The Wild Frontier (49 page)
Authors: William M. Osborn
The Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service, has published figures comparing Indian health with that of the entire population. They are dismal. Indian mortality from several causes is compared with mortality figures for all races for 1987. Indian deaths are 780 percent greater for tuberculosis, 667 percent greater for alcoholism, 295 percent greater for accidents, 268 percent greater for diabetes mellitus, 134 percent greater for homicide, 95 percent greater for suicide, 77 percent greater for gastrointestinal diseases, 9 percent greater for cerebrovascular diseases, 1 percent greater for diseases of the heart, and 12 percent less for malignant neoplasms.
W
E KNOW
where the Indians have been. Where are they going? There is disagreement. Wilcomb E. Washburn said that “it is conceivable that
the Indian will be able to retain his special status within the American nation and convert its former deficiencies into future advantages.”
35
Indian arts and crafts are enjoying a renaissance. Tribes are being restored. Indians have new pride.
36
It is said that since 1917, the Indians “have shown gradual improvement in education, health, and economic well-being.”
37
Indian leadership is coming of age. The Indian problem is not as complex as it was 200 years ago.
38
Some others say that the future of the Indian is not bright because most Indians are wholly dependent wards of the government.
Three tribes illustrate different directions the Indian could take. The first is the path of the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The reservation has a population of 20,000. It is in Shannon County, the poorest county in the United States. Unemployment is at least 50 percent; some say it is even higher.
39
Jobs tend to be held with the tribal or federal government. Housing is scarce and poor. Many houses have no indoor toilets. There is no bank, no pharmacy, and a small taco stand is the closest thing to a restaurant. Tourist development is hampered by tribal infighting. The traditionalists oppose a gaming house on the ground that a casino with a liquor license is the last thing the town needs, but one was recently established there. Tribal council chairman John Yellow Bird Steele no longer thinks economic development can be handed to the tribes by the federal government or by firms bribed into the reservation by grants and loans. He insists that “Indians have to do things for themselves.” A growing number of Indians and economists agree. Former Cherokee chief Wilma Mankiller spoke to tribal leaders in 1992, saying, “We have gotten too used to the BIA doing everything for us…. Getting away from the BIA is a major step for Indians. Self-government is an act of faith in ourselves.”
40
The Economist
has said that “traditionally, the Oglala Sioux have been thought of as a ‘difficult’ tribe.”
41
Surely few Indians would take their path by choice.
Contrast the Oglala Sioux with the Choctaw tribe of Mississippi. Over the last few decades, the tribe has transformed itself from a welfare culture into one of the largest employers in the state. Its factories assemble wire harnesses, telephones, and audio speakers for blue-chip corporations. A greeting-card plant hand-finishes 83 million cards every year. Only 15 years ago, unemployment was 80 percent, but now the tribe is fully employed and half of the tribe’s employees are white and black, not Indian. The tribe has its own television station, casino, golf course, conference center, and a 314-room hotel. By 1995, tribal sales were more than $100 million annually. The average income for a family of 4 is now about $22,000. The new Choctaw Health Center is among
the state’s best hospitals. Teachers’ salaries in elementary schools are 25 percent higher than neighboring non-Indian schools.
These achievements were brought about primarily by the managerial skills of Phillip Martin, a high school graduate, Air Force veteran, and chief of the tribe. Almost everything once carried out by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Choctaw is now done by the tribal government, including law enforcement, schooling, health care, social services, forestry, credit, and finance.
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Further contrast the Oglala Sioux with the Wascos, the Warm Springs, and the Paiute tribes of Oregon, whose 2,300 members constitute the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Indians. Their reservation consists of 355,000 acres of Douglas fir and ponderosa pine. They were removed from the Columbia River in 1855. A settlement for loss of their fishing rights was made with the government in 1958 for $4,000,000. Instead of dividing it up, they paid Oregon State University $100,000 to make an economic feasibility study of their reservation. They purchased a sawmill and a plywood plant and built a luxury lodge with golf course, tennis courts, sauna baths, trout fishing, horseback riding, and an Olympic-size swimming pool fed by hot springs. There is a new trout and salmon hatchery. Wild horses are raised; the most unruly are rented to rodeos. The building of a $30,000,000 hydroelectric plant is being considered. The gross income of the confederation is nearly $50,000,000 annually. Profits provide a monthly dividend of $75 for every Indian (including children) and a Christmas bonus of $1,200 each. The confederation employs more than 1,000 people, with a combined payroll of $12,000,000 each year. Tribal pensions begin at age 60. Tribal funds are available for medical and psychiatric care, alcohol and drug therapy, and educational and vocational training. Low-interest loans help pay for modern houses and mobile homes. Members of the confederation are financially better off than many of the whites around them. Reservation college graduates fill important positions. Nevertheless, there is a great need for doctors, psychiatrists, and especially teachers.
