General Clarence Tinker, Hap Arnold's daring go-to guy

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General Clarence Tinker, Hap Arnold'sdaring go-to guyJuly 2, 2007

Clarence Tinker's early years in the Indian Territorythrough his graduation from the Wentworth MilitaryAcademy in Kansas: Revisiting some history about ournation's mid-section.

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma, presented by the OklahomaHistorical Society, says:

"Tinker was born on November 21, 1887, in OsageCounty, Oklahoma, the former Osage Nation, IndianTerritory."

Right away we were confronted with some historicalquestions. First, Oklahoma did not become a state until 1907,so was Osage County really a county in 1887? Second, whatwas the Osage Nation, and is it really a "former" nation? Whatwas the "Indian Territory" of which the Osage Nation was apart?

We quickly learned that Osage County was created in 1907when Oklahoma became a state. It was created from OsageIndian lands. So our hunch was right that something wasamiss in that paragraph.

The Indian lands from which the county was created wereknown as the Osage Nation, Indian Territory. Osagepronounced "Wha-Zha-Zhi," meaning "Children of the MiddleWaters."

Table of Contents

Introduction

Clarence Tinker's earlyyears in the IndianTerritory through hisgraduation from theWentworth MilitaryAcademy in Kansas:Revisiting some historyabout our nation'smid-section.

Third Lieutenant ClarenceTinker deploys to thePhilippine Constabulary:Revisiting the SpanishAmerican War andAmerica's annexation of thePhilippines.

Lt. Tinker from thePhilippines to the BuffaloSoldiers: Revisiting theinclusion of blacks in theUS Army, the import ofWWI in the South Pacific,and the problems withMexico in America'ssouthwest.

Tinker, the fighter pilot: Avision beyond the infantry,

General Clarence Tinker, Hap Arnold's daring go-to guy file:///Users/edmarek/Documents/Talking Proud/HistoryTinkerC...

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Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Photo credit:klricker2006. Presented by Webshots.

To be technically correct, Clarence Tinker grew up inPawhuska, Osage Nation of the Indian Territory.

On the road from Bartlesville towards Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Photo credit:klricker2006. Presented by Webshots.

The Osage Nation still exists.Pawhuska is its capital city. Thiscity also serves as the OsageCounty seat for the state ofOklahoma. This county is thelargest county in Oklahoma.

the employment of airpower

Tinker, fighters tobombers to theater WWIIcommander: Hap Arnold'sdaring "go-to" guy

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We must say at this juncture thatthe history of this region of theUnited States is very complicated and demands concentratedstudy, which we cannot do here. But, we feel compelled at theleast to provide an introductory outline of how borders wereformed in this region.

Let's start with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, executedduring the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. The US boughtFrench claims to 530 million acres of territory for $23 millionand some loose change. We want to underline something rightaway: the US did not buy land; it bought French claims to theland. There is a huge difference. You can see the claims whichthe US bought.

In truth, the US at the time was not exactly sure what it got,and there was some debate about whether this wasconstitutional. The boundaries were not defined and little wasknown about the land. For our purposes here, almost all theland was inhabited by American Indians. Since the USacquired claims to the land, it had basically two options toobtain title to the land: buy it or take it from the Indians. TheUS did both, piece by piece.

Of course, no one consulted with the Indians while negotiatingand completing the purchase agreement with the French. TheIndians therefore did not even know claims to their land werefor sale. It is on this point that rests an incredible amount ofhistory, good and bad.


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Indian Territory, 1836. The graphic is from the Library of Congress.Presented by wikipedia.

This map shows the layout of the Indian Territory in 1836.The US assigned each Indian Nation its own area through theUS Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. This act of course waslegislation passed in Washington in accordance with the USConstitution, not in accordance with any Indian national laws.That said, the US did negotiate with various Indian nations fortheir land. There was a lot of bargaining, there was a lot ofstealing, and there was considerable bloodshed.

The Indian Territory was west of Missouri and Arkansas,whose borders are highlighted by blue lines.

