| Woodcraft Indians | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1902 |
| Founder | Ernest Thompson Seton |
The League of Woodcraft Indians was an American youth program, established by Ernest Thompson Seton. Despite the name, it was developed for non-Indian boys. It was later renamed the "Woodcraft League of America", and would also allow girls to join. The program was also picked up overseas, and many of these overseas programs still exist today.
In the United States, the first Woodcraft "Tribe" was established at Cos Cob, Connecticut in 1902. Seton's property had been vandalized by a group of boys from the local school. After having to repaint his gate a number of times, he went to the school, and invited the boys to the property for a weekend, rather than prosecuting them. He sat down with them and told them stories about Native Americans and nature.[citation needed]
The unique feature of his program was that the boys elected their own leaders: a "Chief", a "Second Chief", a "Keeper of the Tally" and a "Keeper of the Wampum". Seton wrote a series of seven articles for Ladies' Home Journal from May to November 1902 under the heading "Seton's Boys" that were later published as the Birch Bark Roll. At the urging of his friend Rudyard Kipling, Seton published Two Little Savages (1903) as a novel, rather than a dictionary of Woodcraft.
Seton traveled to England in 1906 to look for people interested in his outdoor organization. He met Robert Baden-Powell, and gave him a copy of the Birch Bark Roll. They corresponded from that point forward. In 1908, Seton received a letter from Baden-Powell stating that he was going ahead with his scheme for scouting, based very much on Seton's program. Baden-Powell incorporated many of the ideas, honors and games into his book, Scouting for Boys.
In 1910, Seton and Dan Beard formed the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and became the Chief Scout for five years. This was the same position that Baden-Powell held in England. He merged his Woodcraft Indians into the fledging BSA. After a fallout with James E. West, Seton left the BSA in 1915 and re-established the Woodcraft Indians separately. Later he claimed he never really merged the group into the BSA. The Woodcraft League of America was a co-educational program open to children between ages "4 and 94".
Seton established a program he called "Brownies" in 1921 for girls and boys ages 6–11, based on his earlier book, Woodland Tales. This served as the origin of the Brownies in the Girl Scouts of the USA.
There were many local Woodcraft groups in the United States in the early part of this century. There are third-generation Woodcrafters who are still active in the movement. The best known group today are the WoodCraft Rangers in Los Angeles, California, who have a nature camp and provide activities for inner-city children. Camps following the Woodcraft Program in the United States and Canada were also founded by friends and students of Seton.
By and large, the Woodcraft program died in the U.S. following the death of Seton in the 1940s.
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