A View From a Washichu

Can Occupy Wall Street Take a Page out of AIM’s Playbook?

2012-01-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

Time Magazine declared the “Protester” as the “Person of the Year” recently.

AIM members protest injustice at Whiteclay, NE, July 1999.

It is hard to argue with that somewhat unconventional decision. Demonstrators have caused upheaval in a number of countries in 2011, starting in Tunisia and spreading lately to Russia.

Domestically, we now have the Occupy Wall Street movement, which got me to thinking about the American Indian Movement in the 1970s and its use of this tactic to call attention to legitimate grievances it had about the treatment of Native peoples.

For those who are involved in protest movements, it is important to study what others did right and wrong. Along with AIM’s “occupy” campaigns in the 1970s, there are numerous other case studies to draw from. The Tea Party movement and the anti-Keystone pipeline movement in Nebraska are two other examples.

(I am writing about these protests with a cold eye, and I will try to put aside whether I agree or disagree with their core beliefs.)

A case in point is the Tea Party. This is one of the more successful grassroots movements of the past few years. In a short time span, fiscally conservative Americans brought attention to the nation’s soaring budget deficits and national debt. They then managed to get a block of legislators elected to Congress by the next election cycle. That is quite an accomplishment in a short amount of time.

However, there were many rabidly racist people who showed up to the Tea Party rallies with outrageously offensive signs. They seemed to be more against having a black man in the White House than promoting fiscal conservatism.

Lesson one for protesters is: create discipline in your ranks.

A key factor in a successful protest is getting the media to cover your demonstration and get the message out to a bigger audience. If a bunch of kooks show up, then you can bet that is where the cameras are going to be pointed. The Occupy Wall Street organizers found this out when some extremists with anti-Semitic signs showed up at their protest. The conservative Fox News producers made hay out of that.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and the Civil Rights marches he led were models of discipline. In the face of extreme cruelty, his followers managed to maintain their non-violent tactics. Getting rank and file protesters to behave civilly takes leadership.

I alluded to Lesson Two already. Get the media to show up. Does a tree make a sound in the woods if no one is there to hear it? In the case of protests and the media: the answer is “nope.”

AIM had a particular talent for choosing high-profile places to occupy. They were not the original “occupiers.” That tactic had been used before. However, the Wounded Knee Occupation at first seemed like a stroke of genius. The Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee book by Dee Brown was a number one best seller the previous year. The hamlet was nowhere near any major media centers. It wasn’t even close to the town of Pine Ridge, where organizers first intended to occupy the BIA offices. But once the Feds showed up at Wounded Knee to face off with AIM, so did the network cameras.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs occupation in Washington, D.C., one later in which AIM was a major participant was not such a bad spot. The BIA was a notoriously poorly run agency that needed to be exposed. But in this case, timing was everything. The BIA occupation came at the end of a nationwide march on Washington, but it arrived in D.C. during election season when lawmakers and the media were out on the campaign trail.

AIM’s occupations leads to lesson three: Be ambassadors not buttheads. No one is going to listen to you if make them your enemy. King understood this well. Do not humiliate your opponent.

Everywhere AIM went, they left a path of destruction. The village of Wounded Knee and BIA headquarters were ransacked as were other places it occupied. These acts garnered ill will that sticks in local peoples’ craws to this day.

I look at the Occupy Oakland offshoot that set out to shut down a local port and wonder exactly what they hoped to accomplish by threatening people’s livelihoods? How will anyone come around to your way of thinking if you antagonize them and take money out of their pockets? What did the port symbolize and what message was I supposed to take away from them attempting to shut it down? I don’t know the answer, so that effort was a failure.

It may turn itself around before the elections and possibly influence voters, but at this point Occupy Wall Street looks like it is fizzling.

One of the knocks against Occupy Wall Street is that is has no charismatic leaders, or any leadership at all. So its opponents portray them as spoiled white kids who are simply jealous of other people’s success. They don’t have anyone to counter that message, so it sticks in people’s minds, accurate, or not.

AIM had intelligent and charismatic leaders who understood the media. But violence and petty vandalism sunk it and their messages were lost in a sea of bad publicity.

So at last, I come to something that has worked almost perfectly. And that is the movement in Nebraska to keep the Keystone XL pipeline out of the Sand Hills.

This oil pipeline extension, proposed by the Canadian company TransCanada, would move tar sands oil from Alberta through Montana, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska. There is a larger movement to kill off the pipeline completely for various reasons. In Nebraska, opponents keyed in on the route that would have taken it through the Sand Hills.

The movement there was lead by a young activist from Hastings named Jane Fleming Kleeb. When she appeared on radio and television shows, she was articulate, calm and never raised her voice. She made sound, logical, reasonable points that sounded more like suggestions than demands.

In less than a year— fighting against well-funded big oil lobbyists, and company propagandists who continually distorted the facts — she and members of her movement managed to bring public opinion around to their point of view in a heavily Republican state.

TransCanada and the decidedly conservative lawmakers and governor in Nebraska soon caved in and agreed to reroute the pipeline. The larger “war” against the XL will continue, but that battle was won.

No one got hurt, nothing was destroyed, and no shouting or offensive signs were needed.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which will soon be released in eBook format.

Here’s Hoping the Newest Western TV Show Portrays Native American History Accurately

2011-11-18T05:11:00.001-08:00

A scene from Hell on Wheels. Courtesy of AMC.

I have high hopes for a new Western airing on the basic cable channel AMC called Hell on Wheels.

For those who love the history of the American West, the last couple decades have been lean times as far as TV shows and movies. At one time, “oaters” as they were called were staples on network television and at the movies. But that fad passed and they slowly disappeared from screens.

The upshot is that what has been released over the last 20 years is of much better quality. Dances With Wolves, Unforgiven, Open Range, Appaloosa, 3:10 to Yuma, are examples of what are known as “revisionist Westerns,” which try to adhere to a more realistic portrayal of the West.

I thought the HBO series Deadwood about the Black Hills mining boom town was one of the greatest television dramas ever produced. One of my complaints, however, is that it left out much of the historical context that allowed for the settlement of the Black Hills, namely their theft from the Lakotas. There were no Native American characters in the show.

There was an attempt in 2005 to do a comprehensive, Western TV drama, with a balanced approach to the Native American side of the story, called Into The West, a mini-series that aired on TNT. The producers’ hearts were in the right place, but it was unfortunately unwatchable mess with incomprehensible storylines. I never made it past the third episode.

That’s the problem for us history nerds when we watch a show like Deadwood or Hell on Wheels. We are constantly on the lookout for historical inaccuracies, or in my case, important facts or details that are conveniently left out.

Deadwood was cancelled before it could come to a natural end. If there were a season four, it could have ended with a big fire that destroyed the town’s notorious red light/gambling district, which is what really happened.

Hell on Wheels has a similar backdrop. Deadwood portrayed life in a boomtown that attracted businessmen and lowlifes, and in later seasons, its slow evolution into a more respectable community,

The title of the new show refers to the tent communities that followed the construction of the railroad, in this case, the Union Pacific, its workers and those who catered everything from prostitution, gambling and booze to the men who had money in their pocket. You wouldn’t know by looking at it now, but North Platte, Nebr., began its life as one of the more notorious Hell on Wheels stops when work stalled there for several months as the railroad constructed a bridge over the river. (In fact, North Platte’s reputation as the sin city of the West survived well into the 1950s, but that’s another story.)

The building of the first transcontinental railroad had huge implications for the plains Indians, and that’s why I am hopeful that the writers will be providing important context, and therefore, some history lessons for the general viewing public.

In the first episode, we see a surveying party that was attacked by warriors identified as Cheyennes. That matches up with history. The Southern Cheyennes put up the most resistance against the railroad.

In the first episode we are also introduced a Native American character, Joseph Black Moon (of undetermined origin). He will be a main character in the show and is played by a Lakota actor, Eddie Spears, a member of the Lower Brule tribe.

I will be watching as the series unfolds for some more historical context. For example, Pawnee men were hired to protect the workers and counter the Cheyennes. If you go deeper in the history, Chief Spotted Tail and his followers used that opportunity to launch several raids against their long-time mortal enemies at the Pawnee reservation near Genoa, Nebr. The failure of the U.S. government to protect the Pawnee — as their best fighting men were off guarding the Union Pacific corporation’s progress — was one factor in the Pawnee deciding to abandon their traditional homeland along the Loup River and move to Indian Territory.

We shall see if the Pawnees make an appearance in the show.

As would be expected for a mainstream television show, the main story will revolve around the white characters. The central plot is about a former Confederate soldier who is seeking revenge for the cruel death of his wife at the hands of Union troops. The “nation is an open wound” in the post-Civil War years,

the show’s opening proclaims. The theme of a nation trying to heal after the trauma of the Civil War is worth exploring and is an important part of U.S. history that rarely explored.

So too is the U.S. government’s clash with the native peoples, and that’s why I am excited about Hell on Wheels.

Television shows and movies are not documentaries. I’m not expecting complete accuracy and for every historic detail to be included. But I have high hopes that the producers and the writers will strike the right balance and tone when it comes to the building of the transcontinental railroad and its effects on the nation’s first inhabitants.

Stew Magnuson (stewmag@yahoo.com) is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns. ORDER BELOW:

The Ponca Are a Small Nation With a Big Story to Tell

2011-10-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

Closing ceremonies at the NMAI. credit: Stew Magnuson

The Ponca Nation of Nebraska had a moment in the sun the in early October when the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., hosted two days of events honoring this small community.

Along with colorful opening and closing ceremonies on the first floor atrium, there were panel discussion, book talks, storytelling by elders, and a reading of the play Waaxe’s Law, written by Mary Kathryn Nagle and performed by members of the Metropolitan Community College’s Great Plains Theater Conference — an Omaha-based theater troop.

It was reported that Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor attended the opening ceremony.

Most of the events centered around the story of Chief Standing Bear.

As a quick summary, the Poncas, a peaceful tribe that lived on the banks of the Niobrara river in northeast Nebraska, were unjustly uprooted from their homeland and forcibly marched to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, in 1877.

They suffered greatly in this foreign land and many died of diseases related to malnutrition. Before Chief Standing Bear’s son Bear Shield passed away as a result of sickness, his father promised him that they would take his remains back to their homeland where he could be buried alongside his ancestors.

Standing Bear and a couple dozen members of his clan broke away from the reservation and made their way north

The journey north was an epic story itself, but when they reached the Omaha Reservation to take shelter with their cousins from that tribe, the tale took a different turn. Gen. George Crook, who was under orders to return the band to Indian Territory, took them into custody and brought them to a military jail. Crook was completely sympathetic to their plight and informed a crusading Omaha Herald journalist Thomas Tibbles about the situation. Along with Bright Eyes, an educated daughter of an Omaha chief, they spearheaded a public relations campaign. The Ponca’s quest became a national story, and many members of the public were outraged at the treatment the tribe had received at the hands of the federal government.

Crook encouraged Tibbles to sue him and demand a writ of habeas corpus. That would mean acknowledging that Standing Bear was considered a citizen in the eyes of the law. Judge Elmer Dundy ruled in his favor. It was a landmark civil rights case that Native Americans are "persons within the meaning of the law" of the United States.

There are more fascinating details to the story than I can relate here. To learn more, there are several books I would recommend. Tibbles’ The Ponca Chiefs gave his account of the incident first. There was a chapter in Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, “Standing Bear Becomes a Person.” Two authors have recently expanded on the story. Standing Bear Is A Person by Stephen Dando-Collins came out in 2004. Joe Starita a University of Nebraska journalism professor released I Am A Man: Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice in 2010, which recently came out in paperback. A made-for-TV movie aired in 1988, The Trial of Standing Bear. Standing Bear’s Footsteps, a 60-minute documentary aired on public television stations last year.

Starita participated in the two days of events and was made an honorary member of the tribe during the closing ceremonies.

As the new father of an 11-week old girl, I could only make it to the tail end of the two days of events, but I was glad I attended the closing ceremony and the play.

As a Nebraskan, the Ponca’s story has been an inspiration to me.

One thing about the story that appeals to me is how sympathetic whites on the 19^th century rallied around the cause. During the grueling forced march, Nebraskans and Kansans in small towns tried to help as much as they could. As Standing Bear made his way north, other settlers gave them food and shelter.

The story shatters the misconception that all the whites on the Great Plains in that era shunned or hated Indians. It was true for many, but when the story broke, most people were outraged that a peaceful, Christian tribe had been treated so badly.

In 2005, Nebraska nearly chose Standing Bear as its representative on the series of state quarters being released by the U.S. mint. But Gov. Dave Heineman chose instead a design portraying a Conestoga wagon next to Chimney Rock. What an incredibly shortsighted and stupid decision. Nebraska would rather honor people who were passing through on their way to Oregon and California than the heroic native of the state, Standing Bear?

