SUSETTE LA FLESCHE
Name: Susette La Flesche
Born: 1854
Died: 26 May 1903
Susette La Flesche (1854-1903) was a member of a family of Native American
reformers of the Omaha tribe. She lobbied for Indian rights, encouraged
assimilation, and professionally advanced in a whiteman's world.
Susette La Flesche was the child of Joseph La Flesche, also known as Inshtamaza
or Iron Eye, the last chief of the Omaha tribe (1853-64). The son of a French
fur trader, who was also named Joseph La Flesche, and Waoowinchtcha, variously
mentioned as a member of the Osage, Omaha, or Ponca tribes, Iron Eye often
worked with his father, experiencing the white man's world. After a childhood
spent among the Sioux, he joined his father in St. Louis for a time, accompanied
him on trading ventures, learned French, and became a Christian. Iron Eye
concluded that the only feasible future for the American Indian was to adapt to
the white man's ways and to strive for peaceful coexistence.
Still, Iron Eye lived in two worlds; he continued to respect the traditions and
rituals of his own people and maintained a close relationship with several
tribes. His friendship with the Omaha chief Big Elk, who had no descendants, led
to the naming of Iron Eye as successor to head the dwindling tribe (as early as
1830 only 900 Omahas remained). In 1854, Iron Eye was one of several Indian
leaders who signed a treaty with the government relinquishing their traditional
hunting grounds and accepting the establishment of reservations. The Omaha gave
up their lands in eastern Nebraska, and moved onto a small reservation bordering
the Missouri River, north of their previous territory near the mouth of the
Platte River. According to the ethnologist, Alice C. Fletcher, tribal
traditionalists ridiculed the new reservation as the "make-believe white man's
village."
As was common among the Omahas, Iron Eye had several wives. Two of them, Mary
Gale or Hinnuaganun (One Woman) and Tainne or Elizabeth Esau, bore him children.
Mary's mother was an Ioway woman, Ni-co-mi; her father Dr. John Gale was a U.S.
army surgeon. Raised by Peter Sarpy, a white fur trader, Mary encouraged her
children to leave the reservation and live among whites. She and Joseph La
Flesche had five children, including Susette and Susan. Tainne, an Omaha woman,
also had five children, but only Francis permanently left the reservation.
In 1854, Susette La Flesche was born on the newly established reservation, the
second child of Joseph La Flesche and Mary. Named Inshtatheumba (Bright Eyes),
she was often called "Yosette." She entered the Omaha Presbyterian Mission
School at the age of eight; her eagerness to learn attracted the attention of
her teachers, and she was subsequently invited to attend a Presbyterian seminary
for women, The Elizabeth (New Jersey) Institute. Following her graduation in
1873, she returned home and applied for a position as a teacher in a government
school. Although the Indian Bureau had an announced policy of giving preference
to Native Americans in employment on the reservation, she had some difficulty in
obtaining her position.
The opportunity for her to become a spokesperson for Indian rights developed in
1877. The government, confusing the Poncas, members of the Southern Sioux tribes,
with the warlike Dakota Sioux, assigned the traditional Ponca territory to the
Dakotas, deporting the Poncas to Indian Territory (later the state of Oklahoma).
The Poncas sickened and died quickly there; as much as one-third of the tribe
may have been lost. The Omahas were also members of the Southern Sioux, and as
Iron Eye had many friends and relatives among them, he and Susette went to
Indian Territory to investigate the conditions there.
Desperate to rescue his people, in 1879 the Ponca Chief Standing Bear led a
forced march of the survivors north from Indian Territory toward Nebraska. When
the military arrested and imprisoned him, Thomas H. Tibbles, a journalist
employed by the Omaha Herald, publicized his cause. In the following trial, U.S.v.
Crook, the court ruled that "an Indian is a person," leading to Standing Bear's
release on a writ of habeas corpus, and, eventually, to the government paying
the Poncas an indemnity and allowing some of them to homestead in Nebraska.
