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My students were always impressed when I told them that wasn't a tree lying there. That was part of a 150-long branch that broke off a sequoia and shattered on impact. |
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“There are many things in life we do not understand and when we meet them all we can do is let them alone.”
Plenty Coups, Crow
warrior
____________________
February 28: Ryan J. Reilly, in Sedition Hunters (pp. 312-313) gives
the background for the name of the “Bloody Staircase” in the Capitol Building.
On that staircase … thirty-eight-year-old
former representative William Preston Taulbee was fatally shot by a reporter
from his home state of Kentucky, Charles E. Kincaid. A few years earlier, the
correspondent for the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times
had scooped the news that Taulbee had had an extramarital affair with a young
woman from the US Patent Office, writing in the language of the day that they
were found “in a compromising way” and were rather “warmer than they were
proper.” One headline: “Kentucky Silver-Tongued Taulbee Caught in Flagrante, or
Thereabouts, with Brown-Haired Miss Dodge.” Taulbee was in his midthirties, and
Miss Dodge was a teen at the time, described in an account as “a little beauty,
bright as a sunbeam and saucy as a bowl of jelly.” Taulbee apparently got her a
job in the Patent Office, and they’d taken up in the model room at the Interior
Department. After the scandal, Taulbee became a lobbyist, and Kincaid kept
reporting. They’d run into each other in the halls, and the larger Taulbee would
bully Kincaid, pulling on his ear or nose, warning him he should be armed. On
Feb. 28, 1890, Taulbee threw Kincaid, who weighed less than one hundred pounds,
around by the collar. Kincaid went home and got his pistol. A shot rang out,
and policeman came running. Violence was very common in Congress in the 1800s,
with canings and fistfights and stabbings. But shootings in the halls of
Congress were still surprising.
“For the first time in the memory of man a gunshot was heard in the National Capitol today, and the marble steps of the staircase leading from the House floor to the restaurant below were stained with human blood,” read one account. A jury acquitted Kincaid of murder after he argued self-defense.
*
William M. Thayer’s comments in Marvels
of the New West reveal a good deal about the casual racism of the era.
Early on, he includes a chapter
titled, “The Marvels of Race.” He describes, for example, the Zuni Indians, who
he rates relatively high, in particular when compared to the nomadic tribes –
or the Mexicans, for whom he has nothing but disdain.
Unlike the nomadic tribes of the
West, the Zuñis are a very industrious people. They understand agriculture and
pursue it, raising wheat, corn, and vegetables quite largely. Pumpkins, onions,
and watermelons are their favorites. The donkey serves them for a beast of
burden; and they raise cattle and sheep, weaving the wool of the latter into
garments. Until recently they produced all the cloth that was worn by the tribe.
Now, the visitor sees occasionally American goods, which traffic has brought to
them. They understand the art of pottery, and produce jars and other vessels of
attractive design. The goat is an important domestic animal among them, and fowl
of all kinds are raised. The eagle is a sacred bird, and large numbers of them
are seen about the town.
Francis Pilett, who has visited the
tribe, says: –
“Each dwelling is provided with a
loom, which forms a conspicuous part of the furniture. It consists of two
sticks, between which the threads, of the width of the blanket to be made, are
spread, the whole arrangement being fastened to the floor and ceiling by
rawhide strings, the operator squats on the ground, using for a shuttle a stick
to which the wool across threads is fastened. The operation of weaving is
skillfully performed, although a long time is required in the manufacture of
one of their blankets.”
The Zuñi altars are very sacred to
them. If they do not take their shoes from their feet as they approach them,
they do what is far more expressive of reverence and solemnity. The enclosure
containing an alter is represented by a cut on the preceding page, and no one
is allowed to enter it until the grave official conducting them takes a small
quantity of white powder from a bag suspended from his neck, and, placing it
upon a silver plate which hangs on his girdle, blows it into the air,
accompanied with some strange mutterings of incantation, after which the
visitor may enter. The meaning of this performance is simply this: it is an
invocation of the spirit of Montezuma to return soon and fulfil his promise to
bless and lead them. No one but the high priest knows where the white powder
comes from nor what it is.
Outside the town, though nearby, is a
large farm on which vegetables are raised. It is divided into patches, our
gardens, one for each family, as represented by the cut; and here much labor is
expended. The farm is watered by irrigation, which this people appear to
understand, the Rio Zuñi furnishing the water.
The Zuñis hate the Mexicans, but
respect Americans. The governor said to Mr. Pilett: “The Americans treat us
well, but the Mexicans very badly; the latter have always maltreated us, and we
want them neither to go through our country nor to reside among us. The heavens
punish us by long drought for allowing them to remain in the Colorado Chiquito.
My cacique, who prays for rain, and who is the spiritual and imperial
ruler of this people, watches the sun daily, and is much distressed because no
rain falls. He attributes the drought to the presence of the Mexicans on our
soil.”
Mr. Pilett also relates the
following: –
The governor very cheerfully and
politely accompanied us through the village. As a cachina dancers came
insight, and we halted to witness the ceremony, an elderly man approached and
remonstrated with the governor for allowing us to look upon this form of worship.
In reply to the remonstrance, Pedro Pino informed the intruder that he would
allow us; ‘but,’ said he, ‘no Mexican shall ever look upon the performance of
this holy and sacred right. The Americans,’ he continued, ‘have ever been our
friends, and are good and excellent people. I have been in Washington, and have
seen such men as Monroe and Calhoun, and have been in the halls of Congress.
These men,’ pointing to us, ‘come from Washington, and I know they are good
men.’”
Thayer, by way of another author
breaks Zuni society down into thirteen orders. One, he calls martial in nature,
the “Priests of the Bow,” “at once the most powerful and the most perfectly
organized of all native associations, in some respects resembling the Masonic
order, being strictly secret or esoteric; it is possessed of twelve degrees,
distinguished by distinctive badges.”
Of the second class, the ecclesiastical,
there is but one order, “the ‘Shi-wa-ni-kwe, or society of priests, of the
utmost sacred importance, yet less strictly secret than the first.”
The third class, medical, has
different orders, both “martial and civil surgeons.” One order, the “Bearers of
the Wand,” he says, treat diseases of the digestive system. Others treat coughs and inflammations, Lastly,
Thayer notes, comes the “Tchi-to-la-kwe” or “rattlesnake order, who treat the
results of poisoning, actual or supposed, resulting from sorcery or venomous
wounds.”
Of the fourth class, the “Hunters,”
there is only one order, the “blood or coyote” order.
Finally, Thayer says, a fourteen
order, the “Dance,” might be added, its rules “strictly secret and sacred.” He
calls it “wonderfully perfect in structure, and may be regarded as the national
church, and, like the church with ourselves, is rather a sect than a society.”
(191-195)
“Decided opposition to progress.”
“The Mexicans,” who, in their
“decided opposition to progress,” he says, remind him of the “Pueblo Indians
and their coadjutors.”
