Pan-Indianism, or Indian nationalism, is a twentieth-century phenomenon burdened by the divergent priorities and disunity of a conglomerate people. Each new effort to organize all Indians in one association, society, brotherhood or federation begins with enthusiasm and co-operation beyond the influence of tribal parochialism, and ends a victim of discord. Nonetheless, something of the momentum characteristic of Progressive Era reform impelled Pan-Indianism into being. Indians began to sense they had immediate and mutual interests transcending tribal separatism.
For most of the history of the Indian there are no Indian sources. It has, therefore, been difficult to interpret centuries of Indian motivation. This is not true of the Pan-Indian movement. Reform Pan-Indianists have been an articulate group, well-educated, polemical, and conversant with the English language. They have left documentation, such as the papers of anthropologist Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca, at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York, and the writings of Dr. Charles A. Eastman, a Sioux (Dakota). Both men were active in the Pan-Indian Society of American Indians during the first quarter of this century. Information on the National Congress of American Indians can be found in the papers of the Robert Marshall Fund now in the New York City office of James Marshall. The Carlos Montezuma Papers chronicle Montezuma's commitment to the cause of Indian freedom from the Indian Bureau, as well as document the fledgling efforts of the Indian to improve his individual and collective positions through unified effort.
The Papers are separated into four main categories: Correspondence; Financial Records; Printed Materials published by Indian organizations, and on medical and miscellaneous subjects; and Montezuma's Writings and Notes.
Correspondence
The correspondence file dates from 1892 to 1937, and includes personal, financial and medical correspondence. Much of the file is composed of letters from Montezuma's Indian friends and relatives, both urban and reservation Indians; and the bulk of the correspondence is between Montezuma and both Indians and whites involved in the Pan-Indian movement. The principal usefulness of the Papers is in this correspondence with the leaders of the Pan-Indian movement and the letters written or dictated by the Indian common man or woman. Most is in-coming correspondence, but there are occasional drafts or copies of Montezuma letters. The financial, medical and patient-doctor correspondence is sparse and of limited usefulness. It does indicate the often pre-carious state of Montezuma's financial situation, and something of the medical queries and complications peculiar to the time.
From Western Shoshone Agency at White Rock, Nevada, in 1892, Montezuma sent requests for information to the United States Indian agents or clerks at a number of Indian agencies throughout the country. His query was in regard to the number of students who had returned to the reservations from Indian boarding schools such as Carlisle; and the number of other Indians on the reservations who could read and write English. The replies expose notable differences among the various agencies; but, in general, the young people were being taught English and receiving a rudimentary education, and older Indians remained conservatively entrenched in tribal language and custom.
For the years 1893 to 1900, the pattern of correspondence varies little. Montezuma received several letters each year from Indian friends and Carlisle students. The first of many letters from and about General Pratt is from this period. And correspondence with several of the men and women who were to be influential in the Society of American Indians began at this time; among them, Dennison Wheelock, a Wisconsin Oneida and a graduate of Carlisle. A letter, June 26, 1895, from Dr. Charles A. Eastman, formerly agency physician at the Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, to C.H. Ober of the Young Men's Christian Association, described the agency and deplored the fact that that reservation provided all the Indians for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He mentioned the debilitating effects of the “heathen dances” still practiced there, and suggested the need for more sports activity, especially polo and lacrosse, to which the Indians adapt quickly. Filed here also is a letter dated August 20, 1899, from Carlisle student, Francis M. Cayou, who was later (1923) to be the first Chief of Chiefs of the Grand Council Fire of American Indians in Chicago, and in 1934, vice-president of the Native American Church of Oklahoma. Beginning in November 1899, there are several letters in the Papers from Francis and Rosa LaFlesche. LaFlesche was the son of an Omaha chief and an anthropologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology. He was also active in reform Pan-Indianism and treasurer of the Omaha Peyote Historical Society Church.
