The Legendary Mr.

1
The Legendary Mr. Mrs. Eastman

• EDCI658
• Fall 2006

2
Charles Eastman (Hakadah) (1858-1939)

• Hakadah means pitiful last
• Born in Minnesota to a Santee Sioux family
• Mother died after giving birth to him
• His grandmother on fathers side provided
  important education to him
• His father and brother were imprisoned after a
  massacre in Minnesota and the whole family fled
  to British Columbia
• Hakadahs uncle became his advisor and teacher

3
Charles Eastman (Hakadah) (1858-1939)

• At the age of 15, Hakadah rejoined his father,
  who had been converted by pioneer missionaries
• His father took him to South Dakota where Hakadah
  had to wear civilized clothes, learn about
  Bible, and began his formal education
• Hakadah attended Santee Normal School where he
  adopted the name Charles
• Went to Beloit preparatory college in Wisconsin
• Moved to Knox College
• Transferred to Dartmouth College

4
Charles Eastman (Hakadah) (1858-1939)

• Enrolled in the Boston University School of
  Medicine and earned his M. D. in 1890
• His first job as a physician is with Pine Ridge,
  South Dakota Indian agency where he met and
  married Elaine Goodale

5
Elaine Goodale (1863-1953)

• Born on a farm in New England
• She read Shakespeare, Dickens, Hawthorne,
  Longfellow
• She and sister Dora published their first book of
  poetry, Apple Blossoms Verses of Two Children
  ,when she as only 15
• When she was 20, General Samuel Chapman
  Armstrong, founder of Hampton Institute, offered
  her a position as a teacher for 100 Sioux Indians
• In 1886, she moved to Dakota to work as a teacher
  at an Indian Day School on a Sioux reservation

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Elaine Goodale (1863-1953)

• She was appointed Supervisor of Indian Education
  for the Two Dakotas
• She worked against the system that removed Native
  American children from their families and sent
  them to distant boarding schools
• She was torn between her feelings of superiority
  of her own Anglo culture and the fear that the
  Indian children would lost their own culture and
  identity if they were Christianized or westernized

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The Couple

• They fell in love in six weeks and got engaged
• Experienced the Wounded Knee Massacre
• Elaine served as a nurse, and Charles as a doctor
• Within six months they got married in New York in
  a highly publicized wedding
• Elaine spoke her marriage as my gift of myself
  to a Sioux
• Charles lost his job because he had treated the
  survivors of the Wounded Knee
• They moved to St. Paul where Charles practiced
  medicine but endured harsh racism

8
The Couple

• Charles worked with YMCA to set up units for
  Indians
• He lost his job again because of his trouble with
  the governments Bureau of Indian Affairs
• They had six children
• Elaine encouraged Charles to write about his
  Indian childhood when the couple was experiencing
  poverty
• Indian Boyhood (1902)
• Wigwam Evenings (1909, coauthored with Elaine)
• The Soul of the Indian (1911)

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The Couple

• Sought to reconcile the opposing values and
  beliefs of white society and Sioux culture
• Charles served as lobbyist for the restoration of
  Santee Sioux treaty rights and make a lot of
  public presentations on Indian rights
• They moved from South Dakota to Minnesota and
  finally to Massachusetts
• Charles became active in the Boy Scout movement
• They established a girls summer camp and run it
  for about nine years
• Charles served as an advisor on Indian policy
  during the Coolidge administration

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Their Importance in Education

• Charles Eastman gives us a firsthand account of
  the Native American method of informal education
• Charles Eastman sought to preserve Indian culture
  he grew up to his own children who lived in white
  culture
• Elaine had considerable influence on the U. S.
  governments policies toward the education of
  Native American children her voice was more
  heard partly because she was herself a white woman

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Native American Philosophy of Education

• Indian children were taught how things behave so
  that they could analyze other similar behavior
• Childs relationship with natural world was
  fostered by his parents and elders with
  increasing sophistication
• Knowledge and understanding were not obtained y
  intuition but by training
• Education emphasized more on imitation and direct
  application
• Religion was the center of education
• Emphasized discipline, morals, manners, and
  generosity

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Sample Writings of Elaine

• Ashes of Roses
• Soft on the sunset skyBright daylight
  closes,Leaving when light doth die,Pale hues
  that mingling lie -Ashes of roses.
• When love's warm sun is set,Love's brightness
  closesEyes with hot tears are wet,In hearts
  there linger yetAshes of roses.

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Sample Writings of Charles

• Very early, the Indian boy assumed the task of
  preserving and transmitting the legends of his
  ancestors and his race. Almost every evening a
  myth, or a true story of some deed done in the
  past was narrated by one of the parents or
  grandparents while the boy listened with parted
  lips and glistening eyes. On the following
  evening, he was required to repeat it. The
  household became his audience by which he was
  alternatively criticized and applauded. This sort
  of teaching at once enlightens the boys mind and
  stimulates his ambition

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Sample Writings of Charles

• His conception of his future careers comes as a
  vivid and irresistible force. Whatever there is
  for him to learn must be learned whatever
  qualifications are necessary to a truly great man
  he must seek at any expense of danger and
  hardship. Such was the feeling of the imaginative
  and brave young Indian. It became apparent to him
  early in life that he must accustom himself to
  rove alone and not to fear or dislike the
  impression of solitude
• An Indian Boys Training

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Resources on Charles Eastman

• http//www.worldwisdom.com/Public/SlideShows/Slide
  Show.asp?SlideShowID3
• http//www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A29
• http//guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/
  eastman.htm
• http//www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/if_you_knew/if_y
  ou_knew_11.html
• http//www.indians.org/welker/ohiyesa.htm
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Eastman
• http//www.indigenouspeople.net/ohiyesa.htm

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Resources on Elaine Goodale Eastman

• http//unp.unl.edu/bookinfo/4795.html
• http//www.gp-chautauqua.org/html/alexander_on_eas
  tman.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Goodale
• http//links.jstor.org/sici?sici0043-3810(197904)
  103A23C2263ASTTSTM3E2.0.CO3B2-O
• http//links.jstor.org/sici?sici0732-7730(199423)
  133A23C2713ACAE(AE3E2.0.CO3B2-O
• http//www.giga-usa.com/gigaweb1/quotes2/quautgood
  aleelainex001.htm

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Other Resources

• http//www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded.htm
• http//www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/knee.htm
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre
  
• http//www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedk
  nee/WKIntro.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America
  
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_University
• http//oeop.larc.nasa.gov/nap/tribes.html
• http//www.americanindians.com/
• http//www.americanwest.com/pages/indrank.htm