Angus Mac Donald

Image from the University of Montana

I don’t know if this is the same Angus  Mac Donald in the following poem, but the Angus Mac Donald pictured above  also lived an interesting life.

ANGUS MAC DONALD

(By. J. HAMPTON MILES.)

When Arctic was a wilderness,
E’er foot of Pioneer
Had trod upon the velvet moss
That draped her golden lair;
When forest monarch reigned supreme
O’er mountain, lea, and dale,
E’er winter’s crested, crystal sheen
Was streaked with silver trail.

A white-winged sloop approached the coast,
Then fringed with gorse and teak,
Old Angus Mac., with miner’s pack,
Mushed up her glacier’d peak;
The red man’s snarling, wolfish cur —
The bear, and antler’d king,
With growl and wail, near camp and trail
Did nightly anthems sing.

In manhood’s prime, with giant’s frame,
Herculean bone and brawn,
Piercing the sylvan God’s domain
Into the frigid zone.
Thewed was he like the polar bear,
Living in glacier’d cave,
For fortune’s weal, with heart of steel,
He fought the Arctic wave.

Through forest wild, and herbage dense,
He moved and moved and moved,
With silent care toward the star
His spirit sought and loved;
Through endless waste, o’er mountain dome,
From surging ocean brine —
From Ketchikan to plot of Nome
He mushed and builded shrine.

Among the first to pierce the hue
Of Arctic circle’s ray,
The first to ride a bark canoe
O’er Yukon’s surging spray.
His camp-fires were the first to glow
In valley, dale and glen,
He broke the first trail through the snow
With white man’s moccasin.

When savage sought to take the life
Of wives and children dear,
He fought the red man knife to knife
And drove him to the rear;
In Wrangel camp, through winter’s cold,
Defended he the white,
When demon’s yell brave hearts did quell,
He ever fought the fight.

Through blinding mist of sleet and snow,
He paced from dark till dawn,
Each weary hour along the shore,
Protecting white man’s spawn;
Thus night by night, and day by day,
Did he the vigil keep,
Through rain and snows, without repose,
While others slept sweet sleep.

Beneath two flags he fortunes sought,
And fortunes whiled away;
Like other men he sold and bought
The pleasures of the day;
And be it said that never man
On whom the cruel fate
Had filled with dirt the golden pan
Turned hungry from his gate.

But sun of life moves on his course,
And Angus, old and gray,
With broken health and empty purse,
Is treading in its ray;
The days that’re gone and days that dawn
Are memories and care,
With broken health and vanished wealth,
He moves toward his star.

But not the star of which he dreamed
In cycles past and gone,
When golden sun rays on him streamed
From dawn till balmy dawn.
But will our flag — the Stripes and Stars —
Forsake his silver head?
Forsake the son who forged her crown,
And weaved her silken thread?

Fairbanks Daily Times (Failbanks, Alaska) Dec 24, 1912

Image from the Hudson Bay Company – Learning Center

*****

From Scots in the American Northwest:

Angus MacDonald from the Isle of Skye entered the service of the HBC in 1838 and proved so skillful in obtaining Indian furs that in 1852 he was appointed head of the extensive Colville district, including all traditional posts north of Walla Walla, Washington, far into British Columbia. MacDonald held this position until 1871, when the HBC finally gave up its last posts in the United States, and lived the rest of his life as an American in Montana Territory.

At HistoryLink, an essay about Christina McDonald, Angus’ daughter, includes some fascinating recollections:

Angus MacDonald from the Isle of Skye entered the service of the HBC in 1838 and proved so skillful in obtaining Indian furs that in 1852 he was appointed head of the extensive Colville district, including all traditional posts north of Walla Walla, Washington, far into British Columbia. MacDonald held this position until 1871, when the HBC finally gave up its last posts in the United States, and lived the rest of his life as an American in Montana Territory.

…..

Christina McDonald, the second child of Angus McDonald  and his wife, Catherine Baptiste (1826-1902), was born on September 20, 1847, near the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Hall (present-day Idaho), where her father was employed as a clerk. A native of Scotland, Angus McDonald had immigrated to Canada in 1838 to work in the fur trade and had served his apprenticeship in the Snake River country, where he met Catherine. Christina later wrote: “My mother was of mixed blood. Her father was an Iroquois Frenchman, long in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Mother was a cousin of  Eagle-of-the-Light the Nez Perce chief” (Williams, Daughter, 107).

…..

Looking back on her relationship with her father, Christina explained that “as I grew older, I became his special companion and acted as interpreter for him most of the time” (Williams, Daughter, 109). Fluent in at least four languages, she became a valuable asset in his business dealings throughout the Northwest. She kept the books for him, and would accompany him and the company brigade to Kamloops each year to deliver furpacks, carrying the records in a buckskin sack. The first part of the journey was along a trail up the Kettle River (present-day Ferry County), and at one point the horses had to be swum across and a raft built to carry the goods.

…..

Read the complete essay at the link above.

Evidently, the Museum of Northern Idaho has a book for sale about Angus McDonald  [review excerpt]:

Quirky exploits, life and death challenges, his wide-ranging celebrity status, intimate victories and continental-sized disappointments were all enjoyed by this frontiersman from Ross-shire, Scotland. Included in this was a marriage to Catherine, a young Métis girl of royal Nez Perce lineage, and McDonald’s rotation through Hudson’s Bay Company’s York Factory, Fort Colvile, Fort Hall and Fort Connah. Throughout the book, author Steve A. Anderson “has allowed the unique and sympathetic voice that emerges from McDonald’s narratives, poetry and native stories, to throw light on the unheralded richness of the time” notes Bruce M. Watson, Canadian biographer and author.

In this description, it does sound like it could be the same Angus MacDonald as in the poem, however, in  a Google review, I found the following:

McDonald has been confused with others of the same name for a century. Anderson has clearly separated this Angus form the others in very scholarly fashion.

Sarah Winnemucca: An Indian Princess

MISS SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Miss Sarah Winnemucca recently passed through Carson, Nevada, on her way to Virginia City. This notable woman is commonly reputed to be the daughter of the old war chief of the Piutes, but this statement is denied, and it is represented that she was born of Digger parents somewhere in the foothills of the Sacramento Valley, and was educated by “The Sisters” at their Catholic academy in Marysville. Still the fact remains that she is enough versed in the Piute tongue to be able to talk fluently with the people of the tribe, for whom she had frequently acted as an interpreter. She is popularly regarded as the virgin queen of the Piutes; is a plain little woman, pretty dark; dresses like an American female, of rustic habits and modest pretensions; and talks English without any perceptible accent. She is a capable person, and reads our language and expresses herself in writing quite correctly, and with considerable force of expression. We have also heard of her writing poetry. As a reputed princess of the Piute blood royal she is a famous character. — [Carson, Nevada, Appeal.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Aug 2, 1873

THE PIUTE QUEEN.

A Letter From Her Highness to Chief Naches.

[Winnemucca Silver State.]

Naches, Chief of the Piutes, has received a letter from Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute Queen, now at Fort Simcoe, Washington Territory. She says she is well and doing well, and is now teaching a school among her people, which sixty of them, and sometimes more, attend. They have cleared about 70 acres of land and put in quite a crop of corn and potatoes. Lee Winnemucca is working for the agent at Simcoe Reservation, and Mattie, her niece, who accompanied her through the war last Summer, is dead. Twenty-one of the Piutes, who were taken to Simcoe last Winter have died, and there are quite a number of others on the sick list, many of whom are not expected to live. Those of the tribe who were taken to Vancouver as prisoners of war, she has not heard from, and she does not know what is going to be done with them. Princess Sally hankers for pine nuts, and wants Naches to send her as many of them as he can. She cannot tell when, if ever, she and her people are coming back, as they cannot leave without orders from Washington to that effect.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jul 17, 1879

Sarah’s Challenge.

The following is said to be a literal copy of Sarah Winnemucca’s challenge to the editor of the Silver State:

Your statement that I am a drunkard is an infernal lie, and you knew it was false when you wrote it. If you are anything of a man you will meet me and give me satisfaction. I will cram the lie down your throat at the point of a bowie knife. An early answer will oblige.

SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Feb 24, 1880

Image from dragonflydesigns – Ancient Voices

Married a California Princess.

SAN FRANCISCO, December 8. — The princess of the Piute Indians of Nevada, commonly called Sarah Winnemucca, was married last night at the Russ house, in this city, to L.H. Hopkins, an ex-soldier of the United States army, who arrived here from Arizona on November 3. The bridegroom informed a reporter that as far back as 1879, during the Bannock campaign, he first met the princess, and was smitten with her charms. Since then mutual feeling has inspired them and, an opportunity presenting itself, they resolved never to be separated again. Dr. Beers was the officiating minister. Princess Winnemucca Hopkins and Mr. Hopkins will take their departure for the east at an early date. The princess is well known on this coast. She has lived mainly in Carson, Nev., with her father, the old Chief Winnemucca, who died a few months ago. She is a bright girl, has a good English education, and looks more like a Mexican girl than Indian. She has regular features and dresses fairly. She is a great advocate of education and has lectured in this and other cities on the wrongs of her tribe.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Dec 9, 1881

Image from Fort Tours

PLEADING FOR HER RACE.

The Princess Winnemucca Before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

WASHINGTON, April 22. — The Princess Sarah Winnemucca, of the Piute tribe of Indians, was before the senate committee on Indian affairs to-day, pleading for a setting apart of a reservation for her tribe. She was accompanied by a delegation of ladies and gentlemen from Baltimore. The Indian woman spoke in good English, emphasizing her remarks with graceful gestures. As she depicted the griefs of her people, she was frequently moved to tears. She said her tribe was scattered, that they had been driven from place to place, “Two winters ago,” she continued, “while being driven from one point old men and children were frozen to death. She also said that the Indian agents had deprived the tribe of the stores provided for them by the government. The Piutes are located in Nevada. The princess asked that camp McDermott be set apart for them.

The Atlanta Constitution ( Atlanta, Georgia) Apr 23, 1884

Google Book link – Read Online

An Indian Tale.

“Life Among the Piutes,” is the title of a new book just published in the East, the authorship of which is accredited to Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute princess. In the introductory chapter the reputed authoress informs the reader that “I was born sometime about the year 1844. My grandfather, Winnemucca, was then camped at Humboldt Lake with others of his tribe. It was about that time that a party of white men returning from California, was seen approaching our camp,” etc., etc.

