"Racism, Justice and the American Indian Racism against Native Americans Forgotten Story of
Indian Slavery" Racism against American Indian - Native Americans. n.p., n.d. Web. 24
Sept. 2014.
In this article, the author goes discusses how Native Americans went through hardships
in this country as much as Black or Whites. He splits the article from the introduction into two
sub points in the article. The first parts talks about the racism that Native American faced by
talking about the forced displacement from their home-land and villages during different times in
our History by using example such as the famous Trail of Tears. Next the author goes into deeper
aspects and writes about the discrimination and marginalization that Native Americans struggled
with. Not only being displaced from their land, signed treaties were violated and laws put in
place to make the American Indians more educated to the white settlers values. The author uses
the phrase "Racism far exceeds just Black, White, or Hispanic and Asian. Often forgotten, the
American Indian had experienced a great deal of racism in the U.S.." to remind the reader that
these people were just as discriminated against as any other race in America, and almost even
more than all of them. Reminding people that Native Americans were marginalized in our
history bring awareness to those literary artifacts that may have been lost or not published. This
article allows for the awareness to be brought to attention for such fantastic works done by John
Milton Oskison.
Larre, Lionel."John Milton Oskison and Assimilation." American Indian Quarterly. Win-Spr
2013: 3-33. Hive Search. Web. 24 Sept. 2014
This is not just a normal article about John Milton Oskison. This journal article by Lionel
Larre, puts a different spin on looking at Oskison. The author writes an essay to compare and
dissect John to see if he fits the bill of assimilation when as it pertains to Native Americans. The
author in this article really goes into how Oskison lived his life, his outlook on life, and his
philosophies made him an assimilationist. The author does this by looking and talking about
different works by John Milton Oskison. Even though it is said that Oskison wrote very little
about Native Americans, he embraced his Indian heritage by writing about the economic and
social life of his people. This type of writing has given John the title of assimilationist but many
do not consider him one. The author shows how his work does entitle him under the title
assimilation. The author uses the quote " Oskison thought of himself as "an interpreter to the
world, of the modern, progressive Indian." The kind of representation Oskison gave of the
Indians--the "new Indians" stepping up to take their places in the social and economic life of the
West--earned him the label of assimilationist.". This quote shows what John thought of himself
as well as how the author classifies Oskison as an someone who is comfortable with his customs
from his Native American side of his heritage. This article shows how he cared about his
heritage more than just getting published.
Oskison, John M."Remaining Causes of Indian Discontent." The North American Review 1 Mar
1907: 486-493. Print
This work by John Milton Oskison tells the reader about all of the causes of the still
dissatisfaction of Native Americans with white people even after the government had passed
laws helping the Indians years after the Trail of Tears. The points that he makes in the work start
off with how the Indians were unhappy with the distribution of Indian Trust and Treaty Funds
among the tribes as well as the distribution of the land for the territories. The work continues to
talk about the distribution of the funds as well as the problems that came along with it. After
talking about the money issues, Oskison goes into talking about the supply of water to the
reservations allotted to the tribes as long as having to move the people from a tepee to a cabin
would cost a tremendous amount of money. The movement to a cabin created a problem for the
Indians because of the having to adjust form their normal lives to this new "white" style of
living. Making them live in cabins, and having the kids learn along with white kids at white
goals. It continues to show cases of trickery and mistreatment of the agreements between the
whites and Indians. John says "In its body, the bill is in striking contrast to those so often drawn in the last half-century." in the literary work. This statement talks about the bill that was passed
in congress that limited certain things that the Native Americans can do on federal reservation
land, and it was called the Bill of Complaint. This bill shows that even though we attempted to
appease the Indians, society couldn't let them be on their own land and had to intervene to still
not allow these people the rights that they had always inherently had.
Riley, Steven F. "Mixed Race Studies." Mixed Race Studies. 28 June 2012. Web 16 Sept 2014.
The main focus of this article is to describe what John Milton Oskison did throughout his
life from a basic standpoint. The author talks about the beginning of his life and how John was
partial Cherokee who was born into a family who allowed him to embrace his heritage, both
white and Cherokee. The article then talks about how John had the opportunity to attend college
to obtain a degree that provided him with the tools to have an exceptional journalist job for many
companies. Finally the article goes and explains how some of his less know works were
compiled into a book that was edited by Lionel Larre. This quote used by the author is one that
describes Oskison's life or work perfectly. By saying "Though Oskison was a well-known and
prolific Cherokee writer, journalist, and activist, few of his works are know today." the author
reminds us that John was just a regular writer who was marginalized not because of his talent,
but because of his race allowing for this article to be useful for my research.
Schneider, Bethany R. " John Milton Oskison (Cherokee)." Health Anthology of American
Literature. n.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2014
This article begins with what John Milton Oskison did when he left his territory. He was
able to obtain degrees from Stanford and Harvard University. After getting his degree, his career
launched off with getting jobs from a short story that won him a coveted prize. This article goes
into more of his adult life. Oskison used a lot of his childhood memories as inspiration for a lot
of his personal literary work. HE worked as a journalist as well as editing for many newspapers.
As the first world war came around, he enlisted in the military serving in the American
Expeditionary Force in Europe. After the war he returned back to the states to start writing as a
novelist this time creating many works, but only a few were published. The author uses the
phrase "Oskison had a keen eye for the painful ironies that often surface in conflict; his stories
are populated with a miscellany of full and mixed-blood Cherokees as well as white cowboys,
outlaws, ministers, and missionaries." during the article. This quote shows how in influential his
life events and culture were major part in the creation of his literary works. Being able to write
about the conflict between whites and Cherokees was one reason why his works became popular,
but not after he want able to publish many of his narrative works allowing this article to provide
me insight about John Milton Oskison.
