The Improved Order of Red Men and the Society of American Indians: Fraternal Patriotism, Native Reform, and Early Twentieth-Century Indian Advocacy

 

The Improved Order of Red Men and the Society of American Indians:

Fraternal Patriotism, Native Reform, and Early Twentieth-Century Indian Advocacy

I. Origins in Revolution: The Boston Tea Party and the Birth of a Tradition

The story of the Improved Order of Red Men begins not in a fraternal hall but on the frozen wharves of Boston Harbor on the night of December 16, 1773. On that evening, a company of men belonging to the Sons of Liberty—the clandestine patriot organization that had organized resistance to British colonial authority since 1765—gathered at the Green Dragon Tavern to carry out one of the most consequential acts of civil defiance in American history.¹ Their target was a cargo of British tea, subject to the hated Tea Act, and their method was to destroy it utterly. The risk was enormous. Had any participant been identified by British authorities that night, he faced the prospect not merely of arrest but of trial for treason or destruction of Crown property—offenses for which the penalty under British law was death by hanging.²

To conceal their identities, the Sons of Liberty disguised themselves as Mohawk warriors, covering their faces and clothing themselves in garments that suggested Native American dress. In this way, approximately one hundred sixteen men in three coordinated parties boarded the ships Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver and, over the course of several hours, cast 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. No man was arrested that night. The disguise had served its purpose.³

 

 

Figure 1. Americans Throwing the Cargoes of the Tea Ships into the River, at Boston. Engraving by W.D. Cooper, in The History of North America (London: E. Newberry, 1789). Sons of Liberty members, disguised as Mohawk warriors, are shown aboard the ships in the act of destroying the tea cargo. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (LC-USZC4-538). Public domain.

The event reverberated through American history for generations. From the moment the Sons of Liberty donned their disguises, the imagery of the Native American warrior became bound up in the tradition of American patriotic resistance. In the years that followed the Revolution, the various secret societies that had operated underground during the conflict—the Sons of Liberty, the Sons of St. Tammany, and their many offshoots—gradually evolved into more formal fraternal bodies. Through these transitions, the Native American ceremonial motif was retained, not as a casual affectation but as a deliberate act of homage. It was a way of honoring those early Patriots who, facing the gallows if detected, had chosen the garb of the continent’s first peoples as their shield of anonymity and their symbol of natural liberty.⁴

The early members of these fraternal societies also came to genuinely admire much of what they understood about Native American governance and social organization. The great Iroquois Confederacy, whose democratic system of representative councils had been in existence for several centuries before European arrival, was looked upon with profound respect. Patriot thinkers had long observed the Haudenosaunee system of governance, in which elected representatives deliberated in tribal councils under a framework of mutual agreement and shared sovereignty. It was a model that resonated deeply with men who were themselves struggling to establish a new democratic republic on principles of elected representation and the protection of individual liberty.⁵

II. From Revolution to Fraternity: The Founding and Growth of the Improved Order of Red Men

Following the American Revolution, many of the pre-Revolutionary secret societies continued to meet as brotherhoods. In 1813, at historic Fort Mifflin near Philadelphia, several of these groups united to form one organization, known as the Society of Red Men. The organization grew through the 1820s, offering members both a patriotic identity and a network of mutual aid and fellowship. In 1834, the organization was reorganized and formally renamed in Baltimore, Maryland, taking the title by which it has since been known: the Improved Order of Red Men.⁶

The name improvement signaled a specific commitment: the 1834 reorganization placed particular emphasis on temperance and civic virtue, distinguishing the reconstituted order from some of its more boisterous predecessors. Meetings were held in lodges referred to as “wigwams,” presiding officers bore titles drawn from Native American terminology—Sachem, Prophet, Sagamore, Incohonee—and the language of the fraternal ritual employed words and concepts drawn from the order’s understanding of Native governance. In 1847, a national organization was formally established with the Grand Council of the United States meeting in Baltimore. Within three decades, Great Councils had been organized in twenty-one states, and membership had climbed above 150,000. By the early twentieth century, the organization claimed a membership approaching half a million.⁶

