1999 mixed-race identity in a nineteenth-century family
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Courtesyfheurtonistoricalollectionfheetroitublicibrary.
"Saultte.arien820."
nenrychoolcraft,arrativeournalfravelshroughheorthwesternegionsfhenitedtates1821).
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1998
Student
Essay
Prize Winner
Mixed-Race
Identity
in
a
Nineteenth-Century Family:
The
Schoolcrafts of Sault
Ste.
Marie,
1824-27
by
Jeremy
Mumford
In
the
autumn
of
1824
the
Schoolcraft
family
set
out
from
Sault
Ste.
Marie,
at
the mouth of Lake
Superior
in
northern
Michigan
Territory,
to
visit
New York City. For Jane, who had seldom left the
remote
village where she
was
born,
this
was
her
first
visit. It
was
the first time
Henry
had returned
to
his home
state
since
his
appointment
as
federal Indian
Agent
in
Sault
Ste.
Marie
in
1822 and his
marriage
a
year
later. And
everything
was
new,
of
course,
for
their
son
Willy
who
was
only
four months
old.1
The
Schoolcrafts
were
apprehensive
about the
reception they
would
meet
in
the
metropolis.
Jane
was
the
daughter
of
Oshauguscodaywayqua,
a
Chippewa
woman
from
an
influential
lakeshore
family,
and
John Johnston,
an
Irish
gentleman
and
fur
trader.
In
the
language
of her
time,
both
Jane
and
her child
were
half-breeds.2
To
her
relief,
Jane
and
Willy
received
only
friendly
attention
on
this
visit. When
Henry
left
to
do
some
business
in
Washington,
some
friends,
Mr.
and Mrs.
Conant,
invited
Jane
to
leave her
lodging
house and
stay
with them.
She
wrote to
Henry
of
repeated
visits,
I
would like
to
thank
Elizabeth Blackmar and
my
fellow students in
her
seminar
at
Columbia
University,
as
well
as
John
Mack
Faragher,
Martin
Kenner,
and David
Sewell for
their
help
in
revising
this
essay.
1
For
Jane,
see
Marjorie
Cahn
Brazer,
Harps
upon
the
Willows:
The
Johnston
Family
of
theOld
Northwest
(Ann
Arbor,
MI:
Historical
Society
of
Michigan,
1993);
Tammy
Stone-Gordon,
"The
Other
Schoolcraft,"
Michigan
History
78,
no.
2
(1994):
26-29. For
Henry,
see
Richard
Bremer,
Indian
Agent
and Wilderness Scholar: The
Life
of
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft (Mount
Pleasant,
MI:
Clarke Historical
Library, 1987);
Brian
Dippie,
Catlin and
his
Contemporaries:
The Politics
of Patronage
(Lincoln,
NE:
University
of
Nebraska
Press,
1990).
2
While
the
Schoolcrafts and
their
contemporaries
sometimes used the
names
"Ojibwa"
and
"M?tis,"
they
more
often
said
"Chippewa"
and "half-breed." "Half
breed"
was
used
(not
necessarily
with
derogatory intent)
for
people
with
any
combination
of
white
and Indian
ancestry.
MichiganHistorical
Review
25:1
(Spring
1999):
1-23
?
1999
by
Central
Michigan
University.
ISSN 0890-1686
All
Rights
Reserved
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2
Michigan
Historical
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interesting
conversation,
and "marked kindness" from
many
acquaintances.3
The
strongest
impression
the
Schoolcrafts took
away
from their
visit
was
of
kindly
interest
in
Jane
and
Willy,
who
were
received
as
"another
Pocahontas"
and her
"bright
American
boy."4
In
making
a
family
excursion
to
the
great
eastern
city,
the Schoolcrafts
signaled
ambitions
within
a
wider
arena
beyond
their
village.
One
purpose
of
the
visit
was to
discuss
a
book
of Indian
oratory
on
which
Henry
intended
to
collaborate
with Samuel
Conant
and
in
which
Jane
may
have been involved.
The
other
was
to
improve
Henry's
political
contacts
in
Washington.
Henry
was ambitious for both literary and political fame, aswell as for the prospects
of
his
first
child,
William
Henry
Schoolcraft,
the
bright
American
boy.
For
both
parents,
their
sojourn
in
the
East
prompted
reflection
on
their
responsibilities
and their
future.
Sick
in
bed,
Jane
wrote
from
New
York
to
Henry
in
Washington
that she
was
unused
to
being
separated
from
him
and
missed him.
He
wrote to
her
of
his
prayer
that their
"sweet,
interesting
little
boy
[would]
be
permitted
to
grow
up
to
man's
estate,
and
...
that his mother
may
be
spared
to
nurture
him
up."
He
mused:
"What
an
interesting
chain
of
thought
is
connected
with
the
idea
of
a
home,
and
a
wife,
and
a
child."5
Inevitably, this chain of thought had
to
take account of the meaning of
Jane's
and
Willy's
mixed
race.
The
Schoolcrafts
were
starting
their
family
in
the shadow of
a
very
different model
of
family-building:
what
was
called
in
the
upper
Great Lakes la
fa?on
du
pays
or
"the
custom
of the
country."
Traditionally,
white
men
lived with and had children
by
Indian
or
mixed
blood
women,
only
to
leave their
families
behind
when
they
returned
east,
entrusting
them
to
other
men's
protection
or
abandoning
them
altogether.
Jane's
parents
were
unusual
in
the
permanence
of their
relationship,
but
even
they
did
not
formalize their
marriage
until she
was
twenty.6
In
visiting
the
East
together
as
a
family,
Jane
and
Henry
(who
were
properly
married
by
a
3
Jane
to
Henry,
12
and
22
Jan.
1825,
sheet
813,
828,
container
5,
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft
Papers (hereafter
Schoolcraft
Papers),
Manuscripts
Division
[available
on
microfilm],
Library
of
Congress.
4
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft,
The
Literary
VoyagerorMuzzeniegun,
ed.
Philip
Mason
(East
Lansing: Michigan
State
University
Press,
1962),
144-45
(no.
14,
28
Mar.
1827).
Years
later,
Henry
wrote
that
"to
introduce
a
descendant
of
one
of
the
native
race
into
society
. . .
was
not
an
ordinary
event,"
but that
"persons
of intellect and refinement
concurred in the wisdom of [his] choice" to marry Jane. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft,
Personal
Memoirs
of
a
Residence
of Thirty
Years
with
the
Indian Tribes
on
the
American
Frontiers
(Philadelphia:
Lippincott,
Grambo
and
Co.,
1851),
236.
5
Henry
to
Jane,
13
Jan.
1825,
sheet
817,
container
5,
Schoolcraft
Papers.
