CHAPTER III. THE INDIANS TODAY AND HON. E. E. AYER’S REPORT
We have seen in the preceding chapter that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, his assistants, Supervisors, Inspectors and Special Agents stand at the head of a very great Bureau; and that under them are thousands of employees. The diagram on the following page is an outline plan of the entire Indian Service, beginning with that great body, the Congress of the United States, and passing through its various ramifications down to the amalgamation of the educated, competent Indian into the body of American citizens.
This comprehensive table was published by Honorable F. E. Farrell, Superintendent of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, in the school publication The Carrier Pigeon, in December, 1912.
We should first realize the tremendous difference between the Indians of 1850 and those of 1914. A comparison of the Indian reservation map of 1879 and the map of 1913 will give readers some idea of the tremendous changes in Indian life in this country. In the short space of fifty years, the entire West has been transformed from an Indian country to a white man’s country. The problem of these Indians is today, not so much an ethnologic study, as it is a citizenship and humanitarian problem.
Although there are a few scattered bands of Indians on the public domain (notably Papago and Navaho, and a few other bands) more than nine-tenths of these people are under direct Federal or State supervision. As I have remarked elsewhere, a great many of the Navaho and certain other Indians still keep up tribal customs and continue in the faith of their ancestors, but for the greater part, the Indians are, and should be, considered a part of our body politic. Before discussing some of the larger tribes, and certain phases of Indian history in the broad sense, we should review the Indian situation as it presents itself generally in the United States.
Beginning with the far East, we should glance at the thousand or more native Americans living in Maine and New Brunswick.
Several hundred Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians are located at Oldtown, Maine, and on the St. Croix River above Princeton, Maine. These are of superior intelligence, and all are self-supporting. There is some drunkenness, but it is not prevalent, as among some of our western tribes.
| DIAGRAM OF THE INDIAN SERVICE | |
|---|---|
| Congress of the United States | |
| Statutes, United States | |
| The President | |
| Secretary of Interior | |
| Regulations, Indian Service | |
| Commissioner of Indian Affairs District Supervisors | |
| │ | |
| Non-reservation Schools | |
| Reservation Agencies | |
| Agent, Superintendent | |
| │ | |
| ┌──────────────────────┴──────────────────────┐ | ||
| Agency Office Work | Agency Field Work | Boarding school |
| Inheritance: | Individual Indian Money: | Education |
| Family history | Purchases—Animals’ feed, implements, buildings | Health |
| Hearings, reports, findings, etc. | Academic and industrial training | |
| Industries: | Recreation | |
| Land Patents: | Care of farm, stock, implements, methods, seed selection, meetings, etc. | Religious and moral instruction |
| Sales—P. | Employees—social relations | |
| Leasing | Health and Sanitation: | Property |
| Negotiations, bonds, rentals, reports, authorities, etc. | Care of home, premises, Matron, Farmer and Physician | Supplies |
| Outing system | ||
| Individual Indian Money: | Law and Order: | |
| Banking, bonds of bank, authorities, disbursements, reports, etc. | Suppression liquor traffic, dances peyote feasts, customs, care of minors, etc. | |
| Industrial reports, statistics, agricultural fairs, etc. | ||
| Law and Order: | Day School | |
| Finance: | Suppression liquor traffic, dances peyote feasts, customs, care of minors, etc. | |
| Agency and School funds, apportionments, disbursements, reports, etc. | ||
| Forestry: | Public School | |
| Purchases: | Sale of timber, permits, fires, etc. | |
| Advertisements, | Amalgamation | |
| Vouchers, etc. | Irrigation: | |
| Property: | Leasing: | |
| Negotiations, improvements, collection rentals, appraisement, etc. | ||
| Employees: | ||
| Records, reports | Land: | |
| Tribal Funds, Interest | Sales, appraisements, allotments | |
| Construction: | ||
| Specifications, superintending construction, repairs, insuring | ||
The Indians are under the jurisdiction of the State of Maine. The Penobscots own all the islands in the Penobscot River between Oldtown and Millinockett. They are, for the most part, guides, farmers, carpenters, clerks and lumbermen. Many of them earn excellent wages—from $2 to $5 per day. I saw no evidences of poverty. The people are intelligent and of good character. Consumption is not common, and trachoma cases are rare.
The reason for the splendid condition of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians should not be lost upon our officials and Indian Committees in authority in Congress.
