November 14, 2025 • 57 mins
This week, Unhinged History honors the achievements of native Americans and their history.
We hear a lot about the Navajo codetalkers of WWII, but how much do you know about the Choctaw codetalkers of WWI that inspired the Second World War version? If you’re like most of the world, you don’t know much. This week, Theresa takes Angie on a romp through history as she shares the origins of the United States using the languages of indigenous peoples to communicate effectively without their messages getting intercepted.
Angie scares Theresa when she also tells a story about the Choctaw. Instead of talking about WWI, Angie zips back to the mid-1800s to share about the first Choctaw lawyer and the first Native American to be admitted to the bar in the United States. James Lawrence McDonald was educated by the government, then used his education to serve his people and help them when the nation didn’t honor its side of the treaties.
These stories pair well with:
Francis Pegahmagabow
Anandi Joshi
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Hello and welcome to the Unhinged HistoryPodcast, the podcast where two friends are going
to just mainline history means on the daily andthen wait for a story to pique our interest,
compulsively learn every little bit we can, andthen word bump on our friend once a week. And you are
joining us for word dump. I'm host one, I'm Teresa,and that is host two. I'm LeAngie, you freaking
(00:37):
weirdos. And we're stoked that you're here. Yeah,we are. There we go. Hey, good morning. Hi, hi guys.
Did you have to move your camera down so that I sawthat your shirt said, let's settle this with paper
rock scissors? Oh, no, I had to move my camerabecause I okay, look at hold on. That's our other
(01:02):
option. Oh, you just want to talk to the eyes up. Imean, the ceiling fans lovely, but isn't it
beautiful? It's incredible. I didn't realize youhad full face, five boobs, and ceiling fan and I
that was three settings. All so I just was I want youto know I can afford a five blade ceiling fan. Yeah,
(01:28):
the builder special even. There now now I can seeyou, you can see me. We're doing good. We're doing
good. Nice. Well, it looks like I get to go first.Okay. And I, I this has been not officially on my
(01:50):
list, but always one of those stories I knew Ineeded to add. Okay. Okay. And so then I was sort of
sitting there in the crock pot. Yeah, basically.And so I was just like, Oh, yeah, I'm going to do this
one. So I don't think we've actually covered likethe Navajo cold talk, the Navajo cold code talkers
(02:10):
of World War two. But today, I'm not going to eventalk about them. I'm going to talk about the Chak
Chak cold. Good grief. They're not cold talkers.They're code talkers. The Chak Chak code talkers
of World War one. I love all of this. I think we haveonly briefly mentioned the Navajo code talkers.
(02:33):
Yeah. So like, yeah, let's, let's do, let's go onhere. I have two main sources, BDC news, World War
one, the original code talkers. Nope, theoriginal cold code talkers by Denise. You said it
right the first time. Did I? Yes. Oh, I'm going tolisten to the rewind and be like, Teresa, did you
(02:56):
need more coffee? The, set your face out. Yeah,start doing some tongue twisters. Yeah. National
Museum, United States Army, World War one codetalkers by Jordan, Ginder, and Elnora Larson.
Okay. So the article from the National UnitedStates Army, that starts out with a really
(03:22):
brilliant setup. They really go through anddiscuss how Americans, even when they were
British colonists have cited, well, I take thatback. They decided how the indigenous support for
the country has been around since it's founding,like what happened, how that worked. They talked
about how the tribes would side with people wholive near them to support their trading
(03:48):
partnership. So this tribe lived closer to moreBritish leaning settlers than they sided with the
British. But if they sided with, you know, peoplewho were more American colonists than they were,
basically, as far as like the revolutionary wargoes, like, yeah, yeah, from the video, right?
Like, okay, because you think about indigenoustribes, they have participated in basically all
(04:13):
of the conflicts since we've arrived. Right. Andso they lend their support to whomever their
livelihood depended on. I mean, it makes sensewhen you hear it like that. Yeah, absolutely, it
does. But I hadn't really thought of it until I readthat. I went, Oh, yeah. And then they said that
(04:34):
there's not a single sole reason that nativepeoples would choose to enlist. You know,
oftentimes it's like, oh, I'm going to supportBilly, Brian and Bartholomew because they
support my trade partnerships, and they likebuying all the pelts. Or it could be, you know,
they're good people or whomever, whatever,whatever it is. Now, some historians have tied
(04:57):
Native American military service to this myth ofwarrior tradition. Okay. And I know that I have
just blindly followed along a documentary whenthey've drummed up like, you know, the war chiefs
and the whatnot. Now, the myth kind of implies thatnative peoples have this innate warrior ability.
(05:19):
And I think if I thought about it logically, I'd go,Yeah, nobody has an innate or a group of humans do
not have an innate ability blank, you know. Butwhile we do have tribes that have a very strong
warrior tradition, there are tribes that have amore pacifistic custom. And so I just want to make
(05:42):
sure that we highlight that so that we can thinkabout this not as a monolith, not as, you know, one
tribe or one ideal representing all. So takeeverything with a grain of salt, basically. Okay.
And so when we think about this, we really useanalyze the lens we're using, I think this will
allow us to come up with a lot of sense in hindsight.Okay. All right. Now, while we do have native
(06:08):
soldiers joining the military for a myriad ofreasons, the previous director of the National
Museum of the American Indian, Kevin Gover, hesays that native peoples are acknowledging the
mistreatment of their tribes that they'vesuffered at the hands of the United States, yet
they still imagine a different and better triballife in the future, which is beautiful. And I think
(06:33):
it shows this hope and resilience and desire toimprove life. Agreed. Yeah. Meanwhile, and I want
to highlight this, when I get cut off by one personon the freeway, I acknowledge that I am personally
ready to lead SEAL Team Six into action for thismassive scorched earth campaign. For the
(06:57):
indignation. Right. For the implied flight.Yeah. So I feel this. I am all over the place and I do
not view myself as redeemable as this ideologythat I'm ascribing to a different group of humans.
Now, so we think about this, leading up to the GreatWar, because we didn't realize we were going to
(07:21):
have a couple of these bad boys. We see this paththat's fraught with trauma for Indigenous
brothers and sisters. First off, we as Americans,we try to racing them. We try to various myriad,
like a variety of means. We tried war, genocide,basic assimilation. Big murdery. Yeah. I mean,
(07:43):
everything but just bringing cookies over whenI'm honest. I think we tried that too, and it was not
good cookies. Well, yeah. I mean, we did bringblankets, but they were laced with smallpox.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Yep. Now, theU.S., they'd set up boarding schools, and this is
where children are forced to speak English andthey're forced to learn Western culture. And even
(08:07):
this, as the guys, if we are hoping to help yourchildren into this modern world and to learn the
Western ways, it's basically to just erase theIndian out of the human. And to the point where they
have armed guards and police that are forcing somechildren into the schools. So totally chill. So,
(08:28):
America, to beat that chill. Yeah. Yeah. Now, it'sso militaristic, where the schools are so
militaristic, I should say. They have shorthaircuts, uniforms, unit organizations. It
reminded me when I was really looking at this of thestory in the Bible of Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego. You know, where they're taken fromtheir homes, names are changed, haircuts, forced
(08:52):
to eat foreign food and speak a foreign language,and Servit King wants to stamp out their culture.
Yeah. Okay. I can very much see that connection.Yeah. And we praise Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego for standing up underneath thatoppression. And I just want to make sure that if
we're looking at it from Western lens, wecompletely look at it, be like, you know what, we
(09:15):
like it when they don't. We support the underdog,even though in this case, we're the overlord.
Yeah. So all of that for all of this tough, you know,thing way to look at it. Now, many of the co-talkers
that attended the boarding schools, theyrecalled the schools punishing them for speaking
their native languages. Of course. And thenlater, some of them say that the military feel of
(09:40):
the schools really smoothed their transitioninto military life, which that's telling. Yeah,
okay. Oh, basic, basic training, the drillsergeants, that was homeroom. Yeah, we did this in
sixth grade. Yeah. He was just fine. Yeah. I can dopush-ups while I'm sleeping. Thank you. Thanks to
(10:06):
Ms. Morgensen. That woman is terrifying. Now, wehave that as the background. Here's what we get
into the story. It's late September 18, nope, lateSeptember of 1918. And the 13th Infantry
(10:26):
Division, they have kind of a big ass problem. TheU.S. Army signal communications, well, the
messages that they're sending are not exactlystaying secret. Unfortunate. The Germans are
intercepting these bad boys just as quickly asthey're coming in and translating them into plain
(10:47):
English. Oh, I think the messages themselvesaren't plain English. And so they're just
translating like, oh, yeah, they're going to thegrocery store to pick up some eggs. Why don't we add
some mayo to that grocery list and then we'll justswing by and pick it up and we wipe them out of the
trench. Yeah. Okay. Now, the enemies that areusing these messages, they end up finding allied
(11:12):
locations often, and this allows them to gain lotsof advantages in the battlefield. So this is some
bad news bears. Okay. Now, Matt Reed, who's thecurator of the American Indians collections at
the Oklahoma History Center, he goes on to say thatit was a huge problem and they really couldn't
(11:33):
figure out a way around it. Yeah. Okay. Which justhighlights the no dumb move, right? Now, they have
a solution they stumble on, and this is becausethere's a couple of people who overhear a
conversation between two Choctaw soldiers in the142nd Infantry Regiment. The pair are just
(11:53):
chatting in the camp when a captain walked by andasked what language they're speaking. Now,
unbeknownst to them, the captain is realizingthis potential for communication and then he asks
if there's any other speakers among the troops.Now, the men, they know who their kind are, right?
So they know of these Choctaw soldiers at companyheadquarters. So using a field telephone, the
(12:15):
captain got the men to deliver a message and theirnative tongue with their colleagues could
quickly trans back into English. So the Choctawtelephone squad was born and that started the code
talking. I love that the Choctaw telephone squadsounds like something we created yesterday to be
the name of a band. Honestly, you say that and Iagree to your terms. Yeah. It's like such a modern
(12:39):
phrase. I love it. Yeah. Let's go. They play anindie pop or folk. Yeah. Yeah. Now, using the
Choctaw language, this apparently giveseveryone a big advantage because it was using the
Choctaw language had huge advantages. It's alargely unknown language. Only a few American
(13:01):
Indian tribes had more than 20,000 people. So thelanguages individually are not widely spoken.
