By the end of this exercise, I can… 

• describe Native intellectuals’ social advocacy in the early 1900s
• analyze speeches and essays based on context and perspective
• evaluate rhetorical strategies as ways to enact social change 

This exercise directly relates to:

• The Progressive movement

Civics

• SS.9-12.CV.8. Analyze the methods individuals can use to challenge laws to address a variety of public issues.

History

• SS.9-12.H.3. Evaluate the methods used to promote change and the effects and outcomes of these methods on diverse groups of people.
• SS.9-12.H.7. Identify and analyze the role of individuals, groups and institutions in people’s struggle for safety, freedom, equality and justice.
• SS.9-12.H.10. Identify and analyze ways in which marginalized communities are represented in historical sources and seek out sources created by historically oppressed peoples.

Simon Pokagon and the 1893 World’s Fair

Many Neshnabék experienced violent and painful removals from their homeland during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Many Native people resisted removal. After the Treaty of 1833, for example, the Pokagon Band used their strong association with the Catholic Church to remain in their homelands. You can read more about this on the Pokagon Band’s website under “History.” 

The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair was a major event in Chicago history and occurred only 60 years after the Treaty of 1833. The fair was also known as the Chicago Columbian Exposition. 1892 marked 400 years after Christopher Columbus’s invasion of North America, so the 1893 event was meant to celebrate colonialism and four centuries of “progress.” At the fair, anthropologists organized an American Indian building and village. The village reinforced stereotypes about Native communities as prehistoric, uncivilized, and backward. The fair falsely showed Native people as the opposite of progress and innovation. The fair also included an exhibit on Indian boarding schools, which were violent institutions to assimilate Native children. Instead of showing them as violent, the fair used performances by Native children to promote the schools as efforts to “civilize” Native people. 

Hundreds of Indigenous peoples from across the United States and the hemisphere came to work at the fair for their own reasons. Some simply came for the adventure, some came to make money, and some came to protest how white settlers represented Native people. You can learn more about Native people at the 1893 and 1933 World’s Fair in the project’s City Story on this topic. 

One famous response came from Potawatomi leader Simon Pokagon, who pushed back on settlers’ ideas of Native people as “uncivilized.” Simon Pokagon was a leader of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi during this time. He had Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe ancestry, which was common due to how closely related Neshnabék are. As a well-known Native leader, Pokagon appeared on one of the parade floats and wrote a speech that was delivered at the fair. He also presented the mayor of Chicago with a copy of the 1833 Treaty of Chicago printed on birch bark. Most notably, Pokagon also printed a booklet called The Red Man’s Greeting (also called The Red Man’s Rebuke) on birchbark. His booklet critiqued the World’s Fair and colonization. As you’ll read in the excerpt of it, the booklet confronts the impacts of colonialism for Native people, as well as the lands, waters, and other living beings of the Chicago area. Pokagon worked with publishers to print, sell, and gift copies of the book both during and after the fair.

Pokagon’s choice of birchbark marked his book as different from the paper pamphlets and booklets other people shared at the fair. As he says in the book’s opening, Neshnabék people have used birchbark for many reasons for millenia, including to create images that tell stories. Pokagon’s  book continues this literary tradition, representing generations of Neshnabék knowledge about how and when to harvest, process, and use birchbark. Creating the book was a massive effort: unlike paper that could be run through a printing press many pages at a time, copies of the Greeting had to be printed one page at a time. The printing of the books probably took many people to harvest the bark, cut it and treat it appropriately, set the pages, and bind them together. 

Pokagon makes clearly anticolonial statements throughout his text and emphasizes Chicago as an established Native place. He also makes calculated choices about how to reach a mostly non-Native audience. This reflects a long-standing Potawatomi practice of using the spoken or written word as a form of diplomacy. For example, he makes some statements about the disappearance of Native people. The damaging myth that Native people will someday die out was common during Pokagon’s time. It may feel strange to see Pokagon – a living Native person with strong ties to his community – using words that seem to play into these misrepresentations. Pokagon was likely being strategic: many Indigenous intellectuals during this period made similar comments, which were meant to capture the interest (and sympathies) of white audiences. 

Native organizing in Chicago in the early 20th century 

After decades of being pushed out of their homelands, Native people in the 20th century increasingly returned to Chicago. This included both people whose communities had been removed from Chicago before the mid-1800s and people from Native nations elsewhere. In the early and mid-1900s, there were few social services for Native people in Chicago. So, community members got together and created the services they needed. This reflects Indigenous values of generosity and care that have shaped Indigenous kinship systems for thousands of years. These services often filled needs the federal government promised to meet but never did. The organizations that Native people created became hubs of social life and political advocacy. Among the many important organizations was the Indian Council Fire (ICF). The ICF was founded in 1923. It provided housing, legal help, education, and employment support for Native people in Chicago and the Midwest.

Native intellectuals in the early 20th century

Simon Pokagon was one of many Native writers and Native intellectuals in the late 19th and early 20th century. During his life (1830-1899), he wrote several books about Potawatomi history and culture. He was an advocate for his people. For example, he met with President Lincoln several times to petition for money that the government owed his community. Pokagon also used his writing to assert Potawatomi peoples’ claims to their homelands.

Another was the famous Yavapai Apache activist, Wassaja, or Carlos Montezuma, who spent much of his life working as a physician in Chicago. He lived from 1866 to 1923 and graduated from high school, college, and medical school in Illinois. Having worked as a physician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, Montezuma saw how the federal system failed to fully address the needs of Native people. He was among those in the early 20th century who believed in the need to abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA. Montezuma published a newsletter called Wassaja that frequently critiqued the BIA, and he was a founder of a national advocacy organization called the Society of American Indians. Like Pokagon, he used his public speeches and his publications to promote his perspective. You can learn more about Montezuma’s life in this brief biography from the University of Illinois, who named a building after Montezuma in 2016. 

Many Native intellectuals wrote about tribal sovereignty and the government-to-government relationship between Native nations and the United States government. The BIA is the federal office responsible for managing the federal government’s responsibilities to Native nations. Many Native people have critiqued the BIA as disorganized, slow, not able to get things done, or even acting against the needs of Native people. While some Native people have gone to work for the BIA to positively influence the federal government, others have seen the BIA as an obstacle to Native progress. Debates within Native communities relative to the Bureau of Indian Affairs are as old as the BIA itself.

Among the organizations that have represented Native priorities for their communities is the Society of American Indians. The Society of American Indians, or SAI, was a national intertribal advocacy group for Indigenous rights in the early 1900s. Members were often middle class Native professionals like Carlos Montezuma. While there were different opinions within the organization, SAI members often believed that some amount of assimilation into white society was necessary for Native people to be successful. Others outside of the SAI (and some within it!) did not believe assimilation was the answer. The SAI had many supporters, including white and black allies who joined the organization as non-voting associate members. Among these was the well-known Black intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois.

