Dr. Kate: Angel on Snowshoes

The Hollywood screenwriter, Adele Commandini saw an episode of TV's "This Is Your Life" which moved her to research and write a full-length biography. Dr. Kate: Angel on Snowshoes was a nationwide bestseller in 1956.

In 2009 the Wisconsin Historical Society Press released another book by the same title for a juvenile audience. I recommend the current and much abbreviated Dr. Kate: Angel on Snowshoes especially to schoolchildren, but also to any interested adults. I have thought very highly of Dr. Kate since I visited the Dr. Kate Pelham Newcomb Museum in Woodruff a few years ago. And it seems the author, Rebecca Hogue Wojahn, understands what was so special about Dr. Kate: she simply wanted to help people.

There are, of course, other remarkable things about Dr. Kate. Wojahn manages not only to include them but she also puts them in context for today's young readers.

It was about 1890. Kate was just four years old and her mother died in childbirth. That and similar tragedies led to an interest in a career in medicine (and the specialty of obstetrics), which, of course, was discouraged back then because women weren't supposed to become doctors.  Kate Pelham was well into her 20's by the time her father realized that a medical career would make his daughter happy. From that point on he supported her in that goal. When Kate had two marriage proposals to choose from, her father also told her to pick the one that would make her happy, even if he was a mechanic instead of a doctor.

The man that Kate married, Bill Newcomb, was supportive of Kate's career. However, it wasn't long before Bill started coughing. Bill had previously worked at a defense plant where he breathed metal particles that remained in his lungs. Living in Detroit was making Bill's condition worse. He moved to Wisconsin's northwoods and Kate soon followed.  Just making a go of it away from civilization was tough and when Kate was about to give birth the child didn't make it. She knew it was the doctor's fault - he had given her a strong sedative. This sad event appears to have been such a turn-off that Kate had no intention of resuming her medical career.

In 1928, Kate gave birth to Tommy. When Tommy's fingers were "crushed" by a car door a few years later, Kate's expertise in first aid was discovered by the local physician. He angrily told Kate that her talent was being wasted and at a later date he called and told her that a woman near her house would die if Kate didn't go to her. So Kate Newcomb was pushed back into her old career.

From that point on, as the back cover of Dr. Kate states, she went to her patients "by car, by snowmobile, by canoe and on snowshoes. [And she] never sent a bill," often accepting things like canned vegetables or firewood as payment. I imagine that is enough material for a book right there. But the story isn't over. Kate's love for the people of the northwoods was reciprocated by the community. When Dr. Kate made it known that the area needed a hospital, the people went to work raising money for it - and that fundraising effort might just be the best part of the whole book.

 

Algonkian Church History: Top Seven Posts of 2014

[caption id="attachment_9175" align="aligncenter" width="300"] From the back cover of Proud and Determined.[/caption]

My most popular blogposts this year may have been created prior to this year and prior to the creation of Stockmohistory.com.

Based on the number of hits received thus far this year, seven posts stood out as fan favorites:



1. Bury My Heart at the Monastery

2. A Map of the Stockbridge Mohicans' "Trail of Tears"

3. The Many Trails Symbol and a pdf about the Folk Art of Wisconsin Indians

4. What Was the American Indian Population in 1492?

5. Little Turtle, William Wells, and "Mad" Anthony Wayne

6. Still There! The Lenape and Nanticoke Indians of New Jersey

7. Joseph Smith and the Legend of the Golden Bible

 

Who Was Jean Baptiste Richardville?

Jean Baptiste Richardville's father was a French trader. His mother, Tacumwah, aka Mary Louise, was a Miami Indian. Tacumwah's brother Pacanne was a chief and they may have also been related to Little Turtle. Born in present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1761, Richardville benefitted from a Catholic education and knowledge of trade thanks to his father and also benefitted from his mother's high status in her tribe as well as her control of trade at the portage that connected the Maumee and Wabash rivers.

Anyway, Jean Baptiste Richardville started life out as more of a Euro-American and as he got older and became chief of his mother's people, he was more of an Indian, known by the Miami name of Pechewa, the Wild Cat.

It wasn't until 1816 that Richardville succeeded his uncle as tribal chief. Historian Donald Gaff (150) describes what his life was like until then.

While many faced a harsh existence, Richardville wore fine European clothing and dined with what would have been the high society of the frontier. One contemporary described days filled with drinking, card playing, and concerts. If that were not European enough, Richardville joined a newly formed society named "Most Light Honorable Society of Monks," known later as "Friars of St. Andrew." He also threw parties at his house , including one for Mardi Gras. All of these activities enhanced his business dealings with Europeans and Americans.

And he was the wealthiest Indian in America. Inside his house there was French wallpaper, silk curtains, chandeliers and imported carpets. Outside there was a wharf on the St. Mary's River, as well as a barn and a racetrack (Gaff, 151).

Despite all of his wealth, the younger Richardville was still a Miami and he represented the tribe at treaties. In fact, that is where his great wealth came from. Did Richardville skim more of the wealth from his negotiations off the top than the Miami intended? Indian agent John Tipton observed that "the utmost confidence is reposed in him [by the tribe]." Instead of resenting their half-white brother for his success,  the Miami respected his oratorical skill and his ability to maneuver in negotiations with the United States (Gaff, 151).

When he died in 1841, Richardville was the richest man in Indiana. His negotiations allowed Miami descendants to remain in Indiana on privately owned land for many years after treaties had officially removed the tribe.

 

Source:

Gaff, Donald H.  "Three Men from Three Rivers: Navigating between Native and American Identity in the Old Northwest Territory." Printed in The Boundaries between Us, Daniel P. Barr, editor. Kent State University Press, 2006: Kent, Ohio.

Migrations of Native Christian Communities Recorded by W. DeLoss Love

[caption id="attachment_9101" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The red dot is the location of the Brothertown Reservation in the 1830's.[/caption]

W. DeLoss Love's 1899 book, Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England, is, of course more than just a biography. It is still one of the best places to go for the history of the Brothertown Indians. Plus, chapter XIII is called "Indian Friends at Stockbridge." It bears repeating here that the Brothertown Indians had started their settlement in New York State prior to the Revolutionary War, but, finding that location to be unsafe, they retreated to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts for six years. According to Love (page 243), it was the friendships formed during those years that resulted in the Stockbridge Mohicans becoming neighbors with the Brothertown and  Oneida Indians in New York State starting in the 1780's. (As you may know, the move for the Stockbridges was necessary, because they had lost their land - much of it in fraudulent ways.)

Love correctly notes that some of the Stockbridge Mohicans moved to Indiana in 1818.

At this time they began to sell their lands, and this continued until they were all established again beside their friends, the Brothertown Indians, on the east side of Winnebago Lake, in Wisconsin (page 245).

Chapter XXVII, The Last Remove, discusses that in much more detail. On pages 316-317 Love describes the New York Indians' attempted move to Indiana's White River.

It had been determined at Brothertown in 1812 to begin a settlement at White River. [War] deterred them, and many of their number enlisted in the United States service. Some never returned. Finally, when peace had been restored, the town voted, January 13, 1817, to choose five men to go there "in pursuit of a tract of land heretofore sought for by their delegates sent there in the year 1809, and to get a title to it." The Stockbridge tribe also were preparing to remove. Two families went in 1817 and more the next season. On the twenty-fourth of July, 1818, Rev. John Sergeant assembled the tribe in anticipation of this pilgrimage. the old church then dismissed and formed into a new body eleven of their number, for whom he transcribed the Confession of Faith and Covenant in English, adding in their own language a Covenant especially adapted to their circumstances. On the fifteenth of August following, some having gone and more being then ready to depart, another meeting was held, at which the chief, Hendrick Aupaumut, in a "large speech" presented to them from the old church a copy of Scott's Bible "to read on Lord's Days and at other religious meetings." So they said farewell and were gone to return no more.

Love's Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England

The back cover of my copy of Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England is, of course, a pretty good introduction or teaser to what is on the inside. In bold letters it says "W. DeLoss Love's biography of Samson Occom is a work of its time."

