Photo by BY

During the past weekend Spokane hosted the "Northwest Indian Encampment. Market and Pow Wow." The event was a reminder of other moments  in the early history of Spokane. In a previous post I described the way that whites and Indians took turns dancing at celebrations such as Independence Day. The story below describes a moment when relations were more tense in Spokane, during the Nez Perce War of 1877, when the Spokane was only three years old. Then as now, Indians were drumming near Spokane Falls, but were they planning to attack the tiny village? Read on!

"IN THE SHADOW OF THE NEZ PERCE WAR " (1877)

(from The Fair and the Falls, Chapter Two, “Waiting for the Indians”)
 
One serious exception to the atmosphere of mutual trust in Spokane Falls came during the Nez Perce War in 1877, the last Indian war in the Northwest. News of the uprising was carried to Spokane by Indians, "who kept runners going back and forth over the country and to and from the battlefields." For a time it looked like the Nez Perce, who were being pursued by the United States Army, might pass through the Spokane region. Instead-to [Spokanes founder James] Glover's great relief-they turned east and crossed the Rockies. But a party of Nez Perce came to Spokane Falls and camped close to Glover's store. "They had a skin stretched over a hoop, and they would hold this over the fire and then beat on it in time with their dancing, at the same time yelling in a kind of singsong, although it was not a war cry." For two weeks they sang every night until dawn, when the fire died and they fell asleep.  

By now every white nerve in the settlement must have been frayed. Indian relations had been so good that the whites were not heavily armed. Glover says, "We had no firearms, and during the time I have been here, I have never had anything of the sort except a double-barreled shotgun, which I always loaned to the Indians when they wanted to hunt with it." Growing nervous, Glover took to sitting up all night on the stoop of his store watching "the red devils" around the campfire. The other Spokanites, equally concerned, had taken to sleeping together in his house.

In the distance Glover saw a figure on horseback drawing near. As he was preparing to defend his store, he discovered that the rider was a white man, followed by other homesteaders on foot and in wagons. They were settlers from neighboring homesteads. Fearing the Indians, they had gathered a few household belongings and had come to Spokane Falls for protection. 

The next morning, Glover and others built a raft to ferry the refugees to Havermale Island, in the middle of the river, where they built fortifications. A number of Spokane Indians, most of whom must have been as nervous about the situation as the whites, were ferried over to help with the defenses. Glover was now determined to do something to break the stalemate: 

I had made up my mind to stand my ground, but after two nights of sitting up, I had determined on the course that I would pursue-call a few of the old Indians into my store and have a heart-to-heart talk with them as I had often done before. Many times the old fellows had told me of the Wright campaign, and the tears would run down their cheeks like rain. 

I called them in and closed the door. I asked them if they remembered the time when they were a happy and prosperous people. They said they did. I asked them if they remembered when Colonel Wright came and destroyed their wealth and made them a poor people. They said they did. 

I then asked them if they knew what this squad of Nez Perce Indians were here for, dancing the war dance night after night. They said they did. 

"My friends, [Glover said] I know where Uncle Sam's soldiers are. They are very near here, and I can call them here at any hour. Do you want to have the last remnants of your people wiped from the face of the earth? If you do not, see that these Indians leave here and leave here for good before noon." 

They promised me, went directly to the camp, and before noon there was not a sign of an Indian to be seen there.  

In James Glover's Spokane, the Indians might live nearby, or share a dance floor, or even borrow a shotgun, but Glover left no doubt as to who was in charge at the falls. 

       This current post is one of a growing number of historically-themed entries on americanrealities.com. To see a list of other posts, click here.

Photo by BY, 2013

One of the great pleasures of being an historian is to journey into those moments where present and past merge. This evening I was in one of those magical places as I attended the Spokane Falls Northwest Indian Encampment & Pow Wow in Riverfront Park. My brother and I sat on a hillside that sloped down to the dance floor of grass. Around us were Native Americans, many in families, along with other spectators. The photo above shows Indians doing the traditional “Chicken Dance.”

I especially enjoyed hearing the drummers. There were easily a half dozen groups of Indians gathered around large drums, beating them in unison, and singing. In many cases, as in the picture below, several generations beat on one drum.

Photo by BY, 2013

This was in modern-day Spokane with its buildings in the background just across the river. But in my mind I travelled back to 1875 and 1876 to other Indian dances that had taken place, just a hundred or so yards away. In this passage I describe the mingling of whites and Indians in early Spokane, and the dance floor they shared during festivals.

