Printable Version

Friends of the Indian
Digital History ID 724


Date:1884

Annotation: Between 1883 and 1916, Indian reformers met annually at Lake Mohonk, New York, to formulate recommendations. One of the humanitarian reformers' major goals was abolition of the reservation system and distribution of land to individual families.


Document: 1st. Resolved, That the organization of the Indians in tribes is, and has been, one of the most serious hindrances to the advancement of the Indian toward civilization, and that every effort should be made to secure the disintegration of all tribal organizations; that to accomplish this result the Government should...cease to recognize the Indians as political bodies or organized tribes....

4th. Resolved, That all adult male Indians should be admitted to the full privileges of citizenship by a process analogous to naturalization, upon evidence presented before the proper court of record of adequate intellectual and moral qualifications....

6th. Resolved, That...our conviction has been strengthened as to the importance of taking Indian youth from the reservations to be trained in industrial schools placed among communities of white citizens....

14th. Resolved, That immediate efforts should be made to place the Indian in the same position before the law as that held by the rest of the population....

Source: Second Annual Address to the Public of the Lake Mohonk Conference (Philadelphia: 1884), 3-7, 13-22.

Copyright 2021 Digital History