PART I: HITCHITA!
"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in this world
must first come to pass in the heart of America." President
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Lawrence, Kansas lies beside the Kansas
River, in the heart of the heart of America, and there is
Trouble in this river city.
"LAWRENCE: Half way East and halfway West, halfway North and
halfway South. The Center of the World." Thus the Lawrence
Chamber of Commerce described the city in 1938.
Twenty-one miles east of Topeka and
thirty-eight miles west of Kansas City, Lawrence is very near to
the population center of the contiguous United States.
According to the United States Bureau of Census, the city's
population in 1980 was comprised of an amazing array of fourteen
different races. The majority is White, and the majority
rules.
The people of Lawrence used to have faith in such
time-honored heroic and benevolent institutions as John Wayne,
the Press, the FBI, and 911. Many still have that faith, but
some feel betrayed. Their faith has been eroded, forcing them
into the roles of victims instead of beneficiaries.
Trouble was already brewing last spring when the shockingly
tragic shooting of Gregg Sevier occurred. That case was the climax, so
far, in a building atmosphere of racial tension. Readers of the
Lawrence Journal World, in a land slide year's end election, voted
the story of that case the Top Local News Story of 1991. It got
872 of the 1430 votes cast.
The very nature of the Problem itself is controversial.
Some sense the smoldering stink of Racism. The minority
whispers, "Racism!" while the majority shouts, "Standard
procedure!"
On the one hand, the surviving Seviers and the American Indian
Community talk of an omnipresent oppression, an invasion of
privacy and a violation of rights; on the other hand, the City
Commissioners talk of how Chief Olin's
police personnel properly deal with domestic disputes. Lawrence
has a problem on its hands.
A visitor from the outside frequently hears "Domestic dispute,"
and to this outsider it seems that the whole city is involved in
a domestic dispute, some of whose contenders are more acutely
aware of it than others. And it's always the children who
suffer the most. God help the children!
Remedies are diligently sought, even as we speak.
As this book nears completion, in late December of
that same year, the Lawrence Journal World reports several points
of progress. An accreditation program for the Police Department
might be purchased with the eleven thousand dollars recently
allocated toward that purpose. Ten thousand dollars in
municipal money was recently earmarked to partially pay for a
full-time coordinator for the Lawrence Alliance, a peace seeking
group. A decree went out requiring that written remarks
reflecting Racism be censored by the City Manager from memos
emanating from city offices. The Police Chief hopes that an
increased budget will help solve perceived problems.
On November 14, 1991 a visiting expert on municipal government
spoke in Room 203, Green Hall, at the University of Kansas in
Lawrence. John Driscoll, President of the International
Personnel Management Association, told of his personal
involvement in reforming the Los Angeles Police Department as a
result of the televised beating of Rodney King. Mr. Driscoll's
astonishingly sparse audience included the Chief of the Lawrence
Police Department and members of the Sevier family. In the
question and answer period that followed the lecture, Chief Olin
was heard to ask the visiting expert if doubling his
budget would help quiet local unrest, and the answer was
no.
The Mayor is satisfied with the status quo. In early May
he said, "While I have heard many questions about the actions of
the Lawrence Police Department and Chief Ron Olin, I have also
heard many positive things. I am confident that we have
one of the best police departments and one of the best police
chiefs in the Midwest."
The Reverend Mr. William A. Dulin says, "Come now and let
us reason together."
This book is an effort to respond to Mr. Dulin's heartfelt
invitation, but it has one great weakness. It is written by an
outsider. Its author is not a Native American, nor even a
native Kansan. The writer's views are not necessarily those
of the White Community of Lawrence, Kansas.
As a major part of the process of composition, with a lot of
help from my friends, I looked into the colorful history of
Lawrence, Kansas, and I see that the current erosion of faith
is nothing new.
More than fifty years ago, a group of actors including John
Wayne was honored by a huge parade in downtown Lawrence. The
occasion was the April, 1940, premiere of a filmed-in-Lawrence
historical Western movie entitled "Dark Command," in which John
Wayne played an itinerant illiterate Texas cowboy.
He got himself elected Marshal after telling the people of
Lawrence, Kansas, "I'm dumb enough to think that smart Marshals
do their shootin' first and their talkin' afterwards."
That was fifty one years before Gregg
Sevier, an American Indian, got shot through the heart by two
Lawrence Police Officers who did little talking. And thirty-one
years before Rick Dowdell, a Black boy, got shot in the back of
his head by Lawrence Police Officers who never talked to him at
all. Some Lawrence citizens believe that modern Police officers
could have done more talking and less shooting.
After viewing that first showing of "Dark Command," scores
of spectators watched the public burning of an Eldridge Hotel
replica in South Park and a huge parade in downtown Lawrence was
followed by a magnificent party at the Lawrence Country Club.
At the party John Wayne, a self-proclaimed recovering alcoholic,
earned the crowd's admiration by refusing to drink liquor.
No doubt he also earned the scorn of those full-blooded all-American
macho dudes who had tried to emulate, in earlier days, the Duke's
manly two-fisted drinking. Their hero had let them down.
Although his self-imposed abstinence from alcohol was little
noted nor long remembered, the heroic actor's reputation
persists. Even today, some of the young men of Lawrence
decorate their apartment walls with John Wayne posters.
Young men like Ted Bordman, 26, for example. Ted is one of the
Lawrence Police Department personnel who shot Gregg Sevier while
he sat in his bedroom, too drunk to drive.
Carry Amelia Nation, the hatchet-wielding temperance crusader,
heroine of many teatotalling Kansans a century ago, began
her life-long battle against booze in Medicine Lodge, Kansas in
1892. She promoted the unacceptable notion that crime was
connected with the drinking of alcohol. No doubt her supporters
felt let down when Carry Nation abandoned her Kansas crusade.
She was expelled by leaders of the WCTU in Kansas because of her
liberal attitude toward ethnic minorities. In 1902, still armed with her
hatchet, and her Bible, she descended into Oklahoma, where she
continued to stir up Trouble.
Trouble in the form of natural and social disasters swings like
a pendulum in the heart of America. Natural disasters like
hailstorms, droughts, tornadoes, blizzards, and Kansas River
floods; social disasters like strikes, riots, barroom brawls,
domestic disputes, civil commotion's, and questionable killings.
The heart of America is in turmoil and the policeman's lot is
not a happy one.
The evidence available to an outside observer shows that much of
this social trouble has its roots in widespread but unconscious
attitudes of Racism, marinated in ethyl alcohol.
