J. Alba and Meta Sager at the Lake Mohonk Conference 1910

In late October of 1910, Meta Chestnutt and J. Alba Sager traveled from Oklahoma to New York to attend the annual Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian. No evidence suggests that Mrs. Sager delivered a speech to the participants. In fact, her name never appears anywhere in the published report for that year. It simply lists "Sager, J. A." of the "Indian Service, Minco, Okla." as one of the conference participants. Ironically, only an asterisk next to Mr. Sager's name indicates that he was "accompanied by his wife," the president of El Meta Bond College.[1] It appears this was the only Mohonk Conference the Sagers ever attended.[2]

Five months later, on March 20, 1911, William Arthur Jones, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, wrote a letter from his Mineral Point Zinc Company in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Jones addressed his letter to "Mrs. M. C. Sager, Minco, Oklahoma."

Dear Mrs. Sager: --

I am just in receipt of a postal card of the cut of your college building. The picture shows that you have made wonderful improvement in the building and grounds since I last saw a cut of it. I congratulate you heartily on the success of the school, and only regret that the federal or state government is not more liberal with you in the way of appropriations. It was too bad you were unable to get a more extended hearing at Lake Mohonk last fall, as I am firmly of the opinion that the endorsement of the conference would have helped you materially in bringing out your plans for the future.

Please remember me kindly to Mr. Sager, and believe me

Sincerely yours,

W A Jones[3]

Although short, Jones's letter points to development at El Meta Bond College, and to a plan of Mrs. Sager's. Early photos of the school house at Minco show the three-story building towering over a stark landscape. During those early years, Meta, who had grown up in North Carolina surrounded by trees, saw to it that dozens were planted on the property. At least some of them survived and flourished so that later photos reveal a school house surrounded by trees.

The letter also indicates that Meta Sager had gone to Mohonk hoping to gather support for a plan. It would be something new, at least at her school, and that would require government funding. The specifics of her idea are unknown.

Notes

[1] Report of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of the Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples, October 19th, 20th, and 21st, 1910 (N.p.: Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples, 1910), 187. The explanation of the asterisk next to Mr. Sager's name appears on page 185.

[2] See the annual Reports or Proceedings of the Lake Mohonk Conference. So far, I have been able to scan the following years: 1885-87 and 1894-1916.

[3] W. A. Jones to Mrs. M. C. Sager, March 20, 1911, box 3, folder 34, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society. The William A. Jones Papers at the Wisconsin Historical Society contain no correspondence between Mr. Jones and Mrs. Sager. Susan Krueger, e-mail message to author, September 5, 2019. My thanks to the archivists at the WHS who conducted the search of the collection.

The Historic Conferences at Lake Mohonk, NY

Beginning in 1883, Albert and Alfred Smiley, twin brothers and devout Quakers, hosted the "Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian." These annual gatherings met at the brothers' Mohonk Mountain House, a 259-guestroom resort nestled in the mountains west of the Hudson River in upstate New York. There, white middle-class Protestant reformers delivered speeches, shared ideas, refined their plans, and issued recommendations. Their goal was to lift up and civilize the American Indian. Their plans always assumed the vitality of education and the necessity of schools.

Many of the attendees held membership in the Indian Rights Association, the greatest such organization of the time, founded and led by Henry Welsh. Many of them had read Helen Hunt Jackson's 1881 book, A Century of Dishonor, which sought to do for Indians what Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, had done for slaves. In the words of historian Francis Paul Prucha, the conferences at Lake Mohonk "had tremendous impact on formulation of federal policy."[1]

Note

[1] Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, 3rd ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 161. For an excellent overview of the origins, activities, and legacy of the conferences at Lake Mohonk, see Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890, rev. ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), ch. 7. Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, North American Indians: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), ch. 5, esp. p. 90, note the significance of the Mohonk conferences to the period that emphasized assimilation and allotment.