Fights for Sovereignty in the 20th Century

In the last 500+ years, European and American policies towards Indigenous peoples have included, among others: 

• Extermination: the mass killing of Indigenous peoples through wars, starvation, limiting access to medical care, and preventing women from having children
• Containment: limiting where Native people can live or stay (pushing Native people into land bases much smaller than their original homelands; holding Native people in institutions like boarding schools, mental facilities, and prisons or prison camps) and/or preventing Native people from traveling
• Assimilation: attempting to end Indigenous cultures and make Indigenous people live by white cultural expectations
• Extortion: forcing Native people to follow policies or practices by threatening them
• Reorganization: mandating that Native people change their governments to make them more like the US government

Scholars and others call the US occupation of Indigenous homelands settler colonialism. In settler colonialism, settlers arrive in a place to set up their own societies (even though other people already live there). The policies listed above all threaten the physical survival and sovereign status of Native nations. By attacking them, settler populations and governments attempt to replace Indigenous people and take over Indigenous lands. 

This has a lot to do with land. The United States stopped making treaties with Native nations in 1871. After that, the federal government forced tribal nations onto smaller and smaller tracts of land called “reservations.” The federal government tried to weaken Native governments by shrinking their lands, among other practices to control Native people. Among these, the US government limited Native peoples’ ability to move, grow or harvest food, access medicines, renew relationships with other communities, educate their children, and practice religious ceremonies. From the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, the federal government used multiple federal policies to decrease Native political power and dispossess Native people of their land. Throughout the 1900s, Native people worked as individuals and within organizations to fight against these policies and for Native sovereignty and their homelands. 

Sources

Beck, David R. M. “Fair Representation? American Indians the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.” World History Connected 13:3 (2016). https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/13.3/forum_01_beck.html

Beck, David R. M. Unfair Labor? American Indians and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019).

LaPier, Rosalyn R. and David R.M. Beck, City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015). 

Low, John. Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the City of Chicago. (Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2016). 

Mays, Kyle T. “Transnational Progressivism: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Universal Races Congress of 1911.” American Indian Quarterly 37, 3 (2013): 243–61. https://doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.37.3.0243.

Morseau, Blaire, ed. As Sacred to us: Simon Pokagon’s Birch Bark Stories in their Contexts. (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2023).

Note to teachers: We invite you to use the components of the Indigenous Chicago curriculum that best align with the needs of your classroom. The following suggested steps can be modified as needed, and we invite you to use the teacher’s history brief to inspire new exercises that best meet the needs of your students. Please note that we suggest shortening, rather than modifying, the language of historical sources to best reflect the original source’s context, intention, and voice. 

1. Native people have used long rhetoric as a form of advocacy. This predates colonization by millenia! Since colonization, Indigenous people have used speeches and rhetoric to advocate for the causes they believe in, both to Native and non-Native audiences. Native communities don’t always believe in the same causes – there are many perspectives on strategies for social change within and between Native communities, just like for other people. This does not mean that any of the strategies are less valid. Instead, it reflects the diversity of Native peoples, their goals, and their visions for the future. Review the information in the Background section above. Note where you see examples of Native people advocating for their communities. What strategies are you starting to notice? What core issues are coming out?

2. To prepare for the primary sources you’re about to look at, create a chart like the one below (adapted from Nokes, 2022, p. 130):

3. Native organizations in the early 20th century used speeches and public appearances to raise awareness of important issues. In December 1927, the Indian Council Fire presented the Mayor of Chicago with a proclamation. The proclamation was eventually entered into the federal Congressional Record! Before proceeding, review the information about the Indian Council Fire in the background. Then, think about what was happening in Chicago and the country in 1927. (Hint! In 1927, Mayor Thompson had just won his third election to be mayor!)

Now turn to the Proclamation. It read, in part:

To the Mayor of Chicago:

You tell all white men “America first.” We believe in that. We are the first Americans. We are the only ones, truly, that are 100 per cent. We, therefore, ask you while you are teaching school children about America first, teach them truth about the first Americans.

We do not know if school histories are pro-British, but we do know that they are unjust to the life of our people–the American Indian. 

They call all white victories, battles,and all Indian victories, massacres. The battle with Custer has been taught to school children as a fearful massacre on our part. We ask that this, as well as other incidents, be told fairly. If the Custer battle was a massacre, what was Wounded Knee?

History books teach that Indians were murderers–is it murder to fight in self-defense? Indians killed white men because white men took their lands, ruined their hunting grounds, burned their forests, destroyed their buffalo. White men penned our people on reservations, then took away the reservations. White men who rise to protect their property are called patriots–Indians who do the same are called murderers.

White men call Indians treacherous–but no mention is made of broken treaties on the part of the white man.

White men say that Indians were always fighting. It was only our lack of skill in white man’s warfare that led to our defeat. An Indian mother prayed that her boy be a great medicine man rather than a great warrior. It is true that we had our own small battles, but in the main we were peace loving and home loving.

White men called Indians thieves-and yet we lived in frail skin lodges and needed no locks or Iron bars.

White men call Indians savages. What is civilization? Its marks are a noble religion and philosophy, original arts, stirring music, rich story and legend. We had these.Then we were not savages, but a civilized race.

We made blankets that were beautiful and that the white man with all his machinery has never been able to duplicate. We made baskets that were beautiful. We wove in beads and colored quills, designs that were not just decorative motifs, but were the outward expression of our very thoughts. We made pottery–pottery that was useful and beautiful as well. Why not make school children acquainted with the beautiful handicrafts in which we were skilled? Put in every school Indian blankets, baskets, pottery.

…

Tell your children of the friendly acts of Indians to the white people who first settled here. Tell them of our leaders and heroes and their deeds. Tell them of Indians such as Black Partridge, Shabbona, and others, who many times saved the people of Chicago at great danger to themselves.

Put in your history books the Indian’s part in the World War. Tell how the Indian fought for a country of which he was not a citizen, for a flag to which he had no claim, and for a people that have treated him unjustly.

The Indian has long been hurt by these unfair books. We ask only that our story be told in fairness. We do not ask you to overlook what we did, but we do ask you to understand It.  A true program of America first will give a generous place to the culture and history of the American Indian

We ask this, Chief, to keep sacred the memory of our people.

GRAND COUNCIL FIRE OF AMERICAN INDIANS, 

By SCOTT H. PETERS, President.

Delegates: George Peake (Little Moose), Chippewa; Albert Lowe (White Eagle), Winnebago; Donald St. Cyr (Flaming Arrow), Winne­bago; A. Warren Cash (Spotted Elk), Sioux; A. Roi (Clearwater), Ottawa; Babe Begay, Navaho; Maimie Wiggins (0-me-me), Chippewa

• • Why do you think the Grand Council Fire chose to issue such a statement to the mayor? Why do you think they focused on education and school books?
  • List the specific topics on which the ICF identifies differences in perspective and memory.
  • The proclamation writes about Native people in the past, even though there were many Native people living in Chicago by the 1920s. How might this be a strategy to connect with white audiences?
  • What does this proclamation tell you about the activism of Native organizations in the early 1900s?

4. In the early 1900s, Native intellectuals toured nationally giving speeches and publishing essays. For the three speeches or essays in this exercise, use the following questions to guide you:

5. Let’s turn to a speech from Carlos Montezuma. Before you begin, set up your notes. To fill in the author, social context, and audience, review the information about the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Society of American Indians, and Carlos Montezuma in the history brief. 

6. For social context, think about what was happening in the US and in the world in 1915. Remember that by 1915, many Native children had been taken from their families and placed in federal Indian boarding schools and Native people who remained on reservations were facing a severe lack of resources since federal policies had shrunk their land bases, decreased their access to food, and limited their opportunities for trade and travel.