Following his release, Standing Bear journeyed east to Washington, D.C., to try
to stop any future Indian removals. Tibbles and Susette and Francis La Flesche
accompanied him, the latter two in the role of interpreters. Dressed in
traditional Native American garb and presented as the personification of an
Indian princess, Susette made a vivid impression on eastern reformers; she spoke
of her people's plight to a wide range of groups, from the Quakers to New
England intellectuals, who formed the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee. She
visited the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who compared her to Minnehaha,
the heroine of his sentimental poem Hiawatha.
More important, Susette influenced more effective reformers, such as Helen Hunt
Jackson, author of A Century of Dishonor, a chronicle of federal government
betrayals of its Indian treaties, and Massachusetts senator Henry L. Dawes,
sponsor of the Dawes Severalty Act (1887), which broke up the reservations and
granted the land to individual Indians as homestead plots. Heads of households
received 160 acres, single individuals over the age of 18 were granted 80 acres,
and minors 40 acres. The act also gave the Native Americans citizenship rights.
In 1882, Susette married Thomas Tibbles, and the two began a series of lecture
tours that took them to England and Scotland, as well as the northeastern United
States. They testified before congressional committees three times. Susette
became an eloquent and persuasive speaker; she presented a paper to the
Association for the Advancement of Women on "The Position, Occupation, and
Culture of Indian Women," and she edited Standing Bear's Ploughed Under: The
Story of an Indian Chief.
In the early 1890s, the Tibbles lived in Washington, D.C., but shortly
thereafter returned to Nebraska, where Tibbles edited the Populist newspaper,
The Independent. Susette worked with him on the paper, but sustained an artistic
and literary career of her own. She illustrated the book Oo-mah-ha Ta-wa-tha (Omaha
City) written by Fannie Reed Giffin for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in
Omaha in 1898, and published stories in such magazines as St. Nicholas. In 1902,
Susette and Thomas Tibbles moved to her Omaha land allotment near Bancroft,
Nebraska, because of her poor health. She died there on May 26, 1903, at the age
of 49.
Name: Susette La Flesche
Born: 1854
Died: 26 May 1903
Susette La Flesche (1854-1903) was a member of a family of Native American
reformers of the Omaha tribe. She lobbied for Indian rights, encouraged
assimilation, and professionally advanced in a whiteman's world.
Susette La Flesche was the child of Joseph La Flesche, also known as Inshtamaza
or Iron Eye, the last chief of the Omaha tribe (1853-64). The son of a French
fur trader, who was also named Joseph La Flesche, and Waoowinchtcha, variously
mentioned as a member of the Osage, Omaha, or Ponca tribes, Iron Eye often
worked with his father, experiencing the white man's world. After a childhood
spent among the Sioux, he joined his father in St. Louis for a time, accompanied
him on trading ventures, learned French, and became a Christian. Iron Eye
concluded that the only feasible future for the American Indian was to adapt to
the white man's ways and to strive for peaceful coexistence.
Still, Iron Eye lived in two worlds; he continued to respect the traditions and
rituals of his own people and maintained a close relationship with several
tribes. His friendship with the Omaha chief Big Elk, who had no descendants, led
to the naming of Iron Eye as successor to head the dwindling tribe (as early as
1830 only 900 Omahas remained). In 1854, Iron Eye was one of several Indian
leaders who signed a treaty with the government relinquishing their traditional
hunting grounds and accepting the establishment of reservations. The Omaha gave
up their lands in eastern Nebraska, and moved onto a small reservation bordering
the Missouri River, north of their previous territory near the mouth of the
Platte River. According to the ethnologist, Alice C. Fletcher, tribal
traditionalists ridiculed the new reservation as the "make-believe white man's
village."
As was common among the Omahas, Iron Eye had several wives. Two of them, Mary
Gale or Hinnuaganun (One Woman) and Tainne or Elizabeth Esau, bore him children.
