Monthly Archives: September 2016

Too often, when hearing of Indian reservations, outsiders think of negative or sensational things—substance abuse, poverty, gaming. But there are inspiring projects happening on reservations across Indian Country too. I recently visited the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies (CAIRNS) on the Pine Ridge Reservation and witnessed young people learning in a way that perhaps could only be possible in a reservation setting. I thought I’d share my experiences with you.

The CAIRNS campus at Pine Ridge

The Pine Ridge Reservation was established in 1889, after 38 years of warfare, land grabbing, and broken treaties. Pine Ridge was originally known as the Red Cloud Agency, a U.S. bureaucratic unit of the Great Sioux Nation, established around the Oglala Lakota leader Red Cloud and his band.

Coming onto the reservation from the north, on route 73, you know you’ve crossed into Lakota country when you see a sign: “You are Entering the Land of Red Cloud/ Pine Ridge Indian Reservation/Home of the Oglala Sioux Indian Tribe.”

Red Cloud (1822-1909) was the leader of the Oglala Lakota during the period known as the Plains Wars (1862-1880).

He was also known as a proponent of western-style education, even as he insisted on that education being consistent with the preservation of Lakota culture.

Red Cloud, circa 1880.

Delphine Red Shirt, a Lakota writer who lived at Pine Ridge during the stormy 1970s, wrote a poem in her youth about Red Cloud’s educational message:

“He points to the road, but he refuses to lead.

He spoke these words to them:

Do not walk backward for you will surely fall.

Learn from what is past, but look to tomorrow’s dawn and follow the sun.

Walk frontward and learn of the white man’s ways, of his writing, his books and his language.

But most important, learn to walk side by side with him, as a friend.” (from Bead on an Anthill*)

At CAIRNS last month, I witnessed this side-by-side learning. In this case, non-native students from Washington and Lee University were taking a course called “Land in Lakota (Titonwan) Culture, Economics, and History.” It was led by Joseph Guse, a professor of Economics, and Harvey Markowitz, professor of Religion.

Harvey has a long association with the Lakotas, going all the way back to his days at the University of Chicago, where he was a graduate student. He came out to the Rosebud Reservation in 1975 for a few weeks of research that stretched into years. He was invited to live with a Lakota family and he taught at the local school. Now he is working to bring that experience to his own university students.

The students and instructors of Washington and Lee’s “Land in Lakota (Titonwan) Culture, Economics, and History.” (CAIRNS)

The day I sat in on the class, the students were learning first-hand what Indian allotment means. CAIRNS is nestled at the edge of a draw on a 640 acre allotment. Craig Howe, its founder, organized the young people into groups and set them about looking for the survey stakes driven into the property boundaries in 1910. After they found them—coming back muddy and tired in their realization that 640 acres is a long walk—the students plotted them on the old allotment map Craig has in his office. It was hands-on learning at its best and the students went to bed that night exhausted but full of good cheer. Before we said goodbye for the evening, we all formed a circle, shaking each other’s hand in succession, saying, Toksa ake wacinyankinkte”—the young women adding yeah to the phrase, and the young men,  yelo, as is customary in Lakota. It was a stirring moment, when community, respect, and learning all came together to make us whole.

Waste yelo!

By Jacob Koch

The idea of a higher education in your adult years has been integral to our society for the longest time. And we Americans are fortunate enough to have access to a plethora of institutions—some of the best in the world, assuming you can get into them. It was interesting to me, then, to find out that two of our most prestigious colleges, Harvard and Dartmouth, were not founded with the goal of educating white colonials, but rather, Native Americans. Indeed, the Dartmouth college seal itself has images of Native Americans reading beneath pine trees. This led me to ask myself the questions, “How has this not been made common knowledge? And why not?”

This led me to the Occom Circle Project, an online database that describes itself as a “scholarly digital edition of handwritten documents by and about Samson Occom housed in Dartmouth College.” Samson Occom (1723-1792) was one of the founders of Dartmouth College, and an advocate for creating the school in hopes of educating Native Americans. The documents preserved in the Occom Circle also include information and letters on Eleazar Wheelock (1711-1779), mentor to Occom and the primary person credited with founding Dartmouth. These two men, although in agreement when they started the Dartmouth project together, would have different visions of the project’s goal, and this would ultimately lead to a tumultuous relationship, cause the college’s goal to turn away from educating Native Americans, and shape the college’s place in academia in the future.

Eleazar Wheelock’s decision to change the purpose of Dartmouth College from being a school with the goal of educating Native Americans to a predominately white European school undoubtedly caused the falling out between him and Occom, Christian preacher from the Mohegan nation and Native American missionary. While Wheelock is considered the founder of Dartmouth, Occom, a former student of Wheelock, served as a large proponent in the formation of the school with its original vision in mind. Here, we look at Wheelock’s deeper reasoning behind his decision, the argument over whether Dartmouth was rightfully created a white college or not, and what this all means for the idea of repatriation.

