Ernest Thompson Seton

Welcome to the Leverguns.Com Forum. This is a high-class place so act respectable. We discuss most anything here ... politely.

Moderators: AmBraCol, Hobie

Forum rules
Welcome to the Leverguns.Com General Discussions Forum. This is a high-class place so act respectable. We discuss most anything here other than politics... politely.

Please post political post in the new Politics forum.
Post Reply
Bill in Oregon
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8850
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:05 am
Location: Sweetwater, TX

Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Bill in Oregon »

This interesting man has been on my radar for quite some time, as the Boy Scouts of America has been a very important organization in my life. A while back, I bought a copy of David Wescott's "Camping in the Old Style," which seeks to celebrate and revive the traditions and skills of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the "golden age of camping." This book is dedicated to the memory and achievements of five men: George Washington Sears -- "Nessmuk"; Ernest Thomson Seton; Horace Kephart; Daniel Carter Beard; and Warren Hastings Miller. Determined to know more about Seton, I bought a biography:

Just finished "The Chief: Ernest Thompson Seton and the Changing West," by Anderson. I have always regarded Seton as among the pantheon of great nineteenth/early 20th century naturalists and conservationists that included such giants as Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, William Hornaday, John Muir and George Bird Grinnell. And I gained a much deeper appreciation for him as an artist and storyteller after making two visits to the National Scouting Museum and Ernest Thompson Seton Memorial Library at Philmont Ranch here in New Mexico. This biography filled in huge blanks in my knowledge of Seton: first, his critical role in the creation of the Boy Scouts of America and the Camp Fire Girls; and second, his profound admiration and respect for Native Americans, their culture and most of all their religion.
Seton conceived of what became the Boy Scouts shortly after 1900, when he created the Woodcraft movement dedicated to a vigorous outdoor life, mastery of natural and survival skills and an appreciation for the presence of the Great Spirit in all things. (He feared America's increasingly urban youth would degenerate into indolent "flat-chested cigarette smokers" with no appreciation or connection to nature and the earth.) He wrote the first manual for his new organization, "The Birchbark Roll," in 1906, and revised it almost annually for 15 editions. Prior to 1910, Seton, Daniel Carter Beard of "Sons of Daniel Boone" fame, and Robert Baden Powell began to collaborate on their different ideas for what became the Scouting movement. All three had large egos, and battled for the final shape the Scouts would take in the United States. Ultimately, Baden Powell won out, after having helped himself wholesale to most of Seton's "Book of Woodcraft" and published it as his "Handbook for Boys," with almost no credit to Seton. This, combined with Scouting's abandonment of the Native American spiritualism and individualism so important to Seton caused him to become estranged from the BSA's National Council hierarchy. Seton's deepest disappointment was Scouting's adoption of Baden Powell's essentially military organization, structure and purpose. Seton, whose mother had pacifist tendencies, despised the idea that "good little Scouts" would also make "good little soldiers." He resigned as chief scout at the outset of WWI, but always held a fondness for the boys and girls of Scouting and Camp Fire.
Seton's bitterness toward Baden Powell and the National Council of the BSA lingered for the rest of his days. It was good to learn the reasons for this, as I am named after Baden Powell.
While Seton was an early and tireless advocate for conservation, he also added his voice to the cause of women's rights, his first wife Grace being a strong champion for suffrage.
But it was his deep heart for Native Americans cultivated first in youthful experiences with Indians in Manitoba that became the most important thread of his life. Many, many times over the decades of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he went out of his way to visit reservations, pay long visits and cultivate friendships among the Crow, the Blackfoot and other tribes. It took him 20 years, but the dictionary of Indian sign language he produced is still an important resource; he got the idea for it after becoming a close friend of White Swan, badly wounded while scouting for George Armstrong Custer, who was deaf and could only communicate with signs.
Because of his reverence for wild creatures and the natural world, the Indians' pantheistic view that God is everywhere and in everything, animate and inanimate fit more and more closely with Seton's own views. He believed that the Indians were the final, perfect product of human evolution, living in simple harmony with the earth. For them, every day was the Sabbath, not just Sunday. And he summed up the substance of their culture as "What can I do for my community," versus the white culture's "what can I do to acquire things for myself" love of money.
Seton was horrified by the government's efforts to take Indian children from their families and send off to distant schools such as Carlisle to be taught white culture and to despise their own, which he thought so close to human perfection. He and Grace, and many of their friends, became fierce critics of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and fought hard to encourage its reform.
He was not the only one to see the errors of American history regarding the Indians. In a conversation with William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill" had this to say:
"I never led an expedition against the Indians but that I was ashamed of myself, ashamed of my government and ashamed of my flag; for they were always in the right and we were always in the wrong. They never broke a treaty and we never kept one."
A similar sentiment was shared by Neil Erickson, an old rancher that Seton interviews in 1935 in Douglas, Arizona. A Swede, Erickson came to the United States as a young man, became a soldier and fought in the Geronimo campaign in the 1880s before establishing his ranch in the Chiricahua Mountains near Wilcox. At the end of their interview, Erickson told Seton: "If I had known what I know now about Indian character, I would have deserted from the American Army and joined up with the Apaches."
In his long and productive life (1860-1946), Seton got to know many of the great personalities of his age --Roosevelt and his son Kermit, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, John Burroughs, Hamlin Garland, Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair and so many others. Among his admirers was none other than Adolph Hitler, who invited Seton to come and give his thoughts on the "Hitler Youth." Seton declined.
Seton was a one of a kind, a man with an ego, tortured with doubts, gifted with an incredible vitality and work ethic to match his talents as a writer, artist and sought-after lecturer. His books on North American natural history and particularly its birds and mammals are still useful, his lively animal stories for children still beloved.
It is interesting that the three men in human history that he most disliked were Saint Paul, for what he thought of as subverting the message of Christ and making women second-class citizens; George Armstrong Custer as the symbol of everything the federal government did wrong to Native Americans, and his own father, who beat him so often and so mercilessly as a boy.
User avatar
AJMD429
Posting leader...
Posts: 31933
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2007 10:03 am
Location: Hoosierland
Contact:

