Seeds of Change Action Item: American Indian Heritage Day
From the Sacred Springs Powwow in San Marcos, Texas www.sspowwow.com
Hello friends! In our Seeds of Change class today, we moved from pre-Columbian North America, which has been our focus so far, to Europe during the same period to get a sense of what lead up to European colonizers crossing an ocean in search of land to claim. In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People, we learned that before the Crusades began at the end of the thirteenth century, people in Britain and the rest of Europe had shared land called the commons. There was not private property- people farmed, raised crops, and lived on communal lands. After the crusade, this changed:
“European nobles took over the commons so they could own it. Land went from being accessible to all to being private property where no one could go without permission from the owners. This completely changed the structure of communities and created a peasant class, who were forced to work for the landed class and to fight in their wars.”
These ‘common’ people, who had been displaced from their land, were the ancestors of the colonizers who came to North America. Knowing the history helps us better understand how these Europeans were able to move in and stake their claims on occupied lands. We discussed this not to excuse their actions, but to understand one of the reasons they might have felt justified in making them.
This theme of displacement, of claiming land for oneself and evicting the people who had been living on it, is the subject of our action item today.
In thinking about historic displacement, and building off part of our action item from last week, I wanted to know how the Tonkawa, the main tribal nation that lived where I live in what is now Austin, ended up in Oklahoma. I knew about the Trail of Tears (which we’ll cover later in the year) but I only thought of it as the forced removal of tribes from the east coast. So I went looking for sources that explained when forced relocation took place in Texas. Wikipedia had answers for the Tonkawa, but while I was searching I landed on the Native American page of the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum. Their article didn’t help answer the question about the Tonkawa, and in fact didn’t mention anything about forced relocation of tribes. But it did have this to say about the Caddo: “Although the Hasinai continued to live in East Texas through the 1830s, other Caddo groups moved on to present-day Oklahoma and Kansas to escape disease and attack from other American Indians.”
This sent off alarm bells for me- the Caddo left Texas on their accord? To escape American Indians? Doesn’t it feel like something is missing from this story? Here’s a paragraph from the Wikipedia page on the Caddo: "On December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the US as a state. At that time, the federal government forced the relocation of both the Hasinai and the Kadohadacho as well as remnants of allied Delaware (Lenape) and Yowani onto the Brazos Reservation. Pressures increased on the Brazos Reservation Indians to remove north, culminating in a violent attack on December 26, 1858 on a Caddo encampment just off the reservation. This vigilante group led by Captain Peter Garland was a vigilante force from Erath County. The Caddo group was led by Choctaw Tom who was a Yowani Choctaw married to a Hasinai woman, who was killed in this fight along with twenty-seven other Indians.[24] In 1859, many of the Caddo were relocated again to Indian Territory north of Texas, in present-day Oklahoma. After the Civil War, the Caddo were concentrated on a reservation located between the Washita and Canadian rivers in Indian Territory.[14]" (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddo)
So not only is the Bob Bullock statement about the Caddo electing to move themselves to Oklahoma factually inaccurate, they also neglected to mention that the Caddo were being attacked by white vigilantes lead by Peter Garland, the captain of the Frontier Guard, and not only by attacks from "other American Indians" as they described.
There’s not a lot of good info, as far as I could find, online for the history of Indigenous nations of Texas. So it was pretty upsetting to me that our state history museum's website seemed to be getting it so wrong. So I wrote to them to ask about it. I explained the issue and asked, “Truly, what gives? Y'all have offered such limited history of Indigenous people on your site, and the information you have provided seems willfully inaccurate. Honestly I would love to know why. Can you fix this? Shouldn't your campfire story include information about the forced relocation of Native American tribes?”
I am so happy to share that Franck Cordes, an educator with the museum, wrote me back right away. Here’s what he said:
“We are in agreement with you.
The website has several spots that were written several years ago when the museum first opened, are not fully accurate, and sadly were never updated.
Updating the web site is a current top priority for us.
We are are in the midst of updating the time line, with the goal of updates related to the Tribes and Nations' histories going live later this month in time for Heritage Day on September 25th.
The forced removal of the Tribes and Nations in the area will be discussed in the updated timeline, as they are discussed in our exhibits at the museum.
Over the past couple of years, we have developed relationships with the Tribes and Nations whose histories are a part of Texas history, and we have been working closely with them to better share their stories in our exhibits.
The updated timeline will include some links to video interviews with members of the Tribes and Nations that we feature in our exhibits. One is with Caddo potter Jeri Redcorn, another is with Miranda Nax'ce Meyer of the Tonkawa Tribe.”
And they’ve already removed that paragraph about the Caddo from the website! Franck wrote again to share that the museum is hosting a virtual celebration on Friday, September 25th for American Indian Heritage Day and that he’ll be leading a webinar in the morning that will be a quick overview of thousands of years of Native history in what we now call Texas.
So after all that, here are a few suggested action items:
Check out the Bullock’s events for American Indian Heritage Day.
Talk about how people are still being displaced today. Displacement is when people are forced to leave their home (typically because of war, persecution, or natural disaster). Can you think of some examples of displacement that are happening right now? Are any of them happening close to where you live?
Think critically about what you read, hear or see. If you’re researching Indigenous People, remember the three questions we talked about at our very first Seeds of Change class: Who writes the stories? Who benefits from the stories? Who is missing from the stories? In the case of the original Native American campfire story on the Bob Bullock website, I’d wager that Indigenous people didn’t write that story. That white colonizers benefited from the story (because their persecution and displacement of Native Americans was omitted from the story), and that many tribes and a more complete picture of what happened to them are missing from the story. If you read a book and the information seems off, research it! If it’s wrong, write to the author and ask them why. Calling out inaccurate or incomplete information in the sources around us will help others learn to think critically and will hopefully lead to better information for the next person who comes looking for it.
Thanks, y’all! As always, let me know if you have additional ideas or suggestions to add to this post! And call me out if I got something wrong!
