William Henry Dietz - Contested Heritage

Contested Heritage

Dietz's Indian heritage was first contested in 1916 after former neighbors who settled on the Pacific Coast heard he was posing as an Indian. In December 1918 the Federal Bureau of Investigation looked into his heritage after he fraudulently registered for the draft as a "Non-Citizen Indian" with an allotment. The bureau found he had taken on the identity of James One Star, an Oglala man 12 years his senior who had disappeared in 1894. Dietz also falsely claimed he was the head of an American film company that produced propaganda films for the war.

He was tried in Spokane, Washington in June of 1919 for the first offense. One Star's sister, Sallie Eaglehorse, who Dietz had been writing to as if her brother for several years, testified after seeing him for the first time at the trial, that he was definitely not her brother. Still, the judge instructed the jury to determine whether or not Dietz "believed" he was an Indian, not whether it was true. Despite the fact that others had witnessed his birth in the summer of 1884 or had seen him the following day, Dietz's mother, Leanna Ginder Dietz Lewis, claimed he was the Indian son of her husband who had been switched a week or more after she had a stillbirth. Dietz's acting ability along with his mother's fallacious testimony (to protect him from prison) resulted in a hung jury, but Dietz was immediately re-indicted. The 2nd trial, which focused on his claim he should be exempt from the draft because he headed a film company necessary to the war effort, resulted in a sentence of 30 days in the county jail after he pleaded "no contest."