It was reprinted in 2000 with an introduction by historian Margaret Connell Szasz. In the 100+ years between it's original publication and the reprint, nobody managed to write a better biography of Occom. Szasz's introduction, however, was needed because it brings needed perspective to today's readers - and she correctly pointed out the book's shortcomings vis-à-vis the reality that it was written by a white man in the 1890's.

In regards to Occom himself, Szasz notes that he was part of a tradition of Native Americans who converted to Christianity and then visited Britain. The first Indian to do so being Pocahontas in 1616. But Occom took it another step farther. Not only was he a Christian, but he was an educated and ordained Presbyterian minister. He raised over 12,000 pounds in a speaking tour. Only to see it go towards establishing a white institution (Dartmouth College) instead of the Indian school he intended the money to go to.

Use this link to read other posts about Samson Occom.

 

Dorothy Ripley's Mission to the New York Indians (part 2)

[caption id="attachment_9025" align="alignright" width="231"] Independent missionary Dorothy Ripley self-published her journal as "The Bank of Faith and Works United."[/caption]

As we saw in part 1, Englishwoman Dorothy Ripley's 1805 mission to the New York Indians included preaching to the Stockbridge Mohicans and the Oneidas.

After being put up in the home of a white Quaker, Ms. Ripley went on to minister to the Brothertown Indians. She found these Christian Indians - like Christian whites of that time - to be divided on the question of who can be saved.

I went to Brothertown to collect the Indians there together, in the school-house.... Those Indians were Baptists, divided into two classes, one part believed in election, and the other in free salvation. Where I was, they had refused their minister, because they said "They would not worship such a cruel God as he served, as He only took care of a part of his creatures," and drew this comparison, by asking a question concerning their women: "Would not she be a cruel mother, who having two children, took one and nursed it; and left the other to perish? So we will worship a God who takes care of all His children;" which I think was an excellent conclusion and a sound argument was advanced to show how far an Indian is capable of believing in the Living and True God.

A couple days later Dorothy Ripley was back in New Stockbridge, New York.

A meeting was held again in Stockbridge, for the instruction of the poor Natives, who are dear to me. There are some of the [Delaware] Jersey Indians among this tribe, and the whole number here, are rising three hundred... This day two of the missionaries, and a young clergyman were present, while my soul was earnestly engaged for the good of the Indians; but I verily believe by their proceedings it was their opinion that a woman ought not to preach: for one of them said afterwards, had I "come to teach them to knit and sew it would be very well."

At the moment of her departure, the women of the tribe presented Dorothy Ripley with an address, which had actually been written by Captain Hendrick, the Mohican chief that was serving as her interpreter:

Dear Sister,
We the poor women of the Muhheconnuk nation, wish to speak [a] few words to you to inform you that while our forefathers were sitting by the side of their ancient fireplace, about eighty years ago, our father, Rev. Mr. Sergeant's father, came amongst them with the message of the Great and Good Spirit, which he then began to deliver to them. He was the first minister of the gospel that ever preached to our fathers, and the Great and Good Spirit blessed his labors, by which means many of our poor natives were turned from darkness to light....

You can continue reading this on page 111 of The Bank of Faith and Works United.

Dorothy Ripley's Mission to the New York Indians in 1805 (part 1)

[caption id="attachment_9014" align="aligncenter" width="672"] Known as "New Stockbridge" in 1805, the present-day village of Stockbridge, New York has retained it's rural character for more than 200 years.[/caption]

 

Born in 1767 in the quaint seaside town of Whitby, in Yorkshire, England, Dorothy Ripley felt called to the ministry as a teenager (or perhaps sooner). Since she did not work under the auspices of an organized church or mission society, her remarkable career is not particularly well-documented. We know that she made at least ten and possibly as many as nineteen mission trips across the Atlantic. Perhaps her specialty was slaves and free blacks in the south. But she ministered to other Americans, including  prisoners, and, the New York Indians.

Ripley's journal, published by her as The Bank of Faith and Works United is worth reading for anybody trying to understand what it meant to be a Christian Indian in 1805. Here she tells of her meeting with the Stockbridge Mohicans.

I went to their church, which is distinguished by a steeple, that you can see some distance off. It is a neat, clean wood building, with glass windows and a handsome entrance, having a gallery some distance off. It is a neat, clean, wood building, with glass windows and a handsome entrance, having a gallery all round excepting where the minister sits. The minister took his seat in the pulpit, desiring me to sit in a pew underneath, where three of his daughters sat alongside of me, dressed as fashionable as any women in middle rank, although there were but few to see them, except the Indians who all came with a blanket round them, unless it were the young men and women who were foolishly hung with feathers, and head tires of bright tin mettle. The Indians fantastically dressed, sung a psalm feelingly which moved my passion of love, so that I wept all the time tears of joy. After this [Rev. John Sergeant] prayed in Indian and then in English, and gave out a second psalm, which was sung as the other admirably. The minister then read part of the fourteenth chapter of Mark, which Captain Hendrick, a Chief, also read in Indian; and I was at liberty to preach to them as long as I thought proper, or in other words, while my master furnished me with matter for the occasion, having desired Him to be both Mouth and Wisdom to me..... (100-101)

Ripley may have spent more time writing about her preaching and how she felt about it than about the Indians she was preaching to. After she was done preaching

Many of the Indians gladly took my by the hand, which affectionately I saluted after the same manner, knowing One God was our Father, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of all (102).

Later that week, Dorothy Ripley was with the Oneidas. She confirmed something that male missionaries had previously noted. Only one of the Oneida men, an old chief named Skanando, was an active Christian. The way Ripley says this sounds judgmental to my modern ears:

The women are much better than the men and have a greater knowledge of God before their eyes, which preserves them from intoxication, and other evils, that the men are liable to be overtaken with, when they are deprived of their reason by strong drink.

Stay tuned. Later that week we'll see what happens when Dorothy Ripley visits the Brothertown Indians.

Causes and Consequences of King Philip's War

 

[caption id="attachment_9004" align="aligncenter" width="461"] "Early American Conflict" is by an unknown artist who was not a witness to King Philip's War.[/caption]

In my previous post, we saw that the New England Indians in the 1600's were selective at first in what aspects of white culture and Christianity they would take on.

But, as often happens, one thing led to another and the once tentative converts gradually became the praying Indians, taking on more white ways than before. So missionaries like John Eliot and other influential English people helped the converted Indians gain status outside of traditional Native social systems. And that created tensions - or intensified existing tensions - between the praying Indians and the Indians who were still trying to walk a traditional path.

 

Exactly why King Philip (aka Metacomet, a Wampanoag chief) decided to attack the English is a complex question, but his intention of doing so didn't start the war. As word spread among that Natives that King Philip was preparing to fight, John Eliot's scribe, a Natick Indian named John Sassamon, warned his white friends. Sassamon was murdered. Three Indians were accused and tried based on the testimony of only one witness. Maybe a war over race and culture would have happened anyway, but the murder of Sassamon and the trial that came after it made war a sure thing.

And, as I stated in an earlier post, King Philip's War was one of the bloodiest in American history. It was devastating to the "traditional" Indians, devastating to the praying Indians and devastating to the English. Harold Van Lonkhuyzen tells us that King Philip's War:

changed the context of English-Indian relations and terminated the special relationship that had allowed the two communities to derive mutual benefits from each other. Engendering a wave of vicious anti-Indian feeling, the war encouraged the English to believe that all Indians were 'fiendish sons of Satan' and threats to God's people.

And the hard feelings were mutual. The Christian Indians never regained the trust they had for the English.

How the Natick Indians Became Christians

[caption id="attachment_8984" align="aligncenter" width="753"] Native Christianity reached a peak in 1674. King Philip's War proved to be disastrous for the praying Indians. Many of them died or were forced into servitude or even slavery.[/caption]

John Eliot started preaching to Indians in the 1640's, but he didn't get his first convert until 1652. That convert was Waban. Waban himself was quoted in an award-winning scholarly article published in 1990.

After the great sickness [an epidemic in 1633-34], I considered what the English do; and I had some desire to do as they do; and  after that I began to work as they work; and then I wondered how the English came to be so strong to labor.

At the same time, one of the first things that the women of Waban's band wanted to learn from John Eliot was how to spin wool into cloth.

