Woodcraft League of America, originally called the Woodcraft Indians and League of Woodcraft Indians, is a youth program, established by Ernest Thompson Seton in 1901. Despite the name, the program was created for non-Indian children. At first the group was for boys only, but later it would also include girls. Seton instructed the children in his town in Connecticut in outdoor "Woodcraft" – knowledge and skills of life in the woods – and based much of the group's terminology and structure on the misconceptions about Native Americans that were common in that era. The program spread internationally to become the Woodcraft Movement and many of these programs still exist. Seton's Woodcraft scheme also had a strong influence on later youth programs and organizations, particularly, the Scout Movement. History The first Woodcraft "Tribe" was established at Cos Cob, Connecticut, United States of America, in 1901. 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. 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. Interest in the Woodcraft Indians spread to the United Kingdom and Seton traveled there in 1906 to promote his books and Woodcraft outdoor organization. Seton met Robert Baden-Powell, and gave him a copy of the Birch Bark Roll. Although one of many influences, Seton's book had a strong influence on Baden-Powell's book, Scouting for Boys. In 1910, the Woodcraft Indians were merged into the fledgling Boy Scouts of America (BSA) by Seton and he wrote the BSA's first handbook, Boy Scouts of America: Official Handbook, A Handbook of Woodcraft, Scouting, and Life-craft and became the Chief Scout of the BSA for five years. After a fallout with James E. West, Seton left the BSA in 1915 and re-established the Woodcraft Indians separately. He claimed to have never really merged his