Sherman Coolidge
Canon Sherman Coolidge | |
---|---|
Doa-che-wa-a (Runs-on-Top) | |
Hobart College | |
Occupation(s) | Clergy, missionary |
Spouse | Grace Wetherbee Coolidge |
Church | Episcopal Church |
Ordained | 1884 |
Sherman Coolidge (February 22, 1862 – January 24, 1932), an Episcopal Church priest and educator, helped found and lead the Society of American Indians (1911–1923). That first national American Indian rights organization run by and for Native Americans pioneered twentieth-century Pan-Indianism, the philosophy and movement promoting unity among American Indians regardless of tribal affiliation.
Coolidge spent twenty-six years preaching and teaching Shoshone and Arapaho people at the
Early life
On February 22, 1862, Coolidge was born near present-day
When Coolidge was a young boy, Shoshone warriors attacked the camp that he lived in. They came in the middle of the night and slaughtered the Arapaho until they resisted the fight. Another tragedy occurred when American soldiers mistook the Arapaho for Lakota, which resulted in the death of his aunt, uncle, and grandmother.[3]
In the spring of 1867, Coolidge and his family were camped by a stream. They were awakened by war cries. While his family ran for safety, Banasda stayed to fight the attackers and was shot through the chest and was killed.[3]
As pioneers traveled through Wyoming on the Oregon Trail and Bozeman Trail, there were escalating violence between the military and Native Americans of the Great Plains—Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota. The Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) created the Great Sioux Reservation in Dakota Territory. The Northern Arapaho, left without their own land, settled with the Lakota or with the Southern Arapaho.[1][3]
Coolidge was among a group of Arapaho that were camped along the Popo Agie stream, about two miles from Camp Brown (now
Adoption and education
Dr. Shapleigh, the boy's guardian, took in the boys, who were heartbroken to be separated from their mother. He-Runs-on-Top was renamed
The Coolidges lived in New York until 1873 when Charles Coolidge was assigned to the Montana Territory. They were posted in a northern part of the territory at Fort Shaw. Coolidge attended the post school.[3][c]
In 1876, Lt. Col.
Upon the advice of
Both Shattuck-Saint Mary's and the divinity school were founded by Bishop Whipple in Faribault.
Career
Missionary and ministry
Wyoming
Coolidge traveled west by stagecoach to Wyoming after he graduated from Seabury Divinity School. Called "Arapaho Whiteman", Coolidge reunited with his mother Ba-ahnoce at
The Bureau of Indian Affairs had assigned the Episcopal Church eight Indian agencies: seven in Dakota Territory, and the Wind River Indian Agency in Wyoming. On October 2, 1884, Deacon Coolidge began assisting to Episcopalian priest John Roberts at the St. Michael's Mission and government school at Ethete, Wyoming for the Shoshones.[3][15]
Soon after he entered the priesthood in 1885, Rev. Coolidge traveled to the Wind River Reservation where Shoshones and Arapahos attempted to coexist on opposite ends of the reservation. Besides his primary role of priest and missionary, he was also a mediator, government clerk and a school teacher.[3] It was the start of a 26-year career in Wyoming[3] and Indiana,[16] in which Coolidge and Grace worked together. They had progressive ideas and worked hard to convert people to Christianity, which was off-putting to some.[3]
To survive
The Bureau of American Ethnology assigned James Mooney, an anthropologist, to study the nature of the Ghost Dance, which he did with Coolidge’s assistance as an interpreter or as a source of information.[11]
In February 1907, a group of Arapaho protested against the ban of their annual Sun Dance, a social and religious ritual, that had been banned by the Indian Bureau. The Arapaho were bitter towards the agency, as well as the presence of missionaries in their lives. John Robert was returning from a trip to Lander, Wyoming when a group of Arapaho began to pursue him near the border of the reservation. They intended to kill him. He made it back to safety in Lander and called in troops from Fort Washakie. Coolidge returned to the reservation immediately when he heard the news. He was away in Salt Lake City. His intention was to calm the situation.[3]
Oklahoma and Minnesota
He was transferred to the Episcopal mission at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation in Oklahoma. He was assigned to guide 200 people to give up "old-time customs" and convert them to Christianity. The family was very unhappy there and Coolidge was discouraged with the role of a missionary. He was assigned to minister to white and Dakota people at the Episcopal Church in Faribault, Minnesota in the spring of 1912.[3]
Colorado
In 1919, Coolidge moved to Colorado, where he served as Canon at the