The house which the typical Mexican
occupies is built of sun dried brick (adobe), usually eighteen inches long, nine
inches wide and four thick, as the house of his early ancestor was, over three
hundred years ago. Short straw is mixed with the clay of which these bricks are
made, in order to hold them together. They are laid with mortar made of the
same material. When the height for the roof is reached, straight poles are laid
close together, with a slight incline from one wall to its parallel wall. A
coating of stiff mud is spread over these polls, and over that loose earth. The
mud floor is leveled and smoothed, a fireplace constructed of adobe in one
corner, a small door made and one or more windows; and this is a Mexican
dwelling. Within a few years, since the railroad, telegraph, and telephone, and
other improvements of modern civilization, have been thrust upon them, the more
intelligent an enterprising class are imitating Americans somewhat in the
construction of their houses. But the typical Mexican loves the old
architecture of his forefathers still.
He clings, also, to the ancient mode
of dress. Fashions never change with him. From time immemorial the Mexican
dress has been substantially the same.
Mexicans have adopted few modern
improvements to facilitate work. Machines that are prevalent in the New West,
among Americans, in farming and the mechanic arts, are not used by them. We saw
Mexicans reaping grain with a knife that resembled the sickle of Palestine, the
same as that used by their forefathers. Their plough is especially ancient, the
crooked stick of the Orient. Their method of grinding is similar. The burrow,
or donkey, is the Mexicans’ favorite beast of burden.
Thayer quotes another writer on the
methods of a typical Mexican farmer.
When spring opens, the average
Mexican farmer rises from his daydreams that he has been enjoying, wrapped in
his blanket, while sitting in the sun on the warm side of the house. He calls
in the neighbors, and ploughing begins. He gets the neighbors to assist him for
two reasons. First, because he is decidedly a gregarious animal; he loves to
work in a crowd. Besides this, in this ploughing business there is economy in running
a number of teams at once, for the education of the Mexican ox is peculiar. For
when that that wooden pole with a block on the end, by courtesy call a plough,
is fastened to his yoke, he expects one able bodied man to walk in front, while
another holds a single handle of the plow. But if another yoke of cattle is
behind, they will follow the first plough, and so the more the merrier, and the
work goes bravely on. The land is ploughed full two inches deep; the corn is
planted and is ready for the water from the irrigating dishes.
No miller is required to run the
following mill. It can grind but three bushels of corn in a day. Mexicans would
not have it grind any more, if it could; for it ground no more than that in a
day for their ancestors. The farmer takes his grist to the mill, where he finds
the raw-hide hopper waiting to receive it. Into this hopper he pours his grist,
which slowly trickles down between the native mill-stones – slowness being one
of the marvels of Pueblo and Mexican work. (210-212)
Thayer continues to quote the same
writer:
He was born a Catholic, but if you
ask him for a reason for the faith that is within him, he replies with the “Quien
Sabe,’” or who knows, which he uses in all cases when he is ignorant or in
doubt; and one or the other of these conditions covers most of his life. If he
can talk a little English, look out for him. If he cannot, he will treat you
well and divide his last morsel of food with you, if necessary.
He is not very fond of work, but when
it is absolutely necessary to buy candles and pay the musicians for a dance, or
buy whiskey, you can rely on him for working as long as the necessity lasts.
He does not talk good Spanish; It is
so mixed with the language of the Utes or Navajos, from which he is partially
descended.
His richer neighbor, who owns the cattle
in the vicinity, most likely can talk better, and write and read a little,
although schools are so uncommon with them that all my attempts to give them
any information in regard to Spain, or any country in Europe, were failures.
For when they found that such places were across the sea, their minds refused
to grasp more, and they would tell me that that was enough.
A Mexican happened into a telegraph
office. Its mysteries haunted him, until we met one evening, and he asked me to
explain them. I rashly thought it could be done, and commenced a description of
the way in which magnetism was developed by the acids and plates of the
batteries. But he had never seen any sulfuric acid, zinc plates, or magnet, and
knew nothing of their accomplishments. A young man with a group of friends came
to the house at which I was stopping, and handing me his hat, asked me to tell
the company what was written on it. I happened to know his name, and saw that
the strange characters were intended for it, and without any hesitation told
the audience that that was his name. This was a triumph for him, as he had
brought his friends several miles to prove by me that he could write. No one of
them could tell, as they could neither read nor write themselves. After this
happy disposal of the case, it occurred to him of the hat to arrange some
business between us so that I should pay a friend of his some money, in case he
completed a trade with him, which he expected to. “But how am I to know,” I
asked, “whether you trade or not? Will you send an order by him for the money?”
This was too much. He could write his name, but an order for money was too vast
a thing. But but he got out of the dilemma by telling me that his friend should
wear his hat with his name on it, if the money was to be paid to him.
A Mexican woman, with hardly an
exception, has black eyes, and wears a long shawl over her head, with the ends
brought around in front of the face, in such a manner as to leave only the eyes
visible. With this arrangement, the effect is very fine. A swarthy skin or ugly
feature is hidden, while the glorious eyes sparkle at you in their beauty from
among the folds of the shawl.
“She exists under difficulties.”
She exists under difficulties. In
cooking she is restricted, by circumstances, to such dishes as can be prepared
at a fireplace, with a small kettle and flat rock or a piece of sheet iron, on
which to bake cakes. Pies and puddings are unknown, except on great occasions.
Besides the scarcity of cooking utensils, a very small supply of food curbs any
ambitious attempt to excel in cooking. Indeed, so insignificant is the whole
stock of housekeeping utensils, that family divisions occur with alarming
frequency. In that case account of stock is soon taken, a sheepskin or two and
an old kettle being each one’s share.
When it comes to dress, the poorest
ones even are equal to the emergency; for when the presence of the musicians on
the street announces the approach of a dance, every woman in town is busy with
a judicious system of temporary swaps of clothing, the result of which is a
triumphant display at the dances, of a combination of dress entirely new to the
wearer. And woman’s taste for an appearance in a costume never before seen, is
gratified without the expense of shopping. (213-214)
____________________
“From
biological truths it may be inferred that the eventual mixture of the allied
varieties of the Aryan race forming the population will produce a finer type of
man that has hitherto existed.”
Mr.
Spencer
____________________
In his conclusion, pages 713-715, we
have this:
These facts indicate that the New
West will decide the destiny of our land, and that, too, on the line of
unparalleled growth and prosperity. Perils beset this portion of our country,
it is true, perils of such fearful magnitude as to awaken alarm; but this is
God’s battle, in which “one will chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to
flight.” But for this unassailable truth the Republic would not stand at the
head of nations in wealth and population, or anything else, to-day. From the
outset this is what the world has witnessed on this Western Continent, – “two putting ten thousand to flight.” And this must
continue, if the Divine Plan is to build up a mighty Christian nation here,
until the Republic stands complete in its beauty and glory. If the New West
shall fail of the achievements predicted, the Republic will fail to maintain
its advanced rank among the nations; and if the Republic fails, mankind will
fail also. The prediction that the unprecedented mixture of nationalities in
the New West will compromise and possibly destroy its noblest institutions,
will not be fulfilled, since the manifest drift of affairs is to the absorption
of all other races by the Anglo-Saxons, who now control the destiny of the
human family. This English-speaking portion of mankind never even nods to
foreign tongues, but the latter are constantly being absorbed by the former. We
have an amusing jargon of languages now; but the time is coming when the
French, German, Irish, Spanish, and every other nationality will join our
English-speaking people, and we shall have but one tongue spoken from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf. Besides, the
representatives of these many nations in the New West are the most intelligent,
enterprising, and industrious of their countrymen. Comparatively few tramps and
worthless characters are among them. The mass of them emigrate thither for
homes and a livelihood, and multitudes become farmers, scattered over the
States and Territories under circumstances peculiarly favorable to the
development of good citizenship. Nor can we disprove Herbert Spencer’s
prediction that this conglomeration of races will result in a higher type of
manhood then now appears upon the continent. Mr. Spencer says: –
“From biological truths it may be
inferred that the eventual mixture of the allied varieties of the Aryan race
forming the population will produce a finer type of man that has hitherto
existed, and a type of man more plastic, more adaptable, more capable of
understanding the modifications needful for complete social life. I think that,
whatever difficulties may have to surmount, and whatever tribulations they may
have to pass through, the Americans may reasonably look forward to a time when
they will have produced a civilization grander than any the world has known.”
