McGowan: A Short While Ago . . .
by Richard McGowan, Ph.D.
Not long ago, a bit before 2017, my wife and I hiked to the highest point in the United States between the Rockies and the Spanish Pyrenees. We visited Custer State Park, in one of the flatter U.S. states, and hiked to the top of Harney Peak. I even bought a t-shirt. The front said “Hiked It, Liked It”; the back had a picture of a fire tower atop a mountain and “Harney Peak Elevation: 7,242 Ft.” From the summit, we could see five states, including those on the plains to the east, where many battles in the Indian Wars were fought.
A while ago, the peak was named to honor William S. Harney, 1800-1889, Indian fighter extraordinaire and United States Army General, as well as an unapologetically brutal man. With good reason, the Lakota Sioux called him “Woman Killer’ and “Mad Bear.”
The National Park Service (NPS) wrote of him that “Harney became renowned for his cruel temper, high ambitions, and his use of connections to fulfill that ambition.” He stood a strapping six foot three inches and had the strength to match. He often used that strength to suit his “cruel temper.”
The NPS reported that “On April 26, 1834, 33-year-old Major William S. Harney attacked a young woman named Hannah. Unable to find the keys to his in-laws home, Harney blamed Hannah and beat her with a rawhide strap until she told him where the keys were. This torture went on for three days, until Hannah died at Harney’s hands.” He suffered no punishment for the deed, seeking and finding a favorable southern judge for his trial. The brutality became a trademark of his command.
During the Mexican-American Wars, “Harney’s headstrong and insubordinate temperament caused losses and embarrassment.” His unjust behavior characterized much of what he did throughout his career. During the Indian Wars, “While pursuing Lippan and Caddo people in the winter of 1853, Harney ordered his troops to ‘exterminate all the men and make the women and children prisoners.’”
Probably the most infamous incident under his command was the Blue Water Creek Massacre, on September 2, 1855. Harney’s troops surrounded a small village of Indians. “As Harney’s men fired on them, Native American women and children hid in small caves carved into a rocky gorge. One soldier said that watching the wounded women and children die ‘was heart rending.’” Harney was given two more nicknames by the Sioux after that violence, “The Butcher” and “The Big Chief who Swears.”
Harney had little regard for the rules of warfare and directed his troops accordingly. Yet, he subdued—crushed? —the Native American population and for that, many sites were named in his honor, including Harney Peak, standing on land that was sacred to the Indians.
A few years after we reached the top of that mountain, my brother and his wife hiked the same trail. However, they hiked to the top of Black Elk Peak. The National Park Service, recognizing the sort of moral deficiencies that Harney had demonstrated in his treatment of Indians, changed the name of the peak. The new name aligns closely with the sort of virtues I would have my students, which includes my three boys, exemplify.
The name change came in 2017, during the ‘woke craze’ that swept America, including America’s campuses. For example, Indiana University recommends that “One way that campus partners can help promote a welcoming and informed community is by offering a land acknowledgement statement as part of an official welcome at the beginning of public meetings, presentations, and gatherings.” A land acknowledgement statement recognizes and condemns the savage behavior that people like Harney inflicted on many individuals from ‘First Nations’ in the pursuit of land.
It’s as if all those horrible deeds of the sort that Harney perpetrated were a moral disgrace, an abomination, despicable, sort of like the events of October 7th, 2023, perpetrated by morally abject terrorists.
Today, the e-newspaper, Academe Today, ran an article with this headline, “A Student Group’s Endorsement of Violence Splits Columbia’s Faculty.”
Now, where is the unambiguous and straightforward condemnation of behavior, similar to Harney’s, on America’s campuses? What does the National Park Service know that many academics do not?
Richard McGowan, Ph.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, has taught philosophy and ethics cores for more than 40 years, most recently at Butler University. Research citations for Dr. McGowan’s articles are available at www.inpolicy.org.
Resources
https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/academe-today/2024-10-15?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_11369729_nl_Academe-Today_date_20241015
Academe Today, Oct. 15
A Student Group’s Endorsement of Violence Splits Columbia’s Faculty (headline)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Harney
William Selby Harney (August 22, 1800 – May 9, 1889), otherwise known among the Lakota as “Woman Killer” and “Mad Bear,” was an American cavalry officer in the US Army, who became known during the Indian Wars and the Mexican–American War for his brutality and ruthlessness.
Harney was charged with beating an enslaved woman, Hannah, to death. In a fit of anger he hit her with a piece of rawhide, and then fled to avoid arrest, while seeking a transfer to another state.
During the Second Seminole War (1835–1842), Harney gained a reputation as an Indian fighter for daring and ruthless raids.
Mexican American Wars: However, Harney’s headstrong and insubordinate temperament caused losses and embarrassment. So when Harney refused to leave Monterrey, despite orders to do so,
in 1854, Harney led a punitive expedition against the Sioux after they killed a small US Army detachment in Nebraska Territory, an event called the Grattan massacre. He led attacks against the Brulé Lakota, who were involved in conflicts with immigrant travelers on the Oregon Trail. In the Battle of Ash Hollow, on September 2 and 3, 1855, Harney’s troops routed Little Thunder‘s village at Blue Water Creek (now known as Ash Hollow), in western Nebraska, killing about half of the 250 band members. Among the victims were women and children who had hidden in a cave, into which cannons were fired under the pretense that they were warriors.[6] Harney earned a Lakota name translated as “Mad Bear”
Harney was known among the Sioux as “Woman Killer” due to his actions (known as the “Harney Massacre”) at an Indian village in 1855 at Blue Water Creek, south of the Black Hills: “While engaged in a delaying parley with Chief Little Thunder” Harney’s troops “circled undetected” toward the village, “where the infantry opened fire and forced the Indians toward mounted soldiers, who inflicted terrible casualties. Initial reports stated 86 Indians were killed and 70 women and children were captured; however, the totals were later determined to be higher as additional casualties were found in the following days. The Indians tipis were looted and burned by Harney’s troops
Harney became renowned for his cruel temper, high ambitions, and his use of connections to fulfill that ambition.
On April 26, 1834, 33-year-old Major William S. Harney attacked a young woman named Hannah. Unable to find the keys to his in-laws home, Harney blamed Hannah and beat her with a rawhide strap until she told him where the keys were. This torture went on for three days, until Hannah died at Harney’s hands.
This newspaper article from Cincinnati demonstrates how Harney’s behavior was received, even when slavery was legal: “A MONSTER! A fellow by the name of HARNEY, a few days since, MURDERED a Negro woman, by whipping her to death in St. Louis.!
While pursuing Lippan and Caddo people in the winter of 1853, Harney ordered his troops to “exterminate all the men and make the women and children prisoners.”
On September 2, 1855, Harney and his troops reached the junction of Blue Water Creek and the North Platte River where a village of 250 people stood…As Harney’s men fired on them, Native American women and children hid in small caves carved into a rocky gorge. One soldier said that watching the wounded women and children die “was heart rending.”… The Sioux people gave Harney the nickname, “The Butcher” and “The Big Chief who Swears” in the wake of this violent massacre.
A ‘glowing’ account of Harney (incomplete) https://www.sdhspress.com/journal/south-dakota-history-16-3/general-william-s-harney-on-the-northern-plains/vol-16-no-3-general-william-s-harney-on-the-northern-plains.pdf
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