Whitewashing Wounded Knee. The Wounded Knee Medals of Honor.

It seems like we live in an age when political polarization will have no ends and no bounds.

Burying Sioux dead at Wounded Knee.

Let's start by noting that the Battle of Wounded Knee occurred almost 135 years ago.  Usually, when you say something like that in a casual conservation, you get the "that's a long time ago".  In historical terms, it's not.  It particularly is not for a defeated people, such as the Sioux.  It also isn't, however, for a culture that seemingly is involved in a sort of cultural civil war.

What happened at Wounded Knee, South Dakota on December 29, 1890 isn't really all that well understood now and wasn't really then. other than that 90 Sioux lost their lives, and four were wounded, while 31 US troops fo the 7th Cavalry were killed, and 33 wounded.  The fact that the 7th Cavalry sustained 64 casualties typically comes as a surprise to people who don't know much about the event, as it shows that it had at least some character of being a battle, while the 90 Sioux deaths show that it was certainly lopsided. The fact that only 4 Sioux were reported as wounded says a lot as well, as normally there are more wounded that killed.  The entire event took place with the Ghost Dance in the background of the times, and the residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation being absolutely desperate.  Sitting Bull, as often noted, had been killed by Indian Police just a few days prior.

The actual fight came about with Colonel James W. Forsyth ordered the Sioux disarmed.  It's easy to see why this would not have been well received, as that rendered an oppressed people completely defenseless while making them also 100% dependant upon the United States government for provisions.  Modern proponents of the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, which the Trump Administration purports to be, would normally have regarded this as being completely beyond the pale, but at the time Native Americans were not American citizens and the common current understanding of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment really didn't exist.  At any rate, the disarming was going fairly well when something happened, with it not being clear what, and gunfire ensued.  By at least some accounts the first shot was accidental (something that may well be true of Lexington and Concord as well) and occured when soldiers tried to disarm a deaf man who also had no command of English at all.  General shooting broke out instantly and the officers very rapidly lost control of their men.

Wounded Knee, as a location,  had received the attention of the Western Press at least back to November, 1890, a full month or more before the incident took place, due to the Ghost Dance and the things occuring there.. The action at Wounded Knee was reported almost immediately, with the Laramie Boomerang and the Cheyenne Daily Leaders being the first papers to report on it in Wyoming.

By the first week of January, the newspaper in Buffalo was reporting on the event as a "sorious [sic] engagement".  It didn't take long, however before the press was commenting on what occurred there and criticizing it.  When looked at, it didn't appear that the Army had covered itself with glory by any means.  Perhaps because of that, it took steps to do just that, issuing 20 Medals of Honor, nearly as many has had been awarded due to the Battle of Little Big Horn..¹

Four years ago, we reported here on the review of those Medals of Honor that were awarded for action at Wounded Knee, which were under review by the Biden Administration's Department of Defense:

Today In Wyoming's History: Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor.: Sgt. Toy receiving the Medal of Honor in 1891.  Sgt. Toy was cited for "bravery while shooting Indians" at Wounded Knee.  He is kn...

We link in, although it's probably bad form to do so, our original post below, complete with the names of those who were awarded the medal.²

Now, Secretary of Defense Hegseth.³   has ended the review and determined that all twenty soldiers who were awarded the medal shall retain it "forever".

There's no "final" anything in the U.S. Government or the greater world at large.  The Secretary can order the sea held back forever, but he'd be no more successful at that than King Canute.  The next administration may very well revisit this topic.

I'd somewhat forgotten about this story, and I'm really surprised that it took four years to get around to the point of a decision being made.  For goodness sake, how much time would such a review actually need?  Enough time had in fact elapsed that I'd returned to my original misunderstanding on this subject, which was; "that I was under the impression that the Army had rescinded these medals long ago, and I'm not completely certain that they haven't.  Having said that, I can't find that they were, so my presumption must have been in error." A lot of pre Great War Medals of Honor have in fact been rescinded, as the criteria for being awarded the medal have radically changed.  I addressed that in my original post, noting. that; 

To put this in context, the medals that were rescinded, if any were, weren't rescinded because Wounded Knee was a massacre.  They were rescinded because they didn't meet the post April 1917 criteria for receiving the award."

The Medal of Honor was first authorized in 1861 by the Navy, not the Army, following the retirement of Gen. Winfield Scott, who was adamantly opposed to the awarding of medals to servicemen, which he regarded as a European practice, not an American one.  The award was authorized by Congress that year, at the Navy's request.  The Army followed in 1862 in the same fashion.  The medals actually vary by appearance, to this day, depending upon which service issues them, and they've varied somewhat in design over time.

During the Civil War the award was generally issued for extraordinary heroism, but not necessarily of the same degree for which it is today.  Because of this, a fairly large number of Medals of Honor were conferred after the Civil War to servicemen who retroactively sought them, so awards continued for Civil War service for decades following the war.  New awards were also issued, of course, for acts of heroism in the remaining decades of the 19th Century, with Army awards usually being related to service in the Indian Wars.  Navy awards, in contrast, tended to be issued for heroic acts in lifesaving, a non combat issuance of the award that could not occur today.  Indeed, a fairly large number were issued to sailors who went over the sides of ships to save the lives, or attempt to, of drowning individuals, often with tragic results to the sailors.

