farms. On the reservations, missionaries, teachers, and 

 government farmers expected to transform Indian 

 families into Christian, Enghsh-speaking, private 

 property-owning, commercial agriculturalists, com- 

 parable to the ideal American citizen of the period, 

 even where the land was unsuitable for farming. The 

 net result of the government program for land distribu- 

 tion, a procedure dominated by fraud, was to divert 

 most of the land to non-Indian ownership. 



Indian people, in the western Great Lakes as else- 

 where, have been reluctant to give up their own way of 

 life, and frankly considered white society morally in- 

 ferior. The emphasis on saving was viewed as avaricious 

 hoarding in a community where sharing and exchange 

 of gifts were important in life. For Indians, religion was 

 not a separate category, since every act was imbued 

 with religious meaning. Land, like air and water, was a 

 communal resource belonging to, and at the same time 

 the responsibility of, everyone. Personal property was 

 limited to objects personally crafted or acquired by 

 individual effort. High status in the community was 

 accorded the leader on the basis of how much he gave 

 away, not on what he accumulated. A leader had no 

 power of coercion, but was limited to the use of oratory 

 and diplomacy in urging a course of action. 



Missionaries and teachers taught Indian children 

 that their ancestors were savages, their language was 

 barbaric, their mode of life was heathen, and their 

 religious beliefs were superstition and witchcraft. In 

 the boarding schools that many Great Lakes Indian 

 children were compelled to attend, corporal punish- 

 ment was used freely, particularly for speaking a native 

 language. Missionaries gained some converts, particu- 



larly among metis families more inclined to accept the 

 advantages of cooperation with the government. Indi- 

 an people were most responsive to the preaching of In- 

 dian converts. On the other hand, native religion 

 sometimes persisted virtually as a secret society, and 

 several Indian religions, old and new, have their 

 followers on present-day reservations. 



Far south of the forested north country, Chicago 

 developed rapidly as a transportation hub. The city's 

 prominence as an Indian center is a recent twentieth- 

 century phenomenon, and is at least partially the result 

 of excellent travel facilities. Several hundred Indian 

 people were living in the city in the 1940s when the 

 federal Office of Indian Affairs transferred to Chicago 

 during World War II. The city's Indian population grew 

 rapidly after becoming the first relocation center under 

 a new government program instituted in 1951. The 

 Relocation Program brought Indian people from dis- 

 tant reservations, providing job-training and other ser- 

 vices so they could gain permanent employment in the 

 metropolitan area. Results of the program were mixed; 

 some people returned to reservations, but those who 

 remained in the city were joined by friends and rela- 

 tives, and many moved back and forth between city 

 and reservation communities. 



Among the local events of iniportance to Indian 

 people was the conference held in 1961, through the 

 initiative of Professor Sol Tax of the University of Chi- 

 cago and the National Congress of American Indians. 

 Five hundred Indian people from across the nation 

 joined in drafting a statement indicating the common 

 goals of present-day American Indians. The statement 

 was presented to President John Kennedy as soon as he 



Cloth shoulder bag, beaded with red yarn tassels and red. green, and black silk binding, Chippewa. Cat. 1 5303 



Photo by Ron Testa, neg 1 1 1 491 



15 