6
Brazer,
Harps
upon
the
Willows,
162.
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The
Schoolcrafts
of
Sault
Ste. Marie
3
-%r*
inV$?.
Ht
j*pwWW*
Courtesy
of
the
Bentley
Historical
Library, University
of
Michigan
Jane
Johnston
Schoolcraft
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4
Michigan
Historical
Review
visiting
clergyman)
broke the
custom
of the
country
and
expressed
their
determination
to start
a
family
that
was
just
as
legitimate
in
New
York
as
it
was
in Sault
Ste.
Marie.7
They
were
opposing
not
only
the
custom
of
the
country
but also the
direction
of
educated
opinion.
Jane's
and her children's mixed
ethnicity,
while
not
uncommon,
was a
subject
of
increasing
distrust. When
Jane
was
three
years
old,
President
Jefferson
predicted
that white
and Indian
people
would
"blend
together,
.
. .
intermix,
and
become
one
people."
But
during
her
lifetime
Americans
moved toward
a
harsher
theory
of racial boundaries.
By
the 1840s some scientists argued that amixed-race person was a "hybrid" of
biologically
separate
species,
"a
degenerate,
unnatural
offspring,
doomed
by
nature
to
work
out
its
own
destruction."8
During
the
years
of
Henry's
and
Jane's
marriage,
mixed-race
families
became
ever more
suspect.9
To build
a
secure
foundation for
their
family,
the
Schoolcrafts
used
whatever
resources
they
could
find.
They
looked
hopefully
to
Jane's
Chippewa
connections,
which
promised
substantial
support.
Her
dowry
of
2,000
pounds
(about
$10,000)
came
from
her
parents'
business
in
Chippewa
furs.10
She and
Henry
stood
to
enlarge
it
through
gifts
of land made
by
the
tribe
to
Jane andWilly
as
mixed-blood Chippewa. Jane also contributed
to
her
family's
fortunes
in
another
way:
by teaching
Henry
about
Chippewa
culture
and
folktales,
she laid the
foundation
for
Henry's
later
fame
as an
writer
about
Indians.
7
See
Jennifer
Brown,
Strangers
in
Blood:
Fur
Trade
Company
Families
in
Indian
Country
(Vancouver:
U.B.C.
Press,
1980); Sylvia
Van
Kirk,
"Many
Tender Ties":
Women
in
Fur-Trade
Society
inWestern
Canada,
1670-1870
(Winnipeg:
Watson &
Dwyer,
1980);
John
Mack
Faragher,
"The
Custom
of the
Country:
Cross-Cultural
Marriage
in
the
Far
Western Fur
Trade,"
inWestern Women: Their
Land,
Their
Lives,
ed. Lillian
Schlissel,
Vicki
Ruiz,
and
Janice
Monk
(Albuquerque,
NM:
University
of
New
Mexico
Press,
1988);
Lucy
Eldersveld
Murphy,
"To Live
among
Us:
Accommodation, Gender,
and
Conflict
in
the Western Great Lakes
Region,
1760-1832,"
in
Contact Points: American
Frontiers
from
the
Mohawk
Valley
to
the
Mississippi,
1750-1830,
ed. Andrew
R.
L.
Cayton
and
Fredricka
J.
Teute
(Chapel
Hill:
University
of
North Carolina
Press,
1998).
For
a
fascinating
interpretation
of
Jane's
mother's
marriage
as
the result of
a
vision-quest
see
Jacqueline
Peterson,
"Women
Dreaming:
The
Religiopsychology
of
IndianWhite
Marriages
and
the
Rise
of
a
M?tis
Culture,"
in
Western
Women,
49-68.
8
Thomas
Jefferson
and
Josiah
Nott,
quoted
in
Robert
Bieder,
"Scientific
Attitudes
Toward IndianMixed-Bloods inEarlyNineteenth Century America," Journal ofEthnic
Studies
8,
no.2
(1980):
17-30,
quotations
on
19,
24.
9
See
William
Stanton,
The
Leopard's
Spots: Scientific
Attitudes Toward
Race
in
America,
1815-59
(Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1960).
10
Bremer,
Indian
Agent,
97.
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The
Schoolcrafts of
Sault
Ste.
Marie
5
Courtesy
of the
Bentley
Historical
Library, University
of
Michigan
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft
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6
Michigan
Historical
Review
This
essay
will
trace two
attempts
the
Schoolcrafts
made,
in
the
first
years
of
their
marriage,
to
turn
Jane's
Chippewa
inheritance into
a
family
asset.
These
attempts
were
quite
different,
one
in
the realm
of
literature,
the other
in
real
estate.
In
each
case,
however,
the
nature
of the
inheritance made
its
use
problematic.
For
Jane,
her
connection
to
the
Chippewa
culture
she
recorded
undermined her
position
as
a
genteel
woman
of
letters.
For
Willy,
his
connection
to
the
Chippewa
lands he
stood
to
receive
undermined his
future
as
a
citizen and
a man
of
property.
For
the
Schoolcrafts,
mother
and
son,
Indian
legacies
had
apparent
advantages
but hidden liabilities. To
follow
them
is to begin to unravel the question of race, and of mixed-race identity, in one
American
family.
In
their
correspondence
during
Henry's
periodic
travels
as
an
Indian
agent,
Jane
and
Henry
often
expressed
themselves
in
poetry.
"My
dearest
friend,"
Jane
wrote
Henry,
Say
do
thy
thoughts
e'er
turn
on
me?
As
mine
do
constantly
to
thee?
And
when
at
eve
in
deserts
wild
Do'st
thou think
on our
lovely
child?11
Henry
replied
that he
did,
and
urged
her
to
govern
their
child
Not
like
Juno,
or
like
Jove
But
by
tender
winning
Love.
He
expressed
confidence
in
her
childrearing
and
enumerated those
qualities
he
believed
equipped
her for the task:
"That
delicacy
of
sentiment,
modest
deportment,
equanimity
of
temper,
benevolence of
disposition, engaging
simplicity,
correct
taste,
and
good
understanding
which did
so
much
to
captivate
the
father,
will
certainly
suggest
the best mode of
directing
the
son."12
This
exchange
of
letters made
reference
to
a
style
of womanhood
which
both
Henry
and
Jane
valued.
It
encompassed
several
elements:
the
impulses
of
uncorrupted
nature;
the discernment that
came
from the
polish
of
culture;
the
dedication of
these
gifts
to
the
service
of her
family;
and
their
expression
through
the idioms
of
polite
literature.13
11
Jane
to
Henry,
4
July
1825,
sheet
881,
container
5,
Schoolcraft
Papers.
12
Henry
to
Jane,
27
July
1825,
sheet
889,
container
5,
Schoolcraft
Papers.
