CHAPTER IX.
THE RED MAN AND HIS DESTINY.
Captain Pratt—Carlisle Barracks—An Indian Bowman—The Indian Question—The Pupils' Gossip—The "School News"—Indian Visitors—The White Mother—The India Office—White and Red—Quo Quousque?—Indian Title Deeds—The Reservations—The Indian Agencies—Missionary Efforts—The Red Man and the Maori.
On the 5th of May the party visited Carlisle Fort or Barracks, one of the ancient military establishments of the Republic, where in the old times, speaking in an American sense, a considerable force was usually concentrated to keep watch and ward over the western frontiers, now extended thousands of miles away to the Pacific. The Barrack, which is a large quadrangle capable of containing a couple of regiments, is appropriated by the Government to this great experiment, the systematic education of the Indians of both sexes, whose families send them to school for the purpose of learning English and useful arts, mechanical and other, which may be of advantage to their people. It was, perhaps, one of the most interesting of the many little excursions which the Duke of Sutherland and his friends made in the States, and as it was the only one of the schools which we had an opportunity of seeing I shall proceed to give a little account of what we witnessed. In the first place let me express the sense which every one of us entertained of the real sterling qualities of Captain Pratt who is in charge of the school, and of the devotion and solicitude for their charges of those ladies employed in the training establishment. It may be asked how casual visitors could judge of these things? The discipline, order, progress, and perfect method visible in every room, and the intelligence and good understanding between the teachers and the pupils which could be perceived throughout the establishment, were adequate proofs, I think, that the praise is well deserved. At the time of our visit there were something under three hundred pupils, of whom perhaps two hundred were boys, and these were engaged in their class-rooms, each section of Indians being arranged according to nationality, if such a term can be used. But, indeed, the tribes of Indians differed from each other in personal appearance far more than do the races which inhabit the European continent. It is true they nearly all have straight wire-like black hair and eyes set deeply and rather obliquely in faces which are frequently of the Mongol type. But there is great diversity in the shape of the head, the angle of the jaw, the formation of the mouth and nose, the colour (when not tainted or "improved" by an admixture of European blood, whether Mexican or American or other) being pretty uniform, a rich bronze, with something of a copper hue, predominating in the young people. The boys were dressed in a plain neat uniform of greyish-blue, military tunics and trousers, well shod and comfortably equipped in all respects. The girls, amongst whom, perhaps, taste for eccentric finery was not unobservable, wore dresses less uniform in appearance, generally neat and always clean; but their foot gear was rather eccentric. The rooms, spacious barrack-like apartments, well ventilated, were appropriated to the classes according to age and progress, the boys being separated from the girls. The walls were hung with maps and furnished with educational coloured prints, and boards for arithmetical exercises were in each apartment. The desks and stools were such as would be seen in an ordinary school, and if one had not looked at the faces of the pupils and been struck by some of the strange characters on the walls he would have thought himself in the middle of some ordinary school; save, perhaps, that his ear would have missed the curious humming noise which marks the industry of idleness or of legitimate work in similar establishments in Europe. But here were all these young savages, poring over their books or boring with their pens, looking up at the visitors scarcely with curiosity and applying themselves again to their work, or answering questions put to them with the composure which must be a portion of the Red Man's nature.
I cannot recollect how many tribes there were represented at the Carlisle school; but I was struck by the race-distinctions which could be observed when Captain Pratt, standing on a raised platform, called out the names of each tribe. The little batches, in some instances only one or two, stood up briskly and looked somewhat proudly about, as much as to say, "We are Sioux (or Apaches, or Ponchas, or Creeks), not like these other fellows." And the young ladies were, if one might judge from their expression, quite as proud of their own people as the boys. But the names these poor children receive are ludicrous. Not content with calling them by English names, or American, singularly misapplied, very often, as a name may be, their own Indian nomenclature is translated into English, so that we heard reading and reciting beside "Luke Phillips" and "Almarine McKillip" (a Scotch Creek) "Maggie Stands-looking" and "Reuben Quick-bear." There was something of sarcasm, I think, in the address of a Creek boy to the visitors. He said: "The Indian boys had come here to learn something about the use of the bow and hunting. Their people believed that if boys grew up to manhood without learning they would be of no use; therefore they had sent the boys here to get education." Then, after some moral if trite reflections, the lad said: "You must understand that nearly everything that was made was made both for the present and the future. This barracks was not built for Indians, as I do not think the men who built it ever thought