A Teacher on Teaching: 1870

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“To be a good wife and mother is the highest and hardest privilege of woman.”

Laura “Cettie” Rockefeller

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In 1870 there were only 930 women office workers in the country; that number would grow to 386,765 by 1910 (Time-Life books).

An old American Heritage article, “The Wild, Wild West” by Peter Lyon (formatted on brown pages, without numbers) includes this nugget:

A treaty of 1867 guaranteed that no white man would hunt buffalo south of the Arkansas River; by 1870, when the army officer commanding at Fort Dodge was asked what he would do if this promise were broken, he laughed and said, “Boys, if I were hunting buffalo I would go where buffalo are;” in 1871 the massacre began in earnest. One hunter bagged 5,855 in two months. It has been estimated that 4,373,730 were killed in the three years 1872-74.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: If I were still teaching, I would use this idea with students. What are the marks of barbarism and civilization? Do they mix in all times and places? What would the Native Americans say – since their story is not often written down? To gum up the idea and make students think, you can compare the French and English fighting each other constantly, to, for example, the Crows and the Lakota. Crow scouts often served with the U.S. Army.

The article in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, from which this picture came (May 1870, p. 793) is surprisingly fair to the native peoples. “I love to think that Justice can do no wrong,” a French noble once said. In the clash of cultures, which side, if any, had justice most on its side? The same noble added that civilization was “both a state of physical well-being and a state of superior and moral culture.”

I think a good discussion could be had. But I’m retired and never tried this out. I had plenty of good ideas that crashed and burned in the classroom.

May: The title of the 1870 the article in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine is “Our Barbarian Brethren.” Excerpts follow:

In Peru and Mexico, where population was more profuse, there was a civilization as advanced as that of Rome at the fall of the Tarquins, or of Egypt in the time of the shepherd kings. They who founded the City of Mexico more than five hundred years ago were as enlightened as were the inhabitants of the British Isles at the time of the Saxon invasion. And when the civilized ruffian from Spain sent word to the barbarian emperor of the Aztecs that he and his companions had “a complaint, a disease of the heart that only gold could cure,” and that they were coming for the remedy, the doomed people had a code of laws, [William] Prescott says, “which evinces a profound respect for the great principles of morality, and as clear a perception of those principles as is to be found in the most cultivated nation.”

It was Montezuma, the Barbarian, who executed these laws. It was Cortéz, the Civilized Man, who, in his hunger and thirst for gold, plundered that emperor’s treasury, destroyed the liberties of his people, put the monarch in chains for no offense but patriotism, broiled his successor on a gridiron, and attempted to convert his two million subjects to Christianity by the persuasions of gunpowder, glittering pikes, and torture. (pp. 793-794)

Harper’s notes that theories of the origin of the Native Americans strain credulity. My favorites:

Thorowgood, Adair, Boudinot, and others, have argued, without showing a single premise of solid fact, that the fathers of our barbarian brethren were the men of the “lost tribes of Israel,” who “took counsel to go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt.” (795)

Cotton Mather had his own theory:

And though we know not when or how the Indians first became inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may guess that probably the Devil [whom he called the “old usurpering landlord” of America] decoyed these miserable salvages hither, in hopes that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb his absolute empire over them. (796)

Mather’s idea that the red race is morally devilish, and not fairly human, except in shape, seems to have been a prevailing one with the civilized man, especially of the type of the belligerent settler, and the selfish trader, contractor, and other promoters of frontier wars, ever since his first contact with that race. He accepts the theory as the most agreeable and profitable solution of the question of the origin of our barbarian brethren; for it gives license to the free action of the mailed hand, whose warrant for its violence and wrong is the doctrine of the oppressor in every form, that Might makes Right. It gives countenance to the opinion of an eminent British author – an opinion that seems to be largely prevalent in the pulpit, in legislative halls, and around the chairs of state, in our country – that they are “animals of an inferior order, incapable of acquiring religious knowledge, or of being trained to the functions of civil life.” It justifies the assertion that the Indians’ way of life “surely affords proof that he is not destined by Providence permanently to exist.” (796)

The writer for Harper’s notes, quite correctly, “A monarch or statesman of England of the most civilized type may be a descendant of a pale savage Briton who followed the war chariot of Queen Boadicea.” (796)

Later, he adds, “Considering this, may we not fairly believe that the uncultivated American of our wilderness has the inherent elements of modern civilization in as great a degree as did the once uncultivated Caucasian of the dark forests of Europe?” (797)

The author also accepts the estimate of five million natives in all of North, Central, and South America, and “of these not more than one million then peopled the present vast territory of the United States.” (797)

