Kenekuk, the Kickapoo Prophet

Kenekuk, the Kickapoo Prophet
Author: Joseph B. Herring
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 1988
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Most of the Indians whose names we remember were warriors--Tecumseh, Black Hawk, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo--men who led their people in a desperate defense of their lands and their way of life. But as Alvin Josephy has written, "Some of the Indians' greatest patriots died unsung by white men, and because their peoples were also obliterated, or almost so, their names are forgotten."Kenekuk was one of those unsung patriots. Leader of the Vermillion Band Kickapoos and Potawatomis from the 1820s to 1852, Kenekuk is today little known, even in the Midwest where his people settled. His achievements as the political and religious leader of a small band of peaceful Indians have been largely overlooked. Yet his leadership, which transcended one of the most difficult periods in Native American history--that of removal--was no less astute and courageous than that of the most warlike chief, and his teachings continued to guide his people long after his death. In his policies as well as his influence he was unique among American Indians.In this sensitive and revealing biography, Joseph Herring and explores Kenekuk's rise to power and astute leadership, as well as tracing the evolution of his policy of acculturation. This strategy proved highly effective in protecting Kenekuk's people against the increasingly complex, intrusive, and hostile white world.In helping his people adjust to white society and retain their lands without resorting to warfare or losing their identity as Indians, the Kickapoo Prophet displayed exceptional leadership, both secular and religious. Unlike the Shawnee Prophet and his brother Tecumseh, whose warlike actions proved disastrous for their people, Kenekuk always stressed peace and outward cooperation with whites. Thus, by the time of his death in 1852, Kenekuk had prepared his people for the challenge of maintaining a separate and unique Indian way of life within a dominant white culture. While other bands disintegrated because they either resisted cultural innovations or assimilated under stress, the Vermillion Kickapoos and Potawatomis prospered.

Kenekuk the Kickapoo Prophet

Kenekuk the Kickapoo Prophet
Author: Joseph B. Herring
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2021-10-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700631542

Most of the Indians whose names we remember were warriors—Tecumseh, Black Hawk, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo—men who led their people in a desperate defense of their lands and their way of life. But as Alvin Josephy has written, “Some of the Indians’ greatest patriots died unsung by white men, and because their peoples were also obliterated, or almost so, their names are forgotten.” Kenekuk was one of those unsung patriots. Leader of the Vermillion Band Kickapoos and Potawatomis from the 1820s to 1852, Kenekuk is today little known, even in the Midwest where his people settled. His achievements as the political and religious leader of a small band of peaceful Indians have been largely verlooked. Yet his leadership, which transcended one of the most difficult periods in native American history—that of removal—was no less astute and courageous than that of the most warlike chief, and his teachings continued to guide his people long after his death. In his policies as well as his influence he was unique among American Indians. In this sensitive and revealing biography, Joseph Herring and explores Kenekuk’s rise to power and astute leadership, as well as tracing the evolution of his policy of acculturation. This strategy proved highly effective in protecting Kenekuk’s people against the increasingly complex, intrusive, and hostile white world. In helping his people adjust to white society and retain their lands without resorting to warfare or losing their identity as Indians, the Kickapoo Prophet displayed exceptional leadership, both secular and religious. Unlike the Shawnee Prophet and his brother Tecumseh, whose warlike actions proved disastrous for their people, Kenekuk always stressed peace and outward cooperation with whites. Thus, by the time of his death in 1852, Kenekuk had prepared his people for the challenge of maintaining a separate and unique Indian way of life within a dominant white culture. While other bands disintegrated because they either resisted cultural innovations or assimilated under stress, the Vermillion Kickapoos and Potawatomis prospered.

Prophets of the Great Spirit

Prophets of the Great Spirit
Author: Alfred A. Cave
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 080321555X

Prophets of the Great Spirit offers an in-depth look at the work of a diverse group of Native American visionaries who forged new, syncretic religious movements that provided their peoples with the ideological means to resist white domination. By blending ideas borrowed from Christianity with traditional beliefs, they transformed ?high? gods or a distant and aloof creator into a powerful, activist deity that came to be called the Great Spirit. These revitalization leaders sought to regain the favor of the Great Spirit through reforms within their societies and the inauguration of new ritual practices. Among the prophets included in this study are the Delaware Neolin, the Shawnee Tenkswatawa, the Creek ?Red Stick? prophets, the Seneca Handsome Lake, and the Kickapoo Kenekuk. Covering more than a century, from the early 1700s through the Kickapoo Indian removal of the Jacksonian Era, the prophets of the Great Spirit sometimes preached armed resistance but more often used nonviolent strategies to resist white cultural domination. Some prophets rejected virtually all aspects of Euro-American culture. Others sought to assure the survival of their culture through selective adaptation. Alfred A. Cave explains the conditions giving rise to the millenarian movements in detail and skillfully illuminates the key histories, personalities, and legacies of the movement. Weaving an array of sources into a compelling narrative, he captures the diversity of these prophets and their commitment to the common goal of Native American survival.

When Prophets Die

When Prophets Die
Author: Timothy Miller
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 1991-09-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1438413203

When the charismatic founder/leader of a religious movement dies, the popular belief is that the movement usually disintegrates. However, many new religions not only survive but prosper, despite leadership transition. In this book, prominent scholars examine what happened to eleven new movements following the deaths of their leaders, and why. An Introduction by J. Gordon Melton serves to integrate the case studies.

