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[5168] Russell Lee, Street scene, Muskogee, Oklahoma (1939), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USF33-012332-M3 DLC].
Posey was born into a bicultural and bilingual family: his mother was a Creek Indian and his father was a white man who had been raised in the Creek community. He grew up learning to appreciate both Native American and Euro-American traditions and benefited from a traditional western education at the Bacone Indian University in Muskogee. It was at Bacone that Posey began composing poetry, most of which is heavily influenced by the British and American Romantic tradition. While some scholars see Posey’s poetry as derivative and constrained by European traditions, others point out that the Romantic worldview that pervades his work in some ways coincides with traditional Indian beliefs. Like the Romantics, many Native American cultures are committed to a respect for nature, a belief in the interrelation of all things, and a refusal to impose a sharp division between the material and the spiritual.
After leaving Bacone in 1895, Posey was elected to the lower chamber of the Creek National Council and embarked on a long career of public service as an administrator to tribal schools. In 1902, he also began serving his community as a journalist, establishing the Eufaula Indian Journal, the first daily newspaper published by an Indian. As editor of the paper, Posey composed the works for which he is best known today: the Fus Fixico letters. Narrated by a Creek character named Fus Fixico (which translates as either “Warrior Bird” or “Heartless Bird”), the letters offer humorous political and cultural commentary written from the perspective and in the dialect of Indian speakers. Revolving around the conversations of four men–and usually centering on the monologues of Hotgun Harjo, a medicine man–the letters narrate Indian responses to political issues and lampoon the corruption that was rampant in Indian Territory. Posey’s tendency to parody the names of Euro-American political figures with clever puns–“Rooster Feather” for President Roosevelt, “Itscocked” for Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock–deflates the power of these public figures and critiques their pretensions to authority. The Fus Fixico letters do not always correspond to Posey’s own convictions or political positions; instead, they offer a variety of perspectives on the difficult issues that faced the Creeks in his time. Tragically, Posey died before he was able to completely fulfill the promise of his innovative writing. He drowned at the age of thirty-five when his boat capsized on the North Canadian River.
[1121] Harper’s Weekly, Scenes and Incidents of the Settlement of Oklahoma [Land Rush pictures] (1889),
courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-96521].
These illustrations from Harper’s Weekly, May 18, 1889, are titled (from top to bottom): The arrival of the first train at Guthrie–The head of the line outside of the Guthrie land-office on the opening day–The Guthrie post-office.
[5168] Russell Lee, Street scene, Muskogee, Oklahoma (1939),
courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USF33-012332-M3 DLC].
Alexander Posey attended the Bacone Indian University in Muskogee. In his life as in his writing, Posey confronted the forms and traditions of European American culture while commenting on the difficult social and political issues facing the Creek Indians.
[5569] Anonymous, Indian teams hauling 60 miles to market the 1100 bushels of wheat raised by the school (c. 1900),
courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration [NWDNS-75-SE-39A].
Government attempts to “civilize” or assimilate Native Americans included the use of boarding schools and model colonies where Indians could learn farming or manufacturing techniques. This photo is from the Seger Colony in the Oklahoma Territory.
[6823] F. W. Greenough, Se-Quo-Yah [Sequoyah] (c. 1836),
courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-4815].
Half-length portrait of Sequoyah, dressed in a blue robe, holding a tablet that shows the Cherokee alphabet. Sequoyah developed a Cherokee syllabary that enabled his people to write in their own language.
[8508] Alexander Posey, “Ode to Sequoyah” (1910),
courtesy of the Library of Congress [10022763].
Posey dedicated this ode to Sequoyah, the Cherokee who created a syllabary that enabled his tribe to record its language in written form. An ode (from the Greek aeidein, to sing, chant) is a poem that celebrates language and investigates its power to combat mortality and the ravages of time.
[9068] Alexander Posey, Letter 16 of the Fus Fixico letters (1903),
courtesy of the Reed College Library.
Posey offers humorous political and social commentary from a Native American perspective through the characters in his Fus Fixico Letters. In letter 16, Fus Fixico satirizes the policies of the Roosevelt Administration.
[9069] Alexander Posey, Letter 18 of the Fus Fixico letters (1903),
courtesy of the Reed College Library.
In letter 18, Fus Fixico comments on U.S. Indian policy and the propaganda that supported it. Fus Fixico uses humor to address governmental policies that essentially stripped Native Americans of their cultural heritage.