Please be advised that some of these resources--particularly those created in previous eras--contain descriptions for ancestral, racial, ethnic, and gender identity that may be offensive or harmful to individuals investigating these records, and are considered inappropriate to use in modern times. For over thirty years the white and wealthy Sarah Kinney was president of the Connecticut Indian Association (CIA), which was organized in 1881, incorporated in 1887, and extended membership to white people (mostly women) only. The Association's aims were to (1) influence white people by "circulating knowledge concerning the political, financial, industrial, education, and religious status of Indians", (2) influence the Federal government to execute all laws and fulfill all treaties, which would speed "Indian civilization, industrial training, self-support, education, and citizenship," and (3) to "aid Indians in civilization, industrial training, self-support, education, citizenship and Christianization." In 1884 the organization lent funds to Philip Stabler, a young man belonging to the Omaha tribe to build a cottage for him and his wife's own use on the reservation and to start a farm. The CIA also sent donations of clothing and household articles. The Association expanded this effort to support a home-building plan; the members felt that in order to continue "civilized" (i.e. Western) habits, Indigenous graduates of training schools must not return to their traditional ways when they went back to the reservations. On May 1, 1886, the Association voted to support the education of Susan LaFlesche, a young Omaha woman and graduate of Hampton Institute, who wanted to become a physician and teacher among her own people. In 1888 the Association voted to undertake a practical farming program for Indigenous people. Also that year the CIA took special charge of the missionary station at Fort Hall, Idaho, and Hartford Hospital agreed to receive two Indigenous women into its training school for nurses.
