Garner Andrews History 400 Final Thesis 12/16/11 “A Superior Order of Red Men”: Constructing the Alaskan Native in Turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐Century America In 1892 a Labrador Inuit named Esther Eneutseak left her village and traveled to the United States. She and fifty other Inuit were going to participate in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair. There she would be on display for hundreds of thousands of curious spectators eager to lay eyes on Natives who belonged to a region that Americans had only been keenly aware of for a generation.1 Most of the fairgoers in Chicago likely assumed that they would not have many chances to view a Native like Esther. Not only did she come from a far away land, but nearly all Americans were convinced that Natives all over the world were rapidly dying out. Esther, however, was not preoccupied with her inevitable demise. Her thoughts were not on the past, but on the future. She was starting a brand new career as a performer, and while at the fair gave birth to a baby girl whom she named Nancy Columbia. Americans had long interacted with North American Natives, but most U.S. citizens were still unfamiliar with Natives of the far North. The United States had purchased Russian America in 1867 for slightly more than seven million dollars. Initially, the United States press was skeptical of the purchase. Though supporters 1 Kenn Harper, “Nancy Columbia – The First Inuit Queen,” Aug 21, 2009, Nutatsiaq Online, http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/taissumani_aug._28/ (accessed Nov 16, 2011). 1 of the purchase often cited the territory’s bountiful natural resources and reminded Americans of their Manifest Destiny, critics saw little value in the land, calling it “Seward’s Folly,” “Wallrussia,” or “Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden.”2 As an April 13th editorial in Harper’s Weekly succinctly stated, “The advantage of obtaining a large territory with a population of Esquimaux is certainly not very striking, even with the added control of the fisheries and the fur trade.”3 Most politicians and citizens of the United States at the time knew little, if anything, about these “Esquimaux.” The treaty for the purchase of Alaska only mentioned the “uncivilized native tribes” long enough to state, “The uncivilized tribes will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may, from time to time, adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of that country.”4 If it seems strange that Native peoples would have agreed to these terms it is because they never did – they were never even consulted. Yet, if Native peoples of that region occupied a remarkably small portion of politicians’ attention in 1867, they would occupy an increasingly large portion of the American public’s interest over the ensuing decades. 2 Harpweek, Russian-­‐American Relations 1863-­‐1905, Seward’s Folly: Purchase of Alaska, 1867, http://russia.harpweek.com (accessed Oct 7, 2011). Secretary of State William H. Seward was the principal architect of the purchase. Andrew Johnson was President at the time. 3 “The Russian Treaty,” Harper’s Weekly, April 13, 1867, <http://russia.harpweek.com/HubPages/CommentaryPage.asp?Commentary=02SewardsF
olly-­‐News> (accessed Oct 7, 2011). 4 “Treaty With Russia, March 30, 1867,” in Public Acts of the Fortieth Congress of the United States, accessed via A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-­‐1875, Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Alaska.html (accessed on Oct 31, 2011). 2 In his 1868 book, Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska, explorer Frederick Whymper claimed that, “The natives have been hitherto so isolated from civilization, that perhaps in no other part of America can the ‘red-­‐skin’ be seen to greater perfection. In a few generations he will be extinct.”5 Although Whymper was British, he had participated in the American’s Western Union Telegraph Expedition from 1865 to 1867, and his comment perfectly encapsulated a popular American sentiment towards Native Alaskans and other far-­‐Northern Natives. The comment embodied several deeply engrained assumptions. First, it was widely assumed that Alaskan Natives were truly and extremely isolated from civilization, which inherently led to the assumption they were “uncivilized.” Second, Whymper clearly believed that those “red-­‐skins” most isolated from civilization were somehow perfect, especially compared to the American Indians residing in the contiguous states and territories of the United States who had been exposed to civilization for centuries. And third, Whymper assumed, even guaranteed, that with the arrival of civilized people Alaskan Natives would quickly and forever disappear.6 Although Whymper wrote with a very matter-­‐of-­‐fact tone, his comment spoke far more of his own race, class, and time – and that of most Americans – than it did of the Natives he was writing about. By the turn of the century, the American 5 Frederick Whymper, Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska, (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1868), 7, accessed via Meeting of the Frontiers, Library of Congress, http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/mfdigcol/lists/mtfgcTitles1.html (accessed on Oct 2, 2011). 6 This third assumption is what scholars have termed the “myth of the vanishing race.” As a myth, it did not matter if it was true or not. What mattered is that nearly all Americans believed it. For an overview see Brian Dippie, The Vanishing American (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982). Dippie states, “The belief in the Vanishing Indian was the ultimate cause of the Indian’s vanishing” (71). 3 public had become fascinated with these assumptions, and no indigenous peoples residing in territories claimed by the United States received as much attention as did Natives of the far North. The desire to see Natives uncorrupted by civilization, before they disappeared forever, created two phenomena involving Natives of the North. One was tourism to Alaska, which gave Americans of leisure the opportunity to view Native peoples in their authentic settings. Tourists used photography in conjunction with the written word to convey the landscape and people that they encountered. The second phenomenon was putting Native peoples on display at fairs for the entertainment and supposed education of the American public. Native displays often employed theories promoted by the relatively new academic field of anthropology. The phenomena of tourism and fairs reveal just how popular Northern Natives were in turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century popular culture. Certainly, Native peoples at home and at fairs were often manipulated and treated unfairly. In order for concepts of authenticity and purity to be applied to them, tourism and fairs were always temporal in nature, and Natives were intentionally contrasted to American society. Yet, tourism and fairs could not exist without the cooperation of Alaskan and far northern Natives. Native peoples were able to use American obsessions and assumptions in order to have some agency in American society. The purchase of Alaska introduced to the American public Natives who appeared uncontaminated by modern civilization. That Alaska was non-­‐contiguous to the other United States territories only cemented this perception further. Through the thoroughly modern phenomena of tourism and fairs – phenomena that depended on the collaboration of Native peoples – turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century Americans 4 constructed and celebrated far northern and Alaskan Natives as models of authenticity, purity, and inevitable demise. The turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century certainly called for a new definition of what a Native was in American popular perception. The United States was rapidly changing. The 1890 census had declared the frontier closed, and the last Indian wars ended with the U.S. Cavalry’s massacre of Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota that same year. Just two years later Captain Richard H. Pratt delivered a speech in which he advocated a new policy regarding American Indians: “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”7 By 1892 Pratt had been putting his theory into practice at his Carlisle Indian Industrial School for thirteen years. Indians were no longer to be killed, but rather assimilated. As Paige Raibmon states, “Indian policy now contributed to the rhetoric of the vanishing Indian, not through violent death but through cultural transformation.”8 However, as Americans had done with the westward progression of each new frontier, many looked back on the frontier, and the Indians who had delineated it, with nostalgia.9 Although convinced that the Indian was disappearing, they lamented this loss. These were often men of science who were influenced by the relatively new field of anthropology, a field that introduced new ideas of culture, race and man’s relationship to his environment. 7 Capt. Richard H. Pratt,“Kill the Indian, Save the Man”: Capt. Richard H. Pratt on the Education of Native Americans. Speech, 1892. Accessed via History Matters. <http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4929> (accessed Nov 10, 2011). 8 Paige Raibmon, Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-­Nineteenth-­
