The Indian To-day Part 2

In less than a century 370 distinct treaties were made with the various tribes, some of them merely friendship agreements, but in the main providing for right of way and the cession of lands, as fast as such lands were demanded by the westward growth of the country and the pressure of population. In the first instance, the consideration was generally not over five or ten cents an acre. While the Indians were still nomadic in their habits, goods in payment were usually taken by steamboat to the nearest point and there turned over to the head chiefs, who distributed them among the people. Later the price increased and payments were made either in goods or cash; fifty cents to a dollar and a quarter, and more recently as much as $2.50 per acre for cessions of surplus lands on reservations after the owners have all been allotted.

Gradually large trust funds have been created for some of the tribes, the capital being held in the United States Treasury and the interest paid to the Indians in annual per capita instalments, or expended "for their benefit." Farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and other industrial teachers; cattle, farming tools, houses, and schools are variously promised in the later treaties for the "support and civilization" of a people whose own method of making a living has been rendered forever impossible. The theory was humane and just, but the working of the system has proved in a large degree a failure.

WHAT ARE RESERVATIONS?

A natural result of frequent land cessions was the reserving or setting aside of tracts of land for Indian occupancy, known as "reservations."

Such lands have been set aside not only by treaty but in many cases by act of Congress, and in others by executive order. The Indians living upon them may not sell standing timber, or mining rights, or right of way to railroads, without the consent of the Government.

The policy of removal and concentration of Indians originated early in the nineteenth century, and was carried partially into effect. Indian Territory was set apart as a permanent home for the tribes, and the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles were removed thither from the Southeastern States. After a terrible journey, in which many died of disease and exhaustion, and one boatload sank in the Mississippi River, those who were left established themselves in the "Promised Land," a country rich in natural resources. They soon saw the necessity of a stable government and of domestic and agricultural pursuits. They copied the form of their government after that of the States, and the trust funds arising from the sale of their eastern lands formed the basis of their finances. They founded churches, schools, and orphan asylums, and upon the whole succeeded remarkably well in their undertaking, although their policy of admitting intermarried whites and negroes to citizenship in the tribe led to much political corruption.

Gradually some forty tribes, or tribal remnants, were colonized in the Territory; but this scheme failed in many instances, as some tribes (such as the Sioux) refused absolutely to go there, and others who went suffered severely from the change of climate. In 1890 the western part was made into a separate territory under the name of Oklahoma and colonized by whites; and in 1907 the entire territory was admitted to statehood under that name, the "Five Civilized Nations," so-called, having been induced to give up their tribal governments.

The Indians of the Southwest came in, in 1848, under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, although with some of them other treaties have been made and their lands added to by executive order. The Navajoes, about twenty-two thousand in number, now own more than twelve million acres in Arizona and New Mexico. They are sheep-herders and blanket-weavers, and are entirely self-supporting. Owing to the character of the land they occupy, and the absence of sufficient water for irrigation, there is not enough gra.s.s on the reservation to support all the Indian stock.

Therefore 5,000 or more Navajoes are living outside the reservation, on the public domain; and of these, according to Indian Office statements, about 1,000 are unallotted, and under the present law can only be allotted as are white homesteaders, by paying the costs of survey and fees to the land office.

The Pueblos hold their lands (about 1,000,000 acres) under Spanish grants, and are in absolute control of them, so that the Government cannot build schoolhouses among them unless sites are deeded for that purpose, which they are sometimes unwilling to do. These people are still self-governing, but their t.i.tles are now in danger, owing to a recent ruling of the local courts that declares them citizens, and as such liable to taxation. Being for the most part very poor and fearing to have their land sold for taxes, they have pet.i.tioned the United States to act as trustee to manage their estates.

The natives of California were a peaceable people and made scarcely any resistance to the invaders, a fact which has resulted in their rapid decline and extreme poverty. Under the Spanish friars they were gathered into missions and given a general industrial training, but after the secularization of the missions the Americans took possession of their cultivated lands, and many of the Indians were landless and homeless.

The remnants are now living as squatters upon the property of white settlers, or on small pieces of land allotted them by the Government.

In striking contrast to the poverty-stricken condition of these Pacific Coast Indians is the wealth of the Osages, a small Siouan tribe occupying a fertile country in Oklahoma, who are said to be the richest people, per capita, in the world. Besides an abundance of land, rich in oil and timber, they have a trust fund of eight million dollars in the United States Treasury, bringing in a large annual income. They own comfortable houses, dwell in substantial towns, and are moderately progressive.