Alcohol related crime and controversy has long been a fact of
life in Lawrence, Kansas. More than a century ago, in 1879,
more than a hundred thousand spectators attended the National
Meeting of the National Temperance Movement in Lawrence. Those
who chose to keep on drinking during the temperance meeting were
kept plentifully supplied by enterprising local bootleggers.
Three prominent American Indian leaders spoke at that 1879
meeting, their words giving strong support to the idea of
Temperance. They were Bogus Charley, Chief of the Modocs, Jim
Charley, Chief of the Peorias, and Captain King, Chief of the
Ottowas.
Dr. W. Ronald Olin, Chief of the Lawrence Police
Department, a developmental psychologist and graduate of the
University of Kansas and the FBI Academy and the
Polizei-Fuehrungsakademie (the German Police Leadership Academy),
expressed in a meeting in 1990 his theory that nothing more
sinister than their drinking of alcohol has led to the death of
several young American Indian men in Lawrence.
When Ann Hagedorn, in her Wall Street Journal article of
August 16, 1990, speculated that a "serial killer" might be
responsible for the deaths, she never dreamed of the Trouble
that would stem from her use of the word "serial."
Officer Chris Mulvenon, then the official Lawrence Police
Department Spokesman, responded by publishing an article in
Kansas Police, the Journal of the Fraternal Order of Police.
His opinion coincides with Chief Olin's theory. "The only
'serial' is a 'cereal' malt beverage,"
Mulvenon wrote. Later, he was removed from his Police Spokesman
position and assigned to other, less conspicuous duties within
the Police Department. He publicly apologized for his lack of
sensitivity. He said, "Anyone who knows me, anyone who knows my
beliefs and the truths that I stand for knows the allegations of
racism are . . . without merit."
But Racism remains a burning issue.
The ceremonial burning of the Eldridge Hotel
replica on that April night in 1940 commemorated the repeated
burning of a prominent five- or six-story hotel that even now
thrives on Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence. In 1855
that building sheltered antislavery settlers cared for by the
New England Emigrant Aid Society. The next year it was named
the Free State Hotel and served as a target for Sheriff Jones, a
politically motivated arsonist from Missouri intent on making
Kansas a slave state.
Colonel Eldridge of Massachusetts rebuilt the Free State Hotel,
changing its name to his and adding a floor. After Quantrill's
Raiders burned the hotel in 1863, the Colonel rebuilt, adding a
floor. In the end the Free-Staters won, and Kansas retained its
reputation as a place where all races are treated with equal
justice. Each time the Eldridge Hotel was burned and rebuilt,
its owner added another floor. This repeated better-than-ever
phoenix-like emergence from catastrophic ruin characterizes the
personality of this Heart-of-America city.
In the civilized tradition of European based culture, some
members of the Lawrence Community have always found ways to keep
themselves supplied with liquor. Kansas was the first state to
enact Constitutional Prohibition in 1880, but that legislation
barely affected local practices of brewing and consuming beer.
John Walruff, the local brewer, found a way around the law in
1880. His production was interrupted only long enough to change
labels. Pouring out the same product, now labeled "Celebrated
Stomach Invigorator," the brewery continued its output for six
years into Prohibition, its beer wagons making deliveries up and
down the streets of Lawrence, its product being shipped to every
town on the Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad.
Tradition and Law don't always coincide in Lawrence, Kansas.
Purposely inaccurate labels sometimes hide the truth.
Looking at the city's past, however, gives inspiration and
hope for the future. The people of Lawrence always have hope
that the present Trouble can be cured and that the Heart of
America can be mended.
American Indians in Lawrence, Kansas come from all
fifty states to go to school at Haskell. Some of them
stay and join the school's faculty or staff. Alumni and friends
of Haskell comprise an informal nationwide social club and
communication network. You can find Haskell graduates among
American Indian communities anywhere in the United States. The
"Indian Fax," the informal "grapevine," flashes news of current
events in Lawrence to interested Indians everywhere. One
requirement for admission to Haskell Indian Junior College is
proof that the applicant is at least one-quarter American Indian.
Those who return home after spending time at Haskell take with
them their academic knowledge, plus their experiential knowledge
of the city of Lawrence. They know what life is like in the
Heart of America, and they are, in fact, ambassadors.
Don Bread, Haskell's professor of Tribal Law, and father of the
slain Christopher Bread, is one of the city's most outspoken
advocates for reformation of the Racism problem in Lawrence and
one of those who has felt it most. He feels the importance of
his students' surviving their time in Lawrence and returning
home with reports of the peace and good will that could and
should be warming America's Heartland. In my search for a
vehicle for worthwhile self expression I shared some ideas about
my own history with Don Bread. "You have captured what
Lawrence, Kansas is all about," he said. His encouragement
pushed me onward. It also deepened my introspection.
Haskell Indian Junior College has been a significant part of
the local educational and social scene since its doors first opened in
1884. In the beginning it was named the United States Indian
Industrial Training School. Still governed by the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior, Haskell is said
to be the only federally-funded junior college in the country.
"Haskell is the major American Indian educational facility in
the United States," Bob Pinzeaddleby, pastor of the Lawrence
Indian United Methodist Church told me. A bronze plaque placed
on the Haskell Student Center by the National Park Service
states that Haskell is on the National Registry of Historic
Places.
The Administration of Haskell Indian Junior College,
known until 1970 as Haskell Institute, has always enforced
strict rules against the student body's use or possession of
alcoholic beverages. The school was established in this Heart
of America location to provide families representing American
Indian tribes all over America with a place to send their youths
for training and education.
Bob Martin, President of Haskell, has good reason to be worried.
His expansion program calls for an increase in Haskell's present
enrollment of 850. By the year 2000, Bob Martin wants to attract 2,000
students. For the past six months he has been expressing doubts
regarding that ambitious goal. He fears that potential students
will have second thoughts about coming to Lawrence. Many have
already expressed their fear by canceling their enrollments.
Haskell's students have the normal variety of reasons for
seeking education. Some came to learn how to live, and some
came to learn how to make a living. Willie Sevier and Orene
Watson came for both of those reasons.
Born on October 25, 1938, of Creek Indian parents in the Creek
Nation near Hitchita, Oklahoma, Willie Sevier came to Haskell in
1953 and learned to be a baker. He was an AllState basketball
player in 1956. "I just got lucky," is his modest explanation
of his exceptional athletic ability. Years later, he would be
proud of his son when Gregg was named "Most Valuable Player."
While working in the Haskell bakery after graduating, Willie
met Orene Watson. Also an "Okie," Orene came to Lawrence from
Watson, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation, following her
graduation from Sequoyah High School in Tahlequah. Last April
13, Orene's former high school basketball coach, Edwin Moore,
was inducted into the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame,
housed in Haskell's Student Center.
