Do You Know Alexander Posey?

Alexander Posey (1873-1908) was a Creek Indian from Eufaula Oklahoma. In his day, Alexander Posey was a poet, humorist and journalist and became known internationally for political satire in his Fus Fixico Letters. Posey’s journalistic career began in 1892 and in 1902, he bought the Eufaula Indian Journal and gained national recognition as a journalist who used wit and humor to capture the interest of his readers. Now you can read about him and his works in your Tribal library.

Below are some of the titles purchased with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Chinnubbie and the Owl -This volume of nine stories, five orations, and nine works of oral tradition is the first to collect these entertaining and important works of Muscogee Literature. Many of Posey’s stories reflect trickster themes; his orations demonstrate both his rhetorical prowess and his political stance as a “Progressive” Muscogee; and his works of oral tradition reveal his deep cultural roots. Most of these pieces, which first appeared between 1892 and 1907 in Indian Territory newspapers and magazines; have since become rarities. Many of the original pieces surviving only as single clippings in a few archives.

Lost Creeks gathers for the first time all the journals and shorter autobiographical works of noted Muscogee (Creek) writer, humorist and political activist Alexander Posey. Drawing on extensive archival research, Matthew Wynn Sivils produces a carefully annotated edition of the journals, and also provides abundant contextual information. This volume enriches and personalizes the legacy of this remarkable Native writer and provides new insight into the beginnings of twentieth-century Native intellectual, political and literary movements and traditions.

Song of the Oktahutchecollects for the first time all of Posey’s poetry, which has until now been scattered in various rare volumes, either unpublished or replete with textual errors. His highly regarded poems constitute the largest body of Native Poetry from the turn of the twentieth century.

The Fus Fixico Letters is a compilation of seventy-three letters by a fictional “full blood” Creek correspondent satirically commenting on life in Indian Territory as it was preparing to become the State of Oklahoma and faced with the complexities and losses associated with the allotment of Tribal Lands. The greed and hypocrisy of both whites and Tribal is cleverly lampooned in these creative works.

Alex Posey by Daniel F. Littlefield Jr.

Littlefield has written the first full biography of Alexander Posey, a pioneer of American Indian Literature and a shaper of public opinion.

“A Vivid Portrait of a complex man in the volatile world of Oklahoma Indian life from 1873 to 1908…The book combines excellent historical scholarship with penetrating insight into a complicated personality and the turbulent politics of Indian Territory”.