The Missouri Territory was formed from a portion of theLouisiana Purchase. It became a state in 1821. The ArkansasTerritory was created from a portion of the Missouri Territory.It originally included present-day Oklahoma. That wasremoved from the territory by 1828. Arkansas became a statein 1836.

So, in a region west of Missouri and Arkansas, boundarieswere drawn for multiple Indian nations. The southern borderof the territory, settled by the Choctaws, is marked by the RedRiver, the northeastern border of present-day Texas. In theupper right quadrant, you see a river running north-south


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marking the northeast section of the Indian Territory. That isthe Mississippi River, which currently marks Missouri'seastern border.

We have highlighted in red the area assigned to the Osage.The Osage had been in the Ohio Valley. They then moved towestern Missouri, living near the Missouri River. The Osagebegan negotiating away their lands to the US as early as 1808.This positioned them in what would end up as northeasternOklahoma.

Osage history, rivalries and friendships, and the actions of theUS government all resulted in Osage Nation boundaries thatchanged faster than we can keep track. William Cutler'sHistory of the State of Kansas, first published in 1883, is online through the Kansas Collection. You can obtain quite a bitof detail there.

In the early 1870s, a bill was introduced in Congress to createa territory out of a portion of the Indian Territory. It was to beknown as Oklahoma. The bill was not passed. Then in 1889,after some considerable turmoil, a bill passed opening tohomestead settlement an area of land within the IndianTerritory to be known as Oklahoma.

The "Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889" a mural by John Steuart Curry.It depicts the race at full tilt. Riders dash forward, the drivers stand as theyurge on their galloping horses. Curry's address is painted on the side of thewagon. The oil mural is located on the 5th floor, main corridor, north ofElevator Lobby 1, the Interior Building of the US, Washington. Presented bythe Department of Interior.

Now remember, for the most part, all of this land known as theIndian Territory was inhabited by Indians and, bycongressional legislation signed into law, allocated to variousIndian nations. The US, in effect, opened Indian land tohomesteading by American citizens. That began the famousOklahoma Rush from the east. The US government then beganallowing settlers to homestead on Indian lands, one by one. Aterritorial government emerged in 1890.


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This nicely displays what the Indian Territory boundarieslooked like in the 1880s-1890s. Presented by the Center forDisease Control (CDC). In effect, the Indian Territory, whichhad extended north into the Kansas and Nebraska Territories,had now been pushed southward into what is presently knownas Oklahoma. Kansas became a territory in 1854 and a state in1861; Nebraska became a territory in 1854 and a state in 1867.

This map shows where the various Indian nations ended up bythe 1890s within the Indian Territory and the OklahomaTerritory, at least according to the official US system ofgovernance. The red arrow points to the Osage Nation'sterritory, considerably less then that with which it began.


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Those boundaries pretty well stuck when Oklahoma became astate in 1907. The name Oklahoma derives from Choctawwords meaning "Red People."

This is the Tinker family in 1908. Presented by Red Oak Tree.

Clarence was born to George Edward "Ed" Tinker and SarahAnn "Nan" Schwagerty. George and Nan married in 1886.George was born in 1868 at the Osage Mission, Kansas,present-day St. Paul, while "Nan" was born in Kansas.Together they had nine children. Cora, George Edith, andJoseph died either at child-birth or shortly thereafter. You cansee Clarence L. Tinker standing tall in the rear. Just about allof them went by nicknames: Alex was Nicholas AlexanderThompson Tinker; Nan was Sarah Ann Schwagerty Tinker;Villa was Villa Lucinda Tinker; Anna was Sarah Ann Tinker;Genevieve was Mary Genevieve Tinker; and Ed was GeorgeEdward Tinker Jr. Most of George's and George Jr.'s friendscalled them both "Ed." A most handsome family.


