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IRONG - Report on a trip made in behalt
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IndiaN RIGHTS ASSO

GENERAL LIBRAI
1817
VERSITY OF MICHIGA
REPORT OF A TRIP
MADE IN BEHALF OF
The Indian Rights Association,
TO SOME
INDIAN RESERVATIONS
OF THE
SOUTHWEST,
BY
S. C. ARMSTRONG,
Principal of Hampton School, Va.
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
1
PHILADELPHIA:
OFFICE OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION, 1316 FILBERT STREET.
1884.
REPORT OF A TRIP
MADE IN BEHALF OF
The Indian Rights Association,
TO SOME
INDIAN RESERVATIONS
OF THE
SOUTH WEST,
BY
SC ARMSTRONG,
Principal of Hampton School, Va.
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
PHILADELPHIA :
OFFICE OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION, 1316 FILBERT STREET.
1884.
E
73
A74
Den. heb. - Anchropology
Алвороводу
B. E. Case
3-13-41
42852
HAMPTON, Va., November 10th, 1883.
To the Executive Committee of the Indian Rights Association of
Philadelphia.
GENTLEMEN :-I beg leave to submit the following account
of a seven weeks' tour, ending October 4th, through New Mex-
ico, Arizona, and Indian Territory, which I made at your
instance.
THE NAVAJO INDIANS IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO.
Having already made a public statement of the condition of
these tribes, and their immediate needs having been generously
responded to to the amount of twelve hundred dollars by friends
in Boston and Philadelphia, as well as by the Indian Commis-
sioner, who authorized the needed improvements and recom-
mended liberal appropriations by the next Congress, there is no
need of much detailed statement in regard to them. They have
now a prospect of the care and attention that shall greatly
improve their condition. They are under the care of a very
competent agent, Major D. W. Riordan; they number about
seventeen thousand, having, it is supposed, greatly increased,
some say doubled, in fifteen years; are nomadic, being scattered
over a region of nearly twenty-five thousand square miles,
while their reservation contains but ten thousand, and, like
many others, is, unfortunately, unsurveyed. They have always
lived as they are, but the pressure of white men's enterprise,
which is advancing on every side, may ere long create a crisis,
for they can hardly support their million sheep and their twenty-
six thousand ponies on their riverless reservation, where, with
vast grazing land, there is very little water, and but few acres
near springs that are arable.
Besides schooling for their children, in which their interest
has just been aroused, they need practical instruction that could
3
4
only be given by a corps of assistant farmers who should develop
their water resources, introduce new farming utensils, seed, and
blooded stock of every kind, improving their wool, the annual
clip of which is even now very large, also the miserable huts
they live in; and, finally, make them a wealth-producing class
in the Southwest. They are the richest of all our Indians,
owning an average of one hundred and ten dollars for each
member of the tribe. Navajo silver work and Navajo blankets
have a wide reputation. They are the Jews of their race, keen
at a trade. They are all well armed and mounted, make the
best of cavalry, and cannot be trifled with.
out ideas, having an interesting mythology.
anity has not touched them and the tribes about them as effect-
ually as it has the distant Chinese. The Navajo is the largest
single reservation in the United States, and deserves more atten-
tion than it has received.
They are not with-
American Christi-
THE FOUR THOUSAND PIMAS, SIX HUNDRED MARICOPAS,
AND SEVEN THOUSAND PAPAGO INDIANS IN ARIZONA.
These tribes are widely scattered, occupying three small reser-
vations about ninety miles apart, the Papagoes, with their
cattle, spreading themselves over an arid belt two hundred by
fifty miles in extent, in Southwestern Arizona, making small
crops wherever they can find springs of water. Their agent,
Dr. Jackson, is an energetic, efficient officer, but finds it hard to
administer affairs, from geographical difficulties.
Like all the Indians in the Southwest, these tribes can raise
food only by irrigation, at which some are skilled, but, as a rule,
they are wasteful of water and need guidance in its use and
management. The rivers are more and more drained by settlers,
who hardly consider the Indians, who, unless looked out for, may
in time have no water for their crops. This is a serious matter for
those living on the Gila, Salt, and other rivers.
A day at the agency headquarters, among the Pimas, con-
vinced me of the possibility of making thrifty citizens of this
and the Maricopa tribe, both of whom are industrious, men as
5
well as women, and, like the Navajos, wholly self-supporting.
They make the best wheat raised in the Territory; for a long
time they supplied the only flour to be had by settlers; but they
work under great disadvantages, some using wooden plows and
generally wretched utensils. They too need farmers, at the rate
of, say, one to every hundred families, who shall, under the
agent's direction, arrange their lands, water privileges, and help
to introduce good plows and other improved implements, for
which these Indians are anxious and would pay gladly. Such
a force put into Indian life would soon fit them for citizenship.
Many of these tribes could at once be settled on lands of their
own and become citizens, were there any one to attend to the
details of it. Securing proper legislation in the matter, and
actually settling the homestead in the West, may be very far
apart, as it was in the case of the Santee Indians. Much work
has to be done and many practical difficulties overcome. Into
the wide gap between the Indian as he is and as he ought to be
there should be put a tremendous effort that the Government
utterly fails to supply. The present force is wholly inadequate.
What with office routine, dispensing all the law there is in a
region without law, consuming quantities of time in making
official quarterly returns of ponderous size, often needed at dif-
ferent and distant parts of his reservation at the same time,
listening to interminable talks of lazy chiefs, who must be heard,
occupied with numberless details, agents like Dr. Jackson and
Major Riordan lead most wearing and unsatisfactory lives.
While millions are cheerfully voted to feed lazy red men, it is
illegal to expend at any agency over ten thousand dollars a year
for white employees, not, however, including teachers. In the
smaller agencies this is well enough; in the larger ones, the rule
makes thorough work impossible.
