“The people of the United States based their laws on those of England. It is not many generations ago, that in England, the law exacted a life for the theft of a loaf of bread. It is nothing to the law. A human being to sustain life steals a loaf of bread or lump of coal. Immediately the power of the law is invoked to protect the rights of property but it did not protect the right of the human being to live.”
1854–1903
Also known as Insta Theamba, or “Bright Eyes,” Susette was descended from an interesting mix of Iowa, Ponca, French, and British ancestry.
Her father Joseph La Flesche was the son of a wealthy French furtrader father and a Ponca mother. After his parents separated, Joseph’s mother married again, and Joseph went to live with her among the Omaha people, where he would be adopted by their chief, Big Elk, who also named Joseph as his successor. Now nicknamed “Iron Eyes,” Joseph went on to become the last traditional chief of the Omaha tribe.
Iron Eyes married Mary Gale, who was also of mixed race: her father was English and her mother a member of the Iowa tribe.
Luckily for Susette, her parents appreciated the importance of a good education for their five children, and also believed that harmony between the indigenous population of North America and the immigrants was essential for a happy and productive future for everyone. This belief evidently shaped the lives of the La Flesche children and was reflected in their future careers: of her four siblings, Susan became the first female Native American physician and founded a private hospital on a reservation; Rosalie became financial manager for the Omaha Nation; Margaret became a teacher on a reservation; Francis became an ethnologist specializing in the Osage and Omaha for the Smithsonian Institution.
Susette’s interest was in politics, and because of her family background she had a particular interest in the Ponca people and their circumstances. The tribe had been forced to move from Omaha to the Great Sioux Reservation, where conditions were terrible. The people had arrived there too late to be able to plant crops, the supplies promised by the Government arrived late, and malaria was sweeping through the tribe. In fact, 30 percent of the Ponca were dead within two years of their arrival at the reservation. Susette worked with the newspaper journalist Thomas Tibbles of the Omaha Herald to highlight the plight of the Ponca.
Chief Standing Bear’s eldest son was one of those who had succumbed to malaria, and when the chief tried to leave the Great Sioux Reservation to bury his son in the homelands of Nebraska, he was arrested and imprisoned in Fort Omaha. The case attracted the outrage and sympathy of the public, in particular because of Tibbles’ efforts to highlight the story. Standing Bear was given free legal advice, suing the U.S. Government under the law of habeas corpus, which prevented imprisonment without good reason.
Susette La Flesche was the main interpreter during the trial of Standing Bear. She was also able to testify as to the terrible conditions on the reservation.
Standing Bear’s argument was that Indians had the same rights as U.S. citizens, and that an Indian was a person in the eyes of the law. Standing Bear was victorious, with “Standing Bear vs. Crook” becoming a landmark case for civil rights. Afterward Susette accompanied Standing Bear on his subsequent tour of the United States, acting as his interpreter as well as speaking in her own right. She and Tibbles married and also traveled to England and Scotland with Standing Bear. Once back in the U.S., the couple investigated the Ghost Dance Movement and visited the Pine Ridge Agency to report on conditions there. They also reported the details of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
In 1983 Susette La Flesche Tibbles was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
The game that’s now popular all over the world was actually a Native American invention. Lacrosse is played with a ball and a long-handled, netted racket.
Cofitachequi was an area inhabited by a band of Muskhogean in what is now South Carolina. The Spanish explorer De Soto visited the place in the 1540s, no doubt in search of people he could capture and sell as part of his slave trade, or perhaps looking for wealth and riches that he could appropriate. In Florida the Spaniards caught a young man named Perico who told them of a town that was ruled by a woman. The town was effectively the “capital” of the area, the Spaniards were told, and its female chief collected taxes and tributes from all the other villages in the area. Accordingly, De Soto and his armies set off to find Cofitachequi, arriving there in May of 1540. Perico had accompanied the Spaniards to act as an interpreter, and soon they met a delegation from Cofitachequi, and expressed a desire to meet with the chief. They also said that they had come in peace. All these details were written down by the Spanish chroniclers.
