General Clarence Tinker, Hap Arnold`s daring go-to

Transcription

General Clarence Tinker, Hap Arnold's daring go-to guy
file:///Users/edmarek/Documents/Talking Proud/HistoryTinkerC...
General Clarence Tinker, Hap Arnold's
daring go-to guy
July 2, 2007
Go!
Clarence Tinker's early years in the Indian Territory
through his graduation from the Wentworth Military
Academy in Kansas: Revisiting some history about our
nation's mid-section.
The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma, presented by the Oklahoma
Historical Society, says:
"Tinker was born on November 21, 1887, in Osage
County, Oklahoma, the former Osage Nation, Indian
Territory."
Right away we were confronted with some historical
questions. First, Oklahoma did not become a state until 1907,
so was Osage County really a county in 1887? Second, what
was the Osage Nation, and is it really a "former" nation? What
was the "Indian Territory" of which the Osage Nation was a
part?
We quickly learned that Osage County was created in 1907
when Oklahoma became a state. It was created from Osage
Indian lands. So our hunch was right that something was
amiss in that paragraph.
The Indian lands from which the county was created were
known as the Osage Nation, Indian Territory. Osage
pronounced "Wha-Zha-Zhi," meaning "Children of the Middle
Waters."
Table of Contents
Introduction
Clarence Tinker's early
years in the Indian
Territory through his
graduation from the
Wentworth Military
Academy in Kansas:
Revisiting some history
about our nation's
mid-section.
Third Lieutenant Clarence
Tinker deploys to the
Philippine Constabulary:
Revisiting the Spanish
American War and
America's annexation of the
Philippines.
Lt. Tinker from the
Philippines to the Buffalo
Soldiers: Revisiting the
inclusion of blacks in the
US Army, the import of
WWI in the South Pacific,
and the problems with
Mexico in America's
southwest.
Tinker, the fighter pilot: A
vision beyond the infantry,
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the employment of air
power
Tinker, fighters to
bombers to theater WWII
commander: Hap Arnold's
daring "go-to" guy
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Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Photo credit:
klricker2006. Presented by Webshots.
To be technically correct, Clarence Tinker grew up in
Pawhuska, Osage Nation of the Indian Territory.
On the road from Bartlesville towards Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Photo credit:
klricker2006. Presented by Webshots.
The Osage Nation still exists.
Pawhuska is its capital city. This
city also serves as the Osage
County seat for the state of
Oklahoma. This county is the
largest county in Oklahoma.
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We must say at this juncture that
the history of this region of the
United States is very complicated and demands concentrated
study, which we cannot do here. But, we feel compelled at the
least to provide an introductory outline of how borders were
formed in this region.
Let's start with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, executed
during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. The US bought
French claims to 530 million acres of territory for $23 million
and some loose change. We want to underline something right
away: the US did not buy land; it bought French claims to the
land. There is a huge difference. You can see the claims which
the US bought.
In truth, the US at the time was not exactly sure what it got,
and there was some debate about whether this was
constitutional. The boundaries were not defined and little was
known about the land. For our purposes here, almost all the
land was inhabited by American Indians. Since the US
acquired claims to the land, it had basically two options to
obtain title to the land: buy it or take it from the Indians. The
US did both, piece by piece.
Of course, no one consulted with the Indians while negotiating
and completing the purchase agreement with the French. The
Indians therefore did not even know claims to their land were
for sale. It is on this point that rests an incredible amount of
history, good and bad.
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Indian Territory, 1836. The graphic is from the Library of Congress.
Presented by wikipedia.
This map shows the layout of the Indian Territory in 1836.
The US assigned each Indian Nation its own area through the
US Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. This act of course was
legislation passed in Washington in accordance with the US
Constitution, not in accordance with any Indian national laws.
That said, the US did negotiate with various Indian nations for
their land. There was a lot of bargaining, there was a lot of
stealing, and there was considerable bloodshed.
The Indian Territory was west of Missouri and Arkansas,
whose borders are highlighted by blue lines.
