| Dennison Wheelock | |
|---|---|
 Dennison Wheelock, c.1914 | |
| Born | June 14, 1871 Oneida Nation of Wisconsin |
| Died | March 10, 1927 |
| Education | Carlisle Indian School, Dickinson Preparatory School |
| Era | Progressive era |
| Known for | Musician, composer, conductor, lawyer, Native American activist |
| Children | Richard Edmund Wheelock, Paul Wheelock, Leeland Lloyd Wheelock, Louise Frances Wheelock. |
| Parent(s) | James A. Wheelock (father) Sophia Doxtator (mother) |
Dennison Wheelock (June 14, 1871 – March 10, 1927) was an Oneida band conductor, composer, and cornet soloist. Wheelock was the most prominent Indian American band leader of the turn of the century and was nominated to serve as the bandmaster of the United States Marine Band. At the age of 40 he became an American Indian rights activist and attorney, and within several years was arguing cases for Indian nations at the United States Court of Claims and US Supreme Court.
Wheelock was born in the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. He went to Pennsylvania to be educated at the Carlisle Indian School, returning later for study at Dickinson Preparatory School. Wheelock was appointed as the first Oneida bandmaster of the internationally acclaimed Carlisle Indian School Band, which performed at world fairs, expositions, and presidential inaugurals. While at the school, he composed the Sousa-inspired "Carlisle Indian School March." In 1900 he debuted his three-part symphony, Aboriginal Suite, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
In 1911 Wheelock was among the 50 founding members of the Society of American Indians, the first national American Indian rights organization developed and run by American Indians. He had read the law and passed the bar that year, practicing first in Wisconsin. As he represented more Indian nations in his practice, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he represented them in actions against the government in the United States Court of Claims and the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1980, to honor him and the celebrated Carlisle Indian Band, Dennison Wheelock's Bandstand was reconstructed on the site of the original at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Early life
Dennison Wheelock was born June 14, 1871, in the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, second child of James A. Wheelock and Sophia Doxtator. He had an older brother Charles and a total of eight other brothers and sisters, and half-siblings. Dennison grew up impoverished, with the Oneida farm community facing pressures to harvest its timber and a federal push for the allotment of tribal lands to individual households. Dennison followed Charles in playing the cornet. He was impressed by a visiting Tuscarora musician, who taught the youth music reading and simple composition for several months. Dennison also heard the popular band music of John Philip Sousa at Wisconsin fairs. Locally, the Oneida Union Band and the Oneida National Band were prominent in community events and throughout the Midwest.
Carlisle Indian School
In January 1884 at age 13, Wheelock wrote to Captain Richard Henry Pratt, Superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School, referring to his "limited musical education" and budding interest in music. In 1885, Wheelock enrolled in the Carlisle Indian School to study under Pratt. Hamilton-Oneida Academy, now Hamilton College, was a seminary founded in 1793 by Presbyterian Samuel Kirkland as part of his missionary work with the Oneida in New York State, their traditional territory.
In June 1890, Dennison graduated from Carlisle. He returned to Oneida, Wisconsin, where he worked as a teacher and a justice of the peace, before returning to Carlisle within a year. With Pratt's recommendation, he enrolled in the nearby Dickinson Preparatory School. Dickinson College provided Carlisle Indian students with access to college-level education through the Dickinson Preparatory School ("Conway Hall"). Dennison attended Dickinson Preparatory school from 1891 to 1892. In 1892, Pratt appointed Dennison as Carlisle's bandmaster
Music at Carlisle
During the Progressive Era, from the late 19th century until the onset of World War I, Native American performers were major draws and money-makers. Millions of visitors at world fairs, exhibitions, and parades throughout the United States and Europe saw Native Americans portrayed as the vanishing race, exotic peoples, and objects of modern comparative anthropology. Reformers and Progressives fought a war of words and images against the popular Wild West shows at world fairs, expositions and parades. They opposed theatrical portrayals of Wild Westers as vulgar heathen stereotypes. In contrast, Carlisle students were portrayed as a new generation of Native American leadership embracing civilization, education and industry.