A short time later a beautiful young woman arrived among them, carried on a litter that was decked with white cloth. Perico told the Spanish that this woman was the chief’s niece. It’s likely that Perico thought to protect the woman, but De Soto’s chroniclers did not believe him and took this woman to be the true chief—a belief given credence by the fact that the young woman presented De Soto with an abundance of gifts: pelts, fabrics, and some glorious freshwater pearls. She then commanded the people of the town to bring more gifts: copper, mica, and more pearls. The Spanish repaid this hospitality by looting the temples, wherein were buried the dead. Looting these graves yielded more than 200 pounds of freshwater pearls. After they had finished, they forced the young woman to lead them to her own town, where once again they robbed the graves and stole everything they wanted. De Soto also sent out parties to take as much corn as they could find, although the town’s supplies were critically low since the population had been crushed by an epidemic of European diseases.
After almost two weeks, the Spanish had stolen just about anything of value in the province, and had consumed most of the food. Angered, the Cofitachequi people were threatening to rise up against the Spanish. So De Soto kidnapped the young woman, and took her, along with a retinue of her servants, to act as his guide. He was headed for a town called Coosa, which had a reputation for even more wealth and riches.
The Lady, as she came to be known, led the Spanish in the wrong direction, sending them toward the mountains, where she hoped they would get lost. Once in the mountains the Lady managed to make her escape, and, along with one of her servants, managed to reclaim a casket of the valuable pearls. She never saw De Soto again.
Also known as the Ota, or the Nakota, the Lakota are one of the seven tribes that belong to the confederation of the Sioux. They speak the Lakota dialect of the Siouxan tongue.
The meaning of Lakota is akin to “united, friendly, or affectionate.” There are four main tribes of the Lakota; these are the Eastern, the Santee, the Teton, and the Yankton.
The most important of these four was the Teton, which was split into seven parts: the Blackfeet, Brule, Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, Oglala, Sans Arc, and the Two-Kettle. These seven subtribes were called the Seven Council Fires.
The Lakota lands are in North and South Dakota, the westernmost part of the Sioux territory.
Historical information about the Lakota is preserved in ancient documents named the Winter Counts; these are pictorial records, painted on hides, of the events of a winter, or year. These records go back to A.D. 900.
In the early decades of the 18th century the Lakota were introduced to the horse; like other tribes, they had a natural affinity with the animal and this new innovation meant that the tribe could now hunt the buffalo on horseback.
In 1720 the Lakota split into two; the Saone, who moved to the border of Minnesota with North and South Dakota, and the Oglala, who inhabited the James River Valley. When the smallpox epidemic devastated three other tribes, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, whose presence had prevented the Lakota from expanding west of the Missouri River in the 1770s, the Lakota were quick to take advantage of their misfortune, crossed the river and arrived at the Black Hills, which was at that time part of the Cheyenne territory. Defeating the Cheyenne, who moved further west, the Lakota settled in the Black Hills.
When the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Lakota in the early 19th century, the Europeans did not receive the warm welcome that they had enjoyed from others. The Lakota prevented the explorers from going forward, and prepared for battle—although this proved unnecessary. Five decades later the U.S. Army built a fort—without permission—on Lakota land, intending to protect immigrants on the Oregon Trail from attack by both the Cheyenne and the Lakota. The First Fort Laramie Treaty sought to protect the travelers; in return for a guarantee of safe passage, it promised the Lakota rulership over the Great Plains area. However, despite the terms of the treaty, the Government either would not or could not protect the Indians from further incursion by white settlers, and so the Lakota continued to attack. The situation escalated when the Army attacked a Lakota village, slaughtering some 100 people, including women, children, and babies. This triggered more trouble, in the form of a flurry of battles.
More conflict came when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. The Lakota objected not only to the incursions on their land, but to the mining of the Hills themselves, which were considered sacred. To add insult to injury, the ink was hardly dry on the Fort Laramie Treaty, which had exempted the Black Hills from white settlement “forever,” before this promise was broken.
The Lakota, accordingly, continued their attacks on the miners and other settlers; the situation escalated still further as the colonists decided that they wanted to remove the Natives in any way they could. A policy was even encouraged, by General Philip Sheridan, to deliberately destroy the buffalo herds as a means of making the Indians suffer.