There are problems at Warm Springs. Alcoholism is prevalent. The young generation is turned off, and some of them turned on to drugs. The school dropout rate is high—fewer than half graduate from high school. There is a foster-care program for children with severe family problems and a center for troubled teenagers. Both are staffed by Indians.
James Cornett, the Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent on the reservation, comments that “this is the most viable Indian society in the
country.” What is the key to the confederation’s success? General manager Kenneth L. Smith says his grandparents inspired him to get an education because “we’re in the white man’s world … and you’re gonna have to learn to play the ball game.”
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Substantially all the confederation’s customers for the sale of its forest products, hotel services, and fish hatchery products are white.
General manager Smith and the confederation did assimilate to some extent to the great benefit of the tribes without destroying their Indian way of life and without impairing their culture.
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The confederation has followed the advice of tribal council chairman John Yellow Bird Steele of the impoverished Oglala Sioux, who realizes now that “Indians have to do things for themselves.”
W
ILL INDIANS
follow the path of the Oglala Sioux, the path of the Warm Springs and the Choctaw Indians, or some other path? The answer to that question does not lie in the hands of the federal government and its Bureau of Indian Affairs, in the hands of whites, or in the hands of Indian advocates. The answer lies almost exclusively in the hands of the Indians themselves. Some of those who decide to do things for themselves and who accept the fact that they can accommodate to the white man’s world without losing their culture as many other cultures have done may be able to achieve the Warm Springs and Choctaw results and live a dignified and productive life.
There are elements of classic Greek tragedy at work in the relationship between whites and Indians. The federal government over the years alternately has tried to harm and to help, but on balance has treated the once proud tribes in such a way that many of them are now characterized by their own leaders as welfare-state wards.
No doubt the best of times in this country are yet to come. The descendants of the settlers, the descendants of the Indians, and all other Americans would be wise to join in that future just as Thomas Jefferson invited Indians in 1808 to join with the settlers and “spread with us over this great island.”
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Jefferson’s invitation is appropriate today. No atrocities have been committed by present-day whites against present-day Indians or vice versa. No one at the Santee Sioux Uprising, the Sand Creek Massacre, or the Wounded Knee Massacre is alive today. The time has come to go forward together, unhindered by the mutual atrocities growing out of the war.
APPENDIX A
Intertribal Indian Wars
Events indicated by an
*
are those where members of one tribe fought another as scouts for an army.
1400s: Some Indian villages in America were found to be palisaded or fenced, a sign of “intensifying conflict.”
1
Before 1492: There were “fierce intertribal conflicts” for several reasons, including fights over women, material possessions, hunting rights, plunder, adventure, revenge, and sometimes territory.
2
1519: When Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés marched on the Aztec capital near Mexico City, he found “ever-warring” city-states in the empire.
3
1531: Conquistador Francisco Pizarro invaded Peru and found a civil war among the Incas.
4
1534: Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River. The Algonquin tribes told him their Iroquois enemies had been driven from that region several generations earlier.
5
The Iroquois invaded Algonquin territory before the settlers came. Many Algonquin lives were lost. That fighting continued after the settlers arrived.
6
Around 1560-70: The first explorers of the American coast and settlers as well found many Algonquin fighting one another and the Iroquois.
7
1584-90: The Powhatans fought the Chesapeakes.
8
1500s: The Sioux were driven out of Minnesota and Wisconsin by the Chippewa.
9
The Sioux went west and took land from the Kiowa, Crows, Pawnee, and other tribes.
10
Early 1600s: The Pequots attacked and conquered the Montauks.
11
Early 1600s: The Apache fought the Pimas.
12
1607: The Shawnee and the Iroquois fought before the settlers arrived. John Smith reported that they were engaged in a “fierce war” at that time.
13
1608-09: French explorer Samuel de Champlain found the Hurons and some Algonquin-speaking tribes fighting the Iroquois.
14
Before 1621: There were about 40 tribes in the Chesapeake Bay area. Powhatan, the predecessor of Opechancanough, was chief of several dozen of these tribes. Years before the settlers arrived, he had been “consolidating his hold on the lesser tribes of the area while warding off the inland tribes of the Piedmont.”
15
1621: The Wampanoags and the Narragansets fought. They made a treaty with the Pilgrims for trade and mutual assistance. Miles Standish and other Pilgrims aided the Wampanoags against the Narragansets.