13
On
the
genteel
worldview
see
Richard
Bushman,
The
Refinement
of
America:
Persons, Houses,
Cities
(New
York:
Vintage
Books,
1992).
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The
Schoolcrafts of
Sault
Ste. Marie
Everyone
who
met
Jane
was
struck
by
her
refinement.
Her
childhood
home,
the
Johnston
household
in
Sault
Ste.
Marie,
had
a
reputation
among
travelers
as an
outpost
of civilization
in
the wilderness.
Henry's
first
impression
of his future
in-laws,
whom he
met
while
on a
government
exploring
expedition
in
1820,
was
of the
"blandishments
of
refined
society,"
which he noted
in
his
published report.14
A succession
of other travelers
described the
Johnston
siblings
as
"polite,
.
.
.
well-educated
and
accomplished,"
"highly
accomplished,"
and
"most
accomplished
&
certainly
of
interesting
manners."15
Thomas
McKenney, Henry's
superior
in
the Indian
Office, wrote in 1826 that the conversation atMr. Johnston's table "would
have done honour
to
those clubs of which Addison and Steele
. .
.
formed
part,"
and that
Jane
was
fit
to
"take
a
first rank
among
the
best
improved,
whether
in
acquirements,
in
taste,
or
in
the
graces."16
Such visitors
typically equated
Jane's
refinement
with
education. Several
of
them
wrote
that
she had
been educated
in
Europe.
In
fact,
she had
only
visited
England
and Ireland
briefly
as a
young
girl,
but her
father had
taken
great
pains
with
her
education
at
home. "Under his
delicate
and well
timed
commendations
and
criticisms,"
wrote
Henry,
"she
not
only acquired
more
than
the ordinary proficiency
in
some
of
the branches of
an
English education
but
also
a
correct
judgment
and
taste
in
literary
merit."17
Henry
and
Jane
courted
by
exchanging
volumes of Oliver
Goldsmith's
poetry.18
For
Henry,
Jane's
education
was a
triumph
of culture
over
geography.
Praising
her
poetry,
he
wrote:
"When
...
we
add the limited
opportunities
of her
early
life,
and the
scenes
of
seclusion
[in]
which
so
much of her
time
had
been
14
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft,
Narrative
Journal
of
Travels
Through
the
Northwestern
Regions
of
theUnited States. . . in theYear 1820
[1821],
ed.Mentor Williams
(East
Lansing:
Michigan
State
College
Press,
1953),
95.
On
Jane's
household
as
a
regular
stop
for
travelers
see
Patricia
Jasen,
Wild
Things:
Nature,
Culture
and
Tourism
in Ontario
?Toronto:
University
of Toronto
Press,
1995),
86.
b
Journals
of
James
Doty
and
Charles
Trowbridge, printed
in
Schoolcraft,
Narrative
Journal,
412, 468;
Robert
McElroy
and Thomas
Riggs,
eds.,
The
Unfortified
Boundary:
A
Diary
of
the
First
Survey
of
the
Canadian
Boundary...
by JosephDelafield
[1822]
(New
York:
privately printed,
1943),
370.
16
Thomas
McKenney,
Sketches
of
a
Tour
to
the
Lakes,
of
the
Character and Customs
of
the
Chippeway
Indians,
and
of
Incidents Connected with the
Treaty of
Fond Du
Lac
(Baltimore: Fielding Lucas, 1827), 201, 185.
17
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft,"Notes
of
a
Memoir
of
Mrs.
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft,"
ed.
J.
Sharpless
Fox,
Michigan
Pioneer
andHistorical
Collections
36
(1908):
95-100,
quotation
on
96.
18
Brazer,
Harps
upon
the
Willows,
157.
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Michigan
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Review
passed,
we
think
there
is
still
greater
cause
to
appreciate
and
admire."19
Yet
there
was
another
way
to
assess
the
opportunities
of
Jane's
background;
refinement
had
its
springs
in
nature
as
well
as
in
culture.
Henry
also
wrote
that
"there is
a
naivete
in
her
productions
which is
often
the
concomitant of
taste
and
genius."20
And
Samuel
Conant,
Henry's
New York
collaborator
on
the
book of
Indian
oratory,
noted with
regard
to
Jane
that
"nature
herself,
not
less
than
the
culture of skillful
hands,
has much
to
do
with
the
refinement
and
polish
of
the mind."21
Anna
Jameson,
an
English
author
who
later
met
the
Schoolcrafts
while
touring
the West, saw in Jane not
polished
refinement but natural?or
Indian?domesticity.
She noted
Jane's
"native
taste
for
literature,"
but
suggested
a
different
literary
tradition from that
of
Oliver Goldsmith
in
her
description
of
Jane
"bending
over
her
sleeping
children,
waving
off the
mosquitoes, singing
all the
time
a
low,
melancholy
Indian
song."22
While other
travel
writers
had
ignored
Jane's
mother
Oshauguscoday
way
qua,
who
spoke
little
English,
Jameson
was
drawn
to
this
"genuine
Indian
squaw."
Jameson
wrote:
"Simply,
yet
with
something
of
motherly dignity,"
she
"did
the honors
of
her house with
unembarrassed,
unaffected
propriety."23
Jameson,
like
others,
saw
in Jane the
same
qualities for which Henry praised her in his letter
of
1825:
simplicity,
modesty,
delicacy,
taste.
But while
other writers
saw
these
traits
as
European
acquirements,
Jameson
depicted
them
as
virtues
characteristic
of
Jane's
Chippewa heritage.
The
same
question?that
of
the
relationship
between
Jane's
genteel
virtues
and
her
Chippewa
background?was
aired
in
the
pages
of "The
Literary
Voyager,"
a
family magazine
that
Henry
and
Jane
created
in
the
winter
of
1826-7.
They
did
not
publish
the
magazine
but circulated
it in
manuscript
among
their friends.
As
its
title
suggested,
it
was
the
literary
equivalent
of the
fur-trade
voyageurs
who
carried
European
goods
into
Indian
country
and
Indian wealth out of it. It was both a vehicle for
literary
culture in the
wilderness and
a
forum
for studies
in
language
and
culture.
It
laid
the
19
Literary
Voyager,
84,
no.
7
(Feb.
1827).
20
Ibid.
21
Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs, 236-37.
22
Anna
Jameson,
Winter
Studies and
Summer Rambles
in Canada
(London:
Saunders and
Otley,
1838),
2:148,214.
Here and elsewhere
I
have
not
added
an
ellipsis
when
omitting
the final words
of
a
quotation.
23
Ibid,
2:
224-25.
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of
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9
groundwork
for
Henry's
later
success as
an
ethnographic
writer.24
Henry
wrote
the
bulk
of
the
magazine,
but
Jane
contributed
a
number
of
pieces
under
two
names,
"Rosa"
and
"Leelinau."
