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User:Mellen22/Charles Edwin Kelsey

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Charles Edwin Kelsey
Born(1861-12-10)December 10, 1861
Montello, Wisconsin
DiedJuly 3, 1936(1936-07-03) (aged 74)
Vista, California
Burial placeTemple Hill Cemetery, Geneseo, New York
Alma materUniversity of Wisconsin
Occupationlawyer
FatherCharles S. Kelsey
Relatives

Charles Edwin Kelsey (December 12, 1861 – July 3, 1936) was an American lawyer and activist for rights of Native Californians.

C. E. Kelsey is an often mentioned but largely unknown figure in the history of Indian-white relations in California. As an officer of the Northern California Indian Association (NCIA) and a special agent for the Office of Indian Affairs, he was deeply involved in efforts by the indigenous peoples of California to discover and renegotiate the legal status of California Indian Reservations and Cessions in the early 1900s. He was noted in Ishi in Three Centuries as “the official in the [Indian] Bureau who had the deepest knowledge of the condition of California Indians at the time—a man who had unparalleled personal experience of the contemporary life of virtually every tribal group of Native Californians and had written extensively and eloquently on the practical and moral obligation of the government to redress the atrocious wrongs suffered by California Indians.”[1] Even while asserting Kelsey’s vital role, the author got Kelsey's full name wrong.[2]

Born in Montello, Wisconsin in 1861 to Charles S. Kelsey and Lucretia Bacon[3], he earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1896. In 1901 he moved to San Jose, California where he opened a private law practice and later served as secretary and director of the NCIA for more than a decade. As an expert in native people in California he was appointed to the Federal Office of Indian Affairs in 1905.[2] He died at home in Vista, California in 1936.[4]

Publications

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  • Census of Non-Reservation California Indians, 1905–1906. Robert F. Heizer, ed. Berkeley, CA: Archaeological Research Facility, Department of Anthropology, University of California, 1971.
  • “Indian Reservations in Southern California, and What Has Been Accomplished in the Last Three Years,” San Jose, CA, 1908. Quoted in: Wayland H. Smith. In Re California Indians to Date: An Authorized Account of the Present Status of the California Indians and What has been Done up to 1909. Los Angeles Council of the Sequoya League, 1909.
  • “Mr. Kelsey’s Brief History of the California Indians.” Quoted in: Warren K. Moorehead. The American Indian in the United States Period 1850-1914. Andover, MA: Andover Press, 1914.
  • “Providing for the California Indians.” Report of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples, October 20th, 21st and 22nd, 1909. Lake Mohonk, NY: Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples, 1909.
  • “Report of Special Agent for California Indians.” Robert F. Heizer, ed. Federal Concern About the Conditions of California Indians, 1853 to 1913: Eight Documents. Socorro, NM: Ballena, 1979.
  • “The Rights and Wrongs of the California Indians.” Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California IV (December 1909).
  • “State and Federal Responsibility for the Indian.” The Indian School Journal 16 (October 1915). Chilocco Indian School. Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75. National Archives, Fort Worth, Texas

References

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  1. ^ Kroeber, Clifton (2003). Ishi in Three Centuries. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 3-4.
  2. ^ a b Miller, Larisa K. (2013). "Primary Sources on C. E. Kelsey and the Northern California Indian Association". Journal of Western Archives. 4 (1). doi:10.26077/1104-2327. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  3. ^ Miller, Larisa K. (2016). "Made in Wisconsin: The Shaping of a Federal Indian Agent". Voyageur: Northeast Wisconsin’s Historical Review. 33 (1): 10–18.
  4. ^ "Have You Heard?". Wisconsin Alumnus. 38: 247. March 1937. Retrieved 27 November 2024.
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