Most are not written down. And even the ones thatare written, usually only have Bibles and hymns
and those are consumed locally. Interesting.Okay. So I hadn't thought of something like that
(13:22):
before. Right. So this is something that is, webase the United States just innately had tons of
language options that were absolutely secret tothe Western world. The Western world here meaning
European influence. Right. That is nuts. Okay.Common sense once you hear it. But would not ever
(13:45):
thought about it. Right. And I'm sitting herethinking too, like if the written word is like the
basic gist of the written word is Bibles and hymns,how many words are missing? I'll get into some of
that. Right. Because there's going to be somewords that just don't directly translate. Right.
(14:05):
Right. Okay. Carry on. Yeah. Put a pen in thatbecause that props up here. Now, so this, the
Choctaw, Telfa squad, that gets put into actionalmost instantly. Within hours, eight Choctaw
speakers have been dispatched to strategicpositions. And they are incredibly instrumental
at helping the US troops win several key battles.Love this. They're so cool. Now the Germans went
(14:33):
from intercepting nearly every message,translating it almost immediately, and then just
telling everybody what we said. Now they're stilllistening, but they can't understand a damn
thing. This has to also be, when I think about it,the quickest way to code and decode info, because
you're not coding, you're translating. Yeah. Andthis is directly across in a language nobody else
(14:59):
understands. Right. Brilliant. Now the languageitself flabbergasts the Germans. And this, who
said it, but a man named Reid. So if I say Reid later,we'll know, you know, this quote comes from him.
There's stories that they thought the US hadinvented a contraption to speak underwater is the
(15:24):
quote. And I, what the hell does that mean? I need toknow what it sounds like now. Like, let's assume
the Americans had figured out a way to speakunderwater. That doesn't mean I know how to
translate what is heard from speakingunderwater. Yeah. Okay. Reid, I like you. You're
(15:50):
weirdo. I mean, but to be fair, he's justtranslating or he's just reading stuff the
Germans are writing, but that makes me wonder whatthe, like, how much gas attacks had that German
been under for them to think that was a coherentsentence. Yeah, like, that's where you went with
that. Okay. Yeah. Okay, buddy. I'm gonna go sitback down. Yeah. You need a juice cup because your
(16:13):
blood sugar sounds low. Yeah. Now the Choctawcover mill mini military didn't cover mini
military terms. So they had to come up with somecoded words. Machine gun ends up being little gun
shoot fast. Love that. That's up there. We nevernot hear it any other way now. Right. That's up
(16:39):
there with North Korea saying the elevator is theup down machine. Yeah. So I mean, now typically in
their native tongue, when they would say machinegun, they would say it just with their own accent on
it in the middle of the sentence. But now they can'tsay that because it would be like mumble, mumble,
mumble machine gun, mumble, mumble, mumble. Andso they had to come up with that coded language. Oh
(17:03):
my God, it's like when you're, it's like whenyou're a parent and your kids or friends figuring
out how to spell the word. So you have to figure outhow to say it to your spouse without saying it to
your spouse. My parents came up with the term theywouldn't say pizza out loud. They would call it a
circular Italian food object. There you go. Yeah.I like that. It took exactly one time for me to
(17:30):
figure out what a pizza was. I mean, and now I cannever not think of it as a circular Italian food
object. There. With all of this, there's a total of19 Choctaw soldiers that are recruited to the
141st, 142nd, 143rd Infantry Regiments. Many ofthem knew each other from Oklahoma. Okay. And then
(17:58):
later on we get other American tribes that are usedin the same way, including like the Cherokee and
the Comanche. Okay. Now the front line where manyof the Choctaw were used was the Muse Argonne
Offensive. And this turned out to be the final partof the Allied campaign on this Western front. But
it was the work of the Choctaw specifically inshaping military communications and future
(18:23):
conflicts. They really set the paradigm for theNavajo and the Comanche co-talkers of World War II
and them being the most famous. You know, so wedon't even think about World War I and where we got
the idea. Right. There is a, I believe woman, yeah,woman, Nuchi Nathoba. And she's the president of
(18:49):
the Choctaw Co-Talkers Association. It was hergrandfather, Ben Carter's bee, who was one of the
men used the original test to send that message onthe Western front. And she says co-talking was an
idea that was copied over and over, but it may havenever happened had it been for the Choctaw.
(19:10):
That's, and to think it just came from two guyshaving a conversation next to each other. Yeah,
yeah. And the same time like that this ishappening, the Choctaw language, you know, being
used, it's under pressure in the U.S. And they'retrying to stamp it out using cultural
simulations. The government's attempts tocivilize American Indians involved, you know,
(19:34):
putting their children in these schools andreally punishing them severely any time the
language is taught. So you have this situationwhere the speakers are on the front lines. They
hear somebody or they know somebody overheardthem speaking and ask them, what are you speaking?
And now they're panicked. Are they about to be introuble just like they were back in boarding
(19:57):
school? I hate that. And that was one of thosethings where what was, you know, something they
were just trying to get beaten out of them ended upbeing the saving grace. Usually is. Now, when you
(20:19):
think about the Choctaw's way of life, you know, itwas completely under threat at the time of this. It
was a little more than a generation before thatthey were forcibly removed from their ancestral
land. It was the 1830s Indian Removal Act wherethey were marched from the areas around
Mississippi to Oklahoma and they were part of theTrail of Tears. And I didn't realize, I knew the
(20:45):
Cherokee were, but I didn't know the Choctaw werein that group. There were 12,000 Choctaw that were
moved and of those 12,000, 2,500 died of disease,hunger, and exhaustion. But then when the Choctaw
were needed, the soldiers were incrediblygracious and they shared their language. They
(21:05):
didn't have to, but they did. And I think there'ssomething incredibly beautiful about that. And
then nationwide, the American Indians didn't getcitizenship until 1924, years after World War I
had finished and 12,000 indigenous people foughtfor the U.S. according to the National Museum of
(21:28):
American Indian. And they volunteered to fightbecause defending their land and people is a part
of their culture, it's part of their tradition.And I need to call out here that while we had 12,000
that fought, a third of Native peoples at that timeweren't recognized by the federal government.
(21:49):
That feels right. Now, Reed, who I didn't put theirfirst name, and I was hoping I would have done by
now, says that this was an extension of thetradition, the traditional warrior role that men
protect and provided for those who couldn't do itthemselves or weren't expected to. It's about
what it means to be a man and a leader, warriorsregarded with the most, or utmost respect in their
(22:14):
communities. It's the same with veterans and itstill is today. And I think that's beautiful. Now,
we have these soldiers who come home and we, like,we don't have a lot of information about it and
that's almost by design because co-talking andwhat happened in World War I wasn't really talked
(22:35):
about because, you know, you just, you didn'treally, they just didn't talk about it a whole lot.
In most cases, families and communities didn'tknow a ton because apparently for the Choctaw, you
don't talk about your own achievements. You letothers praise you. I like it. So, you know, you let
(22:58):
somebody else brag about what you did, right? Now,like it was like the co-talk, like Neshoba, the
woman I talked about earlier who leads one of theorganizations, she says, co-talkers wouldn't
have told stories about themselves. Theyregarded what they had done as just their duty.
When my great-grandfather was interviewed for alocal publication after he returned from the war,
(23:21):
he simply said, I went to France, I saw the countryand I came back alive. That's all you get. Done. And
so, if you didn't have your body being like, andAngie was the first person to do that, it wasn't for
Angie kicking some serious ass, then Jerry'swould still be, you know. Yeah, that'll make
sense. And I will say that I want to make animportant call out here that the Choctaw are the
(23:49):
most recorded World War I co-talkers, but therewas a group of Eastern Ban Cherokee that used their
language to communicate for the 105th FieldArtillery Battalion and the 30th Infantry
Division, and that these soldiers successfullydelivered messages between Allied troops
without interception. And they continued theirwork to the end of the war. And then we have evidence
(24:13):
to suggest that there's a group called theHo-Chunk and they're the first Native language
that were used earlier in 1918. Okay. But it'sanecdotal and I don't have a ton of detail. The most
we have is about the Choctaw. I mean, either way,that's cool. Now, yeah, I'm impressed. Well done.
(24:37):
So, I'm going to end on this note. It's 1924 with theCongress Grant citizenship to all Native
Americans, and that's partly because of theNative enlistment during the war, which while I
don't, I think they should have, we should havetheir citizenship, not give them ours. I think
(25:02):
that's at least a step in the right direction,right? Now, it isn't until 1975 that tribes gained
the full civil rights with passing the IndianSelf-Determination Education Assistance Act.
This allows Native nations a lot more autonomy andthey have the ability to take responsibility for
operating programs and services that are ran bythe Department of the Interior. And it's three
(25:27):
years later that Congress passes the IndianAmerican Indian Religious Freedom Act. And this
basically gives them the freedom to servewhatever religious process or methodology they
want. Okay. The government would honor the NavajoCode Talkers for their service in 2000, and then in
(25:50):
2008, Congress recognized all other Native CodeTalkers with a Congressional Code Medal. That's
taken an awfully long time. I feel like anytime Italk about a group that isn't well known, when I get
to, and Congress did this, it's going to be 60 or 80years later. At least, yeah. At that point, I'm
(26:18):
like, it is what it is. Yeah. I had the wildestEnglish teacher in high school. She did insane
things, but one of the coolest things she did isarranged an interview with one of the last Living
Code Talkers. So that was pretty cool. That is veryneat. Yeah. And that was in 2001. It was pretty
(26:46):
single. That is the one thing from the class that Iwas like, that was, you did a lot of weird stuff, but
this was a win. Thank you for that. I mean, I thinksome of the best teachers are the ones that are
going to go out on a limb. They're going to do theweird thing. She sure did. She sure did. It was just
(27:06):
one of those classes where I'm like, what am I evendoing in this class? Did I have homework today? I
can't remember. But yeah. Enjoy the transitionfrom the Code Talkers. It's actually not that
insane, because I am also speaking about theChakta today. Okay. I just panicked. Ha ha ha.
