y,
and every other crime that the whites could commit against them,
together with the degrading effects of the existence which was forced on
them and the pernicious results of the introduction of drunkenness as a
racial vice, the Indians went from bad to worse, until in the majority
of cases they became little better than mere savages. In this
retrogression the status of the Indian woman participated, until in
almost every tribe within the boundaries of our country she was reduced
to the state of the merest beast of burden. Her lot became harder and
harder, and was not even ameliorated by the consolations of any
religious creed that held promise of better things to come. At last,
though very slowly and very late in the history of the Amerinds, there
dawned a day when equity began to take some place in our dealings with
our red brethren, when there began some organized effort to show them
that white civilization held some benefits even for them and that
Christianity was something more than a theory. Even then, the efforts to
improve the condition of the Indians were chiefly directed toward the
education of the youths; for the girls and women there was but little
consideration shown. At length, however, this field also was entered by
some devoted men and women,--especially the latter,--and the Indian
woman, with as much wonder as joy, found that she too was regarded as
something better than a slave and brute, that she too was held as being
worthy of education and the influences of refinement. Even yet, this
message has not been borne to the majority of the women of the tribes,
at least in effective manner; but the leaven has been placed in the
lump. At first, the reclamation of the Indian woman from the degradation
into which she had fallen was a disheartening work. By long years of
maltreatment and neglect she had been rendered almost incapable of
understanding that any other lot was possible for her; in many cases,
her racial instincts and inherited education revolted against the new
order of things which was proposed to her. With the apathy in
degradation peculiar to primitive peoples, the Indian woman turned her
face from civilization and would have none of it; she was not of it, and
it was not for her. But a change of plan resulted in at least partial
success. The attempt to teach and refine the elder women--the women who
had years of experience of their racial conditions as a barrier to the
appreciation of a differen