The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1877-09-27
THE PUEBLO INDIANS.

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 a 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
dians 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
ernment. AS far as their history can be
traced, they have been pastoral and
agricultural people, raising fiocks 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
, dians 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 fo
self government required both for them
selves and for the cities of the countr,
this guardian care of the general Gov
!. eminent
The Pueblo Indians, if indeed the,
can be called Indians, had nothing il
> common with this class. The degree 0
!, civilization which they had attained Ger
turies before; their willing submission
to all the laws of the Mexican Govern
= ment; the full recognition by that Go,
ernment of all their civil rights, incluC
ing that of voting and holding office, an
their absorption into the general mass c
!, the population Except that they hel
. :. their lands in common), all forbid th
- y idea that they should be classed with til
II Indian tribes for whom the Intercours
:; acts were made, or that in the intent {
- - the act of 1851 its provisions were a.
. plicahIe to them