MEMORIAL LETTER OF THE INDIAN TREATY-KEEPING AND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION, PRESENTED WITH THEIR PETITION FOR 1882.
To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:
Again the women of a national Indian association beg leave to present to your honorable body the petition they have circulated and received again from the people of the United States. Their roll represents, at a low estimate, considerably more than a hundred thousand citizens,—instead of thirteen thousand as did their first, three years ago,—and is an earnest plea for a righteous, speedy, and permanent settlement of the Indian question.
Among the petitioners are many hundreds of churches, which have adopted the petition by a unanimous rising vote, this often having been taken at a regular Sabbath service; various popular meetings have also here presented their plea, similarly expressed; while the roll contains names of members of legislative bodies, of governors, judges, and lawyers; names of bishops and of many hundreds of the clergy—among the latter the entire ministry of three denominations in the city of Philadelphia and numbering nearly three hundred; names of the professors and students of theological seminaries like those at Hartford, Cambridge, Rochester, and Upland; colleges and universities like Yale, Harvard, Brown, Cornell, Rochester, Washington, and Lee; names of editors of leading periodicals; the boards of hundreds of missionary and other benevolent societies, not a few of these being national ones; with names of art, literary, and social clubs. Besides all these, the roll contains the signatures of hundreds of business and manufacturing firms, who control capital to the amount of many millions of dollars, and who employ many thousand operatives—all showing that not only has there been a rapid growth of sentiment among the religious and intellectual leaders of the community, demanding legislation which shall end oppression of Indians and secure to them full opportunity for industrial, mental, and religious development, but that the commercial interests of our land also are fast coming to demand a just and speedy settlement of the Indian question.
Permit an expression from the association who to-day present to your honorable body their third annual petition,—an association having sixteen State committees and one in each of the larger cities, with helpers in every State, all these committees being composed of patriotic Christian women; permit these to say that into their ears and hearts comes the cry of suffering, undefended, ever-endangered, Indian women and children, and that this cry is our appeal to you to secure for them legal protection; that the plea of Indian women for the sacred shield of law is the plea of the sisters, wives, and mothers of this nation for them, the plea of all womanhood, indeed, on their behalf to you as legislators and as men. Permit us also to say, that in laboring by every means in our power to fill our land with a knowledge of the present condition of Indians, and of our national obligations to them, we most deeply feel, that while justice demands the recognition of Indian personalty before the law, thus most surely and simply, it seems to us, securing to Indians protection and fostering care, we yet feel that legislation securing this recognition will be an honor to the present Congress and to our beloved country. For this legislation we most earnestly and respectfully pray.
[212]. 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 distribution 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.”
[213]. See “Protection of Law for Indians,” by General J. B. Leake; “The 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 639–650.
[214]. 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).