At any rate, the period following the war and the method by which it was retroactively issued may have acclimated the Army to issuing awards as there are a surprising number of them that were issued for frontier battles.  This does not mean that there were not genuine acts of heroism that took place in those battles, it's just surprising how many there were and its clear that the criteria was substantially lower than that which would apply for most of the 20th Century.

Indeed, in the 20th Century the Army began to significantly tighten up requirements to hold the medal. This came into full fruition during World War One during which the Army made it plain that it was only a combat medal, while the Navy continued to issue the medal for peacetime heroism.  In 1917 the Army took the position that the medal could only be issued for combat acts of heroism at the risk of life to the recipient, and in 1918 that change became official.  Prior to the 1918 change the Army commissioned a review board on past issuance of the medal and struck 911 instances of them having been issued.  I'd thought the Wounded Knee medals had been stricken, but my presumption must be in error.

Frontier era Medals of Honor, as well as those issued to Civil War era soldiers after the Civil War, tend to be remarkably lacking in information as to why they were conferred.  This has presented a problem for the Army looking back on them in general.

Indeed, the Wounded Knee medals have this character.  They don't say much, and what they do say isn't all that useful to really know much about what lead them to be awarded.  There is a peculiar aspect to them, however, in that they don't reflect what we generally know about the battle historically.  

I additionally noted about these specific awards that:

Indeed, save for two examples that reference rescuing wounded comrades, I don't know that any of these would meet the modern criteria. They don't appear to.  So once again, most of these would appear to be subject to proper unilateral Army downgrading or rescission all on their own with no Congressional action.

Hegseth's action revivies, and in the worst possible way, a sort of dormant glacial debate on the battle itself, with the popular understanding of what occurred there having somewhat shifted, although perhaps not as much as we might imagine, over the years.  Right from the onset, as noted, there were those who regarded what happened at Wounded Knee with horror.  While it may have been a battle, it has every appearance of being one in which the officers of the 7th Cavalry simply lost control of the situation and their troops.  Had the Sioux been properly armed, chances are high that the 7th, in spite of being very well armed at the battle, would have taken massive casualties.  The fact that the Army's dead nearly equalled the wounded says a lot.

But not as much as 90 Sioux being killed, including women and children, and only four being wounded. The battle is normally called a massacre, with the terms battle and massacre not being mutually exclusive.

Regarding the medals, it's also not impossible that some of them were for genuine heroism, but the typical 19th Century spartan citations make it hard to tell. They read:

Sergeant William Austin, cavalry, directed fire at Indians in ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mosheim Feaster, cavalry, extraordinary gallantry at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mathew Hamilton, cavalry, bravery in action at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Joshua Hartzog, artillery, rescuing commanding officer who was wounded and carried him out of range of hostile guns at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Marvin Hillock, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Bernhard Jetter, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee for "killing an Indian who was in the act of killing a wounded man of B Troop."

·         Sergeant George Loyd, cavalry, bravery, especially after having been severely wounded through the lung at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Albert McMillain, cavalry, while engaged with Indians concealed in a ravine, he assisted the men on the skirmish line, directed their fire, encouraged them by example, and used every effort to dislodge the enemy at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Thomas Sullivan, cavalry, conspicuous bravery in action against Indians concealed in a ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         First Sergeant Jacob Trautman, cavalry, killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and, although entitled to retirement from service, remained to close of the campaign at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant James Ward, cavalry, continued to fight after being severely wounded at Wounded Knee;

·         Corporal William Wilson, cavalry, bravery in Sioux Campaign, 1890;

·         Private Hermann Ziegner, cavalry, conspicuous bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Musician John Clancy, artillery, twice voluntarily rescued wounded comrades under fire of the enemy;

·         Lieutenant Ernest Garlington, cavalry, distinguished gallantry;

·         First Lieutenant John Chowning Gresham, cavalry, voluntarily led a party into a ravine to dislodge Sioux Indians concealed therein. He was wounded during this action.

·         Second Lieutenant Harry Hawthorne, artillery, distinguished conduct in battle with hostile Indians;

·         Private George Hobday, cavalry, conspicuous and gallant conduct in battle;

·         First Sergeant Frederick Toy, cavalry, bravery;

·         Corporal Paul Weinert, artillery, taking the place of his commanding officer who had fallen severely wounded, he gallantly served his piece, after each fire advancing it to a better position

A few of those seem pretty clear.  A few of those would never meet the current standards.  Indeed, almost all of these would not.  Pvt. Hartzog's seems to be the only one that probably would under the modern standard, but then again it's hard to know what most of these are really for.

Only 86 men were awarded the Medal of Honor for the entire Philippine Insurrection, which occured only shortly after this event.  112 Medals of Honor were awarded for servicemen for the Spanish American War, of which 31 went to soldiers, and the balance went to sailors.

Can it really be possible that the men of the 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee were that much more heroic than the men who fought at Kettle Hill?

That's awfully hard to believe.

It's a least questionable.  

