Fri, Jan 09 2009
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Published August 29, 2008 12:22 pm - During the past century, Cherokee Ruth Muskrat Bronson was mainly known for her 1944 book, “Indians Are People Too.” Cherokee educator's views evolved By BETTY SMITH Press special writer TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS — During the past century, Cherokee Ruth Muskrat Bronson was mainly known for her 1944 book, “Indians Are People Too.”
But a study of Bronson’s life shows her intellectual evolution from her early days at Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) in Lawrence, Kan., to a staunch opponent of many federal policies regarding native people. Kirby Brown, who is working on his doctorate in English from the University of Texas, Austin, discussed the evolution of Bronson’s career during the first session of the State of Sequoyah Commission conference Thursday at Northeastern State University. This is the fourth year for the conference, which explores Cherokee history, scholarship, culture and other native issues. The conference will continue today at the NSU University Center, serving as one of the opening events of the 56th annual Cherokee National Holiday. Brown said Bronson was one of several influential Cherokees born before statehood who contributed to the Indian experience during the first half of the 20th century. “The period between allotment and the ‘red power’ movement has been one of the most neglected and misunderstood in Native American studies,” he said. Bronson was born in 1897 on a farm outside Grove. Brown said that in her writings, she recalled her experiences at age 10, when the Cherokee Nation was dissolved and Oklahoma became a state. In 1922, she was appointed Indian representative to a world student conference in Beijing. The next year, she presented an alternative view of the Indian experience to a conference organized by President Calvin Coolidge. In 1925, she graduated from Mount Holyoke, a prominent women’s college. For 25 years, she served as an educator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at various locations, and later became executive secretary of the National Congress of American Indians. Brown said most of the scholarship about Bronson centers on the decade in which she wrote “Indians Are People Too,” and the bulk of her career – which spanned more than five decades – is largely ignored. “She devoted most of her life to Indian activism and social concerns,” he said. By 1923, Bronson had realized that change had to come from within the Indian population, not from politicians and the federal government. “What she demanded was partnership, not paternalism,” he said. During her early days at Haskell Institute, she believed anyone could succeed if he or she worked hard enough. She wrote, “If we would be a great nation, we must put our minds to difficult tasks.” 
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