More than
mere
pen
names,
they
were
personae,
each
representing
a
different
version
of
Indian
identity.
"Rosa"
was
the Indian
self
as
described
by
Anna
Jameson:
dignified,
domestic, sentimental,
and
virtuous.
One
article,
over
the
signature
"R.
A
Native,"
described the
etiquette
of
Indian
feasts
and
noted
that "there
is
a
politeness existing
...
in
every
human
breast,
and that
an
Indian
feels
it
. .
.
as
well
as
the
most
refined
and
civilized
among
the
whites."25
Rosa
associated
herself, as "ANative," with Nature and the natural. In the first issue of the
"Literary
Voyager,"
she included
a
poem
"By
an
Ojibwa
Female
Pen,"
inviting
her sisters
to
enjoy
the
fresh
air
after
a
rainshower and
comparing
it
to
a
divine
"breeze
of
hope"
opening "through
sorrow's
clouds."26
A
later
contribution,
entitled "Lines
to
a
Friend
Asleep,"
invited
her
hearer outdoors
in
the
morning
when
Nature
is
clad
in
best
array,
The
woods,
the
fields,
the
flowers
are
gay.
As
in
the earlier
poem,
she concluded with
an
invitation
With
joyful
hearts,
and
pious lays,
To
join
the
glorious
Maker's
praise.
. .
.27
Rosa's
poems
combined
a
European
idiom with
an
assertion
of
Indianness;
her
posture
of
invitation
suggested
that
as
part
Indian
she
had
a
special
or
proprietary
relationship
to
Nature and
to
Nature's
God.
If "Rosa"
was one
statement
of
Jane's
sense
of her
own
Indianness,
another
was
"Leelinau."
Jane
used this
persona
to
communicate
not
the
universal
sentiments of
natural
religion
but rather
the
exotic
culture and
folktales of the
Chippewa people.
In
the
first
issue of
the
magazine,
when
24
See Vernon
Kinietz,
"Schoolcraft's
Manuscript Magazines,"
Papers
of
the
Bibliographical
Society
of
American
(1941):
151-54.
Although
the Schoolcrafts left "The
Literary
Voyager"
in
manuscript,
it
has been collected and
published
in
a
modern
edition
by
Philip
Mason,
which
is
the
version
I
cite
in
this article.
(See
note
4
above.)
25
Literary Voyager, 48, no. 4 (12 Jan. 1827). The author is not identified but is
probably
Jane
writing
as
Rosa,
since
no
other
name
beginning
with
"R"
appears
in
the
magazine.
26Ibid,8,no.
1
(Dec. 1826).
27
Ibid,
71,
no.
5
(Jan. 1827).
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11
Henry
introduced both
personae,
he
contrasted
Rosa's
"chasteness"
and
"pleasing
versification"
with Leelinau's
more
serious
"investigation
of Indian
history
and
traditions."28
He later
noted
that
Leelinau's
contributions derived
"additional
interest"
from "the
position
she
occupie[d]
between
the
European
and
aboriginal
races."29
One
of
Leelinau's contributions
was
"Moowis,"
a
Chippewa
folktale
which
stood
out
sharply
from
the
magazine's
largely
sentimental fare.
It
told
the
story
of
a
Chippewa
"beau"
who visited
a
"belle"
in
her bed
at
night
and
was
rebuffed.
Humiliated,
the beau
refused
to
accompany
the other
villagers
when they moved camp at the onset of winter. Alone on the dirty and
abandoned
village
site,
he constructed
a
magical
figure
of trash and human
feces.
[He]
gathered
all the bits
of
clothing,
and
ornaments
of
beads and
other
things,
that had been left.
He
then
made
a
coat
and
leggins
of
the
same,
nicely
trimmed
with
the
beads,
and the
suit
was
fine
and
complete.
.
. .
He
then collected the dirt of the
village,
and filled the
garments
he had
made,
so as
to
appear
as
a
man,
and
put
the bow
and
arrows
in its hands, and it
came
to
life.
The
figure
followed
the beau
to
the
villagers'
new
camp.
The
villagers
were
drawn
to
the
figure,
although
when
it
came
close
to
the
fire
they
smelt
it
and
said
"some
one
has trod
on,
and
brought
in
dirt."
But
the
belle
fell
in
love
with
the
figure.
She
brought
it
home
with her that
night.
In
the
morning
the
figure
told the
belle,
"I
must
go
away."
She
followed
behind.
But
the
figure
walked
so
fast
that
she
could
only
see
its
footprints
in
the
snow.
When the
sun rose
high,
she
found one
of
his mittens
and
picked
it
up,
but
to
her
astonishment,
found
it
full
of
dirt.
She,
however took
it
and
wiped
it,
and
going
on
further,
she
found
the other
mitten in
the
same
condition. She
thought,
"fie
why
does
he do
so,"
thinking
he dirtied in them. She
kept
finding
different
articles of his
dress,
on
the
way
all
day,
in
the
same
condition.
By
evening,
she had collected all the
dirty
clothes,
and
the
day's
sunshine
had
softened the
snow
both
ahead and
behind
her.
"She
began
to
cry,
not
knowing
28
Ibid,
5,
no.
l(Dec.
1826).
29Ibid,
38-39,
no.
3
(Jan.
1827).
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where
to
go,
as
their track
was
lost,
on
account
of
the snow's
melting.
She
kept
crying
Moowis has led
me
astray.
..."
Alone
in
the
winter
wilderness,
the belle
was
left
to
die.30
This
story
of
sexual
revenge
and
a
homunculus
of
human "dirt"
was
strikingly
different
from
the
poetry
of
Rosa. One
appeal
was
conventional,
the other
exotic;
the
one
suggested
a common
ground
between white and
Indian
culture
which
the
other denied.
Rosa's "Nature"
is
benevolent,
but
Nature in
"Moowis" is
Winter,
killing
anyone
who leaves the
group,
and
its
supernatural
force
is
a
dark
magic
that
betrays
the
belle into
filth
and death.
The genre of the folktale and the persona of Leelinau gave Jane license to
address
topics
she
might
have
thought
too
coarse or
shocking
to
write about
in
her
own
voice.
The
context
for
this tale
was
Henry's
ethnographic
research.
As
Indian
Agent, Henry
considered
himself
as
much
a
scholar
as
an
administrator. While
other
ethnologists
studied
ancient
ruins
and
the skulls
of different
races,
Henry's
particular
interest
was
linguistic
and
cultural.
He
was
fascinated
by
the "oral
fictitious
lore"
to
be
found
"in
the
circle of
Chippewa
wigwams."