I failed to mention that at the Navajo agency there is a large
boarding-school building nearly completed, with capacity for a
hundred children. At the Pima agency there is an excellent
Government school, with a hundred pupils of both sexes. The
boys work a farm of seventy-five acres, fenced in, and irrigated
6
by a ditch four by five feet, nine miles long, from the Gila River,
planned and worked entirely by Indians. The cost of the ditch
and other improvements was met by five thousand dollars' worth
of annuity goods, such as tools, wagons, farm implements, etc.,
which the agent issued only as their equivalent in labor was re-
ceived. There should be exacted of all Indians a return in
labor for benefits received, especially when that labor is to make
improvements or crops of which they themselves have the
benefit. An Indian who will not work even for himself should
be left to starve, in spite of the treaties. Indeed, the treaties
clearly imply aid to Indians only as a means to ultimate self-
support.
A concentration of these small reservations under Dr. Jack-
son is most important; probably half of his people have never
seen him.
All but the Navajo in these Territories are Executive reser-
vations (by order of the President), the Indian title to which has
not been, as it ought to be, confirmed by Congress. He has a
weak tenure of what he supposes is his own home.
The Pimas, occupying a narrow strip on both banks of the
Gila, are beset by whisky sellers. To keep out of this danger
and to enlarge the reservation so as to concentrate more Indians
upon it, the reservation has just been extended beyond the banks
in either direction from the river, more than doubling its present
size.
I heard no complaints whatever of these tribes. They are
peaceful and harmless and may become very useful to the people
around them both as laborers and producers.
For the twelve thousand Indians of these reservations very
little missionary work has been done; they are simply heathen.
THE TWELVE HUNDRED YUMAS, SEVEN HUNDRED MOHAVES,
AND SIX HUNDRED AND TWENTY HUALPAIS.
These are small tribes in Western Arizona, on or near the
Colorado River. The two former are cultivating the bottom
lands on both banks, but are now being driven from the Cali-
7
fornia to the Arizona side, the overflowed lands of which are
insufficient to maintain them. They have already suffered great
hardships, and would have starved had it not been for the mes-
quite bean and other wild food and the aid of the military.
Crowded as they are upon lands too barren to supply food, their
condition is pitiable and deserves the attention of Government
and of the people. It will require twenty thousand dollars to
make a ditch to bring water that will irrigate sufficient land to
feed the Yumas, and two or three times that amount to irrigate
Mohave lands.
The Hualpais have a barren reservation where they cannot
live, and wander about Western Arizona, begging their way, and
doubtless hunger sometimes drives them to depredations. Their
best men have been killed in wars, and they are an almost help-
less group of women, children, and old men thrown upon the
charity of Western settlers and what few friends they find.
These weak tribes are not unworthy of the attention and care of
our mighty nation.
THE FIVE THOUSAND APACHES IN ARIZONA.
This Indian reservation is said to be the sore spot of the In-
dian question. It contains about ten thousand square miles, was
created by an Executive order, and, like most of the reserva-
tions in this region, is not the Indians' own, as are those created
by an act of Congress. It is mostly a desert, arable land being
found only on the irrigable banks of the Salt and Gila Rivers
and their tributaries, which, however, afford abundant farm
land for the entire population of about five thousand thus di-
vided. Fourteen hundred White Mountain Apaches, under the
entire charge of General Crook, live sixty miles to the north,
near Fort Apache, a well-timbered, watered, and good grazing
region, with fine climate, where all the tribes should be con-
centrated; the rest are settled at the somewhat hot and sickly
San Carlos agency.
The one thousand two hundred San Carlos
Apaches cultivate, for fourteen miles up, the fertile banks of the
San Carlos River, which here enters the Gila from the north.
8
The
Four hundred White Mountain Apaches are farming on the
Gila for seven miles east of the agency; and on the same river,
west of it for five miles, six hundred Mohaves and four hundred
Yumas cultivate the south bank, and a thousand Tontos (a
branch of the Apaches) the north bank of the Gila.
agency is near the point where these three lines of river-land
converge. The Apaches par excellence are mountain Indians;
the rest are river dwellers, with the different instincts which
their mode of life develops, the former being independent,
hardy, and aggressive, having never been conquered, while the
latter have been thoroughly punished and are docile. The con-
duct of these tribes depends much on their experience as a
whipped or an unwhipped people. Near the agency is the camp
of the Chiricahuas, who, in 1876, were brought from their home
in Southeastern Arizona, on the Mexican border, and have never
been contented, raiding constantly across the border, killing and
plundering on both sides, and have never yet been defeated in
battle. Their strongholds in the Sierra Madre Mountains are
impregnable.
The Yumas, Mohaves, and Tontos especially, raise vegetables
and are ready to hire out for any labor anywhere, men doing
their full share; but the Apaches will not work for wages ;
some of the men farm, but, as a rule, their women do the work.
They are much the most quick-witted, raising chiefly barley,
which brings a good price. They are superior in many ways to
the domesticated river Indians, plan their enterprises with
more skill, and see better where the main chance lies. The
officer in charge, Lieutenant Davis, U. S. A., considers them
equal to any people he ever met. Agent Wilcox reports that
the wilder the tribe the less moral corruption; the subdued
Indian falls into civilized vices. The Apaches are, however,
polygamists; the rest are not. The Yumas and Mohaves cre-
mate their dead, throwing upon the burning pile the clothing
and utensils of the deceased, with many gifts from friends, rela-
tives even stripping off their own garments. They believe in a
future life and in the return of the spirit in the form of an owl;
الزام
9
faces and bodies are tattooed, so that the dead can enter
Paradise.