• • What was happening for Native people at the time of Montezuma’s speech? 
  • What was happening for Americans more broadly? 

7. Then, think about the format of a speech. 

• • What does a speech offer that is different from a written text? 
  • As you think about the speech as a format, why might it be a useful tool for a Native advocate to convey their opinion? 
  • How might a printed version of the speech be additionally useful? How might it differ in impact from the original speech?

8. Now, turn to the content of Montezuma’s speech. Montezuma had a specific vision for social change.

• • Why might Montezuma have chosen the Society of American Indians as the place to make his argument about the Bureau of Indian Affairs? 
  • How does this speech work as a strategy for building support for Montezuma’s vision of Indigenous rights? 

9. Look at two sections of the speech in more depth.

• First, re-read why Montezuma left the BIA to return to Chicago. 
• What do you notice about Montezuma’s willingness to confront prejudice? 
• What does this say about him as an activist? 
• What does this reveal about the conditions that Native people were facing in the early 1900s?

• • In the second section, notice how Montezuma talks about Native people working at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
    • Montezuma references the many Native people who went to work for the BIA. What does this tell us about the diversity of Native approaches to activism and to the Bureau at this time?
    • Montezuma critiques their choices to work for the Bureau. Based on his own life experience, why might he feel that way? 

10. Finally, in thinking about impact, to what extent do you think Montezuma convinced his listeners at the SAI? What do you imagine about the reach of this speech more broadly?

11. Now, let’s turn back to an essay from Simon Pokagon, which you also read in SQ1. Pokagon’s essay was published in the widely popular Harper’s Magazine in 1899. Most of the readers of Harper’s were not Native. They probably did not know very much about Native issues beyond stereotypes. Briefly review what you know about Pokagon as the author, as well as the social context of the late 1800s. 

12. In thinking about audience and format, why might Pokagon have chosen to publish his essay in this magazine? 

13. What content was he trying to share? 

14. In terms of impact, how might his essay have been a way to correct misinformation and confront stereotypes?

15. Put Pokagon and Montezuma together. 

• • Compare their chosen formats (a speech versus a published essay). 
  • How are their audiences different (SAI versus a largely non-Native readership for Harper’s)? 
  • What do you imagine about the different impact?

16. As a third source, read Pokagon’s Red Man’s Greeting. Pokagon printed this speech on birchbark paper, which is culturally significant for Neshnabék. He discusses his choice of this paper in the Red Man’s Greeting. Pokagon distributed the Greeting during and after the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Review what you know about Pokagon as the author, as well as the social context surrounding the Chicago Columbian Exposition/1893 World’s Fair. 

17. As with Pokagon’s essay in Harper’s, this publication was likely to reach a mostly non-Native audience. 

• • Why might Pokagon have made such efforts to reach non-Native readers? 
  • How might the format of the booklet advance Pokagon’s goals in reaching his audience?
  • Pokagon also published The Red Man’s Greeting under the title The Red Man’s Rebuke. How do you imagine each title was received by his readers? How could the booklet be both a greeting and a rebuke?

18. Turning now to content:

• • How does Pokagon narrate histories of settler violence against Native people? 
  • What forms of colonial harm to the environment does he document?
  • How does Pokagon confront misinformation and stereotypes about Native people through the booklet? 
  • To what extent do you think Pokagon actually believed that Native people were going to disappear? How might he have used language strategically to appeal to white readers? 
  • Note the allegory at the conclusion of the essay. How does Pokagon use the format of a Christian story (what God might say upon welcoming someone to heaven) to rebuke colonial violences against Native people? 

19. Imagine the likely impact of the pamphlet:

• • What were Pokagon’s goals? 
  • How did he attempt to correct misinformation? 
  • How did he confront colonial violence against his people?
  • To what extent do you think this booklet accomplished Pokagon’s goals?

20. Compare all three sources.

1. • How did Pokagon and Montezuma use public rhetoric to build support for Indigenous rights? 
   • As Indigenous intellectuals with a public audience, what rhetorical strategies did they use to correct misinformation?
   • How did they advance their perspectives on social change?
   • How did they use their rhetoric to defend the character and history of Indigenous peoples?
   • How did they speak back against colonial violence? 

21. Summing it up! In a brief written response, describe how Native activists in the early 1900s used public rhetoric to build support with the Native and non-Native public. How did they build support for their perspectives on Indigenous histories and rights, both within Native and non-Native audiences?

Carlos Montezuma, or Wassaja, was a Yavapai-Apache physician and activist. He was a founding member of the Society of American Indians and a practicing physician in Chicago. As a young child, he was taken from his village by Pima people, then sold to an Italian photographer who adopted him and raised him. Montezuma was the first Native person to attend the University of Illinois and Northwestern University. Prior to returning to Chicago and opening his private medical practice, Montezuma worked as a physician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an organization that he eventually became a staunch opponent of. After returning to Chicago in 1896, Montezuma increasingly acted as a speaker and advocate for Native rights. In 1916, be began publishing a monthly newsletter called Wassaja. 

Source citation: Carlos Montezuma, “Let My People Go.” Speech given at The Society of American Indians Meeting in Lawrence, Kansas, September 30, 1915. Carlos Montezuma Papers, Newberry Library. 

Dr. Montezuma

Speaking in the Interest of his Race THE AMERICAN INDIANS

Read before the Conference of 

THE SOCIETY of AMERICAN INDIANS AT LAWRENCE, KANSAS September 30th, 1915

LET MY PEOPLE GO.

From time immemorial, in the beginning of man’s history, there come echoes and re-echoes of pleas that are deeper than life.  

This is an age of abusiveness, “man’s inhumanity to man,” where man experiments with man; it is an age where money (the idol) is dominant; it is an age of tyranny, where might is right; yet producing such material achievements and advancement as the world has never seen. It is an age where we hide and ask God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It is an age where man’s noblest character that reaches to God must not waver but must be strong and see the right.  

The Society of the American Indians has met and met. This coming together every year has been the mere routine of shaking hands, appointing committees, listening to papers, hearing discussions, passing a few resolutions, electing officers, then reorganizing, —and that has been the extent of our outlook and usefulness for our race. Our placing too much faith and confidence in the Indian Bureau has caused us to evade the vital, the most important and fundamental object of our Society. Mohonk Conferences, Indian Rights Association, Indian Friends and other similar organizations have also evaded the vital, paramount issue; if they did touch on it, they did it in the form of a whisper. 

In the bloody and gloomy days of Indian history, public sentiment was against the Indians, —that they could not be civilized; they could not be educated; they were somewhat like human beings, but not quite within the line of human rights; the only hope was to let the bullets do the work, cover up the bloody deeds and say no more, —God and humanity were forgotten.  

…

Today the Indian Bureau is founded on a wrong basis. It is un-American. It is pursuing unnatural methods to reap natural results.  Being unnatural, it has come to be a heavy burden instead of a help to the Indians. It is dominated by the Indian Service Regulations, thus dominating the Indians and perpetuating itself. It has swerved from its noble course. It has derailed the Indians from the main road that other races travel. It has gone into commercial business; it is methods and methods and promotions.  

The original grand, noble and ideal object of the Indian Bureau was to aid and protect the Indian and prepare him to emerge from his wigwam into civilization, and it has been a total failure.

