Images of justice: Introduction to a series

By LORNA CHEROT LITTLEWAY

THE SPENCERTOWN ACADEMY of Arts sponsored the lecture “Still Here: A Survival Story of Indigenous People,” on Sunday, November 5. The speaker, Heather Bruegl, is an Oneida/Stockbridge Munsee Indian and a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Bruegl, who has undergraduate and graduate degrees in U.S. History, has presented her work at Bard and Vassar Colleges and other institutions of higher learning.

Bruegl opened her talk-slide show presentation saying that she often hears the comment “[I] didn’t know Indians still existed.” She stressed, “We are not just history. We are contemporary.” She also warned the full-house audience that her information may make them feel uncomfortable, saying, “It’s okay to feel uncomfortable. If you don’t feel uncomfortable then I’m not doing my job.”

Her talk covered several areas including population shifts, New York State tribes, boarding school experiences and adoption policies, American Indian and Land-Back movements and missing white woman syndrome. And she exposed the wrongs around two historical icons: President Theodore Roosevelt and General George Custer.

Roosevelt is credited as the Father of Conservation and the National Park Service. He also authored the quote “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Roosevelt’s image, one of four ex-presidents, is carved into Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, which Bruegl called “the ultimate symbol of white supremacy.” She also said that the mountain was known as 6 Grandfathers before being renamed Rushmore.

Custer famously said, “There are not enough Indians to defeat the 7th Cavalry.” Yet on June 25, 1876, he and 1,000 troops were wiped out by the Cheyenne and Lakota Indians in less than one hour at Little Big Horn in what was then the Montana Territory. Bruegl derided Custer’s vaunted Indian fighting skills, faulting him for overlooking details.

She noted that Custer, extolled for his personal sacrifices, was promoted to general because of the personnel demands of the Civil War and that he was demoted once hostilities between North and South ended. Custer, too, is honored with a monument in Monroe Michigan.

Bruegl identified the area south from Lake Champlain through the Taconic Hills and Berkshire Mountains east to Stockbridge, MA, as home to the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Onodaga, Tuscarora, Mohican, Lenape and Shinnecock Indians, known collectively as The Peoples of the Waters That Are Never Still. The Hudson River was known to them as Muh he con ne ok.

The removal of these Indians, known as the Stockbridge Mohicans’ Trail of Tears, occurred from the 1780s to 1834 and generally followed a northwest direction through Buffalo and Detroit to Upper Wisconsin and south to Indian River in Indiana. The next great Indian removal, started in 1830, focused on southeast Indian nations and was sparked by the Louisiana Purchase.

A vividly illustrated graph showed the gradual shrinkage of Indian lands.

Bruegl noted that in history books this period of Indian removal is characterized as “progress,” recalling the phrases “westward expansion” and “manifest destiny.” In 1300 the pre-US Indian population was 10 million and dipped to a little more than 237,000 in 1900. Indian populations have rebounded from 1990 to 2021 to 6.8 million. Nevertheless Indians make up just 2% of the US population, according to Bruegl.

Starting in the late 1800s through to the mid 1900s the US government added education to its war strategy to subjugate Indian tribes. Four hundred Indian schools were founded across 37 states, with the greatest concentration in the southwest. They operated on the philosophy of “Kill the Indian… and save the man.” These schools were federally funded but operated by religious sects, mainly Catholics and Mormons according to Bruegl, whose grandparents attended such schools.

Bruegl described the assimilation process: 1) haircuts, a traditional act of mourning; 2) exchanging traditional clothing for uniforms, “leather boots that do not bend (to the feet) like moccasins;” 3) name change; and 4) a ban on speaking native languages and other cultural expressions.

Initially these schools were located on reservations and operated during the day, allowing children to return home to their families. But the assimilation strategy shifted focus to off-reservation boarding schools, effectively isolating children from their families and communities. Said Bruegl, “These were not places of harmony.” She added that graduates of these schools “did not belong anywhere.”

The assimilation strategy intensified with the Indian Adoption Project, started in 1958 and administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Children were forcibly removed from their homes by local authorities and were either adopted out or placed in foster care without the knowledge of parents. Bruegl cited some example rationales of these removals: 1) related to a medicine man who would not give up traditional ways; 2) a husband died; 3) a child had a rash and tuberculosis.

Indian Tribes collectively fought the removal of children from their homes by reporting them as missing and accusing state governments of kidnapping them. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter signed the controversial Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which effectively removed state jurisdiction over Indian lands and affairs. Native people were not to be classified by race and were acknowledged as a separate entity.

Bruegl called ICWA the most challenged law, even “more challenged than the Affordable Care Act.” Texas led all states in efforts to have the law declared unconstitutional, arguing that the law discriminated on the basis of race.

Bruegl cited the 2023 case of Brackeen v Haaland. The Brackeens, a white couple, failed to return a young Navajo boy, whom they had adopted, despite signing papers acknowledging they would be required to do so. The Brackeens won locally. They also wanted to adopt the boy’s sister. When denied, they and two other white couples challenged ICWA’s constitutionality. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ICWA violated the 10th Amendment. However the US Supreme Court reversed the 5th Circuit’s ruling in an opinion written by Associate Justice Amy Comey Barrett. Pleasantly surprised by the Supreme Court ruling, Bruegl said that Indian Nations breathed a collective “sigh of relief.”

Bruegl underscored a different attitude among media regarding incidents of missing white women compared to Indian women – a disparity she attributed to “Missing White Woman Syndrome.” Bruegl credited the non-stop media coverage of Gabby Petito, a 22 year old, blond, white woman, who was reported missing on September 11, 2021, when her fiancé, Brian Laundrie returned home to Florida without Gabby. The couple had embarked on a cross country road trip in July. Eight days after Petito was reported missing, her remains were found.

Bruegl noted that the daily media exposure quickened the resolution of Petito’s disappearance/murder thus “bringing closure” to her family. Bruegl lamented, “710 Indian women” were reported missing before Gabby Petito and “those families do not have closure.”

The American Indian Movement (AIM) was started in 1968 and its focus was urban issues. AIM strategies included one-day occupations of historical sites like Alcatraz (CA), Wounded Knee and Mount Rushmore (SD). Bruegl explained the premise behind the occupations. “One day occupation by white settlers gave them settlers’ rights to the land.” Similarly one-day occupations by Indians should equal Indian rights. Bruegl added that Alcatraz occupants did offer to buy the land for “$24 in glass beads and red cloth!”

The intent of Bruegl’s presentation was to encourage the audience to look at common events from the perspective of Indians. She noted that the national holiday of Thanksgiving is a “national day of mourning” for Indians.

Spencertown Academy plans to upload Bruegl’s slide presentation onto its website, www.spencertownacademy.org.