The Indians.
NEW TYPE OF INDIAN UPRISING.
REV. GEORGE W. REED, FORT YATES, N. D.
The missionaries' correspondence begins to bring inquiries concerning an Indian uprising. With the war news are mingled expressions of fear that the Indians will be only too ready to seize upon the opportunity to avenge fancied wrongs. Most of the soldiers have been withdrawn from the frontier posts. In regard to the Sioux, those who know them best have no fear. They recognize the progress made by them in the last ten years. Too many of them have become followers of the Prince of Peace. These ten years of splendid school training have given us a new type of young men and women, who have more of home love and who are beginning to think for themselves. The majority are no longer roused to action by the harangue of a petty chief. The day of the chief is rapidly passing away. The thinker and not the talker is becoming the leader.
There must be convincing proof of a good cause and of beneficial results before another Indian war is undertaken under the most favorable circumstances. In territory there is nothing to be gained. They cling tenaciously to what they have, but they are not grasping for more, for they realize that their vast hunting grounds have been lost to them forever. The young men and women in going half across the continent to Carlisle and Hampton, being educated there and in summer homes in the East, come back impressed with the largeness of the country, the prosperity and vast numerical superiority of the people. They care not to war against so strong a foe.
There is an uprising of the Indians, however, which is being too slowly recognized. They are slowly but surely rising above superstition and ignorance, yes, even above indolence. The old roving, restless, tramp-like spirit has not wholly disappeared. Some are still living only a stomach level life, with apparently no thought of head or heart. The old Indian life is self-centered, hence selfish, ever gathering to itself, never giving out, hence stagnant, non-progressive.
Religion has given the life a new center and indefinite breadth. The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man are truths which once accepted must change the whole life, and he who teaches them to an Indian becomes a friend and not an enemy, and becomes loved for what he brings and not hated for what he has taken away. The Indian and the white man have gone into partnership in building churches. The Indian has been giving liberally to missions outside of his own little land.
The progress in educational work has been marked in the last decade. Today every healthy boy and girl over six years of age is supposed to be in school. More than half of these are for ten months of every year in a boarding school, well cared for, well fed, well instructed. To me one of the greatest evidences of progress is that so many of them uncomplainingly—some eagerly—part with their young children during these many months. The large majority of the parents have never attended school a day in their lives, yet they make this large sacrifice for the child's good. Ten years ago there was a dance house in nearly every village, and the senseless gyrations were in progress every week. The larger portion of the two weeks' rations was given to the dancer's feast, and the half fed children were the sufferers. Today there is not a dance house for the whole 90 miles along Grand River.