Having succeeded in running a casino on their Shawano County, Wisconsin reservation, the Stockbridge-Munsee are now making plans to build another casino in New York State. For a full account of the historic settlement please see the article on page 1, of Mohican News, "A Ray of Hope."
See Also the Tribal history on page 10
Before you go out and purchase Delaware Tribe in a Cherokee Nation, I should point out that its intended audience is not the general public. If you're a history professor or working towards being one, then this book is highly recommended for you. For the rest of us, it may be enough to read this review from Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries (October, 2010 issue, page 364).In this intriguing, precisely told tale of how the Lenni Lenape (aka "Delaware") became citizens of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, anthropologist [Brice] Obermeyer [the author] constructs the time line of events that led to this situation in his ethnography of a people fighting to hold on to their identity. The "most removed" of Native Americans, the Lenape split into entities on the US and Canada. One group settled on land in the antebellum Cherokee Nation in what is now Oklahoma. In an 1867 document (colloquially called "the agreement"), the tribes agreed that Lenape born in that community thereafter would enjoy full membership in the Cherokee Nation. Problems arose quickly, however, because the Cherokee had not expected the Delaware to retain an ongoing Lenape identity. In the subsequent 150 years, the Delaware have fought for and received federal recognition, only to have it rescinded at the behest of the Cherokee. Since all federal services [must now] come through the Cherokee, the de-organized Lenape can either accept their historic status or do without. Obermeyer's volume details a fascinating and unique case study in intertribal relations and the role of sovereignty in maintenance of tribal identity.
You may remember that the Stockbridge Mohicans once hoped to join the Delawares on the White River in Indiana Territory. I've already addressed the details of that intended move including why it never happened. Somehow the Delawares were "persuaded" to sell their land. They may have been told that it would be better to sell and have the U.S. Government provide them with a western reservation than to fight to their deaths.
Bonnie Sue Lewis uses the conversion story of Fish Hawk, a Cayuse Indian, to illustrate the complexity involved in deciding to become a Christian Indian. (To get the whole story, you'll have to read Creating Christian Indians.) Like many other Indians, Fish Hawk made a deathbed conversion.
If there is one ongoing theme to this blog, it lies in the idea that in many cases, American Indian converts to Christianity weren't fakers, many of them genuinely understood, accepted, and/or sensed something about the missionaries' messages. A second, and equally important point - that I've not emphasized as much - is that becoming a Christian doesn't make a new convert into a non-Indian.
The Nanticoke - Lenni Lenape Tribal Prayer Ministry has its own link on the tribe's website. Consistent with what I have always said here, members of the Prayer Ministry do NOT consider their Native spirituality to be inconsistent with Christianity as they practice it.
Many of us are concerned about various stereotypes. Fortunately, Devon A. Mihesuah, a Professor of History and an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, has taken aim at many of them in her book, American Indians: Stereotypes and Realities.
Although Chief Oshkosh made it clear that Governor Henry Dodge had dealt with his people fairly, Charles Velte, author of Historic Lake Poygan (self-published in 1976) asserts "the Indians would have been better off if they had turned their lands over to the government free [of charge]"(page 62). What could be more insensitive than to make such an assertion?The Treaty of 1836 drew to these annual payments adventurous crowds of all classes of society then on the frontier.... The traders in this area came for the collection of their just accounts for the credits to the Indians during the year. Then there was the peddler and vendor of flash jewelry, beads and colored scarfs who came to attract the Indian to their wares. then the gambler, the sport, and the hanger-on of the frontier to play his game, and all of them came to get their fair share of the money of the Indian, and they all met with fair success. the agent of the United States was usually guarded by a company of soldiers who made some show of protecting the Indians. Temporary eating houses and boarding places were improvised and the scene was one of exciting life; the forest was alive with the hum of these activities (quoted in Velte, page 62).
...the Indians were met by the Government agents, whose duty it was to deal out a small quantity of rusty pork, a few pounds of damaged tobacco, with blankets and some money. A company of soldiers were generally on duty to guard these
treasures from the avarice and cupidity of the hundreds of white men who congregated here as promptly as the natives themselves. White and half breed traders...would invariably manage to be on the ground at pay day. Merchants from all parts of the country, from Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Milwaukee, Prairie du Chein, Chicago, Detroit, and elsewhere....
The moment the last dollar was paid, down went the American flag and the agent and his men rushed to their boats and sheared off from the scene of action. Then the whiskey seller took the field.
Not having written communication opened the way for tribes to develop oral communication into what might be called a powerful art form. The skill of oratory, I would imagine, was even more developed among the Mohicans, who first brokered interactions between the Iroquois and other Algonkians and later worked as cultural brokers between Indians and white settlers.A Revolutionary war veteran, Christian Indian, dedicated leader of his Mahican community, and preserver of Mahican traditions, Aupaumut envisioned his role as ambassador to the northwest Indian nations as an extension of ancient Mahican traditions of diplomacy. Negotiating on behalf of the "15 sachems of the United States," Aupaumut employed both written text and the oral forms of the treaty council with authority.
