



Produced by Bryan Ness, Barbara Kosker and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)











  THE INDIAN QUESTION.

  BY

  FRANCIS A. WALKER,

  LATE U. S. COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.










  BOSTON:
  JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
  (LATE TICKNOR AND FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.)
  1874.




  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874 by
  F. A. WALKER,
  In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.




  BOSTON
  RAND, AVERY, & CO., STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS.




CONTENTS.

                                                                   PAGE
  THE INDIAN QUESTION                                        5

  INDIAN CITIZENSHIP                                       101

  AN ACCOUNT OF THE TRIBES                                 148




THE INDIAN QUESTION.[A]


On the 3d of March, 1871, Congress declared that "hereafter no Indian
nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be
acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power,
with whom the United States may contract by treaty."

Brave words these would have seemed to good William Penn, treating with
the Lenni Lenape, under the elm at Kensington; or even to doughty Miles
Standish, ready as that worthy ever was to march against the heathen who
troubled his Israel. Heathen they were in the eyes of the good people of
Plymouth Colony, but nations of heathen, without question, as truly as
were the Amalekites, the Jebusites, or the Hittites to the infant colony
at Shiloh. It would have been deemed the tallest kind of "tall talk," in
the councils of Jamestown, Providence, and Annapolis, to express
disdain for the proffered hand of Indian friendship, or even to object
to payment of some small tribute, in beads or powder, to these native
lords of the continent. In 1637, when Capt. John Mason marched against
Sassacus, at the head of ninety men, he had with him half the fighting
force of the Connecticut Colony. In 1653 a wall was built across
Manhattan Island to keep out the savages; though, when we say that the
line of defence just covered the present course of Wall Street (which
derives its name from that circumstance), our readers may not fail to
wonder whether the savages were not the rather kept in by it. In 1675,
when the New-England Colonies had grown comparatively strong, they
mustered for their war against Philip one thousand men, of whom
Massachusetts furnished five hundred and twenty-seven, Plymouth one
hundred and fifty-eight, and Connecticut three hundred and fifteen.

To men peering out from block-houses, or crouching behind walls,
awaiting the terrific yell of an Indian attack, it was not likely to
occur that they might compromise their dignity by treating on equal
terms with an enemy tenfold as numerous as themselves; nor were the
statesmen of that early heroic age likely to give themselves trouble
about the character and standing among the nations of the earth, of
confederacies that could bring five thousand warriors into the field.
And so the feeble colonies struggled on through those days of gloom and
fear, deprecating the anger of the savages as they might, and
circumventing their wiles when they could; played off one chieftain
against another; made contribution of malice and powder to every
intestine feud among the natives; bought off tribes, without much
scruple as to the ultimate fulfilment of their bargains; postponed the
evil day by every expedient, knowing that time was on their side: and
when they had, in spite of all, to fight, fought as men who know that
they will not themselves be spared,--planned ambuscades and massacres;
fired Indian camps, and shot the inmates as they leaped from their
blazing wigwams; studied and mastered all the arts of forest warfare;
and beat the savages with their own weapons, as men of the higher race
will always do when forced by circumstances to such a contest.

Nor during the early part of the eighteenth century, when all danger of
a war of extermination had passed from the apprehension of the most
timid, when the Colonies had become in a degree compacted, and the line
of white occupation had been made continuous from Massachusetts to
Georgia; nor later still, when the Colonies had become States, and the
representatives of the new nation of the Western world were received in
all the courts of Europe--was the policy abandoned of treating with the
Indian tribes as parties having equal powers of initiative, and equal
rights in negotiation. In nearly four hundred treaties, confirmed by the
Senate as are treaties with foreign powers, our government recognized
Indian tribes as nations with whom the United States might contract
without derogating from its sovereignty.

The treaties made with Indian tribes have, of course, been mainly
treaties of cession. Most of our readers will be surprised to learn the
extent of lands east of the Mississippi which are embraced in sales to
the United States; being no less than the entire States of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, with
considerable portions of Tennessee, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And these
treaties were not a mere form to amuse and quiet savages, a
half-compassionate, half-contemptuous humoring of unruly children. The
United States were not then grown so great that they could afford to
value lightly the free relinquishment of the soil by the native owners
of it. At the time most of the treaties with tribes east of the
Mississippi were concluded, not only did the right remain in the
Indians, but enough of power, to make it as much a diplomatic triumph to
obtain a cession on favorable terms, as it would be to negotiate a
successful treaty with one of the States of Central America to-day. The
United States were clearly the stronger party in every such case; but
the Indians were, in the great body of instances, still so formidable,
that to wrest their lands from them by pure, brutal violence would have
required an exertion of strength which the government was ill prepared
to make. So that, while it is true that the Indians were generally made
ready to negotiate by the use of military force and by the pressure of
white settlements, it is not true that the considerations and privileges
accorded them in these treaties were a gift out of good-nature.

So much for the power of the Indians when they made these treaties.
Their right to their lands is quite as well established historically. In
the early history of the Western world, the principle was fully
recognized, that, while sovereignty rested, not with the Indians, but
with the civilized power claiming by virtue of discovery, the Indians
were the rightful occupants, with a just and perfect claim to retain
possession and enjoy the use until they should be disposed voluntarily
to part with it. Great Britain, Holland, France, and Spain, the four
powers claiming sovereignty by virtue of discovery within the present
territory of the United States, conceded no less than this to the
natives; while France, in the cession of the province of Louisiana,
expressly reserved the rights allowed the Indians by its own treaties
and articles, "until, by mutual consent of the United States and the
said tribes or nations, other suitable articles shall have been agreed
upon."

     "Such being the right of the Indians to the soil, the United
     States for more than eighty-five years pursued a uniform
     course of extinguishing the Indian title only with the consent
     of those Indian tribes which were recognized as having claim
     by reason of occupancy: such consent being expressed in
     treaties, to the formation of which both parties approached,
     as having equal rights of initiative, and equal rights in
     negotiation. These treaties were made from time to time (not
     less than 372 being embraced in the general statutes of the
     United States) as the pressure of white settlements, or the
     fear or the experience of Indian hostilities, made the demand
     for the removal of one tribe after another urgent or
     imperative. _Except only in the case of the Indians in
     Minnesota, after the outbreak of 1862, the United-States
     Government has never extinguished an Indian title as by right
     of conquest_; and in this latter case the government provided
     the Indians another reservation, besides giving them the
     proceeds of the sales of the lands vacated by them in
     Minnesota; so scrupulously, up to that time, had the right of
     the Indians to the soil been respected, at least in form. It
     is not to be denied that wrong was often done in fact to
     tribes in the negotiation of treaties of cession. The Indians
     were not infrequently overborne or deceived by the agents of
     the government in these transactions; sometimes
     unquestionably, powerful tribes were permitted to cede lands
     to which weaker tribes had a better claim: but, formally at
     least, the United States accepted the cession successively of
     all lands, to which Indian tribes could show color of title,
     which are embraced in the limits of any of the present States
     of the Union except California and Nevada."--_Report on Indian
     Affairs_, 1872, pp. 83, 84.

In 1871, however, the insolence of conscious strength, and the growing
jealousy of the House of Representatives towards the prerogative--arrogated
by the Senate--of determining, in connection with the executive, all
questions of Indian right and title, and of committing the United States
incidentally to pecuniary obligations limited only by its own discretion,
for which the House should be bound to make provision without inquiry, led
to the adoption, after several severe parliamentary struggles, of the
declaration which stands at the head of this paper.

In abruptly terminating thus the long series of Indian treaties, and
forever closing the only course of procedure known for the adjustment of
difficulties, and even for the administration of ordinary business, with
Indian tribes, Congress provided no substitute, and up to the present
time has neglected to prescribe the methods by which, after the
abrogation of the national character of the Indians, either their
internal matters or their relations with the general government are to
be regulated. The Indian-Intercourse Act of 1834, though still nominally
in force, is so largely predicated upon the tribal constitution, and
assumes so uniformly the national sufficiency of the tribe, that all the
life and virtue are taken out of it by the Act of 1871 just cited; and
the country is, in effect, left without rule or prescription for the
government of Indian affairs. It is sufferance, not law, which enables
the Indian Office to-day to administer its charge. While the Act of 1871
strikes down at a blow the hereditary authority of the chiefs, no
legislation has invested Indian agents with magisterial powers, or
provided for the assembling of the Indian _demos_. There is at this time
no semblance of authority for the punishment of any crime which one
Indian may commit against another, nor any mode of procedure, recognized
by treaty or statute, for the regulation of matters between the
government and the several tribes. So far as the law is concerned,
complete anarchy exists in Indian affairs; and nothing but the singular
homogeneity of Indian communities, and the almost unaccountable
spontaneity and unanimity of public sentiment within them, has thus far
prevented the attention of Congress and the country being called most
painfully to the unpardonable negligence of the national legislature in
failing to provide a substitute for the time-honored policy which was
destroyed by the Act of 1871.

In treating the Indian question of the present day, the temptation is
strongly felt, to dwell upon the history of Indian tribes, and upon the
physical and moral characteristics of this singular race. Yet, if way be
once given to this inclination, not only will the time and space
necessary for a discussion of the present and the future of the Indian
tribes be sacrificed, but the attention of the reader will be so
overwhelmed with the multitude of names and incidents, that he will be
embarrassed rather than assisted in his understanding of the subject to
be treated. The value, for our purpose, of facts and incidents in Indian
history is not at all according to their value historically or
romantically. Indeed, such has been the fatality to the aborigines of
contact with the whites, that it may almost be said, the importance
to-day of tribes is inversely as their importance in the annals of the
country. Among the greatest figures of the past are those of bands and
confederacies that have utterly disappeared from the continent, happy
that their long, savage independence, and their brief, fierce resistance
to the encroachments of the pale-face, were not to be succeeded by a
dreary period of submission, humiliation, and dependence. Other tribes,
that but a few generations ago shook the infant colonies with terror, or
even dared to stand across the path of the Republic, and for a time
flung a shadow as of eclipse over its destiny, are now represented upon
the annuity or feeding-lists of the United States by a few score of
diseased wretches, who hang about the settlements, begging and stealing
where they can, and quarrelling like dogs over the entrails of the
beeves that are slaughtered for them. Still other tribes, once warlike
and powerful, have, by a fortunate turn of character and circumstance,
become so rich and respectable as not only to deprive them of all
romantic interest, but practically to take them out of the scope of the
Indian question. Other tribes, still having among them men whose
grandfathers besieged Detroit under Pontiac, are now resolved into
citizens of the United States, eligible for the chief-justiceship or the
presidency.

Such considerations as we have here briefly sketched suffice to show the
inexpediency of entering upon Indian history, _qua_ history, as an
introduction to the discussion of the Indian problems of to-day. Equally
obdurate must one be to the seductions of Indian ethnology, except so
far only as it may simplify the classification of the present Indian
population to refer tribes and bands to recognized groups or families,
for the better or briefer characterization of their qualities and
affinities.

Even stronger yet is the temptation to enter upon the analysis and
portraiture of the original and native character of the North-American
Indian. Voluptuary and stoic; swept by gusts of fury too terrible to be
witnessed, yet imperturbable beyond all men, under the ordinary
excitements and accidents of life; garrulous, yet impenetrable; curious,
yet himself reserved, proud and mean alike beyond compare; superior to
torture and the presence of certain death, yet, by the standards of all
other peoples, a coward in battle; capable of magnanimous actions which,
when uncovered of all romance, are worthy of the best days of Roman
virtue, yet more cunning, false, and cruel than the Bengalee,--this
copper- sphinx, this riddle unread of men, equally fascinates and
foils the inquirer.

This, however, is the Indian of history. The Indian for whom the
government is called to provide subsistence and instruction presents no
such psychological difficulties. Curious compound and strange
self-contradiction as the red man is in his native character, in his
traditional pursuits, and amid the surroundings of his own wild life;
yet when broken down by the military power of the whites, thrown out of
his familiar relations, his stupendous conceit with its glamour of
savage pomp and glory rudely dispelled, his occupation gone, himself a
beggar, the red man becomes the most commonplace person imaginable, of
very simple nature, limited aspirations, and enormous appetites.

The Indian question naturally divides itself into two: What shall be
done with the Indian as an obstacle to the national progress? What shall
be done with him when, and so far as, he ceases to oppose or obstruct
the extension of railways and settlements? It is because these two parts
of the question have not been separately regarded that so much confusion
has been introduced into the discussion of Indian affairs. Widely
diverse, for example, as are the criticisms popularly expressed on what
is known as the "Indian policy" of Pres. Grant's administration, the
writer can confidently affirm, as the result of hundreds of interviews,
formal and informal, stated and casual, friendly and the reverse, with
men from every section of the country, of both parties, and of all
professions, that he believes there is no political subject mooted
to-day on which there are so slight differences of real opinion, or,
indeed, such general consent when men will once come to terms with each
other, and begin to talk about the same thing. He has never known a man,
even from the Territories or the border States, make objection, on a
candid statement, to the intentions and purposes of that administration
towards the Indians, unless it were some man peculiarly vulgar and
brutal,--such a one, for instance, as, if a Southerner, would give his
time and breath to indiscriminate abuse of the <DW64>s. Instead of there
being two parties on this subject, there is, therefore, if the
observations of the writer have been well made, no reason to suppose
that any considerable division of opinion or feeling exists respecting
the duty of the government, at the present moment, by the aborigines of
the country.

Take the public sentiment of Arizona, for example. It is the almost
universal belief throughout the country, that the people of this
Territory have a deadly hostility to the Indians, and meditate nothing
but mischief towards them; and it certainly must be admitted that press
and people alike indulge in expressions which fairly bear that
construction, and are quite enough to create an impression that the
citizens of the Territory hate an Indian as an Indian, and have no
humane sentiments whatever towards the race. And yet the writer would as
soon leave the question, whether the government should render some
kindly service to the Papagoes or to the Pimas and Maricopas, in the way
of assisting them to self-maintenance, or of providing instruction in
letters or in the mechanic arts, to the general voice of the people of
Arizona, as to any missionary association in New York or Boston the
coming May. When the press of Arizona cry out against the Indian policy
of the government, and denounce Eastern philanthropy, they have in mind
the warlike and depredating bands; and they are exasperated by what they
deem, perhaps unreasonably but not unnaturally, the weakness and
indecision of the executive in failing to properly protect the frontier.
Indians to them mean Apaches; and their violence on the Indian question
arises from the belief that the administration of Indian affairs has
been committed to sentimentalists, who have no appreciation of the
terrible stress which these Indian outrages bring upon the remote
settlements. But were the question one of helping, in a practical
fashion suited to the habits and views of life of a border community, a
tribe of Indians who are peaceful, and in a poor way helpful, there is
no reason to suppose that the inhabitants of Tucson or Prescott would be
behind an Eastern congregation in readiness for the work. And this
impression the writer derives, not alone from the amiable and cultivated
gentleman who represents that Territory in Congress, but from contact
and correspondence with many influential and representative citizens of
Arizona, and from a study of the very journals that so teem with
denunciations of the Indian policy of the government.[B]

On the other hand, in our prosperous and well-ordered communities at the
East, a gentleman of leisure and of native benevolence, whose ears have
never rung with the war-whoop, whose eyes have never witnessed the
horrid atrocities of Indian warfare, and who is only disturbed in his
pleasing reveries by the occasional tramp of the policeman about his
house, is apt to dwell exclusively upon the other side of the Indian
question. To such a man, as he recalls the undoubted wrongs done the
Indian in the past, as he contemplates the fate of a race whose heroic
and romantic qualities have been greatly exaggerated, or as he listens
to the flattering tale of a missionary returned from some peaceful and
half-civilized tribe, it is very pleasant to think that the original
owners of the soil are to be protected by the government, saved to
humanity, educated in the useful arts, and elevated to a Christian
civilization. On such a man accounts of Indian outrages make little
impression. He regards them as the invention of pioneer malice, or
easily disposes of them by a mental reference to the crimes perpetrated
in his own town or city. He is, perhaps, so ignorant of Indian matters
as to think that all the Indians of the country form one homogeneous
community, and cannot understand how it should be, that, while Cherokees
are supporting churches and colleges and orphan asylums at home, and
sending their sons to receive classical and professional education in
the best schools of the East, Kiowas should roast their prisoners alive,
and brain the babe before the eyes of its mother. Is it a matter of
wonder, that men who are contemplating things so different as are the
Eastern philanthropist and the Western settler, when Indians are spoken
of, should imagine that they disagree as to the policy of the
government, and come to entertain contempt or repugnance for each other,
while, in fact, on an honest statement of a given case, neither would
dissent in the slightest degree from the views of the other? If there
is, then, such a liability to confusion and misapprehension in the
discussion of the Indian question, we may be allowed to insist strongly
upon the necessity of the distinction indicated.

       *       *       *       *       *

The actually or potentially hostile tribes of the United States number,
on a rough computation suited to the rudeness of the definition,
sixty-four thousand. It is these only which we have to treat under the
first division of our question,--What shall be done with the Indian as
an obstacle to the national progress? This number of sixty-four thousand
is made up as follows: The actually depredating bands, North-west and
South-west, probably have not exceeded, during the past year, seven
thousand, mainly Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches. The tribes with which
these bands are directly and intimately connected contain about twenty
thousand, including the marauders. There are further included in this
calculation tribes and bands, numbering in the aggregate about
forty-four thousand, which are now generally at peace.

It will be seen that the number which we have taken for the potentially
hostile Indians is many times greater than the number of the actually
hostile. Yet, on the other hand, we have not intended to embrace all
those tribes which might be exasperated to the point of resistance by a
reckless disregard of treaties on the part of the government, or by a
series of wanton acts of abuse on the part of white settlers. There is a
line beyond which no man or people may safely be pressed; and there are
few bands of Indians, East or West, however contemptible in numbers or
character, which, if wronged and trampled on, might not in their
indignant despair teach their oppressors a lesson at which the world
would shudder. We are contemplating no such possibilities. We are
assuming that the government will, as it has generally done in the
past, respect treaty obligations, and that the intercourse of the
Indians with their white neighbors will be marked by only such sporadic
acts of individual wrong as are in the nature of the case.

The tribes to which we refer as potentially hostile are, first, those
now in immediate contact with the whites, whose claims to territory are
so far disregarded, either by the action of the government or by the
unauthorized intrusion of pioneers and prospectors; or whose means of
subsistence are so far impaired or threatened by the extension of
railways and settlements,--that hostilities are only prevented by the
bounty of the government in feeding the members of such tribes in whole
or in part, by liberal presents of trinkets and useful goods, by the
exercise of especial watchfulness in avoiding occasions of dispute and
points of collision, and finally by a willingness on the part of the
government to overlook offences and even to tolerate a degree of
insolence, rather than allow a breach of the peace: second, those tribes
not now to any great extent in contact with the whites, and exhibiting
no desire to go out of their way to make trouble, but of which the same
must, in the inevitable course of the national progress, in a few years
become true as of the tribes embraced under the first class.

But these classes, as we have thus described them, are yet far too
numerous for the facts of the case. We must still further reduce them by
excluding all such tribes as, from location, from traditional friendship
for the whites, or from weakness of character, are unlikely, in any
event reasonably to be contemplated, to become involved in hostilities.

Among the Indians, who, by the force of their location and surroundings,
are rendered powerless for armed resistance, are not a few of the
Indians of Minnesota, and even some in Wisconsin, who have no love for
the whites, and would make exceedingly bad neighbors to frontier
settlements, but who, encircled as they are by powerful communities,
submit sullenly to their condition. The same may be said of many bands
in Kansas, Nebraska, and on the Pacific coast. These are Indians who
have been overtaken, surrounded, and disarmed by the progress of
population, but, either through the neglect of the government or by the
failure of the usual agencies of instruction and industrial assistance,
have remained barbarous, and, as their natural means of subsistence grow
scantier, are becoming every year more miserable.

There is another and much larger class of Indians from whom no organized
violence is to be expected in the course of the complete settlement of
the country, not because they are rendered helpless by the force of
their location, nor because they have any traditional friendship for the
whites, nor because they do not experience suffering enough to impel a
warlike people to a struggle for life, but because they are not fighting
Indians. Actual outrage might drive some of these tribes to resistance;
but, under the slow wasting-away of their means of subsistence, and the
gradual pressure of the settlements, they are, and are likely to remain,
wholly passive, accepting their fate, and sinking to the lowest point of
human misery without a single heroic effort. Some of these tribes have
been "put upon" by their more warlike neighbors through many
generations, driven from their original hunting-grounds, and harassed
even in the mountains where they have taken refuge, until their spirit
has been utterly crushed, and they have become as submissive as the
Southern <DW64>s. This is true of large numbers of the Indians of
Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Southern California. They have neither the
individual courage nor the instinct of confederation entitling them to
be reckoned among the potentially hostile tribes.

Still, again, we count out several powerful tribes, able to bring five
hundred or a thousand warriors each into the field, which, by reason of
traditional friendship and their frequent alliance with our troops in
campaigns against hostile Indians, are sure to remain the friends of the
government under any tolerable treatment. Indeed, neglect and abuse seem
insufficient to alienate these allies. Their faith once pledged, and
friendship cemented by sacrifices and sufferings, they cling to the
fortunes of the whites with romantic fidelity. Such are the
Arickarees,[C] Mandans, and Gros Ventres of the Upper Missouri; such
the Pawnees of Kansas; such the Flatheads, Kootenays, and Pend
d'Oreilles, whose boast is that their tribes never killed a white man;
such, in a degree, the Crows of Montana. These tribes, and others of
less consequence, are not only sure, in the event of kindly treatment by
the government, to remain its fast friends, but they may be relied upon
in the future, as in the past, to do much to check the audacity of their
hostile neighbors, and, in the last resort, to furnish re-enforcements
of the most effective and economical sort to the troops operating
against predatory bands.

Having excluded all tribes and bands of the character, or in the
position, indicated under the three heads above, we make up the list of
the potentially hostile Indians somewhat as follows: of the Sioux of
Dakota,--tribes, bands, and parties, to the number of fifteen thousand;
of the Indians of Montana,--Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans, Assiniboines
and roving Sioux, to the number of twenty thousand; of the Indians in
the extreme south-western part of the Indian Territory and on the
borders of Texas,--Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, to the
number of seven thousand; of the Indians of Arizona,--Apaches of several
tribes, to the number of nine thousand; of the mountain Indians of
Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, to the number of five thousand; of the
Indians of New Mexico, to the number of two thousand; and of the Indians
in Oregon and Washington Territory, to the number of six thousand. The
sixty-four thousand Indians thus enumerated comprise substantially all
the tribes and bands with which the government is obliged to contemplate
the possibility of war. It is in the highest degree improbable, however,
that the United States would, even in the event of what might properly
be called a general Indian war, be called on to fight more than one-half
of these Indians at any one time; while, with a reasonable policy of
concession, the number of actually hostile and depredating bands may be
steadily reduced, and the whole body of dangerous Indians held in check
until the advance of population shall render them incapable of mischief.
The measures by which this is to be effected must be considered
candidly, in the light of the alternative presented, and not as if they
were proposed as measures wholly agreeable to the tastes or the temper
of those who are called to administer Indian affairs.

That we may obtain a true impression of one of the conditions on which
peace is maintained with certain Indian tribes, let us take a leaf out
of the official record of the dealings of the government with the Sioux
during the past year. Early in 1872 an unusually large number of Indians
were assembled at the Red Cloud agency, near Fort Laramie in Wyoming. By
far the greater part were _habitues_ of this or some other Sioux agency;
but among them were many Northern Indians, who were for the first time
the guests of the government, and who, not having become accustomed to
eat the bread of dependence, were much more intractable and insolent
than the others. The presence of these Indians produced great turmoil at
the agency, and considerable apprehension on the part of the agent.
Nothing in the nature of an outbreak occurred, however: the strangers
gradually went away to their summer hunt on the Powder River; and the
agency was brought back to its usual condition. But, while this was
being effected, a ranchman named Powell, who had a large drove of cattle
near Fort Laramie, was robbed and murdered. The bloody details were soon
known; for Indians are such inveterate gossips that they can keep no
secret, however dangerous disclosure may be to them. The murderers were
Northern Indians, who had instantly left for their own country. At two
successive councils, both the civil and the military authorities
demanded the surrender of the guilty parties and the return of the
stolen stock. The chiefs present and the great body of their followers
most unmistakably disapproved and regretted the act, if for no better
reason than because they apprehended the consequences; but they
disclaimed any responsibility therefor,--the murderers not being of
their own proper number,--pleaded their inability to arrest the
fugitives with their bloody spoils, and, for the rest, did nothing. The
government, for that matter, after much expostulation, did the same:
troops were not marched northward to seize the murderers; the rations of
the Sioux were not ordered to be stopped until satisfaction had been
given; and the murder of Powell remains to-day unpunished by the
government of the United States.

A second condition on which peace is maintained is the subsistence of
certain tribes at the expense of the government, without reference to
their ability or disposition to work. Every five or seven days, twenty
thousand Sioux, big and little, assemble around the agencies for the
distribution of food. Soldiers' rations are dealt out: flour by the
hundred sacks is delivered to them; beeves by the score are turned loose
to be shot down and eaten up in savage fashion. The expense of this
service is a million five hundred thousand dollars a year,--one-seventh
the total cost of poor-support in the United States. About one million
more is expended for the total or partial subsistence of other tribes,
especially in the South-west. Coincidently with this, occasions for
increased expenditure have arisen in connection with tribes not upon
the feeding-list; so that the average cost of the Indian service has
gone up from four millions in 1866, 1867, and 1868, to seven millions at
the present time. It should be remarked, however, that it is only the
increase which measures the cost of the "peace policy," so called, more
than one-half of the four millions of expenditure in the former period
being the lawful due of the Indians under treaty stipulations, in
consideration for the cession of lands; and the remainder covering the
general expenses of the service. The following table exhibits the
expenditures of the government on account of the Indian service for the
twelve years 1861 to 1872:--

  Year.  Expenditures on Indian Account.

  1861   $2,865,481.17
  1862    2,327,948.37
  1863    3,152,032.70
  1864    2,629,975.97
  1865    5,059,360.71
  1866    3,295,729.32
  1867    4,642,531.77
  1868    4,100,682.32
  1869    7,042,923.06
  1870    3,407,938.15
  1871    7,426,997.44
  1872    7,061,728.82

Now, it must honestly be confessed, that the United-States Government,
in such dealings with Indian tribes as have been recited, does not act a
very handsome part. To pay blackmail to insolent savages (for that is
simply what it amounts to); to feed forty or fifty thousand people who
make no pretence of doing any thing for themselves, and who appear to
think that they are conferring a distinguishing honor upon the
government by accepting its bounty; to allow the murder of an American
citizen, of whatever character or degree, to go unpunished,--these are
not things pleasant to contemplate. It may be a duty to administer
Indian affairs in this way; but it must be a duty far more disagreeable
to any man of spirit than would be a call to take part in the punishment
of the savages, at no more than the personal risk usually incident to a
campaign. And yet, in the face of all this, we do not hesitate to say
that the general course of the government in such dealings as have been
described above is expedient and humane, just and honorable. This is a
proposition, which, in the view of such admissions as have been made,
may seem to impose a formidable burden of proof; yet is it not only
consistent with the highest reason of the case, but susceptible of very
simple and direct demonstration.

In the first place, it should be remarked that there can be no question
of national dignity involved in the treatment of savages by a civilized
power. The proudest Anglo-Saxon will climb a tree with a bear behind
him, and deem not his honor, but his safety, compromised by the
situation. With wild men, as with wild beasts, the question whether to
fight, coax, or run, is a question merely of what is easiest or safest
in the situation given. Points of dignity only arise between those who
are, or assume to be, equals. Indeed, nothing is at times so
contemptuous as compliance. It indicates not merely a consciousness of
strength, but of strength so superior as to decline comparison or
contest.

Grant that some petty Sioux chief believes that the government of the
United States feeds him and his lazy followers out of fear, or out of
respect for his greatness: what then? It will not be long before the
agent of the government will be pointing out the particular row of
potatoes which his majesty must hoe before his majesty can dine. The
people of the United States surely are great enough, and sufficiently
conscious of their greatness, to indulge a little longer the
self-complacent fancies of those savage tribes, if by that means a
desolating war may be avoided.

And in this we shall only do what other nations have done, and esteemed
themselves wise in doing. The Greeks and Romans, except in periods of
ambitious frenzy, recognized the fruitlessness and folly of fighting
absolute savages, and did not scruple, in the height of their conquering
pride, to keep the peace with Scythians and Parthians as best they
could. The English, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, in their
American colonies, only fought the natives when for their purposes they
must, preserving the peace when they could by presents, and even by
tribute. Statesmen who would have embroiled Europe on a question of
dinner-etiquette have fully recognized the principle that there could be
no issue of dignity between a civilized power and a band of
irresponsible savages, and have submitted, without any feeling of
degradation, to demands the most unreasonable, urged in terms the most
insolent.

Nor is there any savor of treachery in the government thus biding its
time. In this the government simply, from a wise consideration of the
exposed situation of the settlements, refrains from the full exercise of
the authority which it claims. It in no wise deceives the Indians, but
only indulges their illusion till the time comes when the illusion must
be broken. It watches the troubled sleep of the maniac, ready to
restrain his violence if he wakes, yet mercifully willing that he should
remain unconscious. And this forbearance of the government is not less
kind to the aborigines than to those of our citizens who are building
their homes within reach of the red man's hand. If the savages--Sioux,
Kiowas, Cheyennes, Comanches, whom the United States are thus playing
with--realized in any adequate measure what the next few years have in
store for them, how completely they will be surrounded and disarmed, how
certainly they will be forced to labor like squaws for their bread, how
stringently the government will enforce its requirements when their
power of resistance shall have departed; it is inconceivable but that,
in their present temper, ignorant as they are of the real resources of
the whites, and conscious that they can still bring eight thousand
warriors into the field, they would precipitate a contest which, though
it would involve untold misery to our border population, must inevitably
end in their own destruction.

If, then, there is nothing inconsistent with national dignity or honor
in thus temporizing with hostile savages, it certainly can be shown to
be in a high degree compatible with the interests and the welfare of all
the white communities which are, by their advanced position, placed at
the mercy of the Indians. Thousands and even tens of thousands of our
citizens are now living within reach of the first murderous outbreak of
a general Indian war. Since 1868, when the trans-continental railroad
was completed, population has found its way into regions to which the
rate of progress previously maintained would not in fifty years have
carried it,--into nooks and corners which five years ago were scarcely
known to trappers and guides. Instead of exposing to Indian contact, as
heretofore, a clearly defined frontier line, upon two or three faces,
our settlements have penetrated the Western country in every direction
and from every direction, creeping along the course of every stream,
seeking out every habitable valley, following up every indication of
gold among the ravines and mountains, clinging around the reservations
of the most formidable tribes, and even making lodgement at a hundred
points on lands secured by treaty to the Indians. Even where the limit
of settlement in any direction has apparently, for the time, been
reached, we learn of some solitary ranchman or miner who has made his
home still farther down the valley or up the mountain, far beyond sight
or call.

It is upon men thus exposed, without hope of escape or chance of
resistance, that the first wrath of a general Indian war would break. No
note of recall would avert their doom. Long before friendly runners
could reach them, the war-whoop would be in their ears; and alone,
unfriended, undefended, unaided, they would perish, as hundreds and
thousands of our countrymen have perished, at the hands of the
infuriated savages. But it is not alone the solitary ranchmen who would
be swept away on the first onset of Indian attack. Scores of valleys up
which population has been steadily creeping would be instantly
abandoned; streams that now, from source to mouth, resound the stroke of
the pioneer's axe, would be left desolate on the first rumor of war; a
hundred outlying settlements would disappear in a night, as the tidings
of outbreak and massacre were borne along by hurrying fugitives. As the
blood retreats, on the signal of danger, from the extremities to the
heart, so would population retire, terror-struck and precipitate, from
the frontier on the first shock of war. Towns, even, would be
abandoned; and the frightened inhabitants, men, women, and children,
cumbered with household stuff and overdriven stock, would crowd within
the shelter of garrisons hardly adequate for their defence.