It was obvious even at the time that Wounded Knee closed entirely the era of Frontier campaigning.  There would be some fighting with Native Americans even after that, but the West had been won and the real wars were over.  Wounded Knee was the tragic and sad end to it.  By that time the Army was simply trying to keep Natives on their reservations, and to some extent was a police force poorly trained for that role, and frankly arguably just poorly trained.  Wounded Knee occurred because the Army feared that the Sioux on Pine Ridge would try to break off of the reservation  and they knew that disarming them would render them completely helpless.  That reasoning was not incorrect. Doing it got very badly out of hand and the events thereafter had every appearance of an Army attempt to whitewash what happened.  It didn't succeed at the time.

And it won't now.

The fact that the Administration feels that this somehow serves its interest, 135 years after the events, but with the wounds still fresh for the Sioux, says a lot about it views history, and those who have suffered at our hands.

Footnotes:

1.  It's common to see it stated 19 medals were issued.  It was 20.

2.  Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor.

Sgt. Toy receiving the Medal of Honor in 1891.  Sgt. Toy was cited for "bravery while shooting Indians" at Wounded Knee.  He is known to have shot two during the engagement, which is about all that his citations and the supporting material relates.

 Tribes Want Medals Awarded for Wounded Knee Revoked.

While this isn't a Wyoming item per se, the Battle of Wounded Knee has been noted here before, as its a regional one.

It would likely surprise most readers here that twenty Medals of Honor were awarded to soldiers who participated in the actions at Wounded Knee.  The odd thing is that I was under the impression that the Army had rescinded these medals long ago, and I'm not completely certain that they haven't.  Having said that, I can't find that they were, so my presumption must have been in error.

To put this in context, the medals that were rescinded, if any were, weren't rescinded because Wounded Knee was a massacre.  They were rescinded because they didn't meet the post April 1917 criteria for receiving the award.

The Medal of Honor was first authorized in 1861 by the Navy, not the Army, following the retirement of Gen. Winfield Scott, who was adamantly opposed to the awarding of medals to servicemen, which he regarded as a European practice, not an American one.  The award was authorized by Congress that year, at the Navy's request.  The Army followed in 1862 in the same fashion.  The medals actually vary by appearance, to this day, depending upon which service issues them, and they've varied somewhat in design over time.

During the Civil War the award was generally issued for extraordinary heroism, but not necessarily of the same degree for which it is today.  Because of this, a fairly large number of Medals of Honor were conferred after the Civil War to servicemen who retroactively sought them, so awards continued for Civil War service for decades following the war.  New awards were also issued, of course, for acts of heroism in the remaining decades of the 19th Century, with Army awards usually being related to service in the Indian Wars.  Navy awards, in contrast, tended to be issued for heroic acts in lifesaving, a non combat issuance of the award that could not occur today.  Indeed, a fairly large number were issued to sailors who went over the sides of ships to save the lives, or attempt to, of drowning individuals, often with tragic results to the sailors.

At any rate, the period following the war and the method by which it was retroactively issued may have acclimated the Army to issuing awards as there are a surprising number of them that were issued for frontier battles.  This does not mean that there were not genuine acts of heroism that took place in those battles, it's just surprising how many there were and its clear that the criteria was substantially lower than that which would apply for most of the 20th Century.

Indeed, in the 20th Century the Army began to significantly tighten up requirements to hold the medal. This came into full fruition during World War One during which the Army made it plain that it was only a combat medal, while the Navy continued to issue the medal for peacetime heroism.  In 1917 the Army took the position that the medal could only be issued for combat acts of heroism at the risk of life to the recipient, and in 1918 that change became official.  Prior to the 1918 change the Army commissioned a review board on past issuance of the medal and struck 911 instances of them having been issued.  I'd thought the Wounded Knee medals had been stricken, but my presumption must be in error.

Frontier era Medals of Honor, as well as those issued to Civil War era soldiers after the Civil War, tend to be remarkably lacking in information as to why they were conferred.  This has presented a problem for the Army looking back on them in general.

Indeed, the Wounded Knee medals have this character.  They don't say much, and what they do say isn't all that useful to really know much about what lead them to be awarded.  There is a peculiar aspect to them, however, in that they don't reflect what we generally know about the battle historically.  

Wikipedia has summarized the twenty awards and what they were awarded for, and this illustrates this problem.  The Wounded Knee Wikipedia page summarizes this as follows

·         Sergeant William Austin, cavalry, directed fire at Indians in ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mosheim Feaster, cavalry, extraordinary gallantry at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mathew Hamilton, cavalry, bravery in action at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Joshua Hartzog, artillery, rescuing commanding officer who was wounded and carried him out of range of hostile guns at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Marvin Hillock, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Bernhard Jetter, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee for "killing an Indian who was in the act of killing a wounded man of B Troop."

