The Red and the White: A Family Saga of the American West

by Andrew R. Graybill

  78 The article originally appeared in two installments of the National Anti-Slavery Standard with the title “A Plea for the Indian,” before being reissued in pamphlet form. For a reprint of the essay see Carolyn L. Karcher, ed., A Lydia Maria Child Reader (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1997), 79–94.

  79 Lydia Maria Child, “The Indians,” Standard 1, no. 1 (May 1870): 2. This periodical, which published only three issues, between May and July 1870, was the successor to the National Anti-Slavery Standard.

  80 New York Times, 19 May 1870.

  81 U.S. Congress, Piegan Indians, 70–71.

  82 New York Times, 19 May 1870.

  83 U.S. Congress, Public Acts of the Forty-First Congress, 2nd sess. (1870), chap. 294, 319. President Grant, apparently, was infuriated by this maneuver, and—according to Sherman—declared to his opponents (who, presumably, hoped to install their own supporters in the Indian agency positions), “Gentlemen, you have defeated my plan of Indian management; but you shall not succeed in your purpose, for I will divide these appointments up among the religious churches, with which you dare not contend.” Quoted in Waltmann, “Circumstantial Reformer,” 334 (emphasis in the original).

  84 U.S. Congress, Second Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, Senate Executive Document 39, 41st Cong., 3rd sess. (1871), 90–91.

  85 Hutton, “Phil Sheridan’s Pyrrhic Victory,” 41. See also Sully, No Tears for the General, 210–34.

  86 James H. Bradley, The March of the Montana Column: A Prelude to the Custer Disaster, ed. Edgar I. Stewart (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1961), 55–63.

  87 Eugene Mortimer Baker chronology, GAI, SGF.

  88 There are two sources for this interview, and they differ slightly on various details: Martha E. Plassmann, notes taken in an interview with Horace Clarke [n.d.], MTHS, Horace Clarke Reminiscence (cited hereafter as HCR), SC 540; and Martha E. Plassmann, “A Double Heritage,” MTHS, Martha E. Plassmann Papers (cited hereafter after as MEP), MC 78, box 4, folder 18. I find the first of these more reliable, because the notes were presumably taken at the time of the interview, and because Plassmann confessed to adding “minor touches to render [the article] more salable.” See letter from Martha E. Plassmann to James Knapp Reeve, 29 June 1926, MTHS, MEP, MC 78, box 2, folder 24. Plassmann was the daughter of Sidney Edgerton, the first territorial governor of Montana (1864–66).

  89 Plassmann, “A Double Heritage.” Plassmann stated that Horace was eighty-two, which would place his date of birth in 1844, an impossibility, since that was around the time of his parents’ marriage and before the birth of his older sister, Helen.

  90 Martha E. Plassmann, notes taken in an interview with Horace Clarke [n.d.], MTHS, HCR, SC 540.

  91 Letter from Plassmann to Reeve, 29 June 1926, MTHS, MEP, MC 78, box 2, folder 24.

  92 Plassmann, notes taken in an interview with Horace Clarke [n.d.], MTHS, HCR, SC 540. In “A Double Heritage” he remembers the Indian’s name as “Big Nose.”

  93 Letter from Francis Paul Prucha, S.J., to Stan Gibson, 4 Feb. 1997, GAI, SGF.

  94 Helena Weekly Herald, 1 Jan. 1880.

  95 James Willard Schultz, “Joe Kipp,” MTHS, James Willard Schultz Papers, SC 721.

  96 Letter from Stan Gibson to Jack Hayne, 6 May 1995, GAI, SGF. James Welch paints an unsparing portrait of Kipp in Fools Crow, depicting the scout as callous and opportunistic.

  97 Martha E. Plassmann, “That Affair on the Marias,” Aug. 1934, MTHS, MEP, MC 78, box 4, folder 12.

  98 Martha E. Plassmann, “The Baker Massacre,” Sept. 1925, MTHS, MEP, MC 78, box 2, folder 15.

  99 See Hugh A. Dempsey, The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories: Three Hundred Years of Blackfeet History (1994; Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 47–58.

  100 Assessment records from the period show that Clarke was one of the most successful livestock owners in the area, running 125 cattle with an aggregate value of $1,500. See, e.g., Chouteau County Assessment records, 1878, Montana State University, Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections, WPA Records, collection 2336, box 68, folder 2. Horace and Margaret did not have their union solemnized until 24 April 1883. See marriage license [photocopy] of Horace J. Clarke and Margaretta [sic], MTHS, Malcolm Clarke, vertical file.