Century Northwest Coast (London: Duke University Press, 2005), 36. 9 For a study of this see Jill Lepore, “Remembering American Frontiers: King Philip’s War and the American Imagination”, in Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750-­1830, eds. Andrew R.L. Cayton and Fredrika J. Teute (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 327-­‐360. 5 These men sought to prevent Native cultural transformation and preserve what Raibmon have termed “authentic Indians” – namely, Indians uncorrupted by the white man’s vices and religion. Alaska, more than any other region in the United States, provided Americans the opportunity to construct new understandings of Natives as pure and authentic. It was Americans’ perceptions of the land that Alaskan Natives called home, just as much as the Natives themselves, that contributed to the rhetoric of fragility, purity and authenticity. John Muir, the renowned naturalist and defender of wilderness, traveled to Alaska multiple times in his life. Muir was a leader in a movement that viewed wilderness as a much-­‐needed antidote to industrial modernity, and Alaska was the perfect refuge. In his Alaskan writings Muir routinely described natural features as pure and spoke of Alaska’s “virgin landscape.”10 In his book Travels in Alaska he wrote, “…the forests are as trackless as the sky, while the mountains, wrapped in their snow and ice clouds, seem never before to have been looked at.”11 Muir believed that Natives were indicative of the pure, virginal wildness from which they supposedly came. Describing a fur-­‐trading scene he witnessed from a trip to St. Michael, Alaska, in June of 1881, Muir wrote, “[The furs] were vividly suggestive of the far wilderness whence they came – its mountains and valleys, its broad grassy plains and far reaching rivers, its forest and its bogs. The Indians seemed to me the wildest animals of all.”12 Anglo-­‐Americans’ Alaskan-­‐wilderness rhetoric was 10 John Muir, Cruise of the Corwin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917), 153. 11 John Muir, Travels in Alaska (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915), 207-­‐208. 12 Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 85. 6 strikingly similar to their rhetoric regarding Northern Natives. Both the uncorrupted land and the uncorrupted Native of Alaska were worth preserving. Those who stressed that Alaskan Natives were pure and uncorrupted often contrasted them to other North American Indians residing in the contiguous portions of the United States. Seventeen years after the purchase of Alaska a New York Times article stated, “so far these natives are uncontaminated by Government rations or annuity goods… In every way they present the strongest contrast to the Indians of the plains, and their superiority is evident at the most superficial glance.”13 This was contrasting Alaskan Natives to the “dependent” Indians residing on reservations. Supposedly, reservation Indians were not the wild, animal-­‐like Natives Muir described in his travels; on the reservation they were tamed and caged. Indians who were dependent on the Government were “contaminated.” The Alaskan Natives’ superiority came from the fact that they were uncorrupted in this way. However, prior to and at the turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century, not all Americans considered an “uncorrupted” Native to be the best Native, nor did they perceive Natives of Alaska in the same way Whymper or even Muir had. In fact, many Americans, primarily government agents and Christian missionaries, were impressed not by Alaskan Natives remoteness from civilization, but their apparent acceptance of it. Shortly after the United States purchased Alaska, Vincent Colyer, the Special Indian Commissioner to Alaska, toured the Alaskan coast and visited 13 “The Indians of Alaska.” New York Times (1857-­1922); Nov 23, 1884. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-­‐2007) http://ezproxy.ups.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94268069
?accountid=1627(accessed Sep 28 2011). 7 many Native communities. The New York Times summarized his impressions in an article titled “The Tribes of Alaska – A Superior Order of Red Men – The Purchase A Judicious One”: “They are of a very superior order; have large droves of cattle; raise crops to some extent, and live in villages with well-­‐constructed houses. They are peaceful, and partial to America.”14 Colyer was later reported to write, “I do not hesitate to say that if three fourths of them (Alaska Indians) were landed in New York as coming from Europe, they would be selected as among the most intelligent of the many worthy emigrants who daily arrive at the port.”15 Colyer was constructing Alaskan Natives as civilized and peaceful. Once again, Alaskan Natives were contrasted to other North American Indians, and Colyer most surely intended to contrast them to the warlike tribes the U.S. government had been fighting for so long. The same New York Times article that reported on Colyer’s travels also reported on uncooperative and hostile Indians in Oregon and the Dakota Territory. The Alaskan Natives, ”peaceful and partial to America,” must have stood in sharp contrast to the troublesome Indians Americans were so accustomed to reading about. Both New York Times articles raised the issue of superiority, and this illustrates that Americans did not entirely agree on what a “superior” Native was. 14 “The Indians: The Tribes of Alaska – A Superior Order of Red Men – The Purchase a Judicious One,” New York Times (1857-­1922); Nov 23, 1884. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-­‐2007) http://ezproxy.ups.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94980576
?accountid=1627(accessed Sep 28 2011). 15 Quoted in Sheldon Jackson, Alaska, and Missions on the North Pacific Coast (New York: Dodd, Mead, & company, 1880), 73. Accessed via Meeting of Frontiers, Library of Congress, http://frontiers.loc.gov/cgi-­‐bin/query/D?mtfront:1:./temp/~intldl_vb10:: (accessed Nov 23, 2011). 8 Nonetheless, Americans of both paradigms understood Alaskan Natives to be something new and unique, distinguished from Indians elsewhere in the United States. Thus, American culture treated Alaskan Natives differently. Americans did not view Alaskan Natives as dependent, nor did they see Alaskan Natives as Dime Novel natives – Indians depicted as bloodthirsty savages pitted against heroic, gun swinging whites.16 Although violent encounters often occurred between Natives and non-­‐natives during both Russian and American colonization, Alaska did not generate a violent aura. As newspaper articles and explorers’ accounts of the time indicated, violence that did occur was usually between individuals or small groups, often over local grievances, not large-­‐scale battles between tribes or Native confederacies and the United States Government.17 The lack of federally backed, mass immigration to Alaska meant that violence to the degree seen, in say, the U.S. Southwest, was never experienced. Rather than being feared, Alaskan Natives became Indians that Americans wanted to interact with and observe, as long as the interaction was temporary. Alaska’s beauty, remoteness, and safety made it the perfect turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century tourist destination. 16 Popular Dime Western novels included titles such as, Buffalo Bill’s Last Scalp; Custer’s Last Fight; The Death Rangers; and Scar Cheek. The Wild Half Breed: A Chase After the Savages of the Frontier. 17 For more discussion of this see John R. Bockstoce, Furs and Frontiers in the Far North (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). See also Whymper, Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska; “Hostile Alaska Indians. Ten Miners Thought to Have Been Killed by Them.” New York Times (1857-­1922); Feb 26, 1892. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-­‐2007), (accessed Sep 28, 2011).; “Troublesome Alaska Indians.” New York Times (1857-­1922); Sep 9, 1883. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-­‐2007), http://ezproxy.ups.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94095483?accoun
