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.

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,[[213]] 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 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[[214]] and literature of the society. That the Indian Rights Association, the evening that it was organized, just as the women’s association, 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 fifteen 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 brought to her association influence and new friends, and has, with the aid of a corps of eminent women, achieved large results, having in her society more branches than are to be found in any other State, her association having been also the largest and most enthusiastic supporter of the Missionary Department. In New York City an admirable board of officers, led by the accomplished Mrs. Theodore Irving and Mrs. Edward Elliott, are supporting a new station of the Ramona Missions, and are meeting with other new successes, as is the Brooklyn association, which, under the leadership of Mrs. Lyman Abbott, assisted by the former president of that society, Mrs. Jerome Plummer, inaugurated the Kiowa Mission and is preparing to open a station among the Piegans of Montana. Miss Sarah M. Taylor, of Philadelphia, a devoted and far-seeing worker and generous giver, is now chairman of the Missionary Department which, in six years, has planted directly or indirectly, missions in twenty different tribes, building four missionary cottages and four chapels in these, transferring them, one after another, when well established, to the care of the permanent denominational societies. Miss Kate Foote, president of the auxiliary at the national capital, whose bright letters from that city and whose charming magazine articles are so widely enjoyed, is chairman of the Department of Indian Legislation, her racy reports of laws secured, and notices of the more numerous ones needed, having both a popular and legislative value, while her prescient watchfulness is constantly achieving other and important help for Indians. The supplemental work for Indian civilization at Crow Creek Agency, Dakota, for furnishing on the reservation, to returned Indian students, civilized employments and continued religious nurture, thus making them self-supporting and an aid to their entire tribes, led to the election of Miss Grace Howard, of New York, who originated, successfully inaugurated, and continues it, as chairman of the association’s department of Indian Civilization Work. The Young People’s Department has for chairman Miss Marie E. Ives, of New Haven, whose first effort so inspired a quartet of young girls in New York City that their first entertainment placed $327 in the treasury for the association’s new Seminole Mission, and, naturally, awakened large hope for the success of this important division of work. The chairman of the committee on Indian Libraries, Miss Frances C. Sparhawk, of Massachusetts, originated and is vigorously serving her own department, while the latest committee, that on hospital work, is led by Miss Laura E. Tileston, of Virginia, though the first hospital, for which funds are already in hand, will soon be built by the National Missionary Committee for the Omahas. The devotion of our corresponding secretary, Miss Helen R. Foote; of our late recording secretary, Mrs. Rachel N. Taylor; the generous service of our recent treasurer, Mrs. Harriet L. Wilbur, and of the present one, Miss Anna Bennett, and the labors of other workers in different sections of the country come up in remembrance, and it would be a pleasure to record the names of all these did space permit. Many women have wrought well during and since the inauguration of the new Indian policy, by the influence of which already more than one third of the forty-eight thousand Indian pupils are in the various government and other schools, and under which the people of more than twenty tribes are receiving lands in severalty. By the success of this policy, developed with the aid of all officials, individuals, and organizations friendly to them, the quarter of a million Indians of our country are, by taking individual farms or by adopting civilized avocations, at last really passing out of barbarism into civilization, and from the oppressions, disabilities, and helplessness of the reservation system into the freedom, protection, and development of United States citizenship. The work of the association for these ends has been pressed with all the vigor which its numbers and means permitted, and it has given its whole thought to the accomplishment of its purposes. Not contemplating a permanent existence, it has given small though adequate attention to mere form. One of its members, a poet, Indian educator, an able writer on Indian topics, and now a government superintendent of Indian schools, Miss Elaine Goodale, says: “This association stretches out sympathetic hands and loses itself in all other good work for the Indians so that the measure of its influence may not be expressed in any rows of figures however significant, or set down in any report however complete. The striking and hopeful feature, after all, of this Women’s National Indian Association is, as its president constantly reminds us, that it is not intended as a permanent organization. The women have undertaken to meet a particular crisis, to bridge a dangerous gap. As fast as the regular missionary societies are ready to accept its independent missions, these are placed entirely in their hands. As soon as our rich and powerful Government comprehends and faithfully discharges its duty to the Indians the women will cease to urge their needs and their rights, and the association will cease to exist. Its work will have been done. Its demand is not for its own honor or extension but that the object for which alone it lives may speedily be accomplished.”

Until this object is gained, The Women’s National Indian Association will not sound retreat nor its great company of consecrated workers disband. It is possible that its best and longest record may be made in the future and its work be finished by wholly new laborers. God grant that this may be so if the work, political, educational, industrial, and religious, still so imperatively demanded by justice for our native Indian Americans, cannot otherwise be done.

XVI.
WORK OF ANTI-SLAVERY WOMEN.

BY