Thomas Bailey Marquis (December 19, 1869 – March 22, 1935) was an American self-taught historian and ethnographer who wrote about the Plains Indians and other subjects of the American frontier. He had a special interest in the destruction of George Armstrong Custer's battalion at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which became his lifelong obsession. Marquis' body of work is valued by historians for his recording of the life stories of several Plains Indians and his writing on their way of life, particularly those involved in the Custer fight, notably Wooden Leg in A Warrior Who Fought Custer. Marquis carried out this research at a time when few were interested in the Indian version of events, even though no American soldiers survived the Custer fight. Marquis' work is thus both unique and unrepeatable.
Marquis developed his own theories regarding the history of the Cheyenne. One idea in particular, that many of Custer's men committed suicide when the situation became hopeless, proved to be highly controversial. This idea first surfaced in the Wooden Leg narrative, but was most fully developed in Keep the Last Bullet for Yourself, considered by Marquis to be his most important work and the culmination of his Custer research. The latter was not published during Marquis' life; much of his work did not appear in print until the 1970s. The last book to be published, The Cheyennes of Montana (pub. 1978), is regarded as especially valuable by historians. In 2006 a collection of his photographs was published as, A Northern Cheyenne Album.
Marquis was born in Missouri and trained for a career as a printworker. He moved to Montana because he wanted an adventure in the West, but ended up staying there for the remainder of his life. At first he worked as an itinerant printer, but after getting married he trained in medicine and became a physician. The idea was to have a more settled lifestyle, especially after his first daughter was born, but Marquis seemed to have a wanderlust, frequently changing location and often considering a change of career (he qualified as an attorney at one point). This became especially apparent after his military service in World War I and the failure of his marriage. These moves were always within Montana, and his final location was in Hardin on the Crow Reservation close to the Custer battle site. He founded a museum there that has now been incorporated into the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.
Marquis first took up writing around the turn of the century, writing newspaper articles. In 1922 he was appointed agency physician to the Northern Cheyenne. He resigned after only ten weeks, but he was there long enough to realize that several participants of the Custer battle were still alive. Between 1923 and 1926 Marquis practiced medicine privately on the Crow Reservation but then tried to make writing his permanent career. Throughout his life Marquis was often in debt; his writing was sometimes interrupted by the need to earn money at medicine, or even his original career of typesetting. From 1926 he returned to his contacts among the Cheyenne, interviewing them in depth. The trust he developed with them allowed them to open up to him in a way they had not with any other outsiders. The result formed the bulk of Marquis' most important works.
Early life Marquis was born December 19, 1869, on a farm near Osceola, Missouri. The family surname, according to family tradition, came from French ancestors who had been granted the hereditary title of Marquis. Marquis' great-great-grandfather was disinherited around 1768 for marrying beneath his station, to the daughter of an English merchant. With no prospects in France, he emigrated to Virginia, where he took Marquis as a surname.Weist, p. 23
Marquis' grandfather, James Marquis, was a minister in the Methodist Church who left the ministry to study medicine. His son, Marquis' father, Adonijah Cosner Marquis, also studied medicine; both James and Adonijah served as medical officers in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Adonijah served at the military hospital in Clinton, Missouri, where he met and married Sarah Ellen Westfall, the eldest daughter of a wealthy farming family from Vernon County, Missouri, who became Marquis' mother. After the war, Adonijah purchased a farm in Osceola; he returned to medical practice and left the running of the farm to employees.
Marquis was the youngest of four children. His mother died before he was one year old. Although his father remarried soon after, Marquis was cared for by his maternal grandmother until he was four. He then joined his father and stepmother at their home in Roscoe, Missouri. Adonijah bought a half-share in the newspaper Osceola so that his son, Birney, Marquis' elder brother, could learn the printing trade. When he was old enough, Marquis did the same and could set type by the time he was thirteen. After leaving school in 1885, Marquis was sent, along with his sister Mollie, to the Weaubleau Christian Institute in Weaubleau, Missouri. He graduated in 1887.Weist, pp. 23–24
At first, Marquis was only able to find work as a teacher at a local one-room school. However, his brother found him work as a printer in St. Joseph. In February 1888 Marquis made the 150-mile journey to St. Joseph. This was the farthest the young man had ever been from home and his first experience of a big city.Weist, p. 24
Printworker In St. Joseph Marquis worked for various newspapers, including the St. Joseph Daily News, the St. Joseph Gazette, and the St. Joseph Herald. It seems that work was easy to find as many printworkers had left the city after the printworkers union achieved a closed shop.