He adds that “the North American Indians with whom European settlers first came in contact were divided into families or tribes, each distinguished by an armorial bearing called a totem, which was a representation of some animal, as a deer, a bear, an eagle, or a tortoise.” (797)

Over the whole continent of North and South America there were traces, more or less distinct, of the worship of the sun and of fire, of which the earlier explorers have given accounts. Before entering upon the war-path, and after a great deliverance from peril, they gathered reverently around large fires to implore divine aid or to give thanks for divine protection. (pp. 798-799)

The author of the article is prone to generalizations, but we can get a sense of the times, when he writes:

…the Indian, every where, like Primitive Man, was a hunter and fisher, and depended chiefly upon the precarious winnings of the chase or hook for subsistence. The cultivation of corn, pumpkins, and beans, the gathering of potatoes, the curing of the tobacco-plant in the region of Virginia and the Carolinas, and the grinding of grain into flour, were laborers despised by the men as forming a sort of degrading slavery. In this they were as proud as the old Roman citizens, whose business was war. These toils were laid upon the women, who were also beasts of burden in marches, carrying on their backs their domestic utensils, and their babies strapped in cases hanging from their shoulders; for the egotism of the Barbarian, like that of the Civilized Man, made him regard women as his inferior, and his predestined servant to minister to his comfort and pleasure. As among the semi-barbarous peoples of the Eastern world, so here, marriage was only a temporary contract – a sort of purchase – the father receiving presents from the husband in exchange for the daughter, who, after being fondled and favored for a few months, was made his domestic servant. He could dismiss her at pleasure. Polygamy was not common, but was allowed, and every Indian might have as many wives as he could purchase and maintain. If the wife proved unfaithful, he might kill her. The affections were ruled by custom. The decorous attentions to women that give a charm to civilized society were almost wholly unknown. There was no call, in the hunter state, for the refining influence of woman to give it beauty; and yet, but for that influence, though feebly exerted, the wild hunter would have become a fiend. (pp. 799-800)

Stereotyping is a problem with the article, but provides us with a fairly clear picture of the views prevalent in the East – where the threat of bloodshed no longer existed.

The mental characteristics of the Indians were of similar type every where. Similar circumstances gave shape and force to thoughts and emotions in all. Taciturnity, stoicism, perfect self-control at all times, and eloquence in oratory, which marked the Indian when first discovered, and mark him now, when untouched by civilization, were not natural traits of character, but the result of severe training and social condition. Taciturnity was a necessity in society when the hatchet, knife, or club was the quick response to a hasty and insulting word…

Stoicism, or imperturbability, was another necessary habit of the barbarian life. There was continual exposure to suffering at the hands of enemies, for the history of the savage, as of the Civilized Man, presents a dark record of wars, conquests, subjugations, and cruelties. From earliest childhood the Indian was taught, as were the ancient Romans, never to betray weakness before an enemy, and never to utter a word or exhibit an emotion in public when enduring the sharpest suffering. (800)

Cowardice was said to be unforgivable. When Pontiac saw a warrior quail at the sound of British cannon during an attack on Detroit, he “instantly cleaved his head with a tomahawk.”

During the Battle of Point Pleasant, Cornstalk, the leader of the Indian warriors, saw one of his men hiding behind a bush. He “immediately ordered him to be dressed in a petticoat and to carry a papoose.” (800)

When Red Jacket, who became intemperate in the later years of his life, and regarded the loss of his eleven children, one after the other, by consumption, as a punishment for that sin, was asked about his family by a lady who once knew them but was ignorant of his misfortunes, he said, sorrowfully, “Red Jacket was once a great man, and in favor with the Great Spirit. He was a lofty pine among the smaller trees of the forest. But after years of glory he degraded himself by drinking the fire-water of the white man. The Great Spirit has looked upon him in anger, and his lightning has stripped the pine of its branches.” At a council at Vincennes, over which Governor Harrison presided, Tecumtha, the great Shawnee warrior, made a speech. When it was ended it was observed that no seat had been provided for him. An officer handed one to him saying: “Your father [meaning Harrison] requests you to be seated in this chair.” “My father!” said the chief, scornfully, as he wrapped his broad blanket around him and assumed the most haughty attitude; “my father is a Sun, and the Earth is my mother – I will repose upon her bosom.” And then he seated himself upon the ground. (801)

An early Jesuit missionary held out hope, saying, I think the savages, in point of intellect, may be placed in a higher rank. Education and instruction alone are wanting.” (801)

On the occurrence of a great calamity, such as the loss of many men in battle, the Floridian women [in this article: the Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw peoples] would gather in weeping groups around their chief sachem, and implore his assistance with piteous cries; and they never went away without promises of help, which was always given. (802)

Tradition says the Confederacy was founded by Hiawatha, the incarnation of wisdom, whose power was equal to his intelligence. Leaving his divine estate, he made his dwelling on the earth with the Onondaga nation. He taught the Iroquois, by precept and example, the art of good living. He was yet among them when a band of fierce warriors swept down from the north of the great lakes, slaying everything human in their path. He advised the Onondagas to call a council of the related nations for the purpose of forming a league for the common good against the invaders.

