A little Indian Studies: basic part of a short colloquy

Dear Hunter


I am helping someone with a critique of a neo-liberal Indigenous scholar.  He compares Plenty Coups of the Crow and Sitting Bull of the Sioux and says Plenty Coups was smarter and braver and more productive because he compromised.  The Sioux were smashed because of Sitting Bull's intransigence while Plenty Coups helped the Crow survive at a better level.


Have you any thoughts on this and the role of the Crow in the Indian wars?  If you have time of course.


B.


Certainly good to hear from you, B.

I see both men, Sitting Bull and Plenty Coups, as very capable leaders -- in their own respective settings and circumstances.  The Sioux were under much heavier and more consistently hostile pressure from the Americans.  Basic reason, the discovery of gold in their sacred lands, the Black Hills.  The Treaty of Fort Laramie was masssively violated by the U.S. almost immediately following that discovery -- with the resultant illegal, treaty-violating influx of hundreds of whites into the Hills. The Army protected the invaders.  Sitting Bull et al. couldn't compromise and, as you note, he and his people did not.

The Crows in their region were not under that intense pressure.  They had more room to maneuver via diplomacy.

This film has its limitations but gives some very capable insights into that tragic era:
http://hunterbear.org/bury_my_heart_at_wounded_knee.htm

All the best,

Hunter Bear


Thanks very much for your note, B.

Anyone who trashes Sitting Bull or Geronimo is 'way off base and the person's opinions should be viewed very warily.  And I'm no particular admirer of Plenty Coups.  However, here is my slant on the matter.  I wish we had the opportunity to have a long dinner and discuss these things at length.

The basic Native loyalty goes, of course, to one's tribe (as One Big Family and as Nation) and to that respective tribal culture.  It's always been that way and it always will be.  Virtually no Native people have been assimilated into the Euro way.  There has been considerable acculaturation.

Native national consciousness was pretty much restricted to one's tribal nation until Pan Indianism developed.  Committed to the well being of their respective tribal nation, Native leaders often entered into alliances with other tribal nations and, in some cases, with European nations as well.  Often, not always, in the case of Euro nations, tragic consequences could develop from these alliances in the longer run.  I'd place Plenty Coups into that context.

It wasn't until the very latter part of the 19th century, that Pan Indianism began to take firm -- firm -- root.  Pan Indianism transcends tribal national consciousness -- but definitely does NOT replace that primary commitment to tribe and tribal culture.  

Pan Indianism is a broad and inter-tribal feeling of common Indian or Native  identity.  It began to emerge during the Nadir of the Native world in what's called the United States (and Canada). In that hideous period, it was becoming clear that Natives had to stand together.  Its initial step came during the Ghost Dance religion just before the Wounded Knee Massacre, was therefore religious in nature, and of limited geographical scope.  Within a few years, the peyote faith began to develop in the Plains states and spread into other areas -- and it remains a very viable faith today.  

The Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, which had its good points and its bad ones, was bringing many young Indians from all over the United States together in the latter 1800s into the 20th century.

In 1911, the inter-tribal Society of American Indians developed -- Pan Indian. Its version, while encompassing some of the religious Pan Indian efforts, was primarily secular and policy-oriented. And Indians in the cities were working together across tribal lines.  In 1934, the intertribal National Congress of American Indians, still much around, formed and, in due course, AIM took shape -- and, of course, many other inter-tribal approaches.  

As all of this took place, step by step and epoch by epoch, Native consciousness, still primarily committed to respective tribe and culture, also developed -- to borrow that immortal line, "An injury to one is an injury to all."

That isn't, sadly, always practiced.  The Eastern Cherokees in the North Carolina mountains are the major obstacle to full Federal recognition for the Lumbee Nation.  I've included below a link to the Lumbee situation.

I've also included another link that may have a few things of interest for you.

http://www.hunterbear.org/lumbee_indians_of_north_carolina.htm

http://www.hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20ISSUES%20AND%20OTHER%20MATTERS.htm

I hope very much that this is helpful.  Don't hesitate to write again.

All best/Solidarity,

Hunter Bear


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org  The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
.
See my  new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," 
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new substantial 
introduction by me. And this book is also an activist's
how-to manual:  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm   

See our very full and substantial COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

Check out our Personal Background Narrative (with much info)
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm

See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Many photos.)