(27:31):
Don't worry. Mine's like a hundred years before.My sources are the Harmon Museum out of Warren
County. It is an article written by SylviaOutland. She is the art curator for this museum.
And then the Museum of Native American History inBentonville, Arkansas, which has its acronym is
(27:57):
MONA. So, m-o-n-a-h dot org. And for the longesttime, every time I looked at that, I'm like, what?
I've never heard of the MONA tribe before. Why is itsaying MONA, but we're talking about the Chakta. I
am so, and then finally I was like, oh my gosh, it'san acronym, you idiot. And then a really, really
(28:19):
well done article on Wikipedia helped sort of fillthe blanks in where other sources did not have
timeline information or like explain asituation. Wikipedia was there and they were
like, we got you friend. This is what this means.And I was like, cool, thanks. I needed that. I mean,
(28:39):
I love it. Yeah. So today, my offering is the storyof the first Indigenous lawyer. Oh, wow. Carry on.
So off the top of your head though, what year do youthink they would have been born? I don't like this
game. You know what you said a hundred yearsbefore. I'm going to say 1818. 1801. And I'm going
(29:06):
to tell you I was shocked to learn that because asyou just mentioned, Native Americans did not get
their citizenship until 1924. So when I thoughtabout being a lawyer and what that sort of entails,
I would have thought that we wouldn't have seen thefirst Native American lawyer until 1930. I don't
(29:34):
want to say that was my bias, but that was what Iassumed. Right. You can practice law, but you
can't leave the country and come back. Yeah. Soanyway, I was shocked to discover that James
Lawrence McDonald was born in 1801 in the ChoctawTribal homelands of Mississippi. So there is
(29:57):
almost nothing known about his father other thanhe was a European descent. I mean, by the last name
alone, one can guess he's probably Scottish, butthere's no sources that I found that definitively
confirmed that. But given the time and the place,it doesn't make sense, especially with the last
name for him to be at least of some sort of Scottishdescent. Now, his mother is called Molly
(30:23):
McDonald, which I'm guessing is not her givenname, but these sources don't have that
information. So we just call her Molly McDonald.She is a landowner and a good straighter. Would you
know that? Which I think is pretty cool. Now, theother thing that we know about her besides her
being Indigenous was that she saw her son'seducation as like the most important thing. Her
(30:50):
goal for him was to grow up to be a tribal leader. Sofor her, his education was like, was paramount,
right? Like, that's my job. And because he was bornto a Choctaw mother, he is, he's never viewed as an
outsider. Like, he is raised among the tribe andnot seen any other way, which I kind of think is sort
(31:14):
of par for the course when, at least with theAmerican Indigenous people, when you have a
European father, your maternal line is whatmatters anyway. But that's not, I wouldn't say
that's for everybody, but I think that's prettycommon. So, mom, okay, the, the other thing I have
(31:37):
to say, because I just inherently bilingual, hespeaks both English and his native Choctaw, which
is like kind of a big deal. Now, mom first enrolledhim in the Quaker Run Mission school near their
(31:58):
home. And according to the PD article, it's about1811, he would have been 10 or 11 years old. His
mother then places him in the home of a white mancalled Silas Dinsmore, who was a government
official that served as the federal liaisonbetween the Choctaw Nation and the federal
(32:19):
government. What I have to say next, I did not know.And I was like, holy cow. We have to remember it is
only 1811. And we are still a fairly new nation,right? So going on that vein, according to the PD
article, it was not uncommon during thepost-revolution years for many Indigenous
(32:43):
parents to place their children into whitehouseholds. They hate this, but it makes sense.
That's exactly what I said. I had to do a lot ofgoogling on this one because I was like, wait a
minute, there's more to this. There's more tothis. Initially, the basic just is this. They see
this as a benefit. Being able to place theirchildren among their white children for their
(33:06):
education, this allows them as a way to learn likethe white customs and what all the happenings are.
And that the expectation is their children wouldthen return and use this experience, use this
education and these practices to the advantage oftheir people. What the PD article didn't
(33:31):
expressly state is that this is sort of thebeginning of the whole boarding school thing that
we now know and are very familiar with today. Itgoes on to say that the officials from the American
Board missionaries, they're basically like a,this is such a weird group, but my understanding is
(33:56):
the American Board missionaries, they're likethe overboard of education in this area. And I
believe they're all from a Quaker group. Theyreport that their attempts to give the children a
proper English education were mostly in vain asthey, they being Indigenous children, would we
(34:19):
return to their quote, amusement and formerfollies. They said most white society believed
that the Indigenous could never be educated. Oh,that's beautiful. Right? Okay. I hate most of the
sentences that I'm saying. After two years withDinsmore, the man who's caring for James, he is
(34:43):
seen as an exemplary student. Like Dinsmore is soimpressed with what James is, with what he's up to.
And this catches the eye of Thomas L McKinney, whois the US superintendent of Indian trade at the
time. Um, I believe his involvement sort of spursJames McDonald's next move, because then he is
(35:11):
sent to Baltimore by the yearly meeting offriends, which is a Quaker group, right, to study
under a man called Philby Thomas. Now I do theQuakers, like we're having an in early education
and things like that at this time. And I know theyalways have like meeting of friends, but I did not
realize that that was like an organizationalname. Like I was like, Oh, there's a lot about
(35:37):
Quakers. I don't know. Um, to the point where I, Ihad a neighbor at one point who grew up Quaker, and I
would just say, Hey friend, like just in general,and she's just like, Are you Quaker? No, no, you're
Fred. Like I could have said any other word like,Hey cat, Hey, cool cat, Hey, Hey, and I just said
(36:00):
friend. And she's like, Oh, that's a Quaker term.And then I felt uncomfortable saying friend. And
it took a while to be like, I don't want to co-opsomebody's religious language. Yeah, no, right.
And so when I was first reading about this yearlymeeting of friends, I'm like, What is this? So I was
like, Google help us to stir out. And immediatelythey were like, This is the Quakers. And I was like,
(36:25):
Well, okay, don't I feel silly. So our guy goes toBaltimore. He studies in the home of a man called
Philip E. Thomas. Now there's a lot of men involvedin his education. But McKinney, for his part,
wanted to use James McDonald as an example, thatproviding good education would allow the
(36:49):
indigenous to assimilate faster into theAmerican mainstream. Okay. That said, I do not
think McKinney was malevolent in his actions. Ithink he thought that was genuinely the proper
thing to do for the better for like, for the good ofeveryone. Sure. Obviously, I think he's wrong,
(37:16):
right? But everything he does is to set upMcDonald's for a better life. And they have a close
relationship. Now, at the moment, though,McDonald is living with this man called Thomas.
And Thomas is the president of the Marylandschool. And he seems to have been a good educator,
(37:36):
but I don't necessarily believe that he was reallyout for the good of this particular student.
Because as he starts to see him see what sort ofexample of a student he is, that he is just this
phenomenal, the phenomenal kid that does all ofthese things and is perpetually learning and is
like excited to be learning. He writes a letter tothe Department of War describing McDonald's
(38:02):
potential and how he could possibly be used asquote a means to assist in the removal of Native
Americans from their tribal homelands. I hate theidea of exploiting children, right? I honestly
don't see how this can be seen as a good andwonderful thing for him to try to accomplish. You
know what I mean? Now, McKinney, who I mentionedearlier, has, so James McDonald spends a couple of
(38:31):
years in the home of Thomas, Philippe Thomas, orbeing cared for by Philippe Thomas. But those
couple of years pass, and McKinney sort of takesover his housing and provides him a job in a dry dead
store until he graduates in 1818. Now, this quoteI'm going to give is direct from the P article
(38:55):
because it both infuriated me and gave me hope forMcDonald at the same time. When McDonald
graduated school in 1818, McKinney offered him ajob at the Office of Indian Trade. Their
relationship as federal employees evolved intofriendship, and the superintendent treated the
young chock-tie as an adopted son by giving a homeand a quote white job. During his time with the
(39:22):
department, McDonald continued to take variousclasses and worked at a local dry good store. In an
1819 letter, McDonald writes that he had quotespent 20 months learning business at the store,
received an education in surveying, attended acourse of lectures on national and experimental
philosophy, learned Latin, and partiallystudied mechanics and astronomy. McDonald
(39:46):
continued to learn about business culture andeconomics. While working in DC, McDonald was
constantly impressing his superiors with hishard work, his dedication, and his skill. In 1819,
McKinney wrote Secretary of John C. Calhoun aboutMcDonald's academic progress and his
(40:06):
encouraging of McDonald's to attend law school.In the letter, which included McDonald's letter,
McDonald declined any desire to attend lawschool. Instead, he expressed a desire to travel
to his home in the Choctaw Nation and farm for thegovernment. He also stated that the nostalgia of
(40:27):
being reared on a farm beckoned, yet he closedsaying, so this isn't McDonald speaking, quote,
but I must confess, I have some ambition todistinguish myself, some disposition to be
useful and a desire to be free of the charactereducated Indian youth with some degree of justice
cast upon it of a proneness to relapse intosavages. Oh, geez. So when I first read this, I was
(40:55):
like, okay, so he really, he like wants to makesomething of himself and he wants this education.
He just doesn't want to be a lawyer. He would ratherbe a farmer and that's cool too, because he is
literally like, hey, I want to farm for thegovernment, which seems to me like a terrible
idea, but for him that was his goal. And then Ireread the sentence, the last sentence about him
(41:20):
wanting to be free of the character of the Indianyouth. And I was like, this poor man is a man torn
between two worlds. Yeah, yeah, he's had down,he's had his ethnicity ripped from his, his mind.
Yeah, like in the harshest way possible, as far as Ican imagine, when maybe not in the physical way,
(41:42):
but when you are, you spent most of your life in thehome of white men who believe that that you're
lesser and you've internalized that racism.Yeah, how you then react, especially when you
yourself are half white. Yeah, and they'reprobably saying all of your goodness is from the
(42:06):
whiteness. Oh, you're smarter than the rest. Oh, Ilike being smarter. It's probably because of your
white daddy. Which we know literally nothingabout. And I absolutely hate that for him, because
the more I was reading, the more I was learning thatlike, you know, when we have people like Blackjack
(42:26):
Pershings, you have these characters that arethese very complicated, sometimes we do the right
thing, and then sometimes we say the absolutewrong thing, or we do the wrong thing, but we're
still viewed as a hero. You know what, like, I'm notgoing to say it's limited to characters like
Blackjack Pershings that are complicated. I'mgoing to say humanity is complicated. I'm going to
(42:48):
say Teresa has said fairly problematic things atmultiple points in her life. Haven't we all?