At that council, held on the bank of the Onondaga Lake, the wise Hiawatha addressed the representatives of the Five Nations, and assigned to each canton its relative position and title. A league was formed; and, by common consent, Atatarho, a chief of the Onondagas, who was eminent for his wisdom and valor, was chosen to be its first President. He was then living in grim seclusion in a swamp, where his dishes and drinking-vessels, like those of half-barbarous Caucasians, were made of the sculls of his enemies slain in battle. He was an object of veneration and awe; and when a delegation of Mohawks went to offer him the symbol of supreme power, they found him seated in the deep shadows smoking his pipe, but unapproachable, because he was entirely clothed with hissing serpents, as represented in the engraving (p.796), made from an ancient drawing. (pp. 802-803)

The picture painted of the Iroquois Confederacy seems far too rosy:

In order to prevent degeneracy, intermarriage was not allowed between near relations, nor of persons of the same clan. A man of a wolf or deer tribe of the Mohawks, for example, might not marry a woman of the same tribe, but might take a wife from the bear or turtle tribe of the same nation. This totemic system, which we have not space here to explain in detail, was a powerful bond of union in the Confederacy. It formed the basis of their tribal and political alliance. As each of the confederated nations was divided into several tribes, there were thirty or forty sachems in the League. These had inferior officers under them, answering to our magistrates in towns; and so the civil powers of government were quite widely distributed. There was not a man who gained his office otherwise than by his own merits; and every unworthy action was attended by a forfeiture of the officer’s commission, and the penalty of public scorn. They, as well as the military leaders, accepted no salary, but gave away the perquisites of their offices in time of peace, and their share of plunder in war. There was no bribery and corruption in office, for they had not learned the arts of the Civilized Man. They felt themselves amply rewarded by the confidence and esteem of the people. Chosen by the voice of universal suffrage, their deportment was as dignified as their position. (803)

The lines drawn from the eye of the Crane, the leader of the party, to the eyes of all totemic symbols denote that they all see alike in the matter; and the lines drawn from the heart of the Crane denote that the petitioners all feel alike. No. 9 is a stream running into Lake Superior. No. 8 are the little lakes, the subject of the petition.

The Iroquois was only a Barbarian more advanced towards civilization than the rest of his dusky brethren on the continent. He was superstitious and cruel. So were the men and women of all the other American nations. They all believed in witches, as firmly as did Cotton Mather and a majority of civilized men and women in his day, in the light of Christianity; and they punished them in human form as fiercely and piously as did the magistrates of Henry the Eighth, or the rulers and gospel-ministers of Salem in later times. The “medicine men” and “prophets” were as acute deceivers, and as despotic and absurd in social life, as were the priests and oracles and conjurers of the Civilized Man in another hemisphere. They tortured their captive enemies in revenge for kindred slain, with almost as exquisite a refinement of cruelty as did the ministers of the Holy Inquisition of Civilized Man the enemies of their opinions; and they lighted fires around their more eminent prisoners of war, in token of their power, as bright and hot as those kindled by enlightened Englishmen around Joan of Arc, as a sorceress, or Bishops Latimer and Ridley, as unbelievers in an utter absurdity. (805)

They generally went forth in parties of forty or fifty bowmen. Sometimes a dozen went out, like knights-errant, to seek renown in combat. They were skillful in stratagem, and seldom met an enemy in open fight. Ambush and secret attacks were their favorite methods of gaining an advantage. Though much engaged in forays, they could not properly be called a warlike people. Their close personal encounters were fierce and bloody. They scalped their enemies, dried these trophies on hoops, and bore them home in triumph as evidences of their valor; while their more notable captives were tortured. (806)

They believed in the existence of two Great Spirits as forming the perfect Godhead. One eminently great was the Good Spirit, and the inferior was an Evil Spirit. They believed every animal to have had a great original, or father. The first buffalo, the first bear, the first beaver, the first eagle et cetera, was the manitou, or guardian spirit, of the whole race of these different creatures. (807)

“So loving, tractable, and peaceable are these people,” wrote Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella from the Bahamas and Antilles, “that I declare to your Majesties that there is not in this world a better nation or a better land. They love their neighbors as themselves. Their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile.” Satan had entered that paradise. Very soon the fierce civilized followers of Columbus made that Eden of the gentle barbarians a wilderness and a land of unutterable woes, for Christian kindness had been requited with all the savage cruelties of avarice and lust. Thousands of men, women, and children had perished, and many were made abject slaves and beasts of burden by the intruders. Who were the Barbarians?