  101 Plassmann, notes taken in an interview with Horace Clarke [n.d.], MTHS, HCR, SC 540.

  102 See Margaret Spanish obituary, Great Falls Tribune, 29 Sept. 1940.

  103 Statement of Joe Kipp, 8 Feb. 1913, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  104 Letter from Arthur McFatridge to commissioner of Indian affairs, 8 Feb. 1913, MTHS, HRR, MF 53. Regarding the agent’s motivations, given his corruption (which led to his removal in 1915), it is possible that he hoped to receive a share of any settlement himself.

  105 Letters from Arthur McFatridge to commissioner of Indian affairs, 14 Jan. and 17 March 1914, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  106 Letter from assistant secretary of the interior to secretary of war, 7 April 1914, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  107 Statement of Bear Head, 18 Jan. 1915, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  108 Statement of Mrs. Frank Monroe, 18 Jan. 1915, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  109 Statement of Joe Kipp, 16 Jan. 1915, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  110 For more on Lane, who was a strong advocate for Indian rights and a withering critic of government policy toward its indigenous peoples, see Robert D. Johnston, The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2003), 29–45.

  111 Letter from first assistant secretary of the interior to Henry F. Ashurst, 20 Feb. 1915, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  112 See statement of Good Bear Woman, 15 Jan. 1916, and statement of Buffalo Trail Woman, 16 Jan. 1916, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  113 Letter from Dick Kipp to Senator H. L. Myers, 1 Dec. 1916, National Archives and Records Administration, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, central classified files, 1907–39, PI-163, E-121, Blackfeet, box 93, file 18498-1913-260.

  114 Statement of Horace J. Clarke, 9 Nov. 1920, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  115 See letter from Charles H. Burke to Scott Leavitt, 30 Jan. 1926, MTHS, HRR, MF 53.

  116 David Hilger, “An Historical Foot-Race,” 4 Dec. 1923, MTHS, David Hilger Papers, SC 854, folder 5.

  117 It is worth noting that after Malcolm’s murder, James Fergus (Andrew’s father) bought the Clarke ranch from Horace and lived there for ten years with his family.

  118 Letter from David Hilger to Horace Clarke, 4 Sept. 1924, MTHS, Helen P. Clarke Papers, SC 1153, folder 2.

  119 David Hilger, interview with Horace Clarke, 27 Sept. 1924, MTHS, HCR, SC 540.

  120 Great Falls Tribune, 23 Jan. 2007. For a more extended description of a Blackfeet visit to the Big Bend, see Stan Gibson, “Visit to the Baker Massacre Site,” [n.d.], GAI, SGF. See also author interview with Lea Whitford, June 2007.

  Chapter 4: The Bird That Comes Home

  1 For more on the movie and its reception, see Angela Aleiss, Making the White Man’s Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005), 19–21. For DeMille’s involvement with the film, see Robert S. Birchard, Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2004), 1–13. See also Scott Eyman, Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).

  2 Letter from Helen P. Clarke to Edwin M. Royle, 15 Feb. 1911, Montana Historical Society (cited hereafter as MTHS), Helen P. Clarke Papers (cited hereafter as HPC), SC 1153, folder 2.

  3 Letter from Edwin M. Royle to Helen P. Clarke, 22 Feb. 1911, MTHS, HPC, SC 1153, folder 2. The book suggested by Royle was Jean Finot, Race Prejudice (London: Archibald Constable, 1906).

  4 Quoted in Eleanor Ruggles, Prince of Players: Edwin Booth (New York: Norton, 1953), 211. Nora Titone explores the rivalry between the brothers in My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy (New York: Free Press, 2011).

  5 F
or the richest description of Booth’s Theatre, see William Winter, Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), 82–90. It is worth noting that the cost of the theater bankrupted Booth, who had to go on tour in order to pay off his debts, a circumstance that kept him working feverishly even into his declining years. Thanks to Tice Miller for drawing my attention to this information.

  6 John Frick, “A Changing Theatre: New York and Beyond,” in The Cambridge History of American Theatre, ed. Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby, vol. 2 (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999), 206–10. For a broader perspective on the U.S. theater scene of the period, see Tice L. Miller, Entertaining the Nation: American Drama in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 2007).

