EVANSTON — Another informative history discussion, presented by the Uinta County Museum, was held on Sept. 27 in the Beeman-Cashin building in Depot Square.  The presenter was Doug Cubbison, curator of the National Museum of Military Vehicles in DuBois.

Cubbison spoke on the history of the American Indians’ service and patriotism to the United States. He began by reminding the audience of the many scouts that contracted with the military since the Civil War and up to WWI. They were not enlisted in the Army but served on contract.

Four men were influential in recruiting and praising the Indian warriors who served for the U.S. military: General Hugh Scott, General John J. Pershing, Rodman Wanamaker and Joseph Dixon. 

General Hugh Scott, who served with the 7th Cavalry for 25 years, admired the Sioux scouts. He learned to speak fluent Sioux and served as a government translator. In 1889, Scott went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and formed a troop of all Sioux Indians called Troop L.

Scott was their commander and his troop was noted as being the best in that area; there was no violence or problems in the territory they covered. Scott understood the Indians and was able to negotiate with them. In the late 1890s the troop was dissolved, but Scott remained impressed by the discipline and military skill of the Indians. In 1917, General Scott was chief of staff of the U.S. Army during the Great War.

After the Wounded Knee battle in 1890, Army General John J. Pershing commanded Oglala Sioux Indian scouts and was also impressed with their skills and abilities. He had brought in Apache scouts when pursuing Poncho Villa and they played a significant role in pursuing the bandit. 

A Philadelphia businessman, Rodman Wanamaker, became enthralled with Indians after watching Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show as a child. Wanamaker’s father opened the very first department store in Philadelphia. As an adult, Wanamaker hired Joseph Dixon to tour the west and photograph Indians in their native culture before it vanished.

Wanamaker and Dixon established the 1913 Citizenship Expedition, and they traveled to every Indian reservation in the U.S. Funded by Wanamaker, Dixon traveled more than 20,000 miles in six months and visited 69 reservations. After a ceremony of allegiance with the Indians signing a pledge to support the U.S., he left a flag at every reservation.

As Dixon visited these reservations he began to realize the extreme poverty and poor conditions. He viewed the Bureau of Indian Affairs as the reason for the problems and developed an adversarial relationship with the agency. As a result of this animosity, the BIA destroyed all evidence of Dixon’s visits and his recordings of Native American history. In 1924, Dixon became a strong advocate and activist for the Indians to become U.S. citizens in order to receive full rights as Americans.

In 1917, the Army was completely segregated. Black soldiers were commanded by white officers as the military did not trust minorities to be in a leadership position. Minorities were all separate; they had their own bunk houses and separate units.

Generals Scott and Pershing wanted Indians to serve in the Army. A catalyst for allowing that to happen was the Zimmerman telegram. Germany had sent a telegram to the Mexican government asking for their help in the Great War by asking them to invade America. Germany would send the Mexicans all the weapons they would need. The American military intercepted the telegram and Pershing and Scott persuaded the Army to send Indian regiments to provide border security.  

Finally, on June 4, 1917, American Indians were allowed to enlist as equals in the U.S. Army. This was the first time in the U.S. that minorities were allowed this status. This was a huge shift in American history that happened as a result of the Great War.

The government also opened up the draft, but because Indians were not citizens, they weren’t eligible. The U.S. government solved the problem by letting the local county draft boards decide if they wanted to open the draft to the Indians in their area. Most counties decided they better draft Indians or they wouldn’t have any men left to run the farms and businesses.

More than 12,000 Native Americans served in the U.S. Armed Services during the war from 1914–1917.  Statistics show that 6,500 Indians were drafted and another 6,000 voluntarily enlisted. There were more than 10,000 in the U.S. Army, 2,000 in the Navy and none in the Marines.

Military leaders were impressed with the Indians, as they were very skilled warriors. An advantage for the U.S. was that the Germans were terrified of the Indians based on the Wild West show and old west novels they had read.  

The Native Americans wanted to prove themselves, so many fought at the front of battles. Five percent overall would die in action, with 10 percent of the Sioux and 14 percent of the Pawnees killed. In the Great War, Choctaw Indians were first used as signal talkers, so the Germans couldn’t understand.   These code talkers set the standard that would later be a great asset used in WWII.

Although they were not American citizens, the Indian women were also patriotic. They formed aid societies and served as nurses, servers, entertainers, Red Cross workers and fundraisers to aid the war effort. At Ft. Washakie in Wyoming, they grew 1,000 acres of food for the Army. The American Indians raised $25 million in war bonds, which was approximately a $75 contribution per family from the poverty stricken reservations.

Many Wyoming veterans came from Indian tribes. Cubbison, the Brown Bag Lunch presenter, read the names and biographies of six Indian soldiers from Wyoming. One of those veterans, Thomas Daniel Saunders from northern Cheyenne with family ties to the Wyoming Arapaho, was the most highly decorated soldier from Wyoming. He and one other soldier had single-handedly captured 63 Germans in France.

Saunders was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross from the military and received the French Medal of Honor. He was one of only 150 dough boys to receive those honors and one out of ten Indians to receive the French medal. Saunders was promoted to corporal and led an integrated unit.

Later, Gen. Pershing chose Saunders to be part of the Honor Guard that would escort the Unknown Soldier to Washington, D.C. Pershing picked the most honored and distinguished soldiers to be body bearers, and Saunders was one of the eight who were the only people allowed to touch the coffin.   Saunders continued to serve in the Army and is buried in the national cemetery in San Francisco.

In 1919, the first citizenship act was passed that made all American soldiers, regardless of race, citizens of the United States. Later in 1924, the Snyder Act passed and gave all American Indians full citizenship rights. They now had dual citizenship with the U.S. and the Indian nation. The four men — Scott, Pershing, Wanamaker and Dixon — who saw the merit and loyalty of the American Indians deserve a lot of the credit for these acts finally coming to pass. 

Cubbison ended his presentation with a sad incident in American history — the tragedy of Hooverville in 1930. The Indian vets and other veterans had received no benefits after the Great War, so they organized the American Legion and lobbied for benefits. They formed a bonus Army, marched on D.C., and near the White House set up a peaceful and organized community living in tents and continued advocating for their rights.

President Herbert Hoover ordered Gen. Douglas MacArthur to take the Army in and drive the veterans out with force if necessary. In the end, some of the veterans and family members were killed. Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of the soldiers at that time and assistant to MacArthur. Eisenhower had refused to go and had resigned as MacArthur’s second in command, and this caused a lifetime rift between the two men. Later, when Eisenhower was President, he was asked about the Hooverville incident. He was quoted as saying, “I told that dumb son of a bitch not to go down there.”

“Does history have a bearing on your life?” Cubbison asked the audience. “Today, all veterans receive benefits, and that is a result of what happened in the past.”

“I am convinced that there were more than six Indian veterans from Wyoming, Cubbison said, “and I hope someone does the research and writes a book about them.”