6.3. Friends of the Indian http://www.ck12.org
6.3 Friends of the Indian
Some Americans tried to remove Native Americans from their land, but others wanted to help “civilize” them. One
group founded to accomplish this, the Friends of the Indian, opened schools to educate and Europeanize the Indians.
As you read these documents, think about whether members of the group were truly “friends” to the Indians they
helped. Were they well-intentioned? Did their work make the Indians better off?
Diaries of Alice Fletcher
Source: Alice Fletcher was an ethnologist (someone who studies and compares the language, religion, customs, and
culture of groups of people). In the1880sshe lived among a number of Native American tribes to learn about their
customs. She became a founder of the “Friends of the Indians.” In the diary entries below, she writes about her
experiences on the Sioux Reservation in 1881.
Wednesday A.M. Rainy again and we can’t get on. Buffalo-chip is a Medicine man, has little positive humor, rather
sober and dignified. A queer childish consciousness. This morning he took a stick and with queer mumblings,
he raised it to and fro. This was to gain better weather. It is a strange thing to sit and witness actual heathen
performances. One realizes the power and gift of spiritual life by the blessed Lord. I needed to see all this to realize
the truth of “I am the way, the truth and the life”. The darkness and poverty of their mental life is pitiful....
This A.M. I have been teaching Wajapa more arithmetic, trying to make the figures clear to him. One feels so sorry
for them, so longs to broaden and deepen and brighten their life.
An old Indian sat there and when we came in, said, “How you do?” and extended his hand. Quite polite to give his
sole English.
White Thunder was on the bed. He was not very friendly toward me, I thought. We all sat on chairs. Several other
Indians there, two young men and an old man. Swift Bear came in and stayed.
While we sat there, White Thunder’s wife began to cook. She made bread and baked it, terrible stuff, heavy and
poor. Coffee and some sort of stripped and dried meat boiled with pork. A cloth was put on the floor between White
Thunder’s bed and the stove and the meal served on china plates and cups and saucers.
A young pretty girl came in, brought in meat and looked bright and pleasing. This was the wife’s younger sister, had
been at Carlisle school. She is about eighteen years old.
I understand that White Thunder wants to marry this girl as his second wife. She declines. It is rather startling and
unpleasant to think about this woman’s future. I hope she will hold out.
After the meal, White Thunder began his speech. It seemed to me that the speech lacked in friendliness. He wanted
to know what we were here for.
I said that I had their good at heart. I had heard that this summer many of the children were coming home from
the eastern schools. These children can all speak English and understand figures. Now what I propose is that the
chiefs and the leading men will spend a part of every day with some of the children and learn the meaning and use
of figures and master as much English as possible. If they can learn but little, that little will help them to protect
themselves against the white men who wish to cheat them.
Swift Bear received this with interest. White Thunder did not say a word. This visit was rather uninteresting. I felt
the influence of White Thunder to be less single and noble, in some ways.