indian

PAINTERS OF SUNSHINE AND PATHOS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Want a nice painting to hang above the sofa? Bruner’s was the place to go in Santa Rosa for the first half of the Twentieth Century.

While you could also pick up paint and wallpaper at Clement Bruner’s Fourth St. shop, in the store window was displayed fine art, such as paintings by Grace Hudson, the Ukiah artist who produced hundreds of portraits, most depicting local Pomo Indians in native dress. A specialty of hers were too-adorable views of infants such as the one shown at right, sometimes with puppies thrown in for extra sap. Hudson turned out scores of these popular tableaus, and one of these paintings was sold “for a large price” in 1908, becoming a news item in the Press Democrat.

That year Bruner’s also displayed oils and watercolors of fruits and flowers commissioned by the Cree Publishing Company of Minneapolis, which were to illustrate a 10-volume encyclopedia on Luther Burbank’s “secrets.” The newspaper article also claims that the books were in the window which is impossible, as the series was never produced (read update here), thanks to Burbank’s disorganization and objections by the Carnegie Institution.

One of the still-life artists mentioned was Carl Dahlgren, nicknamed “The Sunshine Painter” because his landscapes usually included a prominent beam of sunlight. Dahlgren specialized in bucolic, idyllic scenes that could bring no offense; a magazine commented that “In hundreds of homes his canvasses are hung, carrying with them, like silent missionaries, their message of sunshine and happiness to lift the gloom and grief that comes inevitably at times into the most ideal of homes.” Reference material on Dahlgren describes him as a San Francisco painter who received a commission from Burbank in 1917, but his associations with Sonoma County nine years earlier are never mentioned; so familiar was he in this area that the Republican Santa Rosa paper referred to him as “Carl Dahlgren of this city.” Also mentioned in the newspaper coverage was a Dahlgren landscape painted from the view at Hood Mansion.

A personal comment regarding Grace Hudson: She was a gifted artist and many of her Indian portraits portray the dignity of her subject, but the unctuous “papoose” paintings trouble me greatly. At that exact same time, Pomo and other Indian youth were being forcibly taken from their families by government officials and shipped off to Indian boarding schools that might be a great distance away. (Googling researchers: Here’s a hard-to-find list of California Indian Schools.) Once there, it was required that the children abandon their birth language and culture and everything else they held dear. It was one of the most shameful episodes in our history as a nation. In my view, Grace Hudson’s infant portraits exploited the children she painted. It might be too much to expect of Hudson to have acknowledged the abuses outright, but it’s another thing to make a living by cranking out mawkish images that betrayed a horrible truth.

{RIGHT: Indian children at boarding school – the portrait that Grace Hudson didn’t paint. One of the infants painted by Hudson could well be revered Pomo basket weaver Elsie Allen, who was born in 1899 near Cloverdale and was snatched from her grandmother around 1910 and sent to a government Indian school. )

A SMALL CANVAS SELLS FOR LARGE PRICE

C. M. Bruner, the local art dealer, has had a small canvas by Grace Hudson, the celebrated Indian painter, on exhibition in his window for the past few day, which, though only four or five inches square, sold during race week for a large price.

The subject is an Indian pappoose [sic]. and it is handled in Mrs. Hudson’s best style. Mr. Bruner made a special hand-carved frame of oak to go with the picture, the design used being an oak leaf. The purchaser was James B. Smith, a wealth horse man of San Francisco.

Another picture on exhibition at Bruner’s that has been attracting attention is a view on the Kearns ranch near Kenwood. This canvas is by Carl Dahlgren, the Danish painter now in Santa Rosa for the purpose of preparing a series of pictures showing Burbank creations. The orchard and meadow are shown in the foreground, in the middle distance is the old homestead, and Mr. Hood towers majestically in the background.

The work of reproducing fruits and flowers in all their various shadings and colorings is very tedious, and for relaxation Mr. Dahlgren has made a number of fine sketches in the vicinity of this city, as well as several in the Guerneville region, some of which are also on exhibition at Bruner’s store. Mr. Dahlgren is very enthusiastic over the beautiful scenery in Sonoma county, and says he will put as much of it as possible on canvas before he leaves.