The book is said to be full of thrilling incidents in the life of the dusky heroine, (which of course never happened.) It tells all about the capture of Sallie and her brother by the whites and how they were taken to California and educated; how they rejoined the tribe as soon as liberated; how in after years they labored to keep peace between the whites and Indians; how the heroine wrestled with her people to make christians out of them, and to prevent them from becoming victims to King alcohol and other besetting sins forever thrown in their way by conscienceless white men, and all that sort of thing. One or two heart rending love stories, in which the authoress plays a conspicuous part, are also woven in to give spice to the narrative. All of which, no doubt, will be entertaining to people in the East who know the Indian and his mode of life simply through pictures drawn in fancy by Cooper and other blood and thunder novelists, but to those who have lived in Nevada a quarter of a century and are somewhat familiar with the Piute tribe and the career of this dusky heroine, whatever interest the book may contain will be from another and very different standpoint.

Weekly Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) May 3, 1884

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Sep 7, 1884

THE NORTHERN INDIANN.

They do Not Want to Go to Pyramid Reservation, and No Room For Them There if They Did.

The Silver State says:

Leggins’ band of Piutes, who remained peaceable during the Bannock war, were treated upon the cessation of hostilities exactly the same as the captured hostiles. By order of the Indian Bureau, they were taken under military escort from Fort McDermit, by way of Camp Harney, where they were joined by the hostiles, to Yakima, Washington Territory. Naches and Sarah Winnemucca went from here to Washington to intercede for Leggins’ band, and upon the representation of General Howard and other military officers, who were in the campaign against the Bannocks, and who knew that Leggins’ band was not on the warpath, the Secretary of the Interior promised Naches that the exiled Piutes should be permitted to return to their own country, and that they should be furnished a military escort through Oregon. Owing to opposition of the Indian Bureau and a change in the Cabinet, this promise was not fulfilled, although the Indians expected it would be; and after patiently waiting nearly three years, they made their escape from Yakima, crossed the Columbia river, and evading as far as possible the settlements in Oregon, finally reached their native hunting grounds, near Fort McDermit, almost naked and starving. During the intensely cold weather tow years ago, they suffered from hunger, as they had been on the road from Yakima all Summer, and had it not been for the military and settlers, many of them would have starved to death. The Legislature of 1883 asked Congress to provide for their immediate wants, and Congressman Cassidy succeeded in getting $5,000 appropriated to purchase food and clothing for them. About $1,000 of that amount was expended under the direction of the military at McDermit for their benefit, and possible the Indian Bureau may be able to account for the balance of it, though the Indians derived no benefit from it. Subsequently an appropriation was made to be expended in removing Leggins and his band to some reservation. A week ago, E.C. Ellet, a special Indian Commissioner, arrived from the East at McDermit to arrange for removing the Indians. He held a council with the head men of Leggins’ band, and they protested against being taken away from the land of their birth, stating that as their young men could work for the settlers herding cattle, etc., and hunt deer and other game, they preferred to remain, but expressed the hope that the Government would provide, during the Winter months at least, for the old and decrepid of the band, through the military, who always befriended friendly Indians. Commissioner Ellet, accompanied by Lieutenant Colville P. Terrett, then went to the Pyramid Reservation to see what provision, if any, had been made for the northern Indians, and if there was sufficient arable land there to accommodate them. We learn that they found that the lands which the northern Indians would have to occupy on the reservation are not susceptible of cultivation; that the best lands along the Truckee for eight or nine miles below Wadsworth are occupied by white squatters, who have good fences, and comfortable houses; and that Winnemucca Lake, which the Indians claim was originally included in the reservation, is now a resort for Chinese fishermen. They also ascertained that the supplies furnished the reservation were not sufficient for the want of the Indians now there, and that Leggins’ band would have to support themselves or starve if removed there. Commissioner Ellet, after due consultation with Agent Gibson at the reservation, did not hesitate to say that he would recommend the removal of the squatters from the Reservation, but even if that is accomplished there will not be room there for Leggins’ band, the old and feeble of whom, in his opinion, should be provided for where they are.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Dec 11, 1884

SARAH’S LIES ABOUT THE PIUTES STARVING ON THEIR RESERVATION.

Her Story of the Wrongs of Her People and False Charges of Dishonesty Against Indian Agent Gibson.

Sarah Winnemucca is the champion light-weight of the season, as will appear from a perusal of the following interview taken from the San Francisco Call of the 22d:

When old Winnemucca, the chief of the Piute Indians, died, he committed the interests of his people to his daughter Sarah. It was one of the most sagacious actions in the old man’s life. From that day to this Sarah Winnemucca has been the tireless friend of her people. She has brought to her work a fine mind, a generous nature, a fair education and indomitable energy. The first book written in the English language by an Indian is her vivid narrative of the wrongs of the Piutes and her eloquent appeal for justice for her people. In the history of the Indians she and Pocahontas will be the principal female characters, and her singular devotion to her race will no doubt be chronicled as an illustration of the better traits of the Indian character.

Sarah Winnemucca first spoke to a white audience several years ago in this city. The years that have intervened have been spent by her in addressing audiences in the East, relating to them the sad history of her tribe, and appealing to them to aid her people in their destitution. She has returned to San Francisco again. A Call reporter called upon her yesterday to inquire what the condition of her tribe was and what she proposed to do for them.

THE PIUTES STARVING.

“My people are famishing in the snow about Pyramid Lake, in Nevada,” she said sadly. “They are utterly destitute. My brother Natchez, the chief of the Piutes since the death of Winnemucca, my father, has only pine nuts to eat, and the speckled trout he catches in the lake. If he had not foreseen the need of the Winter last Summer, when he went into the mountains for the nuts, he would have had nothing. The Piutes are on the verge of starvation. They are growing weaker and weaker every day for want of food. They have been driven like wild beasts from place to place, and forced back from the meadows and the banks of rivers and streams into the mountains that are barren and wholly destitute of game.”

As Sarah Winnemucca, in these brief words, painted the destitute condition of her tribe, she expressed in her intelligent face the sorrow and indignation she felt. She is a woman slightly apast 40, with a heavy, yet shapely figure. Her face is exceedingly intelligent. She has strong jaws, with a delicate mouth, and cheek bones that are not so prominent as is usual in Indian faces. Her forehead is rather low, but broad, and her eyes are large and expressive. Her glossy black hair was gathered in a Grecian coil at the back, which showed the outline of her shapely head. She has easy command of colloquial English, and frequently expresses herself forcibly and eloquently.

“The Piutes are now on the reservation about Pyramid Lake,” she continued. “They number about 7,000 in all. It has been falsely said that the Pyramid Lake Reservation is rich in game and good lands. That was the representation made to the authorities at Washington when we were driven from the Malhuer Reservation. General Sheridan asked me, a short time ago, if our reservation did not afford us a good living. I told him that high bleak hills that only a goat could safely climb rose out of the water all around the lake; that the only arable lands were four acres on the river. He seemed astonished at the revelation, for he feels very kindly toward my people.”

FREEZING IN THE SNOW.

“How do your people live?” asked the reporter.

“Ah, that is a sad story, It is a wonder that they do live at all. They would all surely have perished long ago if their life-long experience with hardship had not inured them to scant food and exposure to cold. It is snowing now, doubtless, on their reservation, the lake and river are full of ice, yet they have no shelter except the wigwams, made of reeds and tule, no clothing save the bit of calico or blanket that they have picked up. Some of the young men herd cattle in Summer or work on farms near the reservation, and in that way they get a little money to buy blankets for the Winter; but they are the fortunate few. The rest have little to protect them from the cold.”

“What have they for food now?” inquired the reporter.

“Pine nuts, fish and rabbits. The latter is the only game on the whole reservation, and you may imagine how quickly they will disappear when hunted by 7,000 starving Indians.”

“Has no appropriation been made by the Government for the support of the Piutes?”

“My people do not belong to that class of Indians who are regularly provided for by the Government. At the last session of Congress Senator Dawes, of Massachusetts, secured an appropriation of $17,000 for the support of the Winnemucca tribe and Leggin’s band during this Winter, but not a cent of it has yet been spent for us, and I am afraid that it will never get farther than the hands of the rascally agents, who steal all they can get. My people are suffering for it now.”

THE INDIAN AGENT.

“Who is the Indian agent at your reservation?” asked the reporter.

“One Bill Gibson,” she replied with scorn. “He has employed all his relations in positions provided for by the Government, such as teachers, carpenters, blacksmiths and farmers. But they never do anything for the Indians. They live in idleness and draw their salaries regularly. The carpenter has not driven a nail for months; the teachers have never given a lesson; the blacksmith rarely lights a fire in his forge, and the farmer plows only for the white people. If a conspiracy were formed by the most cunning men to desert and neglect the Indians on our reservation, it could not succeed better than the selfish policy of Bill Gibson, the agent, and his hungry relations. Not a cent of the $17,000 which was appropriated for the support of the Piutes has been spent for us. Where it has been side-tracked on its journey from Washington I do not know.”

“Don’t the Indians sell fish and get money that way?”

“Yes; but they are robbed of that too. They are allowed to trade only with the settlers of the reservation. They but their fish at 5 or 6 cents a pound and sell it for 15 to 18 cents. My people don’t understand weighing either. They bring in a load of fish and the settler goes through the form of putting them on the scales and then tosses the Indian a silver dollar or two and goes off satisfied. Everyone connected with the agency is wholly devoid of conscience. They are there to get rich. There are people there who steal everything that the Government sends to us. They steal everything that the Indians own, and they run their cattle on our reservation, driving ours and the game off. It is a wretched state of affairs.”

“Are your people willing to become farmers?” asked the reporter.

“Yes, indeed, if they had but a chance. They are not a roaming, shiftless, lazy people. They want to work in the Summer they take it eagerly. If we could only get a start in agriculture, if we could only get arable land, we could take care of ourselves, but we have been driven from good land to worse, till now we are on about as bleak and barren a spot as there is in the whole state of Nevada.”

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jan 25, 1885

Image from the National Park Service

Wants Protection.

Sarah Winnemucca writes the Silver State from Lovelock, complaining about the destruction of the Indians’ crops by the cattle and hogs belonging to white people, and asks if there is no law for the protection of the Piutes’ crops.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Dec 4, 1886

Image from A Landing A Day

An Indian Industrial School.