Taking that and other data that had been recorded prior to 1730, the historian, Harold Van Lonkhuyzen, comes to the conclusion that "Indians' individual motivations in first adopting Christianity... appear to have been highly specific, rather modest, and perhaps not at all what the missionaries might have wished."

This, of course, doesn't mean that the praying Indians of New England didn't gradually learn about the religion that was brought to them from across the Atlantic. But they didn't become complete Christians quickly. Van Lonkhuyzen puts it this way:

These Indians were eager to make use of European goods and technologies as a means not of abandoning, but of fulfilling their traditional way of life.

To put it simply, the Indians were selective. Aspects of Christianity that they came to embrace tended to have some kind of function in their traditional mindset. One example that Van Lonkhuyzen gives is the "considerable evidence that one of the major attractions of praying to God was the protection it offered from the sorcery of the powwows [that is, the shamans or medicine men]."

According to Van Lonkhuyzen, the Indian converts were "trying to enhance rather than abandon their traditional order [and] tried to take only what they wanted of the missionary program."

 

The Praying Indians: The Unlikely and Tenuous Survival of John Eliot's Converts

As of about 1670, about one-fourth of New England's Natives were Christians. They lived in fourteen towns, the first and most important being Natick, Massachusetts.

Like Christian Indians that would come generations after them, the so-called praying Indians were "neither fish nor foul." It is hard to put them in a category. Although they had adopted some white ways, they weren't actually trying to be white. And although they were genuine Natives, they were living in "towns" instead of villages, so they weren't recognized as political units in any larger Native nation.



So the uniquely vulnerable praying Indians became refugees - or maybe it would be more accurate to say they were prisoners of war. Here's how the praying Indians website describes it.

In the winter of 1675, fueled by fears of King Phillip (Metacom), [the] mighty Wampanoag Chief, the colonists removed the Natick Praying Indians to Deer Island. At midnight in the month of October, holding their Bibles and with [their missionary, John] Eliot seeking to comfort them, they were taken to Deer Island in Boston Harbor where they were confined. The first Praying Indian Village of Natick suffered severely. Abandoned by their colonial Christian brethren, the Natick Praying Indians were left unprotected on the frigid Island. A month later the Praying Indian Villages of Ponkapoag (Stoughton, MA) and Nashoba (Littleton, MA) were added to the tragic confinement from 1675-1676. By this time the other villages received news of the imprisonment and either fled or joined Metacom, the Wompanoag Chief also known as King Phillip by the colonists for his military prowess. Natives captured were also placed on Long Island in Boston Harbor. However [due to factors such as] little clothing, starvation and enforced deprivation including being forbidden to light fires, hunt game or build shelters, most lives were lost. The young, the old, the pregnant and the weak could not survive. Most of the Indians died of cold and starvation. The sad story is documented of the elderly Eliot going by boat to bring supplies to the Natives and being capsized by angered colonists. During the Island imprisonment some of the praying Indians were coerced into spying and fighting for the colonist. History would eventually misconstrue this bid for the freedom of death and suffering...as weakness and dishonorable betrayal to their Native heritage.

It was long believed that King Philip's War wiped out the praying Indians. Instead, their loss in numbers weakened them to the point that they became invisible. But they lived on, remaining in the east, and they arguably still exist, at least to the point of having a website.

Without a doubt, the praying Indians stayed together at least until 1790, as the subtitle of a book about them makes clear. The Amazon page for Jean M. O'Brien's Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790 was used as a source for this post.

 

Children at LCO's Waadookodaading School Sing for Senator Tammy Baldwin

Senator Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) and Senator Jon Tester (Montana, Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee) visited the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation yesterday (October 23rd). The LCO reservation is near Hayward, Wisconsin.

The children of the Waadookodaading School sang for the two senators in the Ojibwe language. A video clip is now on Facebook.

By the way, the Lac Courte Oreilles (pronounced "La Coot Ah-Ray") have a good website which includes a page devoted to their school which is, unfortunately, in the midst of something of a funding crisis right now.

In the video clip below, Senator Baldwin talks about her visit to the LCO reservation and school:

Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Epsicopalians, and Papists (Roman Catholics)

[caption id="attachment_8521" align="aligncenter" width="1250"] No matter what kind of beliefs you may have, it is a nearly impossible task to keep track of all of the various Christian denominations. [/caption]

How do Christian denominations define themselves? By their stated beliefs, right? Well, that is largely correct. But maybe the different church bodies are better understood in terms of their history, that is,  how and why they were established and how they evolved. Both of those are really good ways of understanding the denominations, but you can slice it up another way.

I'm talking about the question of how a church governs itself.

The names of different kinds of Christians in the title of this post are all derived from the political units that were emphasized in each church body.

The Congregationalists believe in local control. The powerful political unit for them is the local congregation.

The Presbyterians govern their church with a Presbytery, a court consisting of the ministers and elders of several congregations.

The Episcopalians (although it isn't obvious) get their name from the word "bishop." Their church government depends more than anything on a national council of bishops, known in the United States as the House of Bishops.

Roman Catholics were once referred to derisively as "papists," a reference to their allegiance to the Pope and a top-down hierarchy. Animosity between various Protestant churches and the Roman Catholics was high for many years.

 

Simple right? So simple that we have time to ask why these differences became prominent.

Congregationalism is associated with Puritanism and, as you may know, the Puritans believed that some individuals were predestined for salvation. The mark of being chosen for salvation was some kind of conversion experience. But that is a generalization. Puritan ministers often developed some kind of "morphology of conversion," a complex explanation for who had the right to call themselves Christians. All the controversies over what made one a legitimate Christian made local control the most efficient (and probably the only possible) form of church government for the Congregationalists.

Presbyterianism (like Congregationalism) is a Calvinist denomination. Although the origin of the word is not known, to me it seems logical that this church is governed by a "court" of ministers and elders, because John Calvin himself was a lawyer by trade.

The Episcopalian Church is associated with the Church of England and the Anglicans. I imagine that explains their focus on a council of bishops.

Finally, of course, the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the original Christian church. At some point it became too big for their bishops to govern, so they developed the present system of Cardinals and a pope.

 

 

John Brown's Place in American History

Once very controversial and now largely forgotten, John Brown certainly deserves acknowledgement as a great American freedom fighter.

But he was an outlaw who opposed the law of the land. (Slavery.)

But he advocated to bring about change through violence. (That isn't cool.)

And, although he may have tried as hard to end slavery as anybody, he was white, so he isn't likely to get mentioned during Black History Month. (There isn't time to honor a white man during Black History Month, is there?)

Who was John Brown and how does he now fit into American History?

Five years ago, John Hendrix gathered up all the recent work historians were doing on John Brown, interpreted it into clear language, drew up illustrations, and the result is an outstanding childrens' book:

John Brown: His Fight for Freedom

 

Since this blog is about church history, I should point out that John Brown's religion motivated him to work to abolish slavery. Hendrix gets even more specific than that.

Behold the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. -Ecclesiastes 4:1

This Bible passage caused something to happen inside John Brown's chest and he made an oath to fight slavery then and there (page 9).

When Kansas was set to vote on becoming a free state or a slave state, pro-slavery "ruffians" destroyed crops, burned settlements and killed people who got in their way. When the ruffians made threats towards John Brown he wouldn't stand for it. He and his sons took five pro-slavery settlers to a creek and killed them with broadswords (page 15).

From that point on, John Brown wasn't just an outlaw to the federal government, he was a crazed madman to many but a folk hero to others.

Violence - even used for a good cause - is what it is. But, by its own nature, slavery required violence and perpetuated more violence. John Hendrix makes the point that many, many free people were opposed to slavery before the Civil War, but not many people were doing much about it. Except talking. And talking didn't get it done. However, at the same time, Hendrix says "John didn't believe bloodshed was the answer."

Anyway, the reason I wrote this post today is that today is the 155th anniversary of John Brown's famous raid of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. Unfortunately, I don't have space here to summarize the raid. Instead, I recommend that you either read about it at U.S. history.org or, better yet, get your hands on Hendrix's book and read pages 18 to 35.

How Was Lead Mined by the Ho-Chunk?

