From Harper’s Monthly.
The accompanying cuts were published in Harper’s Monthly, April, 1881. The improvement made in the appearance of Indian students, boys and girls, by a three years’ course of study at Hampton has convinced more than one observer from the Western frontier that there is something better to do for the red man than to shoot him on sight. Miss Helen W. Ludlow, one of their teachers, says of the two older girls that appear in the picture: “They have been among the farmers of Berkshire County, Mass., working for their board, sharing the home life and improving in health, English and general tone; they have won a good report from the families which have taken them, even better this year than last, and have done much to increase public sympathy for their race. The Indian girls’ improvement has been as marked as the boys’. Their early inuring to labor has its compensation in a better physical condition apparently, and their uplifting may prove the most important of factors in the salvation of their race.”
From Harper’s Monthly.
GENERAL NOTES.
THE INDIANS.
—The Indian Bureau reports that the number of self-supporting Indians cannot be precisely stated, but gives the following as a fair estimate: Wholly or almost entirely self-supporting, 105,939; partially self-supporting, 44,119; wholly dependent on government rations, 50,882; these figures do not include the five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory, numbering 59,187. At Crow Creek Agency, Dakota, 60,000 of the 500,000 acres of reservation land had been taken up by 235 out of 325 neighboring families, of whom 208 had broken ground, cultivating an average of five acres apiece. Their title is a certificate from the Secretary of the Interior, and can be made valid only by an act of Congress.
—Rev. A. J. Biddle, in speaking of the American Indian, gives the following incident with which he was personally acquainted, as a typical case: An Indian and his wife left their tribe in the state of Oregon, came among the white settlers upon an excellent farm, built their cabin, assumed the garb of civilization, and were exceedingly earnest in their endeavors to be as their neighbors. The wife eagerly sought instruction from her white sisters in housekeeping. The husband was as eager to know how to farm. They were succeeding nicely, contented and happy in their new home and new civilization. One day two white men came along, saw this farm; it was fertile and well improved; they coveted it; asked the Indian to sell it; he refused. They determined to have it; so, a few days later, they returned when no white witnesses were present, shot the Indian in his own door-yard, drove the frightened wife away and took possession of the property. Nor were they ever molested. No one saw the crime but the Indian wife. No court would listen to her story, so the matter ended, with the pleasant home desolated, the murderers eating the fruit of their crime.