Angel De Cora (1871–1919)
Angel De Cora was a Winnebago painter, illustrator, Native American rights advocate, and teacher at Carlisle Indian School. She was the best known Native American artist before World War I. As a girl, she was kidnapped from her family in Nebraska and taken thousands of miles away to the Hampton Institute in Virginia, a boarding school instated by the United States government to “civilize” Native American children, with the goal of stripping them of their culture, severing family and tribal connections, and assimilating them into Euro-American society. Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the first off-reservation boarding school is known for his statement, “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” Yet despite being educated to devalue indigenous cultures, DeCora created sympathetic, humanizing depictions of native peoples throughout her life’s work and advocated for the value of Native American art and design. In 1906 she accepted a position at Carlisle Indian School to teach Native American art, which represented an incredible shift as Native art was heavily discouraged until then. She frequently traveled, giving talks and presenting papers at conferences on Native art and design. By this time the American Arts and Crafts movement was in full swing, which made the mainstream more open to a variety of design traditions. For DeCora, this was a vehicle to promote the value of Native American art and design. She expressed her support as a member of the Society of American Indians, one of the first Native-led rights organizations, as well as in her speech for the 25th Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and other Dependent Peoples in 1907:
There is a general revival throughout the country of the old handicrafts and skilled hands are in demand. Let me tell you that the Indian is an apt pupil for any sort of handicraft. The basket and textile weavers, pottery, and metal workers are already well established. Each of these industries can be expanded in various directions both for utility and ornament. The simple dignity of Indian design lends itself well to ways of conventional art and I think the day has come when the American people must pause and give recognition to another phase of the Indian’s nature, which is his art. |