The Lakota, along with the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho, fought hard, and brought the Army to a crashing defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, wiping out General Custer’s battalion. This, though, triggered the Army to increase its size; the Great Sioux War of 1877 finally saw the tribe defeated, after which they were forced onto the reservations and the Black Hills were ceded to the United States. In 1890 the Hunkpapa Lakota chief, Sitting Bull, was killed by a member of his own tribe, and on December 29, 1890, the Wounded Knee Massacre saw the tragic killing of many members of the tribe.
See Tenkswatawa
The ceding of land was generally organized by a treaty, entailing that Native Americans gave up their ancestral lands in return for the protection and help of the white settlers. However, time and again the promises made in exchange for the lands were rarely kept, and in addition the area of land was frequently reduced in accord with the needs of the settlers and with little, if any, regard to the plight of the original dwellers on that land. Often, Native Americans were forced to give up lands against their will; this frequently led to the outbreak of wars.
Before the first Europeans “discovered” America, it is estimated that there were in the region of 1,000 different languages spoken by the indigenous peoples. Of these, 250 or so would have been spoken in what subsequently became the United States.
Those many languages were incredibly varied, often having very little or even no relationship to one another—so much so that different peoples would have found it very difficult, even impossible, to make themselves understood to others, even though they might have been living only a few miles apart. The development of a sign language, whose meanings were universal and could, for the most part, be understood by everyone, happened quite naturally.
Until the coming of the white men, none of these languages was written down, although some Natives, such as the Mayan, used pictures and ideograms to convey concepts and events. Sadly, almost all of the original tongues have been superseded by the English language, although there are still some native speakers and some of the languages are being revived.
The different languages are grouped together linguistically into “families.” These families include all the languages which linguists assert have a common origin, but which may have been broken down into different dialects over the passage of time. Each language family is further broken down into subgroups. It is believed that there were once as many as 50 language groups. Now, the main nine language families are:
Algic
Athabaskan
Eskimo-Aleut
Iroquoian
Mayan
Muskogic
Salishan
Siouxan
Uto-Aztecan
There are also smaller groups of language families. These include:
Caddoan
Kiowa-Tanoan
Miwok-Costanoan
Sahaptian
Where a language exists without any relationship to any other language, it is called an “isolate.” The Zuni tongue is a good example of this.
Bear in mind that Europe has only three language families, and the complexity of the Native American language families becomes apparent.
Since the indigenous population of North America was reduced from an estimated 20 million to fewer than (an estimated) 2 million, it stands to reason that the proportion of people speaking these native languages will also have dropped significantly.
Today, the language spoken most widely is Navajo, which belongs to the Athabaskan family (148,000 speakers). This is followed by Cree (Algic family—60,000 speakers). Third is Ojibwe, also of the Algic family, used by an estimated 50,000 speakers.
One of the Delaware chiefs who, in 1737, was one of the key signatories to the “Walking Purchase” Treaty in Philadelphia. The purpose of this treaty was to grant lands to the white settlers, and decreed that they could take the lands extending from Neshaming Creek which they could reach, walking, within a day and a half. The wily governor of Pennsylvania constructed a level, smooth-surfaced road and used a trained runner to define the boundary. The Native Americans did not consider this very fair or sportsmanlike.
A useful hunting weapon, effective use of the lariat was a skill that took time to master. A lariat is also called a lasso or a “throw rope” and was generally made from a combination of horsehair and rawhide. Approximately 23 feet long, at the end of the lariat was a loop, made by passing the end of the rope through a slit or eye which, when looped around the neck of the prey, enabled the weapon to be pulled taught. Early lariats were braided from three of the “strings” described above. Later, the Mexicans influenced lariat-making technology with a method of braiding four strings rather than three.
Many European explorers and colonists benefitted from this Native American custom that was common among many peoples. The Law of Hospitality wasn’t actually a law, but a practice whereby outsiders were treated with the utmost courtesy, as though they were members of the family. Food was shared and strangers welcomed to stay as long as they wished. Any tribal member who didn’t follow this code was frowned upon, as though he or she had committed a felony.
1732–1810
Of the Huron (Wyandot) people, Shateiaronhi, whose name translates as “Two Clouds of Equal Size,” was more commonly known to the white men as Leatherlips.
