My great grandfather, John Homer Seger, was a settler of what became the state of Oklahoma. He went down to Indian Territory after he had tried his hand soldiering for the Union at the end of the Civil War, lumberjacking in Wisconsin, and what we would call construction work in Atchison, KS. While in Atchison, he had made friends with the man who was later appointed as the Indian Agent to the Cheyenne-Arapahoe people and was offered a job constructing buildings for the Cheyenne Arapahoe Agency in what is now El Reno, Oklahoma.
John Homer Seger came from a long line of educated Easterners. It seems that his forebearers were abolitionists and before that Revolutionary War soldiers. They were largely English and Dutch people with a smattering of Scandinavian thrown in for interest. Pioneer teachers were part of the mix.
From his own accounts he physically constructed Agency buildings down in El Reno, he wasn't a contractor with a lot of underlings. During that time he went into the Cheyenne or Arapahoe camp and spent time learning the ways of the people and seeming to make friends or develop trust. When the Agency couldn't get an educated Easterner to stay as the superintendent of the Agency school, John Homer Seger was offered the job. Was he qualified? Clearly he was not. He had no education past the age of 17 when he went off to fight the Civil War and marched in Sherman's March to the Sea. And he couldn't spell worth a lick. But he could read. I once had a copy of Don Quixote that belonged to him.
He had his mother pick a bride to send him before he started the Agency Superintendency. Mary Esther Nicholas was a smart young woman. She held a "second grade teaching certificate" from Illinois. John Homer Seger's reports to his superiors improved greatly after he married and it isn't a stretch to imagine that his bride helped him in that area. To me, Mary Esther is a fascinating woman who bore nine children who survived childhood, who lived between Oklahoma and Kansas until she put her foot down, that she would stay in Indian Territory with her husband.
Eventually, John Homer Seger's lack of qualifications or perhaps politics caught up with him and he was replaced as superintendent of the Agency schools at El Reno. John Homer Seger moved with some of the Cheyenne Arapaho to start a "colony" away from the corrupting influences of the Agency. Some of the people who moved with him had survived Sand Creek, Washita, and Little Bighorn. The Colony was successful. A boarding school was built. I like to think that it was an attempt to keep the young people closer to home than sending them east to school.
It is clear to me that John Homer Seger believed that the way that the Cheyenne Arapaho people could survive was to learn how to live and act like white men, to learn modern ways. The days of hunting buffalo were over. John Homer Seger believed so much in this that he lived out the rest of his life among the Cheyenne Arapaho people. He helped the people sell crafts and work businesses. He even made a speech to the National Education Association Convention in New York state in the early 1900s.
Was this good or was this bad? I believe that John Homer Seger saw the Cheyenne Arapaho as human beings. This was not a universal thought in the nineteenth century. I believe that he had many friends who were among the native peoples. But, he didn't fight for Indian rights or protest or try to change things. He worked within the system. He didn't do this for religious reasons, since he was Christian, but not missionary material. He wasn't part of the genocide that was systematically being carried out against the Native peoples of North America.
To me, a great grandchild who never knew him, he seemed like a good guy for his day and age. Modern sensibilities would certainly judge the way native children were removed from home and educated. There is a lot to criticize in all of that. I believe that like the native people he lived with his whole life, my great grandfather was human. He was in no way perfect, in no way a savior, or a great person; he was human and he was a friend.
When I was a very young child, my grandfather, Harry, John Homer Seger's youngest son died of shaky palsy, probably Parkinson's disease. My vague memories of Grandpa Harry were of a man with a waver-y voice who always told stories about the Indians. I thought in my young days that he was an Indian. My memories of Harry created a life long interest in the Cheyenne Arapaho people. I did most of my term papers and school projects relating to this subject. I have visited Sand Creek, Washita, Little Bighorn and truly sit on the side that Custer had it coming. I am now working on a project to tell the story of John Homer Seger. This feels like a project I have had in the back of my mind for my whole life.
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