Coming Down from Above

Coming Down from Above
Author: Lee Irwin
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2014-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806185791

For longer than five centuries, Native Americans have struggled to adapt to colonialism, missionization, and government control policies. This first comprehensive survey of prophetic movements in Native North America tells how religious leaders blended indigenous beliefs with Christianity’s prophetic traditions to respond to those challenges. Lee Irwin gathers a scattered literature to provide a single-volume overview that depicts American Indians’ creative synthesis of their own religious beliefs and practices with a variety of Christian theological ideas and moral teachings. He traces continuities in the prophetic tradition from eighteenth-century Delaware prophets to Western dream dance visionaries, showing that Native American prophecy was not merely borrowed from Christianity but emerged from an interweaving of Christian and ancient North American teachings integral to Native religions. From the highly assimilated ideas of the Puget Sound Shakers to such resistance movements as that of the Shawnee Prophet, Irwin tells how the integration of non-Native beliefs with prophetic teachings gave rise to diverse ethnotheologies with unique features. He surveys the beliefs and practices of the nation to which each prophet belonged, then describes his or her life and teachings, the codification of those teachings, and the impact they had on both the community and the history of Native religions. Key hard-to-find primary texts are included in an appendix. An introduction to an important strand within the rich tapestry of Native religions, Coming Down from Above shows the remarkable responsiveness of those beliefs to historical events. It is an unprecedented, encyclopedic sourcebook for anyone interested in the roots of Native theology.

Native American Catholic Studies Reader

Native American Catholic Studies Reader
Author: David J. Endres
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2022-08-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813235898

Before there was an immigrant American Church, there was a Native American Church. The Native American Catholic Studies Reader offers an introduction to the story of how Native American Catholicism has developed over the centuries, beginning with the age of the missions and leading to inculturated, indigenous forms of religious expression. Though the Native-Christian relationship could be marked by tension, coercion, and even violence, the Christian faith took root among Native Americans and for those who accepted it and bequeathed it to future generations it became not an imposition, but a way of expressing Native identity. From the perspective of historians and theologians, the Native American Catholic Studies Reader offers a curated collection of essays divided into three sections: education and evangelization; tradition and transition; and Native American lives. Contributors include scholars currently working in the field: Mark Clatterbuck, Damian Costello, Conor J. Donnan, Ross Enochs, Allan Greer, Mark G. Thiel, and Christopher Vecsey, as well as selections from a past generation: Gerald McKevitt, SJ, and Carl F. Starkloff, SJ. These contributions explore the interaction of missionaries and tribal leaders, the relationship of traditional Native cosmology and religiosity to Christianity, and the role of geography and tribal consciousness in accepting and maintaining indigenous and religious identities. These readings highlight the state of the emergent field of Native-Catholic studies and suggest further avenues for research and publication. For scholars, teachers, and students, the Native American Catholic Studies Reader explores how the faith of the American Church’s eldest members became a means of expressing and celebrating language, family, and tribe.

First to Fight

First to Fight
Author: Henry Mihesuah
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780803232228

Documents the life of a Native American who grew up in Oklahoma, fought in post-World War II China as a U.S. Marine, relocated to California at the suggestion of a federal government program, and then returned home to Oklahoma to fight racism and revitalize the connections to his Comanche culture.

The Heartland

The Heartland
Author: Kristin L. Hoganson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2020-04-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0525561633

A history of a quintessentially American place--the rural and small town heartland--that uncovers deep yet hidden currents of connection with the world. When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine form. Or so we have been taught to believe. Struck by the gap between reputation and reality, she determined to get to the bottom of history and myth. The deeper she dug into the making of the modern heartland, the wider her story became as she realized that she'd uncovered an unheralded crossroads of people, commerce, and ideas. But the really interesting thing, Hoganson found, was that over the course of American history, even as the region's connections with the rest of the planet became increasingly dense and intricate, the idea of the rural Midwest as a steadfast heartland became a stronger and more stubbornly immovable myth. In enshrining a symbolic heart, the American people have repressed the kinds of stories that Hoganson tells, of sweeping breadth and depth and soul. In The Heartland, Kristin L. Hoganson drills deep into the center of the country, only to find a global story in the resulting core sample. Deftly navigating the disconnect between history and myth, she tracks both the backstory of this region and the evolution of the idea of an unalloyed heart at the center of the land. A provocative and highly original work of historical scholarship, The Heartland speaks volumes about pressing preoccupations, among them identity and community, immigration and trade, and security and global power. And food. To read it is to be inoculated against using the word "heartland" unironically ever again.

The Native Americans

The Native Americans
Author: Elizabeth Glenn
Publisher: Indiana Historical Society
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 0871952807

In the second volume of the IHS Press’s Peopling Indiana Series, anthropologist Elizabeth Glenn and ethnohistorian Stewart Rafert put readers in touch with the first people to inhabit the Hoosier state, exploring what it meant historically to be an Indian in this land and discussing the resurgence of native life in the state today. Many natives either assimilated into white culture or hid their Indian identity. World War II dramatically changed this scenario when Native Americans served in the U.S. military and on the home front. Afterward, Indians from many tribal lineages flocked to Indiana to find work. Along with Indiana's Miami and Potawatomi, they are creating a diverse Indian culture that enriches the lives of all Hoosiers.