Reimagining Indians: Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, 1880-1940 PDF
Preview Reimagining Indians: Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, 1880-1940
Reimagining Indians: Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, 1880–1940 Sherry L. Smith OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Reimagining Indians This page intentionally left blank R E I M AG I N I N G I N D I A N S ‒ Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, Sherry L. Smith 1 1 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Instanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © by Sherry L. Smith Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. Madison Avenue, New York, New York Oxford is a registered trademark ofOxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission ofOxford University Press. Library ofCongess Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Sherry Lynn. Reimagining Indians : native Americans through Anglo eyes, –/ Sherry L. Smith p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN--- . American literature—th century—History and criticism. . American literature—th century—History and criticism. . Indians in literature. . Literature and history—United States—History—th century. . Literature and history—United States—History—th century. . Indians ofNorth America—Government relations. I. Title. PS.IS .′—dc - Printed in the United States ofAmerica on acid-free paper For Bob This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Northwest Indiana was the geography of my child- hood. It was also, as it turns out, the inspiration for this book, although I did not realize that until I was well into the project. My family had a summer cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan. One of our neighbors was a man named Roy Hawkinson, a son of Swedish immigrants, born and raised in eastern South Dakota at the end of the nineteenth century. He migrated to Chicago where he sold rare books and spent his summers in the Indiana Dunes, but he never for- got his western boyhood and the Indians who lived on a nearby reservation. He decorated his Duneland cabin with drums and headdresses, pipes and blankets, all meant to evoke the people and the place he loved. On special occasions he dressed in Indian clothing, sang songs, and danced. He gave me and my entire family “Indian names.” He was the grandfather I never had. I now know that Roy Hawkinson was an “Indian hobbyist,” one of those midcentury people who demonstrated an intense interest in Indians and at- tempted to recreate their dance, songs, and craftwork. He ignited in me an in- terest in the American West, Indian cultures, and, unconsciously, the impor- tance of both to American culture and identity. I did not make the link between my childhood and this work, however, until the day I was sitting in the Univer- sity of Montana Mansfield Library reading the correspondence of Frank Bird Linderman, a collector of Indian tales and writer of Indian “autobiography.” There, to my surprise, I found a fan letter written by my friend Roy Hawkin- son. I recognized the signature. I could hear his voice. At that moment I under- stood this book was more than an intellectual exercise. It was an effort to un- derstand an important element of my life. Thank you, Roy, for enriching my childhood and inspiring my work. Many others have contributed along the way. I owe a great debt to historians Paul Hutton, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Martin Ridge, Lewis O. Saum, and Richard White who liked my ideas and helped convinced others to support my research. The Huntington Library provided a Mellon Fellowship for a semester of research. The interest and support of Martin Ridge, Peter Blodgett, and in- viii Acknowledgments formal conversations with other fellows, including Kathy Morrissey and Esther Lanigan, made the Huntington an ideal place to begin. A Frederick Beinecke Fellowship in Western Americana funded a one-month stay at Yale’s Beinecke Library, and I greatly appreciated George Miles’ and Howard Lamar’s atten- tions to my work. The University of Texas, El Paso, provided several research grants including two University Research Institute grants and a Faculty Devel- opment grant which made possible travel to research libraries. The National Endowment for the Humanities supported this book through a Travel to Col- lections grant, a Summer Stipend grant, and a Fellowship for College Teachers. All were important, but the last was especially crucial to completing it. Historians’ works are inevitably dependent upon the expertise of librarians. I am most appreciative of the help provided by George Miles, Patricia Willis, and the staff of the Beinecke Library during my New Haven sojourn, as well as Richard Buchen’s willingness to scour the Southwest Museum’s Braun Library collections in search of relevant materials. Peter Blodgett and the Huntington Library staff were equally dedicated. Princeton University librarian Alfred Bush found relevant materials as did the staffs of the Montana State Historical So- ciety; the Bancroft Library, University of California; Mansfield Library, Univer- sity of Montana; Library of Congress; and the Sterling Library, Yale University. I appreciate the willingness of all these libraries, as well as the heirs of Frank Bird Linderman, to permit me to quote from materials and reproduce photo- graphs from their collections. The Pacific Northwest Quarterly granted permis- sion to reprint portions of two chapters that first appeared in that journal and Houghton Mifflin to reprint lines from Charles Fletcher Lummis’s “Man-Who- Yawns” and “Santiago Narango” which appeared in A Bronco Pegasus. I researched and wrote this book while teaching at the University of Texas, El Paso, where my colleagues proved to be sources of intellectual stimulation, professional encouragement, and inspiration. The core group of our Friday af- ternoon “seminars”: Cheryl and Charles Martin, Sandy McGee Deutsch, Carl and Margaret Jackson, Kenton and Marlee Clymer, Chuck and Gloria Ambler, Ron and Merrie Weber, Ninon and the late Ellery Schalk created a climate of both genuine collegiality and long-lasting friendship. I am also appreciative of the interest of other historian friends, especially Michael Cassity, Mary Murphy, Joseph Jastrzembski, and Marly and Dan Merrill, who gave encouragement, asked questions about this project . . . and then listened. Dave Emmons first brought Frank Bird Linderman to my attention and Sandy McGee Deutsch did the same regarding Anna Ickes. The careful reading and editing by Oxford Uni- versity Press’s Thomas LeBien, Susan Ferber, and their anonymous reviewers improved the book considerably. My family, including my brother, Brian Smith, and my sister, Reverend Bar- bara SilverSmith, continues to sustain me in my work and life. Atwood Smith, my father, takes pride in his children’s academic and professional accomplish- ments, but those achievements are possible only because of the educational op- portunities he and my mother, the late Adeline Behnke Smith, provided. More Acknowledgments ix than that, they instilled in us a love of books, history, and, of course, provided the Indiana Dunes experience and the opportunity to know someone like Roy Hawkinson. Finally, my husband and fellow historian, Robert Righter, has been a con- stant source of intellectual and emotional support. He encouraged this project from beginning to end, accompanied me on research trips, listened, prodded me to dig deeper, read various drafts, and gently suggested ways to approxi- mate his own felicitous, clean writing style in my prose. But the greatest gift he has given me is a model of how to live a full life: one that engages in serious work, such as writing history, but one that also makes time for enjoying life— urging me occasionally, for example, to put aside books and float down the Snake River in his raft. These are just some of the reasons that I have dedicated this book to him.
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