– Press Democrat, August 6, 1908

TWO NEW PAINTINGS THAT ARE TALKED ABOUT

Two paintings now on exhibition at Bruner’s art store are attracting much attention from the people who make it a point to notice such things. One is a large scene near the headwaters of Los Alamos Creek, with Mount Hood in the background. The other is a little sketch on Santa Rosa Creek, not far from town. Both are splendidly done, although the treatment in each is entirely different.

Both canvasses are by Carl Dahlgren, a German painter, who sent here some two or three months ago by the Cree Publishing company to do some of the more important of Burbank’s creations from life in oils and watercolors, so that they may be reproduced in colors in the 10 volume history of Burbank and his achievements which the Crees are now getting out.

The general opinion among local art critics is that the two paintings mentioned are among the very best Mr. Bruner has ever had on its exhibition at his store. Mr. Dahlgren has done one or two others in this vicinity, and hopes to find time to do two or three more before leaving. He said yesterday that he had no idea there is so much beautiful scenery in this part of the state. “Oh, in your coundy it iss beautiful, b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!” said Mr. Dahlgren yesterday, as he have closed his eyes and gazed dreamily out towards the Eastern Hills.

– Press Democrat, June 21, 1908
MAKES DISPLAY OF BURBANK WORKS

The Cree-Binner Company, which is engaged in the production of a splendid work on the creations of Luther Burbank, has a display of the books in the window of Bruner’s art store, which is certainly attractive. There is a large amount of the oil and water color painting of the various fruits and flowers which have been the subject of Mr. Burbank’s efforts, and then several pages of the books with the binding in handsome leather are to be seen. The paintings are by Carl Dahlgren of this city, and C. L. Starks and Mr. Hudson of the east.

Mr. Binner, who is spending the winter here and looking after the interest of the work in this city, states that a widespread interest is being taken in the books and already many applications have been made for its reproduction in foreign countries. The work is to be the most exhaustive ever issued upon the life and works of Mr. Burbank and will be the most modern and complete acquisition to the botanical libraries of the world. The display is well worth seeing and Mr. Binner deserves special credit for the attractive form in which he has made the same. The fine large window affords a particularly good place for the arrangement.

– Santa Rosa Republican, October 24, 1908

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PROHIBITION ARRIVED EARLY FOR SONOMA COUNTY INDIANS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Hey, barkeep! Any customers with Indian grandparents? What? You don’t know? In 1908 Sonoma County, you could be fined $500 and sent to jail for six months for selling alcohol to anyone with just one-fourth Indian blood – or even serving liquor to anyone with any distant Native American heritage “who lives or associates with persons of one-fourth or more Indian blood.”

It was a blatantly discriminatory law – particularly here in Sonoma County, where most of the economy was based on the growing of wine grapes and hops for beer – but not out of line with U.S. Indian policies, which had first outlawed sale of alcoholic beverages to tribal Indians in 1802 (that was during the Thomas Jefferson administration). Various other bans followed, and the very first law passed by the California legislature in 1850 included a prohibition on selling alcohol to Indians (as well as a provision that made it legal to enslave “vagrant” Indians for as long as it takes to harvest a crop). Motivating these anti-alcohol policies were the same confused American attitudes discussed in an earlier post; Indians were regarded simultaneously with great contempt (and potentially dangerous) and as pitiful children needing guidance as part of the “White Man’s Burden.”

California was a “local option” state in 1908, which meant that towns or counties could pass any laws controlling sale of alcohol. (Correction: the “local option” did not become state law until later, and its passage only clarified that counties and municipalities had the right to vote on anti-liquor laws.) Voters or elected officials could prohibit new licenses to road houses, close saloons on Sundays, or even declare the entire jurisdiction “dry” – although few went that far. They could also narrowly restrict alcohol to people with any Native American ancestry, as happened here. In 1915, it became state law that liquor was banned to Indians, part Indians, or whites who lived with or associated with Indians.

