“One of Our Best Specimens of Character in Our Race": Nipo Strongheart and the Politics of Ethnic Performance in the New Era

Nipo Strongheart, a “mixed-blood” Yakama, spent more than forty years representing Native Americans on the lecture circuit, in the movie industry, and in the pan-Indian movement for citizenship and sovereignty.  He was most active during the 1920s, a time of ferment in public debates over the boundaries of national belonging and the nation’s “Indian problem.”  Traveling the country as a Chautauqua speaker and a field representative for the Society of American Indians, Strongheart reported on reservation conditions and gathered petitions in favor of Indian citizenship.  He then used those experiences to sharpen his critique of the “Indian Bureau System” and inspire his listeners to urge reform.  Although his speeches irritated the Indian Office, he received enthusiastic praise from white audiences, and SAI Secretary Thomas Bishop proudly called him “one of our best specimens of character in our race.”  Strongheart also carried his crusade to Hollywood, where he became one of the first Native American technical advisors and helped write the 1925 film Brave Heart, a melodrama based on the Yakama Nation’s fight to defend its treaty fishing rights.  By producing alternative images and serving as a spokesman for Native peoples, Strongheart hoped to transcend the problematic tropes of Noble Savagery and Vanishing Indians that still dominated public discourse in the “New Era.”  Like many Red Progressives, however, he often found it necessary to “play Indian” in order to attract audiences and satisfy their expectations.  His early career thus affords a rare opportunity for detailed exploration of the contradictions, dilemmas, and paradoxes that accompanied Native performers’ efforts to transform popular discourses that simultaneously empowered and entrapped them.  This paper uses Strongheart’s life story, and the stories he told about Indians, to explore the intersection of activism and entertainment during a pivotal period in the development of modern American culture and citizenship.