There could be but one plea on which such considerations as these might
be disregarded; and that would be the plea that such forbearance and
indulgence on the part of the United States towards the savages only
encouraged them to increased insolence and incited them to fresh
outrages, rendering the situation less and less tolerable, and in the
end involving greater sacrifice of life than would a prompt vindication
of the authority of the government, once for all, however disastrous in
the immediate result it might prove to existing settlements. If the
policy of temporizing which has been described does indeed only serve at
the last to aggravate the evil, and by a false appearance of peace to
draw within the reach of Indian massacre larger numbers of whites, then
it is plainly the duty of the government to recall, as far as may be,
its citizens from the exposed frontier, and, at whatever expense of
blood and treasure, make issue with the savages, and forever close the
question by the complete conquest and reduction of all the hostile or
dangerous tribes. But no assumption could be farther from the facts of
the case than that the effect of lenity has been to increase the sum of
Indian outrage. There is no _scintilla_ of evidence to show that any
savage tribe has been incited by the forbearance of the government to
increased depredations. On the contrary, the history of the past three
years has shown a steady decline in the number of robberies and murders
reported on the frontier.

If a humane consideration of the exposed condition of our frontier
settlements requires the continuance of the policy of buying off the
hostile and dangerous tribes, it is also true that the argument from
economy equally favors this action on the part of the government.
Expensive as is the Indian service as at present conducted in the
interest of peace, it costs far less than fighting. What would be the
expense of a general Indian war, which should seek the complete
subjugation of the tribes which we have described as potentially
hostile, it is impossible to compute within a hundred millions of
dollars; but it would undoubtedly reach an aggregate not much short of
that of the year of largest preparations and largest operations during
the rebellion. Does this seem extravagant, impossible? Words of truth
and soberness on such a subject surely might be expected from a
commission comprising such men as Gens. Sherman, Harney, Augur, and
Terry of the regular army of the United States. Yet these officers
united in a report rendered to the President on the 7th of January,
1868, in which they use the following language in reference to the
"Chivvington massacre" and the Cheyenne war of 1864:--

     "No one will be astonished that a war ensued which cost the
     government thirty million dollars, and carried conflagration
     and death to the border settlements. During the spring and
     summer of 1865, no less than eight thousand troops were
     withdrawn from the effective force engaged in suppressing the
     Rebellion, to meet this Indian war. The result of the year's
     campaign satisfied all reasonable men that war with Indians
     was useless and expensive. Fifteen or twenty Indians had been
     killed at an expense of more than a million dollars apiece,
     while hundreds of our soldiers had lost their lives, many of
     our border settlers had been butchered, and their property
     destroyed."

This was the experience of the United States in a contest with an Indian
tribe numbering perhaps four thousand men, women, and children, and able
to bring into the field not one-fifth as many warriors as the Sioux
bands of to-day. Not to go back to wars waged with tribes now subjugated
or extinct, were we to cast up the expenditures involved in the Sioux
war of 1852-1854, the Cheyenne war of 1864 just referred to, the Navajo
war, the second Sioux war in 1866, the second Cheyenne war in 1867, we
should undoubtedly reach a total greatly exceeding one hundred millions
of dollars. Yet these wars sought only the submission of individual
tribes to single demands of the government, and effected, generally,
something less than that. It has been shown that the actual expense of
the so-called "peace policy" is measured by the increase of the average
expenditures of the period 1869 to 1872 over the average expenditures of
the period preceding, that increase being about three millions of
dollars. This is the sum which is to be compared with the cost of a war
which should seek to reduce all the Indian tribes of the continent to
complete submission by force of arms, instead of awaiting their gradual,
and in the main peaceful reduction through the advance of population and
the extension of railways.

We have thus far treated the policy of the government towards the
dangerous tribes as one not requiring the use of the military arm in
any emergency short of an actual outbreak. We have done so, first, that
we might encounter the full effect of the objections to the plan of
concession and conciliation; and, secondly, because we hold it true,
that, when the alternative is between allowing a considerable degree of
insolence and outrage to go unpunished, and entailing upon the
Territories a general Indian war, duty and interest require the
government to go to the last point of endurance and forbearance with the
savages. But this alternative is not always presented: it is often
practicable to repress and punish violence, without exposing the
settlements to the horrors of massacre. Whenever this can be done, it is
scarcely necessary to say it should be done, and done effectually. The
feature of the present Indian policy of the government which allows this
to be done without incurring general Indian war is known as the
reservation system,--a system shrewdly devised to meet the known
weaknesses of the Indian character. By it extensive tracts have been set
apart for the warlike tribes, within which they may pursue all their
customs and habits of life, and indulge themselves in savagery, being
also subsisted thereon to the extent of their actual necessities, but
outside of which bands or parties are liable to be struck by the
military at any time, without warning, and without any implied hostility
to those members of the tribe who remain on their reservation, and
deport themselves according to the conditions of the compact. The
brilliant campaign of Gen. Crook in Arizona during the past season has
been prosecuted with the most scrupulous observance of the reservation
system, as marked out by the government, and accepted by the Indians
themselves. Such a use of the military arm constitutes no abandonment of
the "peace policy," and involves no disparagement of it. Military
operations thus conducted are not in the nature of war, but of
discipline, and are so recognized by the tribes whose marauding bands
and parties are scourged back to the reservations by the troops. The
effect of all this is something more than negative. It does not merely
serve to chastise offending individuals and parties without a breach of
peace with the tribe; but it is made the means of impressing the less
enterprising Indians with an increasing sense of the power of the
government. It was not to be expected that the entire body of a warlike
tribe would consent to be restrained in their Ishmaelitish proclivities
without a struggle on the part of the more audacious to maintain their
traditional freedom. The reservation system allows this issue to be
fought out between our troops and the more daring of the savages,
without involving in the contest tribes with which our army in its
present numbers is wholly inadequate to cope.

Nor will the full effect of this consideration be appreciated if it be
not borne in mind that the Indian is intensely susceptible to severe
punishment. His own wars are so bloodless, his skirmishing tactics so
cowardly and resultless, that the savage fighting of the whites, their
eagerness for close quarters, and their deadly earnestness when engaged
hand to hand, impress him with a strange terror. With him, as with all
persons and peoples in whom the imagination is predominant, the effect
of disaster is not measured by the actual loss and suffering entailed,
but by the source, the shape, the suddenness, of it. Indeed, it is
astonishing how completely the spirit of an Indian tribe may be broken
by a catastrophe which does not necessarily impair its fighting power.

Nor even is it necessary that the Indian's sense of justice should be
met by the chastisement received. Undiscriminating in his own revenge,
he does not look for nicely measured retribution on the part of his
enemy. Hence it is that certain of the so-called--and sometimes properly
so called--massacres perpetrated by the army, or by frontier militia,
have had very different results from what would have been predicted by
persons familiar only with habits of thought and feeling among our own
people.[D] Injustice and cruelty exasperate men of our race; but the
Indian is never other than cruel and unjust under resentment. Let him
feel that he has been injured by a white man, and he will tomahawk the
first white man he meets, without a thought whether his victim be guilty
or innocent. Let him suffer at the hand of a member of a neighboring
tribe, and he will lie all day in wait for another member of that tribe
with just as much anticipation of gratified hate as if he awaited the
footsteps of the wrong-doer. Nay, let him have a feud with one of his
own blood, and he will devote the speechless babes of his enemy to his
infernal malice. Here, undoubtedly, we find the explanation of the fact
that massacres, damnable in plot and circumstance, have struck such
deadly and lasting terror into tribes of savages; while, occurring
between nations of whites, they would have kindled the flames of war to
inextinguishable fury.

       *       *       *       *       *

We have thus far treated the question, What shall be done with the
Indian as an obstacle to the progress of railways and of
settlements?--to the exclusion of the inquiry, What shall be done to
promote his advancement in industry and the arts of life?--not merely
because, for all those tribes and bands to which the first question
applies (i. e. those which are potentially hostile, and towards which
the government is, as we have attempted to show, bound in interest and
humanity to exercise great forbearance till they shall cease to be
formidable to the settlements and to the pioneers of settlement), that
question is, in logical order, precedent to any discussion of methods to
be taken to educate and civilize them; but also because it is in effect
likewise precedent to any deliberate, comprehensive, and permanent
adjustment of the difficulties experienced in treating the Indian tribes
which are neither hostile in disposition nor formidable by reason of
their situation or their numbers. So long as the attention of the
executive department is occupied by efforts to preserve the peace; so
long as Congress is asked yearly to appropriate three millions of
dollars to feed and clothe insolent savages; so long as the public mind
is exasperated by reports of Indian outrages occurring in any section of
the country,--so long will it be vain to expect an adequate treatment of
the question of Indian civilization.

It must not be understood that nothing is being done for the industrial
and moral instruction of the peaceful and more advanced tribes[E]
pending the reduction of their turbulent brethren to terms; but the
efforts, and expenditures of the present time fall far short of the
completeness and consistency necessary to constitute a system. Much that
is doing is in compliance with treaty stipulations, and hence is well
done, whether it have any practical result or not. Much, again, of what
is doing, although so inadequate to the necessities of the situation as
to yield no positive results, is preventing waste by keeping up
established services and agencies, and, in a measure, preserving the
character and habits of the Indians from further deterioration. Much,
still, is in the way of experiment, from which may be derived many
valuable principles and suggestions for the treatment of the Indian
question on the larger scale which will be necessary in the future.
Much, however, it must be confessed, is done out of an uneasy desire to
do something for this unfortunate people, or in generous response to
appeals from persons in official or private station who have chanced to
become particularly interested in the welfare of individual tribes and
bands, and thereafter fail not (small blame to them) to beset Congress
and the departments for special consideration and provision for their
_proteges_. It can scarcely need to be remarked, that these are not the
ways to constitute a system.

It is a question not a little perplexing, What shall be done with the
Indian when he shall be thrown helpless on our government and people?
What _has_ been done with tribes and bands which have reached this
condition has been, as we have said, of every description; and the
results have been not less various. We have had guardianship of the
strictest sort. We have tried industrial experiments on more than one
plan, and have attempted the thorough industrial education of Indian
communities as a security for their social advancement. We have, on
other occasions, let the Indian severely alone just so soon as it was
ascertained that his power for harm had ceased, and have left him to
find his place in the social and industrial scale; to become fisherman,
lumberman, herdsman, menial, beggar, or thief, according to aptitude or
accident, or the wants of the community at large. True it is that the
modes adopted, in fact, in dealing with particular tribes, have
generally been due to chance or to the caprices of administration; true,
also, that the experiments which have been made do not reflect much
credit on the sagacity of the superior race to which have been intrusted
the destinies of the red man: but there has been a vast amount of
good-nature and benevolent intention exhibited; the experiments have
been in many directions, and have covered a large field; and while the
results, in the manifest want of adaptation of means to ends, and of
operations to material, cannot be deemed wholly conclusive of the
philosophy of the situation, yet very much can be learned from them that
bears upon the questions of the present day. As has been stated, the
issues of the experiments tried have been of every kind. To assertions
that the Indian cannot be civilized, can be opposed instances of Indian
communities which have attained a very considerable degree of
advancement in all the arts of life. To the more cautious assertion,
that, while the tribes which subsist chiefly on a vegetable diet are
susceptible of being tamed and improved, the meat-eating Indians, the
buffalo and antelope hunters, are hopelessly intractable and savage, can
be opposed instances of such tribes which, in an astonishingly short
time, have been influenced to abandon the chase, to undertake
agricultural pursuits, to labor with zeal and patience, to wear white
man's clothes, send their children to school, attend church on Sunday,
and choose their officers by ballot. To the assertion that the Indian,
however seemingly reclaimed, and for a time regenerated, still retains
his savage propensities and animal appetites, and will sooner or later
relapse into barbarism, can be opposed instances of slow and steady
growth in self-respect and self-control, extending over two generations,
without an indication of the tendencies alleged. To assertions that the
Indian cannot resist either physical or moral corruption by contact with
the whites, that he inevitably becomes subject to the baser elements of
civilized communities, that every form of infectious or contagious
disease becomes doubly fatal to him, and that he learns all the vices
but none of the virtues of society, can be opposed instances of tribes
which have freely mingled with the whites without debasement, and have
acquired the arts of civilized life with no undue proportion of its
evils. To the assertion that the Indian must gradually decline in
numbers and decay in strength, his life fading out before the intenser
life which he encounters, can be offered instances of the steady
increase in population of no small number of tribes and bands in
immediate contact with settlements, and subject to the full force of
white influence.

And yet it is undeniably true that many of the experiments have failed
in a greater or less degree; that in some cases the Indians most
neglected have done better for themselves than those who have received
the care and bounty of the government; that many tribes and bands which
had apparently emerged from their barbarous condition have miserably
fallen back into sloth and vicious habits; that the meat-eaters, who
constitute the bulk of the tribes with which the latest advances of our
settlements and railways have brought us in contact, are exceptionally
wild and fierce; that the experiment of Indian civilization has far more
chances of success when it is tried under conditions that allow of
freedom from excitement, and thorough seclusion from foreign influences;
and, finally, that Indian blood, thus far in the history of the country,
has tended decidedly towards extinction.

The Board of Indian Commissioners, in their Report for 1872, make the
statement that "nearly five-sixths of all the Indians of the United
States and Territories are now either civilized or partially civilized."
(Report, p. 3.) The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in his report of the
same date, places the number of reclaimed savages somewhat lower,
dividing the three hundred thousand Indians within the limits of the
United States as follows: civilized, ninety-seven thousand;
semi-civilized, one hundred and twenty-five thousand; wholly barbarous,
seventy-eight thousand. He is, however, careful to explain that the
division is made "according to a standard taken with reasonable
reference to what might fairly be expected of a race with such
antecedents and traditions." Perhaps, on a strict construction of the
word "semi-civilized," the Indian Office might assent to take off twenty
or thirty thousand from the number stated.

We all know what a savage Indian is. What is a civilized Indian?--what a
semi-civilized Indian? To what degree of industry, frugality, and
sobriety can the Indian be brought? How well does he repay efforts and
expenditures for his enlightenment and his advancement in the arts of
life? How far does he hold his own when once fairly started on his
course by the bounty of the government or by philanthropic enterprise,
instructed and equipped, with no obstacles in his way, and with no
interruptions from without? What, in short, may we reasonably expect
from this people? What have they done for themselves? or what has been
done with them in the past? It is doubtful whether zeal or ignorance is
more responsible for the confusion which exists in the public mind in
respect to this entire matter of Indian civilization. The truth will be
best shown by examples.

The Cherokees, who originally owned and occupied portions of the States
of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, have now a reservation of nearly
four million acres in the tract known as the Indian Territory. They
number about fifteen thousand, and are increasing. They have their own
written language, their national constitution and laws, their churches,
schools, and academies, their judges and courts. Their dwellings consist
of five hundred frame and three thousand five hundred log houses. During
the year 1872 they raised three million bushels of corn, besides large
quantities of wheat, oats, and potatoes, their aggregate crops being
greater than those of New Mexico and Utah combined. Their stock consists
of sixteen thousand horses, seventy-five thousand neat-cattle, one
hundred and sixty thousand hogs, and nine thousand sheep. It is
needless, after such an enumeration of stock and crops, to say that they
not only support themselves, but sell largely to neighboring communities
less disposed to agriculture. The Cherokees have sixty schools in
operation, with an aggregate attendance of two thousand one hundred and
thirty-three scholars. Three of these schools are maintained for the
instruction of their former <DW64> slaves. All orphans of the tribe are
supported at the public expense. The Cherokees are the creditors of the
United States in the sum of a million seven hundred and sixteen thousand
dollars, on account of lands and claims ceded and relinquished by them.
The interest on this sum is annually paid by the treasurer of the United
States to "the treasurer of the Cherokee nation," to be used under the
direction of the national council for objects prescribed by law or
treaty.

From the statements made above, all upon the authority of official
reports, it will doubtless appear to every candid reader that the
Cherokees are entitled to be ranked among civilized communities. Their
condition is far better than that of the agricultural classes of
England; and they are not inferior in intelligence or in the ability to
assert their rights.

There are in the Indian Territory several other important tribes, and a
number of small and broken bands, aggregating forty or forty-five
thousand persons, who are in the same general condition as the
Cherokees, and are equally--though not, perhaps, in every case, with
quite as much emphasis--entitled to be called civilized. Nor are the
Indians of this class confined to the Indian Territory so called. They
are found in Kansas and Nebraska, in New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota, and upon the Pacific coast. The ninety or one hundred
thousand Indians thus characterized will bear comparison, on the three
points of industry, frugality, and sobriety, with an equal population
taken bodily out of any agricultural district in the Southern or border
States. In general intelligence and political aptitude they are still
necessarily below the lowest level of American citizenship, if we
exclude the newly-enfranchised element and the poor white population of
a few districts of the South.

It is just and proper to call an Indian semi-civilized, no matter how
humble his attainments, when he has taken one distinct, unmistakable
step from barbarism; since "it is the first step that costs."

The Sioux of the Lake Traverse agency in Dakota number about fifteen
hundred,--to be exact, fourteen hundred and ninety-six. These were of
the Indians of Minnesota, and escaped to the West after the massacre of
1862, though claiming to have been innocent of participation in it.
They are genuine specimens of the Indian race in its pure form. They
have within three or four years made considerable progress in
agriculture. Nearly all the men have of choice adopted the dress of the
whites. Great interest is manifested in the education of the children of
the tribe: four schools are in operation, with an attendance of one
hundred and twenty-three scholars; and two more schoolhouses are in
course of erection. By the provisions of the treaty of 1867, only the
sick, the infirm, aged widows, and orphans of tender years, are to be
supported by the government. The number thus enrolled for subsistence
during the past year was six hundred and sixty, made up as follows:
ninety-two men, aged, infirm, blind, crippled, &c.; two hundred and
sixty-four women of various conditions; one hundred and eighteen
children under seven years; one hundred and eighty-six children between
seven and sixteen years. The remainder of the tribe supported themselves
fully by their own labor. The agent says, "It is highly gratifying to be
able to report commendable progress in agriculture by these Sisseton and
Wahpeton Sioux on this reservation, who, almost to a man, have become
fully satisfied that they cannot any longer rely upon the chase, but
must of necessity turn their attention to the cultivation of the soil
and stock-growing, for the future, as the only reliable source of
subsistence. Many of them have learned to work; and some of them have
learned to love to work as well; and they evidently enjoy the labor of
their hands."

Tribes which show a higher actual attainment might have been taken for
illustration out of the semi-civilized list; but these have been chosen,
first, because they are meat-eating Indians, and secondly, because the
plan of partial support adopted with them is the one most likely to be
applied to all the Sioux bands, as fast as the government shall find
itself in a position peremptorily to control their actions and
movements.

Again: we select the Pawnees, numbering twenty-four hundred and
forty-seven, for illustration, for the reason that they have been long
distinguished over all the plains for their warlike power and ferocity,
yet, under the care and instruction of the government, have within three
years made a great degree of progress in three most important respects,
as follows:--

First, while the Pawnees, from their situation, are still enabled and
disposed to go upon the summer hunt, they are already engaged to a small
extent, and with encouraging success, in the raising of vegetables and
garden products, and even of corn and wheat. Two hundred and ten acres
were planted by them last year in the several crops.

Second, while the chiefs and braves of the tribe still look to their
traditional resource of hunting, the children of the tribe generally are
being carefully instructed in letters and in labor. The day-schools and
the manual-labor schools of the Pawnees have elicited the most
enthusiastic praise from all persons, official or private, who have
visited the reservation.

Third,--and this is a point to which we ask special attention, as
indicating capabilities of higher things than are usually credited of
Indians,--the inveterate and ferocious animosities of the Pawnees toward
the Brule Sioux have been so far sacrificed to the requirements of the
government and the personal entreaties of their agent, that the past
summer witnessed the phenomenon, astonishing to all who were cognizant
of the deadly feuds existing for generations between these tribes, of
Pawnees and Brules hunting almost side by side, the camp-fires of both
being distinctly visible upon the same plain, without a murder being
committed, or so much as a horse stolen, by either party.

       *       *       *       *       *

If, then, we may assume that Indian civilization is not altogether
impossible, let us inquire what should be the policy of the government
towards the Indian tribes when they cease to be dangerous to our
frontier population, and to oppose the progress of settlement, either by
violence or by menace. In such a discussion, we are bound to have a
reasonable consideration for the interests of the white man as well as
for the rights of the red man, but above all to defer to whatever
experience declares in respect to the conditions most favorable to the
growth of self-respect and self-restraint in minds so strangely and
unfortunately constituted as is the mind of the North American Indian.

_First._ The reservation system should be made the general and permanent
policy of the government. By this is meant something more than that the
Indians should not be robbed of their lands in defiance of treaty
stipulations, or that the Indian title should be respected, and the
Indians maintained in possession until they can be made ready to cede
their lands to the government, or to sell them, with the consent of the
government, to the whites. The proposition is that the United States, as
the only power competent to receive such lands by cession, or to
authorize their sale, should formally establish the principle of
separation and seclusion, without reference to the wishes either of the
Indians or of encroaching whites; should designate by law an ample and
suitable reservation for each tribe and band not entitled by treaty; and
should, in any reductions thereafter requiring to be made, provide that
such reductions shall be by cutting off distinct portions from the
outside, and not in such a way as to allow veins of white settlement to
be injected, no matter whether along a stream or along a railway.

The principle of secluding Indians from whites for the good of both
races is established by an overwhelming preponderance of authority.
There are no mysterious reasons why this policy should be adopted: the
considerations which favor it are plain and incontestable. The first is
the familiar one, that the Indian is unfortunately disposed to submit
himself to the lower and baser elements of civilized society, and to
acquire the vices and not the virtues of the whites. This need not be
dwelt upon; but there is still another consideration even more
important, yet not generally apprehended. It is that an Indian tribe is
a singularly homogeneous body,[F] and, if not disturbed by the intrusion
of alien and discordant elements, is susceptible of being governed and
controlled with the greatest ease and effect. It is not necessary to
point out the ways in which this peculiarity of the Indian character
assists the agent of the government in his administration of a tribe, or
to show how much more complete it makes his success, as, little by
little, he is able, through the authority of the government, and the
means of moral education at his disposal, to effect a change for the
better in the public sentiment of the people under his charge.

The number of Indians now having reservations secured to them by law or
treaty is approximately 180,000. The number of such reservations is 92,
ranging in extent from 288 acres to 40,750 square miles, and aggregating
167,619 square miles. Of these reservations, 31, aggregating 2,693
square miles, are east of the Mississippi River; 42, aggregating
144,838 square miles, are between the Mississippi and the Rocky
Mountains; and 19, aggregating 20,068 square miles, are upon the Pacific
<DW72>. In addition to the above, 40,000 Indians, having no lands secured
to them by treaty, have had reservations set apart for them by executive
order, out of the public lands of the United States. The number of
reservations thus set apart is 15, aggregating 59,544 square miles. The
Indians thus located have, however, in the nature of the case, no
assurance of their occupation of these lands beyond the pleasure of the
executive.[G]

It must be evident to every one, on the simple statement of such facts
as these, that the reservations, as at present constituted, do not
consist with the permanent interests of either the Indian or the
government. There are too many reservations: they occupy too much
territory in the aggregate; and, what is worse, some of them
unnecessarily obstruct the natural access of population to portions of
territory not reserved, while others, by their neighborhood, render
large tracts of otherwise available land undesirable for white
occupation. Indeed, it may be said that the present arrangement of
reservations would constitute an almost intolerable affliction, were it
to be maintained without change. Nor are the interests of the Indians
any better served by the existing order. Many tribes, even were they
disposed to agriculture, would not find suitable land within the limits
assigned to them. Others are in a position to be incessantly disturbed
and harassed by the whites. Others still, while they stand across the
path of settlement, are themselves, by ill-considered treaty provisions,
cut off from access to hunting-grounds, to fishing privileges, or to
mountains abounding in natural roots and berries, which would be of the
greatest value to them. When it is considered that the present body of
reservations is the result of hundreds of treaties, made, too often, on
the part of the government with ignorance and heedlessness, and on the
part of the Indians with the childishness characteristic of the race,
both parties being not infrequently deceived and betrayed by the
interpreters employed; when it is considered, moreover, that many of
these treaties have been negotiated in emergencies requiring immediate
action,--it would be wonderful indeed if the scheme as it stood were not
cumbersome and ineffective.

It is manifest, therefore, that the next five or ten years must witness
a general recasting of the scheme of Indian reservations. This is not to
be accomplished by confiscating the Indian title, but by exchange, by
cession, and by consolidation. Let Congress provide the necessary
authority, under the proper limitations, for the executive departments,
and the adjustment desired can be reached easily and amicably.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Second._ It is further evident, that, in recasting the scheme of
reservations, the principal object should be, while preserving distinct
the boundaries of every tribe, so to locate them that the territory
assigned to the Indians west of the Mississippi shall constitute one or
two grand reservations, with, perhaps, here and there a channel cut
through, so to speak, by a railroad, so that the industries of the
surrounding communities may not be unduly impeded. Such a consolidation
of the Indian tribes into one or two great bodies would leave all the
remaining territory of the United States open to settlement, without
obstruction or molestation.

Shall there be one general reservation east of the Rocky Mountains, or
two? This is likely to be the most important Indian question of the
immediate future. On the one hand, the recommendations of the executive,
contained in both the Messages of the President and the Annual Reports
of the Secretary of the Interior, for the past two or three years, have
strongly favored the plan of a single reservation for all the tribes,
North and South, East and West, who are not in a condition to become at
an early day citizens of the United States and take their land in
severalty. The reservation upon which it is proposed to thus collect the
Indians of the United States is at present known as the "Indian
Territory," although it actually contains but about one-quarter of the
Indian population of the country. This tract covers all the territory
lying between the States of Arkansas and Missouri on the east, and the
one-hundredth meridian on the west, and between the State of Kansas on
the north, and the Red River, the boundary of the State of Texas, on the
south; comprising about seventy thousand square miles, and embracing a
large body of the best agricultural lands west of the Mississippi. Upon
this tract, it is claimed, can be gathered and subsisted all the Indians
within the administrative control of the government, except such as are
manifestly becoming ripe for citizenship in the States and Territories
where they are now found. Computing the maximum number likely, on the
successful realization of this scheme to be thus concentrated, at two
hundred and fifty thousand, and taking the available lands within the
district, exclusive of barren plains, of flint hills and sand hills, at
an aggregate of thirty million acres, we should have one hundred and
twenty acres for each man, woman, and child to be provided for.

On the other hand, the original plan of Indian colonization, as
contained in the report of Secretary Calhoun, accompanying the message
of President Monroe, Jan. 27, 1825, contemplated two general
reservations,--one in the North-west for the Indians of Algonquin and
Iroquois stock, and another (being the present Indian Territory) in the
South-west for the Appalachian Indians. The ethnographical symmetry of
that plan has been hopelessly violated by the introduction into the
Indian Territory, and even the incorporation with the Southern tribes,
of individuals, broken bands, and even entire tribes, originally from
the North and North-east. The bulk of the Shawnees, an Algonquin tribe,
are actually incorporated with the Cherokees; two hundred of the
Senecas, the very flower of the conquering Iroquois,[H] occupy a small
reservation in the north-eastern part of the Territory; while the
remnants of the Quapaws, Ottawas, Peorias, Kaskaskias, Weas,
Piankeshaws, Pottawatomies, and of the Sacs and Foxes,--all Algonquin
tribes,--are found injected at various points along the northern and
eastern frontier. At the same time, the south-western portion of the
Territory is given up to tribes which are neither Algonquin, Iroquois,
nor Appalachian in their original, but are of the races living
immemorially beyond the Mississippi. It will thus appear that nothing
like an ethnographical distribution of tribes has been attempted; and,
indeed, these distinctions have long ceased, with the Indians
themselves, to be of the slightest significance. But many of the
physiological and practical reasons urged by Secretary Calhoun for a
double Indian reservation still remain in full force. Nor does this
scheme rest upon his authority alone. The Peace Commission of 1867 and
1868, consisting of Indian Commissioner Taylor, Senator Henderson, Gens.
Sherman, Harney, Terry, and Augur, of the army, and Messrs. Sanborn and
Tappan, concurred in the recommendation of two reservations for tribes
east of the Rocky Mountains.

We are disposed to hold, not only that the reason of the case inclines
to the plan of two general reservations, but that the matter will be
settled practically in that way by the aversion and horror which the
Northern Indians feel at the thought of moving to the South. Regarding
the Indian Territory, as they do, though with no sufficient reason, as
the graveyard of their race, there is ground for apprehension that, if
the project be too suddenly sprung upon them, or pressed too far, the
repugnance of some of these tribes may culminate in outbreaks like those
with which the Black Hawk and Seminole wars commenced. There can,
however, be no objection to the experiment being tried in such a way as
not to endanger the peace. Certain of the Northern tribes, notably the
confederated Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and the confederated Arickarees
and Mandans, manifest much less antipathy to removal than others, by
reason of their relationship to Indians South, or of exceptional
inconveniences sustained in their present location. If such tribes could
be amicably induced to go to the Indian Territory, their experiences, if
fortunate, might serve in time to remove the prejudices existing among
the Northern Indians generally.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Third._ The intrusion of whites upon lands reserved to Indians should
be provided against by legislation suited to the necessities of the
case. By the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 it was made a criminal
offence to enter without authority the limits of any Indian reservation;
and the prohibition was enforced by penalties adequate to the situation
at that time. This provision, however, was aimed at individual
intruders, rather than at organized expeditions completely equipped for
offence or defence, and strong enough to maintain themselves against
considerable bands of the savages, or the ordinary _posse comitatus_ of
a distant Territory. It is in the latter form that the invasion of
Indian country now generally takes place;[I] and for the purpose of
resisting such organized lawlessness, the Act of 1834 is far from
sufficient. The executive may, it is true, in an extreme case, and by
the exercise of one of the highest acts of authority, make proclamation
forbidding such combinations, and enforce the same by movements of
troops, as would be done in the case of a threatened invasion of the
soil of a neighboring friendly state. But this remedy is of such a
violent nature, the odium and inconvenience occasioned thereby are so
great, and the lawful limits of official action in such a resort are so
ill-defined, that the executive is most unlikely to make use of it,
except in rare and extreme cases. The eagerness of the average American
citizen of the Territories for getting upon Indian lands amounts to a
passion. The ruggedest flint hill of the Cherokees or Sioux is sweeter
to him than the greenest pasture which lies open to him under the
homestead laws of the United States. There is scarcely one of the
ninety-two reservations at present established on which white men have
not effected a lodgement: many swarm with squatters, who hold their
place by intimidating the rightful owners; while in more than one case
the Indians have been wholly dispossessed, and are wanderers upon the
face of the earth. So far have these forms of usurpation been carried at
times in Kansas, that an Indian reservation there might be defined as
that portion of the soil of the State on which the Indians have no
rights whatsoever.