But the 1908 “Injun ordinance” probably had far less to do with Native Americans than it did with local politics. The prohibition movement was so strong in Santa Rosa that an ad-hoc temperance party almost took control of city hall in the election a few weeks later – a story of political intrigue explored in the following post. This new law concerning sale of alcohol to Indians was likely a sop tossed to the church-going voters to show that the good ol’ boys were willing to crack down on booze. That message was underscored by an item that appeared in the Press Democrat a few days later. With an introduction linking its commentary to the new county law, a missionary to the Hoopa tribe attests the importance of keeping liquor from “halfbreeds.” After rambling testimony written in dialect, the author concludes, “I know of only one sure remedy and that is a complete surrender of their entire being to the control of God.” At no other time in this period did such a pious message on temperance appear in one of the local papers.

The real moral of this story: One of the most interesting things about racism is how it so often becomes an effective tool to create political advantage. As it was in 1908, so today.

TO PREPARE NEW ORDINANCE
Will Prevent Sale of Liquors to Indians

District Attorney Clarence F. Lea has determined to put a stop to the crimes in Sonoma County that have their inception in selling liquors to Indians. He will prepare an ordinance making it a felony to sell liquor to Indians who are only one third of the blood. Under the state law liquor cannot be sold to Indians, but under this law the prosecuting officers must prove the Indian to be full-blooded. This almost presents conviction of offenders charged with furnishing liquor to aborigines.

Under the proposed ordinance, the district attorney will not have such difficulties to encounter and he hopes thus to prevent crime as well as cause offenders to be punished. Many of the criminal charges made in the county come from a combination of red wine and aborigine. The latest murder, which was perpetuated near Healdsburg on Tuesday, was caused from this combination. Two youths, neither of them twenty years of age, had imbibed three gallons of red wine. A stone finished the life of one of the revelers and the other is in jail awaiting trial on a charge of murder.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 17, 1908

“INJUN” ORDINANCE PASSED
Board of Supervisors Adjourned Saturday

On Saturday the Board of Supervisors adopted District Attorney Clarence F. Lea’s “Injun ordinance.” at least in June ordinance under the terms of this law, which is published elsewhere this paper, any person who sells or gives liquor to a person who is even one-fourth of Indian blood, or to any person of Indian descent who lives or associates with persons of one-fourth or more Indian blood, will be guilty of a misdemeanor.

A fine of not less than $20 or more than $500, or imprisonment not exceeding six months in the county jail, or both fine and imprisonment, are the punishments for violation of the new ordinance. The ordinance will be in force on the 25th day of February.

[..]

– Santa Rosa Republican, February 8, 1908
MISS CHASE ON FIRE WATER AND INDIANS
Well Known Former Santa Rosa Educator Expresses Strong Views on Furnishing Liquor to Halfbreeds

An expression from a Miss Martha E. Chase, formerly president of the Santa Rosa Seminary and for some time past missionary among the Hoopa Indians, in regard to the sale of liquor to Indians at Hoopa district is apropos in connection with the passage by the Board of Supervisors recently of the new law regarding the liquor traffic among Indians which was presented by district Atty. Clarence Lea. Miss Chase in writing reviews says:

“There seems to be the one opinion among these Indians concerning the whisky traffic viz: if there were no liquor sold there will be no drunken Indians. They are having their big deerskin dance at Weitchpec now, and several of our men have said they dared not go because there ‘too much for whisky there.’ Henry Frank called Saturday just before he went to the dance, This is his unsolicited testimony. ‘Too much whisky, that’s what’s the matter. They stop making it then all right. Man see it he got to have it, that’s all. Make him drop all his money. I no like it. Every Injun he no like it.’ Another man of influence said to me: ‘I wish you would send away and get me some medicine make me stop drinking whisky. If I drink no whisky I be rich man now. I make lots of money all the time. Have gold in pocket; this side, that side, get drunk, all gone. Where is it? Some man he take it. I sleep.’ More than one Indian has said he wished he would not drink. ‘It makes man cut man. No good.’ The most progressive man in the valley says he can control himself in every other matter, but ‘That whisky; I can’t help it.’ It is very trying for one to witness their struggle and be helpless to relieve them. I tell them I know of only one sure remedy and that is a complete surrender of their entire being to the control of God.”

