Alexander Lawrence Posey (August 3, 1873 – May 27, 1908) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

humorist A humorist (American) or humourist (British spelling) is an intellectual who uses humor, or wit, in writing or public speaking, but is not an artist who seeks only to elicit laughs. Humorists are distinct from comedians, who are show business e ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

, and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

in the Creek Nation.Schneider 190 He founded the '' Eufaula Indian Journal'' in 1901, the first Native American daily newspaper. For several years he published editorial letters known as the ''Fus Fixico Letters,'' written by a fictional figure who commented pointedly about Muscogee Nation, Indian Territory, and United States politics during the period of the dissolution of tribal governments and communal lands. He served as secretary to the

Sequoyah Constitutional Convention The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention was an American Indian-led attempt to secure statehood for Indian Territory as an Indian-controlled jurisdiction, separate from the Oklahoma Territory. The proposed state was to be called the State of Sequoya ...

and drafted much of the constitution for its proposed Native American state, but Congress rejected the proposal. Posey died young, drowned while trying to cross the flooding

North Canadian River The North Canadian River is a river, long, in Oklahoma in the United States. It is a tributary of the Canadian River, draining an area of U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset/Watershed Boundary Dataset, area data covering North ...

in Oklahoma.

Early life

Alexander Posey was born on August 3, 1873, near present Eufaula, Creek Nation. He was the oldest of twelve children, and his parents were Lewis Henderson "Hence" Posey, of Scots-Irish Muskogee Creek ancestry, from the Creek Berryhill family and Nancy (Phillips) Posey (Creek name ''Pohas Harjo''), who was Muscogee Creek and a member of the Harjo family.Alexander Posey's lineages information
"Parent's names show as immediate Family"Wilson, Linda D

, ''Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.'' (retrieved 20 March 2011) The Creek have a

matrilineal Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance ...

kinship system In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...

, by which Posey and his siblings were considered born into his mother's Wind Clan of the tribal town of Tuskegee. They took their status from her, and property and hereditary positions were passed through her line. Posey's father Lewis H. Posey was born to Scots/Irish/Creek family, but he identified as Creek. He had been orphaned at an early age and raised in the Creek Nation; he spoke the Muscogee language fluently; and he was made a member of the Broken Arrow tribal town. Young Alexander and his siblings spoke Muscogee as their first language. As they grew older, their father insisted they speak English as well; when Posey was fourteen, his father would punish him if he spoke Muscogee. From that time, Posey received a formal education, including three years at Bacone Indian University in Muskogee, Oklahoma. In 1896 at the age of 23, Posey married Minnie Harris, a schoolteacher. Together they had three children, Yahola Irving, Pachina Kipling, and Wynema Torrans, each with a middle name drawn from one of the couple's literary heroes.

Career

Posey studied writing at Bacone. He read naturalists such as John Burroughs and Henry David Thoreau, who inspired him to write about the landscape of his childhood. After college he worked at ''Indian Journal'', where he published poems. In 1895, he represented the Wind Clan as a member of the Creek National Council. He was also the director of a Creek orphanage. In 1901, Posey edited the journal ''Eufaula Indian Journal.'' He gained national recognition for founding the first Indian-published daily newspaper. In 1906, Posey was secretary for the

, called to draft a constitution for a state to be majority Native American. According to the ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma'', he is credited with having written most of that constitution.Mullins, Jonita. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. "Muskogee County." Retrieved April 22, 2013. The Native Americans hoped to gain a state of their own, in the period when whites were pushing for the Oklahoma and Indian territories to be admitted as a state to the Union. The Native Americans were not successful. Their tribal structures were dissolved as part of extinguishing Native American land title in what became the state of Oklahoma.

Fus Fixico letters

As Posey honed his satirical skills, he created a fictional persona, Fus Fixico (Muscogee Creek for "Heartless Bird"), whose editorial letters were published in the ''Indian Journal.'' Fus Fixico was represented as a full-blood Muscogee traditionalist, whose chatty letters were about his everyday life or detailed accounts that he had heard the fictional Muscogee medicine man Hotgun share with an audience of Creek elders: Kono Harjo, Tookpafka Micco, and Wolf Warrior. These monologues are written in Creek dialect.Schneider 191 The ''Fus Fixico Letters'' have aspects of nostalgia but are primarily sharp political commentary about Muscogee Nation, Indian Territory, and United States politics. This was a time of political upheaval because Creek and other tribes' communal lands were being broken up into individual household allotments under the

Dawes Act The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. Named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, it authorized the Pres ...