The spirit in which all of this was carried forward was one of reverence and patriotic remembrance. As the Order’s own historical account makes clear, the customs and terminology of Native Americans were kept as a basic and integral part of the fraternity because they traced directly back to those original patriots of 1773 who had risked their lives in the cause of American freedom. To be a member of the Improved Order of Red Men was, in the organization’s understanding, to stand in an unbroken line of succession from the Sons of Liberty. The language and symbolism of that tradition were preserved accordingly, as a living memorial to the men who had founded American liberty.⁴

III. The Setting for Reform: Native Americans in Progressive Era America

By the opening years of the twentieth century, the condition of Native Americans across the United States was the subject of growing concern among reformers, educators, and Native communities themselves. Decades of federal assimilation policy, carried out most aggressively through the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, had eroded tribal land holdings and disrupted traditional forms of governance and community life. The federal boarding school system, exemplified by institutions such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, had separated generations of Native children from their families and cultural traditions. Reservation confinement, political disenfranchisement, and inadequate health and educational resources had combined to produce conditions that many Native leaders viewed as both unjust and contrary to the ideals of American democracy.⁷

At the same time, the Progressive Era had produced a new generation of Native American intellectuals, physicians, attorneys, educators, and writers who had received advanced education and entered professional life. Many of these individuals had worked within federal institutions, taught in schools, practiced medicine in reservation communities, or pursued careers in anthropology and museum work. From these varied vantage points, they had observed the conditions facing Native people firsthand and had formed strong views about what was needed to improve them. What was lacking, many concluded, was a national organization capable of giving Native Americans a unified political voice.⁸

IV. The Society of American Indians: Founding and Purpose

The founding of the Society of American Indians grew out of preparatory meetings organized in the spring of 1911 under the intellectual guidance of Fayette Avery McKenzie, a sociologist at Ohio State University who had long invited Native American scholars and leaders to participate in his classes and seminars. McKenzie recognized that the moment was ripe for a national Native organization and facilitated an initial planning meeting in April 1911 involving several of the most prominent Native professionals in the country. These preliminary discussions laid the groundwork for the founding conference, held in October 1911 in Columbus, Ohio, where Native American delegates from numerous tribal nations gathered for the first time under a common national banner.⁹

The organization that emerged from these deliberations was formally incorporated in 1912 under the name Society of American Indians, and it quickly became the leading forum for Native American political thought and reform advocacy in the United States. As its official publication, the Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians, declared in its first issue, the Society existed to provide both the Native American and all Americans committed to justice “the means for cooperation.” The Society maintained a headquarters in Washington, D.C., conducted annual conferences, published a journal, offered legal assistance to individuals and tribes, and maintained an extensive correspondence network reaching Native communities across the country.¹⁰

The Society’s platform was ambitious and wide-ranging. It called for full United States citizenship for all Native Americans, expanded educational opportunities, reform of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, opening of the United States Court of Claims to all tribal nations, protection of Native property rights, improvement of health conditions on reservations, and the preservation of Native cultural dignity. Members of the Society generally believed that Native Americans should participate fully in modern American civic life while retaining meaningful aspects of their tribal heritage and identity.¹¹

V. The Leaders of the Society of American Indians

No figure was more central to the intellectual and organizational life of the Society of American Indians than Arthur Caswell Parker (1881–1955), a Seneca archaeologist, historian, folklorist, and museum professional. Born on the Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York, Parker devoted his career to documenting Iroquois culture and history, eventually serving as New York State Archaeologist and later as director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences. Parker helped organize the Society’s founding conference and served as the editor of the Society’s journal and as its president from 1914 to 1915. His writings, including a series of articles in the Quarterly Journal calling for the educational and political advancement of Native people, articulated a vision of Indigenous Americans as active and creative participants in American civilization rather than relics of a disappearing past.¹² His career as an archaeologist and his advocacy for pan-Indian solidarity were mutually reinforcing: through scholarship, Parker demonstrated the depth and complexity of Native American history; through the Society, he worked to translate that understanding into political action.¹³

 

Figure 2. Arthur Caswell Parker (1881–1955). Seneca archaeologist, New York State Archaeologist, founding member and president (1914–1915) of the Society of American Indians, and editor of the American Indian Magazine. He later became the first president of the Society for American Archaeology (1935). From American Indian and Missions. Public domain.

