David Yeagley was born in 1951 and grew up in Oklahoma City. Even as a young child, he was vividly aware of threats to the Comanche people and their culture. When his grade school teacher asked the otherwise all-white class to draw pictures to encourage fire prevention, he drew teepees engulfed in flames, with the words, “Stop this.”

Yeagley showed great promise as a student and went on to earn so many degrees it is hard to keep track of them. He had a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin Conservatory, a Master of Arts from Emory University, an Artist Diploma from the University of Hartford (Hartt School of Music), and a Doctorate from the University of Arizona. He was the first American Indian ever admitted to Yale Divinity School, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree. He did graduate work at Harvard but did not earn a degree. He was a Ford Fellow and a Kellogg Fellow.

Yeagley taught at Oklahoma State University, the University of Central Oklahoma, and the University of Oklahoma. His off-the-reservation views caused a stir, and led to collaboration in 2000 with Governor Frank Keating to establish a curriculum on American patriotism for Oklahoma’s public schools. However, it was his columns for FrontPageMagazine.com in the early 2000s that brought him to national attention.

He appeared on programs such as Hannity & Colmes and Bill O’Reilly, and made a number of C-Span appearances. He also made a History Channel episode on “Comanche Warriors,” did a history documentary for Danish Public Television, and was a popular speaker at universities. He was often sponsored by Young America’s Foundation, and electrified audiences with talks on gun rights, Comanche pride, the mind of the warrior, and the importance of protecting the United States from Third-World invasion.

However, Yeagley’s fair-weather friends could not stomach his increasingly outspoken criticism of mass immigration. FrontPageMagazine dropped him, and speaking engagements dried up. But Yeagley never trimmed his sails. Like his great-great-grandfather, he stuck to his guns and never lost his vision.

It was under Bad Eagle’s leadership that the Comanche finally put down arms after years of war with the United States and reconciled to becoming Americans—proud Comanches, still, but Americans. Yeagley, too, had a vision of Comanche accommodation with an America he had grown to love, but it must never be a Third-World America of white-guilt and multi-culturalism.

I first met Yeagley in 2011, when he spoke at a conference I organized. He described the dispossession of the Indian by the white man, but said he could not hate whites. As a warrior, he was compelled to admire the bravery and fighting spirit of the conqueror. He spoke of the crisis the now-denatured white man has created for himself, as he lets others push him off his own land. The great tragedy, he said, is that although the Indian fought to defend his land, the white man has lost his warrior virtues and is giving up without a struggle. The American white man, said Yeagley, has voluntarily become the “Indian of the 21st Century,” adding, “Let me be the first to welcome you onto the reservation.”