My last post was about one particular lead mine worked by Ho-Chunk Indians for fifteen years before it was sold to a white man. White miners were probably using picks and shovels when they first settled in the lead district which is now made up of parts of Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. Unfortunately, I don't have a complete description of their processes.

On the other hand, Moses Meeker in his "Early History of the Lead Region of Wisconsin" (page 281) gives us a pretty thorough description of Ho-Chunk lead mining.

Their tools were a hoe made for the Indian trade , an axe, and a crowbar, made of an old gun barrel flattened at the breach, which they used for removing the rock. Their mode of blasting was rather tedious to be sure; they got dry wood, kindled a fire along the rock as far as they wished to break it. After getting the rock hot, they poured cold water upon it which so cracked it that they could pry it up.

White miners would eventually dominate the lead district. I have read a rather vague statement somewhere that the white miners used technology to force the Indians out of lead mining. However, other factors are also noted by Meeker: 1) the Indians' tendency to view mining as "women's work" meant that their physically strongest people weren't digging or blasting, and 2) although Indians were skilled at discovering sites to mine lead, the same Indians were also often willing to show white miners these sites in exchange for whiskey (page 290).



As evidenced by the state flag, mining was still an essential part of Wisconsin's economy when it became a state in 1848.

The Old Buck Lead Mine

Old Buck was a Ho-Chunk Indian who spoke broken English well enough to deal with his white neighbors.

He lived in the area that we would now call Illinois, but present-day Wisconsin and Iowa were also part of his stomping grounds.

Moses Meeker, was qualified to write "Early History of [the] Lead Region of Wisconsin" because he was active in lead mining in the 1820's. The title of Meeker's recollection, of course, is problematic, because, first of all, our current state boundaries were not yet established at that time and also because lead mining went on, not only in present-day Wisconsin, but also in present-day Illinois and Iowa.

[caption id="attachment_7994" align="aligncenter" width="577"] An artist's conception of Galena [Illinois] after Indians stopped working in the mines.[/caption]For the most part, Meeker capably describes the early days of lead mining in Wisconsin. My only complaint is that he is somewhat inexact or inconsistent on page 281.

There were about five hundred Indians; their women quite industrious miners, but their men would not work.

He must have meant that to be a relative statement because he later tells us that "Old Buck was reputed to be the best miner among the Indians" (and Old Buck, of course, was a man).

Old Buck discovered a lead deposit less than two miles from where Galena, Illinois now stands. He and his wife and their friends worked that spot for fifteen years. It must have been a particularly good place to mine. On page 281-282 Meeker states that Old Buck sold his mine to Colonel J. Johnson in 1833 for $300. Johnson continued to operate The Old Buck Lead Mine for a number of years.

Was Old Buck cheated by Johnson? Well, looking back on it now, we might guess that he was. But in those days, whites engaged in maneuvers that forced Natives out of the mining industry. White technology was used as an economic weapon. So by paying Old Buck real money for his mine - even if it wasn't what we'd call "full value," the colonel was probably being more ethical than a lot of the other whites were in the pre-statehood lead mining days.

Bishop Jackson Kemper

By the time he was 42 years old, the Episcopal priest, Jackson Kemper, had been married twice, and made a widower twice.

He'd been born in New York State in 1789 and from 1811 to 1831 he served three parishes in Philadelphia. Being a single clergyman with plenty of pastoral experience - including mission experience he picked up during vacations from his regular position - qualified Jackson Tremper to serve on the frontier. (Academic degrees, of course, were also considered to be a qualification, and Kemper was a Doctor of Divinity and had been the valedictorian of his class at Columbia College.)

In 1834, Kemper left the settled east and arrived at what is now known as Wisconsin. On behalf of a mission society that was affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church, he was charged with making a report on a mission that was started in 1827 by Rev. Richard Cadle, and his sister, Miss Sarah Cadle. This mission was an essential part of a settlement known as "Shantytown" (now part of DePere). Unsurprisingly, the Episcopal mission had not gotten off to a good start. To the Indians, the Cadles' discipline was rigid, perhaps even oppressively rigid. Furthermore, the kind of Christianity that had existed in the Green Bay area among French traders and others for many years was Roman Catholicism - let's not forget that back in the 1800's Catholics and Protestants didn't get along.

In 1832, Richard Cadle - who was discouraged by the lack of success he was having - asked the mission society that was supporting himself and his sister to relieve them of their burden. Somehow, the mission society persuaded the Cadles to carry on with their work in Shantytown by promising more support for the mission. Jackson Kemper traveled to what was known as "the Northwest" back then, in order to see the Cadles' Shantytown mission firsthand and report back to the mission society. Jackson Kemper kept a diary on that trip which - along with footnotes provided by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin - is the source used in this blogpost. [Access Kemper's diary here.]

To make a long story short, in Kemper's opinion, the Cadles' mission was at least successful enough to be worth the effort:

Is it nothing to have rescued more than 200 ch[ildren] from
degradation & vice & ignorance & death—to teach them the arts &
feelings of civilized life and the principles of the Gospel? * * * Many of
these chld are real Indians born in our ch, but who would be ignorant of
knowledge & our language were it not for this school. And many born
heathen exhibit by their conduct & writings an evidence of the Gospel
upon their souls. Here, in this mission the Ch is exerting herself & has an
opportunity of doing good to heathen. If we give up this, we abandon the
only post we have among the heathen. We have more Indian child here
than they have at Macanaw—& the schools of the ch[urch] Miss[ionary]
Soc[iety] among the N W Indians are principally composed of the children
of white traders. Some of the chld here in 2 yrs have in addition to a
knowledge of the language acquired as much school information i. e.
made as much progress in spelling, reading, writing, composition,
geography, grammar & arithmetic as chld of similar age in the district
school of Connecticut.

In 1835 Jackson Kemper was elected the first missionary Bishop of his denomination.



You can read a more complete biography of Bishop Jackson Kemper on Harry Allagee's Good Heart blog (the visual above is taken from that site).

 

Jeremiah Slingerland's Lament: "Our People Have Sinned and God is Punishing them"

Cornell University's Special Collections includes the Stockbridge Indian Papers.  The finding aid, including an introduction to this remarkable set of documents, is available online.

Item 38 of the Stockbridge Indian Papers is a July 10th, 1844 letter from Jeremiah Slingerland to his uncle John W. Quinney. Slingerland was a student at Bangor Theological Seminary at Bangor, Maine at the time.

How did the young Slingerland interpret the history - as well as the current state - of his people, the Stockbridge Mohicans? Well, you'll see, because I'm going to quote him at length. Do I completely agree with him? No, not by a long shot. The fact is, Jeremiah Slingerland didn't have access to the books and papers that I refer to in my posts. So, think of his historical discussion as one part history and several parts theology. One possible explanation for the hard times of the Stockbridge Mohicans was that they were sinners being punished. That is not my view, but it was the view of a young Jeremiah Slingerland. I think his viewpoint changed and evolved at least to some extent as he got older and became involved in tribal politics himself. Anyway, as promised, here's how Jeremiah Slingerland interpreted tribal history in 1844 as the Citizen versus Indian partisanship began:

Our people have sinned and God is punishing them by allowing a fractious spirit to rise among them. They have had superior privileges but they have abused them. They have had excellent teachers but they have quarreled with them. I look back upon their past history and what unnumbered favors have covered their westward march. I cast my eye backward to 1734, to behold among them the first missionary. He toils, wears out his life and dies, yet our people feel no gratitude. Another comes and fills his place - now our people are honored by the presence & instructions of one of the most eminent divines New England ever produced. [Illegible] Edwards. But still our people know it not. Thus has the Lord honored them in furnishing teacher after teacher until, I fear, he has now almost given them up to themselves to bring about their own extinction. May he have mercy upon them and spare them!

Once again, the quote and Slingerland's thinking reflects a dearth of historical knowledge. They didn't have the internet back then. They didn't have a lot of books or even cheap and plentiful paper like we do now.

But even in our own times, even in the information age, when so much historical data is out there, people still have a hard time leaving their ideological biases out of how they interpret history. To this day, many historical accounts are still distorted by one belief system or another. But the other extreme might be just as bad. History might risk losing its humanity if scholars manage to take all the subjectivity out of it.

