gain assimilation of American Indians into mainstream society, including to encourage their becoming Christian. It maintained missions, produced several publications, and influenced national policy, including the passing of the Dawes Act in 1887. Its main objectives were to assimilate Indians through Christian education and missionary work, and abolish the reservation system. Quinton described the Association's foundation as a "united effort to move our government to grant a legal status to Indians, the protection of law, lands in severalty, and education." She wrote a pamphlet that criticized the greed of settlers and the unfaithfulness of the United States government toward Indians. Quinton explained the work of the WNIA as "the work of informing the public of the needs, capabilities, and progress of our native Indians, and also it is the work of moving the Government, by direct appeals, to render just to help them." The WNIA focused on reservation-based communities located west of the Mississippi River. It also supported missions among the Seminole in Florida and the Chiricahua prisoners of war confined in Alabama. During the next decade, the WNIA battled local, state, and federal officials to secure land for them. The WNIA did not believe that the Indian peoples should govern themselves independently but that they should be included in United States mainstream society. In response to the "maternalist" approach taken by the WNIA, the women tried to teach Native American women about middle-class, European-American practices and roles. They provided materials and resources to enable the women to conform to these "new gendered expectations." Children were taught to read and write in English in mission schools. Mothers were to be taught to make "comfortable and attractive homes" and "cook the foods of civilizations," and both women and children were taught "redeeming Christian truths." Legislative influence The Association supported passage of the Dawes Act in 1887. This provided for the allotment of communal reservation land to individual households of tribal members, in order to extinguish Indian land rights in Indian Territory. This was required in order for the territory, together with Oklahoma Territory, to be admitted as a state. In addition, giving households individual plots of land to farm was seen as key to producing subsistence farmers. The Act also granted Indians US (and state) citizenship. It would enable them to vote, but also made them subject to state and federal taxes. While many of the Association's members considered the Dawes