928 



MOHONK INDIAN CONFERENCES 



[ B. A. E. 



fayette. Landing at Norfolk, Va. , the sur- 

 vivors of the party proceeded to Wash- 

 ington, where the accompanying portrait 

 of Mohongo, from Kenney and Hall, was 

 painted. See Six Indiens rouges de la 

 tribu Osages (with portraits), 1827; His- 

 toire de la tribu Osages, par P. V., 1827; 

 McKenney and Hall, Ind. Tribes, i, 29, 

 1858; Fletcher in Am. Anthrop., ii, 395, 

 1900. 



MOHONGO (mcKENNEY and HALl) 



Mohonk Indian Conferences. A series of 

 annual meetings of friends of the Indians 

 intended to facilitate intelligent discus- 

 sion and conscientious agitation for desir- 

 able reforms. In these conferences a 

 novel and effective way of forming and 

 disseminating sound public opinion has 

 been devised and for a score of years suc- 

 cessfully employed, and through their in- 

 strumentality public speakers and those 

 who write for the press have been kept 

 in touch with the experts who know the 

 facts. The Mohonk conferences, in their 

 inception and their maintenance, are the 

 idea and the work of Albert K. Smiley, 

 member of the U. S. Board of Indian 

 Commissioners, formerly professor of nat- 

 ural science at Haverford College, later 

 in charge of the Friends' Boarding School 

 at Providence, R. I. Having purchased 

 the picturesque hotel overlooking beau- 

 tiful L. Mohonk, in the Catskill range, 

 w. of lower Hudson r. , N. Y., Mr Smiley 

 made it a resort for i)eople of education, 

 high principle, and philanthropic inter- 

 ests. Led by the wish to promote reform 

 in the management of Indian affairs, he 

 conceived the idea of inviting each year. 



as his personal guests for the greater part 

 of a week in October, the people who 

 knew most about Indian life, education, 

 and mission work, and the relations of 

 the Government to the Indians. Besides 

 these experts in Indian affairs, were in- 

 vited from 100 to 250 other people, lead- 

 ers in shaping public opinion, such as ed- 

 itors of the secular and religious press, 

 writers for reviews, clergymen of all de- 

 nominations, presidents of universities 

 and colleges, leading men and women 

 teaching in public schools, lawyers and 

 judges. Senators and Representatives in 

 Congress, members of the Cabinet and 

 heads of Departments, expert ethnolo- 

 gists, and, preeminently, such workers 

 from the iield as Indian agents of charac- 

 ter and intelligence, teachers of Indian 

 schools, army officers with a j)ersonal 

 knowledge of Indians, and philanthropic 

 l)eople who had studied the Indians on 

 the reservations. These meetings Mr 

 Smiley, as a member of the Board of 

 Indian Commissioners, called "Confer- 

 ences with the Board," and until 1902 a 

 mtmber of the Board presided — Gen. 

 Clinton B. Fisk, from 1883 until his death 

 in 1890; Dr Merrill E. Gates, former pres- 

 ident of Amherst College, chairman (now 

 secretary) of the Board, from 1890 to 

 1902; in 1903, Hon. John D. Long, ex- 

 Secretary of tiie Navy, and in 1904, Hon. 

 Charles J. Bonaparte, present Secretary 

 of the Navy. Tiie proceedings of the 

 conference for the first 20 years were 

 printed as an appendix in the Annual 

 Reports of the Board of Indian Commis- 

 sioners. 



During the four days of the meeting, in 

 the mornings a three or four hours' ses- 

 sion and in the evenings two to three 

 hours have been given to addresses, pa- 

 pers, reports, and the freest discussion, in 

 which the widest differences of opinion 

 have been welcomed and carefully con- 

 sidered and discussed. Sympathetic at- 

 tention to views the most divergent has 

 resulted in such conservatively sound ut- 

 terances in the annual Mohonk platform 

 as have generally commanded the support 

 of the great body of the best friends of the 

 Indians. In the afternoon, in drives and 

 walks about the lake and through the 

 forest, congenial groups of interested 

 friends often continued the discussions of 

 the morning sessions, shaped resolutions, 

 and devised plans for aiding reform. 



At its first meeting in 1883 the con- 

 ference reported in favor of larger appro- 

 priations for Indian education and more 

 school buildings; the extension of laws 

 relating to crime, marriage, and inheri- 

 tance so as to cover Indians on reserva- 

 tions then "lawless"; more of religious 

 education for Indians; the gradual with- 

 drawal of rations from the able-bodied 



