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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.*

* One paragraph will perhaps be an encouragement to those organizing similar women's movements hereafter : "Under the head of 'Meetings Held,' the New Hampshire branch reports twelve ladies' meetings and a crowded mass-meeting; the Massachusetts Association reports eleven ladies' meetings and a very successful mass-meeting in Tremont Temple; Connecticut reports fourteen ladies' meetings and two mass-meetings; New York City has had various ladies' meetings and a mass-meeting in Rev. Dr. Hall's church; Brooklyn has had thirteen ladies' meetings and two mass-meetings; Philadelphia, including local auxiliaries and meetings of the National Executive Board, has had about forty ladies' meetings and five mass-meetings; Baltimore has had eight ladies' meetings and two mass-meetings, and Washington sixteen ladies' meetings and four mass-meetings. Regarding the dis

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

tribution of leaflets, New Hampshire reports 5500 sent out, with 401 petitions; Connecticut 5000 leaflets, and petitions sent to all her towns; Maryland has sent leaflets to fifty towns and secured petitions representing 21,000 citizens. Of articles in the press, New Hampshire has sent sixty, and Philadelphia over a hundred. Brooklyn has raised $325: New York, $405; Boston, $724, and, naturally, being the home of the movement, Philadelphia has raised more than these and all other auxiliaries combined."

$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.

Nor has the advance of ideas been less marked than the increase of the numbers and receipts of the association. The first impulse of the first partnership of means and work, which began the active movement, resulting in the organization of a national society, was an impulse of protection for Indians and their lands from the robberies and horrors of enforced removals, and it voiced itself in pleas for treaty-keeping and the honest observance of all compacts with the Indians until their real consent to changes should be justly won. The impulse was one of common humanity, and recognized the manhood and womanhood of Indians, and their claims in common with all men because human beings. The facts gained from the first investigations, given in the first leaflets, and sent forth into many States, laid hold upon the minds of free white men and women by revealing to their consciences the responsibility of silence while our native Indians were still the victims of wholesale robbery by military ejectment from their own territory, often to be sent to unwholesome, non-supporting lands, into utter helplessness, or out of perishing need into wars for mere subsistence. The facts popularly made known that Indians were practically under the supreme control of the United States agent over them; that they could not sue or be sued,* make contracts, sell their lumber, or work their mines; that they had no law; that it was legally not a crime to kill an Indian; that Indian women and girls could be and often were appropriated to become mothers of agricultural slaves to till their master's soil, all these facts, startling to republican minds, thrilling to humane hearts, and thundering out appeals to Christian consciences, led to this impulse of protection. But soon the question of "How most wisely to protect" led to still more thoughtful study of the situation, and to the rapidly grown

"The

*See "Protection of Law for Indians," by General J. B Leake; Indian before the Law," by H. S. Pancoast, Esq.; Our Indian Wards," by Col. George Manypenny, and " Our Wild Indians," by Col. Richard J. Dodge; "The Indian Question," by G. W. Owen, pages 90-97 and 639

conviction that only law, education, and citizenship could be the real cure of such oppressions. This conviction was embodied in petitions for law, land in severalty, education, and citizenship, while yet the popular idea was that Indians could not be civilized and were not worth civilizing, and while even some so-called Christian ministers still counseled treating them as Israel of old felt commanded to treat the Canaanites. That the quiet but far-reaching work of the association, as has often been said by those publicly and conspicuously devoted to Indian welfare, has probably done more than the work of any other one organization for Indian liberation and elevation, no one familiar with its quality and quantity can well doubt. Its members recall the many testimonies to this effect, and, with grateful pride, that the Honorable H. L. Dawes, Chairman of the Indian Committee of the United States Senate, author of the long-needed Severalty Bill which became law in March, 1887, and ever the faithful friend of the women's work, stated in a public speech that the "new Indian policy," to-day everywhere approved, was "born of and nursed by the women of this association." And, indeed, all the features of the new policy are found in the early petitions* and literature of the society. That the Indian Rights Association, the evening that it was organized, just as the women's associa

* That of January, 1883, said:

We, the undersigned citizens of the United States, resident in or near viewing the results of our past national Indian policy; viewing also the present positions and relations of the white and Indian races within our borders, and being convinced by many considerations, both moral and political, that only that Indian policy is just, and therefore wise, which has for its ultimate aim citizenship for Indians, through the abolition of the reservation, system by granting to all Indians, not now under the Indian Government of the Indian Territory, lands in severalty, with the same titles, law protection, property rights, common school education, and religious liberty enjoyed by other races among us :

Now, therefore, we do respectfully but most earnestly pray that such a policy as above suggested may be adopted and in future pursued, having due regard to the principles of equity and justice involved in past treaties with Indians, yet granting to them upon their present reservations as fast as individuals so desire (and we pray that our Government will generously allure them to this desire).

FIRST Lands in severalty, with fee-simple titles, inalienable for thirty years.

SECOND: The same law-protection, legal personalty and citizenship that white men and black men enjoy.

THIRD Adequate common-school and industrial education upon their present reservations, and,

FOURTH Full religious liberty.

tion, was ready to present its fourth annual petition, crystallized its plans of work, after reading the constitution of the women's society, and adopted its lines and methods of work; that the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee, and that the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the present administration have but done and are doing, what the association's literature and petitions have for years advocated is a sufficient testimony to the principles and aims of the association. That its leaders have been divinely led many humbly and gratefully feel, for, as said the venerable Bishop Whipple, "The women have builded better than they knew;" and as said Hannah Whitall Smith, now of London, England, well known on two continents as an uplifting writer and speaker on religious subjects, one of the early treasurers and still a patron of the association, "This Indian work is but the Christian motherhood of the nation obeying its instincts toward our native heathen." It would require a portly volume to mention the names and deeds of the earnest and eminent women who have had share in this work for the aborigines of our country. Among its honorary officers and members, as seen in its annual reports and those of its auxiliaries, are names distinguished in the world of letters and in political and social circles, as well as those known in philanthropic and Christian work, while many in its corps of active officers and in its executive board are widely known and honored. But the temptation to catalogue these in this chapter, must manifestly be resisted or restricted to incumbents of the leading offices and to the chairmen of departments. Among those most active in State work, Mrs. Sara Thomson Kinney, president of the Connecticut auxiliary, and now first vice-president of the national association, has given very largely of time, thought, and labor, has compactly organized her State with branches in its leading towns, has inaugurated in her association a variety of important work and brought it to its present standard of excellence. Under Miss Fletcher's inspiration she introduced Indian Home Building by loan funds and is chairman of that department in the national association, forty or fifty Indian homes having, under her management, been built or remodeled in civilized fashion, and among ten or fif. teen tribes. Many smaller loans she has also made, enabling individual Indians to adopt civilized and self-supporting industries. Mrs. Elizabeth Elliot Bullard, president of the Massachusetts auxiliary, and chairman of the new national Committee on Special Education of bright individual Indians

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