What did white reformers hope to achieve with the breakup of the reservations and with schools for Indian children?
Evaluating Primary Sources54
Chester A. Arthur to the Board of Indian Commissioners in 1884. For many years, he also presided over the Lake Mohonk conferences. In 1885, he pre- sented a paper to the Board of Indian Commissioners that advanced his solution to the Indian problem. What are his views on the nature of Indian society?
“Land and Law as Agents in Educating Indians” (1885) Two peculiarities which mark the Indian life, if retained, will render his progress slow, uncertain and difficult. These are:
1. The tribal organization. 2. The Indian reservation.
I am satisfied that no man can carefully study the Indian question with- out the deepening conviction that these institutions must go if we would save the Indian from himself. . . .
A false sentimental view of the tribal organization commonly presents itself to those who look at this question casually. It takes form in such objections as this:
The Indians have a perfect right to bring up their children in the old devotion to the tribe and the chief. To require anything else of them is unreasonable. These are their ancestral institutions. We have no right to meddle with them.