tid=1627 (accessed Sep 28, 2011). 9 In the early summer of 1899, three decades after Whymper’s declaration, a cruise ship called the George W. Elder left Seattle on its way to Alaska. Organized by a railroad magnate by the name of E.H. Harriman, the journey underway was possibly the most luxurious, well financed, and highly profiled cruise to Alaska since the territory had come under the possession of the United States. Harriman had two main purposes for his “Expedition”: one, to see if a railroad tunnel could be built beneath the Bering Strait between the United States and Russia, and two, to hunt and kill a Kodiak bear. (Only Harriman’s second goal came to fruition.) Harriman also saw the trip as an opportunity to amass a great quantity of scientific data, observations, and specimens. Indeed, the Harriman Alaska Expedition produced a significant body of scientific observations that were published in thirteen volumes of essays by the Expedition members. Harriman assembled some of the most prominent names in science and academia, the most famous of whom was John Muir, never one to pass of an Alaskan trip. Others included the well-­‐known naturalist John Burroughs; the editor of Field and Stream, naturalist, ornithologist and renowned Indian expert George Bird Grinnell (also instrumental in restoring the depleted American Bison population); and a young photographer named Edward S. Curtis. Despite the scientific knowledge that came out of the expedition, Harriman and his “floating university”18 were not trailblazers. By taking the famed and heavily toured “Inside Passage,” a route that kept steamships hugging the coastline of British Columbia up into the islands of southeast Alaska, the Harriman Exposition 18 William H. Goetzmann and Kay Sloan, Looking Far North: The Harriman Expedition to Alaska, 1899 (New York: The Viking Press, 1982), xv. 10 was following in the footsteps of many before them [Figure 1]. And although Harriman’s cruise tried to best its predecessors in terms of luxury, it was also merely following a standard of leisure that steamship companies had tried hard to promote. An 1886 travel guide to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska tried to assuage potential-­‐tourists’ fears of discomfort when it stated, Visions, too, are conjured up of cramped and greasy little whale boats, making tedious voyages, at irregular intervals, through rough seas that in so great a distance cannot fail to be tempestuous. That large and well-­‐appointed steamships are engaged in a regular service, and that the long voyage they make is never productive of more than a transient squeamishness, however susceptible be the traveler, are almost incredible pieces of news to those who hear them for the first time.19 By the turn of the century, travel to Alaska was no longer reserved for grisly traders, idealistic missionaries, or intrepid explorers like Frederick Whymper. Travel to Alaska had become a common, although still very expensive, journey for people of leisure to make. A Paige Raibmon notes, “The culmination of the wide-­‐eyed easterner’s tour had once been Yellowstone; now it was Alaska…Tourists soon began to arrive, well in advance of U.S. government surveyors and mapmakers. By 1899, the glacier sported boardwalks that accommodated over 5,000 annual tourists.”20 Besides the glaciers, another popular tourist attraction was “authentic Indians.” To promote interest in Natives and encourage tourism, guidebooks wrote of Alaskan Natives in ways that emphasized their distinguishable artistic and cultural attributes. The supposed “isolated perfection” of Alaskan Natives that Whymper described in 1868 was a sight not to be missed. 19 John Hyde, Wonderland: Or the Pacific Northwest and Alaska (1886), 68, Meeting of the Frontiers, Library of Congress, <http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/mfak/igguides.html> (accessed Nov 23, 2011). 20 Raibmon, 140. 11 Native Alaskan crafts were especially popular. As two historians point out, “An Alaskan cruise had become a badge of status, and the most up-­‐to-­‐date households proudly displayed souvenirs acquired on tours.”21 Skillfully woven Tlingit baskets were the most popular items, but photographs, jewelry and other metalworking were also popular items for tourists to go home with [Figure 2]. Tourists enjoyed knowing that they were purchasing goods from Native craftsmen, and no doubt found them wonderful conversation pieces back home in New York, Seattle, or Philadelphia. Tourists in Sitka even walked right into Native peoples homes to marvel at their “primitive” furnishings.22 For tourists, an uncorrupted Native was a more authentic Native, and this meant their photograph or crafts were more exotic and valuable. Certainly, tourists, in their quest for uncorrupted Natives, must have been quite invasive into Native peoples lives. But as Raibmon again points out, “Aboriginal craftspeople capitalized on this romanticization of their products.”23 Because it is extremely unlikely that Native peoples saw themselves in the same terms of “authenticity” as white tourists did, Native peoples held some leverage over white tourists. Many Natives profited from their craftsmanship, and were probably more than happy to sell even mundane, everyday items for cash. By traveling to Alaska to see and buy souvenirs from “uncorrupted Natives,” tourists were participating in a complex market system with Natives. In this market place, Native suppliers enjoyed an enormous demand. Tourists, for all their fuss about “preserving” Natives of the North, allowed Natives 21 Goetzmann and Sloan, 6 22 Raibmon, 152-­‐154. 23 Raibmon, 144. 12 to integrate more into mainstream American society. And tourists, like fairgoers who went to World Fairs, failed to realize that their very presence was jeopardizing their own definitions of what an authentic or uncorrupted Native really was. As it turned out, the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899 never encountered the Natives whom Whymper claimed were so isolated from civilization. George Grinnell produced an essay from the Expedition titled, “The Natives of the Alaska Coast Region,” which detailed his observations of the Natives that the Harriman group encountered. What he described were Natives who had long been interacting with whites and exposed to both Russian and American society. In describing the Aleuts of Alaska, Grinnell wrote, “The Aleuts have long been under the influence of the Russian Church, and have largely abandoned their primitive ways. They are Christianized and in a degree civilized.”24 He then went on to note, “…they are also modified by a considerable infusion of Russian blood due to that occupation.”25 Others before the Harriman Expedition had learned of the Russian influence as well. In the 1880’s, an Aleut told Elizabeth Beaman, one of the first white women in Alaska: We are as you can see, very Russian. That is because the Russians were in these islands a long time. We do want to know more about Americans. It is very new, yes? Russia is very old and very civilized. We try hard to be civilized like Russians… They were very happy when the Russians were here. Even Mr. Butrin here, who has been to your country did not always like your ways; he prefers to teach in the Russian language. 26 24 George Bird Grinnell, “The Natives of the Alaska Coast Region,” in Alaska 1899: Essays from the Harriman Expedition, introductions by Polly Burroughs and Victoria Wyatt (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 168. 25 Grinnell, 169. 26 Quoted in Susin Kollin, “’The First White Women in the Last Frontier’: Writing Race, Gender, and Nature in Alaska Travel Narratives”, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 18, no. 2 (1997): 114, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346968 (accessed Nov 3, 2011). 