Dr. Melissa Greene-Blye is an Indigenous Studies professor at the University of Kansas and researches the representation of Native Americans found in the media. Dr. John Bickers is an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University and researches the history of the Miami tribe. As citizens of the Miami, Green-Blye and Bickers examined the legacy of Little Turtle and his presence in the media in their recently published article, “War Chief, Friend of the President, Prohibitionist: Would the “Real” Little Turtle Please Stand Up?”
Q: What inspired you to research Little Turtle’s legacy and how it’s reported in the media?
Greene-Blye: This evolved out of my dissertation, which was specific to our tribal history and what I perceive to be missing in broader historiography. When I did find Natives in the media-specific historical record, the representations were typically inaccurate and seem to somewhat be part of a broader agenda. The more I learned about his legacy in particular, the more intrigued I became.
Bickers: I think he’s someone who’s really interesting in that throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he’s really in the public psyche—long after he’s dead. But that’s kind of gone away in the more modern period, at least to the same levels. He’s one of the few Miami people for over a hundred years who’s in the forefront of this American idea of what it means to be Native throughout the country. Newspapers in Utah are talking about this guy from Indiana a hundred years after he’s dead. Little Turtle became this representative for all Miami people in a lot of ways because he was so prominent. I found unraveling his story really interesting because it says a lot about who we are as Miami people and how we’re also perceived by the outside non-Native and non-Miami world.
Greene-Blye: One of the things we pointed out was that there were a lot of gaps and misinformation concerning his early life. So, that manufactured story of Little Turtle, this young man and young warrior, left a lot of room for non-Miami centered stories and narratives to grow.
Q: How is Little Turtle’s legacy viewed and remembered today in the Native American community?
Bickers: When he is remembered, Little Turtle is often talked about in the same breath as like Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Tecumseh; he’s remembered as a warrior, first and foremost. He’s remembered as someone who was a leader in the Northwest Indian Wars as someone who defeated the United States in the field battle consistently. In the Miami community, he’s kind of revered in part because he had prominence outside the community. He is someone that if you know any Miami people historically, you know who he is. Little Turtle has taken on this larger-than-life representation both as a warrior and a political leader. Following the Northwest Indian Wars, he transitioned into a civil leader, though his tenure there is a little more complicated.
Little Turtle is often remembered for these early political battles he had with the federal government with William Henry Harrison, who was the first governor of Indiana. He’s also remembered as a diplomat, which is something that doesn’t always translate outside of the community, unfortunately.
Greene-Blye: To examine the historical aspect in which the media played a role, we use the phrase “media makeover.” Little Turtle’s early representation in the press identified him as an enemy, a foe, and a dangerous individual who is impeding progress. When he started making these trips to DC, and particularly in his 1802 speech which is reprinted broadly in the press of the day, is when we start to see them somewhat starting to mold this image into what they need or want it to be. Ultimately, they wanted to whitewash the history that came before and aimed to begin supporting federal policies.
Q: What obstacles did Little Turtle encounter as he was transitioning from being recognized as Miami’s War Chief to a Friend of the President?
Bickers: In a Miami sense of community and leadership, war leadership and civil leadership are really different roles. It’s seen that someone who is inclined to destroy may not necessarily have the same mentality as someone who tries to mend or build things. The transitioning process from being a war leader, usually a younger man, to a civil leader, usually an older person, is something that generally takes years and maybe decades of intentional thought and transitioning to make yourself ready for this. Because of the context of the emergence of the United States and federal expansion into Ohio and Indiana, Little Turtle felt that he needed to make that transition very quickly. This sudden transition made him a lot of enemies in the Miami community because people felt like he was not respecting the time and the process that it takes to become someone who can build bridges and speak of peace. He immediately went from the battlefield to the negotiating table, which was untraditional. So, Little Turtle’s tenure as a civil leader isn’t respected in the Miami community.
In an American context, they love electing generals and military leaders to political office and having those same people negotiate peace. In a federal context, they really appreciated having a war leader as the new civil leader because Little Turtle became a new kind of negotiator for peace. So, the Americans propped Little Turtle up as this great Miami leader because they respected him as a military leader. From a Miami perspective, those are two different worlds that take a long time to bridge. The Miami felt that Little Turtle did not respect that because he didn’t take that time to actually make that transition.
