in 1658 – a hundred years before New Jersey’s Lenape reservation was formed – the Virginia General Assembly voted on a land reserve for the Pamunkey and Mattaponi tribes. These were among the most powerful members of the region’s Powhatan Confederacy (of Pocahontas fame).

A 1677 treaty between the English throne and the representatives of the Pamunkey and Mattaponi recognized their rights as autonomous nations. The reservation survived the transition of the American Revolution and has remained a continuously sovereign entity to this day.

Mashantucket Pequot Reservation
(Connecticut, 1666)

Another example of the earliest reservations originated just a few years later, further north in New England. There, in the aftermath of the devastating Pequot War, the Connecticut colonial assembly set aside a land reserve for the Mashantucket Pequot.

Like the Pamunkey-Mattaponi nation of Virginia, the Pequot reservation still exists today, but only narrowly escaped being dissolved on several occasions. King Philip’s War in 1680 pitted American colonists against an alliance of Wampanoag, Narraganset, and other Indian nations of New England, and nearly resulted in the extermination of several peoples, including the Pequot. In the ensuing centuries, the reservation area dwindled from 3,000 to 200 acres, and was nearly liquidated until the surviving Mashantucket band underwent a cultural revival in the 1970s.

Back to the Indian Mills Reservation
(New Jersey, 1758)

In the mid-1700s, the Lenni-Lenape people (also known as the Delaware) had lost access to most of their traditional grounds and petitioned for a land reserve on which to form a small autonomous community. Known as Brothertown, or Brotherton, it was organized largely under Christian missionary efforts and became an amalgam of members from various nations, including Pequots, Narragansets, and Mohegans, who associated on the basis of their common religious practices.

The reservation was formally dissolved in 1801, but by that time they had reorganized on land donated by the Oneida Nation of New York. Eventually they were forced to move again, resettling in Wisconsin along with much of the Oneida Nation during the Indian Removals of the 1830s. (continue reading…)