Conley, Robert J. "Cherokees." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, 2000. Web. 24
Sept. 2014
The main purpose of this article was to delve into the history and the struggles of the
Cherokee throughout the history of the United States. The author stats off with just the history of
the Cherokee all the way from the origin of them to the different important interactions with
white settlers in general. Events from the first white settlers to the Trail of Tears. Then the author
goes into the more recent history of the Cherokee by talking about the newest constitutional laws
that apply to Cherokees such as President Richard Nixon giving Cherokees the right to vote in
1973. The author then proceeds to talk about the acculturation and assimilation in the modern
era. The assimilation of the Cherokee pushing through hard ships such as the Trail of Tears and
still keeping true to most customs by pushing through adversity. Finally the author rounds off the
end of the article with the traditions such as the holidays and dances that they perform still to this
day. The quote "The changes that occurred because of this effort were so pervasive that,
following the Trail of Tears, with removal pressures no longer a factor, the Cherokees continued
their new ways." was used by the author which describes not only the Cherokee Nation, but John
Milton Oskison. John was a person who was proud of his heritage making it harder for him to
publish his works because during the time period he was alive, not many people who were not
white were widely published.
Barbeito, Mey N. "John Milton Oskison." Meynu. n.p., 11 Dec. 2011. Web. 24 Sept. 2014
The beginning of the article starts to describe a little bit of his early childhood by just
providing basic information on his home, birthday, and how he was a mix of Cherokee, from his
mother, and White, from his dad. The main focus of this article is more on his later life of going
to college at Stanford University, and even a year spent at Harvard. After obtaining his degree,
John proceeded to work for papers and magazines before enlisting in the army to fight in world
war one. After the war was over, the author tells us that he then spent the rest of his life working
on different works of literature. He describes that John used many real life tensions to be the fuel
for most of his works he created. Being in touch with his heritage allowed for Oskison to write
extraordinary works based on the fight of crossed-lineage workers. The author used the quote
"The best thing that it is possible to say about him is that he was a man of his time: interested in
a very different cultures, sophisticated in his tastes, and, inevitable, solitary." to describe John
Milton Oskison. This quote tells us that John embraced his heritage completely and to the fullest
extent no matter if it would cause him hardship when it came to his career. Writing about and
being Cherokee might have been the reason he personal works were not published, but it was
also the reason he was able to create such beautiful masterpieces. A perfect example of a
marginalized author who did not care about how who he was could affect his fame.
"John Milton Oskison." Guide to Literary Masters & Their Works. Salem Press Sept 2013:
Research Starters. Web. 20 Sept. 2014
This article starts out with miniscule information of Oskison's early life before going to
college. It only describes his parents and where exactly he was born at in 1874. The article
describes his experiences with writing at Stanford and how he gain popularity with his short
stories before anyone even knew that he was biracial. After going back to school at Harvard, he
later moved to New York city where he began his career as a journalist for The New York
Evening Post and Collier's Weekly. He wrote articles and short stories that were based mainly on
the frontier. After talking about his career, the article goes into discussing the popularity of his
novels. His short stories were well known, but not his novels. Critics believed that his works
were not up to par with that of a talented writer by saying that his novels had "unconvincing
plots" and "stilted characters". Not sure if this was because of how the critics view him after
discovering he was part Cherokee or what. The quote "Oskison's Native American heritage was
unknown when he gained popularity for his depictions of life in the Cherokee Indian territory of
the United States." really provides a different look on his professional career in that if maybe
people had known he was partial Cherokee, he could have never been published at all and his
works lost in the darkness of discrimination.
"Racism in Native-American Literature" 18 Dec. 2007. Web. 22 Sept. 2014
This paper is not about John Oskison, but more about the racism that Native Americans
faced. The paper uses two works by other authors to compare the racism against the Native
Americans. "Grass Dancer" by Susan Power and "Mean Spirit" by Linda Hopper are the two
works that are being used in the paper. The paper shows how in Hogan's work that racism was
not just against Native Americans only, but that it did affect white people when it came to
marriage. The racism faced from a white and Indian interracial marriage was a big deal in the
marginalization of the culture. While the author uses these two fiction novels to show the
marginalization of the marriages with example from the racial experiences that a lady name
Jeanette faced during her interracial marriage. In the paper, the author states that "The novel
Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan reveals the intense racism that the whites faced on the Osage
people." to really show how the importance and degree that the work describes the racism faced
by the Osage people. This paper allows for me to grasp more of an idea of how marginalized and
discriminated against John Oskison was if the whites had a problem with interracial marriage,
much less interracial children.
Glancy, Diane. "John Milton Oskison. The Singing Bird.(Book review)." World Literature
Today. University of Oklahoma. 2007. HighBeam Research. 25 Sept. 2014
This article is a review of John Milton Oskison's book "The Singing Bird". The books
main inspiration came from John's relationship with his Native American heritage. He used the
traditions that he learned from his childhood to tell this story about a woman who cannot have
children. The narrators uncle's wife Ellen is the singing bird, which is explained by an Indian
man to actually be another name for a faithless wife because she cannot have children, or "sits in
an empty nest" and her singing is hopeless because the males just move past her looking for
someone else who can have their children. The book then continues through the journey of the
missionary wife whose life is filled with sorrow. Later in the book Ellen's sadness and
wickedness is counter balanced by another woman, a young Cherokee woman. who eventually
marries the narrator, a white missionary. The article uses the quote from the back of the book
"The Singing Bird is a vivid account of the Cherokees' genius for survival and celebrates Native
American cultural revitalization--the creation, though a diverse alliance of people, of a future
bases on traditional Cherokee values.".This quote is one that I could see Oskison using after
researching him. He deeply cared for his heritage and was proud to be a biracial person.