P
distributing pamphlets, and hiring a full-time
lobbyist to present its views to those in power in
Washington, D.C. The IRA’s lobbying efforts will
be instrumental in the passage of the General Al-
lotment Act (see entry for FEBRUARY 8, 1887),
which will result in the allotment of much of the
tribally controlled land in the West. (See also entry
for 1883.)
December 16
The Hopi Indian Reservation is established
by executive order.
Responding to a series of Hopi delegations com-
plaining of Navajo (Dineh) and Mormons moving
onto their land, President Chester A. Arthur creates
a reservation for the Hopi in a small area in the cen-
ter of the tribe’s ancestral homeland. Several Navajo
families living within the new reservation’s borders,
however, refuse to surrender the region to the Hopi.
The situation will lead to a Hopi-Navajo land dis-
pute that will continue for more than 100 years.
1883The first Lake Mohonk Conference is held.
Members of several religious and humanitarian
groups devoted to reforming the government’s deal-
ings with Indians meet for the first of 35 annual
conferences in the resort town of Lake Mohonk,
New York. The conference participants, who call
themselves “Friends of the Indian” (see entry for DE-
CEMBER 1882), are mostly Protestant non-Indian
reformers who believe the best way of protecting
Native American rights and land is to encourage
Indians to assimilate into mainstream American
society.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
the Lake Mohonk conferences will have a great deal
of influence on U.S. Indian policy and legislation.
Their efforts will help lead to the passage of the
General Allotment Act (see entry for FEBRUARY 8,
1887), which will aim to “civilize” Indian males by
making them into private landowners.
“The Indian must be made to
be intelligently selfish.... [He
must be taken] out of... blan-
kets and [put] into trousers
—and trousers with a
pocket in them, and a pocket
that aches to be filled with
dollars.”
—Merrill Gates, the president
of Amherst College, at the
Lake Mohonk Conference
of 1883John Slocum founds the Indian Shaker
Church.
Salish Indian John Slocum falls ill, prompting
his father to ask an Indian healer for help. He
does so against the wishes of Slocum’s wife, Mary,
who holds that Slocum had sworn off traditional
medicine during another illness a year before. Ac-
cording to Slocum, the previous illness killed him
but he rose up from the dead while his neighbors
were searching for a coffin. During the experience,
Slocum claims that he encountered God, who told
Slocum that he would grant salvation to all Indians
who swore off gambling, drinking, smoking, and
consulting Indian healers. God also promised to
give these Indians a far greater healing power than
their medicine people possessed.
During Slocum’s second illness, Mary begins
to speak to God, weeping and shaking uncontrol-
lably. As she prays over his body, Slocum recovers.
He attributes his miraculous cure to Mary’s shak-
ing, which he sees as the promised medicine from
God. Slocum spreads word of his revelation and
cure, initiating the Indian Shaker movement,
which will eventually spread through the Indian
populations of Washington State, Oregon, north-
ern California, and British Columbia. (See also
entry for 1927.)