The Poncas’ story didn’t end there. Today, they are separated. Many moved back to Nebraska when they regained their land near the Niobrara, but others remained in Oklahoma. The Nebraska tribe was terminated in the 1966, but by 1990 regained its federal recognition.

I hope readers take the time to learn more about the Poncas. They are a small nation, but with a big story to tell.

Stew Magnuson (stewmag@yahoo.com) is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: and Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns.

He lives in Arlington, Va.

Buy Scenic, S.D. For $790.000; More Border Town Bargains to Come!

2011-08-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

The tiny hamlet known for its “No Indians Allowed” sign is for sale.

Scenic, S.D., went on the market in July. The asking price is $799,000. But like any real estate listing, this is just a starting point. Maybe you can dicker that price down.

Among the several empty buildings and the still operating convenience store, is the self-proclaimed “World Famous” Longhorn Saloon. Perhaps “World’s Infamous” would be better.

The empty streets of White River, SD.

The rustic looking sign has made it into several history books for its “No Indians Allowed” sign that hung above the door for years. A look at the real estate listing pictures shows that the “No” was painted over long ago. I suspect that the “No” may have been put there prior to 1955, when a federal law prohibited any Native American from buying alcohol anywhere in the United States. Nevertheless, it became an often photographed sign through the years, akin to “No Coloreds Allowed” signs that permeated the South,

I also suspect that plenty of bootleg booze went out the back door at Scenic prior to 1955, as it did in Whiteclay, Neb., and any number of border town bars and liquor stores.

These “entire towns for sale” stories make headlines in newspapers. But I believe that on the Great Plains, it will become so commonplace that it won’t make much of a stir in the future. Granted, you have to have a landowner who owns most of a town’s acres, as is the case in Scenic, to put a town “up for sale.”

The 2010 census data is trickling out, and a quick look at the numbers of the mostly white towns surrounding Rosebud and Pine Ridge shows that many of these communities are slowly ebbing away.

As the countryside that surrounds Pine Ridge, Rosebud and the other reservations hollows out, life in these border towns will inevitably change.

There has been a slow, but steady decline of small prairie towns for decades. In fact, in North and South Dakota, there are houses and land for sale in some of these dying towns that can be had for $10,000 or less.

The “town” of Tenney, Minn., — near the South Dakota border — recently voted itself out of existence. It became the nation’s newest ghost town. The final tally was 2-1. It had some 200 residents at is peak 80 years ago. In the last census, it had a population of five.

Boarded up shops on small town Main Streets are commonplace now, and more often than not, outnumber the viable businesses. If residents have a Wal-Mart within 100 miles, that is where they go.

The populations of these small towns peaked shortly before the Depression and the devastating Dust Bowl years in the 1930s. Most owed their existence to a railroad coming through, but better roads and the automobile led to their decline. Many towns simply disappeared from maps prior to World War II. There was a “mass extinction” of communities. Just like the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, they died off in great numbers.

As for the so-called border towns in South Dakota and Nebraska near Rosebud and Pine Ridge, many are not doing well.

Rushville, Neb., had a population of 999 in the 2000 census. By 2010, it was down to 890, and during that 10-year span, it lost its high school and newspaper. If there weren’t some shenanigans to beat out Gordon in an election to determine the county seat back in the late 1880s, one wonders how large the town would be today.

Gordon, by the way, seems to be doing better, judging by the number of viable businesses on Main Street. Yet it lost 140 residents between the two censuses. Valentine did a little better and only lost 83 residents.

Today, senior citizens occupy many of the homes. The young people have moved away to find work in larger towns. For the college educated, there are few opportunities other than teaching in the public schools.

Surrounding these communities are farms and ranches that have become occupied by fewer people over the decades as modern machinery took away the need for workers. Family farms are being consolidated or bought up by corporations. That has meant less business for the banks and shops in the small towns.

Looking ahead over the next century, I wonder if there will be another mass extinction of these tiny towns.

And I wonder how that will change life on the Great Plains especially if the reservations’ populations remain stable.

There are two interesting exceptions, the 2010 census data show.

White River, S.D., just north of Rosebud, lost only 17 residents during the last 10 years, down to 581 residents from 598 in 2000. The racial makeup is nearly half Native American, half white.

Martin, S.D., is the only small town in my informal survey that has reversed the trend. It actually added 65 residents over the past 10 years. Like White River, it has a large Native population at nearly 38 percent.

Since the housing situation remains so problematic on the reservations, I wonder if Lakotas will fill even more of the empty houses in these dying towns. How will that change the social structure of these communities? The politics? The schools’ curricula? And so on.

I suppose as long as the convenience store continues to make money, there will still be a Scenic. The same goes for tiny Whiteclay and its collection of liquor stores, grocers and other miscellaneous businesses.

As for Merriman, Clinton, Hays Springs, Cody, Kilgore, Crookstone, Wood, Keyapaha, 100 years from now, they may not be on any map, and their only occupants may be ghosts.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: and Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which was recently released in paperback.

Missouri River Floods Serve as a Reminder of Native American Sacrifices

2011-06-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

The Missouri River near Washburn, N.D. as it is meant to be.

I remember as a boy in Omaha standing on the banks of the Missouri River with my father as we fished and thinking how vast it looked.

But that was the late 1960s, and what I was looking at was actually a once mighty river that had been transformed by the Army Corps of Engineers into a long drainage ditch.

As flood waters rise all over the prairies this summer, the Missouri has been in the news a lot. I wonder how many reading the headlines know the history of this great river and how it got to be the way we see it today.

The plains tribes have had a long relationship with the nation’s second longest river.

The mouths of its many tributaries such as the Platte, White, and Bad were where nations such as the Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsu would set up their villages so they could be found easily. If you were a Lakota band, and wanted some corn to supplement your buffalo meat diet, all you had to do was follow the tributary until reaching the Missouri. There would mostly likely be one of the river-dwelling peoples there willing to make a trade.

The Missouri became the first highway into the heart of the Great Plains. Fur traders came, flooding the lands with European goods, transforming the economy, and creating jealousies and rivalries among the tribes who vied to be the middlemen. The Arikara, Mandasn and Hidatsu, who lived in strategically placed choke points on the river, saw their position as the plains’ middlemen erode. The white man also brought diseases such as small pox that nearly destroyed their societies.

Two years ago, I visited the park in Fort Pierre, S.D., where Lewis and Clark’s Voyage of Discovery stopped and had its first encounter with the Sioux. It did not go well between the U.S. government’s representatives and the Brule Lakota who were camped there.

The situation was so tense between the tribe and the expedition that it nearly came to a skirmish. If cooler heads had not prevailed on both sides, the story of Lewis and Clark may have ended right there. It was a harbinger of things to come between the federal government and the Lakotas.

Around this time, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was given the mission to keep the Missouri River open for navigation. A new technology in the form of the steamboat was making its way to the river. The corps’ first mission was to remove dead trees from the river channel — a futile task one would think.

As the 1800s progressed, the Missouri truly became a superhighway, as steamboats filled with immigrants, manufactured goods and soldiers made their way from St. Louis. The Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations are where they are today because chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail refused repeatedly to remain at an agency next to lands on the Missouri. It was a miserable area, by then stripped of trees and wildlife and infested by all sorts of “bad men” who traded whiskey. The United States wanted the Oglalla and Brule close to the river where it could deliver treaty goods more easily. The two chiefs wanted no part of the Missouri, and left there in the late 1880s.

Omaha and Kansas City grew over the decades, and the barge replaced the steamboat. For some 50 years the mighty river did what it is doing this year, jumped it banks and flooded the cities along with the lucrative farmlands that took advantage of the rich soil along its banks. Drive near the Missouri today in the spring and you can see just how rich this soil is. It’s coal black, and looks rich enough to eat.

The Army Corps of Engineers still had a mission to keep the river open. Preserving wildlife, fish habitat or the cultures of the Native peoples who lived there was never on its agenda.

The people of these two cities, along with others such as Pierre and Bismarck, and the nearby farmers built on the flood plains, and flood plains are subject to periodic — yes you guessed it — floods.

When the white folks began howling for action in the 1940s, the U.S. government’s answer was to destroy the river by creating a series of upstream dams — the Oahe, Garrison and Gavins Point.

The column is too short to recount how the Three Affiliated Tribes (Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsu) and the Lakotas still living along the Missouri were treated when the government decided it wanted to flood the Missouri river valleys and create the lakes we see today in place of the river. I reviewed two books in this column last year, Dammed Indians Revisited by Michael L. Lawson and Coyote Warrior by Paul VanDevelder that goes into depth on this man-made tragedy. I would recommend reading them for more details.

But we all know how the story ended. The Garrison Dam destroyed the way of the life of peoples who had lived there for thousands of years.

Today, travelers can stop at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center near Washburn, N.D., in a spot between the two dams and see what the Missouri once looked like. It is wide, beautiful and meandering, just like it once was.

This all happened only a decade before the Civil Rights and Environmental Movements gained momentum. If the Feds had tried to railroad the Lakotas and Three Affiliated Tribes in the 1970s, the story might have turned out differently. Maybe.

I know we are not going to turn back the clock and free this great river and let it wander where it wants. I know those dams aren’t going to go away.

But this year’s floods should serve as a reminder to the downstream farmers that their rich soil got that way from thousands of years of spring floods depositing nutrients carried from the mountains.

The residents of the big cities, from Bismarck, N.D., to Kansas City, who reside or do business on the flood plains — or built their summer cabins on the Missouri’s banks — should be reminded that they enjoyed years of being high and dry through the sacrifice of Native Americans who had no power to stop dams that took away just about everything they had.

Stew Magnuson (stewmag@yahoo.com ) is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which is now available in paperback.

The Wounded Knee Book I Would Like to Read Has Yet to Be Written

2011-06-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

I interviewed around 75 people for my book The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder from 2003 to 2004, when I did the bulk of the research for the book.

Here is a partial list of those who I spoke to who have since passed away: American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt, Gordon Mayor Bruce Moore, Gordon American Legion Hall manager Bernard Sandage. Richard Yellow Bird-Steele (Bob Yellow Bird’s brother). Raymond Yellow Thunder’s last surviving sibling Russell. Long-time border-town merchant Charles Hinn, long-time Gordon resident Billy Gibbons. I tracked down two members of the jury who served during the Yellow Thunder trial of the Hare brothers. One died a few months before the book was published; the other only a few weeks.

And there are many others.

I make this sad list as a lesson in the importance of preserving history.

There is a book that needs to be written, and some enterprising journalist/historian needs to get cracking quickly. The book should be called 71-Days: The Occupation of Wounded Knee.

It should be an even-handed, in-depth look at the occupation told in a narrative style, one that can capture this gripping story. By “evenhanded,” I mean that it should not back down from any facts. It should employ the “when in doubt, leave it out” rule when some stories, suppositions or conjecture is put forth.

The writer can have biases — as all writers and members of the human race do — but he/she should be fair to all the subjects.

There have been some books about the incident, but not all of them completely satisfying. There was some first-hand accounts published Voices from Wounded Knee, 1973 compiled by the Native newspaper Akwesasne Notes. It had some good first-person recollections. By the way, I know someone in Gordon who found a copy of this book at a yard sale for $1. Good find. It is long out of print, and goes for $55 online.

Former Chadron State Professor Rowland Dewing did important work by obtaining FBI documents through a Freedom of Information Act requests and wrote Wounded Knee II, compiled from these documents and some interviews. It is a valuable resource, but there is little in terms of Native point of view. Both my book and Steve Hendricks The Unquiet Grave had some chapters devoted to the occupation, but neither took an in-depth look at the occupation.

And there are a few first-person narratives as well that have appeared through the years or chapters in autobiographies: Dennis Banks, Russell Means, Severt Young Bear, BIA Superintendent Stanley Lyman, FBI Agent Joseph Trimbach, have all contributed to the historical record. But in my mind, the definitive book has not been written.

I’ve mentioned this to a few people and they have said that I should be the one to write it. Well, I would love to take on that challenge. But the fact is, I live in Arlington, Va. My wife and I are expecting our first child in July, and the immense amount of field research this project would require is simply not in my future.

(And after some of the strident columns I’ve written in this paper recently, there would probably be a few people who wouldn’t want to talk to me.)

So who is going to write this book while the eyewitnesses are still around? There are probably participants, witnesses, folks who know things, who have passed away recently. Their stories are “lost to history.” For a storyteller, the book has it all: bigger than life characters. Action. Drama. Intriguing historical background. The setting in a stark, but beautiful land where it all takes place.

One thing about many of the authors of the aforementioned books, is that they are all white. Where is the Native writer who can take on this challenge? Frankly, an Indian writer is going to have a lot fewer doors slammed in his or her face than a wasicu such as myself. And believe me, I had that happen a few times.