A Lovelock correspondent, under date of the 1st instant, writes to the [Silver State] as follows: “Princess Sarah Winnemucca goes East to agitate the matter of getting aid for building an industrial school on Chief Naches farm at Lovelock. Naches offers to donate a 40-acre tract for that purpose. The Princess will canvass among her eastern friends for their support and influence in trying to get Government aid towards the building of such an institution. There are some 400 Indian children within the country to be educated, and Sarah believes in educating them at home. She says it is all nonsense about the Indian children’s features changing when taken from home to be educated, as some papers go so far as to say, and that their features always remain as God made them. They learn rapidly at almost any school under proper treatment, but the right place to teach them is at home in their own State amid the surroundings of their childhood, with their parents, not among strangers in some distant land. Experience has taught her what her young people need, and the Government should make an appropriation and place her at the head of an Indian industrial school. So far she has conducted her school here without Government aid, having received assistance from her eastern friends, among them that grand old lady — Miss Peabody.”

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jun 4, 1887

Superintendent W.I. Davis, of the Grand Junction School, with several Indian pupils, will leave here to-morrow morning for home. He expected to take with him at least forty recruits for his excellent school. He would have done so had not Piute Natchez, and his lovely relative the far-famed Princess Sarah Winnemucca, interposed a veto. This latter idolized friend of Mrs. Horace Mann and Miss Peabody can shed crocodile tears over the misfortunes and lamentable ignorance of “my people,” but now that the opportunity offers this “patron of learning” shows her hand. She is soon to go East to collect money to educate “my people,” but she protests against the Government educating them. She dislikes the Government and the dislike is mutual. Her dislike to the Government is her objection to “my people” being educated at the Government’s expense. If Sarah could handle the Government’s money as she does that of the misguided religious enthusiast there would never be a whisper by her against the Government educating the Piute people to which, unfortunately for them, she is a member.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jun 7, 1887

PDF Link  Newspaper article:  Johnson Sides == “United States Peacemaker”

Combatting Superstition.

Princess Sarah Winnemucca came in from Humboldt last evening and had a long talk with Johnson Sides and other Piutes relative to the fraudulent prophet of Walker River, who is telling the Indians of that locality that the braves of former ages are soon to reappear on the earth to destroy all Indians who have adopted the habits of white people. Sarah and all the better informed of her tribe do not believe in any such foolishness.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Mar 25, 1889

Sarah Winnemucca, the Indian princess who attended Wellesley college, and under the nom de plume of “Bright Eyes” has written several frontier stories, is now teaching an Indian school of her own. She reports that she has fifteen or sixteen pupils, and is getting along nicely.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Apr 16, 1889

UNRELENTING BRAVES.

They Want Tuscarora Jake to Stretch Hemp.

A council of Shoshone Indian braves was held at Elko last week. Tuscarora Jake, the Indian thug, is in jail for the murder of two members of his tribe. The relatives and friends of Jake offered to give the relatives of the murdered men a certain number of ponies, blankets and money if they would consent to have him set at liberty, and to put up a number of ponies as indemnity for the future good behavior of Jake.

The relatives of the murdered men refused the offer, and said that Jake ought to be hanged, as he not only killed members of his own tribe, but a Chinaman also, for which another and an innocent Indian was sent to State Prison. The head men of the tribe concluded that Jake should be punished as an example and a warning to Indians who are disposed, while drunk, to murder members of their own tribe or others who happen in their way. They think Jake is guilty of a cold-blooded murder and ought to be publicly hanged, so that Indians and whites could see him die. Sarah Winnemucca and Nachez attended the council.

Weekly Gazette Stockman (Reno, Nevada) Oct 10, 1889

SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Colonel Frank Parker Tells How She Once Saved His Life.

Princess Sarah Winnemucca, who died recently in Montana, was a remarkable woman in many respects, and a prominent feature in the Indian relations of the Pacific Coast for the past quarter of a century. She had but one idea, and that was the civilization of her people. She was the daughter of old Chief Winnemucca, of the great Piute tribe, which included the Bannocks, Sheep-eaters, Weisers, Malheurs and the Snake River Indians, who committed so many depredations in early days in Oregon and Idaho. Winnemucca and her whole family were ever true to the whites, and so far as their jurisdiction extended forced their tribes to peace. Colonel Frank J. Parker, editor of the Walla Walla Statesman, tell how she saved his life and that of his companions in the Malheur country in the spring of 1878:

Sarah was then on her way to the Malheur reservation in the vain endeavor to prevent the reservation Indians there from going on the warpath with Buffalo Horn. One night one of the horses of her team got away, and to help her out we loaned a young fellow, who was along with her, one of our horses to hunt the lost one. Charles Robinson of this city and a boy were along with us at the time, and for the help we rendered her we always gave credit for saving our little company from being killed. The Indians had already donned their war paint and we were in their midst. The very day we arrived on the reservation everything was looking dark. Sarah was all the time in consultation with Chief Egan, and sent for us. Going to her wickiup, she introduced Eagan, and intimated that we had better get, and stand not upon the order of getting. As we only had one gun among our crowd, the advice was taken.

After this Sarah joined Howard‘s outfit, and followed him throughout the Bannock campaign as a guide and a possible interpreter in case of a desire to surrender on the part of the hostiles. When the war ended she was in great demand by the Interior Department authorities, and did good work in having the remnants of her tribe removed to various other reservations where they could do no mischief. She was the only Indian on this coast who ever took any prominent part in settling the Indian question, and as such her memory should be respected.

Col. Parker could not have known old Winnemucca very well, for a more treacherous wretch never lived.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Nov 20, 1891

We called her Sarah Winnemucca, of the mint family? Well, Toc-me-to- which means shell-flower. Have you ever seen these flowers growing in an old garden among their many cousins of the mint family? Well, Tocme-to-ne loved them of all flowers best, for was she not herself a shell-flower?

Her people were Piute Indians, and they lived in every part of what is now the great state of Nevada.

Toc-me-to-ne had a flower name, so she was followed to take part in the children’s flower festival, when all the little girls dance and sing, holding hands and making believe that they are the very flowers for which they are named. They wear their own flowers, too, and after they have sung together for a while one will dance off on the grass by herself while all the boys and girls look on and she sings:

I am a daisy gold and white
Somebody catch me — me!

The grown-up people watch, too, as their children play, and Toc-me-to ne was never happier than when, light as a bird, she danced and sang her shellflower song:

See me – see me, a beautiful flower,
Give me a hand and a dance.

Then after the plays and dancing the children had all sorts of good things to eat, and the flower festival was over for a year.

Only three times did Toc-me-to-ne take part in the flower festival, for when she was quite a little girl, her grandfather, Chief Winnemucca, took his family and went to live in California, and when they came back she was almost grown up.

Her grandfather was very fond of her, and called her sweetheart, so she was sad and lonesome indeed when he left her and went to the Happy Spirit Land; but she did not forget his last words to her before he went. “Sweetheart,” he said, “do not forget my white brothers; be kind to them and they will be kind to you and teach you many things.”

In California the old chief gave to grandchildren new names — Natchez, Lee, Mary and Sarah, and Sarah learned to speak fairly good English. Later, when she came to Pyramid lake, she played with Mr. Ormsby’s children and learned to speak better English. Besides this Mrs. Ormsby taught her to cook and sew and to do housework.

When Sarah was fifteen years old she made the long 500-mile journey to California once more with her brother and sister and her grandmother. Her brothers took care of cattle for good Mr. Scott, who had known and loved Chief Winnemucca, and he gave them good wages, several fine horses, and two ponies for Sarah and Mary to ride. The sisters had always ridden bareback like Indian men, but when Christmas came Sarah was surprised to find a beautiful Mexican side-saddle from her brother Lee, and she learned to ride like the white ladies, and was very proud and happy.

Now the Piutes always would wander about. They lived by hunting and fishing, not by farming, so they moved from place to place wherever there was game. When they were in the mountains rough white settlers came to Pyramid lake and caught almost all of the fish with nets, so that there were no fish when the Indians returned. This made the Indians angry, and so trouble began. All this time Sarah was in California. Her father, Chief Winnemucca Second, and her mother were in Nevada, and she often heard good news from them, but one spring when she was seventeen years old two Indians came bringing the news from her father that he was in the mountains and wanted all his children to come to him, but especially Sarah.

Starting on their ponies they began the journey, riding beside the wagon where the grandmother rode. It took twenty-five days to reach Carson City, but here their father and mother met them, and next day all went to see Gov. Nye, whom Sarah told in English what her father, the chief, wanted to say.

Gov. Nye was very jolly and good, and when he knew how things really were he told the white settlers not to interfere with the Indians, and sent soldiers from the fort to drive the rough men away; so Gov. Nye and Chief Winnemucca became good friends, as they never could have been but for little Toc-me-to-ne and her bright interpretations.

For the next year Sarah talked both Piute and English, and settled many little troubles. She was called friend both by the Indians and soldiers, and her father and she thought often of old Chief Winnemucca’s words and kept peace with their white brothers.

New Oxford Item (New Oxford, Pennsylvania) Nov 5, 1908

Image from Nephilim Skulls International

Seek to clarify Indian myth about tribe of cannibal giants

By BRENDAN RILEY
Associated Press Writer

LOVELOCK, Nev. (AP) — Times are tough for the legendary red-haired cannibal giants whose alleged existence here centuries ago has been debated for nearly 100 years.

Scientists have said there’s no proof the “giants” first described in old Indian tales were cannibals. Chemical staining by earth after burial was advanced as a likely reason why mummified remains have red hair instead of black like most Indians in the area.

Now a new study under way at the University of Nevada indicates the “giants” were about six feet tall, and not up to 10 feet tall as had been claimed.
What’s left is evidence of a tribe separate from principal tribes whose Paiute descendants live here — perhaps a wandering, more aggressive but outnumbered band finally hunted down and killed or chased off.

Anthropologists say the story, while somewhat tamer, is still fascinating. But they concede the old myth has more appeal and, no matter what they say, will probably persist.

Don Tuohy, curator of anthropology at Nevada State Museum, says he’s confident the “giant” myth is about to be debunked. He asked for the latest study after a bundle of “giant” bones were found in a long-overlooked cabinet at the Nevada Historical Society building in Reno.

