Peaceful revolutions are slow but sure. It takes time to leaven a great unwieldy mass like this nation with the leavening ideas of justice and liberty, but the evolution is all the more certain in its results because it is so slow.
Susette was born in Bellevue, Nebraska in 1854. She was the oldest of several sisters and a brother. Her youngest sister, Susan, became the first Native American woman to become a physician.[1] Susette spent her entire life working for the betterment of her people the Omaha tribe of Nebraska.
Susette was known throughout her life by her Omaha name – Inshta Theamba or by her English name Bright Eyes. This was important to her because all through her life she tried to live her life as best as she could in her two cultures. She loved the Omaha ways and was saddened as things changed during her lifetime for her tribe. On the other hand, she was glad to have had the chance to adopt some white man’s ways. Her father, Joseph La Flesche (Iron Eyes) was the last chief of the Omaha tribe. He was a remarkable man in any race. At a time when white men were not allowing women to be educated, Joseph helped his daughters go to college.
In the 1860’s Susette attended the Presbyterian Mission Boarding Day School on her reservation. She learned to read, write, and speak English. She also learned domestic skills such as cooking and sewing. Many Native American children were forced to attend schools where they were taught white man’s ways and cruelly stripped of their heritage. Susette was blessed to have an education with Christians who encouraged the children to love and support their families and tribe.
Susette was gifted so her father supported her by arranging for her to go to the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies, a private school in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She excelled in her studies, especially in writing. She would also show a talent in drawing. In her senior year, the New York Tribune published an essay she wrote. After graduating she returned to the reservation to work among her people. The government hired her to teach at their school.
During this time the U.S. Government was forcing many tribal peoples to move to other lands. The government broke many promises to the tribes. The tribes had been promised that they could stay on the land they had lived on for centuries. But the government would “trade” them for less desirable land in other places so they could give the rich lands to white settlers. One of the tribes was the Ponca, neighbors of the Omaha’s. These peoples were then forcibly removed from their land and marched to less desirable reservations elsewhere.
In 1877 the Poncas, neighbors of the Omaha were forced to move to Oklahoma. One Ponca chief, Standing Bear had promised his son that he would bury him back on their native ground. When Standing Bear left the reservation without permission from the white land agent he was arrested. His case went to trial and Susette acted as his interpreter. You can read about this ground-breaking trial in a book about Standing Bear.[2] It was the first time Native Americans were given permission to appear in court. Native Americans were finally considered human. They still had not won constitutional rights however – they could not vote. They could not move without permission from the white government. The fight for these freedoms was just beginning in 1880. They were not finally given the right to vote until the 1920’s.
At the trial Susette gained a national reputation as Standing Bear’s interpreter. She met many famous people who were sympathetic for the cause of the Native Americans[3] She toured most of the Eastern United States with her brother Francis La Flesche and a writer and publisher named Thomas H. Tibbles. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of the poem “Hiawatha” noted her Bright Eyes and said, “This could be Minnehaha.”
Susette and Thomas continued to fight for the rights for Native Americans. In 1882 they were married. They traveled to England and Scotland for a 10-month tour. They returned to Omaha in 1890 where Thomas went back to work at the Omaha World Herald.
In 1891 they traveled to Pine Ridge in South Dakota after the Battle of Wounded Knee. At least 200 Native Americans including women and children died in the conflict. This tragic event helped to bring the plight of Native Americans to the public. Susette continued to write and work with Thomas.
After this Susette and Thomas moved to Washington D.C. where he worked as a newspaper correspondent until 1895. Then they returned to Nebraska. Thomas worked as an editor for the Independent until 1915.
Susette died at her home near Bancroft on May 26, 1903. She was laid to rest alongside her father, Joseph and the Oldest Grandmother. A stone was later place on her grave with this inscription:
SUSETTE LA FLESCHE
BRIGHT EYES
Wife of T.H. Tibbles
1854-1902
SHE DID ALL THAT SHE COULD TO MAKE THE
WORLD HAPPIER AND BETTER
The United States Senate awarded her recognition for her work for Native Americans. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994. She is remembered as the first woman to speak for the cause of the Native Americans.
Here is her speech delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, December 30, 1880.
My people have made desperate struggles, year after year, for a hundred years, for their homes, for their lives and for their liberty. They have writhed under a powerful oppressor. It has been said that “the government system has been one of alternate pauperizing and butchery.” From time to time during these hundred years, there have arisen kind men and just men, judges and senators, who have tried to compel the government to right these wrongs and to change its system. From time to time parties have arisen like this. To insist that these wrongs be righted, and compel the government to change its course for the future, but they have always been beaten, and it remains to be seen whether we are or not. It has been said that “you cannot compel the government to right a wrong unless the people demand it.” i do not know whether it is because the people do not know enough or care enough to demand justice for a handful of helpless people in the absolute control of one government official, who has unlimited authority to kill and butcher if they do not obey his imperious will, or whether it is because this one government official is greater than the people who elect him, or he is so great in himself that he can afford to defy public opinion, or he has made money out of it. It is your place to find out which. During the last three years three tribes, the Nez Perces, the Poncas and the Cheyennes have been forcibly removed from their homes into strange lands, where many had died in hopeless anguish. What did these tribes do in their defence? You know they would have been less than men if they had submitted meekly like slaves to the authority of this one government official at Washington. The Nez Perces resisted, and there are now a feeble remnant of them left in the Indian territory, to which they were forced to go. Of the Cheyennes who resisted not a man is left to tell the tale. What did the Poncas do? They went into the courts with the writ of habeas corpus in their hand, claiming their liberty like men. This one government official sent an order to his attorney to dismiss the case, that they were not persons, and were not entitled to the writ of liberty. When the Cheyennes fought to maintain their rights, they were exterminated; when the Poncas claimed the protection of the courts, the great secretary of the interior tried to kick them out. Whether he will succeed or not, it is for you to say.
