The Role of Nartive Americans in America's Wars

Herman J. Viola’s Warrior Spirit offers a glimpse of the role in military service played by Native Americans across the centuries. from the earliest involvement in the American Revolution to modern conflicts. Viola presents a range of short chronological chapters which feature profiles of a number of Native Americans who served in the armed forces as supporting evidence for his thesis.

Viola is a curator emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, he has authored many books about Native Americans, the American West and other topics. This monograph, meant as part of a “K-12 education initiative,” (p. 145) represents a brief and useful look at the range of Native American contributions to American military campaigns. It does not feature scholarly citations, rather sources are listed at the end of the individual chapters. The text is further augmented with interviews and brief portions written by three contributors: Ellen Baumler, Cheryl Hughes and Michelle Pearson. This book is not based so much on statistics as limited cases which reinforce his argument, although it effectively achieves his goal of highlighting the Native American sacrifice and willingness to serve for an adopted country. A number of black and white photographs support the text effectively, there are no maps or other images.

Viola’s chapters run chronologically; the first two deal with years preceding the World Wars, the third to sixth cover the World Wars, the seventh to ninth deal with the Cold War to the present, including a chapter looking at Native American women warriors who served, and the last chapter covers the efforts to establish a national memorial for Native American veterans in Washington DC, the National Native American Veterans Memorial.

Among the many topics he covers are: the Stockbridge Indians service during the American Revolution, Chief Pushmataha of the Choctaws who served in the War of 1812 as the first Native American of general’s rank in the U.S. Army, Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to surrender in the American Civil War, the Crow and Chiricahua contribution as tribal auxiliaries who served alongside the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars, the Code Talkers of the World Wars, both the Choctaw in World War I and the commonly known Navajo who served in the Pacific (and also the lesser known Comanches and others who fought in Europe) in World War II, tribal Medal of Honor recipients from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, the counting of coup in World War II by Joseph Medicine Crow, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell as a Korean War veteran and Cheyenne legislator among others.

The running thread of sacrifice across generations of Native Americans resonates throughout the book. The brief conclusion features the summation of the work and also a discussion about the culminating national monument with designer Harvey Pratt, Cheyenne Vietnam veteran and artist, featured prominently.

Viola’s Warrior Spirit is an effective, yet cursory work. It draws the reader with vignettes that flow comfortably from one chapter to the next, interspersed with supporting narrative and veteran profiles that add to the story. The work belongs on any bookshelf, and especially those oriented towards forgotten or misunderstood contributions to American military history. For the average reader this book would be a good introduction to the topic and certainly provide enough details to give a basic grasp of the Native American military experience. Hopefully it would stimulate their interest into further exploration.

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Note: Warrior Spirit is also available in e-editions.

StrategyPage reviews are published in cooperation with The New York Military Affairs Symposium

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