In addition to the 33 agencies which belonged by right to the church, but were distributed among the sects, 30 others were portioned out among them, so that, according to the last report of the commissioner, while the church, entitled to 40 agencies, has but 7, the Quakers have 16; the Methodists 14; the Baptists 2; the Presbyterianscc 7; the Congregationalists 6; the “Reformed” 4; the Protestant Episcopalians 9; the Unitarians 2; the “Free-will Baptists” 1; the “United Presbyterians,” who seem to be disunited from the other Presbyterians, 1; and the “Christian Union,” which is not in union with any of the other sects, 1. If our space permitted, we should point out the miserable results after a seven years’ possession of these agencies. The four agencies under the care of the “Reformed” body, for example, embrace 14 tribes, numbering 17,049 souls. Among these are the Papagoes, 5,900 in number, already tolerably well-civilized by Catholic instruction, and all of whom wear citizen’s dress. With the exception of these, the “Reformers,” after seven years’ labor, have 50 Indians who wear citizen’s dress, 2 schools, 1 church building, and 4 church members! As they have not thought it worth while to send out any missionaries, one wonders what they do with their church building, but it is probably used as a store-house by the “Reformed” agent.
The Hicksite Quakers have 5 agencies in Nebraska, with 4,098 Indians. They have 392 “church members,” but 348 of these belong to a civilized tribe—the Santee Sioux, who are 793 strong. After seven years of labor the Quakers have got only 44 out of the other 3,300 Indians under their care to call themselves “church members.” In the Hoopa Valley reservation, given to the Methodists, there is a “school building,” but no school, no teacher, and no pupils; there is a “church building,” but no missionary and no “church members.” The poor mission Indians in California, the children of Catholic parents for many generations, also under the tender care of the Methodists, have neither houses, nor school, nor church, nor missionary. The 6,000 Indians on the Red Cloud agency in Dakota, under the charge of the Protestant Episcopalians, have a “school building,” but no teacher, no scholars, no church, no missionary, and no “church members.” The 3,992 Cheyennes and Arapahoes in the Indian Territory, in charge of the Quakers, have a school-house, but no church, no missionary, and no “church members,” and so with the rest.
In selecting a few typical illustrations of the injustice perpetrated by the assignment of tribes of Catholic Indians to non-Catholic sects, we are embarrassed by the richness and plenitude of our facts. We mention only two—the Chippewas of Lake Superior, and the Osages.
The agency of the Chippewas of Lake Superior became vacant early in 1873, and General Ewing, on the 19th of March of that year, addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, submitting “that, under the Indian policy of President Grant, this agency should be assigned to the Catholic Church.” He accompanied his letter with a brief of the facts on which he thus claimed the agency for the church. The Chippewas number 4,551, and 3,696 of them wear citizen’s dress; they have six schools and three churches. More than 200 years ago the Catholic fathers Dablon and Marquette established the mission of St. Mary among the Chippewas, and the church has ever since looked upon them as her children. The Catholic missions, first permanently established among them in 1668, continued in a flourishing manner until the year 1800; they were revived after a lapse of 30 years; and for the past 47 years they have been continuously attended by Catholic priests—one being assigned exclusively and continuously to the religious instruction, education, and care of the Indians. The Indians at their own expense have built three Catholic churches, at Bayfield, La Pointe, and Bad River. The successive reports of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs from 1868 to 1872 set forth these facts. Praise is given in 1868 to Father Chebal for the good result of his labors; the agent, writing in 1870, says: “The religious instruction has been almost entirely under Catholic missionaries; 99 out of 100 of them are Catholics, and Father Chebal has labored industriously and successfully among them.” The agent, writing in 1871, again says: “Most of these people are members of the Roman Catholic Church. Their pastor has been a missionary among them for many years, and has labored with the zeal for which his church is proverbial to secure converts. He has accomplished much good.” The report of the agent for 1868 likewise mentions that the “Rev. L. H. Wheeler and his most estimable lady” had been conducting a Protestant mission there “under the control of the A. B. C. F. M. Society,” but that “this society having almost withdrawn their support, and further for the purpose of educating their own children, Rev. Mr. Wheeler has abandoned his mission.” The agent in 1869, Lt.-Col. Knight, of the army, thus writes:
“The Chippewas of Lake Superior generally have abandoned the heathen faith of their fathers. If they have not all been made intelligent Christians, they have abandoned heathenism. The Catholic missionaries are the most assiduous workers among them, and the largest portion of them have espoused that religious faith; yet the Protestant religion has its adherents among them. Father Chebal, of the Catholic faith, is untiring and devoted in his labors with them. The Protestant religion is without a missionary representative, which is unfortunate,” etc.
