OK not exactly The President Teddy Roosevelt, also known as T.R., 26th Commander and Chief of the United States of America from 1901 to 1908 and known as The Conservation President, who used his authority to establish 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land. And not exactly on Native American Heritage Day, a U.S civil holiday observed the day after Thanksgiving to pay tribute to Native Americans for their many contributions to our country, a recognition supported by the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) and 184 federally recognized tribes when President George W. Bush signed the bill into legislation back in 2008. Watch for a hilarious NIGA reference in this space in a future post.
No, Teddy was in reality the outstanding actor Joe Wiegand, bringing back to life the youngest man to ever be made President before our very appreciative eyes during the recent Saturday night show An Evening with Teddy Roosevelt, part of the South Haven, Michigan theatre series. I was front and center, and after booming God Bless America and an amazing one and one half-hour historical recount, when the man manifesting the spirit of TR opened it up for questions, my hand shot skyward. “You sir, down front. We all heard your enthusiasm singing God Bless America” (note: I really boomed it) “What’s your thought there?” “My first thought Mr. President is that I’m very proud to be an American, the inspiration for my singing. My second thought? You killed it up there tonight. WoW. My question, because it’s history I don’t know very well but look forward to learning all about, is: what was your relationship like with the Lakota people?
He began by citing his writings on the desolation of the area that is America’s Badlands, an area horribly bare yet picturesque at times to the extreme, describing them as “Hell with the fires put out.” I wasn’t exactly Paulie on the spot with my camera at first, but I steadied it, and caught the rest of his extraordinary answer. He pointed out that right around the time he began college at Harvard, General Custer made his great sacrifice at The Little Big Horn. “In the first book I published about my hunting and ranch life, I wrote, ‘It has been said that The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian , a quote sometimes attributed to General Sheridan, but he and his brother dispute that. As a a 27 year-old man, I wrote: ‘While this may be true in nine out of ten cases, and we may have to look closely at the tenth, I had many friendships with native peoples. In that region by circumstance of proximaty, there were still settlers who would disappear, thought to be killed by the Indians, by young braves who did not like life on the reservation and so would go out marauding out in the countryside.
In that first book I wrote of being out riding across the buttes — you never rode in the valleys as there was potential for an ambush — so when I was riding across one of those buttes, I suddenly saw three young braves riding very aggressively toward me. I dismounted my horse Manitou and set my Winchester out across the saddle. Those men came close enough that I could hear things like, "Me good Indian”, and inquired if I had any sugar. I replied, “I have nothing for you and you must leave me alone.” They uh, began riding about, encircling me, and eventually showed a familiarity with a certain set of English vulgarities as they rode away, unsuccessful at either waylaying me or stealing my horse and rifle. So those were troubled times to be a rancher out in the Badlands (note: as well as an Indian). You might know that one of my closest companions through my administration, a confidante on issues of the indigenous people of the Americas, was Quanah Parker, the Comanche, the war leader of the Antelope band of the Comanche Nation, the leader who brought the Comanche in from the war path. His Mother having been kidnapped, he himself growing half-native, half-settler.
He rode in my 1905 inaugural parade along with five other Indian Chiefs — the Ute’s Buckskin Charlie, Hollow Horn Bear and American Horse of the Sioux, Little Plume from the Blackfeet and the Apache warrior Geronimo. Marching behind them were 200 cadets of the Carlisle Indian School. You might know this as the school that gave us James Thorpe an athlete. I was of the mind that the Native American needed to Americanize themselves to our Western ways, the ways of capitalism and property ownership. So it’s a mixed record. Lately in the news, the statue outside of the American Museum of Natural History, the one that has me on horseback, accompanied by gun bearers — the museum has said that the hierarchy — that I am above the natives — is troublesome, so is being removed. And it was actually just announced within the last 48 hours that the soon to be built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library that will be in Medora, North Dakota, is going to accept the statue and contextualize it, using it as an opportunity to discuss these issues of race and cultural relations.
So I was a man who’s feet were made of clay. I wasn’t perfect on this issue of race relations. Nor was I perfect on the issue of conservation; I thought we should drain the Everglades, for it would be a great place to settle and ranch cattle. It’s a challenging and difficult issue, but I thought the Native American was entitled to what every other American was entitled to: a square deal. Nothing more and nothing less. But, sir, I am glad that you’ve brought up a challenging issue. Those challenging issues are all about us.” Indeed. While some Native folk call Thanksgiving the National Day of Mourning, believing it is in poor taste for Native American Heritage Day to be on Black Friday, a day of excess, gluttony, greed and aggressive capitalism, here we’ll continue to walk a crooked line between two worlds. Enjoy your Holiday weekend. We’ll be back next week with news on our closing classes and Ceremonies for 2021. Until then, Bully Bully.