by Mariah Wahl

The narrative of this exhibit explores the forced and harmful relocation of Native communities by the US government. It also references abuses perpetuated through the Indian Boarding School system. Although explicit images of violence and harm have not been included, much of the language and imagery is distressing in that it exemplifies colonial and exploitative practices. Many of the terms used in primary source materials are outdated and racist. Whenever possible, appropriate terminology used by the Native groups in question has replaced racist or outdated terminology.

Land Acknowledgement & Author’s Statement

Illinois State University sits on the sovereign land of the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Peoria, Kaskaskia, Myaamia and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ peoples. We recognize that the Circus routes identified in these books traversed and disrupted the Native land of countless tribes across the United States. Our goal in sharing these archival histories is not to replace or undermine the Native histories that preceded the circus and that persist as ongoing cultural practices. Rather, we hope to hold the historic routes of the circus alongside the genocide and forced relocation of Native communities and use a history of circus routes to further elucidate those atrocities. We hope that, simultaneously, our exhibit will uncover stories of joy, subversive action, and resilience in Native communities. As a white researcher and library worker, I hope to use this narrative to make space for the Native and Indigenous voices of history, rather than super-imposing my own.

Manifest Destiny and the Fantasy of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

The most prominent figure of the Wild West show is inarguably William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. It requires acknowledgement that, although Buffalo Bill’s show enabled the limited performance and cultural expression of Native performers, he was ultimately an appropriative cultural figure who profited from the exploitation of Native performers imprisoned on Indian reservations with limited means to make money. Still, Buffalo Bill’s goal of an “authentic” Wild West show made space for the cultural expression of many of his performers, and the opportunity to be viewed as skilled horsemen and warriors, rather than as the undomesticated portrayal sought after by an increasingly industrialized world. Cody himself changed the script of his show from a performance of his own feats in overcoming Indian warriors, to a celebration of their accomplishments and culture (albeit, within a white-washed and stereotypical context).

Only in the early twentieth century, as the United States had consolidated its hold on the North American West and was extending its power into the Caribbean and Pacific, did historians begin to describe manifest destiny as something that it never was in the nineteenth century: a consensus.
- Andrew C. Isenberg and Thomas Richards Jr., Alternative Wests: Rethinking Manifest Destiny

The cultural idea of Manifest Destiny, or the white supremacy-fueled belief that 19th century settler-colonists were “destined” to “civilize” the United States is a legend that echoes throughout American cultural notions of our history. The fantasy of the Wild West and its figurehead, the cowboy, are cemented in 20th century cultural memory as heroic visionaries of the pioneering age. 21st century media relies heavily on the undercurrent of Manifest Destiny in its depictions of the historic and present-day West. Historians, even those who push back against the narrative of Manifest Destiny, still allude to the inevitably of American preeminence in society. This ignores that many American settlers in the mid-19th century, even those in the south and the west, did not desire to conquer or belittle the Native groups that already lived there. The dominance of this narrative would be established later, through a romanticized combination of historical and artistic depictions of the west.

But this fantasy of the wild wild west never existed. In the rapidly industrializing world of the early 20th century, workers “needed a fantasy of preindustrial, rural society to compensate them for the loss of community and nature in their real lives.” In a time of growing global and domestic conflict, the United States also needed a vehicle of US Nationalism (specifically, white nationalism) to enforce class and racial divides and maintain a labor force. The Circus and the Wild West show provided respite for the working American at the turn of the century, and gave them a story that enforced their belief in the supremacy of an industrialized society.

The narrative of the fantastic wild west of old was sold to American audiences through the performance of Native Americans, Mexican Vaqueros, and other entertainers. Beginning with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and perpetuated through numerous iterations of “The Western,” this notion of the west delighted audiences. But even in wild west show performances of the 19th century, the myth of the whiteness of the west is revealed as a farce. The cowboy himself is the descendent of the Mexican Vaquero tradition, a style of roping and riding popularized by performers such as Vicente Oropeza and Jose Esquivel. Many Black and Native performers also performed as Cowboys, including famous “bulldogger” Bill Pickett. 

In the specific context of manifest destiny, wild west performances established the now cliche conflict of “Cowboys and Indians,” providing audiences with dramatized reenactments of mid-19th century colonial conflicts for control of Native land. In spite of this binary narrative, performances within the show belied the more nuanced and complex nature of performing “manifest destiny” for audiences of the Wild West show. One researcher uncovered a letter from a Native couple who traveled with the Miller 101 show in the early 20th century, writing “I do like the show life but would like to know if I could be a cowboy and my wife a cowgirl when I come back. . . . I don’t mind to take the part in the show as we did, but my wife likes the cowgirl life and I like the cowboy life.¹” Both performers went on to entertain audiences as cowboys that season.

In spite of the whiteness of manifest destiny underlying the show, wild west performances ironically demonstrated the non-American and non-white origins of the cowboy and the west itself. Native entertainers whose presence was intended to cement the predominance of the US Imperial project instead unraveled the notion of manifest destiny for what it was - mere performance.

