By Pat Murkland
I was leaving the Banning, California, public library one day in January 2020 when I somehow spotted a plain-looking book in a locked case, “for reference use only.” A title, Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, showed along the book spine. The book clearly was old. The top of the spine was broken from the many times the book had been pulled from a shelf, and the front cover was breaking away from being opened so often. I asked out of curiosity to take a look.
If this were a movie, some tension-starting music might begin. But it was near closing time in a library filled with silence, and no one could locate the key to the locked case.
My curiosity grew during the wait that ensued. Finally, I won an appointment with an anointed library staff member. Finally, the day came to open the locked case. Yes, they had the key.
Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, a rather thick tome, was dated 1904 by the U.S. Government Printing Office. According to the title page, this book is, “Vol. I. (LAWS). Compiled to December 1, 1902, compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler, LL. M., clerk to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.”
Another smaller, adjacent book with a plain, handmade-looking, leather-bound cover was called, Report of the Debates in the Convention of California on the formation of the state Constitution, in September and October, 1849, by J. Ross Browne.
Both books apparently once had the same owner.
And that was the biggest news, on the opening page of Indian Affairs. This reference book on United States laws and treaties with Native Americans had belonged to the Rev. William H. Weinland. There stood his signature.
So? So, William Weinland was a Protestant Moravian missionary who served at the nearby Morongo Reservation for more than 40 years, starting in 1890. He was a rare person of his era who thought that Native Americans should have equal civil rights to white men. He fought for those rights for Native Americans.
At the time I didn’t know much more. I decided to come back when the librarian had more time, to explore the book and perhaps discover more. But the library then shuttered for a lengthy time during the pandemic.
Only later did I learn how hard William Weinland fought in helping area Native Americans gain health, land, water, self-reliance, and civil rights. And that’s when I found out why William Weinland had probably picked up this copy of Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties more than 100 years ago.
That discovery came last fall, after News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center told the story behind the Native Americans holding trombones in this early 1900s photo. 1
Here’s the amazing Sept. 1, 2021, story about the Moravian trombone choir.
Through the trombone choir photo we met the current Morongo Moravian pastor, Gregg Schafer. He generously shared some Moravian history with Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. As I explored that history and dug deeper into other historic resources, story after story told how William Weinland fought for basic civil rights for Native Americans.
He got this book, Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, sometime between 1904 and 1908. Author Richard A. Hanks details a 1908 conference in Riverside that spotlighted the problems facing Native Americans and, “sanctioned the beginning of a new epoch in humanitarian interest for Native Americans.”2 Among the Native American leaders attending with California’s influential state and regional leaders were Will Pablo of Morongo Reservation, a Cahuilla puul or medicine man; Santos Manuel (also known as Manuel Santos), the Serrano leader who is the namesake of modern San Manuel Reservation; and Jim Pine, leader of the Serrano group at the Oasis of Mara near Twentynine Palms. Also attending was William Weinland.
He reported to his Moravian church superiors in Pennsylvania that this conference offered hope for helping Native Americans. “The Indian’s rights were never respected,” he wrote. 3
“He was robbed of his land without any redress whatsoever. The only treaties that were ever entered into with these Indians of California were never confirmed by Congress. Eighteen of these treaties [including the local Treaty of Temecula] were recently unearthed in the Archives at Washington, by the terms of which the Indians were promised valuable lands and goods worth a million and a half dollars. I have secured a copy of these treaties, but never having been confirmed by Congress, they are not worth the paper on which they are written, though the Indians entered into these treaties in good faith, and gradually saw their lands taken from them by white settlers.”
Photo of William Weinland in the 1938 book, History of Banning and San Gorgonio Pass, in Two Parts, by Tom Hughes, Banning Record Print, Banning, California.
William Weinland got this book of available Indian law and treaties so he could better fight for Native Americans. He wanted to cite available laws and understand the federal treaties with sovereign nations, whether he was taking on bureaucratic tangles as an advocate for individuals, or tackling bigger issues, such as lobbying Congress for Native Americans’ rights to own their own land.
Among William Weinland’s other achievements:
• He helped improve medical care for Native Americans. He successfully pressured the federal government for more Native American access to doctors and other health care. He built the Morongo infirmary with donations in 1919, and a separate bequest enabled the addition of a separate ward for people with tuberculosis. The infirmary became self-supporting.
• He pushed and pushed for adequate water until the federal government sank artesian wells at Morongo and Martinez reservations.
• He encouraged self-reliance, for example in securing a personal loan which he then used to fund fruit groves. He gave the groves to Morongo and Martinez tribal members to use while they paid him back. They repaid in full and the commercial groves flourished.
My guess is that his family members or close friends donated the book to the first Banning public library after he died in 1930. I marvel that his big personal legal reference book is still there in the Banning public library, 118 years after it was published.
Thank you
Thanks for reading along today. News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center always thanks you for exploring the wonder of Southern California Native American cultures with us. It helps us when you subscribe, read, and share. We welcome your EMAIL. — Editor Pat Murkland, January 19, 2022.
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that saves and shares Southern California Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts. We welcome your donations. (MORE INFO.)
William H. Weinland Collection, Huntington Library, photCL 39 vol. 1 (74)
Hanks, Richard A., This War is for a Whole Life: The Culture of Resistance Among Southern California Indians, 1850-1966, text © 2012 by Richard A. Hanks, Ushkana Press (publishing arm of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center) pp 102-104.
Weinland, William H., from Moravian Church proceedings, “Annual Report of the Foreign Missions of the Moravian Church for the Year,” 2 ,“First Southern California Indian Conference,” 1908, Moravian Society, Bethlehem, PA