Where was Love?
Small Sioux children before entering a boarding school in 1897. Library of Congress.
I remember learning the history of the Plains Indians, but this summer I felt it with my heart.
A family road trip recently took us to Cody, Wyoming where we experienced the Buffalo Bill Museum. Guests encounter beautiful and exciting aspects of the “Wild West” including natural history, firearms, western art, Buffalo Bill, and the Plains Indians.
The older I get, the more interesting and important history becomes and I am grateful for the people who took time to record the events they witnessed. Those who captured the realities they experienced allow us to remember, feel, and learn.
For example, famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley expanded career options for women! As a teen, she hunted to provide for her family and won a shooting contest against her future husband to gain a spot in the Wild West Show and instant stardom. She later became good friends with Lakota Leader Sitting Bull, who was a political prisoner at Fort Yates after defeating General Custer; he called her “Little Sure Shot.” She believed women could and should be proficient with firearms and offered to train a regiment of women sharpshooters in WWI. She was never allowed to do it, though.
Even when they are the best, women have struggled to have their gifts and contributions recognized by the men in power.
I was reminded of Sitting Bull’s courage in uniting the Sioux tribes of the American Great Plains against the white settlers taking their land. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty granted the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota to the Sioux, but when gold was discovered there in 1874, the U.S. government ignored the treaty and began to remove native tribes from their land by force (Library of Congress). Sitting Bull did not believe in signing anything that would force his people onto a reservation, rather than all people sharing the resources of the land communally.
The love of money can make people do dangerous and evil things.
My last stop was the museum dedicated to the Plains Indians.
The narrative turned from wildlife and gorgeous artwork to carnage and suffering. I was struck by heartbreaking accounts like these from Wounded Knee Massacre, where the army gunned down men, women and children:
"There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce… A mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing… The women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed together, shot right through… and after most all of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys… came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them.”
—American Horse Dakota
Sioux Indians were performing a Ghost Dance, part of a spiritual movement embraced by Sitting Bull. They believed and hoped to bring back their old way of life, get rid of the blue coats, and restore their buffalo and loved ones. Police officers shot Sitting Bull in 1890 because they were afraid he might flee. Two weeks later the US 7th Cavalry Regiment opened fire at Wounded Knee when Sioux resisted efforts to be controlled and disarmed.
Fear, greed, hatred, and control can be dangerous motivators.
The buffalo statistics were shocking. Sources say the buffalo population decreased from around 30-60 MILLION in the early 18th century, to around five HUNDRED by late 1880’s.
One general instructed, “Kill every buffalo you can! Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.” (the Atlantic)
“Kill the Indian in him, and save the man!”
Captain Pratt in an 1892 speech delivered at George Mason University
Until now, the history included the US government. Then it added a religious component.
Kids were rounded up and taken to Boarding Schools run by Christian missionaries.
As part of this federal push for assimilation and Americanization, boarding schools forbid Native American children from using their own languages and names, as well as from practicing their religion and culture. They were given new Anglo-American names, clothes, and haircuts, and told they must abandon their way of life because it was inferior to white people’s.
“Many boys ran away from school because the treatment was so bad, but most of them were caught and brought back by the police. We were told never to talk Indian, and if we were caught, we got a strapping with a leather belt.”
—Lone Wolf, Amoskapi Pikuni (Blackfeet) 1969
Native American children learned that Christians wanted to change them.
My eyes welled up with tears as the history I was experiencing turned into frustration.
I am neither theologian nor historian and many people are more knowledgeable in history than me. But, I work with kids and I can’t imagine taking a small child from their family. I wish we could go back and do this better.
It was tragic.
The Plains Indians were killed and driven off their land. People virtually eliminated the buffalo population, their source of life, and way of living. They looked down on them and called them savages. Tried to strip them of their language and culture. Then they tried to convert them to Christianity.
“We kept the laws we made and lived out our religion. We have never been able to understand the white man, who fools nobody but himself,”
—Plenty Coups, Absaroke (Crow)
“They promised how we are going to live peacefully on the land we still own and how they are going to show us the new ways of living . . . but all that was realized out of the agreements with the Great Father was, we are dying off.”
—Sitting Bull, Lakota (Sioux)
We so often forget the words of Jesus: “They will know you are my followers by your love…”. No wonder the conversion rate was poor. I want to dominate you, kill you if necessary, take over your land, increase my territory, and change you is not a godly evangelistic strategy.
By our love? Where is the love? What a contrast we see in the gospels! People who encountered Jesus were befriended, forgiven, fed, and healed.
My intent is to study the ways and heart of Jesus. I want to find out what breaks His heart and how He made people feel. I want to distinguish between the impure motives of people, governments, and religions and the pure, restorative love of God.
Who He is, what He did, His values, His words, His ways. Jesus said that if we know Him, we will know the Father. He said that the best way to know God is to get to know His Son.
Another way to familiarize ourselves with someone is to find out who they’re not, what they don’t do, what they don’t endorse, ways they didn’t embrace.
Sometimes the things done in the name of religion or politics are mean, insensitive, dehumanizing, greedy, and selfish. Even the best people will never get it right all the time and may even be do hurtful things with good intentions. The violence went both ways. I’d be willing to bet that there were kind, generous folks and mean folks on both sides.
Let’s talk about Jesus.
The biographies of Jesus written by historians of the time are also important to study. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James… they wrote about His life and what He did.
I can’t find a time when Jesus was mean, dehumanizing, greedy, or selfish to a hurting person or when He used His power to destroy or exert control. I think that all the violence would have made Jesus weep.
If our evangelistic efforts don’t start and end with love, forget it. If we’re not loving, then we’re not acting like Jesus or obeying Him at all. He found a need and met it. He taught to those who would listen. He accepted people and leveraged his words and power to give value to the disenfranchised and vulnerable members of society.
Whether you are looking for examples of followers of Jesus loving others well, or religious hypocrisy, you will find what you are looking for.
Keep our eyes on Jesus.
I hope we don’t miss out on Jesus because of people. I hope that we can be motivated by His love. I hope that we keep looking into the pages of history to find the truth we seek.