Right. Like, to me, he was just, he's one of thoseindividuals that that really stands out for him.
Like, the duality of his life must have been so hardfor him to like deal within his own brain, right?
(43:16):
Okay. So anyway, I hated that paragraph, but herewe are. McKinney, he is obviously impressed. And I
believe that that former paragraph is sort of whyhe's reaching out to Calhoun, the Secretary of
War, because he wants to help further McDonald'seducation. So according to the Harmon Museum
(43:41):
about this time, McDonald's education gets takenover by the government and, quote, funded by the
government through the help of the Secretary ofWar, John C. Calhoun, McDonald would continue his
studies in Greek, Latin, Flossy, Business,Surveying, and Science. Holy cow, what are we
doing? That is so many different categories ofinterest. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Basically, Ida
(44:08):
said, pick a lane. Let's, let's become a master ofone first. Right. Like, he is just doing all the
things. Now, McKinney and Calhoun are both big forhim. Like, they, they want to see how far he can go
and what he can do. And they both pressure him topursue either a law degree or perhaps a degree in
(44:31):
science or theology. But James wants to go home tothe Choctaw territory to be near his mother. That
said, in 1821, he began studying law under the OhioSupreme Court Justice John McLean, who happened
to be besties with Calhoun. John McLean, isn'tthat the name of Die Hard? Okay. I just want to make
(44:56):
sure I just, I had a very different visual of thisman. I can't say it without the grid. I was like,
don't, don't, don't do it to the face. Did thisjustice wear shoes? Because I can't imagine he
did. I, I didn't see his photo. I'm unclear. Let'sjust pretend he never wore shoes. It is what it is.
(45:19):
In just two years, McDonald will become the firstnative to be admitted to the Ohio bar and by
default, the first in the US. The Harmon Museum hasa quote from the Western Star from July 12 of 1823
saying, at the Supreme Court, lately held atDayton, Phineas Ross, Jesse Corwin, James L.
(45:42):
McDonald and Thomas G. Ward were severely,severely admitted to practice as counselors,
solicitors and attorneys in the several courts ofrecord in this state. So our guy is official.
Immediately, Calhoun and McKinney worked toconvince McDonald to help assist the quote,
(46:03):
federal government from in persuading Choctaw toleave or assimilate to Western culture. Maybe you
should have gone first. I feel like this would havebeen a better transition with that line. Right.
Now, keep in mind that this is also about the time weare seeing a big increase of tension and
(46:23):
confrontation between Southern states and thelocal indigenous groups. Shocked, I know you are.
I mean, yeah, we're also heading up to night or 1830where they're going to do the removal. Right. So
it's just, there's a lot going on and McDonald isseeing it like he is, he is very aware.
(46:46):
Additionally, so because he's seeing it,McDonald is actively working on his education
when the DOAC Treaty of 1820 is signed. The DOACTreaty or the Treaty of DOACSAN was the seventh of
nine major treaties that were ratified from theperiod of 1786 through 1866 between the United
(47:08):
States and the Choctaw Nation. This is of courseduring a time of intense and rapid westward
expansion of white settlers. Now, under thetreaty, the Choctaw seceded about six million
acres of their land in Mississippi. It's this is1820. They have succeeded about six million acres
(47:29):
of their land in Mississippi in exchange forroughly 13 million acres in the Arkansas
territory. The US government promised thatprofits from the sale of Mississippi lands would
be used to build schools for Choctaw youth, part ofa whole policy to civilize the tribe and all that.
However, shocking, the promise arrangementsfail. The proceeds from the land sales were not
(47:54):
used to support the schools as promised and notreaty guarantees and the treaty guarantees
weren't honored. As a result, the Choctaw and manyother tribes increasingly found that treaties
with the US were unreliable. They had to depend onlawyers and litigation to try to enforce treaty
obligations by US officials. Shocking. I wishhistory wasn't so damn consistent. Right? So keep
(48:26):
that in mind because remember, the white men inMcDonald's life are really trying to get him on
board with assisting in the removal orassimilation of his people and he has already
expressed a deep desire to go home and farm. So, buthow about if we move that home? Is home a mindset set
or is it a location? Say mindset. Right. Okay. SoMcDonald, he refuses and returns home and becomes
(48:56):
the first Choctaw lawyer. What do you think histhing was like his soapbox, if you will? Well, you
guessed it. He is an adamant opponent of removal.Surprise, surprise. I'm glad that he's standing
up for this. Right? Now, he sets about using his lawdegree to not only benefit his people, but like
(49:18):
also his mother. And okay, so this is one of thosemoments where we learn just how complicated
people are. Her, his mother, remember, she is alandowner and she's a good trader. Right? So she
purchases a slave on credit. Her collectors comeearly and obviously because they've come early,
(49:42):
she does not have the money to pay off the balance.So they take her property quote unquote, the
slave. And so she turns around and tells her son whocites the fourth sections of the Indian trade loss
and gets a hold of Calhoun. And within a couple ofmonths, she receives compensation for her slave.
(50:03):
Here's the thing. I could have easily left thatpart out, but I think it is so important to be able to
see all of the sides of humanity. Right. And thisevent also showed McDonald what he could do with a
full understanding of the role he could playregarding Indian affairs from his government
(50:25):
funded education, which I think is beautiful.Like I'm so curious if at any point in his life he was
sitting there getting that education funded bythe government going, I am literally going to use
this against you. I mean, I hope me too. In 1825,with the help of a man called David Folsom, he is
(50:45):
able to ensure the protection of mission schoolsobtained high annuity payments and the
forgiveness of debts for the Choctaw. So he isworking. He is doing a thing. In a declaration to
Congress, he noted that the native man would bemade to become like the white man, but the tribe
would not be doomed to extinction. And despitethem becoming like white men, they would not cease
(51:10):
being American Indians. He additionally arguedthat the federal government had a duty to protect
tribal rights on the founding principles ofliberty and equality. He also said that the
nation's deepest political commitments to theseprinciples would ensure the protection of the
Choctaw rights. And that race should not be afactor between the tribes and the U.S., but
(51:34):
instead the rule of the law, which I was like, wow,brilliant. I wish we just work off that. Yeah,
same. Right? I think that the problem when you lookat systemic racism is that it's the system has been
built to uphold. So the laws themselves werecreated in such a way to keep people under the rule
(51:57):
of thumb. I would agree with you on that. But I thinkin this case, he knew the law as it regarded his
people, and he would was working on the hope thatlaws could be what protected his people. So
obviously some things need to be changed, right?But at the end of the day, we should not look at each
(52:21):
other by our race. We should look at each otherbased on this idea of equality and the U.S.
government's role in protecting those rights fornot just white people, but every people. Now,
according to the Harmon Museum, quote, as anadvocate of schooling, learning of social and
(52:47):
cultural differences, and his experience of theharsh treatment he encountered during previous
negotiations, James later came to believe thatthe only way for the Choctaw to survive was to agree
to removal. In 1830, he signed the Treaty ofDancing Rabbit Creek. This treaty allowed those
Choctaw who wished to remain in Mississippi andbecame the first major non-European ethnic group
(53:10):
to gain recognition as a U.S. citizen. Like P.D.says, he later regretted his involvement in this
treaty, which I think is interesting, but I thinkmaybe he realized that removals, despite the fact
that it may keep his people safe, is not the goal asit's never been, you know? Then in late September
(53:36):
or early October of 1831, when he was just 30 yearsold, he dies. No! The mostly accepted story is that
he falls in love with a white woman who scorns himsupposedly because he's Native and he drowns
himself. Here's the thing, and I struggle withsort of all of these ideas. He was evidently
(54:02):
already suffering with depression andalcoholism according to the Museum of Native
American History, and here's the thing. If hiswhole statement was that he didn't want to fall
into the ways of the character that the Indianperson has, do you really think he's going to start
picking up alcohol? Like what happened betweenthe two moments, right? Well, I mean, you can't...
(54:27):
Okay, self-medicating is self-medicating. He'sattempting to fix a problem. So if he has
depressive tendencies, could he try to findsomething to help him? Sure. Right. Like you can't
say he's depressive. Ergo, he's going to... Likeif you are having trouble, you are going to try to
(54:47):
get that... work with that discomfort. Right. Ijust find it... To me, I'm not sure that I believe
depression and alcoholism were involved becauseof all the things he said before, but also the other
side to that is holy crap, this man's life has beeninsane since minutes one. So maybe depression has
(55:09):
been something we have been fighting with for avery long time, and the self-medicating of
alcohol is pretty much sort of what we haveavailable to us in 1830. You know what I mean? I
mean, that's a lot of them. Let's be honest.There's not a lot of options. Now, according to the
American Board missionary, they wrote at the timethat, quote, McDonald had been indulging in his
(55:34):
dissipated habits, and he drowned himself,having previously expressed the conviction that
his damnation was sealed. McKinney, for his part,writes a very colorful version in his memoir
saying, quote, after a white woman in Jacksonrejected his proposal for marriage with
promptness, and as he thought, with scorn,McDonald rushed to the river, sprang off a bluff,
(55:58):
and drowned himself. I have not read McKinney'smemoir, but I feel like the whole thing is very
colorful, and now I want to read it. There is also abook called Indians and the Family by Don Peterson
that suggests McDonald could have made enemies inthe South over his outspoken political opinions
(56:20):
about Jackson's politics, and perhaps that'swhat did. I mean, it could be he, some white dude,
saw him making an advance at a white woman, eventhough he got shot down, they went, we're going to
deal with this. Right? So there's really no way toknow for sure, but that's the story of the first
(56:44):
Indigenous lawyer. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, thank youfor sharing. I close to each other. Yeah, I will
admit, I puckered when you said you were stickingwith the Choctaw, I was like, well, crap, she's
going to do it to me. She is going to tell the samestory. How wild will that have been? We keep
(57:08):
talking about how it's going to happen one day. Andtoday I thought it did. But if you want to tune in for
next week where we inevitably come up with the samestory, rate, review, subscribe, and share this
with your favorite, this person should have been alawyer. Or your favorite lawyer. Yeah. And on that
(57:31):
note, favorite lawyer. Goodbye. Bye.