From 1901 to 1911, the year the Society of American Indians was organized, Montezuma corresponded frequently with its founders, Fayette McKenzie, Dr. Charles A. Eastman, Francis LaFlesche, Henry Standing Bear, Thomas Sloan, and Henry Roe Cloud. Also, in Montezuma's personal correspondence for 1901-1902 are a great many letters from Zit-kala-sa. In 1902 there are several letters backing Thomas Sloan for Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In July and August 1903, William L. Jones, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, wrote Montezuma about the inability of the Indian Service to defray the cost of Montezuma's trip West, and about the “situation” at Fort McDowell.
In his letter of August 27, 1901, Richard H. Pratt worried about the Indian in politics. His concern was related to the efforts of the National Indian Republican Association to convince Indians to vote as a block in the sanguine belief this would assure Republican Party support for the aims of the Indian. Pratt also spoke of his forced removal from Carlisle. This dismissal is covered extensively in the correspondence. Many of the Indian leaders were Carlisle graduates and unswervingly behind Pratt. However, on August 11, 1904, Francis LaFlesche argued that Pratt should have avoided disagreement with his superior officers, and that it was at that time too late to change the effects or the removal. In September of 1904, Montezuma wrote several letters stating he felt he could be most useful to the Indian if he remained free of political party affiliation. At the same time he bitterly condemned Theodore Roosevelt for Pratt's removal from Carlisle.
There is some correspondence in 1905 indicating Commissioner Francis Leupp's ideas were in direct opposition to those of Pratt. Leupp wanted to see the “Indian” remain in the Indian; Pratt wanted the Indian “civilized.” In 1907 there was criticism of the Mohonk Conference which had gone on record stating the government handling of the Indian for the preceding twenty-five years had been acceptable. By 1908, there was discussion of the Taft-Bryan campaign and Theodore Roosevelt's influence in it. And Pratt was hopeful again - of a new position with the government, perhaps as Commissioner of Indian Affairs under Taft.
By 1909, Pratt had learned Richard Ballinger had invited Leupp to stay on as Indian Commissioner. Letters filed here discuss the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy a year before the blowup, as well as Pratt, Leupp, Robert Valentine, Ballinger and Taft. The Indian Rights Association and its Washington representative, S.M. Brosius, who had been suggested by Leupp to be his successor, are also mentioned in various letters.
From 1909 to 1911 the “Indian meeting,” the American Indian Association, and finally the Society of American Indians developed under Fayette McKenzie's tutelage. Montezuma's correspondence file is a fine source for an analysis of this growth from McKenzie's preliminary letters in October 1909. By June 1910 there are letters proposing an Indian conference at Muskogee, Oklahoma sponsored by Charles Daganett and Montezuma (?), which would seriously hamper the effectiveness of McKenzie's suggested conference at Columbus, Ohio. McKenzie made several pleas to Montezuma to throw his support to the American Indian Association meeting at Columbus. Montezuma was persuaded.
For the eleven years, 1912-1923, between the first meeting of the Society of American Indians and Montezuma's death, Montezuma was to change very little and bend not at all. His dedication to the cause of the Indian as he saw it, was a constant, but he was erratic about the Society of American Indians. It was his insistence on abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as much as any one thing, that divided and weakened the Society. Instant assimilation of the Indian with its alter ego, instant abolition of the Indian Bureau, was as overzealous a suggestion and would have proved as destructive to the Indian, as instant abolition of slavery and instant assimilation of the Negro. Most Indians in the first half of the twentieth-century were in no way prepared for severance from the paternalism of the Indian Bureau. Those who were were not the problem. And what of the impact of culture and heritage? Montezuma thought as the immigrant's son. He was ashamed of his father's foreignness, and proud of his own “Americanness”. The immigrant's grandson, on the other hand, was eager to identify with his heritage after much had been lost for him. Montezuma oversimplified. The correspondence file, the drafts of Montezuma's writings, the copies of Montezuma's Wassaja, and clippings of his published articles all rehearse the same assumptions.
