A Very OK Podcast
Episode 41: “The Choctaw Code Talkers”
November 19, 2024
Episode Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson. I’m the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, and here with me, as always, is Dr. Bob Blackburn. Bob, it’s great to see you again today. I hear you’ve been at “the Happiest Place on Earth.”
Dr. Bob Blackburn: I have, and a magical place, as they like to say. I took my three-year-old grandson and seven-year-old grandson to Disney World. So we spent the last five days there, and I am worn out. But we had a great time. And to see an organization like Disney, the way that they design things, they manage things, the quality control, is a good place for everybody to learn how to run an organization. So I was very impressed with just the infrastructure. The rides were, you know, gravy. And of course, being with the kids was the reason I was there. We stayed on site and spent a bundle of money. So I’m going to keep working here.
Thompson: Yeah. How many consulting projects do you have to do pay for that trip?
(laughter)
Blackburn: That’s right, but it was a good investment, so we had a great time, but thank you for asking.
Thompson: Well, we did that trip in 2019, and we took, our kids, and it’s, I’ve never been a huge amusement park person. I love going to Six Flags and riding some roller coasters, but I thought to myself, like four days of an amusement park. This is ridiculous. But when you get there, it really is the happiest place on earth. You kind of forget about your cares, and you’re just enjoying the rides, and you kind of become a kid again. I was wearing the Mickey Mouse ears and the whole nine yards. I mean, it is a lot of fun. And I imagine, we were there right after Thanksgiving, and I imagine they had it decorated for Christmas while you were there too, right?
Blackburn: They did, in fact, a bit of an obstacle. They were filming the Christmas parade. So for about 45 minutes we got split up and we couldn’t join each other because the parade was going on, and they just had the park shut in the Magic Kingdom. But of course the parade was fun and ended up the last day at Epcot and the fireworks show at night that was spectacular, and just had had a blast with the kids.
Thompson: Okay, I know everyone’s going to want to know this. What were some of your favorite rides?
Blackburn: The Avatar ride, by far, the greatest thing, and I’ve been, I was an amusement park freak. And for those who are from Oklahoma City, I started going to Springlake Park in the ‘50s, Wedgewood in the ‘60s, and Bell’s Amusement Park in Tulsa, and others. Always loved Six Flags. We were there in the earliest days when they opened, with my mom covering that for a TV show. Silver Dollar City, same. So I’ve always loved them, but the Avatar ride is exceptional. What they’ve done with the technology and the 3D filming, and of course, that’s a great concept of living together, biodiversity of, you know, living in peace with nature. And it’s a good message as well as an exceptional ride, and I didn’t ride the roller coasters. I stayed with the three-year-old during that. But yeah, that was exceptional. I really did enjoy that.
Thompson: I think one of my favorite rides, of course, all the Star Wars rides are just incredible as well. But in the Animal Kingdom park, I loved the yeti ride, and I can’t remember the exact name of it, but it was my favorite roller coaster. I think I rode it twice, I was, I had so much fun on that thing. But, well, we’re glad to have you back. If, Disney World is the happiest place on Earth, I’m sure Oklahoma City is the second-happiest place on Earth. I think I’ve seen that on a billboard somewhere.
Blackburn: I like that. That’s good.
Thompson: Well, we got a great topic to cover today. You know, as you know, it’s Native American Heritage Month, and we just celebrated Veterans Day to honor all of our veterans. And we have a topic that’s really appropriate to that, and we’re going to be talking about the Choctaw code talkers. And this is a pretty fascinating story that, I have to admit, you know, one of the reasons I love doing this podcast is because it gives me a work excuse to get in and do research on these topics and to really do a deep dive into them. Not near as much of a deep dive as I want to do, because, you know, we always have to move on to the next thing. But this has been pretty fascinating, discovering these incredible men who contributed, really did contribute to helping the Americans win battles in World War I and just their Native American heritage, and how that played into using their Native background to help the United States and the Allies in the war. It’s just really a fascinating topic, and I want to get in to talking about some of the background of the Choctaw Nation. And I know that you can help us fill in the blanks on some of that.
Blackburn: Well, thank you, Trait. And one reason I’m glad you chose this topic is that in the popular world, people think of the Comanche code talkers of World War II. Well, not as many people knew about the Choctaw code talkers. And we did an exhibit on this, probably ten years ago, here at the History Center. And we did both the Comanches of World War II and the Choctaws of World War I, and the Comanche chief, excuse me, the chief of the Choctaws came for that opening. I’ll never forget that, and we honored many veterans during that event. But the Choctaws have an interesting history that it’s almost ironic that they would serve in the greatest numbers during World War II, fighting for America, the country that had defeated them in battles, that had forced them to leave their homelands, forced them onto farms. And so this whole process that really begins after the Revolutionary War. Many Scottish and English merchants would move among the Choctaw, starting mixed-blood families. You know, we know them by the name of the LeFlores and the Joneses and different families that pop up. And we know a lot about those families, because those mixed-blood leaders became the leaders of the of the full bloods, generally, because the full bloods could not speak English and did not understand contracts, did not understand representing government, had no constitutions at the time, so they relied on those mixed bloods. But that was a very small minority.
So when we talk about the Robert M. Joneses of the world, who was the richest Choctaw, who came west with removal, established his general stores, had two riverboats, had his warehouses in New Orleans that had several plantations, more than 200 African American slaves. That’s the distinct minority of the Choctaws who did well during this whole process. The vast majority of the Choctaws did not want to leave their valleys, where their families had been living for hundreds of years. They knew the resources of their native lands in the American Southeast. And the federal government says no, you’ve got to get out. Americans want that land, largely for cotton and plantations, African American slavery, the cotton gin, developed in the 1790s. The forces around them, they got to go. So the federal government forces them to leave their homelands. So this is, like, just short of genocide. We just want to get rid of you, and we’re going to send you west. And so here they come, west of the Mississippi into Louisiana Territory, then purchased by the United States government in 1803. And they say you’re going to have it. Well, they didn’t care that the Choctaws were displacing other American Indians out west. So you get conflicts between some of the prairie tribes, the Osages coming out of the, of the Ozark Plateau, the Comanches and the Kiowas who are “the Lords of the Southern Plains” on horseback. And here the Choctaws are forced to carve out a new way of life in this new homeland, largely with Arkansas on their eastern border, what was then old Mexico.
Thompson: Yeah.