Our hope and expectation is that Herbert Spencer will turn out a true prophet.
The liquor traffic is the prolific
cause of evil in the New West, as it is in the East; and yet, in its centres of
population, it is divested of some of the frightful characteristics which make
it so horrible to contemplate in Boston, New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St.
Louis. The intelligence, enterprise, and Christian principle there are opposed
to the traffic. Already Kansas has led the way to a Constitutional Amendment,
forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages within
its limits, and the States of the East are fast copying its example. So that,
in the solution of the liquor problem, it appears to many that deliverance for
the East is to come from the New West. The very favorable results of the
experiment in Kansas, ridding the commonwealth of the most dangerous class of
citizens, inviting a better and nobler class of immigrants to settle there,
where the curse of the traffic does not rest as pall upon every industry,
increasing population, wealth, and business to an unprecedented degree, will
demonstrate to every State and Territory further West the practicability and
absolute necessity of stamping out a trade that is “the dynamite of modern
civilization.” It is probable that, earlier than in many parts of the East, the
New West will put the liquor traffic under the ban of prohibitive legislation,
thereby removing one of the greatest barriers to its thrift and triumph.
“Mammonism, Mormonism, Socialism, Skepticism,
and Atheism are mighty obstacles.”
Mammonism, Mormonism, Socialism, Skepticism,
and Atheism are mighty obstacles to the rise and progress of our Western
domain; but the holy trinity of Liberty, Education, and Christianity, in which
the Anglo-Saxon race believe, will prove more than a match for them all in the
future conflict for supremacy. This race has laid the foundation of our Western
empire, and started it off in a career of unexampled prosperity; and its grip
upon the masses will not be relaxed as the battle for unity and right waxes
hotter; but will rather tighten its hold and increase its power, until
language, custom, and purpose are one, under the control of Liberty, Education,
and Religion. An Englishman says, “Every one is looking forward with eager and
impatient expectation to that destined moment when America will give law to the
rest of the world. This consummation will be realized when Anglo-Saxon
supremacy over the New West shall bring its multi form elements into complete
accord for the union, and the Christian religion shall control the whole for Humanity
and God.
Earlier, he credits the Mormons for
their industry in making Utah bloom. Yet he is no fan of their faith:
Whatever may be said of the
moralities and corruption of the Mormons system, as a business enterprise it is
conceded to be a marvel. The sacrifice, courage, and indomitable spirit incident
to a journey over the Rocky Mountains to Utah forty years ago, for the purpose
of colonizing in the “vast wilderness,” so remote from civilization that Gentile
interference would be quite impossible, is sufficient evidence of zeal and
daring enterprise.
Salt Lake City, or “Zion,” as the
city is called by many Mormons, has a population of about thirty thousand. It
is a beautiful city, handsomely laid out, with wide streets running at right
angles and lined with thrifty shade trees. Irrigating ditches lend a charm to
the town, by distributing the clear, pure, sparkling Rocky Mountain water
through all the streets. Large public buildings and costly business blocks
adorn the city, and everywhere there is the appearance of thrift and
enterprise.
…
As an agricultural community, the
Mormon settlement has proved a great success. By means of irrigation, the
Mormons have made the desert to blossom literally as the rose, – “Jordan Valley
is transformed into a garden of wondrous beauty. Beyond the fondest dream of
thrift and plenty, a wealth of products rewards the husbandman for his labors
to reclaim these desert lands.
That such a city and such a people
should exist today, where 40 years ago, for 1000 miles around, there was not a
civilized abode, is a marvelous fact. Should another 40 years achieve an equal
advance throughout that ground me, the reality will challenge the wonder of
mankind. (404-406)
 |
John the Baptist touches Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey. Author's collection. |
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Model of the main temple in Salt Lake City. Author's collection. |
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| Exterior of the main temple. Author's collection. |
Thayer “marvels” at the development
of the New West, the glories of agriculture, cites figures about the rich
mines, and has no respect or understanding for the rights and plight of the
native peoples.
In a section on Jared L. Brush, a
cattle baron, he says this:
Mr. Brush had the usual experience of
pioneers with the Rocky Mountain red men, escaping with his life only because
providential events favored him. Even later, in 1867 when he was engaged in the
cattle business and had a ranch only fourteen miles from the spot where Greeley
was laid out three years thereafter, the savages made a raid upon his ranch,
and killed twelve men, one of whom was his brother. Mr. Brush was absent at the
time; had he been home, he must have shared the fate of his cattlemen; and we
should not have had the privilege of adding his portrait or sketch of his life
to our collection. (618-619)
“Lazy, thievish, treacherous Utes.”
In
another place, he cites the death of Nathan C. Meeker in 1879, as proof of the
perfidy of the native peoples, in this case the Utes. Thayer writes:
Mr. Meeker was massacred by the
treacherous men whom he sought to benefit… The Indians were unwilling to work,
and grew restive under the white man’s rule. Naturally lazy and indolent, they
became dissatisfied with their benefactor and his plans. After an interview
with Mrs. Meeker, and carefully studying the history of the barbarous affair,
we believe that these lazy, thievish, treacherous Utes, properly called
savages, murdered Mr. Meeker, because he persisted in teaching them industry and
virtue. (379-380)
*
In another section, Thayer provides
the lengthy account of a woman – which he does not date – settling down on a
Western ranch with her husband (608-616):
A WOMAN ON A CATTLE RANCH
Thayer makes clear that the woman –
whom he does not name – faced no more hardship than others who settled in the
New West. Indeed, she “enjoyed considerable more of the privileges and comfort
than falls to the lot of the average ranch-life.” He notes that, “She was young
in years and in matrimony,” at the time she came West.
Her husband bought out a ranchman in
the New West, seventy-five miles from the town in which he was temporarily
sojourning. He was to remove tither to spend about eight weeks in putting
things in running order, and to establish himself as a cattleman. His wife
proposed to accompany him and share ranch-life with him for this brief period.
It was one of the hottest July days
ever known in the New West when she started with her husband and one cowboy for
the ranch. A long drought had parched the earth, and the streams on the plains
were dry, adding intensity to the heat of the day. The burning rays of the sun
beat down upon the two occupants of the open ranch-wagon, and the poor horses
wilted under the great heat and a heavy load. Not a drop of water was found on
the way until after four o’clock in the afternoon. The lips of the weary
travelers became parched and swollen, and, but for the free use of lemons,
which were thoughtfully provided in the morning, would have cracked and bled.