In a letter from Samson Occom to Eleazar Wheelock (July 24,1771), we see that Occom was at least under the impression that Dartmouth was originally going to be created to be primarily an institute for higher education of Native peoples. Occom writes, “Your having So many white Scholars and So few or no Indian Scholars, gives me great Discouragement…”

Although much disdain is expressed, where does Occom gain his assertion to condemn Wheelock’s decision? We can see in the very same letter the supporting evidence that this was a joint venture between the two of them, where Occom traveled to overseas to raise money and support for the project. He continues,

I verily thought once that your Institution was Intended purely for the poor Indians with this thought I cheerfully Ventur’d my body & Soul, left my Country my poor Young Family all my Friends and Relations, to sail over the Boisterous Seas to England, to help forward your School, Hoping that it may be a lasting Benefet to my poor Tawnee Brethren, with this View I went a Volunteer…We Loudly Proclaimed before the Multitudes of People from Place to Place, that there was a most glorious Prospect of Spreading the gospel of the Lord Jesus to the furtherest Savage Nations in the Wilderness, thro’ your Institution…

It becomes strikingly clear, through this letter, what the original aims of the Dartmouth project were and Occom’s contribution to the cause. One could argue, in fact, that without Occom, or the people of the Native nations for that matter, Dartmouth would not have come into existence.

Samson Occom

Yet, dartmouth.edu recognizes Wheelock as its sole founder. Where did the missing accreditation go?

Furthermore, how far back do Wheelock’s plans go? Why did he make this decision? One Occom Circle source raises possible answers., In an earlier letter On the topic of teaching Native Americans (July 5, 1761) from Wheelock to George Whitefield, a friend and important supporter of the Dartmouth project., Wheelock writes,

None know, nor can any, without Experience, well conceive of, the Difficulty of Educating an Indian. They would soon kill themselves with Eating and Sloth, if constant care were not exercised for them at least the first year – they are used to set upon the Ground, and it is as natural for them as a seat to our children…They are used to a Sordid Manner of Dress, and Love it as well as our Children to be clean – They are not used to any Regular Government, the sad Consequences of Which You may a little guess at…

Wheelock appears blatantly insulting to the Native Peoples of America, but is this the reason why he made the decision on the shift in Dartmouth’s education? If this truly the motive it appears to be, the overall decision becomes somewhat petty. A school for Native Americans no longer teaches them because they do not learn as well; this notion seems somewhat redundant. Yet, the idea of Dartmouth as a Native American oriented college, or any college in general for that matter, is mostly forgotten to the general public. Should not the Native Peoples have some ownership in the founding of one of the great education institutions in America? Furthermore, the implications these letters give rise the question, “Was Dartmouth ever truly planned for anyone but whites?”

Today, Dartmouth is ranked the twelfth best post-secondary school in the United States (U.S. News Education) and is made up of 50% Caucasian students (Dartmouth admissions). In a sobering contrast, only 4% of Dartmouth students are classified as Native American. Furthermore, according to the 2014 President’s Youth Native Report, only roughly 13% of Native Americans in the country earn a Bachelor’s degree. Not only have Native Americans been denied their historical due regarding our education systems, but this may have affected their means of achieving a higher education as a whole. What are the direct relations to these statistics and Dartmouth being changed to a primarily white school, and how would the statistics been different if Wheelock did not have his way? One can only speculate, however, it seems to me the reparations owed to the Native Peoples and their educations are long past due.

Jacob Koch is an English major at the University of Iowa. He wrote this post as partial fulfillment of honors credit for ENGL 3418 “Literature and Culture of America before 1800.” His instructor was Phillip Round.

While the Standing Rock Sioux community fight to defend their watersheds and treaty rights, recent successes by Native peoples in California to retain sovereignty over their waterways should offer hope.

In Northeastern California, the Pit River Tribe (known in their own languages as  Hewisedawi) successfully defended their rights of sovereignty over Spirit Lake, a glacial-fed body of water over which the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had claimed jurisdiction. For the past 12 years, the tribe has been in court, arguing that the BLM wrongly awarded leases to private companies wishing to exploit the region for geothermal development. In April, 1026, a judge ruled in the Hewisedawi’s favor, thus affirming BLM overreach and setting the stage for the return of this sacred place, a part of the Medicine Lake Highlands that the federal government designated a Traditional Culture District in 1999.

The tribe’s website explains that “the Hewise people never signed a treaty with the United States; their land was simply confiscated. Today, the Hewisedawi have survived and continue to live in what is now called Modoc County, as well as throughout the West. They continue to hunt and gather in their traditional places, and pray at their sacred sites throughout their homeland. Today, they are federally recognized indians and one of eleven bands making up the Pit River Nation.”

The website also includes a poem by tribal member Erin Forrest. In “Reflection,” the poet speaks about the land in a way that indigenous peoples across the hemisphere can understand:

Today I peered through the stifling mist
That separates the spirit world from the land of my Grand fathers.
I see little resemblance of the land I knew where in my time,
I was spawned and grew.
Gone is the pristine beauty that inspired my youth.
Seasonal fragrances that permeated the glen
Replaced now by the offending odors of our conquerors.
The delicate sounds that announced the seasons are muffled now . . . 

Over on the coast, the Hupa Nation has embarked on the restoration of its traditional salmon fisheries by restoring the Lower Trinity River watershed that supports them. Here is a short film produced by the tribe that describes their efforts:

The efforts of these tribes demonstrate the effectiveness of persistence and community organizing in facing down corporate and federal trespass on Native lands. But they also demonstrate the efforts Native Americans are making on behalf of us all. The protection of these watersheds benefits everyone, not just the tribes. As Pit River Tribal Chairman Mickey Gemmill, Jr. told reporters from Indian Country Today: “If Calpine fracks our land, it will take away a part of our culture and it will poison the waters . . . We’re not just fighting for our people but for everyone and the waters of California.

Non-Native citizens ought to sit up and take notice, for we too are invested in these brave indigenous efforts to save the waters we all share.