Until the authorities interfered, the Apaches used to cut off
the noses of women unfaithful after marriage; but standards
and methods in this matter vary greatly in different tribes.
Contact with whites has introduced fatal diseases unknown
before, and the Indians complain bitterly. Whisky is their
great enemy: it waylays them at every point. The agent who
fights it makes enemies. Gambling is well nigh universal.
An interesting sight was the "hay train," composed of men,
women, and ponies-chiefly women. I have seen dozens of
women carrying on their backs each a hundred pounds of hay
and leading a pony heavily laden. They cut the hay in the
rudest manner, and bring it from miles away. The Quarter-
master at San Carlos has bought for United States troops sta-
tioned there ten thousand dollars' worth of hay this year; and
what with barley, etc., nearly twenty thousand dollars' worth of
Indian produce.
There is not a decent Indian house on the reservation; all
live in "wick-i-ups," made of brush, with more or less mud
covering, usually moving in winter to the uplands. In case of
death in a dwelling, it is at once destroyed, and friends move off.
They live in a filthy way, and raise, on an average, but one-
tenth of their support. Native food, such as the agave plant
and mesquite bean, supply one-tenth more, and Government does
the rest. They are fed under no treaty agreement. Judge
Wilcox, agent in charge, is trying to push them to self-support,
warning them that the Government supply will decrease, and
urging them to raise more, but has not nearly a sufficient force
to push their farming interest. Four assistant farmers would
not be too much; they would save their salaries twice over every
year in the results they would achieve.
All these people can, by good management, be self-supporting
in five years; so many here have said. They have already dug
several irrigating ditches, three and four miles long. Give
them help by way of guidance; a practical farmer to every
10
hundred heads of families, and the Apache question will settle
itself, excepting as to the few hundred indomitable Chiricahua
and Warm Spring tribes. There would be no more trouble
from four thousand out of the five thousand Indians on this
reservation. As to the remainder, it is impossible to predict or
to be very hopeful.
The weakest point at this agency is the lack of a boarding-
school, for which adobe buildings are already provided, now used
as military headquarters. The agent is opposed to opening the
school, but I can see no good reason for his course. The
Indians, though recently disturbed, are quietly cultivating their
lands, raised good crops this year, need education, and are as
capable of it as any Indians. The Apaches are, I believe, the
most quick-witted of their race. Their absolute destitution of
Christian light is to be regretted. It is a pity that they are not
all gathered about Fort Apache, sixty miles to the north-a
well-wooded and watered region with abundant grass, far
healthier and further from the Mexican frontier. General
Crook urges this change.
These five thousand and the thousand Muscalero Apaches
in New Mexico are the only Indians in the ten Territories
fed by the Government. With proper effort and wise expendi-
ture, they all could be in a few years self-supporting. They only
give any trouble to the settlers.
The large and valuable deposits of coal lying in the southern
extremity of the Apache reservation unused, while the citizens
of Arizona are bringing their fuel from a distance, is a great
grievance, an injustice to the whites, which Congress should
promptly remedy by renting these coal lands to the highest bid-
der, the royalty from which would meet the expense of caring
for the Apaches. The Indian Department has strongly recom-
mended this course.
THE PUEBLO INDIANS.
There are nine thousand Pueblo Indians who are scattered
through New Mexico and Arizona in nineteen villages, sup-
11
porting themselves by farming and stock-raising, needing no
outside aid except for education and Christian teaching, which,
being in conflict with their old superstitions, must be maintained
from without. They are remnants of the old Aztecs, who,
after being conquered by the Spanish, were granted a tract of
land three leagues square for every pueblo, or village. Here
they have lived for hundreds of years. Their compact villages
placed upon the crest of hills may be explained by the state of
defense in which they have long lived, subject to attack from
the Navajos and Apathes, who made great havoc with their
stock and crops. Literally, every man's house is his castle. All
these Indians are supposed to be of Asiatic origin, from their
language, which is monosyllabic, from their habits and customs,
their utensils, such as pottery, and their personal appearance.
The Aztecs were the original settlers, followed long after by the
Apaches and others, who came down like Goths and Vandals
upon the former.
The lands of the Pueblos are absolutely their own; they are
divided up, but a title among themselves is only good during
occupancy; tenure is forfeited after three years' non-cultivation.
Only where irrigable will their land produce crops; the rest,
about nine-tenths, is good for grazing. Their stock, steadily
increasing, grazes on Government lands beyond their too limited
reservations. They raise wheat, corn, melons, squash, beans,
etc., selling much produce as well as raising sheep, wool, cattle,
horses, and donkeys. The latter are most useful, one small one
often carrying an entire family; they make the way-trains of
this region. The Indians use the wooden plow of the days of
Abraham, but are inclined to better methods. They thresh with
flocks of sheep, goats, and horses, turned into a circular pen and
driven round. This is the universal method here. Ground
plowed in spring without being settled or packed by irrigation
will, in a few days, be blown away, and become a sand hill in
another State. With water, the finest crops are made. The
entire country seems to have once been an ocean bed ; shells are
found petrified at the highest points.
12
Going through one of their quaint old towns one day, I saw
busy women slicing cantelopes to be dried for the winter, grind-
ing corn-meal between rough stones, making bread and tending
children. The men were absent on their farms. In the winter
the men spin and weave and knit and tend babies; the women
carrying water, grinding meal, cooking, and sewing. Most of
them wear an Indian rig made by both women and men from
purchased material. The women's dresses are made mainly
from domestic wool carded, spun, and woven by the men; the
old distaff is used. Women help in the lighter farm work at
seed-time and harvest, and the men do a full share of house-
work.
Wives are not purchased. The man goes over to the woman's
clan or gens, adopts her name, and is absorbed by her family.