To make a great book, which this incident deserves, the author must have the personal skills to get people who don’t want to speak to reporters consent to recorded interviews.

And that doesn’t mean a free pass for a Native writer, because to tell the whole story, they are going to have to track down notoriously press-adverse retired FBI agents and Federal marshals.

The writer must have the journalistic chops to conduct effective interviews, and the writing skills to make it a compelling, page-turning book.

This disqualifies the majority of academic types. University professors, for the most part, are terrible writers. Most have no idea how to tell a story. They are out to impress their peers, not make an impact. And many end up publishing with academic presses, which charge $50 a book. (But God Bless ‘em. I have relied on their work as sources for my own writing.)

The age of the author should not matter. A letter writer in this paper recently criticized a column I wrote where I expressed opinions about events that happened in the 1970s. Since I wasn’t around, and he was, I didn’t know anything, he implied. History books are released on the Civil War every week. No one is around from that time, either. That shouldn’t stop anyone from taking on this project. In fact, a truly balanced account of the Wounded Knee Occupation, I think, would benefit from someone who did not participate in the incident.

Finally, the writer must be in it for the long haul. From the start of the research phase to the end of the project will take a few years.

I can speak from experience that there may not be any monetary reward at the end of the trail. But it will be rewarding nonetheless. Who knows? I think it would make a great movie. And that is where the real money in writing is.

I hope an ambitious writer out there takes on this challenge. Please. Steal my idea. Take the title. It’s yours free of charge! My email is at the end of the column. I stand ready to help in any way I can between the changing of diapers. Just remember me in the Acknowledgments.

Stew Magnuson (stewmag@yahoo.com) is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which was recently released in paperback.

It’s Time for a Vigorous Investigation into Ray Robinson’s Mysterious Disappearance

2011-04-20T05:39:00.000-07:00

Now that we know who pulled the trigger that killed Anna Mae Aquash, it’s time to turn our collective attention to Ray Robinson.

Somebody out there knows what happened to the black, civil rights activist who entered the American Indian Movement-occupied village of Wounded Knee in April 1973, and then vanished.

It’s time for the wall of silence to come down.

I’m not saying that the Aquash case has been settled once and for all. In summary, AIM member John Graham was convicted for the cold-blooded murder of Aquash late last year. His companion Arlo Looking Cloud was already serving time for the same crime. Whether someone ordered these low-level foot soldiers to take the bound Aquash to a cliff near Wanblee on Pine Ridge, execute her and then dump her body in a ravine, has not been established. That question may or may not ever be answered.

Until that day comes, the authorities should turn their attention to solving the Robinson case, and put as much investigative muscle and prosecutorial effort — if it comes to that — into this case as they did for Aquash.

The best source I have found so far that lays out the facts surrounding the Robinson case can be found in Chapter 17 of the 2006 book, The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country, written by investigative journalist Steve Hendricks.

In summary, Robinson was a veteran of the black Civil Rights movement and an adherent to Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence. He made his way — like many other activists, white, Indian and black — to the occupied village to support the cause.

Hendricks has two credible eyewitnesses — one a journalist, and another white activist who knew Robinson from 1960s protest marches — place him there. His presence at Wounded Knee during the occupation is one of the few verifiable facts in this case. After that, things become murky.

One portrait in the book is of an overbearing man who was clearly annoying the militant AIM group with his personal beliefs about nonviolent tactics. One story has him rubbing the activists the wrong way until things came to a head, and a struggle ensued. A gun was accidentally discharged and Robinson was wounded. He was last seen being lead away by AIM security.

The only AIM leader to say anything substantial about the case has been Carter Camp, who reportedly told one of Robinson’s daughters years later that he saw Ray walk out of the village on his own volition.

Hendricks’ book does not come to any firm conclusions about what happened to Robinson. Although he does document years of AIM members deliberately avoiding the topic, refusing to discuss the matter, changing their stories, or denying he was ever in the village (which was not the case).

This all points to a cover up.

The theory, Camp told Robinson’s daughter, is that federal agents or member of the so-called GOON Squad (anti-AIM Pine Ridge residents who were allowed by federal agents to man armed checkpoints) may have “gotten him.”

That, of course, was what AIM said for years about Aquash.

Yet, that theory cannot be totally discounted. The GOONS in those dark days were certainly threatening AIM activists and their allies with violence.

Along with AIM leaders’ reticence to discuss the case, Hendricks also makes a strong case that the FBI did not vigorously investigate Robinson’s disappearance in the years that followed the occupation. Why is that? As Hendricks points out, Robinson was a Civil Rights activist and as such was not unknown to the J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, who at the time considered these great Americans who fought for their freedom to be enemies of our nation.

Was his race or status as an activist a cause for the agency’s indifference? Hendricks, who in his book, does not shy away from any pertinent facts, also brings up rumors that Robinson may have been a paid FBI informant or provocateur. There doesn’t seem to be any strong evidence in the book that that was the case.

He also wrote that after the occupation ended, both sides, AIM and GOONS, scoured the nearby land looking for fresh graves, but found none.

One of the main differences between the Aquash and the Robinson cases is that a body never turned up.

Technology is much better than it was 38 years ago. Ground penetrating radar might help find remains. But ultimately, someone in Lakota Country knows something. It’s time to come forward before it’s too late. Like Aquash, Robinson left behind children who have the right to know what happened to their father.

It’s time for a serious investigation into Ray Robinson’s death.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which was recently revised and released in paperback.

Historical Sins of Omission Have Misshaped Our Understanding of the West

2011-03-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about a statement S.C. Gwynne made in his recent book Empire of the Summer Moon, Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches.

To paraphrase, he said that the Hollywood image of the U.S. Cavalry leaving a fort in a column was for the most part inaccurate. An Army campaign against “hostile” Native Americans would have included numerous Indian scouts riding alongside them.

That statement and a recent series of thought-provoking articles in the Native Sun News by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn about the lack of Native Americans and historical context in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series of books, brings up “sins of omissions” about the American West.

There has been plenty written about the clichés, stereotypes and general misinformation perpetrated on American Indians by Hollywood filmmakers in the first century of the industry.

What movie and TV watchers saw on screens fed into stereotypes. But what about what we didn’t see? What omissions have damaged our understanding of the West in the 19^th Century.

What Gwynn asserted was certainly true. Reading respectable history books shows that the U.S. cavalry relied heavily on Native Americans both as scouts and as auxiliary warriors in battles. These scouts were called “mercenaries” by Dee Brown in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Our 21^st Century sensibilities ask why peoples who were getting the shaft from the white man would participate in the destruction of another tribe.

I doubt the Arikaras or Pawnees fighting the Lakotas saw it that way. There were no such words as “Indian” or “Native American” before the Europeans showed up. It was “us” and “them.” There was a sharp linguistic and cultural divides between the Lakotas and Caddoan people, which the Pawnees and Arikaras were members. And they were competing for the same prime buffalo hunting territories. The Pawnees were sedentary, and practiced human sacrifice; a custom that that the Lakotas abhorred. (Especially when those who were sacrificed were captured members of the Lakota nation.) The tribes who stayed in villages such as the Arikaras were sitting ducks for the swift Lakota warriors, who showed no mercy when attacking. Long after the Brule Chief Spotted Tail embraced peace with the United States, he was zealously leading attacks on the Pawnees.

When the Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer came calling for scouts, there was no shortage of Arikara warriors ready to ally themselves with the cavalry. This worked both ways. In 1820, some 500 Lakotas joined the U.S. Army in attacking two Arikara villages on the Missouri.

So where are the Native American scouts in the movies?

I’ve also come to believe that the Old West stereotype of the “drunken Indian” was a bit unfair. Not that there weren’t addicted Native Americans who “hung around the forts.” These poor souls were a tiny minority of Native Americans back then. But since they were in a spot where migrants heading west could see them, the “drunken Indian” stereotype spread.

What you almost never hear about is the drunken U.S. cavalryman. Camp Sheridan, Fort Robinson, Fort Niobrara all had whisky merchants who set up shop down the road before the paint was dry. I read a recent story about Fort Niobrara where one local saloon keeper had $1,200 in his till the night the soldiers received their pay. The lower ranks of the cavalry were generally a rough lot, many of them recent immigrants, who had to join the army because they had few other prospects.
So where are the drunken cavalry members?

Revisionist westerns have to some extent reinserted a bit of reality. Little Big Man, for example, portrayed Indian scouts at the Battle of Greasy Grass.

There are examples that extend beyond Native American issues.

For example, movies with cowboys riding the cattle trails. In films, they were all Americans, of course. But cowboying was dirty, hard, dangerous work that paid very little. Recently emancipated African-Americans, Mexicans, mixed-blood Native Americans, Europeans from Scandinavia who hadn’t learned a lick of English were all found around the campfire on cattle trails.
So where are the Swedish-speaking cowboys? The 2003 movie Open Range starring Kevin Costner did have a young cowboy with an undetermined accent, though.

My favorite TV show is Deadwood. Outside of the superb writing and characters, it also went a long way to portray a multi-cultural West. Deadwood had a Jewish shopkeeper, a China town, and a black livery stable owner.

My complaint with the show is that it didn’t provide much historical context for how the plains tribes were booted out of the hills and how the interlopers were allowed to settle there.

Deadwood was notorious for its generous use of four letter words, especially those that begin the letter “C.” My 20-something brother-in-law asked me, “They didn’t speak like that, did they?”

Well, yeah. The show portrayed the very bottom rungs of society. Penthouse Magazine didn’t invent crude language back in the 1970s!

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which was recently revised and released in paperback.

The Nebraska Sand Hills Are Precious and Need to Be Protected from Oil Pipelines

2011-02-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

Some 175 years ago, the migrants traveling on the Oregon Trail gazed north of the Platte River at the Sand Hills of Nebraska Territory and called them a wasteland.

Modern day travelers on Interstate 80 fly by at 75 miles per hour and know little of what lies beyond the flat river valley. Nebraska is derisively called a “flyover” state by those on the East and West Coast.

Many Americans today scorn the prairie, the Great Plains, the wide open spaces, as a flat, uninteresting places. Sadly, there are residents of the state who share this belief.

I keep all this in mind when I think about the ill-conceived plan to build a high-pressure oil pipeline through the beautiful and delicate Nebraska Sand Hills.

I wonder why any Nebraskan would want such a travesty to happen. Is it because they too, have contempt for their native land? Do they too believe that all that sits outside the city limits of Omaha and Lincoln is a “wasteland?”

The Keystone Pipeline’s expansion project, as proposed by TransCanada, will cut through what the naturalist Stephen R. Jones called “the last prairie,” the Sand Hills.

The Sand Hills were never the Great American Desert as those on the westbound trails thought. The Oregonians and Mormons were wrong.

The problem in the subsequent decades after the westward migration and the settlement of the state is that we never had a prairie version of John Muir, the naturalist who advocated to save Yosemite Valley in California and founded the Sierra Club. He devoted his life to saving trees. In the 19^th Century, no one was concerned about saving grass. Today, a look on roadmaps reveals a few scattered, green patches of national grasslands from Oklahoma to North Dakota. But how many Nebraskans pack up the car with the kids and the tents and drive off for a vacation in one of these protected areas? The children would probably try to run away from home before embarking on such a trip. They have been taught that the only beautiful places on Earth have mountains—or roller-coasters and theme rides—and the only animals worth saving reside in forests.

This proposed pipeline shortcut constitutes a real threat to a land that is every bit as beautiful as the Black Hills, Yosemite or Yellowstone. The Sand Hills are a mysterious region that geologists have puzzled over for generations. The grasses turn green in the spring, and through the summer, change to subtle shades of tan during the dry months. A drive up Highway 83 from North Platte to Valentine in the late summer is as exhilarating as the Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier National Park. It’s a different kind of beauty, but the beauty is there nonetheless. One simply has to look for it.

The dunes are, for the time being, protected by the thinnest layers of topsoil and short-grasses. As any West Nebraska rancher will confirm, it doesn’t take much to destroy this protective grass, and create a blowout of drifting sand. The thought of earthmovers, and semis loaded with steel running roughshod over this land is horrifying.

Underneath these complex and multi-faceted dunes of grass lies one of our nation’s greatest natural resources, the Ogallala Aquifer. This vast reservoir of water that would be under the proposed pipeline might be out of sight and out of mind for Omaha and Lincoln residents, but as William Ashworth said in his book, Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains, chances are anyone who put on cotton underwear this morning, had cornflakes for breakfast, or a slice of toast, consumed water coming out of the aquifer.

The aquifer in the Sand Hills soaks up the precious ran like a sponge, where it seeps in the earth and then, through a process that is still little understood, comes up in springs to feed the river valleys. Introducing oil into this process could be a disaster.