THE INDIANS AND THE VILLAGE

(from The Fair and the Falls, Chapter Two, “Waiting for the Indians”)

There were really two Spokanes during the 1870s: the tiny community of a few whites with their dreams of becoming a real town, even a real city, and the traditional Spokane Falls of the Indians, where some natives still lived and many others visited, especially when the salmon were running. For the first four years of James Glover's settlement, Indians remained his primary customers, trading furs for his goods. Regional news was often carried to town by Indians, and in an emergency-as when a doctor had to be summoned from far away - an Indian would likely carry the message. In autumn the Indians would come in "from miles around" to fish. The salmon were so abundant in the river that "on the bottom the rocks would not be visible." After the fish were brought in, women were consigned to cleaning and drying them while the men would play cards and race their horses. The race course ran through the center of Spokane along a track that came to be known as Riverside Avenue, where teenagers would later cruise their cars on Friday nights. (45)

The affinity of whites and Indians in early Spokane was apparent in the pioneer career of Henry T. Cowley, who became one of the city's leading citizens. He arrived in Spokane in June, 1874, with several young Nez Perce, who accompanied him "as helpers and guides." On the way into town they "halted for a few moments on the bluff south of the falls, to admire the indescribable quiet and beauty of the groves of pine which interspersed to the dreamy murmur of the cataract. Descending, they pitched their camp opposite the upper rapids and laved their dust-begrimed faces in the limpid river.” (46) Cowley then went on to visit Glover's "embryo hamlet," which consisted then of a mill, a store, several simple houses, and "a few lumbermen's rude shanties." (47) Despite the humble circumstances of the village, Cowley was optimistic about the future: "Here," he wrote, "seemed to be the setting of the elements of an ideal city-even a corner of Paradise." (48) Soon after arriving in Spokane, Cowley went to work establishing a school for the Indians. The natives were eager for training:

The young men carried the lumber on their backs all the way from the sawmill down on the river bank, and the building was not completed until March. A stove was brought from Walla Walla. When it was completed, old and young gathered in and filled the place to its capacity .... I never saw a people so eager to learn the ways of civilization. I first taught them letters and figures. I had a blackboard and some crayons and drew pictures of animals and familiar articles. Point[ing] to one of these, I would get the Indian word for it and write it down, and then the corresponding English word. Considering the difficulties we had to contend with, they made very rapid progress. They wanted to start lessons at daylight and keep up the instruction until dark. (49) 

Pioneer celebrations provide another window on Indian-white relations in early Spokane. At a Fourth of July gathering after Glover's arrival, homesteaders came to Spokane Falls from miles around, bringing their own bedding and camping beside the falls for "the three or four days the celebration lasted." From materials at the store, they made an American flag, "the first that ever floated in Spokane." They put up a pine floor in front of the store for dancing. James Glover recalled, "The white people would dance in the afternoon and evening until a late hour, while the Indians peeped through the evergreen and watched them. Then when we quit, they would take possession of the floor, and go through their performances until morning." (50) David Masterson, whose family moved to Spokane Falls in 1875, recalled a Fourth of July celebration that year:

Father drove all of us to the falls by team and wagon over the old Indian trail on the north side of the river to attend the celebration. We crossed the Spokane River in a log dugout canoe paddled by an Indian. People drove in with covered wagons to attend this celebration from distances of 50 to 75 miles. There was a big crowd-all of fifty white people. A long table was erected in the bunch grass under the pine trees at what is now known as the corner of Howard and Trent streets. This table was piled full of good things to eat, and when the white people were through, a potlatch was declared for the Indians, who were invited in to eat what was left. They surely licked it up, for they outnumbered the white people, two to one. (51)

A miner, Peter Lefevre, recalled Spokane's Fourth of July celebration in the centennial year, 1876: "We had people come from Colfax, Spangle, Hangman Creek, and from a radius of 75 to 100 miles. We had a parade of about a dozen people and enough dancers to form two sets of square dancers." That year, "Babe" Downing, whose parents had sold Glover their claim on Spokane Falls, was "the only unmarried young lady available as a partner for bachelors to dance with." The Indians contributed to the celebration of the country's one-hundredth birthday by performing a war dance. (52)

For the whites such celebrations had a utilitarian purpose as well as providing entertainment. Henry Cowley noted that the 1876 Fourth of July gathering helped promote Spokane and its environs. Participants, he said, came from "all the region between the Snake River and the British line [Canada]. The gathering was an inspiration to all eastern Washington, as it revealed to the participants the larger number and superior character of the pioneers than had been looked for. The celebration was a most happy success, and all returned more contentedly and hopefully to their scattered homes." (53)

The Indians had less to be hopeful about as the number of whites increased in their midst and they were relegated to a separate status. This segregation was apparent when Indians followed whites on the dance floor, and when whites ate first during a community feast. And yet in many ways Indians did mingle freely with whites during those early years of the settlement. Within the limits imposed by cultural differences and white prejudice, the lives of the two peoples often came together.

(In my next post, I will describe another time of Indian drumming near Spokane, an ominous moment in 1877 during the Nez Perce War.)

