THE DECLARATION OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE Page THE PLOT 2 THE ST AGE SETTING 3 The Prologue- MAKING INDIANS INTO WHITE MEN 4 ACT I- THE REVOlUTION BEGINS 9 ACT II - ANOTHER KIND OF REVOlUTION 17 ACT III - THE DECLARA nON OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE 27 The Epilogue- TURNING WHITE MEN INTO INDIANS 36 The Role of the Native American Rights Fund 38 THE CAST OF CHARACTERS (Some Background Notes) 40 The Winnebago 40 The Omaha 41 The Sioux 41 The Mandan, The Arikara, and The Hidatsa 44 The Crow 45 The Turtle Mountain Chippewa 45 The Chippewa Cree 45 The Blackfeet 46 The Assiniboine, The Gros Ventre and Some Teton Sioux 46 The Shoshone and The Arapaho 46 The Salish and The Kootenai 47 The Northern Cheyenne 47 TOMPAINE: chroniclers who arrange<}. for Indians to be made citizens of the, Chief Propagandist United States so they could live !Jf the ~vs Amer'iean Revolution under the same la that governed the whites. And it was) (reverently in 1775) they who inspired the producer to ' establish a universal governmenf ,\ It is at all times necessary, and more school system for Indian children • ~ particularly so during the progress of a to hasten their Americanization. revolution, and until right ideas The Indians were very well- jJ confirm themselves by habit, that we directed in this story as every\~ frequently refresh our patriotism by reference to the first principles" It is by reviewer of the effects of tracing things to their origin that we colonization on Indian society has learn to understand them, and it is by noted. Nonetheless, directing and .I keeping that line and that origin producing this saga has taken its " always in view that we never forget toll among the white participants; them, An inquiry into the origin of rights will demonstrate to us that as well, because, like the Indian: rights are not gifts from one man to players, the white actors, writers,' another, nor from one class of men to directors, producers, and another.. members of the audience have' Tom Paine also suffered losses. These losses are necessarily of a more subtle sort than those experienced by the. Indian players. They began to THE PLOT show up in the 1850's when there was a marked growth ill This story is about the 26 Indian Herein, then, is a depiction of hypocrisy among the script" tribes who came to live on the how native religions and writers, directors, and the, Northern Great Plains of languages were destroyed or producer as their so-called form! America. It is about the wars and suppressed - a record of how a of justice grew harder to the enemies of these people, and low status was assigned to vir­ rationalize. Then came a blunting' about their allies. It is a tale of tually all of the native Indian of conscience in the white greed and the power of individual customs and physical charac­ audience, followed by ~ men over other men. It is about teristics. And finally, it is an significant decline in huma explorers, cavalry and Indians; account of plunder and rape, not sensitivity, not only among th about lawyers, businessmen, just of goods and women, but of audience, but also among the government agents and Indians; entire Indian nations. scriptwriters, directors and th~ and finally a bout cowboys Instrumental to this drama of producer. 1 becoming Indians. the process of colonization of Ironically, as this story nears] Indian people were the advocates, an end it is only the Indian It is a portrayal of the process of the many white Christian members of the cast who have colonization, and therefore a reformers who called themselves maintained their integrity and record of the acquisition of wealth "friends of the Indians". They self-respect. White people, having, and high social status played by were really the scriptwriters and paid no real attention or respect to. an expanding white population at directors for this saga, who in­ red people for almost two cen~ the expense of a native red spired (and to some lesser degree turies, have lost sight of their first population. It is about a colonial are still inspiring) the policies of principles and their origins. Of system established 200 years ago the U.S. Government, the course, the script is not finished which required that native social producer of this epic, yet, and so it remains to be seeD! systems be broken up so as not to It was the friendly scriptwriters whether or not the audience will; impede the progress of the new who thought up the devices which yet be moved by the stoic por·: white dominant society. It is a the government-producer used to trayal of the Indians - one full ?f' recounting of how, although divide reservations into in­ wisdom, reverence for theIr rendered impotent, the self­ dividual homesteads for the In­ brothers, and respect for tbr conscious nationality of the native dians (sometimes spoken of as the Mother Earth, which the nativ, Indian population was never allotment of the land in actors have been playing so well completely liquidated. severalty). It was these for the past 200 years. i 2 THE STAGE SETTING The setting for this drama is a gold, coal, oil and oil shale, from the jackrabbits and prairie part of America which is high and natural gas, silver, potassium, dogs. There are some, but not too barren, windswept and arid. The aluminum, clay, chalk, semi­ many eagles, ducks and geese. winters are frigid, with howling precious stones, and water. Only the prairie chickens still blizzards piling snowdrifts in all Once, huge herds of buffalo strut in sufficient numbers as they the cuts and coulees. Summers roamed by the millions up and perform their strange mating ~ unbearably hot with dry winds down the unending sea of grass on dance in dusty circles on the flats. ;:,caring the grasses and drying up the surface. They are gone now. the streams. Some mule deer still browse in the The plains described in this Along the wide and shallow wooded areas, as do a few setting encompass an area of land rivers, which often become raging remaining antelope on the high, within America thatis now part of torrents from the flash floods of rolling ground. There were and the states of Montana, Wyoming, spring, are groves of cottonwood still are (although many less) North Dakota, South Dakota and and box elders, chokecherries and black bear and grizzlies rum­ Nebraska. It is a big and fragile wild plums. On the high ridges are maging in search of berries, fish kind of land and the men who stands of ponderosa pine and and honey. There are only a few wrested a living from it had to be cedar. Underneath the ground is wolves and foxes left to grow fat strong. They still have to be. 3 · The Prologue MAKING INDIANS INTO WHITE MEN SITTING BULL: them to survive on the fragile and Sioux barren plains. The new plains (prophetically in 1875) Indians made this transition remarkably well by absorbing We will yield to our neighbors - even what they could, not only from our animal neighbors - the same each other, but also from the right as we claim to inhabit the land. Spanish, British and French But we now have to deal with another breed of people .. They were few and explorers. They made weak when our forefathers first met magnificent use of the horse and them and now they are many and the buffalo, and they prospered as greedy They choose to till the soiL hunters and food gatherers. Love of possessions is the disease with During the second half of the them And they would make rules to suit themselves They have a religion 1800's, as their new plains life-role which they follow when it suits them was once again slowly being destroyed by an advancing They claim this Mother Earth of ours culture, they found themselves for their own and fence their neigh­ trapped. They had reached the bors away from them They degrade the landscape with their buildings and end of the stage and there was no their waste They compel the natural other place for them to move off Earth to produce excessively and when to. As a result they then had to it fails, they force it to take medicine somehow learn to sustain to produce mOle This is an evil themselves in their new roles This new population is like a river side-by-side with their oldest overflowing its banks and destroying Indian enemies, often on the same Although only a few of them all in its path .. We cannot live the way reservation. What they did not survived the 2,000 mile trek andj these people live and we cannot live learn how to do, however, was to or their pursuers, even then the beside them. They have little respect impersonate white men. Northern Cheyenne seemed for nature and they offend our ideals. Just seven years ago we signed a treaty Unable to accept the inevitable, destined to set a tone and pace on by which the buffalo country was to be some of their warriors struggled the Great Plains story-stage for ours and unspoiled forever Now they on in vain to preserve their those other tribes who were want it They want the gold in it. Will original roles on the plains until resisting the colonization of their we yield? They will kill me before I the end of the 19th Century. On peoples. will give up the land that is my land several occasions they were In 1887 the Dawes Act was victorious, as on June 25, 1876, passed.