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.
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Burns explains that he has misplaced a prior letter from Montezuma asking if the two of them could go on a trip through Arizona again. Burns says yes but is doubtful if the letter will reach Montezuma, and informs Montezuma he has left Camp Verde to live in Mayer, Yavapai County, Arizona.
Letter to Montezuma from his friend Joshua Russell describing the farming conditions at Santan, Arizona, including irrigation water, crops of wheat, hay, corn and watermelon, and lack of fencing wire for allotted land.
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.