·         Sergeant George Loyd, cavalry, bravery, especially after having been severely wounded through the lung at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Albert McMillain, cavalry, while engaged with Indians concealed in a ravine, he assisted the men on the skirmish line, directed their fire, encouraged them by example, and used every effort to dislodge the enemy at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Thomas Sullivan, cavalry, conspicuous bravery in action against Indians concealed in a ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         First Sergeant Jacob Trautman, cavalry, killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and, although entitled to retirement from service, remained to close of the campaign at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant James Ward, cavalry, continued to fight after being severely wounded at Wounded Knee;

·         Corporal William Wilson, cavalry, bravery in Sioux Campaign, 1890;

·         Private Hermann Ziegner, cavalry, conspicuous bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Musician John Clancy, artillery, twice voluntarily rescued wounded comrades under fire of the enemy;

·         Lieutenant Ernest Garlington, cavalry, distinguished gallantry;

·         First Lieutenant John Chowning Gresham, cavalry, voluntarily led a party into a ravine to dislodge Sioux Indians concealed therein. He was wounded during this action.

·         Second Lieutenant Harry Hawthorne, artillery, distinguished conduct in battle with hostile Indians;

·         Private George Hobday, cavalry, conspicuous and gallant conduct in battle;

·         First Sergeant Frederick Toy, cavalry, bravery;

·         Corporal Paul Weinert, artillery, taking the place of his commanding officer who had fallen severely wounded, he gallantly served his piece, after each fire advancing it to a better position

For quite a few of these, we're left without a clue as to what the basis of the award was, at least based on this summation. But for some, it would suggest a pitched real battle.  A couple of the awards are for rescuing wounded comrades under fire.  Others are for combat actions that we can recognize.

Indeed, one historian that I know, and probably only because I know him, has noted the citations in support for "it was a real battle", taking the controversial, albeit private, position that Wounded Knee was a real, pitched, engagement, not simply a slaughter.  This isn't the popular view at all, of course, and its frankly not all that well supported by the evidence either.  But what of that evidence.

A popular thesis that's sometimes presented is that Wounded Knee was the 7th Cavalry's revenge for the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Perhaps this is so, but if it is so, it's would be somewhat odd in that it would presume an institutional desire for revenge rather than a personal one, for the most part.  Wounded Knee was twenty four years after Little Big Horn and most of the men who had served at Little Big Horn were long since out of the service.  Indeed, some of the men who received awards would have been two young for service in 1890, and while I haven't looked up all of their biographies, some of them were not likely to have even been born at the time.  Maybe revenge was it, but if that's the case, it would demonstrate a 19th Century retention of institutional memories that vastly exceed the 20th and 21st Century ones.  Of course, the 7th Cavalry remains famous to this day for Little Big Horn, so perhaps that indeed is it.

Or perhaps what it reflects is that things went badly wrong at Wounded Knee and the massacre became a massively one sided battle featuring a slaughter, something that the Sioux on location would have been well within their rights to engage in. That is, once the things went wrong and the Army overreacted, as it certainly is well established that it did, the Sioux with recourse to arms would have been justified in acting in self defense.  That there were some actions in self defense which would have had the character of combat doesn't mean it wasn't combat.

And that raises the sticky moral issues of the Congressional efforts to rescind the medals.  Some of these medals are so poorly supported that the Army could likely simply rescind them on their own, as they have many others, and indeed, I thought they had.  Some seem quite unlikely to meet the modern criteria for the medal no matter what, and therefore under the practices established in 1917, they could be rescinded even if they were regarded as heroic at the time.  Cpl. Weinert's for example, unless there was more to it, would probably just merit a letter of commendation today.

Indeed, save for two examples that reference rescuing wounded comrades, I don't know that any of these would meet the modern criteria. They don't appear to.  So once again, most of these would appear to be subject to proper unilateral Army downgrading or rescission all on their own with no Congressional action.

But what of Congressional action, which has been proposed. The Army hasn't rescinded these awards and they certainly stand out as awards that should receive attention.  If Congress is to act, the best act likely would be to require the Army to review overall its pre 1917 awards once again.  If over 900 were weeded out the first time, at least a few would be today, and I suspect all of these would.

To simply rescind them, however, is problematic, as it will tend to be based neither on the criteria for award today, or the criteria of the award in 1890, but on the gigantic moral problem that is the Battle of Wounded Knee itself.  That is, these awards are proposed to be removed as we regard Wounded Knee as a genocidal act over all, which it does indeed appear to be.

The problem with that is that even if it is a genocidal act in chief, individual acts during it may or may not be. So, rushing forwards to rescue a wounded comrade might truly be heroic, even if done in the middle of an act of barbarism.  Other acts, such as simply shooting somebody, would seem to be participating in that barbarism, but here too you still have the situation of individual soldiers suddenly committed to action and not, in every instance, knowing what is going on.  It's now too late to know in most cases.  Were they acting like William Calley or just as a regular confused soldier?

Indeed, if medals can be stricken because we now abhor what they were fighting for (and in regard to Wounded Knee, it was questioned nearly immediately, which may be why the Army felt compelled to issue medals to those participating in it, to suggest it was a battle more than it was), what do we do with other problematic wars?

Eighty six men, for example, received the Medal of Honor for the Philippine Insurrection.  In retrospect, that was a pure colonial war we'd not condone in any fashion today, and it was controversial at the time.  Theodore Roosevelt very belatedly received the Medal of Honor for leading the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry up Kettle Hill during the Spanish American War, and he no doubt met the modern criterial, but the Spanish American War itself is morally dubious at best.  

