In past years I have traveled a good deal over the Navaho reservation. Recently one of my friends, J. Weston Allen, Esq., of Boston, on behalf of the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee, of which he is vice-chairman, made a tour of investigation through the Navaho country, and the conditions as he found them were incorporated in an able report to the Secretary of the Interior. Major William T. Shelton, the Superintendent at Shiprock, who has long lived with these Indians, while differing in some details from the views of Mr. Sniffen, Rev. Johnson and Honorable F. H. Abbott, yet agrees with them in the main issue that the Navaho should not be too much superintended. All he needs is protection—not charity, suggestion, nor interference with his industry. Doctor W. W. Wallace, who has been a trader among the Navaho since 1890, writes me that the Indians have steadily progressed, that they ask no favors, and all they desire is to be permitted to continue on their successful way. My own observation leads me to believe that the reservation should not be reduced; allotments must not be made in any event until irrigation has disclosed the land values; more schools should be established, and above all dams should be erected to store water during the spring floods so that more acres may be brought under cultivation. There are vast possibilities for irrigation in the Navaho country, as Mr. Abbott has pointed out. The last investigation by two members of our Board (Ketcham and Eliot) was important, and I present two of the seven recommendations they strongly urged.
“Allotment. We are thoroughly convinced that the time has not yet come for the allotment of the Indians on the reservation. The Navaho is proceeding along the way of civilization as fast as he can safely travel. He is independent and self-supporting. He is steadily improving his dwelling, his stock and his method of farming. He is learning English, sending his children to school, and increasingly following the advice of the white physicians. He is developing his own water resources, forming good industrial habits and gradually adopting white standards of domestic life. Following their own customs, the Indians divide their common resources with remarkable fairness and live peaceably with one another and with the Whites. They must be permitted slowly to come into an understanding of our customs of private land ownership and inheritance. There is nothing to be gained by hurrying that process. Allotment on the reservation should not be thought of for a good many years to come.
“We are impressed with the exceptional opportunity of the Navaho reservation for the work of field matrons and recommend that an additional force be provided for. The field matrons should work in close cooperation with superintendents, teachers and physicians.
“In general we believe that the condition of the Navaho is promising. The people are virile, industrious and independent. With the exercise of ordinary good judgment, patience and tact, there need never be any serious problem in connection with their development.”
Doctor Joseph K. Dixon, representing the Wanamaker Expedition, visited the “painted desert”. He took some remarkable motion pictures of Navaho herders driving thousands of sheep down to the waterholes. As I observed these pictures, portraying the peaceful, industrious life of these red nomads of the desert, I wished fondly that all men and women unable to observe Indian life as it is in the Southwest, might see them. They recalled many interesting days spent among these sturdy folk. The natives living as do the Navaho, present an object lesson to all “reformers”, and it is to be devoutly hoped that we will heed the lesson and “let well enough alone.” To do otherwise will destroy the initiative of a self-supporting and upright people, and deprive the world of a primitive stock of exceptional physical stamina and mental ability.
Mr. Allen’s report to the Secretary of the Interior and the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee cannot be reproduced at length, much to my regret, but I herewith append certain sections, as it is a splendid presentation of the Navaho situation and includes valuable recommendations to meet the needs of these Indians.
“Three obvious difficulties immediately present themselves when any plan of Navaho settlement is considered—(1) the great inequality of the land for grazing purposes; (2) the scarcity of water, and the fact that much of the land is far distant from the nearest water supply; (3) the existence of summer and winter ranges and the removal of the sheep from place to place under the changing conditions of different seasons of the year.
“Of the inequality of the land for grazing purposes, it is sufficient to say that there are vast areas of rock and sand where an allotment of 160 acres would not support a single sheep. Of the inaccessibility of water, it may be similarly stated that there are sections of land within the reservation which are so far from water during the dry season that sheep would die from exhaustion before they could reach it. Of the necessity of moving the sheep from one part of the reservation to another, it is perhaps sufficient to point out that in the winter the sheep must have the protection of the sheltered valleys and in the summer they are driven by the heat and the scarcity of water into the mountains.
“A matter of far greater importance in the consideration of any equitable allotment is the determination of the location and extent of the land within the limitations of the reservation which can be claimed by irrigation.”
Mr. Allen points out the difficulties in allotting a nomadic people permanent homes. He is opposed to any allotment under existing conditions. It may have to come in time, doubtless prematurely as in the case of other reservations, but on the Navaho reservation there are difficulties which have not been encountered in our experience with other tribes.