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The Education of Clarence Three Stars

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Philip Burnham tells the life story of the remarkable Packs the Dog, a member of the Minneconjou Lakotas who was born in 1864 east of the Black Hills.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 23, 2024

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This video video is a detailed account of the author's motivations and research process behind writing a book about the life of Clarence Three Stars, a Native American figure, in the context of the assimilation of American Indians from the 1880s to the 1930s. The author reflects on the significant struggles faced by Native Americans after the Indian Wars, particularly focusing on their experiences on reservations and the pressures of assimilation.

Initially, the author intended to explore multiple individuals in different chapters but ultimately decided to concentrate on Clarence Three Stars, whose biography could encapsulate broader themes of Native experiences during this period. Through extensive archival research, the author details Clarence's life, starting from his education at the Carlisle Indian School, where he faced the challenge of balancing traditional Lakota culture with mainstream American society.

The author describes Clarence’s achievements, including his roles as a lawyer and tribal president, while acknowledging the complexities of his life, including personal losses and struggles for tribal rights, particularly concerning the Black Hills. Clarence is portrayed as a multifaceted character, embodying both traditional and progressive aspects of Native identity.

This video video emphasizes the importance of recognizing everyday lives and struggles of lesser-known individuals in American Indian history, contrasting them with more famous figures like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The author advocates for a nuanced understanding of assimilation, highlighting that it is not a straightforward process but rather a blend of acceptance and resistance to external cultural forces.

In conclusion, the author hopes readers will appreciate the depth of Native American history by understanding the life of Clarence Three Stars and the broader context of his experiences, as well as the ongoing issues faced by Native communities today.

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Here are five key points from the video:

1. **Focus of the Book**: The author aims to explore the experiences of American Indians after the Indian wars of the 19th century, particularly during the period of assimilation from the 1880s to the 1930s, as Native Americans were moved onto reservations and pressured to adopt American cultural norms.

2. **Clarence Three Stars**: The book centers on the life of Clarence Three Stars, a Native American who provides a narrative through which various issues of assimilation, cultural identity, and community struggles can be examined. Three Stars's life serves as a lens to understand broader Native American experiences during this tumultuous period.

3. **Educational Assimilation**: The video discusses the significant role of education in the assimilation process, highlighting the establishment of boarding schools like Carlisle Indian School, which aimed to educate Native American children in English and American customs, often at the cost of their own languages and cultures.

4. **Complex Identity**: The author notes that assimilation is not a binary process; Clarence Three Stars is described as embodying both traditional and progressive elements of Native identity. This complexity reflects the diverse responses among Native Americans to cultural pressures and expectations during the assimilation era.

5. **Undocumented Voices**: The author emphasizes the importance of recognizing individuals whose lives may not be well-known yet are essential for understanding the history and culture of Native Americans. This perspective seeks to enrich the narrative of American Indian history beyond famous figures to include the experiences of everyday people.

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Here are some key quotes from the video , capturing important themes and ideas discussed:

1. **Historical Convideo and Purpose of the Book**:
- "I have written in past years as a journalist and an author, um, trying to answer the question, what happened to American Indians after the wars?"

2. **Assimilation and Coercion**:
- "Native Americans were not only encouraged, but uh, at times coerced, uh, to become a part of, uh, American society, whether they wanted to or not."

3. **Research Methodology**:
- "So a lot of my work was focused on documents, archives... um, this really wasn't a journalistic book, it was really a historian's account."

4. **Personal Impact**:
- "I could really take one man, in this case, Clarence, and write about his life, a biography in essence that dealt with all of the different issues... how native people assimilated."

5. **Clarence Three Stars' Background**:
- "He came from quite a distinguished family, actually... His grandfather had really been the trigger for what was called the Gratin battle."

6. **Education and Transformation**:
- "He was told in no uncertain terms... that everything he learned in life up to that point was wrong," indicative of the drastic changes forced upon Native Americans.

7. **Complex Identity**:
- "Three stars was really neither. He was both... It’s not simple. It’s a piecemeal process."

8. **Struggles with Identity**:
- "How do I fit in with the people that I came from? How do I fit in with my family? And that was a struggle."

9. **Cultural Advocacy**:
- "He became a protector of the Lakota language... he encouraged his own students to use it while they were learning English."

10. **Impact of Assimilation**:
- "Assimilation is a complicated process... It's a piecemeal process."

11. **Importance of Everyday Lives**:
- "There are a lot of people in Indian country... whose lives were much more modest... and whose lives offer a great insight into... the culture that they come from."

12. **Biography vs. Historical Figures**:
- "I hope people will take that with them... exploring the past and future, and even understanding what people on places like Pine Ridge are dealing with today."

These quotes together outline the significance of individual stories in understanding broader historical and cultural movements, particularly in the convideo of Native American experiences of assimilation and identity.