Marie Wilcox Tries to Save the Wukchumni Language

The process of saving or reviving a language is a lot of work. And the work is often tedious. Every so often I become aware of a video that is relevant to saving or re-creating Native languages, but few of them ever make it into my blog, they just don't have enough entertainment value.

However, we can thank Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee of the New York Times for making a remarkable 9 1/2-minute video about Marie Wilcox and her family.

Marie Wilcox is a Yokuts Tribe Native from central California.

Marie spoke the Wukchumni language as a child and decades later began writing Wukchumni words on whatever paper she could find. Later she collected the papers and entered them into a computer. She has worked hard enough to give her people a chance to keep Wukchumni alive.

The title of the video is Who Speaks Wukchumni?

 



 
 

Indian Country Today ran an article summarizing the video. Please don't use the article as an excuse not to watch the video.

Some Native Nicknames and Logos must go

An NFL referee that retired after last season has just revealed that he asked not to officiate at Washington Redskins games in 2006 because he understood that the team's nickname was offensive to many Native Americans. The NFL honored his request. The former ref, Mike Carey, was interviewed by Keith Olbermann on ESPN.

[caption id="attachment_7664" align="alignright" width="294"] Some nicknames and images are more offensive than others.[/caption]

Earlier this year, the NFL franchise based in Washington had six trademarks cancelled because, in the words of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, they were "disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered." (I think the best treatment of this issue in the media was in the New Yorker Magazine.) Despite losing their trademarks, however, the team will still be allowed to use their disrespectful nickname while the ruling is appealed, a process that will probably last a number of years.

In 2012, residents of North Dakota voted to scrap their University's long-held nickname and the mascot that went with it. The team formerly known as "the Fighting Sioux," currently has no nickname and no mascot, according Wikipedia. What happened in North Dakota prompted ESPN columnist Paul Lukas to write "Time to rethink Native American imagery."

I've said many times that Indians don't agree on everything. They are not just Indians, of course, they are individuals. What may be offensive to one Indian isn't always offensive to another. But, in a country with millions of Native Americans, even if only a significant minority of them are offended by a particular nickname, mascot, or image, it still adds up to too many people being hurt.

While few people want a world with language police coercing us into political correctness, and most people recognize the importance of "not taking themselves too seriously," those facts still leave us with plenty of room to condemn many - but not all - nicknames and images associated with Natives.

The argument some make that sports team nicknames were meant to "honor" Natives usually doesn't pass the smell test. But there are tribes, such as the Seminoles, who have made agreements with athletic departments, essentially approving that their names and other associations can be used by the teams. There may be other exceptions where something related to Native culture or history is used with enough respect to grace athletes uniforms. Certainly there are some nicknames and images that are more offensive than others.

Probably the best general article about this topic that I've read is "A Century of Racist Sports Team Names" by Matt Connolly and Ian Gordon (originally published in Mother Jones).

What do you think?

 

Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher

I frequently feature books in my blogposts, but seldom actually recommend them. However, here is a book that I am recommending: Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher should be purchased by all the middle school libraries in Wisconsin. Although the focus is on Electa Quinney, the author does a good job of giving readers the context of the woman's life, which is a remarkable stage. The reality that Native nations like the Stockbridge Mohicans fought amongst themselves is not lost on the author, Karyn Saemann. At the same time, harsh realities like the Indian Removal Act are not sugar-coated. And, of much importance to historians of Native Christianity like myself, religion was not scrubbed out of this portrait. The negative stereotype of missionaries is not reinforced. (Electa Quinney's first husband, Daniel Adams, was a Native preacher.)

Frontier America in the 1800's is broken down into simple enough language for middle schoolers to be able to comprehend Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher. Saemann also encourages students to form their own viewpoints of what Electa Quinney may have thought and felt. I really appreciate how the author admitted up front that history is like a puzzle and there are missing pieces. It appears that most of the letters that Electa wrote were not preserved for posterity. (The discovery of Electa's son's remarkable collection of papers in an old trunk in 1932 was rightfully featured in the book.)

The quality of the body of the book makes it worth reading not only for schoolchildren but also adults interested in American history. People like me will be disappointed that the book doesn't have notes or a bibliography that can be used to track down the sources used by the author, but remember, the book was not written for adult scholars.

Factual errors? I think that every book has a few. Let me speak to that.
On pages 10-11, the author repeats the error made by others that John W. Quinney and Austin E. Quinney were brothers. According to the tribe's current enrollment officer, the two men were cousins.
On page 10, the author acknowledges "we can't say for sure who Electa's father was." Then she guesses that Electa probably had the same father as John W. Quinney. (We already know that John W. Quinney and Electa had the same mother.) In minutes of an Indian Party meeting contained in the John C. Adams Papers, I found that John P. Quinney objected to Electa Quinney's membership in the Indian Party because, as John P. put it, "her father was not an Indian."
In a post I wrote before Saemann's book was published, I addressed the question of whether or not Electa Quinney was the first public school teacher in Wisconsin. To summarize that post, Electa Quinney - contrary to what some books say - did not teach school at Statesburg in 1828. Augustus T. Ambler, who Saemann acknowledges on page 41, did teach the Stockbridge school at Statesburg in that year and then, as Saemann notes, Electa Quinney took over for Ambler. So how is E. Quinney still the Wisconsin's first public schoolteacher? Saemann's view is that Augustus T. Ambler's school was private, while Electa Quinney's school was public. Of course, she knows it was the same students being taught in the same building. On pages 38-39 she has a section where she explains the difference between public and private schools - she says it is about where the money comes from. I suppose that is a legitimate definition, but I'm not convinced that the school that was taught by Ambler one term and by Quinney the next was funded by two different sources of money in those two terms. Saemann asserts that public schools are supported by taxes, but the 1794 Treaty of Canadaigua was supposed to support a tribal school. Without Electa Quinney being the first public schoolteacher in Wisconsin, you still have an important biography and a significant role model.

In conclusion, Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher is a good read. While the focus and the intended audiences are different, the subject matter of this book may overlap as much with my own Proud and Determined, as any other book. I recommend that you read both.

The Mormons and the Strangites of Beaver Island

I addressed the beginnings of Mormonism in a previous post.

 

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church, was also the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois (and, according to some, he was even a candidate for President of the US) when he was attacked and killed by an angry mob. He was imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois at the time, but bullets from the mob's firearms reached him. That, by itself, could be the topic of a blogpost, but instead, it is only the opening hook.

After Joseph Smith died, there was a struggle for power between Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon, and James Strang. All three men (and later a fourth, Joseph Smith III) felt they were entitled to lead the Mormon church. Most Americans don't realize that not all of Joseph Smith's followers got behind Brigham Young and headed west for Salt Lake City. Rigdon and Strang and later Joseph Smith III each had their own followers and their own churches.

 

The Strangites, followers of James Strang, established their community on Beaver Island, in the northern part of Lake Michigan.

[caption id="attachment_7617" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Thanks to Citynoise for making this graphic available via Wikimedia commons:[/caption]

 

James Strang had only been a Mormon for about a year when he claimed to be the rightful leader of the church. He'd actually once declared himself "the perfect atheist"(Gilbert in Smithsonian, August, 1995, page 86). So it would not be unfair to look at Strang's career cynically. He was more than ambitious, he was hungry for power.

 

It was in 1843 that the young James Strang and his new wife, Mary, settled near Burlington, Wisconsin, an area close enough to Illinois to have Mormon settlers at that time. As Bil Gilbert points out in his Smithsonian article, Strang probably looked upon the earnest and zealous Mormons as potential followers. A biography written by James Strang's own grandson, imagines that Stang (the grandfather), when he came upon the credulous Mormons felt

like a prospector who has finally struck it rich[. He] knew that he had found his listening audience.

While Joseph Smith started Mormonism by claiming to have discovered gold plates with divine revelation written in "Egyptian Hieroglyphics," James Strang claimed to have found the same kind of revelation written on brass plates that he found in southern Wisconsin. Strang added to his remnant of Mormons by active recruiting.

That is how it began. The things that actually happened on Beaver Island during the short time that it was James Strang's kingdom are covered well in Bil Gilbert's 1995 article in Smithsonian Magazine.