Society of American Indians
Coolidge and Dr. Charles Eastman founded and led the Society of American Indians (1911-1923), the first national American Indian rights organization developed and run by American Indians. Of all the Society leaders, Coolidge's association with the Society was the longest.[19] The society pioneered twentieth-century Pan-Indianism, the philosophy and movement promoting unity among American Indians regardless of tribal affiliation.[20]
Believing in the strength of numbers, Coolidge believed that Native Americans must "stand solid and united", curb "clannish spirit",[21] and end intertribal rivalries. He said to a group of Native Americans, "I have heard friends of mine say I was educated because... the Arapaho... had a quicker intellect than the Sioux and the Chippewa who were educated in the same schools. I believe that there are many Chippewas, many Sioux, just as smart as I am!" The delegates from different tribes laughed at the barb aimed at intertribal rivalries.[20]
The Society was a forum for a new generation of American Indian leaders known as Red Progressives who shared the enthusiasm and faith of white reformers in the inevitability of progress through education and governmental action.[22] They included prominent people from a number of backgrounds, including clergy, activists, professionals, writers, entertainers, and speakers. Some were political allies and some were staunch critics.[23]
The Society met at academic institutions, maintained a Washington headquarters, conducted annual conferences, and published a quarterly journal of American Indian literature by American Indian authors. Among the first proponents of an "American Indian Day", it also fought for Native American citizenship as well as opening the
At the 1915 annual Congress of the American Indian Association, he issued a declaration calling for the second Saturday of May to be known as "American Indian Day".[18]
Committee of One Hundred
In 1923, Secretary of Interior Herbert W. Work hired Coolidge to serve on the Committee of One Hundred, which was formed to "investigate conditions on reservations and report on the challenges facing indigenous peoples in the United States". Reverend Coolidge met with President Calvin Coolidge in December of that year.[3]
In May 1923, Coolidge and other society leaders joined with reformer
In response, Secretary of the Interior
In December 1923, Rev. Coolidge and Ruth Muskrat-Bronson presented President
Marriage and family
Sherman met Grace D. Wetherbee, the daughter of an affluent New York City couple Mr. and Mrs. Gardner Wetherbee, on an Arapaho reservation in Wyoming in 1899. He was working as a missionary at the time.[30] Grace, who had studied in the deaconess house in New York City, came west with Bishop Talbot with family from Pennsylvania to assist him in his missionary work at the Wind River Reservation.[7] Coolidge made trips to New York and Grace came west again in 1901.[31] Grace left a comfortable lifestyle that her father, owner of the Hotel Manhattan, then the tallest hotel in the world, provided for her.[3]
The couple married on October 8, 1902[4][30] by Rev. F. J. Roberts at Fort Washakie, Wyoming.[31][d] Their union created a stir. Newspaper headlines, like "Society Girl's Heart and Hand Captured by an Indian", reflect the horror of a white woman marrying a Native American.[3]
The Coolidges adopted two Native American girls, one of Shoshone heritage and another who was an Arapaho, both of whom were born in Wyoming. The girls studied in Pennsylvania at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.[3] Effie was born about 1898 and Virgie two years later.[32] They also had Sarah, who was born in 1907 in Utah,[32] and Sophia born about 1913 in Minnesota.[33]
Grace Wetherbee Coolidge wrote extensively about her experiences working amongst the Indians.
Death and legacy
While visiting Los Angeles, he died on January 24, 1932, and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. His wife Grace died five years later and was also buried there. She left $7,000 to the Wind River mission.[3]
Coolidge was nominated as a candidate for Wyoming Citizen of the Century, among others who distinguished themselves in their life by their character, contributions, and accomplishments as Wyoming citizens during the twentieth century.[3] As an advocate for Native American interests, he helped "launch two of the basic types of secular Pan-Indian movements".[36]
Notes
- ^ Van Orsdale states in 1893 that it was a group of Native Americans from Missouri who attacked the camp.[4]
- ^ There are differing accounts that his mother knowingly gave her son to the Army so that he would be spared any further attacks... or whether Coolidge was separated from his mother during the commotion of the attacks, and then came to be cared for by the surgeon and officers.