Brother,You can view that speech fragment online as part of the Papers of the War Department project. The curious thing about it is they call it a "Speech of Hendrick to Stockbridge Indian Chief," while Captain Hendrick was himself a Stockbridge Chief and his words were clearly meant for the ears of United States officials.
I feel thankful that by the goodness of the Great Spirit above we have again brought our pipes together; that we may speak together in friendship. I feel glad that the father of the United States has appointed you to kindle this council fire for peace. - I have something to say to you which for a good while has lain with weight upon my mind.
Brother, Attend!
I will remind you that I, my nation have always been the true friends of the Americans. Even from the first day they entered into a covenant of friendship. I, my nation have never been unfaithful nor broken any part of the chain of friendship.
For information about this photo, please see the Fish Geek blog.
Michael Steltenkamp's second book recently received a bad review in the American Library Association's Choice Magazine.
London-born Roger Williams (c.1603-1683) was an American Puritan leader and founder of Rhode Island. Banished from Massachusetts in 1636 for his separatist ideas, he set out with a few followers and went to Rhode Island. There he befriended the Narragansett Indians and bought land from them to settle on, naming the town Providence. Williams firmly believed in treating the Indians justly and humanely; he encouraged his fellow colonists to pay the Indians fairly for their land. In 1643, he published a dictionary of the Algonquian language, an endeavor which helped further friendly relations between the settlers and the Narragansetts. Providence
became a safe haven for many people, among them Quakers, Baptists, and Jews, who fled the religious persecution of the New England settlements.
The remainder of Patrick Frazier's thirteenth chapter in The Mohicans of Stockbridge is impossible to summarize in the space of one blogpost. As is often the case, his research turns up a lot of details that can hardly be called insignificant. Nevertheless, for those of you who won't be reading Frazier's book soon, here's what happened next:At the end, Governor Moore asked [Wappinger Chief Daniel] Nimham's counsel if they thought they had had a fair trial. The lawyers avoided answering directly. The 'several exceptions' they had taken to the [contested] deed were, in their minds, rather fundamental legal points. Moore closed the proceedings without rendering a final decision. A few days later the decision suddenly appeared in the public press. The governor and the council declared that the [land] patent was good and the purchase valid, that the Wappingers had no right to the land, and that they had been induced to complain by squatters who wanted support for their own claims. The Wappingers' complaint was "vexatious and unjust, and...accordingly dismissed.This decision was not only a shock to the Indians but it was also a shock to their schoolteacher, Timothy Woodbridge, who wrote a number of letters in a futile attempt to advocate for the Indians.
At the end of August [1766] the Lords of Trade reported their findings to the King, focusing on the Wappinger claim. In their opinion there were grounds for further investigation into the facts, especially since 'frauds and abuses in respect to Indian lands...have so notoriously prevailed and been complained of in the American colonies and in [the colony of New York] in particular' (page 163).Frazier continues in the next paragraph:
The earl of Shelburne had taken [the Indians'] affairs under his wing. After consulting with the king, the earl informed the Indians that he would instruct Governor Moore to give their case serious consideration and to find a just and speedy solution.My guess is that the delegation had hoped for more when they set off across the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the "Indian land case" was at least taken seriously in London and Daniel Nimham and the rest prepared to pursue the case with the Governor.
Daniel Nimham, speaking in English, presented the Wappinger claim to the territory based on the ancient tribal heritage. Then he interpreted the proceedings for the other Indians, while [Samuel] Munrow [a white ally of the Wappingers whose own self-interest was also at stake], and the representative of the patent heirs debated the issues. The Indians, somewhat intimidated by the imperious air of the council, were taken aback when Beverly Robinson produced a curious Indian deed for the area in question, dated 1702 and signed by several Indians. Although one of the old tribesmen recognized some of the names, he recollected no transaction that the deed described. Samuel Munrow was allowed to examine the deed only briefly, but he could see flaws and possible fraud even so.Before they had to leave, Chief Nimham asked to hear a verdict from the Lieutenant Governor. Colden conferred with his council and declared the deed to be good and, Frazier also reports that Colden "told the Indians to trouble the government no more" (page 158).
The Land in question was in Dutchess and Westchester Counties on the New York side of the Hudson River.The Indians and their tenants, charging that the Philipse claim fraudulently deprived them of their land, petitioned Lietenant-Governor Cadawallader Colden and his Council who in 1765 rejected their plea... they appealed to the King's ministers who referred them back to the Governor, Sir Henry Moore, and his Council, with the same result as formerly (page 193)."