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The force behind the book was actually the fact that,

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over the years, a lot has been written about the Indian wars

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of the 19th century

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and, the various struggles that various tribes had

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with the federal government.

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And I have written in past years as a journalist

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and an author, trying to answer the question,

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what happened to American Indians after the wars?

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What happened when they were moved onto reservations?

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What kind of struggles did they face?

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And so in this particular book, I wanted

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to tackle that question.

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And, I wanted to explore the era

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of assimilation, really,

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which is roughly from about the 1880s to the 1930s

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with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act, a period

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of about 50 years where

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Native Americans were not only encouraged,

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but at times coerced, to

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become a part of, American society,

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whether they wanted to or not.

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And this was in many, different guises,

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land distribution as in land allotment,

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where land went from tribal control to individual control.

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Uh, it was also practiced in the church when various

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denominations began missionizing on reservations.

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It happened with a military draft when,

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assimilation was, practiced through

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drafting native, men in order to,

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mix them into the culture.

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And, and of course, it dealt with education.

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And that's really where it all began when thousands

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of Native American children were sent off to

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boarding schools, many of them off reservations, some

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of them on the reservation.

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So all of this was what I wanted

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to write about when I first started.

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I thought that finding a different person for each chapter,

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in effect, would be a nice way of slicing it up

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to give a sense of the variety of, of

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what Native experiences consisted of.

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But soon

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after starting the project,

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I read about a man named Clarence three stars,

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and he was mentioned in Luther Standing Bears My People

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to Sue, which was a very popular book written

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by an American Indian in the early 20th century.

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He mentions Clarence three stars as being a friend

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of his when he was at Carlisle,

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Indian Industrial School in the,

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late 1870s, early 1880s.

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The more I read about three stars, the more I began to see

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that I could really take one man, in this case, Clarence,

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and write about his life, a biography in essence that dealt

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with all of the different issues

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that I just outlined in terms of

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how native people assimilated

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or sometimes didn't assimilate into the majority culture.

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So that's really how the, the book got started as a,

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as a biography when I discarded the idea

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that it really wasn't necessary to have kind

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of a portrait gallery of various people when One Life

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and all the people that

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that life touched could tell the story just as well.

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It took, a lot of archival and library work.

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Um, three stars died in 1931.

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So there really, when I started my research eight

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or nine years ago, even then,

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there really wasn't anybody still alive

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who would've known him,

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or at least would've been of an age at the time,

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to appreciate who he was

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and been able to communicate with him.

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So, and,

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and even much of his family,

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in subsequent generations knew very little about him.

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I spoke with a number of family members

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that I was able to contact.

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So a lot of my work was focused on documents, archives,

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like the, national Archives in Washington DC

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and Kansas City, the Beneke Library in Yale, the,

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Carlisle Digital Library of Carlisle Indian School,

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various places.

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And, and very prominently too, the

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archives in library at Al Lakota College on Pine Ridge

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Reservation, which is

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where three stars lived most of his life.

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So I was dealing with documents a lot.

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This really wasn't a journalistic book, it was really a,

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a historian's account.

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But at the same time, I was researching three stars.

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I was really doing a story about a time,

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an era a people really,

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and I was researching institutions as well

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as I was three stars himself.

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By institutions, I mean, Carlisle Indian School,

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which began in 1879,

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and Clarence was a member of the very first class.

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He spent five years there

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before going on to, various other chapters in his life.

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But the history of Carlisle and understanding how it worked

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and functioned as an institution was important.

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That was also important in terms of, engaging with

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Canton Indian Asylum, which, existed in Canton,

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South Dakota for several decades.

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And where one of Clarence's daughters spent 10 years

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of her life when she was committed there in,

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I believe it was 1921 or thereabouts.

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I also had to do a lot of document

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documentary research on Pine Ridge Reservation itself.

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How was it managed? How was it directed?

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Where did money come from? How was it distributed?

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What kind of jobs did people have? Was there much crime?

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Uh, what did they grow in their gardens?

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Uh, how was ranching done?

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A lot of this, I gathered through the agent's reports

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that had to be written every year by the agent, what,

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who was later called the superintendent.

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The name changed after a time.

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The agent superintendent reports, which were very useful

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to me in terms of, of doing social history, excuse me,

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which is what this book really is.

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It's a biography of three stars,

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but it's couched in really in account of the OSU tribe,

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the Gala Cota Tribe, over a 50 year span.

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Three stars was born in 1864.

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He had, he came from quite a distinguished family, actually.

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His grandfather, high Forehead had, 10 years

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before Clarence was born, had really been the trigger for

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what was called the Gratin battle,

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what was actually called the Gratin Massacre at the time.

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It took place by the American Press,

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though massacre was indeed a misnomer, high forehead.

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His grandfather had shot a cow, a stray cow in his camp

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because his family was hungry while they were

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waiting for rations.