Greene-Blye: Historically, there is a lot of autonomy within Miami villages and groups, and there were differences of opinion regarding Little Turtle’s leadership and the direction that was being put forward in the press as all Miami. Those nuances within our community did not translate into the press of the day, so he sort of became the de facto voice of all Miami interests.
Q: Do you believe the negative media coverage regarding the Miami influenced Little Turtle’s decision to eventually become “the symbol of the prohibition movement”?
Bickers: Whether it was through the halls of Congress or through print media, Little Turtle was aware that his voice would travel. I think certainly by the end of his career, Little Turtle was cognizant that his words carried weight, especially when discussing the prohibition movement. He often talked about it with President Jefferson, so Little Turtle was aware his voice would carry weight by this point.
Greene-Blye: I think in the moment of the speech in 1802, Little Turtle was very intentional, mindful, and purposeful in leveraging Miami interests as he saw them and what he believed they needed to be. This idea of this prohibitionist is something that evolved long after his death. Little Turtle died shortly before the war of 1812 and in that moment, the press took this Indian leader who opposed alcohol and tied it into this new American agenda of prohibition. I can’t imagine in that moment he was envisioning anything quite like that if he was even mindful of defining a legacy for himself.
Q: Do you think the media had an influence in his transition to becoming “Friend of the President”?
Bickers: I think the media had a role in the president thinking Little Turtle is his friend. The media had a really strong role on Americans starting to view Little Turtle in this new way. From the Miami side, however, I think he’s much more influenced both in his own goals for the community and what he thinks is best for the community. He was also influenced by the responses he received from the community. We have to remember that Miami and most Native people were not American citizens. So, Little Turtle is first and foremost influenced by the Miami community and by the responses he’s getting from the community members and the team around him. But the media certainly influenced how the Americans on the other side of the table were viewing him.
Greene-Blye: Newspapers and media in general played an important part in narrative building, collective memory, and nation building. I mean, Manifest Destiny was put forward by a newspaper. Definitely media played a role in perhaps transitioning his image and you certainly can have conversations around how intentional that was. As we move forward, you can begin to make the case that some of this was a little more intentional and by design in order to support this need to justify removal, justify assimilation, and ultimately even beyond the scope of just our own Miami history and Little Turtle’s legacy, to justify genocide.
Q: Do you believe Little Turtle could have used his status (and his relationship with the president) to help protect his people more than he intended?
Bickers: Certainly, I think we can see that from his contemporaries who are not choosing to behave this way. Following the treaty of Greenville [in 1795], there’s a sense of knowing that change is going to happen. The Americans are here and they’re here to stay, and that was something the Miami and other Native peoples had to adjust to. So, the question becomes: in what way do we need to adjust? There are different ideas that are proposed, and Little Turtle takes a really specific and widely unpopular route in promoting certain assimilationist policies, particularly in male agriculture. In Miami and most Native communities, agriculture was controlled by women. It was part of a female power of community, and Americans found it barbaric that they would force women to farm, not viewing this as a tool of empowerment. Little Turtle really pushed for male agriculture and advocated to take farming away from women. Most of his contemporaries really opposed that policy and they found more political ways of engaging with the United States.
I think there were a myriad of options Little Turtle could’ve considered. What you see in those first 20 years post-Greenville are different Native leaders, such as Shawnee and Potawatomi, trying to find alternate paths to engage with the United States while protecting their communities. There wasn’t one right answer necessarily.
Greene-Blye: From the media perspective, we hear Little Turtle’s voice, so therefore we hear his viewpoints. The views he was putting forward in that moment were supporting what the United States saw as the best necessary path forward. The Miami had power in the area from trade and wealth, and they had full expectations that they would be engaged in building what would become the state of Indiana. In that moment, the US was thinking, “thanks, but no thanks. We’re going to handle this.” So, the Miami had every expectation of being somewhat fully involved in the development of this territory. That agenda was changing and the narrative that was surrounding Little Turtle was better suited to what the Americans wanted to see happen more, which was that agricultural type of lifestyle.
Bickers: To add onto Melissa’s point, the Indian removal was first proposed in 1803 in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Henery Harrison, which specifically discussed how to deal with Miami people. You’re starting to see these really contrasting viewpoints between Americans and the Miami. The Miami believed they can engage with the Americans, live as good neighbors, and build economic relationships. Americans, who quickly, early on, are already thinking of ways to get rid of them.
