The Immortal Irishman: Thomas Meager and the Invention of Irish America

by Tim Egan

The Blackfeet, so named because of the dark markings on the bottom of their moccasins, called themselves Niitsitapi—the Original People. Their words had skipped along this river and their chants had disappeared into night skies long before anyone introduced a god on a cross or a gun that could fire a twelve-pound ball. When they had this part of the high, rumpled northern Rockies to themselves, they chased bison herds over drop-offs or cornered them in cul-de-sacs where the short grass ran into basalt walls. And when the bison herds thinned, and then didn’t appear at all, the Original People went hungry and became desperate and started to kill the new people. During a dark, cold spell known as the Starvation Winter, Blackfeet died in great numbers. At their weakest point, they were told to give up their language, their religion and their land. It was a federal crime, subject to jail or fine, to worship in the old way, an affront to speak the tongue of their grandparents. What had they done to deserve this? They had refused to stop being Niitsitapi.

“We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop progress,” Sherman wrote to the War Department. Still, a grudge was a grudge—envenomed martinet—and the general refused Meagher’s request. Nor would he grant him the respect of his title; he addressed him as “secretary,” though Meagher had been the sole governor of the territory for half a year.

He reiterated his position on public schools: they should not teach religion.

when Dimsdale, the British-born editor of the Montana Post, attacked Meagher for this stance, the governor fired him from his position as school superintendent. Later that year, the first public school in Montana opened in Virginia City—without the king of England’s Bible.

“It is the soulless American who has no heart, who has no thought beyond putting a mighty dollar out at mighty interest, who has no zest for any other book than his soulless ledger.”