St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-12-03
Gen. Atkins, Commissioner of Indian Af.
fairs, Reports on the Needs Of the
Aborigines.
He Makes Some Clear Headed Recommen.
dations to Congress and Presents
Program.
The Question of Indians Taking
Land In Severa1ty Quite Freely
Discussed.
Payments Made Them by the Govern
ment--Frontier Police--Indfan
Outbreaks.
What the Indians Need.

suDhltted 10 tne secretary of the interior
bis annual report for the fiscal year ended
June 30. 1885. The commissioner prefaces
his report with the statement that:
1t requires no seer to foretell or foresee the
| civilization of the Indian race as q result
| naturally deducaDle from a knowledge and
practice on their part of agriculture. for the
| history OF agriculture among all people and
| in all countries intimately connects it with
| the highest intellectual and moral develop
| ment OF man. He continues: 'oThe increased
| interest IN agriculture manifested since the
| opening of last spring, and the preparations
| on several reservations for still larger In
crease of acreage in farming, are among the
| hopeful signs of Indian progress and develop
| ment. This brings me directly to the consid-
| GRAFTON OF the practical policy which, I be-
! lieve, should be adopted by congress and
| the government in the management Of
the Indians. 1t should be industriously
and gravely impressed upon them that they
| must abandon their tribal relations and take
| lands in severalty as the corner stone Of their
| complete success in agriculture, which means
| self-support, personal independence and
| thrift. The government should however, IN
! order to protect them, retain the right to
| their lands in trust for twenty-five years or
| longer, but issue trust patents at once to
| such Indians as have taken individual hold
| ings. When the Indians have taken their
| lands in severalty in sufficient quantities.
| (and the number Of acres in each holding
may and should vary
IN DIFFERENT LOCALITIES
according to fertility, productiveness, climate
and other advantages) then having due re-
gard to the immediate and early future needs
| of the Indians, the remaining lands of their
reservations should be purchased by the gov-
ernment and opened to homestead entry at
| 50 or 75 cents per acre. The money paid by
the government for these lands, should be
held in trust in 8 per cent. bonds, to
| be invested as congress may provide, for
the education, civilization and development,
and advance Of the reG race, reserving for
each tribe its own money. If this policy
| were adopted Systematically by the govern
ment it would be strange if in five years from
this inauguration and establishment there
should be an Indian of any tribe in the whole
country who would refuse to accept SO favor
able and advantageous a measure. Every
step taken, every move made, every sugges-
tion offered, everything done with reference
| to the Indians should be with view of i'm
pressing them that this is the policy which
has been permanently decided upon by the
government in reference to their manage
| ment. They must abandon tribal relations,
| they must give up their superstitious ideas,
| they must fOrsake their savage habits and
| learn the arts of civilization. They must
| learn to labor and rear their families as white
people do, and to know more of their obliga-
| tionS to the government and society. In a
word, they must learn to work for living,
and they must understand that it is to their
| interest and duty to send their children to
| school. When the farm and school have been
| familiar institutions among the Indians, and
reasonable time has interviewed for the transi-
| ton from barbarous or semi-civilized state to
ONE OF CIVILIZATION, .7 80.
| then will the Indian be prepared to take on
| himself the higher and more responsible
! duties and privileges which appertain to
American citizenship. There are in the
United States, exclusive of Alaska, about
| two hundred and sixty thousand Indians. OF
| that number there are in the five civilized
tribes in the Indian Territory $4,000; there
are in New York 4,970, in North Carolina
| 81, 900 and there are some in Dakota, Ne,
| braska, Kansas. Wisconsin and Minnesota
] and few in California and the Northwest,
| who are civilized, and still others who can
| lay claim TO civilization. Many others on the
reservations have cast off the blanket and are
| adopting the fashions and dress of white peo-
| pie, but among all these, except among the
| Indians of New York and North Carolina, q
| few in some Of the Northwestern states and
| part of the five civilized tribes in the Indian
| Territory, very large number who do not till
| the soil. Nearly all who are called ''blanket
| Indians" have never titled the soil to any ex-
| tent, and fully half of the Indians Of the
| United States, exclusive of Alaska, as yet
have declined to commit themselves to the
| life of the farmer. Exclusive of the lands
cultivated by the five civilized tribes, the
number of acres in cultivation by Indians
of 1S,473 acres over last year.
The commissioner presents at some
length the several theories advanced by
friends of the Indians as the best policy to
pursue to promote their true welfare, one
proposition being to concentrate them in
Indian Territory. Another theory is that
the tribes should be diffused over as a large
space as practicable, with a view Of
bringing the Indians more directly in con-
tact with
HIGHER TYPE OF CIVILIZATION.
while another is to remove, with the excep-
tion of those who have taken lands in sew
crafty, all of the Indians in Minnesota,
Wisconsin and Michigan to Red Lake and
White Earth reservations; those in Montana,
Idaho Wyoming and Dakota to the Flat
Head and Great Sioux reservations, and
those in Nevada, California, Oregon and
Washington to the Yokama reservation,
while the Southwestern Indians might be
concentrated on the one or two existing
reservations in that locality. He made no
definite recommendation as to any of these
theories. Reports of the Indian agents at
agencies where the courts for the tria
of Indian officers have been established
show that they have been entirely success
full and in many cases eminently useful.
Referring to Indian police, the commits
sioner says:
To great extent they have met the necessi-
ties of the situation and have proved valu-
able aids to the agents in preventing trespasss
ing and robbery by lawless whites, and sup
pressing disorder, violence and incipient re-
volt among the more restless of their own
people. Many instances of surprising fidelity
to the trust imposed upon them under Cir
cumstances which would swerye many
| white man from his duty, might be related Of
these police.
Under the head Of leash payments to
Indians the commissioner says:
The sum of S522, 1888 was paid in small per
capita sums to Indians during the past fiscal
year.
Referring to the Indian outbreaks in the
Southwest, the commissioner says:
On the 18th of last May portion of the
Chiricuahuas, numbering forty-two men and
ninety-two women and children, succeeded in
escaping from military control, while the re-
naming portion remained peaceably at Camp
Apache. Of those who escaped eight men
were killed by Apache scouts and twenty-one
women and children were captured and are
now kept under military surveillance at Fort
Bowie. The others have been roaming
through the country committing murder and
depredations. In view of the outbreak in
May and as precautionary measure against
any cOllusion that might be made between
those remaining on the reservation, as well as
to insure peace and quiet to citizens, it has
been deemed advisable to place all the
Apaches temporarily under the charge OF
the war department. This Office heartily
sympathizes with the effort of the war de-
partment to control the rebellious and war
like spirit of the Chiricuahuas and to prevent
recurrence of their raids upon white set
tiers, and 1 trust that the military will be
able to capture the murderous band now
| skulking in the Sierra Madras mountains and
| to bring them to condign punishment.
John Carpenter the suspected murderer OF
| the late John Sharpless, at Chester, Pa -