Henry
was
to
make
his
reputation by
collecting
and
publishing
folktales
such
as
"Moowis."31
In
Henry's
ethnographic
career,
Jane
played
a
crucial role. She could
translate from
Chippewa,
a
language
Henry
never
mastered.
She also
gave
him
entr?e
into the circle
of
Chippewa
wigwams.
The
folktales
represented
to
Henry
the Indians' realm of
"feelings
and
affections."32
As
a
recently
arrived
government
functionary,
he could have but little
access
to
that
intimate realm.
But
by
marrying
Jane
he entered "the
only
family
in
northwest
America
who
could,
in
Indian
lore,
have acted
as
my
*
guide, philosopher,
and friend.'"33
Henry
did much of his research inside the
Johnston
house,
a
comfortable
substitute
for
actual
wigwams.
But
during
a
trip along
the south
shore
of Lake
Superior
in
1824,
he found that his connection to
Jane's
mother and her
family
won
him
"a
degree
of confidence
and
cordiality by
the
Indians,
which
30
Ibid,
56-57,
no.
4
(12
Jan.
1827).
31
Schoolcraft,
Personal
Memoirs,
196.
See William
M.
Clements,
"Schoolcraft
as
Textmaker,"
Journal
of
American
Folklore
103
(1990):
177-92.
For
contemporary
efforts
in
physical anthropology
see
Bernard
Peters,
"Indian-Grave
Robbing
at
Sault
Ste.
Marie, 1826,"Michigan Historical Review 23, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 49-80; Stanton, The
Leopard's
Spots,
24-44.
For
the
study
of
ruins
see
Dippie,
Catlin
and His
Contemporaries,
234.
32
Schoolcraft,
Personal
Memoirs,
196.
33
Ibid,
107-8
(journal
entry,
28
July 1822).
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Marie
13
[he]
had
not
expected."34
In
"Moowis,"
as
in the
"Nature"
poems,
Jane
claimed
authority by
virtue
of her Indian
background.
Where
Rosa
served
as
Indian
guide
to
the
beauties
of
Nature,
Leelinau
was a
guide
into
the
wigwams.
But
the
nature
of
the
authority
was
very
different.
First,
as a
native
informant,
Jane
had
authority
without
authorship.
There
was
undoubtedly
a
creative
aspect
to
her
work,
and the
"Literary Voyager"
gave
her
pseudonymous
credit
for
"Moowis"
just
as
for the
poems.
But
Henry
did
not
credit her when
he
published
her
folktales
in
book
form.35
Ultimately,
Jane
was
just
one
link in
a
chain of
transmission from the anonymous Chippewa wigwams toHenry Wadsworth
Longfellow,
who later reworked material from
Henry's
books
into
Tloe
Song
of
Hiawatha?6
There
was
another
difference
between the claims
Jane
made
as
Rosa and
as
Leelinau.
In
switching
from
one
persona
to
the
other,
Jane
surrendered her
claim
to
a
Christian
moral
authority.
The values
of
the
Nature
poems
were
accessible
to
white
readers;
those of
"Moowis"
were
not.
As transmitter
of
"Moowis"?as
a
"half-breed"
able
to
understand the
story's
language
and
logic,
as
someone
to
whom
such
a
tale
was
not
alien,
but
familiar?Jane
became
a
disturbingly foreign figure. She
left
behind both the gentility of Jane Johnston
and the
chasteness
of
Rosa.
During
the months
when
Jane
was
experimenting
with her
part-Indian
identity
in
the
"Literary
Voyager,"
she
and
her
infant
son were
in
expectation
of
a
tangible
benefit from
the Indian
side
of her
family.
In
August
1826
Henry
had
traveled
to
the
far end
of
Lake
Superior
to
help
negotiate
the
treaty
of
Fond du Lac.
Congress
wanted
to
define
the
Chippewa-Sioux
boundary
and
to
obtain the
right
to
mine
copper
on
Chippewa
land;
the
Chippewa,
their
national lands still
largely
intact,
agreed
in
exchange
for
government
annuities.
They
also decided to award allotments of tribal land to "half-breeds ... in
consideration of
the
affection
they
bear
to
these
persons,
and of the
interest
which
they
feel
in
their
welfare."
Land
grants
to
individuals
were
common
in
contemporary
Indian
treaties,
owing
both
to
the
interested motives
of
34
Ibid,
194
(journal
entry,
30
May 1824).
35
"Moowis,
or
the
Man
Made
up
of
Rags
and
Dirt,"
in
Henry
R.
Schoolcraft,
Western Scenes
and
Reminiscences:
Together
with
Thrilling
Legends
and Traditions
of
the
Red Men of theForest (Buffalo,NY: Derby, Orton & Mulligan, 1853), 164-67. In this
later
version
both the sexual and the excremental
aspects
of
the
story
were
toned
down.
36
See
Chase Osborn and Stellanova
Osborn,
Schoolcraft,
Longfellow,
Hiawatha
(Lancaster,
PA:
Jacques
Cattell,
1942);
Helen
Carr,
"The
Myth
of
Hiawatha,"
Literature
and
History
12
(1986):
58-78.
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negotiators
and
to
a
need
to
provide
for relatives
of
a
tribe
who
were no
longer
part
of
it.
The
treaty
of
Fond du Lac
included
a
list of
some
forty-five
Chippewa
women
married
to
white
men,
each of whom
was
to
receive
land
for herself and
her
children.
Jane's
mother,
Oshauguscoday
way qua
headed the
list and
was
the
only
one
to
receive
a
further allotment for
each
grandchild.
Her
family's
lands?which
included 640
acres
each for
Jane
and her
son
Willy?were
to
be
on
Sugar
Island,
a
prime
location for
the
production
of
maple
sugar.37
Henry
Schoolcraft,
as
Indian
Agent
for
Lake
Superior,
helped negotiate
the treaty which was to enrich his wife and son. By including them under the
name
of
Oshauguscodaywayqua (a
name
probably
unfamiliar
in
Washington,
D.C.)
he
masked his
conflict of
interest.
But
even
though
his
subterfuge
was
not
exposed,
the
Senate
struck down the "half-breed"
land
grants
while
ratifying
the
rest
of the
treaty.38
In
the
eyes
of
the
Schoolcrafts,
the
intended
grants
to
Jane
and her
child
appeared
not
as
corrupt
profiteering
but
as a
legitimate
inheritance.
Henry
always
emphasized
his
family's
"diverse
sources
of
pride
of
ancestry,"
which
included
Oshauguscodaywayqua's
father
Waubojeeg,
a
Chippewa
leader
whom Henry called "the ruling chief of the region,.
. .
another Powhatan."39
(Jane,
more
modestly,
called
him "a chief of
fame,"
raised
by
his
own
talents
to
a
"simple
forest
throne."40)
Given this
distinguished background,
the
generous
land
grant
must
have
seemed
only
fair,
a
kind
of
royal
inheritance.