  7 The house (at 603 Fifth St., SE) still stands and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

  8 The fire (likely caused by faulty wiring) destroyed the East Glacier home formerly occupied by Horace and Helen. At the time of the conflagration the house had passed to Horace’s granddaughter Joyce Clarke Turvey and her husband, Irv. Great Falls Tribune, 29 April 1962.

  9 Great Falls Tribune, 15 May 1932; undated reminiscence by Bessie C. Wells, MTHS, HPC, SC 1153, folder 1.

  10 Thomas F. Meagher, “A Journey to Benton,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 1, no. 4 (Oct. 1951): 49. Meagher had served as acting governor of Montana Territory for less than two years when on 1 July 1867 (under mysterious circumstances) he fell into the Missouri River from a steamboat docked at Fort Benton. His body was never recovered.

  11 Undated reminiscence by Bessie C. Wells, MTHS, HPC, SC 1153, folder 1.

  12 Quoted in Claire Lamont, “Meg the Gipsy in Scott and Keats,” English 36, no. 155 (Summer 1987): 139–40.

  13 Journal of James Upson Sanders, entry for 17 June 1885, MTHS, James Upson Sanders Papers (cited hereafter as JUS), MC 66, box 2, folder 4.

  14 Undated reminiscence by Bessie C. Wells, MTHS, HPC, SC 1153, folder 1.

  15 Robert Gottlieb, “The Drama of Sarah Bernhardt,” New York Review of Books, 10 May 2007, p. 10. The article contains an excellent bibliography of important books about the actress. See also Gottlieb’s recent biography, Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2010).

  16 Great Falls Tribune, 15 May 1932. Lesley Wischmann offers another explanation for the endemic financial problems that plagued former traders and their families; she writes of Alexander Culbertson that “he had become accustomed to the Indian tradition in which a gift given today is reciprocated at some future date. However, in white society, gifts given were often accepted with no sense of future obligation. In all likelihood, Culbertson was deeply in debt before he even realized a problem existed.” See Frontier Diplomats: Alexander Culbertson and Natoyist-Siksina’ among the Blackfeet (2000; Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 312.

  17 Joyce Clarke Turvey, “Helen Piotopowaka Clarke,” in History of Glacier County, Montana, ed. Joy MacCarter (Cut Bank, Mont.: Glacier County Historical Society, 1984), 87.

  18 For Sanders’s role in the trial and its bloody aftermath, see Frederick Allen, A Decent, Orderly Lynching: The Montana Vigilantes (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 185–97.

  19 A. C. McClure, “Wilbur Fisk Sanders,” Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana (1917; Boston: J. S. Canner, 1966), 8:25–35. The murder trial involved a Blood Indian named Spopee, or Turtle, who—despite the best efforts of Sanders and his co-counsel, Judge William Chumasero—was convicted of the murder of a white man named Charles Wamesley. Spopee languished in a federal asylum for more than thirty years before he was discovered in 1914 by a Blackfeet delegation visiting Washington, D.C., who then helped him secure a presidential pardon from Woodrow Wilson. Spopee returned to the Blackfeet Reservation, where he died less than a year after his release. For his remarkable story see William E. Farr, Blackfeet Redemption: A Blood Indian’s Story of Murder, Confinement, and Imperfect Justice (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2012).

  20 Letter from Wilbur Fisk Sanders to Helen P. Clarke, 28 March 1876, MTHS, HPC, SC 1153, folder 2.

  21 See Jurgen Herbst, Women Pioneers of Public Education: How Culture Came to the Wild West (New York: Palgrave, 2008); and Andrea G. Radke-Moss, “Learning in the West: Western Women and the Culture of Education,” in The World of the American West, ed. Gordon Morris Bakken (New York: Rout-ledge, 2011), 387–417. For instance, in 1886 in Lewis and Clark County, the largest in Montana, male teachers made $100 annually while women earned only $60. See Eighth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, of the Territory of Montana, for the Year 1886 (Helena: Fisk Brothers, 1887), 28.

  22 For Clarke’s various residential addresses during this period, see the holdings of the Helena City Directory at the MTHS. For her visits to the Sanders home, see journal of James Upson Sanders, JUS, MC 66, box 2, folders 1–5.