- ^ Nez Perce, but eventually rose to the rank of Brigadier General by 1903. He died on June 1, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan (at age 81),[8] and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.[9] His wife, Sophie, died on January 26, 1934, in Washington, D.C.[10]
- ^ There were also reported to have been married at Cheyenne, Wyoming[30] and Shoshone Agency in Wyoming.[4]
References
- ^ a b c d "Canon Coolidge, Preacher, Arapahoe Indian, Is Dead". The Fresno Morning Republican. 1932-01-25. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ "History of National Native American Heritage Month — Honoring and Citizenship: Early Advocates". Natural Resources Conservation Service. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Lewandowski, Tadeusz (June 21, 2020). "Sherman Coolidge: Arapaho Priest in a Changing World". www.wyohistory.org. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ a b c d e f Van Orsdale, Capt. J. T. (May 1893). Rev. Sherman Coolidge, D.D. Vol. I. Colorado Publishing Company. pp. 85–86.
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ignored (help) - ^ "Coolidge, Sherman". Men and Women of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries. L.R. Hamersly. 1909. pp. 393–394.
- ^ Whipple 1899, p. 164.
- ^ a b Talbot 1906, p. 15.
- ^ "Nearly Half Century a Soldier". News and Advertiser. 1926-06-15. p. 7. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ^ The American Philatelist. American Philatelic Association. 1925. p. 698.
- ^ "Obituary for Mrs. Charles Austin Coolidge (Aged 85)". Detroit Free Press. 1934-01-29. p. 2. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ^ a b c Hertzberg 1981, p. 45.
- ^ a b Venables 2004, p. 275.
- ^ a b Whipple 1899, p. 163.
- ^ "Rev. Sherman Coolidge post-graduate studies at Hobart College". Hartford Courant. March 14, 1888. p. 7. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ Hovens, Pieter (2005). "Wooden Shoes: Saint Stephen's Arapaho Indian Mission and Its Dutch Jesuit Superiors". Annals of Wyoming. Wyoming State Historical Society. p. 59.
- ^ Dalby, John (1915). Sherman Coolidge. St. Paul, Minnesota: R.L. Polk and Company.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help) - ^ "Reverend Sherman Coolidge". www.cspm.org. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ a b "Celebrating Native American History Month in Colorado Springs". www.cspm.org. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ Hertzberg 1981, pp. 31, 45–46.
- ^ a b Venables 2004, p. 277.
- ^ Hertzberg 1981, p. 85.
- ^ Hertzberg 1981, p. 31.
- ISBN 978-0-19-932917-5. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ Hertzberg 1981, p. 102.
- ^ Hertzberg 1981, pp. 117–118.
- ^ Hertzberg 1981, p. 201.
- ^ a b Hertzberg 1981, p. 202.
- ^ a b Hertzberg 1981, p. 204.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-3798-8.
- ^ a b c "Arapahoe Wooes Pale Face Bride". The Daily Times. October 23, 1902. p. 2. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ a b "Marries Full-Blooded Sioux: Rev. Sherman Coolidge and Grace D. Wetherbee". The Pawnee Press. October 28, 1902. p. 3. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
- ^ a b "Sherman Coolidge (Coolidg)", Thirteenth Census of the United States, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1910
- ^ "Sherman Coolidge", Fifteenth Census of the United States, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1930
- ^ Anderson, Eunice G. (1920). First Biennial Report of the State Historian of the State of Wyoming. The Laramie Printing Company. p. 170.
- ^ Coolidge, Grace Wetherbee (1917). Teepee Neighbors. Boston: Four Seas Press.
- ^ Hertzberg 1981, p. 46.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-8156-2245-1.
- Talbot, Ethelbert (1906). My People of the Plains. Harper & brothers.
- Venables, Robert W. (2004). American Indian history : five centuries of conflict & coexistence. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clear Light Publishers. ISBN 978-1-57416-061-1.
- Whipple, Henry Benjamin (1899), Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate: Being Reminiscences and Recollections
Further reading
- Coolidge, Sherman (May 1893). The Indian of To-Day. Vol. I. Colorado Publishing Company. pp. 87–94.
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ignored (help)