Couvi wrote:Joseph Sullivan wrote:You are right about the immigrant population of the army. During the 19th century, when service meant years of hard labor as construction gangs and the like as much as it did riding horses, once the War Between the States was over, who would enlist unless he had limited options? Officers are an entirely different matter, of course.
To Couvi's question as to whether that Comanche word actually implied "strangers," I have no idea but wouldn't be surprised. As my fatier once pointed out, most tribes name for themselves collectively translates to "the People," as in the human beings, and their names for other tribes ranged from humerus to downright insulting (Souix means "poisonous serpent," in Ojibwa; Chippewa means "puckered toe, in Ojibwa, but it was applied to them by other people -- that is in itself a funny story).
One benefit, in addition to being steady work, a five-year enlistment in the Army, and I would imagine that to be the case in the Navy and Marine Corps, was citizenship, which opened up a lot of doors when viewed with an Honorable Discharge with positive remarks at the bottom.
Does anyone here know what a ‘Bob-tailed’ Discharge is?
Your father is absolutely correct on Native Americans naming themselves. The Comanche call themselves ‘Nu’um,’ which means ‘The Men.’
Building a bit on what Joe and Couvi have noted, one thing that's been completely forgotten by modern Americans is the extent to which single life was extremely difficult up until the mid 20th Century. Domestic machines (washing machines, modern stoves, etc) revolutionized home life. Frankly, they had a lot more to do with the "liberation" of women than the much cited example of World War Two did.
Prior to the invention of domestic machines, it was almost impossible for an average person to exist without others to depend on for much of what we take granted. Clothing tended towards wool, and no clothing was conveniently washed without a person directly doing it. Everything was air dried. Food took hours to cook, and very little of it could easily be stored by most people. Keeping living space clean took direct physical labor.
I note that, as what this meant for most single people is that they lived at home until they were married, at which point their joint efforts allowed them to live outside the household of their birth. Men typically stayed at home until they were married, their adult incomes contributing to the household's. If they didn't do that, living in a boarding house was a very common option. They had little other choice, as it isn't as if they could work ten hour days, clean their clothes, keep their quarters clean, etc. Young women also typically stayed at home until they were married, contributing to the household labor as a rule. One of my mother's aunts, observing the extent of married labor, elected to do that with her father, living in his household her entire adult life and essentially acting as a cook, maid, and business clerk, rather than marry. Even in the mid 20th Century these long held habits were often there. My own father returned briefly to his mother's household after he got out of the USAF, which was typical. My mother and a couple of her sisters gravely disappointed their mother by moving out of the family home in the 1940s to go elsewhere to work.
The point is this. Even today, joining the service is a very popular option for young immigrants. Added to that, for those young men who came into the country in the 19th Century, with nothing much more than the clothes on their backs, the service offered three bland meals a day and a set of clothing, which was not a bad deal really.