American Indian rights activists have been conducting a publicity campaign on the Internet that seeks to raise awareness of the role that L. Frank Baum might have played in fueling public hysteria, when the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz called for "total annihilation" of the local Indians of South Dakota. The Conpke Opi site is calling for the Baum Festival in Aberdeen, South Dakota, to recognize Baum's past editorials in the local paper, which, site hosts claim, lead to the slaughter of Indians at Wounded Knee.
Baum's editorial in The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer of 15 December 1890 said of the Indians: "What few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians."
The online Baum critiques take a surprisingly broad view of the author's life, in a tone that sometimes approaches admiration. Milo Yellohair, vice chairman of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said that the attention given Baum is a way of "saying to our young people, 'Look, this is what happened for these reasons,'" and pointing out the dangers of hysteria.
Several other Web sites also call attention to the injustices that occurred in and around the 29 December 1890 massacre of 140 Lakota Indians. The First Nations site even includes an email petition form for apologizing to the native tribes.
Organizers of the Baum Festival, scheduled for August, won't say whether the online efforts have had any impact on planned festivities. Director Bea Premack said he believes historians would be best qualified to judge the effects of Baum's editorials.
