Daniel H. Usner. Weaving Alliances with Other Women: Chitimacha Indian Work in the New South. Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lecture Series. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015. 136 pp. $69.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8203-4848-3.

Reviewed by Katherine M. Osburn

Published on H-SAWH (February, 2016)

Commissioned by Lisa A. Francavilla (The Papers of Thomas Jeferson: Retirement Series and Jeferson Quotes & Family Letters)

Daniel H. Usner’s new microhistory of Chiti‐ ment considered them to be citizens of Louisiana macha basket production in the early twentieth and therefore not entitled to social services from century is an impressive synthesis of several the Ofce of Indian Afairs (OIA). This left them felds of scholarship and a beautifully crafted and vulnerable on many fronts. Like many other so- important story. Usner explores how the relation‐ called remnant indigenous nations in the Jim ships between Chitimacha basket weaver Chris‐ Crow South, Chitimachas were subjected to segre‐ tine Navarro Paul (1874–1946) and two white gation, discrimination, violence, and disposses‐ women, Mary Avery McIlhenny Bradford (1869– sion. Usner reveals how the relationships be‐ 1954) and Caroline Coroneos Dormon (1888– tween Chitimacha basket weavers and their white 1971), served the interests of the small settlement patrons led to federal recognition in 1916 and re‐ of Chitimacha Indians, whose population was sulted in the opening of an Indian Service school roughly ffty-fve people in the early twentieth for Chitimacha children in 1935. Usner persua‐ century, on Bayou Teche in Charenton, Louisiana. sively argues that “the activism and perseverance Bradford and Dormon operated as patrons who of tribal members, as expressed through produc‐ marketed Chitimacha river-cane baskets across tion and distribution of material culture,” was re‐ the country and lobbied government ofcials for sponsible for this tribal recognition (p. 33). Chitimacha concerns. At the beginning of the Women are at the heart of this story, and Us‐ twentieth century, the Chitimachas held a 1,093- ner brings them to life through a variety of acre tract of land, the title to which the United sources that illuminate their starkly diferent States Supreme Court had confrmed in 1852. lives. He begins with Mary Bradford, who had They lacked federal recognition as an Indian na‐ been Mary Avery McIlhenny before marriage, tion, however, and ofcials at all levels of govern‐ heiress to the Tabasco Sauce fortune which her H-Net Reviews family had built on Avery Island, Louisiana. Brad‐ ford and McIlhenny brought to them. These inter‐ ford’s initial interest in the Chitimachas was as a actions allowed the Chitimachas to demonstrate collector of their woven baskets, which she then their unique racial identity in the biracial South marketed through her nationwide network of oth‐ and to seek federal funds for social services. er wealthy matrons. Bradford viewed these mar‐ The last character in Usner’s story is natural‐ keting activities not as activism but as charity, an ist Caroline Coroneos Dorman. Dorman held a de‐ occupation beftting her status as a wealthy white gree in fne arts from Judson College in Marion, woman. She and her sister Sarah McIlhenny inter‐ Alabama, but her passion was forestry and con‐ acted with other white women promoting Indian servation. This work led her into the forests of issues through such organizations as the Women’s Louisiana as a conservationist with the Louisiana National Indian Association (WNIA) and the Gen‐ Federated Women’s Clubs (LFWC). Around the eral Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC). same time, she took an interest in Chitimacha bas‐ Through these networks, Bradford encountered kets and published an article on them for Hol‐ John Swanton, the most prominent anthropologist land’s, the Magazine of the South in 1931. By the of southeastern Indians, whom she introduced to 1930s, Bradford and McIlhenny were less in‐ the Chitimachas. She also arranged for showings volved with the Chitimachas and Dorman stepped of Chitimacha baskets in such venues as the into the gap, facilitating anthropological feld‐ Smithsonian Institute and Harvard University’s work and pressuring the OIA to build a school. Peabody Museum. The Chitimachas turned to the These eforts paid of after President Franklin D. McIlhenny sisters when a lawsuit threatened to Roosevelt established the Indian New Deal in take their remaining land base in 1903. After the 1934. Working through LFWC and the Daughters eforts by the Indian Rights Association failed to of the American Revolution, Dorman helped win a stop the land sale, Sarah McIlhenny put up the school for the Chitimachas. The school embraced 1,240 dollars to save the land and the Chitimachas the New Deal’s Arts and Crafts program, which repaid her with their beautiful baskets. The pas‐ sought to revitalize indigenous crafts after a cen‐ sionate advocacy of the McIlhenny sisters through tury of government repression of Native culture, their network of basket sellers and traders led the and Chitimachas established basket weaving as OIA to recognize the tribe in 1916. an important part of the curriculum. Paul taught Christine Navarro Paul, the woman who orga‐ the subject at the school until 1942, after which nized basket production among the Chitimachas, her younger sister-in-law, Pauline Paul, took over was educated at a mission school and, as one of the role. Christine Paul died four years later. the few literate Chitimachas, used her skills to ne‐ Usner’s study weaves social and cultural his‐ gotiate her tribe’s interests as she moved baskets. tory into a political narrative of savvy activism in In her letter inquiring after a recent shipment of the South. Starting with a box of Bradford’s per‐ baskets to Bradford in 1903, Paul pleaded sonal papers discovered in her home on Avery Is‐ poignantly for help against the impending sale of land by a descendant, Usner then flls in these their lands. Referring to the attorney seeking women’s stories using Dorman’s personal papers, judgment against them, she wrote, “he say we not government records, newspapers and periodicals, Indians because we mix so much.... He say we not and relevant scholarly works on the arts and a nation. I don’t know what we are then if we are crafts movement and federal Indian policy. The not nation. I am sure we not dogs” (p. 41). Most result contributes to several felds of study. There probably because they saw them as potential al‐ is a voluminous literature on women’s activism lies, the Chitimachas were amenable to meeting for Indians in the late nineteenth and early twen‐ with the anthropologists and folklorists that Brad‐

2 H-Net Reviews tieth centuries but it focuses primarily on the West. Weaving Alliances brings white southern women into the narrative. The activities of south‐ ern white women did not difer from those of oth‐ er clubwomen in the early twentieth century in any signifcant way, but it is good to include them in the conversation, especially as it reminds read‐ ers that indigenous peoples remained in the South long after Indian removal. In this respect, Usner’s work is especially important and joins a growing number of studies that complicate our under‐ standing of race relations in the Jim Crow South. Recent histories of indigenous peoples in the South reveal that racial categories were far more fuid than previous generations of historians be‐ lieved them to be. Indeed, the amount of time, en‐ ergy, and money expended by many whites to help indigenous peoples has been quite remark‐ able. Even more notable is the manner in which southern Indians have parlayed this attention into political and social capital in service of their indigenous identity. Usner’s skillfully told story and absorbing biographies present a rich perspec‐ tive of American Indian livelihood, identity, and self-determination.

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Citation: Katherine M. Osburn. Review of Usner, Daniel H. Weaving Alliances with Other Women: Chitimacha Indian Work in the New South. H-SAWH, H-Net Reviews. February, 2016.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45525

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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