The Huron had been virtually wiped out due to two causes: a war with the five nations of the Haudenosaunee and the devastating effects of diseases imported into America by the white settlers. Knowing that he needed to do everything he could to save what remained of his people, Leatherlips, a major chief, signed the Treaty of Greenville which encouraged the Natives to form good relationships with the white settlers. However, Tecumseh and his brother, the prophet Tenkswatawa, fervently opposed any cooperation with the incomers; as a result, Tenkswatawa sentenced Leatherlips to death because he had not only signed away Native lands, but also because Tecumseh had branded him a witch.
Leatherlips received news of his death sentence from his own brother, who brought to him a sliver of birch bark which bore the symbol of a tomahawk scratched into it. Roundhead, another chief of the tribe, was ordered to carry out Leatherlips’ execution. The white settlers, under their leader, pleaded with the executioners for Leatherlips’ life. When this failed to work, they then tried to bribe the man not to carry out the grisly task. This, too, failed, and after donning his best clothes, Leatherlips was summarily tried, sentenced, and executed with a tomahawk as he knelt beside the open grave that had been prepared for him. As he died, Leatherlips chanted a song of death.
His attempts to save his people and keep the peace were recognized by the Wyandot Club of Ohio, who in 1888 erected a monument in Leatherlips’ honor.
Also known as the Delaware, the Lenape were an important confederacy of the Algonquian tribes. When Europeans first arrived in North America in the 16th century, the Lenape were living in the region that is now New Jersey, the Delaware River basin in northern Delaware and eastern Pennsylvania, the western part of Long Island, and Staten Island. This territory was called the Northeastern Woodlands, and also Lenape Country. Indeed, many of the place names of this part of the world—including “Manhattan”—are of Delaware origin. That first European was Giovanni de Verrazzano, who arrived into New York Harbor in 1524.
The tribe referred to themselves as Lenni Lenape, meaning “Original People.” They were split into three tribes, each of which had its own totem animal: the Wolf tribe, the Turkey tribe, and the Turtle tribe. The tribes are matrilineal, meaning that any offspring belong to the clan of their mother, with their eldest uncle having a more powerful influence over the children than their father. This was generally difficult for Europeans to understand. The clan also deliberately married outside of their own people, a practice known as exogamy. This prevented interbreeding, keeping the clan healthy.
The Lenape—and the river they lived on—were renamed the Delaware by the English in honor of the English Lord De La Warr, who was the second Governor of Virginia. The Lenape, under the leadership of their great chief Tamanend, had been among the earliest Indians to make a peace treaty with the Europeans: in 1682 they did so with William Penn, under the famous elm tree at Shackamaxon. At this time the tribe were hunters, fishermen, and farmers, cultivating the “Three Sisters” crops of corn, beans, and squash. They were happy to trade maize for the iron tools—particularly farming implements—of the Europeans. The tribe inhabited rectangular, domed houses covered in bark, arranged into small villages. Because of their coastal position the Lenape were significant producers of wampum, which they traded with other Indians for furs; the furs were in turn traded with the Europeans, particularly the Scandinavians, who were impressed with the beautifully embroidered, beaded, and quill-worked hides.
The area that would become New York City was initially New Amsterdam, founded by Dutch settlers in 1624. Trading between the Europeans and the Lenape was brisk, although the demand for beaver furs meant that the animal was overhunted, and the Dutch turned their attention to the wampum producers on Manhattan island. In common with other tribes, the Lenape population suffered considerably from the outbreak of smallpox and measles in the 17th century. They had no immunity to these European blights.
After William Penn died in 1718, his heirs took over the running of the colony; they liked an expensive lifestyle but did not have the money to support it. And so John and Thomas Penn devised a way of selling Lenape land to other settlers. The “Walking Purchase” was a curious practice in which a land deed, dating back to the 1680s, was produced in the 1730s, although the Lenape had not actually agreed to any sale. The Penn brothers insisted that the paperwork was enforceable, and ultimately the Lenape were forced to leave their lands, often under threat of violence. This caused colossal resentment on behalf of the Native Americans, and although the practice was investigated by an official, William Johnson, on behalf of the British Government, Johnson compounded the insult by himself making a small fortune from selling Iroquois lands. The Lenape were pushed west toward Wyoming and beyond, a process further underlined by the Treaty of Easton, dated 1758. By 1835, many of the Lenape bands had gathered together on a reservation in Kansas, and 1867 saw them removed to the Indian Territory, in a corner of the Cherokee Nation.