Blackburn: Which is part of New Spain at the time, to their south across the Red River. And then their territory would go west, theoretically, to what we now call the Texas Panhandle. But that was a home to all these different nomadic tribes. So trying to find peace, security, American government established a fort, Fort Towson, as we’ve talked about before on this podcast, is there to preserve peace, to protect the Choctaws as they’re arriving. And largely they go up into the hills and try to resume the life they had back home. Well, fast forward, the Civil War starts, the Choctaw side of the Confederacy. And because there was this warrior tradition among the Choctaws, and you see this almost among all of the tribes, this warrior culture, where what does it mean to be a real man? You know, how do I gain status? How do I gain a reputation as a leader? How can I make others look to me and make them want to follow me? Well, that was on the warpath generally. Now there were the peace leaders as well. Generally, the older men. But to really attain status as a young man, you did it on the war trail. You could either lead others to go steal horses, capture slaves, to capture women and children to help the tribe grow, to defend your village, to defend your band, your clan against others trying to do the same thing. And so this warrior tradition comes from the southeastern United States to southeastern Oklahoma, is reestablished.
The Civil War allows them to put on the warrior tradition again and say, oh, yeah, the way I can earn status now is I’m gonna go out and fight. I’m going to protect my people. I’m going to protect my clansmen. I’m going to protect our interests, and so here they go. And so they volunteer in numbers. The Choctaws and Chickasaw have had several regiments, fought throughout the war. That final settlement, as we’ve talked about before, was in the Choctaw Nation, and the Choctaws had this warrior tradition and really being under assault by the federal government. So coming out of the Civil War, Reconstruction treaties, they’re told that you will make progress towards becoming part of the state of Oklahoma. You will give up your tribal lands at one point and take these individual farms. You will allow a railroad to be built through, which was the old Katy line that still goes through Durant today in the Choctaw Nation. And you will make these changes. Well, of course, they’re politically sophisticated. They have constitutional government by this time, elected leadership, a council, judicial system, law enforcement, and they resist until the 1890s. Finally, Congress, surrounding states, farmers who want their land, the coal companies that want their coal, say we are going to force this. So Congress in 1898 passes the Curtis Act, says okay, count down eight years. You will be dissolved as a nation. We are going to absorb you as a state. Put all your Choctaws on these allotments, so they’re forced to do this, and generally against the will of the majority of the Choctaws. A few of the mixed bloods like it because suddenly they’re going to own title to their land.
Thompson: Right.
Blackburn: They’re going to have friends and families who have title to the oil underneath the land and the coal under the surface. And so you get this change. And then with statehood, most Oklahomans at the time look at the Choctaws and other Indians as a resource to exploit. How can we get their money? How can we get their land? How can we get the resources that are under their old national, within their national boundaries? And so they’re under assault, and the federal government says we need to speed up this process. There’s still too much of an Indian for us. Let’s take the children away from the families and send them to boarding schools. We’re seeing that in the papers now, and the abuses of these young children who were taken away and forced almost into another form of slavery. And if they escape and go back, the Indian police come, force them out, take them back to the agency police, and they’re sent away as far as possible from their parents and their grandparents to get them away from those, quote, “those bad influences.” But still their culture survives this assault, including the warrior tradition.
And so this is all happening within one generation, from 1898 through statehood, through this to World War I, which is 1917. We’re talking less than 20 years. Especially for people my age, 20 years is a blink of an eye. For a kid, it’s a long time. But that is rapid change, overnight, under assault. Tribal sovereignty is well into the future at this point. Not till the 1960s and ’70s would they even talk about tribal sovereignty. So basically, federal government says we’re going to destroy your tribe. We want to subdue your culture, make you good little Americans. But here the war starts in 1917. They’re still talking Choctaw up in those hollers, but they’re still joining American forces to defend democracy, to defend the country, to go off into a foreign land and fight for their families and their clans and their tribe and their state and their nation.
It’s always astounded me that they have this sense of patriotism. The only thing that makes sense to me is that that warrior tradition still beats in their hearts. They want to be the warrior that goes off and proves himself, that status. That is a way to earn respect among your peers. And they have these warrior traditions. They’re tough. They’re resilient. They’re used to working together as a tribal unit, and then they join the armed services at a time when typically African Americans are told you have to serve in your own regiment. It’s not an integrated defense system at the time, not until after World War I that they finally integrate Blacks and whites. But the Indians, who are treated as American citizens, and they’ve had citizenship here for a couple of decades are said, yeah, you can join these all-white units. And so here they go through their training, they’re shipped off.
And suddenly these commanders see these full-blood Choctaw speaking to each other. And then the state of communication at the time in the Signal Corps, they’ve always called it Signal Corps, even back in the day when it was actually using flags as signals, or lights, or at sea with Morse code. You don’t have radio going into World War I. The most recent technology is by telephone hard wire, which causes its own problems. But armed services going back to ancient Rome depended on the signal corps to send a flaming arrow into the sky, to charge over here. A bugle would sound, or someone would use flags to communicate over distance. It was important to control your forces during a battle. And here you start World War I with the right people wanting to serve their country. Communication being what it is with telephones, and the armed services are having a problem with communicating. And yet they discover this resource, these Choctaws who are serving their country.
Thompson: Yeah. And going back a little bit into the Native Americans serving in the army. Of course, the law said that if you’re an American citizen between 21 and 30, you have to register for the draft. And Choctaws were American citizens, because in 1901, all of the Five Tribes were made American citizens. Now, it wouldn’t be until 1924 that all Native Americans were made American citizens. But Choctaws were American citizens. But you have, the Native Americans that were volunteering in the army and serving at a rate twice, twice versus the rest of the American population. So it’s exactly as you say. It’s a condition where they do feel very compelled to join up and to fight and to, for their own reasons, whatever that might be, to defend their country. Stars and Stripes reported, and that’s the media for the army, they reported that there were 60 tribes that served in 20 American divisions in World War I, and 4,000 soldiers from the Five Civilized Tribes. So the Five Tribes, with some 600 that served in the 36th Infantry Division.
So where we find most of our Choctaw warriors are in the 36th Infantry Division, in the 142nd Regiment. And Company E was a mostly Native American company. There were over 200 people in that company, only 30 of which were white. The rest of them were all Native Americans. And so, even though there wasn’t an active, there wasn’t an active role in the army to create a specifically Native American regiment. They really do with this 142nd. And that’s where we find most of our Choctaw code talkers is in that 142nd Regiment. And going back to something you said, you know, the old saying, sending the Indians off to boarding schools, and and many of our Choctaw code talkers had attended the Armstrong Academy in southeast Oklahoma. The old saying was, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” And what is fascinating to me about all of this is when we get into World War I, we want the Indian. We need the Indian, you know? And so despite our attempts to maybe tamp down that aspect of who they were, when we needed them, we wanted them. And so I think that that’s you know, really important to, to look at moving forward. The, as I mentioned, most of them were part of the Company E of the 142nd Regiment. Captain E. W. Horner was in charge of Company E, and this is a quote from him. He said, “The Indian was always equal of the white man. Sometimes his superior. One half of my company were Indians. There was not a straggler among them. When wounded, they were stoical and would bear it unflinchingly. They never uttered a moan.” And, I think that that was the experience of many of people who fought with Native Americans in World War I.
