D'Arcy McNickle

D'Arcy McNickle was an enrolled Salish Kootenai on the Flathead Indian Reservation. He was born on January 14, 1904, to William McNickle, ethnic Irish, and Philomene Parenteau, Cree-Métis. His mother was among numerous Métis who had fled to Montana in the late 19th century to escape the aftermath of suppression following the 1885 Riel Resistance, also known as the North-West Resistance. She eventually found refuge at the Flathead reservation.^[3] McNickle grew up on the reservation in St. Ignatius. He attended mission schools there and boarding schools located elsewhere, off the reservation.

At the age of seventeen, McNickle entered Montana State University (now the University of Montana in Missoula), graduating with the class of 1925.^[4][5] His study of Greek and Latin inspired his love for language, and he began to explore writing.^[6] In 1925, McNickle sold his land allotment on the Flathead Reservation to raise money to study abroad at Oxford University, but left Oxford without matriculating.^[5] He moved to Paris^[6] and briefly attended the University of Grenoble.^[7] After returning to the United States, McNickle moved to New York City (NYC) and took on several jobs, including positions at Encyclopædia Britannica and the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography.^[6] While in NYC, he wrote several short stories and poems and worked on his novel, The Surrounded, which was subsequently published in 1936.^[7][5]

By 1936, McNickle had moved to Washington, D.C., and started working as an administrative assistant at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).^[8][9] McNickle worked under John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, during the 1930s and 1940s. During this period, Collier encouraged the reorganization of self-government among the Native American tribes, and many began to assert greater autonomy for their peoples. McNickle developed expertise in a wide range of areas related to Native American policies. He helped found the National Congress of American Indians in 1944. By 1950, he had been promoted to chief of the tribal relations branch at the BIA.^[10] McNickle also began to publish non-fiction works on Native American history, cultures, and governmental policies.

In 1952, McNickle was selected as director of American Indian Development, Inc., which was affiliated with the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was also active with other Native American organizations, as tribes began asserting their civil rights and working more closely together as an ethnic group. He was instrumental in drafting the "Declaration of Indian Purpose" for the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference.

McNickle was appointed as an associate professor in 1966 to what is now the University of Regina.^[11] In 1972, McNickle helped create the Center for the History of the American Indian in Chicago's Newberry Library.^[12]

• 1963, he received John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for Anthropology and Cultural Studies^[13]
• 1966, he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from University of Colorado.^[7]
• 1984, the Center for History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library was named for him.^[12]
• 1987, Salish Kootenai College Library was renamed the D'Arcy McNickle Library in his honor. Salish Kootenai College is a tribal college on the Flathead Reservation.^[12][14]
• He was named a fellow of the American Anthropological Association.^[12]

In addition to his works in Native American history and culture, McNickle wrote short stories and novels. His best-known work may be his debut novel, The Surrounded (1936). It tells of Archilde León, a young half-Salish man who returns to the Flathead Indian Reservation and his parents' ranch. He has difficulty dealing with both his ethnic Spanish/white father and his traditionalist Indian mother, who has increasingly returned to her culture. The relationship between him and his parents becomes strained when they express their regret that he wants to go away to a big city far from home.^[15]

León begins to find his place on the reservation after Modeste, an elder, teaches him the stories of Salish history. He reconciles with his father and adopts his mother's Interior Salish traditions. At the end of the novel, he is wrongly accused of two murders (one committed by his mother) and surrenders to law enforcement in a scene referred to by the book's title.

This collection of sixteen stories demonstrates the range of McNickle's literary style, organized into three loose categories:^[16]

The Reservation

• "Hard Riding"
• "En roulant ma boule roulant..."
• "Meat for God"
• "Snowfall"
• "Train Time"

Montana

• "The Hawk Is Hungry"
• "Debt of Gratitude"
• "The Wedding Night"
• "Newcomers"
• "Man's Work"
• "Going to School"

The City

• "Manhattan Wedlock"
• "Let the War Be Fought"
• "In the Alien Corn"
• "Six Beautiful in Paris"
• and "The Silver Locket".

• National Congress of American Indians (N.C.A.I)
• American Indian Development, Inc.

June 1961

• Declaration of Indian Purpose