Of course, none of these awards are associated with an act of genocide, which takes us back to Wounded Knee.  As noted above, maybe so many awards were issued there as the Army wanted to to convert a massacre into a battle, and conferring awards for bravery was a way to attempt to do that.

Certainly the number of awards for Wounded Knee is very outsized.  It's been noted that as many awards have been issued for heroism at Wounded Knee as have been for some gigantic Civil War battles.  Was the Army really more heroic at Wounded Knee than Antietam?  That seems unlikely.

Anyway a person looks at it, this is one of those topics that it seems clear would be best served by Army action.  The Army has looked at the topic of pre 1917 awards before, and it removed a fair number of them.  There's no reason that it can't do so again. It was regarded as harsh the last time it occurred, and some will complain now as well, but the Army simply did it last time.   That would honor the medal and acknowledge the history, and it really shouldn't be confined to just Wounded Knee.

Dead men and horses at Wounded Knee following the conflict.

3.  Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense, not the Secretary of War. The Defense Department can't unilaterally change its name and Donald Trump can't change his title.  He can call himself Pete Hegseth, Warrior Princess if he wants to, but officially he's still the Secretary of Defense.

Buckle your seatbelts Laramie, it's going to be a bumpy ride. The Coldest Case In Laramie.

Laramie, Spring 1986.

Kim Barker, a journalist who is best known for her book on Afghanistan, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, is coming out with a podcast on a 1985 unsolved murder in Laramie.  Moreover, Barker was apparently a high school student at the time.

And she doesn't like the city of her alma mater at all.  Of it, in the promotions for this podcast, she's stated:

"I've always remembered it as a mean town. Uncommonly mean. A place of jagged edges and cold people. Where the wind blew so hard it actually whipped pebbles at you." 

Wow.

And there's more:

I don't like crime books, but oddly I do like some crime/mystery podcasts.  I'm not sure why the difference, and as I'm a Wyomingite and a former resident of Laramie, I'll listen to the podcast.

But frankly, I’m already jaded, and it's due to statements like this:

It was an emblem of her time in Laramie, a town that stood out as the meanest place she’d ever lived in. 

Really, you've been to Afghanistan, and Laramie is the meanest place you've lived in?

Hmmm. . . .  This is, shall we say, uncommonly crappy.  And frankly, this discredits this writer.

I've lived in Laramie twice.

All together, I guess, I've lived in Casper, Laramie, and Lawton (Ft. Sill) Oklahoma.  I've been to nearly every town and city in Wyoming, and I've ranged as far as Port Arthur, Texas to Central Alaska, Seoul, South Korea to Montreal.

The author may recall it that way, but if she does, it says more about her life at the time than Laramie.

And indeed, I suspect that's it.

If you listen to the trailer, you hear a string. . . dare I say it, of teenage girl complaints, preserved for decades, probably because she exited the state soon after high school, like so many Wyomingites do.  I can't verify that, as her biography is hard to find.  Her biography on her website starts with her being a reporter, as if she was born into the South East Asian news bureau she first worked for.  A little digging brings up a source from Central Asia, which her reporting is associated with, and it notes that its very difficult to find information on her.  It does say, however, that she grew up in Billings, Montana and grew up with her father.  Nothing seems to be known about her mother.  She's a graduate of Norwestern University, which supports that she probably graduated from high school in Laramie and then took off, never to look back.  How long did she live there is an open question, and what brought her father there is another.  Having said all of that, teenage girls being relocated isn't something they're generally keen on, and Billings is a bigger city than Laramie.  I have yet to meet anyone who didn't like Billings.

Now, I didn't go to high school in Laramie, but I was in Laramie at the time that Barker was, and these events occurred.  1985 is apparently the critical date, and I was at UW at the time.  I very vaguely recall this event occurring, and didn't at first.  I vaguely recall one of the things about Laramie that Barker mentions in her introduction, which was the male athlete branding.  What I recall is that there was a local scandal regarding that, and it certainly wasn't approved by anyone.

A lot of her miscellaneous complaints, however, are really petty and any high school anywhere in the United States, save perhaps for private ones, might be able to have similar stories said about it.  Boys being sent out to fight if they engaged in fighting within the school wasn't that uncommon in the 80s.  I don't recall it happening at my high school, outside of the C Club Fights, but I do recall it from junior high, in the 1970s, and experienced it myself.  I don't regard it as an act of barbarism, although I woudln't approve of it.  As noted, I recall this branding story, which was a scandal and not approved of, but today an equally appalling thing goes on all over the United States with the tattooing of children for various reasons, including minors, in spite of its illegality.  Certainly college sports teams feature this frequently, and I'd wager many high school athletes experience a similar example of tribalism.

What's really upsetting, however, is the assertion that Laramie was, and is, "mean".

When I went to Laramie in 1983 for the first time, I didn't look forward to it.  I found the town alien at first and strange.  I probably would have found any place I went to under those circumstances to be like that.  I was from Central Wyoming and had lived there my entire life, save for a short stint at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.  But by the time I graduated in 1986, I had acclimated to it and there were parts of living in Albany County I really liked.  I was back down there a year later, this time not dreading it, and as a graduate student I was pretty comfortable in the town.