But Tuohy says the old tale will probably live on.

Dr. Sheilagh Brooks, chairwoman of the anthropology department at UN-La Vegas, is now analyzing the bones which apparently came from the Lovelock Cave, a nearby treasure trove for scientists trying to reconstruct Nevada’s early history.

Dr. Brooks says her initial investigation shows some of the bones were from cows, not giants. The human bones appear to be remains of Indians “maybe six feet tall — big, but not that big,” she says.

The myth was written down in 1883 by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, daughter of a Piaute Indian chief. She told of a strange, red-haired tribe of cannibals her ancestors drove into a cave and suffocated by lighting a fire at its entrance.

She said the “people eaters” were so fierce they would leap into the air, snatch arrows whizzing over their heads, and shoot them back at the Piaute attackers.

John T. Reid, a Lovelock, mining engineer, said Indians took him to the cave in 1886 and told him the same tale. But when he entered the cave he found nothing but tons of bat guano.

Reid was unsuccessful in getting an archeological dig started immediately. But miners realizing the value of guano as fertilizer started hauling it out in 1911. They promptly turned up bones, baskets, weapons, tools, duck decoys, various other artifacts and what they described as a 6-foot-8 red-haired mummy.

That spurred the first archeological dig in 1912. A second dig took place in 1924. Thousands of artifacts and about 60 average-height mummies were recovered. More studies followed, including radio-carbon dating which showed the cave was occupied from about 2,000 BC to about 900 AD.

Daily Leader (Pontiac, Illinois) Oct 4, 1976

Claiborne Addison Young – Alone

A reader commented on a previous post, Speaking of Collard Greens, wanting more information about the author, whose book somehow ended up in Jamaica! Here is what I was able to find:

ALONE

I saw an eagle cleave the air;
He flew alone.
I tracked a lion to his lair;
He crouched alone.
II.
A river started to the sea;
It wound alone.
A mountain rose up haughtily;
It towered alone.
III.
I looked into eternity, —
Lo ! God was alone.
And then I sang on cheerily,
But not alone.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
By THE EDITOR

One can better appreciate Mr. Young’s verse with some insight into his antecedents, his life and his personality. Claiborne Addison Young was born May 29, 1843, in Boone County, Indiana, near Thorntown. He came of a race of pioneers. He was the son of the Rev. Claiborne Young, who was born at Stony Creek, East Tennessee, and educated for the Presbyterian ministry at Maryville College. His mother was Mary Russell Young, born at Maryville, Tenn. Her brother, Addison Russell, was for many years a prominent judge at Fort Madison, Iowa. In 1831 Mr. Young’s father came to Montgomery County, Indiana, to organize the three churches of Shannondale, Thorntown and Lebanon. It was a time when life in Indiana was primitive and coon skins were a legal tender for taxes and marriage fees. The father was one of the most conscientious of men and this characteristic, with others, the son seems to have inherited.

The poet’ was brave, patriotic, impulsive, sometimes almost erratic, always genuine and spontaneous. Captain Young served through the Civil War, enlisting at the first call with General Lew Wallace in the Eleventh Indiana. He afterward received a commission in the Eighty-fifth United States Colored Infantry, which he assisted in organizing, and served in that command until the close of the war, with credit and distinction.

Image from Factasy — Below, Civil War records are from Ancestry.com

Name: Claiborn A Young
Residence:     Montgomery County, Indiana
Enlistment Date: 31 Aug 1861
Rank at enlistment: Private
State Served: Indiana
Survived the War: Yes
Service Record: Enlisted in Company G, Indiana 11th Infantry Regiment on 31 Aug 1861.
Mustered out on 02 Jan 1864.
Commissioned an officer in on 02 Jan 1864.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana

American Civil War Soldiers
Name: Claiborn Young
Residence:     Montgomery County, Indiana
Enlistment Date: 31 Aug 1861
Side Served: Union
State Served: Indiana
Service Record: Enlisted as a Private on 31 August 1861.
Enlisted in Company G, 11th Infantry Regiment Indiana on 31 Aug 1861.
Commission in Regiment U.S. Colored Troops on 2 Jan 1864.
Discharged for promotion Company G, 11th Infantry Regiment Indiana on 2 Jan 1864.
Sources: 76

When the war was over he returned to Wabash College and received his A. B. in 1869. After graduation he matriculated at Union Theological Seminary, intending to become a minister in accord with the tenets of that great school. But a change came upon his theologic vision and he entered the Harvard Divinity School, which he calls “The Minister Mill.” Before the “Mill” had turned out the finished product he went to the forests of Maine to engage in missionary work among the lumbermen. Later he entered the Unitarian ministry, filling pulpits in Boston and other places in the East and the Middle West. The great griefs of his life were the loss of his wife and son.

He died November 3, 1912, in the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home at Lafayette, so nobly provided by the state of Indiana for her veterans. Like Thoreau and Joaquin Miller, he loved Nature as God made her, uncombed, unbridled by art and unharnessed by commerce. He wandered wide, from the Maine woods to the plains of Texas, from the Cumberland Mountains and the Carolinas to the land of the Modocs. His view of Nature is that of Wordsworth—the Omnipotent Divine Spirit ever revealing His presence in all forms of life. When one of his old professors reminded him of what did not happen to the “rolling stone,” he replied that he was “not in the moss business.”

Mr. Young’s sympathies were always with the “under dog” and his heart and labors went out warmly to the freedmen and the red men. He loved solitude and the lonely places and now and then he reminds one in his life and his song of that other lonely poet, Richard Realf. Many songs, doubtless, sung themselves to his heart in those solitary wanderings, that never found expression.

His first volume of verse was published in 1897 under the title “Way Songs and Wanderings,” and a few of these “Way Songs” are included in this volume. His letter in verse to his brother, “The Frogs of Boone,” he recited to Emerson, who much enjoyed it, and the elder poet and philosopher greatly encouraged the younger singer. His love of freedom and lack of sympathy with conventions led him at times over hard and stony paths but he ever kept a brave heart and never lost faith in God, or man, or life.

This soldier, wanderer, preacher and poet is no mere echo. His song is unconventional and spontaneous. As he traveled Life’s furrowed roads, and went up the many hills of difficulty, he kept on good terms with truth and loyalty and held the faith that the word “all is good” had never been taken back. He has, even in forms of construction that are faulty, the genuine lyric spirit. His motto seems to have been Walt Whitman’s “Allons ! Let us be going after the great companions.”

J. E. C.

The above poem, biography an image are all from the following book:

In the Red Man’s Land and Other Poems
by Claiborne Addison Young.
Publisher: The Hollenbeck Press in Indianapolis 1915
Read online at Open Library

*****

A Claiborne Addison Young poem, The Chickadee, was included in the following:

THE CHICKADEE (Volume 1: Verse)
A Public Domain Project
Published by Gull City Press 2008
Page 24  (scroll down to page 24)

The Indian Student

Image from Susquehanna Indian Tribe History

THE INDIAN STUDENT.

From Susquehannah’s utmost springs
Where savage tribes persue their game,
His blanket tied with yellow strings
The sheperd of the forest came.

Not long before a wandering Priest,
Expressed his wish with visage sad,
Ah, why he cried in Satan’s waste,
Ah, why retain so fine a lad.

In yankee land there stands a town
Where learning may be purchased low;
Exchange his blanket for a gown —
And let the lad to College go.

From long debate the council rose,
And viewing Shellum’s tricks with joy; —
To Harvard hall, o’er drifts of snow,
They sent the tawny colored boy.

A while he wrote, a while he read,
A while attended grammer rules;
An Indian savage so well bred,
Great credit promised to the schools.

Some thought he would in law excel —
Some thought in physic he would shine,
And some who liked him passing well —
Beheld in him a sound divine.

But those of more deserving eye,
Even then could other prospects show, —
They saw him lay his virgil by
To wander with his dearer bow.

Ah, why he cried did I forsake,
My native woods for gloomy walls,
The silver streams, the limpid lake
For musty books and college halls?

A little could my wants supply,
Can wealth or honor give me more,
Or will the sylvian God deny,
The humble treat he gave before?

When nature’s ancient forests grow,
And mingled laurel never fades, —
My heart is fixed and I must go
To die among my native shades.

He spoke, and to the western springs,
His gown discharged, his money spent,
His blanket tied with yellow strings
The sheperd of the forest went.

Returning to his rural plains,
The Indians welcomed him with joy,
The council took him home again
And blessed the tawny colored boy.

Cambridge City Tribune (Cambridge City, Indiana) Dec 8, 1870

Hiawatha Up To Date

HIAWATHA UP TO DATE.
—–
BY GEORGE V. HOBART.

“Wed a maiden of your people,”
Warning said the old Nokomis;
“Go not eastward, go not westward
For a stranger whom we know not.”
Thus dissuading spoke Nokomis,
And young Hiawatha answered
Only this, “Dear old Nokomis,
Sure our people have no maidens,
Not one worth a bit of wampum,
For across the Gitchee Gumee,
Far across the Big Sea Water,
Dukes have come and nabbed these maidens.”
Gravely then said old Nokomis
“Surely you can find a maiden
Here among our own dear people,
Even tho’ they haven’t wampum,
Haven’t beads and shells to burn, sir!”
Smiling answered Hiawatha
“Yes, but they are all new women,
All are wearing dizzy bloomers,
Riding bikes and clad in bloomers.
I don’t want to wed a maiden
Clad in bloomers, loud old bloomers.
In the land of the Dakotahs
Lives the Arrow maker’s daughter,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Handsomest of all the women;
She is not one of these new women,
Never saw a pair of bloomers.”
Still dissuading said Nokomis
“Bring not to my lodge a stranger
From the land of the Dakotahs,
That is where they make divorces.”
Laughing answered Hiawatha
“For that reason if no other
Would I wed in far Dakotah,
For if I don’t like the maiden
I can easy get divorced, see?”
“Very well, then,” said Nokomis,
“You know best, my Hiawatha,
Go and wed this Minnehaha,
Give the laugh to old Nokomis,
Yes, the laugh — the Minnehaha!”
Straightway Hiawatha did so,
Wed the maiden, Laughing Water;
And to make divorce more certain,
If divorce should e’re be needed,
Lived they after in Sioux City
In the land of the Dakotahs.

