Andrew HamiltonEssays

David Yeagley, Inscrutable Red Man

Comanche warrior?

by Andrew Hamilton

A National Vanguard reader recently commented about the brutal murder — by an anti-White importee into Sweden — of 11-year-old schoolgirl Ebba Åkerlund in 2017. (For her heartbreaking story see “Who Killed Ebba Åkerlund?”)

He wondered what’s happened to White men, whose ancestors fought to build, expand, and preserve Western civilization. Why don’t they halt or even combat the unspeakable evils perpetrated against them by powerful elites and governments?

The answer is totalitarianism, especially Jewry’s and the System’s iron grip over the mass communications media. This is the primary cause of today’s racial hatred, violence, and genocide — and of Whites’ bizarre and otherwise inexplicable passivity in the face of it.

“In America” the reader continued, “even the proud Comanche Indians, such as Dr. David Yeagley, wonder what has happened to the ‘blood’ of the White men that conquered their lands, and defeated their people, even begging us to ‘stand up and fight’…to NOT just hand over our hard earned land to ‘mexicans’ . . . and ‘especially muslims’.”

White conservatives’ and racialists’ perception of Yeagley, correctly capsulized by the reader, illustrates in part why Whites are in the fix we’re in. (For a sympathetic if racially naïve conservative’s biographical account of the man, who died from cancer at age 62 in 2014, see Allan Wall, “My Time With David Yeagley—Comanche Warrior, American Patriot,” VDare, March 21, 2014.)

It is not true that “Comanche Indians” (plural), or Indians generally, share Yeagley’s racial views. An enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, his sympathetic attitude toward Whites was by no means representative. This isn’t surprising. His views aren’t even shared by the vast majority of Whites, so why would Indians embrace them?

Because Yeagley’s speeches and writings commendably admonished Whites to take pride in their heritage and fight for their existence, his death elicited tributes from a number of conservatives and racialists. The tributes exhibit the persistence of the Noble Savage myth long ago lampooned by Mark Twain in “The Noble Red Man” (The Galaxy, 1870).

One piece bore the racially awkward title “Good Bye, Older Brother,” reminiscent of Roman Catholics’ idolization of Jews as their “elder brothers in the faith,” or, later, “fathers in the faith.”

Despite the “Comanche warrior” encomiums bestowed upon Yeagley in life, he was not a full-blooded Indian. By his own account he was half White. Several writers who praised him knew this, but subjectively perceived him as a Comanche anyway — which is the way he presented himself and how they wanted to see him.

In truth, it is doubtful that he was even half-Comanche.

Indianness

I don’t mean to imply that Yeagley was a fraud. At the very least, though, he had an extremely fluid sense of identity. The phenomenon is not uncommon.

The famous Cherokee (not Comanche) chieftain John Ross (1790-1866) was one-eighth Cherokee (one great-grandparent) and seven-eighths White (mostly Scots-American). Yet apparently he thought of himself as Cherokee and was accepted as such by both Whites and Cherokees.

The current Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Obama supporter Bill John Baker, is 1/32 (3.1%) Cherokee by blood. In photos he looks White, though I don’t know for certain that he is 31/32 White. (He might have other admixture.) Baker racially identifies as an Indian, not a White man.

The problem runs deep among American Indians, who seem to possess as little racial consciousness as present day Whites do. The editor of the Cherokee Phoenix notes (in a comment at the very end of the linked article),

Bill John Baker is listed in the Cherokee Nation Registration as having one-thirty second degree of Cherokee blood. Former Principal Chief John Ross was listed at one-eighth Cherokee, while Principal Chief W.W. Keeler was also one-thirty second. Former Principal Chief Ross Swimmer is listed as one-quarter, while Wilma Mankiller was half Cherokee. Current [as of 2011] Principal Chief Chad Smith is listed at half Cherokee, too. The Cherokee Nation does not have a blood quantum for citizenship or for holding office. Citizens only need to have a [single] Cherokee [or part-Cherokee] blood ancestor listed on the Final Dawes Rolls.

