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The Women’s National Indian Association (WNIA) was founded in 1879 by a group of American women including Mary Bonney and Amelia Stone Quinton. Bonney and Quinton united against the encroachment of white settlers on land set aside for Native Americans. They also drew up a petition that addressed the binding obligation of treaties between the United States and American-Indian nations. The petition was circulated in sixteen states and was presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes at the White House and in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1880.

Amelia Stone Quinton (1833-1926)^[1]

The Association changed its name to National Indian Association, and was voluntarily dissolved in 1951.

History

The Association first began as a petition drive to persuade Congress to uphold Indian treaties.^[2] Initially founded in 1879 in reaction to the prospect of opening Oklahoma Indian Territory to white settlement, additional branches quickly expanded in the 1880s.^[3] At its peak the Association supported 98 branch organizations in 28 states and sustained 56 mission statements on Indian reservations.^[2] The first crusade was a five year mission devoted to gaining political rights for Indians.^[4] Soon, sixteen states were included in the movement.^[4]

In 1882, the male-dominated Indian Rights Association commandeered the lobbying functions of the Association.^[2] In response to this, the Association shifted towards a "maternalist" approach and focused on missionary work.^[2] The missionary efforts included tasks such as home building, hospital, and educational work on the reservations.^[4]

Bonney retired from the presidency of the WNIA in November 1884 before Mary Lowe Dickinson was elected to the office. She filled the position for three years until Quinton was unanimously elected president in 1887.^[3]

The Association underwent several name changes, first named the Central Indian Committee (1879), switching to the Indian Treaty-Keeping and Protective Association (1881-1882), then the Women's National Indian Association (1882-1901), before finally landing on the National Indian Association (1901).^[5] The Association was voluntarily dissolved in 1951 due to funding cuts and policy shifts.^[2]

Goals of the Movement

The Association's aims were for Christianization and assimilation of American Indians.^[6] It maintained missions, produced several publications, and influenced national policy, including the passing of the Dawes Act in 1887. Its main objectives were to culturally assimilate Indians through Christian education and missionary work, and abolish the reservation system.^[5]

Quinton described the Association's foundation as a "united effort to move our government to grant a legal status to Indians, the protection of law, lands in severalty, and education."^[4] She wrote a pamphlet that criticized the greed of settlers and the unfaithfulness of the United States government toward Indians.^[2] Quinton explained the work of the WNIA as "the work of informing the public of the needs, capabilities, and progress of our native Indians, and also it is the work of moving the Government, by direct appeals, to render just to help them."^[4]

The WNIA focused on reservation-based communities located west of the Mississippi River, but also included missions among the Seminoles in Florida and the Chiricahua prisoners of war in Alabama.^[2] During the next decade, the WNIA battled local, state, and federal officials to secure land for them. The WNIA never believed that Indian people should have the right to self-government, instead advocating for their inclusion to American society themselves.^[2]

In response to the new "maternalist" approach taken by the WNIA, the women worked to change households by teaching Indian women about middle-class, white Anglo-American women's roles and provided materials and resources for them to conform to these "new gendered expectations."^[2] Children learned to read and write in English, mothers would learn how to make "comfortable and attractive homes" and "cook the foods of civilizations," and both women and children were taught "redeeming Christian truths."^[2]

Legislative Impact

The Association's major legislative "success" was the passing of the Dawes Act in 1887. The Dawes Act granted Indians citizenship and an allotment of reservation land.^[7] While many of the Association's members considered the Dawes Act an achievement, they were unaware of the long-term negative economic ramifications it would have for Indians in the following years.^[7] During the subsequent decades, the Five Civilized Tribes lost 90 million acres of former communal lands that were sold to non-Natives.^[8] Many Indians were unfamiliar with land ownership and were targeted by criminals, losing their already small plots of land. Furthermore, the Dawes Act complicated the social structure of the tribes and contributed to its decline in later years.

Footnotes

Further reading

• Mathes, Valerie Sherer, ed., The Women's National Indian Association: A History. Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2015


• Mathes, Valerie Sherer, Divinely Guided: The California Work of the Women's National Indian Association. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2012.


• Quinton, A. S. The Woman's National Indian Association. In Eagle, Mary Kavanaugh Oldham, ed. The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U. S. A., 1893.. Chicago, ILL: Monarch Book Company, 1894. pp. 71-73.

External links

• Davis, M. B. 1994. Papers of the Women's National Indian Association. Huntington Free Library (archive link, was dead)


• Graves, K. L. Bonney, Mary Lucinda. American National Biography Online, Feb. 2000.

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