The
Sugar
Island
estate,
furthermore,
was
well chosen.
As the fur
trade
was
rapidly
stripping
the beaver
from the
Chippewa
lands,
the
region's
economic
future
would lie
with renewable
resources
such
as
maple
sugar.41
37
"Treaty
With
the
Chippewa,
1826,"
Article
4
in
Indian
Affairs:
Laws
and
Treaties, vol. 2, ed. Charles
Kappler
(Washington:
GPO,
1904),
268-73.
38
Quotation
from
ibid.
Article
7.
The
ratification
proceedings
are
in
Senate
Journal,
19th
Cong,
2nd
sess,
5
Jan.
and
11
Jan.
1827,
307-9.
Although
they
were never
ratified,
the
half-breed land
grants
repeatedly appeared
in
the
published
text
of the
treaty:
American
State
Papers:
Indian
Affairs,
vol.
2
(Washington:
Gales and
Seaton,
1834),
677-78;
?7.5.Statutes
at
Large,
vol.
7
(Washington,
1848),
290-95;
Kappler,
Indian
Affairs,
272-73.
See
Bremer,
Indian
Agent,
74,
and
Robert
Keller,
"The
Chippewa
Treaties
of
1826
and
1836,"
American
Indian
Journal
9,
no.
3
(1986):
27-32.
39
Schoolcraft,
Personal
Memoirs,
236;
Henry
Rowe
Schoolcraft,
Summary
Narrative
of
an
Exploratory Expedition
to
the Sources
of
the
Mississippi
River,
in
1820
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co, 1855), 77n.
40Literary
Voyager,
138-9,
no.
13
(10
Mar.
1827).
41
An
Indian
agent
in
1843
estimated
the annual value of
Chippewa
sugar
above
that of
Chippewa
furs.
In
season
maple
sugar
made
up
as
much
as
one-sixth
of
the local
food
supply.
Robert
Keller,
"An
Economic
History
of Indian Treaties
in
the
Great
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The
Schoolcrafts of
Sault
Ste. Marie
15
Flenry
Schoolcraft had
no
patrimony
of his
own
to
leave his
son
and would
not
get
rich
on
government
pay.
He
and
Jane
hoped
to
see
their
son
well
launched
in
the
world
on
the varied
gifts
of his mixed
background:
a
precocious
intelligence,
a
"face of
the
purest
Caucasian
whiteness"42
from his
three
white
grandparents,
and
640
acres
of
sugar
maples
from
Oshauguscodaywayqua.
One
of
Willy's
assets,
however,
his
full
citizenship
under the
government
which his
father
served,
was
open
to
challenge.
In
the
year
before
the
treaty,
Henry
was
involved
in
a
political
controversy
over
whether mixed-race
men
had the
right
to vote. In the 1825 election for
Michigan's
territorial
delegate
to
Congress,
most
of
the
votes
from Sault
Ste. Marie
village
went to
one
candidate,
a
land
office
clerk named
John
Biddle who
was a
political ally
of
Henry
Schoolcraft.
Biddle beat the other
two
candidates
in
the
election,
defeating
his
nearest
rival,
Austin
Wing,
by
just
seven
votes.
Wing's
allies
protested,
claiming
that the
votes
from
Sault
Ste. Marie
should
not
have been
counted
since
some
of
the
voters
were
part
Indian.
By
law the
Michigan
franchise
was
reserved
for
white
men.43
A
two-man
Board
of
Canvassers
met to
examine the
question.
They
received affidavits from Sault Ste. Marie regarding the mixed-race voters.
Wing's
supporters
claimed that these
voters
were
"assimilated
entirely
to
Indians
of
the
full
blood,
and
[had]
no
habits
in
common
with the white
population," living
by
hunting
and
fishing
instead of
farming.44
Schoolcraft
indignantly
replied
that
"persons
of mixed
blood,
usually
called half-breeds"
were
"assimilated
in
their
manners
and
customs to
the
most
favored
class
of
citizens,"
resembling
white Americans
in their
clothing, religion,
language,
and
employment.45
Lakes
Region,"
American
Indian
Journal
5,
no.
1
(Feb. 1978):
2-20,
statistics
from
6,11.
42
"Notice
of
William
Henry
Schoolcraft,"
Literary
Voyager,
144,
no.
14
(28
Mar.
1827).
43
See
Wallace
Genser,
"'Habitants,'
'Half-Breeds,'
and
Homeless Children:
Transformations
in
M?tis andYankee-Yorker
Relations
in
Early
Michigan,"
Michigan
Historical Review
24,
no.
1
(1998):
23-48;
William
Dunbar,
Michigan:
A
History
of
the
Wolverine State
(Grand
Rapids:
Eerdmans,
1965),
276-80.
On
the
history
of
part-Indian,
mixed-race
voting
rights
see
Jeremy
Mumford,
"M?tis
and the Vote
in
Nineteenth
Century
America:
A
Westward
Journey,"
Journal
of
the
West
(forthcoming).
44
"AReport of theProceedings inRelation to the Contested Election forDelegate
to
the
Nineteenth
Congress,
from the
Territory
of
Michigan
. . .
,"
[1825]
in
The
Territorial
Papers
of
the United
States,
vol.
9,
The
Territory ofMichigan
1820-1829,
ed.
Clarence Edwin
Carter
(Washington:
GPO,
1945),
742.
45
Ibid,
752.
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Michigan
Historical
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The
two
board
members
found
themselves unable
to
agree
on
whether
people
of
mixed blood could
ever
have
the
right
to vote.
One
argued
that
"no
one,
having
any
Indian
blood
in
his
veins,
can
be
entitled
to vote.
. .
.
Education
does
not
alter
the
cast,
nor
any
mixture of
blood
constitute
of
a
part
Indian,
a
'free,
white
citizen.
'"
The other
member
disagreed.
He
described
a
hypothetical
mixed-blood
man
who lived with and
in
the
manner
of
white
Americans and
was
"in
a
condition of
estrangement
from
all nations
and tribes
of
Indians"?
"should
such
a
case
occur,"
he
concluded,
that
man
might
be
allowed
to
vote.46
The controversy went to theHouse Committee on Elections, which took
up
the
"very
delicate
and
important" question
of
mixed-blood
voting.
The
committee
sided with the second
member of
the territorial Board
of
Canvassers,
declaring
that
a
mixed-blood
man
who
was
"assimilated
to,
and
associated
with,
the
great
body
of
the civilized
community"
could
vote.