This adventurous exploration took Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark from the Missouri River all the way to the Pacific coastline; during the course of their journey Lewis and Clark discovered hitherto unknown tribes, and made significant contributions to the knowledge of the Native peoples of America and the way they lived.
Lewis was born in Virginia in 1774, had served in the Indian Campaigns, and was given his commission in 1797. It was during his time as private secretary to President Thomas Jefferson that he was selected to head up an exploratory expedition with the purpose of investigating trading possibilities with the Indian peoples of the Missouri River Valley. At the time that the expedition set out, the territory in question had been sold by France to the U.S. Government.
Lewis, as the leader of the expedition, elected to take with him his old comrade and friend William Clark. In addition to the two men, there was an entourage of two dozen soldiers and 16 others, who would come some of the way with the pair. They set out on May 14, 1804, setting off from St. Louis, Missouri, in three boats. It was almost six months before they reached what is now Bismarck, South Dakota, and just before the winter would start in earnest.
That first winter was spent among the Hidatsa and Mandan people. Here they met a person who would prove essential to the success of their journey: Sacajawea, the Shoshone “Bird Woman,” who acted as interpreter and guide. When they arrived in Montana in the spring of 1805, Sacajawea’s people, the Shoshone, helped Lewis and Clark by supplying them with horses. In early November of the same year, they reached the mouth of the Columbia River. They spent the winter of 1805/1806 on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, beginning their return journey when the weather had warmed up the following spring. The pair then split, Lewis taking the path of Maria’s River, leaving Clark to explore the Yellowstone. Where the rivers Yellowstone and Missouri met, they were reunited and arrived back in St. Louis in September of 1806.
A band of the Apache living in Mexico and Texas.
1810(?)–1863
Known by his own people—the Mdewakanaton Dakota division of the Sioux tribe—as Taoyateduta, the “Little Crow” epithet came about because of an error in the translation of his father’s name.
Little Crow was born in the Dakota village of Kaposia, in the state which would become Minnesota. After their father died in an accident involving the accidental discharge of his gun in 1846, Little Crow and his brother had a vicious fight for control of the tribe, and although Little Crow won, he was left with severe gunshot wounds to his wrist.
In 1851 Little Crow had been chief of the tribe for two years, and was present at the signing of the Treaty of Mendota, in which the tribe agreed with the U.S. Government that they would relocate west to the Minnesota River. In return, the tribe were promised goods, food, money, and other incentives. Ninety-eight thousand dollars was promised to the tribe, but what was not explained was that this money was to be given to traders, not to the tribe itself.
Like other Native Americans, initially Little Crow did all he could to assimilate with the white men. He took to wearing European clothing, took to farming, and even joined the Episcopal Church. However, soon the relationship between the Europeans and the Indians started to go sour when promised rations and remunerations were not forthcoming and it became clear that traders were stockpiling food in warehouses, while the Native people starved. The information that the traders had taken the vast sum “on account” was not well received by the Indians, and although Little Crow had been deceived by the agreement, it was inevitable, given that he had been present at the signing, that his own life would be in danger. Little Crow’s hold over his people grew tenuous as the situation deteriorated, until eventually, in 1862, a large number of Dakota—up to 500—broke into the warehouses in a desperate bid for food. The agent at the reservation, Thomas J. Galbraith, prevented the troops from opening fire on the Indians, instead preferring to call a meeting.
Speaking for his people, Little Crow pointed out that they were entitled to the food which had been stockpiled by the traders; however, the leader of the traders, Andrew Myrick, was antagonistic and suggested that the Indians should eat their own filth. This incendiary comment led to a band of Dakota killing and mutilating five of the white settlers in August, 1862. This attack then exploded into the Dakota War of 1862. Myrick was one of the first to suffer, shot by the Dakota in his home. Little Crow led the attacks, even though he realized that the band of Dakota were outnumbered; after everything that had happened, he felt he had no choice but to show that he could lead from the front. A series of battles during the next month ended in failure for the Sioux, and Little Crow was forced to flee to Canada in September, 1862.