A few years later wealthy Spanish owners of mines in San Domingo sent a Civilized Man with ships to kidnap natives of the Bahamas for service in the dark pits. Storms drove the vessels to the coast of our South Carolina. The unsuspecting barbarians there received the sufferers with kindness, and gave them food and water. Allured by false smiles the simple natives swarmed upon the ships, which had been prepared as traps, and scores of innocent people were borne away southward as predestined bond slaves in the horrid mines. Who were the Barbarians? This treachery soon became known all over the land of the palmetto. The Indians were apt pupils of their civilized brethren, and fearfully rewarded treachery with treachery when pale-faces again appeared in their country. “Others of your accursed race have in years past poisoned our peaceful shores,” said Acuera, a Creek chief, to the messengers of De Soto. “They have taught me what you are. What is your employment? To wander about like vagabonds from land to land; to rob the poor; to betray the confiding; to murder, in cold blood, the defenseless. No! With such a people I want no peace – no friendship!” That was more than three hundred years ago. “The white people,” said a chief to a committee of Congress, in 1867, “treat us worse than the wolves do.” (808)

The Western settlers scoffed at this sympathy, displayed in the East, where the threats of war were no longer felt; but Harper’s gets the root of the matter correct.

Defrauded and ill-used almost every where, the barbarian’s indignation often kindled the flames of war. Then his cruelties were cited as proof of his natural devilishness, while no account was taken of his provocations. Pometacom, fighting for his birthright, was a savage; The Englishmen who carried his head upon a pole into Plymouth, and sold his son as a slave in Barbadoes, were saints. (809)

When the founders of the republic had finished their labors they adopted a policy toward the Indians which has proved most disastrous to them and injurious to the nation. They were denied citizenship, and so were excluded from its privileges and advantages. They were taught to call the President of the republic their “Great Father;” and he, in turn, called them “Children.” This was practically their relationship. They were treated as children and wards of the nation, and yet were held to be foreigners in organized sovereignties, capable of making treaties and holding diplomatic relations with our government. This absurd policy has been the fruitful mother of most of the evils which have attended our intercourse, as a nation, with the Indians. They have been forced or persuaded to see their lands to the national government or to those of States for almost nothing, in comparison with their value, until they have become nominal sovereignties without territory, and tenants at will of strangers.

Some of these removals have been outrages upon human nature and gross violations of the laws of nations, as in the case of the Cherokees in Georgia, who had fine cultivated farms, flourishing schools, and Christian churches when they were driven to the wilds between Arkansas and the Rocky Mountains. (809-810)

Our system of Indian reservations and annuities, under the general superintendence of government agents has been productive of a vast amount of evil, and of the almost continual wars between the pale and dusky races. Hovering like vultures around the agents may be found a host of contractors and traders, who, as a rule, managed to cheat both the government and the Indians. (810)

In 1869, Harper’s notes, a delegation of Quakers asked Congress

to try kindness instead of gunpowder in dealing with hostile Indians. They believed General Harney was right when he said, “It is easier to conquer the Indians by kindness and justice than by all the forces of unscrupulous war.” They said: “Let the effort be made in good faith to promote their education, their industry, their morality. Invite the assistance of the philanthropic and Christian effort which has been so valuable an aid in the elevation of the freedmen; and render it possible for justice and good example to restore that confidence which has been lost by injustice and cruelty. (810-811)

President Grant agreed, in principle, saying, “I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization, Christianization, and ultimate citizenship.”

The teaching of all history, and of our own experience as a nation, replies: Make the Indian a citizen of the republic, wherever he may be, and treat him as a man and a brother. Give him all the privileges of citizenship, on terms of equality with other citizens, and exact from him all the duties of a citizen. Hold him responsible for his conduct as an individual, as we do other citizens.

The article ends on a hopeful note. If the natives were treated as citizens,

Then would disappear the host of contractors who adhere like leeches to the public treasury, and the swarms of traders whose blight has been felt like a mildew through all the tribes of the forests and the plains. Wars with Indians would cease. Civilization, working directly upon individuals, would rapidly achieve wonderful triumphs. (811)

Describing the Western pioneers, Andrews noted, “the pistol had much to do in keeping as well as in breaking the civil peace.”

