Promises Kept, Promises Broken

Instructional Leadership Competencies: Community Awareness, engagement and Advocacy

Began at Emerging:

*Recognize the unique needs, culture, and context of students as it affects students education and transition into middle school.

Evidence:

• Identify the unique needs, cultures, communities, and contexts of students.
• Identify how unique needs, cultures, and contexts of students impact learning.

Moving to Developing:

Developing: Develop a deep understanding of their cultural, political, and educational settings.

• Use a deep understanding of cultural educational, and political concerns and issues to address student needs.

Evidence:

• Through research, interviews and discussions I developed a deeper understanding of my students' culture, political, and educational settings.

Foundational Competencies:

Began at Emerging:

• Collaborate Purposefully

Engage in ongoing self-education and self-reflection

Evidence:

• Recognize and acknowledge limitations of my skills and practice when engaging with other cultural groups, and engage in ongoing self-education.
• Moved to Developing

Creating an environment for not only students but also adults of collaboration and self-education.

WHAT ARE MY STUDENTS' UNIQUE NEEDS?

I needed to learn about their past to understand the needs of today.

A copy of the Treaty of Fort Laramie as well as a map of the Crow reservation showing how much of the land is privately owned by non-tribal members.

Plenty Coups' strong dedication to his people was evident. He advocated a policy of cooperation with the whites. However, he also expressed resentment toward the white man. He told Frank Linderman in "Plenty Coups" that "[w]e made up our minds to be friendly … but we found this difficult, because the white men too often promised to do one thing and then, when they acted at all, did another. They spoke very loudly when they said their laws were made for everybody; but we soon learned that although they expected us to keep them, they thought nothing of breaking them themselves … we know that with all his wonderful powers, the white man … is smart, but not wise, and fools only himself."

The fight never ends:

While Plenty Coups may have been cooperative with the whites regarding such issues as farming and education, land was quite a different matter. Between 1880 and 1921, he traveled to Washington, D.C., at least ten times to fight proposed land concessions by the Crows. The heaviest period of travel took place in the ten years between 1908 and 1918. During this time, the Montana congressional delegation made its strongest effort to open the reservation to general homesteading. The Crows recognized these proposals as threats to the well-being of the tribe, and the people ended their factionalism and united behind Plenty Coups to defeat the measures.

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/plenty-coups

All photographs of primary sources are from:

• Native360
• https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/resources.cshtml
• Smithsonian American Indian Museum
• https://americanindian.si.edu/Visit

A Fight to be Educated:

• Plenty Coups realized early that good education was necessary for the tribe to prosper. As cited in Norman Wiltsey's book Brave Warriors, he told the Crows that "education is your most powerful weapon. With education you are the white man's equal; without education you are his victim." Yet, he did not see education as a way for the Crows to blend into white society while forgetting their own people. As he told Glendolin Wagner for Blankets and Moccasins, he wished them "to go to school and become well educated … then … to come back home on the reservation and work their land." Even with a partial adoption of white ways, Plenty Coups encouraged a strong loyalty to the tribe and tribal self sufficiency.
• https://biography.yourdictionary.com/plenty-coups

1883 – The government boarding school began for the Crow Tribe. Parents were threatened to send their children to school or their rations would be withheld.

1884 – The tribal agency is moved to its present site at Crow Agency.

1885 – Chief Plenty Coups made his first trip to Washington, D.C., with demands for his people.

1886 – Catholic Jesuits founded St. Xavier Mission in Crow country. The school received government support in the way of school supplies and 160-acre land grant.

1889 – Crow Agency boarding school was built.

https://opi.mt.gov/Portals/182/Page%20Files/Indian%20Education/Social%20Studies/K-12%20Resources/Crow%20Timeline.pdf

Many great men and woman traveled to Washington D.C. to negotiate the treaties that are in place today. Men like Chief Plenty Coups were visionaries in that they knew the world was changing and saw the importance of changing with it, while still holding traditions and culture close.

Plenty Coups was the last of the traditional Crow chiefs and led the tribe in its transition from the "buffalo days" to reservation life. He was effectively recognized as the single most important Native American tribal leader both by the federal government and his own people. He died in 1932, still fighting for the rights of his people at the end of his life.