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And the, local military command at Fort Laramie sent out

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a troop of 30 soldiers

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who then ended up attacking the Indian village in order

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to capture high forehead who wouldn't give himself up.

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And it turns out all 30 of the soldiers were killed.

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Um, this was his grandfather.

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So he was told this story a great deal as a young boy,

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and it sunk in in terms of his notion of

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what the military represented in American culture.

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Anyway, his father died when he was five.

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He was adopted by his uncle, three stars.

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His father, Yellowknife had been a tribal leader,

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and so was three stars, who was a band leader.

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Uh, so he came from a pretty distinguished line of people.

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He, at the age of 15, he was told in no uncertain terms

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as other young Indian children were at the time,

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that everything he learned in life up to

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that point was wrong.

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And he was then sent to Carlisle in 1879

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with the permission of his uncle.

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I should add, he was not kidnapped.

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Uh, Carlisle made it a pretty strict policy early on

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to get permission from parents

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before going to an off reservation boarding school.

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That wasn't true, of all schools.

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However, he spent five years at Carlisle, did

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what was called kind of a, a work program in Philadelphia

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with John Wanamaker, the great,

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the great department store owner for about six months.

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Went back to the reservation

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and used some of the tools that he had,

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that he had learned at Carlisle.

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However difficult the Carlisle experience was tools like

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speaking English fluently.

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At the same time, he did not forget

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or give up on his native language, Lakota.

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He also got a basic education of things like mathematics,

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which helped him a great deal in commercial life.

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'cause he later owned a, a trader's store.

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Anyway, he went back to the reservation

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and, went through the difficult task

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as all return students did, of how do I fit in

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with the people that I came from?

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How do I fit in with my family? And that was a struggle.

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He later went on, just to give you a kind of a thumbnails,

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he later went on to become a lawyer

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through correspondence school,

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correspondence school in Washington dc which led to a,

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a short co, fairly short career

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as a state's attorney in Bennett County, South Dakota,

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as a justice of the peach peace, excuse me,

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and a judge in Bennett County, which

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for the early 19 hundreds was unheard of

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for an American Indian, jobs that were fit

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for American Indians at the time, in terms

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of American thinking.

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Well, were manual labor positions, blacksmith Taylor,

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whatever day labor, perhaps a clerk,

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but a lawyer, my goodness, that was almost unheard of.

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But he achieved that position and achieved it quite early.

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Went on to, to become, a land speculator, if you will.

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And, also, was an early leader in the movement

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to get the Black Hills returned to the, the Lakota tribes,

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or at least some compensation for them,

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at the very early stages of the case.

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That was, that was, put into action by

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the, tribes in the Department of Interior in,

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in the early part of the 20th century.

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He was driven. Um, what I know of his personality has

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to be inferred from the kinds of official documents

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that I found, perhaps as a representative

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that he might have written for the Black Hills Council,

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perhaps as a teacher,

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because I, I, I did leave out the fact

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that he was a teacher for many years.

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In fact, surprised I left it out,

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because that was really the core of his career

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teaching in the day schools on Pine Ridge,

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where I would add, he taught, he made

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what was essentially a bilingual classroom.

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He taught in both Lakota

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and English, which was strictly against the rules

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of the Indian office, which wanted teachers

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to only teach in English.

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So he was a rebel in that sense.

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You're talking about his personality.

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He was regarded as a gadfly by, some of the

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Indian agents or superintendents of Pine Ridge

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because he was known to complain about things.

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He represented the tribe more than once in Washington when

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he went to discuss some of the shortcomings of aid

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that was coming to the tribe from the federal government,

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shoddy clothing, inedible rations,

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all kinds of problems that he acted as a representative

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for his precise personality.

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It's a little hard to to be too specific,

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because I didn't really have any

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personal letters to work from.

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If they exist, I never found them.

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So I had to assemble his, his profile from these letters.

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And I would call him a very proud man.

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I would say that he was, as much

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as I can tell about his children, a very loving father.

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He lost, he lost a couple children quite young.

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And then a third one that I mentioned earlier, Sophia two,

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a mental institution, for, she was there for,

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at different institutions for the last 40 years of her life.

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So he knew a lot of, he knew a lot of loss and pain.

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Um, at the same time,

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I don't wanna suggest he was very successful in ways

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that many native people were not.

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But I don't wanna suggest that his was a kind

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of Horatio Alger story, either.

12:51.305 --> 12:55.285
He, I wouldn't say that he lifted himself up

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by his bootstraps, because that gives the wrong impression.

12:58.005 --> 13:00.365
It suggests that somehow he became a man

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of wealth and influence.

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Uh, that's not exactly true.

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He became a man of considerable standing in the tribe.

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Uh, he was tribal president for two years,

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from 1918 to 1920.

