When the trading-house system expired in 1822, the factors disappeared. Indian trade is conducted to-day by licensed traders, who are under bond, and expected to live within Indian country.
In 1824 the Secretary of War, without authority, organized a Bureau of Indian Affairs, probably to ease his main office of details; and eight years later the President was authorized by Congress to appoint a Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
The Act of 1834 conferred upon the officers of Indian country the authorities they invoke to-day with respect to control of the native and those who may seek to oppress him. This Act did not apply to the Territories of Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico. The Agents for the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico were handicapped in their work until 1913, when the Supreme Court of the United States clarified that situation by the Sandoval decision.
In the early days, army officers were designated to [[218]]perform the duties of Indian Agents, and the Indians were brought under strict military rule; and this, taken in connection with the imperative language of the laws enacted, tended further to increase the powers of the Agent.
By an Act of 1847, directing distribution of annuities and treaty goods, most Indians were brought to a condition of complete dependence on the central Government. If prior thereto they had enjoyed any civil liberty, the fragment was taken from them. Many looked to the guardian even for food, and when the guardian was aware of him—most Southwest groups were outside this soup-kitchen zone—it was provided. And then came opportunity to those who made a scandal of the “ration” days, and presented Robert Louis Stevenson and other brilliant sentimentalists with a slur from which the honest Indian Agent has suffered. Wherever the Government had cognizance of an Indian, he was a child without rights other than those his Agent permitted him to enjoy. As late as 1922, acting as a Sioux Agent, and being overwhelmed a thousand times daily by the emasculated title of Major, I signed many permits allowing old warriors to leave the so-called Reservation—it was really a sanctuary for whites—for trading- and visiting-trips, a long-obsolete bit of red tape that the vanquished one still recognized. I could not very well have prevented his going without a permit, but as he saw fit to believe in the old system, I signed the papers cheerfully. At least those older majors of the army had instilled into the elder Sioux a respect and obedience, without destroying their pride or confidence.
In 1849 the Department of the Interior was organized, and it was authorized to have supervisory and appellate powers in Indian Affairs theretofore exercised by the Secretary [[219]]of War. The Secretary of the Interior became head of the Indian Department, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs acting under him.
The local control of reservations remained quite the same. Native police were authorized in 1878, but the Agent continued to be sole judge of the guilt or innocence of Indians charged with offenses. In 1883 the Courts of Indian Offenses were devised, an idealistic experiment, no doubt originating in the far East. It was hoped to encourage the Indian somehow to discipline himself. But it has proved farcical, and when used at all is a mere instrument in the hands of the Agent. During the past fourteen years I have had charge of four Indian reserves: the “Moqui,”—now correctly named Hopi,—where are many Navajo; the Pueblo; the Crow Creek Sioux; and the Colorado River Mohave; these extended into five states, comprising a total population of 14,000 Indians of six different tribes and many local divisions; and among all these natives I have found but one Indian having the requisite intelligence and unprejudiced standpoint to warrant his presiding as a Judge of the Indian Court. It would be unfair not to name this man. He is Pablo Abeita, of the Isleta tribe of Tihua—Pueblo—Indians in New Mexico. And after years of loyalty to his honored Agents (not all of them were honored) he has reaped as his reward tribal enemies, and political and civil ones. The one man who proved the value of the experiment was made the goat. Such are the fruits of idealism, preserved by new leaders who come staggering under many inventions for the benefit of Poor Lo.
These historical facts have been briefed from an article entitled “The Evolution of the Indian Agent,” written by the late Kenneth F. Murchison, one-time Chief Law [[220]]Clerk for the Office of Indian Affairs, and printed in the Commissioner’s Annual Report for 1892. The writer closed with this significant statement:
The Indian Agent now has almost absolute power in the Indian country, and so far as the people over whom he rules are concerned, he has none to contest his power. Appointed at first in the capacity of a commercial agent or consul of the United States in the country of an alien people, the Indian Agent, under laws enacted and regulations promulgated, has developed into an officer with power to direct the affairs of the Indians and to transact their business in all details and in all relations.
This is a very curious chapter in our history. There is a striking contrast between “ministers plenipotentiary” appointed by the United States to treat with powerful Indian nations, and an army officer, with troops at his command, installed over a tribe of Indians to maintain among them an absolute military despotism. Yet our policy of dealing with Indians has swung from one of these extremes to the other in a strangely vacillating way. Indeed at present (1892) the Agent among the Five Civilized Tribes performs rather the functions of a consul in a foreign nation than those of an agent.… On the other hand, the absolute military rule finds its illustration in the present condition of things at San Carlos (Arizona) and in a modified way at Pine Ridge (South Dakota).
Now the superficially informed person will arise to declaim that this is ancient history. It is true this was written concerning conditions of and prior to 1892. But only recently were the troops removed from Fort Apache in the country adjacent to San Carlos; and very recently we have had cause to regret that the authorities of the Agent for the Five Civilized Tribes were ever revoked. The Indian Agent for the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, [[221]]considering their recognized forms of tribal government that the United States Courts have sustained, should perform the functions of a consul, plus all the duties of an Agent. It is difficult for the average appointee to perceive this subtle distinction.