White Entitlement and the Early Scouting Movement by Jimmy Lee Beason II, Osage
Ever since the first European colonizer stepped his malnourished foot on the eastern shores of turtle island after snacking on rats and drinking warm stale beer instead of water for weeks, the Indigenous people of this continent have been disparaged as “savages”, “uncivilized” and “heathenistic.” Our ceremonies were viewed as satanic and ungodly, invoking the chastisement of uninvited European Christians who waged a holy war on our Indigenous ancestors to obtain gold, glory, and land. Ironically, during the early 1900’s, eurochristian White American men were creating youth organizations that sought to mimic our supposed uncivilized and barbaric lifestyle.
A little over 10 years after the 1890 massacre of 300 unarmed Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee by the U.S. Cavalry for being “Indians”, an organization called the Woodcraft Indians was formed. This group consisted of White kids led by White adults who used Indian folklore to create one of the first scouting organizations in America.
In 1902, a Scottish European, named Ernest Thompson Seton migrated to America and eventually settled in Connecticut. Living on 100 acres of “pristine” stolen Native land, it was here Seton, and his hardy band of juvenile Indian phonies were learning how to track animals, identify animal and plant species, communicate using “Indian sign language,” make shelter and tie ropes into complicated knots. They also made tipi’s, wore feathers and “war paint,” sang songs, and made fire to complement their overall outdoor camping masquerade.
“This headdress only cost me 5 bucks.”
Around this same time another group with a similar outlook was beginning to emerge. With the help of Seton as co-founder, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) was created between 1910-1915. As with the Woodcraft Indians, Seton incorporated Native cultural themes into the BSA. Although these groups on the surface seemed to show love and appreciation for Native people and our culture, they are really nothing more than the epitome of White entitlement and America’s hypocritical attitude toward Native communities.
While White men like Seton were congratulated for living out their Native American fantasies wearing headdresses in wooded seclusion undisturbed by authorities, Native men on the other hand constantly dealt with government agents telling them they needed to live in houses, become farmers, and quit hunting. While Woodcraft White kids were living in tipi’s, wearing feathers, and learning about “nature,” actual Native children were told their “feather and tipi” culture was utterly worthless and needed to be replaced with more “civilized” behavior at so-called boarding schools.
Boarding School policies of the 19th century focused on remaking Native kids into ideological copies of White kids. The methods were brutal and unnerving. Christian missionaries with administrative backing from the U.S. military, routinely abused Native children physical, verbally, and sexually. Survivors of these institutions have also recounted having their mouths washed out with lye soap for speaking their language and their traditional clothing (the kind the BSA and Woodcraft Indians hoped to replicate) replaced with military uniforms.
For Native adults living on reservations, they were also traumatized by nefarious government policies. Traditional ceremonies were criminalized through the Code of Indian Offenses of 1883. Ceremonial dances, such as the sun dance, were outlawed along with all other traditional dances. Native people could no longer practice giving away personal items and making gift exchanges after the loss of family members, as they were encouraged to live based on the idea of individualism. Native people were also restricted to the reservation as they could not leave without permission from a White government agent. Reservations of the time have been described as essentially, large open-air prisons.
Seton and others of his ilk encountered none of these racist barriers. While Natives were figuring out how to survive their own apocalypse, Seton was able to sit back, relax and write books expressing his love for a romanticized idea of who Native people were. Some of these books include titles such as How to Play Indian (1903), Two Little Savages (1903), How to Make a Real Indian Teepee (1903), How Boys Can Form a Band of Indians (1903), The Birchbark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians (1906), The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore (1912), Boy Scouts of America: Official Handbook (1910), Sign Talk of the Indians (1918) and The Gospel of the Red Man (1936).
Seton’s Woodcraft Indians along with the Boy Scouts of America and its cultural exploitation, demonstrate everything that is infuriating about White privilege and White supremacist ideology in America; White men and boys can advocate, embrace, and live a “Native” lifestyle, while actual Natives were criminalized for practicing their own culture. It should be no surprise Seton was able to do all this because he owned 100 acres of land; land that was taken through colonization and genocide. Considering he lived on stolen Native land, it only makes sense that he would steal Native culture to supplement that which did not belong to him.
How does this all impact us today as Native people? There are numerous other “Seton’s” out there along with other Native inspired frauds, all hoping to exploit Native culture to suit their own needs. As Native people, we should strive to ensure our culture, traditions, and lands are no longer abused in such a fashion and seek to maintain our dignity and respect.
By Jimmy Lee Beason II, MSW