I also wasn't a teenager being dislocated from the place I grew up in.

In my last couple of years of undergraduate studies, and in all of my graduate years, I was pretty comfortable with the city.  I knew the places and things there, and had friends there.  In the summers, and I spent a couple there, it was a really nice place in particular to live.

And let's be honest.  Just as the land of high school angst might seem awful, the land you are in when you are young usually isn't.

If I had any complaints, at that time, it was about housing and prices.  Housing was always a crisis for a student, and a lot of the places I lived were not very nice.  Some were pretty bad.  And prices locally were really high, it seemed to us.  Local merchants complained about students shopping in Ft. Collins, but we did that as it was cheaper than shopping in Laramie.

The weather in Laramie is another thing.  It's 7,000 feet high, in the Rockies, and therefore it can be cold and snowy. The highway closes a lot.  In the early 1980s, it was really cold and snowy, with temperatures down below 0 quite regular.  Interestingly, by the late 1980s this was less the case.  And it does have wind, but ten everyplace from El Paso to the Arctic Circle is pretty windy.  Wyoming weather can be a trial for some people, particularly those who are not from here.

Which gets, I guess, to this.  A Colorado colleague notes that you have to be tougher just to live in the state.  You do.  Being from here makes you that way.  As the line in the film Wind River puts it, in an exchange between the characters:

Jane Banner: Shouldn't we wait for back up?

Ben: This isn't the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you're on your own.

And that can be true.  If you aren't at least somewhat self-reliant, this may not be the place for you.

The further you get away from Laramie, the more this can be true.  Laramie is the most "liberal" city in regular Wyoming, surpassed in that regard only by Jackson.  Albany County nearly always sends at least one Democrat to the legislature.  If there's left wing social legislation pending, there's a good chance it comes out of Albany County.  Albany County is the only county in the state, outside of Teton, where all the things that drive the social right nuts are openly exhibited, due to the University of Wyoming.  In real terms, about 1/3d of the city's population are students at any one time, and a lot of those who are not students are employed by the University of Wyoming.

When I graduated from law school, I noted that a lot of students who passed through the College of Law stayed there if they could.  That says something about the town. Several good friends of mine over the years who are lawyers stayed there, including ones that had come there from other Wyoming locations.  Even a few of my non law school friends worked and lived there for a time, although none of them do any longer.

And in the years since I lived there the influence of Ft. Collins has come in, with downtown establishments mimicking those that are fifty miles to the south.  I've known people who retired and left the town, but I also have known people who retired to it.

It's not mean.

But the whole world is mean to some teenagers, with their limited experience and exaggerated sensibilities.  Some people keep that perception for the rest of their lives.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming has 43 federal places with 'squaw' in the name. A recent order will change that. Taking a closer look.

Arapaho woman (Hisei), late 19th Century.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming has 43 federal places with 'squaw' in the ...:   Wyoming has 43 federal places with 'squaw' in the name. A recent order will change that.

So, what are they?

Takluit woman, 1910.  The coins are Chinese.

First, a precautionary note. Even setting the word squaw aside, some of these could legitimately be regarded as otherwise offensive.  I.e., if you edit "squaw" out and substitute for Indian Woman, or Native American Woman, some would still be offensive.

Hopi woman, 1900.

Okay, according to the Federal Government, this is the list in Wyoming.

I'll note right away that I know this list to be inaccurate at least in so far as what things are apparently actually called, as the clearly offensive "Squaw Teat" actually also applies to a peak, or high hill, in Natrona County.

Mohave woman, 1903.

And the last item, in case anyone wonders, is listed there as it was renamed recently from a name that formerly included the word squaw in it.

And we'd also note that one is a historical place name of a now abandoned settlement.  You probably can't, or at least shouldn't, do something in regard to that.

So let's next start first with the ultimate question  Is it offensive?

Native American woman in Oklahoma, 1939.

Let's take a look at an article recently published in Indian Country Today on that question, here's what they partially had to say on that.  For the full article, you should go to Indian Country Today.

Some historical connections

According to Dr. Marge Bruchac, an Abenaki historical consultant, Squaw means the totality of being female and the Algonquin version of the word “esqua,” “squa” “skwa” does not translate to a woman’s female anatomy. 

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines the term as “often offensive: an American Indian woman” and “usually disparaging: woman, wife.”

The Urban Dictionary paints a different picture. It says the word squaw “Does not mean vagina, or any other body part for that matter. The word comes from the Massachusett (no S) Algonquian tribe and means: female, young woman. The word squaw is not related to the Mohawk word ‘ojiskwa’: which does mean vagina. There is absolutely no derogatory meaning in the word ‘squaw.’ ‘Squaw’ has been a familiar word in American literature and language since the 16th century and has been generally understood to mean an Indian woman, or wife.” It is worth noting the Urban Dictionary is not an authoritative Native source.

In her article “Reclaiming the word ‘Squaw’ in the Name of the Ancestors,” Dr. Bruchac wrote the following excerpt about the meaning of squaw.

