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The Snowpeople
Yes, I know you have never heard of the Snowpeople. Regardless, we are American Indians who became displaced. Our tribes had moved on or had been dispersed by the Indian Commissions two hundred years ago, but the Snowpeople stayed close to the land in which they were born. At first, we lived in the mountains, but in the winter many of us died from the snow and cold. So, we rented ourselves out to American settlers for the privilege of staying on the land, working the land, and having food with warm places to sleep in the winter.
Our specialty was corn. We grew the most beautiful corn colonists had ever caught a glimpse of. Therefore, the settlers were complicit in our survival. We were clean, quiet, and orderly people who could enrich the earth. So when the government came looking for Renegade Indians, the colonists would say they never saw any. We were flawless farmers. So, when the railroads came in, many of the settlers we specialized for became extraordinarily rich.
We got the name the Snowpeople because in the winter when it snowed we had to find warm places to sleep. Our employers would find imaginative places for us to sleep. "Show me the Snowpeople, who snooze by the sparks on the hearth after the masters of the farm have gone to slumber, and I will show you a house full of success," the folklore went. By break of day, we would disappear, never leaving one sign that we had slept there. As time progressed some, of the Snowpeople, slept in the rooms beneath the houses. Most farms had safe rooms. Snowpeople were expert builders; so sometimes the rooms beneath the houses became more beautiful than the houses themselves. We created the first luxury apartments in the territory.
Settlers saw our simple skill and put it to substantial use. We could take a one-room cabin and by copying the composition, turn it into a three-bedroom community in a matter of days.
Many of the settlers and the Snowpeople grew very close. Some of the families had us build small places at the tops of their homes, in the rafters, to sleep in when the weather got too wicked.
Yet what we are most proud of, we were instrumental in participating in the Underground Railroad for escaping Negro slaves. In one of our houses, 10 safe rooms were built underground that led directly to a lake. These rooms were so beautiful that the slaves I would say they were more beautiful than their master's homes. After the slaves were washed, fed, given new clothes, and money, they would be led through the rooms to the lake. They were put on boats and taken into Canada as free men and women.
Consequently, a generation later, many of the Snowpeople became a part of the settler's families. If an Indian Snowgirl was very lucky, she sometimes married the master's son. The first generations were brown-skinned, but by the second generation, the Snowpeople begin to fade. Once in a while, you would see a beautiful white child with blue eyes and long pitch-black Indian hair. You knew immediately that she was one of the descendants of the Snowpeople. Thereafter, the second and third generations, of the Snowpeople, disappeared.
Nevertheless, we were there, we are still always there on our ancestral land in some form, but we no longer look like the Snowpeople; there is one other way you can recognize a distant descendant of the Snowpeople, we live for 120 years. Once in a while, a renegade child is born, and they say he has the heart of the Snowpeople. I know you've never heard of us. Very few people have.
© China Clark
Our specialty was corn. We grew the most beautiful corn colonists had ever caught a glimpse of. Therefore, the settlers were complicit in our survival. We were clean, quiet, and orderly people who could enrich the earth. So when the government came looking for Renegade Indians, the colonists would say they never saw any. We were flawless farmers. So, when the railroads came in, many of the settlers we specialized for became extraordinarily rich.
We got the name the Snowpeople because in the winter when it snowed we had to find warm places to sleep. Our employers would find imaginative places for us to sleep. "Show me the Snowpeople, who snooze by the sparks on the hearth after the masters of the farm have gone to slumber, and I will show you a house full of success," the folklore went. By break of day, we would disappear, never leaving one sign that we had slept there. As time progressed some, of the Snowpeople, slept in the rooms beneath the houses. Most farms had safe rooms. Snowpeople were expert builders; so sometimes the rooms beneath the houses became more beautiful than the houses themselves. We created the first luxury apartments in the territory.
Settlers saw our simple skill and put it to substantial use. We could take a one-room cabin and by copying the composition, turn it into a three-bedroom community in a matter of days.
Many of the settlers and the Snowpeople grew very close. Some of the families had us build small places at the tops of their homes, in the rafters, to sleep in when the weather got too wicked.
Yet what we are most proud of, we were instrumental in participating in the Underground Railroad for escaping Negro slaves. In one of our houses, 10 safe rooms were built underground that led directly to a lake. These rooms were so beautiful that the slaves I would say they were more beautiful than their master's homes. After the slaves were washed, fed, given new clothes, and money, they would be led through the rooms to the lake. They were put on boats and taken into Canada as free men and women.
Consequently, a generation later, many of the Snowpeople became a part of the settler's families. If an Indian Snowgirl was very lucky, she sometimes married the master's son. The first generations were brown-skinned, but by the second generation, the Snowpeople begin to fade. Once in a while, you would see a beautiful white child with blue eyes and long pitch-black Indian hair. You knew immediately that she was one of the descendants of the Snowpeople. Thereafter, the second and third generations, of the Snowpeople, disappeared.
Nevertheless, we were there, we are still always there on our ancestral land in some form, but we no longer look like the Snowpeople; there is one other way you can recognize a distant descendant of the Snowpeople, we live for 120 years. Once in a while, a renegade child is born, and they say he has the heart of the Snowpeople. I know you've never heard of us. Very few people have.
© China Clark
