Prior to the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum published a weekly newspaper in Aberdeen, S.D. Now, more than 100 years later, his descendants are coming to South Dakota to apologize for editorials he wrote just before and after the Wounded Knee massacre calling for the extermination of the Lakota Sioux.
Baum published the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer from January 1890 to March 1891. On December 20, 1890, Baum wrote an editorial about the recent death of Sitting Bull. After noting Sitting Bull was the "most renowned Sioux of modern history," Baum opined:
With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are.Nine days later, troops from the U.S. Seventh Cavalry opened fire on a group of captured Sioux near Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota. At least 150 Sioux were killed (some estimates are higher), most of them women, children, and unarmed men. Twenty-five cavalry soldiers also died.
Within the week, Baum published another editorial, saying what occurred at Wounded Knee "resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers" and was "a disgrace to the war department." He then said,
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.Baum eventually left Aberdeen and went on to write his Oz books. Although his editorials reflected the racial outlook of the time, they remain sore spots in the history of race relations in South Dakota. Some even began efforts seeking an apology from the planners of an annual "Oz Festival" in Aberdeen.
Now, South Dakota Public Broadcasting reports some of Baum's descendants are in South Dakota to help reconciliation efforts. Some family members told SDPB journalists of the time helped create some of the problems that led to Wounded Knee. They felt it important to continue to look at those issues today and plan to apologize to the Wounded Knee Survivors Association. An association mermber told SDPB the apology would be a historic event.
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
Damn, them was harsh words from Baum. I could well understand Sioux hating this guy.
Still, it's utter nonsense to have family apologizing on his behalf 100 years later. He said what he meant, and that's that. If you can't stand to read the Wizard of Oz on that account, then that's what it has to be. But HE didn't change his mind, and no one has any right to presume to speak for him in this manner. What, you couldn't stand the Wizard of Oz before because the author was a schmuck, but this family apology changes something?
2 - Tim Gebhart
I never said or intimated that I couldn't stand the Wizard of Oz because of the editorials. In fact, I've never read the book, just seen the movie. I was merely reporting that his descendants had decided to apologize, no more and no less.
3 - Bobby Martin
Its not his family speaking for him its the family apologizing for what he did, just as I could apologize to Tim Gebhart for your ignorant comments regarding his statement. It is with true open minds and hearts that his family can come forward and try to make peace with the people he so vividly attacked. Only with that kind of openmindedness can a true healing begin. I only wish that ancestors of the people who killed and tortured my people, the Navajo People would have the same type of unselfish openmindedness. I hope you can see that I am only making a point.
4 - Al Barger
Mr Martin, you've got no call to speak disrespectfully to me. Further, I don't see where you or the author here got that I was saying anything about Mr Gebhart one way or another. As he points out in his comment, he didn't personally say anything much of an opinion nature. It was Baum's family and whatever folks are mad on the other side that I was addressing.
Further, I'm real skeptical of your therapy-speak here about open hearts and healing. This is century plus old stuff that no one today was there to experience. People who weren't there don't have wounds to heal, so I'm not going to be real interested in people milking their great-grandparents' tragedies for something to sulk about in 2006.
5 - Dave Nalle
On reading those Baum quotes my first impression was that they were awfully Swiftian. Note how they place the blame on whites, not on Indians, and advocate extermination not as a good idea, but as the logical extension of already existing bad policy.
I think some folks are taking Baum's words much too literally and not getting the depth of his sarcasm.
Dave
6 - Clavos
From a reading of the full editorial provided at the link, Baum's words are certainly ambivalent and open to interpretation.
I would wonder what motivation Baum's descendants had for apologizing more than 100 years later. The whole idea does have a rather PC aura to it.
7 - Snarkattack
Clavos - that's a good point you make in your second sentence.
I hope it's not true! The child in me wants to believe that they are doing it because they genuinely feel sorry and were moved to seek reconciliation...because we're all human.
I know...such an idealist.
8 - P White
Very interesting discussion.
Not only should the family of Baum apologize for the wrongs of their Grandfather, the government should make reparations to the decendants of the Sioux Indians who were murdered due to this man's hatred and paranoia. What is so disgraceful about many White-Americans is that when it comes to the realizations of its racist transgressions, they are so easily brushed aside. Sort of a suggestion to "get over it". But remember, these same White-Americans who want to disclaim everything and look at past offenses to peoples of color as long gone and irrelavent, reap the benefits of those same racist transgressions on a continuing daily basis. White-America is hell bent on maintaining this pseudo-imperialist dillusion of granduer. Baum was dead wrong and any honor which has been bestowed on him should be rescinded. When Arlen wrote "Over the Rainbow" he was trying to describe Heaven. It appears Baum in his "Wizard of Oz" was trying to describe hell where hopefully he now resides. No more Dorothy for me!
9 - Thomas St. John
Kindly look at Lyman Frank Baum's major work on the Wounded Knee and Dakota Territory at
http://www.geocities.com/seekingthephoenix/b/baum.htm There are surprises here.
10 - Tim Richter
Speaking disrespectfully is a right given us under the Constitution of the United States. Baum espoused the policy of the existing governmental authority of the time, as well as those locals around him who were burying their own relatives minus their scalps. I can no more apologize for the sins of the man sitting next to me than I could for Mr. Baum. His redemption, like mine, will not occur when financial reparations are made (though you Commie reds would afford him an indulgence or two)--but when he is asked to account for what he said on judgment day. I would remind all of you Baum "haters"--such a nasty word--to remove the muck from your own eye before casting stones and wishing people to hell.
Blessings come the Tribulation.