The educator, journalist, poet, and political satirist Alexander Lawrence Posey was one of the Creek Nation's most prominent writers and political activists. Living at a crucial time in Creek history, Posey saw the dissolution of his tribe's land base and the creation of the state of Oklahoma, and he played a role in the events surrounding the termination of tribal status for Oklahoma's native people. Educational institutions serving Indian youth at the end of the nineteenth century had strict acculturationist policies: Native languages and customs were considered unworthy of perpetuation, and Indian students were encouraged to accommodate themselves to Euro-American thought systems and to emulate Euro-American styles. Thus, in Posey's early writing, especially his poetry, Native themes are expressed in European forms, using European rhetorical devices. His later work, however, is written in a style Posey developed, one that uses Indian compositional principles, language patterns, and metaphors. The...