“The word has been interpreted by modern activists as a slanderous assault against Native American women. But traditional Algonkian speakers, in both Indian and English, still say words like ‘nidobaskwa’=a female friend, ‘manigebeskwa’=woman of the woods, or ‘Squaw Sachem’=female chief. When Abenaki people sing the Birth Song, they address ‘nuncksquassis’=‘little woman baby’.”

“I understand the concern of Indian women who feel insulted by this word, but I respectfully suggest that we reclaim our language rather than let it be taken over,” wrote Bruchac.

The first recorded version of squaw was found in a book called Mourt’s Relation: A Journey of the Pilgrims at Plymouth written in 1622. The term was not used in a derogatory fashion but spoke of the “squa sachim or Massachusets Queen” in the September 20, 1621 journal entry.

Though the earliest historical references support a non-offensive slant on the meaning of squaw and support Bruchac’s claims, there are also several literary and historical instances of squaw being used in a derogatory or sexually connotative way.

According to some proponents on the inflammatory side of the words meaning, squaw could just as easily have come from the Mohawk word ojiskwa’ which translates politely to vagina.

In the 1892 book An Algonquin Maiden by Canadian writer Pauline Johnson, whose father was a Mohawk Chief, the word squaw indicates a sexual meaning.

“Poor little Wanda! not only is she non-descript and ill-starred, but as usual the authors take away her love, her life, and last and most terrible of all, reputation; for they permit a crowd of men-friends of the hero to call her a ‘squaw’ and neither hero nor authors deny that she is a squaw. It is almost too sad when so much prejudice exists against the Indians, that any one should write up an Indian heroine with such glaring accusations against her virtue…”

So, what can we say?

Well, not knowing for sure, as I'm certainly not a linguist with a knowledge of any of these languages, and it's clear that linguist don't agree themselves, I suspect that Dr. Burchac is correct. The origin is likely from a native language and unlikely to have had an offensive origin.

But that doesn't really fully answer the question, and it's a really touchy one, which I'd bet Dr. Burchac will acknowledge.

At its bare root, the word means an Indian, or perhaps more accurately now, a Native American, woman, the same way that "papoose" has been used in the past to describe a Native American baby, and "brave" has inaccurately been used to describe all Native American men (although also the much more offensive "buck" also shows up in that use).  Simply left at that, it's probably no more offensive than the word "Frau" and "Fräulein" are to describe German women, or Madam and Mademoiselle, or Señora and Señorita are in French and Spanish respectively.

Two Charger Woman, a Brule Sioux, 1907.

Indeed, in a certain context, maybe even less so, as it at least is an acknowledgement to culture.  And that sort of seems how the original use was.  The 1622 use is not only amazingly early, it was an attempt at being descriptive and providing an honorific, the "Massachusetts Queen".  In that context, the early use of the work seems to have conveyed gender and ethnicity at the same time.

Woman Of Many Deeds, the granddaughter of Red Cloud, 1907.  Note the crucifix, she was Catholic, as the Red Could family was.

It's later uses that become the problem.  And that takes us quite a ways back in and of itself.

European colonization of the New World can really be viewed as colonization by three different ethnic groups for the most part, two Catholic and one Protestant.*  While early on the original European view seems to have been largely similar among all three groups, by the mid 1600s this was changing.  It would not be fair, we'd note, to really lump this into two groups, as it wouldn't be fair to compare the Spanish with the French.  And from the lens of 2021 looking at things that occurred in 1621 is fraught with dangers inherent in misconceptions and filtration through current views.

Dusty Dress, 1910.

Very generally, however, English colonists had a fascination with Native Americans when they first landed in North America, and were pretty open to the native cultures.  French colonization started at just about the same time as the English, for all practical purposes, and the French had a highly open view of the Native populations.  The Spanish started almost 3/4s of a century earlier, and their early interactions are considerably more complicated.  All three populations were not averse to mixing with Native populations at first, with the French and Spanish being very open to it, particularly in the case of the French whose Catholic faith had instructed them that the Natives were just as much children of God as they were.  This was also true of the Spanish, but the Spanish had met with considerably more armed resistance even by the 17th Century than either the English or the French had.

Papago woman, 1907.

Things really began to fall apart, however, for the English with King Philips War, which broke out in 1675 and ran through 1678.  Hard and brutally fought, the English began to pretty quickly modify their view of Native Americans in general. While, from our prospective, the war was a cleverly fought and logical Native reaction to an invasion, from the English prospective of the period it was a bitter betrayal by a heathenous people.

Lucy  Coyote

From that point on the English, and soon we might say the American, view of Native Americans was much different than the French or the Spanish one.  The French had their run-ins with native bands, but having colonized New France to a much smaller degree, they also tended to engage the Natives in commerce really quickly and their Catholicism caused them to regard the Natives in their region as souls to be brought into the Church, with intermarriage soon to be common.  The Spanish largely took the same view, although in their case they also ran into some large, and well organized, bands that put up fierce resistance to their presence, giving them, as previously noted, a more nuanced view. Nonetheless, the view of Spanish colonists is perhaps best reflected in that the populations of much of South and Central America today are from mixed Spanish and Native heritage.  In what became Canada it gave rise ultimately to the Métis, a recognized "native", but in fact mixed heritage, group of people with their own unique history.

