Charles Alexander Eastman Popular Books

Charles Alexander Eastman Biography & Facts

Charles Alexander Eastman (February 19, 1858 – January 8, 1939, born Hakadah and later named Ohíye S'a, sometimes written Ohiyesa) was an American physician, writer, and social reformer. He was the first Native American to be certified in Western medicine and was "one of the most prolific authors and speakers on Sioux ethnohistory and American Indian affairs" in the early 20th century. Eastman was of Santee Dakota, English and French ancestry. After working as a physician on reservations in South Dakota, he became increasingly active in politics and issues on Native American rights. He worked to improve the lives of youths, and founded thirty-two Native American chapters of the YMCA. He is considered the first Native American author to write American history from the Native American point of view. He also helped found the Boy Scouts of America. Early life and education Eastman was named Hakadah at his birth in Minnesota; his name meant "pitiful last" in Dakota. Eastman was so named because his mother died following his birth. He was the last of five children of Wakantakawin, a mixed-race woman also known as Winona (meaning "First-Born Daughter" in the Dakota language), or Mary Nancy Eastman. She and Eastman's father, a Santee Dakota named Wak-anhdi Ota (Many Lightnings), lived on a Santee Dakota reservation near Redwood Falls, Minnesota. Winona was the only child of Wakháŋ Inážiŋ Wiŋ (Stands Sacred) and Seth Eastman, a U.S. Army career officer and illustrator, who married at Fort Snelling in 1830, where he was stationed. This post later developed as the city of Minneapolis. Stands Sacred was the fifteen-year-old daughter of Cloud Man, a Santee Dakota chief of French and Mdewakanton descent. Seth Eastman was reassigned from Fort Snelling in 1832, soon after the birth of Winona. The girl was later called Wakantakawin. Eastman left the two there, in Dakota country. In the Dakota tradition of naming to mark life passages, Hakadah was later named Ohíye S'a (Dakota: "always wins" or "the winner"). He had three older brothers (later known as John, David, and James after their conversion to Christianity) and an older sister Mary. During the Dakota War of 1862, Ohíye S'a was separated from his father Wak-anhdi Ota and siblings, and they were thought to have died. His maternal grandmother Stands Sacred (Wakháŋ Inážiŋ Wiŋ) and her family took the boy with them as they fled from the warfare into North Dakota and Manitoba, Canada. Fifteen years later Ohíyesa was reunited with his father and oldest brother John in South Dakota. The father had converted to Christianity, after which he took the name of Jacob Eastman. John also converted and took the surname Eastman. The Eastman family established a homestead in Dakota Territory. When Ohíyesa accepted Christianity, he took the name Charles Alexander Eastman. His father strongly supported his sons getting an education in European-American style schools. Eastman and his older brother John attended a mission then a preparatory school, Kimball Union Academy from 1882 to 1883, and college. Eastman first attended Beloit College and Knox College; he graduated from Dartmouth College in 1887. He attended medical school at Boston University, where he graduated in 1890 and was among the first Native Americans to be certified as a European-style doctor. His older brother John became a minister. Rev. John (Maȟpiyawaku Kida) Eastman served as a Presbyterian missionary at the Santee Dakota settlement of Flandreau, South Dakota. Career Medical practice Shortly after graduating from medical school, Charles Eastman returned to the West, where he worked as an agency physician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Indian Health Service on the Pine Ridge Reservation and later at the Crow Creek Reservation, both in South Dakota. He cared for Indians after the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre. Of the 38 or more victims he treated, only seven died. He later established a private medical practice after being forced out of his position, but was not able to make it succeed financially. He married Elaine Goodale, a teacher from Massachusetts who, after serving as a teacher elsewhere in South Dakota, had been appointed as the first Supervisor of Education for the newly divided states of North and South Dakota. While they were struggling, she encouraged him to write some of the stories of his childhood. At her suggestion (and with her editing help), he published the first two stories in 1893 and 1894 in St. Nicholas Magazine. It had earlier published poetry of hers. These stories were collected in his first book, Indian Boyhood. Eastman became active with the new organization of the YMCA, working to support Native American youth. Between 1894 and 1898, he established 32 Indian groups of the YMCA, and also founded leadership programs and outdoor youth camps. In 1899, he helped recruit students for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, which had been established as the first Indian boarding school run by the federal government. Given his own education and career, he favored children learning more about mainstream American culture. Writing In 1902, Eastman published a memoir, Indian Boyhood, recounting his first fifteen years of life among the Dakota Sioux during the later years of the nineteenth century. In the following two decades, he wrote ten more books, most concerned with his Native American culture. In the early 20th century, he was "one of the most prolific authors and speakers on Sioux ethnohistory and American Indian affairs." He also became one of the most photographed Native Americans, sometimes appearing his traditional Sioux regalia and sometimes in Euro-American clothing. Historians debate how Eastman and his wife worked together through the decades of his publishing career. Theodore Sargent, a biographer of Elaine, noted that Eastman gained acclaim for the nine books he published on Sioux life, whereas Elaine's seven books received little notice. According to Ruth Ann Alexander, Elaine is not given enough credit for his success, although she worked intensively on Charles's stories as a way both to share his life and to use her own literary talent as his typist and editor. Carol Lea Clark believes that the books under Eastman's name should be seen as a collaboration: "Together they produced works of a public popularity that neither could produce separately." After the couple separated in 1921, Eastman never published another book. These views, however, are contested by other Eastman scholars, who suggest they reflect a bias toward a European-American influence in Eastman's published works. Some Native scholars suggest that in fact, there is both content and style in Eastman's writing that reflects Indigenous techniques.: xv : 102  While Elaine may have helped Eastman edit his work, Ruth J. Heflin argues that Elaine's later claims that she wrote his works ring false. She did not make that claim until after Eastman's death. It is lik.... Discover the Charles Alexander Eastman popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Charles Alexander Eastman books.