Now, while it cannot be denied that there is something in all this
suggestive of the reckless daring and restless enterprise to which the
country owes so much of its present greatness, it is yet certain that
such intrusion upon Indian lands is in violation of the faith of the
United States, endangers the peace (as it has more than once enkindled
war), and renders the civilization of tribes and bands thus encroached
upon almost hopeless. The government is bound, therefore, in honor and
in interest, to provide ample security for the integrity of Indian
reservations; and this can only be done by additional and most stringent
legislation.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Fourth._ The converse of the proposition contained under the preceding
head is equally true and equally important. Indians should not be
permitted to abandon their tribal relations, and leave their
reservations to mingle with the whites, except upon express authority of
law. We mean by this something more than that a "pass system" should be
created for every tribe under the control of the government, to prevent
individual Indians from straying away for an occasional debauch at the
settlements. It is essential that the right of the authorities to keep
members of any tribe upon the reservation assigned to them, and to
arrest and return such as may from time to time wander away and seek to
ally themselves with the whites, should be definitely established, and
the proper forms and methods of procedure in such cases be fixed and
prescribed by law. Without this, whenever these people become restive
under compulsion to labor, they will break away in their old roving
spirit, and stray off in small bands to neighboring communities. No
policy of industrial education and restraint can be devised to meet the
strong hereditary disinclination of the Indian to labor and to frugality
which will not, in its first courses, tend to make him dissatisfied and
rebellious. Nothing but the knowledge that he must stay on his
reservation, and do all that is there prescribed for him; that he will
not be permitted to throw off his connection with his people, and stray
away to meet his own fate, unprovided, uninstructed, and
unrestrained,--will, under any adequate system of moral and industrial
correction and education, prevent a general breaking-up of Indian
communities, and the formation of Indian gypsy-camps all over the
frontier States and Territories, to be sores upon the public body, and
an intolerable affliction to the future society of those communities.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Fifth._ A rigid reformatory control should be exercised by the
government over the lives and manners of the Indians of the several
tribes, particularly in the direction of requiring them to learn and
practise the arts of industry, at least until one generation shall have
been fairly started on a course of self-improvement. Merely to disarm
the savages, and to surround them by forces which it is impossible for
them to resist, leaving it to their own choice how miserably they will
live, and how much they shall be allowed to escape work, is to render it
highly probable that the great majority of the now roving Indians will
fall hopelessly into a condition of pauperism and petty crime.

     "Unused to manual labor, and physically disqualified for it by
     the habits of the chase, unprovided with tools and implements,
     without forethought and without self-control, singularly
     susceptible to evil influences, with strong animal appetites,
     and no intellectual tastes or aspirations to hold those
     appetites in check, it would be to assume more than would be
     taken for granted of any white race under the same conditions,
     to expect that the wild Indians will become industrious and
     frugal except through a severe course of industrial
     instruction and exercise under restraint."--_Report on Indian
     Affairs_, 1872, p. 11.

       *       *       *       *       *

The right of the government to exact, in this particular, all that the
good of the Indian and the good of the general community may require is
not to be questioned. The same supreme law of the public safety which
to-day governs the condition of eighty thousand paupers and forty
thousand criminals, within the States of the Union, affords ample
authority and justification for the most extreme and decided measures
which may be adjudged necessary to save this race from itself, and the
country from the intolerable burden of pauperism and crime which the
race, if left to itself, will certainly inflict upon a score of future
States.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Sixth._ The provision made by the government for the partial
subsistence of Indian tribes through the long and painful transition
from the hunter life to the agricultural state, for their instruction
and equipment in industrial pursuits, and for starting them finally on a
course of full self-support and economical independence, should be
liberal and generous, even to an extreme. The experiment should not be
allowed to encounter any chances of failure which may be avoided by
expenditure of money. The claim of the Indian in this respect is of the
strongest. He has no right to prevent the settling of this continent by
a race which has not only the power to conquer, but the disposition to
improve and adorn the land which he has suffered to remain a wilderness.
Yet to some royalty upon the product of the soil the Indian is
incontestably entitled as the original occupant and possessor. The
necessities of civilization may justify a somewhat summary treatment of
his rights, but cannot justify a confiscation of them. The people of the
United States can never without dishonor refuse to respect two
considerations,--first, that the Indians were the original occupants and
owners of substantially all the territory embraced within our limits;
that their title of occupancy has been recognized by all civilized
powers having intercourse with them, and has been approved in nearly
four hundred treaties concluded by the United States with individual
tribes and bands; and, therefore, every tribe and band that is deprived
of its roaming privilege and confined to a "diminished reservation" is
clearly entitled to compensation, either directly or in the form of
expenditures for its benefit: second, that, inasmuch as the progress of
our industrial enterprise is fast cutting this people off from modes of
livelihood entirely sufficient for them, and suited to them, and is
leaving them without resource, they have a claim, on this account again,
to temporary support and to such assistance as may be necessary to place
them in a position to obtain a livelihood by means which shall be
compatible with civilization.

       *       *       *       *       *

     "Had the settlements of the United States not been extended
     beyond the frontier of 1867, all the Indians of the continent
     would to the end of time have found upon the plains an
     inexhaustible supply of food and clothing. Were the westward
     course of population to be stayed at the barriers of to-day,
     notwithstanding the tremendous inroads made upon their
     hunting-grounds since 1867, the Indians would still have hope
     of life. But another such five years will see the Indians of
     Dakota and Montana as poor as the Indians of Nevada and
     Southern California; that is, reduced to an habitual condition
     of suffering from want of food. The freedom of expansion which
     is working these results is to us of incalculable value: to
     the Indian it is of incalculable cost."--_Report on Indian
     Affairs_, 1872, p. 10.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Seventh._ It is, further, highly desirable, in order to avoid the
possibility of an occasional failure in such provision for the immediate
wants of the Indians, and for their advancement in the arts of life and
industry, and also to secure comprehensiveness and consistency in the
general scheme, that the endowments for the several tribes and bands
should be capitalized and placed in trust for their benefit, out of the
reach of accident or caprice. Annual appropriations for such purposes,
according to the humor of Congress, will of necessity be far less
effective for good than would an annual income of a much smaller amount,
arising from permanent investments.

To a considerable extent this has already been effected. For not a few
tribes and bands provision has been made by law and treaty which places
them beyond the reach of serious suffering in the future, and which, if
their income be judiciously administered, will afford them substantial
assistance towards final self-support. Stocks to the value of
$4,810,716.83-2/3 are held by the Secretary of the Interior in trust for
certain tribes; while credits to the aggregate amount of $5,905,474.59
are inscribed on the books of the United States Treasury in favor of the
same or other tribes, on account of the sales of lands, or other
consideration received by the government,[J] making a permanent
endowment of nearly ten millions of dollars, the Indians sharing in the
benefits thereof numbering in the aggregate nearly eighty thousand.
Computing the average annual return from these funds at five and
one-half per cent, we should have an assured income of five hundred and
fifty thousand dollars a year, or about seven dollars for each man,
woman, and child. Moreover, most of these tribes have still large bodies
of lands which they can dispose of sooner or later, from which funds of
twice the amount already secured may by honest and judicious management
be realized; so that, taking these eighty thousand Indians as a body,
they may be regarded as having a reasonable assurance of funds yielding
an annual income of twenty dollars a head. Their general character and
condition being considered, this may be accepted as an amply sufficient
endowment, placing their future in their own hands, giving them all the
opportunities and appliances that could reasonably be asked for them,
and securing them against the calamities and reverses which inevitably
beset the first stages of industrial progress.

Unfortunately, the same wise provision for the future has not been made
in the case of other Indians who have ceded or surrendered to the
government the main body of their lands. There is a painfully long list
of tribes that have to show for their inheritance only a guaranty on the
part of the United States of certain expenditures, more or less
beneficial, for a series of years longer or shorter, as the case may be.
The Report on Indian Affairs for 1872 (pp. 418-430) states the aggregate
of future appropriations that will be required during a limited number
of years to pay limited annuities at $15,819,310.46. The annuities
covered by this computation have from one to twenty-seven years to run
(the average term being about seven years), and embrace almost every
variety of goods and services which human ingenuity could suggest. Many
of the things stipulated to be given to the Indians, or to be done for
them, are admirable in themselves, but far in advance of the present
requirements of the tribes; and the expenditures involved are therefore
perfectly useless. Other things would be well enough if the Indians
could have every thing they wanted, but are absurd and mischievous as
taking the place of what is absolutely essential to their well-being.
Of other things embraced in the schedule of annual appropriations, it
can only be said that the Indians need them no more than a toad needs a
pocket-book. For such waste of Indian moneys the responsibility rests in
many cases upon the commissioners, who, on the part of the United
States, negotiated the treaties under which these appropriations are
annually made. Had they been half as solicitous for the future of the
Indians as they were for the attainment of the immediate object of
negotiation, the government would have been left free to apply the
amounts, to be paid in consideration for cessions, in such manner as to
make them of substantial benefit; or, better still, the amounts would
have been capitalized, and a permanent income secured. As it is, many
tribes now see approaching the termination of annuities which have for
many years been paid them with the very minimum of advantage, and have
no prospect beyond but that of being thrown, uninstructed and
unprovided, upon their own barbarous resources.

Let us illustrate. A tribe makes a treaty with the United States, ceding
the great body of their lands, and accepting a diminished reservation
sufficient for their actual occupation. In consideration, it is
provided that there shall be maintained upon the reservation, for the
term of fifteen years, at the expense of the United States, a
superintendent of teaching and two teachers, a superintendent of farming
and two farmers, two millers, two blacksmiths, a tinsmith, a gunsmith, a
carpenter, and a wagon and plough maker, with shops and material for all
these mechanical services. This "little bill" is presumably made up
without much reference to the peculiarities in character and condition
of the tribe to be benefited by the expenditures involved. As soon as
the treaty goes into effect, the United States in good faith fulfil
their part of the bargain. The shops are built, the employees enlisted;
and the government, through its agent, stands ready to civilize the
Indians to almost any extent. But, unfortunately, the Indians are not
ready to be civilized. The glow of industrial enthusiasm, which was
created by the metaphorical eloquence of the commissioners in council
dies away under the first experiment of hard work: an hour at the plough
nearly breaks the back of the wild man wholly unused to labor: his pony,
a little wilder still, jumps now on one side of the furrow and now on
the other, and finally settles the question by kicking itself free of
the galling harness, and disappears for the day. The Indian, a sadder
and wiser man, betakes himself to the chase, and thereafter only visits
the shops, maintained at so much expense by the government, to have his
gun repaired, or to get a strap or buckle for his riding-gear. But still
the treaty expenditures go on: the United States are every year loyally
furnishing what has been stipulated; and the Indian is every year one
instalment nearer the termination of all his claims upon the government.
Meanwhile, population is closing around the reservation: the animals of
the chase are disappearing before the presence of the white man, and the
sound of the pioneer's axe: scantier and scantier grow the natural means
of subsistence, fainter and fainter the attractions of the chase; and
when at last hunger drives the Indian in to the agency, made ready by
suffering to learn the white man's ways of life, the provisions of the
treaty are well-nigh expired. One, three, or five years pass. All the
instalments have been honorably paid: the appropriation committees of
Congress, with sighs of relief, cross off the name of the tribe from the
list of beneficiaries; and another body of Indians, uninstructed and
unprovided, are left to shift for themselves.

The importance of the subject will justify us in dwelling so long upon
it. Of the expenditures made within the last twenty years under treaty
stipulations, probably not one-half has been directed to uses which the
government would have chosen, had it been free to choose. It is most
melancholy thus to see the scanty patrimony of this people squandered on
worthless objects, or dissipated in efforts necessarily fruitless. The
action of Congress at its last session, in authorizing the diversion of
sums appropriated under treaty stipulations to other specific uses, at
the discretion of the President and with the consent of the Indians, is
a step in the right direction. But the time has come for a complete and
comprehensive fiscal scheme, looking to the realization from Indian
lands of the largest possible avails, and their capitalization and
investment upon terms and conditions which will secure the future of the
several tribes, so far as human wisdom may be able to feet this.

In addition to the lands held by the eighty thousand Indians who have
already been spoken of as amply endowed, there are one hundred thousand
square miles of territory yet secured by treaty to Indian tribes
aggregating one hundred thousand persons. Besides these, forty thousand
Indians enjoy, by executive order, the occupation of other sixty
thousand square miles of territory, which, or the substantial equivalent
of which, should be secured to them by law for their ultimate endowment.
It is to these lands that such a fiscal scheme as has been indicated
should be applied. The reservations assigned to tribes and bands are
generally proportioned to the needs of the Indians in a roving state,
with hunting and fishing as their chief means of subsistence. As the
Indians change to agriculture, the effect is to contract the limits of
actual occupation, rendering portions available for cession or sale,
which with proper management may be so disposed of, without impairing
the integrity of the reservation system, as to realize for nearly every
tribe and band a fund equal, _per capita_, to that of many of the
civilized tribes of the Indian Territory. But this cannot be done by
helter-skelter or haphazard administration. The subject must be taken up
as a whole, broadly considered, and intelligently treated, and the
scheme which shall be adopted thereafter be regarded as not less sacred
than the compromises of the Constitution, or than existing treaty
obligations.

For the tribes and bands having no reservations secured to them,
separate provision should be made. These number about fifty thousand
persons, deduction being made of such as already have their lands in
severalty, or as are hopelessly scattered among the settlements. Many of
these tribes and bands might, with the assistance of the government,
advantageously "buy themselves in" to the privileges of tribes already
provided for, without involving any further donation of lands.

Where it is found impracticable thus to place the unprovided bands, the
government should secure their location and endowment separately. Their
right is no less clear than the right of other tribes which had the
fortune to deal with the United States before Congress put an end to the
treaty system. We have received the soil from them; and we have
extinguished their only means of subsistence. Either consideration would
be sufficient to require us, in simple justice, to find them a place and
ways to live.

       *       *       *       *       *

The foregoing constitute what we regard as the essential features of an
Indian policy which shall seek positively and actively the reformation
of life and manners among the Indians under the control of the
government, as opposed to the policy of hastening the time when all
these tribes shall be resolved into the body of our citizenship, without
seclusion and without restraint, letting such as will, go to the dogs,
letting such as can, find a place for themselves in the social and
industrial order, the responsibility of the government or our people for
the choice of either or the fate of either being boldly denied;
suffering, meanwhile, without precaution and without fear, such
debasement in blood and manners to be wrought upon the general
population of the country as shall be incident to the absorption of this
race, relying upon the inherent vigor of our stock to assimilate much
and rid itself of more, until, in the course of a few human generations,
the native Indians, as a pure race or a distinct people, shall have
disappeared from the continent.

The reasons for maintaining that nothing less than a system of moral and
industrial education and correction can discharge the government of its
obligations to the Indians, or save the white population from an
intolerable burden of pauperism, profligacy, and petty crime, have been
presented sufficiently at length in this paper. The details of
management and instruction need not be here discussed: most of them are
within the administrative discretion of the department charged with
Indian affairs; and, where power is wanting to the department, the good
feeling of Congress may be safely trusted to give the necessary
authority. But the points which have been presented are of vital
consequence, and must, if the evils we apprehend are to be prevented, at
an early date be embodied in legislation which shall provide means and
penalties ample for its own enforcement.

Are the Indians destined to die out? Are we to make such provision as
has been indicated, or such other as the wisdom or unwisdom of the
country shall determine, for a vanishing race? Or are the original
inhabitants of the continent to be represented in the variously and
curiously composed population which a century hence will constitute the
political body of the United States? If this is to be in any appreciable
degree one of the elements of our future population, will it be by
mixture and incorporation? Or will the Indian remain a distinct type in
our museum of humanity, submitting himself to the necessities of a new
condition, adapting himself, as he may be able to do, to the laws and
customs of his conquerors, but preserving his own identity, and making
his separate contribution to the life and manners of the nation?

The answers to these questions will depend very much on the course to be
followed in the immediate future with respect to the tribes not yet
embraced within the limits of States of the Union. If, for the want of a
definite and positive policy of instruction and restraint, they are left
to scatter under the pressure of hunger, the intrusion of squatters and
prospectors, or the seductions of the settlements, there is little doubt
that the number of Indians of full blood will rapidly diminish, and the
race, as a pure race, soon become extinct. But nothing could be more
disastrous than this method of ridding the country of an undesirable
element. Not only would it be more cruel to the natives than a war of
extermination; but it would entail in the course of its accomplishment a
burden of vice, disease, pauperism, and crime upon a score of new
States, more intolerable than perpetual alarms or unintermitted war.

But if, on the other hand, the policy of seclusion shall be definitely
established by law and rigidly maintained, the Indians will meet their
fate, whatever it may be, substantially as a whole and as a pure race.
White men will still be found, so low in natural instincts, or so
alienated by misfortunes and wrongs, as to be willing to abandon
civilization, and hide themselves in a condition of life where no
artificial wants are known, and in communities where public sentiment
makes no demand upon any member for aught in the way of achievement or
self-advancement. Here such men, even now to be found among the more
remote and hostile tribes, will, unless the savage customs of adoption
are severely discountenanced by law, find their revenge upon humanity,
or escape the tyranny of social observance and requirement. Half-breeds,
bearing the names of French, English, and American employees of fur and
trading companies, or of refugees from criminal justice "in the
settlements," are to be found in almost every tribe and band, however
distant. Many of them, grown to man's estate, are among the most daring,
adventurous, and influential members of the warlike tribes, seldom
wholly free from suspicion on account of their relation on one side to
the whites, yet, by the versatility of their talents and the
recklessness of their courage, commanding the respect and the fear of
the purebloods, and, however incapable of leading the savages in better
courses, powerful in a high degree for mischief.

The white men, who, under the reservation system, are likely to become
affiliated with Indian tribes as "squaw men," are, however, probably
fewer than the Indian women who will be enticed away from their tribes
to become the cooks and concubines of ranchmen. One is surprised even
now, while travelling in the Territories, to note the number of cabins
around which, in no small families, half-breed children are playing.
However moralists or sentimentalists may look upon connections thus
formed by men who are in effect beyond the pale of society and of law,
they constitute already a distinct feature of border life; nor is any
statute likely to prevent Indian women occasionally thus straying from
their own people, or to compel their return so long as they are under
the protection of white men.

But, while the seclusion of the two races upon the frontier is certain
to be thus broken in instances which will form no inconsiderable
exception to the rule, the substantial purity of blood may be maintained
by an early adjustment of reservations, the concentration of tribes, and
the exercise of disciplinary control by their agents over the movements
of wandering parties. Whether, in such an event, the Indians, thus left
to meet their fate by themselves, with reasonable provision by the
government for their instruction in the arts of life and industry, will
waste away in strength and numbers, is a question quite too large to be
entered upon here. Popular beliefs and scientific opinion undoubtedly
contemplate the gradual if not the speedy decline of Indian tribes when
deprived of their traditional freedom of movement, pent up within limits
comparatively narrow, and compelled to uncongenial occupations. But
there is grave reason to doubt whether these causes are certain to
operate in any such degree as to involve the practical extinction of the
race within that immediate future on which we are accustomed to
speculate, and for which we feel bound to make provision. On the
contrary, there are many considerations and not a few facts which fairly
intimate a possibility that the Indian may bear restriction as well as
the <DW64> has borne emancipation; and, like the <DW64>, after a certain
inevitable loss consequent upon a change so great and violent, adapt
himself with increased vitality to new conditions. It is true that the
transition, compulsory as to a great degree it must be, from a wholly
barbarous condition of life, which remains to be effected for the eighty
to one hundred thousand Indians still outside the practical scope of the
Indian service, is likely to further reduce, for some years to come, the
aggregate number of this race; but it is not improbable that this will
be coincident with a steady increase among the tribes known as
civilized.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the foregoing discussion of the policy to be pursued in dealing with
the Indians of the United States, there has been no disposition to mince
matters, or to pick expressions. The facts and considerations deemed
essential have been presented bluntly. Some who cannot bear to hear
Indians spoken of as savages, or to contemplate the chastisement of
marauding bands, may blame our frankness. But we hold fine sentiments to
be out of place in respect to a matter like this, which in the present
is one of life and death to thousands of our own flesh and blood, and in
the future one of incalculable importance to a score of States yet to be
formed out of the territory over which the wild tribes of to-day are
roaming in fancied independence. The country has a right to the whole
naked truth,--to learn what security our fellow-citizens have for their
lives, and also to learn what becomes of the seven millions of dollars
annually collected in taxes and disbursed on Indian account.

If the case has been fairly presented, it will doubtless appear to our
readers, that, so far as the hostile and semi-hostile Indians are
concerned, the government is merely temporizing with a gigantic evil,
pocketing its dignity from considerations of humanity and economy, and
awaiting the operation of causes both sure and swift, which must within
a few years reduce the evil to dimensions in which it can be dealt with
on principles more agreeable to the ideas and ways of our people.

For the rest, it will be seen that the United States have, without much
order or comprehension, but with a vast amount of good-will, undertaken
enterprises involving considerable annual expenditures for the
advancement of individual tribes and bands, but that the true permanent
scheme for the management and instruction of the whole body of Indians
within the control of the government is yet to be created. Let it not
for a moment be pretended that the prospect is an agreeable one.
Congress and the country might well wish to be well rid of the matter.
No subject of legislation could be more perplexing and irritating; nor
can the outlay involved fail for many years to be a serious burden upon
our industry. But the nation cannot escape its responsibility for the
future of this race, soon to be thrown in entire helplessness upon our
protection. Honor and interest urge the same imperative claim. An
unfaithful treatment will only make the evil worse, the burden heavier.
In good faith and good feeling we must take up this work of Indian
civilization, and, at whatever cost, do our whole duty by this most
unhappy people. Better that we should entail a debt upon our posterity
on Indian account, were that necessary, than that we should leave them
an inheritance of shame. We may have no fear that the dying curse of the
red man, outcast and homeless by our fault, will bring barrenness upon
the soil that once was his, or dry the streams of the beautiful land
that, through so much of evil and of good, has become our patrimony; but
surely we shall be clearer in our lives, and freer to meet the glances
of our sons and grandsons, if in our generation we do justice and show
mercy to a race which has been impoverished that we might be made rich.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] From "The North American Review," April, 1873.

[B] The writer does not intend to say that the citizens of the border
States are always just or reasonable in their disposition towards the
Indians. It cannot be denied, that, in the exasperation of conflict,
they often commit atrocities rivalling those of the savages; that,
moreover, under the smart of wrong, they are very often indiscriminating
in their revenge, and do cruel injustice to peaceful bands; and that,
with the recklessness characteristic of border talk, they indulge to a
vast extent in denunciations of horrible sound. To this is added, that
in such communities are found more than the usual number of persons of a
natural malignity of disposition, often refugees from criminal justice,
who delight in committing outrages upon the exposed and helpless members
of an inferior race. The opinion which the writer has given above is
entirely consistent with the present admissions. The animosities felt
and expressed are not towards the Indians as Indians, but arise out of
the sense of injuries suffered, and the apprehension of further
suffering. Were the Indians once rendered, by the extension and
strengthening of our settlements, powerless for harm, the easy
tolerance, the rough good-nature, and the quick condonement of wrong,
which characterize pioneer communities, would speedily reconcile the
whites to their presence, and establish relations not wholly unworthy of
both parties.

[C] The relations of the Arickarees--or, as they are commonly called,
even in official reports, the 'Rees--to the government, form one of the
most instructive chapters of Indian history. In 1838 the agent for the
Upper Missouri Indian agency, in his annual report to the Department of
Indian Affairs, used the following language in respect to this tribe:--

"The Riccaras have long been notorious for their treachery and
barbarity, and, within my own recollection, have murdered and pillaged
more of our citizens than all the other tribes between the western
borders of Missouri and the heads of the Columbia River."--_Report on
Indian Affairs_, 1838-9, p. 65.

This is language which one might expect from the agent of some
exceptionally troublesome band of Sioux. But, to the contrary, in
another portion of his report (_Ib._ p. 64) the same agent says, "No
Indians ever manifested a greater degree of friendship for the whites in
general, or more respect for our government, than the Sioux." This
report was made thirty-four years ago, the limit of one human
generation. To-day the Sioux are among the most dangerous and
troublesome Indians on the hands of the government, while the Arickarees
are our fast friends and allies. Lieut.-Gen. Sheridan, in 1871, writing
of these Indians, now located at Fort Berthold, says, "They have always
been civil and well disposed, and have been repaid by the government
with neglect and starvation. Of all Indians in the country, they were
the best entitled to be looked after, and made happy and contented."
Something, clearly, has made this difference; and an inquirer would
doubtless find here an explanation of no small part of the difficulties
which the United-States Government has experienced in dealing with the
Indian tribes.

[D] To take one of the most recent examples: Col. Baker's attack upon a
Piegan camp in 1869, even though it should be held to be justified on
the ground of necessity, must be admitted to be utterly revolting in its
conception and execution. Yet no merited chastisement ever wrought more
instant and durable effects for good. The Piegans, who had been even
more wild and intractable than the Sioux, have since that affair been
orderly and peaceable. No complaints whatever are made of their conduct;
and they are apparently as good Indians as can be found among the wholly
uncivilized tribes.

[E] The Report on Indian Affairs for 1872 shows that, in addition to
physicians, clerks, cooks, herders, teamsters, laborers, and interpreters,
there are employed at all the agencies eighty-two teachers, eighty
farmers, seventy-three blacksmiths, seventy-two carpenters, twenty-two
millwrights and millers, seventeen engineers, eleven matrons of
manual-labor schools, and three seamstresses.--_Report_, pp. 68-71.

[F] We are speaking of the tribe socially, not politically. Factions and
faction wars are known to the Indian as well as to his betters.

[G] Report on Indian Affairs, 1872, p. 84.

[H] The popular and doubtless the correct use of the word "Iroquois"
confines it to the Five Nations (subsequently the Six Nations) of New
York, which during the third quarter of the seventeenth century
destroyed or dispersed successively the Hurons or Wyandots, the nation
called (for the want of a more characteristic name) the Neutral Nation,
the Andastes of the Susquehanna, and the Eries. These four large and
important peoples were closely kindred to the Five Nations; and the term
"Iroquois" was long applied to this entire family of tribes. Later in
the history of the continent, it embraced only the Five (or Six) Nations
for the best of good reasons, as this formidable confederacy had
practically annihilated all the other branches of the family. The career
of the Iroquois was simply terrific. Between 1649 and 1672 they had, as
stated, accomplished the ruin of the four tribes of their own blood,
containing in the aggregate a population far more numerous than their
own. A feeble remnant, a few score in number, of the Wyandots, now
survive, and are represented at Washington by an exceptionally shabby
white man, who has received the doubtful honor of adoption into the
tribe. These are all the recognizable remains of a nation once estimated
to contain thirty thousand. The names of the Eries, the Andastes, and
the Neutral Nation do not appear in any treaty with the United States.
Many, doubtless, from all these tribes fled to Canada. Considerable
numbers were also, according to the custom of the Five Nations, adopted
by the conquerors to make good the waste of war.

Nor did the Iroquois wait to complete the subjugation of their own
kindred, before turning their arms against their Algonquin neighbors.
The Delawares (Lenni Lenape, or Original Men) were subjugated almost
coincidently with the Hurons; and the same year which brought the
downfall of the Andastes witnessed the expulsion of the Shawnees from
the valley of the Ohio. Re-enforced in 1712 by the Tuscaroras, a warlike
tribe from the South, the Five Nations (now become the Six Nations)
carried their conquests east and west, north and south. The tribes
confronting the invaders in New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia were continually disturbed and distracted by their incursions.
Taking the part of the English in the wars against the French, they
shook all Canada with the fear of their arms, while to the west they
extended their sway to the Straits of Michilimackinac and the entrance
to Lake Superior. The height of their fame was at the close of the Old
French War in 1763. Their decline and downfall, as a power upon the
continent, followed with the briefest interval. Reduced by incessant
fighting to seventeen hundred warriors, they took the part of England
against the Colonies in 1775. The glorious and the terrible incidents of
the Indian campaigns of the Revolution are familiar as household words.
The peace of 1783 found the Iroquois broken, humbled, homeless,
helpless, before the power of the United States, whose pensioners they
then became and have since remained. The bulk of these tribes still
reside in New York, while fragments of them are found in the extreme
West, having removed under the treaty of 1838.

Such, in brief, is the history of the Iroquois. They were the scourge of
God upon the aborigines of the continent, and were themselves used up,
stock, lash, and snapper, in the tremendous flagellation which was
administered through them to almost every branch, in turn, of the great
Algonquin family. It will not do to say, that, but for the Iroquois, the
settlement of the country by the whites would not have taken place; yet
assuredly that settlement would have been longer delayed, and have been
finally accomplished with far greater expense of blood and treasure, had
not the Six Nations, not knowing what they did, gone before in savage
blindness and fury, destroying or driving out tribe after tribe which
with them might, for more than one generation at least, have stayed the
western course of European invasion.

[I] The impudent character of these invasions will be best shown by a
recital of the facts in two cases occurring within the year. In 1870-71
the Osages living in Kansas sold their lands under authority of the
government, and accepted a reservation, in lieu thereof, in the Indian
Territory. Scarcely had they turned their faces towards their new home
when a sort of race began between them and some hundreds of whites,
which may be described, in the language of boys, as having for its
object "to see which should get there first." In October, 1871, the
agent reported that five hundred whites were on the Osage lands, and
actually in possession of the Osage village, while the rightful owners
were encamped outside. Orders having been issued from the War Department
for the removal of these intruders, political pressure was brought to
bear upon the executive to prevent the orders from being carried into
effect. This effort failing, delay was asked, in view of the hardships
to be anticipated from a removal so near winter. This indulgence having
been granted, the number of the trespassers continued to increase
through the winter, in spite of the notice publicly given of the
intentions of the government: so that in the spring of 1872 the military
authorities found fifteen hundred persons on the Osage lands in defiance
of law. On this occasion, however, the land-robbers had failed in their
calculations. The government was in earnest; and the squatters were
extruded by the troops of the Department of the Missouri.

The other instance referred to is that of an expedition projected and
partially organized in Dakota, in 1872, for the purpose of penetrating
the Black Hills, for mining and lumbering. Public meetings at which
Federal officials attended were held, to create the necessary amount of
public enthusiasm; and an invasion of Indian territory was imminent,
which would, beyond peradventure, have resulted in a general Sioux war.
In this case the emergency was such that the executive acted with great
promptness. A proclamation was issued warning evil-disposed persons of
the determination of the government to prevent the outrage; and troops
were put in position to deal effectively with the marauders. This proved
sufficient; and the Black Hills expedition was abandoned.

[J] Report on Indian Affairs, 1872, p. 440.




INDIAN CITIZENSHIP.[K]


The proper treatment of the Indian question requires that we deal with
the issues arising out of the peculiar relations of the aboriginal
tribes of the continent to the now dominant race, in much the same
spirit--profoundly philanthropic at bottom, but practical, sceptical,
and severe in the discussion of methods and in the maintenance of
administrative discipline--with which all Christian nations, and
especially the English-speaking, nations, have learned to meet the
kindred difficulties of pauperism. It is in no small degree the lack of
such a spirit in the conduct of Indian affairs, which has rendered the
efforts and expenditures of our government for the advancement of the
race so ineffectual in the past; and for this the blame attaches mainly
to the want of correct information and of settled convictions respecting
this subject, among our people at large. So long as the country
fluctuates in an alternation of sentimental and brutal impulses,
according as the wrongs done to the Indian or the wrongs done by him are
at the moment more distinctly in mind, it cannot be wondered at that
Congress should be reluctant to undertake the re-organization of the
Indian service on any large and lasting plan, or that the Indian Office
should hesitate to cut out for itself more work than it can look to make
up in the interval between sessions.

What, to take a recent and memorable instance, would have been the fate
of any scheme of Indian legislation which was at its parliamentary
crisis when the murder of Gen. Canby occurred? The work of years might
well have been undone under the popular excitement attendant upon that
atrocious deed. Yet it would be quite as rational to denounce the
established systems for the care and control of the insane, and to turn
all the inmates of our asylums loose upon the community because one
maniac had in an access of frenzy murdered his keeper, as it would have
been to abandon the established Indian policy of the government, the
only fault of which is that it is incomplete, on account of any thing
that Capt. Jack and his companions might do in their furious despair.
The more atrocious their deed, the more conspicuous the justification of
the system of care and control from which this one small band of
desperadoes had for the moment broken free to work such horrid mischief.
Yet there is much reason to believe, that, had the Indian service at
that time depended, as every service must once a year come to depend, on
the votes of Congressmen, it would have failed, temporarily at least,
for the want of them. Nor is it only acts of exceptional ferocity on the
part of marauding bands, which have sufficed to check all the gracious
impulses of the national compassion. The reasons which have existed in
the public mind in favor of the Indian policy of the government have not
always been found of a sufficiently robust and practical nature to
withstand the weariness of sustained effort, and the inevitable
disappointments of sanguine expectation; and thus the service has at
times suffered from the general indifference scarcely less than from the
sharpest revulsions of public feeling.

