P
a boy before he was kidnapped by Akimel O’odham
(Pima) Indians, who then sold him to a white
guardian for $30.
Many of Montezuma’s articles in Wassaja focus
on the failings of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In
his opinion, the agency’s policies had been so det-
rimental to the welfare of Indians that it should
be disbanded. He also reports on the activities of
the Society of American Indians, a pan-Indian po-
litical organization of educated Native Americans
he helped to found (see entry for OCTOBER 12,
1911). Montezuma will continue to write the in-
fluential newsletter until 1922, the year before his
death.
“The Indian Bureau system is
wrong. The only way to adjust
the wrong is to abolish it, and the
only reform is to let my people
go. After freeing the Indian from
the shackles of government su-
pervision, what is the Indian going
to do: Leave that with the Indian,
and it is none of your business.”
—journalist Carlos Montezuma,
speaking at the 1915 Society of
American Indians ConferenceAn illustration from Carlos Montezuma’s newsletter Wassaja. Displaying Montezuma’s contempt for the Bureau
of Indian Affairs (BIA), the cartoon shows him leading a group of Indians in hammering down the door of the
Indian Office (a popular name for the BIA) with a battering ram labeled “Freedom’s Signal for the Indian.”
(Photo Courtesy of the Newberry Library)