Charles Eastman (1858–1939), a Santee Dakota physician educated at Dartmouth College and Boston University School of Medicine, brought to the Society both professional authority and moral force. As one of the first Native Americans to complete a formal medical education, Eastman had practiced medicine on several reservations and witnessed the health crises affecting Native communities firsthand. He was also a prolific author, producing numerous books and essays that introduced Native American history and culture to broad American audiences. His works sought to convey the richness and humanity of Native civilization and to correct the stereotypes that relegated Indigenous peoples to the margins of historical understanding.¹⁴

 

Figure 3. Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman- (1858-1939). Santee Dakota physician, author, and co-founder of the Society of American Indians. Formal Seated Portrait, c. 1913. Photograph BAE GN 03462A, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. Public domain.

Carlos Montezuma (1867–1923), a Yavapai Apache physician, represented the Society’s more forceful wing. Where some leaders were willing to work incrementally within federal structures, Montezuma argued that the Bureau of Indian Affairs itself represented a fundamental obstacle to Native progress. His journal, Wassaja, became a prominent platform for demanding full Native citizenship and an end to federal wardship. His willingness to challenge the federal government directly gave the Society a critical edge that complemented the more measured approaches of colleagues like Parker and Eastman.¹⁵

Zitkala-Šá (1876–1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Yankton Dakota writer, musician, educator, and activist who became one of the most powerful Native voices of the twentieth century. Born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota, she was educated at the White’s Manual Labor Institute in Indiana, Earlham College, and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she trained as a concert violinist. Her early essays, published in the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Monthly between 1900 and 1902, brought national attention to the trauma inflicted on Native children by the federal boarding school system. She co-composed the first Native American opera, The Sun Dance Opera, which premiered in 1913.¹⁶

 

Figure 4. Zitkala-Šá (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) (1876–1938). Yankton Dakota writer, musician, activist, and secretary of the Society of American Indians. Photograph by Gertrude Käsebier, 1898, showing Zitkala-Šá with her violin. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (Accession 287543). Public domain.

Zitkala-Šá joined the Society of American Indians in 1916 as its secretary and co-editor of the American Indian Magazine, and she and her husband, Captain Raymond Bonnin, moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a liaison between the Society and federal authorities. Her advocacy was tireless. She spoke across the country against the injustices of federal Indian policy, helped document corruption in the administration of Native lands in Oklahoma, and worked persistently for the Indian Citizenship Act, which was finally passed in 1924. She later co-founded the National Council of American Indians and served as its president until her death in 1938. She is buried with her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.¹⁷

Laura Cornelius Kellogg, an Oneida educator and activist, brought a vision of Native economic self-determination to the Society’s deliberations, arguing that Indigenous communities needed to reclaim control not only over their political lives but over their economic resources and land. Her contributions helped broaden the Society’s agenda beyond citizenship rights alone to encompass deeper questions of community sovereignty and self-governance. The Reverend Sherman Coolidge, an Arapaho Episcopal priest, and Thomas Sloan, an Omaha attorney, contributed further dimensions of spiritual leadership and legal expertise to the Society’s work.¹⁸

VI. The Improved Order of Red Men and Support for the Society of American Indians

It is within this context that the role of the Improved Order of Red Men assumes its historical significance. The historical record is clear that the I.O.R.M. supported the founding of the Society of American Indians in 1911 and helped organize the Society’s first two annual conferences.¹⁹ This support was not incidental. The Improved Order of Red Men was, by 1911, a nationally organized fraternal body with established infrastructure, experience in conducting large conventions and public assemblies, and a membership extending across the United States. The organizational resources the I.O.R.M. was able to bring to bear in the early years of the Society’s existence—logistical expertise, convention support, access to civic networks, and public visibility—were tangible contributions to the Society’s ability to establish itself as a credible national organization.²⁰

The spirit in which the I.O.R.M. offered this support was consonant with its own foundational values. An organization that traced its lineage to the Sons of Liberty and understood its ceremonial traditions as expressions of admiration for Native American governance and courage was, in a real sense, acting in keeping with its own identity when it supported Native American advocates who were seeking justice, citizenship, and equal standing in the republic. The I.O.R.M.’s support for the Society of American Indians reflected the organization’s commitment to the principles of American liberty as it understood them, extended now to encompass support for the very people whose traditions the fraternity had long honored.¹⁹