Much has been said within the past three years, of the Indian policy of
the administration; and, if by this is meant that the policy of the
government in dealing with the Indians has become more and more one of
administration, and less and less one of law, the phrase, with the
exception of an article too many, is well enough. As matter of fact, the
sole Indian policy of the United States deserving the name was adopted
early in the century; and it is only of late years that it has been
seriously undermined by the current of events; while it is within the
duration of the present administration that the blow has been struck by
legislation, at the already tottering structure, which has brought it
nearly to its fall.

To throw upon a dozen religious and benevolent societies the
responsibility of advising the executive in the appointment of the
agents of the Indian service is not a policy. To buy off a few bands,
more insolent than the rest, by a wholesale issue of subsistence and the
lavish bestowal of presents, without reference to the disposition of the
savages to labor for their own support, and even without reference to
the good or ill desert of individuals,--this, though doubtless expedient
in the critical situation of our frontier population, is the merest
expediency, not in any sense a policy. Yet the two features specified
have been the only ones that have been added to the scheme of Indian
control during the continuance of the present administration; while, on
the other side, an irreparable breach has been effected in that scheme
by the action of powerful social forces, as well as by the direct
legislative contravention of its most vital principle.

From the earliest settlement of the country by the whites, down to 1817,
the Colonies, and afterwards the thirteen States, met the emergencies of
Indian contact as they arose. The parties to negotiation were often
ill-defined, and the forms of procedure much as happened. Not only did
each Colony, prior to 1774, conduct its own Indian relations, generally
with little or no reference to the engagements or the interests of its
white neighbors; but isolated settlements and even enterprising
individuals made their own peace with the savages, or received the soil
by deed from its native proprietors. Nor on the part of the Indians was
there much more regard for strict legitimacy. Local chieftains were not
infrequently ready to convey away lands that did not belong to them; and
when a Colony grown powerful wished a pretext for usurpation, almost any
Indian would do to make a treaty with or get a title from. It is
scarcely necessary to say of negotiations thus conducted, that they
embraced no general scheme of Indian relations; that they aimed
invariably at the accomplishment of immediate and more or less local
objects, and often attained these at the cost of much embarrassment in
the future, and even at the expense of neighboring settlements and
colonies.

Throughout the history of Colonial transactions, we find few traces of
any thing like impatience of the claims of the Indians to equality in
negotiation and in intercourse. Neither the power nor the character of
the aborigines was then despised as now. Strong in his native illusions,
his warlike prestige unbroken, the Indian still retained all that
natural dignity of bearing which has been found so impressive even in
his decline. The early literature of the country testifies to the
disposition of the people to hold the more romantic view of the Indian
character, even where the animosities of race were deadliest; nor does
it seem that the general sentiment of the Colonies regarded the
necessity of treating on equal terms with the great confederacies of
that day as in any degree more derogatory than the civilized powers of
Europe in the same period esteemed the necessity of maintaining
diplomatic relations with the great Cossack power of the North. Indeed,
the treaty with the Delawares in 1778 actually contemplated the
formation of a league of friendly tribes under the hegemony of the
Delawares, to constitute the fourteenth State of the confederation then
in arms against Great Britain, with a proportional representation in
Congress. And this was proposed, not by men accustomed to see <DW64>s
voting at the polls, and even sitting in the Senate of the United
States, but by our conservative and somewhat aristocratic ancestors.

But after the establishment of our national independence, incidental to
which had been the destruction of the warlike power of the "Six
Nations," the nearest and most formidable of all the confederacies known
to Colonial history, we note a louder tone taken--as was natural
enough--with the aboriginal tribes, a greater readiness to act
aggressively, and an increasing confidence in the competency of the
white race to populate the whole of this continent. Earlier Indian wars
had been in a high sense a struggle for life on the part of the infant
settlements: they had been engaged in reluctantly, after being postponed
by every expedient and every artifice; but the conquest of the territory
north-west of the Ohio appears to have been entered upon more from a
statesmanlike comprehension of the wants of the united and expanding
republic, than from the pressure of immediate danger. It was but natural
that the concentration of the fighting power of the States, the
consciousness of a common destiny, and the cession of the western
territory to the general government, should create an impatience of
Indian occupation which neither the separate Colonies nor the States,
struggling for independence, had felt. Yet even so we do not find that,
from 1783 to 1817, the United States did much more than meet the
exigency most nearly and clearly at hand.

In the latter year, however, the negotiations for a removal of the
Cherokees west of the Mississippi, although commenced under strong
pressure from the much-afflicted State of Georgia, and at the time
without contemplation of an extension of the system to tribes less
immediately in the path of settlement, mark the beginnings of a distinct
Indian policy. In 1825 the scheme for the general deportation of the
Indians east of the Mississippi was fairly inaugurated in the presidency
of Mr. Monroe; Mr. Calhoun, his secretary of war, proposing the details
of the measure. In 1834 the policy thus inaugurated was completed by
the passage of the Indian Intercourse Act, though large numbers still
remained to be transported West.

The features of this policy were first, the removal of the tribes beyond
the limits of settlement; second, the assignment to them in perpetuity,
under solemn treaty sanctions, of land sufficient to enable them to
subsist by fishing and hunting, by stock-raising, or by agriculture,
according to their habits and proclivities; third, their seclusion from
the whites by stringent laws forbidding intercourse; fourth, the
government of the Indians through their own tribal organizations, and
according to their own customs and laws.

This policy, the character and relations of the two races being taken
into account, we must pronounce one of sound and far-reaching
statesmanship, notwithstanding that an advance of population altogether
unprecedented in history has already made much of it obsolete, and
rendered necessary a general re-adjustment of its details.

The first event which impaired the integrity of the scheme of President
Monroe was the flight of the Mormons, under the pressure of social
persecution, across the Plains in 1847. The success of this people in
treating with the Indians has often been noted, and has been made the
occasion of many unjust reflections upon the United States, as if a
popular government, giving, both of necessity and of choice, the largest
liberty to pioneer enterprise, could be reasonably expected to preserve
peaceful relations with remote bands of savages as effectively as a
political and religious despotism, keeping its membership compact and
close in hand. But, while the Mormons have certainly been successful in
maintaining good terms with the natives of the plains, it is not so
certain that their influence upon the Indians has been advantageous to
the government, or to the white settlers not of the church. It clearly
has been for their interest to attach the natives to themselves rather
than to the government; it clearly has been in their power to direct a
great many agencies to that end; and it will probably require more faith
in Mormon virtue than the majority of us possess to keep alive much of a
doubt that they have actually done so. We certainly have the opinion of
many persons well informed that it has been the constant policy of the
Latter-Day Saints to teach the Indians to look to them rather than to
the government as their benefactors and their protectors; to represent,
as far as possible through agents and interpreters in their interest,
the goods and supplies received from the United States as derived from
the bounty of the church; to stir up, for special purposes or for
general ends, troubles between the natives and the encroaching whites,
east, west, and south; and, finally, so to alienate from the government
and attach to themselves the Utes, Shoshones and Bannocks, as to assure
themselves of their aid in the not improbable event of a last desperate
struggle for life with the power of the United States.

The next event historically which tended to the disruption of the policy
of seclusion was the discovery of gold upon the Pacific <DW72>, which in
three years replaced the few insinuating priests and indolent
_rancheros_, who had previously formed the white population of the
coast, with a hundred thousand eager gold-hunters. That the access of
such a population--bold, adventurous, prompt to violence, reckless, and
too often wantonly unjust and cruel--should stir up trouble and strife
with the sixty thousand natives, upon whom they pressed at every point
in their eager search for the precious metals, was a thing of course.
The Oregon War followed, and occasional affairs like that at Ben
Wright's Cave, leaving a heritage of hate from which such fruits as the
recent Modoc War are not inaptly gathered.

In 1855-6 occurred the great movement, mainly under a political impulse,
which carried population beyond the Missouri. In two or three years the
tribes and bands which were native to Kansas and Nebraska, as well as
those which had been removed from States east of the Mississippi, were
suffering the worst effects of white intrusion. Of the Free-State party,
not a few zealous members seemed disposed to compensate themselves for
their benevolent efforts on behalf of the <DW64> by crowding the Indian
to the wall; while the slavery propagandists steadily maintained their
consistency by impartially persecuting the members of both the inferior
races.

Thus far we have shown how, instead of the natural boundary between the
races which was contemplated in the establishment of the Indian policy
of the government under Pres. Monroe, two lines of settlement had, prior
to 1860, been pushed against the Indians,--one eastward from the
Pacific, one westward from the Missouri, driving the natives in many
cases from the soil guaranteed to them by treaty, and otherwise leaving
them at a hundred points in dangerous contact with a border population
not apt to be nice in its sense of justice, or slow to retaliate real or
fancied injuries; while, during the same period, a colony of religious
fanatics, foreign to the faith, and very largely also to the blood, of
our people, was planted in the very heart of the Indian country, with
passions strongly aroused against the government, and with interests
opposed to the peace and security of the frontier.

But it was not until after the Civil War that the progress of events
dealt its heaviest blow at the policy of Indian seclusion. In 1867-8 the
great plough of industrial civilization drew its deep furrow across the
continent, from the Missouri to the Pacific, as a sign of dissolution to
the immemorial possessors of the soil. Already the Pacific Railroad has
brought changes which, without it, might have been delayed for half a
century. Not only has the line of settlement been made continuous from
Omaha to Sacramento, so far as the character of the soil will permit;
but from a score of points upon the railroad population has gone north
and gone south, following up the courses of the streams, and searching
out every trace of gold upon the mountains, till recesses have been
penetrated which five years ago were scarcely known to trappers and
guides, and lodgement has been effected upon many even of the more
remote reservations. The natural effects of this introduction by the
railroad of white population into the Indian country have not yet been
wholly wrought. There are still reservations where the seclusion of the
Indians is practically maintained by the ill-repressed hostility of
tribes; some, where the same result is secured by the barrenness or
inaccessibility of the regions in which they are situated; but it is
evident that the lapse of another such five years will find every
reservation between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains
surrounded, and to a degree penetrated, by prospectors and pioneers,
miners, ranchmen, or traders. Against the intrusion of these classes, in
the numbers in which they are now appearing in the Indian country, the
Intercourse Act of 1834 is wholly ineffective. It was an admirable
weapon against the single intruder: it avails nothing against the
lawless combinations of squatter territories.

While the movements of population have thus in great part destroyed, and
threaten soon utterly to destroy, at once the seclusion in which it was
hoped the native tribes might find opportunity for the development of
their better qualities, and the natural resources to which, in the long
interval that must precede the achievement of true industrial
independence by a people taught through centuries of barbarous
traditions to despise labor, the Indian might look for subsistence,
Congress in 1871 struck the severest blow that remained to be given to
the Indian policy, in its fourth great feature,--that of the
self-government of tribes according to their own laws and customs,--by
declaring that "Hereafter no Indian nation or tribe within the territory
of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an
independent nation, tribe, or power, with whom the United States may
contract by treaty."

In the face of three hundred and eighty-two treaties with Indian tribes,
ratified by the Senate as are treaties with foreign powers, this may
perhaps be accepted as quite the most conspicuous illustration in
history of the adage, "Circumstances alter cases."[L] Since Anthony
Wayne received the cession of pretty much the whole State of Ohio from
the Wyandots, Delawares, and Shawnees, times have indeed changed; and it
is fitting that we should change with them. The declaration of Congress
is well enough on grounds of justice and national honor; but it none the
less aims a deadly blow at the tribal autonomy which was made a vital
part of the original scheme of Indian control. The declaration cited
does not in terms deny the self-sufficiency of the tribe for the
purposes of internal self-government; but the immediate necessary effect
of it is further to weaken the already waning power of the chiefs, while
Congress yet fails to furnish any substitute for their authority, either
by providing for the organization of the tribes on more democratic
principles, with direct responsibility to the government, or by arming
the Indian agents with magisterial powers adequate to the exigency.

Under the traditional policy of the United States, the Indian agent was
a minister resident to a "domestic dependent nation." The Act of March
3, 1871, destroys the nationality, and leaves the agent in the anomalous
position of finding no authority within the tribe to which he can
address himself, yet having in himself no legal authority over the tribe
or the members of it. It is true, that, as matter of fact, agents, some
in greater and some in less degree, continue to exercise control after a
fashion over the movements of tribes and bands. This is partly due to
the force of habit, partly to superior intelligence, partly to the
discretion which the agent exercises in the distribution of the
government's bounty; but every year the control becomes less effectual,
and agents and chiefs complain more and more that they cannot hold the
young braves in check.

The above recital, however tedious, has been necessary in order to set
fairly forth the actual condition of the scheme of seclusion, which is
still, in profession and seeming, the policy of the government. It must
be evident from the recital, that the purposes of this policy are not
being answered, and that the increasing difficulties of the situation in
the wider and closer contact of the two races will soon compel Congress
to review the whole field of Indian affairs, and establish relations,
which, if they cannot in the nature of things be permanent, will at
least have reference to the facts of the present, and the probabilities
of the immediate future. Whenever Congress shall take up in earnest this
question of the disposition to be made of the Indian tribes, its choice
will clearly be between two antagonistic schemes,--seclusion and
citizenship. Either the government must place the Indians upon narrower
reservations, proportioned to their requirements for subsistence by
agriculture, and no longer by the chase,--reservations which shall be
located with the view of avoiding as much as possible the contact of the
races, and working as little hindrance as may be to the otherwise free
development of population; and around these put up the barriers of forty
years ago, re-enforced as the changed circumstances seem to require: or
the government must prepare to receive the Indians into the body of the
people, freely accepting, for them and for the general community, all
the dangers and inconveniences of personal contact and legal equality.
No middle ground is tenable. If substantial seclusion is not to be
maintained, at any cost, by the sequestration of tribes and by the rigid
prohibition of intercourse, it is worse than useless to keep up the
forms of reservations and non-intercourse. Many tribes are already as
fully subject to all the debasing influences of contact with the whites
as they could be if dispersed among the body of citizens; while yet they
are without any of the advantages popularly attributed to citizenship.

It requires no deep knowledge of human nature, and no very extensive
review of Congressional legislation, to assure us that many and powerful
interests will oppose themselves to a re-adjustment of the Indian tribes
between the Missouri and the Pacific, under the policy of seclusion and
non-intercourse. Railroad enterprises, mining enterprises, and land
enterprises of every name, will find any scheme that shall be seriously
proposed to be quite the most objectionable of all that could be
offered: every State, and every Territory that aspires to become a
State, will strive to keep the Indians as far as possible from its own
borders; while powerful combinations of speculators will make their
fight for the last acre of Indian lands with just as much rapacity as if
they had not already, in Western phrase, "gobbled" a hundred thousand
square miles of it.

In addition to the political, industrial, and speculative interests
which will thus oppose the restoration of the policy of Indian seclusion
from the shattered condition to which the events just recited have
reduced it, three classes of persons may be counted on to lend their
support to the plan of introducing the Indians, who have thus far been
treated as "the wards of the nation," directly into the body of our
citizenship. We have, first, those who have become impatient of the
demands made upon the time of Congress and the attention of the people
in the name of the Indians, and who wish, once for all, to have done
with them. Such impatience is neither unnatural nor wholly unreasonable.
It must be confessed that no good work ever made heavier drafts upon the
faith and patience of the philanthropic. What with the triviality of the
Indian character, the absurd punctilio with which, in his lowest estate,
he insists on embarrassing the most ordinary business, and his devotion
to sentiments utterly repugnant to our social and industrial genius;
what, again, with the endless variety of tribal relations and tribal
claims, and the complexity of tribal interests, aggravated by jealousy
and suspicion where no previous intercourse has existed, and by feuds
and traditions of hatred where intercourse has existed,--the conduct of
Indian affairs, whether in legislation or in administration, is in no
small degree perplexing and irritating. The Indian treaties prior to
1842 make up one entire volume of the General Statutes, while the
treaties and Indian laws since that date would fill two volumes of equal
size. It cannot be denied that this is taking a good deal of trouble for
a very small and not very useful portion of the population of the
country: and it is not to be wondered at that many citizens, and not a
few Congressmen, are much disposed to cut the knot instead of untying
it, and summarily dismiss the Indian as the subject of peculiar
consideration, by enfranchising him, not for any good it may do to him,
but for the relief of our legislation.

Next, we have that large and increasing class of Americans, who, either
from natural bias, or from the severe political shocks of the last
twelve years, have accepted what we may call the politics of despair, by
which is meant, not so much a belief in any definite ill fortune for the
Republic, as a conviction that the United States are being borne on to
an end not seen, by a current which it is impossible to resist; that it
is futile longer to seek to interpose restraints upon the rate of this
progress, or to change its direction; that the nation has already gone
far outside the traditional limits of safe political navigation, and is
taking its course, for weal or woe, across an unknown sea, not unlike
that little squadron which sailed out from the Straits of Saltez on the
3d of August, 1492. Many of the persons now holding these views were
formerly among the most conservative of our people; but emancipation,
<DW64> suffrage, and the consolidation of power consequent upon the war,
have wholly unsettled their convictions, leaving them either hopeless of
the Republic, or, as temperament serves, eager to crowd on sail, and
prove at once the worst and the best of fortune. In this despair of
conservative methods, some of these men have acquired an oddly objective
way of looking at their country, which to every man ought to be a part
of himself, and have apparently as much of a curious as of a patriotic
interest in watching the development of the new forms and forces of
national life. Men of this class (and they are not few) are not likely
to hesitate in extending to the Indians citizenship and the ballot. A
little more or less, they think, can make no difference. After <DW64>
suffrage, any thing.

Finally, we have a class of persons, who, from no impatience of the
subject, and from no indifference to the welfare of the aborigines, will
oppose the policy of seclusion, as an anomaly not to be tolerated in our
form of government. These are men who cannot bear, that, from any
assumed necessity or for any supposed advantage, exception should be
made of any class of inhabitants, or in respect to any portion of
territory, to the rule of uniform rights and responsibilities, and of
absolute freedom of movement, contract, and intercourse, the whole
nation and the whole land over. Were the Indians ten times as numerous,
were their claims to consideration stronger by no matter how much, and
were the importance to them of seclusion far more clear than it appears,
these political philosophers would steadily oppose the scheme. They
might regret the mischiefs which would result to the Indian from
exposure to corrupting influences; they might be disposed to favor the
most liberal allowances from the public treasury, in compensation to him
for his lands, and for his industrial endowment: but they would none the
less relentlessly insist that the red man should take his equal chance
with white and black, with all the privileges and all the
responsibilities of political manhood.

In view of the likelihood that the expediency of Indian citizenship will
thus become at an early date a practical legislative question, it seems
desirable in the connection to state the constitutional relations of the
subject. The judicial decisions are somewhat confused, although, from
the date (1831) of the decision of Chief-Justice Marshall in the
Cherokee Nation vs. the State of Georgia (5 Peters, 1), to that (1870)
of the decision in the Cherokee Tobacco (11 Wallace, 616), there has
been a marked progress (note especially the decision of Chief-Justice
Taney in the United States vs. Rogers, 4 Howard, 567) towards the
stronger affirmation of the complete and sufficient sovereignty of the
United States. Yet in December, 1870, the Judiciary Committee of the
Senate, Carpenter presenting the Report, after an incomplete, and in
some respects an inaccurate and inconsequential[M] recital of judicial
opinions, made the following startling announcement:--

"Inasmuch as the Constitution treats Indian tribes as belonging to the
rank of nations capable of making treaties, it is evident that an act of
Congress which should assume to treat the members of a tribe as subject
to the municipal jurisdiction of the United States would be
unconstitutional and void."

That this is not good law need not be argued, inasmuch as the decisions
previously cited in the United States _vs._ Rogers and in the Cherokee
Tobacco, assert the complete sovereignty of the United States in strong
terms[N]; in the latter, the doctrine being explicitly affirmed, that
not only does the capability of making a treaty with the United States,
which has been held to reside in an Indian tribe, not exempt that tribe
from the legislative power of Congress, but that not even a treaty made
and ratified, among the stipulations of which is such an exemption, even
were that exemption the consideration for cessions the benefit of which
the United States has enjoyed and continues to enjoy, can hinder
Congress from at any time extending its complete legislative control
over the tribe. Considerations of good faith may influence individual
Congressmen in such a case; but the constitutional competence of
Congress in the premises is declared to be beyond question.

Nor is the extraordinary proposition of the Committee's report better in
reason than in law. The argument is in effect this: The United States
makes treaties with foreign nations; the United States cannot legislate
for foreign nations; the United States may make treaties with Indian
tribes: ergo, the United States cannot legislate for Indian tribes.
This course of reasoning implies that the sole objection to the United
States legislating for foreign nations is, that they makes treaties with
them: whereas there are several other good and sufficient objections
thereto. It also implies that the sole consideration for the United
States treating with Indian tribes, called by Chief-Justice Marshall
"domestic dependent nations," is, that they cannot legislate for them:
whereas the real consideration has been one of practical convenience,
not of legislative competence.

We shall best set forth the constitutional relations of this subject by
presenting the premises, whether of fact or of law, upon which all the
judicial decisions relative thereto have been founded.

1. As matter of fact, the European powers engaged in the discovery and
conquest of the New World left with the Indian tribes the regulation of
their own domestic concerns, while claiming the sovereignty of the soil
occupied by them. The Indian tribes thus continued to act as separate
political communities.[O]

2. The Constitution of the United States excludes from the basis of
Congressional representation "Indians not taxed," without further
defining the same.

3. The Congress of the United States has, with a few recent exceptions,
treated Indians in tribal relations as without the municipal
jurisdiction of the United States.

4. The Senate of the United States has confirmed nearly four hundred
treaties, negotiated by the executive, under the general treaty-making
powers conferred by the Constitution, with tribes which embrace about
three-fifths of the present Indian population of the United States. The
House of Representatives has, from the foundation of the government, as
occasion required, originated bills for the appropriation of moneys to
carry out the provisions of such treaties.

This comprises all that is essential in this connection. The _indicia_
gathered from particular acts of the government, or from the phraseology
of individual treaties, really add nothing to the above.

We believe the following propositions to be consistent with the facts of
history and with the latest judicial decisions.

1. The exclusion by the Constitution of "Indians not taxed" from the
basis of representation was in no sense a guaranty to the Indian tribes
of their political autonomy, but was a provision in the interest of an
equitable apportionment of political power among the States, some States
having many Indians within their limits, others few or none.

2. The self-government enjoyed by the Indian tribes under the
Constitution of the United States, as under the European powers, has
always been a government by sufferance, by toleration, by permission.
The United States, for their own convenience, have allowed this
self-government, because to reduce the savages to the condition of
submitting to civilized laws would have involved a great expense of
blood and treasure; while through the tribal organization a much better
government, for the purposes of the civilized power if not for the
welfare of the Indians themselves, could be obtained, than through an
administration which should disregard that organization. But this
toleration of savage self-government worked no prejudice to the
sovereignty of the United States.

3. The decay of a tribe in numbers and in cohesion, no matter to what
extent carried, does not bring the members of such tribe within the
municipal jurisdiction of the State wherein they are found, so long as
the tribal organization continues to be recognized by the National
Government. See the Kansas Indians, 5 Wallace, 737.

4. Congress is constitutionally competent to extend the laws of the
United States at once over every Indian tribe within the Territories, if
not within the States of the Union, even though treaties may guarantee
to individual tribes complete and perpetual political independence; the
breach of faith involved in the latter case being matter for possible
conscientious scruples on the part of legislators, not for judicial
cognizance. See 11 Wallace, 616; 2 Curtis, 454; 1 Woolworth, 155.

We have thought it important thus to review the doctrine of the Report
of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because, from the high standing of
the Committee, from the assumption which the Report[P] makes of
completeness in the citation of "treaties, laws, and judicial
decisions" pertinent to the subject, on the express ground of a desire
to enlighten, not only Congress, but the country, in respect to our
Indian relations, and from the wide circulation given to the Report, as
compared with that obtained by an ordinary decision of the Circuit or
Supreme Court of the United States, the Report has apparently come to be
accepted by Congress and the country as an authoritative exposition of
the history and law of the subject although, in the very month in which
it was submitted to Congress, the Supreme Court, in the Cherokee
Tobacco, pronounced a doctrine which cuts up that of the Report, root
and branch.

Such being the constitutional competence of Congress to deal with the
Indians, without restraint either from the self-government hitherto
permitted them, or from treaties to which the United States are a party,
it is for Congress to decide, firstly, what the good faith of the nation
requires, and, secondly, what course will best accomplish the social and
industrial elevation of the native tribes, with due consideration had
for the interests of the present body of citizens.

How, then, stands the matter with the faith of the nation? By the Report
on Indian Affairs for 1872, there appear (p. 16) to be in the
neighborhood of 120,000 Indians with whom the United States have no
treaty relations. These certainly can have no claims to exemption from
direct control, whenever the United States shall see fit to extend its
laws over them, either to incorporate them in the body of its
citizenship, or to seclude them for their own good. There are, again, as
nearly as we can determine by a comparison of treaties with the Reports
of the Indian Office, about 125,000 Indians with whom the United States
have treaties unexpired, but to whom no distinct guaranty or promise of
autonomy has been made. Examination of these treaties reveals nothing
which should prevent the United States from establishing a magistracy
and a code of laws for the government of these tribes, according to
principles suited to their present condition, yet tending to raise them
to a higher social and industrial condition. On the other hand, the
perpetual interdiction of all white persons upon the reservations of
these tribes, except "such officers, agents, and employees of the
government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in
discharge of duties enjoined by law," would seem to preclude the
possibility of these regions ever being opened to settlement, and the
Indians thereon resolved into the body of citizens on equal terms. But,
as matter of fact, not even such treaty provisions need, with
intelligent and firm but kindly management, greatly or long embarrass
the government in the adjustment of the Indian question according to
either principle which may be adopted, seclusion or citizenship. Few of
these tribes but are obliged, even now, to seek from the United States
more aid than they are entitled to by treaty; while it is certain that
in the near future most, if not all, will be thrown in comparative
helplessness upon our bounty. The United States being the sole party to
which they can cede their lands (8 Wheaton, 543), and the sale of the
great body of these lands being their only resource, the government
will have the opportunity, not only without fraud or wrong to this
people, but for their highest good, and indeed for their salvation from
the doom otherwise awaiting them, to cancel the whole of these
ill-considered treaties, leaving the natives where they ought to
be,--subject to direct control by Congress. We repeat, there need never
be any difficulty in securing, at the right time and in the right way,
the relinquishment of lands or privileges from the Indians. They are,
unfortunately, only too ready to sacrifice the future to present
indulgence; while the government on its part can always afford to pay
them far more for their lands than their lands are worth to them. Under
this relation of the parties in interest, and with the pressure of
actual want, due to the inability of the natives properly to cultivate
what they possess, the United States may at an early date, with good
faith and judicious management, easily secure the relinquishment of
every franchise that stands in the way of a satisfactory adjustment of
the difficulty.

There is still a third body of Indians, about 55,000 in number,
occupying chiefly the regions known as the Indian Territory, and
representing the tribes which were the subjects of the colonization
policy of Pres. Monroe, to whom the United States have plighted their
faith that no foreign authority shall ever be extended over them without
their consent. These are not beggarly and vagabond Indians, to whom the
offer of subsistence would be sufficient to obtain the relinquishment of
their franchises, or the cession of their lands. They are
self-supporting, independent, and even wealthy. Their cereal crops
exceed those of all the Territories of the United States combined. In
the number and value of horses and cattle, they are surpassed by the
people of but one Territory; in expenditures for education, by the
people of no Territory.[Q] If these people ever relinquish their
autonomy, it will be because they desire the privileges of American
citizens. This may well be in the immediate future, and surely will be,
sooner or later, unless they are made to fear the violence and greed of
their white neighbors. Meanwhile, they should be honorably protected in
the enjoyment of their treaty rights. They have already advanced so far
in civilization as to secure their own future, as against any thing but
squatter and railroad rapacity; and their fate does not properly form a
part of the Indian problem of the present day.

Excepting thus the present inhabitants of the so-called Indian
Territory, who ought to be excepted from any scheme that embraces the
half-civilized and the wholly savage tribes, we have practically a clear
field for any policy which Congress shall determine to be best suited to
the serious exigency of the situation; for, however easy to dismiss the
subject for a time with ridicule, the task of so disposing a nomad
population of 200,000 to 240,000, as to reduce to a minimum the
obstruction it shall offer to the progress of settlement and of
industry, without leaving the germs of lasting evil to a score of future
States, and at the same time to secure the highest welfare of that
population,--this task is a most serious one, to which the best
statesmanship of the nation may well address itself.

In characterizing the classes of persons who will naturally be found
among the advocates of the policy of an immediate bestowal of
citizenship upon the Indian tribes, whether they be willing or
unwilling, whether for good or evil, we have in effect stated all the
arguments in favor of that policy; for it is not probable, that, aside
from those who would properly be placed under one or another of the
classes indicated, there are a score of persons reasonably well informed
in Indian affairs, who would so much as affect to believe that such a
course would have other than disastrous consequences to the natives.

The considerations which favor the policy of seclusion with more or less
of industrial constraint are so direct and familiar, and are sustained
by so general a concurrence of testimony and authority, that they will
not require us greatly to protract this paper in their exposition and
enforcement. These considerations are four in number; three of them
having especial reference to the interests of the Indians, the fourth
bearing on the welfare of the States to be formed out of the territory
now roamed over by the native tribes.

First: so long as an Indian tribe is left to its own proper forces and
dispositions, free from all foreign attraction, it is not only easily
governed, but the whole body obeys the recognized law of the community
with almost absolute unanimity. No expressions would be too strong to
characterize the social homogeneity of an Indian tribe, and the complete
domination of the accepted ideas of right and wrong, of honor and
baseness. Public opinion is there conclusive upon every individual; and
the spectacle, seen in every town and village with us, of large numbers
openly practising that which public opinion reprobates, or refusing to
do that which public opinion prescribes, is wholly unknown. We do not
say that this is the most desirable as the ultimate form of society; but
this tyranny of sentiment may and should be made a most powerful
auxiliary for good in the early stages of industrial and social progress
for this people.

Second: it is unfortunately true, that, when the Indian is, by the
powerful attraction of a race which his savage breast never fails to
recognize as superior, released from the control of the public
sentiment which he has been accustomed to obey, he submits himself by
an almost irresistible tendency to the worst and not to the best
influences of civilized society. While there are undeniably exceptions
to this statement, it is supported by such a mass of melancholy evidence
in the history of scores of tribes once renowned for all the native
virtues, that no one has the right to advocate the introduction to such
influences of uninstructed and unprovided tribes, unless he is prepared
to contemplate the ruin of nine-tenths of the subjects of his policy.

Nor is it the worst elements of the Indian which thus submit themselves
to the worst elements of the white community. The very men who bear
themselves most loftily, according to the native standards of virtue,
are quite as likely to fall, under exposure to white contact, as are the
weakest of the tribe. Their familiar attractions all broken, their
immemorial traditions rudely dispelled, their natural leadership
destroyed, the members of a wild tribe, strong and weak together, become
the easy prey of the rascally influences of civilized society.

Third: the experiment of citizenship, except with the more advanced
tribes, is at the serious risk, amounting almost to a certainty, of the
immediate loss to the Indians of the whole of their scanty patrimony,
through the improvident and wasteful alienation of the lands patented to
them, the Indians being left thus without resource for the future,
except in the bounty of the general government or in local charity. On
this point a few facts will be more eloquent than many words.