Blackburn: And too, if you think about it, most of those Choctaws would have probably come from rural areas, where they would grow up hunting. They would grow up understanding the sounds around them, aware of their environment. And serving with these kids from the slums of Chicago and the Irish immigrants from New York, where they came from an urban environment, having to learn these skills because generally they were out on the front lines and pretty much out in the wilds. They had skill sets that a lot of the other soldiers would not have had. And then you throw in taking care of one another. And so being in a unit with your cousins from the same community, and of course, it’s a matrilineal society. And so through your mother’s side, and all of her sisters and brothers, you would have had a big band of these people that, I’m they’re fighting for the guy next to me, not just from my country, but I am going to go into battle. Yes, I’m going to run into that machine gun because he’s going to be running into that machine gun, and I can’t let him do it alone. So I think those family ties, that warrior tradition, all comes together here to make a unique type of soldier.
Thompson: And Bob, I think we should talk a little bit about World War I, because it was such, this was a different war than had ever been fought. If you thought, if you think about the wars that the United States have been engaged in since the Civil War, the Plains Indian Wars out in the western part of the United States, and then we have the Spanish-American War, which at some point I want to do a podcast episode on that, because I just finished reading a book about that, and that’s just sort of a miracle that we won that one when the Spanish were so inept, that they were just a little bit more inept than we were. We were not prepared to fight a jungle war in Cuba, let’s just put it that way.
So, but by the time we get to World War I, the technology, the sheer firepower has changed. And so by 1914, when Europe goes to war, you know, people are dying by the tens of thousands in these battles, and they are fighting over little yards of territory. You know, one day, one group will advance, and next day another group will advance. And that’s what starts this trench warfare system where everybody’s just trying to to protect themselves from these massive and prolonged artillery barrages. That take, you know, hours and hours, and you have no man’s land, which is the area between the two fronts, which, you know, no man’s land, if you get out there, you might live for a few minutes, but it’s your chances of living are very, very slim because of, we now have machine guns. We now have, you know, artillery that can shoot for miles. And so this was a different war than it ever been fought before, and now the United States is coming in. And quite frankly, we, I don’t know that, it took us a while to kind of get used to that sense of warfare, because it had been different than anything that we had ever seen before. A
nd the communication aspect of this, when you’ve got a front that is maybe, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 100 miles long, you know, the bugle call isn’t going to communicate across the line anymore. The signal up in the air isn’t going to communicate across the line. And so what you have is the Signal Corps is stringing telephone wire all through the front, and in a lot of ways, they have to go through no man’s land to string this telephone wire, which is why the Signal Corps died at a rate much more advanced than the rest of military soldiers did because they had to put themselves on the line routinely. And then one of the interesting things that I found out too, in my research, is that if you were going to tap enemy communications lines, you could do it in about a five-mile range. And what that meant is you would have to set up your equipment in no man’s land to do that, which made it all the more dangerous as well. So they would send runners. But I think, one in five runners got killed. Carrier pigeons were used, and that’s, that was somewhat reliable, but not all that reliable. And they, you know, one of the interesting things I learned this well is that they, most of the time when they wanted to communicate, they would pick up the phone, and they would communicate what’s called “in the clear.” They would just say what they meant, say, move, move this regiment over here, and we’re going to start battle. Well, lo and behold, next thing you know, the Germans are firing exactly where where you said you’re going to move your regiment to. And so they had to find a way to communicate that would be, that would, the enemy wouldn’t understand what they’re doing. And they had to do this in a way that would cut down on the loss of life. And it had to be quick. If you’re trying to make these complicated troop movements in the middle of the battle, you couldn’t wait hours and hours for the message to get where it needed to go. And so, we have, we have the 36th Infantry Regiment. They ship out in August of 1917. First they go to Camp Bowie in Fort Worth, Texas, and then, they go, they ship out in 1918, August of 1918. They travel by rail to New Jersey. They board ships there. They arrive in Brest, France. And I’m going to have to apologize to some people out there, Bob, because my French is not all the best. I have practiced a few of these words with Google Translate. So we’ll see how I can do on some of these.
Blackburn: You’ll get letters.
Thompson: But then they travel to southeast of Paris, where they receive combat training, and then they’re in reserve, ready for what is going to become the Meuse–Argonne offensive, and the Meuse–Argonne offensive is the this massive battle that we fight to, the whole AEF, not just the American forces, the Allied Expeditionary forces. It takes place along 60 miles of the Western Front. 1.2 million soldiers are involved in this. And it was the largest, costliest, and most deadly battle of World War I, and also in American military history, still to this day, 187,000 Allied casualties, including 26,000 Americans died in this offensive. And the main goal was to push the Germans out of France, to get them on the run, and to finally end the war.
So September 26, 1918, the Meuse–Argonne offensive starts. And we are, the Americans are on the southern end of the line. We are charged with fighting through the Argonne Forest, some of the deadliest terrain. You’re talking about, you’re going through barbed wire, you’re going through trenches, you’re going through concrete bunkers. I have this quote. “Our troops, with the 36th Infantry Regiment, they fight at Saint-Étienne,” and this is Chaplain Barnes, says this about Saint-Étienne, “Call on the power of your imagination, and see those men as they move slowly, steadily forward into barbed wire entanglements while gigantic cannon are booming, huge shells are screaming through the air, high explosives are bursting, shrapnel whizzing on all sides, snipers firing from hidden positions. Machine guns click, click, click, doing their deadly work while the air is filled with gas.” Can you imagine?
Blackburn: No.
Thompson: I just can’t imagine this, what they all had to go through. And so this is where we find our Choctaw code talkers, and once again, one of the ways to get advantage is with communications. The Germans are tapping the lines. They’re listening in to communications. So after the Germans retreat after the Battle of Saint-Étienne, we noticed that they left all of their communication wires and equipment intact. And, and the Germans, what they were hoping is that we’ll start using it to communicate. Because once again, to run all new wire, run all new communications equipment through all of these treacherous conditions is a difficult prospect. So they think, well, let’s leave all this stuff and see if the Americans will use it.
