Volume 14 Spring 2003 Issue No. 3
Your Heroes are not our Heroes
by Marjane Ambler
Many American Indian parents' hearts have been broken by walking into a room with a television and overhearing their own children cheering for the cowboys. No matter what the parents do to instill pride in their children they have a difficult time overriding the lessons taught by movies, novels, and textbooks. Their ancestors are portrayed as savages, rapists, and losers in the battle for ownership of North America.A statue that stood for over a century on the east front steps of the Capitol in Washington, DC, showed a gallant white backwoodsman grasping the arm of a naked red man intent upon killing an innocent white woman cowering in the background (Horatio Greenough's "Rescue Group" as described by Richard Drinnon in Facing West: the Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building). In her popular children's book, Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder describes savages begging at her family's door, not mentioning that these Osage people had been forced into starvation by trespassers such as Ingalls's father.
Children, both Indian and non-Indian, absorb these messages and take them with them to school. Their classroom experiences further alienate Indian children. Sherrole Benton remembers white boys throwing stones at her when she was in third grade and yelling, "Nigger. Go back to where you came from!" She wrote about the experience in Tribal College Journal several years ago (TCJ, Vol. 6, N.4). As an Oneida and Chippewa Indian girl, she eagerly had embraced Pocahontas when she found her in the textbook, hoping that everyone in her class would learn that Indians were here in this land and that this is Indian land.
The Pocahontas story with its questionable message was the only mention of Indians in her entire junior high textbook. There was no mention of historical visionaries such as Black Elk, Ma-se-wa-pe-ga, or Sweet Medicine; no mention of leaders such as Manuelito, Sitting Bull, Dull Knife, Plenty Coups, or Sequoyah. Nothing portrayed her tribes - or any others - as living, breathing people.
Many of us non-Indians try to find books with diverse heroes for our children and grandchildren. Our eyes have been opened to the sins of our ancestors by writers such as the late Dee Brown (Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee), Vine Deloria, Jr. (Custer Died for your Sins), and Howard Zinn (A People's History of the United States). However, we might not realize how biased we are in remembering various American figures. Years ago I read a column by Tim Giago (now publisher of Lakota Journal) pointing out that his Lakota people did not share our heroes. While I lost my copy of the column, its message stuck with me and led to the theme for this issue.
"Rational" people often question tribal creation stories, saying they are merely mythology. We are just beginning to realize that the history textbooks we rely upon for a scientific accounting of our pasts are actually filled with half-true creation stories, written from the viewpoint of a particular ideology. Our history lessons are not much more complicated than the cowboy and Indian movies we watched on television; they make it much too easy to tell the black hats from the white hats. It is deeply disquieting when we encounter the other side of people whom we had classified as villains or heroes:
- One of the most startling, for example, is Richard Nixon. Vilified for his corruption in the Watergate scandal, Nixon was a hero in the context of advancing Indian policy. In an address to Congress in 1970, Nixon introduced the self-determination policy that for the first time recognized the right of Indian tribes to control government programs, including schools. (interview with Helen Schierbeck and Tom Davis, who were involved in Indian controlled schools in the 1970s)
- Dakota people remember Abraham Lincoln with mixed feelings for his role after the 1862 Dakota conflict in Minnesota. The Dakota Sioux were starving, and the federal agent said, "Let them eat grass." In the ensuing battle, hundreds were killed on both sides. More than 300 Dakota were condemned to death by hanging, but Lincoln reduced the list to 38, feeling compelled by political pressure to punish that many despite the lack of evidence. At about the same time that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln signed their death warrant. (interview with Dr. Elden Lawrence, Dakota historian)
- When Thomas Jefferson listed the offenses of King George III in his draft of our country's Declaration of Independence, he said George incited the "merciless Indian Savages." The man who sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their peaceful exploration voyage vacillated between calling the Indians "my children" and calling for their extermination. (Richard Drinnon's Facing West: the Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building)
- Lewis and Clark were army officers who met each other fighting Indians in the Ohio Valley before they embarked on their voyage of discovery. Clark owned York, his body servant during the voyage. Although York played an important role in making the Indians friendlier toward the explorers, Clark and our nation mistreated him after the journey. He did not get the double pay and land grants that others in the group received after their return. (Time, July 8, 2002, Lewis and Clark special issue)
From 2003-2006, the United States will be "commemorating" the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Bicentennial. Organizers are not calling it a "jubilee" or even a "celebration." American Indians, including people associated with tribal colleges, have taken significant roles in planning the events from the very beginning. Gerald Baker (Mandan-Hidatsa) is the National Park Service superintendent of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. Both he and Amy Mossett (formerly of Fort Berthold Community College) grew up on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Mossett is co-chair of the Circle of Tribal Advisors for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, which formed in October 2000 because they were "wary of yet another anniversary of discovery." Dr. Rudi Mitchell, president of Nebraska Indian Community College, also serves on the circle.
In a column last year, Oglala Lakota journalist Tim Giago accused the participating tribes of being sellouts. By participating, however, they intend to use the bicentennial as an opportunity for education and reconciliation. The Circle of Tribal Advisors wants to do more than just clarify the important role of the tribes in the explorers' work. Along with their state and federal partners, they can promote a legacy that will outlive the four-year commemoration, such as cultural sensitivity, protection of sacred sites along the route, and language perpetuation programs. They clearly are having an impact: Each of the 15 "signature events" along the trail must involve tribes; and funding guidelines for state and federal grants related to the bicentennial reflect the circle's goals.
The bicentennial planners face overwhelming challenges dispelling some basic myths. Among them, Lewis and Clark were not the first to explore the West; tribes had been planting crops for hundreds of years before Jefferson promoted his agrarian ideal; many Indian tribes had written records long before contact with Europeans. The tribes' active presence challenges the most damaging myth of all: that Indian people have been vanquished and are disappearing. American Indian people have a future, not just a past, as Gerald Baker reminds his audiences over and over.
As a white woman, I believe that we must acknowledge the atrocities of our ancestors so that we, as the dominant society, can avoid repeating them. However, white guilt too often stands in the way of reconciliation, immobilizing us and making us too uncomfortable to speak with contemporary Indian people. In her work on the bicentennial, Amy Mossett points out that Indian tribes were sometimes guilty of atrocities against one another, too. "If we grieve forever, we will never move forward," she says.
We should also remember the critical role of non-Indian humanitarians in changing policies. For example, when Las Casas published his passionate description of the Spanish Conquest in 1552, the royal court in Spain was finally shamed into investigating. In the 1920s, non-Indian crusaders helped reverse the United States' efforts to destroy Indian religions and tribal governments, and the reforms were enacted into law in 1934.
With this issue, we are not celebrating the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. We are celebrating the survival and the renaissance of Indian people. We are celebrating historians and teachers who introduce us to heroes of more than one color, such as the tribal college history courses and workshops described elsewhere in this issue. We don't need romanticized, one-dimensional people but human heroes whose moments of greatness can inspire us. Sitting Bull College President Ron McNeil, the great, great, great grandson of Chief Sitting Bull, told Time: "We want our children to be proud that they are descendants of chiefs so when they play cowboys and Indians, they'll all want to be Indians."
Marjane Ambler has been editor of the Tribal College Journal since 1995. Comments should be addressed to: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 720, Mancos, CO 81328 or emailed to editor@tribalcollegejournal.org