In the late Fifties, Willie Sevier and Orene Watson
met at Haskell and fell in love. They were married in 1958 in a
building named Sacajewea on the Haskell campus. A nearby
building is named Pocahantas. "It's a women's dormitory,"
Willie told me as he showed me around Haskell one cool November
evening. "Everybody calls it Pokie."
Orene Sevier still speaks Choctaw. "Pokne," she told me,
means "Grandma" in Choctaw. She started learning English in the
first grade and was reprimanded for speaking her native language
there, but it was proudly spoken in her home. Her mother still
lives in the Choctaw Nation and still speaks Choctaw. It's
the only language she knows and the only one she needs.
Orene is one of a thousand Lawrence residents employed at
Hallmark Cards, Inc. To ease the pain after her son's death a
coworker suggested Orene see a psychiatrist. Hallmark cared
enough to pay his fee. But the shrink had a conflict of
interest; he told Orene that he was already rendering service to
one of the policemen who shot Gregg and referred her elsewhere.
Three children were born to Willie and Orene Sevier. Since
Gregg's death last spring, only two of them survive. Judy, 32,
remembers the night her brother was shot. She heard the roar of
the policemen's guns. In the gap beneath her closed bedroom
door she saw the flashes as those guns were fired. One bullet,
having passed through Gregg's "center mass," and his tooled
leather belt, lodged in the wall of Judy's bedroom closet.
Judy opened her bedroom door and watched her brother die. She
saw his chest rise and fall, filling his bullet-ridden lungs
with his last gasps, the rise and fall ceasing as he lay there
and died.
Judy's younger sister Julie follows her fathers footsteps.
Julie is an expert cake decorator at the bakery in Dillon's
Supermarket. She and her husband Mark Gudenkauf and their two
children live across town. They didn't know of Gregg's death
until Orene phoned them just after the shooting. A little
later, Detective Dan Johnson was in the home. He listened to
the Seviers' side of their private and very personal phone
calls, informing family friends and relatives of their son's
sudden death. Testifying a week later, responding to his
interrogator's request for more and more intimate details,
Detective Johnson reported what he could remember of those phone
calls to the Coroner's Jury. "What did you hear? What did you
hear?" asked the eager District Attorney.
Soon after the shooting, the policemen took Judy and
Orene and Willie down to police headquarters for more than two
hours of intensive interrogation and searched their house for
evidence. At the urging of a Lawrence detective, Willie gave
his permission for that search of his home. "I have nothing to
hide," he said. Records show that Lawrence Police Department
personnel told Willie of their intent to search with or without
his permission. They removed several items from the house for
evidence. Evidence of what was never explained. The "evidence"
included the contents of two wastebaskets, a blood-soaked Indian
blanket, a spent bullet dug from the wall Judy's closet, and an
opened can of Coors Light beer. In case they might need it for
evidence in the future, the Police are still holding not only
those items, but Gregg's tooled leather belt as well. The one
with Gregg's name on it. The one with the bullet hole in
it.
Gregg Sevier's grandmother, Willie's mother, Pearl McNac
Sevier, still lives on the 160 acres of Oklahoma land that she
inherited from her mother in 1960, just outside Hitchita, nine
miles straight east of Wildcat Junction. She leases most of her
ranch land to local cattlemen. Gregg Sevier's body is buried
alongside Pearl's mother's grave in Pearl's front yard, in the
southeast corner of that tract. Pearl says she wasn't counting
people last April when Gregg's body was buried there, but she
estimates more than a hundred people attended his funeral.
Ben Beaver, of Morris, Oklahoma, a close friend of the
Sevier family who retired in 1979 from his career at Haskell,
made a speech in Creek language at Gregg's funeral. Translated
to English, it included these remarks:
"We're gathered together for this young man who lies before us.
I watched him grow from a tiny baby to a young man. I always
thought of him as my nephew. I gave him the nickname
'Hoss.' . . . And now, Gregg Hoss, I'll see you when it comes
evening. When the sun goes down. I'm crying now. Not for
Gregg, but for his mother and father. I know they have heavy
hearts."
Having heavy hearts is the heritage of the Creeks.
Fleeing northward from Cortez in 1519, they got settled in
Mississippi just in time to catch, and perish from, the strange
illnesses brought to them when De Soto and his men arrived in
1541. Those who survived settled farther to the east.
Nearly three centuries later, in 1836, President Andrew
Jackson, alleged author of the well known statement that "the
only good Indian is a dead Indian," reacted to crimes committed
by a small band of angry Creeks who had been pushed beyond
bearable limits. He ordered the Great Removal of the Five
Civilized Tribes from their corn fields and cotton farms and
towns in their homeland to Indian Territory. President Jackson
declared that this was to be the "final solution to the Indian
Problem." (A phrase to be paraphrased and echoed a century
later by a certain genocidal Aryan Fuehrer, a Caucasian gentile
of Nordic racial stock).
"Old Hickory's" wrath would not wait for spring.
In mid December his troops--the United States
Army--routed the Creeks from the warm climate of their homeland
and herded them westward. In the name of national security and
in violation of all the treaty provisions guaranteeing the
Indians federal protection for their life and property,
President Jackson ordered that everyone had to go. A
sympathetic observer in Little Rock, Arkansas watched them
passing and wrote:
"Thousands of them are entirely destitute
of shoes or cover of any kind for their feet; many of them are
almost naked, and but few of them have anything more on their
persons than a light dress calculated only for the summer, or
for a warm climate. In this destitute condition, they are
wading in cold mud, or are hurried on over the frozen ground, as
the case may be. Many of them have in this way had their feet
frostbitten; and being unable to travel, fall in the rear of the
main party, and in this way are left on the road to await the
ability or convenience of the contractors to assist them. Many
of them, not being able to endure this unexampled state of human
suffering, die, and are thrown by the side of the road, and are
covered over only with brush, etc., where they remain until
devoured by the wolves. It is now past the middle of December,
and the winter, though cold, is by no means at its worst stage,
and when the extreme of winter does fall upon these most
miserable creatures, in their present suffering and desperate
condition, the destruction of human life will be most
deplorable."
[Copied from "THE CREEKS" by Michael D. Green,
Dartmouth College, published by Chelsea House Publishers, New
York, a book I wholeheartedly recommend to interested
readers.]
Thus the forced march, the miserable migration, the
terrible trudging along the Trail of Tears, dragged on. In the
first quarter of the nineteenth century forty percent of the
Creek Indians perished. By 1850 their Nation in the east ceased
to exist.