13 This Aleut’s statement certainly must have come as a shock to American assumptions and hubris. Not only was this Native acknowledging that the Russians had long influenced Aleuts, but that they considered Russians more civilized than Americans. As Susin Kollin points out, “By contrasting both the recent American arrival in the region and the United States' status as a young nation with Russia's status as a previous colonizer and an older entity, the Aleuts presented themselves, through their contact with Russia, as more cultured than the Americans.”27 Grinnell’s observations and the Aleut’s statement contrast with the Whymper assumption that all Alaskan Natives were “uncorrupted” by civilization. Indeed, the Aleut certainly did not think in terms of “corruption” or “purity.” Instead, the Aleut tried hard to mimic Russian culture, considering it a worthy goal. Tourists, however, ignored this. The voices of those like this Aleut were silenced and left out from mainstream understanding of what an Alaskan Native was. Granted, not all Alaskan Natives had as much interaction with Russians as the Aleuts had. Russia never attempted to settle Russian citizens in their chunk of North America on any large scale, and the Russian Church did not reach all of the Natives in Russian America. Tourists, too, mainly stuck to the coast. Even Grinnell, in writing about Alaskan Natives in general, acknowledged that, “Although they are now greatly changed from what they were when the Russians first came to Alaska, they still preserve not a few of their ancient customs and beliefs.”28 But Whymper had certainly generalized when he described the Natives of Alaska, and by the time 27 Kollin, 115. 28 Grinnell, 138. 14 Grinnell and the Harriman Alaska Expedition toured Alaska in 1899, they did not encounter a single Native Alaskan who had not previously interacted with either Russians or Americans on a significant scale. In fact, the Native Alaskans first encountered by the Harriman Alaska Expedition were some of the most heavily influenced Natives in the region. One of the Expedition’s first stops was to the infamous island village of New Metlakahtla, a community of Natives run by a lone white man, William Duncan. In Grinnell’s words, “It was to this barren island that Mr. William Duncan, in 1887, brought his little flock of civilized Metlakahtla Indians, when the combined persecutions of Church and State had made British Columbia too hot to hold them.”29 The Natives had signed a sort of contract with Duncan, who maintained tight control of the community. The pre-­‐amble to the community’s “Declaration of Residents”, evoking the United States Constitution, declared, “We, the people of METLAKAHTLA, ALASKA, in order to secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of a Christian home, do severally subscribe to the following Rules for the regulation of our conduct and town affairs.”30 What followed were eight rules that, among other things, forbade the use of intoxicants and the attendance of “heathen activities,” demanded loyalty to the United States Government, and insisted that residents be “truthful, honest and industrious.”31 Grinnell, apparently somewhat impressed by Duncan’s vision, wrote, “Except for their color, and for the peculiar gait, which 29 Grinnell, 152. 30 The Harriman Alaska Expedition: Chronicles and Souvenirs May to August 1899, 39, in Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-­‐1920, http://memory.loc.gov.ezproxy.ups.edu/cgi-­‐bin/ampage (accessed Sep 21, 2011). 31 Ibid. 15 seems to be common to all these fishing Indians, those people and their wives and children could hardly be told from any civilized community of a thousand souls anywhere in the country.”32 The community fit the mold that Richard H. Pratt promoted for Christianizing and Americanizing Natives. By allowing the Harriman party to enter the community, Duncan was making an exception. Normally, Duncan had community police arrest any white man who stepped onto the island.33 His theory on civilizing Natives involved “teaching them to live as the white man lives, and yet not letting the white man come in among them.”34 Like many others at the turn of the century, Duncan feared the corrupting influence of white men on Indians, but he did not care about preserving Native religious customs or beliefs. Rather, he was concerned with what he considered to be morally degenerate, alcohol-­‐bearing gold miners who were swarming through Alaska on their way to the Yukon.35 So, it was the Harriman party’s upper-­‐class social status that allowed for their short visit to New Metlakahtla. Given their supposed high morals, sobriety, and work ethic the Expedition members, by Duncan’s logic, were not likely to negatively affect the “childlike” natives. George Grinnell and others on the Harriman Expedition approved of Duncan’s strategies. 32 Grinnell, 153. 33 Goetzmann and Sloan, 42. 34 Grinnell, 154. 35 The amount of primary documents on alcohol trading and its effects on Natives in Alaska and throughout the United States is truly indigestible. Of all of the white man’s introductions to Natives, whites themselves seemed to believe that alcohol was the most destructive, and in nearly every discussion of “vanishing Indians” alcohol is cited as a cause. Considerable legislation was passed attempting to keep alcohol out of Indian Country throughout the 19th century. The reports written by government agents describing the problems with monitoring and enforcing this legislation are numerous to say the least. Alaska was no different in this regard. For an overview of alcohol’s central role in trade in Russian American and Alaska see Bockstoce, Furs and Frontiers. See also Dippie, The Vanishing American, 34-­‐36. 16 Concepts of corruption and purity were not only matters of race, but of class. When George Grinnell wrote about the corrupting influence of white men on Natives, he avoided including himself as part of that corrupting influence. In his mind, he was above the immoralities that corrupted Natives. The visit to New Metlakahtla likely made a strong impression on the Expedition photographer Edward S. Curtis. In 1899 Curtis was relatively unknown outside of Seattle, but he would go on to become one the most prolific documentarians of North American Indians. His life’s culminating work was the 20 volume The North American Indian. The last volume, completed in the late 1920’s, was devoted to Northern and Alaskan Natives. By doing this he seemed to be answering a lament by the New York Times published in 1887. In an article titled “The Indians of Alaska – a glance at the people who are little known,” the author, buying completely into the myth of the vanishing race, stated, “Neglected by the Great Father at Washington, [Alaskan Natives] have not had fair attention from the scientists and ethnologists, and no modern Schoolcraft or Catlin is preserving the history, customs, and types of these people for the future generations, who will know them only as extinct races, like the cave dwellers of the southwest.”36 Indeed, Edward S. Curtis proved to do with photography what George Catlin had done with paintbrush and easel. Convinced that Natives throughout North America were rapidly disappearing, Curtis photographed them with an impassioned urgency. 36 “The Indians of Alaska.” New York Times (1857-­1922); Nov 23, 1884. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-­‐2007) http://ezproxy.ups.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94268069
?accountid=1627(accessed Sep 28 2011). 17 Although historians do not know exactly what Curtis thought of William Duncan and the New Metlakahtla community in 1899, he probably did not look back on it fondly. Later, in the 1920’s, Curtis wrote of the Nunivak Island Eskimos, The natives here are perhaps the most primitive on the North American continent… Think of it. At last, and for the first time in my thirty years work… I have found a place where no missionary has worked…I hesitate to mention it for fear some over-­‐zealous sky pilot will feel called upon to labor the unspoiled people. They are so happy and contented that it would be a crime to bring upsetting discord to them. Should any misguided missionary start for this island, I trust the sea will do its duty. [Emphasis added]”37 Edward S. Curtis viewed missionaries the way William Duncan viewed miners. Their influence was corrupting and detrimental to Natives who, before the arrival of the white man, were assumed to be happy and pure [Figure 3]. Curtis worked in direct contradiction to men like William Duncan, or the Presbyterian minister Sheldon Jackson. Jackson had been on the vanguard of American missions and Indian schools in Alaska. He praised Duncan’s community by evoking the same quality that Curtis stressed – happiness. Jackson had written in 1880, “These Indians are a happy, industrious, prosperous community of former savages and cannibals, saved by the grace of God.”38 Where Curtis saw happiness in purity, Jackson saw happiness in Christian progress. The dichotomy illustrates well the contrasting perspectives of those who believed white men were either corrupting influences or civilized godsends. In the introduction to the final volume of The North American Indian Curtis wrote, “Yet, while many Eskimo visited and studied by the writer still retain much of 37 Quoted in Barbara A. Davis, Edward S. Curtis: The Life and Times of a Shadow Catcher (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1985), 74. 