A Child of the Forest, by Sophia Alice Callahan, is possibly the first published novel written by an American Indian woman. A schoolteacher in Muskogee Indian Territory, the 23-year-old Callahan is the daughter of a prominent Creek merchant and farmer who was long involved in Creek politics. Her novel tells the story of a young Creek woman who learns to live comfortably in both the Creek and white worlds while under the tutelage of a white southern woman. Drawing on contemporary news stories, the last portion of the book shifts the focus to Lakota Sioux territory and castigates the U. S. government for its actions in the events leading up to the Wounded Knee Masacre (see entry for DECEMBER 29, 1890).
Alaskan Natives begin herding reindeer.
Serving as a Presbyterian missionary in Alaska, non-Indian Sheldon Jackson introduces reindeer herding to Inuit in the region. With whale harvest decreasing, Jackson hopes that reindeer will provide Inuit hunters with a new source of skins and meat. Eventually funded by the U. S. government, the missionary’s efforts bring nearly 1,300 Siberian reindeer to Alaska. At local missions, the Inuit are instructed in caring for the animals by
Bering Strait Inuit corralling a reindeer herd, drawn with ink on hide by Inuit artist George Ahgupuk (The Anchorage Museum of History and Art, 70-156-2 detail 4.2)
Sami, natives of northern Norway whom Jackson recruits for his enterprise. Despite Jackson’s enthusiasm and the United States’s support, the plan to turn Alaskan Inuit into reindeer herders will ultimately fail, largely because of the Inuit’s lack of interest.
The Act for the Relief of the Mission Indians is passed.
Congress offers federal protection to California Indian lands by passing the Act for the Relief of the Mission Indians. Through this law, the United States will establish 32 small reservations scattered throughout southern California over the next 18 years.
Nearly 150 Wounded Knee victims are buried.
Burial crews are sent to Wounded Knee to round up the bodies and search for any survivors of the
“The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlers will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. . . . Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced, better that they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are.”
—novelist and journalist L. Frank Baum, in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer one week after the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee
Massacre there three days earlier (see entry for DECEMBER 29, 1890). The frozen corpses of 146 men, women, and children are interred in a mass grave. Many of the bodies have been stripped of their Ghost Dance shirts and other paraphernalia by soldiers seeking souvenirs of the slaughter. The crews find few survivors. Most of the wounded have already been found and taken in by relatives before their arrival. Although estimates differ, probably at least 300 of the some 350 Indians at Wounded Knee died either at site or later under the care of their loved ones.
Ghost Dance advocate Kicking Bear surrenders to the U. S. Army.
Schooled in the Ghost Dance by its founder Wo-voka (see entry for JANUARY 1, 1889), Oglala Sioux Kicking Bear is a strong advocate of the new Ghost Dance Religion embraced by many Plains tribes. Expelled from the Standing Rock Reservation, Kicking Bear and his people continue to perform the Ghost Dance on the Pine Ridge Reservation even after the army’s slaughter of more than 300 adherents at Wounded Knee (see entry for DECEM BER 29, 1890). When army troops surround their encampment, Kicking Bear negotiates a peaceful surrender of about 5,000 Lakota Sioux to General Nelson A. Miles to avoid further bloodshed. The event is the last formal surrender by Indians to the U. S. Army in the Plains Indian Wars.
Congress amends the General Allotment Act.
The General Allotment Act (see entry for FEBRU ARY 8, 1887) granted each head of a family 160 acres of land on an allotted reservation. The amendment to the act calls for 80-acre allotments to be given to every adult on the tribal roll. More important, the amendment allows Indians to lease allotments to non-Indians.
April 13
Civil service requirements are extended to Bureau of Indian Affairs employees.
President Benjamin Harrison declares that Bureau of Indian Affairs hiring for all medical and educational jobs must adhere to civil service requirements. His action is a response to reformers who have long maintained that the spoils system has placed corrupt agents in control of reservations.
April
Plenty Horses is acquitted of murder charges.
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a 22-year-old Sioux named Plenty Horses is tried for the murder of an army officer who was policing the Pine Ridge Reservation several days after the massacre at Wounded Knee (see entry for DECEMBER 29, 1890). In his testimony, Plenty Horses explains that his education at the Carlisle Indian school (see entry for AUTUMN 1879) in Pennsylvania had so divorced him from his Sioux friends and relatives that he felt compelled to earn their respect as a warrior. “I shot the lieutenant so I might make a place for myself among my people,” the accused told the court. “Now I am one of them. . . . They will be proud of me. I am satisfied.” In a controversial decision, the jury acquits Plenty Horses on the grounds that at the time of the shooting he was acting as a combatant during a state of war—the same justification the U. S. Army is using to avoid prosecuting the soldiers involved in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
World History