Any pipeline will traverse at some point the Niobrara, one of the state’s most scenic rivers. The river valleys of the Great Plains are to be treasured as some of the highlights of any road trip. Imagine thick, acidic oil leaking into the Niobrara.

Are Nebraskans so unappreciative — or emotionally cut off from the land they call home — that they would sell it out for what amounts to some temp jobs for pipefitters?

No matter what the well-funded, oil-company propagandists say, this pipeline will leak somewhere, and it will spill oil onto this unique region. It happens to pipelines all the time. It’s very simple. Everything built by mankind eventually breaks. Will the first fissures come where the pipeline spans the Niobrara or Loup Rivers? It’s impossible to say.

The Sand Hills region is not a wasteland. There is nothing like them in our great nation. They need to be protected from those who think they can put a price on this priceless land. The foreign energy company should route its stinking, dirty oil elsewhere.

Stew Magnuson is a Nebraska native and author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska Pine Ridge Border Towns, winner of the Nebraska nonfiction book of the year in 2009. He lives in Arlington, Va.

Yellow Thunder Book Released in Paperback

2011-02-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns was released in paperback Jan. 21, 2011. The new edition has been revised and updated with a new Afterward, and information that has emerged since the award-winning book’s release in 2008.

The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder was named the 2009 Nebraska Nonfiction Book of the Year. In addition, graphic artist Lindsay Starr won honors for her work on the book’s cover.

Those awards followed ForeWord Magazine’s bronze medal in the regional nonfiction category for books independently published, and nominations by the Writers’ League of Texas for its nonfiction book of the year and the Center of Great Plains Studies for its Great Plains Distinguished Book of the Year award.

It recounts the death of Lakota ranch worker, Raymond Yellow Thunder at the hands of four white men in 1972, and the subsequent involvement of the American Indian Movement in the case. Among the other stories is the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 and the border towns’ role in the incident, the life and death of Nebraska AIM Coordinator Bob Yellow Bird Steele and a comprehensive history of the town of Whiteclay, Nebr., a hamlet on the border that continues to sell millions of cans of beer per year to the dry reservation.

The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder is published by Texas Tech University Press under its Great Plains series.

Reviews for The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder

“Stew Magnuson uses his considerable journalistic talents to chronicle the cross-cultural exchanges along the border between the Pine Ridge Reservation (which is located in South Dakota) and Nebraska … The book is a model of how local and regional history can and should be written.”

W. David Baird

Journal of American History

“From the long history of racial unrest in these towns to community efforts to overcome internal violence and strife, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder is packed with powerful blends of history and cross-cultural conflict and interactions.”

Midwest Book Review

“This well-researched, excellently written, and informative book flows in and out of the history of the border of South Dakota and Nebraska. From readers looking for an informative read that flows like a well-written novel to researchers seeking information, this text is a valuable source.”

Jeanette Palmer

Studies in American Indian Literature

“In the classic sense of the literature of “true stories,” Omaha native and journalist Stew Magnuson expertly weaves together threads of sound historical research with social mythology and contemporary politics to produce an intriguing historical overview of the shared fate of Nebraska’s Sheridan County and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota … This is an extremely well written and engaging work.”

Roger Davis

Nebraska History

“In terms of artistry, [The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder] is a grand sweep of history told in the best tradition of literary journalism. Border town inhabitants come to life and past and present merge seamlessly.”

Carol Berry

Indian Country Today

Some Lessons for Those Who Want to Follow in AIM’s Footsteps

2010-12-29T05:50:00.000-08:00

Just how much longer will apologists for the American Indian Movement keep up the narrative that so many members of the left-wing have bought into for three decades now?
I’m talking about the “good guys versus the bad guys” construct that we all like to use to simplify our understanding of the world.
As far as AIM and the FBI, it was all too easy to buy into the “big bad government against the persecuted minority group struggling for its rights” storyline that so many left-leaning journalists portrayed.
How about this one:
Bad guys versus worse guys.
Who was worse? The pot-smoking vainglorious self-confessed alcoholics who led the American Indian Movement in the 1970s or a federal law enforcement agency, sworn to uphold the Constitution, that clearly overreached its boundaries and employed dirty tricks honed in the days of J. Edgar Hoover?
I’ll leave that up to readers to decide.
Now we have the conclusion of a second trial where we all had to relive the horrific circumstances surrounding Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash’s death. John Graham was convicted in a Rapid City courtroom a few weeks ago of participating in the kidnapping of Aquash by members of AIM, marching her to a remote ravine, shooting her in the back of the head and dumping her body where he and his accomplices killers presumably hoped no one would find it. He was the third AIM member who was either convicted for, or confessed to, taking parting the conspiracy.
Where are you now Johanna Brand, writer of the book, The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash? Published in 1978 and reprinted in 1993, it clearly led readers to the conclusion that the FBI was either directly, indirectly responsible for the murder, or knew who did and was covering up for the guilty.
Time to write a sequel, Ms. Brand. Anything to say Peter Matthiessen? In the Spirit of Crazy Horse? More like In the Spirit of Al Capone.
“The FBI made me do it” excuse is wearing thin.
To be sure, the Feds infiltrated the group and may have sewn distrust amongst its ranks. But that’s how you deal with a potential spy? Shooting them in the back of the head?
A simple “you’re not welcome here anymore” would suffice.
Meanwhile, AIM leadership, whom most would agree were all intelligent, charismatic men, let an FBI informant named infiltrate its inner circle. Doug Durham claimed to be a Native American, although he didn’t look the part. In a time when they knew that the FBI was coming for them, they named this dubious character “chief of security.”
Just how much weed were these guys smoking anyway?
The question now remains. Were these murderous thugs and their accomplices carrying out the orders of higher ups?
I hope the investigation doesn’t stop there. I hope that question is cleared up one way or another. To tell the truth, I hope that’s not the case.
And I hope that those who continue to fight for Native American rights take a cold, hard look at AIM and learn from their many mistakes. And I hope that fawning left-wing journalists also learn to look at militant movements with a jaundiced eye.
But I fear that is not the case. I have not seen the new documentary “A Good Day to Die” about the life of AIM leader Dennis Banks. I hope to as soon as it comes to my area. But I have seen a trailer where Banks is quoted as saying, “I’m proud that we didn’t collapse in the face of the enemy.”
Didn’t collapse in the face of the enemy?
Not only did AIM collapse, it collapsed spectacularly.
One of its members, perhaps Leonard Peltier or possibly somebody standing very close to him, shot an FBI agent point blank in the head with a high-powered rifle after he had thrown away his weapon and surrendered. A mother of two was executed and thrown in a ravine in Wanblee.
AIM lost its credibility and opportunity to be a strong voice for Native rights decades ago. And that’s too bad. Strong voices who can speak out about injustices in Indian Country are still sorely needed. AIM at first wanted to bring attention to these issues, and had success doing so, but decided to style itself as a militant organization and fight violence with violence.
So here’s the lesson for those who want to take up AIM’s cause.
Violence will destroy your movement.
It will only bring down the authorities on your head. They will arrest you and tie you up in courts for any violation they can throw at you. If you throw a fist, own an illegal gun, or heaven forbid, make a pipebomb, that will be the end of your movement. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin or religion is. Expect to be infiltrated by agents or their paid informants. It’s happening even as I write this for would-be Islamic extremists.
You can weep and moan about the persecution of minorities all you want. History since the 1970s shows that the authorities will go after whites just as vigorously as minority groups if they employ violence of any kind.
There is a line between violent protests and nonviolent tactics as espoused by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatmas Gandhi or as seen at Whiteclay on July 2, 1999 when protesters walked through police barricades without resorting to fists.
AIM crossed that line in the 1970s and it was a slippery slope that led to the movement’s decline into irrelevance.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which will be released in paperback Jan. 21.

Two Books Bring Renewed Attention to the Comanche Empire

2010-10-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

The Lakotas and their legendary leaders — Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Red Cloud — and that nation's stories of resistance have captured the public’s imagination since the days of the Buffalo Bill Wild West shows in the 1890s to the film Dances With Wolves a century later.

But most historians would agree that the Comanches were the most powerful nation to ever take on the Europeans and Americans.

Two books released this year have brought attention to the so-called Comanche Empire, which ruled the southern plains for nearly 200 years: Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches by S.C. Gwynne and Myth, Memory and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Anne Parker by Paul H. Carlson and Tom Crum.

The Comanches were the primary reason why Spanish is not the official language of Nebraska and South Dakota. Spain’s conquistadors — as they attempted to expand north — hit a brick wall in the form of the Comanches’ highly organized warrior culture. The tribe had immigrated to the southern plains from the Rocky Mountains shortly after discovering the utility of the horse. They became highly skilled riders and excellent archers who fought on horseback, a tactic which other tribes, European armies, Texans and Americans were slow to master. A dismounted soldier with a musket was no match for a Comanche who could fire several arrows before a Spaniard had time to reload.

The nation carved out and aggressively protected the southern buffalo ranges by terrorizing any other peoples who wanted a piece of it, save for a few allied tribes such as the Kiowas. The Apaches were among their most hated rivals. They were more than warriors, though. As a 2007 book The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hamalainen documented, they were an economic powerhouse and savvy diplomats as well. They set up a trading network in slaves, horses, buffalo robes and other goods that reached from the Mississippi to the Rockies

Gwynn’s book is unflinching. He does not shy away from any facts concerning the Comanches’ tactics. He is not of the far-left school of thought that believes that North America was a peaceful Garden of Eden until the white man showed up. Inter-tribal warfare was brutal, he illustrates with gruesome descriptions. What the white settlers called “depredations” were socially acceptable words for infanticide, torture, gang rape, slavery, horrific mutilation of corpses and other methods designed to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies. The book can be stomach-churning reading.

Mexicans, Texans and Americans, who encroached on Comanche territory were treated no differently than rival tribes.

The only victims who might survive a Comanche raid were pre-teens, who were seen as a means to maintain the empire’s population. Many captured Mexican, Native American and white children were adopted into the tribe and treated with the same kindness and love as Comanche children.

One such child was nine-year-old Cynthia Anne Parker, who was taken after most of her extended family of early Texas settlers was massacred in East Texas in 1836.

Her story has become a Texas legend. After her capture, she was fully integrated into the Comanche society. She fell in love and raised two children with a warrior named Petca Nocona.

As the years passed, Mexico lost control of Texas, muskets were replaced by Colt revolvers and repeating rifles, and more and more white settlers arrived who believed that Manifest Destiny meant they could settle anywhere they pleased.

The Comanches held their own until after the Civil War. After peace policies failed to stop the “depredations,” the federal government went after the tribe with renewed gusto. As it was for the Lakotas, the systematic destruction of the buffalo herds was an effective strategy designed to end the Comanches’ way of life.

On Dec. 19, 1860, a group of Texas Rangers and U.S. Cavalry led by Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross on a hunt for Comanches came across a small band that was striking camp. The overwhelming force attacked the fleeing woman and children, and killed seven — mostly women who were shot in the back — and captured three. Among the captured was the then 34-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker and her toddler daughter, Prairie Flower.

Carlson and Crum in Myth, Memory and Massacre maintain that Sul Ross and his cronies greatly exaggerated the fight in order to boost Ross’s political career. They called it the Pease River Battle, when it was simply the slaughter of a few women. Ross said he killed Parker’s husband, Peta Nocona, and claimed he was a war chief.

If it weren’t for the recapture of Cynthia Parker, the fabrications on the part of the future governor Ross and the ascent of Parker’s son Quanah as the last of the Comanches’ war chiefs, the skirmish would have been a footnote in history, the authors maintain. Instead, Ross’s version of the fight has become an oft-repeated myth.

The authors make a careful examination of the historical record, including original historical documents, some of which were apparently tampered with in order to agree with Ross’s dubious account.

Unfortunately, Myth Memory and Massacre was published too late for Gwynne to examine. He relies too heavily on Ross’s accounts and buys into the assertion that Peta Nonca was killed in the incident. He also recounts a dramatic scene of the young Quanah and his brother escaping the slaughter.

The problem is that years later, Quanah Parker always maintained that his father (not a war chief at all) was not there, and lived for many years after the skirmish. Cynthia Ann, who later died of heartbreak after being forced to live in white society, said two of her boys were there. But in Comanche society a “boy or girl” can be a member of an extended family. Quanah always insisted that he and his brother were not there.

Empire of the Summer Moon should not be disregarded on the account of this apparent inaccuracy. It is a well, written piece of popular history that will give readers a thorough, unflinching understanding of the rise and fall of the Comanches. (“Popular history” for the purposes of this review means something that is not written in a dry, academic style that induces premature sleep.)

Memory Myth and Massacre is hardcore analysis and not intended for the general reading audience. However, the book is a must-have for any serious Texas or Native American history library collection, and for Western history enthusiasts.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder; And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which will be released in paperback Nov. 1.

