The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 4: July 3, 1880--May 22, 1881

Background

287 Background U pon returning to Washington to finalize the work with the Ponca Commission, Bourke met with Maj. John Wesley Powell, director of the two-year-old American Bureau of Ethnology. Powell had learned of Bourke’s work from E. S. Holden of the Naval Observatory, who had been a year behind Bourke at West Point, and from Rev. Dorsey, who, aside from his ministry with the Episcopal Church, and his work with the Ponca Commission, also was an ethnologist on the bureau’s staff. Both Holden and Dorsey believed the bureau could benefit from Bourke’s experiences. From this meeting came formal sanction for his ethnological interests, and thus he embarked on the work that would secure his own place in history. Indeed, with and without Crook, and with and without official support, the remaining fifteen years of his life would be devoted to this work.1 Although Bourke undoubtedly could have worked solely under the aegis of the Bureau of Ethnology, at this point in his life, he preferred to continue within the framework of his military duties. His position as Crook’s aide gave him substantial flexibility, and most likely he preferred this to the potential control of Powell. He also 1. Porter, Paper Medicine Man, 72. 288 The Bureau of Ethnology believed his past experience with the same Indians, and the notes he had made at the time, would allow him to work much more efficiently . Making his case to Sheridan, he said that working alone “will enable me to do more promptly the same amount of work which would require with Major Powell, six @ eight months. I feel that I ought to devote some time to this important work and thus save the accumulations of notes and memoranda, of more or less account, taken during my nearly twelve years of service among the Indians....” Sheridan was amenable, provided Crook had no objections , which, of course, Crook did not.2 This assignment in conjunction with his military duties was not as odd as it might seem. Beginning with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804, the military was charged not only with policing and maintaining peace, but collecting scientific data as well. Soldiers were expected to record geological, zoological, and botanical information about the country itself, and ethnological information about its native inhabitants. In 1834, officers assigned to exploration or field duties on the frontier were ordered to keep journals of scientific information. The most prominent of these soldier-explorerscientists of the Antebellum era was Capt. John C. Frémont, whose well-publicized exploits made him a national hero. Frémont may have been the most famous, but there were many others, and officers who came after the Civil War took up the torch. Thus Bourke had the experiences of many officers, both contemporary and earlier, on which to draw, as he himself noted.3 Bourke and his contemporaries believed they had three objectives . First, they were to chronicle native cultures before they disappeared , as most ethnologists of the period believed they surely must. They also believed scientific data on Indian life and culture could serve as a guide to establishing Indian policy out of the chaotic contradictions that had plagued the Department of the Interior from its inception. Finally, they wanted to establish a methodology for acquiring, organizating, and publishing their information. To this end, drawing on the works of both American and British historians and ethnologists, Bourke designed a format for gathering information , which is reproduced at the end of Chapter 15. 2. Bourke, Diary, 38:1118–19; Sheridan to Bourke, March 19, 1881; Crook to Sheridan, March 20, 1881, copies in ibid., 39:1132–33. 3. Tate, Frontier Army, Chapter 1. Background 289 Bourke handled his duties with conflicting emotions. This was during the Victorian Era, when white Europeans and their American counterparts had reached the zenith of their prestige and selfassurance . The common wisdom of the age dictated that other races represented cultures that contributed little of any value to humanity and, in fact, existed to their own detriment. If people such as the American Indians were to survive, they must abandon their native ways and assume the life of the dominant culture. Bourke was a product of this era, and shared its prejudices. After visiting a class at the Bannock and Shoshone Agency School at Fort Hall, Idaho, he wrote, “No encouraging progress can be hoped for except...