American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The Indian fair is that rare example of a government program for Indians gone terribly right. Implemented by the Office of Indian Affairs on reservations in the early 1900s, Indian fairs allowed Native people to exhibit their crops, livestock, and domestic handiwork in competition for prizes much the same way whites did at their numerous county and state fairs. The Indian Bureau hoped that such competition would inspire more Indian men to take up farming and raise better crops and help Native women become better housewives. In addition, the organization believed that reservation fairs would cut down on the amount of traveling Indians did during the summer months. Instead of attending dances, feasts, and county fairs, government officials reasoned, Native peoples would be content to hold a single large fair in the fall after crops had been harvested. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert G. Valentine enthusiastically supported Native fairs as a way to derive some benefit from Indians’ love of dancing and visiting. Valentine recognized that although the Indian Bureau could not prevent Indians from dancing, by “combining Indian amusements and ceremonies with an educational exhibit, some practical benefit must result.” Valentine also liked the fact that Indian fairs were conducted under the watchful eyes of the Indian Bureau’s own agency superintendents. He believed little could go wrong with bureau agents firmly in control of such events. From a single government-sponsored Indian fair on the Crow Reservation in Montana in 1905, Native fairs spread rapidly across the country. Little more than a decade later, fifty-eight reservations and agencies could boast of holding one or more of them on a yearly basis. The proliferation of Indian fairs occurred because all parties involved in their operation—Indians, the