The Indian Congress occurred from August 4 to October 31, 1898 in Omaha, Nebraska, in conjunction with the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition. Occurring within a decade of the end of the Indian Wars, the Indian Congress was the largest gathering of American Indian tribes of its kind to that date. [1] Over 500 members of 35 different tribes attended, including the Apache medicine man Geronimo, who was being held at Fort Sill as a United States prisoner of war. [2]
Frank A. Rinehart's photographs of the Indian Congress participants are regarded as one of the best photographic documentations of American Indian leaders around the start of the 20th century. [3]
In a report on the Indian Congress published in the American Anthropologist in 1899, its chief ethnological consultant, James Mooney credited the realization of the project to "the grit and determination of the exposition managers, foremost among whom was Edward Rosewater, proprietor of the Omaha Bee. The successful outcome was due chiefly to his tireless activity and unfaltering courage. The ethnologic project was the child of his brain, and in spite of serious imperfections, the general result was such—particularly from the practical standpoint of the ticket seller—that we may expect to see ethnology a principal feature at future expositions so long as our aboriginal material holds out." [4] After steady lobbying by Rosewater, an extremely influential Republican and a friend of President William McKinley, and other members of the organizing committee of the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition, in December 1897 a bill was introduced in the United States Congress that provided an appropriation of $100,000 to carry out an Indian Congress at the same time as the Expo. After it passed in the Senate, preparations for the Spanish–American War monopolized the United States House of Representatives, preventing a vote on the bill. In July 1898, $40,000 was made available for the event in the Indian Appropriations Act by the President. That was a month after the rest of the Expo opened. [2] Funding was also made available by the Bureau of American Ethnology, a part of the Smithsonian Institution. [5]
In 1898 W. A. Jones, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, sent a letter to each Indian Agency to appeal for attendees. The purpose of the Indian Congress, as he stated, was:
It is the purpose of the promoters of the proposed encampment or congress to make an extensive exhibit illustrative of the mode of life, native industries, and ethnic traits of as many of the aboriginal American tribes as possible. To that end it is pro posed to bring together selected families or groups from all the principal tribes and camp them in tepees, wigwams, hogans etc., on the exposition grounds, and permit them to conduct their domestic affairs as they do at home, and make and sell their wares for their own profit. [6]
The entire Indian Congress was managed by ethnologist James Mooney and Army Captain William Mercer of the 8th U. S. Infantry, under the direction of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs acting on behalf of Cornelius Newton Bliss, the United States Secretary of the Interior. [5] The original intention of the organizing committee was to illustrate the daily life, industry and traits of as many tribes as possible. However, once the congress was open authorities realized that the average person attending the Exposition wanted to see dances, games, races, ceremonials and sham battles. Soon the main activities of the Indian Congress were re-enactments and the Ghost Dance. [7]
According to Captain Mercer's report, the weather "has been trying in the extreme ... Most of the time we have had extreme heat accompanied by dry, hot winds, which rendered camp life anything but pleasant, the conditions being rendered somewhat worse by our location. Following close upon the heated period we have just had a week of cold, heavy rains which made the camp and life in it more disagreeable even than it was during the hot spell." [2]
Ethnologist Mooney sought for the Congress to display customs of the various tribes. Instead, promoters erected a 5,000 seat grandstand, and arranged the tribes in re-enactments of battles. [4] There were also concerns regarding the Indian Congress hosting a Ghost Dance, particularly after the U.S. Army attacked dancers during the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. However, the Ghost Dance was encouraged by the managers of the Exposition. A local newspaper reported the Ghost Dance became a popular attraction. The Ghost Dance shirt of Big Foot was displayed in another part of the Expo. [7]
Mooney contracted with Frank A. Rinehart and Adolph Muhr to take photographs of the attendees. Rinehart made several hundred pictures, regarded as one of the most complete, non-exotifying collections of Native American portraits in existence. [3] Rinehart and Muhr took their photographs in a studio on Expo grounds. [8]
Speaking of his photos of the Indian Congress, Merry Foresta, director of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative at the Smithsonian Institution said, "Rinehart's portraits are really quite extraordinary and put him above the average workaday photographer who might have also made photographs for similar reasons. There were other people working, but he seems to have really, because of the quality of his work, stood apart." [9]
35 individual tribes were represented by more than 500 Indians. The tribes in attendance included the Apache, Arapaho, Assiniboines, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Crow, Flathead, Fox, Iowa, Kiowa, Omaha, Otoe, Ponca, Pottawatomie, Sauk and Fox, Lakota, Southern Arapaho, Tonkawa, Wichita, and the Winnebago, as well as the Santa Clara Pueblo. [4]
Mooney's above-quoted observation that ethnology would be "a principal feature at future expositions" proved prophetic, for Indian Congresses were also convened at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.