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A brief note on child mortality. We found a "Report on Vitaland Social Statistics in the US at the Eleventh Census: 1890,"prepared by the Department of the Interior, and presented bythe Center for Disease Control, the CDC. Of this family's ninechildren, three died very quickly. That's a 33 percent mortalityrate. We have no way to know about the circumstancessurrounding their deaths, but to us, that's a very high rate. Thenational mortality rate among new borns was about six percentat the time, though the report cited above does say the figuresare likely not accurate, largely because of deficiencies in datacollection, especially for children under the age of one andthose classified as "born but died." Nonetheless, there is a vastdifference between 6 percent and 33 percent for the Tinkerfamily.

We located another report,“American Indian Mortality inthe Late Nineteenth Century: TheImpact of Federal AssimilationPolicies on a VulnerablePopulation," by J. David Hackerand Michael R. Haines,published in 2005. This reportproduced quite differentnumbers, asserting that about 30percent of Indian children diedbefore reaching the age of 5.This was based on 1900 censusdata, which asked many morepertinent questions about Indiansand marked a major step forwardin collecting reliable data about them. (Photo credit:Photographic collection, 1900, Visual Resources, Universityof Minnesota Duluth) That is close to what the Tinker familyexperienced.

It turns out that during the late 19th century, US policiestoward American Indians started to shift. By then, theAmerican Indian was seen as a vulnerable population in needof help. Hacker and Haines described it this way:

"Under the urging of late nineteenth-century reformers,U.S. policy toward American Indians shifted fromremoval and relocation efforts to state-sponsoredattempts to 'civilize' Indians through allotment of triballands, citizenship, and forced education ... The results(of analyzing 1900 census data) suggest that mortalityamong American Indians in the late nineteenth centurywas very high—approximately 62 percent higher thanthat for the white population ... The American Indian


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population in the coterminous United States declined toapproximately 600,000 in 1800, when estimates becomemore reliable, and continued its rapid decline in thenineteenth century, reaching a nadir of 237,000 in thedecade 1890-1900 before recovering in the twentiethcentury. Resisting the widespread belief that AmericanIndians were doomed to extinction, nineteenth-centuryreformers successfully pressed the government to takean active role in assisting the population."

George's family was related to or associated with manynotable figures in Osage history. He was one-quarter Osage.He served on the Osage Tribal Council from Strike AxeDistrict. He was a co-founder with a man named Regnier andeditor of The Wah-shah-she News, a weekly newspaperpublished in Pawhuska. Regnier left after two months,replaced by Timothy John Leahy, an Irishman also born at theOsage Mission in Kansas.

Questia Media has presented a nice sumary of TheWah-shah-she News, extracted from American Indian andAlaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals, 1826-1924, byDaniel F. Littlefield Jr. and James W. Parins:

"The Wah-shah-she News contained eight pages of sixcolumns each. Under the management of Tinker andRegnier, it contained only one page of local matter, butunder Tinker and Leahy, the local content was expandedto three pages. The rest was advertisement, fillermaterial, and news from outside the Indian Territory.Local news consisted of articles on such matters asallotment of land (which the paper favored), variousIndian commissions, Catholic schools on thereservation, Fourth of July celebrations, and the politicalstruggle between the full-blood and half-blood Osages.There were columns of chatty local and personal newsnot only from Pawhuska but also from outlyingsettlements such as Hominy and Gray Horse. News ofIndian affairs was printed in the form of an irregular'Washington Letter.'"

We get some insight into theupbringing Clarence receivedfrom his father George. As theeditor, George began attackingIndian Agent Henry BlanchardFreeman for overtaxing and poormanagement of the Indianschool. Tinker and his newassistant editor, J.F. Palmer, setthe paper's motto as follows:


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"Speak the truth and you will shame the devil."

Freeman got angry, and the more angry he got, the more theeditors attacked him. Freeman was no one to mess with,however. He was a Union officer during the Civil War andreceived the Medal of Honor for his gallantry. He waspromoted to brigadier general in 1901.

But Tinker and Palmer stayed on his case, until Freemanfinally threatened the editors and their publishing company,ordering them to stop criticizing the direction of agencyaffairs. Tinker and Palmer left the paper, and Tinker foundedthe Osage Magazine in 1909 with Curtis J. Phillips. This laterbecame The Oklahoma Magazine.