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So yes, he was a success in those terms,

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but he never knew great economic success

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and ranched until he died in 1931,

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in a very modest ranch, even even by Pine Ridge standards.

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So, it's a,

13:27.995 --> 13:32.245
it's not exactly an American success story in the way we

13:32.245 --> 13:35.525
think of a lot of rags to riches tales.

13:36.065 --> 13:40.845
Um, but it has a very Indian or American Indian slant to it.

13:41.425 --> 13:43.125
But as far as per his personality,

13:43.765 --> 13:45.125
I would say he was stubborn.

13:45.785 --> 13:48.805
He was a pious Episcopalian. So, and he loved to sing.

13:48.805 --> 13:50.005
He had a very fine voice,

13:50.105 --> 13:54.725
and he used music in his classroom, a classrooms a lot.

13:55.145 --> 13:57.765
So he was, he had a very artistic side to him.

13:58.425 --> 14:01.365
Um, but he,

14:01.465 --> 14:03.605
and also had a strong sense of public service

14:03.945 --> 14:07.445
and donated, a considerable part of his land

14:07.545 --> 14:10.805
to various churches and schools, one of which was named

14:10.805 --> 14:13.765
after him in the last 10 or 15 years of his life.

14:14.005 --> 14:16.885
Assimilation is, a complicated process.

14:17.325 --> 14:18.525
I think anybody listening

14:18.525 --> 14:20.365
to this is probably already aware of it.

14:20.385 --> 14:22.805
It begins with education, certainly.

14:23.185 --> 14:24.885
And it began with him when he was 15,

14:24.945 --> 14:26.205
and he went off to Carlisle.

14:26.785 --> 14:29.765
But assimilation isn't always a uniform process

14:30.665 --> 14:32.605
on Pine Ridge and on many reservations,

14:32.605 --> 14:36.925
people frequently refer to Native, people of this period

14:36.925 --> 14:39.685
as being either traditionals or progressives.

14:40.085 --> 14:44.525
Traditionals were old style folks who spoke their, you know,

14:44.525 --> 14:47.165
mother tongue were reluctant to learn English,

14:47.165 --> 14:50.565
were reluctant to sell their land, practiced the old ways,

14:50.565 --> 14:51.845
Especially in terms of

14:52.405 --> 14:54.765
religion may have reluctantly converted

14:54.765 --> 14:56.205
to Christianity, if at all.

14:56.665 --> 14:58.325
The progressives, on the other hand,

14:58.835 --> 15:00.485
were considered their rival group.

15:00.595 --> 15:03.165
They believed in the white man's education.

15:03.435 --> 15:05.885
They went off to school the way three stars did,

15:06.705 --> 15:08.925
and they mastered English

15:09.585 --> 15:13.725
and had a more outsider look,

15:13.725 --> 15:15.165
instead of an insider look.

15:15.165 --> 15:16.885
And with regard to the reservation,

15:17.225 --> 15:20.885
and were more willing to accept white cultural norms.

15:21.455 --> 15:23.725
Three stars was really neither. He was both.

15:24.695 --> 15:26.755
Uh, and this was true of a lot of people,

15:26.755 --> 15:28.795
and that was one of the things that motivated

15:28.815 --> 15:30.035
me to write the book.

15:30.435 --> 15:32.715
Assimilation is complicated. It's not simple.

15:32.825 --> 15:37.755
It's not, yes, I, I I agree to, to follow the norms

15:37.755 --> 15:39.835
of your culture, or no, I don't.

15:40.385 --> 15:41.715
It's a piecemeal process.

15:41.935 --> 15:43.915
And three stars on the one hand was, as I said,

15:43.995 --> 15:47.075
a pious Episcopalian who was a catechist

15:47.855 --> 15:49.275
and active in his church.

15:49.575 --> 15:52.075
At the same time, he frowned on Indian dances,

15:52.075 --> 15:54.635
the same dances he would've seen as a boy.

15:54.695 --> 15:59.155
He came to dislike because of his Episcopalian training.

15:59.415 --> 16:01.755
At the same time, he became an advocate

16:01.755 --> 16:05.035
for his tribe in terms of asking for compensation

16:05.055 --> 16:06.075
for the Black Hills.

16:06.495 --> 16:10.155
He became a protector of the Lakota language.

16:10.295 --> 16:13.795
As I said earlier, he, he encouraged his own students

16:13.815 --> 16:15.995
to use it while they were learning English.

16:16.455 --> 16:20.635
He even went so far during World War I to advocate on behalf

16:20.635 --> 16:21.635
of Lakota men

16:21.635 --> 16:24.795
and boys who were about to be drafted, advocating

16:24.795 --> 16:27.475
that they should not be drafted to go over

16:27.535 --> 16:29.235
and fight the Kaiser if,

16:29.975 --> 16:32.995
if they had not been allotted land already,

16:33.365 --> 16:35.675
which was really a part of the citizenship process.