that it would be an Indian school; but things were made to do good both in the present and in the future." And then quoth he, looking at his white friends straight in the face: "The education which we are getting here is not like our own land, but it is something that cannot be stolen nor bought from us." And the white man did not turn red at the words! I do not pretend to judge of the actual progress made in learning, but the very intelligent self-possessed teachers reported uniformly that they were satisfied. The most useful education, perhaps, which these Indians receive is in practical mechanics, and a visit to the workshops attached to the barracks was amply repaid by the sight of these industrious young fellows hammering and leathering away in the various departments. They have actually completed waggons of a most satisfactory construction, complete in all their parts, so much so that orders have been received for as many as can be supplied for the use of Agencies. They make and repair their own shoes. They have sent out a hundred and twenty double sets of harness. They make coffee-boilers, cups, pans, pails, and all the articles known to the tin-smith; and the girls are taught to hem and sew and knit in the English fashion; but it must have been not many a long year before the white man landed, when the ancestors of these Indian maidens exercised the same mystery with fine sinew and skin in the wonderful work of which specimens are handed down to us to-day. On one point alone, perhaps, there was something to regret; the health of the children was not all that could be desired. Well clad, regularly fed, I presume on wholesome food, cleanly lodged in well-ventilated rooms, these wild children of the plains scarcely came up to the expectations one would form of them in the matter of chest-measurement; and although many were remarkable for fine physical development, Captain Pratt confessed that their sanitary condition was not everything that could be desired, and that losses from consumption and other causes were rather serious. But they have plenty of out-door exercise. They have games in which they rejoice. They drill and march to the sound of their own band, a very good brass band of eight performers, each of a different tribe, who played "Hail Columbia!" and the "Star-Spangled Banner," and the like, with energy and zest; nay, with harmonious concurrence. When we went out into the large open square, there appeared before us a wonderful being in feathers, waving plumes, wampum and all the leathern panoply and peltry adornments of an Indian, painted, and armed with bow and arrow, probably such an one as Captain John Smith may have seen as he went exploring the woods of Virginia on his way to the sacrifice from which he was saved by Pocahontas. A target was erected at a distance of a hundred yards or so, and had I been in the centre of it, I should have been perfectly safe from the arrows which the Indian warrior discharged at it. But we were told that with a good bow a strong-armed Indian will drive an arrow right through a buffalo, and in that case I would suppose that the buffalo was very near to him indeed.
Of course it is but natural to find very varying degrees of intelligence amongst the pupils, and the rate of progress was by no means uniform, but a committee of examination which recently visited the school declared that the manifestations of advancement in the rudiments of English education were to them simply surprising. It was with admiration bordering on amazement they observed the facility and accuracy with which the children passed through the various exercises, in reading, geography, arithmetic, and writing, of the schoolroom; the accurate training and the amount of knowledge displayed were, they reported, the fullest proof not only of skilful teaching, but of great aptitude and diligence on the part of the children. Considering the brief period during which the school had been in operation, and the fact that the children entered it in a wholly untutored condition, the evidence was conclusive of the capability of culture. They go on to say: "We are fully persuaded that improvement equal to that which we have witnessed in the case of these children of the plains, if made in equal time by American children, would be regarded as quite unusual. And when the difficulty of communication consequent upon the diversities of language is taken into account we can but feel that the results of which we have been the witnesses to-day justify our judgment of them as amazing."
One of the most interesting features connected with the attempts to educate the Indians at Carlisle is the 'School News,' a little publication which, as I understand, is conducted by Indian pupils taught in the establishment, edited by Samuel Townsend, a Pawnee Indian boy. It is published once a month, and costs 25 cents or 1s. per year. It takes as its motto the lines:
"A pebble cast into the sea is felt from shore to shore,
A thought from the mind set free will echo on for ever more."
Perhaps neither the metre nor the actual statement commend themselves to acceptance, but the matter of the little journal is full of interest. In the first place the names of the contributors afford full matter for meditation. Perhaps it is one of the steps which must be taken to civilise these poor Indians that their names should undergo a strange and, to me, unmeaning metamorphose. There seems no reason whatever why the Indian names should not be retained, or if there is any reason for changing them, at least there might be some discrimination and good taste exercised in the adoption of English Christian names.
