The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-11-20
THE LIED-ABOUT RED Man.
Wrong Ideas of Poor LO and His Wild
Surroundings Given by Dime Novels.
Mr.. Jacob P. Dunn, in an Interesting and In
structiVe Lecture to the Young People,
Corrects Many Errors About Indians.

season was given at Plymouth Church yesterday
by Jacob P. Dunn, his subject being 1.-THE
American Indians" There was large attendance
of deeply interested and closely attentive boys
and girls, though it is suspected that the lecture.
at least so far as the boys concerned, was not
what they expected it would be, as there was a
painful dearth of hair-raising adventure, and in
its stead large amount of information calcu-
lated to give young and old better ideas of the
red man than now generally obtain.
Mr.. Dunn said the poorest place to get ideas
of Indians was from dime novels. Those stories
give wrong ideas about other things than Indi-
ans. They give wrong ideas about the white
people on the frontier. about animals, about
plants, about geography, about history One
thing is common to all of them The hero is
man who can fight from five to fifty Indians,
and kill the most Of them with very little effort.
There are no such men. If there has been
in the last century in which there were rot more
white men killed than Indians he said ne had
never foun any account of it. One idea he him
self had got from such stories was that the Nava-
jos and Blackfeet were two of the most danger
of the most peaceable. There has never been
such thing as regular war between the Black
feet and the whites and the Blackfeet and
Navajos are almost as civilized as the white
people chat have lived near them.
OF course everybody admits in general way
that Indians are human beings but the majority
of people do not realize that the red men have
the feelings that white people have They love
their friends their homes and their religion,
much as white people do. They mourn for their
dead just as sincerely Their customs are diff
ferent, but they have their rules of etiquette,
which scrupulously obeyed, and some of
them are quite as sensible as those of white peo-
ple For instance, among the Omahas it is not
proper for woman to speak to man unless she
is related to him; but If she wanted TO cross
stream and strange man should come along it
would be perfectly proper for him to take her on
his back and carry her across. 1t is probably
true that Indians average little more cruel
than the whites. but not much more, and they
grow out of il rapidly The reason of their
cruelty was that all Indian boys were trained to
be warriors. and to succeed in their warfare
man had to learn two things-the first was to be
cruel to enemies; the second to endure
cruelty without complaining. A good
many years ago missionary famed
Heckewelder was travelling through the south
ern part of Indiana. and had with him for
guide young white man named Wells, who had
been stolen from Kentucky when child, and
raised by the Indians Wells shot bear and
wounded it. The bear set up great bowling,
and as Wells was loading his rifle to shoot it
again Heckewelder heard him scolding the ami
NAL He said: Bear, you ought to be ashamed
of yourself. You are a great coward to make
such noise when you are hurt. / would not
have cried as you do if you had wounded me-
Indians talk to animals in this way. 1t is not so
very many yeas since white people used to
torture people Over in Russia torture is used
now, and in this country there are fire.
Quently cases of cruelty as bad as anything the
Indians guilty Of. So far as personal safety
is concerned, the speaker said he would rather
liUno ~ INV fTlh nf Indi han in
parts of New York or Boston. or almost any
large city
Another common error is as to the number
and decrease OF Indians. In 1885 the number re-
ported was 2o9. O00 but if these government sta
tistical tables are examined closely it will be
found that there are many errors III them. There
are reasons for this: The agent is instructed to
count his Indians, but this means work, for the
Indians do not like to be counted. II is much
easier for the agent to guess now many there are.
and so he does it. The second is that the agent
is generally interested in reporting more Indians
than there are at his agency. Suppose an agent
is put in charge of a tribe of 1000 Indians, and
when the census is taken he reports 5000 The
tribe may receive, under its treaties say $50 900
each year. The Indian Bureau figures out
the percentage and sends out the money, with
instructions to pay $40 to each Indian. The
agent does so, and has $40 900 left. Perhaps
some Indians may complain that the
agent is cheating them. The Bureau
asks him how much the agent paid
to each one. The Indian says. $40 Well. that
was right say the people at the bureau; that
was all you were entitled to. A year ago this
summer fraud of this kind was discovered.
The Cheyennes and Arapahoes were threatening
to go to war, and large force of soldiers was
sent to stop them. The soldiers got them Quoted,
and counted them. They found little more
than 1900 of them, but the agents had been re.
porting right along that there were more than
6. 900 Almost as far back as there is any ac-
count of the Indians astonished at the
numbers of the white people. They couldn't IN
derstand where many OF them came from.
Without going into particulars, there are now
about half many Indians as when America
was discovered. 1t is certain that they are not
decreasing at all.
1t has been proven for years that the India MS
can be civilized, and the Ave civilized tribes in
the Indian Territory-the Cherokees, Creeks,
Semnoles Choctaws and Chickasaws-compare
favorably IN wealth and prosperity with almost
any agricultural or pastoral community of the
same number of persons in any of the States or
Territories They publish newspapers. carry on
manufacturing and merchandising. have
churches chool-houses. courts, Judges stock
raisers, farmers and mechanics. The next thing
is the land question. The United States has
made treaties with the Indians. and promised
them they shall occupy their lands forever, and
the United States should keep her treaties with
these people as honestly as with any nation
The Indians will ALL in time, become civilized
and become citizens. They will mix with the
other peoples that have come here and become
absorbed in the great American Nation. The
object OF all the missionary and school work now
being done is to fit them for citizenship
You would like to know something about the
Indians that lived in Indiana. The leading tribe.
which was called the Elder Brother by the
others. lived on the Maumee river They were
called Miamis by the French, and Turgletwees
by the English. Their principal town was where
Fort Wayne now stands, and was called Ke-
konga. am not certain what the name means
but think it the mother town, or place
of the mother 1t may be that this was their
first towr, as there is some evidence of that. or
it may be that the name refers to the fact that
they sometimes had a woman for chief. There
is a little band of them still living near Fort
Wayne and am told that the member to whose
orders and advice they pay the most attention is
an old woman. Coming west from Fort Wayne
the next town of importance was on Eel river,
inst above Logansport Il name was Keranaco-