Within my period of years there have been ten or twelve commissioners of Indian affairs. Most of them are dead, and the machine still exists to be greased and tinkered with. It is a political machine, where one goes out and another comes in, taking turns greasing and adjusting the Indian machine.  

The gradual process of civilizing the Indians seems well enough, but experience teaches us, and as we study the case, it seems more and more like the good Saint’s method of shortening his dog’s long tail. He was a very sympathetic and humane man.  He concluded to shorten it by the gradual process… To do it nicely he cut off a little piece of the tail one day and another piece off at another time, and so he continued to sever the dog’s tail by installments, so as not to hurt the dear dog too much.  

This humane and sentimental process has not been practical and has done the Indian a great deal of harm before the world. It has been a blind; a pretention [sic] that you are doing something.  It is never ceasing, never ending.  

There is a wrong feeling, a wrong thought, and a wrong judgment that we must fight. It is an individual battle! It is called “prejudice.” 

Keep in mind that Indian Bureau, Indian Reservations, Indian Schools, Indian College, Indian Art, Indian Novels, Indian Music, Indian Shows, Indian Movies, and Indian Everything create prejudice and do not help our race. To tackle prejudice it is better to do it face to face in the busy world. To play the same card as the other fellow we must know him.  

Before leaving the Indian Service I wrote to a good friend asking him what he thought of my leaving the government service and hanging out my shingle in Chicago. He replied, “Well, doctor, I would advise you to stick to the government job where the pay is sure. If you come to Chicago I am afraid you will not make a success here because there will be prejudice against you, even though you may be the best physician—you are an Indian.” 

When I read these words, my Apache blood rushed into my head, and I said, “God is helping me, I will resign the government service and go back to Chicago and fight prejudice.” I was willing to sacrifice everything for my race, so I took the choice of coming in contact with prejudice and going against the current of life and defying the world for the rights with which God has endowed the Indian, as one of His creatures, and I assure you I am not discouraged or dismayed. 

To fight is to forget ourselves as Indians in the world. To think of oneself as different from the mass is not healthy. Push forward as one of them, be congenial and be in harmony with your environments and make yourselves feel at home as one of the units in the big family of America. Make good, deliver the goods and convince the world by your character that the Indians are not as they have been misrepresented to be.  

…

Somehow or other, the idea prevails that the Indian’s sphere of action in this life and in America should be limited within the wigwam. And when an Indian boy or girl goes away to school, you hear the hounding voices saying, “Go back, go back to your home and people!” These good people and many others seem to convey the idea that Indians are strangers in America. And strange to say, these people have the whole world for their action, and they are far away from their place of birth, and when they came the Indian was here; and of course the Indians, too, must have the whole world for their sphere of action.

There are hundreds of Indian employees in the Indian Service. To a casual observer, this may appear as though the United States government is magnanimous, considerate of its wards by giving employment to the schooled Indian boys and girls, and to others who can fill positions and pass civil service examinations. Man is the outcome of his environment. If employed in the Indian Service of the government, that person will carry with him the atmosphere of that service, be he from any race. Anyone who conscientiously and unselfishly starts in the Indian Service to sacrifice his ambition in [sic] behalf of the Indian, in time will fall into the rut, get tired, disgusted and lose interest, and finally see no use, and he will fall into the level of his surroundings and stick to his job. He has lost sight of the grand object that he had at first, but he sticks to his job.  

…

The Indian Bureau is willing and anxious to do everything for the Indians, but –! It says: “If there is anything wrong, we can remedy it ourselves because we are in a position to know the needs of the Indians, and do not believe, But –! 

…

The Indian Bureau could dissolve itself and go out of business, but what is the use? Just think, 8,000 employees would be jobless, and there would be no eleven-million dollar appropriation! By dissolving, it would be killing its hen that lays the golden egg. Having nursed the Indians for so long, they might be lonesome living without Indians. …

Some may ask, can we not adjust or reform the Indian Bureau so that it will accomplish something for the Indians? The Indian Bureau system is wrong. The only way to adjust wrong is to abolish it, and the only reform is to let my people go. After freeing the Indian from the shackles of government supervision, what is the Indian going to do? Leave that with the Indian, and it is none of your business. …

You can see the essay in full here.

Simon Pokagon was a Potawatomi writer and activist. He is the son of Potawatomi leader Leopold Pokagon. Throughout his life, he consistently advocated for his community and their connection to Chicago. His most famous publication was The Red Man’s Greeting, a critique of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition that he published on birch bark and passed out at the event. However, he also published several other texts, and met with U.S. government officials on numerous occasions to petition for unpaid treaty payments. Across his writing, Pokagon was known for using vocabulary that appealed to white audiences. While we might think it’s strange to see him use the term “massacre” here – he was likely being intentional. He sought to appeal to his audience through familiar terms while still communicating an important message. 

Source citation: Simon Pokagon, “The Massacre at Fort Dearborn.” Harper’s Magazine. March 1899.

THE MASSACRE OF FORT DEARBORN AT CHICAGO

GATHERED FROM THE TRADITIONS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES ENGAGED IN THE MASSACRE, 

AND FROM THE PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS

My father, Chief Leopold Pokagon, was present at the massacre of Fort Dearborn in 1812, and I have received the traditions of the massacre from our old men. Since my youth I have associated with people of the white race, and sympathize with them as well as with my own people. I am in a position to deal justly with both. … In order to present the facts as nearly as possible, I shall rely on the written history; but the earliest detailed account I have been able to find was written by a woman who claimed the story was told her by an eye-witness twenty years after occurrence, and she did not publish it until twenty-two years later. … 

In considering the real causes we must bear in mind that during the settlement of this country, up to the time of the Chicago massacre, the great Algonquin [sic] tribe, with others, were slowly but surely being pushed before the tidal wave of civilization towards the setting sun. Our rights were not respected; we saw no sympathy being shown for us, for our love of home; no respect paid to the graves of our fathers. At the close of the eighteenth century numerous tribes, numbering many thousand people, found themselves crowded into what is now known as western Ohio, northern Indiana, northern Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Our tribe, the Pottawatomies[1], occupied western Wisconsin, the country around Chicago, and the valley of the river St. Joseph in Michigan and Indiana. While we were being pushed westward another tidal wave of pale-faced humanity came moving against us from the south, driving before it the red man, like buffaloes before the prairie on fire. Our fathers saw it, and trembled at their fate. Anxiously they inquired of each other, If we stand still with folded arms until the two advancing columns meet, where will our country and the red man be? In our ignorance we did not comprehend the mighty ocean of humanity that lay back and of the advance-waves of pioneer settlement. But being fired by as noble patriotism as ever burned in the hearts of mortals, we tried to beat back the reckless white men who dared to settle within our border–and vast armies were sent out to punish us. We fought most heroically against overpowering numbers for home and native land; sometimes victory was ours, as when, during the last decade of the eighteenth century, after having had many warriors killed, and our villages burned to the ground, our father arose in their might, putting to flight the alien armies of Generals Harmar and St. Clair, hurling them in disorder from the wilderness across our borders into their own ill-gotten domain. But only four years after, while yet we were rejoicing over our success, the white man under General Wayne, with “wasplike venom,” swept our land. During  1803 our jealousy was aroused almost to the war pitch by the building of Fort Dearborn, strongly garrisoned and equipped, in the very heart of our territory. We looked upon it as a dangerous enemy without our camp. 