Hello and welcome to the Unhinged HistoryPodcast, the podcast where two friends are going
to just mainline history means on the daily andthen wait for a story to pique our interest,
compulsively learn every little bit we can, andthen word bump on our friend once a week. And you are
joining us for word dump. I'm host one, I'm Teresa,and that is host two. I'm LeAngie, you freaking
(00:37):
weirdos. And we're stoked that you're here. Yeah,we are. There we go. Hey, good morning. Hi, hi guys.
Did you have to move your camera down so that I sawthat your shirt said, let's settle this with paper
rock scissors? Oh, no, I had to move my camerabecause I okay, look at hold on. That's our other
(01:02):
option. Oh, you just want to talk to the eyes up. Imean, the ceiling fans lovely, but isn't it
beautiful? It's incredible. I didn't realize youhad full face, five boobs, and ceiling fan and I
that was three settings. All so I just was I want youto know I can afford a five blade ceiling fan. Yeah,
(01:28):
the builder special even. There now now I can seeyou, you can see me. We're doing good. We're doing
good. Nice. Well, it looks like I get to go first.Okay. And I, I this has been not officially on my
(01:50):
list, but always one of those stories I knew Ineeded to add. Okay. Okay. And so then I was sort of
sitting there in the crock pot. Yeah, basically.And so I was just like, Oh, yeah, I'm going to do this
one. So I don't think we've actually covered likethe Navajo cold talk, the Navajo cold code talkers
(02:10):
of World War two. But today, I'm not going to eventalk about them. I'm going to talk about the Chak
Chak cold. Good grief. They're not cold talkers.They're code talkers. The Chak Chak code talkers
of World War one. I love all of this. I think we haveonly briefly mentioned the Navajo code talkers.
(02:33):
Yeah. So like, yeah, let's, let's do, let's go onhere. I have two main sources, BDC news, World War
one, the original code talkers. Nope, theoriginal cold code talkers by Denise. You said it
right the first time. Did I? Yes. Oh, I'm going tolisten to the rewind and be like, Teresa, did you
(02:56):
need more coffee? The, set your face out. Yeah,start doing some tongue twisters. Yeah. National
Museum, United States Army, World War one codetalkers by Jordan, Ginder, and Elnora Larson.
Okay. So the article from the National UnitedStates Army, that starts out with a really
(03:22):
brilliant setup. They really go through anddiscuss how Americans, even when they were
British colonists have cited, well, I take thatback. They decided how the indigenous support for
the country has been around since it's founding,like what happened, how that worked. They talked
about how the tribes would side with people wholive near them to support their trading
(03:48):
partnership. So this tribe lived closer to moreBritish leaning settlers than they sided with the
British. But if they sided with, you know, peoplewho were more American colonists than they were,
basically, as far as like the revolutionary wargoes, like, yeah, yeah, from the video, right?
Like, okay, because you think about indigenoustribes, they have participated in basically all
(04:13):
of the conflicts since we've arrived. Right. Andso they lend their support to whomever their
livelihood depended on. I mean, it makes sensewhen you hear it like that. Yeah, absolutely, it
does. But I hadn't really thought of it until I readthat. I went, Oh, yeah. And then they said that
(04:34):
there's not a single sole reason that nativepeoples would choose to enlist. You know,
oftentimes it's like, oh, I'm going to supportBilly, Brian and Bartholomew because they
support my trade partnerships, and they likebuying all the pelts. Or it could be, you know,
they're good people or whomever, whatever,whatever it is. Now, some historians have tied
(04:57):
Native American military service to this myth ofwarrior tradition. Okay. And I know that I have
just blindly followed along a documentary whenthey've drummed up like, you know, the war chiefs
and the whatnot. Now, the myth kind of implies thatnative peoples have this innate warrior ability.
(05:19):
And I think if I thought about it logically, I'd go,Yeah, nobody has an innate or a group of humans do
not have an innate ability blank, you know. Butwhile we do have tribes that have a very strong
warrior tradition, there are tribes that have amore pacifistic custom. And so I just want to make
(05:42):
sure that we highlight that so that we can thinkabout this not as a monolith, not as, you know, one
tribe or one ideal representing all. So takeeverything with a grain of salt, basically. Okay.
And so when we think about this, we really useanalyze the lens we're using, I think this will
allow us to come up with a lot of sense in hindsight.Okay. All right. Now, while we do have native
(06:08):
soldiers joining the military for a myriad ofreasons, the previous director of the National
Museum of the American Indian, Kevin Gover, hesays that native peoples are acknowledging the
mistreatment of their tribes that they'vesuffered at the hands of the United States, yet
they still imagine a different and better triballife in the future, which is beautiful. And I think
(06:33):
it shows this hope and resilience and desire toimprove life. Agreed. Yeah. Meanwhile, and I want
to highlight this, when I get cut off by one personon the freeway, I acknowledge that I am personally
ready to lead SEAL Team Six into action for thismassive scorched earth campaign. For the
(06:57):
indignation. Right. For the implied flight.Yeah. So I feel this. I am all over the place and I do
not view myself as redeemable as this ideologythat I'm ascribing to a different group of humans.
Now, so we think about this, leading up to the GreatWar, because we didn't realize we were going to
(07:21):
have a couple of these bad boys. We see this paththat's fraught with trauma for Indigenous
brothers and sisters. First off, we as Americans,we try to racing them. We try to various myriad,
like a variety of means. We tried war, genocide,basic assimilation. Big murdery. Yeah. I mean,
(07:43):
everything but just bringing cookies over whenI'm honest. I think we tried that too, and it was not
good cookies. Well, yeah. I mean, we did bringblankets, but they were laced with smallpox.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Yep. Now, theU.S., they'd set up boarding schools, and this is
where children are forced to speak English andthey're forced to learn Western culture. And even
(08:07):
this, as the guys, if we are hoping to help yourchildren into this modern world and to learn the
Western ways, it's basically to just erase theIndian out of the human. And to the point where they
have armed guards and police that are forcing somechildren into the schools. So totally chill. So,
(08:28):
America, to beat that chill. Yeah. Yeah. Now, it'sso militaristic, where the schools are so
militaristic, I should say. They have shorthaircuts, uniforms, unit organizations. It
reminded me when I was really looking at this of thestory in the Bible of Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego. You know, where they're taken fromtheir homes, names are changed, haircuts, forced
(08:52):
to eat foreign food and speak a foreign language,and Servit King wants to stamp out their culture.
Yeah. Okay. I can very much see that connection.Yeah. And we praise Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego for standing up underneath thatoppression. And I just want to make sure that if
we're looking at it from Western lens, wecompletely look at it, be like, you know what, we
(09:15):
like it when they don't. We support the underdog,even though in this case, we're the overlord.
Yeah. So all of that for all of this tough, you know,thing way to look at it. Now, many of the co-talkers
that attended the boarding schools, theyrecalled the schools punishing them for speaking
their native languages. Of course. And thenlater, some of them say that the military feel of
(09:40):
the schools really smoothed their transitioninto military life, which that's telling. Yeah,
okay. Oh, basic, basic training, the drillsergeants, that was homeroom. Yeah, we did this in
sixth grade. Yeah. He was just fine. Yeah. I can dopush-ups while I'm sleeping. Thank you. Thanks to
(10:06):
Ms. Morgensen. That woman is terrifying. Now, wehave that as the background. Here's what we get
into the story. It's late September 18, nope, lateSeptember of 1918. And the 13th Infantry
(10:26):
Division, they have kind of a big ass problem. TheU.S. Army signal communications, well, the
messages that they're sending are not exactlystaying secret. Unfortunate. The Germans are
intercepting these bad boys just as quickly asthey're coming in and translating them into plain
(10:47):
English. Oh, I think the messages themselvesaren't plain English. And so they're just
translating like, oh, yeah, they're going to thegrocery store to pick up some eggs. Why don't we add
some mayo to that grocery list and then we'll justswing by and pick it up and we wipe them out of the
trench. Yeah. Okay. Now, the enemies that areusing these messages, they end up finding allied
(11:12):
locations often, and this allows them to gain lotsof advantages in the battlefield. So this is some
bad news bears. Okay. Now, Matt Reed, who's thecurator of the American Indians collections at
the Oklahoma History Center, he goes on to say thatit was a huge problem and they really couldn't
(11:33):
figure out a way around it. Yeah. Okay. Which justhighlights the no dumb move, right? Now, they have
a solution they stumble on, and this is becausethere's a couple of people who overhear a
conversation between two Choctaw soldiers in the142nd Infantry Regiment. The pair are just
(11:53):
chatting in the camp when a captain walked by andasked what language they're speaking. Now,
unbeknownst to them, the captain is realizingthis potential for communication and then he asks
if there's any other speakers among the troops.Now, the men, they know who their kind are, right?
So they know of these Choctaw soldiers at companyheadquarters. So using a field telephone, the
(12:15):
captain got the men to deliver a message and theirnative tongue with their colleagues could
quickly trans back into English. So the Choctawtelephone squad was born and that started the code
talking. I love that the Choctaw telephone squadsounds like something we created yesterday to be
the name of a band. Honestly, you say that and Iagree to your terms. Yeah. It's like such a modern
(12:39):
phrase. I love it. Yeah. Let's go. They play anindie pop or folk. Yeah. Yeah. Now, using the
Choctaw language, this apparently giveseveryone a big advantage because it was using the
Choctaw language had huge advantages. It's alargely unknown language. Only a few American
(13:01):
Indian tribes had more than 20,000 people. So thelanguages individually are not widely spoken.