The following year Little Crow returned to Minnesota with the intention of stealing horses as well as appealing to Governor Ramsey, who was in charge of the area and whom Little Crow counted as a friend. But he and one of his sons, Wowinapa, aged 15 at the time, were seen by a farmer, Nathan Lamson, and his son, as they were gathering berries. Lamson was injured in the ensuing gunfire, Little Crow was shot dead—but Wowinapa escaped. Little Crow’s body was mutilated by the search party once they realized who he was. Lamson himself received a reward for Little Crow’s scalp; this scalp is still in existence today and can be viewed at the Minnesota Historical Society. His mutilated remains were eventually thrown into a garbage heap, although a small stone tablet now marks the spot where the chief fell.
1747(?)–1812
Born into the Miami tribe as Mishikinakwa (or variations thereof), not a great deal is known about the early part of Little Turtle’s life. We do know, however, that he was a skilled warrior, as he was a war chief during the American Revolutionary War, when the Miami fought, and won, a battle against the French under his leadership.
The Treaty of Paris, dated 1783, ended this war, and the British ceded lands to the Americans. The territory included all the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The Americans accordingly started dividing up these lands. Not surprisingly, this action was infuriating for the Native Americans who were living there. As they resisted encroachment, violence escalated, and the Indians formed the Western Confederacy with the aim of making the Ohio River a natural boundary between Indian territory and territory belonging to the United States. Leaders of the confederacy included Little Turtle. War broke out over this “border”; this war was named after Little Turtle.
In 1790, U.S. General Josiah Harmar was despatched to end the war. To Little Turtle’s advantage was the fact that the United States Army was in a weakened position after the Revolution, and Harmar was defeated. The confederacy was swelled as the Ottawa and Wyandot peoples joined it.
A year later, Little Turtle won another battle against General Arthur St. Clair. Some 600 American soldiers were killed, in the worst defeat ever suffered by the U.S. Army at the hands of the Native Americans, whose losses totaled only 40 out of 1,000 men.
When a third general was sent to deal with Little Turtle, an exploratory attack on a rejuvenated U.S. Army made Little Turtle rethink his strategy, and he opted for negotiation over fighting. However, the confederacy, under another chief, Blue Jacket, decided to fight anyway, and were defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Little Turtle signed a peace treaty, preferring to do this rather than go into an alliance with the great Shawnee chief, Tecumseh.
Little Turtle met with both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, with whom he discussed, among other things, the possibility of the Miami tribe adopting European methods of agriculture.
Little Turtle died in 1812 at the village which had been renamed Little Turtle’s Village in his honor.
“ … I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself.”
1820(?)–1904
This Northern Cheyenne chief was also known as “Little Coyote” or, in his own language, Ohcumgache. He was born in what is now Montana and led his own group of men, the Elk Horn Scrapers. As well as fighting in the Plains Wars, he took an active part in Red Cloud’s War and was one of the chiefs who signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie. A spiritual leader as well as a great fighter, Little Wolf was accorded the wisdom and spiritual guidance of the spirit of a godlike figure named Sweet Medicine. As such, Little Wolf was expected to be beyond normal human emotions such as anger. He was also appointed one of the Council of Forty-four, elder chiefs renowned for their wisdom whose remit was to keep the peace; this system, legend has it, was devised by Sweet Medicine himself.
In 1876 Little Wolf was forced onto a reservation on the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. But a couple of years later he, along with compatriot Dull Knife, led the 300-strong band of Cheyenne away from Oklahoma and toward their homelands in Montana. Dodging U.S. Cavalry units, the group split into two for safety’s sake; Dull Knife and his band were caught and forced to give up, whereas Little Wolf’s people made it to Montana, where they stayed.
When Little Wolf died in 1904, he was living at the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.
1723(?)–1780
Born into the Iroquois Confederacy and a member of the Cayuga, there is controversy surrounding the true identity of the Native American known as John Logan, a.k.a. Logan the Orator. The son of a key member of the Iroquois Confederacy—an Oneida chief named Shikellamy who was renowned as a diplomat—there is debate as to which of his sons was actually Logan.
Logan and his tribe had had friendly relations with the white settlers moving from Pennsylvania into Ohio. His father had helped the white settlers, and Logan was even named after James Logan, one of the officials among those colonists.
However, when Logan was away on a hunting trip in 1774, his entire family—including his brother and a pregnant woman who also had a young child—were killed in an incident that became known as the Yellow Creek Massacre. In total, 12 of the tribe were slaughtered. Logan was sought out by scouts, who told him what had happened. Finding that every blood relative he had in the world had died, Logan was devastated.
