Woodcraft Indians

The Woodland Indians was a youth program established by Ernest Thompson Seton. 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 (U.S.), 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. 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 of Native Americans and nature.

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. This was the beginning of his Woodcraft Indians. Seton wrote a series of 7 articles for Lady's Home Journal from May to November of 1902 under the heading "Ernest Thompson Seton's Boy" that were later published as the Birch Bark Rolls (1906). At the urging of his friend Rudyard Kipling, Seton published Two Little Savages (1903) as a novel, rather than a dictionary of Woodcraft.

Seton travelled to England in 1906 to look for people interested in his outdoor organization. He met Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, 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 joined the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) as the Chief Scout. 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 would leave the BSA in 1915 and re-establish the Woodcraft Indians (he would claim he never really merged the group into the BSA) as the Woodcraft League of America as 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, and 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. There are also camps following the Woodcraft Program in the United States and Canada that were founded friends and students of Seton.

By and large, the Woodcraft program died in the U.S. following the death of Seton in the 1940s.

External links

• Ernest Thompson Seton Institute
• The BSA's 'forgotten' founding father (October 1998)