Finally there is 100% Sicilian American “Iron Eyes Cody” (real name Espera Oscar DeCorti), a character actor who played movie and TV Indians.

Best remembered as the “crying Indian” in the famous 1970s anti-pollution TV commercial, posters, and glossy magazine ads that enraptured millions of sentimental Americans unable to perceive the campaign’s thinly-veiled bigotry (watch the commercial here), he struck a dignified, solemn pose similar to Yeagley’s. (For more background on Cody see “Race Hustle: The Crying Indian.”)

Cody convinced himself, Indians, and the world at large that he was the genuine article. He flatly denied being White, and indeed lied outrageously about his “Indian” background. Cody married a winsome Indian archaeologist, though even she was part White due to extensive Indian miscegenation over the generations. The couple remained married for more than forty years until her death, and adopted two Indian sons.

When contemplating such “Indianness” (“the perception or feeling of ‘being an Indian’ socially, culturally and spiritually”), one is reminded of various Holocaust saints who plead, “The reality was that I wasn’t telling the truth, but in my mind I believed I was!”

Yeagley’s Race

The Oklahoma-born Yeagley’s father was German American, which made him at least half White — in other words, as much White as he was Comanche.

Conservatives and racialists who admired him knew his father’s ethnicity because he stated it (albeit without further elaboration), but still uncritically regarded him as a deep, authentic spokesman for the Comanche people. It is significant that so many racially conscious and informed Whites thought of Yeagley this way.

As a corollary, they saw his pro-White views as somehow representative of American Indians as a whole, or of the best of them, or of what they could potentially be.

Yeagley’s mother’s name was Norma Juanita Portillo Yeagley, suggesting possible Mestizo admixture, further diluting his Comanche genes. Ironically, Yeagley was outspokenly anti-Mexican.

Admixture among Indians appears to be so extensive that I entertain serious doubts they are the same race they were when Europeans arrived. Today they are probably an amalgam.

Because Yeagley made pro-White public statements he was attacked by fellow Indians, or at least people serving as fronts for organized Jewish and Left-wing hate groups. These groups recognized the potential emotional appeal Yeagley’s message had for Whites and Indians alike and worked diligently, in their inimitable fashion, to smear and undermine him.

The obsession of this clique with his pro-White views, and their frequent false allegations that he was a “Nazi” and “anti-Semite” (he was not), combined with the promotion of the SPLC on their Web sites, seems suspiciously un-Indian.

The assailants even claimed “Yeagley also is a supporter and associates with members of the National Alliance,” which as far as I know is an outright lie. But then, “Leftist” and “liar” are synonymous.

As mentioned, the detractors set up dedicated Web sites whose sole purpose was to discredit Yeagley. (The bad guys have lots of money and manpower behind them.) At least one site remains online. (BadEagle.org: Countering the Supremacist, Misogynist Fictions of David Yeagley’s “Rants.”) It was most active in 2007, the year Yeagley unsuccessfully ran for Comanche Nation Vice President, finishing a distant fourth out of four candidates, with a total of 102 votes.

I discovered the Web site after starting to doubt Yeagley’s Comanche heritage (in the sense that he implied, and that was uncritically accepted by his White fans), including learning that his mother’s name sounded Latin American. Some Indians in the northern U.S. have Scandinavian surnames, indicative of mixed Scandinavian ancestry.

If you scroll down the Web page focusing on the left sidebar, you will see the claim that adoption was a possible route by which his mother became a Comanche. Interracial adoption is a major problem among Indians, just as it now is for Whites.

The Leftists also maintained that “Bad Eagle,” a supposedly noteworthy Comanche warrior from whom Yeagley claimed descent, might be fictitious. I could not find his name in reference books, and already knew that, if he existed, he was at least obscure, not famous. Yeagley’s White admirers frequently invoked Bad Eagle’s name.

A genealogical chart on the same page purporting to trace Yeagley’s ancestry insofar as it is known claims that racially he was “German-Mexican.” More precisely: “Enrolled Comanche, unverified race. Half-German, sixteenth Mexican, part Chickasaw, part Comanche, part White.” I believe “part White” means “other, unspecified White,” in addition to German.