Other chiefs in the region were keen to quash the incident as quickly as possible in the cause of peace. These chiefs included the Shawnee Cornstalk, White Eyes of the Lenape, and Guyasuta of the Seneca. But Logan, under Native American custom, had the right to retaliate since he was the aggrieved party.
Accordingly, Logan sent a declaration of war to the Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore; his band of braves proceeded to attack settlers in several frontier areas, killing some, making captives of others. In the ensuing Dunmore’s War, several lives were lost on both sides until the Indians were overcome.
By then, Logan had had enough of war; all the additional killing had not brought back his family, but he refused to sit down with Dunmore to discuss a way forward toward peace. Instead, he wrote an eloquent and heartfelt letter to Dunmore which led to Logan earning the epithet, “The Orator.” The letter itself became known as Logan’s Lament:
“I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my country-men pointed as they passed and said, ‘Logan is the friend of the White Man.’ I had even thought to live with you but for the injury of one man—Colonel Cresap who last Spring in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”
Logan read the letter out loud from underneath an elm; the spot is now preserved as Logan’s Park in West Virginia.
This speech was copied in several colonial newspapers.
Not much is known of what happened to Logan afterward; he died in 1780.
1820(?)–1879
Generally known as “Lone Wolf the Elder” in order to distinguish him from other Natives with the same name, Lone Wolf’s Native name was Guipago. He is considered to be the last great chief of the Kiowa during this people’s transition from freedom to a life on the reservations.
Lone Wolf was a significant leader, especially because he was chief during tempestuous times of great change, not only for the Kiowa but for all Native Americans. The Kiowa and the Comanche, who had made an allegiance to share the hunting grounds of the Plains rather than fight, were a force to be reckoned with in the 19th century. Lone Wolf was part of a delegation that visited Washington, D.C. in 1863 in view of the relentless influx of white settlers and especially because of the gradual disappearance of the buffalo, which was essential to their survival. Sadly, this was to no avail. Lone Wolf thereafter, along with other chiefs including Satanta, led numerous raids in Oklahoma and Texas.
Lone Wolf was made chief in 1866 after the death of the longstanding chief, Dohasan. This leadership he shared with Kicking Bird. Lone Wolf was among those who, significantly, did not sign the Medicine Lodge Treaty which led to the U.S. Government appropriating two million acres of collective Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache reservation land. This same treaty saw his people sent to live on the reservation in the western part of Oklahoma under government supervision.
In the 1870s Lone Wolf joined with Quanah Parker’s Comanche to lead attacks on European buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls; two years later, Lone Wolf was forced to surrender and was among 27 Kiowa chosen, as an example, to be imprisoned at Fort Marion in Florida. Here he remained incarcerated until 1879, when he sequently released, dying shortly afterward near Fort Sill. He is buried on Mount Scott, the highest point of the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma.
The traditional dwelling place of the Iroquois, a long dwelling shared by several families, with an arched roof and entrances at both ends. The longhouse was constructed from a timber framework and often covered in bark.
A religion founded in 1799 by Handsome Lake, a Seneca. The faith sprang up because of a need for the Haudenosaunee to adapt to new circumstances after their lands had been lost and the people found themselves surrounded by Religion is a syncretism between the old faith of the Haudenosaunee and Christianity, and worship was carried out in a church that was a traditional longhouse. The faith, which has aspects of contemplation and silent prayer that is similar to Quakerism, is still practiced today.
Folklore from Wales, in the United Kingdom, tells of a Welsh prince, Madoc, who apparently managed to set sail from his home country to America in the 12th century, setting foot on the soil some 300 years before Christopher Columbus. The story lurked in the backwaters of Welsh mythology for some centuries, and Madoc was a relatively obscure character, until he was brought to a more prominent position during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Both English and Welsh writers at this time dusted off the story of Madoc to support their assertion that Britain had a better claim to North America than the Spanish. Whether or not the story was true mattered less than the political impact it might have. There was further speculation that Madoc and his crew must have intermarried with the Native Americans, and that there were a hidden tribe of Welsh speakers somewhere on the huge continent, as well as the sorts of landmarks that one would associate with a Welsh–Native American hybrid race. One of these sites was the “Devil’s Backbone” in Louisville, Kentucky, a large mounded fort that keen Madoc supporters supposed must have been constructed by the Welsh settlers. At least 13 tribes were “identified” as possibly being of Welsh descent, and several tribes themselves claimed the connection: the Hopi, Zuni, and Navajo all claimed to be of Welsh descent. It is possible that they claimed this connection in the hopes of ejecting the Spanish invaders from their lands.