The site of water about four o’clock gladdened man and beast.
One or two hours later, on
approaching a town where they purposed to spend the night, the wagon sunk into
the mud to the hubs of the wheels in crossing and irrigating ditch. The tired
horses vainly tried to pull it out, until exhausted, they refused to pull more,
and the disgusted stockman sat down upon the bank of the ditch, the very
picture of despairing weariness.
“Going to stay here all night?” inquired
his better half in a tone that was a cross between facetiousness and bitter
disappointment.
“I shall stay here till help comes
along,” answered the husband.
Sure enough, within a few minutes, a
man with a pair of horses appeared upon the scene, and kindly offered to help
our stockman out of his difficulty. The four horses together pulled the wagon
out of the mud, and on that night our heroine slept upon a soft bed an country
inn, instead of under a tent. On the following morning, refreshed and happy,
and supplied with a keg of water, that the painful experience of the previous
day might not be repeated, our travelers continued their journey. At noon they
came upon an old deserted stable in which the horses were fed, and the
travelers themselves regaled with an ample lunch. At night they spread a tent,
and were cooking an inviting supper when a thunder-shower burst upon them in
great fury, deluging the tent, putting out their fire, and spoiling the food,
as well as drenching the occupants. Supper-less and soaked, they spread their
blankets for the night, and lay down to wakefulness instead of dreams. However,
they came out of the hardship with flying colors, and, before noon on the next
day, took possession of the ranch, and commenced ranch life. In a letter to a
relative, the woman said: –
“Well here I am at camp, and like it
very much so far. I am terrible lonely today. G— was obliged to go away this
morning, and will not be back until tomorrow. I am here alone with Mrs. — s’ brother.
… I had nine and ten in my family the first two days; then four; last night, seven;
and today, two. The men have now gone out on the calf round-up, and will be
gone three weeks, probably. … I cannot give you much of an idea of the camp
here. The house is a good one, and unusually nice for a cow camp. It is stone
inside and out, and rough every way; but we are very comfortable. It stands low
down in a gulch, with hills front and back, which cut off all views; and still
it is pleasant. We have two large rooms, now furnished with chairs, two home-made
tables, two home-made bedsteads, and empty boxes for additional conveniences. …
The flies here were enough to craze one, but we brought some netting with us,
and C— made screens for the doors and windows, so that we are protected from
their raids. … We have cows, ducks, hens, a dog nearly as large as Major, and a
nice cat. … I have not made any butter yet, but shall very soon, for I miss it
fearfully. I have been cooking, cleaning, and arranging things generally, but will
have more leisure soon, as my family will be smaller. One of the men helps me.
He cooks for the boys on the round-up, and between helps me. I do all the
cooking except the meat. The men appear to think that my bread and pies were
made to eat. I made a large loaf of brown bread for supper last night, and the
boys just devoured it. Don’t worry about my staying alone, for G— says he will
never leave me without C—, who is trusty, and is hired to work about the house,
milk, and do chores. Crazy [the name of her pony] knew me when I came, and
behaved as cunning as ever. I shall begin riding her soon. I would not part
with her for love nor money. … If you do not hear from me every week, don’t
worry, for something may happen to prevent us going to the post office, which
is twenty-five miles distant. But you must write every week as usual for it
would be disappointing indeed to send so far for letters and find none. We send
to the office once in two weeks sure, and as much oftener as we can. I have
nothing further to say, except that I am getting along alright – have four in
my family now, and one of the boys helps me in the house. All of them are kind
an obliging, and never allow me to bring a pail of water from the spring.” Of
course, she would not complain much of the great hardships.
 |
| The ranch. Author's collection. |
The spring was one of the finest in
all the New West, with a house over it, and a small pond behind it, into which,
at times, the overflow empties. There was a barn, shed, and henhouse, also,
with two corrals. A tent was also spread on the grounds to accommodate the
overflow of cowboys and visitors at night. As the hospitality of that country
provided free beds and board for transient comers, a tent arrangement was
absolutely necessary. From three to twelve transient lodgers was often the
quota for whom provision was made.
“I have cooked three dinners in a
day, she said to the writer; “the first for the family; the second, one or two
hours later, for two newcomers; and I had scarcely washed the dishes after the second
dinner, when a fresh arrival of another man made a third dinner necessary.”
Ham, codfish, fresh beef and veal,
venison, poultry, antelope, and rabbits, supplied the larder with a variety of
meats that would be luxurious in the East, a – not all at the same time, of
course, but as circumstances favored. Sometimes the bill of fare was reduced to
ham or codfish without potatoes or any other vegetable. As it was the ranchman’s
first season, begun in July, he had no garden, and therefore no vegetables,
except when they were purchased at the nearest market, from forty to sixty miles
away. Sometimes, however, a neighboring ranchman, coming that way, would bring
them a welcome present from his garden. Tea and coffee, especially the latter,
were prominent in the daily bill of fare.
The nearest neighbors (pool of the
masculine gender) were eighteen miles distant, and the nearest woman thirty
miles away. Of the latter our heroine wrote to a friend, “There are several
women at— , but I think they must be stuck up, for they have not called upon me
yet, and they are only thirty miles from here.”
____________________
“Certainly
I have variety enough in my life to keep from becoming stagnant.”
____________________
The following extracts from her
letters to a relative will furnish still more interesting information of a
woman’s life on a ranch: —
“The round-up reached here on
Saturday, and we have been full ever since, a – nine all the time, and twelve last
night in my family.”
“G— is going away again this week. He
is going to — , 200 miles distant, to buy horses. I expect he’ll be gone ten days,
perhaps longer. I dread it very much. There will be two men here, but it will
be lonely enough even then.”
“I climbed the Buttes last week. They
are over one hundred feet high, made of clay or adobe, the top being petrified
like stone. G— would not go with me, as he thought it was too hazardous. In one
place we had to pass around a curve for fifteen feet on a shelf just wide
enough to stand upon. At another point we had to climb up perpendicularly fifteen
feet, by means of notches cut for the feet. One of the men went with me because
G— would not. My courage nearly failed me before the feat was accomplished, but
the splendid view from the summit paid me.”
Fleas, skunks, rattlesnakes.
“The men killed many rattlesnakes
here. They killed twelve in one day. At another time they killed three in a
half an hour. Ed. and I were riding one day last week, and his horse stepped on
one that was coiled up. It threw the snake over, and he went into his hole in a
hurry. Our dog was bitten by one a few days ago, and his nose was badly swollen
for a day or two, and that was all. Rattlesnake bites do not injure dogs.”
“We do not have fresh meat at all
just now, and ham is getting stale to me. Ed. has just killed a duck, and we
shall have that to tomorrow. I am sick of making biscuit. I had them three
times a day, and from twenty to thirty each time. I have a plenty of eggs and
milk, and make puddings and custards. I shall wash tomorrow; Ed. will help me,
and then wash for the boys, and he will help me iron. He is very handy and very
willing. We miss vegetables very much. I would like a cucumber. We had a squash
today that some one of the boys bought me, and it was nice. We have not even
potatoes now, and I scarcely know how fruit looks.”