If
he
was
associated with
an
Indian
tribe,
however,
"it
would be
a
prostitution
of
the character
of
an
American
citizen"
to
let that
man
vote.47
Though
the
point
of
law
was
somewhat
doubtful,
it
appeared
that the infant William
Henry
Schoolcraft
might
grow
into
full
political membership
in
his
country.
For
Henry Schoolcraft,
an
ambitious
federal
official,
it
was
vitally important
that
Willy's
racial
background
not
limit
him
to
second-class
citizenship.
The
decision
of
Congress,
it
seemed,
would
ensure
him
full
citizenship.
Yet
Henry's
strategy
of
acquiring
land for
Willy
at
the
treaty
of Fond du
Lac
put
the child's
full
citizenship
in
jeopardy.
The
half-breed land
grants
were
designed
precisely
to
tie
mixed-blood
and
full-blood
Chippewa
more
closely together,
to
prevent
what
the
Michigan
canvassers
called
"estrangement
from
all
nations
and
tribes
of
Indians."48
In
justifying
the
grants,
Henry
argued
that mixed-race
Chippewa
were
the tribe's
"best and
most
constant
friends."49
Thomas
McKenney,
the
Superintendent
of Indian
Affairs who
supervised
the
treaty,
was more
specific:
the allotments would
enable
the
half-breeds
to
"grow
potatoes
and other
things,
and be able
to
feed,
in
part,
the Indians
of the
lake."50
46
Ibid,
731.
47
House
Committee
on
Elections,
Michigan
Election,
19th
Cong,
1st
sess.
13
Feb.
1826,
H.
Rept.
69.
The
Sault
Ste.
Marie
votes
were
rejected
on
other
grounds,
however,
and the election
went
to
Austin
Wing.
48
"Report of the Proceedings in Relation to the Contested Election," 731.
49
Literary
Voyager,
30-31,
no.
2
(Dec.
1826);
Schoolcraft,
Personal
Memoirs,
244
(journal
entry
from
10
July
1826).
50
McKenney,
Sketches
of
a
Tour
to
the
Lakes,
376n
(journal
entry
from
21
Aug.
1826).
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The
Schoolcrafts
of
Sault
Ste. Marie
17
n
a
a
a
o
H
U
C$
Q
a
o
a
o
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Michigan
Historical
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Willy's
land
on
Sugar
Island
was
not
intended for
potatoes
but for the
more
lucrative
production
of
maple
sugar.
As
such,
it
was an
invitation
into
his Indian
grandmother's
family
business.
Oshauguscodaywayqua
had
been
making
sugar
on
a
large
scale for
years.
Henry
visited her
sugar
camp
in
1823
and
observed
that "the whole
air
of the
place
resembled that
of
a
manufactory."51
She made
over
a
ton
of
sugar
each
spring,
which
was
her main
source
of income after
her husband's death.
The
maple
sugar,
often
set
in small
baskets
called
mokkuks,
was
a
characteristic
Chippewa product.
Oshauguscodaywayqua
doted
on
her
grandson;
Henry
and
Jane
wrote
that
she
"never failed to address him in the native
tongue
.. .
[calling
him] penaysee or
little
Bird."52
She
may
have
requested
the
clause
in
the Fond du
Lac
treaty
which
designated
Jane's
and
Willy's
allotments
on
Sugar
Island
precisely
in
order
to
have
them
nearby.
The
purpose
of
the
land
grant
was
not to
estrange
him
from the
Chippewa
tribe but
to
tie
him
to
it.
One
of
the land
grant's
provisions,
in
particular,
might
have
undermined
Willy's
claims
to
full
citizenship:
the
treaty
forbade
the
recipients
from
selling
their
land
except
by permission
of
the
president.53
This
provision
had
symbolic
as
well
as
practical
significance.
Private
property
was at
the heart of
how Americans understood both civilization and citizenship. Henry himself,
in
arguing
that the
half-breed
voters
of 1825
were
white
in
the
eyes
of
the
law,
wrote
that
they adopted
"the
maxims
of
civilized communities
with
regard
to
the
rights
of individuals
and
the
acquirement
and
possession
of
property."54
In
seeking
to
endow
Willy
with
Indian
lands
that
he
(like
the
Chippewa
tribe)
had the
right
to
hold but
not to
sell,
Henry
and
Oshauguscodaywayqua
undermined the
child's
membership
and
citizenship
in
a
"civilized"
community.
For
Willy
the
question
proved
moot.
In
March
1827,
two
months
after
the Senate
rejected
his
ambiguous
inheritance
on
Sugar
Island,
Willy
suddenly
became
sick with
croup
and died. After
building
up
so
many
dreams on "the
interesting
chain
of
thought...
connected
with
the
idea
of
a
home,
and
a
wife,
and
a
child,"
both
parents
became
deeply depressed.
They
went
on
to
have
two
more
children:
Jane
Susan
Anne
Schoolcraft,
called
Janee,
born
in
1827,
and
51
Personal
Memoirs,
162-63
(journal
entry
from
26Mar.
1823).
52
Literary Voyager,
146,
no.
14
(28
Mar.
1827).
53
Indian
Affairs:
Laws
and
Treaties,
2:
269.
54Deposition of John Agnew and Henry Schoolcraft, in "Report of the
Proceedings
in
Relation
to
the Contested
Election,"
752. On
the
historical
relationship
between freehold
property,
male
authority,
and
political
citizenship,
see
Nancy
F.
Cott,
"Marriage
and
Women's
Citizenship
in
the United
States,"
American Historical
Review
103
(1998):
1440-74.
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The
Schoolcrafts
of
Sault
Ste. Marie
19
John
Johnston
Schoolcraft,
called
Johnston,
born
in 1829. But
the
fresh
hopes
of
the
Schoolcrafts'
early marriage
did
not
return.
In
1830,
while
traveling
to
the
session
of
the
territorial
legislature
in
Detroit,
Henry
had
a
religious
conversion.
He
joined
the
Presbyterian
church,
gave
up
card
playing,
and
began
reading
Calvin.
Religion
became
a
primary
force
in
Henry's
life,
and he
helped
bring
about
a
revival the
following
winter
in
the
village
of Sault
Ste. Marie
by paying
for
the
establishment
of
a
Presbyterian
minister
there.
But
Henry's
new
faith
did
not
bring
him
closer
to
his
family.
In
fact,
he believed that William
Henry's
death
was
just
retribution for the fact that he and Jane had loved the child too much and had
committed the
sin
of
"idolatry."
He
loved his
younger
children
and
hoped
that
his
second
son
would
grow
up
to
be
a
minister.
But
Henry
was
in
no
danger
of
repeating
his "idolization."55
Henry
came
to
distrust
the
Indian
part
of
Jane's
background. Shortly
after
the
beginning
of
his
conversion?which took
place, significantly,
while
they
were
apart?he
wrote
to
her about the
state
of her
soul.