They have been surrounded by a high class of white people, and have been left alone to develop and progress. While they have been protected by the State of Maine, no discrimination has been made against them, as in the case of Indians in Oklahoma, Minnesota, California and elsewhere. They enjoy the same citizenship as is conferred upon Whites, and it does not consist of “paper promises,” but is real and effective. Theirs is no story of dishonesty and disease.
The past summer, while on an archaeological expedition on the St. John River, I visited three villages occupied by Malecite Indians, in New Brunswick, Canada. All of them are well situated, one at the mouth of the Tobique River; another at Edmunston; and a third near Woodstock. While these Indians are poor, there is no general pauperism, and their general health is better than among the Indians I have visited in our United States (exclusive of Maine).
In one respect the plans followed by the Canadian officials are superior to ours, and evince more ability (or rather stability) in the handling of the Indians. Instead of allotting these Indians, giving them deeds to valuable property, permitting them to be swindled by unscrupulous white persons, and then spending years in profitless litigation, in an attempt to make grafters return property taken from the Indians, these Canadians have continued the reservation system under a modified form. The Indians own their tracts of land, as with us, but do not hold deeds, or trust patents to same, therefore the lands cannot be sold or mortgaged; thus the incentive to fraud is removed.
The Indians serve as farmers, guides, carpenters and fishermen. Most of them are Catholics, and there is a priest located at the Tobique village. He lives among them and encourages them in various arts.
The census gives a few Indians as residing in our eastern states, but they are white people in every way, save color.
To discover the next body of Indians exceeding more than three or four hundred, we must go down South where we find a few bands of Cherokees in Swain and Jackson Counties, North Carolina; and scattered throughout Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama there are 1100 or 1200 residing on what was originally a part of the habitat of this great nation.
GOVERNMENT SAWMILL, FT. BELKNAP RESERVATION, MONTANA
Lumber cut by Indians.
Some of the Iroquois still reside in western New York, notably in settlements not far from Buffalo. These Indians, as in the case of the North Carolina Cherokees, are chiefly mixed-bloods, have adopted our customs, live in fairly comfortable houses and are in no need of Government supervision. Among the Iroquois of New York, the percentage of tuberculosis and other diseases was so low as to be practically nil. In one of the recent Government reports it is given as but a fraction over one per cent.
There has recently developed agitation seeking to break up their reservation. This is most unfortunate, as the tracts are small; the Indians are doing well and desire to be let alone. They deserve to remain in peaceful possession of their old-time homes.
All of the remaining Indians east of the Mississippi, and south of the Great Lakes need not enter into our discussion. Save for a noticeable Indian color in the case of some individuals, the bulk of them have ceased to be real Indians. The New York Iroquois, in recent times, have made creditable progress in arts, and have produced a number of prominent men and women. A large number of them serve in responsible positions and so far as they are concerned there is no Indian problem. We may, therefore, eliminate the eastern half of the United States, with the exception of Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida.
In Florida we have the descendants of the Seminoles, estimated at 600, and are an offshoot of the Creeks, or Muskokis. These still cling to their ancient homes in the Everglades, and have withstood all attempts to make of them either educated Indians or agency Indians. During Mr. Leupp’s administration, he proposed to me that I go to Florida and spend a winter cultivating the friendship of these Indians and see if it were not possible to persuade them to send their children to school. I was unable to carry this mission into effect, but I understand that recently the Government sent a Special Agent there, who has compelled a number of the children to attend school. The draining of the Everglades is now well under way, and soon the hunting and fishing-grounds of these people will be very much restricted. They have always been self-supporting and they merit consideration, and should have our help. It is to be hoped that before the ditching of the Everglades is completed, these Indians will be properly provided for. This is a subject I would commend to the attention of the Federal authorities.
In Wisconsin we have quite a large number of Indians at the present time, located on reservations, or clustered about schools. These number 9,930, and Wisconsin ranks ninth in the entire country in point of Indian population. Wisconsin is the first State, on our inspection tour from the East to the West, wherein we find a large body of Indians still in the transition period. They belong to the following bands:—the Ojibwa (Chippewa), Menominee, Potawatomi, Oneida, Winnebago and a few others. The Ojibwa are by far the most numerous, amounting to, approximately, two-thirds of the entire number. Whether all of these five tribes originally belonged in Wisconsin, is a question which may be deferred to the ethnologist. We are treating of the State in recent times, as I have previously remarked in this book. Therefore that great question—the origin of these Indians and their presence in the State of Wisconsin—is not our concern. They are here located at the present time, and, in general, are making fair progress.