The Wellsboro Agitator (Wellsboro, Pennsylvania) Jul 29, 1896

*****

To read the original (Google books):

Title: THE SONG OF HIAWATHA.
Author: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Published: 1856
Page 128 [Hiawatha’s Wooing]

There are Others

"Spies on the Enemy"

BARBED WIRE.

Once from out his swaying wigwam
Strode a warrior brave in battle
Downward from his belt of wampum
Grewsome trophies grimly rattle
In the wind
O’er his head the warlock pliant
Waves, while eagle plumes defiant
Stream behind.

Angrily the chief came stalking
Moodily in silence walking
Moodily morose and silent
In his paint and plume defiant
‘Mid the trees
Faint he heard the spirits saying
Fainter echoes soft repaying
Words of wisdom that were playing
On the breeze.

There the words “When in uprising
Anger stalks uncompromising
And your heart resents the taunting,
Mocking, words in friendship wanting
From your brothers
To their angry speech replying
Do then speak with smile supplying
Anger’s place these words undying
‘There are others.'”

This is why the chief, when feeling
O’er the lea came speech resealing
Moore and Bartley’s playful stealing
From their brothers
Rose and spake and never stuttered
Never coughed nor spat nor muttered
But this judgment calmly uttered
“There are others.”

Buried is the chief forever
Gone beyond the flowing river
But when weird the night winds whirling
Fiercely round the wigwam swirling
Meet the smoke wreaths upward curling
O! my brothers
Then the old men of the nation
Tell the tale with much elation
Of that short but grand oration
“There are others.”

And the pale face, (catching on to
This same racket) If you want to
Knock the pops out when they taunt you
O! my brother
When they tell of Bartley’s treasure
Filched from you, without displeasure
“There are others.”

G.W. BEMIS, Jr.

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Oct 25, 1897

Band of Sioux Warriors

Image from the Smithsonian Institution – by F.A. Rinehart – 1898 – Omaha

Sitting Bull, Great Chief of the Sioux

A FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEF.

Sitting Bull, the Great Chief of the Sioux, His Peculiar Character.
[Special Correspondence]

ST PAUL, Sept. 18 — Probably when the facts are all known it will be discovered that Sitting Bull had more to do in influencing the Indians against signing the treaty at Standing Rock than any other man. Bull is an Indian of large brain, as the writer ascertained while traveling with him for three months in the east. He is diplomatic in his nature, not a great warrior, but rather a safe counselor, and as such he has great influence with the Indians. He is a thoughtful savage, and his travels in New York, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, in 1884, taught him the ways of the whites to such an extent that he is now well able to cope with them. He is especially good in making a bargain. Indeed, the writer considers him intellectually one of the most powerful Indians on the American continent. That he has had much to do in shaping the opinions of the tribe there can be no doubt.

Sitting Bull’s Indian name is Ta-ton Ka-i-o-ton Ka, and he was born on the banks of Grand river within the boundaries of the great Sioux reservation and about forty five miles southwest from the present Standing Rock agency in Dakota. He is 55 years of age, has a very large head, is cool and thoughtful, very decided in his ways, and yet will listen to argument and will answer with argument. His original name was Wa-Kan-you na gin, or Standing Holy, which name he retained until he was 14 years old, when his father, whose name was Sitting Bull, took him along with him on the warpath into the Crow country (the inveterate enemies of the Sioux), and he, the 14-year-old boy, counted his first victory by killing a Crow Indian. After returning to their home his father “threw away” three ponies, i.e. killed them in honor of his brave son’s achievement, at the same time announcing that he had changed the name of his son from Standing Holy to that of Sitting Bull, bestowing his own name upon him.

In person, Sitting Bull is a solidly built Indian, not quite so tall as an ordinary savage, yet heavier in many respects. His features are strong, and when he walks he turns his toes inward, strikes the ground with a heavy, jarring tread, and moves rapidly like a man of business. His general look is heavy, while that of Little Crow, the leader of the great Indian outbreak in Minnesota in 1861, and Hole-in-the-Day, the great Chippewa chief, were more refined, but none the less true Indians. The Dakotas believe that they must imitate Hay-o-Kah, or the undemonstrative god, who inculcates the idea that it is not dignified, or manly, or great to evince lively emotions of grief or joy, but under all circumstances, even of torture and death itself, the Indian must show a stoical, impassive face, and hence the immovable features of Sitting Bull, or any other Indian who lays claim to power among his tribe. The principal characteristic of this great medicine man — for he is known among his tribe as such — is his stubbornness of character, the same element which made Grant the greatest warrior of modern times. With judicious management Bull could, no doubt, be won over to the whites, but you can’t drive him.

F.M. NEWSON

Decatur Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Sep 27, 1888

Image from the Arlington National Cemetery website

FOR THE REPUBLICAN.
THE LAST BATTLE OF THE CENTURY.

Fought June 25th, 1876.

BY KENT LINTON.

Roll on oh! cruel time; close up the year,
That marks the rounding of a century,
Since first our forefathers rejoic’d to hear,
The declaration, that all men are free.

We honor the names of the minute-men,
Who fought in the revolutionary strife,
And fell, at Lexington and Concord then,
To give the nation liberty and life.

But now the last battle-field comes in sight,
And casts its shadow o’er our peaceful land,
Like the death-angel who took his swift flight,
The clouds of war had been thickening fast,
And Sitting Bull with his wild Sioux bands,
Were gath’ring for war, for a fortnight past,
In the Maucaises terres or Bad Lands.
And the came the first bloody fray,
With the Sioux, who swept down like a sea,
How Custer’s and Reno’s command that day,
Had fought as they did at Thermopyke.

How Custer, surrounded on every side,
Like Leonidas still cheered his men,
Who fought ’till swept away by the fierce tide,
That roll’d over them again and again.

Three hundred strong they were before the fight,
Three hundred they follow’d the new-made trail,
Three hundred they fell to the left and to the right,
And not a man returned to tell the tale.

Close up the grave of the heroic dead,
Question not, till the resurrection morn’.
The last patriot’s blood was freely shed,
At the battle of Little Big Horn.

Strengthen the sacred ties of our nation.
Stand shoulder to shoulder in every fight,
Against the foes of civilization.
The enemies of true freedom and Right.

Decatur Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Jul 20, 1876

SITTING BULL has given his version of the Custer massacre. He states that the battle lasted only thirty minutes, and that Custer with a few men and officers had cut through the Indian line when he turned and charged back. The Indians were bewildered by this unlooked-for desperate charge, but closed in on the few men and killed them all. Custer, it is said, shot five Indians, and went down beating another with the butt of his revolver. This account corresponds with others coming from Indian sources.

Decatur Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Jul 12, 1877

Image from the Prints Old & Rare website

THE celebrated prescription formulated by Gen. Dix, “If any man attempt to tear down the American flag, shoot him on spot,” was not attempted at the Red Cloud Agency a few days ago for certain reasons, whereof the particulars are interesting. Dr. Saville, the Government Agent at the Red Cloud Agency, with a sudden and unaccountable gush of patriotism, hoisted the American flag at his agency, — a custom, we are informed, prevailing since the agencies have been established in this country.

The sight of the star-spangled had the same effect upon the Sioux that the traditional scarlet rag has upon the bull, for at noon the braves rushed upon the agency buildings, tore down the American flag, and ornamented their handsome persons with portions of the bunting. Dr. Saville sent to Red Cloud to stop the outrage, but no answer was given, it being rumored that this pleasant gentleman was enjoying his Indian summer vacation.

There was every prospect of a severe fight before the respectable Agent, when he received unexpected aid from Camp Robinson. Between the honeyed words of Sitting Bull, a Sioux renegade, and the sabres of United States cavalry, the Agency buildings were rid of their visitors; but the man who hauled down the American flag lives to boast of his feat in Indian gibberish, in defiance of Gen. Dix.

Decatur Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Nov 5, 1874

The Birth of Wau-Kau and Why the Menominee Tribe Couldn’t Stay

Rootsweb hosts, the “Menominee Land and People” page, which is where the Menominee images in this post can be found.

NOTE: I left the misspellings/typos as found in the newspaper articles.

THE MENOMINEES.

The proceedings of the public meeting lately held at Wau-Kau, on the subject of the removal of the Monominees, will appear in our next, as also a description of the village of Wau-Kau.

Watertown Chronicle (Watertown, Wisconsin) Mar 15, 1848

The Menomonees.

At a meeting held at Wau-Kau, Feb. 15, 1848, to consider our relations with the Menomonee Tribe, L.M. PARSONS, E.D. HALL and S.M. WHITE were appointed to report resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting.

At a subsequent meeting, the committee made the following report, which was adopted and ordered to be published:

The committee instructed to draft resolutions relative to the Menomonee Tribe of Indians, desire to preface the resolutions which they propose for adoption, with the views they entertain of the relations existing between the red and white man, and the fundamental law upon which they are based.

Your committee believe that the rights of man are vested in his necessities; that whatever is necessary for the moral elevation of a people, they have a right to possess and enjoy; and that all laws, common or conventional, which contravene this principle, are null and void and of no binding force. Fro when there is no necessity, no good to be secured, there is no law. To secure harmony of action, define the limits of existing necessities, and discover those which are essential to progress, conventional bodies are essential to proclaim the law, but their commands have no power where necessity does not justify the action.

No body of men were ever legitimately authorized to make laws. The statutes were enacted in heaven; man has no right to add to or diminish therefrom. It is the business of man to discover, enforce and obey them, instead of enacting his own will.

The earth is dedicated to goodness, and the means essential to its attainment are the laws of all beings capable of participating the Deific enterprise. Existing states of mind seem to indicate three classes of necessities. The arrangement of means to promote discoveries, adapting the present to the future, belongs to the 3d class.

Now it is obvious, that all the means should not be limited to either class of enjoyments; that it is usurption, monopoly in the highest degree, for a people devoted to the first class of necessities, to withhold the means essential to the higher demands of intellectual life. Progression is the order of heaven, of the earth, of matter, of mind. A nation to stand still must perish; the world will pass by her. Progress is the accouching spirit of man’s immortality.

Nations as well as individuals, who will not progress, aspire to the glories of intellectual life, to the model of Deific excellence, must perish. God hath so willed it. Man must eat, incur responsibilities of a higher character — responsibilities which urge him onward from the desert of organic impulse, to the pleasure of intellectual life; from the locality of the finite to the universality of the infinite.

