October 6, 2021. Governor Gordon visits US/Mexico border.
October 28, 2021. Eula Kendrick and Rosa-Maye Kendrick photographed in Washington D. C.
November 8, 1921. Chief Plenty Coups photographed in Washington D. C.
November 11, 1921. Dedication of Tomb of Unknown Soldier updated.
November 14, 1921. Item on Jack Taylor updated.
November 18, 1921. Congress outlaws beer.
November 20, 1941. Thanksgiving Day.
November 23, 1921. Generally updated.
December 28, 1921. Large prohibition raid added.
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Though the earliest historical references support a non-offensive slant on the meaning of squaw and support Bruchac’s claims, there are also several literary and historical instances of squaw being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…”
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.
An article in the Tribune indicates that the City of Casper, partially through grant funding, is starting a black history project.
Funding for the project starts at $10,000, which isn't large, but will be used to hire an archeologist as part of the project. The project is designed to fill gaps in the history of Casper and will partially rely on volunteers.
Today is a Federal Holiday. And for the first time.
The holiday is Juneteenth.
The creation of the holiday is certainly proof that the Federal Government can in fact act quickly. The bills on this were very recently introduced and this just passed Congress earlier this week and was signed into law yesterday, giving Federal employees the day off today. On Monday, they weren't expecting a day off.
So what is it?
The day basically celebrates the end of slavery, but in a bit of an unusual way. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862. Juneteenth, however, marks the calendar date of June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, after the end of the war, and issued proclamations voiding acts of the Texas legislature during the war and proclaiming the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. His General Order No. 3 was read aloud in the streets. Hence, June 19 became recognized, regionally, as the day that the Emancipation Proclamation reached the most distant outposts of the slave states, bringing slavery finally to an end.
Celebration of the day in Texas started almost immediately, being first observed just one year later, by the state's freed African American population. Interestingly, the day was generally known as Emancipation Day. However, the revival of segregation in the South in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century caused the day to suffer a decline, until it began to be revived in the 1950s. Upon revival, the name Juneteenth began to apply to it. It was made a state holiday in Texas in 1979. The day received recognition in 47 of the states since then, with North and South Dakota and Hawaii being the only ones that had not up until now.
Talk of making it a Federal holiday has existed at least since the 1980s. Generally there's been very broad support for the move, but it obviously has taken years to accomplish, if we regard 1979 as the onset. It's interestingly been an example of states largely being out in front of the Federal Government on a holiday, and not surprisingly the various ways that states have recognized it have not been consistent.
There's been next to no opposition to the holiday being created which is interesting, in part, as the current times have been very oddly polarized in all sorts of ways. The measure had bipartisan support, although fourteen Republican members of Congress voted against it. One interestingly voted against it as he thought the official name confusing, Juneteenth National Independence Day, which in fact it somewhat is. That individual wanted to use the original name, Emancipation Day, which is a view I somewhat sympathize with.
It'll be interesting to see what the public reaction is given that this happened seemingly so quickly. By and large people who are aware of it seem pleased, although Candace Owens, the African American conservative columnists and quasi gadfly, predictably wasn't. It'll probably be next year until there's widespread national recognition of the day.
In very real ways, what it commemorates is the suffering of one of the most American of all American demographics, the African Americans, who have been in the country since its founding, but who still were the victims of legal discrimination all the way into the 1960s and whose economic plight remains marked.
This passed Congress earlier this week, and was signed into law today. Unusually, the impact is truly immediate.
For those who might not know, Juneteenth commemorates the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaching Texas, which would have been the Confederacies most distant territorial assertion.
Governor Gordon Responds to Federal Recognition of Juneteenth Holiday
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Today, President Biden signed a law creating a federal holiday recognizing Juneteenth. Governor Gordon has also signed a proclamation recognizing the significance of the day, which commemorates the end of slavery, while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures. Wyoming has recognized the Juneteenth holiday since 2003, when the state legislature passed a bill establishing the holiday on the third Saturday of the month.
Because of the President's action, Friday June 18, 2021 is a holiday for most federal employees per the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In Wyoming the Legislature has set State Holidays. While tomorrow will not be a state holiday, the Governor will work with lawmakers to consider this option for future years.
“Freedom is always a cause for celebration and this is a momentous day in our nation’s history. I encourage people to observe this commemoration of the full enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation, which embodies the values of all Americans,” Governor Gordon said.
--END--
So reads a headline in the Tribune from the Sunday, May 30, edition.
The Casper College Western History Center is an excellent resource with a fine collection of materials. The college emphasizes that it is not closing it, but rather combining the position with another one in its library, so that two positions will be held by one employee, more or less. Or, put another way, the positions are merged and the archivist loses his job.
That archivist has done an excellent job, to the extent that I know him, which isn't well. Others in the local history community do know him well, however, and rallied to back an effort to try to save his position. The college said it just couldn't afford it.
And so one history position lost.
I wish I could comment more intelligently on this, but I can't. I understand the need to balance budgets, to be sure, but this is a real treasure that I fear will now suffer. And on a more personal note, the archivist has a Juris Doctorate, as do I, and therefore fits into that category of history loving lawyers, although unlike me, he was employed in the field. I feel badly for him.
Indeed, even now, I hope this can be reversed, even though I know that it won't be, at least in the near term.
An extremely interesting article appears in the Autumn/Winter issue of the Annals of Wyoming (which I just received) on the history of wildlife conservation and hunting in Wyoming. The articles is by Brian Beauvais, and is entitled Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs: Early Years of Wildlife Conservation in Park County.
Los of articles and books deal with the conservationist campaign against market hunting that came about at the turn of the prior century. I've never read one, however, that dealt with the views of the local yeomanry in any fashion, to whom conservation efforts didn't come easily as it directly impacted their table. The role of the wealthy in the effort, and the role of the more or less poor in opposition to it, and how they respectively viewed things, is fresh to the story, at least for me.
Added to that, the role of private pay game wardens, and the role of other agencies in enforcing Wyoming's game laws, which came in early but which had nobody to enforce them, is something I was also unaware of. And even some of the early history of the Wyoming Game & Fish is included. Here too, for example, I was unaware that the hunting area concept wasn't brought into Wyoming's laws until 1947.
While by and large Wyoming's hunters came around to really supporting the Wyoming system, which is sometimes regarded as the crown jewel of wildlife conservation, some of these fights never fully went away and some of the stresses remain. You can see the views of those whose pocketbooks depend on out of state sportsmen vs. the locals reflected back over a century ago. This work is a really valuable look into the history of wildlife conservation in general and is very much worth reading.
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.