The Improved Order of Red Men also provided the Society with something less tangible but equally important: the respectability that came from association with a nationally recognized patriotic fraternal organization. In the Progressive Era, fraternal organizations occupied a significant place in American civic culture. Their endorsement of a cause could lend that cause a degree of mainstream visibility and legitimacy that was difficult to achieve otherwise. By lending its organizational support and public presence to the Society of American Indians, the I.O.R.M. helped introduce Native reform concerns to broader American civic audiences at precisely the moment when the Society most needed that exposure.²⁰

The relationship reflected a broader pattern of Progressive Era reform in which fraternal organizations, civic societies, and patriotic clubs participated in public causes that extended beyond purely social fellowship. Organizations devoted to temperance, labor reform, educational improvement, and civic virtue regularly engaged with the reform movements of their day. The I.O.R.M.’s engagement with Native reform causes was, in this sense, entirely characteristic of its era, even as the particular nature of that engagement—an organization formed in the memory of men who had donned Native disguise to fight tyranny now supporting Native Americans fighting a different kind of institutional oppression—carried a resonance that its members may well have appreciated.²¹

VII. The Society's Work and Its Internal Challenges

Despite the support it received and the energy of its remarkable leaders, the Society of American Indians faced formidable obstacles throughout its existence. The organization was perpetually underfunded, dependent on membership dues, conference fees, and the personal contributions of its officers. Its political ambitions frequently outpaced its material resources. And the Society’s leaders, though united in their commitment to Native advancement, disagreed sharply on questions of strategy and priority.²²

Among the most divisive internal debates was the question of peyote use in Native religious practice. Some Society leaders, including Montezuma and Parker, believed that peyotism should be condemned as an obstacle to the kind of assimilation and civic participation they were advocating. Others, however, saw peyote religion as a legitimate expression of Native spiritual life that deserved legal protection rather than condemnation. This dispute consumed considerable organizational energy and contributed to a factionalism that made unified public advocacy more difficult.²²

The question of the Bureau of Indian Affairs was similarly divisive. Montezuma’s uncompromising demand that the Bureau be abolished entirely was not shared by all Society members, some of whom believed that working within existing federal structures was more likely to produce practical gains for Native communities. Arthur Parker generally favored a more incremental approach, seeking to reform the Bureau rather than eliminate it. These strategic disagreements reflected genuine differences in judgment about how best to advance Native interests, differences that were ultimately irresolvable within the Society’s organizational framework.²³

The Society held annual conferences in every year from 1911 through 1923, with the single exception of 1917, when wartime circumstances disrupted normal organizational activities. These conferences brought together Native American leaders from across the country to debate policy, hear addresses, pass resolutions, and maintain the connections that held the organization together. They were significant public events that attracted press attention and gave the Society’s arguments a hearing before the American public that might otherwise not have been available.²⁴

VIII. Legacy and Historical Significance

The Society of American Indians dissolved as a formal organization in 1923, undone by a combination of internal disagreements, financial exhaustion, and the sense among many members that its central work had been accomplished. But the Society’s legacy endured far beyond its formal existence. Its leaders continued to work for Native rights through other organizations and channels. Zitkala-Šá’s National Council of American Indians, the American Indian Defense Association, and the Committee of One Hundred all drew heavily on the organizational and intellectual foundations that the Society had established. The Meriam Report of 1928, which documented in devastating detail the failures of federal Indian policy and laid the groundwork for the Indian New Deal reforms of the 1930s, was substantially shaped by individuals who had passed through the Society’s ranks.²⁴

The founding conference of the National Congress of American Indians in 1944 was explicitly modeled on the Society’s 1911 gathering, and many of the organizational principles and advocacy strategies the Society had pioneered continued to inform Native American political organizing throughout the twentieth century. In a very real sense, the Society of American Indians planted seeds whose harvest was reaped by the American Indian Movement and the broader Native rights activism of subsequent generations.²⁴

The role of the Improved Order of Red Men in this history—as an organization that provided practical support during the Society’s foundational years—represents a meaningful, if often overlooked, episode in the larger story of American reform. The I.O.R.M.’s involvement was genuine and consequential: it helped make possible two of the Society’s early national conferences, thereby helping the nascent organization establish the organizational routines and public presence it needed to survive. And it did so in a spirit that was, at its core, consistent with the values the Order had professed since its founding—a commitment to liberty, fraternal solidarity, and respect for the Native American heritage that lay at the heart of its own identity.¹⁹

