| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 13, 2008 |
CONTACT: Michael Bouman (800) 357-0909 michael@ mohumanities.org |
A touring exhibit on the heritage of the Sac and Fox Indians will be on display at the St. Clair Historical Museum from March 9 through March 31. Sponsored by the Missouri Humanities Council, the exhibit is part of a larger project undertaken by MHC to increase knowledge of Missouri’s Native American history, and will include future exhibits on the Osage, Shawnee, and Delaware peoples.
Sandra Massey, the exhibit curator for the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma, will be present for the Opening Day Ceremonies on Sunday, March 9 from 1 to 4 p.m. Admission to the exhibit and presentation is free, and posters of the exhibit will be available.
The museum is located at 280 Hibbard Street in St. Clair, MO. Their hours are 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from March to December. At other times, Marti Warhurst will give special tours. Call her at (636) 667-1450.
The exhibit's content was developed by the Sac and Fox people. Sandra Massey, Historic Preservation Officer with the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma, acted as the liaison with the three divisions of the tribe in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa. The exhibit design is the work of Greg Olson of the Missouri State Archives.
The Sac and Fox are closely related people whose origins trace back to the St. Lawrence River Valley in the time of French settlement of Canada. They speak similar dialects of the Algonquin language. As Europeans moved into Sac and Fox homelands in the Northeast, the Sac and Fox reestablished themselves in woodland areas of present-day Michigan and Wisconsin. By the era of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806), the Sac and Fox hunted extensively in northeast Missouri and traded in St. Louis. Their homeland was centered on a large farming community named Saukenuk, where the Rock River meets the Mississippi in northwestern Illinois.
The exhibit focuses on one Sac and Fox legend that explains their sacred relationship to all of creation. The legend tells of twelve boys who journey into the unknown lands and strike a bargain with two spirits they meet on the road. On behalf of the Sac and Fox people and their survival, each boy sacrifices himself to be transformed into a sacred presence in the natural world. The exhibit focuses on this story because it links modern Sac and Fox people with ancient but continuing beliefs.
The Sac and Fox were abruptly dispossessed of their homeland in 1804 when William Henry Harrison, acting on behalf of the United States, tricked several tribal emissaries into a land sale they were not authorized to negotiate. In the twenty-five years that followed, U.S. settlers moved into the homeland, and the Sac and Fox were pressured to leave. One leader, Black Hawk, stood for resistance. Another, Keokuk, stood for accommodation. Tensions mounted to a point of a small military expedition in 1832 to confront and evict Black Hawk’s followers. The single fire fight that ensued was inflated by government propagandists into a “war.” The “Black Hawk War” made a public celebrity of Black Hawk, who was taken to meet President Andrew Jackson, and whose Autobiography remains in print today as a primary source of insights to a way of life facing great change.
Regarding cultural pressures on the Sac and Fox way of life, Massey said, “Some
of our way of life may be gone but the change is primarily external --- we
no longer live in bark houses, furnish them with reeds, go on great buffalo
hunts, dress in a way that distinguishes us from other tribes and peoples
(at least not every day), and now we can’t bury the same way we used to.
But the internal, the heart and soul of who we are and how we acknowledge
that and our Creator and ancestors, has changed little.”
The Sac and Fox now exist as three individual tribal governments. The Meskwaki
established a permanent settlement near Tama, Iowa and are the Sac and Fox
Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa. The Nemaha tribal government is located in
Reserve, Kansas and the tribe is the Sac and Fox Nation of the Missouri in
Kansas and Nebraska. The Thakiwa tribal headquarters are in Stroud, Oklahoma
and they are the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma. The historic preservation
representatives of the three groups formed a confederacy to make joint decisions
regarding their shared history.
The Sac and Fox exhibit is part of a larger project undertaken by the Missouri Humanities Council to increase knowledge of Missouri’s Native American history. In Lexington, Missouri, the Lexington Historical Museum is developing a permanent exhibit on the Osage people in cooperation with Osage tribal representatives and the Osage Tribal Museum. Greg Leech, who designs exhibits for Missouri State Historic Sites, is designing the Osage exhibit. In Marble Hill, The Bollinger County Museum of Natural History is readying a permanent exhibit on Missouri’s Shawnee and Delaware people, who settled part of southeast Missouri in the late 18th century and who lived on land granted them by the Spanish crown. Delilah Tayloe, Director of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, is the designer of that exhibit, with advice from Shawnee and Delaware tribal representatives.
The three projects are part of a nation-wide “We The People” initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Missouri Humanities Council is the state affiliate of NEH. It organizes and supports public programs that enrich the lives of families, schools, and community organizations.
Libraries and Museums interested in hosting the Sac and Fox HOMELAND exhibit are invited to contact the Council for more information. The next available date (as of this writing) is January 2008.
Missouri Humanities Council
543 Hanley Industrial Ct., Ste. 201
St. Louis, MO 63144-1905
(314) 781-9660 (800) 357-0909