Part 39

The name of Helen Hunt Jackson deservedly stands first in the literary world as connected with modern effort by women for the deliverance of our native American Indians from oppression and injustice, as shameful as have been endured in any civilized land or by any race under the guardianship or power of any civilized government. The first letters and articles on this subject from her fascinating and popular pen were in the New York _Tribune_, the _Christian Union_, and other religious and secular newspapers and magazines, and were the outcry of a just and humane soul quivering with a poet’s intense feeling and outraged sensibility at the discovery and realization of the unspeakable suffering of a capable and naturally brave race in a position where, to put the case comprehensively, no human right is treated as sacred, and where greed and passion alternately rob and destroy among their victims. Her quotations, from government documents and of proved facts, startled thoughtful readers, and her appeals rang like clarions through the souls of those who really heard them, and with peals whose vibrations have not yet ceased. Soon after she seriously took up the subject she visited, in Philadelphia, the officers of the Women’s Indian Association, and expressed herself as delighted and still further inspired to find a group of earnest women already at work to make the facts of the Indian situation known, with the object of moving the people to demand of the government enacted justice for the wronged race. She wrote “A Century of Dishonor,”[204] a book which every patriotic and intelligent American should read, a condensed library on the Indian question and largely made up of quotations from public and official records, and introduced the book to the press and pulpit of the country. She had a copy of it placed on the desk of every member of Congress the day but one before the second annual petition of the Women’s Indian Association, of which she became a member, was presented to that body, January 27, 1881, and the writer, at the time also a guest of Miss Seward, vividly remembers with what anxious interest she noted quotations made from her book in the Senate Speeches to which both listened during the four or five days which followed. But the reception of this book was a disappointment to its author, and she said, later, in letters to and in conversation with the writer: “It is not read as I hoped it would be; I can count upon certain thousands who will read what I write because it is mine; but not even all of these will read this book, and they _must_ read something on the Indian question. I will write an Indian story.” To this resolve her facile pen, her poetic fire, and her genius for graphic delineation and clear, strong statement were given, and the story of “Ramona,” the data of which were procured among the Indians of California while she was a government inspector among them, was given to idyllic, classic romance, to the American conscience, and to the humane of all civilized society. She poured her heart into the story and her heart’s blood out through its pages. She put the labor of the working years of an average life-time into that half-decade of toil for a hunted race, and so it was again, as not infrequently in this world’s story, that the righteous zeal and the intense compassion of a quick spirit “ate up” the life, and another consecrated genius fell, another great heart broke. The massive cone of rocks, cast by loving hands from every State in our Union upon the lonely mountain grave which she asked for among the Indian haunts of Colorado, fitly marks the resting place of her dust, but her “soul is marching on,” still rallying, still inspiring unselfish souls to the cause she died for. The life given for others is a sacred life.