Between 1837 and 1900 the land in the Creek Nation
in eastern Oklahoma was, following the Creeks' way of doing
things, held in common by all citizens of that Nation. After
the United States government disbanded the Creeks' Tribal
government, enumerated all Creeks and allotted 160 acres to each
person, many sold their land. Chitto Harjo, Ben Beaver's uncle,
was called "Crazy Snake" by White men. He led a group known as
the Snake Indians in opposing the allotment, citing illicitly
transformed treaties and broken promises. He lost. The State
of Oklahoma favored the allotment policy and the ensuing land
sale; once the land was sold, the State added all that
previously untaxed real estate to the State's tax rolls.
But Myrtle NcNac, Gregg Sevier's great grandmother, held on
to her allotted land and passed it on to her offspring. "The
White man sees the land as something he inherited from his
ancestors; to the Indians the land is a legacy to leave to their
children," I was told by a Kickapoo man in Lawrence.
In 1988, while Gregg Sevier was in his senior year at Sequoyah High
School in Tahlequah he visited his grandmother frequently. She
says he enjoyed hiking and hunting alone among the ancient oaks
and prolific pecan trees that cover the rolling hills of his
family's land. "He was a quiet boy. Never caused any
discipline problems," two of his former teachers told
me.
During my visit to Oklahoma in early December I visited
with Ben and Louise Beaver. They took me to Hitchita and we
went to Pearl's place. She showed me her mother's and her
grandson's graves.
"Gregory Allen Sevier
July 23, 1963--April 21, 1991
In God's Hands" says the engraved inscription on Gregg's gray
granite grave marker.
I looked at the cedar tree that grows in the ground beside the
graves. Like all the trees in the Creek Nation this one
sparkled that morning. The previous night's freezing drizzle
had coated it with a crisp crystal icy coat, and now the
boughs of that cedar tree glistened in the brilliant
sunlight. A few yards from the two graves an optimistic
blooming dandelion's golden petals gleamed through winter's icy
glaze. Tears welled up and flowed.
Pearl McNac Sevier's voice broke my moment of silence.
"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU UP TO?" she yelled, eyeing me with
suspicion and speaking in a tone that was incongruous with her
plump but diminutive stature. "Are you trying to exploit my
family's misfortune by writing a book for profit?" Ben Beaver
came to my rescue and explained that I really am a true friend
of the Seviers.
"Mom's suspicious of everybody," Willie told me later. "She lives
without a telephone, fearing that some stranger might listen to
her private conversations."
Seated around Pearl's dining table we ate cookies and talked
about language. Although Pearl is pure Creek, she has not
spoken the language since she was a small child. I asked her to
verify the translation of "Hitchita" and she declined,
speechless. Creek language was squelched by her teachers in the
elementary school she attended, in favor of English. Her
childhood home was not one of those that perpetuates the
language.
Like many American Indian languages, Muscogee (Creek) is in
danger of rapid extinction. Old timers like Ben Beaver and his
sister Sally Moore still converse in Creek, but only a handful
of younger folks learn it anymore. Gregg's mother told me that
her son was just beginning to show an interest in learning Creek
and Choctaw, an interest cut short by his untimely death.
Ben and Louise Beaver's son Tom is currently Director of Public
Information for Academic Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
While Tom was growing up he learned Creek from his father.
On finishing up his Master's Degree at the University of Kansas,
Tom satisfied the foreign language requirement by listing
English as his second language.
Some leaders among the Creeks favor saving their
language. Many of the posts that support the barbed wire fences
in the Creek Nation are currently decorated with red signs whose
white lettering urges the people to elect BEAVER for CHIEF.
Perry Beaver, that is; Ben Beaver's nephew. Perry Beaver lost
the election last fall because most of his votes were on
absentee ballots which, because of a technicality, were not
counted. One of the planks in Perry Beaver's platform called
for the teaching of the Creek language in the public schools.
He has faith in his culture's survival.
Returning to Lawrence it was plain to me that because of a
convergence of unfortunate circumstances, the faith of the
city's American Indian community is being undermined and
destroyed. Some of the 65,608 citizens of this city are
terrified. Others are angry, and many are quietly cautious.
Threatened with alienation from their "unalienable" rights to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, some of the people,
mostly members of "minority communities," are filled with a
growing terror that leads to frustration. Their frustration
is turning to rage. A request for justice from the Department
of Justice and the FBI is apparently ignored. A 911 plea for
police protection might be answered by a barrage of bullets.
The reliability of the Press is being questioned.
In some individuals, the rage has turned to a profound
emotional depression and a deep feeling of betrayal and
hopelessness accompanied by a loss of faith.
Disappointment and disillusion set in when they perceive that
the Press gives inaccurate information and when their cries for
help go unanswered.
The majority is secure and satisfied; the angry minority, the
fearful few, include the families and friends of young men who
have, in recent years, met their death either under mysterious,
suspicious, unexplained circumstances, or clearly and directly
at the hands of Lawrence Police Department personnel.
For them, it's more than a breach of
trust; for them it's now a matter of life and death.
Three of those American Indian youths' deaths are shrouded by a
cloak of mystery. That the victims' lives were terminated is an
indisputable fact. But how? And by whom? And when? Nobody
knows the precise hour of their death; nobody knows who their
killers were, and if anybody knows what scenes of horror the
eyes of those young men beheld in the final moments of their
lives, as they lay dying, no one has yet come forward to reveal
what they know.
Some members of the Lawrence American
Indian Community took Police Spokesman Chris Mulvenon's
observation and Police Chief Ron Olin's concurrence to mean that
the Lawrence Police Department personnel, representing the White
Community, viewed them as stereotyped Indian drunkards whose
drinking of alcohol puts them into self imposed lethally troublesome
situations.
According to the Official Records, an
autopsy showed that Christopher Bread, 19, (Kiowa/Cherokee), who
died on March 2, 1990, was the victim of a mysterious
hit-and-run automobile accident. Mysterious because his
injuries were said to be inconsistent with that kind of trauma.
Mysterious because the "vehicle" that killed him left no paint
chips or any other evidence common to vehicle pedestrian
collisions.
Another autopsy showed that the body of John
Sandoval, (Navaho), 19, five months after his disappearance, was
found in April, 1989, floating in the Kansas River, its
state of decomposition too far advanced for the Coroner to make
a determination of the exact cause of death.
Cecil Dawes, Jr., (Cheyenne/Arapaho/Creek/Seminole), 21, a
former West Point cadet whose father teaches at Haskell, did,
according to the Official Records, "drown" in the Kansas River
in October of that same year. The truth of these facts is known
because the authorities say it is so.