16:36.335 --> 16:38.035
And that was, if you can believe it,

16:38.635 --> 16:41.435
a very unpopular position even on Pine Ridge.

16:42.065 --> 16:45.075
Pine Ridge, through, as was the case through much

16:45.075 --> 16:47.115
of Indian country, was very supportive

16:47.375 --> 16:49.475
of our participation in World War I,

16:49.695 --> 16:51.435
as they have been in subsequent wars.

16:51.895 --> 16:56.755
And, and Native men enlisted at a higher rate than any

16:56.755 --> 16:58.715
other ethnic or racial group.

16:59.455 --> 17:01.475
But three stars stood strong,

17:01.745 --> 17:03.715
even when the superintendent suggested

17:03.715 --> 17:05.315
that he was subversive

17:05.315 --> 17:09.555
and maybe even a saboteur for standing up for these

17:10.165 --> 17:12.915
young Indian men, including his own son, Paul,

17:13.455 --> 17:15.355
who was drafted and ended up going to France

17:15.355 --> 17:17.755
and fighting, seeing action in France.

17:18.255 --> 17:21.395
But he was adamant that it, with his legal training,

17:21.975 --> 17:23.035
the law was the law.

17:23.175 --> 17:25.835
And if they hadn't become full citizens

17:25.835 --> 17:29.515
of the United States, they shouldn't be expected to

17:30.145 --> 17:31.955
automatically have to go off

17:32.295 --> 17:34.835
and fight a war on behalf of Uncle Sam.

17:35.255 --> 17:38.235
So he, he took some things from white culture

17:38.455 --> 17:41.235
and he rejected others, and he lived with both

17:41.935 --> 17:46.355
and tried to make his way as best he could in the community

17:46.355 --> 17:49.605
that he moved back to in Bennett County,

17:49.875 --> 17:51.445
near Martin, South Dakota.

17:52.265 --> 17:56.005
And, as did many people of his generation.

17:56.225 --> 17:59.765
And even today, you'll find many people on Pine Ridge,

18:00.295 --> 18:02.645
where I had to spend times doing some of my research,

18:02.705 --> 18:06.565
of course, who are neither in one camp or the other.

18:06.885 --> 18:10.365
Neither exactly. Traditional, neither exactly Progressive.

18:10.365 --> 18:13.165
They're a blend of the two. And that's the way life is.

18:13.865 --> 18:16.285
Uh, a lot of people, I think sometimes when talking

18:16.385 --> 18:20.165
or writing about Native Americans don't really get at some

18:20.165 --> 18:22.965
of the complexities that they face, especially

18:22.965 --> 18:25.925
during this 50 or more, a 50

18:25.985 --> 18:29.845
or so year period when all this was pushed in their face

18:30.305 --> 18:32.285
and they had to make some pretty quick decisions.

18:32.725 --> 18:36.085
I hope they take from my book, I guess pretty much kind

18:36.085 --> 18:40.765
of what I just said, that, the act, well, I,

18:40.805 --> 18:43.685
I guess, I guess I go a step further than that.

18:43.845 --> 18:48.575
I, here's what I'd say, we have a tendency

18:48.675 --> 18:52.975
to think of history as being that that's carved out

18:53.155 --> 18:54.895
by people whose names are well known.

18:55.295 --> 18:58.855
Geronimo to use Lakota examples, sitting Bull, crazy horse,

18:59.635 --> 19:02.695
are, a lot of us are taught a brand

19:02.695 --> 19:04.175
of American Indian history

19:04.175 --> 19:05.895
where we learn about the chiefs and warriors.

19:06.835 --> 19:09.495
But, and they lived one extraordinary lives,

19:09.555 --> 19:11.495
and their lives are very important to know about.

19:12.155 --> 19:15.335
But there are a lot of people in Indian country

19:15.675 --> 19:18.775
and still are today, whose lives were not.

19:18.805 --> 19:20.095
Were much more modest.

19:20.645 --> 19:22.735
Were not nearly so famous

19:22.955 --> 19:27.055
and celebrity wrought whose lives offer a great insight

19:27.645 --> 19:29.415
into not only their families,

19:29.795 --> 19:31.455
but the culture that they come from

19:31.835 --> 19:33.255
and the people that they come from.

19:33.795 --> 19:35.015
So my

19:35.015 --> 19:37.215
what sometimes people would ask me when I was writing the

19:37.215 --> 19:38.295
book, they, I'd say, I'd say,

19:38.295 --> 19:40.095
I'm doing a biography of Clarence three stars.

19:40.255 --> 19:43.695
They'd say, who? And I'd tell them a little bit about

19:43.755 --> 19:45.335
who he was, and they'd say, what, what?

19:45.515 --> 19:47.215
Why don't you write about Sitting Bull?