Well, Colonel Bloor, Alfred Bloor, was the commander, and so he does a little test, and he says, I’m going to move my, I’m going to move this regiment over here onto this hill. And he wasn’t really going to do it, but he tests the communication. Well, next thing you know, the Germans are firing on that hill. So he says, okay, Germans are tapping these lines. And based on what you read, it’s a little bit murky in the records about who came up with the idea to use the Choctaw code talkers. Solomon Louis, he credits E. W. Horner with the idea who says Solomon Louis and another man were conversing in Choctaw, and Horner overhears it and says, what language are you speaking? And comes up with the idea to put the Choctaw on both ends of the telephone and to start, to start exchanging messages that way. Lieutenant Ben Chastaine said Colonel Bloor selected some of the, now I’ll give a warning here on this quote. This is using some language that we wouldn’t use today, but it’s historically accurate. So I’m going to read it. As the quote says, “Colonel Bloor selected some of the most intelligent Indians from Company E, composed almost entirely of redmen from Oklahoma, and stationed them at the telephones. These Indians were members of the Choctaw tribe, and when the written messages were handed to them in English, they transmitted them in their own tongue, and it is reasonably assured that no word of this was picked up by the Huns.” And so that gave them an advantage going into their next battle, which is Forêt-Ferme. This is in October, toward the end of October of 1918. And this gives him the advantage because Colonel Bloor is able to exchange messages back and forth, and the Germans aren’t able to pick up on what they were saying.
Blackburn: Yeah, and part of that is that the Choctaw language is not based on any ancient traditions, and it’s not mathematical. They would have, both sides would have been using encryption by that time, where they would take their messages and they would put it into code, and not very secure. But here there was no way to break it because it had no logic to it. It was this organic language that these gentlemen could use, and even adapting the Choctaw language to modern warfare, which they would have their own little terminology for different things. They could understand each other.
Thompson: Would you like to hear some of it? Because you’re exactly right. There were, Choctaw doesn’t have a word for a grenade, right? And so they had to come up with words in their own language that meant something in military terminology. And so would you want to hear some of the words they use? Which I think this is pretty fascinating. The phrase “twice big group” in Choctaw was used for a battalion. “Eight group” was a squad. “Scalps” meant casualties. “Fast shooting gun” meant a machine gun. A “patrol” was many scouts. Oh. I love this one. A grenade was a stone, and the second battalion was called two grains of corn, and gas was bad air. So these are some of the terminology that they worked out to determine, you know, so they created their own code to be able to talk back and forth on this.
Colonel Morrissey said, “We found that the Germans knew absolutely nothing about our preparations and were taken completely by surprise. This was the first time we surprised the Germans during our stay in the lines, and I attribute it in many respects to the fact that the Choctaw language was used in making preparations for this attack.” So, pretty fascinating, pretty fascinating stuff here. The last time in World War I that the Choctaw language was used in the code talkers was at the battle of Forêt-Ferme. And, less than two weeks later, you get the armistice was signed. And so the war is over after that, and everybody goes home. And one of the interesting things about this is for years and years, you know, the contributions of the Choctaw in this area weren’t recognized. And when we talk about code talkers, more often than not, people think of the World War I code talkers, the Navajo, the Comanche, but this was the first time that it was done. And I think because it was so close to the end of the war, they didn’t have a chance to put this into practice on a large scale. So it was probably forgotten for a long time. Of course, these gentlemen knew.
So, I do want to name these code talkers so that we can recognize them here on this podcast. There were eight original code talkers, and then more that were brought in as they went through training because they still continued to train and they were preparing for future battles, even right up to the armistice. So the original code talkers were Solomon Louis, Mitchell Bobb, Ben Carterby, Robert Taylor, Jeff Nelson, Pete Maytubby, James Edwards, and Calvin Wilson, and then later joined by Albert Billy, Victor Brown, Tobias Frazier, Benjamin Hampton, Joseph Oklahombi, Walter Veach, Benjamin Colbert, I’m used to Stephen Colbert, so that’s how I’m. But probably Colbert, George Davenport, Joseph Davenport, Noel Johnson, and Otis Leader. And so those were your recognized folks who were code talkers in World War I.
Blackburn: Well, and they probably had songs sung about them, and they were celebrated when they got home, and they earned the status that they rightly deserved.
Thompson: In 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Code Talkers Recognition Act, which honored the service of the code talkers, and on November 3, 1989, the French government and the state of Oklahoma bestowed the Knight of the Order of National Merit, posthumously, on the World War I Choctaw code talkers and Comanche Code talkers in World War II in a ceremony at the Oklahoma State Capitol, and all of the code talkers have been inducted into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame as of 2012. So this was, this was something that set the stage, obviously, for what would come later in World War II, and using these languages that were unrecognized in Europe to be able to send secret messages. They did have an impact on the war. It was a significant impact because it showed that we were able to transmit these messages and not have them be deciphered, and they did impact the military operations right there toward the end of World War I.
And by the way, it’s the Meuse–Argonne offensive that ends up being the main factor that ends the war and results in the armistice. And so, this was, this was important history here. And this being Native American Heritage Month, I thought it would be good for us to talk about some of these stories.
Blackburn: Well, thank you, Trait. Good topic. And, I look forward to our guest coming on and telling us a little bit more about these American heroes.
Thompson: Yes, and I think with that, we will get to our guest after one short message from the Oklahoma Historical Society.
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Thompson: I’m very happy to welcome into our podcast Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. She is a story archaeologist. She digs up shards of past lives, hopes, and truths and pieces them together for readers today. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian honored her as a literary artist through their Artist Leadership Program for her work in preserving the Choctaw Trail of Tears stories.
She is the creator of the “Fiction Writing: American Indians” digital course. Sarah has written and published 17 historical fiction books and over 275 nonfiction articles on Native artists and organizations, with representatives from dozens of North American tribes. Her narrative biography of a native World War I hero, Otis W. Leader: The Ideal American Doughboy, was awarded the 2024 Oklahoma Book Award for nonfiction. It was also selected to represent the state of Oklahoma for the Library of Congress’ 2024 National Book Festival in Washington, DC. A tribal member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, she writes from her hometown in Texas, partnering with her mother, Lynda Kay Sawyer, in continued research for future works. Sarah, I’m so excited to welcome you into the podcast today. Thank you for taking time to be our guest today.
Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer: Yakoke, Trait. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity up. I’ve been excited for this conversation.
Thompson: Well, I first of all, I just have to ask, what’s it like working with your mother on so many of these projects? I mean, I love my mother, but I wonder sometimes how well we would work together.
Sawyer: (laughing) You know, she is my best friend, and I was homeschooled throughout, you know, grade school and continue with self-directed education, and she’s really my life coach. And I just really appreciate the blessing that she’s been in my life. And she works on my projects, I work on hers. And then we have our joint projects, so it’s a pretty sweet deal. We work together. We share a household. So she does the cooking, I do the dishes, and we work on our projects together. So we’re really blessed for our relationship.
