Crusoe's Island: A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander Selkirk / With Sketches of Adventure in California and Washoe

by J. Ross Browne

The official reports transmitted to Congress from time to time gave flattering accounts of the progress of the system. The extent and variety of the crops were fabulously grand. Immense numbers of Indians were fed and clothed—on paper. Like little children who cry for medicines, it would appear that the whole red race were so charmed with the new schools of industry that they were weeping to be removed there and set to work. Indeed, many of them had already learned to work "like white men;" they were bending to it cheerfully, and could handle the plow and the sickle very skillfully, casting away their bows and arrows, and adopting the more effective instruments of agriculture. No mention was made of the fact that these working Indians had acquired their knowledge from the settlers, and that, if they worked after the fashion of the white men on the reservations, it was rarely any of them were obliged to go to the hospital in consequence of injuries resulting to the spinal column. The favorite prediction of the officers in charge was, that in a very short time these institutions would be self-sustaining—that is to say, that neither they nor the Indians would want any more money after a while.

It may seem strange that the appropriations demanded of Congress did not decrease in a ratio commensurate with these flattering reports. The self-sustaining period had not yet come. On the contrary, as the Indians were advancing into the higher branches of education—music, dancing, and the fine arts, moral philosophy and ethics, political economy, etc.—it required more money to teach them. The number had been considerably diminished by death and desertion; but then their appetites had improved, and they were getting a great deal smarter. Besides, politics were becoming sadly entangled in the state, and many agents had to be employed in the principal cities to protect the women and children from any sudden invasion of the natives while the patriotic male citizens were at the polls depositing their votes.

The Department, no doubt, esteemed all this to be a close approximation to the Spanish Mission system, and in some respects it was. The priests sought the conversion of heathens, who believed neither in the Divinity nor the Holy Ghost; the Department the conversion of infidels, who had no faith in the measures of the administration. If there was any material difference, it was in the Head of the Church, and the missionaries appointed to carry its views into effect.

But the most extraordinary feature in the history of this service in California was the interpretation given by the federal authorities in Washington to the Independent Treasury Act of 1846. That stringent provision, prohibiting any public officer from using for private purposes, loaning, or depositing in any bank or banking institution any public funds committed to his charge; transmitting for settlement any voucher for a greater amount than that actually paid; or appropriating such funds to any other purpose than that prescribed by law, was so amended in the construction of the Department as to mean, "except in cases where such officer has rendered peculiar services to the party and possesses strong influences in Congress." When any infraction of the law was reported, it was subjected to the test of this amended reading; and if the conditions were found satisfactory, the matter was disposed of in a pigeon-hole. An adroit system of accountability was established, by which no property return, abstract of issues, account current, or voucher, was understood to mean what it expressed upon its face, so that no accounting officer possessing a clew to the policy adopted could be deceived by the figures. Thus it was perfectly well understood that five hundred or a thousand head of cattle did not necessarily mean real cattle with horns, legs, and tails, actually born in the usual course of nature, purchased for money, and delivered on the reservations, but prospective cattle, that might come into existence and be wanted at some future period. For all the good the Indians got of them, it might as well be five hundred or a thousand head of voters, for they no more fed upon beef, as a general thing, than they did upon human flesh.