The first number of the 'School News,' which I have before me, contains as an article: "What Michael Burns, an Apache boy, thinks on the Indian Question." He says, "I cannot help myself, having much feeling for my people, what has been said about them, and the efforts making to give us the same privileges as the people of the United States. And it is said how we have been treated by the bad white man, for the last ten or fifteen years, decreasing our number. But that kind for treatment for my nation will soon stop." The poor boy goes on to say: "There is no doubt that we are in fault. We had the opinion that we could not get beaten by any other nation. Now we know for ourselves that we will have to change.... But how does the white man know which way is the best to do. Was he born that way? No! Education gives him the light of knowledge." Then a boy named Marcus Poko writes to his father: "I want you to try hard and leave the Comanche way, and to find the white man's way." In the leading article, written, I presume, by Samuel Townsend, it is said: "Indian ways will never be good any more, it is all passed, gone away, and the other way is coming up to take the place. We shall all be glad when we all get into the civilised way of living, then the Indians will not make so much trouble for the American people. Some people say 'let the Indians get out of the way. There is no use in trying to advance them, kill them all they are like the wild animals deaf and dumb, they never will learn anything. We have already paid so much money for them they have never become civilised yet.' But all good people say, 'Oh, yes, give them an education and plenty of opportunities, and send more teachers among them so they may come up beside us and live as brothers and live in peace.'" There is a little paragraph as to language. "There are a great many words in the English," says the writer, "that the Indians have no word for, so the white people who make the Indian books have to make new Indian words. So the Indians have to learn the new Indian words. Now we don't know much about it, but we believe the Indians can all learn to speak the same as the whites." Then there is a column about the school news: "Lizzie McRae, a Creek girl, made a very good corn bread the other day. We had some of it. It was right good I tell you." "Robert American Horse is a steady boy. He works in the blacksmith shop very well, and Mr. Harris never has to tell him but once how to do something." "One of the teachers had artificial violets on her belt. A Gros Ventre boy saw them, but did not know what they were, so he got up from his desk and went close to the teacher. He looked at it and then smelt it. When he smelt it he said, 'Pooh! rags!'" "Boys, some time ago Captain Pratt gave us advice about throwing stones at birds. Some of the boys who understand most English did not listen. We want the birds to come and stay with us and sing for us, too. Let us remember about this, and not let Captain Pratt have to say it again." "Last Sunday some of the large girls had a prayer-meeting in the yard at the back of the girls' quarters. Nobody told them to do it, but they thought it would be a good thing." There is a long letter from Lizzie Walton, a Pawnee girl of thirteen years old, describing a trip to Philadelphia, and I believe there are very few girls of thirteen years of age in any school who could write more amusingly or better. The account of a magic lantern by Ada Bent, a Cheyenne girl, closes the number.
Letters from the children who are sent out to the farmers are published in this little periodical, and give a very pleasing picture of the lives and aptitudes of these Indians. Virginia, of Kiowar, writes from a farm, asking one of the teachers to pardon her for not having done so before; but "I have not much time," she says, "I am very busy set the table and wash dishes make my bed and make pies and cakes and try to make bread too, and the other things beside.... Sometime I make fire and bring in wood. Mrs. Borton is very kind lady she has two children one girl and boy. I love these little children very much." "My dear Miss H——, I am not bad a girl. I help now a great deal. I pray for you almost every night, also when I wake up in the morning. I like to pray very much because I make myself good." And so on in a pleasant little gossiping way, frequently in very difficult language. There is an article in the 'School News' of July upon the shooting of President Garfield: "The man who shot him," says the writer, "we suppose, thought he would please some of the people in the United States. He thought he was very smart. If President were to die how would every white man, black man and the Indian feel? It was not in war when the President was shot, for our country don't have war any more, but in peace.... We all feel sorry because the President is suffering. We hope he will soon recover." It is stated that about a hundred boys and girls have gone out to work on the farms, and there are some trite remarks about the advantages of hard work as opposed to the disadvantages of laziness. "The farmers up country say the Indian boys can bind wheat first-rate." "Nelly Cook, Sioux, made 36 sheets in one day last week. Nellie Cary, Apache, made 32, and Ella Moore, Creek, made 30. Boys, do you think those girls are lazy?" The 'School News' has a reporter, it would appear, for the paper says that "Our reporter took a walk round in the shops to see what the boys were doing. In all the shops every boy was busy. In the carpenter shop there were Jock (Arapahoe), Ralph (Sioux), Elwood (Iowa), and Joe Gun (Ponca) sawing out window and door frames. Oscar (Cheyenne) and Michael Burns (Apache) were busy carving balcony posts; and Lester (Arapahoe) was outside chiselling a beam. These things are all for our new hospital.... Jesse (Arapahoe) and Little Elk (Cheyenne) were busy in the gymnasium. The waggons which Robert American Horse has finished painting are to be sent to Oregon and Washington Territories." It is sometimes difficult to make out the meaning of the little prattle which these small people commit to the uncertain medium of the English tongue; but, on the whole, it is a most interesting and curious study. In one respect these children of the forest possess that which civilisation seems rather to dwarf amongst men of the highest culture and imagination—a certain stately eloquence and nobility of expression, in which natural images abound, and allegory and metaphor consort together in excellent and tasteful union. In a paper called 'Eadle Keatah Toh,' which seems to have been the precursor of the 'School News,' there is an interesting report from the Committee on Indian Affairs to the House of Representatives, submitted by Mr. Pound. The motto of the paper is "God helps those who help themselves"; but surely it might be better put that God will help those who seek to do good to the unfortunate Indians, who in contact with civilisation are rendered utterly helpless, and who in their attempts to help themselves according to the manner of the race must meet with nothing but extinction. From time to time there are notices of deaths. One would like to know who wrote the account of the "death of John Renville, son of Gabriel Renville, Chief of the Sisseton Sioux." After noticing the circumstances under which he contracted his fatal illness—fever, produced by drinking water at a spring on a hot day on a march to the camp in Perry County, the writer says:—"'Death loves a shining mark,' the poet sang long ago; and in the passing away of John Renville from our school we sadly say, how truthfully the poet sang.... Through all the days of his sickness his large sorrowful eyes had a far-away wondering look, no pain marred the beauty of his brow, and his voice as he addressed his sister, who tenderly watched over him, was like the trumpet warbling of some mournful bird. Our hearts follow the father in deep sympathy as he bears back the body of his beautiful boy to the land of the Dakotas for burial."
