By dubbing its teams “Indians,” the University of Wisconsin at Lacrosse becomes the first of many sports organizations to use the warfare between Indians and non-Indians of previous centuries as a metaphor for the “battle” on the playing field. Further stereotyping Native Americans as aggressive savages, many other schools and sports organizations will follow the university’s lead by adopting team names such as “Chiefs,” “Braves,” and “Redskins.”
The “Last Great Indian Council” is called by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
With the assistance of non-Indian businessmen Joseph K. Dixon and Rodman Wanamaker, the Bureau of Indian Affairs stages “one last great council” of selected Indian leaders, at the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn (see entry for JUNE 24 TO 25, 1876). Four years later, Dixon will publish a romantic account of the meeting titled The Vanishing Race: The Last Great Indian Council.
“To the man of mystery—the earth his mother—the sun his father—a child of the mountains and the Plains—a faithful worshipper in the great world cathedral—now a tragic soul haunting the shores of the western ocean—my brother the Indian.”
—the dedication of Joseph K. Dixon’s The Vanishing Race:The Last Great Indian Council (1913)
Chitto Harjo is shot by U. S. deputy marshals.
Several African Americans forced out of a nearby town by whites move to Hickory Ground, the capital of the Crazy Snake movement (see entry for
AUTUMN 1900). When they are accused of stealing from local white families, the police arrive in the town to arrest them. Fifteen men are killed in the deadly shoot-out that follows.
Although uninvolved in the incident, Crazy Snake leader Chitto Harjo is blamed for the violence. Four U. S. deputy marshals come to Harjo’s home to arrest him, again prompting an exchange of gunfire, during which Harjo is wounded. As a large posse gathers to capture Harjo, he escapes from Hickory Ground. Various accounts later emerge about Harjo’s fate. Some claim he made his way to Mexico; others say he was hanged the next year in Oklahoma; still others maintain he died near his home from his gunshot wound.
Inuit explorers help Robert E. Peary reach the North Pole.
After trying six times, explorer Robert E. Peary becomes the first white man to reach the North Pole. Among the men in his exploration party are four Inuit—Coqueeh, Ootah, Eginwah, and Seegloo—and an African American, Matthew Henson.
The Four Mothers Society is founded.
Creek Indian Eufaula Harjo and Cherokee leader Redbird Smith form the Four Mothers Society, an organization dedicated to improving the political situation of Oklahoma Indian traditionalists. One of the first intertribal organizations, it draws its membership from the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek tribes, although the majority are the former followers of Chitto Harjo, the Creek leader of the Crazy Snake movement (see entry for MARCH 27, 1908). At its height the organization will have as many as 24,000 members. Among the society’s goals are preserving communal ownership of tribal lands and pressuring Congress to remove restrictions on the sale of allotments.
September 26
Paiute Indian Willie Boy becomes a fugitive.
In Banning, California, a young Paiute man known as Willie Boy shoots a Chemehuevi Indian, William Mike, and runs away with his 14-year-old daughter Carlota. The murder launches a widely reported manhunt that makes Willie Boy into a folk hero. Chased by a posse that includes Indian trackers, Willie Boy kills Carlota and then, in the middle of a skirmish with his pursuers, shoots himself. In 1969 the legends surrounding Willie Boy will become the basis of the counterculture film Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, starring non-Indian actor Robert Blake in the title role.
World History