Should he leave or be sent away, he goes with but a single
blanket, his property remaining with the children. Their do-
mestic life is a quiet one; quarrels are rare, though there is
much jealousy and ill-feeling, producing moroseness seldom
developing into open strife. Their rooms are generally neat ;
bedding, which is spread at night on the floor, is folded and
piled on the sides, making a bench or seat. The first story
must be climbed by a ladder and entered by a hole from above,
but many are cutting doors, there being now no enemy for fear
of whom they need draw up their ladders. They have store-
rooms filled with corn and other winter food, choosing the cool-
est and lightest for dwelling. There are spacious chimneys for
cooking and heating purposes, and many niches cut in the walls
for dishes. Quite a number have cooking-stoves and good
furniture. All Pueblos, in any difficulty with outsiders, are
brought before the civil courts; their testimony is taken and
their rights protected. Troubles between themselves are settled
by local officers. There is no reason why they should not pay
taxes and vote. Many have said to me that in respect to prop-
erty, thrift, and general character, they are better material for
citizens than the common Mexicans who vote. The trouble is
want of education.
13
Religiously they are full of positive notions; their life is all
devout; their dances are a sort of devil-worship, or worship of
everything from stars to snakes; their idea of God is twofold-
as male and female. Man, who is good, is in heaven; woman,
who is bad, is in the earth. After death all go to the woman,
who is cruel. When in distress they cry for relief, “O mother!
O mother!" They give food to the dead, and fear darkness
because devils are about. It is difficult to find the inner facts
of their faith. No doubt the ridicule of the Spanish has made
them ashamed or reserved. Then, too, they are mentally slow
and dull. The Navajos and Apaches are brighter.
The Presbyterian Board of Home Missions has stations at the
Zuni, Laguna, and Janez pueblos, and an institution at Albu-
querque, in their immediate neighborhood, where, of the hundred
pupils, sixty are Pueblo boys and girls, getting a good practical
education. Government is about to erect at this town a school-
house and boarding department with capacity for a hundred and
fifty children. Here is the right centre for Indian education in
New Mexico and Arizona. The people of the place are in
sympathy with the work, and have contributed five thousand
dollars for the site of the Government school, a forty-acre lot.
There is plenty of work to be done for these interesting village
dwellers, who have kept unbroken for a thousand years the cus-
toms of their ancestors, but are now scattering somewhat to their
farms, which is the best preparation for citizenship. For all that
has been done, they generally stick to their old religion, which is
a form of devil-worship, though its hold is weakening. There
is some improvement in morals, but little, if any, true Christi-
anity among them.
The agent in charge of the Pueblo Indians, Major Pedro
Sanchez, is a Mexican and a liberal Roman Catholic, who
believes in education and urges it upon those under his care. He
has the confidence of all classes, which he seems to fully deserve.
14
MESCALERO APACHES.
There are sixteen hundred Mescalero and Jicarilla Apaches in
Southern New Mexico, whom I did not visit, under the care of
Major Llewellyn, a most efficient officer, whom I met. They
are among the few Indians in this region fed by Government.
The agent is sanguine that with enough breeding cattle the
entire tribe would in a few years have a sufficient supply of
beef and become self-supporting. With good management there
can be no doubt of the success of this plan, but it would require
an appropriation from Congress, which is hardly to be expected.
Every competent agent in the service whom I have met feels
like a man who is forbidden to do what can and ought to be
done to raise the red man. Back of everything is a public senti-
ment indifferent to the welfare of the Indian.
Of the Indian question in Arizona and New Mexico I would
say generally, that it is far simpler than that in the Northwest.
In the latter about thirty thousand Indians, chiefly Sioux, are,
by treaty, fed, clothed and provided with most of the appliances
of living, to be kept up till they shall be able to support them-
selves. This creates the strongest motive to remain dependent,
is ruinous to manhood, and is without parallel in the treatment
of men, except as prisoners or paupers.
The one thousand Sioux at Devil's Lake, Dakota, who were,
in 1870, for special reasons, supplied only as they should by
labor earn an equivalent (even work done for themselves being
counted) are, to-day, living in good log houses, feeding and
clothing themselves, and in two years more will be wholly in-
dependent. The rest of this great tribe are worse off than ever
from indiscriminate feeding, the lazy and intractable faring as
well as any. Recently, however, an effort has been made to
deprive the unworthy of the luxuries of coffee and sugar, thus
creating some motive to industry. The Sioux, as any people
under like treatment would be, are extremely difficult to manage
from the false, unnatural conditions of their lives. I do not
15
believe that our treaties with them compel us to ruin them.
Reading them has convinced me that ultimate education and
self-support are there clearly implied and ought to be kept in
view in carrying them out.
Of the thirty-five thousand Indians in the Southwest, not in-
cluding those in Indian Territory, but about six thousand are
fed by Government. The rest are taking care of themselves
and need only education and labor schools for the young, practi-
cal farming, and the use of improved tools taught to the grown
people; and, above all, the establishment of law and order.
There is now, on an Indian reservation, no law but the will of
the agent, which is, perhaps, the weakest point of the reserva-
tion system.
Much as there is to be done in the Southwest, there is a
field for hopeful work in the normal condition of most of the
Indians. Even the six thousand Apaches who receive rations
are not fed by treaty stipulation, and with proper aid and
encouragement could, in five years, be thrown upon themselves.
They would not starve if dropped to-day, but are warlike, and
we fear to excite them.
The Indian agents here and in the Indian Territory, as far as
I could judge, are, as a rule, good men, worthy of confidence,
better men than I expected to find. The much talked of steal-
ing and fraud is largely a thing of the past, thanks to the Board
of Indian Commissioners and to the better organization of the
Indian Bureau. Reform began with General Grant's second
administration. "The difference of the Indians at the different
agencies is the difference in the agents," said a careful observer.
