Calvin Many Wolves Potter Leaves the Dakota Nation of Minnesota
The story of Calvin Many Wolves Potter was related to author Elaine Brooks Held by her great-grandmother, daughter of Calvin Potter, her great-great-grandfather.
The dual life of Calvin evolved over that period of time in which the Indian uprising occurred approximately 1862 resulting in the members of the tribes of Minnesota being relocated.
Many members of the tribes escaped to Canada.
Sent to act as liaison between his Dakota father and the white men following orders to quell the conflict, Calvin desperately tries in vain to formulate some form of détente.
But he found it was almost impossible to reconcile how he ended here from the journey that began when he was twelve.
Calvin Potter had had enough of his abusive Beaver, Pennsylvania father; he couldn't stand it any longer.
Living on the family farm and working hard as he could, no job ever satisfied the demanding man and Calvin could not predict when or what might set him off the next time.
Making up his mind to leave the younger sister he loved and the mother who lent her supportive care, Calvin stole quietly out of the door early one pre-dawn morning with little more than the clothes on his back.
Calvin began a journey into another life that was filled with days of incredible endurance and ended weeks later in unbelievable pain after he unwittingly trod into a patch of poison ivy.
Calvin was found by a hunting party of the Sisseton Sioux tribe of Dakota in Minnesota.
The braves took him back to their camp and deposited him into the hands of his women and the tribe shaman.
Calvin awoke in a delirious fog to the care of the gentle Falling Star and attentive Spirit Wind.
Using herbal remedies and wrapping his legs and tending the bubbling sores became intensive but rewarding when the boy recovered and quickly became grateful and interested in the life of his benefactors.
They appear to be as interested in his becoming one of them as he was in his assimilation to them.
Calvin was adopted into the family of Strong Eagle and White Cloud and their daughter, Red Leaf, and slowly and carefully learns the language, the ways, and the respect of the rest of the tribe as he is indoctrinated into the culture and becomes Many Wolves.
Running Fox, one of the alpha boys near Calvin's age, quickly becomes a boyhood friend and mentor and he and the other young boys of the tribe form a bond of friendship and respect.
Many Wolves followed the tribe as the seasons and years evolved until the very way of life of "the people" was threatened by the encroaching white man and the severe negative impact their civilization had on the native peoples produced hard feelings on both sides, and the situation became so dire that flash point occurred.
In the meantime, Strong Eagle wisely began to force Many Wolves back into the white population to help salvage the situation between the peoples, to assimilate back within the white people of the encroaching civilization and to get Many Wolves out of harms way.
It was time to renew his native language and the ways of the adult white men.
The native peoples had found that the major source of their lifestyle, buffalo, had become scarce and there were few options to find replacement for the food, protection, and tools that the buffalo provided.
The people were starving and negotiations between Calvin and the Cavalry only resulted in still harder feelings and left few options open to them as their centuries old way of life had ended.
The situation deteriorated into the massive exodus of large populations of all tribes of the Dakota Nation.
Following armed conflicts, over 100 of their young men were caught and brought up on charges.
Thirty-eight eventually faced an incredibly sad ending to a remarkable life, one of whom included Many Wolves' great friend and mentor, Running Fox.
Many Wolves as Calvin was unable to salvage the situation to his overwhelming sorrow and found himself neither red nor white.
Lost between the two worlds, Calvin begins a journey back to his "borning" family to try and discover where he belonged.
But after so many years, a journey of boy to man, and a man of another culture, could he ever really go back?
The dual life of Calvin evolved over that period of time in which the Indian uprising occurred approximately 1862 resulting in the members of the tribes of Minnesota being relocated.
Many members of the tribes escaped to Canada.
Sent to act as liaison between his Dakota father and the white men following orders to quell the conflict, Calvin desperately tries in vain to formulate some form of détente.
But he found it was almost impossible to reconcile how he ended here from the journey that began when he was twelve.
Calvin Potter had had enough of his abusive Beaver, Pennsylvania father; he couldn't stand it any longer.
Living on the family farm and working hard as he could, no job ever satisfied the demanding man and Calvin could not predict when or what might set him off the next time.
Making up his mind to leave the younger sister he loved and the mother who lent her supportive care, Calvin stole quietly out of the door early one pre-dawn morning with little more than the clothes on his back.
Calvin began a journey into another life that was filled with days of incredible endurance and ended weeks later in unbelievable pain after he unwittingly trod into a patch of poison ivy.
Calvin was found by a hunting party of the Sisseton Sioux tribe of Dakota in Minnesota.
The braves took him back to their camp and deposited him into the hands of his women and the tribe shaman.
Calvin awoke in a delirious fog to the care of the gentle Falling Star and attentive Spirit Wind.
Using herbal remedies and wrapping his legs and tending the bubbling sores became intensive but rewarding when the boy recovered and quickly became grateful and interested in the life of his benefactors.
They appear to be as interested in his becoming one of them as he was in his assimilation to them.
Calvin was adopted into the family of Strong Eagle and White Cloud and their daughter, Red Leaf, and slowly and carefully learns the language, the ways, and the respect of the rest of the tribe as he is indoctrinated into the culture and becomes Many Wolves.
Running Fox, one of the alpha boys near Calvin's age, quickly becomes a boyhood friend and mentor and he and the other young boys of the tribe form a bond of friendship and respect.
Many Wolves followed the tribe as the seasons and years evolved until the very way of life of "the people" was threatened by the encroaching white man and the severe negative impact their civilization had on the native peoples produced hard feelings on both sides, and the situation became so dire that flash point occurred.
In the meantime, Strong Eagle wisely began to force Many Wolves back into the white population to help salvage the situation between the peoples, to assimilate back within the white people of the encroaching civilization and to get Many Wolves out of harms way.
It was time to renew his native language and the ways of the adult white men.
The native peoples had found that the major source of their lifestyle, buffalo, had become scarce and there were few options to find replacement for the food, protection, and tools that the buffalo provided.
The people were starving and negotiations between Calvin and the Cavalry only resulted in still harder feelings and left few options open to them as their centuries old way of life had ended.
The situation deteriorated into the massive exodus of large populations of all tribes of the Dakota Nation.
Following armed conflicts, over 100 of their young men were caught and brought up on charges.
Thirty-eight eventually faced an incredibly sad ending to a remarkable life, one of whom included Many Wolves' great friend and mentor, Running Fox.
Many Wolves as Calvin was unable to salvage the situation to his overwhelming sorrow and found himself neither red nor white.
Lost between the two worlds, Calvin begins a journey back to his "borning" family to try and discover where he belonged.
But after so many years, a journey of boy to man, and a man of another culture, could he ever really go back?
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