Another woman worker who has wrought with entire devotion and with the ability of genius for the Indian race, who began that work a year or two after “H. H.” felt her first inspiration, is Miss Alice C. Fletcher. Already a student accustomed to research she first went among Indians, in the summer of 1882, in the interests of scientific observation. Perceiving at once the wrongs and needs of the race, she became their enthusiastic friend, laid aside her scientific pen and pencil, and made a serious study of the situation of the people among whom her labors began, the Omahas of Nebraska. Representing their case to governmental authorities in Washington, and successfully awakening interest in their behalf among legislators, she drafted a bill and had the satisfaction of seeing its passage, and then of allotting their lands under it to these Indians in 1883–84. Nor was this all or even the chief part of her work. Her scientific researches since then, treating in monographs of Indian traditions, customs, ceremonies, music, and other subjects ethnographic, biological, or archæological, have been original and valuable. It was during the period covered by this work that she brought a party of thirty-six young Indians to the Carlisle and Hampton Indian schools, herself raising $1800 with which to meet the expenses of other Indians who begged to join the party and seek an education. She persuaded General Armstrong to undertake at the Hampton school, the training of young Indian married couples, in cottages built by funds she raised for their training, and by the success of this experiment introduced the department of Indian Home Building into the Women’s National Indian Association, of which she is an earnest member, and for which department she has raised in all more than two thousand dollars, since expended in building Indian homes, such loan-funds being in various instances returned to the association and reloaned to other Indian beneficiaries. An exhibit of civilized Indian industries for the Exhibition of 1884–85, at New Orleans, was also prepared by Miss Fletcher, and a diploma of honor was awarded her for this labor and for the lectures she gave upon the exhibit during the exposition. Her book, entitled “Indian Civilization and Education,” prepared in answer to a Senate resolution of February 23, 1885, under the direction of the Commissioner of Education, is an extended and valuable work, and was supplemented by her late journey to Alaska in behalf of Indian education there. Since that time she has, as a special agent of government, allotted lands in severalty to the Winnebagoes of Nebraska, and is at this date (January 1891) engaged among the Nez Percés of Idaho, having been first for such work an appointee of President Cleveland, July, 1887, and the only woman till recently so commissioned. In addition to these greater services she has rendered many others, such as starting the education of the first Indian woman physician,[205] and of several Indian students at law or in some course of special training; inciting others to build here a chapel and there a school; doing with unstinted energy and enthusiasm the great service which lay before her, and letting no chance slip to render the smaller aid. Possessed of a quick scientific perception, keen sagacity, great executive ability, of undaunted and tenacious purpose, of clear judgment and strong mental grasp, her heroic labors have accomplished important and lasting results for the benefit of the Indian race.

But another chapter of Indian work began six months before “H. H.” commenced earnestly to think or write on the Indian question, as she herself told the writer, when a noble woman in Philadelphia, whose attention was just then specially called to the wrongs of the red race by items in the daily press, brought these facts to the notice of a small group of Christian workers. This was Mary L. Bonney,—later the wife of Rev. Thomas Rambaut, D.D., LL.D.,—whose life had been given to educational work, who had liberally aided many Christian and philanthropic enterprises, who had an important share in inaugurating the Women’s Union Missionary Society, and who had given largely for the training of young men, both white and colored, for the Christian ministry. President of a missionary circle,[206] she brought to its monthly meeting, April, 1879, facts regarding the efforts of railroad companies having roads through the Indian Territory, and of western senators and others, to press Congress to open that Territory to white settlement, and to set up there a United States territorial government, though solemn treaties with the civilized tribes bound the nation never to do this without their consent. Her sense of justice was shocked, and she felt that so gross dishonesty must be a vast hindrance to Indian missions, as well as a great injury to the moral sense of our nation. The story of what followed is an interesting one as furnishing another marked illustration of the fact that the human family is but one, and that when any branch of it suffers, the others, upon knowledge of the fact, will rise to the rescue; and that leaders and groups of workers are separately and individually moved upon in accordance with one great over-plan and its clearly apparent, all-including, redemptive design. Miss Bonney printed a petition to the government, and copies were distributed in an anniversary meeting, but from pressure of business these were left unnoticed in the pews; the missionary circle adjourned for the summer, and there the matter seemed to end. But, as Miss Bonney states in a sketch of the beginnings of the movement, “she presented,” a month later, “the facts she had gathered to her friend,” and “the two entered into covenant” and “formed their plan of action.”[207] Miss Bonney as the senior principal of the Chestnut Street Female Seminary of Philadelphia, one of the most excellent and widely-known educational institutions for young ladies in the country, originated by herself twenty-nine years before, and which became, in 1883, the Ogontz School, had little time for detailed investigation of wrongs to Indians or to use the avails of such study for arousing the public to their redress; but she had the means required and the heart generously to use these, while her friend the writer, deeply moved on behalf of Indians by the facts of their great wrongs, investigated the subject and gave herself to the work. Seven thousand copies of an enlarged petition,[208] with a leaflet appeal to accompany it, were circulated during the summer in fifteen States by this volunteer committee of two, and those whom they interested, and the result in the autumn was a petition roll, three hundred feet long, containing the signatures of thousands of citizens. This memorial was carried to the White House, February 14, 1880, by Miss Bonney and two ladies, whom she invited to accompany her; Mrs. George Dana Boardman, who presented the petition to President Hayes, and Mrs. Mariné J. Chase, who arranged the interview, and it was presented by Judge Kelly in the House of Representatives the 20th of that month, with the memorial letter written by Miss Bonney, the central thought of which was the binding obligation of treaties. It said, “We would express that when a treaty is changed or modified the free consent of both parties is necessary”; and it urged faithfulness in the case, “because we are strong and the Indians are weak.” Both the petition and letter were placed upon the records of Congress. Another petition and various leaflets were prepared and circulated the next year, Miss Bonney at first meeting all expenses, her gifts to the cause during the first two years being nearly $500, while those of all others,—and all were at her solicitation,—were less than $200, and during the first four years amounting to nearly $1400, while those from all other sources were less than $2000. In May, 1880, at her suggestion, two other ladies, Mrs. Boardman and Mrs. Chase, were added by the missionary circle to the volunteer committee of two, the four being then appointed, as its minutes say, “a committee of ways and means to act in the distribution of the petitions and tracts.” At the first formal meeting of this committee,—this was in December, 1880,—its members, and the society indorsing them, having approved the plea of the writer that this work should be unsectarian and national, four other ladies of different denominations were invited to join it, and it became thenceforth undenominational and independent. At this first meeting, at Miss Bonney’s request, Mrs. Chase was made chairman, retaining the office for three months, Mrs. Boardman was elected treasurer, and the writer, secretary, reporting her work and the publications from May 1879. This previous work, according to the minutes of that date, “included the circulation of the petitions of 1879 and of the present year [1880]; the preparation and circulation of the literature published to accompany these petitions; the presentation of the aims and work of the committee in missionary and other meetings; at anniversaries, associations, and pastors’ conferences, in this and other States; the securing promises for two popular meetings and the presentation in them of our petition, with the general subject of Indian wrongs, and the preparing articles for the press, with other writing, traveling, and visiting in aid of some or all of these lines of work.”

