Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press

by Jacqueline Emery

  Indian Public Opinion, 1902

  The last few issues of Carlisle’s publications have so aroused my interest that I cannot refrain from humbly participating in an “Indian Council.” Not that the pages of the little paper have been filled, lately, with literature superior than formerly, but the part in it I like better is INDIANS’ public opinion.

  I feel like living when I hear educated Indians advancing well-balanced ideas. It looks as if we [are] about to redeem our racial mental debility when we have opinions worth expressing, and express them.

  For what, after all, is Public Opinion but literature? And literature in time makes and establishes the mental development of a people.

  I like much perusing the artistic views of our own Native genius, Zitkala-Ša, on The Indian Dance, and I had to listen to that exponent of Carlisle, Dr. Montezuma, for the practical side bearing upon the subject.1

  To this extent I agree with the former, that that element of our race which has no future is truly pitiable, that element whose present is a life of constraint and starvation of development, is a heartbreaking thing to look upon, but the latter points out that the present pleasure of the Indian dance is a corruption of sacred rite, and since it is an irreverent imitation, its tendencies cannot be wholesome.

  Naturally the beat of the drum wakes up the human desire for recreation long pent up by the dead environment of reserve existence, and thither will go a weak youth, who once in the whirl of such doings forgets the moral and social codes that have replaced those of barbarism, only to wake up on the morrow, a shamefaced idiot, with the manhood gone, that perchance has been Carlisle’s hard won years.

  So debased pleasure can undo honorable labor, so is ultimate transition retarded.

  And can we afford as a race, and individually, to lose thus not only time, which is gold, but honor, the greatest and our all?2

  John Milton Oskison (Cherokee)

  John Milton Oskison (1874–1947) was born in Vinita, Cherokee Nation. He attended Willie Halsell College along with his friend Will Rogers. After graduating in 1894 he studied at Stanford University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1898. At Stanford he began publishing articles and short stories. After winning a writing contest sponsored by Century Magazine in 1899 while doing graduate work at Harvard, he decided to become a professional writer. He published numerous short stories in popular American magazines such as Century, McClure’s, and Collier’s. From 1903 to 1906 he was an editorial writer on the New York Evening Post, and from 1907 to 1910 he was an associate editor for Collier’s. He was a founding member of the Society of American Indians, and in 1917 he served as vice-president. His essays on Indian affairs were published in boarding school newspapers and the SAI’s magazine, where he was a contributing editor. (Larré, John Milton Oskison, 1–4; Littlefield and Parins, Biobibliography: Supplement, 261; Peyer, American Indian Nonfiction, 382) 1

  The Outlook for the Indian, 1903

  The first and most important step towards the absorption of the Indian is to teach him to earn his living.

  —President Roosevelt, in his last message to Congress

  Fortunately for the white race that has extended our frontiers, the “bad” Indian has long ago ceased to exist; fortunately for the Indian who must still face the problem of living, the time has passed when the lawless, cynical white man can appropriate his reservations with impunity and have him “suppressed” when he begins to ask for justice. We are far enough away from the crunching of cavalry hoofs and the rallying yell of warriors to see that there are two sides to the question. Only the most rabid and ignorant enemies of the Indian still maintain that unfortunate, cynical doctrine that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” And only the most obstinate of our Indians still rail against the domination of the white race.

  It is a hopeful fact that the leaders among the various societies formed to protect and befriend the Indian have substituted personal knowledge and close observation for an enthusiastic but ignorant sympathy. They have come to understand that an Indian is a human being with a long and significant history behind him, with a very well-worked-out moral law, and with a tradition of living that is not easy to give up. Likewise, the Indian has come to understand that the white man has a tradition of living to maintain, and that it is not altogether greed and hatred that have sent him forward across frontiers. Tolerance increases.