Thompson: That’s fantastic. I love hearing that. One of the reasons I was so drawn to you for, well, first of all, our mutual friend Kenny Sivard, who is on our Oklahoma Historical Society Board of Directors, put me in contact with you. And so I’m very thankful to Kenny for making that connection. But you have written so many books, and I haven’t had a chance to read them yet, but I’m definitely going to get some of them because your writing just looks fascinating. And of course, our topic today is the Choctaw code talkers and World War I. And you’ve written a book about that, and we’ll get into that here in just a few minutes. But I’d really love to know more of your background. How did you, where are you from and why did you decide to get into writing?
Sawyer: So I was born and raised in Texas. But my papaw was born around, in Mead, Oklahoma, near Durant, which, as he says, Doo-rant.
Thompson: That’s right.
Sawyer: Yeah, that’s some years back. But he always emphasizes Durant. So he grew up there and then moved down to Texas as a boy. So that’s a bit of our family. Our family, you know, through his line. His father was a Dawes original enrollee with the Choctaws, and our, we traced our ancestry back to Mississippi, but specifically to Oklahoma when our family came there to Indian Territory in 1831 during removal. So that’s where my roots go back to as far as Choctaw and Oklahoma. We got some really deep roots in Oklahoma, but I was born and raised in Texas.
And as far as becoming a writer, I wrote my first story when I was five. So I’ve been writing for a little bit and but it wasn’t until the summer of 2009 that, I had a lot of stuff going on in my life, and I walked into a Barnes & Noble and picked up a copy of Writer’s Digest off the magazine rack, and it was like, just in that moment, God just told me, this is what you’re to do with your life. You’re to be a writer. And so I began taking it seriously as a career. And 15 years later, this year now, the September/October edition, 2024 Writer’s Digest, I was the featured indie author in there. And I still have trouble wrapping her mind around that. But it’s been a fantastic journey. And like I said, I just feel so blessed to have been on it.
Thompson: Well, in this journey, what aspect of being an author has surprised you the most?
Sawyer: The research. And so, and it’s the thing that I’ve come to love the most. And we just we love Kenny. We’ve been in contact with him for a lot of years now. And I still remember our our first conversation there at the catfish restaurant in Idabel. We just sat down, had a great conversation with him, but research for me, before I started with historical fiction, I thought it would be, you know, read a few books on the historical time period, maybe read a few novels about, you know, other authors that set in that time period, and I would be done. What I found is with, with the type of stories I write, which, you know, I draw from my Choctaw heritage. There’s some books out there, but there’s not a lot, and there’s not a lot, and there aren’t a lot of novels. So I found myself needing to go to a lot of primary source material. So I’ve researched in DC and Mississippi and Missouri and of course, Oklahoma. So multiple places that I’ve had to go into archives and pull out the microfilms and go through the old newspapers and records. And a lot of that’s been digitized now, but still not all of it. And I made, you know, some surprise discoveries, even whenever I was doing the code talker novel. And that research took me to France as well, which was pretty amazing. But I would say that’s what surprised me the most, and it’s also turned into one of the most rewarding aspects of being a writer.
Thompson: Yeah. One of the things that I wanted to know is, because most of your work is centered around historical fiction, And what’s that ratio of, when do you feel, how much research do you have to do versus how much writing you actually do? And when do you feel like you’ve researched enough where you can write the story that you want to write?
Sawyer: Oh, so I approach research. I kind of go with that first, that 30,000-foot view, just get the general information, the history that is available, just kind of in arm’s reach, and get a general feel for the time period in history. Like World War I, that was something I realized how very little I knew about World War I when I started that project. And so just getting the general feel of the war and then bringing it down, I kind of did a funnel down to bringing it tighter and tighter. So with the code talkers, I started bringing it down to, you know, what division they were in and then specifically what infantry unit. And so I spent, you know, that’s kind of how I approach it. As far as how much the ratio aspect with how much time I write versus research, my writing is probably about one-fourth of the time of actual writing, and then the rest of it is spent, so for every hour spent writing, I spend three to four hours on research and editing. So I like to get that big overview of the history, start getting some details, and then generally I need to get into the story and get into writing it. I do an outline, a pretty rough outline, but I get into the actual writing. And then there’s more research on top of that. So once I’ve written the first draft, then I see what content, what material kind of, what scenes I actually put into there. And I go back to the research and get more details that I need to flesh out those scenes and then ultimately make it as historically accurate as I can. So it’s historical fiction, so I lean, I lean heavy on the fiction, but I also lean heavily on the history aspects of it. It’s a pretty, pretty split ratio there.
Thompson: Well, and this aspect of historical fiction is really interesting to me because, you know, if you’re writing a nonfiction book, which you’ve done with the Otis Leader book, you know, you still have to craft a story, you know? In other words, it still has to be interesting to people, but you’re taking facts, and you’re basically telling the factual story. So there’s not a lot of leeway there. When you’re writing a historical fiction book, you have to stick to the facts because that’s, I would think, is the backbone of the story. But then you have to create situations and scenarios, and maybe some of these ancillary characters that come along and interact with the real people and the real historical situation. I would personally find that a very, very difficult thing to do, to weave all that together to make for a compelling story, which how do you do that?
Sawyer: I really appreciate that question, because I think for a lot of people who aren’t authors who have gone through that experience of crafting a story, it is difficult to understand because, and really appreciate how much work and the challenges that you have to overcome when crafting something like that. Because, you know, whenever I was researching the code talkers, I thought there was going to be, you know, more history there and more, you know, things that I could just readily lay my hands on. And I realized, you know, the depth of research. And then I really struggled with, how do I put this in a story, right? You know, like, how do I actually take it, you know, craft a character who has, you know, his own internal challenges and issues that he’s dealing with in life on an emotional level and external issues and how those are affecting him as a character, and then meshing that in a historically accurate story? So with me, with the with the code talkers, I debated about which one to write the story from their point of view. Like I said, with Otis, it was easier in that sense that yes, I did still need to craft it as a narrative, but he was the main character, and I was, you know, following a lot of his journal and his actual experiences.
With the fiction though, I was like, which one of these, you know, 19 were credited as Choctaw code talkers, which one do I write, who do I tell the story from their point of view? And I just I wasn’t feeling comfortable with like picking one. And I, at that point, I’d been interviewing a lot of the descendants, and some of them knew these men when they were still alive. They were elders and, you know, so they grew up and, as children, and they actually knew these men. So I was really struggling with picking one. And then, you know, getting inside of his skin and his thoughts and emotions and kind of putting that on someone who was a real person. And that’s something we can do in historical fiction, but it just didn’t feel right with this project. So after a lot of debate and subconscious influence, I think, I decided to do a fictional main character. And once I landed on that, things started to fall into place.
