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“We Have Seen the Fate of the Indian”: Western Influences on African American Leadership in the Shadow of the Plains Wars

2011; Routledge; Volume: 12; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14664658.2011.559747

1743-7903

Michelle Kuhl,

Literature: history, themes, analysis

Abstract This article looks at how perceptions of Native Americans as a defeated race informed the leadership strategies of the African American activists, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Henry McNeal Turner. Concerned about the possibility of a race war between whites and blacks in the South, African American leaders read the fate of Native Americans as a cautionary tale and steered followers away from violent confrontation. Washington seemed the most comfortable with this path, while Douglass and Turner worried that the manhood of the race could be undermined by charges of cowardice. Keywords: Frederick DouglassBooker T. WashingtonHenry McNeal TurnerBuffalo Soldiersaccommodationmanhood Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Wisconsin Academy for the Study of American History for sponsoring an early version of this idea as a talk, the conference organizers and attendees at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Third Annual “New Perspectives on African American History and Culture” conference where another version came forth, and Adriane Lentz-Smith, Peter Hennigan, Jim Feldman, Jeff Pickron, and Ciara Healy for their excellent reading and counsel. Notes 1. In 1866 the Army created two black cavalry units, the 9th and 10th, and four infantry units, the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st. In 1869 the four infantry units were combined into two, the 24th and 25th. 2. Turner, “Washington Correspondent.” 3. For more on racism in the army, see Adams, Class and Race in the Frontier Army. 4. “A Negro Trooper of the 9th Cavalry,” Frontier Times 4 (April 1927): 9–11 in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 46. 5. Fowler, The Black Infantry in the West, 53–7. 6. Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers and Officers of the 9th Cavalry, 127–8. 7. Also known as the “Llano Estacado,” this area encompasses the panhandle of western Texas and part of eastern New Mexico. 8. “Negro Trooper,” 44 (see note 4 above). 9. William Branch memoir in Rawick, The American Slave, vol. 4, Texas Narratives, parts 1 and 2, 143–6, in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 52–3. 10. Lieutenant George R. Burnett Letter to Ordnance Sergeant Moses Williams, June 20, 1896, in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 102. 11. Love, Life and Adventures of Nat Love, 42. 12. George A. Armes, Letter to Captain H.C. Cobrin, 24 August 1867, in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 17. 13. Buecker, “One Soldier's Service: Caleb Benson in the 9th and 10th Cavalry, 1875–1908” in Glasrud and Searles, Buffalo Soldiers in the West, 117. 14. Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers and Officers, 125–6. 15. Chaplain George G. Mullins Report, January 1, 1877 in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 86. 16. Fowler, Black Infantry in the West, 79. 17. For more on black military service in the Civil War, see Berlin et al., Free at Last. 18. Rueben Waller, “Battle at Beecher Island,” in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 26. 19. For information on black migration to Indian territory, see Painter, Exodusters. 20. Private W.H. Prather, “Indian Ghost Dance and War,” in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 172. 21. Corporal Stephen Barrow, “Christmas in the Tenth Cavalry,” in Colored American Magazine (Washington, DC), May 18, 1901, 10, in Shubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 222. 22. Tourgée grew up in Ohio, fought in the Union Army, and settled in the South post-war. He published a novel based on his experiences trying to encourage racial harmony titled A Fool's Errand. In the 1890s, he was the lead attorney on the losing side of Plessy v. Ferguson. 23. Tourgée, An Appeal to Caesar, 78. 24. Quoted in Litwack, Trouble in Mind, 214. 25. Tourgée, Appeal to Caesar, 196. 26. Tourgée, Appeal to Caesar, 296. 27. Turner “Án Emigration Convention” in Redkey, Respect Black, 145. 28. Turner, “Emigration Convention,” 156. 29. Litwack, “Emigration Convention,” 215. 30. Quoted in Giddings, Ida, A Sword Among Lions, 159. 31. “Race War is Coming, Says Senator Tillman,” New York Times, October 8, 1906. 32. “Race War,” 1. 33. Douglass “Southern Barbarism,” in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. IV, Reconstruction and After, 437. 34. Turner, “Emigration Convention,” 160. 35. Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 89. 36. “Minutes of the National Convention of Colored Citizens: Held at Buffalo,” in Bell, Minutes of the Proceedings of the National Negro Conventions, 13. The biographer Benjamin Quarles considered Douglass to still be “Under the Influence of the Garrisonian Principles of Moral Suasion and Non-Violent Resistance.” Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 120–1. See also Schor, “The Rivalry Between Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet.” 37. Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 275. 38. Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 275. Douglass continued to write anti-war essays for The Liberator and his own paper The North Star in the late 1840s, but also began referring to slavery itself as an ongoing state of war. See “Address at London Peace Convention,” The Liberator, July 3, 1846; “Away with War!” The North Star, December 22, 1848; and “Speeches at Great Anti-Colonization Mass Meeting of the Colored Citizens of the City of New York,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 3, 1849, all in Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. V, 1844–1860, 43, 106, 115. 39. “A Letter to the American Slaves from Those Who Have Fled from American Slavery,” The North Star, September 5, 1850 in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. V, 165–6. 40. “American Slavery Lecture No. VII, Delivered in Corinthian Hall,” The North Star, January 16, 1851, in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. V, 171. 41. “Thomas Sims Consigned to Slavery,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, April 17, 1851, in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. V, 182. 42. “Freedom's Battle at Christiana,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, September 25, 1851, in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. V, 206. 