  Now that the races have come to know each other better and have laid aside the old distrust and fear, we hear those who are qualified to speak with authority say that the next inevitable step is the complete absorption of the Indian into the white race, which will result in an ultimate amalgamation of the two. This is an idea that is worth considering. The sooner all the foolish talk about the impossibility of uniting the two people ceases, the better.

  Commissioner Jones, in a recent report, calls attention to the fact that the nation has expended over a billion dollars in subduing and attempting to educate the Indians, only to learn of the absolute failure of the “ration system” as a device for making useful or productive citizens of them. That the policy of feeding the Indian at public expense on reservations was the outgrowth of a mistaken philanthropy and was foolish in that it exempted the Indian from the natural and inexorable law that man must earn his living by labor of some kind is now universally recognized. How to rectify the errors growing out of this policy and supplant it by a system that would ultimately induce the Indian to put his hand to the plow is a problem that has engaged the study and activity of Commissioner Jones since his induction into office.

  The most radical change inaugurated was the departure from the custom of dealing with the tribe to that of dealing with the individual. The results attending this change, according to Commissioner Jones, have been most gratifying. The manhood of the Indian is appealed to, and he is taught self-reliance and self-respect. As a result of this policy, over 12,000 have been dropped from the ration roll, being wholly self-supporting, and others not yet self-supporting have been put to work. The Indians will become self-supporting, and will adapt themselves to their white neighbors’ way of life—there is no doubt of it. But they are not yet ready for the struggle on equal terms; they must be protected from speculators and land-grabbers; they must be led to see what economic independence really means; and their education must be adapted to the needs of their future life. Think of them how we will, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that they are still children, with all of the child’s ignorance of modern life, with the child’s helplessness in practical affairs. For a little longer the “Great Father” at Washington must direct them.

  How constant must be the “Great Father’s” vigilance is shown almost every day. It is interesting to compare a part of Mr. Hamlin Garland’s last novel, The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop, with the story of the Standing Rock cattle leases. In the course of the contest over the Standing Rock land leases, now more than a year ago, it became necessary for the Indians to send a delegation of Sioux chiefs to Washington, where, after waiting two weeks, they met the Senate committee on Indian Affairs. They convinced the senators that the cattlemen’s contract, if carried out, would amount to robbery, and would delay the time when the tribe could take up the work of grazing and farming on their own account. The publicity given the matter by the visit of the chiefs led to its being referred directly to President Roosevelt who sent Dr. George Bird Grinnell to Standing Rock. The matter gained wide publicity and it is not improbable that the disclosures made by the Grinnell report will result in the appointment of another agent at Standing Rock. Here is Mr. Garland’s tale worked out in actual life almost before the book was off the press. And, as in the novel, there is a distinctly hopeful ending to the story. Everywhere it is true that eternal vigilance is still necessary to ensure the Indians a chance even to earn a living. Moreover they must be taught how to work. It is not yet enough to say, “Here are lands well protected and productive: take them and develop their resources.” The Indians do not know how to do it,
and they must learn.

  The founders of the new Sherman Institute at Riverside, California, have set an excellent example.2 Here a farm of one hundred acres has been purchased, all under irrigation; ample buildings have been erected to accommodate over three hundred children from the Pacific Coast tribes and those in the Southwest where irrigation must be resorted to in order to raise crops. The idea is to train them in this peculiar method so that the graduates may return to their people equipped for the task of turning deserts into rich fields with the aid of precious water. For the girls there is to be instruction in lace making, dressmaking, fine needlework, basketry, plain sewing, and housework—with all that ranch housekeeping implies. And the peculiar value of an institution like this is that its members can go out of the school to the reservation and take up the work of making a living without readjusting themselves to different methods of work from those prevailing at the training school in a far-away state. If a man is to grow alfalfa to make his land yield a living he is not likely to appreciate half a dozen years of instruction in the planting and cultivation of corn and cotton. For this reason the neighborhood school for industrial training is of the greatest value.

