William Jones (anthropologist) explained

William Jones (1871–1909) was a Native American anthropologist of the Fox nation. Alternate name: Megasiáwa (Black Eagle). Jones was born in Indian Territory (an area that is now part of Oklahoma) on March 28, 1871.^[1] After studying at Hampton Institute, he graduated from Phillips Academy and went on to receive his B.A. from Harvard.^[2] At Columbia University, he studied under Franz Boas, and in 1904, Jones became the fourth person to receive a PhD in linguistic anthropology, twelfth person to receive a PhD in anthropology, and first Native American to receive a PhD in anthropology.^{[3] [4]}

Jones is known as a specialist in Algonquian languages, particularly known for his extensive collection of Algonquian texts.^[5] In 1908, while employed as an assistant curator at the Field Museum, he went to the Philippines to do fieldwork.^[6]

Biography

William Jones was born to Henry Clay Jones and Sarah Penny Jones on March 28, 1871.^[7] He was born with an ethnicity of Fox, Welsh, and English. His mother, Sarah, died when he was an infant. From the age of one to nine, Jones' maternal grandmother and a medicine woman, Kitiqua, took care of him. Jones great-grandfather, Kitiqua's father, named Wa-shi-ho-wa, taught Jones the tradition, language, and customs of their Fox ancestors.

Jones attended two of the more than 400 American Indian boarding schools that were dedicated to removing indigenous cultural heritage.^{[8] [9]} When he was ten, Jones was taken to the Indian school at Newton, Kansas. Later, he was taken to White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute that was run by Quaker missionaries in Wabash, Indiana.^[10] After leaving them, he worked as a cowhand in Indian Territory.

At 18 years old, he went to Hampton Institute, where he was considered a prize pupil. There he and other indigenous children joined black students.^[11] After Hampton, he attended the Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, a predominantly white school.^[12]

In 1896, Jones went to Harvard, where he wrote for and was editor for The Harvard Monthly; studied the Sac and Fox near Tama, Iowa; and received his A.B degree. He then continued his studies at Columbia University where he held a fellowship and later became an assistant in anthropology. In the summer of 1900, Jones went to study the Sac and Fox of the upper Mississippi, under the direction of his Columbia mentor Frank Boaz, who said to benefactors “the work must be pushed more energetically on account of the rapid disappearance of the material.”

Once Jones received his PHD from Columbia in 1904, he commenced investigations along the northern Algonquian tribes. Jones wrote short stories about Native Americans and the American West, magazine articles, and gave lectures.

He was killed on March 29, 1909, at Dumobato on the east side of Luzon in an altercation with some of the Ilongot among whom he was engaged in fieldwork. It is debatable as to whether or not his death was actually a murder, as his diary entries and correspondences in the last months of his life revealed feelings of peace and belonging with the Ilongot people. He was also valued within their community for his skills as a medical practitioner. Within a few weeks following the event of his death, the United States burned twenty Ilongot villages in retaliation.

Publications

• Jones, William, "Frederic Remington's Pictures of Frontier Life”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 27 No. 5, February 1899, 186–190.
• Jones, William, “An Episode of the Spring Round-Up”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 28 No. 2, April 1899, 46–53.
• Jones, William, “Anoska Nimiwina”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 28 No. 3, May 1899, 102–111.
• Jones, William, “Lydie”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 28 No. 5, July 1899, 194–201.
• Jones, William, “Chiky”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 29 No. 2, November 1899, 59–65.
• Jones, William, “In the Name of His Ancestor”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 29 No. 3, December 1899, 109–115.
• Jones, William, “The Heart of the Brave”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 30 No. 3, May 1900, 99-106.
• Jones, William, “A Lone Star Ranger”, The Harvard Monthly, Vol. 30 No. 4, June 1900, 154–161.
• Jones, William, “Episodes in the Culture-Hero Myth of the Sauks and Foxes [The Culture-Hero Tradition of the Sauk and Fox]”, Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XIV, October–December, 1901, 225–239.
• Jones, William, “Some Principles of Algonquian Word-Formation”, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. VI, no. 3, Supplement, 1904. This is Jones' doctoral thesis at Columbia.
• Jones, William, “The Algonkin Manitou [The Concept of the Manitou]”, Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XVIII, July–September, 1905, 183–190.
• Jones, William, “Central Algonquin”, Annual Archaeological Report, Toronto, Canada, 1905.
• Jones, William, “Ojibwa ethnographic and linguistic field notes”, Archival material at unspecified location, either American Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Institute, Smithsonian, or Field Museum, 1903–1905.
• Jones, William, “An Algonquin Syllabary”, Boas Anniversary Volume (New York, G.E. Stechert),1906, 88–93.
• Jones, William, “Mortuary Observances and the Adoption Rites of the Algonkin Foxes of Iowa”, Congrès International des Américanistes, Quebec, 1906, 1907.
• Jones, William, “Fox Texts”, Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Leyden, E.J. Brill, Vol. I, 1907, 383 pages.
• Jones, William, “Notes on the Fox Indians”, Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 24, April–June 1911.
• Jones, William, “Algonquian (Fox), an Illustrative Sketch”, Handbook of American Indian Languages, Bureau of American Ethnology (Boas), Bulletin 40, Pt. 1, 1911, 735–874.
• Jones, William, and Truman Michelson. Kickapoo tales. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1915.
• Jones, William, and Truman Michelson. “Ojibwa texts collected by William Jones”. Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. VII—Part I. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1917.
• Jones, William, and Truman Michelson. “Ojibwa texts collected by William Jones”. Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. VII—Part II. Leyden: New York: G.E. Stechert & Co., Agents, 1919.
• Fisher, Margaret Welpley, “William Jones’ ‘Ethnography of the Fox Indians’”, doctoral dissertation, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 125, Philadelphia, 1939.  This is based on Jones’ secret, sealed manuscript, edited by Fisher. “The Iowa Foxes initiated him into many ancient mysteries of their religion, which have never been disclosed to a white man. Jones committed to paper an account of these, with sketches, diagrams and the full interpretation which probably no other man could have supplied. The document he then sealed. It will not be opened until the older Indians have gone to their fathers, taking their lore with them.”^[13]
• Jones, William, “The Diary of William Jones: 1907-1909, Robert F. Cummings Philippine Expedition”, Dumabato, Isabela Province, Luzon, Philippines, The Field Museum of Chicago.
• Overholt, T. W., Callicott,  J. B., & Jones, W. "Clothed-in-fur, and other tales: an introduction to an Ojibwa world view." Washington, D.C., University Press of America, 1982.