Any conflicting theories have their basis in rumor, speculation,
and conjecture.
And yet some of the survivors, living in this scene, are troubled
with serious questions, disturbing fears, and unsettling doubt. Some
of the people of Lawrence, Kansas feel a strong need to know who
is doing the killing, and why. They ask each other, with
well-founded apprehension, "Who will be next?"
As far as former District Attorney Jim Flory is concerned, however,
no shroud of doubt surrounded the homicide of Gregg Sevier. Mr.
Flory was summoned to the scene of Gregg's death shortly after
Police personnel transported Gregg's mother and father and
sister to the Lawrence Police Department, in the Law Enforcement
Center, to be interrogated. Later, he said he had not talked to
the officers who did the shooting and that he had no recall of
having met with Sergeant Wheeler, a witness to the deed.
Newspaper and TV news reports show that he and Police Chief Ron
Olin were in the Sevier house that morning. Those news accounts
reveal Mr. Flory's having observed the scene, arming himself
with ideas. Mr. Flory was soon able to tell the world, in his
own words, what he thought had happened there. Or what he had
been told about what had happened there. Nobody knows who told
him what to say. He does not recall having spoken with
witnesses.
Through his investigation, District Attorney Flory
could see that the circumstances of Gregg Sevier's killing held
no mystery. Unlike the unexplained death of the others, no
barrier to understanding existed in this case.
Mr. Flory knows how Gregg was killed, and he knows by whom.
He knows what time Gregg Sevier's death occurred, down to the
precise second, when two nine-millimeter Hydrashok bullets
criss-crossed in Gregg's heart and four other bullets plowed
through his center mass, one tearing a hole in his belt.
Although he has repeatedly questioned Gregg's meaning, Mr.
Flory even knows the last words that Gregg Sevier ever spoke.
He has not explained publicly why he chooses not to take those
words at face value. When Police personnel testified in the
Coroner's inquest that Gregg Sevier shouted, mere seconds before
dying, "I love you, Mom," Mr. Flory asked, "Did you have any
idea what he meant by that?"
Mr. Flory also knows that Orene Sevier responded to
her only son's last words by hollering down the narrow
hallway, past the three Police Officers, "Gregg, I love you
too."
Despite the loudness of the music and the "barked"
commands of Officers Ted Bordman and Jim Phillips, Orene is
confident that Gregg heard her words just before he died.
But when they think of how Gregg died, and what happened
then, some of the people of Lawrence, Kansas do harbor doubts.
Many of them know only what they see in the newspapers, or what
they see and hear on local television newscasts.
They know only that Gregg was suddenly sentenced to death and
was executed for resisting arrest, for refusing to obey the policemen's
orders, and for attacking Police personnel who say he "lunged"
at them.
They know, too, that the District Attorney conducted a
Coroner's Inquest and that the evidence presented there
convinced the Jury that the homicide was justified.
Incidentally they also know, from what they read in the papers,
that Gregg was an Indian, that he was armed with a large butcher
knife, and that he was too drunk to drive legally on Kansas
highways.
Others are sufficiently interested in the case to
delve into the Official Records. They continue to think about
certain differences between the information contained in those
records and what the Press has told them. Some can see that the
perception of the Press seems distorted, and they wonder why.
Because they have studied the documented facts, some
interested individuals have a clear idea about what Gregg
Sevier's blurred vision beheld at the moment of his death. They
can imagine how Gregg's eyes, their pupils dilated by the
darkness in his bedroom, their perception fogged by the high
level of alcohol in his blood, suddenly saw the brilliant glare
of Ted Bordman's flashlight.
They have no doubt that Gregg also saw, just above the glaring
flashlight, the muzzle of Ted Bordman's Sig Sauer
Nine-millimeter Semi-Automatic pistol.
Although the heavy-metal music blaring from Gregg's stereo
system was turned up LOUD, the survivors know that he must have
heard, in the dark, Ted Bordman's repeated command to "Drop The
Knife."
As Officer Bordman testified under oath at the
Coroner's Inquest a week after the shooting, he had no prior
knowledge of Gregg Sevier's past. He didn't even know his name.
He didn't know that Gregg, eight years earlier, as a juvenile,
at the age of fourteen, was charged with two counts of
Aggravated Assault On A Police Officer. Ted Bordman testified
under oath that he had never met Gregg before. Bruce Rodgers
quotes a portion of Mr. Bordman's testimony in his "Shot In The
Heart" article which is a part of this book. The full text is
in the Inquest transcript.
Many other events were occurring in Lawrence, Kansas on that
April night. Students at the University of Kansas were
celebrating the rites of spring with many parties. It was a
busy night for the personnel of the Lawrence Police Department.
A transcript of the taped record of Police communications
(Exhibit One) shows that Police Dispatcher
Anne Woods was up to her ears in police business.
Time is a vital element in public safety communication.
To those who are familiar with routine police procedures, it
seems unusual that the typed transcript of that taped record
omits or declares "inaudible" the exact time of each
transmission, while the recording machine itself shows the time
second by second. That omission detracts from the transcript's
value as a complete and accurate document.
The transcript was typed by Sergeant Kevin
Harmon, newly appointed to the job of Police Spokesman. Perhaps
the promised accreditation of the department will bring about
refinements in that type of task.
Police personnel throughout the city communicated with one
another that night. They kept the police radio channel busy as
they advised Anne Woods and their colleagues and supervisors of
their whereabouts and their activities. Officer Jim Phillips
told one of his fellow patrolmen to watch some people in the 900
block of Vermont Street who were "10-46" (intoxicated) and who
might try to drive their "old beat up" Chevy pickup. "If they
get in it you might want to have another talk with them,"
Officer Phillips said, as he departed to handle the call at the
Sevier residence.
But Orene and Willie Sevier were only aware that night of their deep
concern for two of their three adult children. Judy was
scheduled to go to work early the next morning at Packer
Plastics. Judy needed her sleep.
Gregg was drunk to a point that the American Medical
Association's Family Medical Guide (p36) describes as "Blurred
or double vision, loss of balance, greatly impaired mental
competence."
Gregg sat in the dark on the edge of his bed and listened to
his loud heavy metal music and contemplated the knife that he
held in his hand. He had no way of knowing that he was about to
be the focus of a heavily armed surprise attack. He had just
parted from his girlfriend and planned to see her again in a few
hours. He had hopes of getting a place where they could live
together.
