The Autobiographies & Biographies of the Most Influential Native Americans. Charles A. Eastman
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streets. Here, too, the people hurried along as if the gray wolf were on their trail. Their ways impressed me as cold, but I forgot that when I had learned to know some of them better.
I went on to Dartmouth College, away up among the granite hills. The country around it is rugged and wild; and thinking of the time when red men lived here in plenty and freedom, it seemed as if I had been destined to come view their graves and bones. No, I said to myself, I have come to continue that which in their last struggle they proposed to take up, in order to save themselves from extinction; but alas! it was too late. Had our New England tribes but followed the example of that great Indian, Samson Occum, and kept up with the development of Dartmouth College, they would have brought forth leaders and men of culture. This was my ambition — that the Sioux should accept civilization before it was too late! I wished that our young men might at once take up the white man's way, and prepare themselves to hold office and wield influence in their native states. Although this hope has not been fully realized, I have the satisfaction of knowing that not a few Indians now hold positions of trust and exercise some political power.
At Dartmouth College I found the buildings much older and more imposing than any I had seen before. There was a true scholastic air about them; in fact, the whole village impressed me as touched with the spirit of learning and refinement. My understanding of English was now so much enlarged as to enable me to grasp current events, as well as the principles of civilization, in a more intelligent manner.
At Kimball Union Academy, the little ancient institution at which I completed my preparation for college by direction of President Bartlett of Dartmouth, I absorbed much knowledge of the New Englander and his peculiarities. I found Yankees of the uneducated class very Indian-like in their views and habits; a people of strong character, plain-spoken, and opinionated. However, I observed that the students of the academy and their parents were very frugal and saving. Nothing could have been more instructive to me, as we Indians are inclined to be improvident. I had been accustomed to broad, fertile prairies, and liberal ways. Here they seemed to comit their barrels of potatoes and apples before they were grown. Every little brooklet was forced to do a river's work in their mills and factories.
I was graduated here and went to old Dartmouth in the fall of 1883 to enter the Freshman class. Although I had associated with college students for several years, yet I must confess that western college life is quiet compared with that of the tumultuous East. It was here that I had most of my savage gentleness and native refinement knocked out of me. I do not complain, for I know that I gained more than their equivalent.
On the evening of our first class meeting, lo! I was appointed football captain for my class. My supporters orated quite effectively on my qualifications as a frontier warrior, and some went so far as to predict that I would, when warmed up, scare all the Sophs off the premises! These representations seemed to be confirmed when, that same evening after supper, the two classes met in a first ''rush," and as I was not acquainted with the men, I held up the professor of philosophy, mistaking him for one of the sophomores. Reporters for the Boston dailies made the most of their opportunity to enlarge upon this incident.
I was a sort of prodigal son of old Dartmouth, and nothing could have exceeded the heartiness of my welcome. The New England Indians, for whom it was founded, had departed well-nigh a century earlier, and now a warlike Sioux, like a wild fox, had found his way into this splendid seat of learning! Though poor, I was really better off than many of the students, since the old college took care of me under its ancient charter. I was treated with the greatest kindness by the president and faculty, and often encouraged to ask questions and express my own ideas. My uncle's observations in natural history, for which he had a positive genius, the Indian standpoint in sociology and political economy, these were the subject of some protracted discussions in the class room. This became so well understood, that some of my classmates who had failed to prepare their recitations would induce me to take up the time by advancing a native theory or first hand observation.
For the first time, I became really interested in literature and history. Here it was that civilization began to loom up before me colossal in its greatness, when the fact dawned upon me that nations and tongues, as well as individuals, have lived and died. There were two men of the past who were much in my thoughts: my countryman Occum, who matriculated there a century before me, and the great Daniel Webster (said to have a strain of Indian blood), who came to Dartmouth as impecunious as I was. It was under the Old Pine Tree that the Indians were supposed to have met for the last time to smoke the pipe of peace, and under its shadow every graduating class of my day smoked a parting pipe.
I was anxious to help myself as much as possible and gain practical experience at the same time, by working during the long summer vacations. One summer I worked in a hotel, at another time I canvassed for a book, I think it was the "Knights of Labor," published in Boston. Such success as I attained was due less to any business sagacity than to a certain curiosity I seemed to excite, and which often resulted in the purchase of the book, whether the subscriber really cared for it or not. Another summer, an old school friend, an Armenian, conceived the scheme of dressing me in native costume and sending me out to sell his goods. When I wore a jacket and fez, and was well scented with attar of rose, no dog would permit me on his master's premises if he could help it; nevertheless I did very well. For business purposes I was a Turk, but I never answered any direct questions on the subject of my nativity.
Throughout my student days in the West, I had learned to reverence New England, and especially its metropolis, as the home of culture and art, of morality and Christianity. At that period that sort of thing got a lodging place in my savage mind more readily than the idea of wealth or material power. Somehow I had supposed that Boston must be the home of the nation's elect and not far from the millenium. I was very happy when, after my graduation with the class of 1887, it was made possible for me to study medicine at Boston University. The friends who generously assisted me to realize my great ambition were of the type I had dreamed of, and my home influences in their family all that I could have wished for. A high ideal of duty was placed before me, and I was doubly armed in my original purpose to make my education of service to my race. I continued to study the Christ philosophy and loved it for its essential truths, though doctrines and dogmas often puzzled and repelled me. I attended the Shawmut Congregational church, of which the Rev. William Eliot Griffis was then pastor, and I am happy to say he became my life-long friend.
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wood, who were a father and mother to me at this period of my life, were very considerate of my health and gave me opportunity to enter into many outdoor sports, such as tennis and canoeing beside regular gymnasium work. The unique features of old Boston, the park system with the public flower gardens and the Arboretum, the reservoirs, and above all, the harbor with its vast assemblage of vessels, each of these was a school in itself. I did much general reading, and did not neglect my social opportunities. At Dartmouth I had met the English man of letters, Matthew Arnold, and he was kind enough to talk with me for some time. I have also talked with Emerson, Longfellow, Francis Parkman, and many other men of note. Mr. and Mrs. Wood were trustees of Wellesley College and I was so fortunate as to be an occasional visitor there, and to make the acquaintance of Miss Freeman, its first president. I believe the first lecture I ever delivered in public was before the Wellesley girls. I little dreamed that a daughter of mine would ever be among them! At another time I was asked by Mrs. Hemenway to give one of a course of eight historical lectures to the high school boys and girls. My subject was the French and Indian wars, especially the conspiracy of Pontiac. I had studied this period minutely and spoke for an hour and a quarter without any manuscript. At the seaside hotels, I met society people
Mrs. Frank Wood, of Boston. Eastman's " White Mother." of an entirely different sort to those I had hitherto taken as American types. I was, I admit, particularly struck with the audacity and forwardness of the women. Among our people the man always leads. I was astonished to learn that some women whom I had observed to accept the most marked attentions from the men were married ladies. Perhaps my earlier training had been too Puritanical, or my aesthetic sense was not then fully developed, for I was surprised when I entered the ballroom to see the pretty women clad so scantily.
One summer at Nantasket beach, I recall that I had somehow been noted by an enterprising representative of a Boston daily, who printed a column or so on my doings, which were innocent enough. He good-naturedly