AGENCY INDIANS HAVING THEIR PICTURES TAKEN.
According to the statistics in 1891 there were 32,286 of the Sioux nation alone, who are gathered at eleven agencies, where there are schools, mechanical and agricultural institutions, established to teach the young Indians the arts and customs of the white man. And they are fast becoming civilized. They are engaged in raising cattle, sheep and horses, and growing grain and vegetables.
Charles A. Smith, county commissioner of Choteau county, Montana, stated a few days ago that Indians at Fort Belknap have supplied about 350,000 pounds of beef to the agency this year at $3.87 per hundred, from which they derived a revenue of about $13,000.
Major Luke C. Hays, agent of the Fort Belknap Indian reservation, said:
“My Indians will, and do work.” That was demonstrated to my satisfaction some time ago. I have about 1,300 Assinaboine and Gros Ventres Indians on my reservation, and they are good Indians, although very much alive.
“This promises to be an unusually busy year on the Belknap reservation. Last summer the government started to build a canal, tapping the Milk river at Belknap, where a dam is to be built. Only one mile of this canal was completed, but work on the remainder will be commenced as early as practicable this spring. Indians have been hauling rock all winter for the dam. The canal, when completed, will be ten or fifteen miles long and will irrigate about 5,000 acres of the Milk river valley lands south of the river. These lands will grow excellent crops of grain and hay.
“A new enterprise that will be commenced this summer (1899) is a big reservoir on Warm Springs creek in the Little Rockies. This reservoir will cover 160 acres of land and will have an average depth of eighteen feet. It is designed to furnish a supply of water for irrigating purposes in the southern part of the reservation.
“These two irrigating systems will cost in the neighborhood of $70,000, but that money is available. It is not government money in the sense that the government would not expend it unless appropriated for that use, for it belongs to the Indians themselves, having been appropriated for their benefit and in lieu of lands turned over to them by the government.
“Seeing the success of these Indians, others are endeavoring to go into the stock-raising business—on a small scale, to be sure—but in time the stock interests of these two tribes will be considerable. I have no doubt that in a few years the Indians will become almost self-supporting.”