Army Tradition of Naming Aircraft After Tribes Continues

2010-09-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

The Army's Gray Eagle aircraft (Photo courtesy of Army)

I don’t actually write books or this column on Native American issues for a living.
At my regular job, I cover defense and homeland security topics for an industry magazine.
These two diverse beats intersected recently when I participated on a blogger’s roundtable phone call with Army aviation officials. Among the recent developments the senior leaders of the branch wanted to pass on was the bestowing of the official nickname for the extended range/multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle.
For those who aren’t familiar with military hardware, the ERMP UAV is a new version of one of the Army’s workhorse unpiloted aircraft that fly over battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, and use high-tech sensors to peer down on the battlefield. It also comes equipped with missiles that can take out the bad guys, if needed.
In keeping with tradition, Army aviation officials wanted to scrap the unwieldy ERMP acronym and give the UAV a Native American name. And so they announced that it would be known as the “Gray Eagle.”
First, I put on my military reporter’s hat and asked a question about the new version of the Hellfire missile being deployed with the UAV. Then I couldn’t resist putting on the Native American issues hat and asking about where they had come up with Gray Eagle. Traditionally, the service has given their helicopters names based on tribes or famous chiefs. I was not familiar with Chief Gray Eagle, I said.
For the two officers responding, it was clearly a question out of left field. They didn’t have a clear answer. Here’s a slightly edited transcript.
Army officer: “I too was not real familiar with Gray Eagle — Gray Eagle specifically, but after a little bit of research, Gray Eagle, a great Indian chief, has a long history in fact with the Army, operating with the Army, and Special Operations. So it actually is very fitting to name our formerly known as Extended Range Multi-Purpose "Gray Eagle."
Me: “So he was a historic figure?”
Officer: “No, no, he was an actual figure, Indian chief.”
Me: Do you know what nation he was from or anything? Sorry. I know these are odd questions, but…”
Officer: “I don't have the background and/or the specifics...
2nd officer: “We aren't historians here, but I can tell you that over the history of Native America, there have been several chiefs named Gray Eagle, the most recent of which — I think [he] is referring to -- is more modern-day. He was a major in the special forces…
Me: “Okay…
2nd officer: “There's also other Gray Eagles, chiefs — that of the Lakota Sioux tribe. One that fought in the Battle of Bull Run with Sitting Bull. So there are numerous figures that could be referred to, because it's really a common term for several great Native American chiefs.”
Well, like the officer said, they aren’t historians. These are guys charged with the difficult job of acquiring highly complex weapon systems for the Army. The colonel I’m sure realized immediately that he misspoke when he placed Chief Sitting Bull at one of the two major land battles of the Civil War referred to as “Bull Run.”
The special operation forces major named Gray Eagle they mentioned is also a mystery. I found one dubious website that made reference to a Lakota special operations officer named Gray Eagle. But there are no complete names or dates for this account. Perhaps there is a reader out there who can enlighten us.
That exchange put me in mind of the only time I have ever heard about any opposition to the Army naming their helicopters and aircraft after Native American individuals or nations.
That came in 2003 when I attended a panel discussion in Lincoln about Whiteclay, Neb. Speaking there was the late American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt. For those who have never heard an AIM leader address a mostly white audience, I can tell you that every speech begins with a long preamble about all the injustices perpetrated on Indians by the white man.
Among Bellecourt’s litany was a complaint that the Army had named a helicopter after Chief Black Hawk. Black Hawk was a man of peace, he said, and he shouldn’t have an instrument of war named after him.
Well, the Sauk chief fought against the United States by siding with the British in the war of 1812. So I’m not so sure about that. Maybe he wanted peace and was dragged into the war. I don’t know.
Since then, I have not read or heard any other complaints from Native Americans about the Army’s tradition.
In any case, I don’t make too much of whether Black Hawk or Gray Eagle (whoever that is) are having their names attached to helicopters because of their deeds. It’s fairly obvious that the Army just wants a cool sounding name with a bird of prey in the title.
As for the other helicopter programs, it is interesting that almost all are named after Plains Indian tribes that fought tough battles against the U.S. Army: the Apache, the Comanche, the Kiowa and the Lakota. The only exception is the heavy lift helicopter, the Chinook, named after a Northwest nation.
The Apache is the Army’s current attack helicopter. That nation will have its named attached to this aircraft for years to come. The Kiowa Warrior scout/attack helicopter is one of the workhorses of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Army has made two attempts to replace this aircraft, but it ran into budget and technical problems both times. There are currently no plans to replace it, so the Kiowa name will be around a long time.
The Lakota is the relatively new unarmed and unarmored National Guard helicopter to be used for domestic missions only, such as search and rescue and disaster relief.
As for the Comanche, this was to be the Army’s one-size fits all super attack/scout helicopter. It doesn’t actually exist. After spending some 16 years and more than $7 billion, the program was cancelled in 2004. If I were a member of the Comanche Nation, I might be a little miffed about having this black hole for tax dollars named after my people!
As for whether naming Army helicopters after Native nations and people is an honor or an insult — similar to the mascot controversy — that’s not for this wasicu to decide.
But it would be interesting to hear the readers’ points of view.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, which will be released in paperback in November.

Elvis, an Icehouse and a Man Called ‘Sam the Indian’

2010-08-25T06:16:00.000-07:00

Something jogged my memory last week. And it was the 33rd anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death.
Like many, I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news.
I was 13 years old, on a boat on a lake in Ontario fishing for walleye with my father. For two summers, we had joined some of my Dad’s business associates and their sons on a 10 day trip to the middle of nowhere, 100 miles north of the end of the road, in a spot accessible only by float plane. We stayed in a cabin made of plywood — no TV or electricity — cut off from the rest of the world except for shortwave radio. These trips were the some of the most memorable and happiest days of my youth, and I will never forget them.
Today, I could probably point out the exact spot on the lake where we were fishing when Sam the Indian, the man who delivered ice to us every two or three days, pulled up alongside us in his boat and said: “Elvis Presley. He died.”
He continued on without another word to take the ice up to our cabin.
When the media reminded me of the anniversary of the “King’s” death, I began to think more about the man we called “Sam the Indian,” who was probably the first Native American I had ever met (or in is case a member of the First Nations, since he was a Canadian resident). I’m sure I was never told his family name. But I do remember him telling me that he was Chippewa (better know today as Ojibwa).
He was a short man, who spoke in broken English, and was a generally friendly guy. Since we had no electricity, it was necessary to receive ice every few days to keep our food fresh. (This was a fishing trip and keeping the beers cold was also of paramount importance). We were in such a remote area that he was the only person we would encounter from the outside world.
Sam came from a village about 25 miles away. This settlement also did not have electricity, but every winter the villagers cut ice from the lake, and stored it in an icehouse. It was always a source of wonderment for me that ice could exist well into the summer months.
The leader of the fishing trip was my Dad’s business partner, Mike, the father of three of the other boys, and a hard-drinking, boisterous Irish-American, who wore his heart on his sleeve. I loved Mike because he was so much the opposite of all the detached, stoic fathers I had known growing up. He hugged his kids. He told hilarious jokes. He cried one night as we sat around the campfire one night as he remembered an old friend who had passed away. I don’t know if I had ever seen an adult male cry.
One year, for something different to do, the kids in the group — about six of us ranging from 11 to 19 years old — hiked through a forest trail to reach Sam’s village. (There were rapids between our lake and its location, so traveling there on foot was the only way to go.)
It was an eye-opening experience for this middle-class white kid from Omaha. For this was real poverty. It was a poor settlement of a few dozen dilapidated homes.
I don’t remember speaking to anyone, or even seeing too many residents. And I don’t think we stayed very long. I do clearly remember seeing the icehouse, though, and marveled at how the sawdust covering the chunks of frozen lake prevented it from melting. So that was the secret.
The last thing I remember about Sam saddens me to this day.
The second summer on the lake, we were surprised when Sam arrived with his wife and a couple of his daughters, who I remember as being adult aged. At first, I thought they had just come along for the ride. But we soon discovered they had another reason for making the trip.
Along with a monetary tip at the end of our stay, Sam would receive a few bags of the unused canned food we left behind. The previous year, that bag included an unopened bottle of whiskey.
Sam’s wife, using one her daughters as an interpreter, pulled Mike aside and asked him not to give Sam a bottle of whiskey that year. The previous summer, Sam had become violently drunk from the liquor, and had beaten her up.
I did not hear this conversation directly, but after they departed, Mike was clearly shaken up by the visit, and told the rest of us what Sam’s wife had said.
A few days later, when we were packing up, I was shocked to see Mike placing another leftover bottle of whiskey in a shopping bag being left behind for Sam.
I don’t remember what I said. I only remember feeling angry. But I did say something to him. Probably just a simple but accusatory: “Are you leaving the whiskey here?” I don’t remember what Mike said, but he did reply to me with some rationalization for his action. But I clearly remember him not looking me in the eye as he said it, so I knew that he knew that he was doing something wrong. My Dad’s partnership with Mike ended not long after, and we never returned to the lake.
I guess this is more of a coming-of-age story than one of a boy’s first cross-cultural encounter. Your heroes die hard when you’re 13.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which will be released in paperback in November.

New Book Puts Wounded Knee Tragedy in Larger Context

2010-08-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

For most Lakotas, the Wounded Massacre was just that — the ruthless slaughter of the mostly unarmed followers of Chief Big Foot on Dec. 29, 1890.
For some historians, it was either an accident — and a few even believe — a real battle where two armed sides were pitted against each other.
It is destined to be one of those tragedies that will be debated endlessly.
There have been many good blow-by-blow accounts of the events leading to the horrific incident — Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Rex Allen Smith’s Moon of Popping Trees, and George E. Hyde’s A Sioux Chronicle (Civilization of the American Indian Series) — are a few that come to mind.
None of them have put the incident in the larger context of national politics quite as thoroughly as University of Massachusetts at Amherst Professor of History Heather Cox Richardson does in her new book, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre.
The book covers territory readers of this column are undoubtedly familiar with: the Dawes Act and its intent to remove Lakotas from land coveted by settlers; the subsequent reductions in rations that brought about starvation and disease; and the spread of the Ghost Dance religion, which was supposed to bring salvation to a society that was clearly experiencing collective trauma.
It has never been answered to my satisfaction as to who fired the first shot on that balmy winter the morning. Was it a jumpy member of the 7th cavalry? Or a Lakota warrior angered over the confiscation of his rifle?
But I’ve never believed that it mattered. The Army should not have been on the reservation in the first place. The bigger question then is why U.S. troops came to the South Dakota reservations to quell the seemingly harmless religious rituals that were part of the Ghost Dance religion? Hysteria in neighboring white communities over the perceived dangers of the dancing was certainly one factor.
So who is at fault? 
In short, the Republicans, Richardson asserts.
The pro-business GOP’s appointment of Daniel F. Royer as agent, and President Benjamin Harrison’s desire to placate the voters in the newly created state of South Dakota contributed to the disaster, is one of the book’s primary themes.
To put this in the larger context, Richardson gives the reader a lesson in the party politics of the 19th Century. A very, very long lesson, and one that some readers will tire of as they try to move on to the events immediately leading up to the massacre.
To be sure, Agent Royer was the wrong man at the wrong time. A political appointee who was there to take advantage of the numerous opportunities to scam the system and line his pocket, Royer was the primary alarmist who brought the troops unnecessarily to the reservations.
Like many Democratic and Republican appointees before him, Royer had little experience dealing with Native Americans, and believed that as agent, the residents of Pine Ridge would obey his every command. When they ceased to stop performing the Ghost Dance, he sent panicky telegrams to Washington asking for troops.
The Army, under Gen. Nelson Miles, was not eager to come in and clean up the mess created by the civilians. For the military, it was another chapter in the long-standing turf war between the Army and elected officials and their political appointees over who would control reservations. The Army thought it could do a better job of lording over Native Americans.
It was also an organization in search of a mission and relevance, as Richardson points out. This was prior to American interventionist policies overseas, and the so-called “Indian Wars” were coming to an end. It was a “Frontier Army” but the frontier was disappearing. The Navy was on the ascent and the Army’s status in U.S. society in decline. Enlightening context such as this is one of valuable parts of this book.
Richardson does a good job of explaining Miles’ thinking in this regard. I personally have a hard time believing that the men once charged with tracking down, killing and subjugating Indians were the best ones for the job of administering reservations.
Indeed, one of the first orders Brig. Gen. John Brooke gave upon arriving on Pine Ridge was to lock up 100 Lakota students in a dormitory and hold them hostage in order to break the will of their parents. If the monumental disaster that is Wounded Knee isn’t enough to show how badly the Army of 1890 could fail, then this is one more small example of its officers’ autocratic ways.
I don’t need to go into detail here on the results of the political pressure and the white hysteria. It ended in a catastrophe that still reverberates on Pine Ridge today.
Aside from the aforementioned Republican history lesson that detracts from the pacing of the book, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, is well worth reading. It is also, I’m happy to report, readable. Sadly, this is not often the case with history books produced by academics. Many potentially good history books have been ruined by professors with zero flare for the written word and poor storytelling skills. That’s not the case here. Richardson’s work should satisfy academia and the general reading public who want to know more about this tragic slice of American history.
A press release that accompanied my review copy stated that the book will be the “definitive account of an epochal American Tragedy.” I doubt this will truly be the last word. Like many other infamous historical incidents, the events of Dec. 29, 1890 will be debated for years to come.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which devotes a chapter to the Wounded Knee Massacre. It will be released in paperback this fall.

