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The Patriot Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian Resistance; Revised Edition

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Might always makes right, until it's too late, and we say it was wrong after all. Surely one of the biggest illegal land grabs in history took place right here in River City, otherwise known as the USA. Over a period of three hundred years, the original inhabitants of this vast country were dispossessed of nearly everything---their land, their pride, their language, their culture, and in many cases, their right to live. Brushed off as "savages", "primitive", "children of nature" and by other edifying epithets, by 1900, the surviving American Indians had been confined to a gulag archipelago of reservations, some of only a few acres---though these lands were at least nominally controlled by them. Alcohol and disease had brought them low, combined with massacres and forced migrations. And these were the lucky ones ! Many tribes, especially in the east, lost everything, reduced to remnants whose language and culture were all but destroyed, barely managing to hang on amidst the sea of uncaring white immigrants. Although the 20th century proved a time of resurgence for many Native Americans, many problems still remain. We've seen the endless Hollywood movies about Indians. John Wayne, such a decent guy, if a bit quick on the trigger, always gets the better of the Indians. That stock image of Indians is rampant. But how did these people really react to the European invasion ? Did they just run whooping out of the forest into the guns of the "sturdy white troopers" ? No, I don't think so. They were a lot smarter, but they got outnumbered, and their own internal dissensions helped to do them in too. If Alvin Josephy writes from the point of a white man and does not live up to the strictures of political correctness of 35 years later, he certainly is not "anti-Indian"; he illustrates the problems of unifying a mosaic of peoples, shows the whites as generally brutal, greedy, and treacherous, at the same time not trying to show the Indians as angels either.

Throughout the three centuries of conflict over North America, Indians consistently produced leaders of high quality who tried desperately to stem the tide, to stop the steady loss of lands. That they ultimately did not succeed does not say anything about their character. Josephy has written a detailed history of nine of the most successful leaders, those who most challenged the European invaders, their armies and all. Starting from the nearly mythical Hiawatha, who unlike the hero of Longfellow's epic, did not live in Minnesota, but in upstate New York, he follows the advancing line of the colonists across the continent, to end with the inspiring tale of the Nez Perces led by Chief Joseph. "King Philip" of New England, whose real name was Metacom, was the first to try to build a pan-tribal alliance against the land grabbers. He was followed by such men as Pope of the Pueblo peoples, Pontiac, and Tecumseh. Asi-Yaholo (known to history as Osceola) of the Seminoles, Black Hawk of the Sauk, and Crazy Horse of the Lakota round out the roster of famous Indian leaders. Though I felt that the Crazy Horse chapter contained too many extraneous details of the comings and goings of Indian bands and white troopers, in general THE PATRIOT CHIEFS is very well-written, bringing in Indian origins, culture, and ways of life. Though the Indians ultimately lost, you cannot fail to be impressed with their courage and determination to defend their homes and people. Perhaps the USA is the "land of the brave", because all human beings possess bravery in varying quantities. Reading this book, I would have to question "land of the free"...free for whom ? Nearly all these leaders were betrayed, their peoples exiled or killed, and every agreement broken. We did get their land for free. It is all a saddening, depressing tale, but definitely worth reading.

"The Patriot Chiefs" is an excellent biographical sketch of nine American Indian leaders. This book was stirring to the soul of this non-American Indian reader. The men profiled here fit every definition of true patriotism. Although most of their noble causes ended in treachery, the ability and courage of these men was absolutely incredible. The celebrated patriots of the American Indian cause were equals to the John Hancocks, Patrick Henrys and Thomas Jeffersons of the Eurocentric history taught today. This book should be a required read for all students of American History. The "Patriot Chiefs" history is truly American.

