The words of editor Ralph Dixey of Tevope in Fort Hall, Idaho published in 1939; "Friends, we are all Indians no matter how white or dark you are. It does not make any difference where you are, what you are doing, or how much money you are making. We are all Indians..."
For Mark Trahant, a "mixed blood" enrolled member of Fort Hall, the words had particular meaning. He thought about who he was and who he might become; he began to realize that being an Indian today included, as it always had, the incorporation of change. He started to understand more fully, as he later wrote, that Indian peoples had "always made alliances, inter-married, and borrowed ideas and technology from other people." "Indian history didn't end in the 1800s," Trahant added. "Indian cultures aren't some sort of museum piece, that are frozen in time, preserved under glass. They evolve, grow and continually try to renew themselves."
Five hundred years after Columbus, one hundred years after Wounded Knee, American Indians had not disappeared.
"The Life of Margretta" is the story of a 20th Century woman who was born, lived and was buried in a small village, named Broadalbin, in Upstate New York.
When her grandchildren were grown and had moved from their parent's home, she decided to write a reminiscence of her young life up to her marriage in 1939. Over the years, she would write her story, chapter by chapter, and send it to her son in Michigan to word process on his computer and send back to her for editing. Her story begins with her first childhood memories and ends at her marriage in 1939.
Within her book, she writes about how the name, Margretta, has been passed down in her family beginning from the marriage of a young woman named Otstock (born of a Mohawk woman and Frenchman by the name of Hartell) to a Dutchman, named Cornelius Antonissen Van Sleyck, who emigrated to the colonies in 1634.
Otstock was given the Dutch name "Margretta" and her husband was given the name "Broer" or brother and adopted into the Mohawk tribe after their marriage. The first North American Margretta and her new husband spent long periods of time in Canajoharies, the home of the Mohawks. As a family tradition, the name, Margretta, has been passed down as a middle name to girls thereafter....including the author's daughter, Jill Margretta.
As the only child of two career parents, Margretta's story resonates with today's children of full-time working parents who seek a better work/life integration.
She went on to raise four children, born in the 1940's, and her book is dedicated to their children. It is a duty for each generation to record their own doings in order that those of the future may use them as a guide for emulation or avoidance.
Data from the most recent censuses attested to the great body of American Indians that had become merged in the indistinguishable mass of the United States population. The American Indian population had reached its nadir early in the twentieth century with less than a quarter million people counted---increasing to 1.9 million in 1990.
Some of that demographic explosion can be explained through a change in how the census was compiled, whereby individuals could identify themselves as Indians or as Indians of multiple ancestry or as people of Indian descent. Many enrolled Indians were of mixed ancestry and had spent part, most, or all of their lives away from their "home" communities. Increased intermarriage with non-Indians had also been an important contributing factor.
For American Indians in the late 1990s, knowledge gleaned from Web sites could be combined with wisdom imparted from the elders. Familiarity with urban centers could be merged with strength drawn from the old landmarks on tribal terrain. There were lessons to be learned from the traditional stories and from the tales of new storytellers.
Source: Peter Iverson: "We Are Still Here": American Indians Since 1890 (The American History Series)
Cyrus Durey: Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks: Economic Development in Early North America
Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks: Economic Development in Early North America [NOOK Book] (ebook and paperback editions)