History on Jared L. Eberle

The Apocalypse at Ruby Ridge

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Review of End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America

Mary Lease, Suffrage, and Prohibition

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 17:18:17 -0500

I teach primarly introductory level survey courses and the notes for those courses are a Frankenstein’s monster of assembled sources. I used to try and keep track of what came from where but found the citations too distracting, so I just settled for double checking notes when I add new material in. Every now and then I stumble across something that makes me question what is in my notes and leads me to dig around trying to figure out if I’m saying the right or wrong thing in class. Recently I went down a rabbit hole thanks to Wikipedia entry for Mary Lease because the opening sentence caught me off guard:

Dennis Banks' FBI File

Thu, 21 May 2020 13:17:00 +0000

Dennis Banks passed away on October 29, 2017. On November 1, 2017 I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI for any files related to Banks. Most of the FBI files related to the American Indian Movement have been public for a number of years but I was curious to see if the FBI would release anything new Banks following his death. After I filed the request the only thing I heard was a notice saying my request was overly broad and I could reduce the scope to enable faster processing.

From the Archives: The Vanishing Americans

Thu, 03 Aug 2017 10:56:00 +0000

Screenshot of Article detailing Native Rock Band

From the Archives: Indian Prison Rodeo

Wed, 19 Oct 2016 12:15:00 +0000

I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota for the Western History Association’s annual conference and to explore the archives at the Minnesota Historical Society related to the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee (WKLDOC for short). It’s an expansive archive that collects 149 boxes related to the organization that defended participants in the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973. Much of it is outside the purview of my dissertation (thankfully I don’t have to read the box upon box of legal proceedings), and given that I only have two days to spelunk through the entire archive, I had to make choices about what I would and would not look at.

Peter LaFarge, The Singing Protest Cowboy

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 15:21:00 +0000

There’s a fair share of rodeo contestants who have parlayed their time in rodeo into a singing career. Probably most notable is Chris LeDoux, one of the inspirations for Oklahoma State’s own Garth Brooks, who won the 1976 bareback championship at the National Finals Rodeo and sold records out of his truck at rodeo events in the hopes of supporting his rodeo career. LeDoux retained a cult following on the rodeo circuit until Brooks’ debut album in 1989 and the song “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)” about an aging rodeo contestant who only had “The worn out tape of Chris LeDoux, lonely women and bad booze” pushed him to a wider audience. Yet as evidenced by Armond Duck Chief’s performance at the Indian National Finals Rodeo, the hard scramble life on the rodeo circuit can provide material for countless songs and aspiring songwriters.

Where'd the Death Come From?

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:36:00 +0000

According to Alexa, the English language version of Wikipedia is the seventh ranked site on the Internet and the only vaguely academic site besides the omnipotent Google on the list. Yet even though Wikipedia and its five million articles have become a ubiquitous part of how we figure out the answer to life’s vexing questions, most people know little about how the content actually gets on Wikipedia. While most theoretically know anyone can edit Wikipedia and contribute additional information or fix errors, few people outside of Wikipedia’s inner circle of active volunteer editors regularly contribute to the site and understand the intricacies of the process. In part this may be the result of technological barriers, but as Tom Simonite noted in an MIT Technology Review article on the “decline of Wikipedia,” Wikipedia’s internal dynamics also play a critical role:

Bob Engelhart's Golden Hill Paugussett Cartoon

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 09:32:00 +0000

A look at a 1990s anti-Pequot cartoon

Always Take First Hand Accounts With a Grain of Salt

Thu, 24 Jul 2014 21:16:00 +0000

One of the many books I picked up today at the library was We Are Still Here: A Photographic History of The American Indian Movement, a good looking large glossy text produced by the Minnesota Historical Society Press which included photographs by Dick Bancroft and text by Laura Waterman Wittstock. Both Bancroft and Wittstock had interactions with AIM during the height of the Red Power period; Bancroft as a sympathetic photographer and Wittstock as a journalist. Yet in both of their introductions to the text, they argue that the death of Raymond Yellow Thunder was the major contributing factor that lead to the occupation of Wounded Knee. Here’s how Bancroft describes it:

BIA Recognition Changes in Connecticut

Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:31:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write an in-depth single about the Bureau of Indian Affairs attempt to change the process for tribes getting recognized and the backlash it’s received in Connecticut since it was announced last summer but simply haven’t had the time (or energy) to get around to it. Because I have no time to write something proper, here’s a basic overview.

