| Abstrakt: |
Athlete. Jim Thorpe and his twin brother Charlie were born to Hiram Thorpe and Charlotte Thorpe, in a small cabin on the banks of the North Canadian River near what is now Prague, Oklahoma. Intermarriage among whites and American Indians had become prevalent, and both Hiram and Charlotte were of mixed race. Hiram’s father, a blacksmith, was Irish; his mother was an American Indian of Sac and Fox ancestry. Hiram eventually had nineteen children from five different women. Charlotte was his third wife; her great-grandfather had been Jacques Vieux, a French fur trader who had founded Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Charlotte was also the granddaughter of the Potawatomi chief Louis Vieux. As a descendant of this multinational family tree of what might be considered the upper-class Indians of the Midwest, Thorpe was of Irish, French, and Indian stock. His rugged looks were overwhelmingly Indian, and this fact would always be emphasized in his athletic life story. |
