The Indian To-day
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These farmers number about 250 and are employees of the Indian service. They are supposed to instruct and assist the Indians of their respective districts in modern methods of agriculture; but there has been a time, probably not altogether past, when they were occupied chiefly in drawing water, filling ice-houses, and a variety of similar "chores" for the agent and his subordinates. In many cases they themselves knew little of practical farming, or their experience lay in a soil and climate utterly unlike that of the Indian country to which they came.
Hon. Cato Sells, the present Commissioner of Indian Affairs, states in his first annual report that he is placing more emphasis upon agriculture than upon any other activity of the Indian Bureau. He requires the farmers to make their homes in the districts to which they are assigned, and to keep in close touch with the people. They are furnished with modern agricultural text-books, and demonstration farms or experiment stations are maintained at convenient points. Thirty-seven practical stockmen have also been employed to give special attention to this part of the work, and the Indians are said to be coöperating intelligently in the effort to improve their breeding stock.
At certain agencies farming implements and seed are loaned to Indians who have no other means of securing them, and hundreds who have been so helped are meeting their payments when due with commendable promptness. Agricultural fairs have been held in recent years at twenty or more Indian agencies, arousing much local interest, and an increasing number of Indian farmers are taking part in county and state fairs.
In several of the Northwestern States the value of the timber on Indian lands is enormous; the latest official estimate is eighty-four million dollars. If the Indian had been allowed to cut his own pine and run his own sawmills, we should now have native lumber kings as well as white. This is not permitted, however; and a paternal Government sells the stumpage for the benefit of its wards, who are fortunate if the money received for it has not seeped out of the official envelope or withered away of the prevailing disease called "political consumption."
The irrigation force of the Bureau consists of an inspector and seven subordinates, who supervise irrigation projects on the various reservations, upon which more than half a million dollars was expended during the last fiscal year. The protection of water rights, notably those of the Pimas in Arizona, a peaceful and industrious tribe who have suffered severely from the loss of their water at the hands of unprincipled white men, is of primary importance.
Oil and gas, especially in Oklahoma, are proving enormously valuable, and are being mined under leases executed by the Bureau. Many Indians are becoming well-to-do from the payment of royalties, but it cannot be doubted that the biggest prizes go, as usual, to our white brothers.
The Indian office maintains an employment bureau to assist in finding profitable work for Indians, particularly returned students, and I am informed from trustworthy sources that it has met with fair success. It is headed by a Carlisle graduate, Charles E. Dagenett, who was trained for a business career. Considerable numbers of Indians, particularly in the Southwest, are provided with employment in the sugar-beet fields, in harvesting canteloupes and other fruits, in railroad construction, irrigation projects, and other fields of activity, and it appears that their work gives general satisfaction.
INDIAN WOMEN AS HOME-MAKERSProbably the average white man still believes that the Indian woman of the old days was little more than a beast of burden to her husband. But the missionary who has lived among his people, the sympathetic observer of their every-day life, holds a very different opinion. You may generally see the mother and her babe folded close in one shawl, indicating the real and most important business of her existence. Without the child, life is but a hollow play, and all Indians pity the couple who are unable to obey the primary command, the first law of real happiness.
She has always been the silent but telling power behind life's activities, and at the same time shared equally with her mate the arduous duties of primitive society. Possessed of true feminine dignity and modesty, she was expected to be his equal in physical endurance and skill, but his superior in spiritual insight. She was looked to for the endowment of her child with nature's gifts and powers, and no woman of any race has ever come closer to universal mother-hood.
She was the spiritual teacher of the child, as well as its tender nurse, and she brought its developing soul before the "Great Mystery" as soon as she was aware of its coming. When she had finished her work, at the age of five to eight years, she turned her boy over to his father for manly training, and to the grandparents for traditional instruction, but the girl child remained under her close and thoughtful supervision. She preserved man from soul-killing materialism by herself owning what few possessions they had, and thus branding possession as feminine. The movable home was hers, with all its belongings, and she ruled there unquestioned. She was, in fact, the moral salvation of the race; all virtue was entrusted to her, and her position was recognized by all. It was held in all gentleness and discretion, under the rule that no woman could talk much or loudly until she became a grandmother.
The Indian woman suffered greatly during the transition period of civilization, when men were demoralized by whiskey, and possession became masculine. The division of labor did not readily adjust itself to the change, so that her burdens were multiplied while her influence decreased. Tribe after tribe underwent the catastrophe of a disorganized and disunited family life.
To-day, I am glad to say, we have still reason to thank our Indian mothers for the best part of our manhood. A great many of them are earnest Christian women, who have carried their native uprightness and devoted industry over into the new life. The annual reports of the missionaries show large sums, running into the thousands of dollars, raised by the self-denying labor of the native women for the support of their churches and other Christian work.
