Boy Scouts of America: Playing Indian to Save White Settler Masculinity

"We, Too, Have a Job to Do" - Norman Rockwell, Oil on Canvas, 1942.

The LDS church is paying $250M into a fund for tens of thousands of men who say they were molested by Boy Scouts of America (BSA) scoutmasters. (Not unlike the Lamanite Placement Program).

BSA was started in 1910 in response to what many anti-queer white-supremacists saw as the weakening (ie feminizing) of white masculinity as our culture urbanized. Physical Education and outdoor culture were responses to this white fear. One of these programs, created  by Ernest Thompson Seton for the white settler boys and girls of Cos Cob, Connecticut, was called “Woodcraft Indians.” 

Some young ruffians vandalized his property and in response he invited them over and told them fake stories about Indians and nature. Seton continued to instruct kids in Connecticut in outdoor skills based on harmful misconceptions about Indigenous people.

Ernest Thompson Seton entertaining his "Indians" with his many "Indian" tales. 1904.

Ernest Thompson Seton, known as "Black Wolf" by his "Indians."

A few titles of writings by Seton:

• How to Play Indian (1903)
• Two Little Savages (1903)
• How to Make a Real Indian Teepee (1903)
• How Boys Can Form a Band of Indians (1903)
• Boy Scouts of America: Official Handbook, with General Sir Baden-Powell (1910)
• The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore (1912)
• The Manual of the Woodcraft Indians (1915)
• Sign Talk of the Indians (1918)
• The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore (1922)
• Ernest Thompson Seton's America (1954)

With a couple of other white men, Seton turned “Woodcraft Indians” into the BSA.

Which, its fits that a white-supremacist, settler-fantasy youth program based on Indian fetish-fiction was adopted by a religious corporation founded in the same ideologies. 

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"Lobo and Blanca of the Currumpaw pack" by Ernest Thompson Seton

Ernest Thompson Seton was also famous for killing a famously hard to kill wolf, Lobo

"Lobo" is the name settler gave to a Mexican gray wolf (currently an endangered species) who lived mostly in so-called northeast New Mexico in Nʉmʉnʉʉ (Comanche), Arapaho, [Gáuigú (Kiowa), Jicarilla Apache, Ndé Kónitsąąíí Gokíyaa (Lipan Apache) lands. After Lobo lost its prey species as settlers overgrazed their cattle on the wolves' hunting grounds, Lobo began eating the cows. Many settler-ranchers tried to kill Lobo and all of them failed. 

Seton moved west lured by the $1000 bounty on Lobo's head. After 4 months of failing, Seton found that Lobo had a mate. Seton changed tactics and successfully trapped and killed Lobo’s mate, Blanca. 

Lobo watched all of this and Seton heard Lobo howling for 2 days after. 

Seton used Blanca’s scent to trap Lobo and Lobo was caught. “On Seton's approach, Lobo stood despite his injuries, and howled. Touched by Lobo's bravery and loyalty to his mate, (🙄) Seton could not kill him. He and his men took Lobo back to the ranch. Lobo refused to eat or even look at his captors. Lobo died that night, 4 hours later.”

Despite their endangered status, wolf killing, meant to “protect” agriculture, continues through federal government programs today.