THE INDIANS.
THE S’KOKOMISH AGENCY.
Homes and Schools—Lands and Titles.
EDWIN EELLS, AGENT, S’KOKOMISH.
The favor of a kind Providence has preserved us from any unusual calamities, and general good health, peace and prosperity have attended us and the Indians under my charge. It has been rather a quiet year, with nothing very startling, either good or bad, to affect us. Among the Indians generally, their habits of morality appear to have been growing stronger. Their general deportment is very good, and their style of living in their houses is improving all the time. Their general health, in consequence of their improved manner of living, has never been better than during the past year. Most of their houses have been ceiled and good tight floors put in them during the past winter, so that they are quite as comfortable as the average of white settlers throughout the country. There has been some land cleared by them, a decided advance in the kind of fences built by them, and I have furnished 1,000 fruit trees, which they have set out, nearly all of which have lived.
Our schools have been well attended, and the progress of the scholars in their studies has been quite satisfactory. The average attendance of the two schools has been something over fifty. One feature of improvement at the Agency, which deserves mention, has been the employment of apprentices, at small wages, at the various shops at the Agency. We have had five of our former school-boys employed in this way during the summer, and they have done very well.
Among the Indians who live off from the Reservation there has been an increasing desire to take up or acquire land for themselves. One band living at Clallam Bay, about 160 miles distant from the Agency, have purchased a tract of 154 acres of land, and have a favorable prospect before them of doing quite well. Ten individuals contributed the money to make this purchase. Some other individuals have taken up homestead claims and are improving them. One has completed his five years’ residence and obtained his title to his claim.
The delay of the Government to furnish the Indians on this Reservation with titles to their allotments of land, has operated to discourage them very much in the improvement of their farms. They also had reason to fear that there was danger of their being removed from here and consolidated with other tribes, speaking different languages, and to a distance from the home of their childhood and the land of their fathers. This has added to their despondency and unnerved them for effort. With this cloud of despondency hanging over them, it has been up-hill work to induce them to make sufficient effort to insure any progress. Their faith in the Government failing, their religious faith has also weakened, and while it has not led them to any bad practices, it has prevented them from making progress in Christianity. They reason in this way: If there is a God who rules the world, and institutes governments over men; if these governments are unjust and oppressive, it must be an unjust God who causes all this; and why should they love and worship such a being? This is the Indian mode of reasoning, and under the present circumstances there is a barrier raised in their minds against the Gospel.
As the treaty is soon to expire, and as some of the safeguards they have heretofore had will be removed, it seems to me very important that this measure should, if possible, be immediately consummated.