Nelson A. Miles, is being promoted for use in
schools.
1915Mohawk steelworkers begin working in
New York City.
Hired to work on the Hell’s Gate Bridge, John
Diabo becomes New York City’s first Mohawk
steelworker (see entry for 1886). Nicknamed “In-
dian Joe,” Diabo initially works with a team of Irish
steelworkers but soon gathers his own crew of Mo-
hawk workers from the Kahnawake Reserve. After
several months, Diabo falls from a high beam and
drowns in the river below. The rest of the crew re-
turns to Kahnawake for good when they take his
body back to the reserve. However, many other
Mohawk, settling in Brooklyn, will become New
York City steelworkers in the decades to come.
James Earle Fraser’s The End of the Trail
symbolizes the demise of the Indian.
At the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in
San Francisco, The End of the Trail, a sculpture by
James Earle Fraser (see entry for 1913), creates a
sensation and wins a gold medal in the art competi-
tion. The sculpture depicts a Plains Indian warrior,
slumped in exhaustion, mounted on a weary old
pony. The work’s popularity among non-Indians
derives largely from its suggestion that the forces of
“civilization” have finally subdued rebel Indian na-
tions. Fraser himself explains, “It was [the] idea of
a weaker race being steadily pushed to the wall by a
stronger that I wanted to convey.”
Autumn
Henry Roe Cloud founds an Indian prep
school.
The only Indian-run high school in the United
States, the Roe Indian Institute (later renamed the
American Indian Institute) is established in Wichita,
Kansas, to offer young Indian men a college-prepa-
ratory education. Funded through private sources,
the school is the brainchild of Henry Roe Cloud, a
Winnebago educator and Yale University graduate.
Cloud will serve as the institute’s president for 16
years.1916The Museum of the American Indian is built
in New York City.
Beginning in 1897, New York businessman George
Gustav Heye amassed a huge collection of Indian
artifacts. To display his collection, he finances the
construction of the Museum of the American In-
dian. He hires professional anthropological scholars
to care for and document the objects in the mu-
seum. The museum is so small that it can display
only about 5 percent of Heye’s vast holdings.United States v. Nice supports government
restrictions on Indian citizens.
In the case of United States v. Nice, a white man
is charged with selling alcohol to an Indian man,
a violation of a federal law prohibiting the sale of
liquor in Indian country (see entry for JULY 23,
1892). He argues that the sale was lawful because
the Indian was given an allotment and, with it, U.S.
citizenship.
In its decision in the case, the Supreme
Court states that “citizenship is not incompatible
with... continued guardianship.” The decision,
therefore, limits the meaning of citizenship for tribe
members. In the words of the court, citizenship
could “be conferred without completely emancipat-
ing the Indians” from government regulations made
for their “protection.”AprilCarlos Montezuma begins publishing Wassaja.
One of the leading Indian intellectuals of his day,
Yavapai Indian Carlos Montezuma writes and pub-
lishes a newsletter, Wassaja, to voice his opinions on
how Indian policy should be reformed. The publi-
cation’s title is the name by which he was known as