So I created a fictional character who is also, like ties into my Choctaw Tribune in a story world so is his mother is actually the main character, right? She’s a young girl, in the in the Choctaw Tribune series. So it’s kind of a second generation to that. So I had some history to draw on and to create this family and all. So it just left me free though to craft, you know, this character who had a lot of the same internal struggles that the Choctaw code talkers, that the boys, the young men who served, they had a lot of these struggles and challenges in their lives and just, you know, all the things that were going on in that time period. He dealt with those things. So I was able to take their real struggles and all and put it into him as a character and then also include all of them. So I included all of the actual Choctaw code talkers and he’s among them. So he’s basically one of them. He’s just the fictional character in that group. So that was a a challenge to untangle and figure out I was going to do that. But once I finally landed on that, this story started coming together.
Thompson: Well, let’s get a little bit more into the book. And in 2018, you published a book. And please make, tell me if I’m pronouncing this right. Anumpa Warriors: Choctaw Code Talkers of World War I. And this is a book that is historical fiction, as you mentioned. Can you, without giving away any spoilers for those folks who are going to want to read this after this, can you talk about the plot of this book?
Sawyer: Yeah. So it’s “Anumpa” with a little bit of a “oh” sound, Anumpa warrior.
Thompson: Thank you. Thank you for correcting me on my terrible Choctaw.
Sawyer: No, no, it’s actually really good. That’s how most people pronounce it, and that’s totally fine. I knew it was a thing as far as like choosing a Choctaw word and putting it in the title, and I debated about that because I was like, how no one’s going to know how this is pronounced, and they’ll feel uncomfortable trying to pronounce it. And it just felt right, though to me. And I ultimately made that creative decision. And since I’m publishing the book, I published the book, I was able to do that, ultimately decide on the title, but it means “language” or ”word” in Choctaw. And I just felt like since this was about the Choctaw code talkers, it was about them using their language. I was like, I really need a Choctaw word in the title. Like, it just it seemed to fit. So I made that, I made that choice and then added the tag line “Choctaw Code Talkers of World War I” just to make it really clear for people. And they still, people still is like, oh, is this about the Navajos in World War II?
So I get, you know, a lot of those questions, and I love being able to educate people about the first code talkers. So the story is about, the main character, his name is Bertram Robert. And he’s called B. B. So, like Bertram Bob and I actually chose that name to honor Reverend Bertram Bobb, who did a great deal of work. He was one of the many who advocated for the story of the Choctaw code talkers. He was our chaplain of the Choctaw Nation for many years. And so he spent a lot of time in DC really advocating for their story, so I wanted to honor him in that way. But the main character, B. B., is growing up in Oklahoma, and it’s, actually he’s born in Indian Territory, so before the state of Oklahoma. So going through that transition and the experiences that the actual code talkers had growing up, Armstrong Academy is involved there. A lot of football, so for those who are sports fans, there’s that football and kind of the Red River Rivalry and back to where that started with, once they join and they go to Texas, and Camp Bowie outside of Fort Worth to do their training. And there was this pretty big clash between the Texas boys and the Oklahoma boys.
And then you had the Native American, the American Indian aspect. So it was a really interesting clash, and how the officers brought them together was through football. And so the 36th Division, which most of the code talkers were in the 36th, they became one of the top sports teams in the military for that. So we follow the story with B. B. going through that, going through training, and his biggest challenge is, in school, he was mistreated for speaking his language, and that’s something that we really saw a boarding schools later on. There was some evidence that it was in that time period, but there was just this sense that it wasn’t okay to speak his language. So he didn’t stand up for that and for a particular friend who was ultimately kicked out of school for that. So in, whenever he joins up, his friend is in his unit as well. So there’s this conflict between them and their relationship that carries all the way into to combat whenever they land in France. So that’s the main, the main thrust of the story there in the heart of it, and one that ultimately, you know, using his language and having to choose whether or not to use his language in combat is the spoiler part that I won’t get into.
Thompson: Sure. Yeah. That’s great. Well, and, you know, Red River Rivalry and football, some things never change, huh?
Sawyer: Right?!
Thompson: Well, one of the things that I’m really interested in, because you mentioned a little bit of the background, for some of these, for some of these soldiers who went on into World War I, you know, compared to the total population at the time, Native Americans volunteered into the army during World War I at about twice the rate of the rest of the American population. And there were a lot of, of course, there was a draft, but many, many of them, they volunteered early on, once we, the United States, entered the war in April of 1917. What do you think is the motivation behind so many Native Americans wanting to be a part of this war and go fight for America, at a time when, you know, many of them, you know, had been kind of, mistreated, pushed around, you know, as you mentioned, they had been forced to go to these boarding schools where they were, you know, the effort was made to try and remove the “Indianness” out of them. But then they go and they volunteer, and they want to fight for America. That’s a really interesting dynamic to me. Why do you think that is?
Sawyer: Yeah. And I love Dr. William Meadows, if you’re familiar with him. He wrote the nonfiction book on the code talkers. It’s The First Code Talkers. And so he’s delved deeply into this, not just with the Choctaws, but with tribes across the nation. Like why did they volunteer at such a high ratio? And what he found is there really, and what I found also in my own research, is there wasn’t any one reason for it. For some of them, it was because they wanted to defend their countries. I think about Otis W. Leader. He joined immediately after the war was declared. He was one of the first to volunteer, and it was to prove he was 100% American and to protect his country, to protect his family, to protect his homeland. So for others, especially, a lot of the Plains tribes and all, it was, and in Oklahoma as well, it was warrior societies. So it was their opportunity to gain a place in, you know, in combat to qualify for their warrior societies. And since there was no longer combat on their home soil, joining the military was their opportunity to do that.
For some, it was for economics. It’s you know, it was a very difficult time, you know, especially in Oklahoma during that history, jobs weren’t readily available and resources. So going and joining the military and being able to send money back home to family was a motivator for some. But what I found commonly, especially among the Choctaw boys, is they wanted to serve, and they wanted to defend their homeland and their country and to be Americans and, you know, along with that, as far as citizenship, a lot of Native Americans like you said that volunteered were not actually citizens of the US at that time. The Choctaws also, from what I researched, they were all citizens, the Choctaw code talkers, from what I was able to find, because they had received the land allotments, which would have made them citizens, and there’s other reasons. And also on their exit, some of their surveys that they did, later on after the war, it asked if they were citizens and all of the cards that I read, they marked it, yes, I was a US citizen. So there was that aspect as well. But then there were those American Indians who did not, you know, who were not actually citizens of the United States who joined up for the various reasons. But many of them, it was for that reason of defending their country.