19:47.315 --> 19:51.095
Or, or, or, or, or Pontiac or Geronimo

19:51.095 --> 19:52.295
or anybody, or Chief Joseph.

19:52.435 --> 19:53.855
And I'd say, why?

19:54.125 --> 19:57.535
I'll tell you why I say novelists have been doing

19:57.535 --> 19:58.735
this for hundreds of years.

19:59.365 --> 20:01.375
They've written the stories of people

20:01.405 --> 20:02.695
that we never heard of before.

20:02.695 --> 20:05.615
David Copperfield, who knew about him before Dickens.

20:05.675 --> 20:08.175
He didn't exist as David Copperfield.

20:08.835 --> 20:11.415
So my attitude towards writing biography

20:11.415 --> 20:13.775
and social history is, is essentially the same.

20:15.095 --> 20:18.695
Somebody whose life we know nothing about may offer us just

20:18.715 --> 20:23.055
as much in terms of what that person, endured

20:23.055 --> 20:24.255
and what they experienced.

20:24.835 --> 20:27.655
As someone who is extremely well known

20:27.675 --> 20:29.655
and written up at length in our history books.

20:29.715 --> 20:32.895
And I hope people will take that with them in terms of

20:33.725 --> 20:36.495
exploring, the past in future,

20:36.875 --> 20:37.935
and even understanding

20:38.485 --> 20:41.335
what people on places like Pine Ridge are dealing

20:41.335 --> 20:41.895
with today.

Exploring Native American Assimilation Narratives

00:00:00 - The force behind the book was actually the fact that, over the years, a lot has been written about the Indian wars of the 19th century and, the various struggles that various tribes had with the federal government. And I have written in past years as a journalist and an author, trying to answer the question, what happened to American Indians after the wars? What happened when they were moved onto reservations? What kind of struggles did they face?
00:00:36 - to tackle that question. And, I wanted to explore the era of assimilation, really, which is roughly from about the 1880s to the 1930s with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act, a period of about 50 years where Native Americans were not only encouraged, but at times coerced, to
00:01:07 - whether they wanted to or not. And this was in many, different guises, land distribution as in land allotment, where land went from tribal control to individual control. it was also practiced in the church when various denominations began missionizing on reservations. It happened with a military draft when, assimilation was, practiced through
00:01:41 - mix them into the culture. And, and of course, it dealt with education. And that's really where it all began when thousands of Native American children were sent off to boarding schools, many of them off reservations, some of them on the reservation. So all of this was what I wanted to write about when I first started.
00:02:09 - in effect, would be a nice way of slicing it up to give a sense of the variety of, of what Native experiences consisted of. But soon after starting the project, I read about a man named Clarence three stars, and he was mentioned in Luther Standing Bears My People to Sue, which was a very popular book written by an American Indian in the early 20th century. He mentions Clarence three stars as being a friend
00:02:41 - Indian Industrial School in the, late 1870s, early 1880s. The more I read about three stars, the more I began to see that I could really take one man, in this case, Clarence, and write about his life, a biography in essence that dealt with all of the different issues that I just outlined in terms of how native people assimilated or sometimes didn't assimilate into the majority culture.

Exploring Clarence Three Stars' Legacy

00:03:14 - as a biography when I discarded the idea that it really wasn't necessary to have kind of a portrait gallery of various people when One Life and all the people that that life touched could tell the story just as well. It took, a lot of archival and library work. three stars died in 1931. So there really, when I started my research eight
00:03:44 - there really wasn't anybody still alive who would've known him, or at least would've been of an age at the time, to appreciate who he was and been able to communicate with him. So, and, and even much of his family, in subsequent generations knew very little about him. I spoke with a number of family members that I was able to contact. So a lot of my work was focused on documents, archives, like the, national Archives in Washington DC
00:04:18 - Carlisle Digital Library of Carlisle Indian School, various places. And, and very prominently too, the archives in library at Al Lakota College on Pine Ridge Reservation, which is where three stars lived most of his life. So I was dealing with documents a lot. This really wasn't a journalistic book, it was really a, a historian's account.
00:04:49 - I was really doing a story about a time, an era a people really, and I was researching institutions as well as I was three stars himself. By institutions, I mean, Carlisle Indian School, which began in 1879, and Clarence was a member of the very first class. He spent five years there before going on to, various other chapters in his life. But the history of Carlisle and understanding how it worked
00:05:21 - That was also important in terms of, engaging with Canton Indian Asylum, which, existed in Canton, South Dakota for several decades. And where one of Clarence's daughters spent 10 years of her life when she was committed there in, I believe it was 1921 or thereabouts. I also had to do a lot of document documentary research on Pine Ridge Reservation itself.
00:05:52 - Where did money come from? How was it distributed? What kind of jobs did people have? Was there much crime? what did they grow in their gardens? how was ranching done? A lot of this, I gathered through the agent's reports that had to be written every year by the agent, what, who was later called the superintendent. The name changed after a time. The agent superintendent reports, which were very useful to me in terms of, of doing social history, excuse me,