Due to my independent research prior to finding this blog I’m inclined to think that much of the information about his racial heritage might be true, despite the hypocritical contradiction on the same page that race is an “illusion.” Jews and Leftists don’t believe that lie any more than I do.

Yeagley’s vague response to the allegations can be read at Joseph Cotto, “Dr. David Yeagley: What it means to be Comanche” (March 18, 2013). Yeagley said in part, “I am currently suing the culprits who have indulged in this hateful rumor about my identity. They are grossly uninformed, misinformed, and blatantly malicious. [It is true: they were blatantly malicious.] They began attacking me first by saying that I wasn’t the son of my Comanche mother, and that I was adopted. The libel evolved from there.”

Even so, note how cautiously David Horowitz described Yeagley on his Web site (Yeagley once wrote for him): “David Yeagley is the great-great-grandson of Comanche leader Bad Eagle.” That’s it. The brief description no doubt implies that Yeagley was a Comanche, but does not explicitly say so. It avoids representing him as a full-blooded Indian or as a spokesman for the Comanche people. It does assume that Bad Eagle was real, which might not be the case.

A Fluid Sense of Identity

Consistently retaining his core “Comanche” persona despite his hybrid heritage, Yeagley nevertheless possessed an unusually fluid sense of identity. He sympathized with the plight of Whites despite never claiming to be White.

He was also an extravagant philo-Semite without claiming to be Jewish. The American Enterprise Institute and David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine both published his work before he became radioactive.

One Jew, who distrustfully hunted for (in his words) “possible ‘ulterior motivation’ behind Yeagley’s overtly pro-Jewish views” (even ardent philo-Semites have a hard row to hoe) ultimately bestowed his seal of approval, calling the chameleon-like Yeagley “one of the most intriguing Comanches of all time” and “a true friend of the Jews, maybe the best Comanche friend our people have had,” thereby falling into the same trap White racialists fell into.

The man wrote, “Whatever the source of Yeagley’s philo-Semitism, it permeated his life’s work. Aside from his [Judaic] religious scholarship, Yeagley composed several classical music pieces on the Holocaust and other Jewish themes, and his website is full of blogged articles in support of Israel and its policies.” (This no doubt enhanced his appeal among certain Whites.)

The Jew was particularly struck by the contents of Yeagley’s personal Web site, which

contained a series of serious articles written by Yeagley over the years on Jewish subjects, including dissertations on tractate Berachot of Talmud Bavli. Titles include “Midnight in the Talmud,” “Talmud in the Night,” and “Talmud, Time, and Temptation.” The most impressive of all was an article entitled “Neusner, Mishna, and the Talmud: When to Recite the Shema,” which he published on May 11, 2013. This article included a picture of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz whom Yeagley apparently met at Yale. It was quite a surprise to find a Comanche Indian, albeit a highly educated one, studying Jewish texts. Additionally, further research showed that Yeagley’s interest in Jewish scholarship and issues extended much deeper. In addition to these essays, Yeagley had undertaken a serious initiative to bring lessons in Chumash (the Five Books of Moses), or “shiurim,” as he called them, to a broad audience on YouTube. In fact, he recorded ninety [yes, 90] five-minute shiurim over several months in 2012 in which he studied individual verses from Bereishit. His introductory video is quite enlightening and includes his explanation of why the descendant of a famed Indian chief would undertake such an endeavor:

I think it’s important for everyone…the goyim [it’s curious that Yeagley employed this slur –Andrew Hamilton], the Gentiles, to realize the Torah came out of the Jewish mind, its shape is Jewish. I believe that it is supernatural, that the instrument through which scripture came is the Jewish mind. I think that is very important. . . . I believe the Torah was divinely inspired. . . .

–Joseph Rotenberg, “Torah and Teepees: A Comanche Friend of the Jews,” San Diego Jewish World (September 23, 2017).

