Red Thunder Cloud

Red Thunder Cloud was born on May 30, 1919, as Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West in Newport, Rhode Island to Cromwell Payne West of Pennsylvania and Roberta Hawkins West of Lynchburg, Virginia. Both were of African American descent. His maternal grandfather was William Ashbie Hawkins, one of the first African-American lawyers in Baltimore. From 1935 to 1937 West was employed by the Newport City wharf as a watchman and later as a chauffeur. In 1938 West began correspondence with Frank G. Speck, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, claiming that he was a sixteen-year-old Catawba Indian. He asked Speck for help in learning more about his people and told him that he had been interested in Native American culture since the fourth grade. He claimed that he was raised by the Narragansett tribe of Rhode Island and had lived with the Shinnecock tribe since 1937. He also claimed that he learned the Catawba language from his grandmother, Ada McMechen.[4]

For reasons that are unclear, West reinvented his identity at this point and lived the rest of his life as Red Thunder Cloud of the Catawba tribe. Speck believed Red Thunder Cloud to be a genuine Catawba Indian and proceeded to provide him with training in field methods of recording notes for ethnological studies. Red Thunder Cloud worked for Speck on small projects, collecting ethnographic data and folklore among Long Island Indians. He also collected data on the Montauk, Shinnecock, and Mashpee tribes for George Gustav Heye, founder of what became the National Museum of the American Indian.

In December 1943, Red Thunder Cloud lived at the University of Pennsylvania for two weeks, providing information on the Catawba tribe, recording music, and aiding in ethnobotanical research. Red Thunder Cloud made his first visit to the Catawba Reservation in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in February 1944. According to Chief Gilbert Blue of the Catawba tribe, Red Thunder Cloud studied with his grandfather, Chief Sam Blue, and Sally Gordon during his second visit to the reservation, which lasted for six months. When interviewed in 1957 by William C. Sturtevant, Chief Sam Blue and his daughter-in-law Lillian expressed doubts concerning Red Thunder Cloud's identity as a Catawba. They believed that he had originally learned the language from a book.

In a letter dated October 25, 1958, Red Thunder Cloud offered assistance to Sturtevant in making contact with Indian groups in the eastern United States. His correspondence claimed that his mother was Catawba and his father was from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and came from Honduran and Puerto Rican parentage. Red Thunder Cloud also stated that he spoke Spanish and Portuguese as well as Native American languages including Cayuga, Seneca, Mohawk, Narraganset, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Creek, Choctaw, Sioux, and Winnebago. In addition, he claimed he was able to recognize other Indian languages when he heard them spoken. Foxx Ayers, a longtime Catawba friend of Red Thunder Cloud, stated that his friend's knowledge of the language was so good that he had trained his dog to answer only to Catawba commands.

Red Thunder Cloud was briefly married to Jean Marilyn Miller (Pretty Pony) of the Blackfoot tribe.[4]

Red Thunder Cloud's support of Native American causes was demonstrated by his involvement in Indian organizations, as well as his publication of a periodical in the late 1940s called The Indian War Drum: The Voice of the Eastern Indians.[5] In 1964 and 1965 he worked with G. Hubert Matthews, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to document the Catawba language. Together they published five texts in 1967. Matthews included in these books Red Thunder Cloud's family genealogy and named the Catawba relatives in his maternal line. In discussions with Matthews, Red Thunder Cloud gave the name of his mother's father as “Strong Eagle.” The latter was a graduate of Yale Law School, Red Thunder Cloud said, and had died in 1941. He identified his mother's name as “Singing Dove.”

Red Thunder Cloud died at St. Vincent's Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts following a stroke, at the age of 76.[6] At the time of his death, Leonor Pena, a close friend from Central Falls, Rhode Island, gave Red Thunder Cloud's name as Carlos Westez and included the alias Namos S. Hatiririe. She listed his occupation as shaman. His sister, as administrator to his will in probate court, gave his name as Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West.

Linguist and ethnologist Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian Institution has validated suspicions of Red Thunder Cloud's identity by way of public documents, letters, and publications. He stated that "in spite of the negative issues surrounding Red Thunder Cloud's identity, he has made valuable contributions to the study of ethnography".[4] Goddard stated that even though Red Thunder Cloud's life was a "successful life-long masquerade", [4] he contributed extensively to a greater understanding and protection of the Catawba and other native cultures.

A historian specializing in the Catawba, Wes Taukchiray, said "What I'm interested in is that he learned how to speak the Catawba language conversationally." Taukchiray also said, "I'm not really concerned about his ethnic origin."[7]

• The Shinnecock Indians of Long Island [a collection of photographs] (1963)
• The Montauk Indians of Long Island in New York State [a collection of photographs] (1975)

• A Child's Introduction To The American Indian (1963)
• Songs and Legends of the Catawba (1992)[8]
• Songs and Traditions of the Catawba (1992)