A Century of Dishonor / A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

by Helen Hunt Jackson

Exhibit H.

MESA GRANDE.

Mesa Grande lies high up above the Santa Ysabel village and fifteen miles west of it. The tract adjoins the Santa Ysabel Ranch, and is, as its name indicates, a large table-land. There was set off here in 1876 a large reservation, intended to include the Mesa Grande Indian village, and also a smaller one of Mesa Chilquita; but, as usual, the villages were outside of the lines, and the lands reserved were chiefly worthless. One of the settlers in the neighborhood told us he would not take the whole reservation as a gift and pay the taxes on it. The situation of the Indians here is exceedingly unfortunate and growing more and more so daily. The good Mesa Grande lands, which they once owned and occupied, and which should have been secured to them, have been fast taken up by whites, the Indians driven off, and, as the young general said, "all bunched up till they haven't got any room." Both the Mesa Chilquita and Mesa Grande plateaus are now well under cultivation by whites, who have good houses and large tracts fenced in.

They have built a good school-house, which we chanced to pass at the hour of recess, and noting Indian faces among the children, stopped to inquire about them. There were, out of twenty-seven scholars, fifteen Indians or half-breeds, some of them the children of Indians who had taken up homesteads. We asked the teacher what was the relative brightness of the Indian and white children. Supposing that we shared the usual prejudice against Indians, the teacher answered in a judiciously deprecating tone, "Well, really there isn't so much difference between them as you would suppose." "In favor of which race?" we asked. Thus suddenly enlightened as to our animus in the matter, the teacher changed his tone, and said he found the Indian children full as bright as the whites; in fact, the brightest scholar he had was a half-breed girl.

On the census list taken of Indians in 1880 Mesa Grande and Mesa Chilquita are reported as having, the first one hundred and three Indians, the second twenty-three. There are probably not so many now, the Mesa Chilquita tract being almost wholly in possession of the whites. The Mesa Grande village has a beautiful site on a small stream, in a sort of hill basin, surrounded by higher hills. The houses are chiefly adobe, and there is on one of the slopes a neat little adobe chapel, with a shingled roof nearly done, of which the Indians were very proud. There were many fields of grain and a few fruit orchards. The women gathered around our carriage in eager groups, insisting on shaking hands, and holding up their little children to shake hands also. They have but once seen an agent of the Government, and any evidence of real interest in them and their welfare touches them deeply.

The condition of the Indians in this district is too full of complications and troubles to be written out here in detail. A verbatim copy of a few of our notes taken on the spot will give a good picture of the situation.

Chrysanto, an Indian, put off his farm two months ago by white man named Jim Angel, with certificate of homestead from Los Angeles land office. Antonio Douro, another, put off in same way from his farm near school-house. He had built good wooden house; the white man took that and half his land. He was ploughing when the white man came and said, "Get out! I have bought this land." They have been to the agent. They have been ten times, till they are tired to go. Another American named Hardy ran an Indian off his farm, built a house on it; then he sold it to Johnson, and Johnson took a little more land; and Johnson sold it to Stone, and he took still more. They used to be well fixed, had plenty of stock and hundreds of horses. Now they are all penned up, and have had to pay such fines they have got poor. Whites take their horses and cattle and corral them and make them pay 25 cents, 50 cents to get them out. "Is that American law?" they asked; "and if it is law for Indians' horses, is it not same for white men's horses?" But one Indian shut up some of the white men's horses that came on his land, and the constable came and took them all away and made the Indian pay money. The Americans so thick now they want all the Indians away; so, to make them go, they keep accusing them of stealing.

This is a small tithe of what we were told. It was pitiful to see the hope die out of the Indians' faces as they laid grievance after grievance before us, and we were obliged to tell them we could do nothing, except to "tell the Government." On our way back to Santa Ysabel we were waylaid by several Indians, some of them very aged, each with the same story of having been driven off or being in imminent danger of being driven off his lands.

On the following day we had a long interview with one of the white settlers of Mesa Grande, and learned some particulars as to a combination into which the Mesa Grande whites had entered to protect themselves against cattle and horse thieves. The young Indian general was present at this interview. His boots were toeless; he wore an old gingham shirt and ragged waistcoat, but his bearing was full of dignity. According to the white man's story, this combination was not a vigilance committee at all. It was called "The Protective League of Mesa Grande," and had no special reference to Indians in any way. According to the Indian general's story it was a vigilance committee, and all the Indians knew very well that their lives were in danger from it. The white man protested against this, and reiterated his former statements. To our inquiry why, if the league were for the mutual protection of all cattle-owners in the region, the captains of the Indian villages were not invited to join it, he replied that he himself would have been in favor of that, but that to the average white settler in the region such a suggestion would be like a red rag to a bull; that he himself, however, was a warm friend to the Indians. "How long you been friend to Indians?" asked the boy-general, with quiet sarcasm. We afterwards learned by inquiry of one of the most influential citizens of a neighboring town, that this protective league was in fact nothing more or less than a vigilance committee, and that it meant short shrift to Indians; but being betrayed by one of its members it had come to an untimely end, to the great relief of all law-abiding people in the vicinity. He also added that the greater part of the cattle and horse stealing in the region was done by Mexicans and whites, not by Indians.

Whether it is possible for the Government to put these Mesa Grande Indians into a position to protect themselves, and have anything like a fair chance to make their living in their present situation, is a question; but that it ought to be done, if possible, is beyond question. It is grievous to think that this fine tract of land so long owned and occupied by these Indians, and in good faith intended by the Government to be set aside for their use, has thus passed into other hands. Even if the reservation tract, some three hundred acres, has been by fraudulent representations restored to the public domain, and now occupied by a man named Clelland, who has taken steps to patent it, the tract by proper investigation and action could probably be reclaimed for the Indians' use.