“Who asked you to come into this desert? This Indian did not invite you. You arrived without notice or summons. He is under no obligation to furnish your comfort. And you do not support these Indians. They are self-supporting. They pay the Government for everything they receive, other than the education of their children; and I’ll bet your own children attend a public school. Suppose this Indian came to your town, camped without asking in your dooryard, and helped himself to your firewood. You would call him a vagabond, and he would get, very likely, a magistrate’s sentence. Pay him a dollar.”
“I will pay him nothing.”
“One dollar, or I will show you the line.”
The dollar was paid.
Tourists! Are all of them like this? I answer from a long experience in the Indian country that a very large percentage of them are just like this. Outside the reservations they form the bulk of unthinking sentimentalists, [[258]]preaching a crusade for dissatisfied and malcontent Indians, stirring them against real friends and worthy tribesmen, making a pother and often a hell’s brawl of half-baked accusations and charges. Recently a crew of them discovered “religious liberty” among the dangerous barbarians of certain backward pueblos in New Mexico. The knowledge of men of experience, the views of priests and ministers, the affidavits of eyewitnesses, the testimony of Indians who had emerged from the twilight zone and had accepted both education and Christianity, all availed nothing against those who would demonstrate that a Pueblo cacique, having a phallic doctrine to uphold, was being denied his “religious right” to enslave and debase the helpless of his community. A terrible banner for friends of the Pueblos to raise.
Whose fault?—Washington’s. Washington has known of and winked at this disgrace for more than a decade.
Permit me to inform you that there are within the United States Indians as benighted and as evil as those who beat the drums in the Heart of Darkness. I have had them in charge. I have spent nights in their villages. I have faced the duty of restraining them. I have seen the results of their malicious performances. I have taken to hospital the unfortunates they viciously maltreated. I have arrested and prosecuted some of the guilty. I have protected a few of those they threatened—but not all; for I have exhumed their dead.
But do not think for a moment that I was directed to curb these evil clans of New Mexico. With my Indian police from other and freer pueblos, with determined employees both white and Mexican, and on one occasion backed by a United States Marshal’s posse, I was fortunate enough to get away with it. The United States [[259]]Court, and the press, and the wholesome of the community, approved my actions and wished more power to me as Agent. A respect for law was being established. One New Mexican disgrace was being eliminated.
But lo! this became embarrassing to the East. Even as Nahtahnis, those in supreme command change and are different. Imagine being told that efforts toward control should cease, since the Government would find it inexpedient to lend support! What mattered it if a man were hanged until nearly dead, or a woman tortured, by caciques claiming “religious liberty”? As for violated children—who should presume to disturb the ancient Indian customs? [[260]]