Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-09-06
THE INDIANS FUTURE.
To Civilize Him His Territory Must be Opened
to Settlers.
PHILADELPHIA Times

to Settlers.
Philadelphia Times.
Major John III. Burke, Bnffalo Bills
right bower, who is known in the west as
Arizona Jack, sat in the Girard house last
night, putting cigar and telling q groue
of listeners lot of Indian stories, when
he suddenly switched off on the future of
the Indian. He talked straight ahead and
had figures and names at his fingers end.
He said:
I know the Indian Territory we'll. hav-
ing ridden over great part of it, and
had occasion to know many OF its legiti-
mate inhabitants, and 1 speak advisedly
when say, that no policy more antagon-
lstlc to the spread of civilization and in
jurlCus to the best interests Of the Indian
could possibly be adopted-shors of
general merciless massacre of the red
mcmillan that which excludes white
settlers from that part of the country,
which is unoccupied by the Indians and
is of no use to them, and to which they
| have no legal or moral right. The terri.
tory is too vast for the Indians alone TO
occupy with any good result. They rat
tie around 1t like grain of shot in bass
drum. Even if they we're restricted to
their reservations, they would still have
far more land than they could make any
good use of. The latest and closest
census of the Indians in the territory that
we have, shows that there was only TO-
334 of them, all counted, to occupy reser-
vatlons amounting to 11,605,035 acres,
and their numbers are decreasing all the
time. Why, this is sample of how they
are scattered: The last time was out
there, I went with Brave Bear to call upon
White Eagle, both Pawnee chiefs. We
had supper with White Eagle, and after
wards Brave Bear told me he expected us
both to take breakfast with him, 'snext
door," as he expressed it. I accepted the
invitation, innocently supposlng that it
meant to go half mile or so, and at day
break We saddled up and started for his
house. Imagine if you can my disgust
and hunger, when you learn as then did,
| that IL was eighteen or tw nty miles from
White Eagles to Brave Bears They
| thought nothing of it, but did, And
| when We got to Brave Bears his children
fed at sight of my white face, as if 1 had
been ghost. I don't thing they had
ever seen a white man before, and not
many red ones either. How can you ex-
poet that children growing up in such
isolation, but that they will be savages?
THE ALLOTMENT OF THE TRIBES.
| Yet the Pawnees have a smaller allot-
ment of land in their reservation than
most of the other tribes, which seems to
me, by the way, an I'M Justice, since they
have long been the staunch, reliable
| friends of the whites and were brave SOL
| d1ers of our government on the frontier,
fighting the Sioux during the Rebellion,
when so many other Indians were enlisted
by the Southern Confederacy against US.
| They have but 20725 acres per capita,
while the Sacs and Foxes have 1,O49%,
the POttawotamies and Tonkawas 1,O47
and 1,087, respectively, the Cheyeunes and
ArapahOes 1,19325, the Iovas 2,5561% and
the Wichitaxs no less than $500. That is
| per capita, mind you buck, squaw and
papoose. Give them $50 acres for each
| family of four all around, which would be
as much as they would ever make any
good use of, and 465,940 acres would set
settle them all comfortably. Mind you, I
am not in favor of robhing them of an
acre that now belongs to them. I simply
believe that it would be for their highest
good for the government to condemn
their surplus land for the purpose of
planting upon it actual white settlers,
paying them a reasonable price for it.
The bill now before Congress proposes to
allow them not more than S1.25 per acre
for all the laud to which they have even
disputable claim. That means $1.25-of
course, less what they have already re-
oeived for it-and the mot more than"
goes for nothing in all such matters 1t
looks like a liberal price and it is; but or
nation can afford to be liberal. We have
done we'll in lard transactions. We only
| in,
40O,OOO,O0O acres of land, out of which we
have made three thousand million dollars.
And the S1.25 per acre for this land the
government will readily get back from
actual settlers.
THE INDIAN BOYS AT CARLISLE.
The talk of Impractical theorists, rank
| by pocrites and interested, designing
| ocheners that it is ''fOr the good of the
Indian" that they want civilization kept
out of the Territory is the most arrant,
impudent nonsence. 1t is precisely for
his good that l went to see the example
of thrifty agriculture set him upon all
sides; towns, school houses and churches
established about him; railroads extend
| ed through his lands to enhance thier
value; commerce and manufactures
fourishing in his vlncinity. Then his
| 8
he will have learned the white mans
lessons of industry, economy and self
| help, and he Will be in time contented,
happy, law-abiding citizen and-with the
start he will have from the sale of his
surplus land-a very we'll do one,
much better off than the average white
agriculturist. But keep him in his
present isolated condition, and you con-
pei him to become savage, or rather to
remain one. Even the bright Indian
boys you are educating in Carlisle and
teaching various handicrafts to, when
you send them back to the Indian Terri
tory, are compelled to lapse back into
savagery for lack of demand upon them
| for exercise of their several callings,
owing to the sparseness of the population
| and the limited wants of its savage mode
of existence. Indeed, they are apt, by
reason of their hopeless plight, the al
vance they have made in civilization and
the degrading retrogression forced upon
them, TO sink even lower than the print
tive savage and seek their associates
among the white criminals who in large
Numbers, in defiance of the law, find
shelter in the Indian Territory. The
only Indian we have had to discharge
from the Wild West and send back to
the reservation because he was a drunk
ard was and inter prefer educated in the
Carlisle school. pitisd the poor fellow,
because I appreciated the forces that
made him what he was.
OUT IN mo MANS LAND"
The country that it is proposed sha
be opened up to white settlement-under
such restrictions as will prevent all but
&I1lI ~