The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1888-01-20
CIVILIZED INDIANS.
How Number OF Hampton Graduates Got
ON in the World.


on in the World.
For several years an effort has been
made at Hampton to bring young In
dian families under the schools intlu-
ence. For this purpose six small cot
tages have been put up on our grounds,
through the help of friends interested
in the cause, the work in building done
in part by the Indians themselves. The
first occupants of these cottages were
Omahas, Noah La-Flesche and Philip
Stabler, and their wives. The young
men had learned the carpenters trade
at Hampton, and were able with some
direction, TO put up their two little cot
tages for themselves. The ladies of
the Connecticut branch of the Women
National Indian Association took up
the matter of putting these young
couples on their feet after their return
to the West, by lending them money to
build houses and break their ground
for farming. In my recent visit to the
Omaha reservation had an opportuni-
ty of seeing how this new plan is work
ing. / will speak especially of these
two returned Hampton students. As
Omaha reserve have been taken up in
accordance with the provisions with
the provisions of the fundamentally
bill, and a portion has been sold to the
whites.
These returned Hampton students
had each one hundred and sixty acres
of their own. Before arriving at the
reserve heard, through grain-buyer
on the train, something of their farms.
He said that they had as good wheat
as there was in Nebraska. As soon as
possible [ drove out TO their homes,
which lie along the Logan creek. 1
found one of the young men with his
carpenters bench on the shady side of
one of the most comfortable houses
that | had seen in the neighborhood.
He told me with pride that he himself
had built the house with the assistance
of his neighbOr, the other eX-student
of Hampton. For the first year after
their return the two couples had been
obliged to go back to the mud lodges
of their parents. In the case of Philip
Stabler this meant return to sur
rOUndings thoroughly bad. for he came
from a nOn-progressive family. So he
was obliged to live in the midst of the
heather dances and feasts and general
barbarism that characterize the nom
progressive part of the tribe. The
help afforded by the Connecticut ladies
enabled him the second year to put on
his own land house that cost some
four hundred dollars, and hire twenty
acres of land broken with which to
commence his farming operations
Once having this start he got
on very well. He had owned
previously two Indian ponies which
were not strong enough to break up
the soil. These he had traded for a
strong American horse, and by leasing
the forty acres which had been allotted
to. his little boy he bought still another
horse, so that the second year he was
able to care for his own land and to
break up thirty acres more, He showed
me with pride the five hundred cotton
wood trees than he had set out about
his house, the flower garden which he
had started from seeds sent him by
Eastern friends, and the plot where va-
rious kinds of vegetables were planted.
We went together to see the turf
barn which he had built with his own
hands, where he now had nine horses
and four colts, some pigs and a cow.
| He showed me his chicken yard, where,
he told me, he had raised ninety chick
ems this year. He showed me how he
had learned to stack his hay and straw.
He told me how he had just gotten the
Job of putting up a neighbor's house,
for which he was to receive $3.50 a
day. remembered now the quarter
master at Fortress Monroe had said
that the best work he had had done for
him was by these same Indian young
men, and did not doubt that the neigh
boris house would be honestly built -
Rec. II. r. FriSSeU, tp Southern Work
/ man