38 Sheldon Jackson, Alaska, and missions on the north Pacific Coast, 297. 18 their hardihood, they appear to have lost not a little of the vigor observed during his study of the coast Eskimo thirty years ago. As among so many primitive people, contact with whites and the acquirement of their diseases have worked a tragic change during this period.”39 He was referring to his initial observations on the Harriman Alaska Expeditions, and his comment revealed his assumption that Natives were continuously diminishing – not only in terms of population, but also in terms of the quality of the Native. But this perspective was something that Curtis had carried with him all his life, both as a developing photographer in 1899 and as a renowned Indian expert in 1930. The Myth of the Vanishing Race was a trademark of his photography throughout his entire career. A 1904 photograph of Navaho riding with their backs to Curtis [Figure 4] had inspired the Washington poet Ella Higginson to pen these words in a poem titled “The Vanishing Race (A Picture by Edward S. Curtis)”: So mutely, uncomplainingly they go! How shall it be with us when they are gone, When they are but a mem’ry and a name? May not those mournful eyes to phantoms grow – When, wronged and lonely, they have drifted on Into the voiceless shadow whence they came?40 Even his fledgling Indian photography on the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899 seemed to inspire these same sentiments [Figure 5]. Writing of that trip, historians 39 Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian, Vol. 20 (1930), xvi. Accessed via Northwestern University Digital Library Collections, http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/viewPage.cgi?showp=1&size=2&id=nai.20.bo
ok.00000004&volume=20#nav (accessed Oct 26, 2011). 40 Ella Higginson, “The Vanishing Race (A Picture by Edward S. Curtis)”, in The Vanishing Race: and Other Poems,(Bellingham, WA: C.M. Sherman, 1911), accessed via Google Books, http://books.google.com/books (accessed Nov 7, 2011). 19 William Goetzmann and Kay Sloan observe, “If one looks closely at his native scenes, one sees the Indian and Eskimo in the sad process of acculturation. In depicting their dilapidated dwellings, their slumlike sealing camps, as well as their deserted villages, Curtis slyly presented a cultural message… They appear as ghosts in a remote surreal landscape.”41 Curtis viewed Natives through a perpetual state of nostalgia. Through his camera’s viewfinder Natives were diminishing in 1899, and they were still diminishing in 1930. Frederick Whymper’s 1868 prediction that Alaskan Natives would be extinct in a few generations had not come to pass, but surely, according to Curtis, their passing was imminent. The result of this paradigm was that the North American Indian lifestyles Curtis photographed were often his own self-­‐created illusion. He did not document Natives how they actually lived, but how he wanted them to live and how he imagined they must have lived long ago. He self selected those tribes “which still retain such of their aboriginal customs and beliefs as to make them worthy of special treatment.”42 He himself seemed to acknowledge that his photographs came from his own vision of the uncorrupted Native when he wrote, “I resolved at an early period in my work with the Indians that my photographs must show the native without dress or artifact that betokened his contact with white civilization if possible.”43 Therefore, Curits did not photograph the Natives at Sitka whom tourists visited, and certainly not the Natives at New Metlakahtla. These, through their very 41 Goetzmann and Sloan,182-­‐83. 42 Curtis, xv. 43 Undated two-­‐page typescript, I, “Writings”, box 2, folder 2, Edward S. Curtis Special Collections, quoted from Alan Trachtenberg, Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans 1880-­1930 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 176. 20 interaction with white civilization, were not worthy of Curtis’ lens. Of course, by photographing Natives he was interacting with them on a thoroughly modern scale. Natives agreed to pose for him and were not solely photographic objects, but also collaborators in his grand North American Indian project. It is not certain whether Natives posed for Curtis because they too believed in his vision, or merely because Curtis was willing to pay them. But what is certain is that Curtis’ vision of purity and authenticity was his own construct. The legacy of the Harriman Alaska Expedition was sealed in the final week of their journey as they sailed back to Seattle toward the end of July. Rumors had reached some of the scientists of an abandoned Eskimo village. Based off a crudely sketched miner’s map and heaps of speculation, the Harriman party concluded that the village must be at Cape Fox, Alaska. Getting to shore, the village certainly looked abandoned, but to the scientist’s glee heaps of treasures still remained. The party spent an entire day taking artifacts from the village to the cruise ship [Figure 6]. Most prized were the village’s totem poles, seventeen of which were cut down and carried onto the ship. Carvings, baskets, and blankets were taken from the village homes and brought on board as well. The totems and other artifacts ended up at universities across the nation and in the private collections of the Harriman members. The Harriman party, convinced that the Natives were vanishing, plundered the village at Cape Fox for artifacts and souvenirs. They enacted out their own small version of “right of discovery,” and assumed that if no one was home, all things were free for the taking. 21 This was no new phenomenon – not all tourists obtained their souvenirs by purchasing them. But some tourists felt uncomfortable about this trend. One writer stated in a guidebook, “That tourists who are supposed to be civilized, refined, and Christianized should steal from them is a crime which should never be tolerated, as it was among the passengers of our steamer.”44 The writer doubted the civility of his own culture, and where he wanted to see civilized, refined Christians he instead saw greedy pillagers. He did not go as far as to suggest that the Natives were the more civilized, as the Aleut Native did in his comment to Elizabeth Beaman, but nonetheless he displayed signs of guilt and shame. Grinnell closed his essay on the Natives of the Alaskan Coast region and summarized what the Harriman Alaska Expedition had learned of Natives by stating, “Perhaps for awhile a few may save themselves by retreating to the Arctic to escape the contaminating touch of the civilized, and thus the extinction of the Alaska Eskimo may be postponed. But there is an inevitable conflict between civilization and savagery, and wherever the two touch each other, the weaker people must be destroyed.”45 His statement reveals the internal conflicts tourists of his mold must have dealt with. His words expressed both a hope that Natives would survive as well as a conviction that his civilization was the stronger. This conviction, while asserting that Natives were in a state of “savagery, was nonetheless imbued with a pessimistic tone that seemed almost saddened by the loss of the Native. Grinnel justified the wrongs he saw committed against Natives, and perhaps even his own 44 Sights and Scenes in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska (Omaha: C.S. Mellen, 1890), 46, Meeting of Frontiers, Library of Congress, http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/mfak/igguides.html (accessed Nov 23, 2011). 45 Grinnell, 183. 22 actions when the Harriman expedition plundered the Tlingit village, by insisting that the Natives culture was a savage one, doomed in the natural progression of civilization. Thus, nothing could be done. Just a few months after the Harriman Expedition stopped at Cape Fox on its way back home, a similar, though slightly less grandiose, group of men from Seattle’s Chamber of Commerce cruised the region. Their steamship stopped at the same village and the men took a totem of their own to bring back to Seattle.46 On October 18, 1899, the totem pole, which the Tlingit villagers called the Chief-­‐of-­‐All-­‐