16
Fighting among Indians continued after the settlers arrived up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. It first occurred in the war between the Powhatans and the settlers, which began with the incident involving Morgan’s hat in 1622.
17
1624: The Mohawk fought the Mahican and Ottawas.
18
1626: Four Dutch traders joined the Mahican in a raid on the Mohawk. All 4 were killed.
19
The Mohawk raided the Mohegans, Pequots, Narragansets, Wampanoags, Massachusetts, and Pennacooks to such an extent that, out of fear, some of them paid yearly tribute.
20
1629: The Massachusetts and Pawtucket Indians agreed to exchange land with the Pilgrims for protection against their enemies, the Micmac.
21
The Navajo had raided and harassed the Hopi “from earliest times.”
22
There was a land dispute between the 2 as late as 1960.
23
Shortly after 1630: The Five Nations commenced fierce attacks against the Hurons.
The attacks went on for 45 years.
24
At the same time, the Iroquois defeated the Algonquin allies of the Hurons to such an extent that they too paid yearly tribute.
25
1636: Massachusetts Bay militia with Mohegan allies killed some Pequot Indians.
26
1637: Mohegan and Narraganset Indians destroyed a Pequot town.
27
1638: The Five Nations fought the so-called Iroquoian Beaver Wars against the Hurons, Tobaccos, Neutrals, Eries, Ottawas, Mahicans, Illinois, Miamis, Susquehannocks, Nipissings, Potawatomis, Delaware, and Sokokis.
28
1639: The Hurons captured and burned 113 Iroquois.
29
1643: The Mohegans fought the Narragansets.
30
1647: Non-Christian Indians fought the Christian Apalachee.
31
1649: A party of 1,000 Mohawk and Seneca attacked a large Huron village.
32
1649-79: The Iroquois fought the Hurons and their allies in wars of annihilation.
33
Before 1650: The Sioux fought the Chippewa for more than 200 years. That war ended about 1850.
34
Around 1650: The Sioux fought the Hurons. Thousands were killed in that war. The Hurons were eliminated as an independent tribe.
35
The Shawnee became involved in a series of fights with the Iroquois.
36
1660: The Five Nations made attacks in the west against the Tobaccos, the Neutrals, and the Eries. All 3 tribes were practically wiped out. The Five Nations then fought the Ottawas.
37
1660: The Oneidas and the Piscataways fought.
38
Around 1661: The Susquehannocks had an intense war with the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga.
39
1662: The Mahicans and Ottawas fought the Mohawk.
40
Around 1670: The Iroquois of New York invaded the western country, what is now Indiana and Illinois.
41
1671: In an attempt to curry favor, when the Englishman Nathaniel Bacon said he was going to fight the Susquehannocks, the Occaneechis offered to do the fighting for him. They captured some Susquehannock prisoners and furs; they gave the prisoners to Bacon, but kept the furs. Bacon’s men attacked the Occaneechis, then retreated.
42
1671: The Illinois fought the Winnebagos. The Winnebagos were badly beaten. The tribe was reduced from 4,000 to a single village.
43
Before 1674: The Westos raided Guale, Cusabo, Cherokee, and Creek communities, taking slaves.
44
*
1675: Wampanoag chief Metacom was called King Philip by the settlers. Three of his tribe were hanged for murdering a Christian Indian. Settlers were killed in raids. The Nipmuc and Narraganset tribes and other warriors joined King Philip. The settlers used Mohegans, Pequots, Niantics, Sakonnets, and Massachusett Indians to assist them as warriors, spies, and scouts. The settlers employed friendly Indians in this war to fight hostile tribes.
45
Benjamin Church, commander of the settler troops, even recruited into his army some Indians he had captured.
46
Connecticut offered a bounty to the Narragansets for Wampanoag scalps or prisoners, and when the Narragansets attacked a Wampanoag village, 207 militia, perhaps 500 Indian warriors, and as many women and children were burned to death.
47
1675-80: Susquehannocks and Iroquois raided against the Piscataways and Matta-woman.
48
By the close of the seventeenth century all of the tribes of the north-central woodlands were facing destruction, mainly because they could not forget their petty feuds and present a united front to oppose the intrusion of Europeans into their lands.
49
1670s: The Cree and their allies forced the Sioux from the Mississippi headwaters into southern Minnesota.
50
The Iroquois destroyed the last of the Erie Indians.
51
The Iroquois fought the Susquehannocks.
52
1676: The Piscataway and the Mattawoman fought the Susquehannocks.
53
1680: The Sioux fought the Cheyenne and the Kiowa.
54
1680: The Carolina planters contracted with a wandering group of Shawnee to fight
the Westos. At the end of 3 years, there were fewer than 50 Westos left. The rest had been killed by the Shawnee or sold into slavery.