“We had fourteen letters in the last
mail, and you may be sure that we enjoyed them. Last night Ed. was taken sick,
fortunately after I had retired, and he had a terrible fit. I could hear him
talk as crazy as could be and it was an hour before he was conscious. He came
near having another this morning. But we worked over him and prevented it. C— takes
care of him, and I have not been alone with him at all. I hope G— will not have to go away again, but I sometimes
think if he does I go too, wherever it may be. … Two of the men usually sleep
in the house, – one on the bed G— made, and the other on the floor; the others
sleep in the tent, which they prefer.”
The “Ed.” referred to had a thrilling
history. His father was the proprietor of a leading daily journal in a large
city of the East, – a man of wealth and position. His mother, before her
marriage, was a professor in a leading college for females, – an accomplished
woman. Their son had received an excellent education, and was familiar with the
refinement and style of wealthy families in a large city; but now he was a
cowboy, subject to terrible fits which he claimed were brought on “by smoking
cigarettes.” His employer and wife had no doubt that the drink-curse was the
real cause of his absence from home. As there were no liquors on the ranch, and
no place to obtain them for miles, their views on the subject were not verified
beyond contradiction. But on the evening of his sickness, as rehearsed above,
he went to Mrs. — and said: –
“I am going to smoke a cigarette, and
I shall have a fit after it. You had better retire.”
Scarcely thinking that he was in
earnest, with a facetious remark she bade him goodnight and went to bed. Then
followed what she described, in which we see some evidence that cigarettes were
the cause of his fits, or delirium tremens, if that be a more
appropriate name. In her letter she relates the outcome of Ed.’ sickness.
“I closed my last letter rather
hurriedly. Ed. grew worse steadily. The night before G— came he had a terrible
spell. Twice we thought he was dying. It took C— and I to hold him on the bed.
The night G— reached home he had two fits. Two men could scarcely hold him
while he was in the first one; but his strength was greatly reduced when the
last one occurred. He suffered fearfully, but imagined that he was in heaven
with his mother, who died when he was too young to remember. The next day he
was so weak that two men were obliged to lift him into the wagon, and he went
off crying as if his heart would break. We made him a bed in the wagon, and
sent him to —, and from there by rail to —, C— went with him, and has not yet
returned. We hardly thought he would reach there alive; but the man who came
back with the team said that he was better when he reached—; so we hope he will
come out alright.”
Just seven years after the foregoing
was written, in reply to the question, “What became of Ed.?” This woman
answered: –
“Poor fellow! We don’t know. He
recovered by good medical treatment, and left —, and we have never seen or
heard from him since.”
It is not strange that, by this time,
Mrs. — should write to a friend, “Certainly I have
variety enough in my life to keep from becoming stagnant.”
More extracts from her letters will
afford the reader still more light.
“We have a very nice cooking stove,
as large as the one in your winter kitchen. I have made all my bread so far
with baking-powder. I should think you were crazy to ask what I do with my
washing. Why, I wash it, iron it, wear it, and wash it again. I’ve every
convenience for washing, do not lift a pail of water, or turn the ringer, or
clean up. We have splendid water under the spring-house, and a half dozen other
good springs around us where the cattle drink and water holes also. My kitchen
is large, and I have no trouble in providing for all the men by putting the two
tables together. There is no need of furnishing napkins, for G— and I and Ed. are the only ones of the
crowd who ever saw one. I made four cream pies and a coconut pie yesterday, and
how quickly they vanished before the hungry boys!”
“I must stop at once, for I hear a
wagon ride up. … It was two men, one from —, whom I was delighted to see. He
brought me a bushel of potatoes and a parcel of beets and radishes, and I am
eating a radish now. They are so nice! I got them a dinner, – hot biscuit, venison
steak, tomatoes, cream pie, and coffee. They thought they would call again when
they got hungry.”
“I rode ten miles one day last week,
and saw three deer, – scared them up not ten feet off. We sent C— out next
morning to shoot one, as we were living on bacon and codfish, with no potatoes.
He killed one, and we have feasted ever since. It is very nice eating. The
venison we get is not what you get in the East.”
“We have any amount of fleas here,
and I am half eaten up by them. We have ants, also, but I brought some borax
with me, and they have disappeared before it. You asked me what I wear. I wear
a shade hat, black Canton, with blue veil on it when I ride, and my scalp at
other times.”
“We have dug a cellar, or, what is
here called a ‘dug-out,’ in the side of the hill, which will have a roof over
it soon, covered with dirt. It is what they call a cellar here.”
When lodging’s were somewhat crowded
one of the men slept in the above-mentioned dug-out. One night, just before the
mistress of the ranch had retired, he came rushing into the house for his gun,
shouting “Skunk! skunk!” This disagreeable animal was at home in that country,
and, in his peregrinations, on that night, dropped into the dug-out, with no
expectation of meeting a cowboy there. But he did, and actually traveled across
his bed, startling the human occupant of the place by his cool impudence. The
skunk was as much alarmed as the cowboy in the end, and fled to parts unknown
before the latter returned with his gun. Seventy skunks were shot about the
ranch from August to November, proving that this unpopular creature thrives
full as well in the New West as he does in the East.
Once, during her stay at the ranch,
Mrs. — visited — with her husband, nearly sixty miles away, to make some
purchases, and hire a tenement. She camped out one night each way, going and
coming, and enjoyed it hugely. On the way back, she discovered an antelope at a
distance; whereupon her husband let drive his six-shooter just to see the wild
creature run. He was too far away to be hit, but not too far to be scared, the
ranchman thought. What was the surprise of Mrs. — and her liege lord, to see
the animal drop, and not run. Singularly enough the ball took effect in the
antelope’s head, and he gave up the ghost. It was an accident, however, not the
skill of the ranchman. The former was not more surprised to be hit than the
latter was to be the hitter. The wild game was carried in triumph to the ranch,
were hunger reveled on his carcass.
Here are incidents sufficient to show
the reader what the best sort of ranch life is to an intelligent woman. It is
crowded with variety, the unexpected, and the marvelous.
*
In Samantha Among the Brethren, written in 1890, we get a comic view of the world as the writer Marietta Holley saw it.
In a series of books, Holley relates the exploits of Samantha, a
wise and witty farm wife, married to Josiah Allen, an inept, comic foil, but a
good man, nevertheless.
 |
| Samantha, the narrator. |
One day the couple attends a lecture on “Woman’s Place” in the world, presented by the speaker, Miss Serena Fogg.
Samantha is less than impressed, but explains the lecturer’s basic position: “Wimmen’s place wuz in the sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed gaurdin’ and guidin’ and kep by man’s great strength and tender care from havin’ any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and howsumever.” (15/18)
Samantha summarizes one passage from Fogg’s lecture:
But she went on perfectly beautiful – I didn’t wonder it brought
the school-house down – about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
how that calm was never invaded by any rude cares.
How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her
from every rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman’s life
wuz like a oneasy, roarin’, rushin’ river, that swept along discontented and onsatisfied,
moanin’ and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of Repose – melted into
the union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state!
How peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united souls
bathe in blissful repose! (15/33)
Many in the audience were moved to tears by such sweet
sentiments, Samantha admits, and, “There wasn’t a dry eye in Josiah Allen’s
head.”
