The Night Watchman

Louise Erdrich. The Night Watchman. New York: Harper Collins, 2020. Part fictionalized family history and part historical fiction, The Night Watchman is set primarily on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in 1953–1954. Congress passed House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 108, the termination bill, in 1953. Termination aimed to end the federal trust relationship with recognized tribes and to “free” tribal citizens from their tribal identities and citizenship so they might fully assimilate into American culture. The Chippewa Tribe of the Turtle Mountain Reservation was named in HCR 108 as one of the tribes to be terminated at the earliest possible time. Thomas Wazhashk, the character based on Erdrich’s grandfather, is the chairman of the tribe. The chairman role and the responsibilities associated with it are consequential, but the pay is modest and directly tied to the fortunes of the tribe. Consequently, Thomas also works as the night watchman at a manufacturing plant. He quickly recognizes the threat termination poses and fills his days and nights writing to elected officials at county, state, and federal levels, educating them about the harm termination would cause and appealing to them to oppose terminating the tribe. Thomas rallies community members to speak out against the policy, and a group travels to Washington, DC, in March 1954 to testify before Congress. This hearing did occur, and Erdrich built this section of the novel both from the Congressional Record and from her grandfather’s letters. In the afterword, Erdrich notes the devasting power of dry words in a government document. Historians know how to read those documents and see real people. Nearly thirty years into her writing career, Erdrich undertook this same close reading when she was introduced to Record Group (RG) 75, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (449).