Give Credit Where Credit is Due to the Rapid City Journal

2010-07-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

The Rapid City Journal often comes under criticism in the pages of The Native Sun News.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Newspapers, including this one, are not above reproach and are more often than not, the targets of — to put it mildly — of negative feedback.
I’ve only written one column on the RCJ, and that was last September, when I took the editors to task for doing a lax job of monitoring their online comments section, especially when it comes to Native American issues. I would like to update that, but first I want to give credit where credit is due, and commend the RCJ for a fine piece of reporting “Whiteclay: A Village on the Edge,” which ran July 18 and was reported by Mary Garrigan.
The premise of the story is that the controversial town that sells millions of cans of beer every year to the dry reservation has another dimension to it.
Critics of Whiteclay and many activists portray the hamlet as a place that exists “only to sell alcohol.” Reporters who “parachute in” as we say in the news business, just go for that angle, and that phrase often ends up in their stories. The story brought to light the other less ugly aspects of the town.
The fact is that Whiteclay exists primarily to do commerce with the citizens of Pine Ridge. A large part of that commerce is the sales of alcohol. A very large part.
However, from its beginnings at the turn of the last century, the hamlet served as a source for the illegal sales of alcohol. After Prohibition to Native American ended in 1953, it overtly sold alcohol to Pine Ridge customers. But since then, it also has served other economic functions as well.
Back when the roads were poor, and transportation to Rushville more difficult, it was a place where Nebraska white farmers and ranchers shopped. That still happens, although not on the scale it once did now that the roads are better.
And today, there are a variety of stores, and last I knew, a couple of restaurants. None of these businesses would exist if Pine Ridge customers didn’t vote with their feet.
Competition is good for consumers. There are two grocery stores in Whiteclay, and one in the town of Pine Ridge. Imagine if that Pine Ridge store had a monopoly and the Nebraska border towns were 100 miles away instead of 25. How high would the prices be? Mission has several grocery stores competing against each other, and Rosebud consumers can shop wherever they please. Pine Ridge shoppers should have choices as well.
One activist years ago told me that the two Whiteclay supermarkets only existed because of the alcohol sales. Customers seeking beer were stopping by to pick up grocery items. That no doubt happens. But one doesn’t have to stand outside and observe the shopping patterns very long to know that many come to Whiteclay just to buy groceries.
One reason consumers go to Whiteclay, and that the article missed is the Whiteclay grocers’ policy of extending credit.
Some of the comments posted after the online article described all the merchants there as “greedy and selfish.”
One retired grocer told me that when the family retired and sold their store after nearly 40 years in business, they had some $25,000 of credit on the books. They could have gone after some of this money, but they let it go.
I have on file a Letter to the Editor written to the Sheridan County Star by Clem Crazy Thunder in 1999 after VJ’s grocery store was lit on fire during the Hard Hart/Black Elk murder protests. “Without VJ’s Market my family would not have even been able to survive,” he wrote. “VJ’s provided food for my family on credit … Without the trust we had built with the former owner (The late Randall Thies) we would have never been able to put food on the table.”
So all business owners are automatically “greedy and selfish?” I don’t think so.
And that brings me to the Online Comments section. A year ago, many newspapers were beginning to question the free-for-all that was the online comments section. One newspaper went so far as to turn the feature off when it came to matters of race, homosexuality and other hot button issues, because the readers were incapable of having a civil discourse.
I wondered then whether RCJ would follow suit. I found many instances of improper comments after its Native American themed stories, including one that was close to slander. All of these comments were made behind a veil of anonymity. The print edition verifies the identities of its letter writers, why is the standard different for online comments?
Following the Whiteclay story, I see that the RCJ now has some guidelines for letter writers. For example, “Keep it clean,” “Be nice,” “Let us know if it’s getting out of hand,” etc. I’m happy to say that the comments following the Whiteclay story seem to follow these guidelines. The arguments the writers make, I should note, are also more powerful when all the strident rhetoric is left out.
However, not one of the 15 writers signed their comments with their real name.
The Buffalo News in New York recently announced that it would stop allowing anonymous comments online. I think this is where RCJ, and online versions of other newspapers need to go in the future.
Writers should say what they mean, mean what they say, and have the courage and conviction to stand behind their comments.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska Pine-Ridge Border Towns, which devotes several chapters to the history of Whiteclay.

Remembering Billy Gibbons: Will Others Follow in his Footsteps?

2010-07-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

When someone passes away, you often hear the phrase: “there will never be another like him.”
Billy Gibbons passed away last month at age 75. And I hope there will be a lot more like him.
I wrote about Billy back in February as he was undergoing another round in his off and on fight against cancer. For those who missed that column, Gibbons was the son of a Lakota woman, Elsie Long Cat, and a white father, William Gibbons. Billy was raised in Wounded Knee, but had made Gordon, Nebr., his home since the 1950s.
He was a man who had both feet firmly, and proudly, planted in both cultures. And maybe it’s no accident that he made a Nebraska border town his home.
Gibbons came to Gordon and began a drywall business after serving in the Korean War. That how he made a living. More important was how he lived.
As his obituary stated, “Billy devoted himself to helping others. Whenever there was a community crisis Billy was ready to help. He was always available to play music or help coordinate many of the fund-raisers over the years. He never turned anyone down.”
He was a president of the Tri-State Cowboy Association, the commander of the Gordon American Legion Post and served on the national Johnson O'Malley Board that worked for the needs of Native American students. He could be found in retirement homes singing and playing for the elderly, or at the local school, teaching kids about Lakota culture.
I interviewed Gibbons for my book, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, but I did not include his life story in the work, which is something I regret.
There is one anecdote that I heard about Billy, which I left out.
One man I interviewed distinctly remembered being at the bowling alley in Gordon for league night in February 1972 around the time that the American Indian Movement had marched into town to demand justice after Yellow Thunder had been found dead in the back of a truck. He described a group of AIM types coming into the bowling alley for some unexplained reason. Were they there to make trouble? Or just to get a bite to eat? He didn’t know. But the mostly white bowlers were still incensed about the protest march, particularly the disrespect they believed AIM showed to the American flag. They were spoiling for a fight.
The witness described Billy heading off the AIM members, and defusing the situation before it got out of hand. They quietly left.
I asked Billy about this incident, but he had no recollection of it. He remembered being an active bowler at the time. And he said, “those kind of things happened all the time.”
Memory is a tricky thing, especially when trying to piece together incidents that happened 30 years ago. One person can recall an incident as if it happened yesterday. Another eyewitness remembers it completely differently, or not at all. I had a “when in doubt, leave it out” policy when writing the book. Because Gibbons couldn’t corroborate the story, I left it out.
True or not, that is the story I heard. All I can add is that when I tried to find a second eyewitness to the event, they all said, “That sounds like something Billy would do.”
For his friends and family, of course, Billy can never be replaced.
But we can only hope that there will be others like Billy. People who can bridge the two cultures, and greet the world with a smile and a positive attitude. Whether they be mixed-blood, full-blood, white or otherwise, the world, particularly the Nebraska border towns, will be a better place if there were hundreds of folks like Billy Gibbons.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, which will be released in paperback Oct. 15.

Historians and the Plains Indians: The Love Affair Continues

2010-06-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

Do we really need another book on the Battle of Greasy Grass/Little Big Horn?
Or Chief Standing Bear of the Poncas and his quest to be recognized as a man under the eyes of the law? Or about the Comanches? Is there more to be written about the Wounded Knee tragedy? (The first one in 1890, that is).
These are questions that recently came to mind after a plethora of new books on Plains Indian history has been released during the past year.
Some of them have similar topics, and follow soon after other well received and well written books.
For example, we have 2004’s Standing Bear is a Person: The True Story of a Native American’s Quest for Justice, by Stephen Dando-Collins. Then last year, Joe Starita, released “I am A Man:” Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice.
The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Big Horn by Nathaniel Philbrick, came out recently. It follows A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn — the Last Great Battle of the American West, by Jim Donovan.
Pekka Hamalainen, who wrote the forward to my book, released the well-received Comanche Empire in 2008. It won numerous awards. Now comes Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in History by S. C. Gwynne.
Meanwhile, we have a new book, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, by Heather Cox Richardson, which I plan to review in this column in the near future.
The answers to my initial questions are: yes, yes and yes. The more books out there being read by the general public about Native American history, the better. As far as being published closely after one another, the authors are probably faultless. It takes several years to produce a well researched book. It’s likely that they didn’t know someone else was working on a similar topic. But even if they did, no author “owns” a story. If they think other writers haven’t done a thorough job, they have a new “angle” as we say in the news business, or the previous author’s storytelling skills were lacking, they can take a crack at it. The marketplace and the readers will ultimately decide whether their new twist on an old story was worth it.
But what do all these books have in common?
One, they are all written by white folks. (I’ve written about the issue of white authors writing about Native issues in the past, so I’m going to put that observation aside.)
The other thing they have in common is the era. These are all books that take place in the 19th century during the so-called Wild West days, the period of confrontation between the United States and the Plains Indian nations.
I’m making these observations with some chagrin. About five years ago, I began to look for agents to represent my book, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder. Agents have one central criterion for taking on the task of selling a book to a publisher: Can it make money? A reputable agent makes money from commissions. If they don’t place the book at a major publisher, they don’t make their 15 percent.
So I was told back then that it’s a good story, but “books about Indians don’t sell.”
As I’m writing this, I’m looking at the Empire of the Summer Moon book on Amazon.com. It’s ranked as their No. 10 best seller. The Last Stand is currently 71. To put that in perspective, the highest Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder ever achieved on Amazon’s ranking was in the 13,000s. I never got within a sniff of a four-digit ranking.
So have the agents been proven wrong?
Looking a little deeper, I don’t think so. The difference is that my book took place mostly in the 20th century. I do have historical background from the 19th century, but it is mostly a book about contemporary Native American history. And that doesn’t grab the reading public’s attention as much as the romanticized period in the 1800s that has been portrayed in our films, TV shows and popular literature.
And that’s too bad. Native American history did not end at the Wounded Knee massacre. There are many stories of contemporary Native American history that have been put in print, or have yet to be written.
A few months ago, I reviewed two rereleased books about the Three Affiliated Tribes and the Lakotas’ battles in the 1950s to fight the Garrison Dam in North Dakota and the Oahe dam in South Dakota. (Dammed Indians Revisited by Richard Lawson and Coyote Warrior by Paul Vandevelder). Both are worth seeking out. The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country by Steve Hendricks, is another thoroughly researched book that takes place in the 1970s. Lakota readers should seek out Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the IRA to Wounded Knee by Akim D. Reinhardt. And there are many others.
All I can say is thank goodness for academic presses. They publish works like these when the profit-oriented big publishing houses decline to do so.
With the success of these new books on 19th century topics, I reckon we’re going to see similar histories being published in the next few years. And like I said, that’s not a bad thing.
But hopefully, we’ll see the day when a book set in the years after Wounded Knee breaks through on the best seller list, and the reading public discovers that Native American history did not end on Dec. 29, 1890.
To find out more about any of these books, click on the link.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, which will be released in paperback this fall. He can be reached at www.stewmagnuson.com.

We Need More Folks Like Billy Gibbons to Bridge the Cultural Divide

2010-06-17T05:34:00.000-07:00

I'm rerunning this column today in memory of Billy Gibbons, who passed away yesterday (June 16, 2010) in Hot Springs, SD. Billy, you will be missed, and it was a true pleasure knowing you.