She herself didn’t shed a drop. In her view, Miss Fogg’s view of marriage was “as well suited to stand the wear and tear of actual experience as a gauze dress would be to face a Greenland winter is.” (15/47)
Still, Fogg continued:
And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager [the
unmarried woman] to two blissful wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin’
down the waveless calm, bathed in silvery light, floatin’ down a shinin’ stream
that wuz never broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that was never
darkened by a cloud. …
She compared single life to quantities of things, strange,
weird, melancholy things and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that everyone of
’em brought the school-house down.
And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hanging
together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin’ back and forth
under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
And she compared it to two white lambs gammolin’ on the velvety
hill-side. To two strains of music melting into one dulcet harmony, perfect,
divine harmony, with no discordant notes. (15/38)
As for Samantha, she goes out of her way later to tell Miss Fogg that marriage is far from a blissful state.
I have to be a cook, a step-mother, a house-maid, a church
woman, a wet nurse (lots of times I have to wade out in the damp grass to take
care of wet chickens and goslins). I have to be a tailoress, a dairy-maid, a
literary soarer, a visitor, a fruit-canner, a advisor, a soother, a dressmaker,
a hostess, a milliner, a gardener, a painter, a surgeon, a doctor, a carpenter,
a woman, and more’n forty other things.
(1544)
Josiah, however, loved the lecture.
He raved about it all the way home, and he would repeat over
lots of it to me. About how a man’s love was the firm anchor that held a woman’s
happiness steady; how his calm and peaceful influence held her mind in a serene
calm – a waveless repose; how tender men wuz of the fair sect [sex], how they
watched over ’em and held ’em in their hearts. (15/48)
In another scene, Samantha tells the story of Submit Tewksbury, who she often invites for dinner. Submit has never married, and she’s poor, and “has to work hard for every mite of food she eats, and clothes she wears, even fuel and lights.” Still, Samantha notes, she’s “‘middlin’ good lookin’ for a woman of her years.” Submit has “dark eyes, very soft and mellow,” and “a look deep down in ’em, as if she had been waitin’ for something, for some time.”
Miss Tewksbury has had marriage proposals – in fact, many. But she pines for Samuel Danher, a young Methodist minister to whom she was once engaged.
 |
Submit Tewksbury. |
Samantha tells the story:
I remember him well. A good lookin’ young fellow at the time,
with blue eyes and light hair, rather long and curly, and kinder waving back
from his forward, and a deep spiritual look in his eyes. In fact, his eyes
looked right through the fashions and follys of the civilized world, into the
depths of ignorance, rivers of ruin and despair, that wuz a-washin’ over a
human race, bleeck jungles where naked sin and natural depravities crouched
hungry for victims.
Samuel Danher felt that he had got to go into heathen lands as a
missionary. He was engaged to Submit, and loved her dearly, and he urged her to
go too.
But Submit had an invalid father on her hands, a bed rid grandfather,
and three younger brothers, too young to earn a thing, and they all on ’em
together hadn’t a cent of money to their names. They had twenty-five acres of middlin’
poor land, and a old house.
Wall, Submit felt that she couldn’t leave these helpless ones
and go to more foreign heathen lands. So, with a achin’ heart, she let Samuel Danher
go from her, for he felt a call, loud, and she couldn’t counsel him to shut up
his ears, or put cotton into ’em.
Years pass, but Submit sorrows over her loss. “The neighbors couldn’t understand that exactly,” Samantha says, “fur there hain’t no language been discovered yet that will give voice to the silent crys of a breakin’ heart.”
Samantha adds:
We all spose she hain’t forgot Samuel. And they do say that
every year when the day comes round, that he took supper with her for the last
time, she puts a plate on for him – the very one he eat on last – a pink-edged
chiny plate, with gilt sprigs, the last one left of her mother’s first set of
chiny.
 |
| Samuel and Submit at their last dinner. |
Later, Josiah goes on at home about how he views the proper
places for the two sexes. “He stood up on the same old ground that men have
always stood up on, the ground of man’s great strength and capability, and wimmin’s
utter weakness, helplessness and incapacity.” (15/152-162)
*
Benjamin Andrews describes the rise
of the South, economically, in the years after the Civil War and
Reconstruction. Birmingham, Alabama rose with the new steel industry of the
town, growing from 3,000 people in 1880, to 26,000 a decade later. The cotton
crop in 1890 was almost 7.5 million bales, far exceeding the best pre-Civil War
crop of 4.7 bales in 1860. Fine marble from the mountains of Tennessee,
Alabama, and Georgia was finding market.
The block of it which was forwarded
from Alabama for the Washington Monument, experts condemned for the purpose as
certainly Italian, nor was it permitted a place in that structure till the Governor
of the State and the Members of Congress therefrom had certified upon honor,
and the quarry-masters made affidavit, that it came out of the Alabama hills.
As for Florida, a state which had had
only 416 miles of railway before the war, it now boasted 2,470. The population
had grown, since 1880, by more than 50 percent. “This was due not alone to the State’s
popularity as a winter sanitarium for northern people. Florida was also the
early market-garden for the north. It’s oranges largely supplied the trade, and
were much sought for their excellent quality.” Florida, he said, would soon
rival Louisiana in the production of sugar, and with mulberry found in “every
part of this new Eden,” he predicted Florida would soon become a leader in silk
production. (IV, 278-283)
Andrews also included, in Volume IV,
a chapter on the developing West. Alaska, he noted, was still without an
organized legislature and “under the laws of the United States and of the State
of Oregon.” The white population of the territory was then only 4,298, with
1,823 persons of mixed ancestry, 2,288 “Mongolians,” and 23,531 “Indians.” San
Francisco, which had only 500 inhabitants in 1840, had grown to 34,776 in 1850,
and by 1890 was home to 298,997. Gold production in California, in Troy ounces,
had declined from 829,677 in 1880 to 608,882 in 1889. Colorado, that year,
reported production of 18,375,551 Troy ounces of silver. (IV, 285-295)
Only 300,000
of 1,500,000 people in New York City had two native-born parents. Young
children were sometimes sent out to steal coal (older children would be
arrested), what someone described as “the cunning of the poor.”
An Ohio
congressman called Andrew Carnegie “the arch-sneak of this age.”
On the other
hand, one writer insisted, “To the young American…the paths to fortune are
innumerable and all open; there is invitation in the air and success in all his
wide horizon.’
*
September 25: Naturalist John Muir has spent decades lobbying for creation of Yosemite Park, and calling for protection of forests, “not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
On this day, Sequoia National Park is established.
John Mooallem, a writer for the NYT (3/26/17), says of sequoias, that
they are “older than the English language and most of the world’s religions –
older by centuries, easily, even millennia.”
*
October 1: Muir gets his second wish. Yosemite National Park is created. Muir statue in the park museum.
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| John Muir. All pictures from the author's collection. |
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Tioga Pass leads to Yosemite, from the Nevada side. For scale, white dot on road (above handlebars) is a large RV camper (This blogger bicycled across the U.S.A. in 2007 and 2011.)
|
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You can see a climber on El Capitan, crack, upper far right. |
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Lupine flowers spotted on a hike.
