Charles Eastman
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Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa)
Charles Eastman
Born February 19, 1858
Near Redwood Falls, Minnesota
Died January 8, 1939 (aged 80)
Detroit, Michigan
Education Dartmouth College, Boston University
Spouse Elaine Goodale Eastman
Charles Alexander Eastman (born Hakadah and later named Ohíye S’a; February 19, 1858 – January 8, 1939) was a Native American physician, writer, national lecturer, and reformer.
Eastman was of Santee Sioux and Anglo-American ancestry. Active in politics and issues on American Indian rights, he worked to improve the lives of youths, and founded thirty-two Native American chapters of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). He also helped found the Boy Scouts of America. He is considered the first Native American author to write American history from the Native point of view.
Early Life and Education
Eastman was named Hakadah at his birth, meaning "pitiful last" in the Dakota. Eastman was so named because his mother died following his birth. He was the last of five children of Wakantakawin, a mixed-race woman also known as Mary Nancy Eastman.[1] Eastman's father, a Santee Sioux named Wak-anhdi Ota (Many Lightnings), lived on a Dakota (Santee Sioux) reservation near Redwood Falls, Minnesota.
Eastman's mother was the daughter of U.S. Army officer and illustrator Seth Eastman, and Wakháŋ Inážiŋ Wiŋ (Stands Sacred), who married in 1830.[1] Eastman was posted to Fort Snelling, near what is now Minneapolis, and married the fifteen-year-old daughter of Cloud Man, a Dakotah (Santee Sioux) chief. Seth Eastman was reassigned from Fort Snelling in 1832, soon after the birth of Winona (meaning First-born daughter). He declared his marriage ended when he left, as was typical of many European-American men. Winona was later called Wakantakawin.
In the Sioux tradition of naming to mark life passages, her last son Hakadah was later named Ohíye S’a (Dakota: "wins often") had three older brothers (John, David, and James) and an older sister Mary. During the Dakota War of 1862, Ohíye S’a was separated from his father Wak-anhdi Ota and siblings, and they were thought to have died. His maternal grandmother Stands Sacred (Wakháŋ Inážiŋ Wiŋ) and her family took the boy with them as they fled from the warfare into North Dakota and Manitoba, Canada.[2] Fifteen years later Ohíyesa was reunited with his father and oldest brother John in South Dakota. The father had converted to Christianity, after which he took the surname Eastman and called himself Jacob. John also converted and took the surname Eastman. The Eastman family established a homestead in Dakota Territory. When Ohiyesa accepted Christianity, he took the name Charles Alexander Eastman.
His father strongly supported his sons' getting an education in European-American style schools. Eastman and his older brother John attended mission and preparatory schools, and college. Eastman first attended Beloit College and Knox colleges; he graduated from Dartmouth College in 1887. He went on to medical school at Boston University, where he graduated in 1889 and became the first Native American to be certified as a European-style doctor.
His older brother became a minister. Rev. John (Maȟpiyawaku Kida) Eastman was a Presbyterian missionary at the Santee Sioux settlement of Flandreau, South Dakota.
Works
- Memories of an Indian Boyhood, autobiography; McClure, Philips, 1902.
- Indian Boyhood, New York; McClure, Phillips & Co., 1902. Online at Webroots.
- Red Hunters and Animal People, legends; Harper and Brothers, 1904.
- The Madness of Bald Eagle, legend; 1905.
- Old Indian Days, legends; McClure, 1907.
- Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold (co-author with his wife Ellen Goodale Eastman), legends; Little, Brown, 1909.
- Smoky Day's Wigwam Evenings (co-written with Ellen Goodale Eastman), 1910
- The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation, Houghton, 1911.
- Indian Child Life, nonfiction, Little, Brown, 1913.
- Indian Scout Talks: A Guide for Scouts and Campfire Girls, nonfiction, Little, Brown, 1914. (retitled Indian Scout Craft and Lore, Dover Publications). A 1914 reviewer writes, "If one should follow this guide, one would soon begin to doubt he is a white man".[8]
- The Indian Today: The Past and Future of the Red American, Doubleday-Page, 1915.
- From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian, autobiography; Little, Brown, 1916.
- Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, Little, Brown, 1918. Also Online at Webroots.
See also
- List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
- Native American Studies
- I Remain Alive: the Sioux Literary Renaissance
External links
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Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Eastman
Charles Eastman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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