Honorable Edward E. Ayer, of the Board of Indian Commissioners, last year, made an extended investigation of the timber problem confronting the Menominee Indians. Mr. Ayer has kindly furnished me with an advance copy of his report in order that I might present a synopsis. Seldom has an investigation been conducted under more auspicious circumstances. Mr. Ayer took with him a number of persons, including a practical lumberman of wide experience. As the Menominee problem is one concerned with timber, rather than land values, it was very important that the work be thoroughly done. Mr. Ayer covered the entire reservation in his report.
“The Menominee Indians originally occupied the greater part of the State of Wisconsin. They ranged from what is now the site of Milwaukee north along the west shores of Lake Michigan to Menominee, North Michigan, and west to the Wisconsin River and Black River. Along Green Bay and the Fox River Valley were their principal settlements, and on the shores of Green Bay they first met the white man, when Father Marquette, La Salle and the first French descended the Great Lakes from the Canada settlement on exploration voyages of early days. On the reservation at Keshena is now the successor of the first French Mission established by Marquette at Green Bay.
“A woods Indian, the Menominee was a striking figure, of generally six feet and over in height, a giant in strength. Few in numbers when compared with other great tribes, his bravery and fighting qualities enabled him to hold his own with surrounding tribes, Potawatomies on the south, Sauk and Fox and Winnebago on southwest, the great Dakota or Sioux natives to west and Chippewa on the shore of Superior to the north, and the Hurons to the east of them. Their word once given could be relied upon. The French, English and American nations, each in turn, made treaties with them and all were faithfully kept. The Menominee was a peaceful nation, seldom the aggressor, but mighty in wrath, once justified in taking the warpath. From early times these Indians have been the white man’s friend. In our Civil War many soldiers were recruited from their band, and today here exists the only Indian G. A. R. Post in America. Their pursuits are farming, lumbering and manufacture of lumber products. At Neopit is the seat of a large milling-plant industry, capitalized for one million dollars. It has a sawmill with an output of forty million feet yearly, a planing-mill of twenty million capacity and carries a stock on hand of forty million feet of lumber, also laths, shingles, etc. The town numbers about one thousand men, women and children, and here may be seen the advanced Indian living in his modern cottage surrounded with all the home comforts of modern life and partaking of the same social enjoyments as his white brother. A modern day school and a mission day school furnish education to his children, as does town life social instruction to his home, and the mill industrial education to himself and sons.
U. S. INDIAN SCHOOL CHILOCCO, OKLA.
A glimpse in one of the rooms of the Department of Domestic Art. Students making Uniforms and other dresses for school use.
“At Keshena is the seat of the Agency, head of administrative affairs, and two large boarding-schools, Government and mission, with combined capacity for 300 children. Scattered out from Keshena for a radius of twelve miles is a scene of agricultural progress, Indian farmers whose efforts vary from farms of 5 to 80 acres, cleared, fenced and in various stages of improvement.
LEWIS TEWANIMA
In the 10,000–meter run at the Olympic Games in Stockholm Tewanima won second place. He is a full-blood Hopi Indian and is considered America’s greatest long-distant runner. Educated at Carlisle.
JAMES THORPE
World’s Champion All-Round Athlete, Winner of the Pentathlon and the Decathlon, Stockholm, 1912. Educated at Carlisle.
“The tribal funds on deposit in the Treasury of the United States are approximately $2,000,000, gathered from fruits of their own toil and in the sale of their timber products.
“The tribe numbers about 1700 souls. Statistics show about 575 able-bodied males, aged 18 years and over. Labor figures for the reserve show of this number an average of 264 adult Indians continuously employed the year round, earning in wages $91,630.47, not including subsistence. The greatest value of the Neopit operations is as a school of industry. Its value educationally, morally and civilly cannot be measured in dollars and cents.”
Mr. Ayer found that the Government had erected a sawmill at Neopit. This mill sawed Indian timber exclusively.