Women pole, was erected in front of a large crowd in Seattle’s Pioneer Square and promptly became a Seattle landmark. The Chief-­‐of-­‐All-­‐Women pole had once commemorated the life of Tlingit noblewoman who had drowned nearly one hundred years prior. The skilled carver had carefully and specifically customized the pole to the woman’s prestige and heritage. At Pioneer Square the Chief-­‐of-­‐All-­‐
Women pole had new meaning. As Coll Thrush ironically notes, “Abandoning its backward creators, the Chief-­‐All-­‐Women pole now served a higher purpose: advertising Seattle.”47 Ten years later, the totem pole did just that, and served as a promotional symbol for the 1909 Alaska-­‐Yukon-­‐Pacific Exposition. The AYP Exposition followed in the wake of many other popular trade expositions that had appeared throughout Europe and the United States starting in the second half of the 19th century, the 46 David Wilma,“Stolen totem pole unveiled in Seattle’s Pioneer Square on October 18, 1899” (HistoryLink.org Essay 2076), http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=2076 (accessed Nov 15, 2011). 47 Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-­Over Place (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 114. 23 American standard of which was Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. The Pioneer Square totem pole appeared before, during and after the fair on railway guides, postcards, souvenir albums and all sorts of AYP advertisements [Figure 7]. From the very beginning Native Alaskan culture was a main attracting point. The Exposition, set on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, opened on June 1, 1909 with first week attendance reaching 215, 068 people – roughly the population of Seattle. Fairgoers could enter the west Main Entrance of the Exposition grounds and proceed straight, due east, towards the Alaska and U.S. Government Buildings. From there they could head south into the center of the grounds – the Arctic Circle – and continue onto Rainier Avenue where, on clear days, they could have magnificent views of the Mountain. Around the Arctic Circle were the Agriculture, Mines, and Manufactures buildings, and beyond these sat the King County, Washington, Oregon and Forestry buildings. All of these building and exhibits served the Exposition’s main purpose: “To exploit the resources of Alaska and the Yukon Territory, make known the vast importance of the trade of the Pacific Ocean, and demonstrate the marvelous progress of Western America, where, within a radius of one thousand miles of Seattle, 7,500,00 persons live, who are directly interested in making the Exposition the true exponent of their material wealth and development.”48 Precious minerals were being pulled from the earth, forests were being leveled, the cities of 48 Glimpses of Alaska-­Yukon-­Pacific Exposition (Chicago: Laird & Lee, 1909), Meeting of the Frontiers, Library of Congress, <http://frontiers.loc.gov/cgi-­‐bin/ampage> (accessed Sep 21, 2011). 24 the West grew, and more distant peoples were falling under the domain of the United States. Fairs were occasions to celebrate modernity and empire. And yet, instead of going straight upon entering the Exposition, most fairgoers very likely pulled a hard right and walked south down the Pay Streak. The Pay Streak was where turn of the century Americans could gawk at many of the strange and exotic inhabitants of their world -­‐ “others” who were supposedly excluded from the material wealth and development being gleaned from the resources of the far North. The Pay Streak, which Seattle’s Department of Publicity called “three-­‐quarters of a mile of novelty,” housed the Exposition’s most popular exhibits: “Streets of Cairo”; “Japanese Village and the Streets of Tokyo”; “Chinese Village”; “The Igorrote [Philippine] Village”; and most notably, “Siberian, Alaskan, and Labrador Eskimos.”49 Other exhibits drew the crowds to Pay Streak as well, ranging from reenactments of the Battle of Gettysburg to displays of the Baby Incubator. Michell’s Hot Roast Beef Sandwich Pavilion was certainly an attraction too.50 But it was those foreigners of such strange appearance that were far and away the most popular. Fairgoers walking down the Pay Streak could not help but be drawn to the Eskimo village. The side walls of the exhibit read “Eskimos, Eskimos, Eskimos,” and the front entrance was framed by large, jagged, fake ice-­‐bergs, above which was one more enormous declaration of “ESKIMOS” spelled out in electric bulbs. The term 49 The World’s Most Beautiful Exposition; Alaska Yukon Pacific Expostion, Seattle, USA, 1909, June 1st to October 16th (Department of Publicity, 1909), Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection, UW Libraries Digital Collections, http://content.lib.washington.edu/ptecweb/index.html (accessed Dec 11, 2011). 50 Official Ground Plan of the Alaska-­Yukon-­Pacific Exposition. Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, WA. 25 Eskimo was, of course, a generalization. In truth, performers included Inuit, Yup’ik, Iupiaq, Siberian Yupik, Tlingit (Chilkat, Hoonah, and Taku), and others.51 These Natives, along with the Igorrote villagers, were especially popular because they served as exhibits of people who, at least in the minds of turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century Americans, had not been fully exposed to civilization. As one historian notes, “Anthropologists and fairgoers alike were especially attracted to displays of native peoples who appeared ‘unsullied’ by the corrupting influences of civilization.”52 Indeed, displays of Native peoples were heavily influenced by anthropology. Not all anthropologists, however, were comfortable with them. Franz Boas, the father of modern anthropology, had been in charge of Eskimo displays at Chicago’s 1893 Colombian Exposition, but “had been troubled by feeling that he was being asked to act like a ‘circus impresario.’”53 Though the displays of Native peoples may have intended to be educational, they primarily served as entertainment. The Native peoples on the Pay Streak were meant to be amusements. Regardless of what Boas and others felt about the displays, the displays introduced anthropology to the public. As Robert Rydell notes, “The fairs certainly popularized anthropological findings, and the science of man that reached the fair-­‐
going public had a distinct hierarchical message and served a hegemonic function.”54 51 Lisa Blee, “’I came voluntarily to work, sing and dance”: Stories from the Eskimo Village at the 1909 Alaska-­‐Yukon-­‐Pacific Exposition,” in Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 101, no. 3/4 (Summer/Fall 2010), 127. 52 Blee,126. 53 Douglas Cazaux Sackman, Wild Men: Ishi and Kroeber in the Wilderness of Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 71. 54 Robert Rydell, All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-­1916 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 8. This work is an excellent survey of all of the United States’ major fairs at the turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century. 26 Newspapers advertised, “three different kinds of natives, the kind long accustomed to mingling with the whites, the kind only recently brought in contact with the whites, and the kind still unaccustomed to civilization.”55 Displaying natives in this hierarchical manner was common at World Fairs. One historian describes how, “an exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, for example, arranged an Iroquois longhouse, Apache tent, Winnebago rush hut … and a settler's log cabin along an architectural trajectory from savagery to civilization that, according to the [Women’s National Indian Convention], illustrated ‘whole chapters of American history.’"56 Despite the similarity in conceptual design between the Eskimo Village and the exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair, each display used the linear concept of civilization in very different ways. The 1893 Chicago display was framed by the assumption that civilization was the white man’s gift to the Native; civilization was the end goal for any Native, and the one who had embodied the best traits of the white man was to be the most respected. In Seattle however, civilization corrupted, not saved, the Native, whether he or she was from Alaska, Labrador, Siberia, or the Philippines. This theory promoted the notion that the purest, most authentic Native was the one who stayed in his tepee, igloo, or rush hut and never entered the white man’s log cabin. The photography of Frank H. Nowell, the official photographer of the AYP Exposition, further illustrated concepts of the uncorrupted Native. Nowell had 55 “Ground Broken for Pay Streak,” 1908, newspaper excerpt, Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection, UW Libraries Digital Collections, http://content.lib.washington.edu/ptecweb/index.html (accessed Dec 11, 2011). 