They [the Indians and their attorneys(s)] also further intimated that inasmuch as it had been Suggested to them that most if not all the Gentlemen of the Council, were either Interested in the Lands in Controversy, or in other Lands which lay under Similar Circumstances and had perhaps once before Judged in this same Case; they were desirous that his Excellency [the Attorney General of the Colony of New York] should hear and determin the matter of said Complaint without his Council; or at least that None of those Gentlemen who were thus Interested or who had already once Judged in the Cause might sit in Council during the trial. But this being taken as an Impeachment of the Honor of the Council was not Granted (page 213).
I personally feel like we killed these names in transcribing them as they were written.On the plus side, you may be able to provide Cathe with the correct spellings.
In Lakota tradition, "visions of real significance could come to a child of ten and twelve years and might affect the course of his life" (Royal Hassrick, 1964). Never taken lightly by their recipients, such visions still retained a forceful hold on people quite advanced in age. A vision often prescribed particular obligations and brought special power to the person receiving it (Robert Lowie, 1963).Steltenkamp refers specifically to Black Elk's own vision in his next paragraph:
At the age of nine, Black Elk received a great vision, and Neihardt vividly narrates its details in an early chapter. Referred to as the living heart of the book and Black Elk's life, one commentary notes that an "attempt to describe it would do it injustice"(Frank Waters, 1984).... This childhood experience is shown as haunting Black Elk's conscious life, and the holy man repeatedly asks Wakan Tanka [God or The Great Spirit] if he properly sought the vision's fulfillment.The book's concluding chapter movingly suggests that Wakan Tanka answered Black Elk's question affirmatively.
On page 94, Steltenkamp tells us that "a key to interpretation of the vision, perhaps unknown to Neihardt and other commentators, surfaced in Black Elk's life at the time of his conversion [to Christianity]." The key that Steltenkamp refers to is a Roman Catholic teaching aide commonly known as the Two Roads Map (pictured right). The Two Roads Map was a "picture catechism," a piece of paper one foot wide and several feet long that illustrates "what Christians have traditionally called salvation history" and, Steltenkamp adds on page 95, "the Two Roads Map imaginatively captured in picture form the basic worldview of traditional Christian theology."
Native American drummers kick off Saturday's Celebrate CommUNITY event. This is the third year that Gordon Williams of Shawano and his drummers, as representatives of the Brothertown Nation, welcomed the flags of all countries during an opening ceremony. The annual celebration is sponsored by United for Diversity and draws more than 1,000 spectators to enjoy ethnic food and dance, and cultural crafts.
I first mentioned Michael Steltenkamp in a recent post. While Steltenkamp lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation he ran into an old woman in front of the Holy Rosary Mission. The woman turned out to be Lucy Looks Twice, the only surviving child of Black Elk (page xviii).My father related to John Neihardt an addtion to his book, but they never put it out. Afterward, he realized this and wanted the last part of his life also told - his life as a Christian man praying. My father wanted it known that after he quit his medicine practice, he became a catechist. But this man [Lucy pointed to a picture of John Neihardt] really believed in the Indian religion....
Many people have already read about my father's life as a medicine man in Black Elk Speaks and The Sacred Pipe. So, I'd like to tell about the rest of his life- the many years not talked about in either book. The greater part of his life was spent as a Catholic catechist whom I knew as [my] loving father.... My father would have wanted me to do this.
My thanks to Wenona Gardner for posting a Shawano Leader article to her Mohican 7 e-mail list. The article, Bill Miller Wins Third Grammy is a good read.
There's a good chance that you've already heard of Black Elk, the holy man of the Oglala Sioux. I don't think that I can introduce him better than Professor of Theology Dennis Hamm did writing for the Center for the Study of Religion and Society in their Fall, 1993 issue:Black Elk (1863-1950) may well be the most famous native North American. That he is even better known than Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Sitting Bull is due mainly to the achievement of John Neihardt. The Nebraskan poet interviewed the Oglala holy man when the latter was 68. Out of those sessions he published, in 1932, the now classic Black Elk Speaks, which presents a stunning portrait of Black Elk as late 19th-century visionary and medicine man. Out of another set of interviews during the winter of 1947-48 (three years before the subject died), Joseph Epes Brown published The Sacred Pipe (1953), which gave the world further material from Black Elk's 19th-century medicine-man years. These two books are responsible for most people's picture of the man. Curiously missing from this portrait is the latter and longer part of his life-the fifty years lived in the 20th century, including his conversion to Christianity in 1904 and his long and productive career as a Catholic catechist.
<--- author Michael Steltenkamp
Vine Deloria's God is Red: A Native View of Religion is essentially an opposing viewpoint to Algonkian Church History. Nevertheless, both can still be (and in my opinion are) "good reads."
