Ten Indians

“Ten Indians” is part of the Nick Adams chronology, a set of short stories that traces Nick’s development from childhood through manhood. It was published third, after “Indian Camp” and “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” and while it shares traits with those first two stories (including anti-Indigenous bias from its white characters), “Ten Indians” differs in its portrayal of Indigenous people. In the first two, they are active­—in “Indian Camp,” Indigenous men row Nick and his family’s canoe, and Nick’s father performs a cesarean section on an Indigenous woman; in “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” Indigenous men chop logs, and Nick’s father gets into an argument with Dick Boulton, an Indigenous man who is bigger and stronger than he is. By contrast, the Indigenous people in “Ten Indians” are either immobilized or they exist in rumor or memory—the ones the Garners encounter are passed out, and people like Prudence Mitchell and Billy Tableshaw are only talked about.

As such, while the Nick Adams stories track Nick’s coming-of-age, they also track the subjugation of Indigenous people by white settlers. This is established immediately through Ernest Hemingway’s title choice. “Ten Indians” refers to the minstrel rhyme “Ten Little Indians,” in which a group of 10 Indigenous people is whittled down to zero—the first walks away, but many others suffer violent fates like breaking their necks, drowning, and getting shot. Notably, the last Indigenous person disappears through marriage, emphasizing the role of cultural erasure in eugenics, an idea Hemingway echoes in this story by giving Indigenous characters English names, like Prudence. In this story, the Indigenous people are dehumanized, reduced to sexual conquests or objects dragged through the road.

Through the Garners, Hemingway explores how American Identity Is Built on Anti-Indigenous Violence. A husband, wife, and two sons, they represent the traditional American family, a characterization that’s deepened by the story’s setting on the Fourth of July in a wagon. Covered wagons are important symbols for westward expansion and white settlement in the American mythology­—white Christians are often juxtaposed with stereotyped images of Indigenous people, who are characterized as violent and primitive. Hemingway opens the story with the image of Joe Garner dragging an unconscious Indigenous man out of the way of his wagon and into a bush, laying bare the actual power dynamic and violence of settler colonialism. By intertwining Americana imagery with the Garners’ actions and attitudes, Hemingway reveals how American identity and mythology are built on a foundation of anti-Indigenous violence. 

Hemingway uses dialogue to depict a realistic family dynamic between the Garners. They are often friendly and nurturing with each other, but there is an undercurrent of meanness that is first turned outward against Indigenous people before turning inward against each other. The target of the group’s teasing quickly shifts from the unconscious man in the road to Nick for liking Prudence, an Indigenous girl, to Carl, who “ain’t no good with girls” (20). While the teasing is depicted as playful, it also chastens the targets­—Nick feels “hollow and happy” (21), a juxtaposition that reflects some discomfort, and Carl becomes “quiet” after his mother insults him. There is tension below the joyful surface, belying the constant vigilance and social policing that comes with maintaining masculine and white supremacist hierarchies. Nick is teased for liking Prudence, which violates social norms, but Carl ends up lower in the hierarchy because he can’t assert his masculinity through sexual domination. The banter between the Garners and their children culminates in their mutual agreement that the family is ultimately above their Indigenous neighbors, with one of the boys insisting, “I’ll bet pa wouldn’t ever have had a squaw for a girl” (21). The family’s dialogue thus explores how racist beliefs are taught to children and maintained in family structures; white supremacy becomes a family value, passed on from parents to children, and mutually reinforced.

While accepted by the Garners, Nick is different from them, as reinforced by the story’s third-person limited point of view. A common technique in Hemingway's stories, this literary device is also popular in Modernist literature more broadly because it reinforces the social alienation many writers felt in the aftermath of World War I and industrialization. Indeed, the narrator cannot access the Garners’ interiority, so they are characterized solely through their dialogue and mannerisms. While ostensibly including Nick in their anti-Indigenous banter, Nick remains silent, deepening the divide between him and them. This is reinforced later when Nick is the only character to give Prudence personhood, asking his father if she looked happy with Frank Washburn rather than calling her slurs like the Garners. While hurt by his Indigenous girlfriend, Nick doesn’t succumb to anti-Indigenous bias or even think negatively about Prudence, focusing instead on his own hurt feelings. Through Nick, Hemingway asserts that bigotry and racism are neither inherent nor inevitable. At the same time, the story reinforces Nick’s difference from his peers and family. This shows that personal resistance against bias and hatred is possible, though it does not undo structural inequality and violence.

Nick’s difference from the Garners is emphasized by his affinity for nature throughout the story. In contrast to America and settler colonialism being represented by technology and development—the wagon, the city lights in Petoskey—the narrator deepens Nick’s interiority in natural settings and contexts. Leaving the Garners and heading home, the story focuses more deeply on Nick’s physicality, using repetition to describe the feeling of dew and mud on his feet. Additionally, while the horse cart struggles on the journey home, Nick moves with ease through the swamp and the woods, aligning him closely with the natural landscape. If the wagon associates the Garners with settler colonialism, Nick’s affiliation with nature aligns him more closely with Indigenous points of view, marking out his difference from white society. This characterization is deepened by the story’s ending, when Nick is soothed by the wind and the waves. Rather than harbor resentment against Prudence or wallow in his hurt feelings, Nick wakes the next morning and notices the natural sounds around him, feeling at one with the world. He only remembers later that his heart is broken, deepening the contrast between him and the Garners, whose stereotypes about and hatred toward Indigenous people seem to define how they interact with the world and the landscape.