According to Bishop Whipple, "Old Shah-Bah-Skong, the head chief of Mille Lac, brought all his warriors to defend Fort Ripley in 1862. The Secretary of the Interior and the Governor and Legislature of Minnesota promised these Indians that for this act of bravery they should have the special care of the Government and never be removed."
"A few years later, in spite of these solemn promises, a special agent was sent from Washington to ask these Ojibways to cede their lands and remove to a country north of Leech Lake. The agent asked my help. I said, 'I know that country. I have camped on it. It is the most utterly worthless land in Minnesota. Don't attempt that folly; you will surely fail.'
"The agent determined, however, to make the effort to induce the Indians to give up their good land and accept the other tract, which nobody wanted. Accordingly he called a council of the chiefs and principal men and thus addressed them: 'My red brothers, your Great Father at Washington said he was determined to send an honest man to treat with his red children. He looked toward the North, the East, the South and West to find this honest man. When he saw me he said, "this is the honest man whom I will send to treat with my red children." Brothers, look at me; the winds of more than fifty-five winters have blown over my head and silvered it with gray, but during all these years, I have never wronged any man. Brothers, as your friend and as an honest man, I ask you to sign this treaty.' After the usual meditative pause. Old Shah-Bah-Skong arose and answered as follows: 'The winds of more than fifty-five years have blown over my head and silvered my hair, but they have not blown away my brains.' This ended the council."
An agent who had won the distinction of a militia general desired to impress the Indians. Dressed in uniform with chapeau, epaulets and dangling sword, he said: "Your Great Father thinks that one reason why he has had so much trouble with the Indians is that he has always sent to them civilians. This time he said, 'These red men are warriors; I will send to them a warrior,' and he sent me." An old chief arose, drew a long breath, and said: "I have heard ever since I was a boy that white men had their great warriors. I have always wanted to see one. I have looked at him, and I am now ready to die."
Bishop Whipple, while on a visit to a Dacotah mission, was horrified at a scalp dance which was held near the mission-house. Said he: "I was indignant. I went to Wabasha, the head chief, and said 'Wabasha, you asked me for a missionary and teacher. I gave them to you. I visited you, and the first sight is this brutal scalp-dance. I knew the Chippewa whom your young men have murdered; he had a wife and children; his wife is crying for her husband; his children are asking for their father. Wabasha, the Great Spirit hears his children cry. He is angry. Some day he will ask Wabasha, 'Where is your red brother?' The old chief smiled, drew his pipe from his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke upward and said: 'White man go to war with his own brother in the same country [this was during the Rebellion]; kill more men than Wabasha can count in all his life. Great Spirit smiles; says, "Good, white man; he has my book; I love him very much; I have a good place for him by and by." The Indian is a wild man; he has no Great Spirit book; he kills one man; has a scalp-dance; Great Spirit is mad, and says, "Bad Indian; I will put him in a bad place by and by;" Wabasha don't believe it.'"
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs says that from March 4, 1780, to June 30, 1900, this Government has spent $368,360,000 for the benefit of the Indians. The expenditures for 1899 were $10,175,000, of which one-third was for education. There are nearly sixty thousand Indians who are now receiving rations or help to some extent. The report urges that hereafter rations should be given only to the aged or otherwise helpless, as the system of promiscuous relief breeds idleness and unthrift. The Indians now have in the Treasury to their credit $33,300,000 of trust funds, on which the Government pays them four and five per cent interest.
There are two hundred and fifty Government Indian schools, and the enrollment and attendance in them is increasing, though eight thousand of the thirty-four thousand Indian children are still unprovided for. The report combats the popular idea that the Indian population necessarily decreases when in contact with the whites. It asserts that the Indian population has decreased very little since the days of Columbus and other early explorers.
Major Pratt, the United States army officer who founded the Carlisle Indian School, admits that many of his graduates who return to tribal life fall into Indian ways again. Therefore he believed in doing all he could to prevent the educated Indians from going back to the reservations.
He tells of an incident he saw at a western Indian agency. A squaw entered a trader's store, wrapped in a blanket, pointed to a straw hat and asked: "How muchee?"