Her
upbringing
had
been
sadly
deficient,
he
warned,
since
she
had
been
"brought
up
in
a
remote
place,
without
any
thing
which
deserves the
name
of
a
regular
education,
. . .
without
a
mother, inmany things,
to
direct, & with
an
overkind father, who
saw
every
thing
in
the fairest
light."56
In
Henry's
new
frame of
reference,
salvation demanded
a
strict
training
in
Christian
doctrine
and
practice.
Sault
Ste. Marie's
remoteness
from civilization
impeded
Christian
education;
and
having
a
Chippewa
mother,
he
seemed
to
say,
was
as
bad
as
having
no
mother
at
all.
In
discounting
any
positive
influence from
Oshauguscodaywayqua,
Henry
surrendered
one
of
the
translation
projects
undertaken
in
their
marriage.
He
no
longer
looked
for
genteel
womanhood?for
"delicacy
of
sentiment"
and
"correct taste"?in
the
joint
heritage
of
Rosa
and
Leelinau.
The
family
moved
to
Mackinac
in 1833
so
that
the
children
could
attend
a
Presbyterian
school;
three
years
later
they
moved to Detroit when
Henry
was
appointed
Michigan's
Superintendent
of
Indian
Affairs.
Jane
was
unhappy
away
from her
village
and
family,
and
she
found herself unwelcome
in
society.57
A
man
who
met
the Schoolcrafts
in
Detroit,
where
they
shared
a
boarding
house
with the
governor,
recalled that
Jane
"did
not
often
appear
at
^
Bremer,
Indian
Agent,
chaps.
6
and
8.
The
religious
revivals
throughout
Michigan
in
1830-31
were
part
of
a
nationwide
movement,
centered
in
the "Burned
Over District" of western New York from which many Michigan immigrants had
come.
56
Henry
to
Jane,
Thanksgiving
1830,
quoted
in
Brazer,
Harps
upon
the
Willows,
228.
57
Jane
to
Henry,
12
Oct.
1833,
sheet
2015,
container
11,
Schoolcraft
Papers.
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the
table,
though
well-educated
in
England
and
a
real
lady
in
her
manners.
When she found herself
cut
by
some
of the
white ladies
when
at
Washington,
she could
never
get
over
it,
but rather retired
from
company."58
Jane's
snubbing
was
part
of
a
regional
pattern.
The
daughters
of Indian
women
and
Anglo
officials
and
traders
grew
up
as
the
first ladies
of the
fur
trade
country.
Jane
had been that
in
Sault
Ste.
Marie,
where
so
many
visitors
at
her father's
table
had admired her
grace
and
accomplishments.
Her
marriage
to
a
rising
government
official
might
have assured her
place
in
society
had she
stayed
in
Sault Ste.
Marie:
as
late
as
1831
there
were
only
two
married
women
there not of Indian descent.59 But in the
larger
settlements,
white ladies were
beginning
to
arrive;
for
them,
"half-breeds"
were
a
lesser
caste,
unfit
to
be
known
or
visited.
Henry
offered
Jane
little
support
in
this trial.
Anxious
about
the lack
of Christian
culture
in
Michigan,
he had himself
hoped
for the
arrival of "females of
various
European
or
American
lineages,
from educated
and
refined
circles."60
Jane,
furthermore,
was
not
well.
Her
health had been
poor
for much
of
her
life;
even
during
their
stay
in
New York
in 1824
she had
spent
many
days
in
bed.
In
Mackinac
in
1835
she
came
down with
whooping cough,
for which
she took the opium derivative laudanum. She remained a semi-invalid and
dependent
on
the
drug
(then
widely prescribed)
to
get
through
the
day.
She
and
Henry
sent
the
children
to
boarding
school
in
the
East. The
family
suffered further blows.
Henry,
caught
up
in
the
western
land boom of the
mid-1830s,
invested
heavily
in
Detroit real
estate
and
lost
most
of the
family's
savings
when
the
market
collapsed
in 1837.
Then
as
an
outspoken
Democrat
he
lost
his
position
when
a
Whig
administration
took
over
in
1841.
The
next
year,
with the
family
scattered?Henry
in
England
trying
to
publish
a
book,
Jane
visiting
her
sister
in
Ontario,
the children
in
school
in
Albany?Jane
suddenly
died. She
was
only
forty-two.61
Henry
struggled
to
regain
a
government
position
in Indian
Affairs.
Attempting
to
trade
on
his
children's
Indian
background,
he
wrote
a
sponsor:
"I
know
no
other
means
to
get
bread
for
my
children,
&
you
must
recollect
58
Autobiography of
John
Ball
[1925],
in
Recollections
of
the
Early Republic:
Selected
Autobiographies,
ed.
Joyce
Appleby
(Boston:
Northeastern
University
Press,
1997),
37.
Thanks
to
An
wen
Hughes
for this reference.
59
Bremer,
Indian
Agent,
104.
60
Quoted inRobert Bieder, Science Encounters theIndian, 1820-1880: The Early
Years
of
American
Ethnology
(Norman:
University
of Oklahoma
Press,
1986),
166.
See
Van
Kirk,
"Many
Tender
Ties"-,
idem,
"'The
Reputation
of
a
Lady':
Sarah Ballenden
and
the
Foss-Pelly
Scandal,"
Manitoba
History
11
(Spring
1986):
4-11.
61
Bremer,
Indian
Agent,
196-206, 216-21,
255.
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8/11/2019 1999 Mixed-Race Identity in a Nineteenth-Century Family
23/25
The
Schoolcrafts
of
Sault
Ste.
Marie
21
that
they
are
of
that
race,
who have
peculiar
claims
on
this branch
of
the
government."62
Eventually
his
efforts
succeeded: he
won an
appropriation
from
Congress
to
conduct
a
large-scale
statistical
study
of Indians
in
all
parts
of the
United
States which he
published
in
six massive
volumes
from
1851
to
1857.
Due
to
his
own
declining
health,
his
lack
of
system,
and the
rapid
publication
schedule mandated
by
Congress,
he
produced
a
study
that
was
too
disorganized
to
be
of
much
use
to
either
scholars
or
administrators.
It
won
him
fame
but little
respect.63
Around the
time
Henry
moved
to
Washington
to
begin
his
government
study, he married a second wife, Mary Howard, a southern slaveowner. Her
deep
belief
in
slavery
was
informed
by
the
new
scientific
theory
of
race
that
by
midcentury
had become
the
"American
School
of
Ethnology."
This held
that
races were
separate
species, essentially
different
and
unfit
to
intermarry.
Consequently,
as
she
concluded,
mixed-race
unions
were
"sins
against
the laws
of
Nature,"
the children
subject
to