Montezuma’s closest correspondent in terms of both friendship and sharing viewpoints. Founder and first president of the Carlisle School Indian Industrial School, where he served as president from 1879-1904. His removal from the school in 1904 created definite controversy and only heightened both Pratt and Montezuma’s distrust of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reel 2 shows multiple correspondents between Pratt and Montezuma both trying to get Pratt back into his position as President of the Carlisle School. They both write to multiple news outlets often discussing the wrongdoing behind Pratt’s removal and the negative direction the school is moving in under new leadership. Both Pratt and Montezuma are highly critical of President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration and the Bureau of Indian Affairs led by Commissioner Francis Leupp and the new President of the Carlisle School Capt./Maj. William A. Mercer.
Richard Henry Pratt was a very close correspondent to Carlos Montezuma. They exchanged several letters throughout the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Pratt was involved in founding the Carlisle Indian School which had the goal or attitude of assimilating the Native American into white society and “civilizing” them so that they could be successful and earn a respectable living. Pratt had a very militaristic outlook on life, and much of his reform rhetoric highlighted this. Pratt and Montezuma connected over the shared belief that the Native Americans should become civilized and go through the Civilization and Assimilation process. They regarded each other as dear friends, and sought to educate the Indian and allow them to flourish in America through the western model of society and western mindset. The thing that I would most like to know or perhaps find out about Pratt is regarding his relationship with other social or political figureheads of the time. It would be helpful to help understand his relationship outside of the one that he had with Montezuma, and what he was generally perceived to be like by others.
