CHAPTER VI. THE WHITE EARTH SCANDAL

Judge Burch’s research led him to conclude that the Indians were in vastly better shape forty years ago than at the present time. The reading of Warren’s book, Gilfillan’s testimony, and other evidence establishes it beyond question that the Indian does not seem to have suffered to any great extent in either health or morals prior to 1880. The older men of the tribe, who were keen mentally in spite of great age, when I visited those Indians in 1909, told me much regarding their past. I visited them under most auspicious circumstances, being empowered by the Indian Office to conduct investigations of affairs at White Earth, and having at my command numerous interpreters and assistants. The old shaman, Bay-bah-dwun-gay-aush, Me-zhuck-ke-ge-shig, Ojibwa,[[13]] Mah-een-gonce, and others with whom I talked a great deal, laid the blame for their present deplorable condition on the unscrupulous French-Canadians, mixed-blood element, as well as covetous white men who sought timber and land. Gilfillan has pointed out in his letter the increase of drunkenness due to large financial rewards offered by the Government in pursuing a mistaken policy.

Father Aloysius Hermanutz has been at White Earth since 1878. In his testimony before the Graham Investigating Committee, he stated that the full-blood Indians at that time were in good condition. Nearly everyone owned a team of oxen, a cow, and cultivated fields. Many of them raised vegetables and there was much weaving of rugs and small carpets. They had an Agent, Mr. Charles Ruffey, who was kind to them but very strict. The farmer was a competent man and knew how to make Indians work.

“I met him one day on the road on horseback. He went to that Indian—to that farm—I met him there and asked him where he was going, and he said: ‘There are two Indians, Father, up beyond that church. They didn’t plow their field in order to put the seeds in, and the Agent ordered me to tell them if they don’t plow their fields now (it was in April) that the team will be taken away from them.’ And of course they were oldtimers. That was Saturday when I saw them, and on Sunday morning they started to plow. They were scared and they plowed their fields. At the time the Indians were in very good condition, and then afterwards it changed and they went down again.”

The illustrations accompanying these chapters were taken during the investigation of 1909 and give some idea of conditions obtaining at that time. So much has been said and written regarding the situation of the Minnesota Ojibwa, that the Government adopted heroic measures, and conditions are to a great extent ameliorated, but they are still far from satisfactory.

Omitting the racial traits of the people the past sixty years, let us consider their present condition and the causes leading up to it.

The 1889 bill (Congress) was known officially: “For the Relief and Civilization of the Chippewa Indians.” There is both sarcasm and irony in that phrase, which only those of us who know what kind of “relief and civilization” the Chippewas have received since the bill was passed, can appreciate.

At the time White Earth reservation was created, a treaty was made with the Ojibwa bands, March 19th, 1867. It was the Government’s intention at the time this solemn treaty was signed, to encourage progress in industry, and to permanently locate the Ojibwa upon farms. With so laudable a purpose in view, one of the provisions of this treaty was as follows: Any Indian who brought under cultivation ten acres of land, was entitled to a fee simple patent, or deed, for forty acres additional, and so on up to 160 acres. This encouraged many Indians to become industrious and they brought under cultivation many tracts of land. In 1887, under the Dawes Act, the holdings of agricultural land were limited to eighty acres. After the “Relief and Civilization” act of 1889, Gus Beaulieu, a French-Canadian-Indian politician, and others became very active in and about White Earth reservation. A Mr. Darwin S. Hall was appointed Chippewa Commissioner and became interested in Mr. Beaulieu’s projects.

Whatever the original purpose of this act, it was used by venal white men to get hold of the Indians’ land. Previously the land had all been in a reservation and could not be touched. Now it was coming under the control of individual Indians and might be sold.

The Indians could not be thrown neck-and-heels off their reservation, although I suppose certain interested persons of northern Minnesota would have adopted that happy expedient were it possible. Some kind of legislation must be enacted whereby the wolves could enter the flock, if not entirely disguised, at least so covered that the shepherd of the flock might have some difficulty in differentiating between the sheep and the wolves. So it came about that the “Clapp Amendment” was passed as a rider to the general Indian appropriation bill. The Clapp amendment in substance, provided that any mixed-blood Indian could dispose of his property, but full-bloods and minors could not.