Trans-Mississippi Exposition

Will Leverett, by starting his magazine The Trans-Mississippian, latched his wagon onto the Trans-Mississppi Exhibition at Omaha in 1989. His magazine would run through the exhibition and talk about all its features. Through this he became the organ or showcase for a lot of converging stars in the American West at that time.

The Indian Congress was held at the same time and featured people from many of the various tribes. The purpose was to have a cultural exchange and to show the people the lifestyles of the Native Americans, who were popularly called Indians or sometimes Aborigines. The people in general were more interested in being entertained. Ghost Dances were the most popular, even though Wounded Knee, a massacre at a ghost dance, had just happened a few years earlier.

Geronimo, who was a prisoner, was brought in along with the guards who were assigned to watch him. He was a spectacle because he was really the fiercest, most violent, and last symbol of the resistance against US Government takeover of native lands. Now, in 1898, he was beaten, a shadow of his former self, and if you asked him, he'd tell you that he never intended to surrender unconditionally, and if he did, he never should have done it. But it was too late; he was a prisoner, and would never be unwatched from then on.

Another character who came to the Exhibition was Wild Bill Cody, who traveled with a show of his own, that brought the West to people who were unfamiliar with it. He had been very successful in Europe toward the end of the Indian Wars, and, during the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, had held his own independent exhibition near it, when its organizers declined to invite him. Now, in 1898, with his career as an entertainer almost over, he was invited to Omaha in hopes that he would revive it.

I dug up his autobiography and found to my surprise that his account of his life as a performer was only the last chapter of a very long book. He had moved to Kansas as a child and actually spent part of his youth learning the Kickapoo language and talking about what was happening out on the plains. Much later, after having been drawn into a few battles between soldiers and various tribes, it occurred to him to go into entertaining, and give the impressions of the wild west to people who really didn't understand it. He was most successful in Europe; in places like Chicago people already had well-worn impressions of the cowboys and Indians, though they too appreciated a little dramatic gunfight here and there. It was easy enough for him to procure the proper outfits for the people who played the various roles. Some of the Native Americans who went with him on tours to Europe died of pneumonia or some other thing, while they were over there, showing that the touring life was not for everyone. Or maybe it showed that people on tours, in various hotels in random cities, tend to drink too much.

Another major visitor was William McKinley, who had his own agenda; he was pushing internationalism, American involvemnt overseas and what would become the Spanish-American War. I have yet to read up on this. But apparently the West, namely Council Bluffs / Omaha / the Dakotas / Nebraska, was generally hostile to both European involvement and overseas activism; they had to be won over. This would carry into the Great War when they were also generally opposed to US entry into the war. He may have had a tough crowd to persuade, but maybe some of the audience were from the Indian Congress.