The Legend of Chief Paduke

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Top of page: “Watching the Explorers Passing By At the Future Site of Paducah Kentucky, November 11, 1803.” Image of a section of the floodwall  mural painted by Robert Dafford, in a series titled “Paducah: Portraits of Our Past.” Photo by Adam Maroney, Paducah, Kentucky, 2009, posted on flikr.

I was a Clark School Indian.

It occurs to me this is an admirably efficient figure of contradiction.

I should explain.

I grew up in a small city in Western Kentucky. I went to Clark Elementary School. The school was named after the revolutionary war hero and explorer of Lewis and Clark fame, George Rogers Clark. Through Clark, the village of Pekin became the city of Paducah. Clark acquired the land on which Paducah stands through the Jackson Purchase.

Our mascot was an Indian chief.

Who is the Indian? Who is the chief, in his headdress?

Who was here before Clark?

this contradiction–conqueror and conquered, the occupier and the occupied, heralded and disappeared, in a winning, neat phrase– is part of a mosaic approach to history long embedded in our town’s histories and fictions.

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Here is the version of the Chief Paduke legend I learned to tell: the tragic, romantic story of Chief Paduke, a brave, noble, and beautiful man who spoke perfect English; a chief who admired explorer George Rogers Clark (namesake of my elementary school). Paduke sailed down the Ohio River to rendevous with Clark. Paduke did not receive the news that Clark had had to cancel the rendevous, and, tragically, contracted malaria from a mosquito on the river and died. For years after, remnants of his tribe gathered for pow-wows at the bank of the Ohio river.

What I have come to realize: this is the “myth of the noble savage.”

FIVE DOLLARS BOUGHT PADUCAH

Our history is told by historical markers. They stand downtown, alongside highways, bronzed. They tell us when a war was, an epidemic, of the famous and forgotten members of a city; of the site of a battle, a hospital, a landmark church, what and where things were before they began to be something different—before they began to be whatever they are now.

Our history is told by names.

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What is wrong with the “myth of the noble savage”? Aside from the fact that it is a “myth,” it flatters the myth-makers: us. It perpetuates a self-serving myth of peaceful relations between Native Americans and our country’s settlers, and a distorted view of our region’s interactions with Native Americans.

The image of the “friendly Indian” has become part of how Paducah views (and markets) itself. Consider, for example, the real estate company which currently sells houses and properties, without irony, under the name “Chief Paduke Realty.” In the past, his face, or conjectured image, has emblazened drive-in movies and cigar labels. More recently, a mayoral candidate opened a campaign ad with a “quote” from “Chief Paduke,” that “imagination is more important than knowledge” (a quote widely attributed to Albert Einstein).

Here is a timeline of Paduke’s presence:

1909 – Lorenzo Taft is commissioned to create a sculpture of Chief Paduke (Taft doubts Paduke ever existed.)

1996-2007? – Muralist Robert Dafford creates “Paducah Wall to Wall” series of historical murals on Paducah’s floodwalls.

1967

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I cannot remember at what age I questioned the “$5 Bought Paducah” marker, standing on Market Street. At what age did I realise, as everyone realises, that “Indians” were cheated out of their land? I still do not know what to make of the tone of the marker, its seeming tongue-in-cheek brag at the bargain of buying Paducah for such a low sum. Two hundred years later, give or take, how do we handle this “bargain”?

The marker accompanying the collection of statues in front of the American Quilt Museum seems to approach, but shy away from, acknowledging the “bargain.”

In the early days of the Internet, I remember visiting the city of Paducah’s official site. There was emblazened a cartoonish image of “Chief Paduke.” In an act of early activism, I posted to the webpage (my post was not pre-screened) objecting to the image. My post was later removed.

John E. L. Robertson remains the foremost historian of Paducah. In his book Frontier to the Atomic Age (Arcadia: 2002), he maintains there is no evidence Chief Paduke ever existed. Robertson makes a convincing case: among other arguments, he maintains the Chickasaw never lived in Kentucky, but used it as a hunting ground. But his argument leaves me with questions. To dismiss the legend of Chief Paduke is to foreclose important questions. Even if Paduke never existed, why were Paducahans past and why are Paducahans present invested in the myth? What explains our investment in the myth?  When did this collective fiction begin, and why, and in what ways, does it endure?

