Monday, July 20, 2015

Why Spopee, A Blackfoot Indian, Was Detained in Federal Prison for More Than 30 Years, Then Released in 1914

Blackfoot Redemption: A Blood Indian’s Story of Murder, Confinement, and Imperfect Justice by William E. Farr (review)
From: Great Plains Quarterly
Volume 34, Number 1, Winter 2014
pp. 98-99 | 10.1353/gpq.2014.0005
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
The criminalization, findings of mental illness, and confinement of American Indians in the United States since the nineteenth century is a significant topic in American history in need of exposure. Many Indians found themselves incarcerated in prisons or insane asylums for opposing government interests, or as a consequence of cultural misunderstandings or outright racism. William E. Farr’s work is an engrossing narrative of the life of a Blood Indian, Spopee, detained in federal prison and an insane asylum for over thirty years, as well as the simultaneous confinement of the Blackfoot on a reservation in northwest Montana.

Farr argues that, had Spopee been white, the courts would not have found it necessary to try him, let alone convict him, for the murder of Charles Walmesley in 1879. Although experienced lawyers represented Spopee during his trial, he was unable to speak English and could not communicate with his counsel. Further, the “murder” may have been an act of self-defense and probably occurred on the Alberta side of the U.S.-Canadian border. Despite this, the court found Spopee guilty and sent him to federal prison, where officials determined he was insane, leading to his transfer to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, an insane asylum in Washington dc . Unable to communicate with the asylum staff, Spopee remained silent and undiagnosed. A Blackfoot delegation to Washington “discovered” Spopee in 1914, leading to his pardon and release. Upon his return to the Great Plains, he had difficulty coping with the extreme changes that had taken place and witnessing his peoples’ confinement on an ever-shrinking reservation.

Farr exhaustively researched the life of Spopee, and his analogy of Spopee’s incarceration to the confinement of Plains Indians on reservations is brilliant. Blackfoot Redemption might have benefited from a broader engagement with such works as Luana Ross’s Inventing the Savage: The Construction of Native American Criminality (1998) or the literature on the Canton Insane Asylum for American Indians or similar institutions. Spopee’s life is a perfect case study and an opportunity on the part of future scholars for examining the United States’ criminalization of Indianness and the “othering” of American Indians through the labels of insane or criminal. These colonially imposed institutions allowed Americans to prohibit Indian beliefs and behaviors they opposed.
Audiences of Farr’s Blackfoot Redemption will enjoy the enthralling account of Spopee’s life and Blackfoot history in the northwestern Great Plains.

Copyright © 2014 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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