Good agents make good Indians, but, as a class, they are miser-
ably paid, overloaded with duties, and often but half understood
because of their distance from Washington. Replace the weak
and unworthy, give good agents fair pay and fair chance, and
the Indian will go ahead in spite of all obstacles. Some of the
best work has been done by those who have had the courage
to depart somewhat from the beaten track of formal instruc-
tions.
16
THE INDIAN TERRITORY.
This is a favored region, about two hundred by two hundred
and fifty miles in extent, the eastern half being well watered and
adapted both to grazing and to agriculture, producing as fine
vegetables, corn, and cotton crops as can be made in the country,
and containing considerable timber, coal, and other natural re-
sources. Lying between Texas, Kansas, and Arkansas, and other
rapidly growing States, it feels their momentum, is already crossed
by two intersecting railroads, and two more may soon be built.
It is occupied by the five "civilized nations," and by many tribes
or remnants of tribes which have been taken from the track of
civilization and placed there. In the centre of the Territory
is a space of not less than three millions of acres called
Oklahama; also there is in the Northwest, the "Cherokee
stripe," twice as large. Both tracts have been purchased by
the Government from the "Nations" and are reserved for the
settlement of other Indians-a sort of Botany Bay for the
red race, where many white people are asking that all the
Indians may be finally placed. It is good grazing land but ma-
larious, and is dreaded by the Sioux and other tribes who have
visited it. The western portion of the Indian Territory is in
the arid region, excellent for stock, but, excepting along the
rivers, unsuitable for farming, and is occupied by wild or
blanket Indians. It gives them special advantages for cattle
raising, for which they are adapted, but scant agricultural lands.
Only as Indians settle on farms will they build good houses and
lead regular lives; cattle raising alone perpetuates their barbaric
life.
The one thousand two hundred Kiowas and one thousand five
hundred Comanches occupy the southern part of this western sec-
tion and the four thousand Cheyennes, and two thousand four hun-
dred Arapahos the northern portion. The five hundred and fifty
Caddos, and two hundred and twenty Wichitas, semi-civilized
tribes, are between them, and remnants of other tribes are gene-
rally mixed in. All receive beef and flour from Government.
17
Traveling by vehicle, away from railroads, over four hundred
miles through this Territory, afforded me opportunities for per-
sonal observation. I was struck with the beauty and resources
of the Indian Territory as well as with the lack of them in the
other Territories which I visited, at least as far as Indians are
concerned.
The Kiowas and Comanches under Major Hunt, Indian agent,
have made, in the last few years, encouraging progress in agri-
culture, having over fifty well-fenced farms on Wichita River.
They own horses and cattle, raise considerable corn, and, judg-
ing from the quantity and quality of the business of the two local
traders, they are not without thrift, for they purchase largely
and intelligently. At all the agencies which I visited, I was
surprised at the variety and usefulness of the articles in demand
by the Indians. They seemed precisely what one would find in
any Western store, and I think the fact significant and encour-
aging. Wherever competition exists between traders, Indians
pay fair prices; a monopoly of the trade is most unjust; Com-
missioner Price encourages such competition.
Not only are these tribes fed by the Goverument, but they will
make trouble if we do not feed them, as last year's attempt to
reduce the beef ration one-third clearly showed. They were
ready to fight, and the authorities yielded. But it is, I believe,
quite possible to bring them all to self-support, thus making a
vast saving to the Government, which is now giving them as a
gratuity about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year,
chiefly in food.
The report of Major P. B. Hunt, Indian agent, published in
the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1882, gives
a detailed, practical plan of creating a great herd of cattle, for
which there is abundant grazing on the three million of acres on
the Kiowa and Comanche reservation, which would, in ten years,
supply all the beef they should need. The Secretary of the
Interior cordially approved this plan and urged it on Congress.
It calls for an immediate advance of the annuities due these
Indians in the next five years, amounting to about two hundred
18
and fifty thousand dollars, to be invested in breeding cattle.
Government would pay nothing but what it has already pledged,
and would save at least five hundred thousand dollars. Probably
nothing will be done about it.
Major John D. Miles, agent of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes,
recently, in their behalf, leased three million acres of their lands,
reserving enough for home use, to a syndicate of cattle men for
the term of ten years, at sixty-two thousand dollars a year, to be
paid half in cattle and half in cash, with the expectation of a
herd large enough in ten years for an ample supply of beef, mak-
ing them independent of Government. These Indians, as well
as those under Major Hunt, have agreed that their annual
clothing allowance, amounting to over thirty thousand dollars,
shall be invested in stock, to increase the herd, which was done
last year. They will get their clothing mainly by their own
efforts. Beef is the one indispensable factor in Indian life.
These wild tribes have for several years hauled their own sup-
plies from Caldwell, Kansas, the nearest railroad station, a
hundred and fifty miles distant, giving complete satisfaction;
they have often suffered from hunger rather than touch the food
committed to their care. The Sioux have shown the same scru-
pulous honesty and efficiency in transporting their rations. This
plan was, I believe, established by Mr. Carl Schurz when Secre-
tary of the Interior.
Education is represented by good Government boarding-schools
at both agencies, conducted on a manual labor basis, but confined
to farming and household industries. Among all the schools for
Indians which I visited or heard of in the West, no trades are
taught, there being no adequate provision for it. The additional
expense for thorough mechanical training would be considerable,
and is not likely to be allowed by the Government.
The Friends of Philadelphia have in past years done much
for the tribes in Western Indian Territory. The Mennonites
of Russia have two boarding-schools for the Cheyennes and
Arapahoes, are most sensible and efficient workers, and should
be encouraged.