Mary's mother was an Ioway woman, Ni-co-mi; her father Dr. John Gale was a U.S.
army surgeon. Raised by Peter Sarpy, a white fur trader, Mary encouraged her
children to leave the reservation and live among whites. She and Joseph La
Flesche had five children, including Susette and Susan. Tainne, an Omaha woman,
also had five children, but only Francis permanently left the reservation.
In 1854, Susette La Flesche was born on the newly established reservation, the
second child of Joseph La Flesche and Mary. Named Inshtatheumba (Bright Eyes),
she was often called "Yosette." She entered the Omaha Presbyterian Mission
School at the age of eight; her eagerness to learn attracted the attention of
her teachers, and she was subsequently invited to attend a Presbyterian seminary
for women, The Elizabeth (New Jersey) Institute. Following her graduation in
1873, she returned home and applied for a position as a teacher in a government
school. Although the Indian Bureau had an announced policy of giving preference
to Native Americans in employment on the reservation, she had some difficulty in
obtaining her position.
The opportunity for her to become a spokesperson for Indian rights developed in
1877. The government, confusing the Poncas, members of the Southern Sioux tribes,
with the warlike Dakota Sioux, assigned the traditional Ponca territory to the
Dakotas, deporting the Poncas to Indian Territory (later the state of Oklahoma).
The Poncas sickened and died quickly there; as much as one-third of the tribe
may have been lost. The Omahas were also members of the Southern Sioux, and as
Iron Eye had many friends and relatives among them, he and Susette went to
Indian Territory to investigate the conditions there.
Desperate to rescue his people, in 1879 the Ponca Chief Standing Bear led a
forced march of the survivors north from Indian Territory toward Nebraska. When
the military arrested and imprisoned him, Thomas H. Tibbles, a journalist
employed by the Omaha Herald, publicized his cause. In the following trial, U.S.v.
Crook, the court ruled that "an Indian is a person," leading to Standing Bear's
release on a writ of habeas corpus, and, eventually, to the government paying
the Poncas an indemnity and allowing some of them to homestead in Nebraska.
Following his release, Standing Bear journeyed east to Washington, D.C., to try
to stop any future Indian removals. Tibbles and Susette and Francis La Flesche
accompanied him, the latter two in the role of interpreters. Dressed in
traditional Native American garb and presented as the personification of an
Indian princess, Susette made a vivid impression on eastern reformers; she spoke
of her people's plight to a wide range of groups, from the Quakers to New
England intellectuals, who formed the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee. She
visited the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who compared her to Minnehaha,
the heroine of his sentimental poem Hiawatha.
More important, Susette influenced more effective reformers, such as Helen Hunt
Jackson, author of A Century of Dishonor, a chronicle of federal government
betrayals of its Indian treaties, and Massachusetts senator Henry L. Dawes,
sponsor of the Dawes Severalty Act (1887), which broke up the reservations and
granted the land to individual Indians as homestead plots. Heads of households
received 160 acres, single individuals over the age of 18 were granted 80 acres,
and minors 40 acres. The act also gave the Native Americans citizenship rights.
In 1882, Susette married Thomas Tibbles, and the two began a series of lecture
tours that took them to England and Scotland, as well as the northeastern United
States. They testified before congressional committees three times. Susette
became an eloquent and persuasive speaker; she presented a paper to the
Association for the Advancement of Women on "The Position, Occupation, and
Culture of Indian Women," and she edited Standing Bear's Ploughed Under: The
Story of an Indian Chief.
In the early 1890s, the Tibbles lived in Washington, D.C., but shortly
thereafter returned to Nebraska, where Tibbles edited the Populist newspaper,
The Independent. Susette worked with him on the paper, but sustained an artistic
and literary career of her own. She illustrated the book Oo-mah-ha Ta-wa-tha (Omaha
City) written by Fannie Reed Giffin for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in
Omaha in 1898, and published stories in such magazines as St. Nicholas. In 1902,
Susette and Thomas Tibbles moved to her Omaha land allotment near Bancroft,
Nebraska, because of her poor health. She died there on May 26, 1903, at the age
of 49.