Bibliography

• Bloomfield, Leonard (1922) "The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians" The American Journal of Philology 43(3): 276-281
• Hall, Robert L., "William Jones: American Indian Anthropologist and Martyr", Proc. of the 92nd annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, 17-21 Nov., Washington, DC, 1993.
• Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institution, “William Jones (Megasiawa, Black Eagle)”, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institution Catalog, copy in Peabody Museum x-file 47-66.
• Jones, William 1900，Harvard Bulletin, April 14, 1909, 4.
• Jones, William 1900, Harvard Bulletin, 16 Oct., 1912.
• Peabody Museum, “Correspondence, photos and clippings about William Jones”, Peabody Museum archival collection, Harvard University, PM x-file 47-66 and 47-66A.
• Wissler, Clark, “Obituary of Dr. Jones”, The American Museum Journal, Volume IX, Number 5, May 1909, 123.
• Van Stone, James W., Mesquakie (Fox) material culture: the William Jones and Frederick Starr collections, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 1998.
• William Jones, The Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XXII, 1909, 262.

References

1. Web site: Jones . Williams . 1939 . Fisher . Margaret Welpley . Ethnography of the Fox Indians . 7 Aug 2024 . Smithsonian Libraries and Archives . Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology.
2. Web site: William Jones (Megasiáwa / Black Eagle) – Notable Folklorists of Color . 2024-08-08 . notablefolkloristsofcolor.org.
3. Book: Cole, Douglas . Franz Boas: the early years 1858-1906 . 1999 . University of Washington press . 978-0-295-97903-8 . Seattle(Wash.) . 206.
4. Book: Bernstein, Jay H. . First Recipients of Anthropological Doctorates in the United States, 1891-1930 . CUNY Academic Works . 2002 . 16.
5. Web site: The Anthropologists Behind the Philippine Heritage Collection . 2024-08-08 . The Field Museum.
6. Book: Bowers, George Ballard . The Southern Workman . April 1925 . Hampton Institute Press . LIV . 144-153 . en . An Indian Martyr to Science . 4.
7. Web site: William Jones . 2024-08-08 . Sequoyah National Research Center: Tribal Writers Digital Library.
8. Web site: Tidd . Jason . May 12, 2022 . Native American boarding schools in Kansas supported US land grab and forced cultural assimilation . 2024-08-14 . The Topeka Capital-Journal . en-US.
9. Web site: Carrillo . Sequoia . July 30, 2024 . Nearly a thousand children died at Indian boarding schools funded by the U.S. . 14 Aug 2024 . NPR.
10. Web site: 2023-01-31 . Children from at least 40 Native American tribes forced to attend residential school in Indiana . 2024-08-14 . wthr.com . en-US.
11. Web site: 2011-02-28 . Skerrett, Jr . Alan . The American Indian at Hampton Institute, Virginia . 2024-08-14 . Jubilo! The Emancipation Century . en.
12. Web site: Report . Staff . 2021-01-15 . Exploring the History of Indigenous Students at Andover . 2024-08-14 . The Phillipian.
13. Web site: Rideout . Henry Milner . 1912 . William Jones, Indian, cowboy, American scholar, and anthropologist in the fields . 2024-08-07 . HathiTrust . Frederick A. Stokes Company . 47 . en . New York.

External links

• The William Jones Papers at the American Philosophical Society Library