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Introduce a block quote:

Everything was great !

Like many towns, the streets of downtown Paducah bear the names of presidents: Madison, Monroe, Jefferson. Of these, Jefferson is my favorite. A long island of green grass runs alongside the road, dividing the lanes. Along this stretch of green are landmarks of Paducah history: there is the memorial to Paducah native and vice-president Alben “the VEEP” Barkley, who would rather, according to the engraved quotation, serve the meek than sit in the seats of the mighty; there is the marker that says how far the Ohio River rose in the flood of 1937; and there is the statue of Chief Paduke carved in marble, handsome, posed like The Thinker.

What Paducahans may not know (and the sculpture and its marker leaves unmentioned) is that the sculptor commissioned to create “Chief Paduke, Lorenzo Taft, himself doubted Chief Paduke had ever existed. Taft’s doubts prompted humorist, author and journalist Irvin S. Cobb, a Paducah native who published widely in Chicago and New York newspapers, to vigorously defend the legend as “true.” For Cobb (a member of a pro-World War I propagandist group of artists and writers), the existence of Chief Paduke was a matter of patriotism. (Cobb’s humor, regrettably, was informed by a merry unrepentant chauvinism–witness his book, “Oh, Well You Know How Women Are!”; he was also praised as a teller of “some of the funniest Negro stories ever brought from the South.” See The Breckenridge News, Cloverport, Ky., February 24, 1915, Image 4,”Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.)

***

Take Jefferson and cross over to Broadway, and arrive at the heart of historical downtown, Paducah, just before the bank of the Ohio River. Pause at “Market House Square,” a red brick building that was indeed once a market, and now the home of Market House Theater. There see an official historical marker announcing that “FIVE DOLLARS BOUGHT PADUCAH.” The marker explains:

Here is the standard narrative, reproduced on a web page (credited to “The Story of Pekin,” McCracken County Public Library Special Collections):

Paducah, originally called Pekin, began around 1815 as a mixed community of Native Americans and white settlers who were attracted to the spot due to its location at the confluence of many waterways. According to legend, Chief Paduke, most likely a Chickasaw, welcomed the people traveling down the Ohio and Tennessee on flatboats. His wigwam… on a low buff at the mouth of Island Creek served as the counsel lodge… The settlers, appreciative of his hospitality, and respectful of his ways, settled across the creek.The two communities lived in harmony trading goods and services enjoying the novelty of each other’s culture. . . . This cultural interaction continued until William Clark… arrived… in 1827 with a title deed… Clark was the superintendent of Indian affairs for the Mississippi-Missouri River region. He asked the Chief and the settlers to move along, which they did offering little resistance probably because the deed was issued by the United States Supreme Court. Though the deed only cost $5.00 to process, it carried with it the full authority of the U.S. Government backed by the United States Army. Clark surveyed his new property and platted the grid… The Chief and his villagers moved to Mississippi allowing Clark to continue with the building of the new city which he named in honor of the Chief. Upon completion of the plat, Clark sent envoys to Mississippi to invite Chief Paduke back to a ribbon-cutting ceremony but [Paduke] died of malaria in the boat while making the return trip. (Source: “Paducah, Kentucky. Travel Photos by Galen R. Frysinger, Sheboygen, Wisconsin.”)

The pre-Clark village of Pekin seems to be a kind of Eden: “[t]he two communities liv[ing] in harmony… enjoying the novelties of each other’s culture.” There seem curious contradictions within the narrative: such an Eden was interrupted by Clark’s arrival, yet he named the town in honor of Chief Paduke. Of course, the notable understatement presents itself, that “[t]he Chief and his villagers moved to Mississippi” somewhat willingly, somewhat faintly by force, that $5.00 deed being “backed by the United States Army.”

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In front of the National Quilt Museum are four statues. Evidently, the American montage is adaptable: the same set of figures grace the Center for Plains studies at the University of Lincoln-Nebraska.

I have been unable to confirm a Jeffersonian medal given to “those first peoples.” Internet inquiry led me to Monticello, Jefferson’s homeplace and now a historical landmark, to a webpage devoted to his relationship with American Indians. (The article appears “courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia.”)

Practice being able to type after I insert an image!

 

Chief Paduke Reality Sign