When I went to Sheridan County in the fall of 2003 to conduct research for The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, several white residents suggested that I go talk to Billy Gibbons, an Oglala Lakota resident of Gordon, Neb., who grew up near Wounded Knee, S.D.
Their not so subtle message was: “Billy will tell you that we’re not all a bunch of racists.”
And that’s true. Not everyone in Sheridan County has such feelings towards Native Americans. But when I went to his home on the east side of Gordon, Gibbons didn’t necessarily put a stamp of approval on his adopted town.
Like many Oglala men from the post-World War II generation, Billy served with distinction in the armed forces. And like a handful of other Lakota men, he didn’t return to Pine Ridge after leaving the service. He came to Gordon after a stint in the Marine Corps because his mother had taken up residence there. He ended up in Sheridan County because it offered economic opportunity. He eventually set himself up as a contractor in the dry wall business.
But Gibbons did encounter prejudice during those first years.
“I had to prove myself over and over again before I was accepted,” he said in the interview.
A talented and popular country-western singer and musician, he was told in the 1970s by American Legion Post management that his band couldn’t play there because it might attract too many Indians. (These attitudes did change. He has played there regularly for 20 plus years and has served as commander of the post.)
Gibbons chose not to become bitter over the attitudes he encountered in some members of the white community. Instead, he became a “cultural bridge.”
He is the son of a Lakota mother and a white father. Since the 1800s, when French fur traders first encountered the Lakotas and married into the tribe, these children of both peoples have often served as go-betweens. The word, as we all know, was “half-breeds.” But Billy is not “half” of anything. The word should be “double-breed” because when you meet him, you are truly encountering the best of both cultures.
He remains active in Gordon’s American Legion Post and volunteers at the town’s Tri State Old Time Cowboys Memorial Museum. You’ll find him more often than not wearing a cowboy hat.
But he also regularly went to Gordon Elementary to talk to children about Oglala culture. His band has played dozens of benefits for community members in need. He is one of those unsung heroes, a volunteer who quietly goes about his business while living in the two cultures.
This should prove that one plus one equals two – not “one-half.”
In my mind, there are far too few “Billies” out there today. And they tend to be from the older generation. Pine Ridge and Sheridan County need more “bridge builders” like Billy, not “bridge burners” who use bigotry and hatred to serve their own means.
One person I interviewed told me when the American Indian Movement marched into Gordon in February 1972 to protest the death of Yellow Thunder, and tensions were high, some AIM members walked into the bowling alley during league night. Billy was bowling with mostly white residents who were still angered over the disrespect AIM had shown to the American flag.
There was nearly a fight, but Billy put himself between the two sides and calmed everybody down.
I asked him about this, but he didn’t remember the incident. So I chose to leave the anecdote out of the book. Even though I couldn’t confirm the story, others have told me “that sounds like something Billy would do.” Billy said such incidents, usually fueled by alcohol, were common back then.
Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting Billy Gibbons knows that they’re in the presence of a gentle spirit -- a person who embraces the best values of both cultures.
During the past two years, Billy has been battling colon cancer. Despite that, every time I have seen him, he always has a smile on his face. He is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments. He could use some prayers and positive vibes, and I’m sure they will come from both sides of the border.
Anyone wishing to send him a card can mail it to: 204 East 6th St., Gordon NE, 69343.

Stew Magnuson is the author of the award-winning nonfiction book, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder. He can be reached at www.stewmagnuson.com

A Few Words About the ‘White Man’s Guilt’ Phenomenon

2010-06-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

I now own a beautiful little piece of horsehair pottery.
It’s a nice piece – made by a Navajo artist from Kirtland, N.M.
I know this because it came with a small card with a picture of the craftsman that explains how horsehair pottery is made. It cost me about $28, which is not a lot of money for a unique piece of artwork.
It is too small for flowers. And I don’t have any practical use for it.
Not that a person needs a reason to buy art. There is nothing wrong with decorating one’s living space with beautiful, but useless, objects. I guess if it livens up a place, it is “useful.”
The day I bought it I wasn’t shopping for pottery. I actually didn’t want it too badly.
So why do I own this nice little piece of Navajo pottery, then?
White man’s guilt.
The name of this column is “A View from a Wasicu (a view from a white man). Its purpose is to give my opinion on Native American issues, for what their worth. And I don’t think since I began writing this column last year that I have shied away from controversy.
So let me speak openly about this phenomenon called “white man’s guilt,” for it is a topic that is not written about very often. (Probably because it is a term that is fraught with political incorrectness.) But it is real nonetheless.
While visiting my Dad in Wyoming a few months ago, I made a quick trip to the Wind River Reservation. I bypassed the casino and drove to the town of Fort Washakie, which had a few shops, including a nice Indian crafts store. I stopped inside and had a look around. There were two people working there, who really didn’t pay much attention to me. I looked around for a gift for my wife. There was a lot of jewelry. My wife is of Persian heritage, though, and she hasn’t acquired a taste for Western-style jewelry. There was locally made honey. My wife is a honey fiend. But I couldn’t take that home with me in my checked bag.
I searched and searched for something to buy. I actually grew frustrated. I thought about a T-shirt. But I need more T-shirts like I need a hole in the head.
If there was nothing there, why not just walk out?
Because the guilty white man inside me took over!
For the Native American readers, let me explain this phenomenon by reproducing the stream of consciousness running through my head as I perused the craft store.
“Man, how much foot traffic does this place get … They’re really out here in the middle of nowhere. … It’s great that they have this store… Native American businesses need support … These artists need support … I’m making decent money … I can buy something here. But I can’t find anything I like…Just buy something! … I’m a white man and my people have caused all this suffering to Native Americans ... Just buy something! … Contribute to the cause…How about a T-shirt? I don’t need a fricken T-shirt. If I buy one more T-shirt, my chest of drawers is going to burst…What about the honey? That’s made here. I support the store and I support someone on Wind River… I can’t take that on the plane with me. Damn TSA! ... How about a pot? It will last a lifetime, longer than a T-shirt. But I don’t want a pot ... oh hell, just buy it so I can leave here without feeling bad.”
And so I picked out the pottery.
My forefathers stole the Indians’ lands. But I spent 28 bucks on a Navajo pot, so now I feel better about it!
Sometimes I can fight off the voice of the guilty white man inside me. I remember one day I was on Pine Ridge while research The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, and I was hit up for money about four times in the span of a couple hours. Once going into Big Bat’s and twice coming out. Later that day, as I was walking around Wounded Knee, some dude spotted me from the road a hundred of yard away, stopped his car, threw it in reverse, and drove up the hill to try to sell me a beaded key chain. He needed gas money, there was some aunt who was sick and he wanted to visit her, or something to that effect.
At that time, I was unemployed, living on macaroni and cheese and canned tuna, so the guilty white man did not emerge. I had financial difficulties of my own. Plus, I had the feeling that he was BSing me.
But that eagle-eyed guy who spotted my white skin from a quarter mile away just proves that we all know about the white man’s guilt phenomenon. He wouldn’t have thrown his car into reverse if I weren’t white.
The Lakotas have strong traditions of sharing with those who are less well off. Real Christians are taught to give others the shirts off their backs if asked. I admire those who can share without a feeling of guilt prodding them to do so.
So a Native American reader might say, “To heck with you white man. I don’t need your charity. I’ll keep my pot. Give me back my land!”
Well, all I can say is that I would rather have these emotional feelings of guilt, than no feelings at all. That, sadly, is the case with some of my fellow washichu.

Stew Magnuson is the author of the Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: and Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns.

The Word 'Racism' Should be Used Judiciously

2010-05-10T05:16:00.000-07:00

I'm on hiatus for the month of May as I go on vacation to do some research for my next book, which is about the history found along Highway 83. So here is an early column from last year for those who may have missed it.

I’ve always believed the word “racist” is bandied about too easily in our society.
As a writer and journalist, I believe it’s important to use precise words. And I think “racist” or “racism” are terms that need to be used judiciously. It’s a very serious allegation nowadays. To hang the word “racist” on a person, particularly a public figure, is very damaging to a reputation.
Likewise for a town, city, or other institution.
A racist, to my thinking, is a person who believes that his race is superior to others. Most of the time in the United States, it is members of the Caucasian race who hold these attitudes. Globally, there are other examples. I lived for five years in Japan where right-wing extremists believed the Japanese were the master race of Asia.
So is Japan a “racist” country? I didn’t find that to be the case. However, I would say that there was widespread “prejudice” there towards other races.
“Prejudice” is probably the right word in many cases. “Prejudice” means that simply that one “pre-judges.” One takes a glance at a person and comes to certain conclusions based on his/her appearance. So when you see an obese man walking down the street, what first enters your mind?
So “racial/ethnic prejudice” is simply making up your mind about someone based on their race before you really get to know that person.
I think it’s important to make this distinction when hurtful attitudes rear their ugly heads. Because I believe we have all had such negative thoughts enter our minds at one time or another. For someone to say – whether they be white, Native, black, Asian or other -- that they have never had a racially prejudiced thought enter their mind would be a stretch.
I’m guilty of it. And I think every man and woman on the planet has been guilty of it at one time or another.
And we’re probably all victims of prejudice whether we know the thoughts of others or not. I happen to be short in stature. Don’t put me in charge of anything. I’ll likely come down with a case of “Napoleon Syndrome!”
That doesn’t excuse that kind of thinking in this enlightened day and age. But I think it’s important to be aware of the differences between racism and prejudice.
Because I think prejudicial attitudes can be changed.
While researching “The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder” in Sheridan County, Nebraska, I met a woman who told me: “When I was a kid, I was afraid of Indians.”
She grew up on a remote ranch with little contact with the Lakotas to the north. Whenever Native American men would come by looking for casual work, her mother would instruct the kids to hide.
Her mother passed on fear and prejudice to her children, not a dogmatic racist belief system. As she grew up those fears dropped away as she took up residence in border towns and grew to know her neighbors.
That’s why I actually hold out hope for these numbskull kids who have carried out alleged hate crimes recently against Native Americans in Rapid City, New Mexico and Anchorage, Alaska. They have been taught something wrong. But they’re young and perhaps these attitudes can be untaught. (Once they have finished paying their debt to society.)
Throwing the word “racist” around nowadays is a verbal hand grenade. And a hand grenade has a blast zone that can injure everybody. Calling a white person a “racist,” or a town “racist” when they are not isn’t helpful. In fact, I can be counterproductive.
Hardcore racism is a belief system that can be hard to shake. Some White Supremacists, KKK members or Neo-Nazis might see the light and change their ways. But that’s probably rare. I’m not suggesting that one has to be a card-carrying member of one of these organizations to be a racist, though.
But regular old prejudice and stereotyping can be tackled. Attitudes can change with some gentle education. Instead of hurling the word “racist” at someone and putting them on the defensive, try “I can see why you might feel that way. But that’s not true. Let me explain why.”
Lastly, I think we’re a long way from labeling entire towns and peoples as “racist.” One finds this rhetoric quite a bit among senior members of the American Indian Movement. Rapid City, Gordon, Nebraska, or the entire state of South Dakota are “racist” we are told. I even corresponded with a fellow columnist recently who declared that Rapid City was “evil.”
That plays well to AIM’s donors in far flung lands. And the movement may have had a point back in the 50s and 60s when there was institutionalized segregationist policies about. But today, I don’t think labeling an entire community as “racist” is helping change anybody’s attitudes. More than likely, it’s just hardening them.
In fact, I would say hanging these simplistic labels on an entire community is “prejudice.”
Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns. Contact him at www.stewmagnuson.com.