The Missouri Territory was formed from a portion of the
Louisiana Purchase. It became a state in 1821. The Arkansas
Territory was created from a portion of the Missouri Territory.
It originally included present-day Oklahoma. That was
removed from the territory by 1828. Arkansas became a state
in 1836.
So, in a region west of Missouri and Arkansas, boundaries
were drawn for multiple Indian nations. The southern border
of the territory, settled by the Choctaws, is marked by the Red
River, the northeastern border of present-day Texas. In the
upper right quadrant, you see a river running north-south
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marking the northeast section of the Indian Territory. That is
the Mississippi River, which currently marks Missouri's
eastern border.
We have highlighted in red the area assigned to the Osage.
The Osage had been in the Ohio Valley. They then moved to
western Missouri, living near the Missouri River. The Osage
began negotiating away their lands to the US as early as 1808.
This positioned them in what would end up as northeastern
Oklahoma.
Osage history, rivalries and friendships, and the actions of the
US government all resulted in Osage Nation boundaries that
changed faster than we can keep track. William Cutler's
History of the State of Kansas, first published in 1883, is on
line through the Kansas Collection. You can obtain quite a bit
of detail there.
In the early 1870s, a bill was introduced in Congress to create
a territory out of a portion of the Indian Territory. It was to be
known as Oklahoma. The bill was not passed. Then in 1889,
after some considerable turmoil, a bill passed opening to
homestead settlement an area of land within the Indian
Territory to be known as Oklahoma.
The "Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889" a mural by John Steuart Curry.
It depicts the race at full tilt. Riders dash forward, the drivers stand as they
urge on their galloping horses. Curry's address is painted on the side of the
wagon. The oil mural is located on the 5th floor, main corridor, north of
Elevator Lobby 1, the Interior Building of the US, Washington. Presented by
the Department of Interior.
Now remember, for the most part, all of this land known as the
Indian Territory was inhabited by Indians and, by
congressional legislation signed into law, allocated to various
Indian nations. The US, in effect, opened Indian land to
homesteading by American citizens. That began the famous
Oklahoma Rush from the east. The US government then began
allowing settlers to homestead on Indian lands, one by one. A
territorial government emerged in 1890.
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This nicely displays what the Indian Territory boundaries
looked like in the 1880s-1890s. Presented by the Center for
Disease Control (CDC). In effect, the Indian Territory, which
had extended north into the Kansas and Nebraska Territories,
had now been pushed southward into what is presently known
as Oklahoma. Kansas became a territory in 1854 and a state in
1861; Nebraska became a territory in 1854 and a state in 1867.
This map shows where the various Indian nations ended up by
the 1890s within the Indian Territory and the Oklahoma
Territory, at least according to the official US system of
governance. The red arrow points to the Osage Nation's
territory, considerably less then that with which it began.
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Those boundaries pretty well stuck when Oklahoma became a
state in 1907. The name Oklahoma derives from Choctaw
words meaning "Red People."
This is the Tinker family in 1908. Presented by Red Oak Tree.
Clarence was born to George Edward "Ed" Tinker and Sarah
Ann "Nan" Schwagerty. George and Nan married in 1886.
George was born in 1868 at the Osage Mission, Kansas,
present-day St. Paul, while "Nan" was born in Kansas.
Together they had nine children. Cora, George Edith, and
Joseph died either at child-birth or shortly thereafter. You can
see Clarence L. Tinker standing tall in the rear. Just about all
of them went by nicknames: Alex was Nicholas Alexander
Thompson Tinker; Nan was Sarah Ann Schwagerty Tinker;
Villa was Villa Lucinda Tinker; Anna was Sarah Ann Tinker;
Genevieve was Mary Genevieve Tinker; and Ed was George
Edward Tinker Jr. Most of George's and George Jr.'s friends
called them both "Ed." A most handsome family.