Neither was it beyond the capacity of the Department to comprehend that traveling expenses on special Indian service might just as well mean a trip to the Convention at Sacramento; that guides and assistants were a very indefinite class of gentlemen of a roving turn of mind; that expenses incurred in visiting wild tribes and settling difficulties among them did not necessarily involve the exclusion of difficulties among the party factions in the Legislature. In short, the original purpose of language was so perverted in the official correspondence that it had no more to do with the expression of facts than many of the employés had to do with the Indians. The reports and regulations of the Department actually bordered on the poetical. It was enough to bring tears into the eyes of any feeling man to read the affecting dissertations that were transmitted to Congress on the woes of the Red men, and the labors of the public functionaries to meliorate their unhappy condition. Faith, hope, and charity abounded in them. "See what we are doing for these poor children of the forest!" was the burden of the song, in a strain worthy the most pathetic flights of Mr. Pecksniff; "see how faithful we are to our trusts, and how judiciously we expend the appropriations! Yet they die off in spite of us—wither away as the leaves of the trees in autumn! Let us hope, nevertheless, that the beneficent intentions of Congress may yet be realized. We are the guardians of these unfortunate and defenseless beings; they are our wards; it is our duty to take care of them; we can afford to be liberal, and spend a little more money on them. Through the judicious efforts of our public functionaries, and the moral influences spread around them, there is reason to believe they will yet embrace civilization and Christianity, and become useful members of society." In accordance with these views, the regulations issued by the Department were of the most stringent character—encouraging economy, industry, and fidelity; holding all agents and employés to a strict accountability; with here and there some instructive maxim of morality—all of which, upon being translated, meant that politicians are very smart fellows, and it was not possible for them to humbug one another. "Do your duty to the Indians as far as you can conveniently, and without too great a sacrifice of money; but stand by our friends, and save the party by all means and at all hazards. Verbum sap!" was the practical construction.

When public clamor called attention to these supposed abuses, and it became necessary to make some effective demonstration of honesty, a special agent was directed to examine into the affairs of the service and report the result. It was particularly enjoined upon him to investigate every complaint affecting the integrity of public officers, collect and transmit the proofs of malfeasance, with his own views in the premises, so that every abuse might be uprooted and cast out of the service. Decency in official conduct must be respected and the public eye regarded! Peremptory measures would be taken to suppress all frauds upon the Treasury. It was the sincere desire of the administration to preserve purity and integrity in the public service.

From mail to mail, during a period of three years, the agent made his reports; piling up proof upon proof, and covering acres of valuable paper with protests and remonstrances against the policy pursued; racking his brains to do his duty faithfully; subjecting himself to newspaper abuse for neglecting it, because no beneficial result was perceptible, and making enemies as a matter of course. Reader, if ever you aspire to official honors, let the fate of that unfortunate agent be a warning to you. He did exactly what he was instructed to do, which was exactly what he was not wanted to do. In order to save time and expense, as well as farther loss of money in the various branches of public service upon which he had reported, other agents were sent out to ascertain if he had told the truth; and when they were forced to admit that he had, there was a good deal of trouble in the wigwam of the great chief. Not only did poor Yorick incur the hostility of powerful senatorial influences, but by persevering in his error, and insisting that he had told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he eventually lost the respect and confidence of the "powers that be," together with his official head. I knew him well. He was a fellow of infinite jest. There was something so exquisitely comic in the idea of taking official instructions literally, and carrying them into effect, that he could not resist it. The humor of the thing kept him in a constant chuckle of internal satisfaction; but it was the most serious jest he ever perpetrated, for it cost him, besides the trouble of carrying it out, the loss of a very comfortable per diem.

The results of the policy pursued were precisely such as might have been expected. A very large amount of money was annually expended in feeding white men and starving Indians. Such of the latter as were physically able took advantage of the tickets-of-leave granted them so freely, and left. Very few ever remained at these benevolent institutions when there was a possibility of getting any thing to eat in the woods. Every year numbers of them perished from neglect and disease, and some from absolute starvation. When it was represented in the official reports that two or three thousand enjoyed the benefit of aid from government within the limits of each district—conveying the idea that they were fed and clothed at public expense—it must have meant that the Territory of California originally cost the United States fifteen millions of dollars, and that the nuts and berries upon which the Indians subsisted, and the fig-leaves in which they were supposed to be clothed, were embraced within the cessions made by Mexico. At all events, it invariably happened, when a visitor appeared on the reservations, that the Indians were "out in the mountains gathering nuts and berries." This was the case in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They certainly possessed a remarkable predilection for staying out a long time. Very few of them, indeed, have yet come back. The only difference between the existing state of things and that which existed prior to the inauguration of the system is, that there were then some thousands of Indians living within the limits of the districts set apart for reservation purposes, whereas there are now only some hundreds. In the brief period of six years they have been very nearly destroyed by the generosity of government. What neglect, starvation, and disease have not done, has been achieved by the co-operation of the white settlers in the great work of extermination.