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Simon Pokagon: Charlatan Or Authentic Spokesman for the 19Th-Century Anishinaabeg?

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Simon Pokagon: Charlatan Or Authentic Spokesman for the 19Th-Century Anishinaabeg? Simon Pokagon: Charlatan or Authentic Spokesman for the 19th-century Anishinaabeg? LAWRENCE T. MARTIII University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire There are a number of fairly early accounts of Anishmaabe oral traditions found in writings of European and Euro-American missionaries, travelers, and early anthropologists. The best known of these are probably those published by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who was Indian Agent in Sault Ste. Marie (Mich.) and Mackinac from 1822 to 1841 (Williams 1991:xix-xx). Fairly recently recognition has been given to the writings of Schoolcraft's mixed-blood wife, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (Ruoff 1996c). Jane Schoolcraft was one of many 19th-century Anishinaabeg who were raised at least partially in a traditional way, spoke Anishinaabemowin as their first language, but became Christianized and educated in the literate tradition, and then wrote down something of traditional Anishinaabe oral tradition. Other examples are William Warren, George Copway, Peter Jones, and Andrew Blackbird. These writers are, in a sense, the Anishi­ naabe equivalent of the Beowulf 'poet or the Icelander Snorri Sturluson — people who in a sense had one foot in the Christianized literate tradition and the other in the pre-Christian oral tradition. A quest for native writers with this sort of dual stance led me to spend a month or two at the Newberry Library in Chicago. In the catalog of the Ayer collection, I came upon a reference to a "Potawatomie Book of Genesis". Something about the catalog entry suggested that this was not simply a translation of the biblical book of Genesis into Potawatomi, and I put in a request for the book. A few minutes later the librarian ap­ proached my desk smiling and carrying, between her thumb and first finger, a tiny booklet printed on birchbark — printed, not handwritten. The version of the creation story it contained was not at all like the Anishinaabe Earthdiver creation story, but it was quite interesting, particularly from the viewpoint of the mixture of Christianity and traditional native ideas that it contained. There was also an author's name, Simon Pokagon, and I went back to the Newberry catalog with that name to see if I could find out anything about the writer. I discovered that he had published four other SIMON POKAGON: CHARLATAN OR AUTHENTIC SPOKESMAN? 183 birchbark booklets as well as a number of works printed in a more conventional way. One of Simon Pokagan's other birchbark booklets was called The Red Man's greeting (1893). Pokagon composed it in connection with the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in America, the 1893 Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. The style of this treatise is sometimes marked by what one critic calls Pokagon's tendency toward "emulation of the popular and often trite phraseology of the romantic- sentimental tradition" or "borrowing the white man's 19th-century cliches" (Dickason 1971:128). For example, Pokagon begins: "In behalf of my people, the American Indians, I hereby declare to you, the pale-faced race that has usurped our lands and homes", and he uses the popular theme of the vanishing Indian: "A few more generations and the last child of the forest will have passed into the world beyond, into that kingdom where Tche-ban-you-booz, the Great Spirit, dwelleth." At times, however, the rhetoric is straightforward and hard-hitting, reflecting the appropriateness of the original title, which was The Red Man's rebuke (Buechner 1933:53). But alas! the pale faces came by chance to our shores, many times very needy and hungry. We nursed and fed them, — fed the ravens that were soon to pluck out our eyes and the eyes of our children, for no sooner had the news reached the Old World that a new continent had been found, peopled with another race of men, than locust-like, they swarmed on all our coasts, and, like carrion crows in spring that in circles wheel and clamor long and loud, and will not cease until they find and feast upon the dead, so these strangers from the East made long circuits, and they, turkey-like, gobbled in our ears, "Give us gold, give us gold. Where find you gold, where find you gold?" Pokagon continues in the same vein, speaking particularly of the fatal diseases brought by the white men, and of the particular curse of fire-water. The treatise concludes with a vision of Judgment Day based on Matthew, chapter 25, in which the Great Spirit makes a great division between "the few who have kept the faith and through opposition and great tribulations have labored hard and honestly for the redemption of mankind regardless of race or color", and