A short time later, experts would measure precisely the
concentration of alcohol in Gregg's bloodstream. Still later,
expert testimony would show that Gregg had drunk enough beer to
put himself beyond the point where the drinker is exuberant or
belligerent. Gregg had been drinking pitchers and cans of beer
for hours. He had ingested so much alcohol that he was
unbalanced, partially blind, and mentally incompetent. He
just sat there. Holding the knife. Gregg needed
help.
For what it's worth, the Prosecuting Attorney, Douglas
County District Attorney Jim Flory, would emphasize the fact
that Gregg far too drunk to drive. Although an outsider, and a
layman, might view it as irrelevant in retrospect, Police
personnel officially requested the County Coroner, Carol
Moddrell, MD, to measure Gregg's blood-alcohol level during
the course of the autopsy, and she did that.
Kansas law (KSA 22A237) requires that procedure in cases where the victim
of an accident died in the wreck of an air, land, or water
vehicle. But Gregg Sevier's death was not accidental; he was
not piloting an aircraft; he was not driving a motor vehicle; he
was not steering a boat; it is clear that he died in his home,
just outside his bedroom door, of six gunshot wounds, at least
two of them definitely lethal.
They asked for the blood alcohol analysis anyway.
Mr. Flory was thorough in his prosecutorial investigation and
in his orderly presentation of evidence; when he had the County
Coroner on the witness stand in the Coroner's Inquest, he made a
point of asking her to tell the Coroner's Jury how drunk Gregg
was that he was too drunk to drive.
"With respect to the blood alcohol analysis," Mr.
Flory said, "did you receive a lab result on the blood alcohol
concentration of Gregg Sevier?"
Dr. Carol Moddrell, Douglas County Coroner, a duly sworn witness
at her own Coroner's Inquest. said, "Yes, I did."
"Could you tell us what that was, please?"
"It was point two seven eight percent."
"And in Kansas," Mr. Flory said, "an intoxication with
respect to driving is what level?"
"Point one," said the Coroner. Thus the District Attorney made
one point. Gregg Sevier too drunk to drive.
Police Dispatcher Anne Woods had answered Mrs. Sevier's 911 call
promptly. "Emergency Dispatch," she said. She heard the calm,
clear response to the vital questions of Who?, Where?, What?,
and Why? Anne Woods absorbed that information and transmitted
it to the District Officer, Ted Bordman. "The mother advising
her 22-year-old son is in his bedroom. He has a butcher knife,"
Anne Woods said. And, still repeating Orene's words, she said,
"There has been no arguing at the residence."
Ted Bordman said, "10-4."
Then Anne Woods ordered Jim Phillips, the roving back-up Officer, to
assist Ted. Officer Phillips advised her that he was at 9th and
Vermont. To make sure that he had heard right, he repeated the
address of the Sevier family's home and headed in that
direction. The Shift Supervisor, Sergeant George Wheeler,
remarking that this was a routine call that held a potential for
trouble, headed toward the Sevier residence also.
Help was on the way.
The two Police Officers wasted no time. On
arrival, Officer Bordman saw Willie standing in the driveway.
He paused only long enough to ask which bedroom Gregg was in.
"Gregg's been drinking," Orene said, as Ted Bordman rushed past
her. He found Gregg Sevier behind a locked door, in the privacy
of his own bedroom, listening to his music. To keep Gregg from
harming himself, he and Officer Phillips attacked him with their
weapons and in less than five minutes they killed him. They
shot him six times, in full view of his parents and (according
to testimony) in the overseeing presence of their Shift
Supervisor, Sergeant George Wheeler.
Officer Phillips and Sergeant Wheeler wrote reports of the
incident on that Sunday morning. Those statements were
exhibited to the Coroner's Jury. Officer Bordman, however, was
said to be "too distraught" to make such a report. All the Jury
got from him was his week-old oral testimony, a testimony that
has been described as confused and uncertain. [Please see
Appendix B]
Officer Bordman's behavior at the home of the Sevier family
clearly indicates that somehow, while driving there, he must
have decided that Gregg was armed. A week later, he testified
that he was told that Gregg was armed. Mr. Flory is quoted many
times by the Press as saying that Gregg was armed. Despite
Orene Sevier's having stated that there had been no arguing at
the residence, city officials speak of the case as a "domestic
dispute." The focus seems to have been on the knife, and not on
Gregg's life.
Ideas generate words, and words sometimes govern behavior.
The idea of facing a formidable adversary generates words like
Armed Aggressor, Aggravated Assault, Attacking Assailant.
Bellicose belligerence begets bizarre behavior.
"Language, symbolism, metaphors tell us a lot," said Mr. Daniel
R. Wildcat to the City Commission. He was talking my language.
"I'd like to meet Dan Wildcat," I said. That was on a hot day in
late July. My friend and I were watching a videotape of the May
12 City Commission meeting where Mr. Wildcat and other
authoritative concerned citizens spoke to the Commission and to
the public about important and disturbing community issues.
[Please see Appendix C]
To a visitor from Hawaii, land of brown skinned and suntanned
people, Dan Wildcat looked White. There was little contrast
between the colorlessness of his pale face and the color of the
white shirt he wore. I learned later that Dan Wildcat is a
Yuchi Indian, but to me, seeing him for the first time on that
videotape, the only visible "Indian" feature about him was his
long black hair. A lock of that hair had escaped capture by his
ponytail holder. It kept falling down over his left ear as he
spoke, and absently he kept brushing it back as he went on
speaking, seriously intent on communicating with the
Commissioners.
On the last day of July my friend and I found Dan Wildcat in the
Library at Haskell. I told him of my admiration for his speaking
ability and said I was thinking of writing something about the Gregg
Sevier case. Briefly we discussed the problem of Racism in
Lawrence and its link with the way that case was handled.
"There is one person in Lawrence who knows more about that case
than anyone else," said Dan Wildcat. "Her name is Cynthia
Butler. Here's her phone number."
On the first day of August I met Cynthia Butler at the Paradise
Cafe on Massachusetts Street. Some say she's a fanatic; others
call her a crusader. She claims police harassment has resulted
from her intense and probing interest in the Sevier case.
Her letters speak volumes.
[Please see Appendix B]
Much of the contents of this book is
the result of the courageous, dedicated and untiring effort of
Cynthia Butler. She deserves enormous credit for her selfless
work in collecting documents and in boldly questioning
questionable procedures. The information she gathered comprises
the bulk of this book.