As the men have gradually assumed the responsibility of the outdoor toil, cultivating the fields and building the houses, the women have undertaken the complicated housekeeping tasks of their white sisters. It is true that until they understood the civilized way of cooking and the sanitation of stationary homes, the race declined in health and vigor. For the great improvement noticeable in these directions, much credit is due to the field matrons of the Indian Service.
The field matron is sometimes called the "Going-around woman," or the "Clean-up woman," and her house-to-house teaching and inspection is undoubtedly of much practical value. She is often the physician's right hand in follow-up work among his patients, especially the women and children. Some of the most efficient women in the service are themselves of Indian blood, such as Mrs. Annie Dawson Wilde of Fort Berthold, a graduate of Hampton and of a state normal school, who has given many years to this work. Similar instruction is sometimes given by day-school teachers and woman missionaries.
MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILYThe social morality of the various tribes differs very much at the present time. Under our original customs, the purity of woman and the home was safeguarded by strict rules, with severe penalties for their transgression. When, however, native customs were broken down without the efficient substitution of civilized laws, there was much social irregularity.
Plural marriages were permissible under our system, but were not very general, and plural wives were usually sisters. The missionaries, and in some instances the Federal authorities, have required elderly men to abandon all but one wife, leading to difficult problems. Many of the younger generation are now legally married, and an effort is made to oblige them to secure legal divorces when a separation is sought, but as some state courts hold that they have no jurisdiction to hear applications of non-citizen Indians living on reservations, this is often impracticable, and naturally the dissatisfied simply abandon wife or husband, and perhaps take another by Indian custom only. It is advisable that family records be more strictly kept than is now the case.
UNEDUCATED LEADERS AMONG INDIANSI wish to refute the common misconception that it is only the educated and Christian Indian who has contributed to the progress of his people and to the common good of both races. There are many men wholly unlettered, and some of whom have not proclaimed themselves followers of Christ, who have yet exerted great influence on the side of civilization. Almost every tribe has a hero of this type who arose at a critical juncture to lead his fellows.
In the early part of the nineteenth century there was Little Turtle, a celebrated Miami chief, who, to be sure, defended his country bravely, but when he made a treaty he stood by it faithfully, and advocated peace and civilization for his people. The Pottawatomie chief Pokagon was another, whose son Simon Pokagon was prominent at the World's Fair in Chicago. A leading contemporary of these men was Keokuk of the Sacs and Foxes. Wabashaw the third, of the Mississippi Sioux, was known as a strong friend to civilization; and so was my own great-grandfather, Chief Cloud Man, whose village occupied the present site of the city of Minneapolis. His son, Appearing Sacred Stone, whose English name was David Weston, was a fine character – a hereditary chief who took a homestead at Flandreau and became a native preacher under Bishop Hare.
Chief Strike-the-Ree, by whose influence and diplomacy the Yankton Sioux were kept neutral throughout the Sioux wars; Lone Wolf of the Kiowas, Quanah Parker of the Comanches, whose mother was a white captive, and Governor James Big Heart of the Osages were all men of this type, natural leaders and statesmen. Iron Eyes, or Joseph La Flesche, a head chief of the Omahas, was a notable leader in progressive ways; and so is John Grass of the Blackfoot Sioux, also a distinguished orator.
Men like this, of native force and fire, but without advantages other than those shared by the mass of their people, are possibly more deserving of honor than are the few who have made the most of exceptional opportunities. If anything, they illustrate more clearly the innate capacity and moral strength of the race.
When it is considered that of the three hundred and odd thousand Indians in the United States, only about two thirds are still living on reservations under the control of the Indian Bureau, the official figures concerning that two thirds are surprising to most of us. We are told that 50,000 able-bodied adults are entirely self-supporting, and that only 17,000 Indians of all classes are receiving rations. Twenty-two thousand are employed on wages and salaries, earning more than two million dollars yearly. Three fourths of the families live in permanent houses; 100,000 persons speak English, and 161,000 wear citizen's clothing. Such is the average present-day Indian at home – a man who earns his own living, speaks the language of the country, wears its dress, and obeys its laws. Surely it is but one step further to American citizenship!
CHAPTER VII
THE INDIAN AS A CITIZEN
We have taken note of the reluctance of the American Indian to develop an organized community life, though few appreciate his reasons for preferring a simpler social ideal. As a matter of fact as well as sentiment, he was well content with his own customs and philosophy. Nevertheless, after due protest and resistance, he has accepted the situation; and, having accepted it, he is found to be easily governed by civilized law and usages. It has been demonstrated more than once that he is capable of sustaining a high moral and social standard when placed under wise guidance and at the same time protected from the barbarians of civilization.