The Indian chiefs have a right, which they often exercise, of visiting these schools as a Board; and there is an account in the Carlisle paper of the visit of Spotted Tail, Iron Wing, White Thunder, Black Crow, and Louis Robideau from the Rosebud Agency; Red Cloud, American Horse, Red Dog, Red Shirt, Little Wound, and Two Strike from the Pine Ridge Agency; Like the Bear and Medicine Bull from the Lower Brule Agency; Son of the Star, Poor Wolf, Peter Beauchamp, and John Smith from Fort Berthold; Two Bears, John Big Head, Grass, Thunder Hawk, and Louis Primeau from Standing Rock; Charger and Bull Eagle from Cheyenne River; Brother to All and James Broadhead from Crow Creek; Strike the Ree and Jumping Thunder from Yankton; Robert Hakewashte and Eli Abraham from Santee Agency; Mr. Tackett and his wife and daughter; a daughter of Spotted Tail, and others. The meeting of the children with their parents is described as being most touching; and sometimes the pupils were not recognised, so greatly had they altered. As the chiefs seemed unwilling to speak when called upon to do so, there was silence for a time till a little girl, who had been about a year and a half at the school, expressed her desire to speak in so earnest a way that General Marshall permitted her to do so; and so, speaking in her own dialect, her words were translated into English and into Sioux. She declared that she liked the white man's ways and the white man's language. Indian words, she said, were down on the ground, but the white man's language was in his head. The chiefs, who listened attentively, seemed to understand this curious figure of speech, and nodded their approval. And then she enlarged upon the advantage of what she learned, and implored the chiefs to send their children to the school, where she says she is going to try to be God's daughter. Her words seemed to kindle the fire within the chieftains' breasts, for Like the Bear, a Sioux, and father of one of the boys at Hampton School, came forward and addressed the meeting. "There is no greater power in the world," said he, "than the Great Spirit, and we must listen to Him and do what He wants us to do. When the men who were sent out by the Great Father the President asked for my children I gave them up. I see you are making brains for my children, and you are making eyes for them so that they can see. That is what I thank the Great Spirit for, and it is that which will make me strong." Then Robert Hakewashte, a chief from the Santee Agency, spoke, and said that he wanted schools like that which he saw here on his own reservation, and Spotted Tail wished for the same thing. "Since I have learned the words of God," he says, "it makes no difference to me what is the colour of a man's skin; if he walks like a man it is the same. I do not believe God likes the white colour only. God likes red and white, for He made them all." And then the flood of eloquence was loosened, and an old chief of the Sioux, nearly blind, verging on ninety years of age, who had come to see his grandson, said: "I grew up a red man, and the things I see here I never had a chance to see before. I have heard about the white man's church and his religion, and I have heard about the holy house. I have looked into them, and I am very much pleased. But there is only one Great Spirit we all can worship, and the red men all over the country are hearing about it. You are teaching the children to worship the Great Spirit. That is a great thing, and I like it. But you have here two sons of one father. One is sick. I want you to keep the other." And so he carried him away.