About this time Tecumseh, a great orator and hero in war, visited the different tribes, unfolding to them his plan to unite them as one nation and make a desperate effort to regain and hold their ancient lands. He sent out runners before him to announce the time he would meet each tribe at their council fires and make known his plans. He and two other chiefs went from tribe to tribe, riding spirited black ponies finely equipped, and themselves gayly dressed. When he arose in the council-house his bearing was so noble that cheer on cheer would be given before he would open his mouth to speak. My father and many others who listened to the speeches of Tecumseh many times repeated to me his words when I was a boy, but it was impossible to give an idea of their spirit and power. He generally spoke as follows: 

“Before me stands the rightful owners of knaw-motchi-we-au-kee [this beautiful land]. The Great Spirit in His wisdom gave it to you and your children to defend, and placed you here. But, ä-te-wä! [alas!] the incoming race, like a huge serpent, is coiling closer and closer about you. And not content with hemming you in on every side, they have built at She-gog-ong [Chicago[2]], in the very centre of our country, a military fort, garrisoned with soldiers, ready and equipped for battle. As sure as waw-kwen-og [the heavens] are above you they are determined to destroy you and your children and occupy this goodly land themselves. 

            “Then they will destroy these forests, whose branches wave in the winds above the graves of your fathers, chanting their praises. If you doubt it, come, go with me eastwards or southward a few days’ journey along your ancient ki-kan-og [trails], and I will show you a land you once occupied made desolate. There the forests of untold years have been hewn down and cast into the fire! There be-sheck-kee and waw-mawsh-ka-she [the buffalo and deer], pe-nay-shen and ke-gon [the fowl and fish], are all gone. There the woodland birds, whose sweet songs once pleased your ears, have forsaken the land, never to return; and waw-bi-gon-ag [the wild flowers], which your maidens once loved to wear, have all withered and died. 

          …

            “When we were many and strong, and they were few and weak, they reached out their hands for wido-kaw-ké-win [help], and we filled them with wie-aus and maw-daw-min [meat and corn]; we lived wa-naw-kiwen [in peace] together; but now there are many and strong and we are getting few and weak, they waw nen-dam [have forgotten] the deep debt of momo-i-wendam [gratitude] they owe us, are now scheming to drive us towards ke-so [the setting sun], into desert places far from ke-win [home] and da-na ki aukee [our native land]. Eh [yes], they come to us with lips smoother than bi-me-da [oil], and words sweeter than amose-póma [honey], but beware of them! The venomous amo [wasp] is in their odaw [heart]! and their dealing with us, when we have not tamely submitted, has ever been maw-kaw-te and ashki-koman [powder and lead]; against such mau-tchi au-nene [wicked men] our only pagos-seni-ma [hope], our only inin-ijim [safety], is in joining all our tribes, and then, and not until then, will we be able to drive the soulless invaders back! Fail in this, and awak-ani-win [slavery] and ne-baw [death] are ours!

            And lastly, do not forget that what peace you have enjoyed the past fifty years in your homes and on your hunting-grounds you entirely owe to the brave Pontiac, who at the risk of his own life, destroyed the forts of your enemies around the Great Lakes, driving the white invaders back.” 

Not one tribe refused to unite in the great Algonquin [sic] confederacy. While Tecumseh was at work night and day preparing for the inevitable struggle between the two races, General Harrison, quiet as the wolf, invaded our territory with a vast army, defeating Elks-wa-ta-wa, an Indian prophet twin brother of Tecumseh, at Tippecanoe, Indiana. He slew many warriors, women, and children, burned our villages and supplies, leaving us and our little ones naked and destitute. This was the fourth time, in a few years, our country was invaded in autumn-time, near cold weather, and all our supplies for winter’s use burned or destroyed which created a feeling of revenge in the hearts of our people. 

These outrages portrayed by the eloquence of Tecumseh, who was holding daily councils with the different tribes, fanned the slumbering embers of the war spirit into a blaze that could not well be quenched. 

In June, 1812, war was declared by the United States against Great Britain. One year before, and during that summer, British emissaries came among our fathers, enlisted sympathy, and stirred up their prejudices against the United States by telling them it was the intention of their government to destroy them and take their lands for their own children. They said that their King, who ruled beyond the ocean and the Great Lakes, would defend them and fight for them from generation to generation. They said that his warriors outnumbered the stars in the heavens and when the sun rose and set red, it was but to remind them of the King’s warriors. Our young men confided in these emissaries, and calling to mind the long death-roll of the warriors killed at Tippecanoe the previous autumn, many of them began to talk of driving the white men out of the Indian territory. 

On August 1st of that year a white man who had formerly been a fur-buyer, and could speak our language well, came among us from northern Michigan. He appeared much excited, saying that he was a messenger sent by the British chief to inform the Pottawatomies[4] that he had joined his forces with their brave Tecumseh to help save their native land. He also informed us that Mackinaw Island, the fort of Mackinaw and its garrison, had surrendered to the British and Indians the day before he left; that in all probability Detroit and the United States fort there had shared the same fate; and that it was necessary, in order to secure our ancient lands and liberty, Fort Dearborn, the only stronghold remaining in the Northwest, should be taken at once. He admonished us, furthermore, that if we had one spark of sa-ka-i (love) for our homes and hunting-grounds, we should consider it a duty we owed ourselves, our wives, and children to sound at once the war-whoop and besiege the fort. 

A few days after this, Captain Heald, commander at Fort Dearborn, called the head men of our people together to meet him in council. To their surprise, he told them he intended to evacuate the fort the next day, August 15, 1812; that he would distribute the fire-arms, ammunition, provisions, whiskey, etc., among them; and that if they would send a band of Pottawatomies to escort them safely to Fort Wayne, he would there pay them a large sum of money. To this the Indians agreed, apparently well satisfied. Some goods were given them, but the fire-arms and ammunition were secretly destroyed, and, worst of all for some, the whiskey too, which was poured into the river. …

The day before the massacre a white man came into the fort with twenty Miami Indians to escort the garrison to Fort Wayne. This aroused the jealousy of the Pottawatomies, who took it for granted their services would not be appreciated. Furthermore, the white man was Captain Wells[5], who, having been brought up with Indians, and having fought with them several years against the white man, afterwards joined his own race and fought against the Indians most desperately; many of the Pottawatomie knew him, and regarded him as a base traitor. 

I have heard it said that when the fort was evacuated the Pottawatomies pretended to be acting as escorts for the soldiers, when, in fact, they were luring them to their death. This I regard as untrue. I have many times heard old warriors say that they were led by this Captain Wells and his Miami Indians, some in front and some in the rear. This seems probable, in view of the fact that on the day before the evacuation they gave Captain Heald to understand they were dissatisfied because the whiskey, fire-arms, and ammunition were destroyed, and in view of the fact that Captain Heald was informed the night before that there was serious trouble ahead, under which circumstances Captain Heald would not have dared to trust them. 