The possession of land is essential to every class of enjoyments. Neither individuals, tribes nor nations, have any right to it, except as they make it the means of elevation and progression. The right to possess in the dowery of heaven. Man cannot claim an endowment before his marriage to husbandry; he must write his title deed with the hoe and seal it with the spade. Science must acknowledge its execution, and the arts admit its registry. In such a title, God hath established man’s physical salvation, and like the waters of life, he hath made it free to every one who will perfect his title thereto.

The earth is sacred to the high purposes of Deity, to all that is excellent, to intellectual life. Land being the gift of God, is above all price — sacred to use and not to monopoly — sacred to life, to freedom, to independence, and to posterity. In the service of cultivating and ornamenting the earth, man enjoys the highest pleasure of physical life. But he who performs this service impelled by the love of the excellent and the intellectual redemption of man, enjoys more; a pleasure scarcely less than that of creating.

The Menomonee Tribe have not made sure title to the land they occupy. From the beginning, they have stood still; they would neither cultivate nor ornament the land; they would not enter into the plans of the Deity — make the present better than the past. The social world has gone by them. It has built temples too high for their perceptions — altars too broad for their devotion. IT claims an interest in a sacrifice too sublime for them to appreciate, and ultimate blessings which have no form in their visions of the future. They worship other gods, moddle their mind after inferior objects, fashion their heaven after the waste places of the earth, and measure its joys by the pleasure of the chase. The dog is their boon companion in life; they mingle spirits in death and hope for a common immorality.

The presence of such a people on our borders, hinders the progress of civilization, and deranges every department of business. Both suffering a loss of which affords no prospect of ultimate advantage to either, for the good of the white man is evil to the red, and the good of the red man is evil to the white. The contact is ruinous to both. Man, without knowledge, cannot participate in these gatherings. Knowledge is the life of the mind, its exciting element, but death to the body when made tributary to the excitement of the senses.

And ignorant man could not live in the garden of Eden. All men who will not avail themselves of the councils of science, must be driven from its presence. God hath so willed it. As it was in the days of Adam, so it is in our day. All men fall in the scale of being, degenerate and must ultimately become exterminated, as nations, tribes or clans who will not build themselves up by educational influences.

In all these matters, the Menomonee stands condemned. He invokes the penalties of ignorance; the law of progress commands them to hide away from the light of science, to turn away from the pleasant paths of art, to be driven from the pleasures of Eden — from the tree of knowledge, that the Lord at this coming may not see the day they have sacrificed, nor smell the incence of their altars; lest goodness and truth in their beauty and excellence be hindered in their progress over the earth.

Therefore,

Resolved, That this meeting regard it the imperative duty of every lover of man, every one who desires his moral elevation, his restoration to an equal heritage in the gifts of God; every one who hates monopoly and its kindred slavery, to raise his voice against the high handed usurption of he Menomonee Tribe, in withholding their lands from culture and consequent aid in perfecting the intellectual redemption of man.

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to circulate petitions, addressed to the President, urging him to conclude a treaty with said tribe, with as little delay as circumstances will admit.

Resolved, That our friends and the friends of land culture and equal distribution, be solicited to co-operate with us in this matter.

Other resolutions omitted.

R. MANNING, Ch’m.

DIKE HALL, Clerk.

Watertown Chronicle — Mar 22, 1848

Wau-Kau, Winebago Co.

At a meeting held at Wau-Kau, on the 20th of February, 1848, L.M. PARSONS was appointed a committee to prepare a description of our place for publication. At a subsequent meeting, the following report was presents, adopted and directed to be published in the Watertown Chronicle, and such other papers as may please to copy the same.

URIAH HALL, Ch’n.

JOHN HALL, Clerk.
___

WAU-KAU.

Location — On the outlet of Rush Lake, 2 1/2 miles north of said lake, 2 1/2 south of Fox River, 12 west of Oshkosh, 10 east of Strong’s Landing and 14 north of Ceresco.

Settlement — Commenced March 7, 1846. Nearest neighbor was then 10 miles distant. The country is now well settled by eastern people.

Water Power — The stream falls 70 feet in two miles, so that the water can be used over six times. The greatest head at any one piece is 23 feet, designed for a grist mill. The stone, timber, &c., are now on the ground for that purpose, and the race partly dug. A saw mill is now in operation, doing a good business. There is a dam at the lake, which retains all surplus water for future use. The lowest measure of water was last November. There was then only 288 inches issuing from the lake, measured in a current having a decent of 4 inches in 16 feet. There is now an issue from the fame floom of 720 inches, when the gait is up. The area of the lake is over 12 square miles.

Advantages — No other water power within 14 miles; proximity to the different varieties of timber, (contracts having been made for the delivery of pine logs, &c.;) proximity to navigable waters; in the heart of a rich farming country, already settled with an enterprising people.

Society — Our village population numbers 140 souls; have a good school, regular religious meetings, temperance society embracing nearly all the people, a well attended debating club, Sunday school, &c. The religious meetings and schools are under the immediate charge of Elder Manning, who is doing much towards making our place what every good citizen would wish it to be.

Health — We have two physicians, but very little for them to do.

Artists — Shoe shop, (two workmen,) blacksmith shop, (two fires,) cabinet shop, (two workmen,) one tailor shop, one turning shop, one wagon maker, five carpenters and joiners; and a sash factory and tannery are about being erected.

Merchants — One store, (Messrs. Elliott & White,) doing a fine business.

Position– Our place is elevated and dry. Banks of the stream about 80 feet high. On the one side, forest timber; and on the other, light openings.

Population — 140 souls.
___
Early Days of Wau-Kau.

[Correspondence of the Watertown Chronicle.]

WAU-KAU, March, 8, 1848.

On the first day of April, 1846, myself with several other pioneers, (as we termed ourselves,) by dint of presevarnce and a sprinkling of moral caurage, displayed in following sundry Indian trails, and in some instances no trails at all, made the best of our straggling way into what seemed, as it truly was, an unbroken wilderness. We arrived at last, after fording streams and forcing through bush tickets, which nearly left our [seeing sense] minus, about 9 in the evening — right glad to find a place where civilization had a home, having traveled all day with only one or two in the shape of white men to guess with us the locality of our place, our direction to find it, or distance to the same.

The Pioneer Hotel, under the supervision of Mr. Parsons, the proprietor, gave us welcome, and we received at the hands of his numerous tenants a well relished supper served up in Badger style — to which our keen appetite did ample justice. After relating the adventures of the day to others who, like ourselves, had quartered themselves here for the night, our whole company consisting of eight, thought best thus early to seek our needful repose. Our kind landlord soon relieved our curiosity, naturally excited as to the whereabouts of our night’s berth, located as we were in a native cabin a little more than 7 by 9, with room for only one bed to accommodate the whole. Our plan of camping was a singular one, but if any of your readers should ever find himself in a similar condition, it may be of service to him. Two bedsteads were placed side by side, and the beds thrown on. We then placed ourselves in as compact position as possible, with a tier of heads on the outside all round, our feet lapping by so as to come in pretty close contact with our neighbors faces. In this manner we spent the night and if, when we arose in the morning, we were fortunate enough to get our own legs to stand on, instead of our neighbor’s, we considered it, at least in the confusion a lucky escape.

But WAU-KAU has since undergone a great change, as the statistics of the place, which have been furnished you, will prove. Come friend Hadley, and take a stroll with us, where, a year ago, was the silent wilderness, listen to the woodman’s ax, witness the signs of improvement in every direction; and if you do not call our portion of the country a second Eden, you will be constrained to call it, with us, “a little better than the best” of the new towns of the West.

Truly, W.

Watertown Chronicle — Mar 22, 1848

The Whigs of Winnebago county have nominated Mr. URIAH HALL, of Waukau, for the Assembly. Mr. H. is a good and strong man.

Watertown Chronicle — May 3, 1848

THE MENOMONEES — From a long article furnished by our valued Waukau correspondent, we copy the following paragraphs, showing the power of the ancient Menomonees. The crowded state of our columns, will not admit of the publication of the entire article.

“The Menomonee tribe of Indians occupy the country west of Wolf and north of Fox River. They number about 2,400 souls. They are paid about $8 00 per head each by government, for lands sold several years ago. They were formerly a very numerous and warlike people, made war a trade for many years, and became a terror to the neighboring tribes. It is said they conquered in one night the Winnebago, Fox and Saux tribes, by a most adroit stratagem and deadly strife. The hills of

“Little and Big Butte des Most,” or hill of the dead, are records which tell of their might in battle and gathered honors of war. Their prisoners they retained as slaves. More than a century and a half ago, they attained the elevated position of slaveholders, and established that law requiring the weak to serve the strong, to which civilized nations have added the sanctions of religion.  But when the Catholic fathers came among them, and told them that the Great Spirit “made all men free and independent,” they repented of the evil they had done, and told their slaves that they too were children of the Great Spirit, and thereafter should be free to enjoy his blessings.

“Before their knowledge of the whites, their living was the luxuries of nature. They reveled in Eden’t garden. None knew the tree of knowledge, and of course none fell by eating of its fruit. Of he simple provisions of nature they ate, and life and pleasure sprang up in all the fullness of being. But the white man visited them, and now they are but dust in that balance which once weighed down all the tribes east of the father of rivers.”

Watertown Chronicle – May 31, 1848

A new postoffice has been established at Waukau, Winnebago Co., and Wm. H. Elliott appointed postmaster.

Rock River Pilot (Watertown, WI) Aug 16, 1848

Image of Waukau Creek  posted by Linda F. on Pbase.

SOMETHING SINGULAR — OVERFLOWING WELLS.

A correspondent writing from Waukau, makes the following statement:

There are three wells near this place, discharging fine little rivulets from their surface. They measure 23, 30, and 54 feet in depth; soil red marl. You will hardly believe me when I tell you these wells discharge double the quantity of water when the wind is south that they do when the wind is north; still the whole neighborhood will testify to the fact. The water in other wells in the vicinity will rise a foot on the wind blowing a good breeze from the south. I have not sufficiently examined the subject to solve the mistery. But as Rush Lake is within three miles and on high ground, it is propable the source from which the well are supplied, and a south wind driving upon the coarse sands of the beach increases the discharge of water thro’ the sand into channels which find vent in those wells. — Wash. Co. Eagle.