Most are not written down. And even the ones thatare written, usually only have Bibles and hymns
and those are consumed locally. Interesting.Okay. So I hadn't thought of something like that
(13:22):
before. Right. So this is something that is, webase the United States just innately had tons of
language options that were absolutely secret tothe Western world. The Western world here meaning
European influence. Right. That is nuts. Okay.Common sense once you hear it. But would not ever
(13:45):
thought about it. Right. And I'm sitting herethinking too, like if the written word is like the
basic gist of the written word is Bibles and hymns,how many words are missing? I'll get into some of
that. Right. Because there's going to be somewords that just don't directly translate. Right.
(14:05):
Right. Okay. Carry on. Yeah. Put a pen in thatbecause that props up here. Now, so this, the
Choctaw, Telfa squad, that gets put into actionalmost instantly. Within hours, eight Choctaw
speakers have been dispatched to strategicpositions. And they are incredibly instrumental
at helping the US troops win several key battles.Love this. They're so cool. Now the Germans went
(14:33):
from intercepting nearly every message,translating it almost immediately, and then just
telling everybody what we said. Now they're stilllistening, but they can't understand a damn
thing. This has to also be, when I think about it,the quickest way to code and decode info, because
you're not coding, you're translating. Yeah. Andthis is directly across in a language nobody else
(14:59):
understands. Right. Brilliant. Now the languageitself flabbergasts the Germans. And this, who
said it, but a man named Reid. So if I say Reid later,we'll know, you know, this quote comes from him.
There's stories that they thought the US hadinvented a contraption to speak underwater is the
(15:24):
quote. And I, what the hell does that mean? I need toknow what it sounds like now. Like, let's assume
the Americans had figured out a way to speakunderwater. That doesn't mean I know how to
translate what is heard from speakingunderwater. Yeah. Okay. Reid, I like you. You're
(15:50):
weirdo. I mean, but to be fair, he's justtranslating or he's just reading stuff the
Germans are writing, but that makes me wonder whatthe, like, how much gas attacks had that German
been under for them to think that was a coherentsentence. Yeah, like, that's where you went with
that. Okay. Yeah. Okay, buddy. I'm gonna go sitback down. Yeah. You need a juice cup because your
(16:13):
blood sugar sounds low. Yeah. Now the Choctawcover mill mini military didn't cover mini
military terms. So they had to come up with somecoded words. Machine gun ends up being little gun
shoot fast. Love that. That's up there. We nevernot hear it any other way now. Right. That's up
(16:39):
there with North Korea saying the elevator is theup down machine. Yeah. So I mean, now typically in
their native tongue, when they would say machinegun, they would say it just with their own accent on
it in the middle of the sentence. But now they can'tsay that because it would be like mumble, mumble,
mumble machine gun, mumble, mumble, mumble. Andso they had to come up with that coded language. Oh
(17:03):
my God, it's like when you're, it's like whenyou're a parent and your kids or friends figuring
out how to spell the word. So you have to figure outhow to say it to your spouse without saying it to
your spouse. My parents came up with the term theywouldn't say pizza out loud. They would call it a
circular Italian food object. There you go. Yeah.I like that. It took exactly one time for me to
(17:30):
figure out what a pizza was. I mean, and now I cannever not think of it as a circular Italian food
object. There. With all of this, there's a total of19 Choctaw soldiers that are recruited to the
141st, 142nd, 143rd Infantry Regiments. Many ofthem knew each other from Oklahoma. Okay. And then
(17:58):
later on we get other American tribes that are usedin the same way, including like the Cherokee and
the Comanche. Okay. Now the front line where manyof the Choctaw were used was the Muse Argonne
Offensive. And this turned out to be the final partof the Allied campaign on this Western front. But
it was the work of the Choctaw specifically inshaping military communications and future
(18:23):
conflicts. They really set the paradigm for theNavajo and the Comanche co-talkers of World War II
and them being the most famous. You know, so wedon't even think about World War I and where we got
the idea. Right. There is a, I believe woman, yeah,woman, Nuchi Nathoba. And she's the president of
(18:49):
the Choctaw Co-Talkers Association. It was hergrandfather, Ben Carter's bee, who was one of the
men used the original test to send that message onthe Western front. And she says co-talking was an
idea that was copied over and over, but it may havenever happened had it been for the Choctaw.
(19:10):
That's, and to think it just came from two guyshaving a conversation next to each other. Yeah,
yeah. And the same time like that this ishappening, the Choctaw language, you know, being
used, it's under pressure in the U.S. And they'retrying to stamp it out using cultural
simulations. The government's attempts tocivilize American Indians involved, you know,
(19:34):
putting their children in these schools andreally punishing them severely any time the
language is taught. So you have this situationwhere the speakers are on the front lines. They
hear somebody or they know somebody overheardthem speaking and ask them, what are you speaking?
And now they're panicked. Are they about to be introuble just like they were back in boarding
(19:57):
school? I hate that. And that was one of thosethings where what was, you know, something they
were just trying to get beaten out of them ended upbeing the saving grace. Usually is. Now, when you
(20:19):
think about the Choctaw's way of life, you know, itwas completely under threat at the time of this. It
was a little more than a generation before thatthey were forcibly removed from their ancestral
land. It was the 1830s Indian Removal Act wherethey were marched from the areas around
Mississippi to Oklahoma and they were part of theTrail of Tears. And I didn't realize, I knew the
(20:45):
Cherokee were, but I didn't know the Choctaw werein that group. There were 12,000 Choctaw that were
moved and of those 12,000, 2,500 died of disease,hunger, and exhaustion. But then when the Choctaw
were needed, the soldiers were incrediblygracious and they shared their language. They
(21:05):
didn't have to, but they did. And I think there'ssomething incredibly beautiful about that. And
then nationwide, the American Indians didn't getcitizenship until 1924, years after World War I
had finished and 12,000 indigenous people foughtfor the U.S. according to the National Museum of
(21:28):
American Indian. And they volunteered to fightbecause defending their land and people is a part
of their culture, it's part of their tradition.And I need to call out here that while we had 12,000
that fought, a third of Native peoples at that timeweren't recognized by the federal government.
(21:49):
That feels right. Now, Reed, who I didn't put theirfirst name, and I was hoping I would have done by
now, says that this was an extension of thetradition, the traditional warrior role that men
protect and provided for those who couldn't do itthemselves or weren't expected to. It's about
what it means to be a man and a leader, warriorsregarded with the most, or utmost respect in their
(22:14):
communities. It's the same with veterans and itstill is today. And I think that's beautiful. Now,
we have these soldiers who come home and we, like,we don't have a lot of information about it and
that's almost by design because co-talking andwhat happened in World War I wasn't really talked
(22:35):
about because, you know, you just, you didn'treally, they just didn't talk about it a whole lot.
In most cases, families and communities didn'tknow a ton because apparently for the Choctaw, you
don't talk about your own achievements. You letothers praise you. I like it. So, you know, you let
(22:58):
somebody else brag about what you did, right? Now,like it was like the co-talk, like Neshoba, the
woman I talked about earlier who leads one of theorganizations, she says, co-talkers wouldn't
have told stories about themselves. Theyregarded what they had done as just their duty.
When my great-grandfather was interviewed for alocal publication after he returned from the war,
(23:21):
he simply said, I went to France, I saw the countryand I came back alive. That's all you get. Done. And
so, if you didn't have your body being like, andAngie was the first person to do that, it wasn't for
Angie kicking some serious ass, then Jerry'swould still be, you know. Yeah, that'll make
sense. And I will say that I want to make animportant call out here that the Choctaw are the
(23:49):
most recorded World War I co-talkers, but therewas a group of Eastern Ban Cherokee that used their
language to communicate for the 105th FieldArtillery Battalion and the 30th Infantry
Division, and that these soldiers successfullydelivered messages between Allied troops
without interception. And they continued theirwork to the end of the war. And then we have evidence
(24:13):
to suggest that there's a group called theHo-Chunk and they're the first Native language
that were used earlier in 1918. Okay. But it'sanecdotal and I don't have a ton of detail. The most
we have is about the Choctaw. I mean, either way,that's cool. Now, yeah, I'm impressed. Well done.
(24:37):
So, I'm going to end on this note. It's 1924 with theCongress Grant citizenship to all Native
Americans, and that's partly because of theNative enlistment during the war, which while I
don't, I think they should have, we should havetheir citizenship, not give them ours. I think
(25:02):
that's at least a step in the right direction,right? Now, it isn't until 1975 that tribes gained
the full civil rights with passing the IndianSelf-Determination Education Assistance Act.
This allows Native nations a lot more autonomy andthey have the ability to take responsibility for
operating programs and services that are ran bythe Department of the Interior. And it's three
(25:27):
years later that Congress passes the IndianAmerican Indian Religious Freedom Act. And this
basically gives them the freedom to servewhatever religious process or methodology they
want. Okay. The government would honor the NavajoCode Talkers for their service in 2000, and then in
(25:50):
2008, Congress recognized all other Native CodeTalkers with a Congressional Code Medal. That's
taken an awfully long time. I feel like anytime Italk about a group that isn't well known, when I get
to, and Congress did this, it's going to be 60 or 80years later. At least, yeah. At that point, I'm
(26:18):
like, it is what it is. Yeah. I had the wildestEnglish teacher in high school. She did insane
things, but one of the coolest things she did isarranged an interview with one of the last Living
Code Talkers. So that was pretty cool. That is veryneat. Yeah. And that was in 2001. It was pretty
(26:46):
single. That is the one thing from the class that Iwas like, that was, you did a lot of weird stuff, but
this was a win. Thank you for that. I mean, I thinksome of the best teachers are the ones that are
going to go out on a limb. They're going to do theweird thing. She sure did. She sure did. It was just
(27:06):
one of those classes where I'm like, what am I evendoing in this class? Did I have homework today? I
can't remember. But yeah. Enjoy the transitionfrom the Code Talkers. It's actually not that
insane, because I am also speaking about theChakta today. Okay. I just panicked. Ha ha ha.
(27:31):
Don't worry. Mine's like a hundred years before.My sources are the Harmon Museum out of Warren
County. It is an article written by SylviaOutland. She is the art curator for this museum.
And then the Museum of Native American History inBentonville, Arkansas, which has its acronym is
(27:57):
MONA. So, m-o-n-a-h dot org. And for the longesttime, every time I looked at that, I'm like, what?