Q: In your article, it’s mentioned that Little Turtle is the only documented Native American voice found in the papers concerning Miami affairs. Did he ever discuss how other leaders reacted to his sudden shift in the movement?
Bickers: Little Turtle did not, his other Americans did. We’re able to really see different perspectives or oppositions to him. These other leaders are engaging with the United States, the Indiana government, and with the federal government, but not necessarily through the media- and that’s the difference. Little Turtle is in a place where his words are being put into the newspaper. Other contemporary Miami leaders are engaging in different ideologies and different political paths are in the ears of some of these leaders, but they’re not in the media.
Greene-Blye: We have the correspondence acknowledging that Harrison, the governor of Indiana, was aware that there were contingents of the Miami who do not respect Little Turtle and the avenues that he was pursuing. Yet, it is still only his voice that makes it into the print. This is an interesting conversation around how intentional and by design that was and how much of that was due to the limitations of the press during that period.
Q: What was your most interesting discovery throughout the entire research of Little Turtle’s legacy portrayed in the media?
Green-Blye: The little grain of this particular article came out of a much bigger dissertation that covered our history from 1846 to 1946. For me, one of things that’s noteworthy is how many different ways Little Turtle’s Miami name is misspelled. Doing this work is incredibly important, but it’s also challenging because for so long, our languages and our words have been misrepresented. It makes it very difficult, and it causes concern for me about what sources I’m missing because I don’t know how erroneous we were represented.
Bickers: For me it was the section of prohibition. I’ve seen newspapers within Little Turtle’s lifetime or within a couple of decades after he died, talking about his legacy. But I hadn’t seen any of these papers in the twentieth century that highlighted that the first prohibitionist was Native. This really shocked me. When Natives often appear in newspapers, it’s in places like Indiana, Illinois, or Oklahoma. To see newspapers across the country where there are no Miami people talking about this Miami person in an almost recognizable way was fascinating. Horrifying, but really just unexpected.
Greene-Blye: I think also for me it was a real growth process in learning more about my history. How I understood Little Turtle growing up and then engaging in a more political history, I began to understand how complex our history is and was. If I was limited in my understanding growing up in a Miami community, how much more so is this work important when we’re speaking outside of our community?
Q: You two concluded the article with an important message encouraging scholars to continue expanding upon this area of research. In recent years, there has been discourse about whether non-Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) should be allowed to conduct research regarding Native American or Indigenous history. What are your opinions about this topic? How should non-BIPOC scholars approach this type of historical research?
Greene-Blye: Within the field of journalism and mass communication scholarship, there have been a couple of things that happened this year that Native scholars are kind of saying “enough and no more.” I think that is tied into the discovery of mass graves on the site of these assimilationist schools. Native communities are saying they’re done with extractionist and reductionist scholarship. A point I made in a panel, borrowing from South African disability advocacy, is the phrase “nothing about us without us is for us.” If you’re doing this work and you’re not considering partnering with a Native scholar, engaging with that community in the present or not citing Native scholars, I don’t think you’re doing it right.
Bickers: For me, I don’t think it’s non-Native versus Native scholars. I think it’s people who are working with Native communities and people who are not working with Native communities. I can think of a ton of non-Native scholars who do great work because they’re partnering with these communities. They’re talking to other Native scholars and are engaging in this community-building process. I have absolutely no problem with their work, and I’d like to see more of it.
Most of the issues fall in line with the professionalization of the field of history. For example, if a non-Native scholar goes to the archives and they find sources quoting Little Turtle, they may overgeneralize their findings and assume all Miami people think one way if they do not talk to Native peoples. If they had gone and talked to a Miami person, they might have gotten a more nuanced perspective where some people had different views.
Certainly, native scholars need to be in these spaces. But also having non-Native scholars who are talking to Native communities and are acknowledging and engaging with our perspectives is a win. I don’t think we need a space where it’s just Native people engaging in this scholarship. But we do need to be in a space where Native peoples are always at the table and part of the conversations.
Greene-Blye: Doing the work without that relationship opens the real possibility of missing really important context. I stumbled into this mention of a magazine by Cherokee women, which I found extremely fascinating. When I get to the archives to engage with this magazine, what I realize is that this was a magazine by young Cherokee women who were students at an assimilation school. That is an entirely different conversation than these Cherokee women who were using media to tell their story. If I had not gone and physically looked at that, and if I had not asked a Cherokee scholar that I knew, I would not have known any different than that previous history.