  In the Indian Territory, where, for more than twenty years, the tribes have come into competition with the whites as farmers, stock-raisers, teachers, lawyers, and tradesmen, the process of absorption is far advanced and education has also advanced rapidly. The Cherokees maintain three boarding schools and one colored high school. The enrollment in these four schools is something under five hundred and the expense of maintaining them amounts to about $140.00 a year per capita. For seven months in the twelve one hundred and twenty-four day, or neighborhood, schools, are run, with an average enrollment of 2,200, at a cost of about $14.00 per capita. It is estimated that there are some 8,300 children of school age in the tribe. In the Creek Nation nine boarding schools and fifty-five neighborhood schools are maintained, with an average attendance of over 1,500. The figures for the Choctaw Nation show six boarding, and one hundred and ten day schools, with an enrollment of more than 2,100. Five academies and seventeen primary schools with an approximate enrollment of 850 are supported by the Chickasaw Indians.

  Mere figures, of course, have little meaning in themselves, but when it is known that all of these children are coming out of the schools to enter upon a course of life that brings them into contact with the whites—many of the girls to become the wives of white men—they assume importance. They mean that the Indian problem, so far as the tribes of the Territory are concerned, is being solved by extinguishing the Indian as a distinctive individual and merging him with his white neighbors and competitors. They mean that this process is going on more and more rapidly, and that when the Territory is brought into the ranks of the states, Indians and whites alike will be ready to take up the everyday work of a rich and prosperous commonwealth and do it successfully. And that, after all, is the problem in every tribe.3

  The Problem of Old Harjo, 1907

  The Spirit of the Lord had descended upon old Harjo.4 From the new missionary, just out from New York, he had learned that he was a sinner. The fire in the new missionary’s eyes and her gracious appeal had convinced old Harjo that this was the time to repent and be saved. He was very much in earnest, and he assured Miss Evans that he wanted to be baptized and received into the church at once. Miss Evans was enthusiastic and went to Mrs. Rowell with the news. It was Mrs. Rowell who had said that it was no use to try to convert the older Indians, and she, after fifteen years of work in Indian Territory missions, should have known. Miss Evans was pardonably proud of her conquest.

  “Old Harjo converted!” exclaimed Mrs. Rowell. “Dear Miss Evans, do you know that old Harjo has two wives?” To the older woman it was as if someone had said to her, “Madame, the Sultan of Turkey wishes to teach one of your mission Sabbath school classes.”

  “But,” protested the younger woman, “he is really sincere, and—.”

  “Then ask him,” Mrs. Rowell interrupted a bit sternly, “if he will put away one of his wives. Ask him, before he comes into the presence of the Lord, if he is willing to conform to the laws of the country in which he lives, the country that guarantees his idle existence. Miss Evans, your work is not even begun.” No one who knew Mrs. Rowell would say that she lacked sincerity and patriotism. Her own cousin was an earnest crusader against Mormonism, and had gathered a goodly share of that wagonload of protests that the Senate had been asked to read when it was considering whether a certain statesman of Utah should be allowed to represent his state at Washington.5

  In her practical, tactful way, Mrs. Rowell had kept clear of such embarrassments. At first, she had written letters of indignant protest to the Indian Office against the toleration of bigamy amongst the tribes. A wise inspector had been sent to the mission, and this man had pointed out that it was better to ignore certain things, “deplorable, to be sure,” than to attempt to make over the habits of the old men. Of course, the young Indians would not be permitted to take more than one wife each.

  So Mrs. Rowell had discreetly limited her missionary efforts to the young, and had exercised toward the old and bigamous only that strict charity which even a hopeless sinner might claim.

  Miss Evans, it was to be regretted, had only the vaguest notions about “expediency”; so weak on matters of doctrine was she that the news that Harjo was living with two wives didn’t startle her. She was young and possessed of but one enthusiasm—that for saving souls.

  “I suppose,” she ventured, “that old Harjo must put away one wife before he can join the church?”

  “There can be no question about it, Miss Evans.”