The case, it will be seen, was plain. The Catholic missions were shown to be the oldest and the only successful missions among the Chippewas, and “the right of the Catholic Church, under the policy of the administration, to the agency” was incontestable. But the agency had already been given to the Congregationalists, who had never before attempted to establish a mission among the Chippewas, and whose minister knew nothing about the tribe. Pressed hard by General Ewing, the secretary referred the matter to our pious friend Mr. Brunot, who, in an elaborate and most disingenuous opinion, decided that, although the assignment of the agency to the Congregationalists might have been erroneous, now that it was made it ought not to be changed—and this, too, although the department had made similar changes in other instances, taking, for example, the Nez-Percés agency from the Catholics, to whom it had been assigned, and giving it to the Methodists in 1870. General Ewing, unwilling to submit to this palpable injustice, again addressed the Secretary of the Interior, reviewing the whole question and incontestably proving the justice of his claim. But all was in vain; the agency remains in the hands of the Congregationalists, and the Catholic Chippewas and their priests are at the mercy of men who have no sympathy or bond of common feeling with either.
The Osages, now in the Indian Territory, are and long have been almost wholly Catholic. But they were assigned to the Quakers, and good Friend Gibson, whose pathetic lament over the worldly sufferings of his protegés we have already given, had not been long in charge of them ere he issued an edict forbidding Catholic priests or teachers to remain on the reservation. Accustomed to oppression and maltreatment of every kind, the Indians felt that this last blow was too hard to bear without remonstrance, and in June, 1873, they drew up and signed a memorial to the President, asking that “their former Catholic missionaries and school-teachers be restored to them and allowed to again locate in the Osage nation.” No response was given to this petition, and on the 31st of March in the next year a delegation of the tribe, with the governor of the nation at their head, arrived at Washington, and, without assistance or suggestions, drew up and presented to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior a memorial which it is impossible to read without emotion. After setting forth that the signers of the memorial are “the governor, chiefs, and councillors of the Great and Little Osage nation of Indians, and all duly-constituted delegates of said nations,” they recount the story of their former petition, and say:
“... In the name of our people, therefore, we beg leave to renew our said petition, and to ask that our former Catholic missionary, Father Shoemaker, and those connected with him in his missionary and educational labors among our people previous to the late war, be permitted to again locate among us. We think that this request is reasonable and just. Catholic missionaries have been among our people for several generations. Our people are familiar with their religion. The great majority of them are of the Catholic faith, and believe it is right. Our children have grown up in this faith. Many of our people have been educated by the Catholic missionaries, and our people are indebted to them for all the blessings of Christianity and civilization that they now enjoy, and have for them a grateful remembrance. Since the missionaries have been taken away from us, we have done but little good and have made poor advancement in civilization and education. Our whole nation has grieved ever since these missionaries have been taken away from us, and we have prayed continuously that the Great Spirit might move upon the heart of our great father, the President, and cause him to return these missionaries to us. We trust he will do so, because in 1865, when we signed the treaty of that date, the commissioners who made it promised that if we signed it we should again have our missionaries.”
The assistant secretary received the memorial, promising to present it to the President at once and to obtain for the delegation a reply: but on the next day Mr. Gibson, who had followed them to Washington in a state of great alarm, hurried them away from the capital to Philadelphia, and thence homewards, not permitting them to return. Immediately after their departure the petition they had filed in the department was missing, and its loss was only supplied by General Ewing, who had a printed copy with the certificate of the secretary placed on file. Simultaneously with the mysterious disappearance of this petition the Commissioner of Indian Affairs received a paper purporting to come from the Osages at home. We dislike to use the phrase, but the proof is clear that this document was a forgery. It purported to be signed by twenty-eight chiefs and braves, with their “mark”; but, as General Ewing says, “it was evidently got up by interested white men and the names of the Indians signed without their knowledge.” The substance of it was that the delegation which had gone to Washington was not to be regarded. Upon their return home the delegation met their people in council, and the result of this conference is related in a letter to General Ewing, signed by Joseph Paw-ne-no-posh, governor of the nation; Alexander Bezett, president of the council; T. L. Rogers, secretary; and the eighteen councillors. The letter is too long to be given here. In presenting it to the Secretary of the Interior, with a full account of the whole transaction, General Ewing used some very strong, but not too strong, language. “Their petitions,” said he, “have not been heard, and now, through me as the representative of the Catholic Indian missions, they make a final appeal. The petition of a defenceless people for simple justice at the hands of a great government is the strongest appeal that my head or heart can conceive; and it is of course unnecessary for me to urge it upon you. It is as plain and open as the day; and if you can decline (which I cannot believe) to comply with the repeated petitions of this people, it is useless for me to urge you to it. You must give this agency to the Catholic Church, or you publish the announcement that President Grant has changed his policy, and that he now intends to force that form of Christianity on each Indian tribe that he may think is best for each.”
But it was all in vain. Friend Gibson carried his point, and, although he has since been compelled to retire from the agency, it is still in the hands of the Quaker organization. The population of the reservation, according to the last report, was 2,679; very nearly the whole of these are good and faithful Catholic Christians; but the agent reports: “Church members, none; churches, none; missionaries, none!” The Quakers have driven away the Catholic priests, and have not even taken the trouble to send a missionary of their own to fill their place.