It is appropriate that today, 11 September, we honour the first Native American Saint in our Calendar and the only Oklahoman. He was a Cheyenne warrior who became "the warrior for peace."
Our journey today begins in the year 1851, a year in several respects like 2016. It was a year of gridlock, as President Fillmore was of the Whig Party and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. It was a year of weather crises, as floods devastated the midwestern U.S. and nearly destroyed the city of Des Moines. It was a year of Voter ID issues, as some began to insist that grown, white male citizens should be able to vote without bringing proof of property ownership. And it was a year of issues relating to Native American rights to their land, and to food and water resources on it.
The Treaty of Fort Laramie that year validated the homelands of the southern Cheyenne and Arapaho, a huge plot running from the Platte down to the Arkansas, and from the Rockies to Kansas. (The northern Cheyenne had what is now Montana). All went well until gold was discovered on their land in 1858 and a new "treaty" in 1861 left the tribes with only one-thirteenth of their prior holdings. In the year of that insidious land grab, the Dog Soldiers were formed -- an elite body of disciplined and battle-hardened Cheyenne warriors dedicated to resisting the predations of the White Man.
The years that followed saw many terrible atrocities against natives. The worst was the Sand Creek Massacre. There Captain John Chivington, an ordained Methodist minister, led his troops to attack unarmed Cheyennes, killing 28 men and 109 women and children, and then allowing his soldiers to mutilate their bodies and make "souvenirs" of body parts. In 1865 and 1870, revised treaties reduced the Cheyenne/Arapaho land down to the postage stamp they have now in Oklahoma. In that latter year, the federal government opened all lands for the slaughter of buffalo (due to strong capitalist demand back east for their hides and meats). Three million a year were slaughtered and processed by white invaders. Finally, in 1871, the federal government declared that no Indian tribe had any sovereignty within the boundaries of the United States and that the only relationship of the Native American to the federal government was as an individual ward of the State.
The Dog Soldiers fought on, even though the Cheyenne/Arapaho had lost their sovereignty, land, food and water sources, and thousands of lives, At last in 1875, the remaining 28 Dog Soldiers were captured. As the American public had become aware of some of the oppression of Natives, the Army didn't dare execute them on the spot, as it once would have done, but instead shipped them to a disused Federal prison in Florida. The foresighted warden, an Episcopalian, began teaching his charges how to speak English. He also began to bring tourists in for demonstrations of Indian skills and crafts, and to allow the prisoners to sell items to the public, in order to earn money towards starting a new life when their sentences had been served.
The warden's humanitarian program particularly impressed a Cheyenne warrior Okuh Hatuh ('Sun Dancer") who asked the warden to introduce him to his God! The warden shared his Christian Faith as practised in the Episcopal Church. Later, the new catechumen expressed a call to the ordained ministry and was authorized to leave prison to attend seminary in New York, with a Mrs. Pendleton of Cincinnati footing the bill. He was baptised David Pendleton Oakerhater.
After seminary, Oakerhater was ordained a Deacon and returned to Oklahoma where he built the Whirlwind Mission in Watonga,and other missions and schools.. His philosophy is captured in the words he uttered to his people when he returned to them: "You all know me. You remember when I led you out to war. I went first and what I told you was true. Now I have been away to the East and I have learned about another Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is my leader. He goes first, and all he tells me is true. I come back to you my people to tell you to go with me now in this new road, a war that makes all for peace."
Oakerhater was a living example that education and development are to be preferred to violence and revenge. And his ministry strongly reflects the teachings of Jesus who was, after all, a pacifist.
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