  “Then I shall have to ask him to do it.” Miss Evans regretted the necessity for forcing this sacrifice, but had no doubt that the Indian would make it an order to accept the gift of salvation which she was commissioned to bear to him.

  Harjo lived in a “double” log cabin three miles from the mission. His ten acres of corn had been gathered into its fence-rail crib; four hogs that were to furnish his winter’s bacon had been brought in from the woods and penned conveniently near to the crib; out in a corner of the garden, a fat mound of dirt rose where the crop of turnips and potatoes had been buried against the corrupting frost; and in the hayloft of his log stable were stored many pumpkins, dried corn, onions (suspended in bunches from the rafters) and the varied forage that Mrs. Harjo number one and Mrs. Harjo number two had thriftily provided. Three cows, three young heifers, two colts, and two patient, capable mares bore the Harjo brand, a fantastic “” that the old man had designed. Materially, Harjo was solvent; and if the Government had ever come to his aid he could not recall the date.

  This attempt to rehabilitate old Harjo morally, Miss Evans felt, was not one to be made at the mission; it should be undertaken in the Creek’s own home where the evidences of his sin should confront him as she explained.

  When Miss Evans rode up to the block in front of Harjo’s cabin, the old Indian came out, slowly and with a broadening smile of welcome on his face. A clean gray flannel shirt had taken the place of the white collarless garment, with crackling stiff bosom, that he had worn to the mission meetings. Comfortable, well-patched moccasins had been substituted for creaking boots, and brown corduroys, belted in at the waist, for tight black trousers. His abundant gray hair fell down on his shoulders. In his eyes, clear and large and black, glowed the light of true hospitality. Miss Evans thought of the patriarchs as she saw him lead her horse out to the stable; thus Abraham might have looked and lived.

  “Harjo,” began Miss Evans before following the old man to the covered passageway between the disconnected cabins, “is it true that you have two wives?” Her tone was neither stern nor accusatory. The Creek had heard that question before, from scandalized missionaries and perplexed registry clerks when he went to Muscogee to enroll himself and his family in one of the many “final” records ordered to be made by the Government preparatory to dividing the Creek lands among the indi
vidual citizens.

  For answer, Harjo called, first into the cabin that was used as a kitchen and then, in a loud, clear voice, toward the small field, where Miss Evans saw a flock of half-grown turkeys running about in the corn stubble. From the kitchen emerged a tall, thin Indian woman of fifty-five, with a red handkerchief bound severely over her head. She spoke to Miss Evans and sat down in the passageway. Presently, a clear, sweet voice was heard in the field; a stout, handsome woman, about the same age as the other, climbed the rail fence and came up to the house. She, also, greeted Miss Evans briefly. Then she carried a tin basin to the well near by, where she filled it to the brim. Setting it down on the horse block, she rolled back her sleeves, tucked in the collar of her gray blouse, and plunged her face in the water. In a minute she came out of the kitchen freshened and smiling. ’Liza Harjo had been pulling dried bean stalks at one end of the field, and it was dirty work. At last old Harjo turned to Miss Evans and said, “These two my wife—this one ’Liza, this one Jennie.”

  It was done with simple dignity. Miss Evans bowed and stammered. Three pairs of eyes were turned upon her in patient, courteous inquiry.

  It was hard to state the case. The old man was so evidently proud of his women, and so flattered by Miss Evans’ interest in them, that he would find it hard to understand. Still, it had to be done, and Miss Evans took the plunge.

  “Harjo, you want to come into our church?” The old man’s face lighted.

  “Oh, yes, I would come to Jesus, please, my friend.”

  “Do you know, Harjo, that the Lord commanded that one man should mate with but one woman? The question was stated again in simpler terms, and the Indian replied, “Me know that now, my friend. Long time ago”—Harjo plainly meant the whole period previous to his conversion—“me did not know. The Lord Jesus did not speak to me in that time and so I was blind. I do what blind man do.”