On August 15, 1812, the fort was evacuated, and the line of march commenced southward along the shore of Lake Michigan. The Indian warriors stationed themselves about two miles south of the fort, and on the right of the line, placing it between themselves and the lake. When they were discovered a halt was made, and an order given by Captain Wells to charge them on the right of the line of march. Then, more like a herd of buffaloes at bay then trained soldiers, headlong they plunged through the Indian line on the right which was broken. They fought most desperately, on right and left, what old warriors called a rough-and-tumble fight, until hemmed in on every side by overpowering numbers. They finally surrendered, with the proviso that their lives should be spared. 

Captain Wells was forsaken by his Miamis, who fled at the sound of the first war-whoop; but he fought one hundred more single-handed, on horseback, shooting them down on right and left in front and rear, until his horse fell under him and he was killed. … Out of nearly one hundred of the garrison, two thirds at least were killed or badly wounded, while the Indian loss must have been twice as great. 

Turning from the slaughter, where the Angel of Mercy seems to have been asleep, let us recall individual efforts made, showing that pity and mercy yet lived in some of our race. The night before the massacre, Chief Maw-kaw-be-pe-nay (Black Partridge) came into the fort, and in tears said to Captain Heald: “Great Chief, I have come here to give you this medal that I wear. It was given me by your people, as a token of good-will between us. I am sorry, but our young men declare they will shed the blood of your people. I cannot restrain them. And I will not wear this medal as a friend while I am forced to act as an enemy.” As the captain reluctantly received the medal in silence and surprise, the old chief said: “As you march away from here, be on your guard. Linden-birds have been warbling whispers in my ears to-day.” Captains Wells and Heald both personally knew the old chief as an honest, truthful man, and it would seem such timely and pathetic warning as that, from such a reliable source as that, couched in such heart-eloquence as that should not have gone unheeded by any reasonable, sober men. …

At the close of the fight, my father and the two chiefs who were with him from Michigan were counseled regarding the terms of surrender. The lives of the survivors were all to be spared except the officer of the fort. With regard to him, Sa-naw-waw-ne, the war chief, and his warriors, most of whom were from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and many of whom were Winnebagoes, declared “that if he did not die of his wounds before a-bit a-tib-i-kad [midnight], his life should be taken.” The war chief revengefully charged the officer with breaking his pledge in not turning over the provisions, fire-arms, and whiskey in the fort, which he maliciously destroyed. He protested emphatically that it had not been their intention, or even desire, to take lives of any of the garrison, but only to take them as prisoners of war, that they might control Fort Dearborn, and Chicago as well, believing that against such overpowering numbers, the garrison would surrender without fight, as did that at Fort Mackinaw a few days before. …

… my father and his two friends, under cover of darkness, quietly stole away the wounded officer, carried him down the terrace to the shore of Lake Michigan, where he and his relatives, with some other friendly Indians, put him into a boat, where they had secure some more of the unfortunates, and rowed them across Lake Michigan to St. Joseph, then up the St. Joseph River to the old Pokagon village, near the present site of the city of Niles, to my father’s wigwam, where they were kindly cared for until their wounds were nearly healed.[8]

A few days after their arrival, an Indian came across the lake and reported that Winnebago warriors were coming to Pokagon village to retake the prisoners, whereupon they were taken down the lake in a boat to Mackinaw Island, three hundred miles away, and delivered over to the British as prisoners of war. This was done by the advice of the wounded officer, who told the friendly Indians that was the safest course. All the prisoners promised before their God that they would reward us richly for our kindness, but they were never heard from after. 

I have read several times in history that the Indians treacherously killed several men after the terms of surrender were consummated, and in after-years my father was charged by white men with having done this. He declared to the day of this death that the accusation was false; and that the only charitable excuse he could surmise for the whole story was that the survivors of the battle who reported it thought the terms of surrender were agreed upon before they were, or else that some Indian warriors, having no knowledge of the surrender, may have pressed the fight at some point of the battle-field. This was the case of the last great battle fought between the English and Americans, at New Orleans, which was fought weeks after the two powers had signed a treaty of peace. 

…

They who call themselves civilized cry out against the treachery and cruelty of savages, yet the English generals formed a league with Tecumseh and his warriors, at the beginning of the war of 1812, with a full understanding that they were to take the forts around the Great Lakes, regardless of consequences. The massacre of the Fort Dearborn garrison was but one link in the chain of civilized warfare, deliberately planned and executed. Disguise the fact as the pride of the white man may, when he joins hands with untutored savages in warfare he is a worse savage than they. 

… 

All our traditions and the accounts published by the dominant race show conclusively that the white man’s dealing with our fathers was of such a character that they were made much worse, instead of better; and Pokagon calls on Heaven to witness that in many battles before and after the Chicago massacre there was far less mercy and justice shown our race than our fathers exhibited towards the garrison of Fort Dearborn. 

…

[1] There are now a few Pottawatomies in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan, and the Indian Territory, but a majority of the tribe are on a reservation ten miles square in Jackson county, Kansas, where the United States sustains an Indian school. 

[2] Chicago is derived from She-gog-ong, the locative of the Indian word She-gogo, meaning skunk. Example—locative case: She-gog-ong ne-de-zhaw (I am going to Chicago.) Objective case: She-gog-ne-ne-saw (I killed the skunk). 

…

[4] The Pottawatomies must have learned from the surrender of Fort Mackinaw to the British and Indians at least a week before Captain Heald received the news from Detroit, by way of General Hull, commander-in-chief of the Northwestern Territory, Detroit was surrendered to the British and Indians, the day after the evacuation of Fort Dearborn of Chicago, and Fort Meigs the day after, which points to the fact that there must have been an understanding between the British and Indians to take all the forts of the Northwest as near the same time as possible. 

[5] Captain Wells was kidnapped by the Indians when a boy, and adopted by Chief Me-che-kau-nah-qud (Little Turtle) —so called by the whites—whose name should be Great Turtle. He married the old chief’s daughter, and fought for the Indians against General Harmar and General St. Clair in 1790 and 1791; afterwards , being identified by his relations, he was persuaded to join his own people. He was captain in General Wayne’s army, who defeated the Indians in 1794. Captain Heald’s wife was his niece. It appears he went to Fort Dearborn on his own account, through fear of trouble there. He was well known by many of the Pottawatomie Indians at the form, and known as a desperate fighter.  

…

[8] It is supposed the wounded officer and others taken care of by the elder Pokagon and his friends were Captain Heald, commander of the fort, his wife and other woman, and three or four men whose names they did not know. The wounded officer was called by the bad Bim-waw-gan-wi Waw-be-o-gi-maw (the White Wounded Chief). 

The text is available in full here.

Simon Pokagon was a Potawatomi writer and activist. He is the son of Potawatomi leader Leopold Pokagon. Throughout his life, he consistently advocated for his community and their connection to Chicago. His most famous publication was The Red Man’s Greeting, a critique of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition that he published on birch bark and passed out at the event. However, he also published several other texts, and met with U.S. government officials on numerous occasions to petition for unpaid treaty payments. Across his writing, Pokagon was known for using vocabulary that appealed to white audiences. While we might think it’s strange to see him predict the demise of his own people in this text – he was likely being intentional. He sought to appeal to his audience through familiar language while still communicating an important message. 

Source citation: Simon Pokagon,The Red Man’s Greeting. 1893. Edward E. Ayer Collection, Newberry Library. 

My object in publishing the “Red Man’s Greeting” on the bark of the white birch tree, is out of loyalty to my own people, and gratitude to the Great Spirit, who in his wisdom provided for our use for untold generations, this most remarkable tree with manifold bark used by us instead of paper, being of greater value to us as it could not be injured by sun or water.