Development of the Carlisle music program was funded mainly by band members and private donations. Around 1879, a visiting philanthropist from Boston reported hearing "tom-toms" and Indian singing in the dormitories. Pratt preferred that the "tom-toms" stopped, but said, "It wouldn't be fair to do unless I can give them something else as good, or better, on the same line. If you will give me a set of brass instruments, I will give them to the "tom-tom boys" and they can toot on them, and this will stop the "tom-tom." The philanthropist subsequently provided the school with brass instruments.
While classical European music was emphasized at Carlisle, the students also sang and drummed traditional tribal music in their dormitories. They played samples of such music at assembly and local community programs. Later, Wheelock featured American Indian music with classical European music in his opera, Aboriginal Suite.
Carlisle Indian Band
Pratt established the Carlisle Indian School band in 1880. Dennison was the first American Indian bandmaster at Carlisle before being succeeded by his brother James. Under the leadership of Dennison Wheelock and James Wheelock, the Carlisle Indian Band earned an international reputation of musical excellence. The Carlisle Indian Band performed at world fairs, expositions, concert venues and at every national presidential inaugural celebration until the school closed. During this period, Dennison continued to create compositions outside of the band, including a symphony.
Marriage
Louise LaChapelle (Wheelock), a Chippewa from the White Earth Reservation in northwestern Minnesota, arrived as a student at Carlisle two years earlier than Dennison. They met, courted, married and had four children. Richard Edmund Wheelock, Paul Wheelock, Leeland Lloyd Wheelock and Louise Frances Wheelock. Their first two children were born in Carlisle.
Captain Richard Henry Pratt
Captain Pratt was Dennison's mentor and school father, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was Dennison's second-home. Wheelock corresponded with Pratt for over 35 years and confided in each other throughout their lives. Wheelock had affection for Pratt, his wife and Carlisle. Wheelock shared Pratt's views. Both saw federal Indian boarding schools as a temporary educational formula to "uplift" the Indians, and called for the abolishment of Indian reservations and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They focused upon the release of Indians from federal control, full citizenship, equal opportunity and education in public schools. Wheelock and Pratt had little faith in the efficacy of the Society of American Indians to make real changes, since they believed that the organization had too many BIA bureaucrats, naïve reformers from the Indian Rights Association another "paper shooters." From 1921 to 1922, Captain Pratt lobbied President Warren G. Harding to nominate Wheelock to be Commissioner of Indian affairs.
James Riley Wheelock
Under the leadership of Dennison Wheelock and James Wheelock, the Carlisle Indian Band earned an international reputation of musical excellence. James Riley Wheelock was a younger brother of bandmaster Dennison Wheelock and graduated from Carlisle in 1896. Like Dennis, James attended the prestigious Dickinson College Preparatory School after completing his Carlisle studies. When Dennison resigned as Bandmaster in 1900, James succeeded him. In 1903, James studied music and his specialty, clarinet, in Leipzig, Germany.
In 1914, the Harrisburg Telegraph reported that James Riley Wheelock, director of the Enola Band, was performing in clarinet solos and was one of the best clarinet players in Pennsylvania. During World War I, Wheelock was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, where he conducted a black regimental band. After the war, he conducted the famous U.S. Indian Band and others well into the 1920s.
Wheelocks at Carlisle
The Wheelocks were likely the first family of Carlisle Indian School, because there were so many of them, and they were mentioned prominently in Carlisle publications. The Oneida people from Wisconsin and New York was one of the largest contingents of Indians at Carlisle, and only the Lakota, Chippewas and Senecas had more students. Between 1885 and 1917, over five hundred Oneida students attended Carlisle. Of Wheelock's nine brothers, half-brothers, sisters and half sisters, only two-his oldest brother Charles, who also played the cornet, and his youngest half-brother, Harrison did not attend. In addition, several of his first and second cousins were enrolled at the school.
International fame
Carlisle Indian Band
In the early years of the 20th century, Wheelock was compared to John Philip Sousa, and even nominated to be his successor as bandmaster of United States Marine Band. Wheelock relished Sousa's music, known for American march music.
The Aboriginal Suite
In 1897, Wheelock traveled around the country recruiting musicians for a 70-piece, all-Indian student band to expand the Carlisle Indian Band as a new U.S. Indian Band. During this time, he completed his Aboriginal Suite, a full symphony in three parts: "Morning on the Plains", "The Lovers Song" and "Dance of the Red Men." Wheelock planned to perform this symphony at the Paris Exposition of 1900 and the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, New York. Wheelock was thought to be influenced by the music of European composer Edvard Grieg.
