The Sequoyah League is founded.
Non-Indian journalists George Bird Grinnell and Charles Lummi establish the Sequoyah League, a philanthropic organization based in New York and Los Angeles and named after the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary (see entry for 1821). Grinnell and Lummi advocate the preservation of traditional Indians ways but tend to view Indian peoples condescendingly. They oppose Indian schools and the allotment of Indian lands, not because they threaten Indians’ autonomy but because Indians are too “backward” to benefit from these “civilizing” forces.
U. S. marshals arrest Crazy Snake followers.
Alarmed by the Crazy Snakes (see entry for AU TUMN 1900) and their threat to his leadership, Pleasant Porter, principal chief of the Creek, asks federal officials to send in troops to break up the radical movement. They respond by sending in U. S. marshals, who raid the Crazy Snake capital at Hickory Ground and arrest the rebel government’s leader, Chitto Harjo, and 100 of his followers. In federal court in Muskogee, Indian Territory, the Creek agree to plead guilty on several counts in exchange for suspended fines and prison sentences. Although the judge warns them to stop their campaign against Allotment, most of those arrested continue their efforts after they return to Hickory Ground. (See also entry for FEBRUARY 1902.)
Geronimo attends the presidential inauguration.
The great Apache war leader Geronimo, who has been confined as a prisoner of war for 15 years (see entry for MARCH TO SEPTEMBER 1886), is temporarily freed and sent to Washington, D. C., to ride in the parade celebrating Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration. Geronimo takes the opportunity to ask the new president to release him and his fellow Apache prisoners from jail and to allow them to move back to their southwestern homeland. Roosevelt refuses, explaining that the people of Arizona Territory will not let them return.
World History
