"Reservations, Removal and Reform: The Mission Indian Agents of Southern California, 1878-1903."
By Valerie Sherer Mathes and Phil Brigandi.
Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018.
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61C-62A: Indian Rights Association (IRA) was founded by Christian reformers who wanted to "civilize" Indians. It hired Charles C. Painter to lobby Congress & sent him in 1885 to investigate Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and California. He had read "Ramona" and Jackson’s govt report (coauthored with Kinney) and visited her.

63C: Jackson died August 12, 1885; Women’s National Indian Association (WNIA) followed IRA; annual Lake Mohonk Conference (LMC) involved diverse reform groups (but probably not NA) and set government Indian policy. "Individually and collectively these reformers carried on Jackson’s work among the Mission Indians of California. While the IRA provided financial and legal support, the LMC served as a strategic nerve center and the WNIA established mandatory work in remote Mission villages."

83C: Dawes Act (allotment act) seen as pathway to citizenship & equality: "The legislation was viewed by most Indian reformers as a panacea for the Indian problem. Designed to individualize and civilize the Indians by breaking up tribal lands, it called for the allotment of lands to families and individuals in parcels of 160, 80 and 40 acres, along with the granting of citizenship. A 25-year grace period would follow, during which time the land could not be sold or taxed."

112B-C: The California Mission Indian Commission of 1891 ... was a direct result of the Jackson/Kinney report, which eight years earlier had recommended the resurveying and patenting of reservations to the Indian residents, with a 25-year trust period, and removal of white trespassers."

January 1891 -- "An Act for the Relief of the Mission Indians in the State of California" clears Congress & signed by Benjamin Harrison. It tasked a 3-person commission to create new reservations for 1,000+ Indians.

114A: Commission created at least 13 reservations for 650 people: San Manuel, Ramona (north of Cahuilla), La Posta, Manzanita, Cuyapipe (Long Canyon), Campo, Laguna (all aforementioned in San Diego County); Paula & Rincon, Augustine, a new Cabazon, Santa Ysabel, Twenty-Nine Palms. Affirmed (or changed the boundaries of) 13 others: Morongo, Agua Caliente, Capitan Grande, Torres, &?

140C: Allotment/Dawes Act "proved to be one of the most destructive pieces of Indian legislation ever passed." Millions of acres of Indian-held land across USA until the legislation was thrown out in 1934.

141A: In parts of SoCal, "an element of rebellion" blocked allotment.

142A: Allotment didn’t work in California: It came too late (most land had been preempted by white settlers); reservations were too small to allot; some were "absolute desert"; and in California there was no protection for allottees. Anyone can jump an Indian’s allotment.

167B: 1899 earthquake: Deaths at Soboba, schoolhouse destroyed at Agua Caliente.

174A: Removal of Warner’s Ranch Indians: 1903 – Cupenos tried to get Teddy Roosevelt’s ear but he wouldn’t listen

204, fn.102: On the Morongo/Malki name

209, fn. 51: Indian Homestead Act of March 3, 1875, granted same benefits as 1862 Homestead Act, provided they give up their tribal affiliation.

211, fn.72: Abbot Kinney’s background

219, fn.19: Soboba schoolteacher became friend of HHJ


FURTHER READING

218, fn.1: (Indian agent) John Shirley Ward: Death of a Prominent Resident of Southern California" in Los Angeles Herald, 1-5-1905; biography of his son in Shuck: History of the Bench and Bar in California, pg.1084.

220, fn.26: Soboba Case: Indian Rights Assn., "The Case of the Mission Indians in Southern California and the Action of the Indian Rights Association in Supporting the Defense of Their Legal Rights" (Phila: Office of the IRA, 1886).

221, fn.33: Mathes: "Helen Hunt Jackson and Her Indian Reform Legacy." Univ. of Texas Press 1990.

222, fn.45: Citizenship status of Mission Indians, in: Charles F. Seymour, "Relations between the United States Government and the Mission Indians of Southern California," master’s thesis, UC Berkeley, May 1906.

223, fn.2: Geyla Frank & Carole Goldberg: "Defying the Odds: The Tule River Tribe’s Struggle for Sovereignty in Three Centuries" (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press 2010).

275C: Mathes, ed.: "The Indian Reform Letters of Helen Hunt Jackson, 1879-1885." Univ. of Okla. Press 1998.