56 See Jane E. Simonsen, “’Object Lessons’: Domesticity and Display in Native American Assimilation”, American Studies, 43, no. 1 (Spring 2002), 77. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed November 17, 2011). 27 started his professional photographic career around 1903 in Nome, Alaska, and sold his photographs of vistas and Natives to miners and tourists. In 1907, he advertised his studio in by claiming, “Our Line of Alaska Views and Eskimo Studies Is Unsurpassed.”57 Alaskan Natives tended to be his favorite photographic subject, and he “captured a sense of ‘otherness,’ considered the essence of travel.”58 By the time he was called upon for the AYP Exposition in 1909 he was well versed in photographing Natives. The Eskimo Village and Wild West Shows at the AYP Exposition displayed Natives very differently, and Nowell’s photographs of these exhibits illustrate the differences well [Figures 8 and 9}.59 The Eskimo Village photograph is carefully posed and cropped. A crowd of Native performers gathers in front of the exhibit, the fake icebergs and enormous “Eskimos” sign looming over them. The performers, donned in full parkas, all stare into the camera and many sit on sleds already hitched to panting dogs. Notably, not a single white fairgoer, performer or employee mingles with the crowd. White performers did participate in the Eskimo Village, most notably “Caribou Bill” and his dog team. Nowell took photographs of him as well, but few, if any, photographs portray Caribou Bill side by side with the Native performers. Perhaps this segregated photography was meant to portray what the public assumed; namely, true Eskimos did not mingle with the white man. The Wild West show photograph, by contrast, depicts a mixed race team of performers. Caucasians, American Indians, and Mexicans (at least these are how 57 Nicolette Bromberg, Picturing the Alaska-­Yukon-­Pacific Exposition: The Photographs of Frank H. Nowell, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 20-­‐23. 58 Bromberg, 21. 59 Frank H. Nowell, reproduced in Bromberg, Plates 25 and 26. 28 their costumes depict them) stand side by side. This too is a posed photograph. Apparently for Nowell, it was natural for Plains Indians to stand alongside other races, but this was no way to portray Natives of the far North. The different exhibits also bring up the contrasting assumptions many Americans held about different Natives. Whereas the Plains Indians appeared in fast paced Wild West shows reenacting violence, the performers at the Eskimo village were depicted as docile and peaceful. These were intentional constructions, and Native performers throughout the AYP Exposition played to these stereotypes. If Nowell’s photography captured his era’s assumptions regarding Native peoples, it also revealed his era’s profound ironies. Of course, not a single Native performer at the AYP Exposition qualified as “authentic” as turn of the century Americans defined that term. Although the newspapers had advertised Natives “still unaccustomed to civilization,” such an individual could not have possibly existed at the Exposition. Native performers at the Eskimo Village simply played to the assumptions that fairgoers and photographers alike brought with them to the fair. They were fully participating in American culture, and as performers they were very intentionally being the antithesis of “authentic.” In fact, many of the Eskimo Village performers had been in the United States for months, even years, prior to the June opening of the AYP Exposition. A group of Siberian Yupik had contracted with an American, Captain Amos Milton Baber, and toured the United States to build hype for the Exposition.60 One of the most 60 “Building Eskimo Village Has Begun,” newspaper excerpt, 1908, Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection, UW Libraries Digital Collections, 29 photographed and popular performers at the Eskimo village was Esther Eneutseak’s daughter who had been born sixteen years prior at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Nancy Columbia. Columbia and had lived nearly her entire life in the United States. Throughout her life she traveled frequently and made her living as a successful indigenous performer. Now, as a young woman in Seattle, she won the AYP Exposition’s beauty contest (disputed after allegations of ballot box stuffing), and quickly became a major celebrity of the fair.61 Dubbed by newspapers as “undoubtedly the biggest attraction at the Eskimo Village,” Columbia was in such high demand for photographs and interviews that she held private receptions for her fair-­‐going suitors.62 And of course, her popularity warranted the photographic attention of Frank Nowell. One of Nowell’s photographs, titled “Columbia Actress with Dogs”, depicts Nancy sitting next to a white woman with “Caribou Bill’s Overland Dog-­‐Team” (Caribou Bill is nowhere to be seen), and an Alaskan backdrop [Figure 10].63 Nowell’s photographic treatment of Columbia and her family are different from how he photographed other indigenous people at the AYP Exposition. The fact that he labeled his photograph “Actress Columbia [my emphasis]” rather than, say, “Eskimo,” or “Inuit Columbia” is notable. Perhaps, Nowell did not consider Columbia an “authentic Eskimo” because she had been born and lived in the continental http://content.lib.washington.edu/ptecweb/index.html (accessed Dec 11, 2011). For further discussion see Blee. 61 Blee, 136. 62 “Columbia, Eskimo Belle, Will Hold Receptions,” newspaper excerpt, 1909, Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection, UW Libraries Digital Collections, http://content.lib.washington.edu/ptecweb/index.html (accessed Dec 11, 2011). 63 Frank H. Nowell, “Columbia Actress with Dogs”, in Frank H. Nowell Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition Photographs, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, WA. 30 United States and been a performer her entire life. Another Nowell photograph depicted Columbia and her family standing amongst the Igorrote villagers.64 Columbia is the only performer from the Eskimo Village whom Nowell routinely photographed with people of other ethnicities. Photographs of Nancy and her close family reveal that they felt very comfortable in front of cameras (not surprising considering they had lived at Worlds’ Fairs for over a decade and a half.) One photograph shows a very young Igorrote child standing next to a similarly aged child from the Eskimo village65, possibly Nancy’s younger brother, Norman, who had been born at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 [Figure 11]. The Igorrote child appears nervous, his eyebrows furrowed and nibbling at his fingers, but Norman smiles confidently into the camera, arms relaxed at his side. Was the Igorrote child, who appeared less comfortable in front of the white man’s camera, somehow more authentic than Norman? A turn of the century American certainly may have thought so. Yet, Columbia and Norman complicated turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century concepts of authenticity. Their mother was an immigrant and while their heritage was Inuit, their life experiences took place in American culture of the contiguous states. Their lives were microcosms of the world around them – a meeting of very different cultures in which many different peoples struggled to find a way to act and treat another. Nancy Columbia and her family made their living off of fairgoers’ desire to see “authentic Indians”, and while these fairgoers may have wondered at, or even 64 Frank H. Nowell, “Igorrote & Eskimo,” Frank H. Nowell Alaska-­Yukon-­Pacific Exposition Photographs, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, WA. 65 Frank H. Nowell, “Igorrote and Eskimo Children”, in Frank H. Nowell Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition Photographs, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, WA. 31 felt superior to, indigenous performers, they were also inviting performers like Columbia to partake in their culture and even a small portion of their wealth. Few fairgoers ever stepped outside the paradigms of authenticity and the myth of the vanishing race through which they viewed Natives. It is unlikely that many fairgoers ever stopped to consider the ironies implicit in their assumptions and obsessions. Instead, fairgoers probably continued meandering up and down Pay Streak, marveling at their own wonderful civilization and the strangeness of peoples who lived so faraway, or perhaps simply went on to Michell’s Hot Roast Beef Sandwich Pavillion for a bite to eat. And while Americans may have assumed that Native peoples were vanishing, they simultaneously celebrated them in ways that actually allowed Natives to make a place for themselves in American society, even if temporarily. The three assumptions that Whymper’s 1868 comment embodied – that Native Alaskans were uncorrupted by civilization, more authentic because of that, but nonetheless guaranteed of vanishing – were entirely Anglo-­‐American constructions. It was a brand new construction fit for the twentieth century. With the Indian wars essentially over and the country in the controlled grasp of Anglo-­‐
