Montezuma, Carlos, 1866-1923

Physican, Yavapai advocate for Native Americans. Born in Arizona Territory; educated at Chicago Medical College; served in U. S. Indian Service; practiced medicine in Chicago; helped organize Society of American Indians, a national lobbying group; and published "Wassaja."

Born as Wassaja, a Yavapai Indian, around 1866, Carlos Carlos Montezuma, physician and Indian Rights activist, was born near the Four Peaks in the Superstition Mountains of Central Arizona in approximately 1866. He was the son of the Yavapai Indians Co-cu-ye-vah and Thil-ge-ya. In 1871, Montezuma was captured by Pima Indians and sold to Carlos Gentile, who gave him his Anglo name. Gentile brought Montezuma to Washington, D.C., and then to Chicago, where he attended public schools. Before committing suicide, Gentile turned Montezuma over to Reverend G. W. Ingalls of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.

Montezuma completed his high school education at Urbana High School in Illinois and went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude from the University of Illinois. He entered the Chicago Medical School of Northwestern University and eventually established a private medical practice in Chicago. Montezuma became a leading spokesman for Indian Rights, founding a journal entitled Wassaja to address these issues. In his later years, he became ill with diabetes and tuberculosis and returned to the Fort McDowell Indian Reservation. He died on the reservation on January 31, 1923.

From the guide to the Carlos Montezuma Collection, 1887-1980, 1887-1922, (Arizona State University Libraries Arizona Collection)