We offer a solution to the Indian problem. This solution will end all wars; it will end the shedding of the blood of innocent women and children; it will stop all these wrongs which have gone on month after month, year after year, for a hundred years.
The solution of the Indian problem, as it is called, is citizenship. Like all great questions which have agitated the world, the solution is simple — so simple that men cannot understand it. They look for something complicated, something wonderful, as the answer to a question which has puzzled the wisest heads for a hundred years.
The question, I believe, is “what shall be done with the Indian?” one part of the American people try to solve it by crying “exterminate him.” the answer to such people is, that he has a creator who will avenge his extermination. The other part cry “civilize him.”
Forthwith they go to work, tell him that his land shall be his “as long as the grass grows and the waters run.” we all know that “the grass grows and the waters run” only as long as it pleases the secretary of the interior. They say to him “you must not pass beyond this line without the permission of this man, your agent, whom we place over you,” thus effectually preventing him from seeing or moving in any civilization but his own. This, you see, is a lesson in freedom and liberty. Their first lesson in the art of civilization.
Next comes the lesson in commerce. The government says to the Indian: “you must trade only with this man whom we appoint. You must buy from him only, and sell to him only all the products of your farm.”
This is the law concerning spontaneous productions of the soil. A year ago last winter my father and brother and one or two of our friends went into the woods and lived in a tent all winter, so that they could haul logs to build my father a house. We children were growing, and there was not room for us all. In the spring, when they were ready to use the lumber, the government agent said to my father: “you cannot use that. It belongs to the government.” so the agent carried away a part of it, and the remainder of it lies on the ground rotting. And this is the lesson in morality. Then, to crown the whole, the government says: “above all, you must do just as we say, or we won’t feed you.” thus putting a premium on idleness. This third lesson is the lesson of industry, manliness and independence.
Last of all the government says: “we have adopted this policy in order to civilize you. Now, why don’t you become civilized?” as the process of civilization is rather slow, it having taken the Anglo-Saxon race a thousand years or so to become what they are now, and as the Indian, being a man, objects decidedly to being placed in a nursery subject to the bidding of one man who may be his inferior in moral character or intelligence, he is termed rebellious or sullen; and if he rises in exasperation, as he often does, he is termed a savage, incapable of civilization, and troops are sent to enforce the lessons.
When the Indian, being a man, and not a child, or thing, or merely an animal, as some of the would-be civilizers have termed him, fights for his property, liberty and life, they call him a savage. When the first settlers in this country fought for their property, liberty and lives, they were called heroes. When the Indian in fighting this great nation wins a battle, it is called a massacre; when this great nation in fighting the Indian wins a battle, it is called a victory.
After the Indian is prevented from earning his own living, and from taking care of himself, by this system of nursing and feeding, — although I have heard it reported at different times within the last few years that whole tribes have been found in a state of starvation, — he is reported to be incapable of taking care of himself and would starve if the government let him alone. It was because Standing Bear was trying to take care of himself, without the help of the government, that this powerful government, sent out its armed forces to carry him back to a land from which he had fled, because the terror of death was on him in that land.
It sounds like some strange story to think of this powerful government sending out its armed forces against a miserable little band composed of eight men, twenty-two women and children, all of them half starved, and half of them sick with the malarial diseases caught in the strange climate. Why did the government do this? Because the Indian, being a child, thing or ward, fled from that strange land, which meant death to him, without permission from his master, father or guardian, whichever you will. When he went into court to have his rights tried, the great reformer, Carl Schurtz, the Secretary of the Interior, said he was not a person, and therefore could not come into court. But the government feeds them. Was the government feeding them when it forced them from their land, carried them to a strange, unbroken country, reeking with malaria, there to live in canvas tents, and likely to starve because this great government, after having robbed them of their houses, lands and tools to work with, failed to issue them rations for three months? This is not a solitary instance, but has happened again and again to many other tribes, and will happen again and again till this whole system is abolished. It is either extermination or citizenship for the Indian. This system has been tried for nearly a hundred years, and has only worked ruin on the Indian. It has resulted only in the shedding of blood and mutual hatred between the two nations. It has resulted in the expenditure of vast sums of money, but all the money is as nothing to the loss of a single human life. Set aside the idea that the Indian is a child and must be taken care of, make him understand that he is to take care of himself, as all other men are required to do, give him a title to his lands, throw over him the protection of the law, make him amenable to it, and the Indian will take care of himself. Then there will be no more wars in trying to settle the Indian problem, for there will be no problem to settle.
La Flesche Tibbles, Susette. “Bright Eyes.” Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the American Indian Archives Transcription Center, 30 December 1880. https://transcription.si.edu/project/8132.
[1] See post Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, Posted on: February 12, 2024
[2] Starita, Joe. “I Am a Man”: Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice. Available at many booksellers.
[3] I am referring to them as Native Americans, but if you read any material from that era you will see they were called “Indians”.
