"Doing Justice to the West"

READING:

from A Century of Our Dishonor

 

Born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, Helen Hunt Jackson migrated to the west late in life, when her husband and two children died under tragic circumstances. She remarried and lived in Colorado Springs, but her life never again revolved around home and family. Instead she became aware of the unconscionable treatment of the Native Americans by the United States Government. She devoted the rest of her life to educating the public and supporting the Indian reform movement.

 

Her book, A Century of Dishonor, was never as widely read as her popular novel, "Ramona." Perhaps its directness was too much for its intended readership. Jackson sent a copy of this book to every member of Congress the year before it was published, 1880. She writes,

 

"The history of the United States Government's repeated violations of faith with the Indians thus convicts us, as a nation, not only of having outraged the principles of justice, which are the basis of international law; and of having laid ourselves open to the accusation of both cruelty and perfidy; but of having made ourselves liable to all punishments which follow such sins - to arbitrary punishment at the hands of any civilized nation who might see fit to call us to account, and to that more certain natural punishment which, sooner or later, as surely comes from evil doing as harvests come from sown seed.

 

There is but one hope of righting this wrong. It lies to appeal to the heart and the conscience of the American people. What the people demand, Congress will do. It has been - to our shame be it spoken - at the demand of part of the people that all these wrongs have been committed, these treaties broken, these robberies done, by the Government.

 

So long as there remains on our frontier one square mile of land occupied by a weak and helpless owner, there will be a strong and unscrupulous frontiersman ready to seize it, and a weak and unscrupulous politician, who can be hired for a vote or for money, to back him.

 

The only thing that can stay this is a mighty outspoken sentiment and purpose of the great body of the people. Right sentiment and right purpose in a Senator here and there, and a Representative here and there, are little more than straws which make momentary eddies, but do not obstruct the tide. The precedents of a century's unhindered and profitable robbery have mounted up into a very Gibraltar of defense and shelter to those who care for nothing but safety and gain.

 

What an opportunity for the Congress of 1880 to cover itself with a luster of glory, as the first to cut short our nation's record of cruelties and perjuries! the first to attempt to redeem the name of the United States from the stain of a century of dishonor!

 

 

SERMON:

 

There are few hints from her history

        how Helen Hunt Jackson would spend the last few years of her life.

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, 

        the child of a college professor,

                Jackson had more in common 

                        with her lifelong friend, Emily Dickinson,

                                than the frontier people of the West.

She wrote poetry too.

And she had a following.

Ralph Waldo Emerson called her 

        the "greatest American woman poet"

                and carried one of her poems in his pocket.

 

Jackson was witty, fashionable, generous and charming

        and adapted well to the twists and turns of her life.

After her husband and two children died,

        Jackson, always an adventurous traveler,

                decided to try Colorado Springs 

                        as an alternative to Newport one year.

There she met a wealthy Colorado Springs banker.

They married, and she shifted her attention

        and her writing to the subject of the Southwest.

 

The conventional Victorian ideal of a woman

        as a creature of domesticity and maternity

                never applied to Jackson.

She earned an income as a writer.

She moved about in the world on her own.

Though she was nominally a Unitarian, 

        she earned the disapproval of her Colorado Springs neighbors

                because she refused to go to church at all.

And everyone seemed to know 

        that she would not sleep in a bed

                unless the head was turned towards the North.

 

Although she had never been a social activist,

        that all changed on one of her frequent visits back east to Boston.

There she "happened to attend a presentation by Standing Bear,

        a sixty-one year old chief,

                … and other Indians on tour with the tragic story of the Ponca tribe

                        and its frustrating attempts to avoid deportation

                                from its original territories in Nebraska

                                        to a reservation in Oklahoma.

[It] was an emotional program,

        full of wrenching speeches identifying outrageous injustice

                and overt racism,

                        and [Jackson] was deeply moved."

She became," wrote Michael Dorris,

        "a woman fueled with a consuming indignation 

                that affected and directed the work she would do

                        for the rest of her life."

 

The work she did was powerful in its impact.

And her life offers a powerful example

        of how the truth can shape our lives

                and of the good we do

                        when we tell it.

Jackson's concern for the Indians became her vocation,

        possibly even her obsession.

She traveled throughout the West,

        investigating the conditions of various tribes.

She reported on the appalling injustices they suffered.

She was particularly concerned

        with the Mission Indians of California,

                peaceful tribes, ravaged by disease,

                        who eventually became homeless.

 

She loved California, however.

Like Thomas Starr King,

        her favorite place was Yosemite,

                and unlike King,

                        she survived her bout with diphtheria.

Echoing familiar themes from others who have come here, 

        Jackson exclaimed,

                "My trip to California seemed to have absolutely made me over

                        in all ways.

                                If you ever get run down go there;

                                        the air of the Sierras is enough to revive the dead!"

Not a bad attempt at a Unitarian theology,

        California-style.

 

But Jackson was dead serious about the Indian question.

After publishing A Century of Dishonor,

        she became a professional advocate for Indian reform.

She frequently left her husband behind

        while she fulfilled her duties an agent 

                for the Indian Office in California.

The issue was land.

Jackson's position was that the Indian reservations

        should be located, whenever possible,

                on land the Indians already occupied.

She had seen the devastation of dislocation.

She had heard of the trails of tears 

        as Indians were marched from their homes

                to one dismal outpost or another.

And she laid the responsibility for this tragedy

        at the doorstep of the U.S. Congress.

 

Jackson, of course, was not alone among American citizens

        who were concerned about the plight of Native Americans.

The church women of her era

        were also advocates for the cause.

Paradoxically, the Victorian idea of the domesticated woman

        gave women an arena all to themselves – in the church.

There they were the powerhouses of social reform.

