The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1877-10-06
THE PUEBLO INDIA Ms.

The Supreme Court has decided that
the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are
not tribe, within the meaning of the
act which forbids the settlement on any
lands secured or granted by treaty with
the United States to any Indian tribe,
and that they do not hold the land they
claim by tenure which brings them
within the terms of that act. The Court
says that if they differ from the other
inhabitants of New Mexico in holding
lands in common, and in certain
patriarchal form of domestic life, they
only resemble in this regard the Shakers
and other communistic societies in this
country, and cannot, for that reason, be
classed with the nomadic Indian tribes.
The character and history of these In
dams occupy well-known page in the
history of New Mexico, from the con-
quest of the country by Cortez to the
cession of New Mexico to the United
States by the treaty of Guadaloupe-
Hidalgo. For centuries they have lived
in villages, in fixed communities, each
having its own municipal or local gov
eminent. AS far as their history can be
traced, they have been pastoral and
agricultural people, raising focks and
cultivating the soil Since the intro
duction of the Spanish Catholic mis-
sionary into the country, they have
adopted mainly not only the Spanish
language, but the religion of Christian
church. They manufacture nearly all
their blankets, clothing, agricultural
and culinary implements, etc. Integrity
and virtue among them is fostered and
encouraged. They are as intelligent as
most nations or people deprived of
means or facilities for education. Their
names, their customs, their habits, are
similar to those of the people in whose
midst they reside, or in the midst of
whom their pueblos are situated. They are
Indians only in feature, complexion, and
few of their habits; in all other re-
spects superior to all but few of the CIV
ilized Indian tribes of the country, and
the equal of the most civilized thereof.
When the act of 1884 was passed there
were no such Indians as these in the
United States, unless it be one or two
reservations or tribes, such as the Sene-
cas- or Oneidas, of New York, to whom,
it is clear, the eleventh section of the
statute could have no application.
When it became necessary to extend the
laws regulating intercourse with the In
dams over our new acquisitions from
Mexico, there was ample room for the
exercise of those laws among the no
madic Apaches, Comanches, Navajoes,
and other tribes whose incapacity for
self government required both for them
selves and for the cities of the country
this guardian care of the general Gov
eminent.
| The Pueblo Indians, if indeed they
can be called Indians, had nothing in
common with this class. The degree of
civilization which they had attained CEN
turtles before; their willing submission
to all the laws of the Mexican Govern
ment; the full recognition by that Gov
eminent of all their civil rights, includ-
ing that of voting and holding office, and
their absorption into the general mass OF
the population Except that they held
their lands in common), all forbid the
idea that they should be classed with the
Indian tribes for whom the intercourse
acts were made, or that in the intent Of
the act of 1851 its provisions were az
plicable to them.