, to extinguish land title in preparation for statehood. The

Curtis Act of 1898 The Curtis Act of 1898 was an amendment to the United States Dawes Act; it resulted in the break-up of tribal governments and communal lands in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory: the Choctaw, Chickasa ...

dismantled tribal governments and institutions, also in preparation for Indian Territory to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Experienced politicians from the

Five Civilized Tribes The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by European Americans in the colonial and early federal period in the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek ...

met to draft a constitution to establish an indigenous-controlled State of Sequoyah, but their proposals were rejected by the US Federal Government. Posey served as secretary for the 1906 State of Sequoyah convention. His ''Fus Fixico letters'' from 1902 to 1908 poked fun as statehood was debated. Various US newspapers proposed syndicating the Fus Fixico letters nationwide, but Posey refused. His readership was within Indian Territory, and he did not believe a non-Native audience would understand the humor. So-called dialect literature was extremely popular at the dawn of the 20th century. Usually dialect literature was based on

African-American dialect African-American English (or AAE; also known as Black American English, or Black English in American linguistics) is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers ...

. The Posey family had also avidly read

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

, who wrote poetry in the

Scots language Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonl ...

. Posey's father read such dialect writers as Max Adler,

Josh Billings Josh Billings was the pen name of 19th-century American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw (April 21, 1818October 14, 1885). He was a famous humor writer and lecturer in the United States during the latter half of the 19th century. He is often compa ...

Paul Laurence Dunbar Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American C ...

, and

James Whitcomb Riley James Whitcomb Riley (October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916) was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry. His ...

. Alexander Posey saw dialects as a means of expressing Muscogee oratory styles in English; he did not care for dialect writers who tried to adopt it as part of a popular trend: "Those cigar store Indian dialect stories...will fool no one who has lived 'six months in the precinct.' Like the wooden aborigine, they are the product of a white man's factory, and bear no resemblance to the real article."

Death and legacy

On April 28, 1908, Posey was swept away while trying to cross the flooded

with a friend. His body was recovered a week later, and buried at Greenhill Cemetery in Muskogee. In April 2017, the

University of Central Oklahoma The University of Central Oklahoma (UCO or Central State) is a public university in Edmond, Oklahoma. It is the third largest university in Oklahoma, with more than 17,000 students and approximately 434 full-time and 400 adjunct faculty. Founde ...

honored Posey by inaugurating the Alexander Lawrence Posey Speaker Series, showcasing voices considered "othered" in contemporary literary discourse. Poet Danez Smith was the inaugural speaker.

Published works

A number of his collected works have been published posthumously. *''The Poems Of Alexander Lawrence Posey: Alex Posey, The Creek Indian Poet,'' Minnie H. Posey, ed. (2010). Kessinger Press. . *''Lost Creeks: Collected Journals,'' Matthew Wynn Sivils, ed. (2009) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. . *''Song of the Oktahutche: Collected Poems,'' Matthew Wynn Sivils, ed. (2008) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. . *''Chinnubbie and the Owl: Muscogee (Creek) Stories, Orations, and Oral Traditions,'' Matthew Wynn Sivils, ed. (2005). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. . *''The Fus Fixico Letters,'' Daniel Littlefield, Jr. and Carl A. Petty Hunter, ed. (1993)Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ASIN B001QREZM0. *"Journal of Alexander Lawrence Posey," ''Chronicles of Oklahoma.'' 1968, ASIN B003ZW6ZHM. *"Journal of Creek Enrollment Field Party, 1905," ''Chronicles of Oklahoma.'' 1968, ASIN B003ZWAAOG.

Notes

References

*Schneider, Bethany Ridgway
"Alexander Lawrence Posey (Creek) (1873—1908)."
Lauter, Paul, general ed. ''The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume C: Late Nineteenth Century: 1865—1910. Volume C.'' Wadsworth Publishing, 2009: 190–197. .

External links

* *
The complete journals and poems of Alexander Posey
Oklahoma State University
''Alex Posey, the Creek Indian Poet: The Poetry of Alexander Lawrence Posey''
a free Google e-book.
Grave site of Alex Posey, with photo of tombstone
{{DEFAULTSORT:Posey, Alexander 1873 births 1908 deaths 19th-century American male writers 20th-century American male writers 19th-century American poets 20th-century American poets 19th-century Native American politicians 20th-century Native American politicians Accidental deaths in Oklahoma American humorists American male non-fiction writers American male poets American people of Scotch-Irish descent Bacone College alumni Deaths by drowning in the United States Muscogee (Creek) Nation people Native American journalists Native American poets Muscogee (Creek) Nation politicians People of Indian Territory Writers from Oklahoma