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A brief note on child mortality. We found a "Report on Vital
and Social Statistics in the US at the Eleventh Census: 1890,"
prepared by the Department of the Interior, and presented by
the Center for Disease Control, the CDC. Of this family's nine
children, three died very quickly. That's a 33 percent mortality
rate. We have no way to know about the circumstances
surrounding their deaths, but to us, that's a very high rate. The
national mortality rate among new borns was about six percent
at the time, though the report cited above does say the figures
are likely not accurate, largely because of deficiencies in data
collection, especially for children under the age of one and
those classified as "born but died." Nonetheless, there is a vast
difference between 6 percent and 33 percent for the Tinker
family.
We located another report,
“American Indian Mortality in
the Late Nineteenth Century: The
Impact of Federal Assimilation
Policies on a Vulnerable
Population," by J. David Hacker
and Michael R. Haines,
published in 2005. This report
produced quite different
numbers, asserting that about 30
percent of Indian children died
before reaching the age of 5.
This was based on 1900 census
data, which asked many more
pertinent questions about Indians
and marked a major step forward
in collecting reliable data about them. (Photo credit:
Photographic collection, 1900, Visual Resources, University
of Minnesota Duluth) That is close to what the Tinker family
experienced.
It turns out that during the late 19th century, US policies
toward American Indians started to shift. By then, the
American Indian was seen as a vulnerable population in need
of help. Hacker and Haines described it this way:
"Under the urging of late nineteenth-century reformers,
U.S. policy toward American Indians shifted from
removal and relocation efforts to state-sponsored
attempts to 'civilize' Indians through allotment of tribal
lands, citizenship, and forced education ... The results
(of analyzing 1900 census data) suggest that mortality
among American Indians in the late nineteenth century
was very high—approximately 62 percent higher than
that for the white population ... The American Indian
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population in the coterminous United States declined to
approximately 600,000 in 1800, when estimates become
more reliable, and continued its rapid decline in the
nineteenth century, reaching a nadir of 237,000 in the
decade 1890-1900 before recovering in the twentieth
century. Resisting the widespread belief that American
Indians were doomed to extinction, nineteenth-century
reformers successfully pressed the government to take
an active role in assisting the population."
George's family was related to or associated with many
notable figures in Osage history. He was one-quarter Osage.
He served on the Osage Tribal Council from Strike Axe
District. He was a co-founder with a man named Regnier and
editor of The Wah-shah-she News, a weekly newspaper
published in Pawhuska. Regnier left after two months,
replaced by Timothy John Leahy, an Irishman also born at the
Osage Mission in Kansas.
Questia Media has presented a nice sumary of The
Wah-shah-she News, extracted from American Indian and
Alaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals, 1826-1924, by
Daniel F. Littlefield Jr. and James W. Parins:
"The Wah-shah-she News contained eight pages of six
columns each. Under the management of Tinker and
Regnier, it contained only one page of local matter, but
under Tinker and Leahy, the local content was expanded
to three pages. The rest was advertisement, filler
material, and news from outside the Indian Territory.
Local news consisted of articles on such matters as
allotment of land (which the paper favored), various
Indian commissions, Catholic schools on the
reservation, Fourth of July celebrations, and the political
struggle between the full-blood and half-blood Osages.
There were columns of chatty local and personal news
not only from Pawhuska but also from outlying
settlements such as Hominy and Gray Horse. News of
Indian affairs was printed in the form of an irregular
'Washington Letter.'"
We get some insight into the
upbringing Clarence received
from his father George. As the
editor, George began attacking
Indian Agent Henry Blanchard
Freeman for overtaxing and poor
management of the Indian
school. Tinker and his new
assistant editor, J.F. Palmer, set
the paper's motto as follows:
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"Speak the truth and you will shame the devil."
Freeman got angry, and the more angry he got, the more the
editors attacked him. Freeman was no one to mess with,
however. He was a Union officer during the Civil War and
received the Medal of Honor for his gallantry. He was
promoted to brigadier general in 1901.
But Tinker and Palmer stayed on his case, until Freeman
finally threatened the editors and their publishing company,
ordering them to stop criticizing the direction of agency
affairs. Tinker and Palmer left the paper, and Tinker founded
the Osage Magazine in 1909 with Curtis J. Phillips. This later
became The Oklahoma Magazine.