Besides Comanches, Whites, and Jews, Yeagley cultivated an interest in Persians. He may have written for and spoken to that now-mixed Caucasian race as well, though several of his alleged communications were articles and talks about the Jews’ relationship to Iranian history and the Persian people.

VDare’s Allan Wall located a biographical entry about Yeagley on a Web site called Wikibin, which identifies itself as “The Recycle Bin of Wikipedia.” As near as I can tell Wikibin contains some information that has been deleted by that influential and heavily “curated” reference site. I assume Yeagley wrote the article himself.

It is easily the most detailed account of his background I have seen, though how accurate it might be I would not venture to guess. It is difficult to separate fact from possible exaggeration in the piece. For example, Yeagley did (as he said more than once) compose a score for the obscure Indian-themed silent movie Daughter of Dawn (1920), which was restored and released in 2012. But it was only screened a couple of times in 1920, and never distributed to theaters.

You can scroll down to the subheading “Writings” in the article for an account of Yeagley’s supposed contacts with Iranians. It says among other things that he was a member of the editorial board of Persian Heritage magazine from 1998, which “published his collection of epic poetry, entitled Jahan-dideh, which is dedicated to the Empress of Iran, Farah Pahlavi.”

A 134-page self-published (via Amazon’s CreateSpace) “collection of seven epic poems” by Yeagley with that title was issued in 2013. It was apparently written in June 1982.

A search for Yeagley’s surname on the Persian Heritage Web site today turns up just one entry from 2012, an opinion piece called “Will Iran Use Nukes?

A final example of Yeagley’s identitarian changeableness: Establishment advocates of genocide condemned his praise of Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik. The Breivik articles, like Yeagley’s former Web site, have vanished from the controlled Internet.

Though the racial and historical parallels between Breivik and his Scandinavian forebears jump out at you, White racialists frantically distanced themselves from the man, evidently convinced that Whites must never lift a finger against their deadly, hate-filled murderers.

Not so the puzzling, self-proclaimed Comanche David Yeagley — though his enthusiasm was doubtless the result of Breivik’s well-known anti-Islamism rather than the Norwegian’s rapidly evolving but not yet mature pro-White views.

In “Anders Behring Breivik: A Modern Hero” (2011), Yeagley wrote, “There was a day when such men were called knights. They drove the Muslims and their infernal religion out of Europe.” http://www.badeagle.com/2011/07/27/anders-behring-breivik-a-modern-hero/ (dead link; archived copy available at archive.org).

The following year he proclaimed, “In Breivik’s passion one does hear the distant thunder of the great Norwegian warrior, Bodvar Bjarki. Ah, that was a day when war was honorable, when destroying the enemy was noble and heroic.” http://www.badeagle.com/2012/04/18/breivik-a-modern-day-bodvar-bjarki/ (dead link; archived copy available at archive.org) .

Bödvar Bjarki is an obscure Norse hero who even most Whites and Scandinavians would not be able to identify. That makes Yeagley’s choice of Bjarki as an exemplar even more striking. It is hard to imagine where he even heard the name.

Perhaps it’s symbolic that the legendary Bjarki was a shapeshifter.

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Josef Tone
Josef Tone
21 July, 2019 5:35 am

I once worked with a guy who claimed to be “Indian.” He had the braids, a ruddy tan, black hair that looked somewhat fake as he was about 50, dark blue eyes although he constantly wore narrow dark sunglasses even indoors perhaps to conceal his White DNA, and of course he had “the voice” down pat. I always felt like I was engaging in a sit-down with a tribal elder when I spoke to him. In reality, he was from a largely White community, and I was from a dying formerly White district. But.. why let all that get in the way of a good charade? Finally one morning–I think he was still drunk from the previous evening–he muttered something about being one-fourth “Indian.” He incessantly was asking to borrow… Read more »

Duke
Duke
21 July, 2019 6:47 pm

Mr. Yeagley composed music, wrote cogent articles, studied Persian history and people, and was sympathetic of pro-White views. This guy was no dummy, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he had relatively little “native-American” genetics. He would have been more useful if he hadn’t been a fan of the tribe (and I’m not talking Indian tribe).