– Press Democrat, February 25, 1908

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1907 MEDIA RACISM REPORT CARD: THE INDIANS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Indians suffered a perplexing form of racism in the old Santa Rosa newspapers. As with other minorities, the racism was mostly passive: They were simply ignored, except when a serious crime was committed or there was a demeaning incident that the editor viewed as entertaining (even better if it could be written up in comic dialect).

Yet at the same time, editors resisted dipping the pen into the inkwell of snark when it came to writing about Indians as a race, as shown in the sympathetic 1907 articles below on the desperate conditions of Native people in Northern California. This was also an expression of racism – a domestic version of “The White Man’s Burden,” suggesting that Indian welfare had to be managed by missionaries and federal agents. These presumptions go back to the origins of Frontier America, and were probably best summarized in the “Lo! the Poor Indian!” chapter from Horace Greeley’s 1860 book, “An Overland Journey:”


But the Indians are children…they are utterly incompetent to cope in any way with the European or Caucasian race. Any band of schoolboys, from ten to fifteen years of age, are quite as capable of ruling their appetites, devising and upholding a public policy, constituting and conducting a state or community, as an average Indian tribe. And, unless they shall be treated as a truly Christian community would treat a band of orphan children providentially thrown on its hands, the aborigines of this country will be practically extinct within the next fifty years.

These benevolent services could best be rendered, of course, if the Indians were restricted and isolated on distant reservations. If the Indians were viewed as “children” they were treated as unwanted ones, whom the Americans wanted to neither see nor hear.

A third kind of media racism can be found in articles that touched upon the “pioneer” years. Here the Indians were treated as a caveman-like race who lived here ‘way back in antiquity. Sometimes they weren’t mentioned at all, leaving the impression that the Anglo and Hispanic whites discovered an empty Eden. In another story below, Thomas Hopper recalls the days when he saw great herds of elk roamed “everywhere about this section.” Hopper – an illiterate man who became a successful banker because of his knack for numbers – first came to Sonoma county in 1849, when there was still an Indian presence in the area (the round up and death march to Round Valley started around 1857), and hunting wild elk would have been one of the few sources of meat still available to them.

Below are also a pair of 1907 reports describing workmen coming across an Indian grave in Sebastopol. In both local papers, it’s presented as a curiosity; “It is generally believed the spot was once a Indian burial ground,” the Republican noted. What both papers failed to reveal was that the remains were found on the perimeter of the Indian cemetery on the Walker ranch, which was still active at the time, with the last known burial in 1912. (MORE on the Indian community in Sebastopol.)

To be fair, we can only make benign assumptions as to why both papers omitted any link in those stories to Indian culture. Whether or not old Tom Hopper was one of the few living people who might have witnessed a Pomo or Coast Miwok elk hunt probably didn’t seem interesting. It’s doubtful the editors saw any hypocrisy in their respectful and lengthy obituaries of any old “pioneer” who died and their offhand description of ditch-diggers handling someone’s old bones. Intentional or no, the Indians disappeared a little bit more with each column-inch of print, and their legitimate right to be here a little further diminished.

INDIANS ASK PROTECTION
Want Better Conditions for the Tribesman

Edward Posh and William Benson, two prominent Indians of this county and Mendocino county respectively, have returned from the conference recently held at Mount Hermon, where matters for the betterment of the Indians were discussed. There were nineteen Indians present at the conference and they petitioned the great white father at Washington to supply the needs. In the memorial sent to the nation’s capital, the first thing the Indians request is that lands and homes be provided for twelve thousand out of the seventeen thousand Indians in this state. Five thousand are provided for in the Round Valley reservation. Mr. Posh estimates that there are between three and four hundred Indians scattered through Sonoma county.

The second request is that the Indians be provided with common schools that they may learn to read and write and that industrial schools be established for the young people that they may learn some useful occupation. They also ask that the laws be enforced relative to the selling of liquor to Indians and suggest that the laws be amended so that no person with Indian blood in his veins shall be able to secure liquor. They ask that the party selling and the party purchasing liquor both be punished. Among the other suggestions made for the Indians is that they be provided with a field physician appointed by the government to attend sick tribesmen, and that they be provided with legal protection that they may secure justice in all the courts when involved in litigation.