55
1680s: The Winnebagos were crushed by disease and by a war they started with the Illinois.
56
The Iroquois attacked the Illinois, the Potawatomis, and the Miami.
57
They also fought the Algonquin, Ottawas, Delaware, Mahicans, and Wappingers.
58
1680-84: The Five Nations fought the Illinois and the Miami.
59
1680s: The Iroquois attacked the Miami and the Illinois.
60
They were defeated, ending the westward expansion of the Iroquois.
61
The Ottawas and Hurons fought the Iroquois.
62
At the height of their power, the Five Nations compelled Algonquin in Indiana and Michigan to pay tribute.
63
Late 1600s: The Kickapoos suffered several massacres at the hands of their neighbors the Sioux and the Iroquois. In response they fled to the area around Green Bay, Wisconsin, and formed a confederacy with the Fox and the Mascouten.
64
The Powhatans fought the Iroquois.
65
1683: The Five Nations lost several hundred warriors in a battle with the Ojibway and Fox.
66
Before 1690: The Iroquois drove the Shawnee from the Ohio River Valley.
67
Around 1690: The Chickasaw allied themselves with Charleston, South Carolina, slave traders. The Chickasaw raided the Choctaw, killing more than 1,800 and taking about 500 slaves. The Chickasaw lost about 800 warriors in these raids.
The 2 were still fighting as late as 1702.
68
Late 1600s-early 1700s: The Creeks fought Indians who had been missionized by the Spanish, especially the Apalachee and the Timucuas.
69
Before 1700: The Sioux fought their hereditary enemies, the Chippewa, beginning perhaps as early as this date. Time and time again over the course of many years, the Sioux were defeated.
70
Around 1700: The Comanche moved from territory between the Yellowstone and Platte rivers to the South Plains. They fought with the Apache and drove them away. The Comanche made raids along their borders against both Indians and settlers for the next 150 years.
71
Around 1700: The Comanche supported by the French made “unrelenting war” on the Apache and Navajo.
72
The Pawnee killed hundreds of Navajo.
73
The Arapaho fought the Ute.
74
The Sioux were driving the Crows to the west.
75
1700: The French got help from the Choctaw, who overpowered the Natchez Indians, almost wiping them out.
76
The Choctaw, at the request of the French, attacked the Chickasaw.
77
When that fight was ended, the Choctaw vowed they would continue to make war on the Chickasaw. They said they would “never cease to strike at that perfidious race as long as there should be any portion of it remaining.”
78
Early 1700s: Neighboring tribes repeatedly raided the Tuscarora in North Carolina. Their children were stolen and sold as slaves.
79
The Tuscarora attacked English and German settlers, killing about 130 of them. South Carolina Indian trader John Barnwell led an army of 50 English and Indians from several tribes, especially Yamasees. His army entered Tuscarora territory, destroying houses and taking slaves.
80
1701-04: The Creeks fought the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Guale, Apalachee, Westos, and Savannah.
81
1702: The Creeks fought with the Timucuas.
82
1704-10: Carolina Indian trader Thomas Moore led about 1,000 Creeks and 50 English against the Timucuas, Guale, and Apalachee. Somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 Indians were captured and sold into slavery.
83
The Apalachee were practically destroyed.
84
1710-75: The Comanche were at war almost all the time with the Apache, the Mescalero, and the Faraon.
85
1711: The Cherokee fought the Tuscarora.
86
1711: The Fox fought the Hurons, Ottawas, and Potawatomis. After the Fox surrendered, about 1,000 of them were killed.
87
1711: After the Tuscarora killed 137 Carolinians, the settlers got the Catawbas and the Cherokee to help them fight the Tuscarora.
88
1716: Cherokee fought Yamasees and Lower Creeks. Casualties were heavy on both sides.
89
1720: The Fox fought the Miami and the Illinois.
90
1723: The Fox fought the Ojibway.
91
1724: The Seneca and the Cherokee fought. The Creeks offered to mediate. The Seneca said they could not afford to make peace because “we have no people to war against nor yet no meal to eat but the Cherokees.”
92
Around 1725: The Cree and Blackfeet were at war with the Shoshoni.
93
1729: Tunica helped the French suppress the Natchez.
94
Around 1729: The Kickapoos assisted the French against their former ally, the Fox, and fought them and the Chickasaw.
95
Late 1720s: The French enlisted the Winnebagos, the Ottawas, the Chippewa, and the Menominees to try to exterminate the Fox. They almost succeeded in
1730.
96
Before 1730: The Cherokee fought the Chickasaw and the Shawnee.
97