Early Life and Education
Francis La Flesche was born in 1857 on the Omaha Reservation, the first child of his father Joseph LaFlesche's second wife Ta-in-ne, and half-brother to his father's first five children. Their mother was Mary Gale, daughter of an American surgeon and his Iowa wife. After Mary's death, the widower Joseph (also known as Iron Eye) married Ta-in-ne, an Omaha woman. Francis attended the Presbyterian Mission School at Bellevue, Nebraska. Later he attended college and law school in Washington, DC.
By 1853, Iron Eye was a chief of the Omaha; he helped negotiate the 1854 treaty by which the tribe sold most of their land in Nebraska. He led the tribe as a head chief soon after their removal to a reservation and in the major transition to more sedentary lives. Joseph (Iron Eye) was Métis, of French and Ponca descent, and grew up mostly with the Omaha people. Working first as a fur trader, as an adult he had been adopted as a son by the chief Big Elk, who designated Iron Eyes as his successor.
Joseph emphasized education for all his children; several went to schools and colleges in the East. They were encouraged to contribute to their people. Francis' half-siblings became accomplished adults: Susette LaFlesche was an activist and nationally known speaker on issues of Indian rights and reform; Rosalie LaFlesche Farley was an activist and managed Omaha tribal financial affairs; and Susan La Flesche was the first Native American woman to become a western-style doctor; she treated the Omaha for years.
Read more about this topic: Francis La Flesche
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or education:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“One half of my life has put the other half in the grave.”
—Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
“To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education, I call it intrusion.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)