On March 28, 1900, Wheelock and the U.S. Indian Band performed his Aboriginal Suite at Carnegie Hall, a prestigious venue in New York City. A reviewer for Metronome reported that the concert was part of "a series being given by the organization prior to its departure for Paris, where it will demonstrate a new development in Indian civilization." The band also played selections from Gounod's opera Faust (opera) and Meyerbeer's The Huguenots. The response to the concert was overwhelmingly positive: "A large and genuinely enthusiastic audience greeted the reservation musicians, forcing them to respond to repeated encores."
Wheelock said in an interview,
The original Indian music is a strange thing. It is devoid of harmony, but the melody and time are there, and it is easily harmonized. Some great critics say that our aboriginal music is the same as played by all primitive people world over. Chinese music itself is built on the same principle and I am planning out the composition called the evolution of music. I hope to show the growth of harmony. First, so many musicians will come out in Indian costume, play some primitive melody. Others will follow playing something more advanced, and so on until the whole band is on stage and we are rendering the best grand opera.
Six weeks later, Wheelock's 10-month-old son Paul died in Carlisle. he and Louise were grief-stricken, and the school canceled the band's appearance in Paris. In tribute to Wheelock, the National Band of France played the Aboriginal Suite for him.
Haskell Indian School
In 1900, after his son died at Carlisle, Wheelock resigned his post to move his career elsewhere. He worked as a newspaperman in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and then a disciplinarian at the U.S. Indian School at Flandreau, South Dakota. Wheelock performed as guest bandmaster at Willow Grove Park, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This premier venue featured Sousa and his band at the music pavilion every year but one between 1901 and 1926. On one occasion, Wheelock drew 70,000 people to a concert. He was later awarded a gold medal and a silver cup for his brilliant conducting.
In 1903, Wheelock was appointed bandmaster of Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas, where his efforts were nationally acclaimed. In March 1904, a review in Metronome called the band an "up-to-date aggregation of capable musicians trained in every respect for high-class concert work." "Besides performing "their own quaint Indian songs they played Gounod, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Wagner".
In 1904, Wheelock's Haskell Indian Band performed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, known as the St. Louis World's Fair. The band performed a mixture of classical and popular music, and Wheelock's Aboriginal Suite. This included Native dances and war whoops by band members. The Carlisle Indian Band also performed at the Pennsylvania state pavilion.
That year Captain Pratt was forced out of his post as superintendent at Carlisle by BIA officials. His network of philanthropists stopped donating to American Indian music, and Wheelock faced a financial struggle. He was supporting an aging father, numerous siblings, wife and son. He resigned from Haskell to seek better-paying employment.
Society of American Indians
Wheelock was among the 50 founders in 1911 of the Society of American Indians (1911-1923), the first national American Indian rights organization developed and run by American Indians. The Society pioneered 20th-century Pan-Indianism, the philosophy and movement promoting unity among American Indians regardless of tribal affiliation. The Society was a forum for a new generation of American Indian leaders known as Red Progressives: they were mostly prominent professionals from the fields of medicine, nursing, law, government, education, anthropology, ethnology and ministry. They shared an enthusiasm and faith in the inevitability of progress through education and governmental action. The Society met at academic institutions, maintained a Washington headquarters, conducted annual conferences, and published a quarterly journal of literature by American Indian authors. The Society promoted an "American Indian Day", and led the fight for Indians to have United States citizenship. It lobbied to have U.S. Court of Claims available to hear cases of all tribes and bands in United States.
The Society of American Indians was the forerunner of modern organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians. It anticipated important Indian reforms: a major reorganization of the Indian school system in the late 1920s, the codification of Indian law in the 1930s, and the opening of the U.S. Court of Claims to all Indian nations in the 1940s.
Petition to President Woodrow Wilson
In October 1914, Wheelock hosted the society's 1914 annual convention in Madison, Wisconsin. In December 1914, the society met in Washington, D.C., where its members received a first-class reception from the federal government. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Cato Sells welcomed them to the nation's capital, where they toured the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He arranged for a visit to the White House to meet with President Woodrow Wilson.