  23 Martha E. Plassmann, “A Double Heritage,” MTHS, Martha E. Plassmann Papers, MC 78, box 4, folder 18.

  24 Letter from Henry [last name unknown] to Helen P. Clarke, 11 Jan. 1884, MTHS, HPC, SC 1153, folder 2.

  25 A careful consideration of Clarke’s Piegan name, including its spelling, pronunciation, and meaning, is in Jack Holterman, “The Homing Bird: The Story of Helen Clarke,” unpublished manuscript in author’s possession. Another variation offered by the Blackfoot scholar Marvin Weatherwax is “Comes Walking from a Distance.” Author interview with Marvin Weatherwax, Oct. 2006.

  26 This explanation appears in multiple sources, the earliest of which is an undated obituary (presumably from 1923, the year of Clarke’s death) in The Grass Range Review, which can be found in MTHS, Helen P. Clarke, vertical file (cited hereafter as HPCVF). See also letter from David Hilger to Mrs. Lou Stocking Stewart, 28 March 1934, HPC, SC 1153, folder 1.

  27 For the report of Nathan’s death, see letter from George Heldt to Francis [should be Helen?] Clarke, 18 Sept. 1872, MTHS, HPC, SC 1153, folder 2. See also clipping from Isabell Lewis Tabor, Great Falls Yesterday, Comprising a Collection of Biographies and Reminiscences of Early Settlers (Helena: Montana Historical Society Library, 1939), found in MTHS, Malcolm Clarke, vertical file; and Helena Weekly Herald, 26 Sept. 1872. More than 125 years later, Joyce Clarke Turvey, Nathan’s grand-niece, located his grave near the town of Ulm, Mont., and erected a memorial on the site. See Glacier Reporter, 17 Dec. 1998.

  28 Rex C. Myers, Lizzie: The Letters of Elizabeth Chester Fisk, 1864–1893 (Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Press, 1989), 107. Helen’s devout Catholicism may also have concerned Lizzie Fisk.

  29 Geoffrey C. Ward, The West: An Illustrated History (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996), 302. For a recent retelling of the engagement, see Nathaniel Philbrick, Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (New York: Viking, 2010).

  30 See Elliott West, The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009).

  31 Letter from L. W. Cooke to commissioner of Indian affairs, 7 March 1895, National Archives and Records Administration (cited hereafter as NARA), Bureau of Indian Affairs (cited hereafter as BIA), Record Group (cited hereafter as RG) 75, letters received, box 1183, file 13968.

  32 See Ariela J. Gross, What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2009), 223–30; and Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009), 7–8. As Gross explains, some scholars of the day disagreed with this assessment, most notably the pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas, who argued in his 1894 study The Half-Blood Indian that hybridization actually produced stronger—not weaker—offspring. For more on the emergence of scientific racism as it applied to Indian peoples in particular, see Brian W. Dippie, The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy (Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1982).

  33 Great Falls Daily Tribune, 5 July 1914.

  34 For Sanders’s derisive nickname, see Clark C. Sp
ence, “The Territorial Officers of Montana, 1864–1889,” Pacific Historical Review 30, no. 2 (May 1961), 125. Sanders did achieve his own political success when in 1890 he was appointed to serve as one of Montana’s first two senators (though he lost his bid for reelection in 1892).

  35 Clark C. Spence, Territorial Politics and Government in Montana, 1864–89 (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1975), 201. Women did not win the vote in Montana until 1914.

  36 Fort Benton River Press Weekly, 20 September 1882. My thanks to Ken Robison for directing me to this information.

  37 See, e.g., the Seventh Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Territory of Montana, for the Year 1885 (Helena: Fisk Brothers, 1886), 59.

  38 Clarke’s salary fluctuated between $750 and $1,000 throughout her time in office.

  39 For vote totals, see Helena Weekly Herald, 13 Nov. 1884. For his part, Rails-back did not go gently, insisting two days after the election that—contrary to reports—he would not concede until his defeat was assured. See Helena Weekly Independent, 6 Nov. 1884.

  40 Undated newspaper clipping, MTHS, HPCVF.

  41 For more on Aspasia and her controversial relationship with Pericles, see Donald Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1991), 181–84; and Anthony J. Podlecki, Perikles and His Circle (New York: Routledge, 1998), 109–17.

  42 Monterey New Era, 1 Jan. 1902. Why this story (which was written by a Helena correspondent) appeared in a California newspaper is unclear.

  43 For more on Dawes, see Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (1984; Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2001), 28–39. Brooks’s uncle was a senator from South Carolina whom Sumner had ridiculed mercilessly in a stinging condemnation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

  44 U.S. Congress, The Annual Message of the President, House Document 1, 57th Cong., 1st sess. (1901), xlvii.

  45 Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2005), 257.