Alexander Lawrence Posey

From NativeWiki

Alexander Lawrence Posey (b. August 3, 1873, Eufala, Creek Nation; d. May 27, 1908) (Muscogee) A highly respected journalist and poet, Alexander Posey was among the best known literary and political figures in Oklahoma at the turn of the century. His mother was a full-blooded Creek; his father, of Indian-Scotch-Irish descent, was an orphan raised by Creeks. Posey grew up in a bicultural, bilingual environment. He attended Creek public school in Eufaula, and then Bacone Indian University in Muskogee, 1889-94.

Posey was a Wind Clan member of the Upper Creek town of Tuskegee, a position inherited, with his brothers and sisters, because Creek clan membership follows matrilineal lines. Tuskegee was known as a peace town, interested in political and social change. Posey was often called a "progressivist" because he believed that native peoples needed at least partially to assimilate to white culture in order to survive. While Posey's mother did not speak English, she was a devout Christian, belonging to the Baptist Church, the most rapidly expanding denomination in the Creek Nation at the time. Posey, therefore, was exposed to both Creek and Baptist religious ceremonies as a child.

Posey began writing while a student at Bacone, where he worked for the Bacone Indian University Instructor, a monthly newsletter which published his poems and articles as well as Creek legends he translated into English. He also garnered recognition for his commencement orations. After leaving Bacone in 1894, Posey published three short stories under the pseudonym Chinnubbie Harjo. Soon after leaving school, Posey became involved in Creek politics. He was elected to the Creek National Council at age twenty-two, and would continue his political involvement until his death. In the late 1890s Posey served in several administrative positions for the Creek Nation, including superintendent of the Creek orphan asylum and superintendent of public instruction.

In 1902 he bought the Indian Journal, the first Indian-published daily newspaper based in Eufaula, which he used as a platform to promote social, political, and economic progress for Native Americans in what was to become the state of Oklahoma. His most notable accomplishment as editor of the Indian Journal was his creation of the persona of "Fus Fixico," a full-blood Creek who wrote letters to the editor, published as substitutes for editorials, about politics, bureaucrats, and social and economic conditions in the Indian Territory. Fus Fixico wrote about his everyday life or sent in transcriptions of speeches that he had heard the Creek medicine man Hotgun deliver to an audience of other old men — Kono Harjo, Tookpafka Micco, and Wolf Warrior. The monologues are in dialect and achieve a wickedly satirical perspective on Creek culture and politics. Posey managed to leave behind Euro-American forms and speak in a voice that reflected Native American speech patterns.

The Curtis Act of 1898, decreeing the allotment to individual tribal members of land held in common by tribal governments was being implemented; debates about statehood were also raging. Native peoples were ambivalent about statehood, and there was a very real possibility that Oklahoma would be admitted as two states — one white, one Indian. Posey was a strong advocate of the two-state proposal and was secretary at the 1905 convention to organize Sequoyah, the proposed Indian state. The Fus Fixico letters, written from 1902 to 1908, satirized every aspect of the debate. They were cogent political commentary aimed at influencing Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and United States politics.

Alexander Posey's life was cut short when, at the age of thirty-five, he drowned while crossing the flooded Oktahutche River. It was barely a year since Indian Territory and the tribal governments within it had been dissolved. Born in the Creek Nation, Posey died in the brand-new state of Oklahoma. Two years after his death, his wife collected and published much of his poetry, but his Fus Fixico letters remained uncollected until the 1990s.

Books

Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey, Creek Indian Bard , originally collected and arranged by Minnie H. Posey with memoir by William Elsey Connely, Crane (Topeka, KS), 1910; revised edition, with illustrations by Joan Hill, Okmulgee Cultural Foundation and the Five Civilized Tribes Heritage Foundation (Muskogee, OK), 1969.

The Fus Fixico Letters , edited by Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr. and Carol A. Petty Hunter, foreword by A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

Chinnubbie and the Owl: Muscogee (Creek) Stories, Orations, and Oral Traditions, University of Nebraska Press, 2005.