THE TRUTH ABOUT INDIAN AGENCIES

The Indian of the Northwest came into reservation life reluctantly, very much like a man who has dissipated his large inheritance and is driven out by foreclosure. One morning he awoke to the fact that he must give up his freedom and resign his vast possessions to live in a squalid cabin in the backyard of civilization. For the first time his rovings were checked by well-defined boundaries, and he could not hunt or visit neighboring tribes without a pa.s.sport. He was practically a prisoner, to be fed and treated as such; and what resources were left him must be controlled by the Indian Bureau through its resident agent.

Who is this Indian agent, or superintendent, as he is now called? He is the supreme ruler on the reservation, responsible directly to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs; and all requests or complaints must pa.s.s through his office. The agency doctor, clerks, farmers, superintendents of agency schools, and all other local employees report to him and are subject to his orders. Too often he has been nothing more than a ward politician of the commonest stamp, whose main purpose is to get all that is coming to him. His salary is small, but there are endless opportunities for graft.

If any appeal from the agent's decisions, they are "kickers" and "insubordinate." If they are Indians, he can easily deprive them of privileges, or even imprison them on trumped-up charges; if employees, he will force them to resign or apply for transfers; and even the missionaries may be compelled, directly or indirectly, to leave the reservation for protesting too openly against official wrongdoing. The inspector sent from Washington to investigate finds it easy to "get in with" the agent and very difficult to see or hear anything that the agent does not wish him to hear or see. Many Indians now believe sincerely in Christ's teachings as explained to them by their missionaries, but they find it impossible to believe that this Government is Christian, or the average official an honest man.

Any untutored people, however, are apt imitators, and so these much-exploited natives become politicians in spite of themselves. The most worthless of the tribe are used as the agent's spies and henchmen; a state of affairs demoralizing on the face of it. As long as the Indian Bureau is run in the interests of the politicians, and Indian civilization is merely an incident, the excellent and humanitarian policies approved by the American people will not be fully carried into effect.

It is true that good men and especially good women have gone into the Indian service with a genuine desire to deal justly and kindly by the Indian and to serve the Government honorably and efficiently. Such people often become disgusted with the system and find it impossible to stay, or else are forced out by methods familiar to the experienced.

When you clear your American cities of grafters, and purify your politics, then perhaps you will be in a position to redeem the Indian service, and only then. Alas! the skirts of the G.o.ddess of Liberty have never yet been quite clean!

The Indian is no fool; on the other hand, he is a keen observer and an apt student. Although an idealist by nature, many of the race have proved themselves good business men. But under the reservation system they have developed traits that are absolutely opposed to the racial type. They become time-serving, beggarly, and apathetic. Some of their finest characters, such as Chief Joseph, have really died of a broken heart. These are men who could not submit to be degraded; the politicians call them "incorrigible savages."

The distribution of rations to the Plains Indians was, as I have explained, originally a peace measure, and apparently a necessity in place of their buffalo which the white man had exterminated. For many years Texas beef was issued monthly "on the hoof"; that is, the cattle were driven out one by one upon the plain, and there surrounded and shot down by representatives of the groups to which they belonged. Bacon, flour, sugar, and coffee were doled out to the women, usually as often as once in two weeks, thus requiring those who lived at a considerable distance from the agency to spend several days of each month on the road, neglecting their homes and gardens, if they had any. Once a year there was a distribution of cheap blankets and shoddy clothing. The self-respect of the people was almost fatally injured by these methods.

This demoralizing ration-giving has been gradually done away with as the Indians progressed toward self-support, but is still found necessary in many cases.

Not all features of reservation life are bad; for while many good things are shut out and some evils flourish, others are excluded. Liquor traffic among Indians has been forbidden by law since the colonial period; and the law is fairly well enforced by a number of special officers; yet in a few tribes there has been in recent years much demoralization through liquor. It is generally admitted that there is less crime and rowdyism on the reservations than in civilized communities of equal size. In 1878 a force of native police was authorized to keep order, eject intruders, act as truant officers, and perform other duties under the direction of the agent. Though paid only ten or twelve dollars a month, these men have been faithful and efficient in the performance of duties involving considerable hardship and sometimes danger. Their loyalty and patriotism are deserving of special praise. In making arrests and bringing in desperate prisoners, as in the case of Pretty Elk the Brule Sioux murderer, and of the chief, Sitting Bull, the faithful police have sometimes lost their lives.