Redface and Minstrelsy in the Wild West Show

The Indian Boarding School System and "Wild Westing"

The Ghost Dance Movement

One instance of cultural rebellion is the Ghost Dance, a messianic religious movement that was popular among the Lakota Sioux near the end of. the 19th century. Popularized by a Northern Paiute man named Wovoka (born Quoitze Owalso) the dance became popular as a hopeful ceremony and song performed with the intention of restoring a pre-Colonial existence to Native Americans in the United States. Because the message was particularly resonant on reservations struggling under the poor conditions imposed by the US Government, it was popular with the Lakota Sioux of the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota, led by Chief (and Buffalo Bill Wild West Show performer) Sitting Bull. The dance reached its peak popularity on the Pine Ridge reservation in 1890.

Hear a recording of the ghost dance ceremony here.

In spite of its overtly peaceful performance, white reservation officials viewed the Ghost Dance Movement as an immediate threat to their wellbeing, as well as to US Indian policy. They took immediate action to stop the ceremony's performance, arresting Chief Sitting Bull and killing him in the process. The Ghost Dance Movement was outlawed, and the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation suffered greatly in when the US Army responded two days later in the events now called the Massacre at Wounded Knee. This massacre is sometimes considered the final act of genocide in the US government’s quest to eliminate Native culture and community - but that does not account for the subversive cultural practices of Native communities all over the country, and the thriving cultural practices of Native groups today.

Reclamation and Subversion in Native Performances of the Wild West Show

Performances within the Wild West show, preceding and following the Ghost Dance movement, were ripe with opportunities to subvert public opinions of Native communities and to perpetuate cultural practices that the US government attempted to eliminate. Many performers arrested for their participation in the Ghost Dance Movement were granted permission by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs to travel with Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill’s Wild West shows. This created an opportunity for ghost dance prisoners to sing and dance in public performance, an act of worthy of status and recognition, and a violation of the restrictions placed upon them by the US government.

We have little recorded information about the specific content of the songs and dances performed in Wild West Shows, but know that Buffalo Bill encouraged his performers to sing songs associated with actual Lakota cultural events and ceremonies. Because white audiences, and Buffalo Bill himself, had little or no understanding of the songs of Native Performers, many sang ironically about the victory and strength of their warriors even while performing battles intended to demonstrate white superiority: “war dances presented in Wild West shows could have been victory songs about the battle against Custer at Little Bighorn, for example."⁹ It’s possible that many formerly imprisoned ghost dance performers sang and enacted the rituals of the Ghost Dance Movement, banned on the reservation, for thousands of audience members across the United States.

The Continued Battle for Sovereignty and the LandBack Movement

Native performers have continuously battled for the the right to live and exist in accordance with their own cultural practices, working to undo the lapsed treaties and land stolen by the US government in the 19th and 20th centuries. Iron White Man, a warrior in the battle of the Greasy Grass (Battle of the Little Bighorn) was a notable performer with both the Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill Wild West Show. In a public and risky act of subversion, he testified before the US Supreme Court in January of 1930, helping to establish Custer’s responsibility for the atrocities of that battle. His testimony, along with decades of activism by other Native Americans, culminated in the 1980 ruling of the US vs the Sioux Nation that lands had indeed been stolen from the Sioux of South Dakota. In spite of the Sioux Nation’s desire to have their lands returned, the US Supreme Court instead elected to pay the value of that land. At the date of this writing, the Sioux have refused that money (estimated to be $1.7 billion) on the principal that land and it’s protection is their sacred duty, and not something measurable in white-colonial constructs of land ownership and exchange.

Any conversation about Native history that suggests Native community and political protest is the domain of the past ignores ongoing struggles and organizing. Native culture and political agency persist to this day, in defiance of the genocide enacted agianst them. For that reason, I trace the subversive actions of Native performers to the modern-day movement for sovereignty, specifically the movement to return Native lands to their rightful communities.

The LandBack movement describes in its official manifesto the goals of:

1. Dismantling white supremacy structures that forcefully removed us from our Lands and continue to keep our Peoples in oppression

2. Defunding white supremacy and the mechanisms and systems that enforce it and disconnect us from stewardship of the Land.

3. Returning all public lands into Indigenous hands.

4. Consent — Moving us out of an era of consultation and into a new era of policy around Free and Prior Informed Consent.

Though the struggle is difficult and ongoing, the political action of the LandBack movement has seen victories. Most recently as of this writing, the state of Minnesota returned 114 acres of land to the Lower Sioux Community, rightfully restoring their custodianship over the land called Cansa'yapi (Dakota for "where they marked the trees red"), the sight of the beginning of the US-Dakota war of 1862.

The Native performers of Buffalo Bill were exploited and undermined as “Show Indians,” but their legacy is powerful. Their subversive and persistent actions allowed them to survive, providing a living for themselves, their families, and their communities. It also allowed for the subversive maintenance of their culture in a white-supremacist context: spreading songs, dances, and traditional dress across the United States via the routes of Circus and Wild West shows. To this day, their impact can be felt in the vibrant and ongoing celebration of Native culture across Turtle Island. Continue exploring this exhibit to learn more about the individual performers of the wild west show and their lasting impact.