MODEL INDIAN COMMUNITIESWilliam Duncan, an Englishman, came among a band of Alaskan natives about the middle of the last century, and they formed a strong mutual attachment. The friendship of these simple people was not misplaced, and Mr. Duncan did not misuse it for his own advantage, as is too apt to be the case with a white man. He adapted himself to their temperament and sense of natural justice, but gradually led them to prefer civilized habits and industries, and finally to accept the character of Christ as their standard. He used the forms of the Church of England, but modified them as good sense dictated.
They worked together in good faith for a generation; and as a result there was founded the Christian community of Metlakatla, Alaska, almost an ideal little republic, so long as no self-seeking Anglo-Saxon interfered with its workings. The Indians became carpenters, blacksmiths, farmers, gardeners, as well as better fishermen. They established a sawmill and a salmon cannery. They built houses and boats, and finally a steamboat, which was run by one of their number. Mr. Duncan never allowed strong drink to enter the colony; he was the only white man among a thousand Indians, and so strong was their faith in him that he was accepted as their leader both practically and spiritually. He devoted his whole life to them, and never married. Some of the young people he sent away to the States to school: among them Edward Marsden, a many-sided man, who is not only a graduate of a small college in Ohio and of a theological seminary, but has some knowledge of law and medicine, is an able seaman, and an efficient machinist.
The Metlakatlans are not technically citizens, though discharging many civic duties. In 1887 they were compelled to leave their island on account of difficulties with the local church authorities, who were not broad enough to admit the simple sufficiency of Mr. Duncan's lay ministrations. He removed with his people to another island, where they are now living under the protection of the United States flag. In view of the lessons of history, they are likely to undergo a severe trial and considerable demoralization as soon as they mingle freely with the surrounding whites. They have so far developed and enjoyed much of what is best in civilization without its evils and temptations; and whenever one of them does infringe upon their simple but exacting code he is summarily dealt with.
Here is another illustration: In 1869 those Sioux who had been for three years confined in a military prison, on account of the outbreak of 1862, were placed upon a small reservation at Santee, Nebraska. My father was among them. He had thought much, and concluded that reservation life meant practically life imprisonment and death to manhood. He also saw that our wild life was almost at an end; therefore he resolved to grasp the only chance remaining to the red man – namely, to plunge boldly into the white man's life, and swim or die.
With twenty-five or thirty fellow-tribesmen who were of like mind with himself, he set out for the Big Sioux River to take up a homestead like a white man. Far from urging it, Government officials disapproved and discouraged this brave undertaking. The Indians selected a choice location, forty miles above what is now the beautiful little city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and here they established the first Sioux citizen community. The post-office was named Flandreau, and formed the nucleus of a large and flourishing town. Remember, this was six years before Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse made their last stand on the Little Big Horn, where they wiped out General Custer's command, the Seventh Cavalry.
This remarkable Indian colony became known far and wide. The Sioux were bona fide homesteaders and met all the requirements of the law. They occupied thirty miles of the finest bottom lands with their timber; except for these wooded river bottoms, the country is all treeless prairie. They were all Presbyterians and devout church-goers. Rev. John P. Williamson was their much-loved missionary; and their church was served for many years by a native pastor – my brother, Rev. John Eastman. Nearly all built good homes. Mr. Williamson says, and Moody County records corroborate the statement, that for twenty years there was not a single crime or misdemeanor recorded against one of these Indians.
As the Big Sioux valley is noted for its fertility, it was not long before the rest of the land was taken up by white farmers. These Indians proved good neighbors. It is told of them that, during the hard years 1873 to 1875, when drought and grasshoppers afflicted the land, they organized a relief society for the benefit of their poorer white neighbors, and in many instances furnished them with cordwood as well as seed-corn and potatoes.
For years the Flandreau Sioux controlled the politics of Moody County, and although after the district had become more thickly settled they lost their numerical preponderance, they still wielded much influence in years when the parties were pretty equally divided. As late as 1898 they held the balance of power, and were accordingly treated with respectful consideration.
From this little Indian community more than one earnest youth has gone forth to work for race and country in a wider field. My father brought me there from wild life in Canada in 1872, and after two years in the little day school he sent me away to master the secret of the white man's power. Only a few years earlier he himself was a wild Sioux warrior, whose ambitions ran wholly along the traditional lines of his people. Who can say that civilization is beyond the reach of the untutored primitive man in a single generation? It did not take my father two thousand years, or ten years, to grasp its essential features; and although he never went to school a day in his life, he lived a broad-minded and self-respecting citizen. It took me about fifteen years to prepare to enter it on the plane of a professional man, and I have stayed with it ever since.