43. “From the Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, January 29, 1852 in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. V, 221. 44. Douglass, “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. II, 308. 45. Frederick Douglass, “Is it Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?” in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. II, 287. 46. Frederick Douglass, “Is it Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?” in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. II, 287. 47. Frederick Douglass, “Is it Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?” in Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. II, 287. 48. Douglass, “Speech on John Brown,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. II, 534. 49. Douglass, “Speech on John Brown,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. II, 535. 50. Douglass, “Speech on John Brown,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. II, 535. 51. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 226. 52. Douglass, “Why Should a Colored Man Enlist?” in Foner, The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. III, The Civil War, 1861–1865, 341. 53. Douglass, “Enlist,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. III, 342. 54. Douglass, “Enlist,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. III, 342. 55. Douglass, “Enlist,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. III, 343. 56. Douglass “The Present and Future of the Colored Race in America,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. III, 351. 57. Douglass, “Present and Future,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. III, 359. 58. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 313. 59. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 300. 60. Douglass, “The United States Cannot Remain Half-Slave and Half-Free,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. IV, 360–1. 61. Douglass, “Half-Slave,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. IV, 361. 62. Douglass, “Half-Slave,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. IV, 370. 63. Douglass, “The Future of the Negro,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. IV, 412. 64. Douglass, “Future,” in Foner, Life and Writings, vol. IV, 413. 65. Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois, 175. 66. Popular in his day, though increasingly criticized in the early twentieth-century, scholars in the 1960s and 1970s rejected what they saw as the accommodationism of Washington. Washington's most recent biographer, Robert J. Norrell, revives Washington's legacy as a savvy operator whose greatest legacy was a renewal of optimism. Norrell, Up From History. 67. “The Nation's Wards,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 24, 1882, in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 182. 68. The school had to solicit donations to pay the $70 annual tuition for Indian students. See Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and its Work for Negro and Indian Youth, 11. For more on the experience of Indians at Hampton, see Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute. 69. Armstrong, Public Meeting in Behalf of Negro and Indian Education. 70. For more on this trend, see Riney, Rapid City Indian School. 71. Booker T. Washington, “Incidents of Indian Life at Hampton” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 79–80. 72. Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 80. 73. “When reciting the four conditions of men, as to their mode of life, when one would be describing the savage life, many subdued whispers could be heard. ‘We savages, we savages.’” Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 125. 74. Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 82. 75. Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 95. 76. Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 122. 77. Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 128. 78. Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 129. 79. Washington, “Incidents,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 129. 80. For a look at nineteenth-century perspectives on this issue, see Walker, Indian Question. Also illuminating is Garfield, “Indian Question in Congress and in Kansas.” 81. Washington, “A Speech Before the Unitarian National Conference,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 312. 82. Washington, “Unitarian,” in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers, 312. 83. Washington, Industrial Emancipation, 8. 84. Washington, Industrial Emancipation, 8. 85. Washington, Industrial Emancipation, 9. 86. Washington, Industrial Emancipation, 14. 87. Washington, Industrial Emancipation, 15. 88. Washington, Story of the Negro, 127. 89. Washington, Story of the Negro, 127. 90. Washington, Story, 135. 91. Washington, Story, 136. 92. Washington, Story, 139. 93. Two excellent biographies of Turner are Redkey, Black Exodus and Angell, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner. 94. Turner, Speech on the Present Duties and Future Destiny, 14–15. 95. Turner, “On the Eligibility of Colored Members to Seats in the Georgia Legislature” in Redkey, Respect Black, 27. 96. Turner, “Georgia Legislature,” 27. 97. Turner, “The Question of Race,” in Redkey, Respect Black, 73. 98. Turner, Present Duties, 17. 99. “Bishop Turner's Bitter Letter to Prof. B.K. Sampson,” New York Times, November 9, 1883. 100. “Bishop Turner's Bitter Letter to Prof. B.K. Sampson,” New York Times, November 9, 1883. 101. Turner, “Emigration to Africa,” in Redkey, Respect Black, 56. 102. Turner, “An Emigration Convention,” in Redkey, Respect Black, 146. 103. For an overview of the popular belief that Indians were disappearing, see Dippie, Vanishing American. 104. Angell, Turner, 22. 105. This is pretty much Angell's take on it. 106. Angell, Turner, 91. 107. Angell, Turner, 164. 108. Turner, “Emigration Convention,” 156. 109. Turner, “Emigration Convention,” 156. 110. Turner, “Emigration Convention,” 160. 111. Turner, “Emigration Convention,” 160. 112. “Negroes Get Guns!” 113. “Negroes Get Guns!” 114. One of Turner's biographers made the astute observation that Turner often preached about God but rarely about Jesus. Because of the contrast between militant self-defense and the teachings of Jesus, Turner “Simply Avoided Discussing Jesus's Ethics.” Angell, Turner, 268. 115. “Negroes Get Guns!” 116. Washington, “Industrial Emancipation,” 12–13.