P
sports organizations to use the warfare between
Indians and non-Indians of previous centuries as
a metaphor for the “battle” on the playing field.
Further stereotyping Native Americans as ag-
gressive savages, many other schools and sports
organizations will follow the university’s lead by
adopting team names such as “Chiefs,” “Braves,”
and “Redskins.”
The “Last Great Indian Council” is called by
the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
With the assistance of non-Indian businessmen
Joseph K. Dixon and Rodman Wanamaker, the Bu-
reau of Indian Affairs stages “one last great council”
of selected Indian leaders, at the site of the Battle of
Little Bighorn (see entry for JUNE 24 TO 25, 1876).
Four years later, Dixon will publish a romantic ac-
count of the meeting titled The Vanishing Race: The
Last Great Indian Council.
“To the man of mystery—the
earth his mother—the sun his
father—a child of the moun-
tains and the Plains—a faithful
worshipper in the great world
cathedral—now a tragic soul
haunting the shores of the
western ocean—my brother
the Indian.”
—the dedication of Joseph K.
Dixon’s The Vanishing Race: The Last
Great Indian Council (1913)March 27
Chitto Harjo is shot by U.S. deputy
marshals.
Several African Americans forced out of a nearby
town by whites move to Hickory Ground, the
capital of the Crazy Snake movement (see entry for
AUTUMN 1900). When they are accused of stealing
from local white families, the police arrive in the
town to arrest them. Fifteen men are killed in the
deadly shoot-out that follows.
Although uninvolved in the incident, Crazy
Snake leader Chitto Harjo is blamed for the vio-
lence. Four U.S. deputy marshals come to Harjo’s
home to arrest him, again prompting an exchange
of gunfire, during which Harjo is wounded. As a
large posse gathers to capture Harjo, he escapes
from Hickory Ground. Various accounts later
emerge about Harjo’s fate. Some claim he made his
way to Mexico; others say he was hanged the next
year in Oklahoma; still others maintain he died near
his home from his gunshot wound.April 9Inuit explorers help Robert E. Peary reach
the North Pole.
After trying six times, explorer Robert E. Peary
becomes the first white man to reach the North
Pole. Among the men in his exploration party
are four Inuit—Coqueeh, Ootah, Eginwah, and
Seegloo—and an African American, Matthew
Henson.SummerThe Four Mothers Society is founded.
Creek Indian Eufaula Harjo and Cherokee leader
Redbird Smith form the Four Mothers Society, an
organization dedicated to improving the politi-
cal situation of Oklahoma Indian traditionalists.
One of the first intertribal organizations, it draws
its membership from the Creek, Cherokee, Choc-
taw, and Creek tribes, although the majority are
the former followers of Chitto Harjo, the Creek
leader of the Crazy Snake movement (see entry for
MARCH 27, 1908). At its height the organization
will have as many as 24,000 members. Among the
society’s goals are preserving communal ownership
of tribal lands and pressuring Congress to remove
restrictions on the sale of allotments.