The condition of the Red Man who is allowed to exist under the banner of the Republic is a subject which has attracted the attention of the best and wisest men in the United States. The treatment of the Indians is a question of future policy. It is one which must exercise a very deep and abiding influence on the whole history of an ancient and interesting people. But it is exceedingly difficult to put in a short compass its most salient points before those who are unacquainted with the nature of the problems to be solved. Comparisons are odious, above all places, in America, when they are not to the advantage of the Great Republic, and I shall not draw any between the state of the Indian tribes in Canada and in the States. But it may be fairly admitted that the Indian Question in Canada is divested of many of the difficulties which surround it south of the lakes. The people of Canada have far more land than they know what to do with. They are a sparse population. They are not impelled to fierce adventures by mining "booms," and they are altogether less progressive than their American brethren. Shall we say that they are more charitable, more humane, less greedy of other men's goods? I do not say so. But at all events it is perfectly true that the Red Man, although he is dying out under the influence of whiskey and other influences which need not be particularised, in his native land, lives in comparative peace and comfort under the British flag in Canada. He is content with the White Mother. He pursues the occupations dear to his race as a hunter and as a fisherman. He is a dealer in peltries, and in such small barter as his needs require. He is the companion of sportsmen, and he delights, free as mountain air, to hunt on the hillside and in the prairie in winter over the vast ranges of snowy fields which in the few short months of spring and summer teem with flowers, and the frosty lakes which yield fish to his spear and net. There are few or no railways through his reservations to vex his repose, no great trains of miners with pick and rifle to drive away the moose and the buffalo, and hand the native hunter over to starvation. The Indian gives to the white man all he needs, and aids him in obtaining from the wide stretch of land over which he roams all the wealth that it can afford. Practically one part of the Dominion is handed over to the Red Man and to the half-breeds, for there is an Indian frontier which as yet has not been much encroached upon by any large migration of whites. As far as I know, conflicts north of the Saint Lawrence between Indians and whites are unknown, or have not been heard of for very many years. South of the great lakes, in the wonderful land over which is displayed the banner of the stars and stripes, the fate of the Indian is very different. In the words of Mr. Carl Schurz, himself an expert in the question, "the history of the relations of the United States with the Red Man presents in great part a record of broken treaties, of unjust wars and of cruel spoliation." That is a sweeping statement, which it would be just as well for an Englishman not to make, but coming from the mouth of an American citizen and of a United States Minister with plenty of evidence to back it, there can be no harm in recording my conviction of its truth. It is but another indictment against a defect in the form of government which Americans exalt as the most perfect of human institutions, that the central government made treaties in good faith with the Indian tribes, but was unable to enforce their obligations or to maintain their integrity. There is, as all well-informed people know—well informed, at least, in reference to American affairs—a commissioner who makes an annual report to the Secretary of the Interior respecting the Indian tribes in the various locations over the Union and the Territories. The last of these reports which I have seen is that of the Acting Commissioner Mr. Marble, addressed to the Department of the Interior from the office of Indian Affairs at Washington in the November of last year. The volume contains the reports of the agents in the Indian Territory; of the schools for Indian children established in pursuance of a wise and humane policy, and detailed statistics in relation to the Indian settlements and reservations, the latter indeed forming by far the largest portion of the volume of 400 pages. Before I call attention to the condition of the Indians, and the efforts made to save them from extinction or from a degradation worse than annihilation, I should like to direct the attention of those who are interested in the subject to the view which is beginning to find favour, I believe, among the most experienced men in the States, that the system of "Reservations" is founded on a mistake the magnitude of which is demonstrated every day, and that the only means of saving the Indians from extinction is their gradual absorption as educated communities in the agricultural life of the nation, keeping them far as may be from the white man, but making no other distinction between them and the other citizens of the United States than such as must be found in the nature of the Indian race and their degree of culture and civilisation—treating them, in fact, as communities of Mennonites, Mormons, or Norwegians, or other nationalities would be treated in the United States. When the Reservations were first established it was considered impossible that the migration of the whites would extend to the remote regions of the west to which the unfortunate survivors of the people with whose virtues and vices Cooper and other novelists have made us familiar were gradually and often remorselessly driven. It is a plea which will be urged in bar of judgment that the doctrine of States Rights prevented the interference of the United States Government on behalf of the Indian tribes who were often ruthlessly destroyed. But it will scarcely be a plea, I think, which humanity in full court would recognise as valid. Homo homini lupus. But to the Red Man as to the Black in many cases the White Man is worse than any wolf; far more bloodthirsty and rapacious than any tiger—a Cain of Cains. It was our own kith and kin who, landing on the shores of the North American continent, encroaching by degrees upon the tribes and at last encountering their hostility, spread their sway literally by fire and sword, and rooted out the Red Man wherever they found him established on land or by sea which they coveted. We, whose countrymen have worked out the same policy on the Australian continent and Van Diemen's Land, and who can only be restrained from its pursuit in New Zealand by the strong arm of the Home Government, can scarcely afford to take up stones to fling at our American brethren; and it is not with any purpose of indictment or accusation that I proceed to make a few remarks on the relations of the United States Government with the Red Man, and the efforts which they have been making to compensate the Indians in some measure for the injustice and persecution dealt out for many a generation.
As I looked at the men gathered at some of the railroad stations in the western desert and thought of the Red Men whose fate it is to meet such representatives of civilisation and Christianity, I could not but be filled with pity for the unfortunates and with wonder at "the dispensation" under which they live. The faces are fine and bold enough, bearded to the cheek or shaved in the American fashion, with bold staring eyes, which "look square" in your own, with a general expression "Do you want a fight?" in them—the heads to which they belong are generally set on muscular bodies. If a gang of these men think fit to go on to an Indian reservation—the very name is too often a bitter mockery—who is to stop them? If the Indians try to do so and one of the white intruders is killed the country-side rings with cries of "vengeance for the massacre of our brethren," and all the papers are filled with accounts of "Another Indian Outbreak."