The United States have by recent treaties or legislative enactments
admitted to citizenship the following Indians,--In Kansas, Kickapoos,
12; Delawares, 20; Wyandots, 473; Pottawatomies, 1,604: in Dakota,
Sioux, 250: in Minnesota, Winnebagoes, 159: in Wisconsin, Stockbridges,
to a number not yet officially ascertained: in Michigan, Ottawas and
Chippewas, 6,039: in the Indian Territory, Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork,
150. Time has not yet been given for the full development of the
consequences of thus devolving responsibility upon these Indians; but we
already have information, official or semi-official, to the effect that
the majority of the Pottawatomie citizens, after selling their lands in
Kansas, have gone to the Indian Territory, and re-associated themselves
as a tribe; that of the Wyandots, considerable numbers have attached
themselves to the re-organized tribe in the Indian Territory; that of
the citizen Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork, nearly all have disposed of
their allotted lands, and are still cared for to some extent by the
government as Indians; that of the Ottawas and Chippewas of Michigan, a
majority certainly, and probably a large majority, have sold the lands
patented to them in severalty,--in many cases the negotiation preceding
the issue of patents, two parties of white sharpers contesting for the
favor of the agent, in the way of early information as to the precise
lands assigned, and the disappointed faction, in at least one instance,
resorting to burglary and larceny for the needed documents.

It will be thus seen, that, of these Indians upon whom the experiment of
citizenship has been tried, more than half, probably at least
two-thirds, are now homeless, and must be re-endowed by the government,
or they will sink to a condition of hopeless poverty and misery.

Fourth: the dissolution of the tribal bonds, and the dispersing of two
hundred thousand Indians among the settlements, will devolve upon the
present and future States beyond the Missouri an almost intolerable
burden of vagabondage, pauperism, and crime. It is not even essential to
the result of a dispersion of these tribes that the law should pronounce
their dissolution as political communities. Unless the system of
reservations shall soon be recast, and the laws of non-intercourse
thoroughly enforced, the next fifteen or twenty years will see the great
majority of the Indians on the plains mixed up with white settlements,
wandering in small camps from place to place, shifting sores upon the
public body, the men resorting for a living to basket-making, beggary,
and hog-stealing, the women to fortune-telling, beggary, and harlotry;
while a remnant will seek to maintain a little longer, in the mountains,
their savage independence, fleeing before the advance of settlement when
they can, fighting in sullen despair when they must. It is doubtless
true that some tribes could still remain together as social, even after
being dissolved as legal, communities; but the fate we have indicated
would certainly befall by far the greater part of the Indians of the
plains, were the reservation system broken up in their present social
and industrial condition. To believe that a pioneer population of two,
three, or four millions, such as is likely to occupy this region within
the next twenty years, can, in addition to its own proper elements of
disorder, safely absorb such a mass of corruption, requires no small
faith in the robust virtue of our people, and in the saving efficacy of
republican institutions.

This last consideration we have urged, not on behalf of the Indians, but
in the interest of the present white communities beyond the Missouri, to
whom such a dispersion of the tribes would be a far greater burden than
the maintenance of the reservation system in its integrity could
possibly be, and in the interest of a score of States of the Union yet
to be formed out of that territory. Surely it is not in such cement that
we wish to have the foundations of our future society laid.

We conclude, then, that Indian citizenship is to be regarded as an end,
and not as a means; that it is the goal to which each tribe should in
turn be conducted, through a course of industrial instruction and
constraint, maintained by the government with kindness but also with
firmness, under the shield of the reservation system. It is true that
this system can no longer be kept up without sacrifice on our part. In
the days of Pres. Monroe, the sequestration of the Indians involved
only the expense of transporting eighty or ninety thousand persons to a
region not settled, nor then desired for settlement. To-day there is no
portion of our territory where citizens of the United States are not
preparing to make their homes. To cut off a reservation sufficient for
the wants of this unfortunate people in their rude ways of life; to
hedge it in with strict laws of non-intercourse, turning aside, for the
purpose, railway and highway alike; and, upon the soil thus secluded, to
work patiently out the problem of Indian civilization,--is not to be
deemed a light sacrifice to national honor and duty. Yet that the
government and people of the United States cannot discharge their
obligations to the aborigines without pains and care and expense,
affords no reason for declining the task.

The claim of the Indian upon us is of no common character. The advance
of railways and settlements is fast pushing him from his home, and, in
the steady extinction of game, is cutting him off from the only means of
subsistence of which he knows how to avail himself. He will soon be left
homeless and helpless in the midst of civilization, upon the soil that
once was his alone. The freedom of territorial and industrial expansion
which is bringing imperial greatness to the nation, to the Indian
brings wretchedness, destitution, beggary. Surely there is obligation
found, in such considerations as these, to make good in some way to him
the loss by which we so largely gain. Nor is this obligation one that
can be discharged by lavish endowments, which it is of moral certainty
he will squander, or by merely placing him in situations where he might
prosper, had he the industrial aptitudes of the white man, acquired
through centuries of laborious training. Savage as he is by no fault of
his own, and stripped at once of savage independence and savage
competence by our act, for our advantage, we have made ourselves
responsible before God and the world for his rescue from destruction,
and his elevation to social and industrial manhood, at whatever expense
and at whatever inconvenience. The corner-stone of our Indian policy
should be the recognition by government and by the people, that we owe
the Indian, not endowments and lands only, but also forbearance,
patience, care, and instruction.

It is not unusual to sneer at the sentimentality of "the Quakers" and
other active friends of this race. But we may as well remember that
posterity will grow much more sentimental over the fate of the Indian
than any Quaker or philanthropist of to-day. The United States will be
judged at the bar of history according to what they shall have done in
two respects,--by their disposition of <DW64> slavery, and by their
treatment of the Indians. In the one matter, the result is fortunately
secure; nor will it be remembered against us, in diminution of our
honor, that we procrastinated and sought to evade the issue, and for a
time made terms and compromised with wrong. In that, when at last we
were brought face to face with the question, we did the one thing that
was right, and in tears and blood expiated our own and our fathers'
errors, the ages to come will give us no grudging and stinted praise.
Would that we were equally sure that no stain will rest upon our fame
for what shall yet be done or left undone towards the original
possessors of our soil! What is past cannot be recalled; nor has any
thing yet gone into history that need deeply dishonor us as a nation.
Posterity will judge very leniently of all that has been done in heat of
blood, in the struggle for life and for the possession of the soil by
the early Colonists; it will not greatly attribute blame that, in our
industrial and territorial expansion, and a conquest of savage nature
more rapid than is recorded of any other people, savage man has suffered
somewhat at our hands; it will not attempt nicely to apportion the
mutual injuries of the frontier, to decide which was first and which was
worst in wrong, red man or white; it will have ample consideration for
the difficulties which the government has encountered in preserving the
peace between the natives and the bold, rude pioneers of civilization.
But if, when the Indians shall have been thrown helpless upon our mercy,
surrounded and disarmed by the extension of settlement, and impoverished
by the very causes which promote our wealth and greatness, we fail to
make ample provision out of our abundance, and to apply it in all
patience and with all pains, to save alive these remnants of a once
powerful people, and reconcile them to civilization, there is much
reason to fear, that, however successfully we may excuse ourselves to
ourselves by pleading the manifest destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race,
impartial history will pronounce us recreant to a sacred duty.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] From The International Review, May, 1874.

[L] The doctrine of a _vanishing_ Indian nationality was strongly
insisted on by Mr. Justice McLean in his opinion in Worcester vs. the
State of Georgia:--

"If a tribe of Indians shall become so degraded or reduced in numbers as
to lose the power of self-government, the protection of the local law,
of necessity, must be extended over them. The point at which this
exercise of power by a State would be proper need not now be considered,
if, indeed, it be a judicial question.... But, if a contingency shall
occur which shall render the Indians who reside in a State incapable of
self-government, either by moral degradation or a reduction of their
numbers, it would undoubtedly be in the power of a State government to
extend over them the aegis of its laws."--6 _Peters_, pp. 593-4.

If, as would appear, Mr. Justice McLean by this intends that a State may
exercise such discretion so long as the United States continue to
recognize the tribal organization, however feeble or corrupt it may in
fact be, the doctrine is flatly contradicted by that of the Supreme
Court in the Kansas Indians.--5 _Wallace_, 737.

[M] We are aware that this is a heavy charge; but it is justified by the
facts. The recital is incomplete. The decision in the United States
_vs._ Rogers is not referred to. This case is, as it was treated by the
Supreme Court in the Cherokee Tobacco, of the highest importance.

The recital is inaccurate. An opinion is given at length as that of Kent
in Jackson vs. Goodell, 20 Johnson, 193. This is a case in the Supreme
Court of New York, Chief-Justice Spencer delivering the opinion, Kent
having been previously appointed chancellor. The expressions quoted by
the Committee are to be found in Goodell vs. Jackson, in error to the
Court of Appeals, 20 Johnson, 693. The recital is inconsequential, as
will appear by what is said further in the text.

[N] "We think it too firmly and clearly established to admit of dispute,
that the Indian tribes residing within the territorial limits of the
United States are subject to their authority; and where the country
occupied by them is not within the limit of one of the States, Congress
may by law punish any offence committed there, whether the offender be a
white man or an Indian."--_Taney, Chief-Justice._

In the Cherokee Tobacco, the court, quoting from Chief-Justice Taney the
sentence just preceding, and a similar utterance of Chief-Justice
Marshall, remarks, "Both these propositions are so well settled in our
jurisprudence, that it would be a waste of time to discuss them, or to
refer to further authorities in their support."

[O] Throughout the whole course of this discussion on the constitutional
relations of the Indians, we should indicate as subject to possible
exception the tribes found upon soil ceded by Mexico. It is claimed,
that, as Mexico never treated the Indians within its jurisdiction other
than as a peculiar class of citizens, all the members of those tribes
became citizens of the United States by virtue of the provisions of the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848.

[P] "Although the Committee have not regarded the questions proposed for
their consideration by this resolution as at all difficult to answer,
yet respect for the Senate, which ordered the investigation, and the
existence of some loose popular notions of modern date in regard to the
power of the President and Senate to exercise the treaty-making power in
dealing with the Indian tribes, have induced your Committee to examine
the questions thus at length, and present extracts from treaties, laws,
and judicial decisions; and your Committee indulge the hope that a
reference to these sources of information may tend to fix more clearly
in the minds of Congress and the people the true theory of our relations
to these unfortunate tribes."--_Report_, p. 11. It would, perhaps, have
been fortunate had the Committee found the questions difficult.

[Q] See Annual Report, Board of Indian Commissioners, 1872, p. 12.

Constant efforts are made to break the force of such comparisons as
these, by asserting that the progress of the Indian Territory in
industry and the arts of life is due to white men incorporated with the
Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws. If this be true, it would seem that
white men, when brought under Indian laws, and adopted into Indian
families, exhibit qualities superior to those which they develop when
controlling themselves, and organizing their own forms of industry and
of government. This suggests the inquiry, whether it might not be well
to turn over two or three Territories that might be named, to the
Indians, with liberty to pick out white men for adoption and for
instruction, in the hope that these communities might in time be brought
up to the condition of that of which the Indians have had sole control
for forty years.




AN ACCOUNT

OF THE NUMBERS, LOCATION, AND SOCIAL, AND
INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF EACH IMPORTANT
TRIBE AND BAND OF INDIANS
WITHIN THE UNITED STATES.

[From the report of Francis A. Walker, U. S. Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, for the year 1872.]

The Indians within the limits of the United States, exclusive of those
in Alaska, number, approximately, 300,000.

(_a_) They may be divided, according to their geographical location or
range, into five grand divisions, as follows: in Minnesota, and States
east of the Mississippi River, about 32,500; in Nebraska, Kansas, and
the Indian Territory, 70,650; in the Territories of Dakota, Montana,
Wyoming, and Idaho, 65,000; in Nevada, and the Territories of Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona, 84,000; and on the Pacific <DW72>,
48,000.

(_b_) In respect to the three lines of railroads--built or
projected--between the States and the Pacific Ocean, viz., the northern,
central, and southern routes, they may be divided, excluding those
residing east of Minnesota and of the Missouri River south of Dakota, as
follows: between the proposed northern route and the British
Possessions, about 36,000; between the northern and central routes,
92,000; between the central and the proposed southern routes, 61,000;
and between the southern route and Mexico, 85,000: making a total of
274,000.

(_c_) As regards their means of support and methods of subsistence, they
may be divided as follows: those who support themselves upon their own
reservations, receiving nothing from the government except interest on
their own moneys, or annuities granted them in consideration of the
cession of their lands to the United States, number about 130,000; those
who are entirely subsisted by the government, about 31,000; those in
part subsisted, 84,000,--together about 115,000; those who subsist by
hunting and fishing, upon roots, nuts, berries, &c., or by begging and
stealing, about 55,000.

(_d_) They may be divided again, with respect to their connection with
the government, as follows: there are about 150,000 who may be said to
remain constantly upon their reservations, and are under the complete
control of agents appointed by the government; 95,000 who at times visit
their agencies either for food or for gossip, or for both, but are
generally roaming either on or off their reservations, engaged in
hunting or fishing; and 55,000 who never visit an agency, and over whom
the government as yet exercises practically no control, but most of whom
are inoffensive, and commit no acts of hostility against the government.

(_e_) Again: it may be said, that, of the 300,000 Indians of the
country, about 180,000 have treaties with the government; 40,000 have no
treaties with the United States, but have reservations set apart by
executive order or otherwise for their occupancy, and are in charge of
agents appointed by the government; 25,000 have no reservations, but are
more or less under the control of agents appointed for them, and receive
more or less assistance from the government; the remainder consisting of
the same 55,000 already twice described, over whom the government
exercises, practically, no control, and for whom there are no treaty or
other provisions.

(_f_) As to civilization, they may, though with no great degree of
assurance, be divided, according to a standard taken with reasonable
reference to what might fairly be expected of a race with such
antecedents and traditions, as follows: civilized, 97,000;
semi-civilized, 125,000; wholly barbarous, 78,000.


MINNESOTA, AND EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.


NEW YORK.

The Indians of New York, remnants of the once powerful "Six Nations,"
number five thousand and seventy. They occupy six reservations in the
State, containing in the aggregate 68,668 acres. Two of these
reservations, viz., the Alleghany and Cattaraugus, belonged originally
to the Colony of Massachusetts, but by sale and assignment passed into
the hands of a company, the Indians holding a perpetual right of
occupancy, and the company referred to, or the individual members
thereof, owning the ultimate fee. The same state of facts formerly
existed in regard to the Tonawanda reserve; but the Indians who occupy
it have purchased the ultimate fee of a portion of the reserve, which is
now held in trust for them by the Secretary of the Interior. The State
of New York exercises sovereignty over these reservations. The
reservations occupied by the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Tuscaroras, have
been provided for by treaty stipulations between the Indians and the
State of New York. All six reserves are held and occupied by the Indians
in common. While the Indian tribes of the continent, with few
exceptions, have been steadily decreasing in numbers, those of New York
have of late more than held their own, as is shown by an increase of one
hundred in the present reports over the reported number in 1871, and of
thirteen hundred over the number embraced in the United-States census of
1860. On the New-York reservations are twenty-eight schools; the
attendance during some portions of the past year exceeding eleven
hundred, the daily average attendance being six hundred and eight. Of
the teachers employed, fifteen are Indians, as fully competent for this
position as their white associates. An indication of what is to be
accomplished in the future, in an educational point of view, is found in
the successful effort made in August last to establish a teacher's
institute on the Cattaraugus reservation for the education of teachers
specially for Indian schools. Thirty-eight applicants attended; and
twenty-six are now under training. The statistics of individual wealth
and of the aggregate product of agricultural and other industry are, in
general, favorable; and a considerable increase in these regards is
observed from year to year. Twenty thousand acres are under cultivation:
the cereal crops are good; while noticeable success has been achieved in
the raising of fruit.


MICHIGAN.

The bands or tribes residing in Michigan are the Chippewas of Saginaw,
Swan Creek, and Black River; the Ottawas and Chippewas; the
Pottawatomies of Huron; and the L'Anse band of Chippewas.

_The Chippewas_ of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River, numbering
sixteen hundred and thirty, and the Ottawas and Chippewas, six thousand
and thirty-nine, are indigenous to the country. They are well advanced
in civilization; have, with few exceptions, been allotted lands under
treaty provisions, for which they have received patents; and are now
entitled to all the privileges and benefits of citizens of the United
States. Those to whom no allotments have been made can secure homesteads
under the provisions of the act of June 10, 1872. All treaty
stipulations with these Indians have expired. They now have no money or
other annuities paid to them by the United States Government. The three
tribes first named have in all four schools, with one hundred and
fifteen scholars; and the last, two schools, with one hundred and
fifty-two scholars.

_The Pottawatomies_ of Huron number about fifty.

_The L'Anse_ band of Chippewas, numbering eleven hundred and
ninety-five, belong with the other bands of the Chippewas of Lake
Superior. They occupy a reservation of about forty-eight thousand three
hundred acres, situated on Lake Superior, in the extreme northern part
of the State. But few of them are engaged in agriculture, most of them
depending for their subsistence on hunting and fishing. They have two
schools, with an attendance of fifty-six scholars.

The progress of the Indians of Michigan in civilization and industry has
been greatly hindered in the past by a feeling of uncertainty in regard
to their permanent possession and enjoyment of their homes. Since the
allotment of land, and the distribution of either patents or homestead
certificates to these Indians (the L'Anse or Lake Superior Chippewas, a
people of hunting and fishing habits, excepted), a marked improvement
has been manifested on their part in regard to breaking land and
building houses. The aggregate quantity of land cultivated by the
several tribes is eleven thousand six hundred and twenty acres; corn,
oats, and wheat being the chief products. The dwellings occupied consist
of two hundred and forty-four frame and eight hundred and thirty-five
log houses. The aggregate population of the several tribes named
(including the confederated "Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatomies,"
about two hundred and fifty souls, with whom the government made a final
settlement in 1866 of its treaty obligations) is, by the report of their
agent for the current year, nine thousand one hundred and seventeen,--an
increase over the number reported for 1871 of four hundred and two, due,
however, perhaps as much to the return of absent Indians as to the
excess of births over deaths. In educational matters these Indians have,
of late, most unfortunately, fallen short of the results of former
years; for the reason mainly that, their treaties expiring, the
provisions previously existing for educational uses failed.


WISCONSIN.

The bands or tribes in Wisconsin are the Chippewas of Lake Superior, the
Menomonees, the Stockbridges and Munsees, the Oneidas, and certain stray
bands (so called) of Winnebagoes, Pottawatomies, and Chippewas.

_The Chippewas_ of Lake Superior (under which head are included the
following bands: Fond du Lac, Boise Forte, Grand Portage, Red Cliff, Bad
River, Lac de Flambeau, and Lac Court D'Oreille) number about five
thousand one hundred and fifty. They constitute a part of the Ojibways
(anglicized in the term Chippewas), formerly one of the most powerful
and warlike nations in the north-west, embracing many bands, and ranging
over an immense territory, extending along the shores of Lakes Huron,
Michigan, and Superior, to the steppes of the Upper Mississippi. Of this
great nation large numbers are still found in Minnesota, many in
Michigan, and a fragment in Kansas.

The bands above mentioned by name are at present located on several
small reservations set apart for them by treaties of Sept. 30, 1854, and
April 7, 1866, in Wisconsin and Minnesota, comprising in all about six
hundred and ninety-five thousand two hundred and ninety acres. By act of
Congress of May 29, 1872, provision was made for the sale, with the
consent of the Indians, of three of these reservations, viz., the Lac de
Flambeau and Lac Court D'Oreille in Wisconsin, and the Fond du Lac in
Minnesota; and for the removal of the Indians located thereon to the Bad
River reservation, where there is plenty of good, arable land, and where
they can be properly cared for, and instructed in agriculture and
mechanics.

The greater part of these Indians at present lead a somewhat roving
life, finding their subsistence chiefly in game hunted by them, in the
rice gathered in its wild state, and in the fish afforded by waters
conveniently near. Comparatively little is done in the way of
cultivating the soil. Certain bands have of late been greatly
demoralized by contact with persons employed in the construction of the
Northern Pacific Railroad, the line of which runs near one (the Fond du
Lac) of their reservations. Portions of this people, however, especially
those situated at the Bad River reservation, have begun to evince an
earnest desire for self-improvement. Many live in houses of rude
construction, and raise small crops of grain and vegetables; others
labor among the whites; and a number find employment in cutting rails,
fence-posts, and saw-logs for the government. In regard to the efforts
made to instruct the children in letters, it may be said, that, without
being altogether fruitless, the results have been thus far meagre and
somewhat discouraging. The majority of the parents profess to wish to
have their children educated, and ask for schools; but, when the means
are provided and the work undertaken, the difficulties in the way of
success to any considerable extent appear in the undisciplined character
of the scholars, which has to be overcome by the teacher without
parental co-operation, and in the great irregularity of attendance at
school, especially on the part of those who are obliged to accompany
their parents to the rice-fields, the sugar-camps, or the
fishing-grounds.

_The Menomonees_ number thirteen hundred and sixty-two, and are located
on a reservation of two hundred and thirty thousand four hundred acres
in the north-eastern part of Wisconsin. They formerly owned most of the
eastern portion of the State, and, by treaty entered into with the
government on the 18th October, 1848, ceded the same for a home in
Minnesota upon lands that had been obtained by the United States from
the Chippewas; but, becoming dissatisfied with the arrangement, as not
having accorded them what they claimed to be rightfully due,
subsequently protested, and manifested great unwillingness to remove. In
view of this condition of affairs, they were, by the President,
permitted to remain in Wisconsin, and temporarily located upon the lands
they now occupy, which were secured to them by a subsequent treaty made
with the tribe on the 12th May, 1854. This reservation is well watered
by lakes and streams, the latter affording excellent power and
facilities for moving logs and lumber to market; the most of their
country abounding with valuable pine timber. A considerable portion of
the Menomonees have made real and substantial advancement in
civilization; numbers of them are engaged in agriculture; others find
remunerative employment in the lumbering camp established upon their
reservation, under the management of the government agent, while a few
still return, at times, to their old pursuits of hunting and fishing.

Under the plan adopted by the department in 1871, in regard to cutting
and selling the pine timber belonging to these Indians, 2,000,000 feet
have been cut and driven, realizing $23,731, of which individual
Indians received for their labor over $3,000, the treasury of the tribe
deriving a net profit of $5 per thousand feet. The agent estimates,
that, for labor done by the Indians upon the reservation, at lumbering,
and for work outside on railroads, during the past year, about twenty
thousand dollars has been earned and received, exclusive of the labor
rendered in building houses, raising crops, making sugar, gathering
rice, and hunting for peltries. The work of education upon the
reservations has been of late quite unsatisfactory, but one small school
being now in operation, with seventy scholars, the average attendance
being fifty.

_The Stockbridges and Munsees_, numbering two hundred and fifty, occupy
a reservation of sixty thousand eight hundred acres adjoining the
Menomonees. The Stockbridges came originally from Massachusetts and New
York. After several removals they, with the Munsees, finally located on
their present reservation. Under the provisions of the act of Feb. 6,
1871, steps are now being taken to dispose of all of their reservation,
with the exception of eighteen sections best adapted for agricultural
purposes, which are reserved for their future use. They have no treaty
stipulations with the United States at the present time; nor do they
receive any annuities of any kind from the government. These
tribes--indeed, it may be said this tribe (the Stockbridges); for of the
Munsees there probably remain not more than a half a dozen souls--were
formerly an intelligent, prosperous people, not a whit behind the most
advanced of the race, possessed of good farms, well instructed, and
industrious. Unfortunately for them, though much to the advantage of the
government, which acquired thereby a valuable tract of country for white
settlement, they removed, in 1857, to their present place of abode. The
change has proved highly detrimental to their interests and prospects.
Their new reservation, the greater part poor in soil and seriously
affected by wet seasons and frequent frosts, has never yielded them more
than a meagre subsistence. Many have for this reason left the tribe, and
have been for years endeavoring to obtain a livelihood among the whites,
maintaining but little intercourse with those remaining on the
reservation, yet still holding their rights in the tribal property. The
result has been bickerings and faction quarrels, prejudicial to the
peace and advancement of the community. More than one-half of the
present membership of the tribe, from both the "citizen" and the
"Indian" parties, into which it has been long divided, are reported by
the agent as having decided to avail themselves of the enrollment
provisions in the act of Congress of February, 1871, before referred to,
by which they will finally receive their share of the tribal property,
and become citizens of the United States. Those who desire to retain
their tribal relation under the protection of the United States may,
under the act adverted to, if they so elect by their council, procure a
new location for their future home. The school interests and religious
care of this people are under the superintendence of Mr. Jeremiah
Slingerland, a Stockbridge of much repute for his intelligence, and his
success in the cause of the moral and educational improvement of his
people.

_The Oneidas_, numbering twelve hundred and fifty-nine, have a
reservation of 60,800 acres near Green Bay. They constitute the greater
portion of the tribe of that name (derived from Lake Oneida, where the
tribe then resided), formerly one of the "Six Nations." Two hundred and
fifty of the Oneidas yet remain in New York on the reservations already
described. Those who are found in Michigan are progressing in the arts
of civilized life, many of them being intelligent, industrious, and ripe
for citizenship. The progress of those best disposed and most advanced
is, however, retarded by the fact of the tribal lands being held in
common, by which the incentive to individual exertion is greatly
impaired, and habits of industry and frugality discouraged. There are
also some members who fail to keep pace with the progress of the tribe,
in part, probably, from the same cause which hinders the improvement of
those better disposed, but principally from that fatal curse of the
Indian, the passion for intoxicating liquor, which is especially
developed among those members of the tribe who are engaged in lumbering.

It is now believed that a large majority of the tribe favor the division
of their lands, and the allotment of parcels to families and
individuals,--a measure deemed to be of the first importance to the
future welfare of this people, and which, it is suggested, should be the
subject of legislative action with a view to its consummation at the
earliest practicable date. There are two schools for this tribe, having
on the rolls two hundred and seventeen scholars, the average attendance
being ninety.

The stray bands of Winnebagoes, Chippewas, and Pottawatomies number
about sixteen hundred. They are scattered in small parties over the
central and northern portions of the State, and are those members of the
tribes named who did not remove when their respective tribes went west
of the Mississippi. They receive no assistance from the government, and
subsist by cultivating small patches of corn and vegetables, by hunting,
fishing, and gathering berries, and by working for the whites at certain
seasons of the year. A number own a few acres: others rent small patches
from the whites. They are accused of causing considerable annoyance to
the farmers in some localities; and, on account of complaints having
been made in this respect, Congress has appropriated funds to remove
them to the tribes to which they respectively belong, or to some place
in the Indian Territory south of Kansas. For various reasons their
removal has not yet been undertaken. Indeed, while this may be found
practicable, I doubt whether it can be thoroughly accomplished without
additional and severe legislation on the part of Congress, as the
Indians are attached to the country, and express great repugnance to
their contemplated removal from it. On this account, and for the reason
that they cannot be supposed to feel much interest in those from whom
they have been so long separated, and by whom they might not be heartily
welcomed, it is probable that those who should be removed against their
will would return to their old haunts, and do the same as often as they
should be removed therefrom.


MINNESOTA.

The Indians residing within the limits of Minnesota, as in the case of
those of the same name living in Wisconsin, heretofore noticed,
constitute a portion of the Ojibway or Chippewa nation, and comprise the
following bands: Mississippi, Pillager, Winnebagoshish, Pembina, Red
Lake, Boise Forte, Fond du Lac, and Grand Portage. The last three bands,
being attached to the agency for the Chippewas of Lake Superior, have
been treated of in connection with the Indians of Wisconsin. The five
first-named bands number in the aggregate about six thousand four
hundred and fifty-five souls, and occupy, or rather it is intended they
shall ultimately occupy, ample reservations in the central and northern
portion of the State, known as the White Earth, Leech Lake, and Red Lake
reservations, containing altogether about 4,672,000 acres, a portion of
which is very valuable for its pine timber.

The condition of these Indians, except those upon the White Earth
reservation, has been but little changed during the past year from that
of several years preceding. Great difficulty is still experienced in
inducing the Indians to remain permanently upon their reservations. A
roving life is still preferred by many, their old haunts presenting more
attractions for them than new homes with the unavoidable necessity of
labor for subsistence. Yet no inconsiderable number are already
evidencing by their efforts, as well as by their professions, a new
spirit of industry and enterprise. The past year has been one of trouble
and unusual excitement on the part of both whites and Indians, on
account of the ill behavior of the Pillager band; and apprehensions of a
serious outbreak were for a time entertained. Nine murders of citizens
are reported to have been committed by individual Chippewas, mainly if
not wholly of this band; and threats were made on the part of some of
the Pillagers, which, if carried out, would have involved nearly all of
the Indians of this section in hostilities. Happily, by the prompt
arrival of United States troops upon the White Earth reservation, and
more especially by the strong disapprobation of the conduct of the
Pillagers expressed in council by the general body of Leech Lake
Indians, and their evident purpose to unite with the government in
putting down any and all enemies of the peace, the crisis was passed;
and comparative quiet has again been restored. In view of the atrocities
committed by the Pillagers, and of the alarm occasioned thereby among
the citizens of Minnesota, Gov. Austin issued a proclamation requiring
all Indians to remain upon their reservations under penalty of arrest,
to be effected by the militia of the State, should it be found
necessary. In the present condition of things, however, a compliance by
all with this requirement is simply impossible; and there is danger,
that, without the exercise of great prudence and forbearance on the part
of the State authorities, further and greater difficulties may arise.
The "Otter Tail" Pillagers, to whom the difficulties referred to are
principally due, have the right to a home on the White Earth
reservation. They removed to it in 1871; but, as they were not provided
with the means of opening farms, nor with subsistence during the time
necessary to raise a crop, they returned to their former haunts. They
are now warned off from their grounds at Otter Tail by the State
authorities. The larger portion of the Pillagers, together with the
Winnebagoshish band, about fifteen hundred in number, live around Leech
Lake. Their general reputation for turbulence and worthlessness of
character is well known and of long standing: still there are those who
seem willing and ready to work if assisted by the government.

Agent Smith, in charge, says that their country is barren, with only
here and there patches susceptible of tillage, accessible only by canoe
or steamboat. In this connection, and adverting to the murders committed
by the Pillagers, it is but just to notice that all lawlessness in
Minnesota, in the region of the Indian reservations, is not confined to
Indians. The murder of two Indians of the Otter Tail Pillagers, for the
offence of camping on a white man's ground, is reported; while two
others, who had been arrested at White Earth on suspicion of complicity
in a murder, and lodged in jail for trial, were taken therefrom by a
mob, and hung. Such conduct can but have a pernicious effect upon the
Indian mind, and tend to arouse a spirit of revenge and retaliation.

_Mississippi bands._--These Indians reside in different localities. Most
of them are on their reservation at White Earth: others are at Mille
Lac, Gull Lake, and some at White Oak Point reservations. Upon the
first-named reservation operations have been quite extensive in the
erection of school-buildings, dwelling-houses, shops, and mills, and in
breaking ground. At one time during the past summer there was a prospect
of an abundant yield from 300 acres sown in cereals; but, unfortunately,
the grasshoppers swept away the entire crop; and a second crop of
buckwheat and turnips proved a failure. The Indians on this reservation
are well-behaved, and inclined to be industrious. Many of them are
engaged in tilling the soil, while others are learning the mechanical
arts; and they may, as a body, be said to be making considerable
progress in the pursuits of civilized life. About one-half of the
Indians at Gull Lake have been removed to White Earth: the remainder are
opposed to removal, and will, in their present feeling, rather forfeit
their annuities than change their location. The Mille Lac Chippewas,
who continue to occupy the lands ceded by them in 1863, with reservation
of the right to live thereon during good behavior, are indisposed to
leave their old home for the new one designed for them on the White
Earth reservation. Only about twenty-five have thus far been induced to
remove. Their present reservation is rich in pine lands, the envy of
lumber dealers; and there is a strong pressure on all sides for their
early removal. They should have help from the government, whether they
remain or remove; and this could be afforded to a sufficient extent by
the sale for their benefit of the timber upon the lands now occupied by
them. Probably the government could provide for them in no better way.