 

Their vision of advocacy for the Indians included 

        the conversion of these native people to the Christian faith,

                and the Women’s National Indian Association, 

                        which Jackson supported,

                                devoted themselves to missionary and educational work.

Though they may have overlooked the Indians' right

        to their native religion as well as their land,

                without the Christian women's advocacy 

                        the native people would have ended up with even less land

                                than they finally did.

Fired up by Jackson's fiery polemic, A Century of Dishonor,

        reformers understood the Indian tribes as victims –

                and not as aggressors, as they were usually depicted.

The book resulted in Jackson’s appointment as a commissioner of Indian Affairs.

With her co-commissioner Abbot Kinney,

        she traveled all over California, 

                gathering even more investigative material

                        to report to the world.

 

But Jackson was not satisfied with the impact of her work.

"A Century of Dishonor" had told the story one way –

        through a systematic review of the status of Indian tribes

                throughout the United States.

But readership was limited.

Though every member of Congress received a copy,

        it's doubtful many read it.

 

So Jackson decided another approach.

She traveled to New York,

        set herself up in a hotel room,

                and wrote the book for which she is best remembered:

                        the novel Ramona.

If you have ever seen one of the film versions of this story,

        or made the pilgrimage out to the desert town of Hemet 

                for the annual pageant,

                        you know that Ramona is the romantic tale of the ill-fated love 

                                between an Indian sheep-herder, Alessandro,

                                        and the privileged half-Indian beauty, Ramona.

The social commentary in the story is so subtle 

        that many readers embraced it 

                simply as the greatest romance novel of its time.

They failed to grasp 

        that Jackson intended it as a consciousness-raising polemic,

                and hoped it would change the world.

Instead they read the tale of these two lovers,

        thrust into the displacement

                of the Indian tribes,

                        wandering, hiding, and suffering a tragic fate –

                                without questioning the justice of their displacement

                                        or the cruelty of life on the trail.

 

Still, the novel accomplished some of what Jackson set out to do.

According to writer Michael Dorris,

        it "neutralized some historic aspects 

                of American hostility towards Indians,

                        though it failed to reflect the complicated aspirations

                                of particular tribes for sovereignty,

                                        self-government,

                                                and treaty accords."

Dorris admiringly affirms that "the impact and continued viability

        of ["Ramona"] make it clear

                that a single person...can change the lives of millions,

                        and the defiant spirit that produced Ramona

                                is the answer to complacency,

                                        to defeat,

                                                to injustice."

 

Still, Jackson would have been saddened 

        by the commercialization of Ramona.

David and I attended "California’s Official Pageant" 

        a couple of years ago.

We saw how the little museum shop next to the amphitheater

        features memorabilia about the stars of earlier pageants –

                especially Raquel Welch,

                        and little about the injustices that stirred Jackson to write.

But there's still much to love about this homegrown pageant –

        especially if you understand its origins.

 

Helen Hunt Jackson died the year after Ramona was published.

She reflected in that time

        on the effectiveness of her life work

                and the legacy of her search for truth.

All she wanted was to awaken the minds and hearts 

        of the American people,

                to stir them to correct injustice.

As she told a friend, 

        with A Century of Dishonor

                she "had tried to attack the people’s conscience directly,"

                        and with Ramona,

                                she "had sugared [the] pill,

                                        and it remains to be seen if it will go down."

 

This seems to be the choice the teller of truth must face:

        present it one way and risk losing your audience –

                through boredom, anger or disbelief;

                        present it another way,

                                and risk sugar-coating the message

                                        until it is taken for what it is not.

Some of us can be stymied by such choices,

        but Jackson wasn't; 

                she set about telling her story

                        any way she could.

Her "defiant spirit" wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

At the end of her life, Jackson commented that her two books

        were "the only things I have done

                of which I am glad...

They will live...and bear fruit."

True, the reforms had not come fast enough,

        but she had never compromised the urgency she felt

                to tell the world what she knew.

 

In our tradition, 

        our principle of the "free and responsible search for truth and meaning"

                has led more than one of us

                        to consider what to tell the world 

                                about what we see and understand.

Perhaps one lesson that Jackson's life can teach us today

        is that it doesn't matter how you do it,

                so long as you keep trying.

She knew she could not control her legacy,

        and what happened with Ramona would not have been her choice.

But having done her best,

        she let it go.

 

Five days before she died, Jackson wrote a poem about death.

Unafraid and free of regret,

        she wrote,

                "Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;

                        I shall be free when thou art through.

                                Take all there is – take hand and heart;

                                        There must be somewhere work to do."

If you give all you have,

        you are ready when death comes 

                and takes "all there is."

 

When the spirit inside compels us to tell the story of the world

        as we see it;

                when the truth will not remain mute;

                        there is work to do.

Helen Hunt Jackson did her work.

Upon her death, her lifelong friend Emily Dickinson wrote,

        "Helen of Troy will die,

                but Helen of Colorado, never."

Her life and her spirit would continue in the work she had done.

Dickinson wrote,

        "Dear friend, can you walk,

                were the last words I wrote her.

                        Dear friend, I can fly –

                                her immortal reply."

 

Like Black Elk, whose words I spoke to open the service,

        she stood on her mountaintop,

                and while she stood there she saw more 

                        than she could tell

                                and understood more than she saw.

But she told what she could,

        and she told it well.

She spoke the truth

        and it made her spirit fly.

Resources:A Century of Dishonor, by Helen Hunt Jackson (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1995)
Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson (New York: Penguin Putnam,1988)
Helen Hunt Jackson and Her Indian Reform Legacy, by Valerie Sherer Mathes (Norman andLondon: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997)
The Literature of California, Volume I, Editedby Jack Hicks, James D. Houston, Maxine Hong Kingston, Al Young (Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 2000).