"The average frontier-man in the States looks," as Mr. Schurz says, "upon the Indian merely as a nuisance in his way. There are many whom it would be difficult to convince that it is a crime to kill an Indian." I will go further and say that there are many, I believe, who would take great pleasure in killing an Indian whenever they could; or as one gentleman observed to me, and I believe in his relations with white men no more just or honourable man or more humane could be found, "I would sooner kill an Indian than I would a skunk." When I was in the West, there was a cry raised that the Utes were about to wage war, and appeals appeared in the local papers for a military force to march against them. Their leaders were accused of arrogance and of insolence, and of murderous designs, and the general remark one heard was, "The Utes must go." I inquired a little into the matter when I got back, and I found that the Utes were strictly and absolutely, in their own right, standing upon the titles, which they had derived from the United States Government, to the lands from which they were required to move. These lands were wanted. Other lands were pointed out to them, to which they objected, and then they were informed that they would be moved by force, and preparations were made to levy war against these unfortunates, if they resisted deportation from the territory which had been assigned to them by the Great Father. Had they been Irish landlords, they could not have been treated worse; but in the West not one word was raised in favour of their claims.
The first point which has to be considered is, that the Indian is obnoxious to the very class of men with whom he is by the necessity of things most closely brought in contact. The railway has been the great persecutor of Red Men. It has driven away the game, it has carried in proximity to their reservations all the enterprise charged with whiskey, revolver, rifle, and greed, which can be furnished by the offscourings of the world. In the Far West the miners in advance throng into the valleys, and break the silence of the mountain-ranges by the sound of their picks, the cattle-raisers spread out over the plains, the ploughman settles down on the fertile land. "What," asks the American philanthropist, and his question is echoed all over the world by humane and good men, "what is to become of the Indian?" The hunting-grounds are gradually being pushed farther west and north until they are bounded by the sea, and by the eternal snow. And if by any chance it should be found that there is gold or lead, silver or iron, or copper, or coal in any abundance, even under these unpromising conditions it will be sought. The buffalo is disappearing fast, faster than the Indian himself. Deer are becoming scarcer every year. What is to be left for the Red Man? Pastoral life and agriculture, say the philanthropists. The substitution, however, is not so easy. The weakness of the United States Government is the main cause why the policy of reservations has failed. Let us take the account of it by a United States Minister. "The Government," says Mr. Schurz, "has tried to protect the Indians in good faith against encroachments, and has failed. It has yielded to the pressure exercised upon it by people in immediate contact with the Indians. When a collision between Indians and whites once occurred, no matter who was responsible for it, our military forces were always found on the side of the white against the savage. How was Government to proclaim that white men should for ever be excluded from the millions of acres covered by Indian reservations, and that the national power would be exerted to do so?" Such an idea the American Minister thinks would be utterly preposterous. The rough and ready frontier-man would pick quarrels with the Indians; the speculators would urge him on. Government could not prevent collisions; the conflict once brought on, Government, in spite of its good intentions and sense of justice, would find itself employing its forces to hunt down the Indian. The old story would be repeated, as it will be wherever, says Mr. Schurz, there is a large and valuable Indian Reservation surrounded by white settlements, "and unjust, disgraceful as it is, that is an inevitable result." Such being the case then, the United States Government being powerless to see that right shall be done, and it being at once a human and a Christian duty to avert, if possible, the extinction of the original possessors of this grand continent, let us see what can be done to carry out the object. Fit the Indians, it is said, for the habits and occupations of civilised life; give them individual possession of land as property, a fee-simple title to the fields they cultivate, guarded by an absolute prohibition of sale—because it has been found that whenever the Indians are exposed to the temptation of artful traders, they will be cajoled out of the titles they have to their land—and you will save the remnants from utter destruction. I hope it will be so. I could not but feel a glow of enthusiasm when I heard the Attorney-General, Mr. MacVeagh, at Washington, speaking incidentally one day about some railway matter, declare that he would not sanction the making of a line of railway through Indian Territory until he was satisfied that the Indians actually understood the conditions which had been offered to them by the company. "I will," said Mr. MacVeagh, "send down government agents there to ascertain that the Indians thoroughly understand what they are doing, and that it is of their own free will and consent that the railway passes through their territory in exchange for the money and goods they receive for the concession." Excellent and just minister! But, alas! I believe that ere I left the United States the whole thing was done; the