According to Linderman. after his brother was killed Plenty Coups went on a fast, as he did on several occasions throughout his life, in hopes of receiving a vision which would give him power and direction. In his greatest vision, he saw the buffalo disappear and spotted buffalo, or cattle, appear in their place. A forest was destroyed by a storm, except for a single tree. This tree held the lodge of the Chickadee, who survived the storm because he was a sharp listener who learned from others and knew where to pitch his lodge.

The dream was interpreted to mean that the cattle which replaced the buffalo represented the whites taking over Crow country. The tree which survived was the Crows, who would survive the coming of the white man because, like the Chickadee, they listened and learned from the experiences of other tribes and placed themselves (pitched their lodges) in the right place. This powerful vision guided Plenty Coups throughout his life. It told him to adapt to and cooperate with the whites so the Crows would survive and prosper. It guided him as leader of the tribe through the difficult times ahead.

(https://biography.yourdictionary.com/plenty-coups )

Negotiations between tribal members and the Indian Affairs, were conducted in English with individuals who did not have complete control over the language and agreements did not always come to fruition.

Land that was given to the tribe at the time the reservations were established, was traded for the right to be educated, however the means of how that education would be carried out was not clear. The Crow people were lucky in that many of the the children were allowed to live at home while going to day schools. However, many had to ride a bus to school, the Crow parents watched their children be driven away into a world they didn't understand or even know about. Although, the Crow Tribe was settled by religious groups who were more concerned with spiritual salvation than eradicating the language, a generation of people came to lose their pride in their culture.

1920 – The Crow Act sponsored by the Crow Tribe, allotted the remainder of the reservation into tracts to every enrolled member of the tribe. “Provisions of the Crow Act were the following: allotment of everything except the mountains, patents-in fee to competent Indians, conveyance to anyone could not exceed 640 acres of farming land or 1280 acres of grazing land, tribal roles, mineral rights are held by tribe, no more irrigation systems without Crow consent, no liquor, consolidation of the Crow Fund, enrollment and competency commission, land to State in return for admission of Crow children into public schools.

https://opi.mt.gov/Portals/182/Page%20Files/Indian%20Education/Social%20Studies/K-12%20Resources/Crow%20Timeline.pdf

Crow Agency Public School was built in 1937. Hardin School District, which is situated on the edge of the Crow Reservation, was supposed to allow the children from the reservation to attend their school according to the Crow Act of 1920. The elders of the tribe will tell you that Crow Agency Public School was built so that would not be necessary and the native students would not enter the "white" school. Whether this is true or not, it is the message that has been passed down through generations. The mindset that the Crow are not welcome or wanted permeates through the school district even today. An underlying sense of mistrust and a strong lack of communication continues today and I can't help but refer to the history of the tribe to understand why.

*Equality means the students are now able to choose to attend the primary school in Hardin or the Crow School and are provided the same curriculum.

*Equality means the students transition into the middle school and high school of the Hardin School District and are welcome to participate in all aspects of the school.

*Equity means teachers and administrators understand the past and employ strategies to better meet the needs of parents and students, understanding they can not always use the same methods as non-native students and there is an inherent trust issue that must be mended.

Many teachers, as well as community members lack a sympathetic ear when discussing the impact of past trauma on the present day student. Many will dismissively say, 'Just get over it. Move on.' but But how can American Indians simply “get over it” when the primary founding document of the U.S., the Constitution, still condescendingly refers to them as a “savage”?

United States Constitution:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Recent literature has begun to exam the links between the history of colonialism and government interventions (including the residential school system, out-adoption, and centralized bureaucratic control) and the mental health of Native people.

There are high rates of social problems, demoralization, depression, substance abuse, suicide and other mental health problems in many, though not all, Native communities. Although direct causal links are difficult to demonstrate with quantitative methods, there is clear and compelling evidence that the long history of cultural oppression and marginalization has contributed to the high levels of mental health problems found in many communities. There is evidence that strengthening ethnocultural identity, community integration and political empowerment can contribute to improving mental health in this population.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1038-5282.2003.02010.x

These issues will not go away on their own and assuming the impact has lessened will not support the youth in transitioning into a world that has erased their history.

Present day Crow School encourages students to continue to speak the language of their grandparents and has a dual language program. The teachers work hard to prepare them for a future filled with success. But the scars of the past are still there and must be acknowledged in order to understand how equity can be achieved.