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Help
Indians
Help
Themselves

The Later Writings of

Gertrude Simmons
Bonnin (Zitkala- a )

Edited by P. Jane Hafen

Foreword by Margaret Noodin

Texas Tech University Press

Copyright 2020 by Texas Tech University Press

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages excerpted for review and critical purposes are excepted.

This book is typeset in EB Garamond. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

Designed by Hannah Gaskamp

Cover photograph: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin in native dress. Courtesy L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.

ISBN (cloth): 978-1-68283-048-2

ISBN (paper): 978-1-68283-045-1

ISBN (ebook) 978-1-68283-053-6

Printed in the United States of America

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Texas Tech University Press

Box 41037

Lubbock, Texas 79409-1037 USA

800.832.4042

ttup@ttu.edu

www.ttupress.org

For my father who survived boarding school and believed in the power of education

Contents

List of illustrations

Zitkala-a / Gertrude Bonnin wearing traditional Native American regalia / 5

Society of American Indians group / 26

Zitkala-a / Gertrude Bonnin / 54

Raymond Bonnin in military uniform / 61

Zitkala-a / Gertrude Bonnin on cover of Americanize the First American / 102

Circular charts: What we have and What we want / 108

Zitkala-a / Gertrude Bonnin: President of the National Council of American Indians / 178

National Council of American Indians membership card with seal / 187

National Council of American Indians membership card without seal / 187

Members of NCAI around statue of Sitting Bull / 193

Letterhead for NCAI with member names / 196

Letterhead for NCAI with typewritten letter / 198

Letterhead for NCAI with buffalo outline / 200

Stone with seal of South Dakota / 246

Foreword

I n 1918, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Zitkala-a, wrote: It is needful to thrash out the truth about Indian matters. Truth and justice are inseparable component parts of American ideals. As America has declared democracy abroad, so must we consistently practice it at home. A century has passed, and these words are no less true. Her eloquent declaration followed a conference of the Society of American Indians held in Pierre, South Dakota, near the end of World War I six years before Congress granted citizenship to Native Americans. While Zitkala-a may be most often anthologized and referenced for her autobiographical stories of boarding school years and the preservation of multi-tribal tales for children, the words we perhaps need to re-read the most are her urgent calls for universal justice and not the whims of individual greed.

Jane Hafen begins this collection with the story of Gertrude Bonnin at the end of her life, unsure how she would be remembered. If Gertrude had written only speeches, congressional statements, administrative treatises, and editorial essays, she might be known for her powerful rhetorical metaphors, knowledge of federal policy, defense of cultural pluralism, and critical social theories of equality. But she was also a woman with a story of survival and a love of music and the arts. She was an interdisciplinary humanist and radical activist at a time when this combination of traits was not easily recognized in a Yankton woman living among the Ute and working to organize national campaigns supporting the empowerment of American Indians. To have her social manifestos and legal opinions gathered in one place is an incredible gift to readers of indigenous legal and cultural history in the United States.

We find in these writings a voice of remarkable range. Gertrude Bonnin was capable of penning a prose poem for George Washington that slyly decolonizes the eagle motif and demands that the leaders of these United States perfect our relationships, man to man, nation to nation, with justice and mercy. She was also capable of authoring a stern critique of constitutional equality in the Petition of the National Council of American Indians that was submitted to the Senate of the United States of America to assert inter-tribal aspirations and demand that attention be paid to the mismanagement of Indian affairs. At a time when others were being put on trial for questioning the decisions of the federal government, Gertrude was carefully and consistently framing powerful arguments suggesting the need for the dissolution of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. The polite strength of her voice upheld international standards of civility and political savvy that offer an education in diplomacy and remain globally applicable.

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