What I Wish I Had Said About the Whiteclay Controversy

2010-04-10T07:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve participated in the two dialogues about the controversial town of Whiteclay, Nebr., during the past two months. I was recently on the Native America Calling Radio show and did an hour-long interview on the town that sells millions of cans per year to the dry Pine Ridge Reservation.
Last week, I participated on a panel discussion held at Bellevue University in Nebraska titled: Whiteclay: The Next Generation. As is the case with these kinds of events, there are things I wish I had said, or didn’t have time to bring up. This column affords me a second chance.
I was quoted in the local media that I thought the prohibition of alcohol policy on Pine Ridge was a “complete failure” and I would like to expand these thoughts.
Those who oppose Whiteclay are going up against two powerful "isms" in our society: capitalism and alcoholism.
As long as there is a demand for alcohol, some businessman somewhere is going to step in and make a profit. That’s the way it has been since French and British fur traders first encountered Native people centuries ago. That’s the way it will be even if crusaders against Whiteclay get their way and close down all four beer sellers. Prohibition on Pine Ridge in reality only bans the legal sale of alcohol on the reservation. It is widely available to anyone who wants it and can pay for it, either through bootleggers, or at nearby South Dakota and Nebraska border towns. The reservation police I'm sure do their best, but law enforcement can only do so much to stop contraband. That’s not a knock on the tribal police. That's the case with police everywhere in the world.
Prohibition has not had an impact on curtailing alcoholism on Pine Ridge.
The idea has been floated to allow legal sales of alcohol on Pine Ridge and using revenues to fund treatment. It's an idea worth looking at, because at the end of the day, those profits are going to go somewhere.
In early 2004, the tribal council voted not to allow a referendum on lifting the ban move forward. That effectively squelched debate. OLC Tribal President Theresa Two Bulls was on the panel via remote hook up. I wanted to ask her how she felt about letting a referendum move forward and whether she thought prohibition was having any impact on Pine Ridge alcoholism rates at all, but she had to depart before the end of the panel. I’m hoping she can respond in the Native Sun News, where this blog is printed, in a future issue.
An audience member, a Native American, but not a member of the Oglala tribe, made a plea for self-sufficiency. Paraphrasing: he said the tribe can do without the outside world. It can build a fence around the reservation, “raise its own cattle” etc., and physically keep alcohol out.
I interjected and made a point that no physical barrier could ever keep booze off the reservation. If you build a 10-foot high fence around Pine Ridge, someone would come along with an 11-foot ladder and hoist it over. They would build tunnels; they would air drop it in. That speaks to the power of alcoholism. Those who have fallen into this terrible disease are going to get their fix somehow, someway. They will brew their own. They will clean the store shelves of mouthwash.
I actually regret taking the time to make these points. The thought of building a wall around Pine Ridge is so ridiculous, it didn’t warrant any further discussion.
What I really should have said is that there are already plenty of invisible walls between the people of Pine Ridge and their white neighbors. We need to be talking about building bridges, and tearing down walls.
Finally, the panel ended before I had a chance to associate myself with the comments made by Winnebego activist Frank LaMere, who has been fighting to close down Whiteclay for more than a decade. He warned that Whiteclay is a “tinderbox,” a festering problem that if left unattended, is going to blow up in the face of Nebraska authorities.
Unfortunately, I wholeheartedly agree with his comments. The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska Border Towns, includes a fairly thorough history of Whiteclay, including the June 26, 1999 protest over the murders of Ronnie Hard Heart and Wallace Black Elk that ended in violence. It also documents several cases over the years of similar incidents, including the title story. These violent events, usually fueled or related to alcohol, seem to strike Sheridan County every 10 to 20 years.
Sadly, the historical record shows that some alcohol-related tragedy is coming down the pike. We can only hope that by building the aforementioned bridges, that things don’t get out of hand.

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns. He can be reached at www.stewmagnuson.com

No Child Left Behind in Indian Country — Or Anywhere Else

2010-04-07T05:29:00.000-07:00

It looks like the next item on President Obama’s to-do list will be pushing reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law through Congress.
We can only all hope that it will not be as contentious as the health care debate and it will be a mostly bipartisan effort as it was in 2003 when then President George W. Bush passed the legislation with the support of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and other prominent Democrats.
For those who care about Native American education, or have a student attending a public school where Natives are a minority, this will be a process worth watching.
From about March 2004 until September 2005, I covered the Education Department here in Washington, D.C. for a newsletter. Those were the first school years when the effects of NCLB began to be felt.
Being a reporter covering education, I mostly kept my opinions to myself back then. My beat was the two main teachers’ unions, which both opposed some of the law’s approaches to the problem of closing the achievement gap. The unions were concerned that the Bush administration was not adequately funding the law. But I don’t cover this topic any more, and I now feel free to say that I absolutely supported the law at the time, although it is not perfect legislation.
In summary, the federal government for decades had been giving schools funds to help them close the gap between white and minority students. But test scores hardly budged up an inch. In short, taxpayers and our society weren’t getting a return on their investment. The law aimed to change that by demanding that scores go up and schools show “adequate yearly progress” in reading and math.
An important part of measuring this was “disaggregation.” That meant breaking down the student population into subgroups. In other words, a school with a 90 percent white student body and 10 percent Native population (which might be found in certain Nebraska or South Dakota border towns) couldn’t claim that 90 percent of their students were making progress. They had to break out the stats and show that the minority students were progressing as well.
That was an important part of the law. Maybe the most important. What the unions didn’t want to talk about is how some of their members for decades would shunt, ignore or give up on minority students who attended classes that had mostly white students.
Mark Monroe, a Lakota man who grew up in Alliance, Nebr., in the 1950s, wrote in his book, An Indian in White America, of being put in the “Opportunity Room.” That’s where Native students were given the “opportunity” to be segregated from other students and ignored all day. I’ve heard similar stories about the Sheridan County Nebraska Schools in the 1970s.
I feel strongly about this issue because I had a similar experience.
Back in sixth grade I was placed in the “slow reading” group in my elementary school in Omaha. That may come as a surprise. I’m writing this column after all. I’ve authored a few books, majored in English in college, taught the language overseas and make my living as a journalist. But it is nevertheless true.
I attended Western Hills Elementary, which was 99.9 percent white (The .1 percent being my buddy Carlton). It was a strange school demographically. The neighborhood was divided by 66th Street. On the south side of that line was the “old money” part of town along with some upper middle class homes. On the north side where I lived, was a thin strip of lower middle class homes, plus a large swath of low-income houses.
The 6th grade reading class was divided into two groups: the “slow readers” and the other kids (let’s call them the “fast readers”). Every day, the teacher would hand us kids in the slow reader group a mimeographed grammar worksheet, explain it briefly, then go over to the “fast reader” kids and deliver an hour-long lesson. He would read stories, discuss it with them, and teach a real lesson. I would look around at my fellow “slow reader” students (almost all oddly enough from the north side of 66th Street). They were doodling, sleeping, and in my friend Wayne’s case, making fighter jets and tanks out of clay. As for me, I just sat there and listened in on the real lesson that was happening less than two feet away.
Why was I in that group? I was a lazy student, a chronic daydreamer and I refused to have anything to do with math (which is still the case). Yet I was an avid reader at the time. I read just fine.
Even at the age of 12, I realized that this was unfair and I complained bitterly to both my teacher and my parents, but to no avail. I was only speaking up for myself, I should note. I wasn’t smart enough at the time to realize that the teacher was not teaching the kids who needed it most and was basically giving up on 15 out of 30 students. That was 1975, and I’m hoping that the Omaha Public Schools dumped such teaching methods long before NCLB came along.
Critics of NCLB said the law took a stick instead of a carrot approach to forcing schools to comply with the law. That’s true, and maybe the new version can address some of those issues. All laws need to be fine tuned. But ensuring that adequate yearly progress is disaggregated so all groups in a school — Native, black, English-as-a-second language speakers, special education — are progressing is something that needs to stay. And let’s not forget the overarching goal that no child is intentionally left behind because of his/her race, ability, economic background, or in my case, chronic daydreaming.

Stew Magnuson is the author of the award-winning book, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns. He can be reached at: www.stewmagnuson.com.

Whiteclay Panel to Be Held at Bellevue University

2010-03-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

Bellevue University will host a panel discussion titled “Whiteclay: The Next Generation” on April 7, 2010. The discussion will take place at 11:00 a.m. in the Hitchcock Humanities Center located on the University’s main Bellevue campus.
The hour long event will include presentations and discussions centering on issues surrounding the sale and distribution of alcohol between Whiteclay businesses and residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The panel will include regional Native American dignitaries, individuals who have published books or created films on the topic, economic development experts, and a member of the religious community with ties to the reservation. The event is free and open to the public and the University’s main campus address is 1000 Galvin Road South in Bellevue, Nebraska.
Whiteclay is an unincorporated village of 14 people in northwest Nebraska bordering the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation of South Dakota. The reservation is home to the Oglala Lakota. Whiteclay is less than 2 miles from the center of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the largest town on the reservation. The region has been at the center of an alcohol sales and possession controversy for years. Sale and possession of alcoholic beverages on the Pine Ridge is prohibited under tribal law. Whiteclay has four retailers, licensed by the state of Nebraska, which sell the equivalent of 4.5 million cans of beer annually (12,500 cans per day), mostly to the Oglalas living on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The issue has been the source of much debate and has inspired proposals within the Nebraska Legislature.
The University is honored to host a diverse collection of individuals with expert knowledge of the issues at hand.
• Theresa Two Bulls, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and South Dakota state senator will deliver a unique perspective to the proceedings.
• Frank LaMere, Indian activist and Director of the Four Winds Community Center, will bring his passion for community and social justice issues.
• Lance Morgan, president and CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc., will provide expertise on Native American law and economic development.
• Mark Vasina directed an award-winning documentary titled, “Battle for Whiteclay,” which he has made available to university students and faculty via streaming media.
• Fr. Tom Merkel, former superintendent of Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation and current president of Omaha Creighton Prep High School will provide a religious perspective.
• Author Stew Magnuson will add historical perspective to the panel. Magnuson authored, ‘The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska Pine Ridge Border Towns,’ a nonfictional history of the communities involved in the panel topic.
• Taylor Keen, director of the Native American Center and Creighton University instructor, has extensive business and public sector experience and is a former Tribal Council Member of the Cherokee Nation.
Folk musician Michael Murphy will start the event with some music, and the work of artist Ron Garvais will enhance the experience. Students from Creighton Prep High School and Red Cloud Indian School will contribute some short videos on the theme of the next generation.
“Whether people are new to the Whiteclay story or simply trying to learn more about the situation, we welcome them to the discussion,” said Patrick Artz, Bellevue University professor and panel moderator. “This event provides an excellent opportunity for students and guests to learn more about the Whiteclay experience and join in the conversation.”

Two Classic Books on the Damming of the Missouri Are Rereleased

2010-03-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

Last year, while traveling down U.S. Highway 83 to research my next book, I spent a day at the Fort Berthold Reservation, N.D. At the Scout’s Cemetery No. 1, where those who served with Lt. Col. Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn are interred, I met an Arikara man and Vietnam vet, Don Dickens.
Retired from the tribal government, he spends his free time taking care of the lonely graveyard. The remains of veterans from several wars there were once buried in the bottomlands along the Missouri River, but they were relocated when the flood came.
This inundation was not a spring runoff, but a manmade disaster created by two U.S. agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.
Unlike most Native peoples, the Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa had not been forced onto a reservation not of their choosing. They were sedentary peoples who had lived along the river for centuries. And then in the 1940s, Congress and the federal government, in response to devastating floods in downriver communities such as Omaha, pushed legislation through that created several projects to dam the Missouri and several of its tributaries. There’s little evidence that any of these bureaucrats and legislators gave a second thought to the Native American communities that resided along the bottomlands. None were consulted prior to the law being enacted. Despite the belated protests of the Three Affiliated tribes and other nations up and downstream, the projects continued.
“It destroyed a way of life. Everybody farmed. Everybody had gardens and cattle. They ranched. They took it all away, and now they eat commodities. Everybody has developed diabetes and heart disease,” Dickens told me.
Coincidentally, a few months after I visited the reservation, two important books chronicling this sad chapter of U.S. history were rereleased.
Dammed Indians Revisited: The Continuing History of the Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux by Michael L. Lawson (South Dakota Historical Press) and Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes and the Trial That Forged a Nation by Paul VanDevelder (Bison Books), are two important works that together give a compete picture of how the tribes received the raw end of a deal they never asked for.
Both books take different approaches to the storytelling. Lawson is a historian and VanDevelder is a journalist. Dammed Indians Revisited deals primarily with the plight of the Lakotas who lived in the bottomlands along the Standing Rocking and Cheyenne River Reservations. Coyote Warrior is the story of the Three Affiliated Tribes.
Of the two books, I relate to VanDevelder’s style the best. His story centers on the Cross family, who fought for justice for two generations. Martin Cross, a Hidatsa who married the daughter of Norwegian immigrants in the 1930s, was the first of his family to oppose the dam tooth and nail. Later, his son Raymond, an attorney specializing in federal Indian law, continued the fight to receive fair compensation for the tribes’ losses. This character driven approach to writing history makes the story come alive for the reader. The relatively “dry” historical facts are interspersed with the narrative of this fascinating and tenacious family.
Dammed Indians Revisited is a more traditional history book, written by a trained historian. But what an incredible piece of work this is. It includes the best blow-by-blow account of how the Pick-Sloan plan came to be. (Raymond Cross figures in this work as well).
Some regard this book as a “classic,” and I agree. Those who study the forcible removal of communities to make way for dams have been referring to it for years. First published in 1982, the new edition of this work is most welcome. It is almost a new book with several new chapters and detailed updates of events since 1980. New forewords from the author and former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern are included, along with the original written by Vine Deloria, Jr. Those who read the book in its first iteration, or libraries who have the first edition, will want to add this work to their collections.
The same can’t be said for Coyote Warrior, which first came out in 2004. Except for a new afterword by the author, there isn’t much new here.
However, these are not competing books, but complementary. They should be read together. And their near simultaneous rereleases should bring further attention to yet another sad chapter in the federal government’s callous mistreatment of Native peoples.
Quoted in the new afterward in Coyote Warrior, Raymond Cross perhaps said it best: “This story is the retelling of the oldest story we have. It’s story that goes back to the Greeks and before. It’s the story of the struggle for justice, the struggle for dignity, and it’s the story about the indomitability of the human spirit.”

Stew Magnuson is the author of the award-winning nonfiction book, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns. He can be reached at www.stewmagnuson.com.