Charles Eastman, or Ohiyesa
in Santee, came of age during a period of increasing tension and violence between
Native and new Americans. Raised to become a hunter-warrior, he
was nevertheless persuaded by his Christianized father to enter the alien world
of white society. A remarkably bright student, Eastman graduated from Dartmouth
College and the Boston University School of Medicine. Later on he served as
government physician at the Pine Ridge Agency (and tended casualties at Wounded
Knee), as Indian Inspector for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and as Indian secretary
for the YMCA, and helped found the Boy Scouts of America.
Concurrently, however, he also worked
on special congressional legislation to settle Sioux claims and was a charter
member and later president of the Society of American Indians. It was his writing,
though, which most clearly established Eastman's determination to hold on to
his roots. In works such as Indian Boyhood, The Soul of the Indian, and
Indian Heroes and Chieftains he reconfirmed his native heritage and tried
to make white society aware of the Indians' contribution to American civilization.