The Indian as the American savior : Charles Alexander Eastman's Indian and his vision for America's future

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Malea Powell argued that in the early twentieth century, American Indian intellectuals' use of major discourses about American Indians was "rhetoric of survivance. " They manipulated their expected Indianness for their survival and resistance within the dominant society, in order to "talk back" to the majority and also to reimagine the meaning of their Indianness. This study follows Powell's story on "rhetoric of survivance," and furthers her argument through revisiting Charls Alexander Eastman's writings. It argues that Eastman, by manipulating his Indianness, taught Indian virtues to white American audiences, thus reimagining his own new "American" future led by the American Indian as the very first American of the North American continent. The process that Eastman took to publicize his vision for America was complex. The early twentieth century that Eastman lived in was when American Indians were seen as a "vanishing race." There were a series of federal policies, including the Dawes Act of 1887 that aimed to make American Indians assimilate into the dominant culture. Also, the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 seemingly marked for white Americans the end of the American Indian resistance and made them think American Indians' distinct cultures were doomed to extinction. Increasing numbers of white Americans thus begun to romanticize American Indians as a memorial to the past. Eastman, by responding to this discourse, through his writings, presented himself as an "authentic" Indian, but also demonstrated his ability to adopt to the mainstream culture. In so doing, Eastman attained his agency to critique white American civilization, and envisioned a future of America where Indian virtues were well respected, and American Indians were more at the center of the civilization. Having established himself as a "real" Indian who is also capable of living in modern society, Eastman responded and gave a solution to the "boy problem," an awareness that emerged from rapidly modernizing society. Eastman took Indian virtues from determined Indian heroes of the past, and he related its problem to the problems that American Indians suffer from baleful encounters with white American civilization. Eastman thus claimed that future American citizens should learn from the past American Indians in order to gain mental and physical strength to survive in modern society, where they tended to lose their self-control. Eastman's legacy can be seen this way. His romantic, overly generalized form of Indian which was constructed majorly from his experience as a Dakota youth might have reinforced American Indian stereotypes. However, as one of "Red Progressives," Eastman did counter vicious binary path that American Indians were seen to be inextricably on at that time-"extinction or assimilation." By manipulation his Indianness, he reimagined a future path for American Indians to live as American citizens.

The Indian as the American savior : Charles Alexander Eastman's Indian and his vision for America's future

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