[...]. Simply put, "The Patriot Chiefs" is a collection of Stories where the past is told from the point of view of the conqueror and understood through the memory and mindset of non-indians. Add to this bias a focus on Heroes over people, and the result is little more than the perpetuation of American mythology rather than a book that can be taken seriously and sheds any historical light on its subjects. But then, this is a book about Leaders and not about peoples [...]. Right away, he sets the tone in his forward: "These men were, to the Indians, 'good and brave men,' their Nathan Hales, George Washingtons and Benjamin Franklins." Framing his context as such, he is now completely free to discard the perspective of the very men he highlights: "Since no white man was present in Hiawatha's day to provide in white men's terms a contemporary account of his life, the telling of his story today rests greatly on an acceptance of [Smithsonian ethnologist] Hewitt's work in determining where Indian imagery shrouded fact, and where it was simply myth." [p. 11] Josephy makes it clear that the Indians' account is not credible, not even one that can be considered, as it takes a white "expert" to tell the true story of the Indian. He's just getting warmed up.
Soon he attacks: "Even more genius, however, can be credited to the humanitarian Iroquoian conceptions of brotherhood and peace, for they were devised and achieved by Deganawidah and Hiawatha for Stone Age savages before the coming of the white man, and they are still earnestly yearned for by the parliaments and United Nations of twentieth-century humanity." [p. 29] Throughout, the author hurls insults and unapologetically proclaims that, except for a select few heroes, Indians were backward, primitive, violent savages. For example, "From the imperialistic war of the white men Pontiac emerged as he had entered it, a forest warrior who drank the blood and ate the hearts of brave enemies to acquire their courage... In addition, he was a natural-born political leader who might have risen high among white men if he had been born in a civilized society. Unlike most natives, he could think in terms of long-range strategy and could plan and act decisively not for the moment alone but for the achievement of large and distant aims." [p. 99] Or, "[The Ottawas] had by now changed materially from the weak and primitive people whom the French had first met a century before...." [pp. 103-104] Or, "It was the genius of Tecumseh that he, alone among all the natives, saw what was now required. ...As the greatest Indian nationalist...." [p. 136] Or try "...with diplomatic astuteness not often displayed by an Indian" [p. 116]
But it's not just the racist tones that make this a poor book. It's inaccurate. For starters, the book ignores actual Indian names for places, tribes and individuals in favor of the conqueror's. "Tecumseh's real name was Tecumtha... White men pronounced it Tecumseh..." [p. 137] Needless to say, that's the only time we see the name Tecumtha.
His writing is often sloppy, deteriorating into absurd and contradictory passages. At one point he informs us that "Against the whites the Indians used tactics of fighting that were traditional in the conflicts of the New World natives, but were hideous and inhumane to the Europeans" [p.52] yet three sentences later he writes "And yet the English, scarcely emerged from the barbarism of their own Middle Ages in Europe, were quick to accept the no-quarter savagery of absolute racial war, and to retaliate in kind." [p. 52] and goes on describing three grisly acts: "In a final gesture the whites themselves sent Canonchet's head to the Connecticut authorities at Hartford." [p. 58], "In triumph the colonists took her head to Plymouth and mounted it on a pole." [p. 60], and "Evidently the troops decapitated and quartered the sachem's body and carried his head back to Plymouth, where it was stuck on a pole and remained on public display for 25 years."[p. 62]. In another tale: "After the Indian's death, he [Doctor Weedon] cut off Osceola's head and kept it as a souvenir in his own home, hanging it occasionally on the bedstead where his sons slept whenever he wished to punish them for their misbehavior." [p. 208]
Or, how does one interpret the sentence, "The troopers broke into wild flight, with every man for himself, and the Indians whooped and howled after them, cutting them down as they would a herd of fleeing buffalo." [p. 199] Josephy is writing fiction; he has tales to spin. Truth and reality only get in his way: "...his [Pope] story gains its fullest perspective only when seen as the climax of the larger and more romantic narrative of his own people." [p. 68]
The author leaves out too much detail in interests of "romantic narrative". Failing to mention atrocities inflicted on the slaughtered at Sand Creek, when he tells us in a later battle that "The Indians attacked them [Carrington's and Fetterman's troops] savagely, bashing in their heads and mutilating their bodies." [p. 283], the entire context and motives of the warriors is missing, and again, the author retains his savages, essential to his spin. By the epilogue he has the courage to type this strange phrase "...the so-called massacre of Wounded Knee in December 1890..." [p. 343]
Skip this book. It might have significance some day for deconstruction of the American myth and ills of modern man, but it won't help you understand the Native American.