INDIAN CLAIMS

It is commonly admitted that the Indian treaties have been frequently broken by the United States, both in the letter and the spirit, while, on the other hand, the Indians have acted in good faith and with a high regard for their national honor. It is also a fact not very creditable to the Government that treaties have been materially amended in the Senate and not again submitted to the tribe, who were not even made aware at once of their altered provisions. I believe this would be considered a piece of sharp practice in the case of any people able to defend itself.

The breach of treaty obligations on the part of this Government has led to a large number of Indian claims, involving millions of dollars, which represent the efforts of tribes or bands which feel themselves wronged or defrauded to obtain justice under the white man's law. The history of one or two such may be of interest.

Most of the Oneida and Stockbridge tribes exchanged their New York reservations for a large tract of land in Kansas, and started for their new home in 1830, but never got any farther than Green Bay, Wisconsin.

There the Menominees invited them to remain and share their reservation, as they had plenty of good land. The Stockbridges had originally occupied the beautiful Housatonic valley, where Jonathan Edwards preached to them and made them good Presbyterians; nevertheless, the "Christian" colonists robbed them of their homes and drove them westward. They did not resist the aggression. If anything is proved in history, it is that those who follow in the footsteps of the meek and gentle Jesus will be treated unmercifully, as he was, by a hard and material world.

These Stockbridges went still further with their kind hosts, and ultimately both tribes accepted the hospitality of the Ojibways. They made their unfortunate brothers welcome, and made them a free gift of land. But now observe the white man's sense of honor and justice in glaring contrast! For _seventy-five years_ the United States Government failed to recompense these people for their Kansas land, which they never reached, and which in the meantime was taken up by settlers, and gradually covered with thriving homes and fertile farms.

The whole case was scrutinized again and again by the Congress of the United States from 1830 to about 1905, when at last a payment was made!

The fact that the two tribes remained in Wisconsin and settled there does not invalidate their claim, as those wild Ojibways had no treaty with the Government at that time and had a perfect right to give away some of their land. It was a barefaced, open steal from the Indians. Yet the tribes were obliged to employ white attorneys at a liberal per cent.

of the amount they hoped to recover. They had to pay high for simple justice. Meanwhile they lived on their own labor for two or three generations, and contributed to the upbuilding of Wisconsin. To-day some of them are doing better than their white neighbors.

This is only one ill.u.s.tration of a not uncommon happening; for, while some of these claims are doubtless unreasonable, I personally know of many in which the ethics of the case are as clear as in this which I have cited. It is often the fact that differences among attorneys and party politics in Congress delay justice for many years or deprive the Indians of their rights altogether. A bill has recently been introduced, at the instance of the Society of American Indians, which is framed to permit Indian tribes to sue in the Court of Claims, without first obtaining the consent of Congress in each case. This bill ought to be at once made law, as it would do away within a few years with many long-drawn-out disputes and much waste and worse than waste of time and money.

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW INDIAN POLICY

I have tried to state plainly some of the difficulties found so hara.s.sing in adjusting the relations of the native and white races in America. While there have been terrible and most un-Christian mistakes in dealing with the Indian (who has always been fully able to appreciate fair play and to resent the lack of it), it is equally true that there has been of late years a serious effort to bring him within the bounds of modern progress, so that he may eventually adapt himself to the general life of the nation. Until recently he himself preferred to remain just outside the borders of civilization, and was commonly a.s.sumed to be incapable of advance or change.

The birth of the new era really dates from Abraham Lincoln's refusal to order the execution of three hundred Sioux braves, whom a military court had, in less than two days, convicted of murder and condemned to be hung, in order to satisfy the clamor of the citizens of Minnesota. They demanded to be avenged for the loss of friends, relatives, and property in the outbreak of 1862, and they forgot that these Sioux had been defrauded of the finest country in the world, their home, their living, and even cheated out of the ten cents per acre agreed to be paid for millions of acres of the choicest land. They had shown their teeth at last, after more than a century of patience and self-control.

The great President personally reviewed the records of the court, and wrote with his own hand the names of the forty Indians who were executed, instead of three hundred originally condemned to die. He was abused and insulted for his humanity. Governor Ramsey of Minnesota appealed to him in vain in the name of the frontier people: that gentle, brave, just President had his way, and many of those whom he pardoned afterward became leaders of the Sioux in walking the white man's road.

INDIAN REFORMS UNDER GRANT

During General Grant's administration the famous "Peace Policy" made a remarkable start in the face of the determined resistance of the Plains Indians. The Indian, when making his last stand against injustice, is a desperate and a dangerous enemy. It was estimated at this time that every warrior killed in battle had cost the Government twenty-three lives and a round million of dollars. At this rate, the race would not be "wiped out" for generations. Kindness would be infinitely cheaper, as well as more pleasing, doubtless, to the white man's G.o.d!

