The Fool Soldiers -- finis

The St. Ange

When Father DeSmet came to Fort Pierre in 1851, it was an event to be remembered by the Indians. Cholera had taken its toll from the lives of the people; there was suffering everywhere, and to cap the climax, smallpox was coming on. The Indians were in terror, but the good Father had had the cholera the year before as he traveled up the Missouri in a steamboat and had also had the smallpox. He was familiar with the treatment of these diseases, and he went from tent to tent relieving the sick and baptizing the dying. Many Indians remarked on the mercy of a man whose religion took him to minister to those with the dread diseases. Many a man, woman, and child were saved from death.

Josephine Donovan offers what to me seemed to be a whole different explanation for heroic foolishness of "the Fool Soldiers." But then again can she be trusted?--which is to say, can the testimony of the old ones she interviewed be trusted? After all, what they told her can't be proved.

What's more, Josephine Donovan was herself a strong Christian, a Roman Catholic, who would have looked upon Father DeSmet as an absolute reservation saint.

When I read what Donovan wrote, I knew exactly the story she is referring to, the story she says explains the miraculous ability of the great "Black Robe" to minister to the Native suffering amid the horrors of smallpox and cholera. I first read that immensely powerful story in a diary kept by the Swiss artist Rudolf Friedrich Kurz who, with Father DeSmet and another Belgian priest, Father Hoeken, were aboard the St. Ange, a Missouri River steamer, when the passengers were suddenly beset by illness. That story I've told elsewhere--you can hear it if you click here. 

Mad Bear

Donovan goes on. "At this time Mad Bear," she says, "was a mere lad of about fourteen years, but like many at the time, was greatly influenced and impressed by the principles of the black-robed priest."

Mad Bear was also one of the "Fool Soldiers."

But she doesn't stop the story there. She keeps going.

Ten years later, some of the warriors Father De Smet had taught formed a society, and pledged themselves to uphold what was right, always to do good as far as they could, and to right all wrongs that came their way. These men who formed the first Christian society west of the Missouri River among the wild tribes . . . called themselves Strong Hearts, but because they did so many unusual things in fulfilling their pledge to keep law and order and in punishing many a lawless man, the other Indians called them Fool Soldiers.

Josephine Donovan says the Fool Soldiers were "the first Christian society west of the Missouri River among the wild tribes." 

Is she right? Is her assessment accurate? No one will ever know. But given the scenario she creates in Witness, it seems to me that her story is plausible. What's more, it helps me understand what's written on Four Bear's cemetery stone, and helps Four Bear's own great-great-great-great grandchildren understand what that stone testifies. 

For more than 36 years
a faithful Christian
and loyal friend of the
whites.

The measure of blessing I received from piecing this story together a year or two ago was so great that telling it again is a joy. It's a story of Christian ministry that created a profound blessing in the here-and-now. 

What believers can argue--and should--is that mission work led to the "conversion" of many thousands of Native people. They found the Lord. They got saved.

But that argument holds little weight for those who don't buy its premise. If Josephine Donovan is right, then the foolishness of the Fool Soldiers is, in fact, the Christian faith. 

The Fool Soldiers were, in truth, 19th century Native American "holy fools."