1949: Reservation Indians are “third-generation concentration camp prisoners,”

Indian Reservations Seen 
As Concentration Camps 
1949, Nov 5 The Gazette and Daily
Examine feelings of racial superiority in the light of modern science, discover that they are “tribal superstitions” and dismiss them forever, an American Indian urged his Woman’s club audience yesterday.
     Charles Eagle Plume, a Blackfoot from Montana, was a persuasive spokesman for a mistreated people.
     Reservation Indians are “third-generation concentration camp prisoners,” he declared. The Hope and Navajo death rate is 17 times normal. Only 22 per cent of Indian children are in school, despite the law which will condemn them to lives on the reservations unless they are literate.
     Eagle Plume blamed the situation on civilized men still living on the ignorant beliefs handed down from the cave, that the color of skin or the slant of one’s eyes can make one inferior.
     His list of contribution to civilization which the Indians worked out “entirely on their own” was an impressive one.
1949, Nov 5 The Gazette and Daily 
     He claimed the 25 vegetable foods introduced by the Indian revigorated the Caucasian race at a time when it stood to be written off by re-occurring plagues.
     The growing of these foods broke down the feudal agricultural system and began modern economic history, said Eagle Plume.
     Most important, the particular definition of man as an individual came first from the Indian and the New World, and was carried back east to temper the European concept that men are born either servants or princes.
     Eagle Plume, a graduate of University of Colorado and Columbia university, was dressed in the gorgeous clothing and headdress of his tribe. His talk was illustrated with a number of native dances and description of Indian beliefs and customs.

1949, Nov 5 The Gazette and Daily

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