Some years ago the mill’s operations were not satisfactory, there being extravagance in management. Since Mr. Nicholson was appointed, all of this has been remedied, and after liberal deductions for all expenses, the mill shows a profit of $443,176.17 to the Menominee Indians (from July, 1910 to September 30, 1913). He found the mill employed a large number of Indian men, while other Indians found employment working with the logging crews in the woods. The mill served a double purpose. Not only were the Indians employed and earned good wages, but they also received the benefits of the mill’s earnings.
There is practically no poverty on the reservation, and little sickness. The houses are clean and well kept.
Mr. Ayer’s exhaustive study of conditions led him to make several recommendations, one or two of which I append herewith:—
“I recommend that two, four or six of the brightest young Indians on the Reservation be sent to Wisconsin State College of Agriculture at Madison to take a full course in forestry and scientific farming, that they may come back to the reservation equipped to teach the Indians who have elected to make farms.
“I would also recommend that there be a company or tribal store at Neopit and a branch one at Keshena and that the goods shall be sold say on a basis of 12½ or 15 per cent, which would make the stores absolutely self-sustaining and the Indians would get the necessities of life much cheaper. These stores should also carry a stock of the ordinary agricultural tools that might be used and there should also be a bank, say with forty or fifty thousand dollars capital connected with the Neopit store, where the employees of the mill could get checks cashed.
“Now, if they want to buy anything extraordinary, an agricultural tool or any other thing, or cash their check, they have got to go twenty miles away to Shawano for the purpose, and they are subjected to all the temptations of the outside towns. I think everything ought to be supplied to the Indians on the reservation so that they would have as little necessity of leaving it as possible.”
A complaint had gained circulation to the effect that the mill was losing money and had been extravagantly managed. There were some grounds for this five years ago, but not during the past three years. A certain attorney, wishing to take over the management of tribal affairs, visited the Indians and, calling their attention to a few logs here and there, which had not been properly handled, persuaded the Indians to raise a sum of money to pay his expenses to Washington. Here he made complaints to the Commissioner and others. His presence on the reservation caused dissatisfaction. Ayer’s investigation proved that the loss was nothing compared with the great financial benefits accruing to the Indians, through the mill’s operation.
I mention this at some length for the reason that Mr. Ayer’s report was unjustly criticised by one or two persons who lent willing ears to the self-seeking attorney.
His report covers all questions relating to farming, education, health, and the sale of timber to better advantage. The mill is a model of efficiency, conserves the Indians’ timber to the tribe’s best interest, and similar mills should be conducted on other reservations.
The amount of timber remaining to be cut is variously estimated at from 1,500,000,000 to 2,000,000,000 feet. It will thus be observed that the Menominee Indians are possessed of a very valuable property. The authorities should heed Mr. Ayer’s suggestions, coming as they do, from a practical timber man of many years’ experience.
The greatest tracts of timber (aside from Menominee) are on Chippewa lands at Bad River and La Pointe. Some are exceedingly valuable. I addressed the Department and received assurance that the Commissioner was aware of the dangers of a “second White Earth.” The following official communication (in part) is evidence that these Indians will be protected:—
“Under the treaty of September 30, 1854 (10 Stats. L., 1109), 1063 Indians within the La Pointe or Bad River Reservation, Wisconsin, have been allotted a total area of 8,387,068 acres. Approximately 45,000 acres of surplus tribal land remain, authority for the allotment of which exists in the Act of February 11, 1901 (31 Stats. L., 766), as amended by the Act of March 2, 1907 (34 Stats. L., 1217). Nothing is said in these acts about the allotment of timber lands and the remaining tribal lands within this reservation are very valuable for timber purposes, some of the eighty-acre tracts being estimated to yield approximately $30,000 for the timber alone. Other tracts containing but little timber are not desirable and an equitable division of the lands in allotment cannot be made under existing conditions.
“Two factions exist in the tribe, one in favor of allotting under existing laws and the other in favor of selling the timber, distributing the proceeds per capita and thereafter allotting the lands to the unallotted Indians belonging on this reservation.
“Appended hereto is the part of the Office file relating to this allotment correspondence, particularly the submission to the Department of the request for authority to procure agreements from the Indians to allot the lands under the existing laws with the understanding that the timber should be cut and sold for the benefit of the tribe at large.” (File omitted in this book.)