Wheelock presented the president with the society's petition asking for appointment of a three-member commission to gain US citizenship for American Indians, and for broadening jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Claims so that it could hear all Indian nation claims against the United States. He said to Wilson, "We believe that you feel, with the progressive members of your race, that it is anomalous permanently to conserve within the nation groups of people whose civic condition by legislation is different from the normal standard of American life." The outbreak of World War I impeded federal enactment of remedial Indian legislation.
As an attorney, Wheelock later represented Indian nations before the U.S. Court of Claims and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Law career
In 1910, Wheelock decided to go into law. He took up the study of law by returning to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he had a wide professional network. He "reading the law" as an apprentice at the office of John Miller, head of the Cumberland County Bar Association. He served as a legal apprentice to Miller.
In 1911, after completing his training, Wheelock returned to Wisconsin, and completed requirements to be admitted to the Bar. He established his residence and practice in De Pere, near the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Wheelock became one of the most successful attorneys in Brown and Outagamie counties. He represented both Indian and non-Indian clients, although in this period, anti-Indian sentiments were rising in North Central Wisconsin. In 1915, Dennison also led the Green Bay Concert Band, which was composed largely of non-Indian musicians.
During the next decade, Wheelock expanded his practice well beyond Wisconsin. By 1923, he was specializing in representing tribal nations, ranging across the country from those in Washington State to New York, including the Nisqually, Menominee, Mohawk, and Stockbridge-Munsee Band. As he was increasingly representing these nations in claims and actions related to the federal government, he moved his law practice to Washington, D.C. There he argued appellate cases before the US Supreme Court and the US Court of Claims.
Later years
In 1921, Wheelock served as general manager and bandmaster of the Oneida Indian Centennial Celebration, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the tribe's migration to Wisconsin. His band performed Bizet's Carmen and Western classics. The American Indian nations of Wisconsin set up a traditional-style village, where they sold traditional baskets and other crafts, as well as Indian foods. A special grandstand was used for Indians to perform and celebrate Menominee and Oneida music and dancing.
Wheelock continued his practice in Washington, DC until his death on March 10, 1927, at the age of 56. He was buried in a Masonic funeral at Woodlawn Cemetery, Brown County, Wisconsin. His wife Louise LaChapelle Wheelock died on January 16, 1931. She was buried next to him.
Legacy and honors
- In 1980, Dennison Wheelock's Bandstand was reconstructed on the site of the original at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Carlisle Barracks complex was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1961 because of its significant history and many uses.
- On August 14, 2003, the Green Bay Concert Band played Wheelock's Aboriginal Suite at the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. The symphony had not been performed in more than 75 years.
Sousa on the Rez
Sousa on the Rez: Marching to the Beat of a Different Drum is a half-hour documentary that explores the vibrant but little known tradition of brass band music in Indian country. The phrase "Native American music" may not suggest tubas and trumpets to many outsiders but, popularized by the Wheelock brothers, march music by composers such as John Philip Sousa has been adopted and played by Native American cultures for more than a century.
References
- Laurence M. Hauptman, "From Carlisle to Carnegie Hall: The Musical Career of Dennison Wheelock", in The Oneida Indians in the Age of Allotment, 1860-1920, (editors) Laurence M. Hauptman and Gordon L. McLester, Volume 253, The Civilization of the American Indian Series, (hereinafter "Hauptman"),(2006), p. 112. Also, see Elaine Goodale Eastman, Pratt: The Red Man's Moses, (hereinafter "Eastman"), (1935), p.212.
- ^ Hauptman, P. 122.
- Dennison was baptized at the Hobart Episcopal Church. Hauptman, P. 114.
- ^ Hauptman, P. 114.
- ^ Hauptman, P. 115
- ^ Hauptman, P. 116.
- "History of Conway Hall - Dickinson College Wiki".
- ^ Hauptman, P. 123.
- "Hauptman, P. 121">Hauptman, P. 121
- Hauptman, P. 123
- David R.M. Beck, The Myth of the Vanishing Race, University of Montana, 2000. L.G. Moses, Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1883-1933, (hereinafter "Wild West Shows and Images") (1996), pp.131, 140.
- ^ Hauptman, P. 118.
- On June 20, 1890, the Indian Helper, the Carlisle school publication, noted that an assembly was "enlivened by music. We had duets, singing duets, choirs singing, quartets and sextets, operatic and playing, by babies and old men, music on the horns and music without, red music and white music, and all kinds of music."Hauptman, Pp. 113–114, 116.