In a word, Christian men and women came tardily to the conclusion that something more consistent with the claims of their religion must be shown these brave people who had lost everything in the face of the herculean advance of the dominant race. Reflection upon the sordid history of their country's dealings with the red man had taught them to think clearly, above the clamor of the self-seeking mob. Some of them had lived side by side with their dusky neighbors, and studied them at close range, in the light of broad human feeling. Such men were General Grant, Bishops Whipple and Hare, William Welsh and his nephew, Herbert Welsh of Philadelphia, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Smith, General Armstrong, and General Pratt. No cla.s.s or sect has more fully endorsed this policy than have the Quakers, of whom the late Albert K. Smiley of Mohonk Conference fame was a distinguished representative.

In 1870 President Grant placed all Indian agencies under the control of the various churches and missionary organizations, which had hitherto been practically the sole channels of educational or uplift work among the tribes. Undoubtedly Grant sincerely wished to put an end to official corruption in this branch of the service, and to make the best possible use of all moneys that might be appropriated for Indian civilization, when he took the radical step of inviting each of the denominations interested to name the agent at one or more agencies, their candidate to hold office as long as he enjoyed their confidence, and to choose his own subordinates. It was confidently hoped that by this means the civil and religious work might be in full harmony, and that the Indians, instead of being hopelessly confused by conflicting views and practices among their would-be teachers, might learn equally by precept and example.

Grant's policy remained in force for about ten years, and there is no question that in this short s.p.a.ce of time the churches accomplished wonders among the raw Sioux but lately confined to their reservations.

The following agencies of which I had personal knowledge were then industrious Christian communities: namely, Sisseton under the Presbyterians, Devil's Lake under the Catholics, Yankton under the Episcopalians, Santee under the Quakers. Winnebagoes, p.a.w.nees, Omahas, all the wild Plains Indians did well under consistent and conscientious management. Large fields of wheat were cultivated by them, with but little a.s.sistance, which have since gone back to wild land under the "spoils system," and over which, ten years ago, I hunted prairie chickens.

There were developed during this period many strong Christians of a genuinely apostolic stamp, who became teachers and preachers to their wilder brethren. Both children and adults were taught to read in their own language, and at least two papers were published monthly in the Sioux tongue, which had been reduced to writing by the Riggses and Williamsons, the earliest Protestant missionaries. It was then and there that I myself received my impetus toward an education. My father, who was one of the two hundred and sixty Sioux pardoned by Lincoln, had voluntarily abandoned the reservation with its pauperizing influences, and was a self-supporting citizen in 1870.

Another interesting feature of Grant's administration was the number of Indians holding responsible positions in the service. At a time when there were no great Indian schools, there were found and trained men competent to act as agency blacksmiths, carpenters, millers, etc. There was even a full-blood Iroquois at the head of the Indian Bureau--Grant's chief of staff, General Ely Parker.

THE WARS OF THE SECTS

It was a genuine calamity for our people when this system was overthrown, as it was in a few years, by the clamor of the politicians for patronage, together with the sectarian disputes that have been a scandal to the heathen throughout the history of Christian missions. On many reservations proselyting work had been begun by two or more denominations, and these bodies now became rivals, even bitter and hostile rivals, for the souls and bodies of their reputed converts. To the Catholics, in particular, who claimed thirty-eight of the seventy-two agencies, on the ground of prior religious influence, there had been a.s.signed but eight. Strong pressure was brought to bear through their Bureau of Missions to reverse this ruling; and equally strong, or stronger, was the political pressure for the rich spoils of the Indian agencies. By 1883 Grant's too idealistic system broke down entirely, the fat offices were returned to the politicians, and all denominations were permitted to engage at will in missionary propaganda, but without secular authority.

A certain chief in the Red River region well expressed a view common among our people when he said to the priest: "You tell us that we can be saved only if we accept your faith and are baptized by you. The Protestant minister tells us the same. Yet both claim to worship the same G.o.d! Who shall judge between you? We have considered the matter, and decided that when your two roads join we will follow you; but until then we prefer our own religion!"

Nevertheless it was largely through the influence of the missionaries and their converts that in most of the treaties made during this period there were inserted clauses providing for the practical education of the Indian children. There has been much fraud connected with the purchase of materials and supplies, and in every way that shrewd and unprincipled men can devise, but even the politicians could not entirely prevent the building of those schools. One fact stands out boldly: it was the Christian missionary, in spite of serious mistakes, who played the most important part in the transformation of the Indian and the development of the West.