Kill the Indian... Save the Man

[Danny Bear Claw]

The most extreme form of government civilization programs for American Indians - scarcely less extreme than extermination - found vigorous articulation in the person of Captain Richard Henry Pratt, a veteran of the southern Plains Indian wars who founded the controversial Indian Boarding School at Carlisle Barracks in eastern Pennsylvania on November 1, 1879.  Blunt, dogmatic and uncompromising, Pratt advocated total immersion of Indian youth in white culture at Carlisle and other boarding schools.  "Kill the Indian in him and save the man," he enjoined. 
A Sioux Indian youth named Plenty Horses epitomized the consequences of Pratt's philosophy.  Plenty Horses, like most of his classmates at Carlisle, eventually returned to his people on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, where he found himself an alien in two worlds.  He was too white for the Indians and too Indian for the whites.  He could find no job for which Carlisle had trained him because all went to politcal appointees.  He drifted aimlessly, accepted by no one.  A sudden impulse offered Plenty Horses a solution.
In 1889 the Ghost Dance religion came to the Sioux reservations as it had come to Indians all over the west.  The inspiration of a northern Paiute holy man, the religion blended old spiritual concepts with new borrowings from Christianity.  By dancing certain prescribed dances and practicing other tenets of the faith, dancers could "die" and temporarily enter a new realm in which they experienced what awaited them: the abundant land whites had taken from them, teeming with the game of old, inhabited by all their friends and ancestors who had died, mercifully free of white people.  The Sioux proved especially receptive due to a recent series of calamities, including the breakup of the Great Sioux reservation into five seperate reservations, reduced rations, sickness, crop failures and a host of broken promises.  "They made us many promises," noted one aging warrior, "more than I can remember.  But they never kept but one.  They promised to take our land, and they took it."
Ghost Dances throbbed night and day on several reservations as more and more people joined their camps.  Surrounding settlers grew alarmed, and agents panicked as their Indian police failed to stop the dances.  Frightened by the bewildering activity at Pine Ridge, the incompetent political hack serving as agent finally called for soldiers.  The Army took control and invaded all five Sioux reservations.  Matters came to a head on December 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek in a fearsome clash that took the lives of many warriors and soldiers and stampeded those Indians who had kept close the agencies.  Plenty Horses went with them.  The Generals tried to coax them back without another clash.
In this voatile environment, Lieutenant Edward W. Casey, a highly regarded Army officer who commanded a company of Cheyenne Indian scouts, thought he might convince the chiefs to come in and talk.  He ventured near their camp.  A party of Sioux, incuding Plenty Horses, rode out with word that he should turn back.  As Casey turned his mount, Plenty Horses raised his Winchester and fired.  The bullet hit Casey in the back of the head, and he fell to the ground dead.
The Army subseqently arrested Plenty Horses and confined him at Fort Meade.  Murder charges were brought against him in civil court, although most Army officers believed him guilty of only an act of war.  Appearing before a grand jury in Deadwood, Plenty Horses readily confessed his guilt, then explained why he had killed Casey:  "I am an Indian.  Five years I attended Carlisle and was educated in the ways of the white man.  I was lonely.  I shot the lieutenant so I might make a place for myself among my people.  Now I am one of them.  I shall be hung and the Indians will bury me as a warrior.  They will be proud of me.  I am satisfied."
Neither the grand jury nor the trial court had any choice but to indict and convict Plenty Horses of murder.  On appeal, however, a federal district judge ruled that the Indian had acted as a combatant during a state of war and could not be held liable under criminal law.  So Plenty Horses went back to the reservation a free man, to live in his shadow world until his death in the 1930's.

[Henry4440]

Plenty Horses

[Harley Starr]

Words fail me.

[Rube Burrows]

A week or two ago I was watching 20/20 and it was about the Indians who live on Pine Ridge  Reservation today. It is very sad what is going on over there and the few kids that they followed for a year and a half made me feel really sad for them as a people. The alcoholic percentage of adults was staggering as was the unemployment, death, school drop out, and many other rates.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

A week or two ago I was watching 20/20 and it was about the Indians who live on Pine Ridge  Reservation today. It is very sad what is going on over there and the few kids that they followed for a year and a half made me feel really sad for them as a people. The alcoholic percentage of adults was staggering as was the unemployment, death, school drop out, and many other rates.

Not much different up here, although I see signs of slow improvement.  I fly in to two villages up in Northern BC as legal aid counsel.  It is much as you say but no one has died of violence in the past 3 years.  Prior to that there were two to three homicides a year in a total population of about 600.  We are geting close, as knifings  and shooting over their heads incidents are all too common.  You didn't mention the latest thing - HAIR SPRAY!!  They have some good Mounties up there recently, and it helps.  The band Leadership seem to be understanding the situation a bit better as well.

[Mogorilla]

I am not sure how much it helps, but I would encourage adding one of the reservation schools to your charity donations.  I do leather work as a hobby and really like all things Native American.  I send $ when I can, but always on the rare occasion I get to sell a piece, they get 10%, I would not be doing this hobby had I not donned a feather and moccassins as a boy.  When playing C&I in the neighborhood, I was always a native.

[Danny Bear Claw]

Lonesome Henry...  that's a good pic of Plenty Horses.  Thanks for posting it.  The picture of him that I have appears to be a shot of him when he was a little older,  maybe about 10 years older than he appears to be in the pic you posted.  I tried to post the one I have but was unable to do so.

[Henry4440]

[GunClick Rick]

One of the things that was and is going on is that druggies go in and give out free samples of major drugs such as crack,they get them hooked and they either have to deal or steal to support the habit.We will be having a native american fair or show at the local museum here in a few days,for the Yokuts and Wachumni.

One thing i always wondered what was the significants of the blanket?They seemed to always have one around themselves?