Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-12-25
INDIAN STATISTICS.
AS a Whole the Red Men Are In.
creasing in Number.
An Interesting Resume by General How.
ard-HOw the Indians Are Counted
Figures Based on the Latest
Official Documents.

Are the Indians, rs some say, diminish
Ing year by yeara And will the time
speedily come when the whole land will be
as free of them as Massachusetts is to-day2
Two years ago, says General o. o. Howard,
in Wide Awake, the writer made this an
swer to similar inquiries "It is pleasant for
their friends and the friends of humanity
to discover, by actual count, that they are
not diminishing" True, like certain Dan
ish and Celtic clans that once migrated
from place to place on British soil,
and then vanished from history, many
Indian tribes have disappeared; 9TH
ers, like Anglo-American households,
have diminished till but few scat
tered names remain to mark the strange
ways Of strange people. Cochise, the
Apache chief, shortly before his death
said: "The whites began q war with me
years aga ] have slain ten for every In
dian killed, but my people grow less and
less; want peace" A few such warlike
tribes, as above intimated, have been alto
gether or nearly exterminated, but other
large tribes have increased; some greatly
and some but little.
With few exceptions, the Indians Of the
United States have been gathered upon
portions of the public lands. These por-
tions, called Indian reservations, dot the
United States maps with their little
squares = uniformly representing lands
which the surrounding white men desire TO
possess. Energetic pushers want to cross
them with railroads, pasture sheep and
cattle thereon, prospect for gold and silver
within them, and ever regard it as q great
hardship to be kept outside. Many white
people who live neighbors TO the Indians
regard the land of those Indians with n
very different feeling from that they
would have If white men owned it. Each
reservation has an agent, white man, ap-
pointed by the President. This agent il
virtually q king Of q small kingdom, He
has white employees, such IS the farmer,
teacher, blacksmith and doctor; they con-
stitute his counselors of state Some
times he adds to his governing force three
Indian judges and ten or twelve Indian
policemen.
Thus we see that with so many white
men among them it is easier than formerly
for US TO number the Indians. Not many
years ago the counting was done by army
officers and other Government officials
they simply estimated the number of tribes
and individuals; it was when the nations
were more nomadic than at present; when
tribes were ever changing their hablta-
tions; when they had to move great dis
tances to supply their wants; when the
buffalo, thousand or more in a herd.
roamed over our vast prairies. Writer'S
for papers or magazines Of that time
guessed at the population or referred to
the incomplete estimates. In our time a
correct census has been taken and the re-
suits put down. From o Careful s.ndv =,
these reports II IS evident that now the In
dlens, as whole, like the negroes of the
South, ara increasing.
Thirty years ago there were several
causes which carried OF the Indians anon o
these were contagious diseases which unin-
tentionally the white people brought among
them Sad indeed were the ravages of the
smallpox and the measles. That dreadful
whitman massacre, not far from WaIla
y ala, where band Of missionaries were
savagely murdered, doubtless resulted
from the simultaneous incoming Of missions
and measles. The measles was then a new
disease. The Indians imputed it to evil
spirits in DR.. Whitman's camp. The medi-
clne-neu did not know what to prescribe.
The sudden cold bath after the heat of a
sweathouse was followed by death Herbs
and extracts, hitherto efficacious in sick
ness, gave no relief. So, like white people
under yellow fever and cholera, being una
Die 10 stay the hand of the destroyer multi
tudes OF the race miserably perished. Who.
under such narrowing distress wonders at
their superstitious folly and horrid rssent,
menti But now Indiana have more knoyl.
edge. There are good reservation doctors
or army surgeons near at hand. Contaeion
and epidemic are met at the threshold and
frustrated. There IS no more sweeping OF
men, women and children from these causes
into untimely graves.
Another desolating scourgs has ceased.
There are no longer Indian wars. Those
fierce tribal conflicts, merciless and long
continuing. have at last passed away. Once
the Chippewa WAS taught % hate ths Dako-
= and TIE Dakota e return TIE feeling with