From the night of December 16, 1773, when Sons of Liberty members wrapped themselves in Mohawk garb and cast the tea of tyranny into Boston Harbor, to the conferences of 1911 and 1912 where Native American intellectuals and I.O.R.M. members worked side by side to launch a new era of Indigenous advocacy, there runs a thread of shared commitment: a belief that the principles of freedom and self-determination belong to all people on this continent, and that those who love this republic are called to work toward making it live up to its best ideals.¹

 

Notes

^1.  Improved Order of Red Men, “History,” improvedorderofredmen.com, accessed 2025; see also Robert E. Davis, History of the Improved Order of Red Men and Degree of Pocahontas, 1765–1988 (Waco, Texas: Davis Brothers Publishing Co., Inc., 1990), 1–15.

^2.  George W. Lindsay, Charles C. Conley, and Charles H. Litchman, Official History of the Improved Order of Red Men (Boston: Fraternity Publishing Co., 1893), 23–24; Davis, History of the Improved Order of Red Men, 24.

^3.  Benjamin W. Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 58–60, 140–144. The participants’ deliberate disguise was both practical and symbolic: had they been identified by British authorities, they faced charges of treason or destruction of Crown property, offenses punishable by hanging.

^4.  Lindsay, Conley, and Litchman, Official History of the Improved Order of Red Men, 23–25; Davis, History of the Improved Order of Red Men, 40.

^5.  Davis, History of the Improved Order of Red Men, 24; Improved Order of Red Men official website, “History,” improvedorderofredmen.com. The Iroquois Confederacy’s system of representative governance, long studied by colonial-era intellectuals, was later cited by some historians as an influence on American federal structures.

^6.  Davis, History of the Improved Order of Red Men, 40–45; Lindsay, Conley, and Litchman, Official History of the Improved Order of Red Men, 618.

^7.  Hazel W. Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1971), 30–35; Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 1–10.

^8.  Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 31; Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 2:609–615.

^9.  Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 31–33; “Society of American Indians,” National Archives, archives.gov; “First Conference of the Society of American Indians,” EBSCO Research Starters, accessed 2025.

^{10. “}Society of American Indians,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History (Oxford University Press, 2015); Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 33–40.

^11.  Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 40–45; Todd Leahy and Raymond Wilson, Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 75.

^12.  Joy Porter, To Be Indian: The Life of Iroquois-Seneca Arthur Caswell Parker (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), 1–25; Arthur C. Parker, “The Awakened American Indian,” Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians 2 (1914): 269–274.

^13.  Porter, To Be Indian, 26–60; Hazel W. Hertzberg, “Nationality, Anthropology, and Pan-Indianism in the Life of Arthur C. Parker (Seneca),” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 123, no. 1 (1979): 47–72.

^14.  Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), The Indian To-day: The Past and Future of the First American (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1915); Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 50–60.

^15.  Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 60–70; Prucha, The Great Father, 2:635–650.

^16.  Zitkala-Šá (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), American Indian Stories (Washington, D.C.: Hayworth Publishing House, 1921); see also Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Zitkala-Sa,” britannica.com, accessed 2025.

^17.  Zitkala-Šá, “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” Atlantic Monthly 85 (February 1900): 185–194; Leahy and Wilson, Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements, 200–202.

^18.  Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 75–85; “Society of American Indians,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History.

^19.  Todd Leahy and Raymond Wilson, Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements, 75; “Improved Order of Red Men,” Wikipedia, citing “Associations Unlimited Database,” Gale Research Co., 2011.

^20.  Davis, History of the Improved Order of Red Men, 200–210; Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 30.

^21.  Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 80–95; Prucha, The Great Father, 2:655–670.

^22.  Parker, “The Awakened American Indian,” 269–274; Porter, To Be Indian, 80–120.

^23.  Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 100–120; Hoxie, A Final Promise, 180–200.

^24.  Prucha, The Great Father, 2:670–690; Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 120–140.

 

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Eastman, Charles A. (Ohiyesa). The Indian To-day: The Past and Future of the First American. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1915.

