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Shadows of Shasta
Shadows of Shasta is a classic American history text by Joaquin Miller that deals with the plight of Native Americans. Why this book? Because last year, in the heart of the Sierras, I saw Native American women and children chained together and marched down from their cool, healthy homes to degradation and death on the Reservation. At the side of this long, chained line, urged on and kept in order by bayonets, rode a young officer, splendid in gold and brass, and newly burnished, from that now famous charity-school on the Hudson. These women and children were guilty of no crime; they were not even accused of wrong. But their fathers and brothers lay dead in battle-harness, on the mountain heights and in the lava beds; and these few silent survivors, like Israel of old, were being led into captivity--but, unlike the chosen children, never to return to the beloved heart of their mountains. Do you doubt these statements about the treatment of the Native Americans? Then read this, from the man--the fiend in the form of man--who for years, and until recently, had charge of all the Indians in the United States
106 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 2005
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About the author
Joaquin Miller
328 books13 followersJoaquin Miller (Cincinnatus Heine, or Hiner, Miller) was the pen name of the colorful American poet, essayist and fabulist Cincinnatus Heiner Miller.
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May 3, 2022
Joaquin Miller was quite the character. This I suppose was a weird one for me to start with, never having read his other material and never having known anything about him other than that there's a statue dedicated to him in a local park.
The introduction intrigued me. He talks very directly about the inhumane treatment of the natives of the Mount Shasta area by the settlers, calls out against "man-hunting", calls a leader of such "a man- or fiend in the form of a man", and says, "It is impossible to write with composure or evenness on this subject. One wants to rise up and crush things."
But don't expect something attuned to your modern sensibilities. This was written in the 1800s after all. He says a few times that there is "nothing so beautiful" as an Indian who has become "civilized" to "the way of the white man" and devoted to Christianity. Of course now we talk about the horrors of coerced and forced cultural assimilation and functional extinction of their cultures; no one would dare praise that now. He also has the typical Woman Problem of male writers, knowing nothing at all to say about women other than about their beauty. Over and over and over again. But of course, I expected this. It's just an aside.
So after the intro, the book itself follows three Native folks living in the forests near a settler camp, avoiding capture by agents of the reservations. Miller describes the reservations as being disease ridden hell pits where the water is slime with worms, and the majority of the captives begin to wither and die in imprisonment shortly after they arrive. The three of them - Carrie, Stumps, and John Logan - promise to kill themselves rather than be taken to a reservation, just like Miller (in the intro) described first-hand accounts of, with veneration. They have white associates from the camps, with let's just say, lightly complicated relationships. The dialogue is plain and corny by today's standards. Miller clearly wanted to give a humanity to these people he saw being mistreated; his life as far as I've read has been one way and then another, but he did fancy himself as someone who hated to see humans chained and taken down like animals. It is the entire purpose and lesson of this short book.
I read it all in one night and fell asleep thinking about it. I live in the Mt Shasta area now, where there is hardly a sign of the people who lived here before settlers. In the local museum, we have one section of one room dedicated to native peoples, and twelve times that amount dedicated to the first settlers, the gold, and the railroads. Which forests that I explore for fun were once populated by native peoples, and then later protected a few scarce souls hiding from reservation agents just like Carrie, Stumps, John Logan, and John Logan's mother?
The introduction intrigued me. He talks very directly about the inhumane treatment of the natives of the Mount Shasta area by the settlers, calls out against "man-hunting", calls a leader of such "a man- or fiend in the form of a man", and says, "It is impossible to write with composure or evenness on this subject. One wants to rise up and crush things."
But don't expect something attuned to your modern sensibilities. This was written in the 1800s after all. He says a few times that there is "nothing so beautiful" as an Indian who has become "civilized" to "the way of the white man" and devoted to Christianity. Of course now we talk about the horrors of coerced and forced cultural assimilation and functional extinction of their cultures; no one would dare praise that now. He also has the typical Woman Problem of male writers, knowing nothing at all to say about women other than about their beauty. Over and over and over again. But of course, I expected this. It's just an aside.
So after the intro, the book itself follows three Native folks living in the forests near a settler camp, avoiding capture by agents of the reservations. Miller describes the reservations as being disease ridden hell pits where the water is slime with worms, and the majority of the captives begin to wither and die in imprisonment shortly after they arrive. The three of them - Carrie, Stumps, and John Logan - promise to kill themselves rather than be taken to a reservation, just like Miller (in the intro) described first-hand accounts of, with veneration. They have white associates from the camps, with let's just say, lightly complicated relationships. The dialogue is plain and corny by today's standards. Miller clearly wanted to give a humanity to these people he saw being mistreated; his life as far as I've read has been one way and then another, but he did fancy himself as someone who hated to see humans chained and taken down like animals. It is the entire purpose and lesson of this short book.
I read it all in one night and fell asleep thinking about it. I live in the Mt Shasta area now, where there is hardly a sign of the people who lived here before settlers. In the local museum, we have one section of one room dedicated to native peoples, and twelve times that amount dedicated to the first settlers, the gold, and the railroads. Which forests that I explore for fun were once populated by native peoples, and then later protected a few scarce souls hiding from reservation agents just like Carrie, Stumps, John Logan, and John Logan's mother?
Displaying 1 of 1 review