Land agents described a region “Where Land is Free as Church Bells’ Chime.” (11/98)

Andrews notes:

In all the Union Pacific received 13,000,100 acres, the Central Pacific, 12,100,100; the Northern Pacific, 47,000,000; the Kansas Pacific, 6,000,000; the Atlantic and Pacific, 42,000,000; the Southern Pacific, 9,520,000. The first transcontinental lines also got subsidies exceeding $60,000,000. (11/103)

May 25: After going undefeated in 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings take the field again for a new season. Picking up where they left off the previous year, they crush an Urbana (Ohio) team 108-3. Other opponents fell 94-7, 100-2, 104-9 and 74-0. In one contest the Reds put up 27 runs in a single inning. In another game Cincinnati strikers (as batters were then called) knocked three balls over the fence, then a rare accomplishment. According to rules at the time each counted as a single. Depending on who is doing the counting, the Reds win 130 games in a row, counting amateur teams – or 81 in a row, counting only professional clubs.

McVey “was after it like a flash.”

June 14: Led by player-manager Harry Wright, the Red Stockings traveled east to meet the Brooklyn Atlantics, before 15,000 cheering fans. Hundreds more, unwilling to pay admission, peeked through cracks in the outfield fence or crowded the roofs of nearby buildings. Probably no one in the crowd that day was disappointed. Those fortunate enough to witness the game saw one of the first classic battles of American sports.

Cincinnati controlled the contest from the start and rolled to an early 3-0 lead. But Brooklyn was using a “dead ball” to dull Red Stockings hitting. Harry’s boys could not pull away. The Atlantics, dressed in long blue pants, with white shirts and a blue “A” on the front, battled back in the late innings. After nine the tally stood 5 and 5. Brooklyn was more than satisfied with a tie. Atlantics players began leaving the field. Fans poured from the stands. Even the umpire assumed the contest was over and headed for his carriage.

Harry Wright was after him like an outfielder chasing a long fly ball. He would play on, he insisted, “if it took all summer” to decide which squad was best.

The crowd was pushed back amid great confusion. Play resumed. In the tenth inning the Red Stockings put a man on base. Then Harry lofted “a skyer” or pop-up for the final out. In the bottom of the inning it was Brooklyn’s turn to threaten. A pair of Atlantics reached base with one man out and a good hitter coming to bat. As one newspaper reporter noted, “Everything looked exceedingly lovely.”

If the Atlantics expected to win, they underestimated shortstop George Wright. It was at this moment he pulled his famous “dropped pop-up” and took Brooklyn out of the inning. When an enemy batter sent a high fly into the air George camped underneath. He had made this kind of play a thousand times. Now he let the ball come within inches of the ground before cupping his hands to grab it. Then he let it trickle out of his fingers and fall upon the grass. Before the runners could recover (since they must now advance or be thrown out) he scooped it up again and fired to Fred Waterman to start a double play. A groan from the fans filled the park. Then they gave a rousing cheer for “Smiling George” and his clever play.

In the eleventh the Reds pushed across a pair of runs. Harry’s decision to continue looked like genius. The Atlantics were a fine team and weren’t finished. In the bottom of the inning pitcher Asa Brainard tired and was pounded for several hits. Joseph Start, Brooklyn’s star striker, waited out a string of bad pitches. Then he drove one “flying to right field.” Cal McVey, a reporter said later, “was after it like flash,” but the ball landed amid the spectators before he could snare it. As he stooped to pick it up a fan pounced on his back. Before the Red Stockings outfielder could shake free, Start was camped out on third. Police moved in to protect the troublemaker from the crowd. But the damage was done. Start scored on the next hit and the Reds fell apart. Charlie “Bushel Basket” Gould let a routine ground ball go between his legs. Then he threw wildly, allowing the winning run to come home.

Cincinnati had fallen at last, by a count of 8-7.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: The above description, slightly modified, comes from a reading I prepared for my students. We used it to start a discussion about the outsized role sports play in American culture. The blogger is a huge fan of the Cincinnati Bengals – and figures he played basketball at least 5,000 times in his life. But does it really make sense to pay people who play games millions of dollars? I used to tell students that as much as I loved basketball, it was really just shooting a ball through a ring.

The Native Americans might wish to comment.

I do sell materials, including the reading about early professional baseball, from which this comes, at TpT.com (Middle School History and Tips for Teachers.)