       This current post is one of a growing number of historically-themed entries on americanrealities.com. To see a list of other posts, click here.

French Engraving: “La Brigade Marine au Bois de Belleau” -- Wikimedia Commons

General John J. Pershing, commander of American forces in World War I, called Belleau Woods one of the most important battles American troops ever fought.

In the June of 1918 German forces captured Chateau Thiery on the Marne River and were moving westward toward Paris, 60 miles away. The United States had been in the war for more than a year, but until this time they had been training behind the lines, not in actual combat. In fact, the Americans had lost fewer than 200 men so far in a war that saw battles with 60,000 casualties in one day.

This changed when advancing Germans met a brigade of American Marines at a forest known as the “Bois de Belleau.”  While French units withdrew prudently to more defensible ground, the Marines stayed in an advanced position, digging shallow trenches with their bayonets.  Urged to withdraw, Marine Captain Lloyd W. Williams declared:

“Retreat? Hell, we just got here.”

On June 6 the Marines suffered heavy casualties while attacking the German positions in and near the forest.  In one of the many skirmishes that made up the battle, Gunnery Sergeant Ernest A. Janson, forced twelve Germans to retreat. He became the first Marine during the Great War to win the Medal of Honor. Later that afternoon Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly urged his comrades forward with another memorable phrase:

“Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”

More than one thousand marines were casualties during the first day of fighting at Belleau Woods, more than in any other battle in Marine Corps history to that time.

The Germans and Americans traded possession of the woods repeatedly in heavy fighting during the next two weeks. Finally on June 26 the Marines gained the upper hand and announced in a succinct report:

“Woods now U.S. Marine Corps’ entirely.”

The fighting at Belleau Woods and nearby Vaux and Chateau Thierry stopped the last major German offensive of World War I. During the battle at the Woods, the Americans suffered 9,777 casualties and lost 1,811 men killed.

Visiting the Battlefield, 1986

Twenty-seven years ago I visited the Bois Belleau, taking pictures in the old-fashioned way, with Kodak film. Until recently those pictures languished in slide trays, too much trouble to access and organize. Thanks to the help of a research assistant, Gabe Rose, they are now digitized and ready for rebirth on the web.

I visited the Bois Belleau on Armistice Day weekend, November, 1986. The date was a reminder that the war ended only about three months after the Belleau fight. There and elsewhere the last great German offensive of the war was stopped, and soon hundreds of thousands of American soldiers helped win the war for the Allies.

Entering the autumnal forest I could see a monument and flagpole in the distance, flanked by cannon:

Walking closer I saw that the flag overhead was the “Stars and Stripes” and I looked more closely at a plaque on the monument. It indicated that this was no longer the Bois Belleau: the French had renamed it in honor of those Marines who fought here one lifetime before as "Bois de la Brigade de Marine":

I felt grateful that morning for this sign of respect by the French for my country.

The forest is now a park, and that morning French families with picnics walked through the forest. The trees had grown back after the devastation of the battle 68 years before.

But the ground was still scarred by pits from long-ago artillery shells.   

And museum-piece cannon were arranged in the forest where sixty-eight years before, they had been fired in earnest by the contending forces.

Coming to a ridge in the forest I looked down on another reminder of the battle in this forest: row upon row of American graves.

This was the Aisne-Marne American cemetery.  I spent an hour that day walking between the crosses, reading the inscriptions, and studying the chapel built to honor the dead Americans in this French soil.  The crosses were arranged in curving columns, thirteen deep, representing the thirteen original United States.

Most of the markers were Christian crosses; others featured the Star of David, marking the graves of Jewish soldiers.

The historic forest and the silent graveyard were deeply moving; and so was the Romanesque chapel overlooking the graves. Other historic buildings in France feature saintly saints and grotesque goblins on the pillars; at this chapel those  figures were replaced by statues of  the brave men who fought here. I was deeply moved then as I studied those figures twenty-seven years ago, and as I compose this blog entry, the images move me still.

After visiting the graveyard and cemetery, I returned to my hotel at nearby Chateau Thierry, a town where battles of the  Great War had raged a few decades before. As I walked through the streets in the evening I felt myself in the present and in the past. I decided to go to a movie playing in the local theater – “Top Gun.” Watching that film in French with a French audience provide a suitable end to an enriching day. In the cinema French and American culture mingled in the film, just as French and American blood had soaked the cobblestones and forest soil in this region, not so long before. 