Rock River Pilot – Aug 23, 1848

“Wisconsin Gristmill” by Burton Boundey – Clars Auction Gallery website

GRIST MILL AT WAUKAU.

The grist mill at Waukau has finally been put in motion. It will prove a great convenience to the people of the region.

Watertown Chronicle – Aug 14, 1850

Joseph Brady vs. the Cornplanter

Chief Cornplanter image is from the Salibury, PA webite.

[From the Attica Telegraph.]

A Reminiscence of Border Life.

In the dark days of our Revolutionary struggles, there lived many brave, noble and generous men, who did much toward achieving the independence of this now prosperous and happy nation, by acting singly, or with a chosen few upon whom they could place the utmost reliance. This mode of warfare, though carried on in a comparatively small way, was far more efficacious, in proportion to the numbers engaged in it, than the operations of the largest bodies of soldiers who fought in the fort and open field. It did not generally accomplish much n a single occasion, but was constantly at work either acting on the offensive, or furnishing information to the head-quarters of the American army. This, in fact, was the only way by which the hostile tribes of Indians could be effectively punished for their wanton and malicious depredations. Every reader is aware that they were instigated by the British to perpetrate deeds the most shocking and revolting to humanity. Tradition has handed down the names of numerous individuals, unrecorded in the history of our country, who were celebrated for many valorous deeds, the remembrance of which seems fast disappearing “through the dark vista of bygone years.” An incident in the eventful life of one of this class is the subject of our narrative. We will endeavor to give the substance of it, as it fell from the lips of one of the “[oldest inhabitants]” in our hearing.

Of Joseph Brady’s birth, parentage, &c., our “informant” does not enlighten us. Suffice it to say, he was a brave and magnanimous warrior, and the commande of a small band of men, of his own school who were employed against the indians in Western New York and Pennsylvania. Although destitute of an education, having grown up in the “backwoods,” our hero had learned much from the school experience, and was skilled in that knowledge which was most essential to him in the station he was called to occupy. It is said that he could converse fluently in at least twenty of the different languages or tongues spoken by the tribes of the Atlantic states. This, to him, was an invaluable acquisition, and the sequel will show the advantages which it gave him over the Indians.

Six Nations’ map is from the Access Genealogy website.

Cornplanter, whose name is celebrated as an Indian warrior, and the praise of whose greatness has been the theme of many a writer, was then the Chief of a small tribe whose village was situated on the western bank of the Allegany River, six miles below the boundary line between New York and Pennsylvania. The remnant of his tribe still remain there, possessing a fertile tract of alluvial land several miles in length, and extending from the river back to the Allegany Mountains, a distance varying from one to three miles. On the opposite side of the river, a high mountain rises abruptly from the water’s edge, and is covered with a thick growth of forest trees. The scenery about this place is wild, romantic and beautiful; although the “rapid march of civilization” is robbing nature of her former grandeur and beauty. What a contrast between that olden time and the present! The? those deep waters bore upon their broad bo?om naught but the light Indian canoe, and the white man dared not be seen, unguarded, anywhere in their vicinity.

Cornplanter and his “braves” had made an incursion into one of the nearest settlements of the whites, in which they had met with great success. Several of the unfortunate inhabitants fell beneath the murderous tomahawk, their buildings were consumed by fire, and a number carried into captivity. When the Indians arrived at their village with the prisoners it was determined that they should be burned at the stake. Accordingly, the time was appointed for this dreadful work, and the whole tribe were to be assembled to participate in it. The Indians were patiently waiting for the time when they were to glut their vengeance upon their “pale faced” prisoners, as they apprehended no fears that the whites were strong enough to attempt an immediate retaliation.

Brady heard of he sally made by Cornplanter upon the settlers, and determined to punish him severely for his cruelty. Accordingly, he and his men set out upon the expedition, and were soon in the vicinity of the Indian village, where they succeeded in capturing one of its inhabitants from whom they obtained all the information they wished, concerning the prisoners, and the time when it was intended to burn them.

Early in the evening on which was to terminate by the most dreadful death, the lives of a number of pioneers of his western region, Brady was occupying a secure position on the mountain, from whence he could perceive all that was taking place in the village below. Fires were kindled before all their dwellings until it was nearly as light as noonday. The woods to a great distance around resounded with the shouts of the savages, whose feelings were wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement. Brady waited until the captives were brought forth, and the Indians had commenced to bind them to the stakes. His heart beat high with the fear that he might be unsuccessful in his attempt to rescue them. But the long-wished for moment had arrived, and putting on the dress of the Indian he had captured, he boldly stepped forth into an open place where he could be distinctly seen from the other bank, and gave the shrill war-whoop peculiar to this tribe. He was immediately answered by the Indians, who supposed him to be one of their friends, just returning from an expedition similar to the one they were then rejoicing over. They inquired as to what success had attended him, to which he replied that he had taken a few prisoners but was unable to come over and join them that night on account of the wounds one of his men had received. He proposed that they should wait till the next day and then burn all the prisoners at one time. After some hesitation they complied with his request. The prisoners were taken back to their place of confinement, the fires extinguished, and soon a deathlike stillness succeeded the noise and confusion which had reigned during the former part of the evening.

Brady kept his position until after the “noon of night,” when he descended the mountain, and crossing the river, was soon in the heart of the village. The Indians had retired without leaving a guard, and the first intimation they had of the presence of a foe, was the bursting out of the flames from their houses, which were soon on fire in every direction. They rushed to their doors to be shot or cut down by the whites. A large number were killed or burned with the habitations, while the remainder escaped under cover of the night. Cornplanter fled and his village was entirely destroyed.

The prisoners were overjoyed to find that they were once more with friends who could protect, and without waiting even for the morning, started on their journey back to the homes of those who had rescued them. Brady lost not a single man while out on this expedition, neither were any wounded, and although he fought after the Indian custom, falling upon his enemies in an unguarded moment he achieved a great victory.

Cornplanter’s name has found a place in the history of those times, while Joseph Brady’s only reward was the consciousness of having performed a duty incumbent upon every American citizen in those days, that of defending his country, and the joy he experienced in being able to restore those whose fate was supposed to be sealed, to their homes.

Watertown Chronicle (Watertown, Wisconsin) Jul 28, 1847

NOTE: I couldn’t find anything more about Joseph Brady, but Wikipedia has an article about Samuel Brady, of “Brady’s Leap” fame, who had an Uncle Joseph Brady, who might have been him. Either way, I would imagine the two are at least related, as they were from the same area and were Indian fighters etc.

Greenville Treaty image from the Touring Ohio website.

Pennsylvanians, Past and Present

Cornplanter, Great Seneca War Chief and Friend of United States, Died February 18, 1836.

By FREDERICK A. GODCHARLES
(Copyright, 1925, by the Author)

Cornplanter, the greatest warrior of the Seneca tribe, and a principal chief of the Six Nations from the period of the Revolutionary War to the time of his death, was born at Ganawagas, on the Genesee River, in New York, in 1722; he died at Cornplanter Town. just within the limits of Pennsylvania, Fedbruary 18, 1836.

Cornplanter was a half-breed, the son of a white man named John O’Bail, a trader from the Mohawk Valley. His mother was a full-blooded Seneca.

O’Bail is said by some to have been an Englishman, although Harris, Ruttenber, and others say he was a Dutchman Named Abeel.

All that is known of the early life of Cornplanter is contained in a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, in which he says, “When I was a child I played with the butterfly; and as I grew up I began to pay some attention and play with the Indian boys in the neighborhood, and they took notice of my skin being a different color from theirs, and spoke about it. I inquired of my mother the cause, and she told me my father was a resident of Albany. I still ate my victuals out of a bark dish. I grew up to be a young man and married a wife, and I had no kettle or gun. I then knew where my father lived and went to see him, and found he was a white man and spoke the English language. He gave me vituals while I was at his house, but when I started to return home he gave me no provisions to eat on the way. He gave me neither kettle nor gun.

Historian Drake says Cornplanter was a warrior at Braddock’s defeat, July 9, 1755, and fought bravely as a French Ally.

During the Revolution he was a war chief of high rank in the full vigor of manhood, active, brave, sagacious and participated in many of the engagements in which the British  employed their Indian allies.

Cherry Valley Massacre image from the Son of the South website.

He is supposed to have been present at the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, in which the Seneca took such prominent part. He was certainly on the warpath with Chief Joseph Brant during General John Sullivan’s expedition against the Six Nations in the autumn of 1779, and in the following year, under Brant and Sir John Johnson, he led the Seneca to their incursion through the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys in New York.

On this occasion he took his father a prisoner, but with such caution as to avoid immediate recognition. After marching the old man some ten or twelve miles, he stepped before him, faced about and addressed himself to his father. He gave him his choice of following his yellow son, in which he promised him food and raiment or return to his fields and his white children. O’Bail chose the latter and Cornplanter gave him safe conduct back to the trading post.

Cornplanter was one of the parties to the treaty made at Fort Stanwix, October 23, 1784, when the whole of the present Northwestern Pennsylvania was ceded by the Indians to the Commonwealth. He also took part in the Treaty at Fort Harmar in 1789.

His sagacious intellect comprehended the growing power of the United States, and that Great Britain had forsaken the Seneca. He threw his influence in favor of peace.

During all the Indian Wars from 1791 to 1794, which terminated with General Wayne’s treaty, Cornplanter pledged that the Seneca should remain friendly to the United States.

He was a signer of the treaties of September 15, 1797, and July 30, 1802. These acts rendered him so unpopular with his tribe that for a time his life was in danger.
On March 16, 1796, Pennsylvania granted Cornplanter a tract of 640 acres in the present Warren County, to which place the old warrior retired and devoted his energies to his own people.

It is said that in his old age he declared that the “Great Spirit” told him not to have anything more to do with the whites, nor even to preserve any mementos they had given him. Impressed with this idea, he burned the belt and broke and elegant sword that had been given to him.

A favorite son, who had been carefully educated, became a drunkard, thus adding to the troubles of Cornplanter’s last years.

He received for a time, a pension from the United States of $250 a year.

At the time of his death he was 105 years of age. A monument erected to his memory on his reservation by the State of Pennsylvania in 1866 bears the inscription “aged about 100 years.”

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Feb 18, 1925

*****

This bank advertisement ran in the newspaper for several days:

Indiana Evening Gazeete (Indiana, Pennsylvania) Oct 17, 1921

The White Man’s Burden

Click images for larger versions.

