Group H's Blog

Only one situation could be worse than total economic meltdown or environmental catastrophe: when they both occur simultaneously. Precisely this predicament befell Kansas farmers beginning in 1929 when grain and stock prices fell flat on their faces and the drought turned the world to death. Historically speaking, farmers have typically managed well during economic crises because of their self sustainability and intense sense of rural community, but this time was different because there was no way to grow any food stuffs to survive on when finances are scarce and the recent influx of inexperienced farmers lent to greater alienation between farm families. For all intents and purposes, the people of southwest Kansas would not have survived the decade long ordeal without massive amounts of government aid. There was simply no way to grow the foods necessary to eat, let alone sell in the bleak marketplace. Many fled the region, or as many who had the means to do so, but for most it was infeasible either morally, they refused to leave their family farms, or economically, have absolutely no money put a stop to any migration plans in a hurry. Kansans are a hearty people though and managed to ride out the absolute worst of times and learn many lessons from it, the most important being proper agricultural techniques that would help quell the massive dust clouds. Due to poor farming practices over the past century, the top soil had all but disappeared making it an easy target for the prominent western winds every spring. It also helped to strengthen their resolve as agriculturalists and their importance to the country as a whole; they felt that you had to be a special kind of person to stick it out through the toughest of times and still continue farming after it was all said and done.

Sam Weinberg

Sam Weinberg

The labor movements of the late nineteenth century, sparked by aggressive business owners and a lackluster effort of protection by politicians, gave birth to a new political movement determined to give the American worker a fighting chance against the rail, oil, and steel tycoons of the day. The populist movement as it was later named sprang primarily out of destitute farmers paying high shipping prices to transport their crop to market. Sky high freight charges coincided with a severe drop in grain prices spurred farmers to elect Democratic congressmen, senators, and state officials who vowed to better look out for their well being. What the anarchists, communists, and socialists were doing in the cities for factory workers, the Grangers were doing for farmers in the rural establishments of the mid-west. In Kansas, which had become known as the liberal and progressive testing grounds of the country, the Grangers found widespread support – undoubtedly due to the disproportionate number of grain farmers in the state. The principles of the Grangers – and later the Populists – were not unlike those of socialists: stressing cooperation and a unified labor force; which appealed greatly to disadvantaged farm workers. James D. Holden, in his twenty three page treatise on the state of the American farmer titled Is It Ignorance? Or Is It Treachery? Are our National Rulers the Tools, or, Are they the Dupes of the Money Changers? (1893), describes the tenets of the Populist platform which was published from Topeka in 1893 – the height of the Populist upwelling (http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/200111/page/1) . Holden argues that the economic and political system was designed to undermine the workers in favor of big business and bureaucrats; rejecting the term ‘money’ and the economic system of the status quo. While no Kansan was elected to the presidency on a Populist platform, several won seats in the house, senate, and governorship of Kansas. But as quickly as it started Populism fizzled out after the 1896 elections when Democrats began adopting the same platforms.

It’s not a well concealed fact that speculators, business entrepreneurs, and politicians had it on their agenda to acquire as much native lands as possible at the lowest financial cost. Through crooked back room meetings and under-the-table deals, tribal land was virtually free for the taking, so long as you could word a contract in such a way as to confuse tribal leaders and create loop holes for yourself. This is no secret. But what is less frequently addressed is how tribal leaders were often just as involved in these shady dealings and were accepting pay offs from company owners.

Craig Miner and William E. Unrau’s book The End of Indian Kansas sparked my interest in investigating Indian actions and decisions in the sale of their ancestral lands. History has led us to believe that the Native Americans were innocent victims of a malicious assault by the white man on their culture, their way of life, and their homelands. Miner and Unrau, while not entirely dismissing this notion, bring the widespread corruption of tribal elders into the causation of the disintegration of Indian culture. Granted, there were of course tribes who fought long and hard to keep settlers and speculators out of their homelands, there were also those who saw the best outcome to be cooperation with companies looking to use resources on their land.

Indian tribes stood much to gain from the sale of resources and prime real estate, given the contracts and treaties were properly upheld and enforced. By the time the corporations were moving into Kansas in droves, the tribes saw the writing on the wall. They knew the white man was here to stay and unfortunately there was little they could do but fight, and probably die, or try to play ball the best they could in an unknown game. Where their main fault lay, however, was in the enormous cultural differences present between whites and Indians. Miner and Unrau described this difference well by stating “Tribal traditions, which equated words with actions and promises with deeds, may well have blinded the Indians to the truth…” (MIner and Unrau, p. 39). The tribes believed they were to get a good deal but, “when the success of the corporations was allowed, through inadequate control of day-to-day matters, the tragic result was inevitable.” (Miner and Unrau, p.33)

The tribes tried to cooperate in order to share in the wealth and this might have worked if the corporations had kept their end of the bargain. By the mid 1860′s though, it was clear that tribal leaders were being paid to keep quite. Again to quote Miner and Unrau “if bribes were being made, someone had to be cooperating on the other end. The leaders spoke for the railroad and the tribe ratified it, which would seem inconceivable to patriots fearful that their very national existence was at stake.” (Miner and Unrau, p. 34)

Too much emphasis is payed to Native American ignorance and victimization; the continued idea that tribes were forced off of their land without any consent and they were excluded from the system is false. Tribes knew what was coming, but unfortunately could not keep up with the economics and bureaucracy of the system to protect their best interest. They certainly worked within the system, but the system was not set up with their benefit in mind.

-Sam Weinberg