The eight ladies of this committee were Miss Bonney, Mrs. Boardman, Mrs. Chase, Miss Fanny Lea, Mrs. Mary C. Jones, Mrs. Margaretta Sheppard, Mrs. Edward Cope, and the writer.

The second popular petition,[209] then already gathered from all the States and several of the Territories of the Union, and representing fifty thousand citizens, was carried the next month, January, 1881, by the chairman and secretary of the committee to Washington, where, with the memorial letter prepared by the secretary,[210] it was presented by the Honorable H. L. Dawes, United States Senator, to the Senate on the 27th of that month, and on the 31st, by the Honorable Gilbert De La Matyr, to the House of Representatives, all being placed upon the records of Congress, and the proceedings, with the speech of Senator Dawes being widely published.

In March, 1881, at the fourth meeting, Mrs. Chase resigning connection with the committee, Miss Mary L. Bonney, “the originator and most generous patron of the work, was,” as the minutes state, “unanimously elected chairman.” In June, 1881, with five additional members, the committee adopted its first written constitution and changed its name to “The Indian Treaty-keeping and Protective Association.” Adding other representative ladies, the work of organization, as foreshadowed and provided for in the constitution, went forward. The association was to be composed of this central executive committee and of consenting “Associate Committees” in the various States and Territories, and the writer, thenceforth designated the general secretary, with a _carte blanche_ as always in lieu of instructions other than those suggested by herself, began her pilgrimage beyond State limits, seeking and finding individual and groups of workers, with editorial and ecclesiastical helpers for the cause, organizing thirteen associate committees in five different States before the year ended,—those in the ten great cities of the country having the rank of State committees,—addressing meetings large and small at Chautauqua, Ocean Grove, and other centers, where leaders for work in various places were found, corresponding with these and with government officers regarding the interests of Indians, publishing reports, appeals, and circulars, and closing the year with importunate requests for committees on editorial, financial, publication, and State work. At the opening of 1882, under the revised constitution, the associate committees were reorganized by the general secretary as permanent auxiliaries, and new ones were added in other States. The third annual petition,[211] representing more than one hundred thousand citizens, was, with the memorial letter, presented to President Arthur, at the White House, by Mrs. Hawley, the devoted and lamented president of the Washington Auxiliary and wife of the Connecticut Senator; Mrs. Keifer, wife of the Speaker of the House, and the secretary of the association, the chairman of the committee. This was on February 21, 1882, and Senator Dawes introduced the petition and letter in the Senate on the same day, both being presented to the House of Representatives on the 25th, and the proceedings and debate on these occasions occupied several pages of the _Congressional Record_. The discussion of Senators, hotly expressing on the one hand Western impatience with Indians, and antagonism to Eastern sympathy, and on the other hand the moral sense of Christian men and women of many States, was closed by Senator Dawes in a brilliant speech of thrilling eloquence, giving telling facts of outrages upon Indians by the Government and white settlers, and the speech was received with prolonged applause. Later, the ladies of the committee were introduced to the speakers in the Marble Room, and the subject was there continued in an animated conversation representing both sets of speakers. Enthusiastic popular meetings in various cities were next secured, and the organization, already of national proportions, received many testimonies to and proofs of its power, and that it had really influenced legislation. Before the close of the year the name of the society was changed to “The National Indian Association,” and its intention soon to begin educational and missionary work among unprovided Indian tribes was announced.