_The White Oak Point Chippewas_ were formerly known as Sandy Lake
Indians. They were removed in 1867 from Sandy Lake and Rabbit Lake to
White Oak Point on the Mississippi, near the eastern part of the Leech
Lake reservation. This location is unfavorable to their moral
improvement and material progress, from its proximity to the
lumber-camps of the whites. Thus far the effort made to better their
condition, by placing them on farming land, has proved a failure. The
ground broken for them has gone back into grass; and their log-houses
are in ruin, the former occupants betaking themselves to their wonted
haunts. It would be well if these Indians could be induced to remove to
the White Earth reservation.

At Red Lake the Indians have had a prosperous year: good crops of corn
and potatoes have been raised, and a number of houses built. This band
would be in much better circumstances were they possessed of a greater
quantity of arable lands. That to which they are at present limited
allows but five acres, suitable for that use, to each family. It is
proposed to sell their timber, and with the proceeds clear lands,
purchase stock, and establish a manual-labor school.

_The Pembina_ bands reside in Dakota Territory, but are here noticed in
connection with the Minnesota Indians, because of their being attached
to the same agency. They have no reservation, having ceded their lands
by treaty made in 1863, but claim title to Turtle Mountain in Dakota, on
which some of them resided at the time of the treaty, and which lies
west of the line of the cession then made. They number, the full-bloods
about three hundred and fifty, and the half-breeds about one hundred.
They lead a somewhat nomadic life, depending upon the chase for a
precarious subsistence, in connection with an annuity from the
government of the United States.

_The Chippewas_ of Minnesota have had but few educational advantages;
but with the facilities now being afforded, and with the earnest
endeavors that are now being put forth by their agent and the teachers
employed, especially at White Earth, it is expected that their interests
in this regard will be greatly promoted. At White Earth school
operations have been quite successful; so much so, that it will require
additional accommodations to meet the demands of the Indians for the
education of their children. The only other school in operation is that
at Red Lake, under the auspices of the American Indian Mission
Association.


INDIANA.

There are now in Indiana about three hundred and forty-five Miamies, who
did not go to Kansas when the tribe moved to that section under the
treaty of 1840. They are good citizens, many being thrifty farmers,
giving no trouble either to their white neighbors or to the government.
There is also a small band called the Eel River band of Miamies,
residing in this State and in Michigan.


NORTH CAROLINA, TENNESSEE, AND GEORGIA.

_Cherokees._--There are residing in these States probably about
seventeen hundred Cherokees, who elected to remain, under the provisions
respecting Cherokees averse to removal, contained in the twelfth article
of the treaty with the Cherokees of 1835. Under the act of July 29,
1848, a _per capita_ transportation and subsistence fund of $53.33 was
created and set apart for their benefit in accordance with a census-roll
made under the provisions of said act, the interest on which fund until
such time as they shall individually remove to the Indian country is the
only money to which those named in said roll, who are living, or the
heirs of those who have deceased, are entitled. This interest is too
small to be of any benefit; and some action should be taken by Congress,
with a view of having all business matters between these Indians and the
government settled, by removing such of them west as now desire to go,
and paying those who decline to remove, the _per capita_ fund referred
to. The government has no agent residing with these Indians. In
accordance with their earnestly expressed desire to be brought under the
immediate charge of the government, as its wards, Congress, by law
approved July 27, 1868, directed that the Secretary of the Interior
should cause the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to take the same
supervisory charge of them as of other tribes of Indians; but this
practically amounts to nothing, in the absence of means to carry out the
intention of the law with any beneficial result to the Indians. The
condition of this people is represented to be deplorable. Before the
late rebellion they were living in good circumstances, engaged, with all
the success which could be expected, in farming, and in various minor
industrial pursuits. Like all other inhabitants of this section, they
suffered much during the war, and are now from this and other causes
much impoverished.


FLORIDA.

_Seminoles._--There are a few Seminoles--supposed to number about three
hundred--still residing in Florida, being those, or the descendants of
those, who refused to accompany the tribe when it removed to the west
many years ago. But little is known of their condition and temper.


NEBRASKA, KANSAS, AND THE INDIAN TERRITORY.

The tribes residing in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory are
divided as follows: in Nebraska about 6,485; in Kansas, 1,500; in the
Indian Territory, 62,465.


NEBRASKA.

The Indians in Nebraska are the Santee Sioux, Winnebagoes, Omahas,
Pawnees, Sacs and Foxes of the Missouri, Iowas, and the Otoes and
Missourias.

_The Santee Sioux_, now numbering nine hundred and sixty-five, a
decrease from last year of twenty-two, are a portion of the Sisseton,
Wahpeton, Medawakanton, and Wahpakoota bands of Sioux of the
Mississippi, belonging thus to the great Sioux or Dakota nation. They
formerly, with other members of the same bands,--now located on
reservations in Dakota, one at Devil's Lake in the north-east corner of
the Territory, and another at Lake Traverse near their old home,--had an
extensive and valuable reservation in Minnesota, stretching, with a
width of ten miles, a long distance on the south side of the Minnesota
River; and were comparatively wealthy and prosperous until the Sioux
outbreak in 1862, in which, it will be remembered, nearly one thousand
white citizens lost their lives. After the suppression of hostilities
consequent on this outbreak, most of the Santee Sioux were removed, in
1863, to the Crow Creek reservation, and finally, in 1866, to their
present location near the mouth of the Niobrara River, at which point
their numbers were increased, to the extent of about two hundred, by the
accession of other Sioux, who had been held at Davenport, Io., as
prisoners, charged with complicity in the outbreak, but were pardoned by
the President.

The reservation of the Santee Sioux contains 83,200 acres; of which a
small portion only is suitable for agricultural purposes, the country
generally being broken with high bluffs and deep ravines. Lands have
been allotted in severalty to over two hundred. These Indians are
peaceable, industrious, and well advanced in the arts of life, and will
soon render themselves independent of the assistance now afforded by the
government. They have about five hundred acres in cultivation; upon
which good crops of wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, &c., are raised, when
not destroyed by that scourge of the country, the grasshopper. The
houses of the Santee Sioux are generally of rude structure; those first
built being without windows, and having only dirt floors and roofs. The
Indians are, however, improving of late in this regard, and building
much more durable and comfortable dwellings. They are parties to the
treaty made in 1868 with the nine bands of the Sioux nation, ranging in
the region of the Upper Missouri River. In addition to the benefits
derived by the Santee Sioux under this treaty, they have moneys
resulting from the sale of their lands in Minnesota, which are being
used for their benefit in improving their farms, and otherwise aiding
them in their efforts to become self-supporting. Three schools are in
successful operation on their reservation, having in attendance three
hundred and twenty-three scholars.

_Winnebagoes._--These Indians, numbering one thousand four hundred and
forty, a gain of forty over last year, are located in the eastern part
of Nebraska, on a reservation containing 128,000 acres, adjoining that
of the Omahas, and lying about eighty miles north of the city of Omaha.
They are the remnant of a once powerful tribe which formerly inhabited
Wisconsin, from which State they removed to Minnesota under the treaty
of 1837. At the outbreak of the Sioux in 1862, they were peaceably
engaged in agriculture, in a beautiful and fertile country on the waters
of the Blue Earth River, a majority being thriving and industrious
farmers, many of them possessing considerable intelligence. Although the
Winnebagoes were wholly disconnected with that outbreak, yet the
citizens in their immediate vicinity, as well as in other portions of
Minnesota, were so determined that all Indians should be removed beyond
the limits of the State, that Congress, in 1863, passed an act providing
for their removal. They were first removed in May, 1863, to Crow Creek,
in Dakota; and after great suffering, and loss of many lives from
exposure and starvation, they were finally established upon their
present reservation, which had been secured for them by the government
under treaty stipulations with the Omahas, and at which they arrived in
small and straggling parties during the year 1864. They are now
gradually regaining their former comfortable and prosperous condition.
Allotments of lands have been made to them. Their agent reports that the
past year has been marked by a steady improvement of the condition
generally of the tribe. The men have nearly all adopted the dress of
the whites; and the agent anticipates that the women will do the same so
soon as they shall come to live in houses, a number of which (50), of a
better class than is usually provided for Indian occupancy, are now
being erected, to be given to those most industrious and making the
greatest progress toward civilization. Considerable interest is
manifested in education, there being three day-schools, efficiently
managed, with an attendance of two hundred and fifty scholars; and there
is probably in operation by this date also an industrial and boarding
school, capable of accommodating eighty scholars.

_Omahas._--The Omahas, a peaceable and inoffensive people, numbering
nine hundred and sixty-nine, a decrease since 1871 of fifteen, are
native to the country now occupied by them, and occupy a reservation of
345,600 acres adjoining the Winnebagoes. They have lands allotted to
them in severalty, and have made considerable advancement in agriculture
and civilization, though they still follow the chase to some extent.
Under the provisions of the act of June 10, 1872, steps are being taken
to sell 50,000 acres of the western part of their reservation. The
proceeds of the sale of these lands will enable them to improve and
stock their farms, build houses, &c., and, with proper care and
industry, to become in a few years entirely self-sustaining. A few
cottages are to be found upon this reservation.

There are at present three schools in operation on this reservation,
with an attendance of one hundred and twenty scholars.

_Pawnees._--The Pawnees, a warlike people, number two thousand four
hundred and forty-seven, an increase for the past year of eighty-three.
They are located on a reservation of 288,000 acres, in the central part
of the State. They are native to the country now occupied by them, and
have for years been loyal to the government, having frequently furnished
scouts for the army in operations against hostile tribes or marauding
bands. Their location, so near the frontier, and almost in constant
contact with the Indians of the plains, with whom they have been always
more or less at war, has tended to <DW44> their advancement in the arts
of civilization. They are, however, gradually becoming more habituated
to the customs of the whites, are giving some attention to agriculture,
and, with the disappearance of the buffalo from their section of the
country, will doubtless settle down to farming and to the practice of
mechanical arts in earnest. The act of June 10, 1872, heretofore
referred to, provides also for the sale of 50,000 acres belonging to the
Pawnees, the same to be taken from that part of their reservation lying
south of Loup Fork. These lands are now being surveyed; and it is
believed, that, with the proceeds of this sale, such improvements, in
the way of building houses and opening and stocking farms, can be made
for the Pawnees as will at an early day induce them to give their entire
time and attention to industrial pursuits. There are two schools in
operation on the reservation,--one a manual-labor boarding-school, the
other a day-school, with an attendance at both of one hundred and
eighteen scholars. Provision was also made by Congress, at its last
session, for the erection of two additional schoolhouses for the use of
this tribe.

_Sacs and Foxes of the Missouri._--These Indians, formerly a portion of
the same tribe with the Indians now known as the Sacs and Foxes of the
Mississippi, emigrated many years ago from Iowa, and settled near the
tribe of Iowas, hereafter to be mentioned. They number at the present
time but eighty-eight, having been steadily diminishing for years. They
have a reservation of about 16,000 acres, lying in the south-eastern
part of Nebraska and the north-eastern part of Kansas, purchased for
them from the Iowas. Most of it is excellent land; but they have never,
to any considerable extent, made use of it for tillage, being almost
hopelessly disinclined to engage in labor of any kind, and depending
principally for their subsistence, a very poor one, upon their annuity,
which is secured to them by the treaty of Oct. 31, 1837, and amounts to
$7,870. By act of June 10, 1872, provision was made for the sale of a
portion or all of their reservation, the proceeds of such sale to be
expended for their immediate use, or for their removal to the Indian
Territory or elsewhere. They have consented to the sale of their entire
reservation; and, so soon as funds shall have been received from that
source, steps will be taken to have them removed to the Indian Territory
south of Kansas.

_Iowas._--These Indians, numbering at present two hundred and
twenty-five, emigrated years ago from Iowa and North-western Missouri,
and now have a reservation adjoining the Sacs and Foxes of the Missouri,
containing about 16,000 acres. They belong to a much better class of
Indians than their neighbors the Sacs and Foxes, being temperate,
frugal, industrious, and interested in the education of their children.
They were thoroughly loyal during the late rebellion, and furnished a
number of soldiers to the Union army. Many of them are good farmers; and
as a tribe they are generally extending their agricultural operations,
improving their dwellings, and adding to their comforts. A large
majority of the tribe are anxious to have their reservation allotted in
severalty; and, inasmuch as they are not inclined to remove to another
locality, it would seem desirable that their wishes in this respect
should be complied with. One school is in operation on the reservation,
with an attendance of sixty-eight scholars, besides an industrial home
for orphans, supported by the Indians themselves.

_Otoes and Missourias._--These Indians, numbering four hundred and
sixty-four, an increase of fourteen over last year, were removed from
Iowa and Missouri to their present beautiful and fertile reservation,
comprising 160,000 acres, and situated in the southern part of Nebraska.
Until quite recently they have evinced but little disposition to labor
for a support or in any way to better their miserable condition; yet
cut off from their wonted source of subsistence, the buffalo, by their
fear of the wild tribes which have taken possession of their old
hunting-grounds, they have gradually been more and more forced to work
for a living. Within the last three years many of them have opened farms
and built themselves houses. A school has also been established, having
an attendance of ninety-five scholars.


KANSAS.

The Indians still remaining in Kansas are the Kickapoos, Pottawatomies
(Prairie band), Chippewas and Munsees, Miamies, and the Kansas or Kaws.

_Kickapoos._--The Kickapoos emigrated from Illinois, and are now
located, to the number of two hundred and ninety, on a reservation of
19,200 acres, in the north-eastern part of the State. During the late
war a party of about one hundred, dissatisfied with the treaty made with
the tribe in 1863, went to Mexico, upon representations made to them by
certain of their kinsmen living in that republic, that they would be
welcomed and protected by the Mexican government; but, finding
themselves deceived, attempted to return to the United States. Only a
few, however, succeeded in reaching the Kickapoo agency. The Kickapoos
now remaining in Mexico separated from the tribe more than twenty years
ago, and settled among the southern Indians in the Indian Territory, on
or near the Washita River, whence they went to Mexico, where they still
live, notwithstanding the efforts of the government, of late, to arrange
with Mexico for their removal to the Indian Territory and location upon
some suitable reservation. Their raids across the border have been a
sore affliction to the people of Texas; and it is important that the
first promising occasion should be taken to secure their return to the
United States, and their establishment where they may be carefully
watched, and restrained from their depredatory habits, or summarily
punished if they persist in them. The Kickapoos remaining in Kansas are
peaceable and industrious, continuing to make commendable progress in
the cultivation of their farms, and showing much interest in the
education of their children. Under the provisions of the treaty of June
28, 1862, a few of these Indians have received lands in severalty, for
which patents have been issued, and are now citizens of the United
States. Two schools are in operation among these Indians, with a daily
average attendance of thirty-nine scholars.

_Pottawatomies._--The Prairie band is all of this tribe remaining in
Kansas, the rest having become citizens and removed, or most of them, to
the Indian Territory. The tribe, excepting those in Wisconsin heretofore
noticed, formerly resided in Michigan and Indiana, and removed to Kansas
under the provisions of the treaty of 1846. The Prairie band numbers, as
nearly as ascertained, about four hundred, and is located on a reserve
of 77,357 acres, fourteen miles north of Topeka. Notwithstanding many
efforts to educate and civilize these Indians, most of them still cling
tenaciously to the habits and customs of their fathers. Some, however,
have recently turned their attention to agricultural pursuits, and are
now raising stock and most of the varieties of grain produced by their
white neighbors. They are also showing more interest in education than
formerly; one school being in operation on the reservation, with an
attendance of eighty-four scholars.

_Chippewas and Munsees._--Certain of the Chippewas of Saginaw, Swan
Creek, and Black River, removed from Michigan under the treaty of 1836;
and certain Munsees, or Christian Indians, from Wisconsin under the
treaty of 1839. These were united by the terms of the treaty concluded
with them July 16, 1859. The united bands now number only fifty-six.
They own 4,760 acres of land in Franklin County, about forty miles south
of the town of Lawrence, holding the same in severalty, are considerably
advanced in the arts of life, and earn a decent living, principally by
agriculture. They have one school in operation, with an attendance of
sixteen scholars. These Indians, at present, have no treaty with the
United States; nor do they receive any assistance from the government.

_Miamies._--The Miamies of Kansas formerly resided in Indiana, forming
one tribe with the Miamies still remaining in that State, but removed in
1846 to their present location, under the provisions of the treaty of
1840.

Owing to the secession of a considerable number who have allied
themselves with the Peorias, in the Indian Territory, and also to the
ravages of disease consequent on vicious indulgences, especially in the
use of intoxicating drinks, this band, which, on its removal from
Indiana, embraced about five hundred, at present numbers but
ninety-five. These have a reservation of 10,240 acres in Linn and Miami
Counties, in the south-east part of Kansas, the larger part of which is
held in severalty by them.

The Superintendent of Indian Affairs, in immediate charge, in his report
for this year says the Miamies remaining in Kansas are greatly
demoralized, their school has been abandoned, and their youth left
destitute of educational advantages.

Considerable trouble has been for years caused by white settlers
locating aggressively on lands belonging to these Indians, no effort for
their extrusion having been thus far successful.

_Kansas or Kaws._--These Indians are native to the country they occupy.
They number at present five hundred and ninety-three: in 1860 they
numbered eight hundred and three. Although they have a reservation of
80,640 acres of good land in the eastern part of the State, they are
poor and improvident, and have in late years suffered much for want of
the actual necessaries of life. They never were much disposed to labor,
depending upon the chase for a living, in connection with the annuities
due from government. They have been growing steadily poorer; and even
now, in their straitened circumstances, and under the pressure of want,
they show but little inclination to engage in agricultural pursuits, all
attempts to induce them to work having measurably proved failures. Until
quite recently they could not even be prevailed upon to have their
children educated. One school is now in operation, with an attendance of
about forty-five scholars. By the act of May 8, 1872, provision was made
for the sale of all the lands owned by these Indians in Kansas, and for
their removal to the Indian Territory. Provision was also made, by the
act of June 5, 1872, for their settlement within the limits of a tract
of land therein provided to be set apart for the Osages. Their lands in
Kansas are now being appraised by commissioners appointed for the
purpose, preparatory to their sale.


INDIAN TERRITORY.

The Indians at present located in the Indian Territory--an extensive
district, bounded north by Kansas, east by Missouri and Arkansas, south
by Texas, and west by the one hundredth meridian, designated by the
commissioners appointed under act of Congress July 20, 1867, to
establish peace with certain hostile tribes, as one of two great
Territories (the other being, in the main, the present Territory of
Dakota, west of the Missouri) upon which might be concentrated the great
body of all the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains--are the Cherokees,
Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, Senecas, Shawnees, Quapaws,
Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork and Roche de Boeuf, Peorias, and
confederated Kaskaskias, Weas and Piankeshaws, Wyandots, Pottawatomies,
Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi, Osages, Kiowas, Comanches, the
Arapahoes and Cheyennes of the south, the Wichitas and other affiliated
bands, and a small band of Apaches long confederated with the Kiowas and
Comanches.

_Cherokees._--The Cherokees number, according to the census for 1872,
furnished by their agent, 18,000. In the report for 1871 the agent
estimated the number at 14,682, and stated that if the Cherokees
remaining in North Carolina and other States were gathered into the
nation, the population would then be 16,500. He does not now account for
the large increase over the enumeration for 1871, which must be due to a
gross error in one report or the other. The Cherokees occupy a
reservation of 3,844,712 acres in the north-eastern part of the
Territory, lying east of the 96 deg. west longitude. They also own a strip
about fifty miles wide adjoining Kansas on the south, and extending from
the Arkansas River west to the 100 deg. west longitude. By the treaty of
1866, however, the United States may settle friendly Indians within the
limits of the latter tract; and when such settlements are made the
rights of the Cherokees to the lands so occupied terminate, the lands
thus disposed of to be paid for to the Cherokee nation at such price as
may be agreed upon by the parties in interest, or as may be fixed by the
President. That portion of country lying between the 96 deg. west longitude
on the east, the Arkansas River on the west and south, and the State of
Kansas on the north, formerly owned by the Cherokees, has been sold to
the Osages.

The Cherokees originally inhabited sections of country now embraced
within the State of Georgia and portions of the States of Tennessee and
North Carolina, and moved to their present location under the provisions
of the treaties concluded with them in 1817 and 1835. They have their
own written language, their national constitution and laws, their
churches, schools, and academies, their judges and courts. They are
emphatically an agricultural and stock-raising people, and perhaps of
all the Indian tribes, great and small, are first in general
intelligence, in the acquisition of wealth, in the knowledge of the
useful arts, and in social and moral progress. The evidences of a real
and substantial advancement in these respects are too clear to be
questioned; and it is the more remarkable from the fact, that, but a few
years since, they were, as a people, almost ruined by the ravages of
civil war. Their dwellings consist of 500 frame-houses, and 3,500
log-houses. Of the principal crops, they have raised during the year
2,925,000 bushels of corn, 97,500 bushels of wheat, about the same
quantity of oats, and 80,000 bushels of potatoes. Their stock consists
of 16,000 horses, 75,000 cattle, 160,000 hogs, and 9,000 sheep. The
individual wealth is estimated at $4,995,000.

By the latest reports, they had sixty schools in successful operation,
all, with the exception of one managed by the Moravians, maintained out
of the national school-fund, and having in attendance 2,133 scholars.
Three of these schools are for the education of the freedmen living in
the country. The orphans of the Cherokees have been heretofore provided
for in private families, by means of the interest derived from certain
funds invested for that purpose; but during the past year an orphan
asylum has been established under an act of the National Council, where
are now gathered fifty-four of this class. This school is designed
ultimately to embrace in its operations all the orphans of the nation.

The Cherokees have no treaty-funds paid to them or expended for their
benefit. They have, however, United-States and State bonds held in trust
for them by the Secretary of the Interior, to the amount of
$1,633,627.39; also a recognized claim on account of abstracted State
bonds to the amount of $83,000, on which the interest is appropriated
annually by Congress, making in all $1,716,627.39. This sum is divided
under the following heads, viz., national fund, $1,008,285.07; school
fund, $532,407.01; orphan fund, $175,935.31. The interest on these
several sums is paid to the treasurer of the Cherokee nation, to be used
under the direction of the National Council for the objects indicated by
said heads.

_Choctaws and Chickasaws._--These tribes are for certain national
purposes confederated. The Choctaws, numbering 16,000, an increase of
1,000 on the enumeration for 1871, have a reservation of 6,688,000
acres in the south-eastern part of the Territory; and the Chickasaws,
numbering 6,000, own a tract containing 4,377,600 acres adjoining the
Choctaws on the west. These tribes originally inhabited the section of
country now embraced within the State of Mississippi, and were removed
to their present location in accordance with the terms of the treaties
concluded with them, respectively, in 1820 and 1832. The remarks made
respecting the language, laws, educational advantages, industrial
pursuits, and advancement in the arts and customs of civilized life, of
the Cherokees, will apply in the main to the Choctaws and Chickasaws.
The Choctaws have 36 schools in operation, with an attendance of 819
scholars; the Chickasaws 11, with 379 scholars. The Choctaws, under the
treaties of Nov. 16, 1805, Oct. 18, 1820, Jan. 20, 1825, and June 22,
1855, receive permanent annuities as follows: in money, $3,000; for
support of government, education, and other beneficial purposes,
$25,512.89; for support of light-horsemen, $600; and for iron and steel,
$320. They also have United-States and State stocks, held in trust for
them by the Secretary of the Interior, to the amount of $506,427.20,
divided as follows: on account of "Choctaw general fund," $454,000; of
"Choctaw school-fund," $52,427.20. The interest on these funds, and the
annuities, &c., are turned over to the treasurer of the nation, and
expended under the direction of the National Council in the manner and
for the objects indicated in each case. The Chickasaws, under act of
Feb. 25, 1799, and treaty of April 28, 1866, have a permanent annuity of
$3,000. They also have United-States and State stocks, held in trust for
them by the Secretary of the Interior, to the amount of
$1,185,947.03-2/3; $183,947.03-2/3 thereof being a "national fund," and
$2,000 a fund for "incompetents." The interest on these sums, and the
item of $3,000 first referred to, are paid over to the treasurer of the
nation, and disbursed by him, under the direction of the National
Council, and for such objects as that body may determine.

_Creeks._--The Creeks came originally from Alabama and Georgia. They
numbered at the latest date of enumeration 12,295, and have a
reservation of 3,215,495 acres in the eastern and central part of the
Territory. They are not generally so far advanced as the Cherokees,
Choctaws, and Chickasaws, but are making rapid progress, and will
doubtless, in a few years, rank in all respects with their neighbors,
the three tribes just named. The Creeks, by the latest reports, have 33
schools in operation; one of which is under the management of the
Methodist Mission Society, and another supported by the Presbyterians.
The number of scholars in all the schools is 760. These Indians have,
under treaties of Aug. 7, 1790, June 16, 1802, Jan. 24, 1826, Aug. 7,
1856, and June 14, 1866, permanent annuities and interest on moneys
uninvested as follows: in money, $68,258.40; for pay of blacksmiths and
assistants, wagon-maker, wheelwright, iron and steel, $3,250; for
assistance in agricultural operations, $2,000; and for education,
$1,000. The Secretary of the Interior holds in trust for certain members
of the tribe, known as "orphans," United-States and State bonds to the
amount of $76,999.66, the interest on which sum is paid to those of said
orphans who are alive, and to the representatives of those who have
deceased.

_Seminoles._--The Seminoles, numbering 2,398, an increase of 190 over
the census of 1871, have a reservation of 200,000 acres adjoining the
Creeks on the west. This tribe formerly inhabited the section of country
now embraced in the State of Florida. Some of them removed to their
present location under the provisions of the treaties of 1832 and 1833.
The remainder of the tribe, instigated by the former chief, Osceola,
repudiated the treaties, refused to remove, and soon after commenced
depredating upon the whites. In 1835 these depredations resulted in war,
which continued seven years, with immense cost of blood and treasure.
The Indians were at last rendered powerless to do further injury, and,
after efforts repeated through several years, were finally, with the
exception of a few who fled to the everglades, removed to a reservation
in the now Indian Territory. In 1866 they ceded to the United States, by
treaty, the reservation then owned by them, and purchased the tract they
at present occupy. They are not so far advanced in the arts of civilized
life as the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks, but are making
rapid progress in that direction, and will, it is confidently believed,
soon rank with the tribes named. They cultivate 7,600 acres; upon which
they raised during the past year 300,000 bushels of corn, and 6,000
bushels of potatoes. They live in log-houses, and own large stocks of
cattle, horses, and hogs. The schools of the Seminoles number 4, with an
attendance of 169 scholars.

They receive, under treaties made with them Aug. 7, 1856, and March 21,
1866, annuities, &c., as follows: interest on $500,000, amounting to
$25,000 annually, which is paid to them as annuity; interest on $50,000,
amounting to $2,500 annually, for support of schools; and $1,000, the
interest on $20,000, for the support of their government.

_Senecas and Shawnees._--The Senecas, numbering 214, and the Shawnees,
numbering 90, at the present time, removed, some thirty-five or forty
years ago, from Ohio to their present location in the north-eastern
corner of the Territory. They suffered severely during the rebellion,
being obliged to leave their homes and fly to the North, their country
being devastated by troops of both armies. Under the provisions of the
treaty of 1867, made with these and other tribes, the Senecas, who were
then confederated with the Shawnees, dissolved their connection with
that tribe, sold to the United States their half of the reservation
owned by them in common with the Shawnees, and connected themselves with
those Senecas who then owned a separate reservation. The Shawnees now
have a reservation of 24,960 acres, and the united Senecas one of 44,000
acres. These tribes are engaged in agriculture to a considerable
extent. They are peaceable and industrious. Many are thrifty farmers,
and in comfortable circumstances. They have one school in operation,
with an attendance of 36 scholars, which includes some children of the
Wyandots, which tribe has no schools.

_Quapaws._--These Indians number at the present time about 240. They are
native to the country, and occupy a reservation of 104,000 acres in the
extreme north-east corner of the Territory. They do not appear to have
advanced much within the past few years. In common with other tribes in
that section, they suffered greatly by the late war, and were rendered
very destitute. Their proximity to the border towns of Kansas, and the
facilities thereby afforded for obtaining whiskey, have tended to <DW44>
their progress; but there has recently been manifested a strong desire
for improvement; and with the funds derived from the sale of a part of
their lands, and with the proposed opening of a school among them,
better things are hoped for in the future.

_Ottawas._--The Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork and Roche de Boeuf number,
at the present time, 150. They were originally located in Western Ohio
and Southern Michigan, and were removed, in accordance with the terms
of the treaty concluded with them in 1831, to a reservation within the
present limits of Kansas. Under the treaty of 1867 they obtained a
reservation of 24,960 acres, lying immediately north of the western
portion of the Shawnee reservation. They have paid considerable
attention to education, are well advanced in civilization, and many of
them are industrious and prosperous farmers. They have one school,
attended by 52 scholars. The relation of this small band to the
government is somewhat anomalous, inasmuch as, agreeably to provisions
contained in the treaties of 1862 and 1867, they have become citizens of
the United States, and yet reside in the Indian Country, possess a
reservation there, and maintain a purely tribal organization. They
removed from Franklin Co., Kan., in 1870.

_Peorias, &c._--The Peorias, Kaskaskias, Weas, and Piankeshaws, who were
confederated in 1854, and at that time had a total population of 259,
now number 160. They occupy a reservation of 72,000 acres, adjoining the
Quapaw reservation on the south and west. Under treaties made with these
tribes in 1832, they removed to a tract within the present limits of
Kansas, where they remained until after the treaty of 1867 was
concluded with them, in which treaty provision was made whereby they
obtained their present reservation. These Indians are generally
intelligent, well advanced in civilization, and, to judge from the
statistical reports of their agent, are very successful in their
agricultural operations, raising crops ample for their own support. With
the Peorias are about 40 Miamies from Kansas. They have one school in
operation, with an attendance of 29 scholars.

_Wyandots._--The Wyandots number at the present time 222 souls. Ten
years ago there were 435. They occupy a reservation of 20,000 acres,
lying between the Seneca and Shawnee reservations. This tribe was
located for many years in North-western Ohio, whence they removed,
pursuant to the terms of the treaty made with them in 1842, to a
reservation within the present limits of Kansas. By the treaty made with
them in 1867, their present reservation was set apart for those members
of the tribe who desired to maintain their tribal organization, instead
of becoming citizens, as provided in the treaty of 1855. They are poor,
and, having no annuities and but little force of character, are making
slight progress in industry or civilization. They have been lately
joined by members of the tribe, who, under the treaty, accepted
citizenship. These, desiring to resume their relations with their
people, have been again adopted into the tribe.

_Pottawatomies._--These Indians, who formerly resided in Michigan and
Indiana, whence they removed to Kansas, before going down into the
Indian Territory numbered about 1,600. They have, under the provisions
of the treaty of 1861 made with the tribe, then residing in Kansas,
become citizens of the United States. By the terms of said treaty they
received allotments of land, and their proportion of the tribal funds,
with the exception of their share of certain non-paying State stocks,
amounting to sixty-seven thousand dollars, held in trust by the
Secretary of the Interior for the Pottawatomies. Having disposed of
their lands, they removed to the Indian Territory, where a reservation
thirty miles square, adjoining the Seminole reservation on the west, had
been, by the treaty of 1867, provided for such as should elect to
maintain their tribal organization. It having been decided, however, by
the department, that, as they had all become citizens, there was
consequently no part of the tribe remaining which could lay claim, under
treaty stipulations, to the reservation in the Indian Territory,
legislation was had by Congress at its last session--act approved May
23, 1872--by which these citizen Pottawatomies were allowed allotments
of land within the tract originally assigned for their use as a tribe,
to the extent of one hundred and sixty acres to each head of family and
to each other person twenty-one years of age, and of eighty acres to
each minor. Most if not all of them are capable of taking care of
themselves; and many of them are well-educated, intelligent, and thrifty
farmers.