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Clear stream in Yosemite, off one of the trails.
|
NOTE TO TEACHERS: I used to tell my
students that they owed it to themselves to visit some of these great places
out West. Many of my students in Loveland, Ohio – and I taught in a wealthy
district – had never been west of the Mississippi River.
If you would like a collection of hundreds
of pictures, in return for a donation to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, let
me know at vilejjv@yahoo.com.
I have raised more than $35,000 for
JDRF over the years, mostly by pedaling across the USA twice.
*
According to the 1890
Census, it is no longer possible to draw a frontier line, because all the land
is broken up by pockets of settlement. (See: Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893)
*
Edward P. Ellis, the respected
historian of this era, strikes again, with his clueless racism, describing the
findings of the census of this year:
The last extra bulletin of the Census
Office gives a number of noteworthy facts concerning the condition of the five
civilized tribes of the Indian territory. An important truth to be remembered
is that the civilization of these tribes or nations is due more to the white and
negro members who at one time or another have been admitted by adoption than to
the Indians themselves. Pure-blooded Indians indeed form only a small element of
the population. Of the 178,000 persons enumerated in 1890, those who claim to
be Indians by descent formed only about twenty-eight per cent, while in the
Creek nation they were less than ten percent. The figures for the five tribes
were: Indians 50,055 ; whites, 109,393; negroes 18,636. Even among those
claiming to be Indians are many quarter-breeds and half-breeds. It is doubtful,
therefore, whether the advances made by these tribes prove anything as to the
capacity of the genuine Indian for civilization. The agricultural work is done
almost wholly by the negroes, as was the case before the war, when all the
tribes except the Seminoles owned slaves. To the preponderance of the white
population is due the almost universal adoption of the Christian religion, the
establishment of newspapers, and the educational progress. The same causes lead
ninety per cent of the five tribes to use the ordinary dress of American
citizens. Here and there are a few medicine men, and some still cling to the
heathenish faith, while the Creeks and Choctaws keep up the old ball play. The
majority of the Indians use the Indian languages. The Cherokees have an
alphabet in which their books and laws are printed. The Cherokee Advocate,
the national organ, published at Tahlequah, is printed half in English and half
in Cherokee. The books used in all the public schools of the five nations,
however, are in the English language. The amount of money devoted to education
varies in the different nations. The Cherokees expend half of the revenue from
the funds in the hands of the United States to support an orphan asylum, male
and female seminaries, and 100 primary schools. The number of children
attending the Cherokee public schools in 1890 was 4,439. The negroes are
educated apart. The Chickasaws have 5 boarding schools and 15 neighborhood
schools; the Choctaws have 4 academies, besides several denominational
institutions and 174 public schools. The Creeks, who give less attention to
education, expend over $76,000 a year for 36 neighborhood schools , attended by
negroes, whites, and Indians. The five tribes have 422 church edifices, the Methodists
being the most numerous, with the Baptists next, and then the Presbyterians.
There are 14 papers published besides The Cherokee Advocate, and several
display marked ability.
The Treaty of 1866 gives the Indian
courts the power to punish members of the five tribes for violations of the
criminal law. When an Indian is condemned to death by shooting, he has given to
him a respite of thirty days, in order that he may go home and settle up his
affairs. He is not guarded nor watched, and when he has completed his business
he bids his family good-by, returns at the date appointed, and is shot. Strange
as it may seem, up to 1890 not a single man thus condemned has failed to appear
for execution. There is no taxation, direct or indirect, among the five tribes,
the government revenue being sufficient for all purposes from the interest on
the funds held in trust by the United States, rents from leased lands, and
receipts from licenses to trade and from the “permits” to reside given to
intruders. Since lands are held in common, only the improvements on them and
personal property are subjects of sale and of levy for debt. No titles are
recorded, since individual ownership of land is unknown, but occupancy titles
can be sold by one citizen of a tribe, or nation, to another, but not to a
citizen of the United States. Any citizen running a furrow with a plow around a
tract of land holds all within the furrow, but abandonment of the tract for a
certain time, generally two years, throws it back into the common domain. Under
this system immense areas are held by individuals for grazing purposes.
Estimates show that an allotment of more than 160 acres to every person is
possible in all of the five tribes except the Seminoles. (1403-1404)
*
NOTE TO
TEACHERS: In terms of the Ghost Dance of the Lakota this year, I used to tell
my students, that the saying, “People believe what they want to believe,”
didn’t quite work in this case. It seems to me that the Lakota, and other
tribes, had been battered so badly that they came to “believe what they must.”
They
could not accept the collapse of their world and had, for their own emotional well-being,
almost to have to believe it could be turned around.
Among those beliefs:
1. The buffalo would return if they
danced and prayed.
2. Their ancestors would return.
3. A wave of earth would sweep across
the land and bury the white race.
4. If fighting erupted, Ghost Dance
shirts would protect warriors from enemy bullets.
Who,
facing a depressing situation, wouldn’t want to believe this was all true?
*
December 20: The editor of the Saturday Pioneer, a
newspaper in Aberdeen, S.D., pens an editorial about Native Americans.
That editor’s
name: L. Frank Baum, later author of The Wizard of Oz. Baum was writing
in tribute to Sitting Bull, recently killed, but his description of Sitting
Bull’s people is the essence of racism (“Wizard of Genocide” by Tim Giago, Native
American editor of a Pine Ridge paper, in a loose article from July 1999. Probably
an Omaha, Nebraska newspaper.)
Baum editorialized:
Sitting bull,
the most renown Sioux of modern history, is dead.” Admitting the abuse Native
Americans had suffered, Baum continued, “What wonder that a fiery rage still
burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining
vengeance upon his natural enemies.
The proud
spirit of the original owners of the vast prairies, inherited through centuries
of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting
Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished and what few
are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites,
by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American
continent and the best safety of the frontier settlers will be secured by the
total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their
glory has fled, their spirit is broken, their manhood effaced; better that they
should die than live the miserable wretches they are.
We cannot
honestly regret their extermination, but we can at least do justice to the
manly characteristics possessed… by the early Redskins of America. (See: Jan.
3, 1891.)
*
December
29: The last fight between the U.S.
Cavalry and Native Americans takes place at Wounded Knee. Hundreds of Lakota
men, women and children are cut down in a completely uneven fight. Later,
twenty members of the Seventh Cavalry are awarded Medals of Honor for their
roles in this fight.
In February 2021, the State Senate of
South Dakota introduces a resolution calling on Congress to investigate the awards. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jeff
Markley introduce the “Remove the Stain” bill in the U.S. Senate, which calls
for those medals to be rescinded.
Most Native Americans agree that such a move would help heal old,
old wounds. Marcella LeBeau, a citizen of the Two Kettle Band of the Cheyenne
River Sioux, and a World War II veteran herself, explains, “I believe on our
reservation, we have a pervasive sadness that exists here because of what
happened at Wounded Knee, the massacre, and it has never been resolved and
there has never been closure.
Now aged 101, LeBeau served on the front lines, as a surgical
nurse with the 25th General Hospital in Liège, Belgium.
Kevin Killer, president of the
Oglala Sioux Tribe, said the push to rescind the medals honored the wishes of
elders whose calls went unheard for generations. Mr. Killer said it was
important for future generations to know an injustice was addressed.