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by AJMD429 »

"Two Little Savages" was on my kids REQUIRED reading list (along with The Red Heart by James Thom, Unintended Consequences by John Ross, and several others).
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws
"first do no harm" - gun control LAWS lead to far more deaths than 'easy access' ever could.


Want REAL change? . . . . . "Boortz/Nugent in 2012 . . . ! "
Bill in Oregon
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8850
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:05 am
Location: Sweetwater, TX

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Doc, I hope to read that one, and the sequel, "Rolf in the Woods."
User avatar
FWiedner
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8862
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 9:50 pm
Location: North Texas

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by FWiedner »

Bill in Oregon wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:17 am He believed that the Indians were the final, perfect product of human evolution, living in simple harmony with the earth.
Imagine you are having a picnic with friends on Walnut Creek in Austin when you hear a siren wailing and suddenly find an arrow sticking out of your right calf and a bullet in your hip. You try to pull one of your friends to safety and get another arrow in your thigh.You make a run for your horse and a bullet passes through your neck. You are on the ground, conscious but paralyzed. Your attackers are upon you.They strip you bare, except for one sock. One of them begins twisting your hair around his fingers, and with his hunting knife, removes your scalp from your skull with a sickening pop.

Your attackers leave you covered in blood and baking under the Texas sun.

That's what happened to Josiah Wilbarger in 1833. He lived eleven more years. His wife made him skullcaps from her wedding dress to protect his exposed skull.

From: Texas Indian Troubles by Hilory Bedford
---

Yep. Them Indians was "the final, perfect product of human evolution"

:shock: :wink:
Government office attracts the power-mad, yet it's people who just want to be left alone to live life on their own terms who are considered dangerous.

History teaches that it's a small window in which people can fight back before it is too dangerous to fight back.
User avatar
Sixgun
Posting leader...
Posts: 18565
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:17 pm
Location: S.E. Pa. Where The Finest Winchesters & Colts Reside

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Sixgun »

Considering that the American Indian were Stone Age people when whitey arrived, it's my personal opinion they have assimilated well into modern society. Ive read where they do have drinking issues....we do too.....