_Absentee Shawnees._--These Indians, numbering six hundred and
sixty-three, separated about thirty years ago from the main tribe, then
located in Kansas, and settled in the Indian Territory, principally
within the limits of the thirty miles square tract heretofore referred
to in the remarks relative to the Pottawatomies, where they engaged in
farming, and have since supported themselves without assistance from the
government.

_Sacs and Foxes._--The Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi number at the
present time 463. In 1846 they numbered 2,478. They have a reservation
of 483,840 acres, adjoining the Creeks on the west, and between the
North Fork of the Canadian and the Red Fork of the Arkansas Rivers.
They formerly occupied large tracts of country in Wisconsin, Iowa, and
Missouri, whence they removed, by virtue of treaty stipulations, to a
reservation within the present limits of Kansas. By the terms of the
treaties of 1859 and 1868, all their lands in Kansas were ceded to the
United States, and they were given in lieu thereof their present
reservation. These Indians, once famous for their prowess in war, have
not, for some years, made any marked improvement upon their former
condition. Still they have accomplished a little, under highly adverse
circumstances and influences, in the way of opening small farms and in
building houses, and are beginning to show some regard for their women
by relieving them of the burdens and labors heretofore required of them.
There is hope of their further improvement, although they are still but
one degree removed from the Blanket or Breech-Clout Indians. They have
one school in operation, with an attendance of only about twelve
scholars. 317 members of these tribes, after their removal to Kansas,
returned to Iowa, where they were permitted to remain, and are now,
under the act of March 2, 1867, receiving their share of the tribal
funds. They have purchased 419 acres of land in Tama County, part of
which they are cultivating. They are not much disposed to work, however,
on lands of their own, preferring to labor for the white farmers in
their vicinity, and are still much given to roving and hunting.

_Osages._--The Osages, numbering 3,956, are native to the general
sections of country where they now live. Their reservation is bounded on
the north by the south line of Kansas, east by the ninety-sixth degree
of west longitude, and south and west by the Arkansas River, and
contains approximately 1,760,000 acres. They still follow the chase, the
buffalo being their main dependence for food. Their wealth consists in
horses (of which they own not less than 12,000) and in cattle.

_Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches._--These tribes, confederated under
present treaty stipulations, formerly ranged over an extensive country
lying between the Rio Grande and the Red River. As nearly as can be
ascertained, they number as follows: Kiowas, 1,930; Comanches, 3,180;
and Apaches, 380. They are now located upon a reservation secured to
them by treaty made in 1867, comprising 3,549,440 acres in the
south-western part of the Indian Territory, west of and adjoining the
Chickasaw country. Wild and intractable, these Indians, even the best of
them, have given small signs of improvement in the arts of life; and,
substantially, the whole dealing of the government with them, thus far,
has been in the way of supplying their necessities for food and
clothing, with a view to keeping them upon their reservation, and
preventing their raiding into Texas, with the citizens of which State
they were for many years before their present establishment on terms of
mutual hatred and injury. Some individuals and bands have remained quiet
and peaceable upon their reservation, evincing a disposition to learn
the arts of life, to engage in agriculture, and to have their children
instructed in letters. To these every inducement is being held out to
take up land, and actively commence tilling it. Thus far they have under
cultivation but 100 acres, which have produced the past year a good crop
of corn and potatoes. The wealth of these tribes consists in horses and
mules, of which they own to the number, as reported by their agent, of
16,500, a great proportion of the animals notoriously having been stolen
in Texas.

However, it may be said, in a word, of these Indians, that their
civilization must follow their submission to the government, and that
the first necessity in respect to them is a wholesome example, which
shall inspire fear and command obedience. So long as four-fifths of
these tribes take turns at raiding into Texas, openly and boastfully
bringing back scalps and spoils to their reservation, efforts to inspire
very high ideas of social and industrial life among the communities of
which the raiders form so large a part will presumably result in
failure.

_Arapahoes and Cheyennes of the South._--These tribes are native to the
section of country now inhabited by them. The Arapahoes number at the
present time 1,500, and the Cheyennes 2,000. By the treaty of 1867, made
with these Indians, a large reservation was provided for them, bounded
on the north by Kansas, on the east by the Arkansas River, and on the
south and west by the Red Fork of the Arkansas. They have, however,
persisted in a refusal to locate on this reservation; and another tract,
containing 4,011,500 acres, north of and adjoining the Kiowa and
Comanche reservation, was set apart for them by Executive order of Aug.
10, 1869. By act of May 29, 1872, the Secretary of the Interior was
authorized to negotiate with these Indians for the relinquishment of
their claim to the lands ceded to them by the said treaty, and to give
them in lieu thereof a "sufficient and permanent location" upon lands
ceded to the United States by the Creeks and Seminoles in treaties made
with them in 1866. Negotiations to the end proposed were duly entered
into with these tribes unitedly; but, in the course of such
negotiations, it has become the view of this Office that the tribes
should no longer be associated in the occupation of a reservation. The
Arapahoes are manifesting an increasing disinclination to follow further
the fortunes of the Cheyennes, and crave a location of their own.
Inasmuch as the conduct of the Arapahoes is uniformly good, and their
disposition to make industrial improvement very decided, it is thought
that they should now be separated from the more turbulent Cheyennes, and
given a place where they may carry out their better intentions without
interruption and without the access of influences tending to draw their
young men away to folly and mischief. With this view a contract, made
subject to the action of Congress, was entered into between the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the delegation of the Arapaho tribe
which visited Washington during the present season (the delegation being
fully empowered thereto by the tribe), by which the Arapahoes relinquish
all their interest in the reservation granted them by the treaty of
1867, in consideration of the grant of a reservation between the North
Fork of the Canadian River and the Red Fork of the Arkansas River, and
extending from a point ten miles east of the ninety-eighth to near the
ninety-ninth meridian of west longitude. Should this adjustment of the
question, so far as the Arapahoes are concerned, meet the approval of
Congress, separate negotiations will be entered into with the Cheyennes,
with a view to obtaining their relinquishment of the reservation of
1867, and their location on some vacant tract within the same general
section of the Indian Territory.

A considerable number of the Arapahoes are already engaged in
agriculture, though at a disadvantage; and, when the question of their
reservation shall have been settled, it is confidently believed that
substantially the whole body of this tribe will turn their attention to
the cultivation of the soil. Two schools are conducted for their
benefit at the agency, having an attendance of thirty-five scholars. Of
the Cheyennes confederated with the Arapahoes, the reports are less
favorable as to progress made in industry, or disposition to improve
their condition. Until 1867 both these tribes, in common with the Kiowas
and Comanches, were engaged in hostilities against the white settlers in
Western Kansas; but since the treaty made with them in that year they
have, with the exception of one small band of the Cheyennes, remained
friendly, and have committed no depredations.

_Wichitas, &c._--The Wichitas and other affiliated bands of Keechies,
Wacoes, Towoccaroes, Caddoes, Ionies, and Delawares, number 1,250,
divided approximately as follows: Wichitas, 299; Keechies, 126; Wacoes,
140; Towoccaroes, 127; Caddoes, 392; Ionies, 85; Delawares, 81. These
Indians, fragments of once important tribes originally belonging in
Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, and the Indian Territory, were all, excepting
the Wichitas and Delawares, removed by the government from Texas, in
1859, to the "leased district," then belonging to the Choctaws and
Chickasaws, where they have since resided, at a point on the Washita
River near old Fort Cobb. They have no treaty relations with the
government; nor have they any defined reservation. They have always, or
at least for many years, been friendly to the whites, although in close
and constant contact with the Kiowas and Comanches. A few of them,
chiefly Caddoes and Delawares, are engaged in agriculture, and are
disposed to be industrious. Of the other Indians at this agency, some
cultivate small patches in corn and vegetables, the work being done
mainly by women; but the most are content to live upon the government.
The Caddoes rank among the best Indians of the continent, and set an
example to the other bands affiliated with them worthy of being more
generally followed than it is. In physique, and in the virtues of
chastity, temperance, and industry, they are the equals of many white
communities.

A permanent reservation should be set aside for the Indians of this
agency; and, with proper assistance, they would doubtless in a few years
become entirely self-sustaining. But one school is in operation, with an
attendance of eighteen scholars. These Indians have no annuities; but an
annual appropriation of $50,000 has for several years been made for
their benefit. This money is expended for goods and agricultural
implements, and for assistance and instruction in farming, &c.


DAKOTA, MONTANA, WYOMING, AND IDAHO.


The tribes residing in Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho are divided
as follows: in Dakota, about 28,000; Montana, 30,000; Wyoming, 2,000;
and Idaho, 5,000. The present temporary location of the Red Cloud agency
has, however, drawn just within the limits of Wyoming a body of Indians
varying from 8,000 to 9,000, who are here, and usually, reckoned as
belonging in Dakota.


DAKOTA.

The Indians within the limits of Dakota Territory are the Sioux, the
Poncas, and the Arickarees, Gros Ventres, and Mandans.

_Sioux._--There are probably, including those at the Red Cloud agency,
at present temporarily located in Wyoming, about 25,000 Sioux under the
care of government at eight different agencies.

The Yankton Sioux, numbering about 2,000, are located in the extreme
southern part of the Territory, on the east side of the Missouri, about
fifty miles from the town of Yankton, upon a reservation of 400,000
acres, nearly all rolling prairie, set apart for them by treaty of 1858,
out of the tract then ceded by them to the United States. They have not
been much inclined to work; and, although there is good land within
their reservation, they are poor, having still to be subsisted in a
great measure by the government. It is but due to say of the Yanktons,
that, while other bands of Sioux have been hostile to the government and
citizens, they have uniformly been friendly, even to the extent of
assisting the government against their own kindred. They are now giving
considerable attention to the education of their children, having six
schools in operation, with an average attendance of three hundred and
sixty-six scholars.

The Sisseton and Wahpeton bands have two reservations,--one in the
eastern part of the Territory, at Lake Traverse, containing 1,241,600
acres, where are 1,496 Indians; and one in the north-eastern part of the
Territory, at Devil's Lake, containing 345,600 acres, where are 720
Indians, including a few from the "Cut-Head" band of Sioux. These two
reservations are provided for in a treaty made with the bands in 1867.
These Indians were a portion of the Sioux living in Minnesota at the
time of the outbreak in 1862. Many of them claim to have been, and
doubtless were, friendly to the whites during the troubles referred to;
and when the removal of the Sioux took place in 1863, as noticed
heretofore under the title of "Santee Sioux," they went to the western
part of Minnesota and to the eastern and northern parts of Dakota, near
their present reservations. They are quite generally engaged in
agricultural operations, under the system adopted while they were on
their reservation in Minnesota, by which the individual Indians receive
pay in goods or supplies for all work performed, only the aged, infirm,
or sick being supplied with clothing and subsistence gratuitously. So
far as these Indians are concerned, the scheme has been decidedly
successful; and it should be extended to all the tribes and bands now on
the "feeding-list," so soon as practicable. There are four schools in
operation for the bands at Lake Traverse, attended by one hundred and
twenty-three scholars. An unusual degree of interest is manifested of
late in having their children educated. By treaty made with them in
1867, the amount of funds to be appropriated annually for their benefit
is at the discretion of Congress. For the present year, the sum of
$75,000 has been appropriated for the benefit of these Indians. They
also participate in the proceeds derived from the sales of the Sioux
lands in Minnesota, which furnish a considerable revenue yearly.

The Oncpapa, Blackfeet, Lower Yanktonai, Upper Yanktonai, Sans Arc,
Upper and Lower Brule, Two Kettle, Minneconjou, and Ogallala bands are
located at five different agencies, viz.: the Upper Missouri, or Crow
Creek agency, on the east side of the Missouri; the Grand River agency,
at the mouth of the Grand River; the Cheyenne River agency, at the mouth
of the Cheyenne River; the Whetstone agency (so called from its former
location at the junction of the Whetstone with the Missouri Rivers), on
the White River, about two hundred and twenty-five miles west of the
Missouri; and the Red Cloud agency, at present on the North Platte,
about thirty miles south-east from Fort Laramie. The Indians at these
agencies number in the aggregate about 22,000. They have a reservation
set apart for them by the treaty of 1868, containing about 25,000,000
acres, lying west of the Missouri River and north of Nebraska. Prior to
this treaty, these Indians had for years been engaged in acts of
hostility against the government and in depredations upon the white
settlers. Claiming to own most, if not all, of the Territory of Dakota,
and portions of the Territories of Montana and Wyoming, as well as the
western part of Nebraska, they used every effort to prevent the
settlement of the country so claimed, their hostility being especially
directed against the Union Pacific Railroad. The military operations of
1867-68, however, convinced the Sioux of the hopelessness of opposing
the progress of the railroad, and the settlement of the immediate belt
through which it was to pass, and disposed them to accept the provision
made for them by the treaty of 1868. With the exception of the main
portion of the Ogallala band, at the Red Cloud agency, and a
considerable body of disaffected Indians from all the bands, known as
the "hostile Sioux," of whom "Sitting Bull" and "Black Moon" are the
principal chiefs, these bands are all within the limits of the
reservation set apart by said treaty of 1868. A few at each of the
agencies on the Missouri River have shown a disposition to engage in
agriculture; but by far the greater part of them remain "breech-clout"
Indians, disinclined to labor for a living, and accepting subsistence
from the government as the natural and proper consideration for the
favor done the government by their consenting to remain at the agencies
assigned them. If they have any suspicion that this thing cannot last
forever, and that the time will soon come for them to work or starve,
the great majority do not allow themselves to be influenced by it, but
seem determined to put the evil day as far off as possible.

_Poncas._--The Poncas, numbering 735, have a reservation of 576,000
acres, near the confluence of the Niobrara and Missouri Rivers, in the
south-eastern part of the Territory, provided for them in their treaty
with the United States, made in 1858. They are quiet and peaceable, are
inclined to be industrious, and engage to some extent in farming; but
from various causes, principally the destruction of their crops by
grasshoppers, have not succeeded in supporting themselves without
assistance from the government. They are well advanced in civilized
habits of life, and have shown considerable interest in the education of
their children, having three schools in operation, with an average
attendance of seventy-seven scholars.

_Arickarees, Gros Ventres, and Mandans._--These tribes number 2,200, and
have a reservation set apart for their occupancy by executive order of
April 12, 1870, comprising 8,640,000 acres, situated in the
north-western part of Dakota and the eastern part of Montana, extending
to the Yellowstone and Powder Rivers. They have no treaty with the
government, are now and have always been friendly to the whites, are
exceptionally known to the officers of the army and to frontiersmen as
"good Indians," and are engaged to some extent in agriculture. Owing to
the shortness of the agricultural season, the rigor of the climate, and
the periodical ravages of grasshoppers, their efforts in this direction,
though made with a degree of patience and perseverance not usual in the
Indian character, have met with frequent and distressing reverses; and
it has from time to time been found necessary to furnish them with more
or less subsistence to prevent starvation. They are traditional enemies
of the Sioux; and the petty warfare maintained between them and the
Sioux of the Grand River and Cheyenne River agencies--while, like most
warfare confined to Indians alone, it causes wonderfully little loss of
life--serves to disturb the condition of these agencies, and to <DW44>
the progress of all the parties concerned. These Indians should be moved
to the Indian Territory, south of Kansas, where the mildness of the
climate and the fertility of the soil would repay their labors, and
where, it is thought, from their willingness to labor and their docility
under the control of the government, they would in a few years become
wholly self-supporting. The question of their removal has been submitted
to them; and they seem inclined to favor the project, but have expressed
a desire to send a delegation of their chiefs to the Indian Territory,
with a view of satisfying themselves as to the desirableness of the
location. Their wishes in this respect should be granted early next
season, that their removal and settlement may be effected during the
coming year. Notwithstanding their willingness to labor, they have shown
but little interest in education. Congress makes an appropriation of
$75,000 annually for goods and provisions, for their instruction in
agricultural and mechanical pursuits, for salaries of employes, and for
the education of their children, &c.


MONTANA.

The Indian tribes residing within the limits of Montana are the
Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans, the Gros Ventres of the Prairie, the
Assinaboines, the Yanktonais, Santee and Teton (so called) Sioux, a
portion of the northern Arapahoes and Cheyennes, the River Crows, the
Mountain Crows, the Flatheads, Pend d'Oreilles, and Kootenays, and a few
Shoshones, Bannocks, and Sheep-Eaters, numbering in the aggregate about
32,412. They are all, or nearly all, native to the regions now occupied
by them respectively.

The following table will exhibit the population of each of these tribes,
as nearly as the same can be ascertained:--

  Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans                        7,500

  Assinaboines                                          4,790

  Gros Ventres                                          1,100

  Santee, Yanktonais, Uncpapa, and Cut-Head Sioux,
    at Milk River agency                                2,625

  River Crows                                           1,240

  Mountain Crows                                        2,700

  Flatheads                                               460

  Pend d'Oreilles                                       1,000

  Kootenays                                               320

  Shoshones, Bannocks, and Sheep-Eaters                   677

  Roving Sioux, commonly called Teton Sioux,
    including those gathered during 1872, at
    and near Fort Peck, (largely estimated)             8,000
                                                      -------
  Estimated total                                      30,412

The number of northern Cheyennes and Arapahoes roaming in Montana, who,
it is believed, have co-operated with the Sioux under "Sitting Bull,"
in their depredations, is not known: it is probably less than 1,000.

The Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans (located at the Blackfeet agency on
the Teton River, about seventy-five miles from Fort Benton), the Gros
Ventres, Assinaboines, the River Crows, about 1,000 of the Northern
Arapahoes and Cheyennes, and the Santee and Yankton Sioux (located at
the Milk River agency, on the Milk River, about one hundred miles from
its mouth), occupy jointly a reservation in the extreme northern part of
the Territory, set apart by treaties (not ratified) made in 1868 with
most of the tribes named, and containing about 17,408,000 acres. The
Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans, particularly the last-named band, have
been, until within about two years, engaged in depredating upon the
white settlers. The Indians at the Milk River agency, with the exception
of the Sioux, are now, and have been for several years, quiet and
peaceable. The Sioux at this agency, or most of them, were engaged in
the outbreak in Minnesota in 1862. On the suppression of hostilities
they fled to the northern part of Dakota, where they continued roaming
until, in the fall of 1871, they went to their present location, with
the avowed intention of remaining there. Although they had been at war
for years with the Indians properly belonging to the Milk River agency,
yet, by judicious management on the part of the agent of the government
stationed there, and the influence of some of the most powerful chiefs,
the former feuds and difficulties were amicably arranged; and all
parties have remained friendly to each other during the year past. The
Indians at neither the Blackfeet nor the Milk River agency show any
disposition to engage in farming; nor have they thus far manifested any
desire for the education of their children. They rely entirely upon the
chase and upon the bounty of the government for their support. They,
however, quite scrupulously respect their obligation to preserve the
peace; and no considerable difficulty has of late been experienced, or
is anticipated, in keeping them in order. The Blackfeet, Bloods, and
Piegans have an annual appropriation of $50,000 made for their benefit;
the Assinaboines, $30,000; the Gros Ventres of the Prairie, $35,000; the
River Crows, $30,000. These funds are used in furnishing the respective
tribes with goods and subsistence, and generally for such other objects
as may be deemed necessary to keep the Indians quiet.

_Mountain Crows._--These Indians have a reservation of 6,272,000 acres,
lying in the southern part of the Territory, between the Yellowstone
River and the north line of Wyoming Territory. They have always been
friendly to the whites, but are inveterate enemies of the Sioux, with
whom they have for years been at war. By the treaty of 1868--by the
terms of which their present reservation was set apart for their
occupancy--they are liberally supplied with goods, clothing, and
subsistence. But few of them are engaged in farming, the main body
relying upon their success in hunting, and upon the supplies furnished
by the government, for their support. They have one school in operation,
with an attendance, however, of only nine scholars. By the treaty of May
7, 1868, provision is made by which they are to receive for a limited
number of years the following annuities, &c., viz.: in clothing and
goods, $22,723 (twenty-six instalments due); in beneficial objects,
$25,000 (six instalments due); in subsistence, $131,400 (one instalment
due). Blacksmiths, teachers, physician, carpenter, miller, engineer, and
farmer are also furnished for their benefit, at an expense to the
government of $11,600.

_Flatheads_, &c.--The Flatheads, Pend d'Oreilles, and Kootenays have a
reservation of 1,433,600 acres in the Jocko Valley, situated in the
north-western part of the Territory, and secured to them by treaty of
1855. This treaty also provided for a reservation in the Bitter-Root
Valley, should the President of the United States deem it advisable to
set apart another for their use. The Flatheads have remained in the
last-named valley; but under the provisions of the act of June 5, 1872,
steps are being taken for their removal to the Jocko reservation. Many
of these Indians are engaged in agriculture; but, as they receive little
assistance from the government, their progress in this direction is
slow. They have one school in operation, with an attendance of 27
scholars.

_Shoshones_, &c.--The Shoshones, Bannocks, and Sheep-Eaters are at
present located about twenty miles above the mouth of the Lemhi Fork of
the Salmon River, near the western boundary of the Territory. They have
shown considerable interest in agriculture; and many of them are quite
successful as farmers. They have no reservation set apart for them,
either by treaty or by executive order. They are so few in number that
it would probably be better to remove them, with their consent, to the
Fort Hall reservation in Idaho, where their brethren are located, than
to provide them with a separate reservation. They have no schools in
operation. An annual appropriation of $25,000 is made for these Indians,
which sum is expended for their benefit in the purchase of clothing,
subsistence, agricultural implements, &c.


WYOMING.

The Indians in this Territory, with the exception of the Sioux and
Northern Arapahoes and Cheyennes, mentioned under the heads of Dakota
and Montana respectively, are the eastern band of Shoshones, numbering
about 1,000. The Shoshones are native to the country. Their reservation
in the Wind River Valley, containing 2,688,000 acres, was set apart for
them by treaty of 1868.

But little advancement in civilization has been made by these Indians,
owing to their indisposition to labor for a living, and to the incessant
incursions into their country of the Sioux and the Northern Arapahoes
and Cheyennes, with which tribes they have for many years been at war.
The losses sustained from these incursions, and the dread which they
inspire, tend to make the Shoshones unsettled, and unwilling to remain
continuously on the reservation. They therefore spend most of the year
in roaming and hunting when they should be at work tilling the soil and
improving their lands. There is one school at the agency, having an
attendance of ten scholars, in charge of an Episcopal missionary as
teacher.


IDAHO.

The Indian tribes in Idaho are the Nez Perces, the Boise and Bruneau
Shoshones, and Bannocks, the Coeur d'Alenes, and Spokanes, with
several other small bands, numbering in the aggregate about 5,800 souls.

_Nez Perces._--The Nez Perces number 2,807, and have a reservation of
1,344,000 acres in the northern part of the Territory. By treaties of
1855 and 1863, they ceded to the United States a large body of land
lying within the limits of the then Territories of Oregon and
Washington, and accepted their present diminished reservation, with
certain annuities in consideration of the cession of the remainder. The
tribe has long been divided into factions known as the "treaty" party
and the "non-treaty" party, from disagreements arising out of the treaty
made with them in 1863. Though the ill feeling engendered has in a
measure subsided, the "non-treaty" Indians, to the number of a few
hundred, still stand apart and accept no favors from the government.
These, with few exceptions, reside outside the reservation, on Snake
River and its tributaries, and cause more or less trouble in a petty way
to the white settlers. The Nez Perces generally have for many years been
friendly to the whites, are quite extensively engaged in agriculture,
and may be considered well advanced in civilization. They show
considerable interest in the education of their children, and have two
schools in operation, with an attendance of 124 scholars.

_Shoshones and Bannocks._--These Indians, numbering 1,037, the former
516 and the latter 521, occupy a reservation in the south-eastern part
of the Territory, near Fort Hall, formerly a military post. This
reservation was set apart by treaty of 1868, and executive order of July
30, 1869, and contains 1,568,000 acres. The Shoshones on this
reservation have no treaty with the government. Both bands are generally
quiet and peaceable, and cause but little trouble; are not disposed to
engage in agriculture, and, with some assistance from the government,
depend upon hunting and fishing for subsistence. There is no school in
operation on the reservation.

_Coeur d'Alenes_, &c.--The Coeur d'Alenes, Spokanes, Kootenays, and
Pend d'Oreilles, numbering about 2,000, have no treaty with the United
States, but have a reservation of 256,000 acres set apart for their
occupancy by executive order of June 14, 1867, lying 30 or 40 miles
north of the Nez Perces reservation. They are peaceable, have no
annuities, receive no assistance from the government, and are wholly
self-sustaining. These Indians have never been collected upon a
reservation, nor brought under the immediate supervision of an agent. So
long as their country shall remain unoccupied, and not in demand for
settlement by the whites, it will scarcely be desirable to make a change
in their location; but the construction of the Northern Pacific
Railroad, which will probably pass through or near their range, may make
it expedient to concentrate them. At present they are largely under the
influence of Catholic missionaries of the Coeur d'Alene Mission.


COLORADO, NEW MEXICO, UTAH, ARIZONA, AND NEVADA.

The tribes residing in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada
are divided as follows: in Colorado, about 3,800; New Mexico, 19,000;
Utah, 10,000; Arizona, 25,000; and Nevada, 13,000.


COLORADO.

The Indians residing in Colorado Territory are the Tabequache band of
Utes, at the Los Pinos agency, numbering 3,000, and the Yampa, Grand
River, and Uintah bands of the White River agency, numbering 800. They
are native to the section which they now inhabit, and have a reservation
of 14,784,000 acres in the western part of the Territory, set apart for
their occupancy by treaty made with them in 1868. The two agencies above
named are established on this reservation, the White River agency being
in the northern part, on the river of that name, and the other in the
south-eastern part. This reservation is much larger than is necessary
for the number of Indians located within its limits; and as valuable
gold and silver mines have been, or are alleged to have been, discovered
in the southern part of it, the discoveries being followed by the
inevitable prospecting parties and miners, Congress, by act of April 23,
1872, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to enter into
negotiations with the Utes for the extinguishment of their right to the
south part of it.

A few of these Indians, who have declined to remove to and remain upon
the reservation, still roam in the eastern part of the Territory,
frequently visiting Denver and its vicinity, and causing some annoyance
to the settlers by their presence, but committing no acts of violence or
extensive depredations. The Indians of Colorado have thus far shown but
little interest in the pursuits of civilized life or in the education of
their children. A school is in operation at the Northern or White River
agency, with an attendance of forty scholars. Steps are also being taken
to open one at the Southern or Los Pinos agency.


NEW MEXICO.

The tribes residing and roaming within the limits of New Mexico are the
Navajoes; the Mescalero, Gila, and Jicarilla bands of Apaches; the
Muache, Capote, and Weeminuche bands of Utes; and the Pueblos.

_Navajoes._--The Navajoes now number 9,114, an increase of 880 over last
year's enumeration. Superintendent Pope considers this increase to be
mainly due to the return, during the year, of a number who had been
held in captivity by the Mexicans. They have a reservation of 3,328,000
acres in the north-western part of New Mexico and north-eastern part of
Arizona, set apart for them by treaty of 1868. These Indians are natives
of the section of the country where they are now located. Prior to 1864
no less than seven treaties had been made with these tribes, which were
successively broken on their part, and that, with but one exception,
before the Senate could take action on the question of their
ratification. In 1864 the Navajoes were made captives by the military,
and taken to the Bosque Redondo reservation, which had been set apart
for the Mescalero Apaches, where they were for a time held as prisoners
of war, and then turned over to this department. After the treaty of
1868 had been concluded, they were removed to their present location,
where they have, as a tribe, remained quiet and peaceable, many of them
being engaged in agriculture, and in raising sheep and goats. Of these
they have large flocks, numbering 130,000 head, which supply them not
only with subsistence, but also with material from which they
manufacture the celebrated, and for warmth and durability unequalled,
Navajo blanket. They also have a stock of 10,000 horses. These Indians
are industrious, attend faithfully to their crops, and even put in a
second crop when the first, as frequently happens, is destroyed by
drought or frost.

One school is in operation on the reservation, with an attendance of
forty scholars.

_Mescalero Apaches._--These Indians, numbering about 830, are at present
located--not, however, upon a defined reservation secured to them--near
Fort Stanton, in the eastern part of the Territory, and range generally
south of that point. Prior to 1864, they were located on the Bosque
Redondo reservation, where they were quiet and peaceable until the
Navajoes were removed to that place. Being unable to live in harmony
with the new-comers, they fled from the reservation, and until quite
recently have been more or less hostile. They are now living at peace
with the whites, and conducting themselves measurably well. They have no
schools, care nothing apparently about the education of their children,
and are not to any noticeable extent engaged in farming or in any
pursuit of an industrial character. These Indians have no treaty with
the United States; nor do they receive any annuities. They are,
however, subsisted in part by the government, and are supplied with a
limited quantity of clothing when necessary. In addition to the
Mescaleros proper, Agent Curtis reports as being embraced in his agency
other Indians, called by him Aguas Nuevos, 440; Lipans, 350 (probably
from Texas); and Southern Apaches, 310, whose proper home is no doubt
upon the Tularosa reservation. These Indians, the agent remarks, came
from the Comanche country to his agency at various dates during the past
year.

_Gila (sometimes called Southern) Apaches._--This tribe is composed of
two bands, the Mimbres and Mogollons, and number about 1,200. They are
warlike, and have for years been generally unfriendly to the government.
The citizens of Southern New Mexico, having long suffered from their
depredatory acts, loudly demanded that they be removed; and to comply
with the wish of the people, as well as to prevent serious difficulties
and possibly war, it was a year or two since decided to provide the
Indians with a reservation distant from their old home, and there
establish them. With a view to that end a considerable number of them
were collected early last year at Canada Alamosa. Subsequently, by
executive order dated Nov. 9, 1871, a reservation was set apart for them
with other roving bands of Apaches in the Tularosa Valley, to which
place four hundred and fifty of them are reported to have been removed
during the present year by United States troops. These Indians, although
removed against their will, were at first pleased with the change, but,
after a short experience of their new home, became dissatisfied; and no
small portion left the reservation to roam outside, disregarding the
system of passes established. They bitterly object to the location as
unhealthy, the climate being severe and the water bad. There is
undoubtedly much truth in these complaints. They ask to be taken back to
Canada Alamosa, their old home, promising there to be peaceable and
quiet. Of course nothing can be said of them favorable to the interests
of education and labor. Such of these Indians as remain on the
reservation are being fed by the government. They have no treaty with
the United States; nor do they receive annuities of any kind.

_Jicarilla Apaches._--These Indians, numbering about 850, have for
several years been located with the Muache Utes, about 650 in number, at
the Cimarron agency, upon what is called "Maxwell's Grant," in
North-eastern New Mexico. They have no treaty relations with the
government; nor have they any reservation set apart for them. Efforts
were made some years ago to have them, with the Utes referred to, remove
to the large Ute reservation in Colorado, but without success. The
Cimarron agency, however, has lately been discontinued; and these
Apaches will, if it can be effected without actual conflict, be removed
to the Mescalero agency at Fort Stanton. Four hundred Jicarilla Apaches
are also reported as being at the Tierra Amarilla agency.

_Muache, Weeminuche, and Capote Utes._--These bands--the Muache band,
numbering about 650, heretofore at the Cimarron agency, and the other
two bands, numbering 870, at the Abiquiu agency--are all parties to the
treaty made with the several bands of Utes in 1868. It has been desired
to have these Indians remove to their proper reservation in Colorado;
but all efforts to this end have thus far proved futile. The
discontinuance of the Cimarron agency may have the effect to cause the
Muaches to remove either to that reservation or to the Abiquiu agency,
now located at Tierra Amarilla, in the north-western part of the
Territory. These three bands have generally been peaceable, and
friendly to the whites. Recently, however, some of them have shown a
disposition to be troublesome; but no serious difficulty is apprehended.
None of them appear disposed to work for a subsistence, preferring to
live by the chase and on the bounty of the government; nor do they show
any inclination or desire to have their children educated, and taught
the habits and customs of civilized life. Declining to remove to and
locate permanently upon the reservation set apart for the Utes in
Colorado, they receive no annuities, and participate in none of the
benefits provided in the treaties of 1863 and 1868 with the several
bands of Ute Indians referred to under the head of "Colorado."