The "teaser" for Smithsonian's website reads

About 145 years ago, a former attorney and future polygamist named James Strang had himself crowned the King of Beaver Island, Michigan. His reign was short and ended violently but while he ruled he did so the old-fashioned way: by divine right as the ultimate lawgiver, political authority and arbiter of morals.

Like Joseph Smith before him, you might say that James Strang had bitten off more than any American can safely chew.

Near the end of Gilbert's article he tells us that Strang's devoted followers scattered after his death.

During the next several weeks, hundreds of destitute Strangites were deposited haphazardly on the docks of Chicago, Detroit, Racine, and Green Bay.... Without [Strang] his flock was incapable of taking determined action.

Nevertheless, Strang's "original" Church of Latter-Day Saints still exists to this day. They have their own website, in which the Book of the Law of the Lord... first translated from the brass plates onto paper, is now displayed in digital format:


Checkout the Strangites website.

Daniel Whitney and Daniel M. Whitney

[caption id="attachment_7594" align="aligncenter" width="423"] Daniel Whitney (1795-1862). Image credit: FC Pierce (Descendants of John Whitney (genealogy)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]Genealogists and historians of all stripes have found out the hard way that two people with the same name (or roughly the same name) can cause problems in their research. When you come upon a name in a document there is rarely any indication that the name belongs to more than one possible person. You might be reading about two different people and not realize it. So it has been with Daniel Whitney and his nephew Daniel M. Whitney. (And by the way, Daniel also had a son named Daniel, but the son is of no importance to us here.)

Both Daniel Whitney and Daniel M. Whitney were important actors in the lives of the Stockbridge Mohicans. The Daniel that was born in 1795 was, by anybody's standards, an ambitious, enterprising captain of industry. It probably would be no exaggeration to say that Daniel Whitney brought capitalism to present-day Wisconsin. What we now call Wisconsin and northeast Minnesota were part of the Michigan Territory in 1820, which was when Daniel Whitney started supplying Green Bay residents and small-time traders with the things they needed. Prior to that time, the so-called "factory system" was in place. In other words, there were "factors" at forts who represented the United States and supplied Indians and "frontiersmen" with goods at a regulated price. You might call it benign patriarchy; it was the federal government's way of protecting the Indians and frontiersmen from being cheated by unscrupulous traders.

Whitney (the uncle) started off his career by embarking on trade expeditions, including one trip from what is now Minneapolis to Detroit in which he hauled goods on a toboggan. The successful trade expeditions led to the establishment of general stores, one of them being at Statesburg, the first settlement of the Stockbridge Mohicans in present-day Wisconsin (the Stockbridges began settling at Statesburg in 1822, twenty-six years before Wisconsin became a state).

Daniel M. Whitney was born in New York State in 1815. He came west to Green Bay in 1833, and was employed by his uncle for many years, in a number of capacities, but most notably, Daniel M. ran the general store at Statesburg and moved with the Stockbridge Mohicans to their settlement on the eastern shores of Lake Winnebago (aka Stockbridge, Wisconsin).

When an 1843 act of Congress made the Stockbridges citizens, the land that had once belonged to the whole tribe was allotted into private parcels. And the Indians began selling their land. Daniel Whitney (the uncle) was the biggest buyer of Stockbridge land between February 1844 and February 1846. According to historian Alice E. Smith, he acquired "nearly 2,500 acres, mostly in 60-acre tracts"(Wisconsin Magazine of History, March, 1941, page 294).

The interaction between the Whitneys and the Stockbridges, I suspect, is a complicated one. Within a politically correct mindset, it would be difficult to think of Daniel Whitney (the uncle) as a positive factor in the lives of the Stockbridge Indians. However, he is said to have employed a lot of them in his business ventures. Meanwhile, Daniel M. Whitney, the storekeeper, was said to be a great friend to the Indians - at least in his obituary where people always say good things about you.

Clearly the topic of the Whitneys and the Stockbridge Indians has great potential for more historical research.

In Colonial Times, Native Americans Looked at Things in Two Different Ways

It might be a hard concept for some of us modern people to grasp (or at least hard for some to accept), nevertheless, it explains everything in terms of the belief systems of Natives in early America.

Bear with me for a few moments here and just forget all the things that you already know about Indians. Now we are going to place all the Indians from early America in one of two categories. If you understand those categories well enough, you should be able to explain why some Indians became Christians and others pursued forms of revitalization of traditional systems of belief and action.

The two groups are nativists and accommodationists.

Katy Chiles describes the Nativists on page 13 of her book, Transformable Race..

[They believed] that Natives, whites, and Africans were created separately. They also became aware that they should practice entirely discrete religions: Christianity was for Europeans exclusively, since God did not give the Bible to the Indian or to the black man.

The Nativists, of course, are the type that us moderns readily understand, because we are aware of the importance of one's own culture. It is healthy to observe your own culture and be proud of it, right, I mean, isn't that just obvious?

It is obvious to most of us now, but there is another group of Native Americans in early America. Just because they are known as accommodationists does not mean that they didn't have integrity. They just looked at things in a different way. As Samson Occom, one of the leaders of the Brothertown Indians once put it (quoted by Chiles on page 14):

[There is] but one, Great ^good^ Supream and Indepentent Spirit above, he is the only Living and True God [who created] this World.

Chiles also brings Captain Hendrick Aupaumut of the Stockbridge Mohicans into her discussion, noting that

Both Occom and Aupaumut endorsed the biblical creation story, the idea that all races descended...from this single creation, and that, therefore, Indians should be seen as equals and "brothers" with the white man.

So the case is made that becoming a Christian did not mean that one stopped being an Indian. If one God created all people, then all races could practice the same religion.
 

 

Lion Miles Rips on of William Starna's "From Homeland to New Land"

When I was putting the finishing touches on my own book about the Stockbridge Mohicans (it covers the years 1734 to 2014), I became aware of another book that deals with essentially the same people. The author prefers to call them Mahicans (more on that later) and his book covers the tribe from 1600 until their removal to present-day Wisconsin.

Admittedly, I myself have yet to read From Homeland to New Land, A History of the Mahican Indians, 1600-1830, by anthropologist William Starna. But - believe me - enough information is available on the book to justify a  blogpost.

In particular, I'm referring to a rather nasty review of Starna's book that Lion Miles posted on Amazon a few months ago. This is one of those critiques that, when you first read it, you are impressed and almost ready to dismiss the book which is being criticized. But William Starna wisely disregarded the advice that authors should always ignore bad reviews. Starna fought back, responding to every detailed criticism coming from Miles. And he adds a somewhat personal criticism: "Readers may be interested to learn that this is not the first time that Miles has taken wild swings at my work."

On specific points, I doubt that either scholar is completely correct. Both are experts on a tribe that is undergoing rapid change, first with the fur trade and later with missionization, not to mention a series of wars and other tensions. The result of that change - and the fact that much of the data is secondhand -means that the surviving data on these Indians and their neighbors has inconsistencies. I believe that the identifying and disentangling of these inconsistencies is a very important skill in historical scholarship.

In a perfect world, Starna and Miles would have gotten together as friends and disentangled the inconsistencies they found in the data they gathered. Instead, they butted heads and future scholars will be left to follow their bread crumbs to historical truth. I am interested in giving William Starna's book a chance. I'll probably want to give it more than the two stars it got from Lion Miles.

( By the way, Proud and Determined, the book I wrote about the Stockbridge Mohicans, has been favorably reviewed, both on Amazon and Goodreads. )

One of the things that Miles and Starna clashed on is the name of the people they were dealing with. Starna uses the term "Mahicans," while Miles insists on "Mohicans." Let's find out their reasons.

According to Lion Miles:

The first error is the use of the spelling “Mahican” in the title. That spelling was used almost exclusively by Europeans in the 17th century. When members of the tribe learned to write, they adopted the spelling “Mohican” and that has been the accepted usage for the past 200 years.

Starna responds:

On the "error" Miles claims was committed in using "Mahican" in the title: The etymology and historical application of "Mahican" is fully discussed in the book's introduction, including the reasons for employing the term throughout as a linguistic rather than a cultural designation. Miles either didn't read or chose to ignore that discussion.

