NAVAHO HOME, NEW MEXICO
“Some striking illustrations of the lack of utilization of irrigable Indian lands may be found on the following reservations: On the Crow Reservation, where irrigation ditches have been completed for more than ten years and where the total area under constructed ditches is estimated at 68,756 acres, only 11,376 acres are irrigated by Indians, and most of this is irrigated for hay crops; on the Flathead Reservation the present irrigable area is estimated at 38,000 acres, but only 1,088 acres are irrigated by Indians; on the Fort Belknap Reservation, out of 22,000 acres under ditch, 7,670 acres are irrigated by Indians; on Fort Hall Reservation Indians irrigate only 3,300 acres out of present irrigable area of 35,000 acres; on the Wind River Reservation the Indians are irrigating approximately 5,000 acres out of a total irrigable area of 35,000 acres, and most of this area is irrigated for hay crops; on the Uintah Reservation, out of a total irrigable area of 87,880 acres the Indians are irrigating approximately 6,000 acres; on the Yakima Reservation, where the present irrigable area is 54,000 acres, the Indians are irrigating 5,350 acres; and at Yuma the Indians are irrigating approximately 200 acres out of an irrigable area of 4,000 acres. In the reservations of the Southwest the showing of utilization of irrigable lands is very much better.
“The lack of utilization noted in the foregoing paragraph is serious enough from an industrial standpoint, but it is fraught with peculiar dangers in the case of the reservations where the water rights are subject to the operation of State law. On the Fort Hall Reservation (Idaho) beneficial use must be made of the water for the irrigable lands prior to the year 1916, in order to prevent the appropriation of the water by other water users; on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming beneficial use must likewise be made before 1916; and on the Uintah Reservation (Utah) beneficial use must be made before 1919. The total investment in the construction of irrigation ditches and the purchase of water rights on these three reservations amounts to approximately $2,000,000, and in the case of the Wind River and Uintah Reservations the expenditure has been made from Indian funds.
“Lack of proper utilization can not be charged to the indolence of the Indian. The present system is doubtless responsible for an undue lack of interest and indifference on his part. He has not been consulted in advance of the expenditure; the cost of the construction and the expense of maintenance on the basis of each acre irrigated have not been explained and brought home to him; the money being taken out of a tribal fund which has never become a part of his individual possession, he has not understood his intimate individual interest in its expenditure, nor has he realized the value, in dollars and cents, of the benefit.
“In many cases irrigation on Indian reservations has been provided for in response to a perfectly natural and normal demand of white settlers, either for the opening to settlement of irrigable lands on Indian reservations or for obtaining water from streams flowing through Indian reservations for the irrigation of their lands on the outside. As a result, the construction of irrigation projects on Indian reservations has often preceded the proper preparation of the Indians for such construction and often has preceded the development of transportation facilities necessary to market the products of the land irrigated, and in the case of the large reservations in the Northwest irrigation has been brought to Indians unskilled in the art of irrigation, strangers to the art of agriculture, trained for generations to the exciting life of the chase, having no knowledge of any of the pursuits of modern civilized life except a somewhat general knowledge of the raising of cattle and horses. Generally, however, this premature development of irrigation has had sufficient justification in the necessity of such development to preserve the rights of the Indians to the water.
“One of the chief reasons for the failure of the Indians on the reservations mentioned to utilize their irrigable lands has been the failure to provide appropriations necessary to enable them to buy teams and tools and other equipment, without which the utilization of their lands is impossible. The main thought apparently has been to build the ditches, and with rare exceptions no provision has been made to use tribal funds for any other purpose than that of reimbursing the Government for the cost of construction of the project. At the same time the Indian has lacked the credit which is available to the white settler living under similar conditions necessary to help himself. Through the policy of reimbursable appropriations established during the last few years Congress has begun to prepare a remedy for these conditions. But on a majority of the reservations mentioned above, Indians are still in a position where they have to sit idly by and witness the expenditure of their own funds in the construction and maintenance of irrigation ditches which, under present conditions, they cannot use and in which expenditures they have no voice—helpless, though they have more than ample resources in their undeveloped lands to secure money advances necessary to make productive use thereof.
“Another reason for the lack of adequate utilization of Indian lands may be found in the failure to adjust the size of the allotment of irrigable land to the conditions of soil and climate and the industrial habits and needs of the Indians. While in the Southwest, on the Colorado River and Yuma Reservations and several others, allotments have been made in 10–acre tracts, and in some cases smaller, suitable to the methods of intensive agriculture practiced in that section of country, this policy has been lacking almost universally in the reservations of the Northwest, where in most cases allotment has been made under the general allotment act, which did not take into consideration the question of possible irrigation. The allotment of 80 acres to each man, woman, and child is found under the irrigation projects on the Yakima, Uintah, Crow, Wind River, Flathead, and Southern Ute (diminished) Reservations while on Blackfeet and Fort Peck the size of the allotment is 40 acres, and on Fort Hall 40 acres to each head of a family and 20 acres to each other member of the tribe. Take the Uintah and Wind River Reservations, for example, where beneficial use is required by State law in order to protect the water rights. The average family of five members would have 400 acres of irrigable land. The average white family in the same section of the country can not utilize satisfactorily over 80, or at the most 160, acres of the same land. How can an Indian family unassisted, and especially without money or credit to buy tools and equipment, be expected to reclaim 400 acres of land?
RINCON RESERVATION, MISSION INDIANS, CALIFORNIA
Grandfather blind (trachoma). Both children infected.