Of the few letters dated after Montezuma's death in 1923, most are addressed to his wife and a very few, concerned with the Pan-Indian movement, were sent to Montezuma by correspondents unaware of his death.
Financial Records
Financial Records is a sparse and intermittent file dating from 1892 to 1922 of Montezuma's personal finances and two statements of receipts and expenditures of the American Indian Association, July and August 1911. There is too little here to be of clear research value, but what there is gives some indication of Montezuma's sometimes difficult financial situation. There are receipted bills; miscellaneous statements; a travel-expense account of Mike Nelson of the Indian police at McDowell, Arizona, July 16, 1911; a checking account record, 1904; and duplicate receipts arranged in alphabetical order for subscriptions to Wassaja, 1916-1921. Note also, throughout the correspondence there are references to financial arrangements made by Montezuma, such as for the purchase of the various Indian artifacts he collected. (A list of the financial records is addended to the paper copy of the register in the Archives Research Room.)
Printed Materials
The Printed Materials File has been separated into four divisions according to type of material: miscellaneous blank application, subscription, and record forms; pamphlets and other printed matter pertaining to the Indian written by or about the Indian (or Indian organizations) including Montezuma's published articles and a nearly complete file of his magazine Wassaja; miscellaneous pamphlets and ephemera collected by Montezuma; and miscellaneous material relating to medical subjects.
The Blank Forms are arranged in an alphabetical sequence. (A list of the blank forms is addended to the paper copy of the register in the Archives Research Room.)
The Indian Printed Materials section has been subdivided into seven sections: General Materials; Educational and Religious; Government Materials; Montezuma's Published Writings (including Wassaja); Newspaper Clippings; Indian Organizations; and Periodicals. In all categories, except Newspaper Clippings, the arrangement is alphabetical and chronological thereunder. The clippings are in a chronological order. Under General lndian Printed Materials are filed articles and papers by Indians and non-Indians, and all printed materials pertaining to Indians which do not fit into the specific categories that follow this heading. Included are articles and printed speeches by Gertrude Bonnin, Hamlin Garland, Joseph Latimer, Francis Leupp, Richard H. Pratt, and others. Filed with Educational and Religious Indian Printed Materials are the publications of Indian schools, churches, and missions. Government Materials include bills, sections of the Congressional Record, hearings, and other legislation pertaining to the Indian. Montezuma's published Writings include reprints of speeches he delivered and a fairly comprehensive file of Wassaja. The Newspaper Clippings conserved by Montezuma reflect the Indians' dilemma from 1904-1923. They pertain almost exclusively to Indian related matters. The publications of Indian Organizations consist of the printed materials of various Indian groups or programs of, and reprints of papers read at, their meetings. The Indian Periodicals File consists of one or more copies of five miscellaneous serials, which are not published by Indian organizations. (A list of the Indian Printed Materials is addended to the paper copy of the register in the Archives Research Room.)
Filed under the heading of Miscellaneous Printed Materials are the printed materials of lodge, church, and other non-Indian groups; advertisements; circulars; and a plethora of divergent accumulated miscellany collected over a lifetime. Most of these materials are of less than marginal concern except to penetrate more accurately into Montezuma's various interests. The file is alphabetical. (A list of these materials also is addended to the paper copy of the register.)
Miscellaneous Materials Relating to Medical Subjects consists of an archives box of medical and related literature, order forms, or records, arranged in alphabetical sequence. (A list is addended to the paper copy of the register.)
Writings and Notes
The Writings and Notes File contains fifteen identified drafts and/or galley proofs of Montezuma's writings, a number of unidentified and/or incomplete drafts, undated miscellaneous notes and lists, medical and educational notes, and an omnium gatherum of research fragments. (A list of the identified drafts of Montezuma's articles is addended to the paper copy of the register in the Archives Research Room.) The file is alphabetical.
Montezuma's library, his photographs and cartoons, and the medical and Indian artifacts he collected, have been separated from the Papers and are now in the Library, the Iconographic Division, and the Museum of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin respectively.