The argument, of course, is entirely academic. The descendants of the Indians in question - the real people that are living and breathing today - use "Mohican," not "Mahican."

 

 

 

Sedgwick & Marquand Misunderstand the Significance of the Stockbridge Bible

 

I reviewed some rather outrageous biases from the first chapter of Stockbridge, 1739-1974 in a previous post. There really is no point in going over the rest of the book, except for Sedgwick and Marquand's coverage of one important topic: The Stockbridge Bible.

Gradually the years were erasing all the traces of their remarkable history from the Stockbridge Indians, and they became more uniform with the other remnants of the great Indian tribes, who drag out a half-civilized existence on a reservation somewhere in the west. The wonderful Bible, that high-water mark of the Christian experiment, was mislaid and finally found by an enterprising Indian - in the rubbish heap! He pulled it out and dusted it off and it became his most cherished possession. Finally he consented to have it kept in the church in a safe, of which he alone knew the combination (page 97).

It is true that the Stockbridge Mohicans went through tough times. But lost on Sedgwick and Marquand is how much the tribal church appreciated their own special Bible. It is true that the missionary Cutting Marsh left in frustration - but let's not blame anybody for that, Marsh later wrote that he was "ashamed of my country" for how they (the federal government) treated the so-called New York Indians in Wisconsin. Looked at from one very valid angle, the tribe's mission society (the ABCFM) abandoned them as the result of the "Citizen" vs. "Indian" controversy which, in turn, was the result of the federal government's Indian policy.

The Stockbridge Bible was not found on a rubbish heap. Rather it was found in an abandoned house and then taken to Jameson "Sote" Quinney, a leader of the tribe and grandson of Austin E. Quinney. This reappearance of the Stockbridge Bible, as Richard North, a white minister from neighboring Shawano put it, "stirred" some of the leading men of the tribe on the subject of religion. In addition to Sote Quinney, Rev. North speaks of his great respect for William C. Davids and William Dick. This "stirring" on the subject of religion, according to Rev. North, was the impetus for the founding of the John Sergeant Memorial Presbyterian Church.

First Speakers: An Online Video about Preserving the Ojibwe Language

Recently we observed the success of Navajo leaders who gave their traditions a boost by getting the original Star Wars movie dubbed into Dine', their traditional language.

A video that came to my attention this week was actually produced four years ago, but it represents up-to-date information and I'd like to recommend it now to anybody who wants to understand how a living language can be kept from dying and also why a people would take the trouble to save their dying language.

A few weeks ago, I embedded a rather short video in a blogpost about the Ojibwe Language Nest, a preschool in Upper Michigan. In the longer film that you can view below, First Speakers: Restoring the Ojibwe Language, a Minnesota Ojibwe community creates a language immersion school - not a preschool, but an actual accredited Pre-K through 8th grade school aimed at saving their language.

Phonetically, Ojibwe is pronounced "O-jib-way."

A shout-out to enrolled Stockbridge Mohican, Brent Michael Davids, whose flute provides the main title music of this ground-breaking documentary.

 

Norman Rockwell's Unfinished Painting of Konkapot and John Sergeant

[caption id="attachment_7325" align="aligncenter" width="604"] Norman Rockwell referred to this painting informally as his "Reverend and Indian picture." It was never finished.[/caption]

Deborah Solomon, the art critic and author of Norman Rockwell's most recent (2013) biography, discusses the subjects of his paintings and whatever else might be behind them.

In a previous post about Rockwell, I noted that he never finished a painting that featured John Sergeant and Konkapot. But it wasn't for lack of trying. Rockwell began the project several years before he died. What kind roadblock kept the painting from being finished? The explanation has a lot to do with Rockwell's inner life and relationship with his brother.

As Solomon (432) tells it, Rockwell "had never been nostalgic for his own childhood." He had no sisters and was not at all close to his only brother, Jarvis. Although he traveled a lot, Rockwell "did not go down to Florida for his brother's last illness or funeral" and when Jarvis died in 1973, "the brothers had not spoken for a long time."

Solomon continues (432-433):

Although Rockwell declined to articulate his feelings over his brother's death, he did make a painting during this period that seems to hint at their complicated relationship. He referred to it as his Reverend and Indian picture. It would consume him for many years and might be seen as a symbolic portrait of Rockwell (the prissy Reverend) and his brother (the strapping Indian).

Rockwell began the painting in 1972, but a year later, had made almost no progress on it.

On May 12, 1973, just three days after he learned of his brother's death, Rockwell wrote on his calendar "Very mixed up today but I will work it out. Tomorrow I get to work on Reverend and Indian picture. Bewildered"(quoted in Solomon 433).

In historical reality, Konkapot might not have been a lot taller than John Sergeant - but in the picture Konkapot is a lot taller than Sergeant. In historical reality, Konkapot was eighteen years older than Sergeant which is another thing that doesn't appear to be reflected in the artist's work. Instead of basing their work on rigorous historical research, artists often fall back on themes existing in their own psyches. Solomon notes that a familiar theme in Rockwell's work is to show "two men, one disproportionately larger than the other"(433).

In the end, Rockwell's "Reverend and Indian picture" says more about the artist himself than it does about Rev. Sergeant or Konkapot.

 

Sedgwick & Marquand's "Stockbridge 1739-1974": Biases in Chapter One

[caption id="attachment_7297" align="alignright" width="153"] An early printing of Stockbridge 1739-1974: A Chronicle, as it appeared on ebay recently[/caption]

There is quite a bit of racial bias in Sarah Cabot Sedgwick and Christina Sedgwick Marquand's Stockbridge, 1734-1974: A Chronicle. So I've ignored it until now. However, Stock-Mo-History wishes to leave no stone unturned. Let's see what this book says and if there are unfair biases, let's call the authors out on them.

 

Page 2: Konkapot was "a man of stalwart character, but limited brain power."

Certainly an undeserved insult. An assumption that is not backed up.

 

Page 4:

Questioned more specifically about the Indians' religious beliefs, Ebenezer was vague. Some believed God to be the sun; some that the sun was the habitation of God; others were professed atheists, believing that all things began, continued and ceased, according to the laws of their natures without any direction from an outside power.

That was paraphrased from somewhere. I've been trying to locate the original quote myself in recent months. The bias in that statement is not racial, but in the original quote, it was emphasized that some of the Indians believed in one God, just like the whites.

 

Page 14: I'm not an anthropologist, so I cannot claim to know exactly how nomadic the Indians were prior to 1734, but the authors seem to think they know, and it sounds overly romantic to me:

They [the Mohicans] roamed as naturally as deer through the forest. A wigwam was taken down in ten minutes and they were gone, leaving no trace behind them.

 

Page 17: In describing the ordination of John Sergeant, we get this:

All the protagonists in the struggle between the Indians and English were represented in the meetinghouse at Deerfield that day and the hopeless division between the two races was shown up in a series of dramatic contrasts. some of these contrasts were quite deliberate. The showy paint and feathers and gay blankets of the Six Nations [Mohawks and other Iroquois had their own reasons for being present] were a definite indication to the English of the arrogance of the Indians in the wily game they were playing between the English and the French. The English, on their side, were doing everything in the way of full regimentals in scarlet and gold to impress the Six Nations with what a powerful hand they held in thins game.

I think I'd re-frame that and emphasize that there was a big struggle between the English and the French for world domination back then. The Indians "wily game" was, understandably, the things they had to do to maintain trading partnerships with European powers, while, at the same time, working on their own survival, something that isn't arrogant in my opinion.

 

Page 18: Jehoiakim Van Valkenburgh, a Dutch trader, is known to have been a very good friend of Konkapot. but he was a trader. And we know what traders did, right? Most of them cheated the Indians. Alcohol was one of their tools. But for Van Valkenburgh to have been a good friend of Konkapot, I'd suspect that he was one of the few ethically-minded traders.

Sedgwick and Marquand lump Van Valkenburgh with the other unscrupulous traders. Their conclusion that Van Valkenburgh controlled the Housatonic Mohicans with alcohol, rests on their assumption that Konkapot had "limited brainpower" (see above). (In other words, Konkapot needs to be lacking in brains for our authors, otherwise, he'd have been able to see how evil his friend Van Valkenburgh was.)

