Table Of Content

Nancy Oestreich Lurie 1985 NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY Indian Lives Milwaukee Public Museum © 1985 Milwaukee Public Museum ISBN 0-89326-101-7 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Lurie, Nancy Oestreieh. North American Indian lives. Includes bibliographies. 1. Indians of North America — Biography. I. Title. E89.L87 1985 970.004’97022 [B] 84-20566 ISBN 0-89326-101-7 Design Gregory Raab Photographic research Claudia Jacobson Typography Parnau Graphics Printing Inland Press Distribution University of Washington Press Cover: “Meets His Squaw” ledger drawing from a book found at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, January 8, 1891 by Capt. R. Miller. Most of the drawings were done by Red Hawk, a Sioux. It was common practice for cavalrymen and others stationed at the western forts to give empty ledger books to Indians for drawing. Scenes depict war exploits, courtship and other subjects. Contents Introduction 1 Opechancanough Powhatan 5 Weetamoo Wampanoag 11 Pope San Juan Pueblo 15 Pontiac Ottawa 19 Handsome Lake Seneca 23 Tecumseh Shawnee 27 Black Hawk Sauk 31 Saeajawea Shoshone 37 Osceola Seminole 41 Sequoyah Cherokee 45 Chief Joseph Nez Perce 49 Geronimo Chiricahua Apache 55 Wovoka Northern Paiute 61 Sitting Bull Teton Sioux 67 Louis Riel Ojibwe-Cree Metis Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/indianlivesOOOOIuri Introduction The Europeans' arrival in North America posed a challenge that produced many Indian leaders who either tried to stem the tide of white advance or work out suitable ways of life for their people to co-exist with the newcomers. Besides having to cope with increasing numbers of Europeans and suffering population loss through armed conflict, the Indians faced an even deadlier enemy; diseases to which the Europeans had become relatively immune were utterly devastating when carried to the native peoples of the Americas. By 1900, the Indian population of North America had dwindled to less than 500,000 but it is only since about 1960 that scholars have begun to appreciate the enormous extent of population decrease. Until that time it was generally believed that in 1492 only 1,000,000 people inhabited the area north of Mexico to the Arctic coast. Now the most conservative estimates place the pre-Columbian population of the present United States and Canada at 10,000,000 and some researchers speculate that further study will show it to have been two, three or more times that number. The population statistics are being revised on the basis of various sources-, archeological excavations of sites which must have housed large concentrations of people, particularly in the Southeast and along the Atlantic coast; reassessments of population figures in historical documents relating to the earliest contacts between Indians and Europeans; and comparative studies of death rates among modern populations lacking immunity to newly introduced diseases. The wonder is that the native peoples offered any resistance to the Europen invaders in the face of wholesale loss ol life to strange maladies which often moved inland from tribe to tribe ahead ol the actual appearance of Europeans. Yet, fight they did, and they managed to obstruct and delay white expansion. The whole stoiy, however, entails more than simple Indian-white conflicts. England, France, Spain and eventually the United States and Mexico competed for control of territory in North America. Different groups of Indians allied themselves with one side or another as they believed their own interests would be served in the white nations v conflicts which went on intermittently from the 16th century to well into the 19th century. Some tribes had been at enmity before the Europeans arrived and tended to line up against each other accordingly as allies of different European powers. The Indians were interested in obtaining trade goods while trying to avoid domination by any nation with which they dealt. As long as whites struggled with each other, the tribes held a balance of power in choosing to identity with one white nation or another so none got the upper hand. In most cases, initial Indian-white contacts were amicable and mutually bene¬ ficial. Indian cultures were enriched by trade goods of all kinds which the tribes adapted to their own lifestyles. The Europeans were obliged to treat the tribes with respect if they wanted them as trading partners and military allies. Repeatedly, however, as the frontier advanced and settlers appropriated the tribes’ lands one after another, Indian leaders arose who saw the logic of putting aside old inter-tribal animosities to present a united front to preserve the Indian homeland in general. Many of those leaders tried to negotiate terms of co-existence with the whites before resorting to war to oppose white encroachment. The effectiveness of Indian resistance despite eventual defeat con¬ vinced the whites very early in the contact period that it would be cheaper in money and lives to enter into treaties to buy Indian land rather than tiy to annihilate the Indians. This approach was tempered by humanitarian considerations, of course, but the actual terms of many treaties, particularly in the late 18th and 19th centuries, re¬ flected the inability of the Americans and Canadians to estimate the Indians’ staying power. In order to “pacify” the tribes and get on with treaty business, the white treaty commissioners often made promises they did not expect to honor for veiy long because they believed the Indians were doomed to vanish as a people. About 1910, however, the decline of Indian population leveled off and began to show a steady increase which still continues. The present population of native North Americans is about 1,500,000. Consequently, the struggle for justice remains an Indian concern. Professionally trained Indian people, sometimes wryly styling themselves “briefcase warriors,” work through the political and legal systems to deal with recurrent threats to tribal lands, resources and rights which were guaranteed in treaties and agreements the tribes made with the United States and Canada. Even when the Indian population was decreasing, the United States government became apprehensive about the binding force of treaties and in 1871 unilaterally decided to make no more Indian treaties although existing treaties were to remain in effect. Further negotia¬ tions were called agreements and were so much like treaties that many tribes were not immediately aware that they did not have the same legal stature as treaties. White settlement progressed more slowly in Canada, particularly in the northern regions, and Canada continued making treaties with Indian tribes until the 1920s. The following sketches begin with notable Indian people of the early 1600s and end with those whose lives extended into the 20th century. This collection by no means exhausts the list of people who might be included. The selections were made to give an overview of developments across the country. Most of the people described were war leaders and if the list were expanded the proportion of war leaders would be about the same. It is important to remember that fame was bestowed on these people by white writers of history who must depend on records kept by white contemporaries of the Indians in years past. Thinkers, religious leaders, artistic innovators and others who worked within their tribal systems and might have enjoyed fame among their own people usually escaped notice by white observers. We have reliable information on only a few individuals who were not war leaders such as Sequoyah, Handsome Lake and Wovoka. Wovoka probably would have remained an obscure footnote to history if the basically peaceful message of this Paiute visionary had not been carried to the Plains where it figured importantly in the final conflicts oi the Sioux. We know little about notable Indian women because most of the historical records were made by white men — missionaries, traders, government envoys and military personnel. They seldom perceived vii Wampum belts such as this Mahican example included symbols to help recall ceremonial information and important historical events among the northeastern tribes. The beads of the quahogclam shell were made with stone tools by the Indians and later with metal tools by the early Dutch and English colonists for the Indian trade. Wampum was used as “money” only by the whites because of a shortage of coins for small change in the colonies. viii