The story of Madoc was promoted and popularized further by George Catlin, who dedicated his life to writing down scenes from the lives of the Native Americans, and painting portraits of their people. In his 1841 book, North American Indians, Catlin suggested that the Mandan people might well be descended from the ancient Welsh prince Madoc. He had several theories as to why this might be:
The bullboat of the people was very similar to the Welsh coracle. Both were small, circular vessels designed for journeys across shallow tracts of water.
The Mandan villages’ architecture was particularly sophisticated, and Catlin assumed these skills must have been learned from Europeans (some of the equally sophisticated Native American architecture, such as that belonging to the Hopewell culture, was little-known in Catlin’s time).
The hair of the Mandan, unlike that of many other tribes, turned gray as they aged. The appearance of pale-colored hair further underlined the possible connection with the Welsh prince.
The town of Madoc, Ontario, and a nearby village of the same name ensure that Madoc’s legend lives on in our imagination, despite the fact that the theory of the “Lost Welsh Tribe” has never been substantiated. There are also several inns and hostelries throughout the United States named in Madoc’s honor.
Part of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The tribe’s name for themselves was Atazum, meaning “the people.” However, they were named after the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia which was established on the coast of California. The Luiseño come under the category of Mission Indians, too.
A peaceable people, the Luiseño of the coastal areas traveled inland during the summer to gather the acorns that were an important staple food, and those Luiseño groups that lived in the interior traversed the same land in the opposite direction in the fall months to gather shellfish. Living along the San Luis Rey River, the tribe lived in small villages of cone-shaped permanent houses made of posts and covered with bark and brush. Each settlement had a sweat lodge and an open-air place for ceremonies and rituals.
Although the missionaries of the area succeeded in converting many of the Luiseño people, their own religious beliefs included a cult that had faith in a savior who would come among them and restore the Native American ideas, beliefs, and spiritual practices.
The vision quest was an important rite of passage for Luiseño boys reaching puberty, and their search for the purpose of their life was encouraged by the use of the hallucinogenic jimsonweed as well as a state of transcendence effected by lying naked on top of a large anthill and allowing the ants to sting and bite them.
The Luiseño were well-disposed toward the white men; however, the rapid increase in numbers with the start of the California Gold Rush did cause problems and hardships for the tribe. Reservations were established for the tribe after a Luiseño chief, Olegario Sal, discussed their land losses with President Ulysses S. Grant.
“There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing. That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life-giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him.”
1868–1939
Also known as Ota Kte—which, in the language of his people, the Oglala Sioux, means “Plenty Kill”—Luther Standing Bear was an actor and author.
Born on the Pine Ridge Reservation and among one of the first groups of Native children to be educated at the Carlisle School (where he was given the name by which he became best known), Luther Standing Bear grew up following traditional Sioux values at a time when those values, and the way of life that they inspired, were being swiftly eroded. Before becoming a part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, he managed a store at the reservation. After the experience with Buffalo Bill, Luther Standing Bear went on to act in several early Westerns between 1910 and 1930. He was a member of the Hollywood Actors’ Guild, but during all this time, uppermost in his mind was a concern for the plight of his people, in particular, and the Native American population in general. He was 22 when the massacre at Wounded Knee happened; this event cast a long shadow in his life, and no doubt inspired his parallel career as an author. His books—in which he set out to inform about the lives of his people—include My People, the Sioux, published in 1928 (in which he talks about the Carlisle School and the Ghost Dance), Land of the Spotted Eagle (an important account of the traditional Sioux way of living, which is highly critical of the Europeans’ attempts to bring the Natives around to their own values), and Stories of the Sioux, 1934, which argues the case for the white man accepting some of the Sioux spiritual ideals. Luther Standing Bear died of influenza during the filming of the movie Union Pacific in 1939.