- Barbara Landis, "About the Carlisle Indian Industrial School", http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/erdrich/boarding/carlisle.htm
- Eastman, p. 212.
- Hauptman, P. 125.
- Richard Edmund Wheelock (December 5, 1896-October 15, 1929)
- Paul Wheelock (August 18, 1899-May 15, 1900). Paul is buried at the relocated Indian cemetery at the US Army war College. Haupman, P. 117.
- Leeland Lloyd Wheelock (January 28, 1902-January 26, 1903)
- Louise Frances Wheelock (April 20, 1903-June 18, 1938)
- Wheelock judged the BIA and reservation system as "retarding" Indian progress. Haupman, P.120,122,130.
- Hauptman, P. 117.
- Eastman, p. 212. Benjey, p. 308.
- James Riley Wheelock (Unknown- Jan 11, 1941)
- "The Carlisle Arrow (Volumes 13–14, April 23, 1917)". by the students of the United States Indian School. January 14, 1916 – via Google Books.
- Journal of Band Research, Volumes 30-31, 1994, and http://arts.unl.edu/music/faculty/peter-m-lefferts.
- Harrisburg Telegraph, March 10, 1914, p.2
- Hauptman, P. 114. See Journal of Band Research, Volumes 30-31, 1994, and http://arts.unl.edu/music/faculty/peter-m-lefferts.
- Benjey, p. 308. See Benjey, "The Wheelock Family Tree", http://tombenjey.com/2010/02/19/the-wheelock-family-tree/ and http://musescore.org/node/6645.
- Hauptman, p.117.
- Bierley, Paul Edmund, "The Incredible Band of John Philip Sousa". University of Illinois Press, 2006. Sousa organized a band the year he left the U.S. Marine Band, touring from 1892–1931 and performing at 15,623 concerts
- Haupman, P. 126.
- ^ Hauptman, P. 127.
- Hauptman, P. 126.
- ^ Hauptman, P. 128.
- Hauptman, P. 129.
- Parezo, Nancy J. and Fowler, Don D., "The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition: Anthropology Goes to the Fair", (2007), p.156.
- Hauptman, P. 127-129.
- ^ Hazel W. Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements, Syracuse University Press, 1971, p. 117.
- ^ Hauptman, P. 130.
- Linda M. Waggoner, Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist, (2008), p. 229
- "Cumberland County Bar Association > Home". cumberlandbar.com.
- Hauptman, P. 131.
- Hauptman, pp. 129, 133. Benjey, p. 308
- Hauptman, P. 131-132.
- http://www.oneidanation.org/museum/p..aspx?id=7868
- Hauptman, P. 133.
- Hauptman, P. 112
- Hauptman, p. 136.
- See Peter M. Lefferts, "Native American Boarding School Bands and their Bandmasters" (University of Nebraska–Lincoln). The paper discusses the bands of federal Native American boarding schools during their heyday (1880s–1930s). It sketches the careers of the three most successful bandmasters: Oneida brothers Dennison and James Riley Wheelock, and European-American Nels Samuel Nelson. The paper explores how the repertoire and band dress changed to reflect government policy during these decades.
- "About this film". Archived from the original on 2017-04-27.
Further reading
- Troutman, John William, "Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music 1879–1934", University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.
External links
- Band and Battalion of the U.S. Indian School at IMDb Band and Battalion of the U.S. Indian School, (1901), a silent film documentary, was made by American Mutoscope and Biograph Company at the Carlisle Indian School. The cinematographer Arthur Marvin features a mass-band parade drill, led by the renowned Carlisle Band.
- Carlisle Indian School March on YouTube
- Dennison Wheelock at Find a Grave
- 1871 births
- 1927 deaths
- People from Brown County, Wisconsin
- Oneida Nation of Wisconsin people
- American male composers
- American composers
- Native American composers
- Native American activists
- Members of the Society of American Indians
- Carlisle Indian Industrial School alumni
- People from Carlisle, Pennsylvania
- Musicians from Wisconsin
- Lawyers from Washington, D.C.
- Wisconsin lawyers
- People from Oneida, Wisconsin
- 19th-century American lawyers