At least they are not on the daily news killing scores of people a day, yanking people from their cars to steal their pelosi, breeding like flies, pushing themselves off to other people, making demands, blaming others for their own inadequate behaviors, and complaining about everything all with the gratitude of a grizzly bear that has a tooth infection.

Genetic memory---6
Model A Uzi’s
Image
Bill in Oregon
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8850
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:05 am
Location: Sweetwater, TX

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Bill in Oregon »

My dear FW, I have at hand all 672 pages of Wilbarger's "Indian Depredations in Texas," and was told as a young child never to ask my Texas-raised great-grandmother about Comanches.
In the vast majority of cases involving Indian violence against European Americans, who do you think transgressed first? Or maybe you wouldn't mind too much if strangers moved onto your land and told you to get off and get lost -- and maybe shot at you if you didn't move fast enough.
User avatar
Ray
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 2823
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:45 am

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Ray »

FWiedner wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:17 am
Bill in Oregon wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:17 am He believed that the Indians were the final, perfect product of human evolution, living in simple harmony with the earth.
Imagine you are having a picnic with friends on Walnut Creek in Austin when you hear a siren wailing and suddenly find an arrow sticking out of your right calf and a bullet in your hip. You try to pull one of your friends to safety and get another arrow in your thigh.You make a run for your horse and a bullet passes through your neck. You are on the ground, conscious but paralyzed. Your attackers are upon you.They strip you bare, except for one sock. One of them begins twisting your hair around his fingers, and with his hunting knife, removes your scalp from your skull with a sickening pop.

Your attackers leave you covered in blood and baking under the Texas sun.

That's what happened to Josiah Wilbarger in 1833. He lived eleven more years. His wife made him skullcaps from her wedding dress to protect his exposed skull.

From: Texas Indian Troubles by Hilory Bedford
---

Yep. Them Indians was "the final, perfect product of human evolution"

:shock: :wink:

In the pre-obummer years historians agreed that the romantic and much told tale of pocahontas saving smith's life from the war club of powhatan had to be in the same category of washington's hatchet and cherry tree.

The learned men used to say that had powhatan brained smith, thus impeding the women and children the right to torture the captive to death, that he, powhatan would have been swiftly deposed. Torturing adult male captives was the equivalent of the movie of the week and necessary for good morale.

That view of history was lost in the obummer era and now "they" all talk of the socialistic utopia enjoyed before whitey came to subvert and pervert it.
m.A.g.a. !
User avatar
Shrapnel
Levergunner 3.0
Posts: 587
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:21 pm

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Shrapnel »

Funny he should mention Cody being such and advocate for the poor Native Americans as Cody himself tried to join the Army after the Custer Battle and fight and kill those noble savages.

For someone of such note to name Custer as such a villain in regards to the American Indian, it was Custer that testified against President Grant’s brother and the department of Indian Affairs who were cheating Indians with their treatment of them on the reservations. Custer almost didn’t make it to Montana due to Grant’s disdain for his partisan view of the Indians. Don’t malign Custer as an Indian hater, he fought them and fought for them...
Bill in Oregon
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8850
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:05 am
Location: Sweetwater, TX

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Read the book. Draw your own conclusions.
Custer certainly treated the Indians with tender solicitude at the Washita.
User avatar
FWiedner
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8862
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 9:50 pm
Location: North Texas

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by FWiedner »

Bill in Oregon wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:10 pm My dear FW, I have at hand all 672 pages of Wilbarger's "Indian Depredations in Texas," and was told as a young child never to ask my Texas-raised great-grandmother about Comanches.
In the vast majority of cases involving Indian violence against European Americans, who do you think transgressed first? Or maybe you wouldn't mind too much if strangers moved onto your land and told you to get off and get lost -- and maybe shot at you if you didn't move fast enough.
If you've read Bedford's book, then you know that there aren't many bed-time stories for children idolizing the kindness and generosity of the local native-Americans contained therein.

