"Aboriginally yours": The Society of American Indians and United States citizenship, 1890--1924.

His public life had been dedicated to improving the condition of Native people. Eastman worked with progressive reformers who, like himself, believed in the power of Christian civilization and democracy to improve the condition of Indians. These "Friends of the Indian" organizations abhorred massacres of Indians and the institutional disgrace that Indian reservations signified. During the Progressive Era 1890-1917, Eastman helped found a political organization of Native Progressive reformers, the Society of American Indians (SAI), in 1910. They came to know the political and racial power structure of the United States as it was shaped by two wars, the Spanish American War and World War I. The SAI pushed for assimilation with consent, a racial uplift created with Indian participation and with respect for Indians as human beings. With a lifespan of less than fifteen years, the SAI's anti-climactic implosion revealed the elusiveness of full citizenship and the dismal record of social reform during World War I.