CHAPTER XXXIX. GENERAL COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS
There are some general observations which I desire to make prior to my conclusions. Any one of these might be expanded into an entire chapter, but since that is impracticable, it is necessary in the following pages to refer to a number of subjects both related and unrelated.
An illuminating comment as to affairs on the Great Plains between 1850 and 1880 is found in the Mormon records of their great migration from the East to Salt Lake City. There is no authentic narrative indicating a serious clash between these Mormons and the thousands of Indians whom they encountered. After their location in Salt Lake City and vicinity they preserved friendly relations with the Indians. Brigham Young made a statement, embodying the above facts, to Honorable J. V. Farwell, one of the original members of the Board of Indian Commissioners, in 1869.
People interested in Indians would do well to consult the early reports of the Board of Indian Commissioners. The first one was written in 1869 and published in 1870. Contrary to general belief, the Five Civilized Tribes, living in what was then Indian Territory, were working, building houses, fencing lands, and progressing. In other sections of the country as well there was progress to be noted. We do not need to confine our observations to the Apache country, Oklahoma or California in order to prove that the disinclination of many Indians to work, was entirely due to the fact that the Indian was suddenly removed from savagery and placed in civilization. Practically all Indians were self-supporting, prior to white domination. Otherwise, they would have soon died of starvation. The deterioration of the Indian was caused not entirely by removal of the means of livelihood (lands, game, irrigation, etc.,) but because of unwise, not to say foolish and incompetent, handling of Indian affairs. Washington is not so much to blame as is the entire country. Let us consider a specific instance at some length. Mr. John H. Seger went among the Cheyenne Indians in 1872. From Darlington, Oklahoma, he ran a stage to Fort Elliot, Texas, 160 miles. In 1884 the cattle men leased all the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation west of the South Canadian River. They paid $100,000 per year, cash rent. As these Indians were drawing blankets, rations and clothing from the Government, so large a sum of money nearly ruined them. Captain J. M. Lee was appointed Agent, and after two years the Government cancelled the leasing privilege. These Indians, who formerly raised corn and hauled freight (thus earning money in addition to their free sustenance) complained, and desired to continue the leasing privilege in order that they might loaf. Captain Lee concluded that Mr. Seger was the only man able to persuade the Indians to return to their former mode of life. Seger was given to understand that if he learned the language, and gave up his life to the care of this band of Indians, he would be continued in the Service. He moved the Indians sixty miles to the Washita River and founded what is known as Seger’s Colony. The story of his work among these Indians and the many difficulties he overcame makes very interesting reading. Seger established a school and later the place was known as Seger township. Indians soon constructed twenty-eight houses. He labored for more than twelve years, persuaded a missionary organization to establish a mission and the last year he was in charge the net profits of the industries carried on at his school amounted to $6,993. The story of his removal and the subsequent purchase of much of the Indians’ land would be a repetition of what has occurred elsewhere in this country. I never could understand why competent men are not retained. Frequent removals, or changes in Washington, are of less moment, but in Indian communities much is lost and very little gained when a faithful employee, who has perfected himself in a study of his people, is removed from office and some stranger placed in his stead.
Several thousand Indians owning farms protect themselves and hold their own against white people. They do this notwithstanding changes of men or of laws. Such need no protection, and I have said little concerning them in this book. I would that all Indians were so satisfactorily placed in our body politic. As an illustration of this class of Indians, I present the following incident.
When travelling with Major Brennan across Pine Ridge reservation, I observed on the cabin of an educated Indian, who wished to protect his allotment, a large board sign which read as follows:
NOTICE
NO TRESPASSING WILL BE ALLOWED
ON MY ALLOTMENT UNDER PENALTY
OF THE LAW
JOHN T. BEAR
There have been a number of references in this book to Canada. Mr. Duncan C. Scott, who holds that office in Canada corresponding to our Commissioner of Indian Affairs, attended the Lake Mohonk Conference this year. He showed us a few thin pamphlets—all the regulations, laws, statements, methods of procedure, etc., necessary in the management of Canadian Indian affairs. With us we employ skilled lawyers to fathom the intent of our legislators. They must needs delve into thousands of pages of conflicting laws, rules and statutes. And after one set of attorneys have presented their views, the mass of legal rulings is so enormous and complicated that other attorneys assigned the same task usually arrive at exactly opposite conclusions from those presented by the first corps!
Mr. Scott also informed us that when a white man marries an Indian woman in Canada, he has no part in tribal or individual property. The Government issues no deeds to the Indians, but they live on their farms as do ours. All incentive to graft is removed. The simple, effective Canadian management of Indian affairs, compared with our ponderous, complicated and ignorant handling of the same class of people in this country, points a very strong moral.
MEDAL PRESENTED BY PRESIDENT GRANT TO CHIEF RED CLOUD IN 1871
Secured from Mrs. Red Cloud and Jack Red Cloud for the Trustees of Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., in 1909, by W. K. Moorehead. Solid silver. Full size.
Of those who have done much on behalf of the Indian, I neglected to emphasize the work of Honorable James M. Graham, Congressman from Illinois, and Honorable Henry George, Jr., of New York.
These two gentlemen served on the Congressional Committee referred to in Chapters IV-VIII. There were other members on this same Committee, who did good work, but I believe Messrs. Graham and George were the only two who attended all of the sessions. Omitting the members of Congress already mentioned in the book, those who have been especially active in protecting Indians are Honorable Senators LaFollette, Townsend, Ashurst, Lane, Page and Gronna; and Honorable Congressmen Konop, Church, Campbell, McGuire, Miller, Lenroot, Murdock and Stevens (Nebraska).
