C.E. Kelsey was a college graduate of 1884, that took a position as an Agency Clerk right out of School in the San Jose area. Here, Kelsey was in charge of documentation of Indians from former treaties, as well as documenting Indians that had no Reservation to live on. Montezuma wrote to Kelsey with the same questions that he wrote to many other agents working on Reservations all over the United States. In Kelsey’s reply, he talked about his current position in Kenosha Wisconsin where he stated, “Our Reservations are surrounded by white settlements, and our Indians are well advanced in civilization.” He ended the letter by commenting on the Onedia tribe and stating that “but the Oneidas have lost many of their distinctive Indian characteristics, and are far along the road toward civilization.” These types of statements go to show the attitude that Kelsey had toward the Native American. He was an advocate of Indian rights, and even wrote and published a book later in his career in 1907 entitled Indian Rights and Wrongs. Kelsey was a major figure in gathering census data that helped to determine the number of Indians living in the U.S. that had no land to live on.