railway company had declared that they would, whether or no, make their line, and if an Indian touched a hair of the head of any white man, the United States Government would not be able to avert the Divine wrath of every white man on the border from the whole of the tribe. Well may Mr. Schurz say that the thought of exterminating a race once the only occupants of the soil, where so many millions of our own people have flourished, must be revolting to every American who is not devoid of all sentiments of justice and humanity. Extermination or civilisation is the alternative offered to the Indian. Now let us see how it is proposed to civilise them. According to the returns in the Report for 1880, the number of Indians in the United States, exclusive of those in Alaska, is 256,127. Of these, 138,642 are described as wearing citizen's dress. It will be observed that there is no estimate given of the Indians who do not wear citizen's dress under this head. Citizens must be sometimes very badly dressed indeed if the Indians I saw at various stations along the line to San Francisco in shocking bad hats and tattered clothes were to be included amongst those who figured under this description in the report of the Commissioner. About 17,000 houses are reported as occupied. There are 224 schools, attended by 6000 scholars for a month or more during the year, scattered over the continent. About 34,550 Indians could read. There were 154 church buildings and 74 missionaries. The number of children of school age was 34,541; but this was an under estimate. Of these there was only school accommodation for 9972. The total amount expended for education during the year by the United States Government was $249,299; by the State of New York, $15,863; by the State of Pennsylvania, $325; by other States, nothing; by religious societies, $46,933; by tribal funds, $7481. 22,048 Indian families were engaged in cultivating farms or small patches of ground; 33,125 male Indians were labouring in civilised pursuits; and 358 Indian apprentices had been pursuing trades during the year. This census and these statistics are stated to be imperfect, and it would require a close examination of the returns to enable an inquirer to form any idea as to the progress made in the direction which we are told is the alternative of destruction.
The Reservations of the various Indian tribes are scattered irregularly over the United States; from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota on the north and north-west, away to the Territories on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, down to New Mexico and Arizona, there being none in the southern states bordering the Atlantic. But there are Red Men of different tribes located, as the Americans would say, in the States to the east, such as New York. The Reservations are of irregular size and extent. Isabella, in the State of Maine, reserved for 848 Indians, lies to the east of 86° longitude, and south of 44° latitude. There is a considerable group of Reservations on the western shore of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, and in Minnesota. But the proper Indian territory lies west of Arkansas, with the Red River on the south, New Mexico on the west, and Kansas on the north; and in it are concentrated the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chicasaws, Comanches, Cheyennes, and several other tribes. The Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and Arizona ranks perhaps next in size, extending northwards into Colorado, where the Utes have got a large tract of land assigned to them upon what appears now to be very doubtful or vanishing tenure. These, and numerous reservations, which it would be tedious to enumerate, are under the charge of agents appointed by the Government at Washington, as to whose functions and personal character and attainments one hears very surprising and contradictory reports. But I confess, from a perusal of the documents which they have furnished to the head of the Department, and which are published in the Annual Report, there seems to me no just ground for imputing to these gentlemen want of zeal, knowledge, interest, or intelligence. Those who detest the whole work of saving the Red Man are very apt to impute to the Indian agents not only corrupt practices in relation to the sale of government stores and supplies destined for the use of those under their charge, but illicit traffic in spirits, which is ruinous to the Red Man, and even some participation in the acts of violence which have frequently led to Indian troubles. It all depends upon the manner in which your informant in the States regards the Indian Question whether the agents are described as scoundrels whom no man could trust, or as gentlemen of high propriety and general excellence.
The necessities which have been imposed by advancing civilisation of providing Indians with food entail a heavy outlay upon the United States Government, which is much begrudged by large sections of members of Congress, although they do not see their way clearly to withhold supplies of food from the unfortunate people whose hunting-grounds have been occupied, and who have not yet learned the arts of agriculture, so as to be able to supply themselves with food. The transportation of stores, the cost of beef, corn, coffee, bread, tobacco, tea; in fact, all kinds of food, woollen goods, clothing, boots, hats, groceries, waggons, tools, hardware, and medical supplies,—all these duly figure in the estimates of the Indian Commissioner to a very considerable amount, and the returns as yet do not present any large reduction on the annual charge; although nearly all the agents speak in terms of great hopefulness of the extraordinary advance which has been made in their agencies in the cultivation of the soil.