Thompson: Yeah. To your point, a 1901 act made everybody in the Five Tribes citizens of the United States. And I found this great quote in doing my research. In February of 1918, you had about 30 Cheyenne and Arapaho, who were led by Chiefs Yellow Hawk, Magpie and Little Wolf. And they went to see Governor Williams at the Oklahoma State Capitol. And they wanted to form Native American regiments to go fight in World War I. And this quote I thought was great. Little Wolf explained, “The Indian wants to fight for his country and will go where he is sent, but they would like best to fight on horseback so he can get up and go fast after the enemy.” White Horse reportedly stated, “I want to fight for my country, and if Uncle Sam will give me a good horse, I will make a good soldier and scalp the kaiser.” Yeah. I mean, we forget, but, you know, when we’re in 1917, 1918, we’re not that far removed from those old Plains Indians Wars and the and the Old West, really. And you can see that coming through in that great quote from White Horse.
Sawyer: Yeah. And when you think about it, General Pershing, whenever he was, you know, ultimately appointed to head up the new AEF, the American Expeditionary Forces, he had had Lakota, a group of Lakotas under his command in the 1890s, like they were, they were already in his experience with that and so many of the military officers, they were like, give me, give me the American Indians. They will, they’re fearless in battle. And we could talk a bit about some of the stereotypes as well and what that led to in the actual military service. But it is interesting that history and yeah, most of them, they were they were as ready to go fight as anyone and, maybe more so.
Thompson: You know, we’ve talked about the code talkers in the part of the podcast we recorded before this interview. So we don’t necessarily need to go into the nitty gritty details, but the general gist of it is, you know, at the Meuse–Argonne offensive, which is the last major offensive of the war, when the Allied Expeditionary Forces are trying to push the Germans out of France and are trying to end the war, and this was the largest offensive of the entire war. What ends up happening here, and as you mentioned, the Choctaw code talkers are serving in the 36th Division, and the Germans, as they’re retreating, they’re not cutting their communications lines. They’re leaving them behind because they know that if they leave those lines behind, that they can tap them. And if the Americans use them, they can tap those lines, and they can listen in to communications.
And ultimately, what ends up happening is that you get this idea of, well, let’s use the code talkers. Let’s use the Choctaws in their own language, and they develop this code of what different words mean when they’re talking back and forth on the telephone to each other. But this just seems like such a, it seems like such a simple idea, but yet too, when you realize that the Choctaw language is something that nobody in Europe probably would have ever heard, it’s genius.
Sawyer: Well, yeah, there’s a lot of ideas or resources that show, you know, who came up with the idea. Right? And there’ll be more about that in the book. But ultimately, I think several came up with the idea. It was ingenious. And then but for the men on the ground, when it clicked, it was just like it was so obvious in a sense as well. But yeah, to take a language that, you know, the Germans are like, are you all speaking underwater? What’s going on with that? But the communication lines, that was, communication was life and death in World War I. And Colonel Bloor, after their first engagement, he said, you know, the reason why they had such high casualties like that was because of the failure in communications and because of the compromises in communication. So it was a very serious issue that they were facing just as soon as they got into combat.
Thompson: What do you feel, why do you feel that the code talkers have been overlooked for so long? Just within the past few years, they have gotten their due recognition on a national level, recognition within the Choctaw Nation, recognition in sort of the the general populace. But for many, many years, people weren’t really aware of what they did. And why do you think that was?
Sawyer: I think there are several reasons. I think one, because they were in World War I, the Great War, “the War to End All Wars.” As soon as that war ended, America itself wanted to forget that war, and so it has become known as “the Forgotten War.” Like no one wanted to really know anything associated with the war. The veterans were celebrated when they came home, but a lot of them very quickly began, you know, to be forgotten. And they were dealing with what we know now as PTSD, they called it shell shock, and a lot of physical wounds. And so it was just so horrendous that people wanted to, America really wanted to just forget about it. And with the Choctaws specifically, one thing I do appreciate is several of them were celebrated in their lifetime, and then some were not. And there are family stories that they were told to not share their story, to not tell about what they did with their code talking. I think there was a aspect of that.
At the same time though, we have newspaper reports like in the Stars and Stripes, which was the AEF newspaper, and they talked about, you know, the Choctaws or the Indians pulling one over on the Germans. So it was celebrated in newspapers in their time period, you know, in their lifetimes. They got those accolades. And like Otis W. Leader, especially for his service, which is, you know, just really a separate story in itself. But they were recognized in a lot of ways. And I think, after that, it’s just like World War I history itself. A lot of people today, or even one or two generations above me, really don’t know a lot about war history. You had World War II that came on the scene. So those stories and those, you know, heroic deeds began, you know, replacing the memories of, of World War I and the things that that our veterans did in World War I. So I think there’s those reasons. And then bringing it forward to today, is just those stories start being shared. At some point, they stopped being handed down. And so when the Choctaws started, you know, coming back together and, you know, we as a nation and our sovereignty in the 1970s, that was one of the stories they brought to the forefront again, because people like Solomon Bond Louis was still alive, you know, during that time. He was the youngest or one of the youngest code talkers, and he was orphaned. He has just a great story. But, you know, he was still alive. His wife lived, outlived him. And there’s an article in Hello Choctaw, you know, featuring her and talking about his service and being a code talker.
So the Choctaw Nation did start bringing that story back out, but it was very much lost to the mainstream when World War II, you know, just kind of took those headlines and the story. So in 2008, you know, they were recognized. The Code Talker Act was signed and they were, you know, to be awarded the medals. And also, I’m grateful for, especially the Choctaw Nation and those around it and Chickasaws and just all of the ones who have come together and promoting that history and culture. And that’s why I also had to, you know, give a shout-out again to Dr. William Meadows, who, you know, was a part of that in bringing their story out. He testified, you know, at the congressional hearings and all with the history and research of saying you know, yes, this is the service that they did. So and just so many, so many that I could name that brought that history back out, because it was lost and forgotten for decades.
Thompson: Well, and you’re bringing that history back out in a new and fresh way with the work that you’re doing with the book that you’ve written, historical fiction, making it come alive to a new generation of people, and I think that’s incredible.
Sawyer: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I try to write, you know, I wrote it in a way that it was accessible for young people as well, so that they are learning that history and can keep passing it on.
Thompson: Well, believe me, I’m going to be buying the book. And I have two teenage children, and they will be reading it. So, that will definitely happen.
Sawyer: Love that.
Thompson: Well, are there a couple, two or three code talkers whose stories fascinate you the most? And I know they all had their own great and unique contributions, but if there’s a couple that you want to mention who really kind of grabbed your attention.