As an aside, by 1900 most towns in the Indian Territory had
newspapers, and most of these were run by Indians. As seen
by the example set by "Ed," they completely understood
freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
s
Oil well on Osage land, named "Finney 5." Presented by University of
Oklahoma Libraries Western History Collections.
Important and very lucrative oil and gas deposits were found
in Osage lands. Indeed, prior to Oklahoma statehood, the
region experienced an oil boom, part of the Mid-Continent Oil
Region. The first well in Osage was drilled in 1897. The
federal government allotted Osage lands to oil companies, but
the rights remained reserved to the Osage and royalties were
paid to the nation. Ed Tinker used his publications and writing
abilities to oppose efforts to change these arrangements. We
commend "The Osage: A Historical Sketch," by George E.
Tinker to your attention. Ed Tinker died in 1947. He is well
known in his own right, as are several of his descendants.
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Son Clarence attended Catholic schools in Hominy and
Pawhuska, Oklahoma, and a public school in Elgin, Kansas.
We show you this map for those not familiar with Oklahoma.
You can see the Osage Nation in tan. You can see that it is
close to both major cities in the state, Tulsa and Oklahoma
City (red arrows). The red dots highlight Hominy, Pawhuska,
and the top one, Elgin, Kansas. Arkansas is not far, just east of
Tulsa, while Missouri is above it, east on Route 60.
Haskell Institute, 1903, as viewed from the Haskell farmlands. Presented by
Haskell Indian Nations University.
In 1900, Tinker attended the Haskell Institute at Lawrence,
Kansas. He withdrew before graduating. The Haskell Institute
opened as a boarding school in 1884 with 22 American Indian
students, grades 1-5. It was called the US Indian Industrial
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Training School and focused on agricultural training. Its
student body rose to 400 in one semester. The school was
renamed The Haskell Institute in 1887 to honor US
Representative Dudley Haskell who was responsible for the
school being located in Lawrence. The Institute today is called
The Haskell Indian Nations University. The university says
this about its early years:
"The early trades for boys included tailoring, wagon
making, blacksmithing, harness making, painting, shoe
making, and farming. Girls studied cooking, sewing and
homemaking. Most of the students' food was produced
on the Haskell farm, and students were expected to
participate in various industrial duties."
The Library of Congress section called "American Memory"
hosts some wonderful old photography of the Haskell
Institute. Once you get there, simply do a search for "Haskell
Institute." We want to show two photos drawn from its
collection.
This is drawn from a much wider panoramic view of the
Institute, taken by Alfred Lawrence in 1913.
This is also drawn from a much wider panoramic view of
"students on review" taken in May 1908 by J.L. Morris. They
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appear to be cadets. The school employed a "semi-military"
system where students wore uniforms and marched to class.
The boys wore military looking uniforms, while the girls wore
white blouses with dark skirts, all uniform. By 1894 the school
had 606 students from 36 states. It began offering college level
classes in 1927.
The "semi-military" system caught our attention because, of
course, Clarence Tinker would serve a full military career and
rise to the rank of major general (two stars) in the Army Air
Corps. We also knew that from Haskell he went to the
Wentworth Military Academy at Lexington, Missouri.
Wentworth Military Academy, Lexington, Missouri. Presented by circlepix.
He graduated from there in 1908. The Wentworth Military
Academy, WMA, was founded in 1880. This academy was not
exclusive to American Indians. Interestingly, it began as a
school for boys, then became a male academy, and then a
military academy. The students themselves drove this
evolution. On their own, they began conducting drills and
maneuvers as an extracurricular activity. The faculty saw very
positive results and organized the school to be a military
academy.
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Wentworth today serves as a two year college and college
preparatory high school. All students serve as cadets, though
they are not required to serve in the military after graduation.
Clarence Tinker graduated in 1908, joined the Philippine
Constabulary and was commissioned a third lieutenant.
Go to next section - Third Lieutenant Clarence Tinker
deploys to the Philippine Constabulary: Revisiting the
Spanish American War and America's annexation of the
Philippines.
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General Clarence Tinker, Hap Arnold`s daring go-to

Transcription

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