Once upon a time, there was a Red Indian homestead with this name. It came under attack from the Cowboy raiders who wanted the land for themselves. They had no valid claim but the land was fertile and rich. They thought they could simply take what had been built from years of hard work by the inhabitants.
The Indian braves had just lost their hero Big Chief White Dove in a battle and needed to pick a new leader. Two candidates emerged, one was his son (Little Dove) and he put his case. “There is no way that we can defeat the Cowboys. It is fruitless trying to repel them and impossible to send them back even though they are here illegally. But if we work a kind of ‘civic nationalist’ system, we can perhaps keep some land for ourselves, even though we will become a minority in time. We may even get the cowboys to assimilate into OUR culture. I think they’ll start sleeping in wigwams, dressing like us and smoking the peace pipe.”
Then his rival “Hawk” stepped up to speak. He said, “Do you really think that THEY will become Indian braves when they have the whip hand? Do you really think that Indian law will exist when they have their courts and their judges? That WE will be able to live in harmony with those who seek to abolish our way of life? We’ll be detained and will die in custody if we protest.”
The elders gathered around to discuss it. One… “Chief White Flight” expressed the verdict. He said, “We must be seen to be moderate. If we are, then the Cowboys will treat us nicely and stop the raids. We could even wear THEIR Stetson hats, drink whiskey and sing their music in order to please them. It is the only way”.
Hawk protested. “We can fight them if we all band together as one movement. All tribes working as one army.” The old man dismissed him. “No, we will not work with other tribes. They have their ways and we have ours. We want nothing to do with THAT LOT. They are too rough and rowdy, and our tribe are genteel realists who believe that though the war may be lost, we can ‘reform’ our land and can be a vital and cherished MINORITY ethnic group”
And so it was. Little Dove became the Head of the Tribe. The Cowboys moved in and took the land without a fight. They took the women too. The tribe ran to the barren hills where the Cowboys didn’t wish to settle. No one assimilated. Not one Cowboy accommodated to the Indian ways because that was never the plan. Dove was tried and executed as a traitor according to native law.
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Epilogue: The story of Indians’ Creek was never taken up by Hollywood film moguls as even they thought it too embarrassing that the tribe simply gave up without a fight.
The End (only if we let it be so).
By Russell White