19
A number of these wild Indian boys spent last summer among
farmers of Kansas with excellent results. No institution could
do more good work than an agency for distributing them by
hundreds every year in this way. Many would be willing to re-
main away for a year or two, thus getting the best possible train-
ing. Farmers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are doing the
Indian cause good service and themselves no injustice by taking
Indian children from Carlisle and Hampton into their families,
some for the summer and some for the entire
year.
Civilized Indians from the "Nations" go to only high-grade
schools in the East, and fail to get what they most need, and,
though successful in scholarship, they have gained little practical
power. I found that the governing and executive power of the
nation is almost entirely in the hands of graduates of the old
mission schools. It is unfortunate that with all the effort for
the red race mechanical skill has been most scantily taught them.
Only at Hampton and Carlisle is it done on a liberal scale.
These wild tribes, like the majority of their race, are about
holding their own in numbers. When the conditions are favor-
able, they at least do that everywhere. White men's diseases
and bad whisky are, however, making sad havoc, and are
threatening their very existence. In spite of the strict prohibi-
tion policy throughout the Indian Territory, considerable liquor
is smuggled in, and many alcoholic drugs, like cologne, pain-
killer, essence of lemon, etc., are drunk for their intoxicating
effect with disastrous results.
The cattle question in this Territory has been much agitated.
The Secretary of your Committee requested me to inquire as
to the following points :
1st. "The effects, prejudicial or otherwise, of the herding of
cattle on the reservations.
2d. "The propriety of leasing Indian lands to companies of
white men, often strong in political influence, whose hold on the
land may never be broken.”
Shall the Indians rent to whites for grazing purposes lands
which they do not and are not likely to use?
20
There is an increasing demand for grass. The Indian Territory
is a splendid pasture ground in relief against the nearly exhausted
pastures of Texas. Experience shows that outside herders will
drive their cattle upon unused pastures. Indian policemen and
United States soldiers have failed to keep away Texas cowboys
with their flocks; if driven back, they at once return. It is
best, on the whole, I believe, to rent to the highest bidder the
privilege of grazing cattle on Indian lands, for it hardly increases
the consumption of grass and it creates a revenue.
Indian Agent Miles, who leased the Cheyenne lands, stated to
me that, in his opinion, the best thing was to supply the Indians
with cattle, to be under the agent's management, and cared for
by Indian herders; he had himself, in former years, established
a large herd that was suddenly killed off by a most unfortunate
order from Washington; the plan had been tried and had suc-
ceeded. But if Congress would not grant the money (which
would, in time, put an end to annual' appropriations of some
$300,000 for beef) to invest in stock, it was better, rather than to
let lauds be covered with white men's stock, to lease it to them
and thus create a fund to buy a herd.
White men do not, as a rule, employ Indian herders; even
the Indian cattle owners of the Territory, so far as I observed,
hire white men as herders. Indian employees are fickle, uncer-
tain, and, while highly adapted to herding cattle, need looking
after.
There appears to be a great demand for grazing lands, for
which good prices are offered. There has been complaint that
the lease of the Cheyenne and Arrapahoe lands was not made in
open market. The point seems well taken. The records in the
Indian Commissioner's Office show, I am told, that Western
capital is eager for this sort of investment, and wishes a fair
chance.
Men "strong in political influence" who go into business
operations involving the interests of Indians make, I think, a
mistake; they cannot avoid a suspicion that does not attach itself
to other kinds of investment. Any one hearing of a politician
21
investing in these land leases, and unless knowing his integrity,
inclines to distrust the act. Western papers have strongly de-
nounced those who take part in the lease of the pasture lands of
the Cheyennes and Arrapahoes.
These showed a most careful protection of the Indian in these
matters, who so often has had the worst of what apparently and
were meant to be fair bargains.
THE MODOCS.
Among the many fragments of tribes in the northwestern
corner of the Territory, under the charge of Major J. B. Dyer,
all of whom are industrious and prosperous, are about one hun-
dred Modocs, nine years ago wild and warlike Indians. They
are now the most progressive of them all, although the rest were
transplanted from Ohio, Kansas, and other States. This remark-
able change is due to good management and surrounding influ-
ences. Living upon the Missouri border and near quiet Indians,
with good schools, they have abandoned their old life, and will
soon be self-supporting. Had the hostile Apaches been placed
here or in like conditions, there would be, in a few years, a like
result. Even where they are, an adequate force of teachers and
farmers would soon change them; but with no school and one
farmer for four thousand little is to be expected.
When, instead of two and a half million dollars yearly for
food and six hundred and seventy-five thousand is appropriated
the current fiscal year for education, there shall be millions for
practical education and less for food, we will have plenty of
good Indians.
THE FIVE NATIONS.
These include the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws,
and Seminoles-about sixty-five thousand in number. Less
than half are pure-blood Indians, who are gradually decreasing,
as, I think, they are in all cases when living in contact with
whites. The mixed bloods are increasing and control; not that
་
22
they have more vitality, but that they have better ideas, more
means for caring for themselves and their young. Besides some
thousands of white men adopted as citizens by marriage, it is
estimated that there are twelve thousand residing there under
"permits" (issued annually at five dollars a year) mostly in the
employ of Indians, and about ten thousand white "intruders "
who have no right whatever to be there; making, with railroad
and Government employees, not far from ninety thousand souls
in the Nations, twenty-five thousand of them whites. There
are nearly twenty thousand negroes-ex-slaves and their
descendants. They have been adopted as citizens by the Cher-
okees and Creeks, their stronghold being among the latter, where
there is considerable intermarriage. Those in the Choctaw and
Chickasaw Nations, about half, are still aliens and make a
troublesome question, the Government at Washington urging
their adoption against a strong local opposition. It will not re-
move them bodily, as it has been asked to do; a portion may
voluntarily remove to Oklahama if permitted; probably they
will ultimately become citizens. They are, as a class, more thrifty
than the Indians, their increase is extraordinary, and in two gen-
erations they will probably be the largest single element in the
population, and create serious questions.