It is noticeable that when the Flandreaus consented to reënter their names on the tribal rolls in order to regain their inheritance, they fell into the claws of the professional politicians, and a degree of demoralization set in. Yet during the early period of free initiative and self-development, some of their best youth had gone out and are now lost in the world at large, in the sense that they are wholly separated from their former life, and are contributing their mite to the common good. Those who remain, as well as other bands of citizen Sioux with whom I am acquainted, are becoming more and more completely identified with the general farming population of Nebraska and the Dakotas.
LEGAL STATUS OF INDIANSThe door to American citizenship has been open to the Indian in general only since the passage of the Dawes severalty act, in 1887. Before that date his status was variously defined as that of a member of an independent foreign nation, of a "domestic dependent nation," as a ward of the Government, or, as some one has wittily said, a "perpetual inhabitant with diminutive rights." The Dawes act conferred upon those who accepted allotments of land in severalty the protection of the courts and all the rights of citizenship, including the suffrage. It also provided that the land thus patented to the individual Indian could not be alienated nor was it taxable for a period of twenty-five years from the date of allotment.
Of the 330,000 Indians in the United States, considerably more than half are now allotted, and 70,000 hold patents in fee. The latest report of the Indian Bureau gives the total number of Indian citizens at about 75,000. Those still living on communal land are being allotted at the rate of about 5,000 a year. The question of taxation of allotments has been a vexed one. Some Indians have hesitated to accept full citizenship because of fear of taxation; while white men living in the vicinity of large Indian holdings have naturally objected to shouldering the entire burden. Yet as the last census shows 73 per cent. of all Indians as taxed and counted toward the population of their Congressional districts, it appears that taxed or taxable Indians are not necessarily citizens; though they must be considered, in the words of Prof. F. A. McKenzie, who compiled the Indian census, as at least "potential citizens."
The so-called "Burke bill" (1906) provides that Indians allotted after that date shall not be declared citizens until after the expiration of the twenty-five-year trust period. This act has served no particular purpose except to further confuse the status of the Indian. The "Carter code bill," now pending in Congress, provides for a commission of experts to codify existing statutes and define this status clearly, and has been strongly endorsed by the Society of American Indians and the Indian Rights Association. It ought to be made law.
There is a special law under which an Indian may apply to be freed from guardianship by proving his ability to manage his own affairs. If his application is approved by the Interior Department, he may then rent or sell his property at will. About five hundred such applications were approved during the fiscal year 1912-13.
The Pueblos and a few other Indians are or may become citizens under special treaty stipulations. The 5,000 New York Indians, although among those longest in contact with civilization, yet because of state treaties and the claims of the Ogden Land Company, still hold their lands in common, and are backward morally and socially. It is likely that the United States will eventually pay the company's claim of $200,000 to free these people. A few of them are well educated and have attained citizenship as individuals by separating themselves from their tribe. Professor McKenzie, who has deeply studied the situation for years, proposes a scheme of progressive advance toward full citizenship, each step to be accompanied by decreasing paternal control: as, for instance: (1) Tribal ward; (2) Allotted ward; (3) Citizen ward; (4) Full citizen.
INDIANS AS POLITICIANSIn almost every state there are some Indian voters, and in South Dakota and Oklahoma there are counties officered and controlled by Indian citizens. It is interesting to note that the citizen Indian is no ignorant or indifferent voter. If he learns and masters anything at all, it is the politics of his county and state. It is a matter of long experience with him, as he has been handled by politicians ever since he entered the reservation, and there is not a political trick that he cannot understand. He is a ready student of human nature, and usually a correct observer. I am sorry to say that the tendency of the new generation is to be diplomats of a lower type, quick and smart, but not always sound. At present, like any crude or partially developed people, politics is their hobby.
Yet there remains a sprinkling of the old Indian type, which is strongly averse to all unfair or underhanded methods; and there are a few of the younger men who combine the best in both standards, and refuse to look upon the new civilization as a great, big grab-bag. It is not strange that a majority are influenced by the prevailing currents of American life. Before they understood the deeper underlying principles of organized society, they had seen what they naturally held to be high official duties and responsibilities ruthlessly bartered and trafficked with before their eyes. They did not realize that this was a period of individual graft and misuse of office for which true civilization was not responsible.
Among the thinking and advanced class of Indians there is, after all, no real bitterness or pessimistic feeling. It has long been apparent to us that absolute distinctions cannot be maintained under the American flag. Yet we think each race should be allowed to retain its own religion and racial codes as far as is compatible with the public good, and should enter the body politic of its own free will, and not under compulsion. This has not been the case with the native American. Everything he stood for was labelled "heathen," "savage," and the devil's own; and he was forced to accept modern civilization in toto against his original views and wishes. The material in him and the method of his reconstruction have made him what he is. He has defied all the theories of the ethnologists. If any one can show me a fair percentage of useful men and women coming out of the jail or poor-house, I will undertake to show him a larger percentage of useful citizens graduating from the pauperizing and demoralizing agency system.