Lindsay, George W., Charles C. Conley, and Charles H. Litchman. Official History of the Improved Order of Red Men. Boston: Fraternity Publishing Co., 1893. Reprint, London: Forgotten Books, 2013.

Parker, Arthur C. “The Awakened American Indian.” Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians 2 (1914): 269–274.

Parker, Arthur C. “The Legal Status of the American Indian.” Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians 2 (1914).

Society of American Indians. Constitution and Laws of the Society of American Indians. Washington, D.C., 1912.

Society of American Indians. Papers of the Society of American Indians. Microfilm edition. Juniata College. Available through the National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Zitkala-Šá (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin). American Indian Stories. Washington, D.C.: Hayworth Publishing House, 1921.

Zitkala-Šá. “The School Days of an Indian Girl.” Atlantic Monthly 85 (February 1900): 185–194.

Zitkala-Šá, Charles H. Fabens, and Matthew K. Sniffen. Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery. Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, 1924.

Secondary Sources

Davis, Robert E. History of the Improved Order of Red Men and Degree of Pocahontas, 1765–1988. Waco, Texas: Davis Brothers Publishing Co., Inc., 1990.

Hertzberg, Hazel W. The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1971.

Hertzberg, Hazel W. “Nationality, Anthropology, and Pan-Indianism in the Life of Arthur C. Parker (Seneca).” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 123, no. 1 (1979): 47–72.

Hoxie, Frederick E. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.

Labaree, Benjamin W. The Boston Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Leahy, Todd, and Raymond Wilson. Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Porter, Joy. To Be Indian: The Life of Iroquois-Seneca Arthur Caswell Parker. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

Witt, David E. “Arthur C. Parker, the Pan-Indian Movement, and the Foundations of Modern Anthropology.” Northeast Anthropology 85/86 (2018): 73–87.

Reference Works and Digital Sources

Improved Order of Red Men. “History.” improvedorderofredmen.com. Accessed 2025.

“Society of American Indians.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Oxford University Press, 2015.

“Society of American Indians.” National Archives. archives.gov. Accessed 2025.

“Zitkala-Šá.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com. Accessed 2025.

“Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Šá): Advocate for the ‘Indian Vote.’” U.S. National Park Service. nps.gov. Accessed 2025.

 

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. Americans Throwing the Cargoes of the Tea Ships into the River, at Boston
 Engraving by W.D. Cooper, published in The History of North America (London: E. Newberry, 1789), plate opposite p. 58. The earliest known depiction of the Boston Tea Party. Sons of Liberty members, disguised as Mohawk warriors, are shown aboard the ships in the act of destroying the tea cargo.
 Source: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (LC-USZC4-538). Download: loc.gov/item/2002718863. Public domain — no known copyright restrictions.

Figure 2. Arthur Caswell Parker (1881–1955)
 Portrait of Arthur C. Parker, Seneca archaeologist and central figure of the Society of American Indians. Parker served as founding conference organizer, journal editor, and president of the Society (1914–1915), and later became the first president of the Society for American Archaeology (1935).
 Source: Wikimedia Commons, File: Arthur_C_Parker_-_American_Indian_and_Missions.jpg. Public domain.

Figure 3. Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) (1858–1939)
 Portrait of Dr. Charles Eastman, c. 1913. Santee Dakota physician, author, and co-founder of the Society of American Indians. Eastman graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1890, served as physician at Pine Ridge following the Wounded Knee Massacre, and authored eleven books on Sioux life and culture.
 Source: Photograph BAE GN 03462A, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. Download: nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/if_you_knew/ifyouknew_11.html. Public domain.

Figure 4. Zitkala-Šá / Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876–1938)
 Portrait of Zitkala-Šá (Red Bird), Yankton Dakota writer, musician, and activist. Photographed by Gertrude Käsebier, 1898, showing Zitkala-Šá holding her violin. She became secretary of the Society of American Indians in 1916, co-composed the first Native American opera (1913), and co-founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926.
 Source: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (Accession 287543). Wikimedia Commons, File: Zitkala-Sa-Kasebier.jpg. Photograph by Gertrude Käsebier. Public domain.

 

Smoke Signals #7

Dr. Mike Bortner

Samoset Tribe #22, I.O.R.M.

Vallejo, CA

May 18, 2026