The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-07-06
YOUNG DIR. OHIYRsA.
The Bright Sioux Indian Who Was
Recently Graduated in Boston.


ETOHt Itt DostOH AINHS-'tft-
Yesterday afternoon in fremont Temple
slender, but sinewy, young man, about
two inches under six feet Ia hight, erect,
easy, proud of bearing. with jet-black hair,
retreating, pompadour style, from low,
wide forhead. piercing black eyes set far
apart, rather high cheekbones, and
quick, red blood showing wildly
at times through the thin, brown
skin, stepped modestly forward and de-
livered with slight, but pleasing accent,
an interesting Grafton on The Compare
tive History of the Art of Healing" This
young man is a member OF the class Of 1890,
medical school of the University of Boston,
and an altogether progressing and re-
markably intelligent person, yet one who
comes of a race that has been systemat-
ically and cruelty wronged since the white
man first set foot upon this continent.
Charles Alexander Eastman, the orator OF
his class, is a Santee Sioux, with future
whose Importance to his tribe cannot at this
moment be adequately estimated.
His father was the son of chief, and a
brave, though peaceably disposed man. His
name in the Dakota tongue was Tawakanh-
diota, or MANY Lightnings" His mother
was a half-b breed of so much personal beauty
that she was known in the tribe as Wakan-
tankawin-'t demi-goddess." In 1862 a
son. the third, was born to Tawakanhdiota
and Wakantankawin, the mother dying in
giving him birth. Through perhaps some
prophetic instinct the boy was named
Ohiyesa--the winner" or "Conqueror."
He was born on the Big Sioux reservation
in Redwood county, Mimi.
The summer of 1862 will never be forgot
ten by the Sioux or the people of Mime
sofa. Living up strictly to the usual course
of its dealings with the Indians, the gov
eminent at Washington had failed to keep
faith with the Sioux aud paw certain prom
ised annuities due them on lands coded the
United States. Game becoming exhausted
on the reservation, the Sioux entered upon
state of slow starvation. Finally, becom-
ing desperate with hunger, and the govern
ment still turning deaf ear to their cries
for what was Justly due them, a strolling
band of Sioux under the chief Little Crow
began a war upon the whites that ended
only after a thousand men, women and
children had been shot and scalped, hun
dredS of thousands of dollars expended, and
the progress of the state of Minnesota re-
tarded by a dozen years.
It was just a few months before this dis
astrous period that Eastman, as he now
prefers to be called, was born. His father,
who had not taken part with Little Crow
in the initial outbreak, was forced at length
to take up arms for his tribe, and little
Eastman was hurried, with many women
and children, over the border into British
Columbia. After the final suppression of
the Sioux uprising, and the hanging of the
leaders of the revolt, Eastman's father was
sentenced to four years Imprisonment
at Davenport, Ia, for the part
he had taken in the war.
Immediately upon his release
from prison the old warrior went to Ne
brasAa, where he made scanty living by
chopping wood for the Missouri river
steamboats,. The life on the reservation
was more than he could stand, however,
and after two years. trial of it he went to
Flandreu, near Sioux Falls lin what is now
South Dakotal, ard took up homestead
under the United States laws.
Little Eastman was sent for in 1881 to
join his father on a new farm. He was put
at school, but, in his own words, 81 couldn't
stay in the school house, Just couldn't
1t seemed as though / sho4ld suffocate for
want of fresh air and plenty of it,"
Just here, as curious illustration of the
force of hereditary tendencies, it may be
mentioned that through his entire school
and college life Eastman has always been
impatient of confinement, and has had
many hard struggle with himself to main
tain that degree of application which the
mastery of his curriculum has required.
Until within the last three years he found it
H6CeSSdTy W run i've LuIi6S u udY III OTueF 10
keep up his health and spirits, and once, for
little gentle" exercise he raced on foot
against tricycle. from Upham's Corner to
Newton, and in this endeavor succeeded in
establishing his claim to the Indian name
his father had given him. A half a dozen
medals taken in various running contests at
Dartmouth are bright but silent witnesses
to the Indians love of open-air exercise.
In 1876 Eastman had been sent to Beloit,
Al
three years, and then went to Knox College,
at Galesburg, Ill, remaining there two
years. Still he had not been able to acquire
English as rapidly as the friends who had
now begun to take an interest in the bright
Indian boy had hoped for. The Dakota
tongue at that time boasting of no gram
mar, not even an alphabet, there was, as
Eastman expresses it, mo foundation for
an Indian student of English to
build upon, and what ordinarily would re-
quire only months to learn, consumed in
this way years. In 1882 Eastman's father
died, and in the fall of that year, encour-
aged and supported by substantial friends,
Eastman went to Meridian, N. H., to per-
feet himself in English before entering
Dartmouth, at which college he matricu-
lated in 1888, taking the Latin scientific
course. and graduating with credit in 1887.
He at once entered Boston University, and
to-day. after seven years of college work,
goes forth into the world adiplomaed NJ. D.
During his college life Eastman has read
law with an avidity that can be ascribed
only to his eager desire to probe to its great
est extent the constitutional attitude of the
government toward the Indian. His pur-
pose in life is three-fold: He wishes to
place the sanitary condition of his nation
upon higher plane, to teach them their
exact status among the peoples of the coun-
tru and IN ot infa than n
their future dealings with the government