My Great-Grandmother (3x) Henriette Krueger (born 1844) was abducted by Comanches sometime around 1861-62 from her family's home near Cibolo,Texas.

Henriette returned a year or few years later either with a small child or was pregnant. In 1863, she gave birth to her son named Julius. In 1866, she married my Great-Grandfather Hennrich (Henry) Wiedner.

Ny Grandfather raised Julius as his own son, and Julius was the foundation of an entire clan of Kruegers down around Cibolo, New Braunfels and San Antonio.

There are some interesting stories in the family lore.

:wink:
Government office attracts the power-mad, yet it's people who just want to be left alone to live life on their own terms who are considered dangerous.

History teaches that it's a small window in which people can fight back before it is too dangerous to fight back.
User avatar
Shrapnel
Levergunner 3.0
Posts: 587
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:21 pm

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Shrapnel »

Bill in Oregon wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:25 pm Read the book. Draw your own conclusions.
Custer certainly treated the Indians with tender solicitude at the Washita.
My issue is not with you it is with people that comment with little or no knowledge then make a statement like “Custer was a jackass.” Seton making the claim, as reported by you “Custer got what he had coming.”

I do know what happened at Washita I question what you know. 21st century standards can’t be applied to 19th century situations. Custer was sent to Washita by General Phil Sheridan to hit the Indians in the winter when they were most vulnerable. He was ordered to destroy any provisions the Indians had and to kill all of their ponies.

Collateral damage is a high price in war, but to only kill warriors or combatants with no one else getting hurt is an impossible task and you have to remember that these Indians weren’t considered friendly and certainly not equal to whites.

To single out the Washita as it was Custer’s idea and how insensitive he was to the Indians is absolutely wrong. I am guessing you have no idea who Stone Forehead was, you might want to read about his engagement with Custer. You might want to read about the 1874 expedition into the Black Hills.

Start there and when you find out how Custer handled those situations get back with me on how Custer was a jackass or how he ended up getting what he deserved at the Little Bighorn...
User avatar
Sixgun
Posting leader...
Posts: 18565
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:17 pm
Location: S.E. Pa. Where The Finest Winchesters & Colts Reside

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Sixgun »

I wish you people would stop talking about my people in a condescending way. I was THERE and Mr. Custer was a bad man. He hurt my people. Only white man who don't speak with a forked tongue is my kemosabe, Mr. Trump.-----Tonto

Me hears enough. War party tomorrow.....I call my cousin, Dances with Wolves and tell him to get war paint on!

You pale face know nuttin' I send smoke signal to Crazy Horse. I putum on wampum in tipi and throw away peace pipe. Me likes paleface hash in peace pipe but can't find um...all in Detroit.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5gi6TEZkFwQ
Model A Uzi’s
Image
User avatar
Ray
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 2823
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:45 am

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Ray »

So there was this young brave name of Jack. now Jack wasn't the straightest arrow in the quiver but his ma loved him. The other young braves often made fun of him and played endless practical jokes.

so they double-dog-dared him (or is that coyote?) to have carnal knowledge with a knot hole in a tree.

In fulness of time, Jack found a soft and willing maiden and married.

In the tipi at their honeymoon there was a woman's scream then Jack ran out in fear and cautiously peered inside. This happened again and again.

Someone peeped into the tipi and saw the naked girl lying on a bed of skins. Jack kicked her and ran out of the tipi then peered in again. Someone finally asked him what he was doing and he replied:

"Checking for bees!"
m.A.g.a. !
piller
Posting leader...
Posts: 15188
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:49 pm
Location: South of Dallas

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by piller »

Lots of History has been lost due to the winners removing what they didn't want known.
D. Brian Casady
Quid Llatine Dictum Sit, Altum Viditur.
Advanced is being able to do the basics while your leg is on fire---Bill Jeans
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up---Robert Frost
Bill in Oregon
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8850
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:05 am
Location: Sweetwater, TX

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Bill in Oregon »