Legacy of Clarence Three Stars: A Biography

00:06:26 - It's a biography of three stars, but it's couched in really in account of the OSU tribe, the Gala Cota Tribe, over a 50 year span. Three stars was born in 1864. He had, he came from quite a distinguished family, actually. His grandfather, high Forehead had, 10 years before Clarence was born, had really been the trigger for what was called the Gratin battle,
00:06:57 - It took place by the American Press, though massacre was indeed a misnomer, high forehead. His grandfather had shot a cow, a stray cow in his camp because his family was hungry while they were waiting for rations. And the, local military command at Fort Laramie sent out a troop of 30 soldiers who then ended up attacking the Indian village in order to capture high forehead who wouldn't give himself up.
00:07:29 - this was his grandfather. So he was told this story a great deal as a young boy, and it sunk in in terms of his notion of what the military represented in American culture. Anyway, his father died when he was five. He was adopted by his uncle, three stars. His father, Yellowknife had been a tribal leader, and so was three stars, who was a band leader. so he came from a pretty distinguished line of people.
00:08:01 - as other young Indian children were at the time, that everything he learned in life up to that point was wrong. And he was then sent to Carlisle in 1879 with the permission of his uncle. I should add, he was not kidnapped. Carlisle made it a pretty strict policy early on to get permission from parents before going to an off reservation boarding school. That wasn't true, of all schools.
00:08:33 - what was called kind of a, a work program in Philadelphia with John Wanamaker, the great, the great department store owner for about six months. Went back to the reservation and used some of the tools that he had, that he had learned at Carlisle. However difficult the Carlisle experience was tools like speaking English fluently. At the same time, he did not forget or give up on his native language, Lakota.
00:09:04 - which helped him a great deal in commercial life. 'cause he later owned a, a trader's store. Anyway, he went back to the reservation and, went through the difficult task as all return students did, of how do I fit in with the people that I came from? How do I fit in with my family? And that was a struggle. He later went on, just to give you a kind of a thumbnails, he later went on to become a lawyer

Clarence Three Stars: A Pioneering Legal Life

00:09:34 - correspondence school in Washington dc which led to a, a short co, fairly short career as a state's attorney in Bennett County, South Dakota, as a justice of the peach peace, excuse me, and a judge in Bennett County, which for the early 19 hundreds was unheard of for an American Indian, jobs that were fit for American Indians at the time, in terms of American thinking. Well, were manual labor positions, blacksmith Taylor,
00:10:06 - but a lawyer, my goodness, that was almost unheard of. But he achieved that position and achieved it quite early. Went on to, to become, a land speculator, if you will. And, also, was an early leader in the movement to get the Black Hills returned to the, the Lakota tribes, or at least some compensation for them, at the very early stages of the case.
00:10:39 - the, tribes in the Department of Interior in, in the early part of the 20th century. He was driven. what I know of his personality has to be inferred from the kinds of official documents that I found, perhaps as a representative that he might have written for the Black Hills Council, perhaps as a teacher, because I, I, I did leave out the fact that he was a teacher for many years. In fact, surprised I left it out,
00:11:07 - teaching in the day schools on Pine Ridge, where I would add, he taught, he made what was essentially a bilingual classroom. He taught in both Lakota and English, which was strictly against the rules of the Indian office, which wanted teachers to only teach in English. So he was a rebel in that sense. You're talking about his personality. He was regarded as a gadfly by, some of the Indian agents or superintendents of Pine Ridge
00:11:36 - He represented the tribe more than once in Washington when he went to discuss some of the shortcomings of aid that was coming to the tribe from the federal government, shoddy clothing, inedible rations, all kinds of problems that he acted as a representative for his precise personality. It's a little hard to to be too specific, because I didn't really have any personal letters to work from. If they exist, I never found them.
00:12:11 - And I would call him a very proud man. I would say that he was, as much as I can tell about his children, a very loving father. He lost, he lost a couple children quite young. And then a third one that I mentioned earlier, Sophia two, a mental institution, for, she was there for, at different institutions for the last 40 years of her life. So he knew a lot of, he knew a lot of loss and pain.

