| Title | : | The Life of Sherman Coolidge, Arapaho Activist |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1496233476 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781496233479 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 358 |
| Publication | : | Published December 1, 2022 |
Born to a band of Northern Arapaho in present-day Wyoming, Des-che-wa-wah (Runs On Top) endured a series of harrowing tragedies against the brutal backdrop of the nineteenth-century Indian Wars. As a boy he experienced the merciless killings of his family in vicious raids and attacks, surviving only to be given up by his starving mother to U.S. officers stationed at a western military base. Des-che-wa-wah was eventually adopted by a sympathetic infantry lieutenant who changed his name and set his life on a radically different course.
Over the next sixty years Coolidge inhabited western plains and eastern cities, rode in military campaigns against the Lakota, entered the Episcopal priesthood, labored as missionary to his tribe on the Wind River Reservation, fomented dangerous conspiracies, married a wealthy New York heiress, met with presidents and congressmen, and became one of the nation’s most prominent Indigenous persons as leader of the Native-run reform group the Society of American Indians. Coolidge’s fascinating biography is essential for understanding the myriad ways Native Americans faced modernity at the turn of the century.
The Life of Sherman Coolidge, Arapaho Activist Reviews
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This brilliant biography of Sherman Coolidge illuminates not only the US government's abuse of Native Americans but the difficulty Native American leaders had in finding an approach to give the NA's back the rights and freedoms they were entitled to as a culture and later as a subject of broken contracts, unfair land allotments, and lost wealth from natural resources discovered on their reservations. Because there was lack of agreement among tribes, Coolidge thought that Christianity and education by way of boarding schools run by whites were the answer, after he had found success in both. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was clearly not protecting NA rights or working toward giving them citizenship. Hence, The Society of American Indians was established to do a better job of representing NA needs; but there came to be too much difference of opinion among the leaders. Some NAs did not want to give up aspects of their own tribal culture at all. Coolidge was involved in these political efforts, all the while ministering to native populations' needs on the various reservations in Wyoming, Minnesota, California, Colorado, Nevada, and elsewhere. He and his wife were activists who sought to restore humanity to the treatment of tribes. As needed, they refined their views during their lifetime, and presented an example of the patience and understanding their work required.