One remarkable division of the agencies has reference to their appropriation to religious denominations. An Indian might well be puzzled as to his form of belief if he were passed through the various agencies, attending at each a religious service or two, and listening to the teaching of the various divines attached to them. The Society of Friends have control of the belief and religious teaching of the Sante and Nemaja Indians in Nebraska, and of the Pawnees in the Indian Territory; to the Methodists are assigned three tribes in California, three tribes in Washington Territory, two in Oregon, three in Montana, two in Idaho, and one in Michigan. The Nevada Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chicasaws, and Seminoles are handed over to the Baptists. The Presbyterians have charge of the Nezpercès in Idaho, Umtas in Utah; the Apaches, Pueblos, and two other tribes in New Mexico. The Congregational Church exercises its religious offices among the tribes in Wisconsin, among two tribes in Dacotah, and one in Washington Territory. The Reformed Church has its work cut out for it in Arizona amongst four tribes. The Protestant Episcopal Church exercises its jurisdiction over one tribe in Minnesota, six tribes in Dacotah, one in Indian Territory, and one in Wyoming. The Unitarians have apparently only one tribe in teaching, the Los Pinos in Colorado. The United Presbyterians have one tribe in Oregon; the Christian Union has another in Oregon; the Evangelical Lutheran has charge of the Southern Utes in Colorado; and lastly, the Roman Catholic Church has two tribes in Washington Territory, two in Oregon, one in Montana, and two in Dacotah. As a general rule, the reports of the missionaries themselves are more sanguine, as they are wont to be, than are those of disinterested, perhaps unprejudiced, observers of their work. But, as is natural, the actual progress made depends very much, not only upon the nature of the tribe among whom the work is carried on, but on the character of the missionary, and on his ability and energy. In some instances, I see the condition of a tribe is reported as being lamentable, from a religious point of view, whilst in a neighbouring reservation, it is stated that great progress has been made in the establishment of religious teaching and ideas. The Rosebud Agency is said to prosper in the hands of one reverend gentlemen; the fathers of St. Ignatius are described as doing good work amongst the Flatheads; the Pawnees are left without any missionaries at all, and, says the government report, "are probably better off without them." And depreciatory remarks are slightingly introduced concerning the work at other agencies. On the Devil's Lake Agency, the majority of the adults shun the missionaries as they would the gentleman who may be supposed to own the lake by the sides of which they are encamped. The Jesuit fathers and the Catholic sisters are described as working generally with zeal and success, whilst one agency assigned to the Methodists is said to have no religious agency at all. It is to the success of the attempts made to educate the Indians at the public establishments that the philanthropist and humanitarian must look with the most hopefulness.
All the reports of the teachers and visitors of these schools coincide in one point, that the young Indian is most teachable, and that in respect of acquiring knowledge he is, if anything, the superior of the white, who seems to enjoy no hereditary excellence in his capacity for acquiring knowledge. The Bill to which the Report was an introduction may be considered indeed as the Magna Charta of the Indian tribes if it be followed up by judicious treatment, and careful management of and consideration for the rights conferred upon these tribes as preliminary to their absorption as citizens in the mass of the nation, when they are fit for such an amalgamation with the white races. The advance of the United States westwards has left vacant many military posts and barracks, stranded, as it were, high and dry in the midst of the torrent of civilisation. Fort Bridger, Wyoming; Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Fort Craig, New Mexico; Fort Cummings, in the same territory, and a number of others, have been named as suitable for the purpose of educating the Indian children; and it was in pursuance of the measure recommended to Congress that the various agencies throughout the Indian Territories were directed to forward children whom their parents might wish to entrust to the officers of the United States for education. "Received in the rudest state of savagism," says the Report, "their progress is already most remarkable." I have already remarked that the health of the boys is not generally satisfactory. Their sanitary condition is bad; and it would appear that sometimes in these long and tedious journeyings from the remote Indian agencies the poor children suffer much.
Even at the present moment the Anglo-Saxon appears to be dealing with the Maori in New Zealand very much as he has dealt with the native in Tasmania and in Australia. The history of our relations with the New Zealand chiefs and people is not in a nature to enable us to throw stones at the Americans with impunity, for the glass house in which we live can very easily be reached. Some sixteen or seventeen years ago a rebellion, arising out of the aggressions of the white settlers on the lands of the Maori, was averted by a Proclamation and by Acts confiscating a large tract of Tallinassey, which became theoretically the property of the Crown. Of course the natives had as little to say to that as the lady who is mentioned in 'Tristram Shandy' had with the declaration that "she was not related to her own child." But they did not recognise the occupancy, and whenever a white man settled upon a portion of the ground they pulled down his fences and removed his landmarks. The contest is still going on, but no one who is acquainted with the history of the colony will doubt what the end will be; and it is coming soon, or it is to come, the moment the colonists are bent upon taking the land, and when it is desired to do so.
"It but feebly expresses the judgment formed from what we have observed to say that we regard the experiment made in this school to educate and improve Indian children as in every way a very remarkable success." Si sic omnes! Why does not the United States Government, or if not the Government, the people, abounding in wealth, full of pious impulses, humane, charitable, who justly say that the worst use you can make of an Indian is to hang him; why do not the political economists who declare that it costs a million of dollars to get rid of an Indian with gunpowder and lead; why do not the enterprising and wealthy capitalists who desire to appropriate Indian Reservations all combine to extend the work of these schools so as to absorb all that remains of the Red Man in the rising generation amongst the citizens of the great Republic? A blessed work, worthy of an imperial State, truly great and truly good!
THE END.
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