Carlos Montezuma's Wassaja Newsletter
The Carlos Montezuma collection contains several digitized volumes of the Wassaja newsletter that Yavapai intellectual and activist Carlos Montezuma, MD (1866-1923) self-published during the years 1916-1922. Wassaja means “signaling” or “beckoning,” and is Montezuma’s Yavapai birth name. The newsletter was a vital source of news about Indian affairs in an era that had few outlets for such information and contains valuable reports directly from people living within the Indian reservation system. As a prominent figure in the struggle for Indian rights who played a role in the founding of the Society of American Indians, Montezuma was an intellectual leader against Indian Bureau mismanagement; he was notorious for advocating an end to the reservation system and the abolition of the BIA. This collection helps to document different facets of Montezuma’s career as an Indian rights leader and his relationship to his home community of Fort McDowell.
Filtering by
- Creators: Dickens, Charles
- Creators: Ahive, Mildred
Mike Burns and the leaders of the McDowell community entreat Montezuma to help them stay on their land and help them go to Washington D.C. to request a dam for the irrigation of their land. They also ask him for advice about allotment.
Letter to Montezuma from his cousin Charles Dickens: Dickens complains of the nosiness of a Mr. Coe (presumably the Indian agent?) and the misplacement of an earlier letter.
Letter from cousin Charles Dickens at McDowell, Arizona, requesting monetary help for an establishment of a store on the reservation: Dickens also promises to send Montezuma some baskets.
Envelope addressed by Dr. Carlos Montezuma to Miss Mildred Ahive, Huntington, West Virginia. Envelope is thought to have held volume 8, issue #19 of the Wassaja Newsletter.
Charles Dickens sends Montezuma news about the progress of farming at the McDowell Reservation, mentioning grain planting, the cleaning of irrigation ditches, and the family's health.