As an aside, by 1900 most towns in the Indian Territory hadnewspapers, and most of these were run by Indians. As seenby the example set by "Ed," they completely understoodfreedom of speech and freedom of the press.

s

Oil well on Osage land, named "Finney 5." Presented by University ofOklahoma Libraries Western History Collections.

Important and very lucrative oil and gas deposits were foundin Osage lands. Indeed, prior to Oklahoma statehood, theregion experienced an oil boom, part of the Mid-Continent OilRegion. The first well in Osage was drilled in 1897. Thefederal government allotted Osage lands to oil companies, butthe rights remained reserved to the Osage and royalties werepaid to the nation. Ed Tinker used his publications and writingabilities to oppose efforts to change these arrangements. Wecommend "The Osage: A Historical Sketch," by George E.Tinker to your attention. Ed Tinker died in 1947. He is wellknown in his own right, as are several of his descendants.


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Son Clarence attended Catholic schools in Hominy andPawhuska, Oklahoma, and a public school in Elgin, Kansas.We show you this map for those not familiar with Oklahoma.You can see the Osage Nation in tan. You can see that it isclose to both major cities in the state, Tulsa and OklahomaCity (red arrows). The red dots highlight Hominy, Pawhuska,and the top one, Elgin, Kansas. Arkansas is not far, just east ofTulsa, while Missouri is above it, east on Route 60.

Haskell Institute, 1903, as viewed from the Haskell farmlands. Presented byHaskell Indian Nations University.

In 1900, Tinker attended the Haskell Institute at Lawrence,Kansas. He withdrew before graduating. The Haskell Instituteopened as a boarding school in 1884 with 22 American Indianstudents, grades 1-5. It was called the US Indian Industrial


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Training School and focused on agricultural training. Itsstudent body rose to 400 in one semester. The school wasrenamed The Haskell Institute in 1887 to honor USRepresentative Dudley Haskell who was responsible for theschool being located in Lawrence. The Institute today is calledThe Haskell Indian Nations University. The university saysthis about its early years:

"The early trades for boys included tailoring, wagonmaking, blacksmithing, harness making, painting, shoemaking, and farming. Girls studied cooking, sewing andhomemaking. Most of the students' food was producedon the Haskell farm, and students were expected toparticipate in various industrial duties."

The Library of Congress section called "American Memory"hosts some wonderful old photography of the HaskellInstitute. Once you get there, simply do a search for "HaskellInstitute." We want to show two photos drawn from itscollection.

This is drawn from a much wider panoramic view of theInstitute, taken by Alfred Lawrence in 1913.

This is also drawn from a much wider panoramic view of"students on review" taken in May 1908 by J.L. Morris. They


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appear to be cadets. The school employed a "semi-military"system where students wore uniforms and marched to class.The boys wore military looking uniforms, while the girls worewhite blouses with dark skirts, all uniform. By 1894 the schoolhad 606 students from 36 states. It began offering college levelclasses in 1927.

The "semi-military" system caught our attention because, ofcourse, Clarence Tinker would serve a full military career andrise to the rank of major general (two stars) in the Army AirCorps. We also knew that from Haskell he went to theWentworth Military Academy at Lexington, Missouri.

Wentworth Military Academy, Lexington, Missouri. Presented by circlepix.

He graduated from there in 1908. The Wentworth MilitaryAcademy, WMA, was founded in 1880. This academy was notexclusive to American Indians. Interestingly, it began as aschool for boys, then became a male academy, and then amilitary academy. The students themselves drove thisevolution. On their own, they began conducting drills andmaneuvers as an extracurricular activity. The faculty saw verypositive results and organized the school to be a militaryacademy.


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Wentworth today serves as a two year college and collegepreparatory high school. All students serve as cadets, thoughthey are not required to serve in the military after graduation.

Clarence Tinker graduated in 1908, joined the PhilippineConstabulary and was commissioned a third lieutenant.

Go to next section - Third Lieutenant Clarence Tinkerdeploys to the Philippine Constabulary: Revisiting theSpanish American War and America's annexation of thePhilippines.


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