Americans, Natives, especially those in Alaska and far north, became the objects of leisurely study. The “red man” as he was before the arrival of the white man was a new anthropological question to ponder and recreate. Alaska’s remoteness and novelty gave Americans the opportunity to do this. The assumptions held by many turn of the century Americans who toured Alaska and gawked at Natives at World’s Fairs can at times be seen as merely benign 32 naiveté. After all, many Natives profited from tourism and World’s Fairs. Craftspeople in Sitka sold their crafts and most Native performers came to America on their own will to earn wages. It seems that few Americans who lamented white contact of any kind with Natives were proposing very dangerous policies. Their main message seems to have been simply, “leave them alone.” However, paradigms are more insurmountable than policy, and besides, Natives were not left alone. Even those that were not forced into boarding schools still interacted with whites to a large degree. In truth, there were profound problems with white constructs of pure, uncorrupted Natives. By strictly defining what an “authentic Indian” actually was, Americans were disregarding entirely all Indians who did not meet the criteria. It was these very assumptions that Americans like Edward S. Curtis, George Grinnell, and countless others held that contributed to Natives, when not being killed or forcefully schooled, being forced to the margins of society. While photographs and totem poles held prominence in the minds of turn of the century Americans, interaction outside the realm of performance between Natives and Anglo-­‐Americans became more and more scarce. A primary aspect of tourism and World’s Fairs that made them so attractive to people of leisure was that they were temporal. Tourists and Fairgoers could see Natives, take crafts and photographs for souvenirs and keepsakes and then leave. This was before the age of environmentally, economically, and culturally responsible tourism (if such a thing exists even today). Although some tourists felt uncomfortable with pillaging a seemingly unoccupied village, most never thought 33 twice about the ethics of it. The nature of tourism and Fairs allowed for contact with Native’s without having to live alongside them. How turn of the century Americans constructed the Alaskan Native has had far-­‐reaching affects on Native Americans down to the 21st century. While Americans constructed far northern Natives as near perfect models of pure and authentic Indians, many Native peoples throughout the United States have been subjected to these Anglo-­‐American constructed definitions. It has affected how American Indians are expected to treat the environment and where they should live. 66 And yet, despite the problems with constructions of authenticity, purity, and inevitable demise, Natives have not conformed to these when they did not want to. As Stephen Haycox succinctly states, “Natives did not disappear, as progressive thinkers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century thought they would. However persecuted, and persecuted they were, Native peoples survived these centuries and today continue to struggle for dignity and equal opportunity.”67 In fact, in many ways the 20th century was a period of American Indian renewal, as American Indians debated amongst themselves how best to make a place for themselves in American society, served in wars and shaped a distinct activism. It is easy to look back at the Natives who sold crafts to tourists and performed at fairs and view them as tourists and fairgoers likely saw them: mere curiosities, distinct people who did not belong in modern civilization. Looking back 66 For an insightful look at a controversy surrounding American Indian whaling see the Introduction to Raibmon, Authentic Indians. For a discussion of urban Indians in the Pacific Northwest see Coll Thrush, Native Seattle. 67 Stephen Haycox, Alaska: An American Colony (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 24. 34 with 21st century perspectives the Natives may even appear as victims of cultural insensitivity, even a sort of racism. However, tourism and fairs which allowed Americans to construct the “superior order of red men” could never have occurred without the cooperation of Native vendors and performers. Natives like Nancy Columbia did possess some agency in modern America and made their living around the turn-­‐of-­‐the-­‐century by playing to American constructions of what a Northern or Alaskan Native was. Nancy led a life not just of survival, but also of prosperity, celebrity, and agency. Columbia and her family stayed in the United States after the AYP Exposition. Her celebrity followed her as they toured Europe for a few years and eventually settled in California. She would go on to star in a 1911 silent film called The Way of the Eskimo, the plot of which gave Eskimo women considerable agency.68 It was at the forefront of Hollywood films and documentaries featuring Natives of the Far North, and Natives once again took part in and learned to navigate a new modern phenomenon. Later, in 1915, Columbia’s picture appeared alongside an article in the Los Angeles Times.69 The article described a traditional Eskimo wedding ceremony she had participated in on California’s Ocean Park beach, once again on display for the amusement and education of thousands of spectators. In the picture she was draped in an American flag. 68 Blee, 136. 69 “Eskimo Wedding at Ocean Park,” Los Angeles Times (1886-­‐1922); Aug 10, 1915, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times (1881-­‐1987). http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.ups.edu/hnplatimes/docview/160161427/133A8255
8F1243539D0/3?accountid=1627 (accessed Dec 14, 2011). 35 Figures Figure 1. (Route of the Harriman Alaska Expedition 1899, University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections, Harriman Alaska Expedition Collection) Figure 2. (John N. Cobb, University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections, American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection) 36 Figure 3. (Edward S. Curtis, Northwestern Unviersity Digital Library Collections, The North American Indian, Vol. 20, Portfolio 20, plate no. 697) Figure 4. (Edward S. Curtis, “Vanishing Race,” Northwestern University Digital Library Collections, The North American Indian, Vol. 1, Portfolio 1, plate no. 1) 37 Figure 5. (Edward S. Curtis, UW Libraries Digital Collections, Harriman Alaska Expedition Collection) Figure 6. (W.B. Devereux, UW Libraries Digital Collections, Harriman Alaska Expedition Collection) 38 Figure 7. Pioneer Square Totem top left. Postcard, (author unknown, UW Libraries Digital Collections, Alaska-­‐Yukon-­‐Pacific Exposition Collection) Figure 8. (Frank H. Nowell, UW Libraries Digital Collections, Alaska-­‐Yukon-­‐Pacific Exposition Collection) 39 Figure 9. (Frank H. Nowell, UW Libraries Digital Collections, Alaska-­‐Yukon-­‐Pacific Exposition Collection) Figure 10. (Frank H. Nowell, Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection, 1990.73.177) 40 Figure 11. (Frank H. Nowell, Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection, 1990.73.19) 41 Bibliography Primary Sources “Building Eskimo Village Has Begun; Ground Broken for Pay Streak.” 1908. Newspaper excerpt. Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection. UW Libraries Digital Collections. http://content.lib.washington.edu/ptecweb/index.html (accessed Dec 11, 2011). “Columbia, Eskimo Belle, Will Hold Receptions.” 1909. Newspaper excerpt. Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection. UW Libraries Digital Collections. http://content.lib.washington.edu/ptecweb/index.html (accessed Dec 11, 2011). Curtis, Edward S. The North American Indian, Vol. 20. 1930. Accessed via Northwestern University Digital Library Collections. http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/viewPage.cgi?showp=1&size=
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