Marquis' interest in the West was first sparked in 1890 by stories from three fellow printers who had spent a year there. Marquis and a colleague at the Herald resolved to save for a similar trip, working every shift available. In the end, however, the other printer dropped out and Marquis went alone. He boarded a train for Helena, Montana, on July 23, 1890, arriving on the 27th. He soon found temporary work at the Helena Independent-Record. It was in Helena that Marquis first met Native Americans. Perhaps more remarkably, it was there that he first experienced a Chinese restaurant.Weist, pp. 24–25
Later in 1890 Marquis traveled with another itinerant printer to Anaconda, Montana, where he again found temporary work with the Anaconda Standard. The Standard was the leading newspaper in Montana, financed by Marcus Daly, and built by campaigning editor John Hurst Durston.Swibold, pp. 4–10 By the end of the year Marquis had a permanent post at the Standard. In November 1892, he married Octavia Stewart Hillhouse, a granddaughter of Joseph Stewart, the first commandant of Alcatraz. Two years later Marquis decided to change to a more settled career and began the study of medicine.Weist, p. 25
Medicine
In 1894, Marquis enrolled at University Medical College, Kansas City. A year of study was sufficient to allow him to practice medicine under the supervision of his father at Bosworth, Missouri, where the pair set up a practice and opened a drugstore. The practice was not very successful, so Marquis and his wife moved to Coloma where he worked under the supervision of another doctor. Marquis completed his studies with financial help from his wife's family and summer work as a printer in Anaconda. He graduated March 23, 1898, and returned to Montana. His daughter, Minnie-Ellen, was born soon after in Anaconda.Weist, p.25
Still struggling financially, Marquis looked for a more prosperous practice in Virginia City, Montana, where he became friends with Samuel V. Stewart. He decided to set up practice in nearby Ennis, a town he expected would grow substantially. When the practice became successful, he moved his family to Ennis, and was able to pay off his debts. It was in Ennis that Marquis first took up writing after becoming friends with Robert A. Vickers, the founder of the Alder Gulch Times. Marquis was a correspondent for the paper, submitting news that he had gathered on his medical rounds. Finding that Ennis was not expanding as he had expected, in 1904 he moved to Bozeman, but the move was not a success, and he again got into debt. Here a second daughter was born, Anna Rose Octavia. He had more success with a move to Clyde Park, where he established a well-respected practice. By 1910 he could afford to build a larger home for his family and exchanged horse and buggy transport for motor vehicles on his rounds. He occasionally addressed the Montana Medical Association conventions and acted as the Park County Health Officer. Marquis continued to write newspaper articles while at Clyde Park, mainly on historical or biographical themes.Weist, pp. 25–27
In 1915 Marquis' marriage began to fail. His family moved to Bozeman, leaving him without a receptionist, a role previously filled by his wife. At the same time, another practice had opened in Clyde Park, drawing away some of his business. In November 1916 Marquis closed his Clyde Park practice and moved to Livingston to share an office with the city health official.Weist, pp. 29–30
Law Marquis was an avid reader, and at Clyde Park his material included law books borrowed from attorney friends. In 1916 they persuaded him to sit the bar exam, which he passed. However, Marquis never made professional use of this qualification except for one case where he represented a Methodist minister suing an employer (of a second job) for back wages. After winning the case, Marquis promptly retired from that career so that he could claim that he was "100 percent successful as a lawyer", but he remained listed as a member of the Montana bar throughout his life.Weist, pp. 28–29
Army Medical Corps When the US entered World War I in 1917, Marquis volunteered for the Army Medical Corps. While at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, for training in August, Marquis took the opportunity to study the civil war site of the Battle of Chickamauga, in which his uncle, Birney Marquis, had fought with the 39th Indiana Infantry Regiment. This may be an early indication of Marquis' interest in writing books.Weist, p.30
Marquis wished to be sent to France, but was required first to take a course in French. In the meantime, he was assigned to a convalescent hospital. Shortly before being sent overseas, Marquis was assigned to Camp Forrest in Lytle, Georgia,Crowell & Wilson, pp. 55, 70 an engineering camp, where he found himself treating victims of the beginning of the 1918 flu pandemic. Marquis arrived in England just as the war ended; the flu epidemic, however, had not. He continued to Cannes, where he was assigned the task of determining the capacity of hotels for use as hospitals. In January 1919 he was assigned to the Hotel Metropole as assistant to the attending surgeon. They were soon overwhelmed with influenza cases. Marquis himself came down with flu but continued working. He was reassigned to the Hotel Suisse in Nice, but, still ill, was ordered back to the US. During the long wait for transport home, he took up medical duties in Gironde, finally docking in the US in June.Weist, pp. 30–32
Cheyenne agency physician Following the end of his army service in 1919, Marquis was restless and unsure of his future path. He first restarted the practice at Livingston and sold the house at Clyde Park (retaining some land thereWeist, p. 42 as a legacy for his daughters). He then decided to move to Whitehall, where he spent more and more of his time writing, at first on his wartime experiences, and then short articles on diverse subjects collected into volumes. He also wrote short stories during this period. However, he could not find a publisher.Weist, pp. 32–33