More of my photos in a slide show from Belleau Woods, aka "Bois de la Brigade de Marine," and the Aisne-Marne cemetery, taken in 2012:

       This current post is one of a growing number of historically-themed entries on americanrealities.com. To see a list of other posts, click here

They were fighting as volunteers in a war their own nation had not even entered. They flew aircraft of wood and canvas thousands of feet above the ground. They struggled to avoid machine gun bullets fired at them by other airmen and deadly shells hurled at them by artillery batteries on the ground. If their frail planes were hit, the pilots could not parachute to safety, for bureaucrats – not themselves at risk – had decided that these men needed no parachutes. 

View of World War I Biplanes
Drawing by Cecily Moon for American Realities

This, in short, is the story of the Americans fighting for France in the Lafayette Escadrille during World War I.  They began volunteering in 1915 and served in a separate unit from 1916 until the United States entered the war in 1917. 

American Cathedral (Photo by BY)

Many of them worshipped at the American Cathedral in Paris (pictured above) one of the focal points of their lives in France. And many attended funeral services at the cathedral for fallen comrades. 

American Cathedral Interior (Photo by BY)

Today a cloister at the cathedral has engraved text and images honoring the pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille and other Americans who fought in World War I.

American Cathedral Cloister (Photo by BY)

Cloister Wall: Inscription begins: “To the Memory of Our Dead….” (Photo by BY)

On the wall a plaque and an image recognize the contributions of the Lafayette Escadrille.

(Photo by BY)

Indian Head Image on Cloister Wall (Photo by BY)

This image was painted on the canvas of the Lafayette Escadrille planes, a symbol of their squadron.

Here is a description of the death of Victor Chapman, the first pilot to die fighting in the Lafayette Escadrille:

Chapman, though recently wounded himself, decided to join three comrades on a morning patrol. He fell behind the others and four Germans attacked him, damaging his plane so badly that it fell apart as it plummeted toward the ground. This first death in the ranks of the Lafayette Escadrille shocked the other pilots. “We could read the pain in one another’s eyes,” wrote one. At a ceremony on July 4, 1916, the French prime minister took note of Chapman’s death, calling him and his squadron “the living symbol of American idealism.” The prime minister was aware of the value of Victor Chapman’s sacrifice as an example to other Americans, perhaps to the United States as a whole. “France will never forget this new comradeship,” he said, “this evidence of a devotion to a common ideal.” After the funeral ceremony, most of the American airmen went to Lafayette’s grave for a July Fourth commemoration of the Frenchman’s contribution to the American Revolution.” (from American Realities, Volume II, Chapter 7, “American Volunteers in World War I: The Lafayette Escadrille”)

Learn more about the Lafayette Escadrille with materials on this site based on the chapter in American Realities on the squadron: click here. 

       This current post is one of a growing number of historically-themed entries on americanrealities.com. To see a list of other posts, click here.

Sixty-eight years ago today, the United States had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (August 6) and was about to drop an atomic bomb on Nagasaki (August 9).  Of the roughly forty essays I wrote for various editions of my book, American Realities, this was the most demanding of my imagination. At various points in my research I felt myself to be in the middle of the events I was describing. In this post I've collected several images, copied some of the text from my Hiroshima essay, and incorporated a remarkable map of events relating to the first use of the atomic bomb.

View of Hiroshima from the Cockpit of the Enola Gay,
 Drawing by Cecily Moon for American Realities

The Beginning of the Bombing Run

from "Total War, The Bombing of Hiroshima" American Realities, Volume II (click to see more on Hiroshima on this site.)

In the predawn hours of August 6, 1945, three American B-29s droned through the darkness bound north from the Pacific island of Tinian toward the Japanese coastal town of Hiroshima. They flew at four thousand feet, where the air was close and humid, to avoid colliding with one of the hundreds of B-29s returning from bombing runs over Japan. Such massive raids were common. In the past year the balance of terror in the Pacific had swung irreversibly to the American side, and in summer 1945, B-29 Superfortresses could blast and burn Japanese cities almost at will. In comparison to such huge congregations of destruction, the three low-flying planes seemed unobtrusive, all but harmless. Not only were they few, but they did not bristle with guns like the other B-29s. Among them they carried only one bomb. Aboard the three planes there was little to suggest the historic character of the mission. The Great Artiste, so named for its commander’s reputed prowess in love, carried a cargo of scientific instruments. A second ship, called simply Number 91, was full of photographic equipment. The third craft, named Enola Gay after its pilot’s mother, carried the bomb. Until recently only the lead pilot, Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., had known the character of this strange object they were soon to drop on Japan....    

Mapping the Story of Hiroshima

I am working this summer with three talented research assistants creating the web site of which this blog is a part. One of our goals is to put materials on line for each of my five books. Lee Nilsson created this Google map locating key places in the story of Hiroshima as described in my essay “Total War” in American Realities. Click on the pins on the map below for related images and text from the essay. Click on the link beneath the map ("View American Realities - Total War in a larger map") here or beneath this image for a larger map with more functionalities.

View more entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)

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