At the end of 1883 the word “Women’s” was introduced into the name of the association in recognition of and compliment to the new “Indian Rights Association” of gentlemen, the amended constitution, substantially as it still remains, was adopted, and preparation was made for the new work of missions. An extract from the annual report of that year indicates the growth of the organization to that date: “During this history twenty-six auxiliaries have been gained, while we have still vice-presidents and helpers in States not organized. Besides circulating and presenting the three petitions named, a million pages of information and appeal have been circulated, many great and small societies, ministerial conferences, assemblies, and anniversaries have been visited and have responded, indorsing our work and appeals to Government, while hundreds of articles concerning our objects have been secured in the secular and religious press, and hundreds of meetings have been addressed by your secretary and others regarding justice to Indians.” The kind of work done by auxiliaries will be more fully seen by referring to the report of that year.[212]

Miss Bonney’s presidency over the association closed November, 1884, but her ardent interest still remains, and she has continued to be largely the financial provider for the department of organization. Her noble character, broad spirit, wise counsels, generous gifts, wide reputation, and devotion to this as to all redemptive work, made her a constant power for the cause and association, and though her more active share in its labors ceased with her official duties, she is still its beloved honorary president.

The second chairman of the society was the accomplished and well-known writer, Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, who, upon a unanimous election, accepted the presidency November, 1884, and for three years discharged the duties of her office with great ability. Possessing rare literary talents and culture, being a natural and enthusiastic leader and a charming speaker, and having a wide circle of friends, she brought much to the aid of the enterprise. Her thoughtful addresses, her strong articles in magazine and journal, her poems replete with deep religious feeling, her graceful presiding, her wise suggestions, tact, and, above all, her earnest interest in the cause of Indian emancipation and elevation constituted her a leader of unusual value, and it was with great regret that the association was forced, because of her then impaired health, to accept her resignation, October, 1887.

Upon the retirement of Mrs. Dickinson, the writer, who had continued to do the work of general secretary until that date, was, by the executive board, made president, receiving the unanimous election of the association at its following annual meeting, November, 1887; an office which she still holds, having been four times re-elected.

The later growth of the association is revealed in the following facts: The annual report of 1885 reported fifty-six branches in twenty-seven States, and $3880 raised for the cause; that of 1886 registered eighty-three branches, showing much advance for a yet unpopular cause, and that $6793 were expended. In the report of 1887 the collections had grown to $10,690; in 1888 to $11,336; in 1889 to $16,300, and in 1890 to $16,500. During one year the Connecticut auxiliary raised over $4000, and the Massachusetts association put into the treasury of the national association $3000, a third of which was designated for missionary purposes and the rest for loans for Indian Home Building, and gifts for educational and legal work. These two are the strongest auxiliaries, though there are now branches and helpers or officers in thirty-four States and Territories of the Union.