Cynthia Butler pointed out to me that
Police Dispatcher Anne Woods was apparently the only person who
wondered why Gregg had the knife. ANNE WOODS........O.K.,
why does he have the knife? Do you know? Gregg's mother
assumed that the knife had some connection with her son's
personal problems. Officer Ted Bordman assumed that Gregg
intended to use the knife as a weapon in an armed attack on a
police officer. Officer Jim Phillips assumed that Gregg was
suicidal.
Mr. Flory assumed, or was told, that Gregg was an
armed assailant who intended to use the large butcher knife as a
lethal weapon in an armed attack an aggravated assault on a Police
Officer.
No evidence has come to light to show that
Gregg had any such intent, but by the time the week was out,
Officer Phillips had changed his mind and agreed with Mr. Flory
that Gregg had been armed with a weapon.
Sergeant George Wheeler assumed nothing of the sort; he
understood the simple facts correctly: that Gregg was in his
bedroom with a knife and that his mother wanted an officer to
talk to him. But George Wheeler got there too late.
Gregg was already dying within seconds after Sergeant Wheeler's
arrival. He never had a chance to talk to him.
Interrogating Mr. Dan Lehr, an Instructor
from the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, Mr. Flory
continued with his theme of armed aggression. Throughout the
Inquest, Mr. Flory's questions seem to say more than the
witnesses' testimony says.
MR. FLORY TO DAN LEHR:
Q. What training do the officers going through the academy receive
in confronting armed assailants, people that are armed with
weapons?
A. I'm sorry, I'm not clear on you want me to line
out from
Q. Just generally when a person goes through the
academy, receives their police training, do they receive any
training in how to deal with armed assailants?
A. Yes, they do.
Early in the Inquest, Mr. Flory introduced three ideas
that he considered important: Weapons, alcohol, and Indians. He
planted those ideas in the Jurors' minds by saying,
"There's a likelihood that evidence you will hear involves the
use of alcoholic beverages. Just like handguns, some people have very
strong feelings about alcoholic beverages. Does anyone on the
panel have very strong feelings against the use of alcoholic
beverages? If so, please raise your hand."
No response.
He also said, "Some people have very strong feelings about
handguns. Does anyone on the panel have very strong feelings
about handguns and whether private individuals should have
handguns? Okay, I need to get these down . . ." And he
said, "I indicated that this involves a confrontation between
police officers that were armed with handguns and another
individual who was armed with a knife."
An erroneous assertion that Gregg had a gun was in the TV newscast
(Joan Carlson, Channel 49, Topeka, ten p.m., April 22, 1991)
where the newly appointed Police Spokesman, Sergeant Kevin
Harmon, was clearly quoted as saying, "Gregg was armed with a
gun and it was unknown whether or not he had fired at the
officers."
In his testimony, Ted Bordman did mention a gun one
other time, but his testimony might have been influenced by his
understandably distraught mental state.
MR. FLORY TO TED BORDMAN:
Q. Now, once you actually had your weapon drawn and
trained on Gregg Sevier did you consider him at least
constructively under arrest? Was he free to go at that
point?
A. Once he pulled the gun out, or I'm, excuse me,
pulled the knife out and had produced it and was aiming it he
was probably going to be under arrest for aggravated assault on
a law enforcement officer.
In fact, Gregg had no gun; the only guns used the only guns
present in the incident were the
service pistols of the Police Officers. Mr. Flory also said
to the Jury panel, "Okay. One matter that you will learn as the
evidence progresses is that Mr. Gregg Sevier is a Native
American. Do any of the members of the panel belong to any
organization or association relating to Native Americans? If
so, raise your hand." No hands were raised.
The Autopsy Report, a part of the evidence exhibited to the
Coroner's Jury, makes the idea of Gregg's race very clear: "Dr.
Moddrell was notified at 4:30 a.m., April 21, 1991, that an Indian male
had been shot at his residence. She arrived at the scene, 1627
E. 18th St. Terr., at 4:55 a.m. and was escorted by Patrolman
Polson to a back bedroom where there was an Indian male on his
back in a doorway."
Mr. Flory did point out also that the
Jury must disregard anything he might say that would tend to
influence their verdict. Thus he ensured the Jury's unbiased
fairness and impartiality.
In a sense, all of us are guilty,
but Ted Bordman and Jim Phillips, the two "shootists," were held
blameless. As nearly as can be determined by an outside
investigator, they were never reprimanded for killing Gregg
Sevier; on the contrary, they were given a long Administrative
Leave with pay, after which they resumed the routine of their
profession.
The Chief of Police told the Press that an
internal investigation had been concluded and that its results
would not be made public because it involved Police Personnel.
Armed with the tools of their trade and reinforced by
their up-to-date training those Police Personnel still patrol
the streets of Lawrence, Kansas; the public can assume that they
still respond when troubled citizens call for help by dialing
911.
The issue of Racism was not mentioned until the very
end of my recent conversation with a randomly chosen
receptionist in a Lawrence industrial firm. She had been
telling me the story of the Gregg Sevier case.
"As a citizen of Lawrence and the single mother of a 12 year old boy," I
asked her, "would you be afraid to call 911 if there were an
emergency in your own home?"
"Of course not," she said. "I'm White." Mr. Jim Flory
presented an organized chain of evidence to an unbiased
Coroner's Jury a week after Gregg's death. His preliminary
questioning of the panel showed that
although all of the jurors had heard of the case through the
Press, none of them had talked with relatives or witnesses.
Orene Sevier says that many of her friends, trying to help,
wrote Letters to the Editor of the Lawrence Journal-World. Most
of the letters criticized the police for shooting Gregg and many
of them found fault with the way the family was treated during
the four hours immediately following the shooting. Those
letters, based on her own eyewitness account of the shooting and
the ensuing events, were apparently rejected by the Editor; they
never appeared in print. One can assume that the Journal World
judiciously avoided fanning the flames of racial controversy in
the Lawrence Community.
The Coroner's Jury, relying only on the evidence and testimony
presented by Mr. Flory, declining the
Seviers' invitations to view the actual crime scene, deliberated
for two hours and sixteen minutes and rendered a verdict of
Justifiable Homicide.
According to Mr. Flory, the Jurors'
mention of concerns about the handling of the case would become
a part of the Official Records. But in his professional
opinion, those concerns were irrelevant to the Jury's official
function and therefore those concerns, along with his own
influence on their thinking, should be disregarded.
Arranging and directing the Justification of the Homicide of
Gregg Sevier was one of the last important tasks Jim Flory
handled before moving on to the next level of his career.