– Santa Rosa Republican, July 22, 1907
SONOMA INDIANS AT MT. HERMON
Efforts to Be Made to Secure Allotment of Lands for Redmen of This County

Twenty Indians – nineteen men and one woman, all members of the Sonoma county Indian tribes – returned on Sunday from Mount Hermon in Santa Cruz county, where the Northern California Indian Missionary Society has been meeting last week. One of the Indian leaders is Edward Posh, an intelligent man with some education, who told a reporter Monday that he and his people believe some good will result from the efforts of this society to better the condition of the native tribes of northern California, who have suffered much at the hands of the white men, and who are now for the most part destitute.

“My home, I have none,” he said when he was asked where his home was. “None of us have homes. That’s the trouble with us. That’s what the Indian Association is trying to get for us.”

“Five objects are sought by the Association,” said Edward Posh. The first of these is homes for the homeless Indians. The second is education – common school education for the Indian children and industrial education for those who are grown. The third thing sought is protection from the drink evil. It is well known that the use of liquor by Indians brings results much worse than the use of liquor by white men. The Indians themselves ask further protection from this evil by asking that the government impose heavier penalties upon those white men who supply intoxicants to members of the tribes; and they ask, also, that the law punish Indians who buy liquor as well as white men who sell to them.

“The fifth thing asked by the Association is that the government provide us with doctors. When an Indian gets sick, he generally suffers and dies or suffers and gets well with no medical attendance. Few of us have any money; none of us have much; and there are few doctors anywhere near us. And of those who are near, not many will attend us, for there is poor prospect for a fee.”

J. A. Gilchrist is the manager of the Indian missions. The Rev. J. A. Johnson of Berkeley, is one of those leading the movement for the betterment of the tribes. They say that the difficulty of the Indian problem is not due to any stubbornness of the Indians themselves, nor to any improvidence or to unfitness to be civilized. They declare that the government itself has repeatedly broken faith with the natives despoiled them of their lands on promise to give them others and neglected or refused to keep the promise. They term the last 100 years of United States history “A Century of Dishonor” in its reference to dealings with the aborigines, and they seek to make amends for it in all possible ways.

– Press Democrat, July 13, 1907
THOS. HOPPER SAW DROVES OF ELK
Well Known Pioneer Recalls Early Days When Antlered Herd Roamed at Will Here

“I saw elk in droves when I first came to this country, and shot quite a number of them. I remember not only seeing them wandering here and there on the site where Santa Rosa stands today, but everywhere about this section,” said Thomas Hopper, the well known pioneer and capitalist as he surveyed the big stuffed elk in the Press Democrat building on Thursday.

“I remember seeing one of the largest drove of elks I ever saw over near Bloomfield, and one time saw two fine ones down on the Cotati. I tell you they were big fellows.”

Mr. Hopper, despite his eighty-seven years, walked down town briskly on Thursday morning from his McDonald avenue residence. He has just returned from an outing on Wesley Hopper’s ranch near town, and while there took a little exercise at splitting stove wood with an axe. The exercise he says drove away the rheumatism from his shoulder.

– Press Democrat, October 12, 1907
SEBASTOPOL WORKMEN DIG UP HUMAN BONES

Workmen for the Petaluma and Santa Rosa electric railroad in digging a trench at Sebastopol recently, came across many human bones in the earth they threw from the trench. The bones were examined to ascertain if they were really from human beings. In the same spot the workmen discovered some flint arrow heads and some beads, indicating that the bones were those of Indians. Whether the men had been killed or died a peaceful death will never be known. It is generally believed the spot was once a Indian burial ground.

– Santa Rosa Republican, July 19, 1907
UNEARTH HUMAN BONES

While engaged in widening the electric company’s roadbed on Petaluma avenue this week workmen uncovered a skeleton surrounded by a stone mortar and pestle and numerous flint arrow heads. It is believed to be the remains of an Indian buried in the years long past. The bones were almost dust and many of them crumbled when handled. An old Indian burying ground is supposed to have been opened and if the excavations are carried on other finds may be reported.

– Press Democrat, July 19, 1907

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