the rest of the multitude, who are addressed: "I charge you in the presence of these Red Men that you are guilty of having tyrannized over them in many and strange ways." According to Cornelia Hulst, Pokagon was moved to write The Red Man's greeting by the fact that no Indians were invited guests at the opening of the Chicago Columbian Exposition. Hulst (1912:92) says that 184 LAWRENCE T. MARTIN the booklet received "wide attention", and "it awakened the conscience and touched the hearts of the public". Apparently as a result of public enthusiasm for The Red Man's greeting, the Exposition authorities attempted to atone for their earlier error of judgment by inviting Simon Pokagon to be guest of honor on "Chicago Day" at the Columbian Exposition in October 1893. Pokagon there gave an address which is considerably more muted than the birchbark pamphlet. In fact much of the address is a very patriotic plea to Indians to glory in their American citizenship (Pokagon 18996:20-3). Simon Pokagon's writings have received very little scholarly attention. In 1912 Cornelia Hulst produced a not-very-scholarly biographical sketch, bundled together, curiously enough, with a life of Jacques Marquette, and published in England. In a special issue of the Indiana Historical Society Publications in 1933, Cecilia Buechner presented a very favorable picture of Pokagon as an important figure in Potawatomi history and a pioneer in Native American literature. In 1971 David Dickason published an article in the Indiana Magazine of History entitled "Chief Simon Pokagon: "The Indian Longfellow'"; despite the rather unfortunate title, this article makes some fairly balanced literary judgments. More recently, James A. Clifton has argued in a couple of places that Simon Pokagon was pretty much of a charlatan, who had a fairly important though negative role in Potawatomi history. Clifton's main interest is in Pokagon's role in treaty disputes and such matters, not in his literary importance, but he incidently casts serious doubts upon Pokagon's authenticity as a spokesman for the Potawatomi people. Finally, the Garland Handbook of Native American literature has an entry on Pokagon written by LaVonne Brown Ruoff (19966). My own reading of Pokagon's writings leaves me somewhat puzzled and unable to agree with either Buechner's encomium or Clifton's condemnation. Pokagon's works are simply too varied and complex to allow any easy judgment on the question of the overall question of whether or not he can be regarded as an authentic spokesman of Potawatomi traditions and concerns. Simon Pokagan was in a position to know the oral traditions of his people. He was the youngest son of Chief Leopold Pokagon, a highly distinguished leader of the Michigan Potawatomi. Simon was born in the spring of 1830, when the tribe had made its annual temporary move from its village to the maple sugar camps. He knew only his own language until SIMON POKAGON: CHARLATAN OR AUTHENTIC SPOKESMAN? 185 he was 12 or 14, when he went away to school. He studied for about three years at Notre Dame, probably, according to LaVonne Ruoff (19966:277), at the University's manual labor school. He also studied for two years at Twmsburg Academy in Twinsburg, Ohio. According to Buechner (1933:39), he may have studied at Oberlin as well, but there seems to be doubt about this (Ruoff 19966:277). Buechner (1933:39) says that "He was often spoken of as the best-educated and most distinguished full-blooded Indian in America", and includes an anecdote about a New England lawyer who became lost in the woods of Michigan and stumbled upon a little log cabin, where he was startled to find Simon Pokagon reading the New Testament in Greek (Buechner 1933:45). Clifton pamts a very different picture of Simon Pokagon: Always prepared with a grand gesture, Simon Pokagon was a newsman's dream. One of his favorite tactics was to wave a Greek grammar and claim (in imitation of Oliver Wendell Holmes) that he was improving his mind. Alluding to his early life among the wolves of Michigan's forests, Pokagon offered supposed credentials as a Latin, Greek and English scholar at Notre Dame and Oberlin College, and displayed himself in his "native costume" as a savage now civilized. [Clifton 1987:13] In any case, Pokagan became a popular lecturer, or, as Clifton (1987:12) puts it, he "enjoyed greater renown on the Chautauqua circuit than he did respect among his own people" and he "made a career of amusing gullible middle-class audiences in lecture halls throughout the East." Clifton's remark about "respect among his own people" refers to a political controversy concerning Potawatomi land claims in which Pokagon became involved. He served as chair of the Michigan Potawatomi band's business committee, and sold the band's interest in the Chicago lakefront. According to Clifton (1987), he did not act with the consent of the tribe, or in the best interests of his people.
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