For several years there have been extensive cuttings of pine timber on the reservations at Bad River, Lac du Flambeau, Lac Courte Oreille, and Fond du Lac. The total amount cut on each of these reservations was as follows: Bad River, 57,183,770 feet; Lac du Flambeau, 23,049,110 feet; Lac Courte Oreille, 4,268,050 feet; Fond du Lac, 13,128,775 feet. All of this timber was cut on allotments except 12,068,620 feet cut from unpatented lands of the Lac du Flambeau Reservation, claimed by the State of Wisconsin as swamp lands, and 56,955 feet cut from tribal lands of the Bad River Reservation.
A number of circular letters were addressed by me to persons living in Wisconsin, requesting information as to the condition of the Indians. It is known that not only is there vocational training in the schools, but also more or less higher educational training. One of my correspondents, a missionary, takes the view that there has been too much higher education of Indian children in his State, and it would be far better to confine the work to the teaching of trades and give no book instruction beyond the fundamentals. He thinks that the average Indian when educated beyond this point, is not willing to take his place as an ordinary workman. Another gentleman, while expressing satisfaction with much that has been done, sums up the situation in the particular Indian community in which he resides as follows: “Too much red tape.”
The progress of these Indians while slow, is satisfactory. They do not present a sufficiently interesting problem for our study at the present time. It is safe to predict that within a generation, a full-blood Indian in Wisconsin will be a rarity. They may continue to live an indefinite length of time in various communities where they are now settled, but Government supervision (save possibly on the Menominee reservation) may be safely withdrawn in the near future.
In Michigan the larger number of Indians are Chippewa (Ojibwa), with a sprinkling of Ottawa and Potawatomi. Schools care for a majority of their children, and the adults are, for the most part, quite self-supporting. They may be dismissed from our pages.
Proceeding westward to the headquarters of the Mississippi, we have the great Minnesota region which is generally covered in my four chapters upon White Earth reservation. West of the Mississippi River, there are very few Indians in that great area of Texas (but 702), and in Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana; the numbers range from 313 to 780. These areas may be set aside as containing such a preponderance of white population as to render those of Indian blood an extreme minority. Of the mountain states, Colorado contains but 870 Indians, Wyoming 1715, and the others 4,000 to 11,000. The great Indian populations are, therefore, confined to nine states. Ten states contain from 800 to 8,000. The remaining twenty-nine contain but a fraction of the entire Indian body, and they are now more white than Indian.
Texas, in spite of its enormous size, is interesting in that but a handful of Indians are in evidence. In 1850 the Indian population was considerable. Nelson Lee’s book of captivity among the Comanches[[8]] gives an idea of the extent of the roving bands of Comanches and Apaches infesting the State in early days. The hostility of the Texas people was such that through the organization of the famous Texas Rangers those Indians were either driven out of the State or exterminated. Very little consideration was shown them, and I can find no evidence of any general effort being put forward to protect these Indians in their rights or place them upon reservations or establish schools among them. Our troops were frequently sent into Texas, and as late as 1875, roving bands of Indians infested the western part of the State and carried on raids into old Mexico, or stole stock from Texas ranches. As to the number of Indians in the State of Texas just prior to the Civil War, there seems to be no reliable statistics.
The Texas tribes were of the general Caddoan stock, of which the Comanche appear to have been the largest and strongest branch. These Indians ranged through the valleys of the Brazos and Colorado and extended their conquests to the land of the Apache, along the Rio Grande, to the west. They were essentially buffalo Indians and were not agriculturalists, but presented the purest nomadic type found in the southwest. This must not be misunderstood. The Navaho are nomadic to a certain extent, but their range has been limited. Moreover they possess flocks and herds. There is no evidence that the Comanche ever domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle, although they frequently obtained stock in their raids against the Texans. As they were continually on the move following the buffalo in its migrations, or planning war parties against the white people and Mexicans alike, they were pure nomads, as stated above.
Years ago, during the height of Indian troubles in Texas, a law was passed expelling red men from that State. Indians entering the State were subjected to fine, imprisonment or expulsion. The feeling against the race was very bitter, and Indians in Texas never received just treatment.
A few of them were, in later years, taken to Indian Territory, but most of the Comanches, it is safe to affirm, were killed in action. Although the Texas rangers were superiorly armed and better mounted, the Apaches continued their warfare from the earliest times down to about 1870, when their power was permanently broken. They were very cruel and vindictive. Nelson Lee’s narrative, to which I have referred, is one of the most interesting Indian captivities ever brought to my attention. It presents a vivid picture of the Comanche as they were during the period preceding our war with Mexico.