I've never heard of the MONA tribe before. Why is itsaying MONA, but we're talking about the Chakta. I
am so, and then finally I was like, oh my gosh, it'san acronym, you idiot. And then a really, really
(28:19):
well done article on Wikipedia helped sort of fillthe blanks in where other sources did not have
timeline information or like explain asituation. Wikipedia was there and they were
like, we got you friend. This is what this means.And I was like, cool, thanks. I needed that. I mean,
(28:39):
I love it. Yeah. So today, my offering is the storyof the first Indigenous lawyer. Oh, wow. Carry on.
So off the top of your head though, what year do youthink they would have been born? I don't like this
game. You know what you said a hundred yearsbefore. I'm going to say 1818. 1801. And I'm going
(29:06):
to tell you I was shocked to learn that because asyou just mentioned, Native Americans did not get
their citizenship until 1924. So when I thoughtabout being a lawyer and what that sort of entails,
I would have thought that we wouldn't have seen thefirst Native American lawyer until 1930. I don't
(29:34):
want to say that was my bias, but that was what Iassumed. Right. You can practice law, but you
can't leave the country and come back. Yeah. Soanyway, I was shocked to discover that James
Lawrence McDonald was born in 1801 in the ChoctawTribal homelands of Mississippi. So there is
(29:57):
almost nothing known about his father other thanhe was a European descent. I mean, by the last name
alone, one can guess he's probably Scottish, butthere's no sources that I found that definitively
confirmed that. But given the time and the place,it doesn't make sense, especially with the last
name for him to be at least of some sort of Scottishdescent. Now, his mother is called Molly
(30:23):
McDonald, which I'm guessing is not her givenname, but these sources don't have that
information. So we just call her Molly McDonald.She is a landowner and a good straighter. Would you
know that? Which I think is pretty cool. Now, theother thing that we know about her besides her
being Indigenous was that she saw her son'seducation as like the most important thing. Her
(30:50):
goal for him was to grow up to be a tribal leader. Sofor her, his education was like, was paramount,
right? Like, that's my job. And because he was bornto a Choctaw mother, he is, he's never viewed as an
outsider. Like, he is raised among the tribe andnot seen any other way, which I kind of think is sort
(31:14):
of par for the course when, at least with theAmerican Indigenous people, when you have a
European father, your maternal line is whatmatters anyway. But that's not, I wouldn't say
that's for everybody, but I think that's prettycommon. So, mom, okay, the, the other thing I have
(31:37):
to say, because I just inherently bilingual, hespeaks both English and his native Choctaw, which
is like kind of a big deal. Now, mom first enrolledhim in the Quaker Run Mission school near their
(31:58):
home. And according to the PD article, it's about1811, he would have been 10 or 11 years old. His
mother then places him in the home of a white mancalled Silas Dinsmore, who was a government
official that served as the federal liaisonbetween the Choctaw Nation and the federal
(32:19):
government. What I have to say next, I did not know.And I was like, holy cow. We have to remember it is
only 1811. And we are still a fairly new nation,right? So going on that vein, according to the PD
article, it was not uncommon during thepost-revolution years for many Indigenous
(32:43):
parents to place their children into whitehouseholds. They hate this, but it makes sense.
That's exactly what I said. I had to do a lot ofgoogling on this one because I was like, wait a
minute, there's more to this. There's more tothis. Initially, the basic just is this. They see
this as a benefit. Being able to place theirchildren among their white children for their
(33:06):
education, this allows them as a way to learn likethe white customs and what all the happenings are.
And that the expectation is their children wouldthen return and use this experience, use this
education and these practices to the advantage oftheir people. What the PD article didn't
(33:31):
expressly state is that this is sort of thebeginning of the whole boarding school thing that
we now know and are very familiar with today. Itgoes on to say that the officials from the American
Board missionaries, they're basically like a,this is such a weird group, but my understanding is
(33:56):
the American Board missionaries, they're likethe overboard of education in this area. And I
believe they're all from a Quaker group. Theyreport that their attempts to give the children a
proper English education were mostly in vain asthey, they being Indigenous children, would we
(34:19):
return to their quote, amusement and formerfollies. They said most white society believed
that the Indigenous could never be educated. Oh,that's beautiful. Right? Okay. I hate most of the
sentences that I'm saying. After two years withDinsmore, the man who's caring for James, he is
(34:43):
seen as an exemplary student. Like Dinsmore is soimpressed with what James is, with what he's up to.
And this catches the eye of Thomas L McKinney, whois the US superintendent of Indian trade at the
time. Um, I believe his involvement sort of spursJames McDonald's next move, because then he is
(35:11):
sent to Baltimore by the yearly meeting offriends, which is a Quaker group, right, to study
under a man called Philby Thomas. Now I do theQuakers, like we're having an in early education
and things like that at this time. And I know theyalways have like meeting of friends, but I did not
realize that that was like an organizationalname. Like I was like, Oh, there's a lot about
(35:37):
Quakers. I don't know. Um, to the point where I, Ihad a neighbor at one point who grew up Quaker, and I
would just say, Hey friend, like just in general,and she's just like, Are you Quaker? No, no, you're
Fred. Like I could have said any other word like,Hey cat, Hey, cool cat, Hey, Hey, and I just said
(36:00):
friend. And she's like, Oh, that's a Quaker term.And then I felt uncomfortable saying friend. And
it took a while to be like, I don't want to co-opsomebody's religious language. Yeah, no, right.
And so when I was first reading about this yearlymeeting of friends, I'm like, What is this? So I was
like, Google help us to stir out. And immediatelythey were like, This is the Quakers. And I was like,
(36:25):
Well, okay, don't I feel silly. So our guy goes toBaltimore. He studies in the home of a man called
Philip E. Thomas. Now there's a lot of men involvedin his education. But McKinney, for his part,
wanted to use James McDonald as an example, thatproviding good education would allow the
(36:49):
indigenous to assimilate faster into theAmerican mainstream. Okay. That said, I do not
think McKinney was malevolent in his actions. Ithink he thought that was genuinely the proper
thing to do for the better for like, for the good ofeveryone. Sure. Obviously, I think he's wrong,
(37:16):
right? But everything he does is to set upMcDonald's for a better life. And they have a close
relationship. Now, at the moment, though,McDonald is living with this man called Thomas.
And Thomas is the president of the Marylandschool. And he seems to have been a good educator,
(37:36):
but I don't necessarily believe that he was reallyout for the good of this particular student.
Because as he starts to see him see what sort ofexample of a student he is, that he is just this
phenomenal, the phenomenal kid that does all ofthese things and is perpetually learning and is
like excited to be learning. He writes a letter tothe Department of War describing McDonald's
(38:02):
potential and how he could possibly be used asquote a means to assist in the removal of Native
Americans from their tribal homelands. I hate theidea of exploiting children, right? I honestly
don't see how this can be seen as a good andwonderful thing for him to try to accomplish. You
know what I mean? Now, McKinney, who I mentionedearlier, has, so James McDonald spends a couple of
(38:31):
years in the home of Thomas, Philippe Thomas, orbeing cared for by Philippe Thomas. But those
couple of years pass, and McKinney sort of takesover his housing and provides him a job in a dry dead
store until he graduates in 1818. Now, this quoteI'm going to give is direct from the P article
(38:55):
because it both infuriated me and gave me hope forMcDonald at the same time. When McDonald
graduated school in 1818, McKinney offered him ajob at the Office of Indian Trade. Their
relationship as federal employees evolved intofriendship, and the superintendent treated the
young chock-tie as an adopted son by giving a homeand a quote white job. During his time with the
(39:22):
department, McDonald continued to take variousclasses and worked at a local dry good store. In an
1819 letter, McDonald writes that he had quotespent 20 months learning business at the store,
received an education in surveying, attended acourse of lectures on national and experimental
philosophy, learned Latin, and partiallystudied mechanics and astronomy. McDonald
(39:46):
continued to learn about business culture andeconomics. While working in DC, McDonald was
constantly impressing his superiors with hishard work, his dedication, and his skill. In 1819,
McKinney wrote Secretary of John C. Calhoun aboutMcDonald's academic progress and his
(40:06):
encouraging of McDonald's to attend law school.In the letter, which included McDonald's letter,
McDonald declined any desire to attend lawschool. Instead, he expressed a desire to travel
to his home in the Choctaw Nation and farm for thegovernment. He also stated that the nostalgia of
(40:27):
being reared on a farm beckoned, yet he closedsaying, so this isn't McDonald speaking, quote,
but I must confess, I have some ambition todistinguish myself, some disposition to be
useful and a desire to be free of the charactereducated Indian youth with some degree of justice
cast upon it of a proneness to relapse intosavages. Oh, geez. So when I first read this, I was
(40:55):
like, okay, so he really, he like wants to makesomething of himself and he wants this education.
He just doesn't want to be a lawyer. He would ratherbe a farmer and that's cool too, because he is
literally like, hey, I want to farm for thegovernment, which seems to me like a terrible
idea, but for him that was his goal. And then Ireread the sentence, the last sentence about him
(41:20):
wanting to be free of the character of the Indianyouth. And I was like, this poor man is a man torn
between two worlds. Yeah, yeah, he's had down,he's had his ethnicity ripped from his, his mind.
Yeah, like in the harshest way possible, as far as Ican imagine, when maybe not in the physical way,
(41:42):
but when you are, you spent most of your life in thehome of white men who believe that that you're
lesser and you've internalized that racism.Yeah, how you then react, especially when you
yourself are half white. Yeah, and they'reprobably saying all of your goodness is from the
(42:06):
whiteness. Oh, you're smarter than the rest. Oh, Ilike being smarter. It's probably because of your
white daddy. Which we know literally nothingabout. And I absolutely hate that for him, because
the more I was reading, the more I was learning thatlike, you know, when we have people like Blackjack
(42:26):
Pershings, you have these characters that arethese very complicated, sometimes we do the right
thing, and then sometimes we say the absolutewrong thing, or we do the wrong thing, but we're
still viewed as a hero. You know what, like, I'm notgoing to say it's limited to characters like
Blackjack Pershings that are complicated. I'mgoing to say humanity is complicated. I'm going to
(42:48):
say Teresa has said fairly problematic things atmultiple points in her life. Haven't we all?
