18 Facts About D'Arcy McNickle

William D'Arcy McNickle was a writer, Native American activist, college professor and administrator, and anthropologist.

D'Arcy McNickle was an enrolled Salish Kootenai on the Flathead Indian Reservation.

D'Arcy McNickle was born on January 14,1904, to William McNickle, ethnic Irish, and Philomene Parenteau, Cree-Metis.

D'Arcy McNickle's mother was among numerous Metis who had fled to Montana in the late 19th century to escape the aftermath of suppression following the 1885 Riel Resistance, known as the North-West Resistance.

D'Arcy McNickle attended mission schools there and boarding schools located elsewhere, off the reservation.

At the age of seventeen, McNickle entered Montana State University, graduating with the class of 1925.

In 1925, D'Arcy McNickle sold his land allotment on the Flathead Reservation to raise money to study abroad at Oxford University, but left Oxford without matriculating.

D'Arcy McNickle moved to Paris and briefly attended the University of Grenoble.

D'Arcy McNickle worked under John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, during the 1930s and 1940s.

D'Arcy McNickle developed expertise in a wide range of areas related to Native American policies.

D'Arcy McNickle helped found the National Congress of American Indians in 1944.

D'Arcy McNickle began to publish non-fiction works on Native American history, cultures, and governmental policies.

In 1952, D'Arcy McNickle was selected as director of American Indian Development, Inc.

D'Arcy McNickle was active with other Native American organizations, as tribes began asserting their civil rights and working more closely together as an ethnic group.

D'Arcy McNickle was instrumental in drafting the "Declaration of Indian Purpose" for the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference.

D'Arcy McNickle was appointed as an associate professor in 1966 to what is the University of Regina.

In 1972, D'Arcy McNickle helped create the Center for the History of the American Indian in Chicago's Newberry Library.

D'Arcy McNickle was married three times: First to Joran Jacobine Birkeland from 1926 to 1938; they had a daughter.