THE BAKER MASSACRE. SHHH!
Renee Bear Medicine became the second academically qualified curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian in 2020. The first academically qualified anthropologist in Browning was Ray Gonyea who was an Onondaga tribal member. He wrote the intro to the book called “Onondaga: Portrait of a Native People” (1987). Ray was an artist and I recall his painting he called “My Lai” (1968) in the style of Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937), a clear reference to the “Baker Massacre.” (1870) All three atrocities committed by military were similar except that there was no air support for the cavalry in Baker’s day and the weather was far more bitter.
After that, things did not go well for Baker, a notorious drunk. His whole company marched in sub-zero weather on the anniversary of the date I write this (1/23) and endured it mostly because of heavy drinking. They were a rough bunch, spin-offs of the Civil War, which contributed to the Prairie Clearance of indigenous peoples — so many ruthless men with no place to go and displaced slaves who became “buffalo soldiers.” Politicians were in hopes of pitching one race against another and distracting them from the major shortfalls of the government even after the end of the war. By this time sentiments of outrage over the treatment of indigenous peoples was almost strong enough to match war fever, but not quite. In fact, that element of the nation has never ended, neither in the north nor the south, neither among whites nor among tribal people.
Guilt does plague the participants in atrocities and some take refuge in the Old Testament accounts of one group massacring another in total wipe-outs, including killing all the animals and salting the land to prevent crops. Hunger is always a potent weapon — not just a happenstance. When it is allied with disease, as smallpox was mixed with the loss of buffalo, the result is thorough. Many people who claim to be Christian are merely hiding behind Jesus while they act out the Old Testament.
Territoriality and dominance are such a basic part of living creatures that one can trace it back to microbes. Bugs, birds, and rabbits all combine sex and death in the drive for a place of one’s own. How can we counter something so deep? Clearly it is driven at least partly by DNA but can be modified by experience and circumstances. The irony is that peace leads to plenty and war leads to chaos while a few war-mongers profit.
Thinking about Ray’s “Five Civilized Tribes” led me to thinking about Joseph Bruchac, who is half-Slovak and half-Haudenasee. That is, some of his DNA comes from the Eurasian version of mid-continental “fly over country” and some comes from the American Appalachians farther north than the Carolinas. https://josephbruchac.com/bruchac_biography.html
While I was in Heart Butte (’89-’91), Bruchac was invited by the tribe to come to speak. I may have been the only person in HB who knew who he was, because during my years in Portland, just previous, I had bought his books, constantly raiding Powell’s for the American Indian Literary Renaissance books being remaindered for $5 each because they weren’t selling anymore. The birth was great, but the advent had an early death.
Whoever was doing hospitality for this Bruchac event was almost malevolent. They loaned him a car that didn’t run properly, made no arrangements for meals, didn’t assign him a helper, and put him up in a cheap motel. (That was the only kind in those days except in summer.) I tried to help. He didn’t complain. When the gym full of students with the attention span of gnats kept getting distracted, he knew how to bring them back. I tell you about him now to mark something small that was hardly noticed and yet remains vital, half-remembered by those it was for.
So there’s my usefulness — memory. I set Bruchac against Baker.
In the Sixties as a newcomer (you aren’t really “from here” until your children graduate from these high schools) I was constantly being shushed. Today’s NA college crop are indignant that they weren’t told about the massacres but in the Sixties the events were too recent to be safely discussed. No one was fomenting a riot to attack the BIA offices, but occasionally someone, usually a dark massive man, would get drunk and the rage just beneath the surface would come boiling out. On the one hand the tradesmen didn’t want enemies disrupting business and on the other hand the tribal people needed employment and maybe to borrow money. No one wanted anyone else to hold grudges (just their own).
The scouts for Baker established where the Little Dog intended target band was camped and accompanied the attack. The hostile and intended targets had moved out and Heavyrunner had moved in. The scouts claimed that when they realized the change in bands, they tried to intercede. They included a white (Italian) man named Cobell and a mixed blood man named Kipp.
Later both married into the Blackfeet tribe. Eloise Pepion married a Cobell and became Eloise Cobell, who took on the USA and won back the trust funds the People were owed but instead had been used by the US. Stories of this massacre are very mixed, good marbled with evil. Many of them are simply not known and generally repeated passionately from one point of view.
DeadDogLake says, “One thing about natives is I know some really intelligent natives that will drop off the face of the Earth then return and crack jokes then say something great then disappear again lol”
One of the major flaws of the Bible is that there aren’t enough jokers and tricksters, but who wants to joke about a massacre? Luckily there is a lot of joke material when thinking about Christians, esp. if you’re indigenous. Coming up will be good ones about Easter — mixing holy days a la Vine Deloria, JR. You know, Jesus comes out of the cave, sees his shadow and goes back in, etc. I can’t think of any jokes about Baker. But I don’t like to think about him anyway.