No people have a finer heritage than the inhabitants of
Indian Territory; each one has a right, so long as he chooses,
to as much farm land as he can fence or have fenced by a white
tenant, whose rental of one-third or one-fourth of the crops gives
the Indian a support with little labor on his part, each family,
as a rule, having a garden patch of its own. The great crops of
this Territory are the work of white men.
all the cattle he owns, but nobody else's.
illegal grazing of other people's
helps to make Indian life easy.
entire life upon American soil.
all; much of it is not used, which
in the States across the border.
privileges between them and their red-skinned neighbors, and
cattle, on
Theirs is
A citizen can graze`
This leads to much
false transfers, and
an exception to the
There is plenty of land for
tempts the enterprising whites
They resent the disparity of
23
insist that this fertile country should be open to all for settle-
ment. The pressure may yet be so strong that the story of the
Black Hills will be repeated. Four-fifths of the mechanics of
the Nations are white men.
The revenues of these nations are interest on funds from land
sales held by the United States Government, at five per cent.
interest, which suffice for all administrative, legislative, judicial,
and educational purposes, each Nation, however, receiving ten
thousand dollars a year or more from permits and licenses, and
the Choctaws and Chickasaws considerable from royalty on
coal and timber. No taxes are levied. They have excellent
codes of laws, but little executive force; party or clan feeling is
strong; justice is not always sure. Their weak point is the
lack of that public sentiment that comes from citizens bearing
the burden of their government;-what costs nothing counts
for little. Their civilization is from the outside-borrowed, not
developed; in no sense a growth, and correspondently weak ;
yet they have recovered remarkably from the results of the civil
war in which they were divided and their country was laid waste
and generally demoralized. They are gradually improving but
not to compare with the States around them; hence their
danger.
Until recently a great grievance has been the necessity of go-
ing to Fort Smith, Arkansas, from eighty to a hundred and
fifty miles distant, to attend United States courts, where all cases
between citizens and non-citizens must be tried. It has ruined
many farmers, through whose long absences crops have spoiled.
Farmers and business men cannot afford to be witnesses for the
time and money it costs; much petty crime goes unpunished;
vagabonds find it profitable to go at Government expense either
as witnesses or criminals. Demoralization from Arkansas rum has
been as bad for the Indian as it was profitable for Arkansas trad-
ers, whose interest was the real difficulty. The State delegations
are against establishing a court in the Indian Territory, where
its influence, both immediate and remote, would be most whole-
some. Well-informed men spoke of the arrangement as an
24
#
(6
outrage." A year ago the United States Courts at Wichita
and at Fort Scott, Kansas, and at Graham, Texas, were given
jurisdiction over the Indian Territory, which relieves the case
somewhat, but the need of a court in the Territory still con-
tinues, and it is provided for by treaty, but Congress is inactive.
Probably no people in the world vote as large a proportion of
their national revenue for education as do these Five Nations,
but the result is far from satisfactory. There are many free
day-schools, and in each Nation boarding-schools that provide
tuition and board free of charge.
The Choctaws and Creeks give the control of their boarding-
schools to Christian denominations, who supply the teachers, thus
insuring good work. The Cherokees and Chickasaws keep
them under public control with indifferent results. The free
system is unsatisfactory because it is free; there is a lack of earn-
estness and appreciation among the pupils, and favoritism is
charged because of the influence of officials.
The Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists share in the edu-
cational and religious work of the Territory, each denomination
having many churches, and the two latter about seven thousand
members apiece. Each is building at Muscogee, with private
funds, an excellent boarding-school for the education of both sexes
at reasonable charges, and expect an abundant patronage from
those who would prefer to pay for the superior tone and results of
such institutions. An excellent one has been established by the
Congregationlists at Vinita, on a pay basis.
The Five Nations, as a whole, are an illustration of missionary
work, which, commencing seventy years ago with savages, has in
two generations produced as high a stage of Christian civilization
as could be expected; it is far weaker than that of the Anglo-
Saxon, which has had a growth of a thousand years. There is
not a blanket or a wild Indian among them; they have been
humanized; they are clothed, right minded, intelligent, live in
good, decently furnished houses, and are self-supporting; a large
class are moderate property holders. Absorbed into our national
system, they would be carried along much more rapidly than is
25
now possible, yet throwing their country open would create a
struggle in which the weak (a majority) would suffer and the
strong minority develop. This, however, must finally be done.
Steadily improving, learning from the whites in their midst,
becoming more and more Anglo-Saxon than Indian by admixture
of blood, we shall ultimately have in this Territory an Indian
problem without Indians; Indian blood may be practically ex-
tinct, while Indian rights may exist in full force. Where there
is but one-sixteenth, or even one-thirty-second, part Indian
blood, the claim for rights is as strongly asserted as by those of
pure blood. The advantage it gives over ordinary citizenship is
tremendous, and is, I think, too great to last very long in a
country like this, where the tendency is to an equilibrium of
rights.
Dividing the lands of these and other Indians in severalty,
however much to be desired, meets in all grazing regions a ser-
ious difficulty in the necessity of keeping both pastures and
springs and water courses open to all. An allotment that would
give the control of the water to one man might make the land of
ten other men worthless to them for the want of legal access to
water. An agricultural region can be subdivided as it comes,
but grazing lands have value only as they are related to the
water. How best to divide them up is not clear. Only capital-
ists are able to fence in pastures, and then it pays only on a large
scale.