Clarence Three Stars: A Complex Legacy

00:12:40 - I don't wanna suggest he was very successful in ways that many native people were not. But I don't wanna suggest that his was a kind of Horatio Alger story, either. He, I wouldn't say that he lifted himself up by his bootstraps, because that gives the wrong impression. It suggests that somehow he became a man of wealth and influence. that's not exactly true. He became a man of considerable standing in the tribe. he was tribal president for two years,
00:13:10 - So yes, he was a success in those terms, but he never knew great economic success and ranched until he died in 1931, in a very modest ranch, even even by Pine Ridge standards. So, it's a, it's not exactly an American success story in the way we think of a lot of rags to riches tales. but it has a very Indian or American Indian slant to it.
00:13:43 - I would say he was stubborn. He was a pious Episcopalian. So, and he loved to sing. He had a very fine voice, and he used music in his classroom, a classrooms a lot. So he was, he had a very artistic side to him. but he, and also had a strong sense of public service and donated, a considerable part of his land to various churches and schools, one of which was named after him in the last 10 or 15 years of his life.
00:14:17 - I think anybody listening to this is probably already aware of it. It begins with education, certainly. And it began with him when he was 15, and he went off to Carlisle. But assimilation isn't always a uniform process on Pine Ridge and on many reservations, people frequently refer to Native, people of this period as being either traditionals or progressives. Traditionals were old style folks who spoke their, you know,
00:14:47 - were reluctant to sell their land, practiced the old ways, Especially in terms of religion may have reluctantly converted to Christianity, if at all. The progressives, on the other hand, were considered their rival group. They believed in the white man's education. They went off to school the way three stars did, and they mastered English and had a more outsider look, instead of an insider look.
00:15:17 - and were more willing to accept white cultural norms. Three stars was really neither. He was both. and this was true of a lot of people, and that was one of the things that motivated me to write the book. Assimilation is complicated. It's not simple. It's not, yes, I, I I agree to, to follow the norms of your culture, or no, I don't. It's a piecemeal process. And three stars on the one hand was, as I said, a pious Episcopalian who was a catechist

Assimilation and Advocacy in Native American Life

00:15:49 - At the same time, he frowned on Indian dances, the same dances he would've seen as a boy. He came to dislike because of his Episcopalian training. At the same time, he became an advocate for his tribe in terms of asking for compensation for the Black Hills. He became a protector of the Lakota language. As I said earlier, he, he encouraged his own students to use it while they were learning English. He even went so far during World War I to advocate on behalf
00:16:21 - and boys who were about to be drafted, advocating that they should not be drafted to go over and fight the Kaiser if, if they had not been allotted land already, which was really a part of the citizenship process. And that was, if you can believe it, a very unpopular position even on Pine Ridge. Pine Ridge, through, as was the case through much of Indian country, was very supportive of our participation in World War I, as they have been in subsequent wars.
00:16:56 - other ethnic or racial group. But three stars stood strong, even when the superintendent suggested that he was subversive and maybe even a saboteur for standing up for these young Indian men, including his own son, Paul, who was drafted and ended up going to France and fighting, seeing action in France. But he was adamant that it, with his legal training,
00:17:23 - And if they hadn't become full citizens of the United States, they shouldn't be expected to automatically have to go off and fight a war on behalf of Uncle Sam. So he, he took some things from white culture and he rejected others, and he lived with both and tried to make his way as best he could in the community that he moved back to in Bennett County, near Martin, South Dakota.
00:17:56 - And even today, you'll find many people on Pine Ridge, where I had to spend times doing some of my research, of course, who are neither in one camp or the other. Neither exactly. Traditional, neither exactly Progressive. They're a blend of the two. And that's the way life is. a lot of people, I think sometimes when talking or writing about Native Americans don't really get at some of the complexities that they face, especially
00:18:25 - or so year period when all this was pushed in their face and they had to make some pretty quick decisions. I hope they take from my book, I guess pretty much kind of what I just said, that, the act, well, I, I guess, I guess I go a step further than that. I, here's what I'd say, we have a tendency to think of history as being that that's carved out

Untold Lives in American Indian History

00:18:55 - Geronimo to use Lakota examples, sitting Bull, crazy horse, are, a lot of us are taught a brand of American Indian history where we learn about the chiefs and warriors. But, and they lived one extraordinary lives, and their lives are very important to know about. But there are a lot of people in Indian country and still are today, whose lives were not. Were much more modest. Were not nearly so famous and celebrity wrought whose lives offer a great insight
00:19:29 - but the culture that they come from and the people that they come from. So my what sometimes people would ask me when I was writing the book, they, I'd say, I'd say, I'm doing a biography of Clarence three stars. They'd say, who? And I'd tell them a little bit about who he was, and they'd say, what, what? Why don't you write about Sitting Bull? Or, or, or, or, or Pontiac or Geronimo or anybody, or Chief Joseph. And I'd say, why? I'll tell you why I say novelists have been doing this for hundreds of years.
00:20:01 - that we never heard of before. David Copperfield, who knew about him before Dickens. He didn't exist as David Copperfield. So my attitude towards writing biography and social history is, is essentially the same. Somebody whose life we know nothing about may offer us just as much in terms of what that person, endured and what they experienced. As someone who is extremely well known and written up at length in our history books.
00:20:41 - exploring, the past in future, and even understanding what people on places like Pine Ridge are dealing with today.

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