“It was one of the largest
atrocities in the history of this country, where mostly women and children were
massacred because they were trying to have peace,” Mr. Killer said. “History
tries to retell it and say there was a misunderstanding, but it was an atrocity
any way you look at it.”
*
Here are a few notes I used in
teaching about the era of the Robber Barons and the great protests of that era.
Vanderbilt could spend $200,000 on a tomb at a time when you had
starving orphans begging in the streets. It is estimated that in 1889 seventy
percent of the nation’s wealth was controlled by 200,000 people; at the same
time factory girls worked for $3 per week; nearly 1.75 million children under
age 15 worked full-time; the average worker of 1900 makes about $500 annually
for a 60-hour work week.
Working conditions were often terrible. It was said Pittsburgh
looked like “hell with the lid off.” In one year 195 workers died in the
mills—including 22 from hot metal explosions, 42 killed by moving cranes, 24 in
high falls, some into molten metal.
In that era 9 of 10 African Americans worked in agriculture or
as servants. Immigrants often lived in abominable conditions.
William Allen White spoke of “pyramids of money in a desert of
want.”
Sockless Jerry Simpson talked of “a struggle between the
robbers and robbed.”
Mary Elizabeth Lease speaks of “a government of Wall Street, by
Wall Street, and for Wall Street.” Her famous call to rally farmers in
protest was, “Raise less corn and more hell.”
A fear that plutocracy is replacing democracy: some
companies built entire towns for their workers and controlled everything, like
Pullman, Illinois.
Cornelius Vanderbilt says, “Law! What do I care about the law?
H’aint I got the power?”
Big money combined with weak laws = BIG TEMPTATION and
widespread corruption. Judge George G. Barnard: “It is better to know the judge
than to know the law.”
Bribery so common, an “honest politician” is said to be “one
who, when bought, stays bought.”
Ambrose Bierce spoke of “Ali Baba and the 40 Rockefellers.”
Collis P. Huntington, of the Central Pacific R.R., was described as having “no
more soul than a shark.” (from George Wheeler’s book?) As a group, leaders
of business were described as a “bloodthirsty crew of industrial pirates.”
*
Jacob Riis
publishes How the Other Half Lives.
The need for reform was clear:
No laws against child labor
No rules for keeping kids in school
No government help with housing for
the poor
No food stamps or health insurance
(no “welfare system”)
No minimum wage
No unemployment
Work day can be fourteen hours; no
overtime
No Social Security
No income tax
Few city parks
Weak or non-existence building codes
*
A joke of the era:
A child is asked, “Who made the
world?”
“God made the world in 4004 B.C.,”
the child answers, “but James J. Hill, J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller
reorganized it in 1900.”
*
A few basic terms I tried to give to
students:
In a welfare system it is said
the government takes responsibility for helping those who “can’t help
themselves.”
Socialism: a system in which the government
controls the means of production and has direction over how goods and services
are divided.
Communism: all property is shared and even the
government “wastes away,” since it is no longer needed; socialism is sometimes
considered the first step toward communism.
Radical Liberal Conservative Reactionary
| |
| |
LEFT WING RIGHT WING
Radicals want complete change in society or a
new society entirely.
Liberals want to change and improve society.
Conservatives want to keep social conditions as
they are, to preserve the good that exists.
Reactionaries want to go back to the way it used
to be.
At the end of the nineteenth century,
farmers, poor Americans (as in How the
Other Half Lives) and labor unions were demanding change, even radical
change, because government had failed them.
*
Ask students where these groups
typically fit. Come up with your own groups for examples:
Hippies—Ra American communists—left wing
Elderly—C Populist Party—Ra.
Doctors—C Farmers in 1890—Ra.
Lawyers—C Farmers in 2018—C
Mr. Viall—L John D. Rockefeller—C
KKK—Re. African Americans—L
Nazis (Germany)—right wing Young
people—L (generally)
Poor people—Ra. orr L
Modern America is aborning. In 1860,
the U.S. has a population of 32 million. There are 0 cars, 0 homes with
electricity, 0 phones, no professional sports and divorces is almost unheard
of.
1900 1950 1984
Cars 13,000 44 million 110 million
Divorce 1 in
13 1 in 4 1 in 2
Population 76 m. 150 m. 234 m.
National debt 1 b.
257 b. 1.1 tril.
Life expectancy 49 68 74
In my old notes, I wrote in the margin: “Imagine 2020!”
The
following questions had to be resolved:
1. As businesses grew how could
old-fashioned, limited governments control them?
2. Where tremendous wealth was
concentrated in the hands of a few, could democracy survive?
3. How would workers protect themselves
in dealings with giant corporations?
4. As cities mushroomed (as did
immigration and population) how would Americans deal with urban and more
complex problems?
5. As America grew, including pushing
West, how would she behave as a world power?
6. Would “progress” always lead to a
“better” life, and a “better” life for all?
*
A good essay test on Native-Americans
(of course, it took hours to grade):
1. How did older history books make the
Indians sound and appear? (5 points)
2. Describe the different ways in which
the following Indian tribes tried to get along with or handle the settlers.
Explain what happened to each in detail.
A) Black Hawk’s tribe (10)
B) Wyandots of Ohio (14)
C) Cherokee (8)
D) Seminoles in Florida (4)
E) Delaware (14)
F) Ponca (4)
G) Sioux (4)
3. Indian population is lower now than
in 1620. What explanations can you give for this fact? Discuss problems in the
past—and problems now on the reservations which keep population down. (25
points)
4. Short answers (2 points each, twelve
total):
A) What year was the last battle with
the Indians?
B) What year did Native Americans win
citizenship?
C) How are Native Americans using old treaties
today to help themselves?
D) Reservations were really large _____.
E) What is the “Trail of Tears?”
F) One Native American leader suggested
that the only “solution” for the Indians was if Congress put them on _____.
*
Reservation life has always been bad,
with many kinds of social problems much worse for Native Americans. I used to
tell students that Native Americans were confined to reservations, which were like
large ___.
The answer: “jails.”
Even today, Native Americans are two-and-a-half
times more likely to die from unintentional injuries, such as car
wrecks, than other Americans. They are three times more likely to die from
diabetes, more than six-and-half times as likely to die from alcohol-related
problems. Twice as many die by homicide compared to other Americans and these
statistics cover all Native Americans, not just those on reservations.
Just under half of all Native Americans, 2.56 million out of 5.2
million live on reservation lands.
Poverty rate: 25.4% of Native Americans live in poverty, according to 2018 figures. For
white Americans the rate was 8.1%
A second report puts the Native
poverty rate higher, at 1 in every 3 persons.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: 1.0 to 8.97 births per 1,000. Rate for all Americans, 0.3 per 1,000 births.
High school graduation rate for Native American and Alaska
Native students: 74% vs. 85% for all students, nationally.
Suicide rate: 2.5 times higher for young Native Americans than for
Americans in all other demographics.
Native American and Alaska Native
women experience more domestic violence than other Americans; 84% will be
victims of violence at some point during their lives. One in three Native American women will
be raped; they have eight times the risk of developing tuberculosis.
Sexually-transmitted diseases vary, but
Native peoples have two, three and even four or more times the rates found in
white Americans.
Mental illness is more common in this group than other racial
groups, as well, one in five.
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