The Indian question in the whole Southwest is, I think, a far
from hopeless one. Well-paid agents, supported by a sufficient
staff of assistants to train the present generation in better farm-
ing, with improved tools, supplied with ample breeding cattle to
create in time a sufficient beef supply for all the Indians, allowed
a competent corps of teachers and all the appliances for manual
labor education, would add considerably to the present expense of
the Indian service, but ultimately reduce it greatly, and destroy
the conditions of permanent pauperism and of trouble from ad-
vancing civilization which the present imperfect system tends to
create.
26
Whatever is essential to the manhood and civilization of
the Indian is supplied by Congress with parsimony unac-
countable except from ignorance or indifference. Unless the
people take up the Indian question, which has become the
Indian crisis, the red race will be an increasing vexation and
expense, and a national disgrace. Only a widespread knowl-
edge of the facts can create a public sentiment that will bring
about better measures. I would urge more general reading of
the official reports. Those of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
and of the Secretary of the Interior just out, are full of infor-
mation. Those of the Indian agents deserve more attention than
they receive.
The people generally are very ignorant in this matter, the
popular feeling being phrased in the expression, “There is no
good Indian but a dead one." Our legislation is a direct result
of this indifference. Nothing is wiser than to press personally
upon our public men the important points of a better Indian
policy supported by evidence. They are cordial to those who
know whereof they speak, and welcome reliable information on
this question.
A few who shall devote themselves to thorough examination
of the facts of the red race, and present them in good shape, will
have the support of the best newspapers, and, as representatives
of popular sentiment, their work will perhaps have even more
effect upon legislation than the routine reports of officials. Such
effort is especially opportune now, because the views of the Indian
Department are substantially in harmony with those of citizens
who have given most time and attention to the Indian question.
The executive branch of the Government is far in advance of
the legislative in respect to ideas upon the Indian question.
I close with a statement, which I hope will not be considered
out of place, of the important points of the Indian question as it
is before us.
1. Manual labor training for the rising generation of Indians
of school age, numbering about forty-five thousand, of whom an
average of six thousand five hundred attended school last year,
27
half of them going to day and the other half to boarding-schools.
-say three thousand two hundred and fifty (boarders only) at
all adequately taught.
To educate half of the Indian children on reserva-
tions, one-fourth in boarding and one-fourth in
day-schools, at the rate of $125 per year, in
the former will cost......
At the rate of $30 a year in the latter........
Additional cost (sixty per cent.) of educating say
twelve hundred more, in distant schools, as at
Hampton, Carlisle, and at others just opening
in Kansas and Nebraska.......
Additional buildings required for five thousand more
children in day schools (aside from present
provisions for six thousand) at the rate of $25
for each day pupil………….
Additional buildings for five thousand more board-
ing pupils (six thousand now being provided
for, after a fashion), at the rate of $100
apiece.
$1,406,250
337,500
90,000
125,000
600,000
$2,558,750
2. Instruction in practical farming for the present generation
of Indians, who are apt and willing to learn, many of them
ready to buy better utensils, seeds, etc., but almost wholly with.
out guidance.
Say one hundred and fifty assistant farmers at salaries of
eight hundred dollars apiece, amounting to one million two
hundred thousand dollars.
In all for Indian education the sum of three million seven
hundred and fifty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars
($3,758,750) for the fiscal year ending July, 1885.
It would be far better, as Secretary Teller advises, to educate
28
all Indians in manual labor schools. Well-taught day schools
have, however, some value. The Indian is the ward of the
Government, which is bound, and is well able, to care for the
whole race.
I have suggested educating one-half solely because public sen-
timent is such that the sum required, about six millions of dollars
per year, to educate all of them might seem preposterous and
almost paralyze efforts for the race. But this country has got
the money and can do it all if it chooses.
3. Bringing Indians under the restraints and protection of the
United States and State laws, and to citizenship as rapidly as
possible by giving them land in severalty.
4. Providing adequate salaries for Indian agents; of the
sixty in the service, but three receive two thousand two hun-
dred and fifty dollars a year; twenty receive sixteen hundred
dollars and less; twenty, twelve hundred dollars and less; the
rest from sixteen hundred to two thousand dollars.
This is not the market value of first-rate services in a difficult,
complicated, most responsible and isolated field of effort. In-
dians are on reservations; one can't help it; only first-rate men
can improve them. Good agents should receive from two thou-
sand five hundred dollars to three thousand dollars per annum.
5. Appropriations to cover expenses of detecting and of secur-
ing punishment of those who sell liquor to Indians. Rum is
the red man's greatest danger.
Respectfully submitted,
HAMPTON, VA., January 2d, 1884.
S. C. ARMSTRONG.
342 JUN4
THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION.
OFFICERS FOR 1884.
President:
HON. WAYNE MACVEAGH.
Vice-President:
HON. GEORGE M. DALLAS.
Corresponding Secretary:
HERBERT WELSH.
Recording Secretary:
CHARLES EDWARD PANCOAST.
Treasurer:
C. STUART PATTERSON.
Executive Committee:
CLEMENT M. BIDDLE,
RICHARD C. DALE,
GEORGE. M. DALLAS,
WILLIAM DRAYTON,
W. W. FRAZIER, Jr.,
PHILIP C. GARRETT,
CHARLES M. Horen,
J. TOPLIFF JOHNSON,
WISTAR MORRIS,
EFFINGHAM B. MORRIS,
J. RODMAN PAUL,
CHARLES E. PANCOAST,
C. STUART PATTERSON,
HENRY S. PANCOAST,
JAMES E. RHOADS, M. D.,
THOMAS STEWARDSON,
JOSEPH B. TOWNSEND,
WAYNE MACVEAGH,
HERBERT WELSH,
REY. H. L. WAYLAND.

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