On page 22, Van Valkenburgh is described as "a veritable Satan."

 

So, if, as Sedgwick and Marquand have it, Van Valkenburg, the close friend of Konkapot, is the bad white man, guess who their white hero is in the first chapter? Not John Sergeant. Although they have nothing bad to say about Sergeant, their story about Stockbridge, Massachusetts only moves forward when the focus of the mission town changes. It was Ephraim Williams who made the changes in a way that those with a capitalist mindset could find admirable.

Their description of Ephraim Williams is on pages 22-23:

Williams was the typical, hard-headed pioneer who carves his way through forests, builds roads, throws out bridges and in the process rolls up for himself a handsome fortune.... [He] arrived in 1737, with...various schemes in his head for becoming a large frog in a small pond.

They don't mention that none of Williams' schemes had anything to do with the town's original mission. (To not condemn Williams comes across to me as something like approval.)

To Sedgwick and Marquand, Ephraim Williams had the support of the English ministers who had set up the mission. This may have been true at the beginning, after all Ephraim Williams' daughter Abigail married John Sergeant.

But the thing that moved the town forward into chapter two of the book was Ephraim Williams' decision to get Van Valkenburgh, the Dutch trader, out of the way. Acting on Williams' proposal, the English bought out Van Valkenburgh and his 290 acres (page 23).

I doubt that any legitimate historian claims to know much about Jehoiakim Van Valkenburgh. On the other hand, historians like Lion Miles and Patrick Frazier have shown us conclusively that Ephraim Williams was a real villain. Maybe it isn't a good idea to put all the blame for the Indians getting dispossessed of their mission town on one person. But there is no question who that one person would be.

 

Non-Indian Residents of Stockbridge, MA: Arlo Guthire

[caption id="attachment_7237" align="aligncenter" width="426"] Arlo Guthrie, 1969[/caption]

Arlo Guthrie went to high school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Stockbridge School, a boarding school, was unique in its time because it promoted racial and ethnic diversity from its inception in the 1940's. Students were also "required to assemble after breakfast and listen to 20 minutes of recorded music...chosen by a very limited number of faculty, who provided brief commentary" according to Wikipedia.

Ray Brock, an architect by training, and his wife Alice, who had been thrown out of Sarah Lawrence College for 'supporting unpopular political causes,' started working at the Stockbridge School in 1962 (New York Times, July 30, 1969). Ray taught shop classes and Alice was the school librarian. Ray and Alice befriended some of the creative students at the school, one being Arlo Guthrie.

Arlo graduated from the Stockbridge School in 1965.  After a short attempt at college, Arlo returned to western Massachusetts and may have been one of the fifteen young friends of Ray and Alice's who were staying with them in an old church that had been purchased by Alice's mother. The series of events that would follow is well-known, having been made into an eighteen-and-a-half-minute song which was the basis of Alice's Restaurant, the movie.

If you haven't seen the movie or heard the song, the best place to get the gist of Alice's Restaurant is this npr interview from 2005.

Hollywood classified the movie as a comedy - and for good reason: it was funny.  But there was certainly something about Alice's Restaurant that spoke volumes against the Vietnam War. The song became a hippie anthem. (When Guthrie heard that President Richard Nixon owned a copy of his eighteen-and-a-half-minute song and remembered that Nixon's famous tapes had an eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap, he joked that there was silence on the Nixon tapes because the president was listening to his song.)

Using the internet, it isn't hard these days to find information about Alice Brock. But one thing that I read in a tribal newsletter (it was one of those papers I can no longer find, maybe I threw it away) is that the same Alice gave a tour to the Stockbridge Mohicans during one of their historical trips to the homeland in the 1970's.

 

So the musical artist who represented the young anti-establishment generation and the visual artist whose work most clearly represented the older generation were both living in the same small town: Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Norman Rockwell's most recent biographer, Deborah Solomon (American Mirror, 2013), tells us how the two men got along.

[Guthrie] and Rockwell met at least a few times. Guthrie said the introduction was made by his physician, Dr. Campbell...a longtime friend (and onetime model) of Rockwell. "All of the people Norman used as models were friends of mine," Guthrie remarked years later (396).

When touring as a solo act in either Norway or Sweden, Arlo Guthrie felt lonely. Solomon quotes his description of how he cheered up.

"I walk in to just get a beer and a sandwich somewhere and I'm sitting there and I look up on the wall and there was a picture of Dr. Campbell and the kid and a couple of other Rockwell paintings. I suddenly looked around and I thought, 'you know what, I know all of these people' and it made it so freaking nice"(397).

 

Arlo Guthrie's own site is Arlonet.

Alice Brock also has a website.

Read more about Arlo, Alice and Alice's Restaurant at The Food Timeline.

Non-Indian Residents of Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell

As one of America's most famous painters ever, the criticism against Norman Rockwell was that he was more of an illustrator than an artist. Not only did he understand that criticism, but he struggled with it.

Rockwell began his career before television and even before color photography. At that time, magazines were the dominant visual entertainment medium and talented people like Norman Rockwell were in demand as illustrators. For many years, Rockwell - a native of New York City - was employed by the Boy Scouts and their magazine Boys' Life and by The Saturday Evening Post, for which he illustrated 321 covers.

While living in Arlington, Vermont, Rockwell's second wife, Mary, had a rather strange episode of "screaming and crying" that, according to Rockwell's most recent biographer, Deborah Solomon (2013, 269-270), had something to do with feelings she had for the family doctor. It was that same doctor, Solomon tells us, who thought Mrs. Rockwell "needed to spend some time drying out at a retreat, and he referred her to the Austen Riggs Center, a small psychiatric hospital in Stockbridge, Massachusetts"(270).



Norman Rockwell sorely missed his wife - not just as a wife, but she also informally managed his studio - and he also worried about the gossip going around town that his wife had a crush on the doctor. To make a long story short, Norman and his sons moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts to be with their wife and mother. They bought a house near the hospital campus in 1954.

The artist himself suffered from depression. In researching her book, Deborah Solomon gained access to some of Mr. Rockwell's medical records, including a letter that his psychotherapist, Erik Erikson, wrote to a colleague who was treating Mrs. Rockwell. Norman had been invited on a trip to Europe over the summer and Erikson tried to tell Mary Rockwell's doctor to let him make the trip without her. As Solomon puts it "Rockwell was tethered to an alcoholic whose drinking made her petulant and critical of his work." He couldn't take it.

In addition to the emotional toll, the therapy and hospitalizations were expensive. So - in order to pay the bills - the famous artist grudgingly took on advertising work, Solomon says, "including a campaign for Kellogg's Corn Flakes"(291). The more that money was an issue for him, the less art there was in Rockwell's work.

As much as Mary Rockwell's death in 1959 was painful for her husband, he married again. And his third wife, Molly, was more supportive of his work, encouraging him to leave the constricting Saturday Evening Post to work for Look magazine, where he had the opportunity to deal with topics like civil rights and space exploration.

In 1972 several Stockbridge Indians from Wisconsin - led by Dorothy Davids and her sister, Bernice Miller - made the trip to Stockbridge, Massachusetts where they were invited to a party at the Rockwells' house. In an e-mail sent to me about ten years ago, Dot Davids reported that they really liked Molly Rockwell a lot. It seems their impression of the artist himself was that he was sincere but not very outgoing. Nevertheless, at the time he had started a painting that depicted Konkapot and John Sergeant sitting in Sergeant's study. So you can imagine how excited Norman Rockwell was to learn that one of his Native guests, Tina Williams, was a direct descendant of Konkapot!

With many accomplishments and honors, Norman Rockwell died in 1978. However, the painting of Konkapot and John Sergeant was never finished.

 

Printed Source:

Solomon, Deborah. American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell. 2013.

 

Links:

The Norman Rockwell Museum (at Stockbridge, Massachusetts)

The Norman Rockwell Museum of Vermont

Norman Rockwell page on Biography.com

Norman Rockwell archives at the Saturday Evening Post

Online Smithsonian article about Rockwell