Out of the bark of this wonderful tree were made hats, caps and dishes for domestic use, while our maidens tied with it the knot that sealed their marriage vow; wigwams were made of it, as well as large canoes that outrode the violent storms on lake and sea; it was also used for light and fuel at our war councils and spirit dances. Originally the shores of our northern lakes and streams were fringed with it and evergreen, and the white charmingly contrasted with the green mirrored from the water was indeed beautiful, but like the red man this tree is vanishing from our forests. 

THE RED MAN’S GREETING

“Shall not one line lament our forest race, 

For you struck out from wild creation’s face? 

Freedom–the selfsame freedom you adore, 

Bade us defend our violated shore.”

IN behalf of my people, the American Indians, I hereby declare you, the pale-faced race that has usurped our lands and homes, that we have no spirit to celebrate with you the great Columbian Fair now being held in this Chicago city, the wonder of the world. 

No; sooner would we hold high joy-day over the graves of our departed fathers, than to celebrate our own funeral, the discovery of America. And while you who are strangers, and you who live here, bring the offerings of the handiwork of your own lands, and your hearts in admiration rejoice over the beauty and grandeur of this young republic, and say, “Behold the wonders wrought by our children in this foreign land,” do not forget that this success has been at the sacrifice of our homes and a once happy race. 

Where these great Columbian show-buildings stretch skyward, and where stands this “Queen city of the West,” once stood the red man’s wigwam; … Here was the center of their wide-spread hunting grounds; stretching far eastward, and to the great salt Gulf southward, and to the lofty Rocky Mountain chain westward; and all about and beyond the Great Lakes northward roamed vast herds of buffalo that no man could number, while moose, deer, and elk were found from ocean to ocean; pigeons, ducks, and geese in near bow-shot moved in great clouds through the air, while fish swarmed our streams, lakes, and seas close to shore. All were provided by the Great Spirit for our use; we destroyed none except for food and dress; had plenty and were contented and happy. 

But alas! The place-faces came by chance to our shores, many times very needy and hungry. We nursed and fed them, –fed the ravens that were soon to pluck out our eyes, and the eyes of our children; for no sooner had the news reached the Old World that a new continent had been found, people with another race of men, than, locust-like, they swarmed on all our coasts; and, like the carrion crows in spring, that in circles wheel and clamor long and loud, and will not cease until they find and feast upon the dead, so these strangers from the East long circuits made, and turkey-like they gobbled in our ears, “Give us gold, give us gold;” “Where find you gold? Where find you gold?”

We gave for promises and “gewgaws” all the gold we had, and showed them where to dig for more; to repay us, they robbed our homes of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters; some were forced across the sea for slaves in Spain, while multitudes were dragged into the mines to dig for gold, and held in slavery there unto all who escaped not, died under the lash of the cruel task-master. It finally passed into their history that, “the red man of the West, unlike the black man of the East, will die before he’ll be a slave.” Our hearts were crushed by such base ingratitude; and, as the United States has now decreed, “No Chinaman shall land upon our shores,” so we then felt that no such barbarians as they, should land on ours. 

In those days that tried our fathers’ souls, tradition says: “A crippled, grey-haired sire told his tribe that in the visions of the night he was lifted high above the earth, and in great wonder beheld a vast spider-web spread out over the land from the Atlantic Ocean toward the setting sun. Its net-work was made of rods of iron; along its lines in all directions rushed monstrous spiders, greater in strength, and larger far than any beast of earth, clad in brass and iron, dragging after them long rows of wigwams with families therein, out-stripping in their course the flight of birds before them. Hissing from their nostrils came forth fire and smoke, striking terror to both fowl and beast. The red man hid themselves in fear, or fled away, while the white man trained these monsters for the war path, as warriors for battle.”

The old man who saw the vision claimed it meant that the Indian race would surely pass away before the pale-faced stranger. He died a martyr to his belief. Centuries have passed since that time, and we now behold in the vision as in a mirror, the present net-work of railroads, and the monstrous engines with their fire, smoke, and hissing steam, with cars attached, as they go sweeping through the land. 

The cyclone of civilization rolled westward; the forests of untold centuries were swept away; streams died up; lakes fell back from their ancient bounds; and all our fathers once loved to gaze upon was destroyed, defaced, or marred, except the sun, moon, and starry skies above, which the Great Spirit in his wisdom hung beyond their reach. 

Still on the storm-cloud rolled, while before its lightening and thunder the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air withers like grass before flame – were shot for love of power to kill alone, and left to spoil upon the plains. Their bleaching bones now scattered far and near, in shame declare the wanton cruelty of pale-faced men. The storm unsatisfied on land swept our lakes and streams, while before its clouds of hooks, nets, and glistening spears the fish vanished from our waters like the morning dew before the rising sun. Thus our inheritance was cut off, and we were driven and scattered as sheep before wolves. 

Nor was this all. They brought among us fatal diseases our father knew not of; our medicine-men tried in vain to check the deadly plague; but they themselves died, and our people fell as fall the leaves before the autumn’s blast. To be just, we must acknowledge there were some good men with these strangers who gave their lives for ours, and in great kindness taught us the revealed will of the Great Spirit through his Son Jesus, the mediator between God and man. But while we were being taught to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and strength, our neighbors as ourselves, and our children were taught to lisp, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by they name,” bad men of the same belief, shocked or faith in the revealed will of the Father, as they came among us with bitter oaths upon their lips, something we had never hear before, and cups of “fire-water” in their hands, something we had never seen before. …

You say of us that we are treacherous, vindictive, and cruel; in answer to the charge, we declare to all the world with our hands uplifted before high Heaven, that before the white man came among us, we were kind, outspoken, and forgiving. Our real character has been misunderstood because we have resented the breaking of treaties made with the United States, as we honestly understood them. The few of our children who are permitted to attend your schools, in great pride tell us that they read in your own histories, how William Penn, a Quaker, and a good man, made treaties with nineteen tribes of Indians, and that neither he nor they ever broke them; and further, that during seventy years while Pennsylvania was controlled by the Quakers, not a drop of blood was shed nor a war-whoop sounded by our people. Your own historians, and our traditions, show that for nearly two-hundred years, different Eastern powers were striving for the mastery in the new world, and that our people were persuaded by the different factions to take the war-path, being generally led by white men who had been discharged from prisons for crimes committed in the Old World. 

Read the following, left on record by Peter Martyr, who visited fore-fathers in the day of Columbus. 

“It is certain that the land among these people is as common as the sun and water, and that ‘mine and thine, the seed of all misery, have no place with them. They are content with so little, that in so large a country they have rather a superfluity than a scarceness: so that they seem to live in the golden world without toil, living in open gardens not intrenched with dykes, divided with hedges, or defended with walls. They deal truly with one another, without laws, without books, without judges. They take him for an evil and mischievous man, who taketh pleasure in doing hurt to another, and albeit they delight not in superfluities, yet they make provision for the increase of such roots whereof they make bread, content with such simple diet whereof health is preserved, and disease avoided.”