I certainly never called Custer a jackass. Who did?
I did say he served as the symbol of the hubris of federal policy toward Native Americans in the 19th century.
As to Cody's comments, he made them during a dinner with Seton in Washington on Dec. 15, 1915. Cody at that time had the wisdom of his years, had been there early in the game killing Indians, saw them, their culture and their sustaining food source, the bison, destroyed, and a proud people and worthy adversary driven onto reservations to starve at farming, beg for rations from corrupt Indian agents and die of disease. He had also had a chance to witness time and time again the lies of the federal government as it broke treaty after treaty -- often to satisfy white greed for natural resources. And he worked with Indians in his wild west shows. This gave Cody a very unique perspective as he had seen first-hand the utter failure that 19th-century federal Indian policy had led to. Custer did not have the luxury of growing old and looking back, to draw these or other conclusions.
Looking forward to the 28th!
User avatar
Shrapnel
Levergunner 3.0
Posts: 587
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:21 pm

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Shrapnel »

Bill in Oregon wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:43 am I certainly never called Custer a jackass. Who did?
I did say he served as the symbol of the hubris of federal policy toward Native Americans in the 19th century.
As to Cody's comments, he made them during a dinner with Seton in Washington on Dec. 15, 1915. Cody at that time had the wisdom of his years, had been there early in the game killing Indians, saw them, their culture and their sustaining food source, the bison, destroyed, and a proud people and worthy adversary driven onto reservations to starve at farming, beg for rations from corrupt Indian agents and die of disease. He had also had a chance to witness time and time again the lies of the federal government as it broke treaty after treaty -- often to satisfy white greed for natural resources. And he worked with Indians in his wild west shows. This gave Cody a very unique perspective as he had seen first-hand the utter failure that 19th-century federal Indian policy had led to. Custer did not have the luxury of growing old and looking back, to draw these or other conclusions.
Looking forward to the 28th!
Thanks for the additional information, we all have our places of study and admiration if it applies. I did start out not a fan of Custer until I became more interested in Montana history and the Custer battle. If you recall, it used to be called the Custer Battlefield but now is the Little Bighorn Battlefield due to 20th century righting wrongs that may not have even been committed.

The other truth of the whole story is that there wasn’t a wrong side in that battle. I can’t blame the Indians for fighting for what little they had left, but people often confuse what Custer did under orders was not of his own doing...
Bill in Oregon
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 8850
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:05 am
Location: Sweetwater, TX

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Shrapnel, I surely did not intend to pick any fights over this stuff. It seems we both have a reverence for history, and there always seem to be two sides to it, if not many more. I have had a copy of Custer's "My Life on the Plains" on my shelf for some years. I expect I had better read it.
User avatar
Shrapnel
Levergunner 3.0
Posts: 587
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:21 pm

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Shrapnel »

Bill in Oregon wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 2:33 pm Shrapnel, I surely did not intend to pick any fights over this stuff. It seems we both have a reverence for history, and there always seem to be two sides to it, if not many more. I have had a copy of Custer's "My Life on the Plains" on my shelf for some years. I expect I had better read it.
There is a signed copy in first edition at the museum at Garryowen. It could be purchased for $25,000.00...
User avatar
Sixgun
Posting leader...
Posts: 18565
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:17 pm
Location: S.E. Pa. Where The Finest Winchesters & Colts Reside

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by Sixgun »

Ray wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:31 pm so they double-dog-dared him (or is that coyote?) to have carnal knowledge with a knot hole in a tree
WHO, may I ask told YOU about that knot??????!!!!!! I thought I was alone in the woods!!!!

If it makes you feel any better, I no longer use knots as the last animal to use that log for a home was a snapping turtle.

Danged trail cams!!!!! :D :D :D -----Tonto
Model A Uzi’s
Image
JerryB
Advanced Levergunner
Posts: 5493
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:23 pm
Location: Batesville,Arkansas

Re: Ernest Thompson Seton

Post by JerryB »

I sure will be glad when we get through next Friday so we can all have so much more knowledge of the history we thought we knew. I am looking forward to seeing this program.
JerryB II Corinthians 3:17, Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

JOSHUA 24:15
Post Reply