As a proven practitioner of the art of sophistry Mr. Flory
made an orderly application of Invention, Disposition, Style,
and Delivery, Aristotle's Canons of Rhetoric. He demonstrated
his proficiency at effective expression, argumentation, and the
persuasive use of language. Mr. Flory won the Jury over to
his way of thinking and showed the world that Gregg
Sevier's homicide was justifiable. The words he chose to
utter in describing the incident to the Press, his arrangement
of the elements of the Coroner's Inquest, his prosecutorial
methods all point to the guilt of the Seviers and the innocence
of the Police.
With a rumble resembling thunder, or the
relentless rhythm of a tom-tom on the warpath, the pounding pulse
of the heart of America, Mr. Flory drummed home his points,
justifying the homicide.
On April 23, 1991, at 8:30 a.m., in a meeting attended by Don
Bread, Willie Sevier, Orene Sevier, Judy Hoffman, Julie
Gudenkauf, Mark Gudenkauf, attorney Ronald
Schneider, Doctor Carol Moddrell, and others, Mr. Flory
indicated that his mind was made up on that point. People who
tape recorded the meeting and made written notes remember his
saying that, and the next day he declared that his words were
taken out of context.
Shortly after the Inquest Jim Flory
accepted his new post as Assistant U. S. Attorney in Kansas
City.
Mrs. Donna Flory, Jim's wife, was a leader of the
Lawrence Indian Center's Advisory Board for years. Charlene
Kelley Johnson, Director of the Center, describes Mrs. Flory in
glowing terms: "Donna was one of the best Advisory Board members
we ever had. Her resignation from the Board in the spring of
1991 was probably linked to her husband's having moved to a
different job," she said.
In a public hearing on May 12, 1991, Mayor Bob Walters said,
"Initiatives now in place have to do first with an investigation
that is being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
which is being directed by the U. S. Attorney of the claim that
Gregg Sevier's civil rights were violated. This represents an
outside independent investigation of the circumstances of his
death caused by officers of the Lawrence Police Department."
"And there can be someone from the outside that's really from
the inside, and this is troublesome to those that already have a
sense or feeling that it's all going to be swept under the table,"
said the Reverend Mr. William A. Dulin, President of the Ecumenical
Fellowship and pastor of the Calvary Church of God in Christ.
People are beginning to see that the shooting of Gregg
Sevier is just one more slap in the face, one more kick in the
teeth to the downtrodden, defeated victim, one more teardrop in
the long Trail of Tears.
The details of the Trail of Tears
and certain other distasteful deeds committed by my White
compatriots were deleted from the History that I was
taught in the public schools I attended. During my recent tour
of Mainland China, my Chinese friend Yang Chi Chong proudly
showed me what remains there of the elements of his rich
cultural heritage. With an unusual degree of passion he told me
of the vicious pillage, murder, robbery, and grand larceny
unleashed on the Chinese people in the nineteenth century by a
warlike band of Western outlaws that included official military
representatives of the Governments of Britain, France, Belgium,
Germany, . . . and the United States of America. Such
atrocities were never mentioned in the History I was taught in
school. My friend told me that he himself has seen some of the
loot on display in the museums of London and other European
capitals. His anger grew so intense that I felt compelled to
defend myself to deny involvement. Of course he was not accusing
me personally, but I felt the guilt of my race as if it were my
own.
"I didn't do it," I yelled.
In the 1830s the State of Alabama made a special law regarding
the Creek Indians: They could be arrested and sued in the
courts, but they could not testify in their own defense. Lance
Burr, attorney for the Seviers, was told that if he tried to
cross-examine inquest witnesses he would be barred from the
courtroom.
Enterprising money wise contractors in the 1830s helped our
federal government implement the Removal of the Creeks by using
cheap, unseaworthy boats for ferrying herds of Creek Indians
across the Mississippi River.
The Monmouth was one of those boats. Driven up the
downstream channel of the river by a drunken crew, it collided
with the Trenton and sank. Only fifty percent of the six
hundred human beings on the Monmouth survived, many of them
maimed for life by the scalding steam from the boat's bursting
boilers.
When we learn of the crimes against humanity
committed in the name of national security and westward
expansion by our ancestors, our countrymen, our brethren, we
want to yell, "I didn't do it!"
When the White Community of
Lawrence, Kansas knows the truth about the shooting of Gregg
Sevier and the others, and yells, "I didn't do it!" perhaps the
people will make a decision to take whatever steps are necessary
to prevent its happening again.
All are doing the best they
can. They are searching for effective ways to insure their own
safety, peace of mind, and quality of life. They vigorously
strive to eliminate the threat of death for themselves and their
posterity.
Some of the characters in this struggle have
positions of power. With their education and their training,
and their inherited culture, and with their justified use of
deadly force, they will probably continue to be more
successful than the others. But there is always hope that their
attitudes will change and they will see that equal success is
sufficient. Outside help from a Higher Power is desperately
needed.
Willie Sevier is not seeking vengeance, which is not
an attainable goal in human affairs, but justice, which is
attainable and is worth the seeking. The burden of cause and
consequence is outside the realm of human control. It is an
inescapable fact of life. Without evil intent, we commit evil
deeds, and the results come home to haunt us. We may repent,
and a load is lifted from our soul. But by repenting we have
not escaped our deeds. We may attain forgiveness, but cause and
effect continue to work on our conscience. For the rest of our
our lives we may continue to reap the repented deed's results.
That is not a system of ethics; it is the law of life, which is
even more fixed in the universe than any laws of mankind. It
stays in our experience as long as the creeks and rivers flow
and as long as the grass grows. This real-life drama has the
same meaning for all participants: Survival. This
eloquent excerpt from Creek Indian oratory was quoted by
historian Angie Debo. It is worth repeating. "The vitality
of our race still persists. We have not lived for naught. We
are the original discoverers of this continent, and the
conquerors of it from the animal kingdom, and on it first taught
the arts of peace and war, and first planted the institutions of
virtue, truth and liberty.
The European Nations found us here
and were made aware that it was possible for men to exist and
subsist here. We have given to the European people on this
continent our thought forces the best blood of our ancestors
having intermingled with that of their best statesmen and
leading citizens. We have made ourselves an indestructible
element in their national history. We have shown that what they
believed were arid and desert places were habitable and capable
of sustaining millions of people. We have led the vanguard of
civilization in our conflicts with them for tribal existence
from ocean to ocean. The race that has rendered this service to
the other nations of mankind cannot utterly perish.
The White man took a stick and drew a
small circle in the sand. "This is what the Indian
knows," he said. He drew a much larger circle and he said,
"This is what the White man knows. "The Indian drew a much
larger circle that enclosed both. And the Indian said,
"This is what nobody knows."
Will Rogers said, "We will never have true civilization until
we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
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