Here is a hodge-podge of the White Man’s Burden, including imperialism, alcohol, women, in-laws, war, clothing, taxes, education, politicians and even himself!

THE POET’S CALL

“We Ask American Manhood What Its First Duty in This Matter Is”

There was a ringing poem of Kipling’s printed in the News yesterday. Like much of his verse, it has the searching quality. It cannot be evaded. The same stern logic that speaks through his poem “An American” that speaks through his “Song of the English” and through his “Recessional,” speaks through this, “The White Man’s Burden:”

Take up the White Man’s Burden —
Ye dare not stoop to less —
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Through all this time of uncertainty, this time in which the American people apparently are halting in their course, there is one great characteristic element in the situation which cannot be explained away, and which, as the poet seems to reveal with prophetic insight, is not going to be dodged, unless to our everlasting degradation, and that is the responsibility which has been thrust upon us. It has the double quality. It is not something we sought. It is something that sought us. For years we had seen the suffering of a helpless people at our very doors until we could almost arraign ourselves for cruel indifference. Finally, with as pure a motive as ever a nation undertook anything, we attempted to relieve that suffering.

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” we were just where we find ourselves today. We had crushed the remnant of Spain’s authority in the Philippines, driven her from Cuba and Puerto Rico. Never, we believe, has history recorded an instance in which a nation was confronted with such responsibility so clearly without premeditation, or intention of its own, as in this instance. With no desire to say a word for expansion or against expansion, we ask American manhood, we ask the higher self of this land, what its full duty in the matter is. The poet asks it with searching inquiry:

Take up the White Man’s burden!
Have done with childish days —
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.

Indianapolis News.

The Arizona Republican (Phoenix, Arizona) Feb 18, 1899

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN.

(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

Take up the white man’s burden
Lift up the white man, too,
He has dallied with the booze can
And a small bottle or two.
He has fallen down by the wayside;
Far away from his own abode;
It seems that the white man’s burden
Is a very unwieldy load.

Take up the white man’s burden
And help the poor chap to stand,
Once  he possessed his senses
And had a pull in the land;
Once he was upright and sober,
Was able to talk and to think,
But the war with the Filipinos
Has driven the white man to drink.

Take up the white man’s burden
And bear it away to a cell,
‘Twill be better away from the rumsters
Who would aid it to trip and fall;
Who gloat o’er the bond i? that feller
The slaves of King Alcohol.

Take up the white man’s burden
When the maudlin night is o’er,
When the head of the suff’ring white man
With expansion’s swelled and sore;
Take the victim to his fireside
Where a broomstick’s lying in wait
And then if you know your business
You’ll escape ere it is too late.

— Bradford Era.

The Evening Democrat (Warren, Pennsylvania) Feb 14, 1899

***

***

Wow, Mr. Henderson, tell us how you really feel:

OUR “WHITE MAN’S BURDEN.”

[With no Apologies to R. Kipling.]

[By W.J. Henderson.]

“Take up the White Man’s Burden!”
What hollow words are these?
‘Tis the croak of the ink-pot raven
That flits on the seven seas.
“Take up the White Man’s Burden!”
Why, who are you to prate
To those who swept the desert
From Maine to the Golden Gate?

Who gnawed the crusts of famine
Beneath Virginia skies,
Till the white man’s blood ran water,
But never the white man’s eyes?
“Take up the White Man’s Burden!”
Who set their backs to the main,
And sent the sons of the forest
To skulk on the treeless plain?

Who harried the fiends of torture,
And gave their sons to fight
With the poisoned arrow by daytime,
The brank and the knife by night?
Who shackled the scalp-locked chieftains,
And bade them abide in peace,
And housed them and clothed them and taught them,
And gave them the land’s increase?

Who fondled their sons and daughters
and showed them the way of life,
While their fathers crept out of the mountains
To flood the valleys with strife?
Got look at the long, red roster
Of dead in our rank and file;
Yet we nurture and pray and are waiting
At Hampton and Carlisle.

Who struck the fetters of thralldom
From off the limbs of the limbs of the slave,
And thundered the anthem of freedom
Through cloister and choir and nave?
We gave the blood of our fathers —
We children who cast out Spain —
To pay white debt to the black man,
and we split our home in twain.

“Take up the White Man’s Burden!”
Gods! was a Lincoln’s death
The pause of a life of shadow,
The end of an empty breath?
An era of white men’s burdens
Ran out with that one life’s sand,
And the sweat of that day is yet heavy
On the brow of our southern land.

“Take up the White Man’s BUrden!”
Oh, well have we borne our share
Till our heart-strings cracked with the straining;
But we knew not how to despair.
And now if the load has grown greater,
Well, we have grown greater, too.
We’ll tread our measure in South and East,
And we’ll ask no help of you.

Fort Wayne News (Fort Wayne, Indiana) Feb 17, 1899

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN.

“What is the White Man’s Burden?”
A man asked me today
“I hear so much about it,
What is it, anyway?
Is it debt, or money, or a jag,
That a burden makes of life,
Or — his voice dropped to a whisper —
“Does it mean his wife?”

“What is the White Man’s Burden?”
About the first is clothes,
He starts in life quite minus,
As everybody knows.
But soon begins a struggle
To get the latest style,
And when they’re bought and paid for
To wear them with a smile.

Another of his burdens,
And one that’s hard to bear,
Is getting proper food to eat,
Which requires greatest care.
To all the cook’s enticements,
To all the pastry’s lures,
He falls a willing victim —
Then takes dyspepsia cures.

“What is the White Man’s Burden?”
Go ask the plumber bold,
The iceman and the coal man
Who revel in the cold.
The funny man and the poet,
The politician shrewd,
The deadbeat and his mother-in-law,
The masher and the dude.

“What is the White Man’s Burden?”
The war inquiry boards,
The yowlers ‘gainst expansion,
The yellow journal hordes.
The only thing surprising
That cause for wonder gives,
Is how, ‘neath all his burdens,
The average white man lives.

— Topeka Capital.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Feb 21, 1899

***

Here, let me relieve you of that turkey, I mean burden:

***

Someone isn’t very fond of his wife’s family:

ANOTHER VERSION.

Take up the white man’s burden,
And blow in your hard-earned tin
For codfish and canned tomatoes
To fatten your wife’s lean kin;
Her aunts and her wicked uncles
Are coming to drive you wild;
These half-starved, sullen people,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the white man’s burden,
And fill your house with bunks,
That kinfolks may sleep in comfort;
They’re coming with bags and trunks.
They’re coming to stay all summer,
To die in your yard next fall —
These half-shot, sullen people,
Half stomach and half gall.

Take up the white man’s burden,
And sit on the porch and swear,
For kinfolks will use the sofa,
And loaf in your easy chair.
They’ll cut all the pies and doughnuts,
And you must subsist on prunes —
These fine-haired, silken kinfolks,
Half pelicans and half loons.

Thrown down the white man’s burden,
And get a breech-loading dog,
And mangle the first relation
(Half crocodile and half hog)
Who comes with his ten valises
And seventeen tourist trunks
To eat up your canned provisions
And sleep in your ill-spared bunks.

— Atchison Globe.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Feb 28, 1899

Below, the women’s libbers jump on the parody bandwagon:

THE LADY SPEAKS.

Take up the white man’s burden,
And put yoru own away;
‘Tis only right that woman
Should run affairs today;
We want to sit in congress,
We’re bound to be supreme
In everything that’s going,
And that’s no idle dream.

Take up the white man’s burden,
And drive him from the scene;
He’s growing pale and puny,
And “parts his hair between.”
Come on, O sturdy sisters,
Let’s show slow-going man
How we would run the nation
On the bargain-county plan.

— Exchange.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 4, 1899

One of the TRUE White Man’s Burdens:

“THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN.”

(Bjorge Djenison.)

What is the “White Man’s Burden?”
It surely can’t be coons;
Though Kipling oft avers it is
In very rhythmic tunes.

What is the white man’s burden?
The preacher thinks it’s sin,
The poor man thinks it’s poverty,
The banker thinks it’s tin.

What is the white man’s burden?
The coward thinks it’s fear,
The brave man thinks it’s bravery,
The brewer thinks it’s beer.

What is the white man’s burden?
To the question will return,
Perchance, by often asking,
The truth we may yet learn.

What is the white man’s burden?
The fat man thinks it’s girth,
The lean man thinks it’s leanness,
The joker thinks it’s mirth.

What is the white man’s burden?
The mourner thinks it’s grief,
The soldier thinks it’s discipline,
But Alger thinks it’s beef.

What is the white man’s burden?
The aged think it’s years,
The youngster suffers for his youth,
The weeping with their tears.

What is the white man’s burden?
Ere he’s laid upon the shelf
Ere Father Time has cut him down,
He’ll know it is himself.

Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, New Jersey) Mar 15, 1899

***

Still a burden after all these years:

This one is kind of amusing:

GETS COLTISH AT ONE HUNDRED TEN

Indian Stumbles When Attempting to Take up the White Mans’ Burden

Captain Jones fell from grace yesterday at the age of 110 years. He assimilated too much liquid refreshment and was gently escorted to the city bastile although the police declare he felt younger than ever.

According to the declaration of Chief Hillhouse, this is the first time Captain Jones, a redman, native of Nevada, has ever been “pinched” or even known to take a drink. He is known about the city because of his appearance with his wife on the streets dispensing pictures to those who will buy.

At the age of 110 which he gave at headquarters, his qualities of absorption seem unimpaired although he was found slightly wanting when it came to carrying the white man’s burden.

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Nov 10, 1913

I think it could be said that  we stepped up and took on that burden and then some:

“The White Man’s Burden.”

Rudyard Kipling recently told an American visitor in London that when he wrote “The White Man’s Burden” he had America in mind, not Great Britain. America’s isolation has now ceased. She is responsible with the other nations who helped whip Germany for the orderly and safe conduct of the world. She must take upon her own shoulders a large share of the burden. If this means additional privileges it means also vastly augmented responsibilities. Upon England and America together rests the chief duty of a decent place in which to live and work.

— Lothrop Stoddard in the World’s Work.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Jul 3, 1919

The most painful (and never ending) of the burdens:

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

Taxes
More taxes
And some more taxes.

The Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio) Sep 22, 1933

And golf!