Photos taken by Frank Rinehart and Adolph Muhr at the Indian Congress in Omaha.
Chiricahua is a band of Apache Native Americans.
James Mooney was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the Great Plains. He did ethnographic studies of the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement among various Native American culture groups, after Sitting Bull's death in 1890. His works on the Cherokee include The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (1891), and Myths of the Cherokee (1900). All were published by the US Bureau of American Ethnology, within the Smithsonian Institution.
Geronimo was a leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people. From 1850 to 1886, Geronimo joined with members of three other Central Apache bands – the Tchihende, the Tsokanende and the Nednhi – to carry out numerous raids, as well as fight against Mexican and U.S. military campaigns in the northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and Sonora and in the southwestern American territories of New Mexico and Arizona.
Cochise was leader of the Chiricahui local group of the Chokonen and principal nantan of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache. A key war leader during the Apache Wars, he led an uprising that began in 1861 and persisted until a peace treaty was negotiated in 1872. Cochise County is named after him.
The Apache are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe, Salinero, Plains and Western Apache. Distant cousins of the Apache are the Navajo, with whom they share the Southern Athabaskan languages. There are Apache communities in Oklahoma and Texas, and reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. Apache people have moved throughout the United States and elsewhere, including urban centers. The Apache Nations are politically autonomous, speak several different languages, and have distinct cultures.
The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition was a world's fair held in Omaha, Nebraska from June 1 to November 1 of 1898. Its goal was to showcase the development of the entire West, stretching from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. The Indian Congress was held concurrently. Over 2.6 million people came to Omaha to view the 4,062 exhibits during the five months of the Exposition. President William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan were among the dignitaries who attended at the invitation of Gurdon Wattles, the event's leader. 100,000 people assembled on the plaza to hear them speak. The Expo stretched over a 180-acre (0.73 km2) tract in North Omaha and featured a 2,000 feet (610 m)-long lagoon encircled by 21 classical buildings that featured fine and modern products from around the world.
The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache tribal confederations fought in the southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued until as late as 1924. After the Mexican–American War in 1846, the United States inherited conflicted territory from Mexico which was the home of both settlers and Apache tribes. Conflicts continued as new United States citizens came into traditional Apache lands to raise livestock and crops and to mine minerals.
Morris Edward Opler, American anthropologist and advocate of Japanese American civil rights, was born in Buffalo, New York. He was the brother of Marvin Opler, an anthropologist and social psychiatrist.
Major General Hugh Lenox Scott was a United States Army officer. A West Point graduate of 1876, he served as superintendent of West Point from 1906 to 1910 and as chief of staff of the United States Army from 1914 to 1917, which included the first few months of American involvement in World War I.
Alice Cunningham Fletcher was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and social scientist who studied and documented American Indian culture.
Allan Capron Houser or Haozous was a Chiricahua Apache sculptor, painter and book illustrator born in Oklahoma. He was one of the most renowned Native American painters and Modernist sculptors of the 20th century.
Frank Albert Rinehart was an American photographer who captured Native American personalities and scenes, especially portrait settings of leaders and members of the delegations who attended the 1898 Indian Congress in Omaha.
Chief Naiche was the final hereditary chief of the Chiricahua band of Apache Indians.
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Edward Rosewater, born Edward Rosenwasser, was a Republican Party politician and newspaper editor in Omaha, Nebraska. Rosewater had a reputation for being "aggressive and controversial", and was influential in the Nebraska state Republican Party.
Kas-tziden or Haškɛnadɨltla, more widely known by his Mexican-Spanish appellation Nana, was a warrior and chief of the Chihenne band of the Chiricahua Apache. A trusted lieutenant to Cuchillo Negro and Mangas Coloradas, in the 1850s and 1860s he was one of the best known leaders of the Chihenne (Tchiende), along with Tudeevia, Ponce and Loco. He was a nephew of Delgadito, and married a sister of Geronimo.
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