Right. Like, to me, he was just, he's one of thoseindividuals that that really stands out for him.
Like, the duality of his life must have been so hardfor him to like deal within his own brain, right?
(43:16):
Okay. So anyway, I hated that paragraph, but herewe are. McKinney, he is obviously impressed. And I
believe that that former paragraph is sort of whyhe's reaching out to Calhoun, the Secretary of
War, because he wants to help further McDonald'seducation. So according to the Harmon Museum
(43:41):
about this time, McDonald's education gets takenover by the government and, quote, funded by the
government through the help of the Secretary ofWar, John C. Calhoun, McDonald would continue his
studies in Greek, Latin, Flossy, Business,Surveying, and Science. Holy cow, what are we
doing? That is so many different categories ofinterest. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Basically, Ida
(44:08):
said, pick a lane. Let's, let's become a master ofone first. Right. Like, he is just doing all the
things. Now, McKinney and Calhoun are both big forhim. Like, they, they want to see how far he can go
and what he can do. And they both pressure him topursue either a law degree or perhaps a degree in
(44:31):
science or theology. But James wants to go home tothe Choctaw territory to be near his mother. That
said, in 1821, he began studying law under the OhioSupreme Court Justice John McLean, who happened
to be besties with Calhoun. John McLean, isn'tthat the name of Die Hard? Okay. I just want to make
(44:56):
sure I just, I had a very different visual of thisman. I can't say it without the grid. I was like,
don't, don't, don't do it to the face. Did thisjustice wear shoes? Because I can't imagine he
did. I, I didn't see his photo. I'm unclear. Let'sjust pretend he never wore shoes. It is what it is.
(45:19):
In just two years, McDonald will become the firstnative to be admitted to the Ohio bar and by
default, the first in the US. The Harmon Museum hasa quote from the Western Star from July 12 of 1823
saying, at the Supreme Court, lately held atDayton, Phineas Ross, Jesse Corwin, James L.
(45:42):
McDonald and Thomas G. Ward were severely,severely admitted to practice as counselors,
solicitors and attorneys in the several courts ofrecord in this state. So our guy is official.
Immediately, Calhoun and McKinney worked toconvince McDonald to help assist the quote,
(46:03):
federal government from in persuading Choctaw toleave or assimilate to Western culture. Maybe you
should have gone first. I feel like this would havebeen a better transition with that line. Right.
Now, keep in mind that this is also about the time weare seeing a big increase of tension and
(46:23):
confrontation between Southern states and thelocal indigenous groups. Shocked, I know you are.
I mean, yeah, we're also heading up to night or 1830where they're going to do the removal. Right. So
it's just, there's a lot going on and McDonald isseeing it like he is, he is very aware.
(46:46):
Additionally, so because he's seeing it,McDonald is actively working on his education
when the DOAC Treaty of 1820 is signed. The DOACTreaty or the Treaty of DOACSAN was the seventh of
nine major treaties that were ratified from theperiod of 1786 through 1866 between the United
(47:08):
States and the Choctaw Nation. This is of courseduring a time of intense and rapid westward
expansion of white settlers. Now, under thetreaty, the Choctaw seceded about six million
acres of their land in Mississippi. It's this is1820. They have succeeded about six million acres
(47:29):
of their land in Mississippi in exchange forroughly 13 million acres in the Arkansas
territory. The US government promised thatprofits from the sale of Mississippi lands would
be used to build schools for Choctaw youth, part ofa whole policy to civilize the tribe and all that.
However, shocking, the promise arrangementsfail. The proceeds from the land sales were not
(47:54):
used to support the schools as promised and notreaty guarantees and the treaty guarantees
weren't honored. As a result, the Choctaw and manyother tribes increasingly found that treaties
with the US were unreliable. They had to depend onlawyers and litigation to try to enforce treaty
obligations by US officials. Shocking. I wishhistory wasn't so damn consistent. Right? So keep
(48:26):
that in mind because remember, the white men inMcDonald's life are really trying to get him on
board with assisting in the removal orassimilation of his people and he has already
expressed a deep desire to go home and farm. So, buthow about if we move that home? Is home a mindset set
or is it a location? Say mindset. Right. Okay. SoMcDonald, he refuses and returns home and becomes
(48:56):
the first Choctaw lawyer. What do you think histhing was like his soapbox, if you will? Well, you
guessed it. He is an adamant opponent of removal.Surprise, surprise. I'm glad that he's standing
up for this. Right? Now, he sets about using his lawdegree to not only benefit his people, but like
(49:18):
also his mother. And okay, so this is one of thosemoments where we learn just how complicated
people are. Her, his mother, remember, she is alandowner and she's a good trader. Right? So she
purchases a slave on credit. Her collectors comeearly and obviously because they've come early,
(49:42):
she does not have the money to pay off the balance.So they take her property quote unquote, the
slave. And so she turns around and tells her son whocites the fourth sections of the Indian trade loss
and gets a hold of Calhoun. And within a couple ofmonths, she receives compensation for her slave.
(50:03):
Here's the thing. I could have easily left thatpart out, but I think it is so important to be able to
see all of the sides of humanity. Right. And thisevent also showed McDonald what he could do with a
full understanding of the role he could playregarding Indian affairs from his government
(50:25):
funded education, which I think is beautiful.Like I'm so curious if at any point in his life he was
sitting there getting that education funded bythe government going, I am literally going to use
this against you. I mean, I hope me too. In 1825,with the help of a man called David Folsom, he is
(50:45):
able to ensure the protection of mission schoolsobtained high annuity payments and the
forgiveness of debts for the Choctaw. So he isworking. He is doing a thing. In a declaration to
Congress, he noted that the native man would bemade to become like the white man, but the tribe
would not be doomed to extinction. And despitethem becoming like white men, they would not cease
(51:10):
being American Indians. He additionally arguedthat the federal government had a duty to protect
tribal rights on the founding principles ofliberty and equality. He also said that the
nation's deepest political commitments to theseprinciples would ensure the protection of the
Choctaw rights. And that race should not be afactor between the tribes and the U.S., but
(51:34):
instead the rule of the law, which I was like, wow,brilliant. I wish we just work off that. Yeah,
same. Right? I think that the problem when you lookat systemic racism is that it's the system has been
built to uphold. So the laws themselves werecreated in such a way to keep people under the rule
(51:57):
of thumb. I would agree with you on that. But I thinkin this case, he knew the law as it regarded his
people, and he would was working on the hope thatlaws could be what protected his people. So
obviously some things need to be changed, right?But at the end of the day, we should not look at each
(52:21):
other by our race. We should look at each otherbased on this idea of equality and the U.S.
government's role in protecting those rights fornot just white people, but every people. Now,
according to the Harmon Museum, quote, as anadvocate of schooling, learning of social and
(52:47):
cultural differences, and his experience of theharsh treatment he encountered during previous
negotiations, James later came to believe thatthe only way for the Choctaw to survive was to agree
to removal. In 1830, he signed the Treaty ofDancing Rabbit Creek. This treaty allowed those
Choctaw who wished to remain in Mississippi andbecame the first major non-European ethnic group
(53:10):
to gain recognition as a U.S. citizen. Like P.D.says, he later regretted his involvement in this
treaty, which I think is interesting, but I thinkmaybe he realized that removals, despite the fact
that it may keep his people safe, is not the goal asit's never been, you know? Then in late September
(53:36):
or early October of 1831, when he was just 30 yearsold, he dies. No! The mostly accepted story is that
he falls in love with a white woman who scorns himsupposedly because he's Native and he drowns
himself. Here's the thing, and I struggle withsort of all of these ideas. He was evidently
(54:02):
already suffering with depression andalcoholism according to the Museum of Native
American History, and here's the thing. If hiswhole statement was that he didn't want to fall
into the ways of the character that the Indianperson has, do you really think he's going to start
picking up alcohol? Like what happened betweenthe two moments, right? Well, I mean, you can't...
(54:27):
Okay, self-medicating is self-medicating. He'sattempting to fix a problem. So if he has
depressive tendencies, could he try to findsomething to help him? Sure. Right. Like you can't
say he's depressive. Ergo, he's going to... Likeif you are having trouble, you are going to try to
(54:47):
get that... work with that discomfort. Right. Ijust find it... To me, I'm not sure that I believe
depression and alcoholism were involved becauseof all the things he said before, but also the other
side to that is holy crap, this man's life has beeninsane since minutes one. So maybe depression has
(55:09):
been something we have been fighting with for avery long time, and the self-medicating of
alcohol is pretty much sort of what we haveavailable to us in 1830. You know what I mean? I
mean, that's a lot of them. Let's be honest.There's not a lot of options. Now, according to the
American Board missionary, they wrote at the timethat, quote, McDonald had been indulging in his
(55:34):
dissipated habits, and he drowned himself,having previously expressed the conviction that
his damnation was sealed. McKinney, for his part,writes a very colorful version in his memoir
saying, quote, after a white woman in Jacksonrejected his proposal for marriage with
promptness, and as he thought, with scorn,McDonald rushed to the river, sprang off a bluff,
(55:58):
and drowned himself. I have not read McKinney'smemoir, but I feel like the whole thing is very
colorful, and now I want to read it. There is also abook called Indians and the Family by Don Peterson
that suggests McDonald could have made enemies inthe South over his outspoken political opinions
(56:20):
about Jackson's politics, and perhaps that'swhat did. I mean, it could be he, some white dude,
saw him making an advance at a white woman, eventhough he got shot down, they went, we're going to
deal with this. Right? So there's really no way toknow for sure, but that's the story of the first
(56:44):
Indigenous lawyer. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, thank youfor sharing. I close to each other. Yeah, I will
admit, I puckered when you said you were stickingwith the Choctaw, I was like, well, crap, she's
going to do it to me. She is going to tell the samestory. How wild will that have been? We keep
(57:08):
talking about how it's going to happen one day. Andtoday I thought it did. But if you want to tune in for
next week where we inevitably come up with the samestory, rate, review, subscribe, and share this
with your favorite, this person should have been alawyer. Or your favorite lawyer. Yeah. And on that
(57:31):
note, favorite lawyer. Goodbye. Bye.
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