_Pueblos._--The Pueblos, so named because they live in villages, number
7,683. They have 439,664 acres of land confirmed to them by act of
Congress of Dec. 22, 1858, the same consisting of approved claims under
old Spanish grants. They have no treaty with the United States, and
receive but little aid from the government. During the past two years
efforts have been made, and are still being continued, to secure the
establishment of schools in all the villages of the Pueblos, for the
instruction of their children in the English language. Five such schools
are now being conducted for their benefit.

The history of the Pueblos is an interesting one. They are the remains
of a once powerful people, and in habits and modes of life are still
clearly distinguished from all other aborigines of the continent. The
Spanish invaders found them living generally in towns and cities. They
are so described by Spanish historians as far back as 1540. They early
revolted, though without success, against Spanish rule; and in the
struggle many of their towns were burned, and much loss of life and
property occasioned. It would seem, however, that, in addition to the
villagers, there were others at that time living dispersed, whose
reduction to Pueblos was determined upon and made the subject of a
decree by Charles V. of Spain, in 1546, in order chiefly, as declared,
to their being instructed in the Catholic faith. Under the Spanish
government, schools were established at the villages; the Christian
religion was introduced, and impressed upon the people, and the rights
of property thoroughly protected. By all these means a high degree of
civilization was secured, which was maintained until after the
establishment of Mexican independence; when, from want of government
care and support, decay followed; and the Pueblos measurably
deteriorated, down to the time when the authority of the United States
was extended over that country: still they are a remarkable people,
noted for their sobriety, industry, and docility. They have few wants,
and are simple in their habits, and moral in their lives. They are,
indeed, scarcely to be considered Indians in the sense traditionally
attached to that word, and, but for their residence upon reservations
patented to these bands in confirmation of ancient Spanish grants, and
their continued tribal organization, might be regarded as a part of the
ordinary population of the country. There are now nineteen villages of
these Indians in New Mexico. Each village has a distinct and organized
government, with its governor and other officers, all of whom are
elected annually by the people, except the _cacique_, a sort of high
priest, who holds his office during life. Though nominally Catholics in
religion, it is thought that their real beliefs are those of their
ancestors in the days of Montezuma.


UTAH.

The tribes residing wholly or in part within the limits of Utah are the
North-western, Western, and Goship bands of Shoshones; the Weber, Yampa,
Elk Mountain, and Uintah bands of Utes; the Timpanagos, the San Pitches,
the Pah-Vents, the Piedes, and She-be-rechers,--all, with the exception
of the Shoshones, speaking the Ute language, and being native to the
country inhabited by them.

_North-western, Western, and Goship Shoshones._--These three bands of
Shoshones, numbering together about 3,000, have treaties made with the
government in 1863. No reservations were provided to be set apart for
them by the terms of said treaties, the only provision for their benefit
being the agreement on the part of the United States to furnish them
with articles, to a limited extent and for a limited term, suitable to
their wants as hunters or herdsmen. Having no reservations, but little
can be done for their advancement. They live in North-western Utah and
North-eastern Nevada, and are generally inclined to be industrious, many
of them gaining a livelihood by working for the white settlers, while
others cultivate small tracts of land on their own account.

The Weber Utes, numbering about 300, live in the vicinity of Salt Lake
City, and subsist by hunting, fishing, and begging. The Timpanagos,
numbering about 500, live south of Salt Lake City, and live by hunting
and fishing. The San Pitches, numbering about 300, live, with the
exception of some who have gone to the Uintah Valley reservation, in the
country south and east of the Timpanagos, and subsist by hunting and
fishing. The Pah-Vents number about 1,200, and occupy the territory
south of the Goships, cultivate small patches of ground, but live
principally by hunting and fishing. The Yampa Utes, Piedes, Pi-Utes, Elk
Mountain Utes, and She-be-rechers live in the eastern and southern parts
of the Territory. They number, as nearly as can be estimated, 5,200; do
not cultivate the soil, but subsist by hunting and fishing, and at times
by depredating in a small way upon the white settlers. They are warlike
and migratory in their habits, carrying on a petty warfare pretty much
all the time with the southern Indians. These bands of Utes have no
treaties with the United States: they receive no annuities, and but very
little assistance from the government.

The Uintah Utes, numbering 800, are now residing upon a reservation of
2,039,040 acres in Uintah Valley, in the north-eastern corner of the
Territory, set apart for the occupancy of the Indians in Utah by
executive order of Oct. 3, 1861, and by act of Congress of May 5, 1864.
This reservation comprises some of the best farming land in Utah, and is
of sufficient extent to maintain all the Indians in the Territory. Some
of the Indians located here show a disposition to engage in agriculture,
though most of them still prefer the chase to labor. No steps have yet
been taken to open a school on the reservation. The Uintah Utes have no
treaty with the United States; but an appropriation averaging about
$10,000 has been annually made for their civilization and improvement
since 1863.


ARIZONA.

The tribes residing in the Territory of Arizona are the Pimas and
Maricopas, Papagoes, Mohaves, Moquis, and Orivas Pueblos, Yumas,
Yavapais, Hualapais, and different bands of the Apaches. All are native
to the districts occupied by them, respectively.

_Pimas and Maricopas._--These, said to have been in former years
"Village" or "Pueblo" Indians, number 4,342, and occupy a reservation of
64,000 acres, set apart for them under the act of Feb. 28, 1859, and
located in the central part of the Territory, on the Gila River. They
are, and always have been peaceful, and loyal to the government; are
considerably advanced, according to a rude form of civilization, and
being industrious, and engaged quite successfully, whenever the
conditions of soil and climate are favorable, in farming operations, are
nearly self-sustaining. The relations of these bands with the
neighboring whites are, however, very unfavorable to their interests;
and the condition of affairs is fast growing worse. The difficulty
arises out of the fact of the use, and probably the improvident use, by
the whites above them, of the water of the Gila River, by which they are
deprived of all means of irrigating their lands. Much dissatisfaction is
manifested on this account; and the result is, so far, that many of the
Indians have left the reservation, and gone to Salt River Valley, where
they are making a living by tilling the soil, not, however, without
getting into trouble at this point also with the settlers.

The Pimas and Maricopas are greatly interested in the education of
their children. Two schools are in operation on the reservation, with an
attendance of 105 scholars. These tribes have no treaty with the United
States, and receive but little assistance from the government.

_Papagoes._--These Indians, numbering about 5,000, are of the same
class, in some respects, as the Pueblos in New Mexico, living in
villages, cultivating the soil, and raising stock for a support. They
have no reservation set apart for their occupancy, but inhabit the
south-eastern part of the Territory. Many of them have embraced
Christianity; and they are generally well behaved, quiet, and peaceable.
They manifest a strong desire to have their children educated; and steps
to this end have been taken by the department. These Indians have no
treaty relations with the United States, and receive no assistance from
the government. The expediency of assigning to the Papagoes a
reservation, and concentrating them where they can be brought within the
direct care and control of the government, is under consideration by the
department. There seems to be no reason to doubt that, if so
established, and once supplied with implements and stock, they would
become in a short time not only self-sustaining, but prosperous.

_Mohaves._--These Indians have a reservation of 75,000 acres, located on
the Colorado River, and set apart for them and other tribes in the
vicinity of said river, under the act of March 3, 1865. The Mohaves
number about 4,000, of whom only 828 are on the reservation, the rest
either roaming at large or being fed at other reservations in the
Territory. An irrigating canal has been built for them at great expense;
but farming operations have not as yet proved very successful. Over
1,100 acres, however, are being cultivated by the Indians. The crops
consist of corn, melons, and pumpkins. These Indians show but little
progress in civilization. The parents objecting to the education of
their children, no schools have been put in operation on the
reservation, as they could be conducted only on a compulsory system. The
Mohaves have no treaty stipulations with the United States; but they are
partly subsisted, and are largely assisted in their farming operations,
from the general incidental fund of the territory.

_Yumas._--These Indians number probably 2,000. They inhabit the country
near the mouth of the Colorado River, but belong to the reservation
occupied by the Mohaves. They refuse, however, to remove to the
reservation, and gain a scanty subsistence by planting, and by cutting
wood for steamers plying on the river. Many of them remain about Arizona
City, performing menial services for the whites, and gratifying their
inveterate passion for gambling. They have no treaty with the United
States, and receive but little assistance from the government.

_Hualapais._--These Indians, numbering about 1,500, inhabit the country
near the Colorado River, north of the Mohaves, ranging a considerable
distance into the interior. They have been, and still are, more or less
hostile. Those who are quiet and peaceable are, with members of other
bands of Indians, being fed by the government at Camps McDowell, Beal's
Spring, and Date Creek.

_Yavapais and Apaches._--These Indians are estimated to number from
8,000 to 12,000, the lower estimate being the more reasonable. Their
ranging grounds are in the central, northern, and eastern parts of the
Territory. Most of them have long been hostile to the government,
committing numerous robberies and murders. Earnest efforts have been
made during the past year to settle them on reservations, three of
which, viz., Camp Apache, Camp Grant, and Camp Verde, were set apart for
their occupancy by executive order dated Nov. 9, 1871. These efforts,
however, have not resulted very successfully; the Indians occasionally
coming upon the reservations in large numbers, but leaving without
permission, and, indeed, defiantly, whenever so disposed, oftentimes
renewing their depredations before their supplies of government rations
are exhausted. Many of the bands of this tribe (if it can be called a
tribe; habits, physical structure, and language all pointing to a great
diversity in origin among the several bands) are seemingly incorrigible,
and will hardly be brought to cease their depredations and massacres
except by the application of military force.


NEVADA.

The tribes residing in Nevada are Pah-Utes, Pi-Utes, Washoes, Shoshones,
and Bannocks, and are native to the districts inhabited by them
respectively.

_Pah-Utes._--These Indians, numbering about 6,000, inhabit the western
part of the State. Two reservations have been set apart for them,--one
known as the Walker River, the other as the Pyramid Lake reservation,
containing each 320,000 acres. These Indians are quiet, and friendly to
the whites, are very poor, and live chiefly upon fish, game, seeds, and
nuts, with such assistance as the government from time to time renders
them. They show considerable disposition to labor; and those on the
reservations, especially the Walker River reservation, are cultivating
small patches of ground. The Pyramid Lake reservation affords, in
addition, excellent fishing, and the surrounding settlements a ready
market for the catch over and above what the Indians require for their
own consumption.

No schools have been established for these Indians. They have no treaty
relations with the government, and receive no annuities.

_Pi-Utes._--The Pi-Utes, numbering probably 2,500, inhabit the
south-eastern part of the State. They have no reservation set apart for
them; nor have they any treaty with the United States. They roam about
at will, are very destitute, and obtain a living principally by
pilfering from the whites, although a few of them are engaged in a small
way in farming. But very little can be done for these Indians by the
government in their present unsettled condition. They should be brought
upon one of the reservations set apart for the Indians in Nevada, or
upon the Uintah reservation in Utah, where they could receive suitable
care, and proper instruction in the arts of civilized life.

_Washoes._--These Indians, numbering about 500, are a poor, miserable,
and debauched people, and spend most of their time among the white
settlements, where they gain some supplies of food and clothing by
menial services. They have no reservation and no treaty, are not in
charge of any agent of the government; and vice and disease are rapidly
carrying them away.

_Shoshones._--The Shoshones are a portion of the North-western, Western,
and Goship bands, referred to under the head of "Utah." Those roaming or
residing in the eastern part of Nevada number about 2,000. The remarks
made respecting their brethren in Utah will equally apply to them.

_Bannocks._--The Bannocks, roaming in the north-eastern part of the
State, number, probably, 1,500, and are doubtless a portion of the
people of that name ranging in Eastern Oregon and Southern Idaho. They
have no treaty with the government, nor any reservation set apart for
them, and are not in charge of any United States agent. They should, if
possible, be located upon the Fort Hall reservation in Idaho, where
some steps could be taken to advance them in civilization.


THE PACIFIC <DW72>.


The Indians on the Pacific <DW72> are divided as follows: in Washington
Territory, about 14,000; in Oregon, 12,000; in California, 22,000.


WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

The tribes residing in Washington Territory are the Nisqually, Puyallup,
and other confederate tribes; the D'Wamish and other allied bands; the
Makahs, the S'Klallams, the Qui-nai-elts and Qui-leh-utes, the Yakamas,
the Chehalis and other allied tribes, and the Colville, Spokanes,
Coeur d'Alenes, Okanagans, and others.

_Nisqually, Puyallup, and others._--These Indians, numbering about
1,200, have three reservations, containing, as per treaty of 1854,
26,776 acres, situated on the Nisqually and Puyallup Rivers, and on an
island in Puget Sound. Some of these Indians are engaged in farming, and
raise considerable wheat, also potatoes and other vegetables. Many are
employed by the farmers in their vicinity; while others still are idle
and shiftless, spending their time wandering from place to place. One
school is in operation on the Puyallup reservation, with an attendance
of eleven scholars.

_D'Wamish and others._--The D'Wamish and other allied tribes number
3,600, and have five reservations, containing in all 41,716 acres, set
apart by treaty made with them in 1855, and located at as many points on
Puget Sound. Many of these Indians, particularly those residing on the
Lummi reservation, are industrious farmers, raising all the produce
necessary for their support, and owning a large number of cattle,
horses, hogs, &c.; while others are either employed by the neighboring
white farmers, or engaged in lumbering on their own account. They are
generally Christianized, most of them members of the Catholic Church.
One school, with 57 scholars, is in operation on the Tulalip
reservation, where all the government buildings are located. This school
has had a remarkable degree of success, as reported by the agent and by
disinterested visitors.

_Makahs._--These Indians number 604, and have a reservation of 12,800
acres, set apart by treaty made with them in 1855, and located at the
extreme north-west corner of the Territory. They are a bold, hardy race,
not inclined to till the soil for a support, but depending principally
upon fishing and the taking of fur-seal for their livelihood. One school
is in operation among them, with an attendance of 16 scholars.

_S'Klallams._--These Indians, numbering 919, have a reservation of 4,000
acres, set apart by treaty made with them in 1855, and located on what
is known as "Hood's Canal." Some of them are engaged, in a small way, in
farming; and others are employed in logging for the neighboring
saw-mills. Their condition generally is such that their advancement in
civilization must necessarily be slow. A school has been established on
the reservation, and is attended by 22 scholars.

_Qui-nai-elts, Qui-leh-utes, Hohs, and Quits._--These Indians number
520, and have a reservation of 25,600 acres, in the extreme eastern part
of the Territory, and almost wholly isolated from white settlements, set
apart under a treaty made with them July 1, 1855. But one of the four
tribes mentioned, the Qui-nai-elts, live upon the reservation: the
others reside at different points along the coast, northward from the
reservation. These declare that they never agreed to sell their country,
and that they never knowingly signed any treaty disposing of their right
to it. The bottom land on the reservation is heavily timbered, and a
great deal of labor is required to clear it; but when cleared, it
produces good crops. Many of the Indians, though in the main fish-eaters
(the Qui-nai-elt River furnishing them with salmon in great abundance),
are cultivating small patches, and raise sufficient vegetables for their
own use. One school is in operation on the reservation, with an
attendance of 15 scholars.

_Yakamas._--The Yakamas number 3,000, and have a reservation in the
southern part of the Territory, containing 783,360 acres, set apart for
them by treaty of June 9, 1855. These Indians belong to numerous bands,
confederated under the title of Yakamas. Many of them, under the able
management of their present agent, have become noticeably advanced in
civilization, and are good farmers or skilled mechanics. The
manual-labor school at the Yakama agency has been a complete success,
and of incalculable benefit in imparting to the children a practical
knowledge of farming and of the different mechanical arts. Their
principal wealth is in horses, of which they own 12,000. The fact that
the reservation for these Indians is located east of the Cascade
Mountains, away from all contact with the whites, has doubtless tended,
in a great measure, to make this what it is,--the model agency on the
Pacific <DW72>: though to this result the energy and devotion of Agent
Wilbur have greatly contributed. Churches have been built on the
reservation, which are well attended, the services being conducted by
native preachers. There are at present two schools, with an attendance
of 44 scholars.

_Chehalis and others, remnants of tribes, and parties to no treaty with
the government._--These Indians number about 600, and have a reservation
of 4,322 acres in the eastern part of the Territory, set apart for them
by executive order of July 8, 1864. A considerable portion of the land
in this reservation is excellent for agricultural purposes; and quite
extensive crops are being raised by the Indians of the Chehalis tribe.
None of the other tribes for whom the reservation was intended reside
upon it, declining to do so for the reason that they do not recognize it
as their own, and fear to prejudice their claims to other lands by so
doing.

All these Indians have horses and cattle in abundance. They are
industrious; and, being good field-hands, those of them who do not farm
on their own account find ready employment from the surrounding farmers,
their services always commanding the highest wages. Having no treaty
relations with the government, no direct appropriations are made for
their benefit. They, however, receive some assistance from the general
incidental fund of the Territory. The Indians herein referred to as not
living upon the reservation are of the Cowlitz, Chinook, Shoalwater Bay,
and Humboldt tribes. They profess to desire a home at the mouth of the
Humboldt and Coinoose Rivers, where they originated.

_Colville and other Tribes._--These Indians, numbering 3,349, occupy the
north-eastern portion of the Territory. They have no treaty relations
with the government, and, until the present year, have had no
reservation set apart for them. They are now, however, to be
established, under an order of the President of July 2, 1872, in the
general section of the Territory where they now are, upon a tract which
is bounded on the south and east by the Columbia River, on the west by
the Okinakane River, and on the north by British Columbia. The tribes
for whom this reservation is designed are known as Colvilles,
Okinakanes, San Poels, Lake Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, Calispells, and
Methows. Some of these Indians, however, have settled upon valuable
tracts of land, and have made extensive improvements, while others, to
a considerable number, have begun farming in a small way at various
points within the district from which is proposed to remove their
respective tribes. It is doubtful whether these individuals will
voluntarily remove to the reservation referred to, which is some
distance west of their present location. It is proposed, therefore, to
allow such as are engaged in farming to remain where they are, if they
so desire. Owing to the influx of whites into the country thus claimed
or occupied by these Indians, many of them have been crowded out; and
some of them have had their own unquestionable improvements forcibly
wrested from them. This for a time during the past summer caused
considerable trouble, and serious difficulties were apprehended; but
thus far peace has been preserved by a liberal distribution among them
of agricultural implements, seeds, blankets, &c. No funds are
appropriated specially for these Indians, such supplies and presents as
are given them being furnished from the general incidental fund of the
Territory.


OREGON.

The tribes residing in Oregon are the Umatillas, Cayuses, Walla-Wallas,
Wascoes, Molels, Chasta Scotans, Coosas, Alseas, Klamath, Modocs, and
Wal-pah-pee Snakes, besides numerous other small bands. They are all
native to the country. On account of the great number of small tribes
and bands in this State,--the number of tribes and bands parties to the
same treaty being in some cases as high as ten or fifteen,--these
Indians will be treated of, and the remarks concerning them will be
made, under the heads of the agencies at which they are respectively
located.

_Umatilla Agency._--The tribes located at this agency are the Umatillas,
Cayuses, and a portion of the Walla-Wallas, and number 837. They have a
reservation of 512,000 acres, situated in the north-eastern part of the
State, set apart for them by treaty of June 9, 1855. This reservation is
very fertile, and, as usual in such cases, has attracted the cupidity of
the whites. A proposition was made last year, under the authority of
Congress, to have the Indians take land in severalty, or sell and remove
to some other reservation. The Indians, however, in the exercise of
their treaty rights, refused to accede to this proposition. These
Indians are successfully engaged in agricultural operations, are nearly
self-supporting, and may be considered, comparatively speaking,
wealthy. It is gratifying to state that the introduction of whiskey by
whites upon this reservation, and its sale to the Indians, has, during
the last year, received a decided check through the vigilance of Agent
Cornoyer in causing the arrest and trial of four citizens for a
violation of the law in this respect. All the parties charged were
convicted, and are now in prison. This is especially worthy of note,
from the fact that it is always exceedingly difficult to obtain
convictions for such dealing with Indians in any section of the country.
There is one school in operation on the reservation, with an attendance
of twenty-seven scholars.

_Warm-Spring Agency._--The Indians at this agency, known as the
"Confederated Tribes and Bands of Indians in Middle Oregon," comprise
seven bands of the Walla-Walla and Wasco tribes, numbering six hundred
and twenty-six. They have a reservation of 1,024,000 acres, located in
the central part of the State, set apart for them by the treaty of June
25, 1855. Though there is but little really good land in this
reservation, many of the Indians, by reason of their industry, have
succeeded measurably in their farming operations, and may be considered
as self-sustaining. In morals they have greatly improved; so that
polygamy, the buying and selling of wives, gambling, and drunkenness
have ceased to be common among them, as in the past. There are some,
however, who are disposed to wander off the reservation, and lead a
vagabond life. But little advancement has been made in education among
these Indians. One school is in operation at the agency, with an
attendance of fifty-one scholars.

_Grand-Ronde Agency._--The Indians at this agency comprise the Molalla,
Clackama, Calapooia, Molel, Umpqua, Rogue River, and other bands,
seventeen in all, with a total population of eight hundred and seventy.
The reservation upon which these bands are located is in the
north-western part of the State. It contains 69,120 acres, and was set
apart for their occupation by treaty of Jan. 22, 1855, with the
Molallas, Clackamas, &c., and by executive order of June 30, 1857. Some
portions of this reservation are well adapted to grain-raising, though
much of it is rough and heavily timbered. An allotment of land in
severalty has been directed to be made, much to the gratification and
encouragement of the tribes. These Indians are inclined to industry,
and show commendable zeal in cultivating their farms, growing crops
which compare favorably with those of their white neighbors. Their
customs and habits of life also exhibit a marked improvement. One school
is in operation, with an attendance of fifty scholars.

_Siletz Agency._--The Indians at this agency are the Chasta Scotons, and
fragments of fourteen other bands, called, generally, Coast-tribes,
numbering altogether about 2,500. These Indians, including those at the
Alsea sub-agency, have a reservation of 1,100,800 acres set apart for
them by treaty of Aug. 11, 1855; which treaty, however, has never been
ratified, although the reservation is occupied by the Indians. They were
for a long time much averse to labor for a support; but recently they
have shown more disposition to follow agriculture, although
traditionally accustomed to rely chiefly upon fish for food. Many
already have their farms well fenced and stocked, with good, comfortable
dwellings and out-houses erected thereon. There is no reason why they
should not, in time, become a thoroughly prosperous people. The failure
to make allotments of land in severalty, for which surveys were
commenced in 1871, has been a source of much uneasiness to the Indians,
and has tended to weaken their confidence in the good intentions of the
government. One school is in operation on the reservation, with an
attendance of twenty scholars. None of the tribes or bands at this
agency have any treaty relations with the United States, unless it may
be a few members of the Rogue-River band, referred to under the head of
the Grand-Ronde agency.

_Alsea Sub-agency._--The Indians at this sub-agency are the Alseas,
Coosas, Sinselans, and a band of Umpquas, numbering in all three
hundred, located within the limits of the reservation referred to under
the head of the Siletz agency. The remarks made about the Indians at the
Siletz agency will generally apply to the Indians of this sub-agency.
The Coosas, Sinselans, and Umpquas are making considerable advancement
in agriculture, and, had they advantages of instruction, would rapidly
acquire a proficiency in the simpler mechanical branches of industry.
The Alseas are not so tractable, and exhibit but little desire for
improvement. All the assistance they receive from the government is
supplied out of the limited amount appropriated for the general
incidental expenses of the service in Oregon.

_Klamath Agency._--The Indians belonging to this agency are the Klamaths
and Modocs, and the Yahooskin and Wal-pah-pee bands of Snakes, numbering
altogether about 4,000, of whom only 1,018 are reported at the agency.
They have a reservation containing 768,000 acres, set apart for them by
the treaty of Oct. 14, 1864, and by executive order of March 14, 1871,
situated in the extreme southern portion of the State. This reservation
is not well adapted to agriculture. The climate is cold and uncertain;
and the crops are consequently liable to be destroyed by frosts. It is,
however, a good grazing country. Although this reservation is,
comparatively speaking, a new one, the Indians located upon it are
making commendable progress, both in farming operations and in
lumbering. A part of the Modocs, who belong by treaty to this agency,
and who were at one time located upon the reservation, have, on account
of their troubles with the Klamaths,--due principally to the overbearing
disposition of the latter,--left the agency, and refuse to return to it.
They desire to locate upon a small reservation by themselves. Under the
circumstances, they should be permitted to do this, or else be allowed
to select a tract on the Malheur reservation. There is no school at
present in operation for these Indians.

_Malheur Reservation._--This reservation, set apart by executive order
of Sept. 12, 1872, is situated in the south-eastern part of the State.
Upon this it is the intention of the department eventually to locate all
the roving and straggling bands in Eastern and South-eastern Oregon,
which can be induced to settle there. As no funds are at the disposal of
the department with which to make the necessary improvements, and to
provide temporary subsistence for Indians removed, the work has not yet
been fairly commenced. The Indians who should be collected upon this
reservation are now a constant source of annoyance to the white
settlers. They hang about the settlements and military posts, begging
and stealing; and, unless some prompt measures be taken to bring them
under the care and control of an agent of the government, serious
trouble may result at any time. Congress should make the necessary
appropriation during the coming session to maintain an agent for these
Indians, to erect the agency buildings, and to provide subsistence for
such as may be collected and may remain upon the reservation.

_Indians not upon Reservations._--There are a number of Indians,
probably not less than 3,000, "renegades," and others of roving habits,
who have no treaty relations with the government, and are not in charge
of any agent. The tribal names of some of these are the Clatsops,
Nestucals, Tillamooks, Nehalims, Snakes, and Nez Perces. The
"renegades," such in fact and so called, roam on the Columbia River, and
are of considerable annoyance to the agents at Warm Springs and
Umatilla: others, the Snakes, two hundred in number, are upon the edge
of the Grand-Ronde reservation. These live by hunting and fishing, and
profess to desire to have lands allotted to them, and a school provided
for their children. The Nez Perces, belonging in Idaho, to the estimated
number of two hundred, are found in Wallowa Valley, in the eastern part
of the State. They claim that they were not parties to the treaty with
the Nez Perce tribe years ago; that the valley in which they live has
always belonged to them; and they strenuously oppose its settlement by
the whites.


CALIFORNIA.

The tribes in California are the Ukie, Pitt River, Wylackie, Concon,
Redwood, Humboldt, Hoonsolton, Miscott, Siah, Tule, Tejon, Coahuila,
King's River, and various other bands and tribes, including the "Mission
Indians," all being native to the country.

_Round-Valley Agency._--The Indians belonging to this agency are the
Ukies, Concons, Pitt Rivers, Wylackies, and Redwoods, numbering in all
1,700. The number has been increased during the past year by bringing in
1,040 Indians collected in Little Lake and other valleys. A reservation
containing 31,683 acres has been set apart per act of April 8, 1864, and
executive order of March 30, 1870, in the western and northern part of
the State, for these Indians, and for such others as may be induced to
locate thereon. The lands in the reservation are very fertile; and the
climate admits of a widely varied growth of crops. More produce being
raised than is necessary for the subsistence of the Indians, the
proceeds derived from the sale of the surplus are used in purchasing
stock and work-animals, and for the further improvement of the
reservation. Several of the Indians are engaged in cultivating gardens,
while others work as many as twenty-five or thirty acres on their own
account.

The Indians on this reservation are uniformly quiet and peaceable,
notwithstanding that they are much disturbed by the white trespassers.
Suits, by direction of the department, were commenced against such
trespassers, but without definite results as yet; the Attorney-General
having directed the United States District Attorney to suspend
proceedings. Of this reservation the Indian Department has in actual
possession and under fence only about 4,000 acres; the remainder being
in the possession of settlers, all clamorous for breaking up the
reservation and driving the Indians out.

The Indians at this reservation have shown no especial disposition to
have their children educated; and no steps were taken to that end until
in the summer of 1871, when a school was commenced. There is now one
school in operation, with an attendance of 110 scholars. These Indians
have no treaties with the government; and such assistance as is rendered
them in the shape of clothing, &c., is from the money appropriated for
the general incidental expenses of the Indian service in the State.

_Hoopa-Valley Agency._--The Indians belonging to this agency are the
Humboldts, Hoonsoltons, Miscotts, Siahs, and several other bands,
numbering seven hundred and twenty-five.

A reservation was set apart per act of April 8, 1864, for these and such
other Indians in the northern part of the State as might be induced to
settle thereon. This reservation is situated in the north-western part
of the State, on both sides of the Trinity River, and contains 38,400
acres. As a rule, sufficient is raised on the reservation to supply the
wants of the Indians. These Indians are quiet and peaceable, and are not
disposed to labor on the reservation in common, but will work
industriously when allowed to do so on their own individual account. One
school is in operation on the reservation, with an attendance of
seventy-four scholars. Having no treaty relations with the United
States, and, consequently, no regular annuities appropriated for their
benefit, the general incidental fund of the State is used so far as may
be necessary, and so far as the amount appropriated will admit, to
furnish assistance in the shape of clothing, agricultural implements,
seeds, &c. Besides these, their agent has a general supervisory control
of certain Klamath Indians, who live adjacent to the reservation and
along the banks of the Klamath River. These formerly belonged to a
reservation bearing their name, which was, years ago, abandoned in
consequence of the total destruction by flood of agency buildings and
improvements. They now support themselves chiefly by hunting and
fishing, and by cultivating small patches in grain and vegetables.

_Tide-River Farm, or Agency._--The Indians located at this point are the
Tules and Manaches, numbering three hundred and seventy-four. These
Indians are gradually improving, are quite proficient in all kinds of
farm-work, and show a good disposition to cultivate the soil on their
own account. There is one school in operation at the Tule River farm,
with an attendance of thirty-seven scholars. About sixty miles from the
agency reside several hundred King's-River Indians, who are in a
wretched and destitute condition. They desire to be attached to the
agency, and have in the past received occasional supplies of food from
it.

_Indians not on Reservations._--In addition to the Indians located at
the three agencies named, there are probably not less than 20,000,
including the Mission Indians (so called), the Coahuilas, Owen's River,
and others, in the southern part of the State; and those on the Klamath,
Trinity, Scott, and Salmon Rivers, in the northern part. The Mission
Indians, having been for the past century under the Catholic missions
established on the California coast, are tolerably well advanced in
agriculture, and compare favorably with the most highly civilized tribes
of the East. The Coahuilas and others inhabiting the south-eastern and
eastern portions of the State, and those in the north, support
themselves by working for white settlers, or by hunting, fishing,
begging, and stealing, except, it may be, a few of the northern Indians,
who go occasionally to the reservations and the military posts in that
section for assistance in the way of food.

There are also about 4,000 Owen's-River and Manache Indians east of the
Sierras, whom the settlers would gladly see removed to a reservation,
and brought under the care of an agent. The department has under
consideration the propriety of establishing a new reservation, upon
which shall be concentrated these and numerous other Indians, in which
event the Tule-River agency could advantageously be discontinued.



  +---------------------------------------------+
  |           Transcriber's Note                |
  |                                             |
  | Some inconsistent spelling in the           |
  | original document has been retained.        |
  |                                             |
  | Typographical errors corrected in the text: |
  |                                             |
  | Page  40 goverment changed to government    |
  | Page 100 carcer changed to career           |
  | Page 186 hererofore changed to heretofore   |
  | Page 259 favororably changed to favorably   |
  +---------------------------------------------+





End of Project Gutenberg's The Indian Question (1874), by Francis A. Walker

*** 