I have tried to indicate in a number of places in this book why so many of our Indian tribes are practically at a standstill, so far as progress along lines of civilization is concerned. Put into one concrete statement, the reason for the unsatisfactory condition of many of our Indians is due to the following:—First, we have hurried them into citizenship before they were qualified to assume full responsibility. Second, many of the farms and tracts improved by Indians, after much labor, have been taken away.
Certain of the missions were very successful, and numbers of them are so at the present day. The famous Riggs family of missionaries among the Sioux, succeeded in building up communities of Christian Indians and promoting thrift and industry. Rev. Gilfillan’s missions in Minnesota, and the Catholic mission near Pine Ridge are illustrations of what can be done with Indians when one has secured their confidence. So long as there is no change in management, and the Indians are not hurried, much progress on their part is sure to result. But, unfortunately, as has been indicated, we have no more than persuaded a band of Indians to become progressive than we destroy all incentive to further progress. This was done in the case of the Pima and Papago, in addition to other tribes frequently mentioned. Indians develop farms and become self-supporting only to see the result of their labor swept away. Beyond question, we have hurried the Indian, and forced allotments and citizenship upon him far too rapidly. We should have moved slowly, as they do in Canada, and avoid the dreadful scandals and the increase of disease and pauperism. The Indians are more or less confused by our numerous rulings, changes of officials, etc. An Indian said to me in Minnesota: “We used to live in the open air and were healthy. You told us to live in houses. We became sick. Now you tell us to again live in the open air. The white man has many minds.”
The old method of gradual extension of civilizing influences was generally successful. And, in all sections of the country where such a plan is followed, the Indians are doing quite well. Indians can be led, or persuaded, far more satisfactorily than driven. The Navaho have never been driven, but were permitted to slowly, yet satisfactorily, progress along certain lines. An educated Indian once summed up to me our general policy with reference to the average Indian in Oklahoma:—“You put a few words of English in his mouth, a coat on his back, thrust a deed to valuable property in his hands, and send him out among shrewder white men, expecting him to hold his own.”
Even the wildest Indians might have been led along the path to civilization had we approached the subject in the proper manner. Setting aside temporarily my rule not to refer to affairs prior to 1850, permit me to indicate what Rev. Zeisberger and Rev. Heckewelder accomplished in the Ohio wilderness before the American Revolution. They established missions on the Muskingum River and conducted these successfully, in spite of the fact that all the Ohio and Indiana Indians were at war with the settlers of Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania. These men dealt with, and worked among, a class of Indians as hostile as many of those in the West. At the time the missions were destroyed by one Williamson and other white murderers, the chapels, houses, fenced fields, and other evidences of civilization were in advance of that exhibited in any white community lying between central Pennsylvania and the Spanish missions. The reason for the success of the Moravian mission lay in this fact: that the missionaries were permitted to labor unhampered in a remote section of the country, there were no white people near, no demoralizing influences. They did not force industry upon the natives suddenly, but by a slow and persistent policy of training and education, brought about the desired result. With us, in these modern days, in far too many places, we have not only exhibited undue haste in preparing our Indians for citizenship, but we have shown a general incompetence in managing their affairs.
There is yet another and equally important reason so many of our Indians are discouraged, or backward, or indolent. Most nations, or tribes of men, learn the lessons of life in the hard school of adversity. The Indian had his school of adversity, but the curriculum was totally different from that observed in any other institution of similar character. He had, on the one hand what Mr. Humphrey has called “the great Unselfishness” (page [375]), and on the other the exact opposite of “the great Unselfishness.” The “great Selfishness” destroyed the Indian—nothing else. The Indian found it exceedingly difficult to adapt himself to the new conditions. Through education, he was able to fathom the inconsistencies of the white man’s teachings and practices. Being human, he refused to develop his property, if by so doing he merely fattened the pocketbook of some covetous white man. His vast tribal estates furnished him with moneys at stated occasions, and, relying too much upon these, he drifted into indolent habits. The unlettered aborigine, as well as the educated Indian, observed that we were continually concerned with the Indian rather than with white people responsible for the Indians’ condition. This to them was inexplicable. The illustration presented me on this score by a certain educated Indian presents the thought quite forcibly. “Suppose a ranchman owned a large tract of land on which grazed some thousands of sheep. Around his ranch ranged hundreds of coyotes. The wolves frequently destroy the sheep. The ranchman is continually changing the sheep from one pasture to another, in order to avoid the wolves. He devotes all his energies to the sheep, instead of destroying the wolves.”
Consider the whiskey problem, about which so much has been printed. There are laws and regulations sufficient to control this evil. Yet everyone seems concerned in preventing Indians from drinking whiskey, or arresting drunken Indians. So long as the State authorities do not enforce the laws against white men who introduce whiskey, it will be impossible to prevent Indians from drinking. Equally applicable are the laws against theft from Indians. In spite of all our investigations, few white men are ever sent to the penitentiary for swindling Indians. As in the case of whiskey, there are ample laws for the protection of Indian property and the punishment of grafters, yet they are seldom enforced. Honorable William H. Taft, ex-President of the United States, has in his public addresses frequently called attention to our lax enforcement of laws and our apparent disrespect of the courts, as compared with the high regard in which the English hold their legal machinery, and the impartial manner in which they administer justice.
All these things, in their ensemble, discourage the average Indian, just as they would affect the average white man. Prison sentences, instead of small fines, would put an end to graft and drunkenness, and would have a far-reaching effect in raising the Indian to a real citizenship. We have tried moral suasion and it has failed absolutely. Let us now employ force against the guilty.