Sawyer: Yeah, one of my favorites. And I, like I said, I try not to pick a favorite, but one of them is Solomon Bond Louis. He was in Armstrong Academy. He was an orphan, so he basically grew up there. And they say he joined underage. So he was like 17. But he just, whenever you see pictures of him, he just has this very mature, confident look about him. And so I’m thinking he was probably mature for his age. He became a corporal in the ranks. So he advanced pretty quickly. He was full-blood Choctaw, which is, you wouldn’t pick that up just seeing the black-and-white photos. But if you see that famous photo of the five that they were able to capture in that picture with their commanding officer, Elijah Horner. You know, you just see Solomon in there. And so he was an orphan. And one of the other things that was really interesting about him is he went ahead and married right before shipping out, and he wanted to do that because, the story goes that he had taken out a life insurance policy, which was offered to you to the military, to the servicemen to take out a policy, and he didn’t have anyone to leave that to. And so his sweetheart who had, they met, I think, at a football game. And, since he was, he was a football player as well. So they had met. And so she came down to Texas, and they married, and he wanted to have someone to put on his life insurance policy. And she was also an orphan. So he wanted to make sure that she was taken care of in case he didn’t come back. So they just have this really beautiful love story. So I’ve always loved his story. I actually considered him, you know, as the main character, whenever I was thinking about it, anumpa warrior and who I would pick. And I’m glad I went with a fictional character, but he’s still one of my favorites.
And then Otis W. Leader, of course. I fell in love with his story. His story is a little more disconnected from the code talkers, from the bulk of the code talkers, because he was in the first division, and so he wasn’t among the, like, Solomon and the different ones that we’re more familiar with the code talkers. But he had such an extraordinary story. I knew he needed his own book. And that’s why I pursued that project after Anumpa Warrior.
Thompson: Well, and the photograph you mentioned was taken by Joseph Dixon at Camp Merritt. And one of my favorite things about that is, as of 2022, Choctaw artist Dylan Cavin has turned that into a painting that now hangs in the State Capitol’s Hall of Heroes.
Sawyer: Oh, I didn’t realize that.
Thompson: Yes, so that is now in the State Capitol. And, I, in my previous life, I was the restoration, I was the project manager for the State Capitol restoration. So I still give a lot of Capitol tours, and I always go and stop by that painting and tell that story so that other people will be aware of what the Choctaw code talkers did and their contribution to history.
Sawyer: That is outstanding. I appreciate you doing that. And just in that story, you know, crediting Captain E. W. Horner, who’s in that photo as well. I think sometimes he’s overlooked. He was a white officer, although, I had the extreme privilege of talking to his daughter. So not his granddaughter or, you know, great-niece or anything. It was his actual daughter. So that was her father, and she was still alive. She passed just a few years ago. But during my project, she was still alive and got to share his background. And she always said, she’s like, well, if I had any Indian, it would be on my father’s side. But he has a really, he’s from Arkansas. But he really had, I think, true respect and admiration for the Choctaw code talkers. So when you see that photograph of them together, it’s really a complete story. That’s one of the reasons why I appreciate that. So that’s outstanding. Thanks for sharing about that painting. I didn’t know about that.
Sawyer: Well, next time you come to Oklahoma City, I would love to take you over there, and we can look at it together.
Sawyer: That would be great.
Thompson: Well, I do, you did mention your book on Otis W. Leader, and I don’t want to get away from our interview without you talking a little bit about it because, you know, you won the 2024 Oklahoma Book Award, and this is a big deal. So tell us a little bit about that book.
Sawyer: That was a big deal. It was super thrilling. And I had pitched that to the Chickasaw Press a few years back. And I’ve done other projects with them as well over the years with their magazine and different things. So I, like I mentioned, I do indie publishing just to maintain that creative control with my stories because I deal with so much culturally and spiritually sensitive material. I just always wanted to keep that control.
But with Chickasaw Press, I trusted them. I was like, I know they’ll do a great job with this, and they blew me away with it, honestly. So they were just phenomenal to work with, and the design of the book. I just, I knew Otis needed his own book, and I was going to go fiction, and I was really like, no, his needs to be told in a nonfiction format. So I decided, I had not done a nonfiction. This was my first one. And I just really trusted the partnering with Chickasaw Press to help me get it done, because it wasn’t just the story. It was, you know, all the newspaper articles and his medals and his journal. He wrote over a hundred pages about his war experiences and also drew heavily on that story there. Chickasaw Press did an excellent job with the editing. Wiley, the publisher, just managing the whole project and then going to the Oklahoma Book Awards. Jackson Davis, he did the design. Not only the cover design, but the interior is just phenomenal. He even took some of Otis’s handwriting, and he digitized and used that as the drop caps that’s for each opening chapter. So there’s just so many details and great work in there. So the book won the design award as well. So just wanted to give them a shout out on that. And yeah, I’m so grateful I went ahead and made the trip up to the Oklahoma Book Awards. I was not expecting that placement, but as Tewanna Edwards, who is Otis Leader’s great niece. She said he’s still got it. I’m like, that’s true. And he was always really good at winning those battles, so that was very fitting to see that the book be awarded those two awards at the at the Oklahoma Book Awards.
Thompson: Well, I love that. And as we getting ready to wrap up, I would love for people to know where they can find your work, where they can find out more about you. So this is your time to to tout yourself a little bit. Where can people find out more about you?
Sawyer: Couple of places. So ChoctawSpirit.com, that’s where you can find my books. I’ve got my paperbacks on there and ebooks, and also in talking about my mother, her jewelry and her fine art photography is on there. So that’s our shared artist site, ChoctawSpirit.com. My author site is SarahElisabethWrites.com, which is Sarah with an H, Elizabeth with an S, not a Z and writes, w-r-i-t-e-s. So I like to share that, and my newest venture that I’ve been in the last couple of years has been creating the digital courses, which you mentioned at the beginning. My “Fiction Writing: American Indians” digital course, and that’s found over at FictionCourses.com. And I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I didn’t do the code talker book this way. But all of my books in the last four or five years, I’ve written solely by dictation. So I actually speak all of my books now, and I’m teaching authors how to do that. So that’s over at FictionCourses.com as well. I have a big boot camp a couple of times a year where we work on mastering dictation to write our fiction. So that’s where people can find me.
Thompson: Well, that’s wonderful, and I just want to thank you for taking time to be with us here today. I want to thank you for all the work that you do, contributing to the historical record of not only the Choctaw tribe, but of the history of the state of Oklahoma. And, thank you so much.
Sawyer: Yeah, it’s my pleasure. Yakoke again. Trait, I appreciate it. And in Choctaw, we don’t have a word for goodbye. We say chi pisa la chike. I will see you again soon.
Thompson: Okay. That sounds good. Nice talking to you.
Sawyer: You too.
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Thompson: You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
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