Your own histories show that Columbus on his first visit to our shores, in a message to the king and queen of Spain, paid our forefathers this beautiful tribute:

“They are loving, uncovetous people: so docile in all things that I swear to your majesties there is not in the world a better race or a more delightful country. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their talk is ever sweet and gentle, accompanied with smiles, and though they be naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.” 

But a few years passed away, and your histories left to be perused with shame, the following facts: 

“On the islands of the Atlantic coast and in the populous empires of Mexico and Peru, the Spaniards, through pretense of friendship and religion, gained audience with chiefs and kings, their families and attendants. They were received with great kindness and courtesy but in return they most treacherously seized and bound in chains the unsuspecting natives; and as ransom for their release, demanded large sums of gold which were soon given by the subjects. But instead of granting them free as promised, they were put to death in a most shocking manner. Their subjects were then hunted down like wild beasts, with blood-hounds, robbed and enslaved; while under pretext to convert them to Christianity, the rack, the scourge, and [burning] were used. Some were burned alive in their thickets and fastnesses for refusing to work the mine as slaves.” 

Tradition says these acts of base ingratitude were communicated from tribe to tribe throughout the continent, and that a universal wail as one voice went up form all the tribes of the unbroken wilderness: “We must beat back these strangers from our shores before they seize our lands homes, or slavery and death are ours.” 

Reader, pause here, close your eyes, shut from your heart all prejudice against our race, and honestly consider the above records penned by the pale-faced historians centuries ago; and tell us in the name of eternal truth, and by all that is sacred and dear to mankind, was there ever a people without the slightest reason of offense, more treacherously imprisoned and scourged than we have been? And tell us, have crime, despotism, violence, and slavery ever been dealt out in a more wicked manner to crush out life and liberty; or was ever a people more mortally offended than our forefathers were? 

Almighty Spirit of humanity, let thy arms of compassion embrace and shield us from the charge of treachery, vindictiveness, and cruelty, and save us from further oppression! And may the great chief of the United States appoint no more broken-down or disappointed politicians as agents to deal with us, but may he select good men that are tried and true, men who fear not to do the right. This is our prayer. What would remain for us if we were not allowed to pray? All else we acknowledge to be in the hands of this great republic. 

…

As the hunted deer close chased all day long, when night comes n, weary and tired, lies down to rest, mourning for companions of the morning herd, all scattered, dead, and gone, so we through weary years have tried to find some place to safely rest. But all in vain! Our throbbing hearts unceasing say, “The hounds are howling on our tracks.” … Hence our worst acts of cruelty should be viewed by all the world with Christian charity, as being but the echo of bad treatment dealt out to us. 

Therefore we pray our critics everywhere to be not like the thoughtless boy who condemns the toiling bees wherever found, as vindictive and cruel, because in robbing their homes he once received the poisoned darts that nature gave for their defense. Our strongest defense against the onward marching hordes, we fully realize is as useless as the struggles of a lamb borne high in air, pierced to its heart, in the talons of an eagle. 

…

But a few more generations and the last child of the forest will have passed onto the world beyond—into the kingdom where Tche-ban-you-booz, the Great Spirit, dwelleth, who loveth justice and mercy, and hateth evil; who has declared the “fittest” in his kingdom shall be those alone that hear and aid his children when they cry, and that love him and keep his commandments. In that kingdom many of our people in faith believe he will summon the pale-faced spirits to take position on his left, and the red spirits upon his right, and that he will say, “Sons and daughters of the forest, your prayers for deliverance from the iron heel of oppression through centuries past are recorded in this book now open before me, made from the bark of the white birch, a tree under which for generations past you have mourned and wept. On its pages silently has been recorded your sad history. It has touched my heart with pity and I will have compassion.” 

Then turning to his left he will say, “Sons and daughters of the East, all hear and give heed unto my words. While on earth I did great and marvelous things for you—I gave my only Son, who declared unto you my will, and as you had freely received, to so freely, give, and declare the gospel unto all people. A few of you have kept the faith; and through opposition and great tribulation have labored hard and honestly for the redemption of man-kind regardless of race or color. To all such I now give divine power to fly on lightening wings throughout my universe. Now, therefore, listen; and when the great drum beats, let all try their powers to fly. Only those can rise who acted well their part on earth to redeem and save the fallen.” 

The drum will be sounded, and that innumerable multitude will appear like some vast sea of wounded birds struggling to rise. We shall behold it, and shall hear their fluttering as the rumbling of an earthquake, and to our surprise shall see but a scattering few in triumph rise, and hear their songs re-echo through the vault of heaven as they sing, “Glory to the highest who hath redeemed and saved us.” 

Then the Great Spirit will speak with a voice of thunder to the remaining shame-faced multitude: “Hear ye: it is through great mercy that you have been permitted to enter these happy hunting grounds. Therefore I charge you in presence of these red men that you are guilty of having tyrannized over them in many and strange ways. I find you guilty of having made wanton wholesale butchery of their game and fish, I find you guilty of using tobacco, a poisonous weed made only to kill parasites on plants and lice on man and beast. You found it with the red men, who used it only in smoking the pipe of peace, to confirm their contracts, in place of a seal. But you multiplied its use, not only in smoking, but in chewing, snuffing, thus forming unhealthy, filthy habits, and by cigarettes, the abomination of abominations, learned little children to hunger and thirst after the father and mother of palsy and cancers.

“I find you guilty of of tagging after the pay agents sent out by the great chief of the United States, among the Indians, to pay off their birth-right claims to home, and liberty, and native lands, and then sneaking about their agencies by deceit and trickery, cheating and robbing them of their money and goods, thus leaving them poor and naked. I also find you guilty of following the trail of Christian missionaries into the wilderness among the natives, and when they had set up my altars, and the great work of redemption had just begun, and some faith believe, you then and there most wickedly set up the idol of the man-tchi-man-in-to (the devil), and there stuck out your sign, SAMPLE ROOMS. You then dealt out to the sons of the forest a most damnable drug, fitly termed on earth by Christian women, ‘a beverage of hell,’ which destroyed both body and soul, taking therefore, all their money and blankets, and scrupling not to take in pawn the Bibles given them by my servants.

“Therefore know ye, this much-abused race shall enjoy the liberties of these happy hunting-grounds, while I teach them my will, which you were in duty bound to do while on earth. But instead, you blocked up the highways that led to heaven, that the car of salvation might not pass over. Had you done your duty, they as well as you would now be rejoicing in glory with my saints with whom you, fluttering, tried this day in vain to rise. But now I say unto you, Stand back! you shall not tread upon the heels of my people, nor tyrannize over them any more. Neither shall you with gatling-gun or other-wise disturb or break up their prayer meetings in camp any more. Neither shall you practice with weapons of lightning and thunder any more. Neither shall you use tobacco in any shape, way, or manner. Neither shall you touch, taste, handle, make, buy, or sell anything that can intoxicate any more. And know ye, ye cannot buy out the law or skulk by justice here; and if any attempt is made on your part to break these commandments, I shall forthwith grant these red men of American great power, and delegate them to cast you out of Paradise, and hurl you headlong through its outer gates into the endless abyss beneath–far beyond, where darkness meets with light, there to dwell and thus shut you out from my presence and the presence of angels and the light of heaven forever and ever.” 

“Is not the Red Man’s wigwam home

As dear to him as costly dome? 

Is not his lov’d one’s smile as bright

As the dear one’s of th’ man that’s white?”