In the Thirteen Colonies it gave rise to pretty bitter struggles which merged into bitter American ones with native bands once the Crown was ejected from what became the United States.  The intent here isn't to give a legal or military history of the events, but to only note it in the context of what's being discussed.

Alice Pat-E-Wa, 1900.

Humans being human, the ethnic struggle did not prove to be a bar to intermixing. This occurred simply naturally, and violently.  And this resulted in an interesting and opposing set of views.

"The Trapper's Bride" by Alfred Jacob Miller.  Miller painted versions of this scense at least three times, probably by request.

On the frontier, which was male dominated, frontiersmen fairly routinely began to take Native American wives.  For those of French origin this was highly common, but it was quite common for those of English heritage, or "American" heritage as well. At the same time, however, Native Americans were a looked down upon minority class who were in the way of what was regarded as progress, even though they were simultaneously celebrated as "noble savages".  Reconciling these views is difficult to do, but they were held be Americans simultaneously.  

Annie Kash-Kash, 1899.

What we can say, however, is that these relationships were likely as varied as any other, but we shouldn't presume by any means that they were forced.  In some instances, they likely were, or were relationships darned near akin to slavery.  An earlier article on Sacajawea we published here discussed a circumstance that certainly raises such questions.  At the same time, however. you can find such as Wyoming frontiersman John Robinson who married Native women twice and genuinely.  Famed scout Kit Carson had more than one Native bride.  And an extended view may be given of a Swiss artists, whose name I have forgotten, who went West to sketch Plains Indians and returned to Switzerland with a Native bride, an illustration of whom shows upon the book Man Made Mobile.

An historically important example is given in the example of William Bent and Owl Woman, the latter of whom was a Cheyenne.  Bent, who together with his brother Charles, were very successful traders in Colorado and New Mexico ultimately ended up with three Cheyenne wives, as he followed a Cheyenne custom and married Owl Woman's two younger sisters.  Charles became Governor of New Mexico.  William Bent and Owl Woman had a large, and historically significant family, although she died when some of their children were still quite young and her sister Island became their surrogate mother.  His two Cheyenne wives ultimately abandoned him, and then he married a "mixed" Indian/European woman of age 20, when he was 60, dying the following year.

George Bent and his wife Magpie.  Bent served as an underaged cavalryman in the Confederate Army before he was captured and paroled.  Upon his return to Colorado his father sent him to live with his aunt with the Cheyenne and he was at Sand Creek when it was attacked by Colorado militia.  Ironically, a brother of his was serving with the militia as a scout.  Bent was married three times, with all of his wives being Native Americans.

All of this is noted as William Bent's marriage into a Cheyenne family worked enormously to his advantage.  At the same time, his children lived in both worlds, taking part in the Plains struggle largely on the Cheyenne side.  George Bent contributed to one of the great accounts of the period.  William Bent's marriage into a Native family was not held against him.

Native woman from Pacific Northwest.

These matches show how complicated such things can become in some ways, and how simple in others.  They were mostly men taking Native women as brides, but there are few examples at least that are the other way around.    Nonetheless, at the same time, European Americans could dismiss Native brides pretty condescendingly as well as their husbands, who ended up with the pejorative "Squaw Men".

This, then is what gives rise to the problem.  By the late 19th Century if not considerably earlier, the use of the word "squaw" could mean simply a woman of Native ethnicity, or it could be a slam on the woman herself and her entire ethnicity.  And of course, for most Native women the word was not one from their own languages and therefore only had the meanings that others from the outside attributed to it.

Cheyenne woman, 1910.

That legacy has continued on, although the word simply isn't used now, at least not without intending to convey a shocking insult.

Be that as it may, that leaves us with the over 40 place names that bear that name in Wyoming and numerous others in other states. What did those people mean?  At the time they named them, they may have simply been so acclimated to the term that they meant nothing in particular. "Squaw Creek", for example, displays an obvious intent to name a creek after an Indian woman or women, but why?  Most of the others are the same way. The odd exception may be the ones named after breasts, but then the Grand Tetons are as well, and it isn't really clear whether we should regard the nameless French trapper who termed them that as of a higher mind, for naming the mountains after breasts in general, rather than after those for women who happened to be around, or whether we ought to simply dismiss all such names as of an excessively prurient nature, which would probably be more accurate, really.

Cayuse woman, 1910.

So what to do?

Well, whatever is done, I hope they don't scrub the women out of the names.  Squaw Creeks, for example, were named after Native women for some reason. That ought to be preserved.

And beyond that, there's a terrible tendency to treat these matters, which are cosmetic, as if they really pay attention to deeper problems that face Native Americans today.  Far too often those who seek to "help" Native Americans imagine them as a people of the past, when in fact they're very much a people of the present.  Ignoring that fact does no good for them at all.

Footnotes:

*This obviously omits the Russians, who were the original colonizers of Alaska and who had a settlement as far south as California, and it unfairly lumps the English and Scottish together, even though they are seperate people and that reflected itself in early immigration to North America.