The testimony of the agent, the missionary, the teacher, the physician, the farmer and the carpenter, is uniform as to their capacity, and desire to improve and live like the whites, and of their real progress in industry and manner of living. They are trusted more and more, and they honor the trust.
It is cowardly to despise them and cast them out like dogs. It is noble to respect them as men and women, who have the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They have claims on us for sympathy and help to secure these things. It is a credit to lift up the lowest, if we count them so. Those who know them best have most hope of them, if given a fair chance.
A Neglected Treaty.
No man will clear land and make a farm unless he owns it, or has a lien upon it. The treaty pledges them an allotment for a homestead on the reservation. It was made by Gov. Stevens, in Jane 1855, at Point-no-Point, and ratified by the government in 1859. In private and public speeches, with one voice, they plead for their titles. They want the patents promised in the bond nineteen years ago. With these in hand, they will improve their homes still more. It is a reasonable demand. The plan to remove them from these lands, where they were born, excites their fears and their rebellion. We cannot expect them to rest in quiet and work with energy until we give them the motive of ownership in the soil they till and the timber they cut. This is the question of the hour for the Indian. Shall he own in law his garden and his field and his house, or hold it as a tenant at the will of another, liable to ejectment? If government grant the former, as it has promised, the largest factor of the problem will be found that will solve the rest of it.
GREEN BAY AGENCY, KESHENA, WIS.
JOS. C. BRIDGMAN, ESQ., AGENT.
The Stockbridge tribe take very little interest in education. The head men, not specially interested, voted to have only six months’ schooling, paying the teacher but $25 per month. As this tribe receive $3,800 a year, the same being the interest on their funds in the hands of the Government, this meagre sum is illiberal. Rev. J. Slingerland, who has been both preacher and teacher for this tribe for many years, is still retained. While the number of children of school age is twenty-five, with nearly as many of the “old citizen” party, who are not allowed privileges, the greatest number attending any one month is thirteen, and the average for the year is ten. The church membership is twenty-nine.
The Oneidas are making an unusually good record. Their crops are nearly or quite one-third larger than last year. The school attendance shows an increase of thirty-seven, and the church membership fifty-three over last year.
The Methodist Mission-school is unfortunately located for reaching even a fair number of scholars, and Rev. S. W. Ford, without additional compensation, has opened a school a mile and a half distant; his daughter, Miss Mary W. Ford, teaching the Mission school without pay. The records of the two schools are seventy-nine scholars enrolled, with an average attendance of forty-five, against an average of twenty-six for the one school of last year. I am urging upon the Department the wisdom of establishing this new school, which was started as an experiment, with the result as above. Unless thus sustained it will be abolished, as Mr. Ford cannot give his time without reward.