William D'Arcy McNickle (January 14, 1904 – October 10, 1977) (Salish Kootenai) was a writer, Native American activist, college professor and administrator, and anthropologist. Of Irish and Cree-Métis descent, he later enrolled in the Salish Kootenai nation, as his mother had come to Montana with the Métis as a refugee. He is known also for his novel The Surrounded.

Biography

D'Arcy McNickle was an enrolled Salish Kootenai on the Flathead Indian Reservation. He was born on January 14, 1904, to William McNickle, ethnic Irish, and Philomene Parenteau, Cree-Métis. His mother was among numerous Métis who had fled to Montana in the late 19th century to escape the aftermath of suppression following the 1885 Riel Resistance, also known as the North-West Resistance. She eventually found refuge at the Flathead reservation. McNickle grew up on the reservation in St. Ignatius. He attended mission schools there and boarding schools located elsewhere, off the reservation. At the age of seventeen, McNickle entered Montana State University (now the University of Montana in Missoula), graduating with the class of 1925. His study of Greek and Latin inspired his love for language, and he began to explore writing. In 1925, McNickle sold his land allotment on the Flathead Reservation to raise money to study abroad at Oxford University, but left Oxford without matriculating. He moved to Paris and briefly attended the University of Grenoble. After returning to the United States, McNickle moved to New York City (NYC) and took on several jobs, including positions at Encyclopaedia Britannica and the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. While in NYC, he wrote several short stories and poems and worked on his novel, The Surrounded, which was subsequently published in 1936. By 1936, McNickle had moved to Washington, D.C., and started working as an administrative assistant at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). McNickle worked under John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, during the 1930s and 1940s. During this period, Collier encouraged the reorganization of self-government among the Native American tribes, and many began to assert greater autonomy for their peoples. McNickle developed expertise in a wide range of areas related to Native American policies. He helped found the National Congress of American Indians in 1944. By 1950, he had been promoted to chief of the tribal relations branch at the BIA. McNickle also began to publish non-fiction works on Native American history, cultures, and governmental policies. In 1952, McNickle was selected as director of American Indian Development, Inc., which was affiliated with the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was also active with other Native American organizations, as tribes began asserting their civil rights and working more closely together as an ethnic group. He was instrumental in drafting the "Declaration of Indian Purpose" for the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference. Continuing his academic work, McNickle moved in 1966 to what is now the University of Regina, to develop a new anthropology department. In 1972, McNickle helped create the Center for the History of the American Indian in Chicago's Newberry Library.

Personal life

McNickle was married three times: First to Joran Jacobine Birkeland from 1926 to 1938; they had a daughter, Antoinette Marie Parenteau McNickle. He next married Roma Kaye Haufman (1939–1967). They had a daughter, Kathleen D'Arcy McNickle. Lastly, he was married to sociologist Viola Gertrude Pfrommer, from 1969 to 1977. McNickle died of a heart attack in October 1977.

Legacy and honors

Writing

In addition to his works in Native American history and culture, McNickle wrote short stories and novels. His best-known work may be his debut novel, The Surrounded (1936). It tells of Archilde León, a young half-Salish man who returns to the Flathead Indian Reservation and his parents' ranch. He has difficulty dealing with both his ethnic Latino/white father and his traditionalist Indian mother, who has increasingly returned to her culture. The relationship between him and his parents becomes strained when they express their regret that he wants to go away to a big city far from home. León begins to find his place on the reservation after Modeste, an elder, teaches him the stories of Salish history. He reconciles with his father and adopts his mother's Salish traditions. At the end of the novel, he is wrongly accused of two murders (one committed by his mother) and surrenders to law enforcement in a scene referred to by the book's title.

The Hawk is Hungry and Other Stories (1992)

This collection of sixteen stories demonstrates the range of McNickle's literary style, organized into three loose categories:

Organizations

Books

Fiction

Non-fiction

American Indian Chicago Conference

June 1961

Academic criticism

Kevin De Ornellas, "'Hawk is Hungry' and Other Stories", in Jennifer McClinton-Temple and Alan Velie, eds, Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature (New York: Facts on File, 2007), pp. 159-60. ISBN 978-0816056569.