I. The Current Policy and Changes

In June of last year the Bureau of Indian Affairs proposed changing the policy for tribal recognition. To quote the BIA announcement, the current policy is “expensive, burdensome, less than transparent, and inflexible.”¹ The current policy requires tribes seeking recognition to provide documents showing “existence since historical contact, prove descent and identity from a historical tribe, demonstrate political structures and influence over their members, and prove they maintained strong community and social ties.” The financial costs, bureaucratic slowness of the process, and inability of tribes to meet the documentary requirements meant that between 1978, when the policy went into affect, and the late 1990s only fourteen tribes had been recognized and thirteen denied acknowledgement.²

Tulsa in 1918

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:34:00 +0000

The hand-drawn map (not done to scale) comes from the Library of Congress’s panoramic maps collection. The full version can be downloaded or viewed here. Here’s some other historical maps from Oklahoma.

If you zoom in you’ll notice there’s a baseball stadium between Brady and Archer from Cincinnati to Detroit, a block west of the current ONEOk Field. The drawing could be a reference to Association Park, which was located between Archer and First from Elgin to Cincinnati according to a timeline of Tulsa’s baseball stadiums. Association park, however, closed in 1917.

At Least It's Only a Belief in Vampirism

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:52:00 +0000

George R. Stetson writing about the belief in Vampirism amongst the population in rural Rhode Island during the nineteenth century:

…[I]t is perhaps fortunate that the isolation of which this is probably the product, an isolation common in sparsely settled regions, where thought stagnates and insanity and superstition are prevalent, has produced nothing worse.

(Via Smithsonian Magazine’s “The Great New England Vampire Panic,” October 2012)

On Abourerzk's AK-47s at Wounded Knee

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 08:22:26 +0000

Former Senator Jim Abourezk discussing his visit to the occupied town of Wounded Knee in 1973 with the South Dakota CBS affiliate:

“We got into the Indians’ perimeter and there’s all these Indian Vietnam vets who were there with AK-47′s Kalashnikovs, I don’t know where they got them all, but they had them. And we were driving slowly right, and they were following us, just like that. And the tension, I’m telling you was thick enough to slice,” Abourezk said.

Hoboes, Tramps, and Bums

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:14:00 +0000

There are three types of the genus vagrant: the hobo, the tramp, and the bum. The hobo works and wanders, the tramp dreams and wanders and the bum drinks and wanders.

In Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West by Mark Wyman.

Thanksgiving 1970

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:11:00 +0000

The American Indian Movement’s Thanksgiving anti-commemoration in 1970

Let Them Have Cake

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:15:00 +0000

We tossed the cakes to them and I fed them like chickens with small pieces of cake and like chickens they ate it. Mr. Stevens kept guard with a whip with which he pretended to whip a small boy. We made them open their mouths and tossed cake into it. For a ‘Coup de Grace’ we threw a lot of them in a place and a writhing heap of human beings. We drove on very soon in the moonlight, It was beautiful.…We made the crowds that we gave cake to give three cheers for the U.S.A. before we gave them cake….

'Saturday Night in a Saloon' Or John Ratzenberger's Opening Photos From Cheers

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:14:00 +0000

Finding Cheers’ opening photos in the archives

Even the Entertainment Was Traumatic

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:12:00 +0000

Even the entertainment could be traumatic in No Man’s Land. People would gather at makeshift rodeo stands near Boise City, OK on Saturday afternoons to watch the cow dip. Cattle were herded into a chute and down into a vat of water. Once they hit the water, they were drowned by two cowboys, on either side of the vat, who held their heads down while the beeves bucked. Some of the children didn’t like it–an amusement ride with a sudden death at the end.

Early '70s Airport Security

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:15:00 +0000

While conducting some research on Leon Russell I managed to come across a gem of a Rolling Stone article from February of 1972. In response to the destruction of four airliners in 1970 by Palestinian guerrillas, Richard Nixon implemented an anti-hijacking program which RS panned as ineffective and setting “a dangerous precedent for future violations of two basic constitutional freedoms–freedom to travel and freedom from unreasonable search.”

The article details the “one-two-three model” of airport security that is nothing compared to today’s gate rapes. The process included behavioral profiling (a profile which wasn’t released because it would endanger national security) and magnetometers. A person was only suppose to be subject to search if they both matched the behavior profile (of a hijacker) and set off the metal detector, but RS argued the process subjected those who “look freaky” (i.e. long haired hippie types) to unreasonable searches.

The Ghosts of Lousiana's Johnson Gosset Plantation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Story of a haunted Louisiana Plantation